President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a new round of tariffs targeting six additional trading partners.
Beginning Aug. 1, the U.S. will impose a 30% tariff on Algeria, Libya and Iraq, a 25% rate on Brunei and Moldova, and 20% on the Philippines, Trump revealed on his Truth Social platform. The announcement follows the president’s Monday announcement that Japan and South Korea would face 25% levies.
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The State Department has authorized a partial evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq while allowing military dependents to leave various locations around the Middle East, U.S. and Iraqi sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
The officials told Reuters the move was made due to “heightened security risks,” but did not specify which threats prompted the decision. Tensions between Iran and Israel have put the region on high alert as Israel has said its forces would strike Iran if ongoing nuclear talks do not bear fruit.
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“You can’t be ready for that,” Brian Hegseth said when reflecting on the moment he learned his son, Pete, was President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense.
“He went to a Starbucks down the street and he called me and he was like, ‘Dad, I’m going to be picked for DOD,’” Brian said. “We’re just Minnesotans, raising kids and grandkids, and they go off and do special things. It’s pretty cool.”
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National political reporter Neil W. McCabe said Minnesota Governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s claims about his ranking among retirement from the U.S. military is “a lie.”
Walz, who served in the Minnesota National Guard for 24 years, has numerously referred to himself as a “retired Command Sergeant Major.”
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The United States Army is reducing its size by about 5%, cutting roughly 24,000 jobs, as part of a restructuring plan that is ostensibly meant to better prepare for a possible war in the future.
As ABC News reports, the cuts will mostly affect posts that are already empty, such as counterinsurgency jobs that were previously needed in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan but no longer needed today, as well as about 3,000 jobs in the Army special operations forces.
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History is written by the victors but rarely gives the view of the people who fought it. Politicians and military generals talk about war in platitudes, while the ones they send to combat rarely get their stories out. Guns, Girls, and Greed; I was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq flips this paradigm by giving the reader a ground-level perspective of the war in Iraq.
In the vein of Catch-22, the author is unrelenting in calling out the insanity of combat and diplomatic missions in Iraq in 2004–05. Lerette shows how military and political hubris collide to create a new way to wage combat—using private military contractors under the guise of diplomacy to wage war.
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Writing in The Atlantic, David Frum, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and cheerleader for endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror, warns us that if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election NATO will be wrecked, our allies around the world will suffer “potential disaster,” and “above all” Ukraine will be left to the mercy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Given Frum’s track record of advice about wars, one wonders why anyone would take his advice. Frum takes credit for Bush’s phrase the “axis of evil” to describe Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Frum’s advice about war should be labeled the “axis of error.”
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Late Friday, the favorite time for the Deep State to announce potentially troublesome information, the Biden administration announced it had sent a “War Powers Resolution” letter to Congress.
To somewhat oversimplify, the letter is required by the post-Vietnam War Powers Act that requires the President to notify Congress when American military forces engage with enemy forces, in this case Iranian-backed militias in Syria.
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The disputed 2020 election now appears in the rearview mirror for YouTube, which is now determining what users can see relevant to the next election.
The Alphabet-owned, video-sharing site and Google sibling has censored at least two videos, and may be throttling a third, featuring Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shortly after ending a two-and-a-half-year ban on questioning the “integrity” of the last presidential election, saying it accomplished little relative to the potential harm it caused.
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There has been broad recognition of late that the American Left projects their own flawed proclivities onto their political opponents. They accuse the Right of not caring about the American worker, but the functional consequence of every policy they devise has been destructive to American workers. They accuse the Right of being corporate puppets, when every major corporate special interest caters to the Left. They accuse the Right of having no respect for the Constitution or the rule of law, while they attempt to pack the Supreme Court, abolish the Electoral College, ignore the First and Second Amendments, and refuse to prosecute criminals. They accuse the Right of being fascist, yet their allies in Antifa and Black Lives Matter have cells operating in every major city.
