[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] California's formerly overrun border with Mexico is now virtually empty just months after Donald Trump's election, images show.
Aid workers have begun packing up after weeks without seeing any migrants, SF Gate reports.
'To say there has been a dramatic change would be an understatement,' Jeffrey Stalnaker, acting chief patrol agent of the San Diego sector, said.
Not long ago, the stretch along southern California was dealing with a record number crossings.
December 2024 saw a record 301,981 people caught crossing the border illegally.
The number of migrants caught crossing illegally stayed well above 200,000-a-month for much of Biden's time in office. He insisted there was nothing he could do.
But during Trump's first month in office the number of illegal migrants intercepted plunged to just 11,709 people, making a mockery of Biden's claims that his hands were tied.
Former President Biden's decision to reverse a pandemic-era policy which denied asylum seekers and immediately deported them back to Mexico was largely blame for the spike.
President Trump vowed to tackle the border crisis if elected and has since enacted several measures which have seen daily arrests fall from their high of 1,200 to just 30.
Among them was deploying 750 US troops to reinforce six miles of the border wall with concertina wire.
Adriana Jasso, a human rights lawyer who works for the American Friends Service Committee, said the last time she saw any migrants in the notorious 'Whiskey 8' area near San Diego was February 15.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Russian Prosecutor General's Office is asking to suspend the ban on the activities of the Taliban movement (under UN sanctions for terrorist activities). This was announced on March 31 by the press service of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
Not a choice I would have made, given the various jihadi groups the Taliban shelters on their territory, some with connections to Russia. Another Beslan, another Crocus City Hall… but it that’s what you want, to feel like a world player, go for it.
“The administrative claim of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to suspend the ban on the activities of the Taliban movement, which is included in the single federal list of organizations, including foreign and international organizations, recognized as terrorist in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, has been accepted for processing,” the press service responded to journalists’ questions.
It is noted that the court scheduled the consideration of the Prosecutor General's Office's application for April 17.
In Russia, the Taliban movement was recognized as a terrorist organization in 2003.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on December 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law introducing a mechanism for temporarily suspending the ban on the activities of a terrorist organization by a court decision. It was specified that this could happen if there was actual data on the cessation of activities aimed at promoting, justifying and supporting terrorism. In addition, after the court decision is made, a copy will be sent to the FSB within five days for further changes to the list of terrorist organizations.
Earlier, on December 10, the State Duma also adopted in the first reading a bill to exclude this movement from the list of those banned in Russia.
In November, the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov noted that the removal of the terrorist organization status from the Taliban is necessary for the development of contacts with the Afghan authorities. The Kremlin representative emphasized that Moscow intends to establish relations with this country.
[Breitbart] Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud wrote a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump last week offering the United States exclusive control of some of the nation’s airbases and ports, which would greatly improve America’s military presence in the region.
The implicit bargain was that the U.S. would use these bases to protect Somalia against incursions by Islamist militants.
“These strategically positioned assets provide an opportunity to bolster American engagement in the region, ensuring uninterrupted military and logistical access while preventing external competitors from establishing a presence in this critical corridor,” Mohamud wrote to Trump, as related by Reuters, which reviewed a copy of the March 16 letter on Friday.
Reuters mentioned four specific sites covered by the letter: airbases in Baledogle and Berbera and ports in Berbera and Bosaso.
Baledogle’s airfield, located about 55 miles from Mogadishu, is already heavily utilized by the U.S. military. The Port of Bosaso is controlled by the autonomous state of Puntland and operated by a company from the United Arab Emirates, which has been working to modernize the port’s commercial facilities.
By far the most provocative aspect of the Somali president’s letter was his offer to give the United States operational control over the port and airfield in Berbera, which is located in the breakaway province of Somaliland. The region became part of Somalia in 1960 and declared independence in 1991 after overthrowing a brutal military dictator. It has been self-governing since then, with its own president, administration, and constitution. No other country recognizes Somaliland’s independence, however.
The breakaway region’s inhabitants consider their government to be more honest and transparent than Somalia’s. Somalilanders have won international applause for holding clean elections where opposition parties can actually win sometimes, though no other nation or major international organization formally recognizes the outcome of those elections.
Somaliland Foreign Minister Abdirahman Dahir Aden was not amused when Reuters told him the president of Somalia offered to give control of Berbera’s port and airfield to the United States.
“The USA gave up this corrupted regime called Somalia. The USA is now ready to deal with Somaliland, who has shown the world to be a peaceful, stable, and democratic nation,” he asserted.
“The USA is not stupid. They know who they need to deal with when it comes to Berbera port,” he added confidently.
