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Will Washington Betray the Kurds Yet Again?

The Trump administration has enlisted the support of Kurdish activists in Syria, Iraq, and Iran to join the U.S.-led war to unseat Iran’s clerical regime.  CNN reports that the Central Intelligence Agency is already arming Iranian Kurds. CNN and other outlets also report that President Trump spoke with Kurdish leaders in Iraq on March 8, 2026, about having their forces join the fight.

Washington’s motives for this move are easy to discern. The Kurdish minority concentrated along Iran’s western border has long sought to break away from Tehran’s control.  U.S. and Israeli leaders understand that such disruptive secessionist efforts could further damage the incumbent government’s already weakened position.

There is a major problem with that strategy, however.  Secessionist-minded Iranian Kurds do not merely want to undermine their oppressors in Tehran; many of them want to join their equally restless ethnic brethren in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey to establish a new, independent Kurdish homeland.  The incumbent governments in those volatile countries feud about a wide array of issues.  One objective all these governments have in common, though, is a determination to prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdish nation state, since that development would threaten the internal unity – and perhaps the continued viability–of multiple neighbors.

Previous U.S. administrations have encouraged and even actively supported Kurdish clients when it advanced Washington’s short-term goals.  Such initiatives invariably have been followed by cynical betrayals of those clients when the U.S. government concluded that support for parochial Kurdish objectives endangered higher priority U.S. regional objectives.

This cycle of support and betrayal has occurred repeatedly.  Most recently, the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations used Syrian Kurds as armed proxies in a long campaign to seize oil-rich territory in northern Syria and help unseat Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad.  A small contingent of U.S. ground troops deployed in northern Syria aided that effort. The Kurdish fighters were remarkably successful despite strong opposition from both Assad and Turkey.

But when anti-Assad insurgent forces dominated by Arab Sunni Islamists finally overthrew his secular government in December 2024, the usefulness to Washington of Kurdish fighters and Kurdish control over northern Syria evaporated quickly.  In late 2025, the Trump administration terminated its support for the Kurdish faction and warned Syrian Kurdish leaders to end their opposition to the new Islamist regime in Baghdad.

That latest move was at least the fourth example of a U.S. policy reversal and outright betrayal of the Kurds in less than three generations.  In 1973, President Richard Nixon made a secret agreement with the Shah of Iran to provide the covert financial and military support to the Kurdish minority in Iraq who had launched an insurgency against Iraq’s young dictator, Saddam Hussein. Those Kurdish insurgents were seeking to establish an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq.  (Saddam had irritated U.S. leaders earlier that year by signing a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with Moscow.) Kurdish officials conducted planning sessions in Washington with the CIA, and CIA agents assisted Kurdish Peshmerga militia units to harass Saddam’s forces.

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Deep State Dirt: FBI Ran Secret Surveillance on Kash Patel, Tried to Cover Their Tracks

Journalist John Solomon said newly uncovered information suggests the FBI maintained hidden investigative files targeting individuals close to President Donald Trump during the tenure of former FBI Director Christopher Wray, raising concerns about potential civil liberties violations.

Solomon made the remarks during a discussion with commentator Benny Johnson, where the two examined reports that certain politically sensitive investigations were placed into restricted systems rather than the FBI’s standard case management database.

Johnson opened the conversation by questioning reports that FBI Director Kash Patel did not initially have access to the records.

“Line in the lead here, John, that is the most alarming to me is that Kash Patel doesn’t have access to these files, or that they have been scattered to the wind,” Johnson said.

Solomon responded by explaining how certain investigations were handled differently from normal FBI cases.

“So in these politically sensitive investigations where we now know they were targeting people close to the president, lawyers, like people around the president, were lawyers advising him, advisors, movie makers, journalists,” Solomon said.

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Over 60% on Welfare: Sanctuary States Quietly Turn Illegal Aliens Into a Permanent Dependent Class

Jessica Vaughan, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said policies adopted by sanctuary states can attract illegal immigration and place financial burdens on taxpayers through expanded access to public assistance programs.

Vaughan discussed how certain state policies provide benefits to individuals living in the country illegally, arguing that these programs increase government spending and encourage illegal settlement in those states.

“Sanctuary states typically have other policies that attract illegal settlement and thus burden taxpayers with support of illegal immigrants,” Vaughan said.

She said that beyond providing emergency medical care and public education, some sanctuary states extend additional benefits funded by taxpayers.

“Besides funding emergency health care and schooling for all, a number of sanctuary states go farther and choose to provide Medicaid, subsidized health insurance, nutrition assistance, housing and much more,” Vaughan said.

According to Vaughan, those programs are used frequently by households headed by individuals living in the country illegally.

