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U.S. Secretly Deployed Paratroopers to Israel

When the Pentagon announced that the 82nd Airborne was deploying to the Middle East in March, it concealed a key detail: some of the paratroopers were headed to Israel, as revealed in an Army deployment order I obtained.

A military source involved in war planning tells me the deployment is tied to new U.S.-Israeli joint contingency plans, completed since February, for seizing Kharg Island and carving out coastal territory inside Iran.

The 82nd Airborne Division is the Army’s premier quick reaction force, trained to parachute into hostile territory.

By keeping the deployment quiet, the Pentagon headed off public debate over a joint U.S.-Israeli operation inside Iran — a prospect many considered plausible at the time, amid a fever pitch of mainstream reporting on a potential ground invasion. The secrecy also sidestepped what’s euphemistically called “host nation sensitivities.” A joint U.S.-Israeli operation raises thorny questions for America’s Gulf Arab “partners,” especially over logistical support — hence the 82nd, which could launch directly from Israel without any Gulf state’s consent to use its territory.

The Army deployment order, issued April 7, 2026, directs elements of the 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment — the storied “Geronimo” battalion — to deploy to Israel on “temporary duty.” The Israel deployment has not been previously reported.

The Pentagon has never acknowledged it; in public it has said only that the 82nd was bound for “CENTCOM,” the military’s term for U.S. Central Command, the combatant command responsible for the entire Middle East. The press echoed the vague terminology, suggesting the unit was headed to existing U.S. bases in Kuwait or Qatar.

Asked about the number of troops deployed to Israel and their mission, the Pentagon referred my request to CENTCOM, which at the time of publication had not yet responded.

In late March, the New York Times reported that senior military officials were “weighing a possible deployment of a combat brigade from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division … to support U.S. military operations in Iran.” The forces would come from the division’s Immediate Response Force — a brigade of roughly 3,000 soldiers able to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours. Those forces, the Times noted, “could be used to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub.”

The groundwork had been laid weeks earlier. The Army abruptly pulled the division’s 300-member headquarters from a planned exercise at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana, officials told the Times, so the command element wouldn’t be “caught out of place if the balloon went up.” The Aviationist reported that the division’s commander, Maj. Gen. Brandon Tegtmeier, and his command element had been ordered to deploy, and tracked a string of flights leaving Pope Army Airfield, which serves Fort Bragg, for the Middle East.

When the Pentagon finally did talk about the 82nd publicly, it took pains to keep Israel out of it.

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All It Took Was a Single Non-Woke Word for This Man’s Life’s Work to Come to the Brink of Ruin

A Danish man spent years building a clothing company. Over the years, he fashioned, through hard work, careful study, trial and error, attention to trends, and sheer perseverance, a popular clothing brand. In the last few days, however, he has come to the brink of ruin, and of seeing all his labors come to naught.

No, his place of business wasn’t robbed or burnt down. He wasn’t defrauded. He didn’t lose all his money at the gaming tables, or succumb to drug use. What threatens to destroy his life’s work is that he told a truth that many people might admit behind closed doors, but that hardly anyone would ever say publicly. Tobia Sloth said it. All it took was a single word. And now he is paying the price. But that doesn’t make what he said any less true.

The Danish-language news outlet Nyheder reported Sunday that “a single comment from the director has caused problems for a Danish clothing brand. The popular clothing brand Norse Projects – and not least its founder, Tobia Sloth – has ended up in a regular s**tstorm.”

It all started with a silly icebreaker-type survey at LinkedIn: “A Linkedin user asked on the platform what you would remove from Earth that would make it better if you could only choose one thing.” The expected answers came flooding in, but not from Tobia Sloth: “While just under a thousand users have answered everything from ‘nanoplastic particles from the biosphere’ to ‘rainforest destruction’ and ‘mercury-based gold mining,’ Tobia Sloth’s one-word response was without further explanation.”

That one word? Hide the kids, cover the dog’s eyes, and then I’ll tell you.

To the question of what he would remove from the Earth in order to make it a better place, Tobia Sloth answered: “Islam.”

Nyheder notes, with admirable understatement, that Sloth’s “answer has struck many a chord – both in Denmark and in the USA, where Norse Projects has a large customer base.” In other words, the usual suspects are beside themselves with spittle-flecked rage, and “they criticize the company for being built on a racist foundation.”

Racist? What? Islam is not a race, and there are Muslims (and jihadis) of all races. But “racism” is the primary, if not the only, sin that a human being can commit, as far as the left is concerned, and so pretty much anything the left dislikes these days counts as “racism.”

