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The REAL threat to the US? Transgender activists.

Trump counterterrorism strategy targets ‘violent left-wing extremists’ with ‘transgender ideology’

Source: Politico

“Violent left-wing extremists” and “extremist transgender ideology” are among the most concerning threats facing the country, according to the Trump administration counterterrorism strategy released Wednesday.

The strategy, the first released in President Donald Trump’s second term, underscores how Trump’s priorities differ from predecessors, listing “violent left-wing extremists” as one of its top three focuses, alongside “narcoterrorists” and “Islamist terrorists.”

-snip-

“It’s also about the ideology, whether it’s against Western Civilization, America, the U.S. Constitution, our friends, our allies, peace in general, you fit under that rubric,” he said.

“Our national counterterrorism activities will prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent, secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-gender or anarchist such as antifa, we will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations,” Gorka said of the modes the administration will use to target the left-wing groups.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/06/trump-counterterrorism-strategy-vows-to-counter-violent-left-wing-extremists-with-transgender-ideology-00909284

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FBI Director Kash Patel is giving away bottles of liquor with his name engraved on the bottle

Kash Patel’s Personalized Bourbon Stash

The FBI director has been leaving an unusual calling card.

By Sarah Fitzpatrick

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/kash-patel-fbi-bourbon/687066/

One of J. Edgar Hoover’s greatest reforms at the FBI was his embrace of fingerprinting. During the 1930s, visitors to the FBI offices in Washington, D.C., received souvenir fingerprint cards featuring his name. The men who succeeded him as FBI director were more discreet and judicious, mindful of the cult of personality that had developed around Hoover. They generally avoided giving out branded swag.

But then came Kash Patel.

President Trump’s FBI director has a great deal of affection for swag. Merchandise for sale on a website he co-founded—still operating, nearly 15 months into his term—includes beanies ($35), T-shirts ($35), orange camo hoodies ($65), trucker caps ($25), “government gangsters” playing cards (on sale for $10), and a Fight With Kash Punisher scarf ($25).

One thing not for sale is liquor, because liquor is something Patel gives away for free.

Last month, I reported that FBI personnel were alarmed by what they said was erratic behavior and excessive drinking by Patel. (The FBI director has denied the allegations and filed a defamation suit against The Atlantic and me.)

After my story appeared, I heard from people in Patel’s orbit and people he has met at public functions, who told me that it is not unusual for him to travel with a supply of personalized branded bourbon. The bottles bear the imprint of the Kentucky distillery Woodford Reserve, and are engraved with the words “Kash Patel FBI Director,” as well as a rendering of an FBI shield. Surrounding the shield is a band of text featuring Patel’s director title and his favored spelling of his first name: Ka$h. An eagle holds the shield in its talons, along with the number 9, presumably a reference to Patel’s place in the history of FBI directors. In some cases, the 750-milliliter bottles bear Patel’s signature, with “#9” there as well. One such bottle popped up on an online auction site shortly after my story appeared, and The Atlantic later purchased it. (The person who sold it to us did not want to be named, but said that the bottle was a gift from Patel at an event in Las Vegas.)

A bottle of whiskey with an FBI logo and Kash Patel's name on the front

Department of Defense and FBI . . . both commanded by drunken lushes, Patel and Hegseth.

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Operation Trump’s Head Up His Ass

President Trump announced on Tuesday evening that he was pausing the day-old U.S. operation to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz “for a short period of time,” citing what he said was “great progress” toward an agreement with Iran.

His announcement, in a social media post, came only hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted that the United States had concluded combat operations against Iran and was fully focused on the new mission. Only three commercial ships have managed to make it through the strait since the United States began the operation, dubbed Project Freedom, on Monday.

The president’s sudden U-turn on the escort mission was just his latest over the course of the war, which is now in its third month. When the U.S. Central Command was asked for comment on the change, a spokesman referred questions to the White House.

Mr. Rubio, briefing reporters at the White House earlier, had expanded on Mr. Trump’s assertion last week that he did not need to seek approval from Congress to continue the war in Iran beyond a 60-day legal limit, and said: “The operation is over: Epic Fury — as the president notified Congress — we’re done with that stage of it. We’re now onto this Project of Freedom.”

The war is in a shaky cease-fire, and ship traffic in the strait is a major point of contention. Iran, whose drones and missiles threaten both shipping and neighboring countries, has warned repeatedly that vessels can pass through the strait only with its permission.

At the same time, the U.S. blockade is keeping Iranian ships from crossing. Mr. Trump said in his post on Tuesday evening that the blockade would “remain in full force and effect.”

Commercial traffic is at a near-total standstill. Two commercial vessels crossed the strait under U.S. military protection on Monday and only one on Tuesday — a trickle compared to before the war, when around 130 vessels a day made the passage.

