[Breitbart] Leader of the far-left La France Insoumise party Jean-Luc Mélenchon has thrown his hat in the ring for the election to succeed term-limmited President Emmanuel Macron, pitching himself as the candidate of the multicultural "New France".
Mélenchon, who is often compared to fellow septuagenarian socialist firebrands Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, will make his fourth run at the Élysée Palace after falling short in the 2022, 2017, and 2022 races, all of which he failed to advance to the second round. However, his strong 3rd-place finish in 2022 — behind National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and French President Emmanuel Macron — catapulted his LFI (France in Rebellion) party to national prominence and to the forefront of the French far-left.
Leader of the far-left La France Insoumise party Jean-Luc Mélenchon has thrown his hat in the ring for the election to succeed term-limmited President Emmanuel Macron, pitching himself as the candidate of the multicultural "New France".
The Moroccan-born Spanish-Sicilian migrant who moved to France at the age of 11 began his political career just five years later as an activist and student organiser in the Besancon region during the May 1968 uprising, which saw a national leftist revolt led by Marxist university students and trade labour unions against the conservative-leaning De Gaulle government. As a child of the revolution, Mélenchon continues to cite the rebellion as a fundamental moment in his life and has become one of the leading proponents of the movement’s core tenets, including anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, environmentalism, and socialism.
Although the young radical broke with his Trotskyite comrades to join the Socialist Party where he served as a long-standing ally of former President Francois Mitterrand, whom he praises to this day for his leftist reforms, Mélenchon broke with the Socialists in 2008 to form the Left Party, which he later split from again to form La France Insoumise in 2016. While he later made common cause to form the New Popular Front election coalition with the Socialists and other leftist parties in 2024, perhaps predictably, the alliance has since disintegrated amid persistent infighting among the various left-wing factions.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been granted parole in his 2012 election campaign spending scandal. This was reported on May 6 by RTL radio, citing the Paris Court of Appeal.
The court sided with the defense and granted Sarkozy's request for a mitigated sentence. Now the former president is free to dispense with the electronic bracelet he was required to wear while serving his six-month sentence in this case.
In late September 2025, a Paris court sentenced Sarkozy to five years in prison for allegedly financing his 2007 election campaign by the Libyan government. The former French president was also fined €100,000 and banned from holding public office for five years. The trial established that Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign was financed by then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who donated €50 million to the French politician, which helped him win the election and remain president of France until 2012.
On October 21, 2025, Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, were transferred to La Santé Prison in Paris. In November, the Paris Court of Appeal approved Sarkozy's release. He was released from prison under judicial supervision, with a ban on leaving France. Sarkozy stated that he never imagined that at 70 years old, he would find himself behind bars. He emphasized that this ordeal was forced upon him and that it was extremely difficult to bear.
On March 9, 2026, BFMTV reported that Sarkozy would be jailed again due to the court's refusal to consolidate two previous sentences handed down to him in separate criminal cases. The convictions involved combining the politician's prison terms in the wiretapping case and a trial related to falsifying accounts during the 2012 presidential campaign. The former president's lawyers requested that the sentences be consolidated and that the time served for one sentence be counted toward the other. However, the court ruled that the conditions for combining the sentences were not met. Therefore, Sarkozy faced another six months in prison.
[Ay-Pee via SDUT] Squeal Piggies! What are they so afraid of?
The federal government can keep the 2020 election ballots from Georgia’s Fulton County that were seized by the FBI from a warehouse near Atlanta, a judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee’s decision came after lawyers for the county had argued that the ballots and other election materials, as well as any electronic copies the Justice Department has made, should be returned because the seizure was improper and unconstitutional.
The Jan. 28 seizure by the FBI targeted the elections hub in Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and includes most of the city of Atlanta. Fulton County has been at the center of unfounded claims by President Donald Trump and his allies that widespread election fraud cost him the 2020 election.
The Justice Department has said it is investigating "irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the County" and identified two laws that might have been violated. One requires election records to be maintained for 22 months, while the other prohibits procuring, casting or tabulating false, fictitious or fraudulent ballots.