You don’t like getting blown up or having some guy screaming “Allahu akbar” stab you at random on the street? Then you’re a racist. You don’t like the idea of making women cover their hair and in some cases even their faces, even in the most stifling heat, on pain of being beaten if they don’t? Yep: racist. You’re not a fan of institutionalizing discrimination against and harassment of people who hold a different religious faith from your own? You’re practically Bull Connor.

And so now Tobia Sloth is looking at the very real prospect of professional ruin: “The criticism has already caused Tobia Sloth to apologise, but it is not certain that the apology is enough to save the company’s reputation, assesses a branding expert.” When the woke mob gets enraged at you, it stays enraged until it extracts its pound of flesh. “Although Tobia Sloth’s comment was quickly deleted from Linkedin, it has gotten people both in Denmark and internationally to the keys with massive criticism of Norse Projects and its founder.”

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Northern Ireland Erupts After Sudanese Asylum Seeker Charged in Brutal Stabbing — Migrant Houses Torched as Angry Crowds Take Over Belfast 

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Belfast on Tuesday night after a Sudanese asylum seeke was charged with a brutal knife attack that left a local man with serious injuries.

The protests erupted after footage of Monday night’s attack circulated widely online, sparking further anger against mass immigration.

Police deployed armored vehicles as crowds gathered in several parts of the city.

Some vehicles were set on fire during the unrest, including a bus, while clashes broke out between protesters and officers.

There were also reports of protesters breaking into migrant houses and setting them ablaze.

The victim, a man in his 40s, suffered severe injuries to his eyes as well as slash wounds to his face and back. Police later recovered a kitchen knife from the scene.

Video footage showed members of the public confronting the attacker before police arrived. Senior officers later credited those bystanders with helping save the victim’s life.

The suspect, identified as a 30-year-old Sudanese national, has been charged with attempted murder, possession of a bladed article in a public place, and making threats to kill.

He is due to appear before Belfast Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

Police said the man was granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom in September 2023 after claiming asylum.

He had arrived in Belfast from Dublin earlier that year after flying into Ireland from Paris.

The incident comes amid growing public fury over the Labour government’s refusal to stop mass immigration as well a series of high-profile violent crimes involving migrants across Britain.

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Woke Canadian lawmakers fly into hilarious rage after conservative asks country’s top scientist to define a woman

Liberal members of Canada‘s parliament desperately tried to silence a conservative member when he asked the country’s chief science advisor to define a woman.

At a recent meeting of the parliament’s Standing Committee on Science and Research, conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Vincent Ho asked, ‘What is the definition of a woman?’

The simple question immediately sparked outrage with other members of the committee, who jumped down Ho’s throat and seemingly attempted to prevent Chief Science Advisor Mona Nemer from replying. 

Ho asked the scientist: ‘Before you became chief science advisor, you were a molecular geneticist by training, right? So you know a thing or two about X and Y chromosomes. So, I wanted to ask you, what is the definition of a woman?’

Immediately, Liberal Party of Canada MP John-Paul Danko took issue with the question and said: ‘Point of order, chair. Point of order.’ 

A point of order is a formal request to enforce chamber rules addressed to a speaker or committee chair, and it is typically issued when MPs believe there has been a breach of procedure.

‘It is pride month, in understanding Order 18, which prohibits personal attacks, insults and offensive language,’ Danko continued, before Committee Chair Salma Zahid interrupted him and said: ‘This is getting into debate.’ 

Undeterred, Danko raised his voice and said, ‘Where this question is going is highly offensive. Highly offensive. I ask the member to withdraw his comments.’ 

Zahid, who is also a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, then repeated, ‘This is getting into debate. I will deal with it. MP Ho, I would request to be respectful of everybody.’

The conservative MP explained that he was asking the question because the Census asks people to state their gender and sex, and he wanted to understand the chief science advisor’s ‘view on this.’ 

Another Liberal Party of Canada MP, Taleeb Noormohamed, then also raised a point of order and said: ‘The witness is here in her capacity as the chief science advisor. 

‘Her opinion on any matter as an individual is actually not relevant to her mandate. And so if the question is in the scope of her mandate, I would be interested to see if Mr Ho could rephrase the question… within the context of her mandate.’ 

Zahid accepted the point of order and asked Ho to reframe his question, to which the conservative MP replied, ‘I just want to hear the answer.’

After a bit more back and forth, Nemer, the chief science advisor, was finally able to answer Ho’s question. 

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DHS Says It Has ‘Zero Tolerance’ for Protesters’ ‘Verbal Assaults.’ Here’s What the Law Says.

Protests over poor living conditions for detainees at Delaney Hall immigration detention center erupted over the weekend, leading to the arrest of over 80 people, the Associated Press reported on Saturday. Some of the protesters arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are accused of assaulting law enforcement officers, obstruction, and threats. But questions remain about whether the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) enforcement policies violate the First Amendment and chill speech on the ongoing public debate over immigration policies.