“It is astonishing to hear statements from the President of Somalia, who cannot even manage Mogadishu, yet meddles in Berbera,” Somaliland President Abdirahman Irro told reporters on Saturday.
“I tell the international community, the President of the United States, and the world at large: Somaliland governs its own land, sea, and airspace,” he declared.
The Financial Times (FT) reported on March 14 that American diplomats have made initial contacts with Irro’s administration to take control of Berbera’s port in exchange for U.S. recognition of Somaliland’s independence. According to FT’s sources, these “very tentative, initial contacts” represented the “beginnings of a conversation” about the U.S. acquiring territory in Somaliland, which might be used to handle refugees from Gaza under President Trump’s vision of relocating the Palestinians and renovating Gaza to become “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Irro denied negotiating with the U.S. to relocate the Palestinians in February, and Somali President Mohamud has insisted the Palestinians must remain in Gaza.
[IsraelTimes] Columbia University’s coalition of anti-Israel protest groups says it has been banned from Instagram for the second time.
Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an alliance of dozens of student groups, says on the Telegram messaging app that it was banned “because we dared to speak up for Palestine.”
“This is part of a long and concerted imperial effort to censor and erase the Palestinian people,” the group says.
The group shares a screenshot of a message from Instagram saying its account was disabled because it “doesn’t follow our Community Standards.”
The message says that the group’s account is no longer visible, accessible to its managers, and that all of its information will be permanently deleted.
“You cannot request another review of this decision,” the message says.
The account’s page says it is no longer available.
The account was suspended from Instagram in December 2024, after posting threatening rhetoric, but reinstated days later. At the time, it had more than 40,000 followers.
Unlike the previous ban, the latest suspension appeared to be permanent.
It was not clear what the group posted to cause the ban this week.
Instagram last year also banned Within Our Lifetime, the leading anti-Israel protest group in New York City, which often collaborates with the Columbia activists.
[ZeroHedge] A Spanish conservative lawmaker is facing a hate crime investigation after a press conference in which he highlighted the link between mass immigration and rising crime rates — a connection supported by official data but often ignored by Spain’s far-left administration.
José Antonio Fúster, national spokesman for the populist Vox party and member of the Madrid Assembly, addressed the media on July 29 last year, where he read out the forenames of several dozen individuals arrested during violent incidents in Barcelona that weekend.
“Sabar, Omar, Nassim, Abdelkader, Salah, Salah, Younes, Karim, Jamil, Amir, Ali, Oussama, Hassan… I can go on. Do you notice any patterns? Do you notice anything?” Fúster asked.
“We do, and this is what we have been denouncing for a long time, that the open-door policy of the Popular Party and the PSOE has direct consequences on the security of Spaniards,” he added.
Though the list he read had the surnames redacted and had already circulated online via party channels, his public use of it has led the National Police to file a report for alleged incitement to hatred. Fúster, protected by parliamentary immunity as a sitting deputy, expressed disbelief upon receiving the notification last week and doubled down on his comments.
“We’re constantly told that immigration and crime have no link,” Fúster said, as cited by Spanish digital newspaper The Objective.
“But they’re not fooling anyone. The criminals that Spaniards endure in their neighborhoods have names — and we all know them.”
Vox maintains that spurious criminal complaints are part of a wider effort to silence those who raise valid security concerns. The party highlighted charges against MP Rocío de Meer last year for writing, “The future of this country is dark,” in response to the birth of a child named Ayoub in a rural Spanish village, and Jordi de la Fuente, another Vox figure, who is awaiting trial over a 2019 protest targeting an asylum center.
The party continues to call for reform of Article 510 of the Penal Code, which defines hate crimes, arguing it has been weaponized to censor uncomfortable conversations. In a recent interview, Vox leader Santiago Abascal remarked, “What they call ‘hate speech’ is often just speech they hate. We’re simply describing reality, and it’s backed by the government’s own data.”
Some of that government data was reported on by Remix News last month after an information request by La Gaceta online newspaper found a growing trend in violent crimes involving foreign nationals.
Between 2013 and 2023, for example, homicides involving foreign suspects soared by 69 percent compared to a 28 percent increase in total cases.
Similarly, the Spanish Interior Ministry’s own crime stats for 2023 revealed that the top 10 Spanish cities with the highest rates of violent robberies and intimidation were all located in Catalonia, with foreigners vastly overrepresented.
The data showed that there are 8,505 inmates in Catalan prisons and that 50.48 percent of them are foreigners.
When focusing on specific violent offenses like rape, 91 percent of those convicted in Catalonia are foreigners. When it comes to sexual assault and rape combined, 64.2 percent of all prisoners are foreigners.