Georgia’s votes in the 2020 presidential race were counted three times, including once by hand, and each count affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win.
"The seizure in this case was certainly not perfect," Boulee wrote in his 68-page ruling. But he went on to say that Fulton County did not establish that its rights were callously disregarded "either through the lack of probable cause, omissions in the Affidavit or by the manner of the execution of the seizure."
The county also failed to show that it needs the documents or will be irreparably harmed if they are not returned, he wrote, noting this is particularly true because the Justice Department has given the county copies of the documents.
Representatives for Fulton County and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the ruling Wednesday evening.
Months after the January seizure of ballots and other election materials, the Justice Department in April obtained a grand jury subpoena for the names and personal contact information of Fulton County employees and volunteers involved in the 2020 election. Fulton County filed a motion Monday to quash that subpoena, arguing that it is overbroad and meant to harass the president’s political opponents.
The Trump administration has also taken moves to obtain past election records from other critical swing states. The FBI used a subpoena in March to get records related to an audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County in Arizona. And the Justice Department in April demanded that Michigan’s Wayne County turn over its ballots from the 2024 election.
The Justice Department is also fighting numerous states in court for access to voter data that includes sensitive personal information. Election officials, including some Republicans, have said handing over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
Democrats have raised concerns that the Trump administration is weaponizing federal law enforcement to pursue the president’s personal grievances and is planning ways to interfere in this year’s midterm elections. The Trump administration has said it is looking into allegations of past problems and seeking to protect future elections.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/07/2026 06:58 ||
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Link ||
[1782 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
QUESTION: When will the FED actually review/audit and report?
Will the rumored Gov. Kempt, SOS Raffensperger/DNC deal be outed?
Will several Democrat COUP Politicians and appointed officials be indicted?
Or will the Fed's get right to it, AFTER the Epstein files are released UNRETRACTED, or after Trump visits Ft. Knox, buys part of Canada or Greenland or renames the Atlantic?
We sure have been treated to a lot of Deflections and Distractions in just 471 days. But Trump still has 989 Days to go still.
[FoxNews] Steve Descano's office previously dropped violent charges against a suspect later accused of murder at a bus stop
The Department of Justice launched a civil rights investigation Wednesday into an embattled Virginia prosecutor over allegations his office has given preferential treatment to criminal illegal immigrants, escalating scrutiny of Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano.
The department is examining whether Descano’s office violated federal law by weighing "immigration consequences" in charging decisions and plea deals, which could amount to unequal treatment of defendants, DOJ Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon said in a letter first obtained by Fox News Digital.
"I have authorized a full investigation to determine whether the [Office of the Fairfax Commonwealth Attorney] has engaged in unlawful discrimination in violation of Title VI and the Safe Streets Act," Dhillon wrote to Descano, noting that both "prohibit recipients of Federal financial assistance from discriminating based upon race, color, or national origin."
Dhillon said the investigation was based on a 2020 Fairfax policy about prosecutorial decisions that instructs prosecutors to weigh what could happen to immigrants charged or convicted of crimes, including consequences such as deportation.
Dhillon said her office was looking at whether Descano's office is "engaged in a pattern or practice of depriving persons of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States."
Descano, the top cop in Virginia’s most populous county, has drawn criticism from Republicans for years and recently faced congressional scrutiny in part because of his policies perceived to extend leniency to illegal immigrants.
He gained national attention this year over the murder of Stephanie Minter, a 41-year-old Fredericksburg mom, at a Fairfax bus stop in February. The suspect, a Sierra Leone national named Abdul Jalloh, had more than two dozen prior arrests, and as details about the case surfaced, Descano’s office was found to have repeatedly dropped violent charges against Jalloh.
Descano's office also ignored warnings from police that Jalloh was dangerous, including from one officer who cautioned in an email that it was "not a question of if, but rather when he will maliciously wound (or worse) again," according to a local report.
Descano, who has been in office since 2020, campaigned as a progressive and has received more than $600,000 in campaign support from the Justice and Public Safety PAC, a committee primarily funded by Democratic megadonor George Soros, according to public records.