On Tuesday, the United States and Iran made competing claims about having control of the strait, which remains effectively closed. And an American ally, the United Arab Emirates, said that it had come under attack by Iranian missiles and drones for the second day in a row.

So — let’s sum up where things stand in Operation Trump’s Head Up HIs Ass:

Trump humiliated Rubio by having him defend Project Freedom to the hilt at a presser today, only to unilaterally suspend the “project” this evening

Per the Eurasia Group, Trump pulled the plug on it because 1) Iran sank a South Korean tanker and nearly took out two other ships despite US naval protection, and 2) Trump was informed by a liaison to the international shipping insurance consortium that none of their members would support it without Iran agreeing not to shoot.

In other words, Iran holds all the cards to get Trump out of this quagmire. He has to bend the knee. Is he smart enough to realize that, cut a deal and move on?

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That ol’ time religion and Trump

Do you ever wonder why conservative Evangelicals don’t seem to be bothered by the moral bankruptcy of Trump?

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2026/05/this-is-kind-of-leadership-found-in.html

The Southern Baptist Convention has always been an oligarchy controlled by a small, elite group of pastors, mainly of large, influential churches. It claims to be organized on democratic principles, but the fact of the matter is that only about 10% of its churches, in any given year, elect “messengers,” which is what they call delegates to the convention. And those who understand that involvement in denominational politics not only carries prestige, but power within the denomination, and opens a pathway to getting the necessary recommendations and influence needed to grab off the high dollar administrative jobs at the mission boards, seminaries and the Executive Committee agencies.

Being a denomination with the majority of its churches in the South, and 80% of them being in rural areas or small to mid-sized towns, with an attendance of less than 80 people on any given Sunday means that most of the churches are going to have that folk-religion, supersition and verse by verse, word for word literal interpretation of the Bible. There’s an anti-education bias in most churches, who do not trust their seminaries and consider them to be liberal because that kind of systematic study of the Bible emerges with a different result than the hard line literalist, legalistic fundamentalism that prevails.

 

Enter Patterson and Pressler. Patterson was a protege of Dr. W. A. Criswell, the influential and long time Fundamentalist pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, the SBC’s largest church at the time. He was President of the broken down Criswell College, the Bible college owned by the church. Pressler, a member of First Baptist Church of Houston at the time, another large, influential congregation, was a Texas Appeals Court Justice and a Republican party operative.

These two men set out to organize a political campaign within the denomination that had two purposes. On the surface, it was to appear as an attack on liberalism in the seminaries, using the flawed Fundamentalist doctrine of the Inerrancy and Infallibility of the Bible as a means of convincing churches to send messengers to the convention meetings to elect trustees who would be willing to dismiss professors who didn’t sign doctrinal statements claiming to believe this flawed doctrine.

However, Pressler’s job in this movement, was to connect the Southern Baptist Convention, through its board and executive leadership, with the Republican Party, initially to help get Reagan elected. As a result of their political activity, both of these men secured positions in leadership in the SBC, Patterson as President of two of its six seminaries, Pressler, rotating from committee to committee, trustee board to trustee board and eventually the Executive Committee. Over a ten year period, Patterson succeeded in pushing out the previous leadership, labelled as “moderates,” but considered to be “liberals” in the classic sense of the definition of that term, in all six seminaries and on all of the trustee boards, while Pressler helped the SBC become a major influence and supporter of the GOP, and of white, Christian nationalist views.

 

As can be discerned from the Texas Monthly article referenced at the top, the allegations against Pressler involved alleged homosexual activity. Initially, there was just one individual whose name was associated with these allegations but apparently, there are allegations involving cases that were settled out of court, involving individuals who came into contact with Pressler in at least two churches, including an independent Presbyterian church in Houston where he had been on staff as a youth pastor.

I would suggest that every person who is concerned about the threat of white Christian nationalism, and the threat to American constitutional democracy posed by the Trump Administration and his fundamentalist, Evangelical allies, including the well-funded Heritage Foundation, read this piece in Texas Monthly. The author of this piece, Robert Downen, worked alongside reporters at the Houston Chronicle on their expose of the sex abuse scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention, called Abuse of Faith, which came out in 2022.

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Israel has nuclear weapons

It’s long been acceptable for those of us outside the government to make the statement in the title line. The US government has never made that statement officially.

That denial of reality distorts all analyses of the Middle East.

Here are things that are little said by analysts and pundits, or said not at all:

  • Iran’s nuclear program is a response to Israel’s.
  • Israel wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear program to preserve its nuclear monopoly.
  • In addition to its conventional superiority, Israel’s nuclear arsenal gives it dominance in its wars.
  • Will Bibi Netanyahu feel it necessary to use nuclear weapons against Iran’s enriched uranium?
  • Iran sent a couple of warning shots toward Israel’s nuclear complex during the recent hostilities. What would it take for Israel to respond with a nuclear weapon?

