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Why Did US Bring So Much Hardware and Troops to Rescue One Pilot From Iran?

The US effort to rescue an F-15 pilot downed in Iran could indeed have been a cover for an attempt to seize Iran’s uranium stockpile, considering the large number of aircraft, helicopters, and special forces personnel involved, Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs expert Farkhad Ibragimov tells Sputnik.

However, such a mission would be a bad idea, as five or six thousand troops simply wouldn’t be enough for a ground operation, he warns.

“In order to conduct a full-scale ground operation — not to conquer Iran’s territory but to at least affect its nuclear program — the US would need at least 500,000 troops, maybe more,” Ibragimov explains.

The US military could also have deployed so much hardware for the rescue operation to show that they are willing to go to great lengths to save their man, given how a captive US pilot would afford Iran serious leverage, not to mention that the Democratic opposition in the US and even Trump’s own supporters would raise hell if a US serviceman got captured by Iran.

Meanwhile, the US currently finds itself in a precarious situation and yet continues to vastly underestimate the situation in Iran.

“The US believes that by launching a small ground operation in select coastal regions of Iran, they could seriously destabilize the situation in the country,” Ibragimov notes. “This is rather absurd and rash thinking.”

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Dem Activists Accuse Sleazebag Rep. Eric Swalwell of Sexual Harassment — Warn ‘Many Women’ Preparing to Come Forward

A Democratic activist says a number of women are preparing to accuse California Rep. Eric Swalwell of sexual misconduct.

Cheyenne Hunt, an attorney, former congressional candidate, and executive director of Gen Z for Change, said she has been working with multiple individuals who intend to come forward.

In a post on the X platform, Hunt said the allegations involve “DMs and Snapchat messages” and range “from uncomfortable comments to potentially criminal conduct.”

“I got involved because the first victim who approached me is a close friend, but when I saw that there were others whose experiences fit the same pattern of manipulation and abuse of power, I knew I couldn’t stay silent,” Hunt wrote.

She claimed the alleged behavior involved “employees, interns, and fans,” adding that Swalwell acted “as a mentor just to exploit that power.”

“Other women needed to know that they were not alone and that someone had their backs if they came forward.

“After I spoke about my friend’s experience, many brave women came forward and shared their stories with me.”

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US Loses 12 Aircraft in Single Operation — Report

Twelve US military aircraft lost in a single operation inside Iran.

Iranian military analysts say the US lost 12 military aircraft in its “rescue” operation, including two C-130 transport planes, four Little Bird helicopters, four Black Hawks, and two MQ-9 drones, Tasnim News Agency reported.

“A staggering US military failure,” the agency stressed.

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Middle East is ‘on fire’ – Kremlin

The US-Israeli war against Iran has set the Middle East “on fire,” reflecting Russia’s warning about the dangerous consequences of the move, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump escalated the tensions by issuing an expletive-laden demand to Tehran to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, which has remained effectively shut since the conflict began on February 28.
“Open the f**king strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell,” he wrote on social media, threatening to demolish the Iranian power plants and bridges if it doesn’t happen by Tuesday. Tehran maintains that the key waterway is only closed for oil shipments by the US and its allies.

When asked by journalists about Trump’s rant on Monday, Peskov said that “we have seen those statements, but we prefer not to comment on them.”

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Federal Judge Rejects Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan’s Bid to Toss Out Jury’s Guilty Verdict on Charges for Helping Illegal Alien Evade ICE

A federal judge on Monday rejected Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan’s bid to toss out a jury’s guilty verdict on charges for helping an illegal alien evade ICE agents.

US District Judge Lynn Adelman, a Clinton appointee, denied Hannah Dugan’s motions.

In December, Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan was found guilty of obstruction for helping an illegal alien evade ICE agents.

Dugan was acquitted of count 1 – the misdemeanor but she was found guilty on count 2 – the felony obstruction.

She is facing five years in prison.

Last April, a federal grand jury indicted Hannah Dugan for helping an illegal alien evade ICE agents.

According to the FBI, Dugan became angry when she found out that ICE agents were waiting outside of her courtroom last week to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an illegal alien involved in a domestic abuse case she was overseeing. She allegedly directed Flores-Ruiz to exit the courthouse through a private jury door to evade arrest.

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Trump Threatens to Jail Journalists Who Received Leak About US Pilot Downed in Iran

President Donald Trump vowed Monday to find the “leaker” who disclosed that US forces could not locate the second pilot stranded in Iran after their F-15 fighter jet was shot down, threatening to jail unnamed journalists who received the information if they do not reveal its source.

Trump claimed that Iranian authorities did not know that a second pilot of the downed two-seat warplane was missing until after the news report, which made the US rescue mission “much more difficult.”

“We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump said. “We think we’ll be able to find it out because we’re going to go to the media company that released it and we’re going to say: ‘National security – give it up or go to jail.’”

“The country, Iran, put out a major notice… offering a very big award for anybody that captures the pilot,” Trump continued. “We have to find that leaker, because that’s a sick person. Probably didn’t realize the extent of how bad it was.”

“We’re going to find out,” he added. “It’s national security, and the person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say.”