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) March 30, 2025
Asra Nomani
@AsraNomani
Hello
@ElonMusk
and Friends,
You asked who is funding and organizing the #TeslaTakedown protests. I've got answers for you, after going onto the streets of northern Virginia for the local protests here, seeing familiar faces from the Virginia Democratic political machine and then following the money -- and the data.
AstroTurf Protest Industry
To your question, at latest count, as of 3/30, 5:30 AM:
🔴24 organizations and counting are funding and organizing the #TeslaTakedown protests and leading the very partisan propaganda campaign against Tesla, Tesla drivers, Tesla employees, Donald Trump and you. See below to see all 24 groups with their revenues, involvement, tax ID numbers and other info.
🔴These organizations have combined annual revenues of at least $124 MILLION and counting.
🔴 100% of the groups are aligned with the Democratic Party. At the protest on 3/29 at Tyco Road, in Tysons, Va., a photo I took of a "Virginia Democrats" sign in front of the Tesla dealership.
🔴 Most of these groups enjoy tax-deductible status as 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations, claiming they are "nonpartisan." A few have PACs. The organizations have not returned requests for comment.
Database
🔴 You can see the raw data on 306 #TeslaTakedown protests in the database here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13MOGhdMPc-_lGGdEGkS0QVSayczGG7Z5rlk_LUxdCTk/edit?usp=sharing
Back story
I'm a former Wall Street Journal reporter and a propaganda expert and editor of the
@DPearlProject
, a journalism nonprofit named for my WSJ colleague and friend Daniel Pearl. Since Oct. 7th, I have been reporting on the anti-Jew, anti-America, anti-Israel protests and building a database, following the money. It numbers 2,000 groups now, and I am working on a web and mobile app for parents, policymakers, university administrators, law enforcement, the public and others.
I went to the #TeslaTakedown protest a week ago Saturday on Tyco Road at the Tysons, Va., and saw familiar faces from Indivisible and the Fairfax County Democratic Party, shouting for you to be deported as they stood outside the Tesla dealership. I wondered too who is organizing and funding the protests nationwide.
I got the protest details scraped from ActionNetwork and Mobilize, the two platforms aligned with the Democratic Party promoting the #TeslaTakedown protests, and built a public database of the groups behind the Tesla protest.
AstroTurf, not "grassroots"
🔴 In an article for the
@FairfaxTimes
, I wrote about how the local protests in Tysons, are a window into how the protests are AstroTurf, not "grassroots." What this case reveals is the way that a multi-million dollar professional protest industry manufactures outrage in top-down political theater, agitprop, or agitation propaganda, and now criminal offenses. Here is the article: https://fairfaxtimes.com/articles/local-teslatakedown-reveals-grassroots-protests-are-astroturf/article_1c368d4d-708c-4074-b5fa-5eaf6a32ea97.html
🔴 Next step: I just got data on the April 5 #HandsOff protests and will be adding that data to the database. In addition, I am completing an analysis of the propaganda using the tools of natural language processing and content analysis.
Why is this important to report on? Because defending principles of free enterprise and individual liberty in the U.S. means allowing people to buy whatever make of car they wish without fear of danger or harassment and allowing companies to do business without fear of danger or harassment.
All, please let me know if you have any questions, ideas or recommendations.
Asra
asra@asranomani.com
To support the Pearl Project: http://asranomani.com/donate
24+ Groups Leading and Funding #TeslaTakedown
(and counting)
🔴1. Name: 50501
Mission: protesting "anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies"
Annual Revenues: not yet found
IRS Status: Not transparent
Headquarters: Not transparent
EIN IRS Number: Not transparent
Key Leader(s): Not transparent
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: Protests
🔴2. Name: ActionNetwork
Mission: "trains and educates progressive"
Annual Revenues: unknown
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
EIN IRS Number: 46-1832144
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: Organizing platform.
🔴3. Name: Action Network Fund
Mission: "helps organizations incorporate organizing strategies"
Annual Revenues: 195025
IRS Status: 501(c)(3)
EIN IRS Number: 45-2288010
Key Leader(s): Mark Fleischman
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: Organizing platform
🔴4. Name: ActUp New York Inc.
Mission: ACT UP NY, the "AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power," a "diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis."
