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Iran Claims It Launched First Attacks on Syria

Iran claimed it attacked an American position in eastern Syria early Friday morning. If true, it would mark the first time the terrorist regime has violated Syria’s sovereignty during the conflict with the United States that began at the end of February.

Both U.S. and Syrian military officials denied any such attack took place.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed it “executed a surprise strike on the enemy’s special operations command center located in the al-Tanf region of Syria,” ostensibly in retaliation for “the martyred soldiers of Bampur in Iranshahr.”

This was a reference to a U.S. airstrike on Wednesday that reportedly struck the Bampur Army garrison in southeastern Iran, killing at least seven soldiers. Some reports place the casualty count from the attack much higher, with at least 50 serious injuries sent for treatment at local hospitals.

The IRGC claimed it destroyed American helicopters and a radar system in its assault on al-Tanf, and killed multiple U.S. service members.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) quickly rejected these claims as “false,” stating, “No U.S. troops in the region have recently been killed or captured.”

Also, the U.S. military announced in February that it completed its withdrawal from al-Tanf, which served as a hub for operations against the Islamic State from 2014 to 2019, and handed the base over to the new Syrian government. The Trump administration said the fall of Iran-backed dictator Bashar Assad in 2024 removed the last reasons for keeping a substantial American force at the base.

The National noted that the Iranian attack came the day after Syria announced the seizure of weapons hidden inside an oil tanker that was attempting to cross from Iraq into Syria at the al-Tanf crossing. The Syrian Interior Ministry said the weapons were destined for Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy in Lebanon.

The Iranian strike might, therefore, have been meant as punishment for Syria interfering with Iran’s illicit arms shipments – if the strike claimed by the IRGC happened at all.

There was no independent confirmation of the purported attack on al-Tanf from media operations or the Syrian government, although some people living in the area reported hearing distant explosions.

Al-Tanf is near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan, and Iran launched missiles and drones at Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait overnight. The Jordanian military said on Friday it shot down three Iranian ballistic missiles that entered its airspace.

A Syrian military source told Agence France-Presse (AFP) late Friday morning that no Iranian attack took place.

“We deny any Iranian bombardment targeting the Al-Tanf area,” the source said.

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Victim of Monaco Bombing, Vadim Ermolaev Says He Has ‘No Doubt’ Attack Was Carried Out by Ukrainian Intelligence

Kiev was behind the terror bomb in Monaco, says Ermolaev.

About two weeks after his family was targeted by a backpack bomb left on the doorsteps of his Monaco mansion, Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Ermolaiev (another transliteration would be Vadym Yermolayev) sent out a statement, and added pressure on Kiev regime, as he points to the Ukrainian intelligence service as being behind the attack.

This was the first terrorist attack in the history of Monaco, and the businessman sanctioned by Kiev said there is ‘no doubt’ that serving officers of the main intelligence directorate of the military of defense of Ukraine, GUR, are involved in the attempt on his life.

The Telegraph reported:

“The property magnate was approaching his building with his long-term partner and their 13-year-old son when explosives hidden in a backpack at the threshold of the lobby were detonated on the evening of June 29.”

Ermolaev’s partner lost both feet, while his son sustained ‘burns, fractures and severe trauma’.

“’I remain in intensive care and am only now beginning the long process of recovery’, he added, in his first public comments since the blast.”

French police identified Ukrainian Anastasiia Berezovska as the attacker, and she was found shot dead in near Kiev after escaping to the country on July 1.

Vladyslav Reut, a GUR officer, and Vitaliy Zhykovych, a former member of the SBU, have been arrested.

They made bank transfers and cryptocurrency payments to Berezovska that may be linked to the attempt on Ermolaiev’s life.

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Bill giving $10,000 bonuses to NYC paraprofessionals heads to mayor’s desk

A bill to provide $10,000 bonuses to New York City’s full-time paraprofessionals is headed to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s desk after it was approved by City Council members Thursday. 

Similar legislation introduced last year was backed by the United Federation of Teachers in an effort to address the city’s paraprofessional shortage. After the bill failed to move out of committee, it was reintroduced in February by multiple council members. 

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If Mamdani signs the bill, full-time paraprofessionals will receive four payments of $2,500 throughout the 2026-27 school year. The bill allows the council to reauthorize stipends each year as long as New York City Public Schools has a paraprofessional shortage or until the city changes the practice of pattern bargaining — a local policy that lets the salary increases negotiated for one municipal union’s contract set the pattern for all the others.

The United Federation of Teachers and council members said pattern bargaining has contributed to low paraprofessional pay.

“Once the initial bargaining pattern is established, it becomes an enormous challenge to get the city to grant significantly better terms to another union,” the United Federation of Teachers said on its website.

New paraprofessionals earn roughly $32,000 in the city. Over the past 20 years, starting salaries have increased nearly $12,000 for paraprofessionals but top $86,000 for the highest-paid principals.