While the president did not say which “media company” he was talking about, the first widely cited reporting about the missing second pilot was broadcast Friday by CNN, CBS News, and The New York Times.

Israel journalist Amit Segal – who has close high-level links to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – claimed Monday on his Telegram channel that he was the first to publish information on the second pilot.

“We are about to see Trump’s promise to find and imprison whoever leaked the info about the second pilot vanish into the ether,” US investigative journalist Ryan Grim said on social media Monday in response to Segal’s post.

Both pilots were successfully rescued. Some critics mocked Trump for presuming that Iranians would not know that the two-seat F-15 is crewed by multiple pilots.

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Gunman fires 13 shots into home of Indiana politician who voted in support of datacenters

Shots were fired at an Indiana politician’s home and the gunman left behind a creepy note after the lawmaker voted for building artificial intelligence datacenters.

Democratic Indianapolis city councilor Rob Gibson said 13 rounds were fired at his home early Monday morning – as bullet holes could be seen in his front door. 

An eerie note reading ‘no datacenters’ was left under his front doormat, which lay amid shattered glass. 

Harrowing photos showed his wooden door riddled with bullet holes with jagged chunks of what had once been his glass screen door.

The councilman backed the project with a six-to-two vote last week, approving the Los Angeles-based company Metrobloks to build a datacenter in Indianapolis.

Gibson fully defended his approval of the project, stating that early estimates show at least $20 million could flow into the neighborhood as a result. 

‘Metrobloks has the potential to bring significant investment, create jobs, and generate long-term tax revenue that supports infrastructure, housing, and essential services,’ Gibson said in a statement. 

But angry locals have been slamming the plan for months, arguing that the datacenter would bring harmful environmental effects and disrupt their neighborhood, 13WTHR reported.

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Rep. Eric Burlison calls for FBI probe into ‘deeply concerning’ scientist and military personnel disappearances and deaths

The list of U.S. scientists and military personnel who have gone missing has grown in recent months, beginning with the July 4, 2024 disappearance of Frank Maiwald, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher.

Following several more high-profile disappearances—including a senior aerospace engineer and a retired Air Force General, Representative Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) is demanding a federal investigation. Citing the
“deeply concerning” ties these individuals share with advanced research, Burlison revealed that he has asked for the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine if these incidents are connected or represent a targeted threat to national security.

“The disappearance of multiple scientists and military personnel with ties to advanced research is deeply concerning. I’ve already requested FBI involvement, and we will keep pressing for answers,” Burlison said Monday on X.

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Deepfake Video of Trump Showing Off ‘Jesus Portrait’ Goes Viral as He Threatens to ‘Reign Hell’ on Iran in the Name of ‘God’

Donald Trump has said and done a number of notable things over the past week.

Here’s one thing he didn’t do: hang up a picture of Jesus Christ in the Oval Office.

A lot of people think he did, however, thanks to a fake/AI-manipulated video that went viral on social media over the holiday weekend. It shows Trump opening up a set of curtains off to the side of his desk at the White House to reveal a copy of Warner Sallman’s famous “Head of Christ” painting.

This type of widespread confusion is pretty much becoming a daily occurrence due to the proliferation of low cost, increasingly-powerful AI tools, so it’s impossible to keep up with more than a small fraction of it, but we feel it’s worth periodically looking at examples, studying how they spread, and learning how to better spot them.

The timing of this particular video’s appearance and virality is also notable, as Trump massacres civilians in Iran and bombs their infrastructure with his partners in Israel and incorporates religious rhetoric into his threats of further escalation.

‘Thank you, POTUS!’

The clip was posted on X by an account called “Gizmo Memes” on Friday afternoon with the caption: “Trump puts up a portrait of Christ for Good Friday. Christ is King!”

Within four hours, the post already had over 45,000 likes. As of this writing, it has over 106,000.

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The Media Just Can’t Help Turning Iran Fighter Jet Rescue Into “Black Hawk Down”

Neither Josh Hartnett nor Ewan McGregor were there, but the way the mainstream media is telling it, they might as well have been. The Sunday morning rescue of a U.S. airman shot down over Iran launched a thousand breathless tick-tock retellings from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, and many, many more — helpful water-carrying for an administration prosecuting a deeply unpopular war without a clear end in sight.

“The rescue had unfolded with near‑perfect precision. Under cover of darkness, U.S. commandos slipped deep into Iran, undetected, scaled a 7,000‑foot ridge and pulled a ​stranded American weapons specialist to safety, moving him toward a secret rendezvous point before dawn on Sunday,” Reuters’ report on the rescue opens. “Then everything stopped.”

The operation was a “harrowing race against time,” according to the Times. As Politico put it, citing an anonymous senior administration official, it was “the ultimate ‘needle in a haystack’” mission, made possible by a CIA “deception campaign” in the country disseminating the misinformation that the airman had already been located and was being extracted by ground to confuse the Iranians’ search.

The White House frequently hosts widely attended “background briefing” calls for large groups of reporters. Maybe that’s how Axios chimed in with the same evocative “needle in a haystack” line, which it also attributed to a senior administration official.

“This was the ultimate needle in a haystack but in this case it was a brave American soul inside a mountain crevice, invisible but for CIA’s capabilities,” the unnamed source told Axios.

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