The crackdown on protesters is not surprising given Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s statements during congressional hearings last week, in which he took a hard line against violent protesters. During a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on June 3, Mullin testified that he is “OK with protest,” so long as it is done “in a peaceful way, in a legal area.” However, Mullin asserted, he has “zero tolerance” for individuals who “verbally assault our officers,” “go after our vehicles,” or “assault our property.” “You assault one of our officers, we will find you. We will arrest you,” he continued. 

While Mullin is right that the destruction of government property and assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers are both federal crimes, there is no such thing as “verbally assaulting” an officer under the law, Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), tells Reason.

Under the First Amendment, individuals are free “to criticize, mock, or disparage law enforcement officers” who “have no greater right than anyone else to be shielded from offense or criticism,” Terr explains. “In fact, the Supreme Court has recognized that properly trained officers are expected to show even more restraint than the average citizen when confronted with provocative or challenging speech.” 

“The First Amendment’s broad protections are essential to preserving the public’s ability to criticize and hold accountable those entrusted with enforcing the law,” Terr says, which is why speech is generally protected “unless the speech falls into one of the narrow categories of unprotected expression.” 

One such category includes true threats, defined by the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Black (2003) as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”

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Conviction of Jackson Co. man tied to Whitmer kidnap plot gets vacated

The Michigan Court of Appeals on Tuesday vacated the conviction of a Jackson County man alleged to have provided aid to a 2020 plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Joseph Morrison was convicted in 2022 of gang membership felonies, felony firearm and providing material support for terrorist acts in relation to his alleged role in support of a kidnapping plot of the Democratic governor that prosecutors said was led by Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Morrison was sentenced to four to 20 years in prison on the gang and terrorism support convictions and two years on felony firearm.

But the three-judge appellate panel on Tuesday ruled that kidnapping, under the letter of Michigan law, is not considered a “violent felony” and therefore cannot be presented to a jury to establish a terrorism-related charge.

The panel ― made up of Judges Thomas Cameron, Mark Boonstra and Brock Swartzle ― vacated Morrison’s conviction and remanded the case back to Jackson County Circuit Court for a new trial. All three judges are appointees of Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder.

“Given that the trial court specifically instructed the jury to consider kidnapping as a violent felony and that the jury heard considerable testimony about the plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer, the likelihood that defendant was actually convicted, at least in part, on an invalid basis tainted the jury’s verdict,” according to the unanimous decision.

Michael Faraone, an appellate attorney for Morrison, said he was happy with the decisions and added, “It’s always a great day when a court delivers justice.”

“In over 30 years of practicing law, I have never reviewed a trial more violative of due process than this one,” Faraone said.

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AI Agents With Crypto Could Escape And Become ‘Unstoppable’, Experts Warn

Artificial intelligence agents that have autonomous access to crypto wallets could become unstoppable if deployed maliciously or if they escape from sandboxes, experts from a leading academic research consortium warned.

Unstoppable Autonomous Agents” (UAAs) pose a clear threat if they are deployed to persist automatically and have access to digital assets, according to a June 8 industry review written by 25 academics and experts from top US universities for the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3).

“When combined systematically, crypto tools can channel AI’s fluid power into secure, reliable, and highly autonomous systems,” the researchers wrote.

However, this combination could have “far-reaching consequences for users and the financial system,” they added. 

UAAs may also be equipped with access to cryptocurrency wallets, social media accounts, APIs, and other external tools, said the researchers.

“The capabilities enabling such agents are already emerging and improving rapidly.” 

The warning comes as crypto projects and executives have been pushing the agentic payment and micropayment economy narrative this year, suggesting it could be the biggest use case for decentralized digital assets. 

AI self-replication alarm bells

The paper also revealed that existing models can already “surpass self-replication red lines” in local environments, by autonomously creating a live, separate copy of themselves on the same machine, “a capability that could let a system evade shutdown and proliferate.”

Because reward signals used in training often fail to perfectly capture the intended objectives, “UAAs deployed for benign purposes may inadvertently cause harm,” or pursue resource acquisition as a default strategy, they said. 

However, the authors noted that models have yet to replicate themselves onto external infrastructure.

Potential AI agent insider trading advantages 

A fleet of self-replicating, resource-acquiring agents could also create unpredictable demand and liquidity dynamics in crypto markets. 

“AI-powered trading systems could enable collusion between autonomous agents and create unfair insider advantages through opaque strategies.”

The tech sector is already dealing with difficult questions about the threat of unmitigated AI. 

Models such as Anthropic’s Claude Mythos have already been shown to be capable of finding and exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in major operating systems. 