Annual Revenues: $36,411
IRS Status: not yet found
Headquarters: New York
EIN IRS Number: 13-3501884
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: NYC demonstrations
🔴5. Name: Climate Defenders
Annual Revenues: not yet found
IRS Status: Program of the New York Communities Organizing Fund, Inc., 501(c)(3)
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: NYC protests
🔴6. Name: Climate Defenders Action Fund
Mission: Dedicated to "dismantle the fossil fuel industry"
Annual Revenues: not yet found
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: San Diego
EIN IRS Number: 82-3232098
Key Leader(s): Cecilia Aguillon, Tara Kelly Hammond, Christine James, Lester Machado, David Neison
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: NYC
🔴7. Name: Democratic Party local and state chapters
Annual Revenues: Tallying for each chapter
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: Local presence in coordinated events
🔴8. Name: Democratic Socialists of America
Annual Revenues: $5,800,000
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: New York
EIN IRS Number: 13-3109557
Key Leader(s): Michael Grochowski
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: local protests
🔴9. Name: Disruption Project
Annual Revenues: 28480
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: Philadelphia
EIN IRS Number: 85-1066939
Key Leader(s): Wende Marshall, Kathryn Sipp, Arielle Klagsbrun, Jeffrey Ordower
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: 218/306 protests
🔴10. Name: Housing Works Inc.
Mission: providing "assistance & expertise to homeless persons living with AIDS or HIV-related illnesses"
Annual Revenues: $51,762,615
IRS Status: 501(c)(3)
Headquarters: Brooklyn, N.Y.
EIN IRS Number: 13-3584089
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: NYC demonstrations
🔴11. Name: Indivisible Action
Annual Revenues: $9,922,930
IRS Status: Hybrid Political Action Committee
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
EIN IRS Number: 83-0529629
Key Leader(s): Elizabeth Ramey
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: National protests
🔴12. Name: Indivisible Project, organizing "Tesla Takedown" and "Hands Off" protests
Annual Revenues: 12565196
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
EIN IRS Number: 81-4944067
Key Leader(s): Leah Greenberg, Ezra Levin
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: 88/306; it has bragged it has organized 600 #HandsOff protests for April 5.
🔴13. Name: http://Mobilize.us, run by MobilizeAmerica Inc. - owned by EveryAction, the parent company of NGP VAN
Annual Revenues: not found yet
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: organizing platform
🔴14. Name: MoveOnorg Civic Action
Annual Revenues: $6,000,000
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: Beaverton, Or.
EIN IRS Number: 06-1553389
Key Leader(s): Rahna Epting
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: #HandsOff "De-escalation Training"
🔴15. Name: Not Above the Law Coalition -- counted now as one but includes numerous groups
Members: As of 6/9/2023: American Oversight; Center for American Progress Action Fund; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW); Common Cause; Congressional Integrity Project; Constitutional Accountability Center; The Criminalization of Poverty Project at the Institute for Policy Studies; Daily Kos; Defend Democracy Action Project; Defend the Vote Action Fund; DemCast USA; End Citizens United/Let America Vote; Fix Democracy First; Free Speech For People; Greenpeace USA; Indivisible; J Street; League of Conservation Voters; MoveOn; NextGen America; Our Revolution; People For the American Way; People Power United; Public Citizen; Public Wise; Secure Elections Network; Sierra Club; Stand Up America; Wisconsin Democracy Campaign; and The Workers Circle. SOURCE: press release
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: "Hands Off! Mass Call for mobilizing against Trump's power grab"
🔴16. Name: Planet Over Profit
Annual Revenues: not yet found
IRS Status: Program of New York Communities Organizing Fund, Inc.
EIN IRS Number: not yet found
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: NYC demonstrations
🔴17. Name: Public Citizen Foundation
Annual Revenues: $13,389,271
IRS Status: 501(c)(3)
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
EIN IRS Number: 52-1263996
Key Leader(s): Mark Chavez, director, chair; Robert Weissman, president; Sid Wolfe, founder, senior fellow;
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: NYC demonstrations
🔴18. Name: Public Citizen Inc.
Annual Revenues: $5,728,329
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
EIN IRS Number: 23-7104508
Key Leader(s): JASON ADKINS, DIRECTOR, CHAIR; JOAN CLAYBROOK, DIRECTOR; ROBERT WEISSMAN, PRESIDENT
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: "Hands Off! Mass Call for mobilizing against Trump's power grab"
🔴19. Name: Rise and Resist Inc.
Annual Revenues: $21,999
IRS Status: 501(c)(4) (most recent filing 2017)
Headquarters: New York, N.Y.
EIN IRS Number: 82-2188628
Key Leader(s): Ivy Arce, Martin Joseph QUinn, Jamie Ray Bauer, Jay W. Walker, Stuart Waldman
Annual Revenues: $14,588
IRS Status: Fiscal program of A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, 501(c)(3) - EIN No. 23-7379088
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: NYC demonstrations
🔴20. Name: Stand Up America Inc.
Mission: Established to "mobilize progressive Americans"
Annual Revenues: $9.867,658
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: Bethesda, Md.
