US Actions Toward Cuba Are Criminal

A recent Wall Street Journal article recently outlined yet the latest attempts by the US government to bring down Cuba’s socialist government, a process that has been going on without much success for the past 65 years. Once upon a time, the US policy toward Cuba was part of the greater Cold War and it was front-and-center in the national news cycle. (Many of us still remember the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, wondering if we were about to face an all-out nuclear war).

When Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolutionaries took over Cuba’s government in early 1959, ousting the US-backed president Fulgencio Batista, many in this country cheered. Batista, after all, was seen as a corrupt dictator and Castro was popular with many Americans who had high hopes that he would do a better job of governing Cuba. After Castro, however, seized and nationalized US businesses, declared Cuba to be communist and turned toward the Soviet Union for his support, the US government since then has sought to overthrow him.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s latest efforts are making life almost unbearable for Cubans, who already are among the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere. (Before Castro’s revolution, Cuba was one of the wealthiest nations in the Americas). The WSJ reports:

Daily life in Cuba is grinding to a halt under a US campaign to block the island’s oil imports, drawing international criticism that the Trump administration is pushing the island toward a humanitarian crisis with no clear endgame.

The Caribbean island’s Communist authorities are rationing dwindling fuel supplies, curtailing public transportation and furloughing workers. Children are being sent home from school early, people can barely afford basic food like milk and chicken, and long lines have sprung up at gas stations.

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UK trace found in assassination attempt on Russian general – FSB chief

Britain’s secret services were involved in the attempted assassination of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev, Aleksandr Bortnikov, the Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), has stated.

Alekseyev, first deputy chief of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), was shot several times in the back earlier this month as he waited by an elevator in his apartment block in western Moscow. He survived the attack.

The Russian authorities have since detained three suspects in connection with the assassination attempt, including the alleged gunman – identified as 65-year-old Ukrainian-born Russian citizen Lyubomir Korba – who was extradited to Russia with the assistance of the United Arab Emirates.

In an interview with Vesti TV channel on Sunday, Bortnikov reiterated that the assassination attempt was orchestrated by Kiev’s intelligence services. However, they had been acting with the support of “third countries,” Bortnikov said.

“We see the UK trace here, first and foremost. That’s why the investigation continues,” the FSB chief said, without providing further details. He pledged that Russia would not allow the attack to go unanswered, describing any public discussion of specific retaliatory measures as “a delicate issue.”

“We are closely monitoring everything that is happening. Of course, we will never forget, and we will never forgive,” Bortnikov added.

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Amb. Huckabee Claims Israel Has ‘Biblical Right’ To Conquer Whole Middle East

In a jaw-dropping exchange with Tucker Carlson, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee openly framed Israel’s territorial claims in biblical terms – suggesting the Jewish state has a divine mandate over virtually the entire region.

Asked whether a passage from the Book of Genesis could be read as granting Israel the right to claim all the land between Egypt’s Nile River and Syria’s Euphrates, Huckabee didn’t hedge. He bluntly and without apology said it would be “fine” if Israel and its military took over the whole Middle East.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist Minister and previously the governor of Arkansas made clear. This led to a wide ranging conversation and back and forth over whether the modern nation-state of Israel, officially founded as a sovereign government on May 14, 1948, is synonymous with the Israel written about in the Old Testament, stretching back thousands of years.

Here’s how that contentious segment of the interview unfolded, according to a transcript and commentary

Huckabee was asked in an interview with US conservative commentator Tucker Carlson about his understanding of a biblical verse suggesting that land including parts of Egypt, Syria and Iraq had been divinely promised to the Jewish people.

Carlson said that according to the Old Testament, the boundaries would be “basically the entire Middle East.”

He continued: “Does Israel have the right to that land?”

“Not sure we’d go that far,” Huckabee said in reply. “It would be a big piece of land.”

Carlson then pressed him: “Does Israel have the right to that land?”

“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee responded, before adding, “I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today.”

Carlson asked: “You think it would be fine if the state of Israel took over all of Jordan?”

That’s when Amb. Huckabee must have realized he was entering some hot diplomatic water, which would be sure to outrage Washington’s Arab allies in the region.

“They’re not trying to take over Jordan. They’re not trying to take over Syria. They’re not trying to take over Iraq or anywhere else, but they do want to protect their people,” Huckabee responded. We should note here that the Israeli army has indeed invaded southern Syria and is occupying swathes of territory which lie a mere dozen or so miles from Damascus.

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Iranian Spies Busted: Three Silicon Valley Engineers Charged with Stealing Google Trade Secrets and Funneling Data to Tehran

A federal grand jury has indicted three engineers for stealing hundreds of confidential files from Google and other tech giants, then smuggling the sensitive data to Iran.

The defendants, Samaneh Ghandali, 41, a U.S. citizen; her sister Soroor Ghandali, 32, an Iranian national on a student visa; and Samaneh’s husband Mohammadjavad Khosravi, 40, an Iranian national and legal permanent resident, were all residents of San Jose at the time of the theft.