“Illegal immigrants use these welfare programs in large numbers,” Vaughan said.

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John Solomon Reveals DNI Tulsi Gabbard and FBI to Release Explosive Declassified Docs Proving Foreign Election Interference and Secret U.S. Surveillance Program Triggered by “Speech Delimiters”

Investigative journalist John Solomon says a wave of explosive revelations may soon shake Washington as newly declassified intelligence documents are prepared for release.

In a jaw-dropping interview on Steve Bannon’s War Room, Solomon revealed that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and the FBI are preparing to release a large body of declassified material over the next ten days that allegedly exposes foreign interference in U.S. elections and secret government surveillance operations targeting Americans, including President Donald Trump.

According to Solomon, the documents contain information that has been hidden from the public, and possibly even from Trump himself, until recently.

Solomon told Bannon that he has already begun reviewing portions of the intelligence material and described the findings as “explosive.”

John Solomon:
Now, over the next 10 days, Steve, we’re going to have a lot more. For the first time, we’re going to be able to start processing these documents—a large body of evidence in the intelligence community that raises concerns about foreign interference in our elections. That will probably come at the end of this week or early next week.

The documents are explosive. They’re really remarkable. And what’s most remarkable is that all of this has been kept from the American people—possibly even from President Trump in some cases—until recently, of course, when his team told him. I think there’s a lot there.

He said the information could begin surfacing by the end of this week or early next week once the declassification process is completed.

Solomon revealed the existence of a previously unknown, “off-the-books” FBI investigation.

While we’ve heard of Arctic Frost and Plasmic Echo, this new operation targeted President Trump and his associates using what Solomon described as “speech delimiters.”

Essentially, if you spoke about certain issues or used specific phrases, you were automatically deemed a “national security threat,” placed on a list, and subjected to clandestine government surveillance.

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Epstein files were allegedly compromised by foreign hacker in 2023; FBI admits ‘cyber incident’

The FBI Field Office in New York produced myriad documents pertaining to its criminal probe into child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested in a Feb. 17, 2025, letter to FBI Director Kash Patel that “thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein” were stored on site there.

Some of these documents were allegedly compromised in a hack years before the Department of Justice began publishing the heavily redacted Epstein files.

The bureau revealed in 2023 that it was investigating a hack of its computer network, which it characterized as an “isolated incident that has been contained.”

Multiple sources briefed on the matter told CNN at the time that FBI officials suspected the incident involved a bureau computer system used in the investigations of images of child sexual exploitation.

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While Pushing New Book, Jill Biden Claims Joe Biden Made the ‘Unprecedented Decision’ Not to Seek Reelection in 2024

Former First Lady Jill Biden is releasing a new book about her time in the White House because of course she is. What else are she and Joe going to do for money other than write books and go on book tours?

In a video she released on social media, she claims that it was Joe who made the unprecedented decision to not seek reelection in 2024. That seems like a bit of historical revisionism.

Actor George Clooney wrote an op-ed for the NY Times demanding that Joe Drop out of the race and many people suspect that Obama played a role in the writing of the piece. Joe only dropped out of the race when Democrat donors made it clear that they would not donate another dime as long as Biden was the nominee. Chuck Schumer had private meetings with Biden and so did Nancy Pelosi.

But it was Joe Biden’s decision to drop out? OK.

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US News Orgs Nearly Silent on Israel’s Violent Suppression of Journalism

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently published two meticulous reports that further expose Israel’s violent repression of journalism, in its ongoing genocide in Gaza and elsewhere.

CPJ published a report on February 19 titled ‘‘’We Returned From Hell’: Palestinian Journalists Recount Torture in Israeli Prisons.” CPJ collected 59 in-depth testimonies from Palestinian journalists released from Israeli custody since October 7, 2023.

The report goes into excruciating and painstaking detail about the experiences of 56 journalists, who told CPJ they were “repeatedly beaten inside prisons by authorities, as well as during arrest and transfer to the facilities.”

Less than a week later, CPJ published a report (2/25/26) that found “Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all journalist and media-worker killings in 2025”—86 of the 129 deaths CPJ recorded.

That was an uptick from 2024 (when Israel was responsible for 85 out of 124) and 2023 (78 of 99), CPJ revealed.

Taken together, these reports added more evidence of Israel’s illegal and shameless targeting of the journalists who cover its war crimes.

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Pete Hegseth’s Defense Department Blew $22M On Steak and Lobster in a Single Month, Watchdog Claims

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s Defense Department allegedly blew through $22 million on lobsters and ribeye steak as part of a wild September 2025 end-of-year spree.

According to an analysis by nonprofit watchdog Open the Books, Hegseth’s DoD spent $93.4 billion on grants and contracts in Sept. 2025 alone — nearly 50 percent of which was expended in the last five business days of the month.

