[IsraelTimes] WSJ says advisers have urged US president to curb his improvised social media posts and media interviews; Trump yelled at aides ‘for hours’ when US jet was downed, was kept from situation room.
The Wall Street Journal has been caught trusting the claims of anti-Trump propagandists recently — what think you, dear Reader?
#1
If this story in the WSJ is true, then the three NAKED GUN films were accurate, trusted documentaries ... used for training purposes in police departments worldwide.
Posted by: Madison Paige ||
04/20/2026 5:22 Comments ||
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#2
The way to negotiate with Muslims is to convince them that you're crazy.
#5
I don't trust the WSJ any more than I trust the NYT, which is to say not at all. There is no way anyone stopped Trump from entering the situation room.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/20/2026 9:20 Comments ||
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#6
^ Yep
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2026 10:20 Comments ||
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#7
There is no way to negotiate with Muslims.
Posted by: chris ||
04/20/2026 12:20 Comments ||
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#8
How the WSJ has fallen. Once, I respected the organization. Now, lolz.
[NYP] As the US and Israel’s war with Iran squeezes global oil supplies, travelers have valid reasons to worry about the cost and availability of flights as they plan their late spring and summer trips.
The head of the International Energy Agency has warned that European countries could run low on jet fuel within weeks, forcing the continent’s airlines and carriers that fly to Europe to significantly reduce flights. Many airlines have already raised checked bag fees or added fuel surcharges as the global price of jet fuel increased from about $99 per barrel at the end of February to as high as $209 a barrel at the beginning of April.
In a sign of the conflict’s ongoing repercussions for travel, Air Canada said Friday it planned to suspend its service to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport from June 1 until Oct. 25 to lower its fuel costs.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France and the United Kingdom will host a diplomatic event in Paris this Friday to address the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, notably excluding President Donald Trump from the proceedings.
In a post on X, Macron urged that the strait be opened 'as soon as possible.'
The announcement followed a conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Macron said the meeting would involve 'non–belligerent countries ready to contribute, alongside us, to a multilateral and purely defensive mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait when security conditions allow.'
The 'belligerent' countries Macron referred to likely include Israel, the United States, and Iran.
The move comes as several European nations have started to exclude Trump from post–war Middle East planning. This blossoming coalition intends to deploy military resources and assist in mine–clearing operations to protect commercial vessels passing through the vital waterway.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
04/20/2026 07:48 ||
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[1828 views]
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#1
Isn't Europe taking care of themselves one of Trump's goals? Seems to be working.
Posted by: chris ||
04/20/2026 17:22 Comments ||
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#15
Chevron sold its entire stake in Alberta’s Athabasca Oil Sands Project in 2024 to Canadian Natural Resources for $6.5B
That was way before Venezuela (and Carney).
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/20/2026 17:43 Comments ||
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#16
Oh good, a Euro who knows everything about everything had to chime in. You think they may have sold that off because the keystone pipeline got shut down by a fool. Whom I'm sure you will agree with. Maybe you should try shutting the fuck and solve your Euro problems since you seem to know everything about everything. Just another pretentious Euro asshole adding their 2 cents in where it don't belong. Go back your Euro and don't expect the rest of us Americans to support your asses anymore. In not so many words! SHUT THE FUCK UP! I can't stand your ass mutherfucker!
Posted by: chris ||
04/20/2026 21:16 Comments ||
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#17
Not to mention Treadeu was just as bad as Carney.
Posted by: chris ||
04/20/2026 21:19 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] 76% are Jews and ‘others,’ 21.1% Arabs; over past year, 177,000 Israelis were born, 48,000 died, 21,000 immigrated; population has grown over a dozen-fold since state’s founding.
[IsraelTimes] Representatives of Hamas and Fatah recently held a series of unusual meetings in the Gaza Strip aimed at reaching understandings on a number of Palestinian issues, Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk reports.
According to the report, the two Palestinian groups discussed formulating a vision regarding Hamas’s weapons, as well as a central and active role for the Palestinian Authority in governing the Strip.
A senior Hamas official apparently tells the paper that the terror group expressed willingness to cooperate with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and transfer to it all governing powers in Gaza.
A Fatah official adds that the atmosphere in the discussions in Gaza were markedly more positive on this occasion, and notes that this was the first round of negotiations held between field-level representatives inside the Strip itself.
Hamas ousted Fatah, which controls the PA, from Gaza in a violent coup in 2007.
Given the West Bank Palestinians refuse to make peace, history is passing them by. Their choice has natural consequences.
[IsraelTimes] 21 years later, Smotrich calls step ‘historic correction to sinful expulsion from northern Samaria’ under Disengagement plan; Peace Now: ‘Stupid, wicked’ move will add to IDF’s burden
Cabinet ministers, members of Knesset, local politicians, and hundreds of settler activists celebrated the reestablishment and repopulation of the settlement of Sa-Nur in the northern West Bank on Sunday, nearly 21 years after it was evacuated under the Disengagement Plan.