Samaneh and Soroor previously worked at Google before joining another unnamed tech firm, while Khosravi, a former member of the Iranian army, was employed at a developer of system-on-chip (SoC) platforms, such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series used in high-end Android phones and Apple’s iPhones.

Charged with conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, theft, and attempted theft of trade secrets, and obstruction of justice, the trio allegedly exploited their insider access to steal processor security, cryptography materials, and Snapdragon SoC hardware architecture secrets that serve as valuable intel not readily available to competitors.

The trio routed the files through third-party platforms like Telegram, copied them to personal devices, and even photographed computer screens to dodge digital monitoring.

In a particularly brazen move, just before Samaneh and Khosravi jetted off to Iran in December 2023, she snapped photos of his work screen displaying company secrets.

While in Iran, devices linked to them accessed this pilfered info.

Google caught wind of the scheme in August 2023 when internal security flagged Samaneh’s suspicious activity, leading to her access being revoked.

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ORBÁN FIGHTS BACK: Hungary Blocks $106 Billion EU Loan to Ukraine Until Zelensky Allows Flow of Russian Oil Through Druzhba Pipeline To Resume

Orbán accuses Ukraine of fomenting chaos in Hungary to benefit the Globalist opposition candidate.

This is a conflict that’s raging for months, but now, as Hungarian elections approach, the question of the Druzhba pipeline has come to the forefront of geopolitical tensions between Budapest and Kiev.

The supply of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia via the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline across Ukrainian territory was cut by an attack, causing an explosion that destroyed it.

While in the last few days Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico have retaliated by halting the delivery of diesel and energy to Ukraine, they have now gone a step further, blocking the much-needed EU funds from reaching Kyiv.

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US Intelligence: 15,000+ Were Let Free From ISIS Detention Camp After Collapse

Another ‘win’ for America’s disastrous Syria policy, long predicated on overthrowing the Assad government and installing a ‘moderate’ Sunni regime – though it turns out Jolani’s bearded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants are anything but…

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that 15,000 to 20,000 people, including Islamic State affiliates are now at large in Syria, after an exodus from a camp that held jihadists’ families, U.S. officials familiar with the estimate said,” The Wall Street Journal reports Friday.

Who could have predicted that chaos, instability, and terrorism would come out of the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore? Well, we did, and every rational observer of the Syria situation.

A billion plus dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives after the decade-long proxy war, and this is all Washington has to show for it:  

Security experts have long warned that the wives of Islamic State fighters were effectively raising the next generation of militants at the sprawling Al-Hol facility. Security at the camp fell apart in recent weeks after Syria’s government routed the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which had guarded Al-Hol for years, raising concerns about the release of people who might have become radicalized during the years held behind the razor wire.

The size of a small city, the camp in Syria’s eastern desert at one point held more than 70,000 people after U.S.-backed forces destroyed what remained of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria in 2019. At the end of 2025, more than 23,000 people were there, according to a report this week from the Pentagon’s Inspector General.

The US military is rapidly backing out of this region after the years-long occupation, effectively throwing the Kurds (SDF) under the bus, as HTS radicals move in and take control. 

Given many analysts have pointed to HTS being ‘ISIS-lite’ to begin with, the following WSJ note is no surprise: “The vast majority have left Al-Hol after the Syrian government took control last month. Western diplomats in Damascus assessed that more than 20,000 people fled the camp in a matter of days earlier amid rioting and a surge of escape attempts.”

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From €1.5B to €5B: Did Romania’s Globalist Government Conceal the Real Cost of Supporting Zelensky’s War Effort?

A heated national debate has erupted in Romania after fresh claims suggested that the true cost of Bucharest’s support for Ukraine may be much higher than the public has been told.

What began as a routine televised discussion on the country’s budget priorities quickly escalated into a broader confrontation over transparency, sovereignty, and the price Romania is paying for its alignment with Brussels’ “prop up the failing Ukrainian state at any cost” policy.

During a recent broadcast, journalist Robert Turcescu pressed former Finance Minister Adrian Câciu on the following question: how much is the Romanian government really spending on Ukraine? The answer he received has fueled growing skepticism toward the government’s official narrative.

Câciu acknowledged that the publicly cited figure of approximately €1.5 billion reflects only direct public expenditures, such as housing, food, and social assistance for Ukrainian refugees inside Romania. But he argued that this figure represents only a fraction of the total fiscal burden ultimately borne by Romanian taxpayers.

According to Câciu, when defense spending, border security operations, and interior ministry costs related to the war are included, the real figure could approach 1.5% of GDP. With Romania’s GDP estimated at roughly €370 billion, that percentage amounts into approximately €5 billion.

The distinction between direct aid and broader security-related expenditures lies at the heart of the controversy. Government officials have emphasized the lower figure, while critics argue that the public deserves a consolidated, transparent accounting of the full cost.

Turcescu reacted sharply to the suggestion that Romania’s total war-related spending could be closer to €5 billion. He publicly questioned why, amid domestic austerity measures and tax increases, such sums would be directed toward Kyiv without full disclosure.

Official data provided by Romania’s Fiscal Council in response to an inquiry from right-wing populist AUR MEP Gheorghe Piperea paint a different picture. According to that response, Romania’s total military, financial, and humanitarian support from February 2022 through mid-2025 amounted to around €1.5 billion — approximately 0.6% of GDP.