Maybe the biggest projection of all is the common leftist accusation that the Right is dominated by white supremacists. The first thing to observe here is that the American Left – its leadership, its donors, and its corporate partners—“diversity, equity and inclusion” notwithstanding—is itself dominated by whites. And apart from their rhetoric, they certainly aren’t doing anything to help nonwhites. From welfare to affirmative action to avoidable cost-of-living increases, every policy the Left implements has the effect of disproportionately marginalizing and impoverishing nonwhites.
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Former Tennessee House Majority Leader and current State Representative John Mark Windle (I-HD41) is now a former Democrat.
Known for being a defender of Second Amendment rights, Windle switched his partisan status to Independent effective immediately and is running for reelection as an Independent as well.
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After bouncing five Democrats off the ballot in the 2020 cycle, a source familiar with the workings of the Tennessee Democratic Party’s executive committee told The Tennessee Star their next target is State Rep. John Mark Windle (D.-41th District).
The source said Windle, who has served in the state’s House since 1991, is on the block because he supports gun rights.
The plan, if executed, is to have the committee vote to remove Windle from the ballot, in effect declaring him no longer a valid Democrat, after the April 7 deadline for candidates to qualify for the ballot, the source said.
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“The graveyards are full of indispensable men,” goes the old saying, and who could argue? The sun rose this morning as it did yesterday and will again tomorrow. Life goes on, as always, for better and often for worse. But now it is a life bereft of the remarkable intellect and insight of Angelo Codevilla, a patriot who despised what he saw his country becoming and who sought to rouse and educate his fellow Americans to resist.
Truly, he was our indispensable man.
He was remarkable, too, for his energy. It isn’t quite correct to say he was indefatigable. At 78, he couldn’t help but slow down a bit. But this was a man who survived two heart transplants and a number of recent health challenges. Even when he was sick, he kept writing and working.
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Twenty years after the U.S. government declared war on terrorism, it consummated its own defeat in Kabul and Washington, in a manner foreseeable, foreseen, and foreshadowed in 9/11’s immediate aftermath. Fixation on itself and unseriousness about war are the twin habits of heart and mind that disposed the ruling class to defeat. The practical explanation for why and how it accepted defeat is found in the overriding interest each part of the ruling class has in doing what it wants to do.
On the night of September 11, 2001, Muslim governments strictly forbade public celebrations of the carnage. The Palestinian Authority, anticipating that outraged Americans would destroy them to avenge the day’s events, even called the attacks al nachba—“the disaster.” But as the U.S. ruling class made clear that it was accepting defeat, the Muslim world’s media and streets celebrated.
Two decades later, after that defeat’s logic had worked its way through and transformed American life, and as the government’s self-humiliating exit from Afghanistan consummated it, much of mankind followed Muslim crowds in celebrating—including prominent Americans.
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Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, is best known as home to the Army’s tank division, the revered Old Ironsides military insignia and the country’s largest military-controlled airspace. But the Biden administration’s botched exit from Afghanistan is turning the vast installation into ground zero for the evacuation of Afghans who spent two decades helping the United States fight the war against terror.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn says the fort is preparing to receive 10,000 Afghan refugees, and military officials have hinted that number could reach much higher.
It’s the second major wave of civilian guests to be hosted at the fort, which began this spring helping the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services Departments to house thousands of unaccompanied minor children who were brought across the border.
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The founder and president of the Washington-based Gold Institute for International Strategies told the Star News Network that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s foreign policy is doomed to fail, because unlike President Donald J. Trump, Biden treats the world as an extension of Washington’s Swamp.
“What President Trump realized is that Washington and the way Washington works is really only acceptable—I didn’t say good—I said it is acceptable—is on domestic matters,” said Eli Gold, who worked for worked in Washington’s think tank world for more than 10 years, before launching the Gold Institute May 2019.
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Fourteen years ago today marks the low point of the Iraq War. Mounting U.S. casualties and raging sectarian violence in an undeclared civil war was the order of the day. That changed late in the afternoon when Sheik Sattar Bezia abu Risha handed me a hand written three page document that would become the charter of the Anbar Awakening. The very thought of Iraqi tribal leaders siding with American forces, especially in Ramadi — the most dangerous city in the world, and the site of the first al Qaeda Caliphate — was unprecedented alliance. Anbar Was Lost was both the front page headline and the consensus intelligence assessment, and any mention of progress was deemed unbelievable. We had found an ally that was willing to fight the terrorist of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) with us. Sadly, most of those freedom fighters are dead today because of the poor policy decisions and neglect of the Obama-Biden White House.
