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Coast Guard Confiscates Over $33 Million of Cocaine in Major Bust

The U.S. Coast Guard has made a drug bust valued at more than $33 million as part of an interdiction effort launched by the Trump administration last year.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Escanaba seized 4,510 pounds of cocaine, worth $33.9 million, while on an Easter Sunday patrol in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, according to a Department of Homeland Security news release.

A U.S. patrol aircraft alerted the Escanaba after it spotted a suspected narco-terrorist vessel, and the crew started throwing suspected contraband overboard.

An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter was launched after the contact off the coast of Ecuador.

The release said that the cutter “deployed its over-the-horizon cutter pursuit boat crew and relaunched the helicopter aircrew to recover the contraband.”

The action was part of Operation Pacific Viper.

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On Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and Iran

The question on everyone’s mind is if Iran will agree to give up its 440 kilograms of enriched uranium. President Trump recently proclaimed on his Truth Social account that this material lies underneath the rubble of last June Operation Midnight Hammer attack, though no one else seems to believe this assertion.

Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in February that the Iranian’s not only still had their hands on the material, but would soon enrich it to weapons grade and use it to attack the US and Israel.

Several of my friends—including a couple of Israeli friends—have written to assure me that the US and Israel must obtain this material at all costs, as they believe the Iranians will certainly fashion it into a nuclear weapon and go on the offensive with it.

A few months ago, one of my favorite pen pals assured me that the Iranian regime is an irrational actor and will not recognize or be constrained by the Cold War doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

It’s a fascinating twist of history that the current negotiations are taking place in Islamabad, Pakistan, because the same proclamations were made about Pakistan when it was working to acquire an atomic bomb. A Grok query about this episode yielded the following.

Pakistani rhetoric supporting Palestinian causes and its self-image as a defender of the Islamic world led Israeli officials to view a nuclear Pakistan as a potential supplier to Arab states or terrorists hostile to the Jewish state. As early as 1979, Prime Minister Menachem Begin warned allies of the “threat posed by Pakistan’s nuclear program.” Israeli intelligence, Mossad, responded with covert operations. Between 1979 and 1981, suspected Mossad-orchestrated sabotage targeted European suppliers of centrifuge technology and dual-use equipment to Pakistan, including parcel bombs and assassinations of key intermediaries. Israeli planners even considered direct military action: in the mid-1980s, the Israeli Air Force reportedly rehearsed strikes on Pakistan’s Kahuta enrichment facility using F-15s and F-16s, possibly with Indian assistance or basing. U.S. intelligence reportedly tipped off Pakistan about these plans, averting escalation, as Washington balanced its alliances. Assassination plots against A.Q. Khan himself were allegedly prepared but never executed.

Despite these multifaceted efforts—diplomatic pressure, sanctions, intelligence sharing, and covert sabotage—Pakistan achieved nuclear capability by the mid-1980s and conducted overt tests in May 1998. The program succeeded through clandestine procurement, Chinese assistance, and domestic resilience. U.S. and Israeli actions delayed progress but were undermined by competing strategic interests: America’s Afghan priorities and Israel’s logistical limits against a distant target. Today, Pakistan maintains an estimated 170 warheads.

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NATO and the Bar Fight: A Bar Tab Europe Expects America To Pay Forever

I’ve been in bar fights. Real ones. The kind where you find out very quickly who your friends actually are.

Here’s the code every veteran, every operator, every person who has ever had to make a split-second decision about loyalty understands at a bone-deep level: you show up. Whether your buddy started it or not. Whether he’s right or wrong. Whether the odds are good or bad. You get off your barstool, you stand beside him, and you sort out the details after the fists stop flying. That’s not bravado. That’s the foundational contract of any alliance worth the name.

For seventy-five years, America has honored that contract with NATO. Every time. Without conditions. We showed up in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Libya, and most recently Ukraine, where I personally and so many other Americans helped integrate supply chains, equipment, and logistics after Russia came across the border. Not as a government official. As an American who understood what the moment required and had the relationships to act.

Europe, now, has largely watched from the barstool.

The frustration is not new. And it is not partisan. I remember standing aboard Air Force One, waiting for President Trump to board, with Secretary James Mattis shortly after he returned from a NATO meeting where he had delivered the Trump administration’s blunt message: pay your fair share. I asked him, “What did you say to them?” He looked at me and said simply: “I asked them, who is going to care more about your kids than you?”

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Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja and 87-year-old among more than 500 Palestine Action supporters arrested at mass demo in London

Massive Attack musician Robert Del Naja has been arrested with over 500 supporters of banned group Palestine Action during a major protest in central London Today. 

The singer-songwriter from Bristol was seen being spoken to by officers as he took part in the march against the group’s ban in Trafalgar Square. 

Del Naja was among hundreds of demonstrators who sat with sings reading ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. 

He was later carried away by three officers and arrested on suspicion of showing support for a proscribed organisation.

The Metropolitan Police said 523 people aged between 18 and 87 had been arrested at the mass event. 

Protesters gathered in the central London landmark from 1pm and held up their placards, despite police warning any individuals engaging in such criminal activity would be arrested. 

The group, which organisers Defend Our Juries said consisted of some 500 people, initially sat silently as around 100 police officers moved in to make arrests.

But some later started chanting ‘shame on you’ at officers as they carried protesters who refused to walk to police vans away. 