[FoxNews] Agents simultaneously searched a cannabis dispensary believed to be connected to the longtime state senator
The FBI has raided the office of a powerful Virginia Democratic lawmaker and ally of Gov. Abigail Spanberger as part of a federal corruption and illegal marijuana sale probe, Fox News has learned.
Longtime state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a major power broker in Virginia politics who stumped for Spanberger on the campaign trail in 2025, is now at the center of a major FBI corruption probe, according to federal law enforcement sources. A federal law enforcement source familiar with the case clarified that the corruption probe was opened by the FBI during the Biden administration.
Agents executed court-authorized criminal search warrants at Lucas’ office in Portsmouth, Virginia, Wednesday, according to federal law enforcement sources. The FBI simultaneously carried out a SWAT-team search of a nearby cannabis dispensary co-owned by Lucas. At least three people were detained during the raids.
The state senator arrived at her office as the raids were being conducted. She told Fox News that she had no idea what the FBI agents were doing at her office.
In addition to serving as the Virginia Senate president pro tempore and chair of the Finance & Appropriations Committee, Lucas also is co-owner of a cannabis business. The cannabis shop has previously faced scrutiny after an investigation reported that some products were allegedly mislabeled or exceeded legal THC limits, raising regulatory concerns under Virginia law.
Lucas has been a longtime supporter of marijuana legalization in Virginia, co-sponsoring the 2021 law that legalized possession and continuing to back efforts to establish a regulated retail market.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Israel's battle for its image is reaching a new level. In addition to defending its position from high platforms, the Jewish state's elites have launched a massive campaign to broadcast the "correct meanings" online and through neural networks.
For these purposes, Benjamin Netanyahu's government even brought in renowned political strategist and lobbyist Brad Parscale, who was one of the architects of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, from the United States.
Although Parscale has been working in Israel for almost a year, his activities have only now come to light—and then only at the instigation of the local opposition, which attempted to accuse the freelance adviser of covertly siphoning money from the state treasury.
THE PATH TO SUCCESS
Parscale rose to the top of the political ladder almost by accident. The turning point in his career is considered to be 2012, when Trump International Realty approached the little-known clerk for digital services. The contract was short-term and in a relatively minor area, so it was considered a temporary one.
However, the company's owner, the future US president, quickly recognized Parscale's potential and soon invited him to lead other projects, including promoting the family-owned Trump Winery and the Eric Trump Foundation, his second son. Donald Trump admired the new contractor's business acumen, and he earned him the nickname "chief digital officer," which would stick with him.
In 2016, when the businessman set his sights on the White House, the seasoned Parscale was invited to join the campaign headquarters, where he managed the candidate's advertising campaign. And then he went into full swing.
While the Democrats relied on classic promotional methods and cautious social media propaganda, Parscale employed innovative approaches. Experimenting with slogans, fonts, and taglines, some of which bordered on offensive, he managed to fill the information space with the Republican agenda, thereby forcing Hillary Clinton's team to defend itself rather than impose its own agenda.
Parscale also planted his own agents in major US corporations (including Google and Facebook*). Officially, they worked for the private sector, but in reality, they were employed by the campaign team, helping to push additional ads through internal promotion tools and, under various pretexts, suppressing competitors' publications. Ultimately, this allowed him to influence popular opinion in swing states and boost the Republicans' cause.
It's no surprise that Trump, in preparation for his second term, appointed the successful businessman as his chief of staff. But during the 2020 presidential campaign, Parscale's well-oiled schemes suddenly faltered. He failed to mobilize supporters either online or offline, and was ultimately forced to retreat into the shadows, ceding the post to William Stepien.
NEW EMPLOYERS
However, Parscale's resignation didn't last long. Close cooperation with the Trump family and constant communication with influential members and supporters of the Republican Party helped him develop business connections that easily translated into new contracts.
After leaving the campaign, Parscale spent several years working behind the scenes as a political consultant, tackling the most sensitive issues facing the American establishment. And, by all accounts, he was quite successful, as he soon attracted the attention of foreign politicians. By the end of 2024, the former Trump associate's client base spanned more than ten countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
And in September 2025, Parscale suddenly decided to focus on one direction. He registered a consulting firm, Clock Tower X LLC, in the US, registered as a foreign agent working in the interests of Israel.