“We are going to pass this bill and we are going to put it on the desk of the mayor of New York City saying that the paraprofessionals have been unjustly treated and we are in a crisis,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew at a union gathering at New York City Hall on Thursday. “And the paraprofessionals are dealing with that crisis each and every day with their work, going above and beyond, and now it’s time for our city to act and do the right thing.”

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This Is How DARPA’s Next Plandemic Begins

The COVID response was built around a genetic sequence most Americans never saw, could not examine, and were expected to trust.

That sequence became the reference point for PCR tests, reported cases, new variants, vaccines, mandates, and emergency powers that reached into jobs, schools, hospitals, and homes.

Jon Fleetwood argues this was not a system thrown together during a crisis. He believes the U.S. military spent the decade before COVID building each piece in advance: predict the sequence, manufacture the countermeasure, compress the timeline, and construct the animal-origin story.

His theory raises a brutal question: What happens when that same machinery is connected to AI, digital ID, and the bank account your family depends on?

The COVID origin debate is usually presented as a choice between two explanations: the virus jumped naturally from an animal, or it escaped from a biolab. Jon Fleetwood argues both stories begin with the same assumption—that the underlying physical virus had already been conclusively established.

“Is there a third option?”

His theory begins with the genetic sequence released in early 2020. Fleetwood said he found that “no US agency, including the military, verified the SARS COV2 sequence before China handed it to the world.”

Yet that sequence became the foundation for almost everything that followed.

PCR tests searched for pieces of it.

Variants were calculated from it.

Vaccines were designed around it.

Then government officials seized on the soaring “COVID-19 case” numbers to destroy businesses, isolate families, strip people of their livelihoods, and make access to a paycheck conditional on accepting a medical procedure.

The sequence did not remain on a computer screen. It determined what millions of people were told to put into their bodies—and what would happen to them if they refused.

Fleetwood isn’t claiming that viruses do not exist. His question is narrower: “What if all they had was a genetic sequence?”

Under his theory, that sequence becomes the master key to the entire pandemic machine. Once it is accepted, laboratories know what to target, testing companies know what to detect, drugmakers know what to manufacture, and public-health agencies know which numbers to present as proof of an emergency.

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Polish President Karol Nawrocki Vetoes Bills Giving Rights to Same-Sex Couples, Vows To Protect Marriage as ‘Union of a Man and a Woman’

Although Poland is governed by Liberal-Globalist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the Donald J. Trump-aligned President is using his constitutional powers to good effect, defending the conservative values for which he was elected.

About a month ago, he took up the fight against Ukrainians honoring WW2 Nazi criminals who massacred 100,000 Poles and Jews, going as far as stripping Volodymyr Zelensky of Poland’s highest commendation, the White Eagle award.

Today, it arises that Nawrocki VETOED bills that would give same-sex couples new rights, and unapologetically vowed to protect marriage as ‘a union of a man and a woman’.

Reuters reported:

“Poland’s president vetoed two ​bills on Friday that would have introduced ‘cohabitation contracts’ for couples living together, dealing a blow to ‌same-sex couples in one of the few European Union countries with limited rights for LGBT people.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk took office in 2023 pledging to deliver reforms on abortion and LGBT rights, but divisions within his broad pro-European coalition as well as ​nationalist President Karol Nawrocki’s veto powers mean he has struggled to do so.”

The broken-hearted tone of Reuters reporting is totally unsurprising, at this point.

The legislation had secured support from across the governing coalition, but Nawrocki killed it.

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$100 Billion & Climbing: Iran War Price Tag Believed Far Higher Than WH Estimates

While the Pentagon publicly clings to a $30 billion price tag for its war against Iran, internal Defense Department assessments (unsurprisingly) paint a far more staggering picture: the true cost is rapidly closing in on the $80 billion to $100 billion range, according to NBC News.

The Pentagon’s Office of Management and Budget told Congress on June 30 that US military operations against Iran so far is $30 billion: “We’ve spent about $30 billion,” OMB Director Russel Vought told the House Appropriations Committee. 

NBC’s new assessment bluntly states the following, however: “The cost of the war with Iran could be more than triple the most recent estimate of roughly $30 billion, according to three U.S. officials and three people familiar with the internal cost estimates.”

The lower figure was reportedly initially floated based a classic Washington accounting trick which only evaluates the cost of expended missiles and munitions while conveniently ignoring the charred remnants of American hardware and damaged bases littering the Gulf states after Iranian retaliatory attacks, the report explains.

The estimate featured in the NBC report accounts for actually rebuilding those installations previously attacked by Iran. Judging by how things are going this week – after five consecutive days of renewed fighting – the final bill from damage will only keep pushing up from here.