Open the Books, run by the American Transparency charity founded in 2011, collects and publishes government spending data, including expenditures down to the lobster tail.

Per the analysis by Open the Books, in September, the Pentagon spent $2 million on Alaskan king crab, $6.9 million on lobster tail, $15.1 million on ribeye steak, and $1 million on salmon. Dessert included 272 orders of doughnuts for $139,224 and ice cream machines for $124,000.

While the Pentagon does not technically have to spend all its congressionally allocated funds, “use-it-or-lose-it” policies often push it to do so. Any leftover funds could be removed from the budget the following year. So, extravagant sprees are not unusual at the end of a fiscal year.

For example, the group noted in its report, “Furniture is near the top of the military’s wish list at the end of every fiscal year. Since 2008, the DoD has spent an average of $257.6 million on furniture every September — a 564% increase above the norm. In months besides September, furniture costs the military only $38.8 million on average.”

Speaking to Open the Books, the CEO of Govly, an AI company that assists government contractors, compared Sept. 30 to “Amazon Prime Day” for the federal government.

Extravagant spending sprees are also not unusual for Hegseth’s DoD. The report noted that the department also spent more than $7.4 million on lobster throughout four months in 2025: March, May, June, and October.

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Online age-verification tools spread across U.S. for child safety, but adults are being surveilled

New U.S laws designed to protect minors are pulling millions of adult Americans into mandatory age-verification gates to access online content, leading to backlash from users and criticism from privacy advocates that a free and open internet is at stake. Roughly half of U.S. states have enacted or are advancing laws requiring platforms — including adult content sites, online gaming services, and social media apps — to block underage users, forcing companies to screen everyone who approaches these digital gates.

“There’s a big spectrum,” said Joe Kaufmann, global head of privacy at Jumio, one of the largest digital identity-verification and authentication platforms. He explained that the patchwork of state laws vary in technical demands and compliance expectations. “The regulations are moving in many different directions at once,” he said.  

Social media company Discord announced plans in February to roll out mandatory age verification globally, which the company said would rely on verification methods designed so facial analysis occurs on a user’s device and submitted data would be deleted immediately. The proposal quickly drew backlash from users concerned about having to submit selfies or government IDs to access certain features, which led Discord to delay the launch until the second half of this year.

“Let me be upfront: we knew this rollout was going to be controversial. Any time you introduce something that touches identity and verification, people are going to have strong feelings,” Discord chief technology officer and co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote in a Feb. 24 blog post.

Websites offering adult content, gambling, or financial services often rely on full identity verification that requires scanning a government ID and matching it to a live image. But most of the verification systems powering these checkpoints — often run by specialized identity-verification vendors on behalf of websites — rely on artificial intelligence such as facial recognition and age-estimation models that analyze selfies or video to determine in seconds whether someone is old enough to access content. Social media and lower-risk services may use lighter estimation tools designed to confirm age without permanently storing detailed identity records.  

Vendors say a challenge is balancing safety with how much friction users will tolerate. “We’re in the business of ensuring that you are absolutely keeping minors safe and out and able to let adults in with as little friction as possible,” said Rivka Gewirtz Little, chief growth officer at identity-verification platform Socure. Excessive data collection, she added, creates friction that users resist. 

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States Sue Trump Over New Tariffs Imposed Under 1974 Trade Act

A coalition of 24 Democrat-led states has filed a sweeping federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump and several federal agencies and officials, arguing that their latest tariffs violate both federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The case, filed last Thursday in the United States Court of International Trade, challenges tariffs imposed under long-dormant Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 right after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s earlier “emergency” tariff policy.

The states are asking the court to block the tariffs and order refunds for the costs already paid.

A New Tariff Strategy

The legal battle began after a major ruling from the Supreme Court on February 20.

In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the Court ruled that the administration could not impose sweeping tariffs using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). That law allows presidents to respond to economic emergencies, but the Court concluded that it does not authorize tariffs. The ruling was a significant blow to the administration’s trade policy. For more than a year, the White House had been imposing global tariffs using IEEPA.

But the administration swiftly adopted a new strategy. Per the challenge:

Having lost the battle on IEEPA, the President now dusts off a separate statute: Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, 19 U.S.C. § 2132, which is another statute that has never been used to impose tariffs. Indeed, it has never been used at all.

On the same day the Supreme Court decision was issued, Trump signed a proclamation invoking Section 122 to impose a 10-percent tariff on most imports worldwide for a period of 150 days. The new tariff took effect on February 24.

The next day, the president announced on Truth Social that the tariff would rise to 15 percent — the maximum rate allowed by the statute. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later confirmed the prospect.

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