EIN IRS Number: 32-0512546
Key Leader(s): Sean Eldridge, Christina Harvey, Joe Hines, Brett Edkins, Monica Garcia, Joi Rae, Brynna Quillin
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: "Hands Off! Mass Call for mobilizing against Trump's power grab"
🔴21. Name: Swing Left
Mission: Dedicated to "help Democrats win"
Annual Revenues: $16,523,456
IRS Status: Hybrid PAC/Super PAC
EIN IRS Number: FEC Committee ID: C00632133
Key Leader(s): Yasmin Radjy
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: Protests
🔴22. Name: Tax Reformers LLC, running "http://TaxElon.us" "("an offshoot of http://TeslaTakedown.com")
Annual Revenues: not yet found
IRS Status: not yet found
Headquarters: Erie, Pa.
EIN IRS Number: not yet found
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: Protests
🔴23. Name: Third Act Initiative Inc.
Annual Revenues: $2,008,973
IRS Status: 501(c)(4)
Headquarters: New York
EIN IRS Number: 88-0776955
Key Leader(s): Bill McKibben, Vanessa Arcara, Akaya Windwood
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: DC, Virginia and Maryland protests
🔴24. Name: Troublemakers
Annual Revenues: not yet available
IRS Status: not yet available
Headquarters: Seattle
EIN IRS Number: not yet available
Key Leader(s): unknown
Involvement in Tesla Takedown: 224/306 protests
If you have any tips to add to this reporting, please write to me at asra@asranomani.com or DM me. Thank you.
[IsraelTimes] A Cornell University student who participated in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests and was asked to surrender by US immigration officials says he was leaving the United States, citing fear of detention and threats to his personal safety.
Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies and dual citizen of the UK and The Gambia, has participated in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack. His attorneys said last month that he was asked to turn himself in and that his student visa was being revoked.
US President Donald Trump has pledged to deport foreign protesters accused them of supporting Hamas, being antisemitic and taking part in violent or destructive campus demonstrations.
Last year, Taal was in a group of activists who disrupted a career fair on campus that featured weapons manufacturers and the university thereafter ordered him to study remotely. He previously posted online that “colonized peoples have the right to resist by any means necessary.”
Taal filed a lawsuit in mid-March to block deportations of protesters, a bid that was denied by a judge last week.
“Given what we have seen across the United States, I have lost faith that a favorable ruling from the courts would guarantee my personal safety and ability to express my beliefs,” Taal says on X.
[IsraelTimes] School president acknowledges antisemitism problem, but says it’s being addressed and warns that cut would ‘halt life-saving research, imperil key scientific research and innovation’
The Trump administration said on Monday that it was reviewing $9 billion in federal contracts and grants awarded to Harvard University, part of a crackdown on what it says is antisemitism on college campuses.
The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and the US General Services Administration said in a written statement that $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard, its affiliates and the federal government were being reviewed, along with $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments.
The investigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to pressure American universities to change their policies on a number of issues at the heart of culture wars that have beset the US in recent years.
Supporters of Trump’s efforts say it is a long-needed check on far-left extremism at US colleges. Critics say the crackdown is a draconian over-reaction that stomps on academic freedom and the right to free speech.
"If this funding is stopped, it will halt life-saving research and imperil important scientific research and innovation," Alan Garber, the president of Harvard, said in a written statement.
Some of that, yes. But at Harvard as in the rest of academia, most of the research is a waste of money and never should have been approved.
Garber said that antisemitism "is present on our campus" and that he had experienced it himself, even as the university president.
He said Harvard had been enacting reforms to combat antisemitism during the past 15 months, though, he acknowledged that "we still have much work to do," and the university will work with the federal government’s antisemitism task force on the matter.
The focus on Harvard comes after the Trump administration this month canceled $400 million in federal funding for fellow Ivy League school Columbia University. It was the epicenter of anti-Israel protests that broke out on college campuses following the October 7, 2023, Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... attack inside Israel, and Israel’s subsequent incursion in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , the Paleostinian enclave controlled by Hamas.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the administration conflates their criticism of US ally Israel’s assault on Gaza with antisemitism and their support for Paleostinian rights as sympathy for Hamas.
Columbia earlier this month announced it had made some changes demanded by the Trump administration to start negotiations to win back its federal funding. The university’s interim president announced over the weekend that she was stepping down after an outcry by some students and faculty over what they characterized as the school’s acquiescence to the federal demands. In addition to targeting funds, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have detained some foreign student protesters in recent weeks and are working to deport them.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration suspended $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania, another Ivy League school, over its transgender sports policies.
The Department of Education this month sent a letter to 60 universities — including Harvard — warning that it could bring enforcement actions against them under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act if they failed to protect Jewish students on their campuses. It said antisemitic "eruptions" have disrupted life at elite schools around the country for a year.
"Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from antisemitic discrimination — all while promoting divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... ideologies over free inquiry — has put its reputation in serious jeopardy," said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon ...business executive, and former professional wrestling performer. She was the 25th administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019. McMahon has been nominated to lead the Department of Education under the second Trump administration. McMahon, along with her husband, Vince McMahon, founded sports entertainment company Titan Sports, Inc. (later World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.) where she worked as the president and later CEO from 1980 to 2009. During this time, the company grew from a regional business in the northeast to a large multinational corporation. She made occasional on-screen performances, most notably in a feud with her husband that culminated at WrestleMania X-Seven. In 2009, she left World Wrestling Entertainment to run for a seat in the United States Senate from Connecticut as a Republican, but lost to Richard Blumenthal in the 2010 general election. She was the Republican nominee for Connecticut's other Senate seat in the 2012 race, but lost to Chris Murphy because that's the kind of guy people in Connecticutt like best. ... . "Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus."
Harvard and other elite universities came into the crosshairs of conservatives in late 2023, when the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology appeared before a congressional committee looking into a rise in antisemitism on campuses.
Former Harvard President Claudine Gay, along with the other school leaders, declined to give a definitive "yes" or "no" answer when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ codes of conduct regarding bullying and harassment, saying they had to balance it against free-speech protections.
[IsraelTimes] As at Columbia University, its fellow Ivy League school, Cornell University, has had a pro-Paleostinian, anti-Israel student protest leader sought for deportation — as well as a handful of disruptive protests this year of the sort that drew attention from the Trump administration.
But Mike Kotlikoff, Cornell’s new president, says he isn’t too worried that protest activity on his campus will ignite the kind of sweeping federal sanctions Columbia has faced.
"I’m very comfortable with where Cornell is currently," Kotlikoff said in an interview on Thursday, five days after being appointed permanently to the position he has held on an interim basis since July 2024.
"We’ve had a relatively peaceful two semesters this year," he added. "We’ve had a couple of situations where individuals who were protesting really went over the line and infringed on other people’s rights, and in both of those cases, there were consequences for those infringements."
Kotlikoff said he believed that conditions on campus for Jewish students are "pretty close" to where they stood on October 6, 2023, the day before the Hamas-led massacre that saw some 1,200 people slaughtered in southern Israel and 251 kidnapped to the Gazoo Strip ignited a war that has elicited widespread protests on campuses and elsewhere.
He noted that both Hillel and Chabad are in the process of constructing new buildings and said there were more than 30 active Jewish organizations at Cornell.
"There’s really a lot of Jewish activity, Jewish life that [is] celebrated on campus," he said. "I periodically go to Shabbat. I’m going to go to Passover Shabbat. So I think it’s pretty normal. If you ask most kids, it’s quite comfortable on campus."
Trump signed an executive order within days of taking office in January that vowed to deport "Hamas sympathizers" on campus under the mantle of combating antisemitism. One, Momodou Taal, is a Cornell graduate student. He has sued the Trump administration to block his deportation, saying that his free speech and that of his fellow pro-Paleostinian students is being infringed upon. A federal judge issued a preliminary ruling against him on Thursday.
Kotlikoff said Cornell had adopted four core principles "for how we would meet the political pressures that we’re currently seeing" that would allow the school to stick to its own values in such a contested environment. They include ensuring access for all, prioritizing diversity and making decisions based on merit. The last principle, he said, was obeying the law: "That is obeying the law as it’s written, not necessarily what’s asserted, but what is we believe is a lawful way to proceed."
The Trump administration applied financial penalties to pressure Columbia into agreeing to overhaul supervision of some of its academic departments that teach about the Middle East. It’s in an unusual intervention of the federal government into academics at a private university, and the American Association of University Professors has decried the move.
Kotlikoff drew criticism last year from the American Association of University Professors for challenging a professor, in private emails that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency obtained, over the content of his course on Gaza. Kotlikoff said the incident reflected the way things are supposed to work — and noted that the course ultimately enrolled only a handful of students, while another course on the Middle East that calls on students to "leave your politics at the door and have a free exchange" of ideas enrolled hundreds.
"The choice of what to teach as faculty is a really a key part of academic freedom," he said. "My private criticism of a course that was publicized was one around balance within the classroom. It’s something that we expect, and we’ve talked a lot about."
But ultimately, he said, expectations for professors are the same as they are for students — and both retain a core right to express themselves, no matter what any advocate or the Trump administration may argue.
"We’re not suppressing speech, we’re not suppressing individual opinions," he said. "But we are saying [to] you there are guidelines that protect all of our community’s rights, and my job as a university president is to protect everybody’s rights."