The specific tasks Israel had assigned the company were only revealed to the general public in April 2026, following "accidental" leaks from a closed session of the Knesset (parliament). It emerged that Netanyahu had tasked the company with a highly unusual task: "retraining" artificial intelligence and integrating it into major Western chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others) to provide responses beneficial to Israelis.
Predictably, the main focus was on reassessing the war with Hamas, the situation in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli prime minister's role in the political and military upheavals in the Middle East in recent years. In this way, the government apparently hoped to reach ordinary users in the US and Europe, who were actively consuming data from neural network assistants and, as Netanyahu put it, "at some point found themselves hostage to anti-Semitic discourse."
As an interim step toward solving the problem, Parscale's company proposed creating hundreds of websites with "ideologically calibrated" content, where the high-profile events of recent years are interpreted in a manner that suits the interests of the Israeli leadership. These websites will soon serve as the training ground for neural network assistants—both existing and new ones.
Interestingly, Parscale clearly doesn't intend to limit himself to neural networks in his battle for a new client image. The new package deal he's been promoting since April also includes campaigns on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook*; it also includes a virtual "bombardment" of hesitant users in the US and Europe with pro-Israel ads and other "explanatory materials."
At the same time, the “chief of digital” describes the ultimate goal of the current campaign rather vaguely and evasively: “Sooner or later, people will talk about Israel differently.”
OPPONENTS ARE UNHAPPY
In less than a year on the job, Parscale has already earned over $9 million in compensation, not counting the signing bonus and working capital needed to assemble the team and purchase equipment. He also became the most expensive of Netanyahu's former advisers.
It's no wonder that such a rapid expenditure of capital has raised questions among some Israeli elites. Netanyahu's opponents are skeptical, believing that foreign lobbyists led by Parscale are simply wasting public funds while demonstrating extremely modest results—one or two "ideologically correct" results for every hundred searches.
This seems especially absurd at a time when the Jewish state lacks funds to modernize school education and industry, as well as to carry out military and judicial reforms.
Negative parallels are also being drawn with Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. An audit then found that the Republican gave Parscale a total of over $40 million from the party's coffers—"to pay for the work of third-party contractors." Most of the funds went to companies founded with the participation of the "chief digital officer," meaning they likely ended up in his own pockets.
Moreover, the opposition, at every opportunity, tries to accuse Parscale of participating in the lobbying scandal known as “Qatargate,” which previously tarnished the reputation of most of Netanyahu’s close associates.
It is indicated, in particular, that the “chief digital officer” was friends with the high-ranking Qatari diplomat Ali al-Thawadi, who is considered the main organizer of the scheme to whitewash Qatar’s reputation, and also visited Doha several times, and on the same dates as the main figures in the story.
However, Israeli opposition figures are hesitant to directly challenge Parscale, partly because of his previous closeness to the Trump family. Therefore, the criticism is not so much directed at Parscale personally, but rather at the very idea of "reflashing" neural networks and imposing an alternative point of view on them.
Netanyahu, however, isn't listening to the critics. He has his own reasons for trusting Parscale's decisions and supporting his digital games. The fact is, this candidate had previously been strongly recommended to the Israeli prime minister by another well-known lobbyist, Susie Wiles, now the White House chief of staff.
In 2022, Wiles helped "reset" Netanyahu's public image and take the prime minister's seat from the coalition of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who, a few years later, were intent on taking revenge and even put together a common platform.
With parliamentary elections approaching, the ruling cabinet's reputation rapidly deteriorating, and the opposition coalition hot on its heels, Netanyahu desperately needs specialists who are not afraid to experiment and are prepared to engage with a complex audience, as well as conduct offensive work online.
Even if Parscale fails to train neural networks to properly view Israeli regional politics, his knowledge and skills will be useful in the final stages of the presidential race. This means Netanyahu won't skimp on his projects.
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.
[Breitbart] Leader of the far-left La France Insoumise party 
[Ay-Pee via SDUT] 