It has been well documented that while American troops at Gulf bases across the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf were by and large pulled back from near ‘front lines’ – large US military assets like refueling tankers were in some cases left behind, resulting in scenes like the following:

“Five U.S. Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, according to two U.S. officials,” The Wall Street Journal reported in mid-March. Each one costs hundreds of millions.

“The tankers were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, the officials said,” WSJ detailed at the time. “U.S. Central Command declined to comment. The tankers were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired, one of the officials said. No one was killed in the strikes.”

And in Bahrain, home of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, damage to military facilities is already estimated at $1 billion. Heavily fortified installations in Kuwait have also taken a severe beating, with both these tiny Arab Gulf states being favored targets of IRGC projectiles of late.

In the meantime, with a $1.5 trillion budget battle looming this autumn, the Pentagon is currently urging Congress to approve $68 billion supplemental funding package just to keep the lights on, but as the Iran war drags on with few clear objectives outlining an endgame, defense officials are hitting a wall of bipartisan skepticism among lawmakers.

One D.C. watchdog group, Public Citizen, has stated this week: “The American people are fed up with spending more on bombs and less on basic needs. And they are furious with a pointless, deadly, illegal, unconstitutional and protracted war that is costing lives and driving up gas prices.”

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Transgender Maine Democrat Senate Candidate Claims He Has Monthly Period Through His Rectum

A transgender activist running to replace scandal-plagued Graham Platner once reportedly claimed in a Reddit post that he has a monthly period and that the blood comes through his rectum.

Ashley Webb is one of several Democrat candidates in Maine running to replace Platner, the latter of whom formally suspended his campaign after a rape allegation surfaced. Webb believes the trans community has been dehumanized, contending that he just wants to “use the bathroom.”

“If they want me to use the men’s room, I will but I don’t want to be assaulted,” he said during a recent debate.

However, Reddit posts reveal the extent of Webb’s gender dysphoria. Reportedly writing under the username sparky603, Webb initially announced his run for Senate last week.

“I’m a trans and intersex woman from Farmington, and I’m running the whole campaign myself — candidate and treasurer both, no big donors, no machine behind me,” he appeared to write, asking for signatures from registered Democrats across the state and admitting he is a “long shot in a crowded field.” A similar message was posted on a campaign website.

He appears to have spent a lot of time trying to explain his self-described transgender intersex condition on Reddit forums, explaining that his karyotype is XY, which means that biologically he is a man. However, Webb states he has external male parts but said he is “pretty positive I am the XX type, accept [sic] I got internal organs, unless what I am feeling are tumors that just happen to grow where those sorts of organs are usually.”

He claims to ovulate and get monthly periods despite no evidence of female organs, asserting that his bleeding comes through his anus.

“My testosterone is at 429ng/dl and estrogen is at 285 pg/ml,” he said in one of the forums. “The estrogen is not effecting my male parts. Male parts are normal size. I grew breasts and wider hips during puberty.”

Responding to someone questioning his assertions, Webb claimed he experiences monthly period pain, feeling “some thing [sic] in my right side about where my appendix is located and something above the bladder.”

“When the monthly pain is real bad, I am feeling something in both my right and left side and above my bladder,” he said before revealing where this “period” comes out due to his lack of a “proper hole”:

When you don’t have the proper hole, it finds one of two exits, the guy in China was lucky and the exit was his bladder, me on the other was not so lucky. My exit connection was made with my colon. Cause when I get this monthly pain, that is where the blood comes out of.

Intersex like us don’t get diagnosed till our 20’s as we tend not to be born with extra holes. I didn’t get diagnosed in my 20’s cause I was dealing with incompetent doctors who preferred to prescribe opiate pain killers rather than find the problem.

He said he does not like to talk about the monthly rectal bleeding because doctors have him get colonoscopies, which find nothing. He also said CAT scans cannot locate a uterus or ovaries “when they enter your gender as a male.”

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Kentucky Governor reveals he received calls suggesting Senator Mitch McConnell had passed during hospitalization before proof of life photo

The governor of Kentucky said he was getting phone calls suggesting Republican Senator Mitch McConnell was dead before his proof of life photo was published last week.

Andy Beshear, the state’s Democrat governor, said that multiple ‘agencies’ called him prior to the photo insinuating that McConnell was dead.

McConnell, 84, shared a photo of himself holding a newspaper amid intense speculation over his health. He claimed a fall had left him ‘briefly unconscious,’ ending weeks of silence from his office about his hospitalization and absence from Capitol Hill. 

But Beshear is calling for greater transparency and urging him to be honest with constituents about his ability to serve.

‘It had been a month before anything had been put out, not even an official statement from Senator McConnell,’ Beshear said of the proof of life image in an interview with Katie Couric. 

‘In fact, I’d gotten two calls from different agencies – not state agencies – suggesting he’s passed.

He said that while McConnell is entitled to ‘a level of privacy’ about his health, he needs to be forthright with those he works for. 