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California Marijuana Regulators Unveil New AI Tool To Prevent Product Packaging That May Appeal To Kids

California cannabis regulators are rolling out a new AI tool to help businesses identify marijuana product packaging may appeal to kids in violation of state rules.

The Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) on Monday announced that licensees can now utilize a Cannabis Product Image Analyzer (CPIA) that was developed to aid in preventing the market launch of potentially problematic packaging that violates state statute by enticing minors.

Marijuana business licensees can “simply snap a photo using their smart phone or mobile device, screenshot or any other supported file format and upload to the CPIA tool,” DCC said. “The image will be analyzed and provide a summary of its findings.”

DCC said it won’t retain images uploaded to the CPIA database, or the summaries of findings that it produces. Rather, the goal is to “assist licensees in their independent evaluation of whether packaging or labeling may be attractive to children.”

That includes packaging and labels that depict:

  • Images of minors or anyone under 21 years of age
  • Cartoons
  • A likeness to images, characters, or phrases that are popularly used to advertise to children
  • Images that are any imitation of candy packaging or labeling and
  • Images with the terms “candy” or “candies” or variants in spelling such as “kandy” or “kandeez”

“The CPIA uses artificial intelligence technology to review images submitted by a user to identify issues that may indicate attractiveness to children for further evaluation,” DCC said in a notice. “The CPIA may not identify all concerns an image may present, or that the Department may find attractive to children.”

Regulators stressed that licensees should not “rely on the CPIA’s output, as it does not establish definitively whether advertising or marketing violates” state rules. And if the tool finds that an uploaded image is likely compliant, that alone “does not preclude a finding by the Department or a factfinder in a disciplinary or administrative action from determining the uploaded image violates the regulation.”

“Because artificial intelligence systems evolve, update, or produce variable outputs, the CPIA’s evaluation may change from day to day, even when reviewing the same image. The quality, clarity, angle, lighting, or completeness of an image uploaded by a user may affect the CPIA’s review and assessment. Users are solely responsible for ensuring uploaded images accurately depict the product’s labeling.”

Cannabis licensees are being encouraged to provide feedback on the AI tool through an online survey.

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Nude Shrek Text to Ohio State Senator Reportedly Lands Blogger in Jail

Last week, The Columbus Dispatch reported that D.J. Byrnes—an Ohio blogger who runs a Statehouse gossip Substack called The Rooster—was arrested on a misdemeanor warrant at the Ohio Statehouse. Byrnes’ arrest, according to reporting by Signal Ohio, likely stems from a picture he texted to state Sen. Jerry Cirino (R–Kirtland) on May 6. The offending image? A “digitally altered version of Shrek, the ogre with a titular children’s movie franchise, with his penis exposed,” according to Signal Ohio. Police records did not identify Cirino by name, but the outlet confirmed he was the “recipient of the text messages based on the text messages themselves and other details within the police report.”

An affidavit with Byrnes’ arrest report described the ogre as “fully nude with an exposed and erect humanlike penis engaged in an act of masturbation,” according to the outlet. The text exchange also included a message calling Cirino “Young Mussolini.”

On May 8, Cirino reportedly emailed the Kirtland Police Department asking officers to file charges against Byrnes.

“Not only is the message harassing but the disgusting picture is pornographic in nature and not something I want to see on any of my devices,” said the email sent to Kirtland police.

After his arrest on June 1, Byrnes was booked into the Franklin County Jail, where he says he spent 23 hours in custody, according to a statement posted on The Rooster. The Columbus Dispatch reported that he was released on bond on June 2. Byrnes wrote that he would not comment on the specifics of the allegations, but he says he believes he will be found innocent in court. He was arrested on telecommunications harassment charges, according to Signal Ohio, and could face up to six months in jail.

In its analysis of the case, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a pro–free speech organization, cautioned that, “as in essentially all First Amendment cases, context and details matter.” Based on the available facts, however, the organization wrote that “Byrnes should not be facing telecommunications harassment charges.”

FIRE argues that Byrnes’ “shrexting” did not amount to obscenity because the image fails to pass the three-prong obscenity test set by Miller. v. California: Would the average person see the work as appealing “to the prurient interest”? Does it depict sexual conduct in a “patently offensive way” as defined by state laws? And finally, does the work lack “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value”? The text was clearly a piece of “political mockery,” and it was not intended to “arouse anyone’s sexual interest,” FIRE wrote, meaning it fails the Miller test. The “handful of afternoon texts,” from what FIRE reviewed, did not constitute harassment either.

More details about Byrnes’ case may emerge when he appears in court, but if a public official did in fact direct the police department to arrest Byrnes because of his texts, that poses a clear threat to free speech. The Shrek image may be absurd, shocking, and hilarious (depending on your sense of humor), but being punished for exercising your free speech right to criticize and troll (or ogre) public officials is no laughing matter.

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