#2
Harvard med's most famous accomplishment: 1988
Laser tattoo removal. Mass General researchers develop laser treatment for removal of pigmented lesions and tattoos.
[FoxNews] Kentucky Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman is hopeful that the Trump administration will address an issue he says is a little-known "loophole" allowing shipments of fentanyl to enter the U.S.
"On its face, this looks hyper technical and bureaucratic, but what it is is closing a loophole," Coleman told Fox News Digital in an interview on Monday. "And it's closing a loophole where we receive a massive number of shipments from overseas, particularly China, that receive under this Type 86 with little or no inspection. And that should astound people, that there's little or no inspection in this threat environment."
Coleman is referring to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pilot program called Entry Type 86, which was introduced to streamline the importation process for low-value shipments, particularly those associated with e-commerce. However, Coleman, along with 24 other Republican attorneys general, says the program's "use far exceeds its original scope" and "raises serious concerns about the flood of deadly drugs coming into our country."
Not just drugs, but all the cheap, legal stuff bought from Amazon and WalMart that’s shipped primarily directly from China.
"We're looking at over a billion packages shipped through this loophole last year," Coleman said. "That's in an environment where, I would argue, we're facing a threat that has never existed before, and that is this, no margin of error environment in which we're trying to raise families and protect families, and that is an environment where as little as one pill can and is killing people can and is killing folks Kentuckians."
Coleman said they urged the Biden administration to look into the program, and now, they are hoping the Trump administration will respond to a letter they sent Monday. Most of the shipments are arriving from Mexico and China, he said.
"Entry Type 86 now accounts for 75% of all de minimis goods entering the United States, with shipments increasing from 153 million in 2015 to more than 1.2 billion in 2024," the AGs wrote to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "Any surge of this magnitude requires further study, especially when it comes to potential challenges within our customs enforcement system. It raises serious concerns about the flood of deadly drugs coming."
Law enforcement and those in the shipping industry are well aware that this loophole exists, Coleman said, and it is unlikely to surprise those in Washington receiving this information, and there are ongoing dialogues about the potential dangers of parcel shipments with law enforcement agencies.
"This is what drug trafficking looks like in the 21st century," Coleman said. "It looks very different than ‘Breaking Bad.’ It looks very different than what we saw a decade ago. It's not surreptitious."
"I'm optimistic that the administration will be responsive," he added.
#1
This is also where you get the goods that are sold by a supposed US vendor, actually come from China, and when you try to return it, return shipping is more than the item is worth.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/01/2025 11:43 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Obama gave China some crazy discount shipping rates.
Bought a jacket once, it had zippers but no pockets.
Bought a shirt once, it had buttons, but the buttons were sewn on with no button holes.
Bought some other stuff that was bait and switch, were they used the designers pictures but sent a poor knock-off instead. That's what really made me rage b/c the whole operation was to rip you off knowing that it would cost you triple the cost to send it back. And if you complained, Amazon would protect China by staying out of it, telling me to take it up with the vendor.
2000's Amazon had my back no matter what.
2010+ Amazon has China's back, no matter what.
I use Amazon as little as possible anymore. Cheap China Garbage.
#3
We found online- ok my wife found- a frame for holding logs to cut up with a chainsaw. $20 Australian. It’s a scam, said I. Waited about a year. Finally arrives- a little goldish locket on a chain with a letter of undying love and gratitude from our dearest vendor. That was the last thing we ever bought from China.
Angel Mom of woman murdered by illegal aliens slams radical judges blocking administration deportation efforts.
Last week, Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was found dumped in a drain near a trail in Maryland eighteen months ago, slammed Boasberg, who is attempting to single-handedly undermine national security.
[IsraelTimes] Long-promised fence to stop frequent gun- and drug-smuggling will run from Golan Heights down to Ramon airport, hewing close to border, with remainder to Eilat already upgraded
Israel intends to begin building a long-promised new fence along the border with Jordan in June, The Times of Israel learned on Monday. The work was expected to take three years.
The fence will run from Hamat Gader at the southern edge of the Golan Heights to the Ramon International Airport north of Eilat. A 30-kilometer (18-mile) portion of the border with Jordan, from Eilat to Ramon Airport, was already upgraded in a similar fashion to Israel’s border barriers with Egypt and the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip in the 2010s.
The new fence will cost NIS 5.2 billion ($1.4 billion).
Israel will aim to build the fence as close as possible to the actual border with Jordan, keeping in mind security and topographical considerations. The current fence leaves some 170 square kilometers between it and the border.
It also has plans to develop new towns along the border.
There is an aging chain link fence equipped with sensors along some of the border that Jordan shares with Israel and the West Bank. Other sections are only equipped with barbed wire.