‘When you’ve been in a hospital for a month, and you’ve missed all the votes, which is your job, you owe your boss, like anybody else out there who works, an explanation of what’s been going on and when you’ll get back,’ Beshear said Thursday.

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Microsoft Word’s Woke New Feature Will Help You Always Be Inclusive Of ‘Every Gender’

Microsoft Word introduced a new “inclusiveness” feature to look for supposed bias in documents — including language it deems not representative of “all genders.”

Clarity, formality, conciseness and now inclusiveness are all categories of “refinements” Microsoft offers under the editing tool on Word. The woke tool suggests changes to make word choice “inclusive of all genders,” like changing “chairman” to “chairperson” and “mankind” to “humankind” or “humanity,” among many others, as a Consumers’ Research video shows. 

Microsoft did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“It’s hardly surprising that Microsoft has an ‘inclusiveness editor’ for Word documents so that users are forced to comply with woke madness. Suggesting users change common words like ‘mankind’ and ‘firemen’ to be more gender-neutral is not a true grammatical error; it is a targeted ideological tactic to remove the very notion of gender from society,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research said in a statement to the DCNF.

This adds to Microsoft’ efforts to support woke ideology, which include donating money to “groups promoting gender ideology on kids” and offering a library of videos to train people on being inclusive, according to Consumers’ Research.

The company’s innovation has come from its “commitment to [d]iversity and [i]nclusion,” Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Microsoft’s Chief Diversity Officer and Corporate Vice President of Talent and Learning, said in Microsoft’s 2024 Global Diversity and Inclusion Report.

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Video Shows Fort Worth Cop Ticketing a Preacher for ‘Offensive’ Speech at Pride Event

A Fort Worth Police officer ticketed a preacher in late June, claiming the content of his speech was offensive. This week the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division launched an inquiry into the incident to determine if the officer violated the First Amendment.

The widely circulated video of the confrontation shows an officer and a protester during the Trinity Pride Fest on June 27. “If someone is offended by your talking, then we have a problem,” said Officer Sara Stogner.

“That’s a constitutional violation of our rights,” responds David Grisham, a street preacher and retired federal law enforcement officer. The two continue to argue when Stogner asserts, “OK, then I’ll write you the ticket, and we’ll go from there.”

“Wait, you’re going to ticket us for offensive speech?” the cameraman asks incredulously. To which the officer confidently responds, “Yes, absolutely.”

Stogner continues to claim she can ticket the two men for disorderly conduct “if someone complains that your language or what you’re saying is offensive.”  

But that’s not how the First Amendment works, according to legal experts. “The First Amendment does not allow government officials to shut down speech simply on account of it being ‘offensive,'” said Brennan VanderVeen, program counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “The government can restrict certain types of conduct or restrict noise above a certain volume level,” he continued, but citing someone because people are offended by the content of protected speech is “precisely what the First Amendment does not allow.” 

Grisham was ultimately cited for misuse of a bullhorn during a protest, a citation he argues isn’t supported by the city’s noise ordinance, reports WFAA, an ABC News affiliate. Grisham’s civil rights attorneys announced on July 3 their intent to challenge the citation, arguing Stogner failed to issue a decibel check in accordance with the city’s noise ordinance and Texas code, which presumes an unreasonable noise to be in excess of 85, and instead cited Grisham for “engaging in peaceful and protected speech.” 

In response to growing online backlash, Fort Worth Police Chief Eddie Garcia told WFAA on Monday that his department takes responsibility and is currently instituting department-wide First Amendment training. “We just trained up our command staff again with refresher courses. We’re going to be training our sergeants. We’re going to be training our officers,” said Garcia. “We are not a perfect profession,” he continued, “and officers will make mistakes from time to time.” Garcia did not mention any ways in which Stogner would be held personally accountable or liable. 

“Actively training police officers around First Amendment standards would be a positive step,” said VanderVeen, who added that “government officials being unaware of basic First Amendment standards is a persistent problem.” 

So much so, it seems, the Justice Department is also looking into the incident and has asked the Fort Worth city attorney for information to help the agency determine if an investigation is necessary, reports Fox News. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to ensuring all Americans—regardless of the content or viewpoint of their speech—are protected from unlawful restrictions on expressive activity,” wrote Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon.

The City of Fort Worth, Texas, has 30 days to provide the DOJ with further information.

The Justice Department is right to ensure Grisham’s freedom of speech has not been infringed, and doing so is consistent with the agency’s core mission to protect civil rights. But the move stands out against a backdrop of the agency’s alleged First Amendment violations since President Donald Trump took office, including subpoenaing journalists, coercing social media companies to remove immigration officer tracking apps, and attempting to unmask anonymous online critics. 

But for now, Americans can rest assured that the Justice Department can still do the right thing every once in a while.

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