Proscription makes it a criminal offence to belong to or support Palestine Action, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. 

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‘Bibi Sold It As Easy’: How A Vance-Netanyahu Call Exposed Chinks In US-Israel Alliance Over Iran War

As the Iran war grinds on with no clear endgame, a private phone call between US Vice-President JD Vance and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blown the lid off quiet but consequential differences between the two allies.

Far from routine diplomacy, the exchange reflects growing unease in Washington over how the conflict was initially framed and how realistic the expectations were. It also highlights a deeper question now shaping the war effort: whether early assumptions about Iran’s internal fragility and the prospects of regime change were misjudged.

According to sources cited by Axios, Vance directly challenged Netanyahu’s pre-war projections, particularly around the likelihood of internal upheaval in Iran.

“Before the war, Bibi really sold it to the president as being easy, as regime change being a lot likelier than it was,” a US source told Axios. “And the VP was clear-eyed about some of those statements.”

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Swalwell Sexual Assault Victim Sits Down with CNN, Recounts Horrific Details of Alleged Rape

The former staffer who says Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell raped her sat down with CNN and recounted some of the horrific details of the alleged rape.

As TGP reported on Friday, The San Francisco Chronicle published a story about a woman who claimed that Democrat Eric Swalwell sexually assaulted her twice.

The woman, who worked as a staffer in Swalwell’s office for two years, told The San Francisco Chronicle that Swalwell began pursuing her just weeks after she was hired at the age of 21 in 2019.

“A woman who worked for nearly two years for Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading candidate for California governor, said she had sexual encounters with him while he was her boss and alleged he twice sexually assaulted her when she was too intoxicated to consent,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

After The San Francisco Chronicle dropped their bombshell report on Swalwell, three additional women spoke to CNN and provided evidence about alleged additional misconduct by the California Democrat.

The Swalwell staffer said she was sexually assaulted by Swalwell in 2019

The staffer also said Swalwell raped her years later in 2024 after she left his employment.

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The CDC Was Ordered to Prove the DTaP Vaccine Didn’t Cause Autism… but Their Only Study Showed it Did

For decades, the question of whether vaccines are linked to autism has remained one of the most contentious and widely debated issues in public health.

While major health agencies have maintained that vaccines are safe, critics have continued to scrutinize the data, pointing to gaps, unanswered questions, and the historical record of how these concerns were first investigated.

A video circulating online features attorney Aaron Siri discussing the historical roots of vaccine-related debates, focusing specifically on the pertussis vaccine rather than the more commonly cited MMR vaccine.

According to the caption, Siri traces the issue back to the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to study a list of injuries that had been frequently reported in connection with the pertussis vaccine. Among those listed for investigation was autism.

In the clip, Siri describes how the Institute of Medicine (IOM) was tasked with reviewing available research on the topic. He notes that in 1991, the IOM concluded it could not determine whether the pertussis vaccine caused or did not cause autism due to a lack of sufficient studies.

He then points to a later review commissioned by the CDC and HRSA in 2012, stating that the IOM reached a similar conclusion after examining the broader body of scientific literature.

According to Siri, the IOM reported that it could not find studies demonstrating that the pertussis vaccine does not cause autism, and that the only study identified showing an association was ultimately excluded because it did not include an unvaccinated comparison group.

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Washington Post Journalist Pleads Guilty In Child Porn Case

United States Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced Friday that a video editor for The Washington Post pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.

Federal authorities arrested Thomas Pham LeGro in June 2025 for possessing child pornography after executing a search warrant at his home and seizing his personal electronic devices. LeGro worked for the Post for 18 years in two stints since 2000, according to the outlet.

Agents discovered a fractured hard drive hidden under a rug of LeGro’s basement during the search, according to the DOJ’s press release. They found a folder on his laptop that contained 11 videos depicting child sexual abuse, which depicted adult men sexually abusing prepubescent children and forcing them to engage in sexual acts.

The FBI Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force is investigating the case, according to the DOJ. Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Burrell is prosecuting the case for the District of Columbia.

LeGro rejoined the Post as an editor on the breaking news desk after previously working part-time for the outlet during graduate school, according to the Mason Spirit. He later became a senior producer for the Post’s International, Style and Technology teams in 2015.

In 2018, LeGro and the staff won a Pulitzer Prize for “purposeful and relentless reporting that changed the course of a Senate race in Alabama,” which exposed former Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore’s alleged sexual harassment of underage girls in 2017.

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62-Year-Old Michelle Obama Says America is in a ‘Janky’ Era Under Trump, While Wearing Her Hair in Pigtails

Former First Lady Michelle Obama, 62, took to her podcast this week to trash-talk America under President Donald Trump, calling the country “janky,” while weirdly sporting a pair of childish pigtails.

In the latest episode of her “IMO” podcast, co-hosted with her brother Craig Robinson, Obama sat down with comedian Hasan Minhaj and declared that the United States is currently living through a “janky” 2.0 version of itself under Trump.

“That’s the 2.0 of life, and when we talk about how do you feel about the country? You know, there are versions of the country that happen, right? And the new version doesn’t make the old one bad. It’s necessary for growth. And I think we’re in just a janky version,” Obama declared.

Obama tried to spin the “janky” current state as some sort of necessary growing pain, praising what she called “powerful” community resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota, which included riots and two agitators being shot while trying to impede agents.

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