The border’s porousness has made it a site of frequent gun- and drug-running. Officials say that weapons that have made it over the border — likely tens of thousands over the past decade — have fueled a surge in violence in the Arab community in Israel, and have been used by Paleostinian terrorists.
Last August, then-foreign minister and now-Defense Minister Israel Katz called for a security fence to be built "quickly" along the Israel-Jordan border, accusing Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... of attempting to establish an "eastern terror front" against Israel by smuggling in weapons via Jordan.
In November, the Defense Ministry said it had begun preliminary work on the project.
The idea of boosting the existing fence or building some sort of border wall has been floated repeatedly by Netanyahu and others for more than a decade, although many have seen any such major effort as unlikely due to the sheer length of the border and the enormous cost.
In September 2023, Netanyahu once again floated the idea of building a fence along the entire length of the border to "ensure that there will be no infiltration." The prime minister also ordered IDF and Defense Ministry officials to start planning in 2012, touted the start of construction of a sensor-laden fence on the southern border with Jordan in 2015, and announced in 2016 that he planned to "surround the entire State of Israel with a fence."
For years, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials touted its NIS 3.5 billion ($1.1 billion) hi-tech state-of-the-art fence along the border with Gaza, which was equipped with a wall of iron, sensors and concrete, as providing ultimate security to citizens in the area.
On the morning of October 7, 2023, the wall was handily breached by thousands of Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... terrorists, who disabled its sensors with drones, knocked parts of the barrier down with bulldozers, then drove right through the gaping holes while others sailed right over in paragliders, ultimately massacring around 1,200 people in Israel and taking 251 hostage in Gaza.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF’s Strategy and Third-Circle Directorate, tasked with the military’s Iran file, is being shuttered today and its units are being returned to the Planning and Force Design Directorate, the military announces.
New IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, upon entering the role earlier this month, ruled that the Iran unit, established only in 2020 by former chief of staff Aviv Kohavi, would be closed.
The Planning Directorate, headed by Vice Adm. Eyal Harel, will now be responsible for the Planning Division; the international cooperation unit, known as the Tevel Division; and the Strategic Division.
The Combat Methods and Innovation Division and Iran Headquarters unit are also being placed under the Planning Directorate for now, though they may be moved to another directorate at a later stage, the IDF says.
In 2020, the IDF established the Iran directorate by removing the Tevel and Strategic divisions from the Planning Directorate, rebranding it as the Planning and Force Design Directorate, and opening a new Iran Headquarters unit. The three units were then placed under the Strategy and Third-Circle Directorate.
The current commander of the Iran directorate, Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano announced his intention to resign from the military in December.
[Jpost] The initial firing misses the drone, but in a second round of shots, the TYPHOON system successfully hits the drone, causing it to fall and crash into the sand.
[IsraelTimes] The IAF airstrikes earlier this month on the T-4 airbase near Palmyra were designed to warn foreign powers against building up a military presence in Syrian air bases, The Times of Israel has learned.
Last week, a Turkish Defense Ministry source told Sky News Arabia that the country is looking into establishing a base in Syria to train the new Syrian army.
A senior IDF official told The War Zone last week that “any significant Turkish military presence, especially in strategic locations like Palmyra, could be perceived as a threat to Israeli security interests.”
In addition, the airstrikes Israel carried out in Beirut over the weekend were meant as a message to Lebanon’s government.
Good to know.
Israel wants the new government headed by Joseph Aoun to understand that it will be held responsible for rocket fire into Israel.
Two rockets were fired at northern Israel from Lebanon last Friday.
Israel also believes that Hezbollah recognizes that it cannot avoid pulling back fully north of the Litani River.
In the meantime, Israel remains in five points inside of Lebanon, and will stay there for the foreseeable future.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...business executive, and former professional wrestling performer. She was the 25th administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019. McMahon has been nominated to lead the Department of Education under the second Trump administration. McMahon, along with her husband, Vince McMahon, founded sports entertainment company Titan Sports, Inc. (later World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.) where she worked as the president and later CEO from 1980 to 2009. During this time, the company grew from a regional business in the northeast to a large multinational corporation. She made occasional on-screen performances, most notably in a feud with her husband that culminated at WrestleMania X-Seven. In 2009, she left World Wrestling Entertainment to run for a seat in the United States Senate from Connecticut as a Republican, but lost to Richard Blumenthal in the 2010 general election. She was the Republican nominee for Connecticut's other Senate seat in the 2012 race, but lost to Chris Murphy because that's the kind of guy people in Connecticutt like best. ...
Angel Mom of woman murdered by illegal aliens slams radical judges blocking administration deportation efforts.
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