They ran the experiment, and now are executing on the learnings. Three cheers for SCIENCE!!
Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan, who was one of the residents evacuated from Sa-Nur in 2005, was one of the 16 families who took up residence anew in the settlement on Sunday.
Speaking at the ceremony, Defense Minister Israel Katz repeated previous promises that the government is working on legalizing 140 illegally established farming outposts around the West Bank.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the reestablishment of Sa-Nur as a "national holiday" and a "historic correction" to the "sinful expulsion from northern Samaria," in reference to the four settlements in the northern West Bank, including Sa-Nur, that were evacuated under the Disengagement, which also saw Israel dismantle all its settlements 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... and pull out of the Strip.
"On this moving day, we are honored to make a historic correction to the sinful expulsion from northern Samaria," said Smotrich. "We are abolishing the disgrace of expulsion, killing the idea of the Paleostinian state, and returning to the settlement of Sa-Nur. This is a day of celebration for the settlement movement and a national holiday for the State of Israel."
The left-wing Peace Now organization called the reestablishment of the four settlements "stupid and wicked," citing what it said was the increased security burden the move would add to the IDF and the negative impact it would have on the ability of local Paleostinians to access their land.
In December, Israel expropriated 500 dunams of private land in order to build a six-kilometer bypass road to reach Sa-Nur without passing through Paleostinian villages.
Under the Disengagement Plan, former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s government evacuated all the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, along with Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim, and Kadim in the northern West Bank. Both aspects of the Disengagement Plan were severely traumatic for the settler movement and the religious Zionist community more broadly.
Smotrich, during Sunday’s event, also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order the IDF to prepare for a "full occupation" of Gaza and to reestablish settlements there as well.
The current government paved the way for reestablishing the settlements in the northern West Bank in March 2023, when it repealed legislation that had enacted the evacuation of the four settlements and had, until that time, prohibited Israelis from living there.
In May 2025, the security cabinet approved the establishment of 22 new West Bank settlements, including Homesh and Sa-Nur, and in December, it approved the establishment of another 19 settlements, including Ganim and Kadim.
A kindergarten was opened in Homesh in September for families already living in the settlement, and 10 families formally repopulated Homesh last month.
In recent days, prefabricated homes were constructed in Sa Nur for the 16 families taking up residence in the new settlement, and the families transferred their belongings from their old homes to Sa-Nur on Sunday.
Plans have been submitted for the construction of 126 housing units in Sa-Nur, although they are yet to be approved, necessitating the erection of the prefabricated homes to enable the repopulation of the settlement ahead of the often lengthy planning approval and construction process.
"Today we are making history in Samaria and effectively abolishing the terrible crime of expulsion from northern Samaria," Dagan said during the ceremony, which was attended by several hundred people.
"We have proven that it is possible to turn back the clock, to right an injustice even if it seems that all is lost."
#1
Palestinian state was established in 1922 and called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It's long past time for Judea and Samaria Arab invaders to go home.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Argentinian President Javier Milei at his office in Jerusalem at 5:30 p.m., his office says.
The two will give statements at 6 p.m., then will sign bilateral agreements on air travel, security, and AI, says the PMO.
Afterward, the leaders will declare the opening of the Isaac Accords, Milei’s initiative to strengthen Israel’s ties with Latin America. The name is a reference to the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries.
Milei’s government recently expelled Tehran’s diplomatic envoy after Iran objected to Argentina calling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Shamil Kerashev
[REGNUM] Israeli strikes on Lebanon have brought the small country once called the "Switzerland of the Middle East" closer to a humanitarian catastrophe. Neither a ceasefire nor even a sustainable peace, should it be achieved, guarantees improvement. The country was already rapidly approaching bankruptcy, thanks to Hezbollah interference. It now just is missing Hezbollah’s billion dollars in gold, thanks to the IDF, no to mention all the rubble south of the Litani River.
The United Nations estimates that approximately one million people have been forced to flee southern Lebanon since the end of February. Nearly half of them are children.
Given all the rockets and munitions Hezbollah had been storing under beds and in attics and basements of private homes throughout the region, the refugees are probably safer now, if not any more snug and warm. But that’s a choice, you know? Some people prefer the risk of being blown to smithereens, whether or not the IDF is the precipitator of the exothermic reaction.
"People don't know when they'll be able to return home—or if they'll be able to at all. No one feels safe," said Imran Riza, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon.
Meh. Not feeling safe has been their base state since Hezbollah started storing their stuff in private homes, schools, and mosques throughout the region.
According to him, a significant portion of the displaced persons had to be housed in Beirut schools: every other school is now used exclusively as a shelter. All of this, of course, has a profoundly negative impact on the educational process.