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Oil prices dropped Monday as Saudi Arabia and Russia haggle over whether to reduce crude production amid fears that coronavirus will hamper air travel and potentially wreck the global economy.
Prices fell into the $30s as the Saudis push for a cut in output to prop up prices, while Russia went the other way, and decided to infuse the market with hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil, according to The Washington Post. Moscow is worried that the U.S. will use shale oil to take advantage if Saudi Arabia ease off production.
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U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH-02), an Iraqi War veteran, is calling Democrats out over the House’s passage of two measures to hamper President Donald Trump’s war powers toward Iran and Iraq.
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A man who the Iraqi government says was the leader of an Al Qaeda cell who took part in the murders of two Iraqi police officers was arrested Thursday in Phoenix, where he reportedly taught driving school.
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The Iraqi Consulate General in Detroit held a memorial event for Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, the leader of a designated terrorist organization who was killed last week in a U.S. airstrike.
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BAGHDAD – The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said Saturday it did not conduct any airstrikes near Camp Taji north of Baghdad.
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Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox singled out Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI-08) for her response to the death of Qasem Soleimani.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) said she was “outraged” with President Donald Trump for his decision to “assassinate” Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, a designated terrorist organization.
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Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-13) attacked President Donald Trump as a “lawless president” after he ordered an airstrike that took out Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, a designated terrorist organization.
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An Iran-backed militia threatened revenge Monday in response to U.S. airstrikes against its positions in Iraq and Syria, which killed at least 25 people.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Friday he will resign after weeks of deadly anti-government protests in the country.
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Former Miss Iraq Sarah Idan, who recently immigrated to the U.S. and lives in California, is speaking out against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05).
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by CHQ Staff Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, 45, an Iraqi “refugee” admitted under the Obama – Ryan refugee program was arrested Wednesday in Northern California on a warrant alleging that he killed an Iraqi policeman while fighting for the Islamic State organization. Ameen and other members of ISIS are alleged to have killed the officer after the town of Rawah, Iraq, fell to the Islamic State in June 2014, according to court documents. According to our friends at NewsMax, Ameen was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force at a Sacramento apartment building based on a warrant issued in May by an Iraqi federal court in Baghdad. U.S. officials plan to extradite him back to Iraq under a treaty with that nation, and he made his first appearance in federal court in Sacramento on Wednesday. Court documents unsealed Wednesday afternoon and reported by Sam Stanton, Darrell Smith and Julia Sclafani of the Merced (California) Sun-Star describe Ameen as a “terrorist” and leader of al-Qaida forces that captured and executed soldiers, and as a close associate of well-known terror leaders in the region. Documents reported by Stanton, Smith and Sclafani say Ameen was part of a four-vehicle convoy that drove…
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By Natalia Castro On June 13, 2016, Karrar Noaman Al Khammasi should have been deported. After violating the terms of his probation, this was the day an immigration judge determined Al Khammasi should no longer be in allowed to maintain his refugee status and live in his Colorado home. Instead, Al Khammasi took advantage of a legal loophole that allowed him to stay in the U.S. Now, Al Khammasi is being charged with shooting a Colorado police officer, Cem Duzel, after being involved in a dangerous shootout last week. Al Khammasi’s story sheds light on to deep rooted flaws in our immigration system. The Gazette of Colorado explains, Al Khammasi, a native of Iraq, was granted refugee state in May 2012 and arrived in the country six months later. In 2014, Al Khammasi pleaded guilty to trespassing, soon after, Al Khammasi violated two-year probation and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. In April 2016, Al Khammasi was paroled to the property of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and was ordered for deportation in June 2016. Four months later, immigration authorities argued that his trespassing conviction did not constitute an “aggravated felony” and there for his deportation proceedings must be terminated.…
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