That figure would place Romania in the middle tier among European contributors. Countries such as Denmark and Estonia have devoted more than 3% of GDP, while Lithuania, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, and France have also contributed proportionally more than Romania.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan has further stated that direct financial assistance in 2025 amounted to approximately €50 million, largely channeled through NATO mechanisms. However, many military expenditures remain classified through Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defense (CSAT), limiting public oversight.

The result is a widening credibility gap. While the government emphasizes limited direct aid, critics argue that broader institutional and logistical costs — from troop deployments to enhanced border security — are effectively war expenditures that taxpayers ultimately finance.

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The US is on the brink of a major new war that Trump has not even bothered explaining

President Trump has spent two months ordering a rapidly expanding and now-massive military buildup near Iran, with a focus on the Persian Gulf and nearby permanent U.S. military bases in close proximity to Iran (Iran, of course, has no military bases anywhere near the U.S.). The deployment includes aircraft carriers and other assets that would enable, at a minimum, an extremely destructive air campaign against the whole country.

The U.S. under both parties has been insisting for two decades that it must abandon its heavy military involvement in the Middle East and instead “pivot to Asia” in light of a rapidly rising China. Yet in the midst of those vows, Trump has now assembled the largest military presence in the Middle East since 2003, when the U.S. was preparing to invade Iraq with overwhelming military force.

One of the most striking and alarming aspects of all of this is that Trump — outside of a few off-the-cuff banalities — has barely attempted to offer a case to the American public as to why such a major new war is necessary. This unilateral march to war resembles what we saw in the lead-up to the bombing of Venezuelan boats, culminating in the U.S. invading force that abducted (“arrested”) the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, and took him and his wife to a prison in New York.

In the weeks preceding the Venezuela operation, we heard a carousel of rationales. It was all necessary to stop the flow of dangerous drugs into the U.S. We needed to free the repressed Venezuelan peoples from their dictator. Trump’s embrace and expansion of the Monroe Doctrine — now dubbed the Donroe Doctrine — meant that we cannot tolerate communist regimes in “our region.”

But as soon as Maduro was removed, all of those claims disappeared. Contrary to the expectations of many, the U.S. left in place Maduro’s entire regime rather than replacing it with the pro-US opposition (a wise move of restraint in my view, but one that negates the “liberation” rhetoric). Discussions of the drug trade from Venezuela (a source of drugs for the U.S. that was always minor if not trivial, and did not include fentanyl) have completely disappeared. The only real outcome seems to be that the U.S. has more control over that nation’s oil supply, and barrels of it are now being shipped to Israel for the first time in many years.

In sum, we were given a low-effort smorgasbord to enable supporters of Trump’s actions toward Venezuela to mount arguments in favor of the operation, but there was no systematic attempt to convince the country at large. There was not even a live television address to the nation beforehand to explain it. And the role that Congress played was close to non-existent. All of that is similar to what we are seeing now concerning a far riskier, more dangerous, and complex war with Iran.

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UK Denies American Use Of Diego Garcia And RAF Fairford For Iran Attacks

The United Kingdom has reportedly refused U.S. requests to utilize key military facilities—RAF Fairford in England and the joint U.S.-U.K. base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—for any potential strikes against Iran. This decision, driven by concerns over possible breaches of international law, has sparked tensions between Washington and London.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has withheld permission for American forces to operate from these bases in support of preemptive or offensive actions against Iran. Government sources indicate that London views participation in such strikes—particularly without clear legal justification—as risking violations of international norms, which do not distinguish between direct aggressors and those providing knowing support.

The refusal comes amid heightened U.S.-Iran tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities. President Donald Trump highlighted the strategic importance of these sites in a Wednesday post on Truth Social, stating: “Should Iran decide not to make a deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia and the airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous regime.” He further warned that such an attack could target not only the U.S. but also allies like the United Kingdom, according to reports from The Times and other outlets.

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WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Canada’s Liberal Government Opens Military Ranks to Foreign Nationals for Fast-Track Immigration

In yet another reckless move by the far-left Liberal government, Canada is now throwing open the doors of its military to foreign nationals, offering them a fast-track path to permanent residency.

Under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s regime, skilled immigrants from around the world can now snag jobs in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as doctors, nurses, or even pilots, and get expedited immigration status in return.

Additional reporting indicates applicants may be required to:

  • Have extensive prior service in a recognized foreign military
  • Secure a multi-year CAF job offer
  • Possess post-secondary credentials before being admitted under the program.

Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab announced this disastrous policy on Wednesday, touting it as a way to “attract highly skilled foreign military applicants” and “strengthen our armed forces.”

“Finally, we are creating a new category for skilled military recruits to attract highly skilled foreign military applicants. Eligible recruits with a job offer from the Canadian Armed Forces, including doctors, nurses, and pilots, can be invited to apply for permanent residence.

“They will be subject to the same security and military requirements. This new category will support our government’s commitment to strengthen our armed forces, defend our sovereignty, and keep Canadians safe.”

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