In any other theater, statements like these would be part of a normal analysis. You can variously substitute other nations’ names to make sentences that have appeared in the news. The bulleted sentences may have appeared in a few news outlets, but they have not been subjects of general discussion or and seldom are part of analyses.

The first bulleted point, for example, shifts the power dynamic from the way Iran’s nuclear program has mostly been discussed. Independent analysts, including me, have not given Israel’s nuclear arsenal the weight it deserves because of the historical silence around it. Avoiding the subject because one may be attacked or ignored warps one’s thinking.

Thirty House Democrats have now written a letter to Marco Rubio, urging that the administration acknowledge Israel’s nuclear weapons program (WaPo gift link). The letter expresses concern that, with the US fighting alongside Israel, Israel’s nuclear capability and doctrine of use should be known and part of US plans.

The letter asks some very specific questions.

1. What nuclear weapons capability does Israel have?

2. Please provide information on any nuclear weapons systems that Israel fields, including warheads and launchers.

3. Regarding fissile material production capability: · Does Israel currently possess enrichment capabilities, and at what level? · Does the Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona produce fissile material? If so, please provide information on the amounts assessed to be produced and their use. · Does the Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona produce plutonium? If so, please provide information on the amounts assessed to be produced and their use.

4. Has Israel communicated to U.S. officials any nuclear doctrine, red lines, or thresholds for nuclear use in the context of the current conflict with Iran?

5. Has the administration received any assurances from Israel that nuclear weapons will not be used?

6. Have there been any indications of Israel planning to use or deploy nuclear weapons during the recent Iran conflict or during other conflicts?

7. What is the United States government’s assessment of the risks of radioactive harm to U.S. citizens and personnel in the region that could result from any further strikes on the Negev Nuclear Research Center or any other nuclear sites in Israel?

Three additional questions address the policies of the administration regarding releasing information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

The letter starts from some very basic facts. A great deal more material and speculation on Israel’s nuclear weapons program is available publicly. Avner Cohen, mentioned in the article, has written two books on the program and its politics, Israel and the Bomb and The Worst-Kept Secret, for example.

Back in the 1970’s there were US intell reports that Israel was testing nuclear weapons in South Africa.

South Africa is the only nation to have developed nuclear weapons and subsequently voluntarily dismantled them. Between the 1970s and 1989, the apartheid regime covertly built six functional “gun-type” atomic bombs. The program was dismantled in the early 1990s, and the country signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1991.

Wikipedia has this take on the question.

The Vela incident was an atmospheric nuclear explosion that occurred on 22 September 1979, near the South African territory of Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean, roughly midway between Africa and Antarctica. This explosion is widely believed to have been an undeclared test of an Israeli nuclear weapon on the ocean surface, carried out with assistance from South Africa.[1][2][3] Initially detected as a double flash of light by an American Vela Hotel satellite, further meteorological satellite, hydroacoustic,[2] and radionuclide data support the event’s identification as an atmospheric nuclear explosion.[4][5][6][7]

In 1980, US President Jimmy Carter wrote in his diary, “We have a growing belief among our scientists that the Israelis did indeed conduct a nuclear test explosion in the ocean near the southern end of Africa.”[8] Experts have suggested the weapon tested was a neutron bomb and/or nuclear artillery round, and that Israel may have carried out other nuclear tests.[3

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Trump? Turning Point USA? Never heard of them

President Donald Trump is hoping to exert enormous influence on Indiana’s primary election on Tuesday as part of a “revenge” campaign against defiant Republican state lawmakers, but early indicators suggest that the effort may have already landed with a thud.

Last year, Trump pushed hard for Indiana state Republicans to redraw their congressional district map in a way that would benefit the GOP, much as he successfully did in Texas. Trump’s efforts were met with “stiff” opposition, however, leading Trump and his allies to launch a multimillion-dollar “revenge campaign” to oust the GOP lawmakers who defied him.

That campaign got underway last week on Wednesday when the conservative advocacy organization Turning Point USA set up a “get-out-the-vote operation” for a Trump-backed candidate challenging Republican state Sen. Greg Good, who was placed on the “president’s revenge list.”

“They had lawn signs and fliers. A Spotify playlist titled ‘Trump Rally’ blared on a speaker at the outdoor Fairbanks Park amphitheater on the banks of the Wabash River,” reads a report from NOTUS published on Monday. The event, however, failed to generate the enthusiasm that Trump and his allies were likely hoping for. “Four people showed up, three of whom were part of the same family,” NOTUS reported.