This is, of course, resented north of the Litani, where the local population is mostly not Shiite, and so did not benefit from Hezbollah payments to store the stuff for them. And now, of course, the Shiites expect to get to use their space for free, or even be given charity on top of it because they’re suffering.
But the lack of adequate sanitation creates even more problems. The Lebanese capital was already hardly a model of cleanliness (recall the long-standing "garbage crises"), and the current influx of refugees is transforming these familiar communal inconveniences into a tangible threat.
This could be over in moments if Hezbollah would just surrender. But they refuse, so it won’t be.
According to World Health Organization experts, potential risks include a cholera epidemic, especially since an outbreak of this disease was already recorded this winter. Furthermore, regional television reports often feature people covered in sores and rashes—sure signs of severe bacterial infections.
Is there a chance to prevent their spread? Lebanese doctors say they are doing everything possible. However, resources—even basic antiseptics, hygiene products, and clean drinking water—are seriously limited.
"We have just under two months' worth of supplies. This includes both medications and pharmaceuticals. If the war continues, major problems are inevitable," Bilal Abdallah, head of the parliamentary health committee, warned back in March.
One of those two months has already passed, and the grim forecast has begun to come true. According to the WHO, Lebanese medical personnel lack even first aid kits to treat the wounded, not to mention insulin for diabetics and chemotherapy drugs for those diagnosed with cancer.
It's important to keep in mind that a significant portion of Lebanon's medicines and medical supplies traditionally came from abroad. However, most of the supply chains that passed through both the Persian Gulf and Lebanon itself have been disrupted.
In this regard, intensive Israeli strikes on bridges over the Litani River, which separates southern Lebanon from its central region, played a critical role. As a reminder, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had previously ordered the destruction of all crossings without exception, as they were "used for terrorist activity" and supplying Hezbollah.
Remember when Hezbollah signed the ceasefire? They aren’t permitted south of the Litani River, especially to bring supplies. The IDF does not want them to be foresworn, losing their honour.
It is claimed that the actions of Israeli military engineers, who continue to mine and blow up entire residential areas in the occupied Lebanese border area, are justified precisely by the “fight against terrorism.”
Israel’s engineers aren’t mining and blowing up but demining and blowing up the mines Hezbollah placed. The order of operations matters.
"Israel plans to hold strategic territories in southern Lebanon and create a deeper security zone to protect against incursions. Much work remains," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized.
These words were spoken even before the ceasefire came into effect. But, as is now clear, the ceasefire did not give Israeli fighters a reason to retreat from their positions.
What's next? The Prime Minister of the Jewish state advises against getting ahead of ourselves. However, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, was very specific : "There will be a political step in Gaza. And there will be a decisive political step in Lebanon, which will expand our borders to the Litani River."
Hezbollah was aiming out the windows of houses in Lebanon, and shooting people through the windows of Israeli houses on the opposite side of the border. That kind of thing can’t be allowed to continue. The only way to prevent it is to drive the shooters out of range.
Whether the far-right politician is merely expressing his personal opinion, or whether it reflects, to some extent, the official line of the Israeli government, no matter the answer, part of southern Lebanon has already been turned into an uninhabitable, scorched earth.
Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of refugees simply have nowhere to return to. Consequently, the remaining regions of the country are inevitably threatened by overcrowding due to depleted housing stock, dilapidated infrastructure, and a lack of jobs.
The Finding Out stage of the proceedings. Next time don’t FA.
According to Arab News, approximately 200,000 Lebanese citizens considered fleeing to neighboring Syria as a possible solution. However, the route proved challenging, to say the least, due to the vast number of undetected mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) on the other side of the border.
The new Sunni rulers of Syria don’t want more Shiites.
Those who remain become hostages not only to a severe humanitarian collapse, but also to an accelerated economic collapse.
Even in peacetime, Lebanese people constantly complained about the depreciation of the national currency, the freezing of bank deposits, and alarming rates of inflation.
What can we say about the last few months, when strikes were systematically launched against key economic hubs—from the trade route crossroads of the market town of Nabatieh to the suburbs of Beirut itself—and the supply of goods was effectively paralyzed.
At the same time, the Lebanese government has already been made clear that the declared "silence" does not yet mean stabilization. "The goal we have defined—disarming Hezbollah by military or political means—has been and remains the goal of the campaign to which we are committed," says Israel Katz.
In other words, as long as armed resistance exists in Lebanon, Tel Aviv retains the right to conduct military operations of any intensity. And Hezbollah—even if it has formally agreed to hold off—has no intention of disarming, much less self-destructing. Moreover, it relies politically on Lebanon's rapidly growing Shiite community.
The latter regularly takes to the streets in support of the movement and will likely continue to do so, considering it the only trustworthy guarantor of sovereignty.
Recently, protesters gathered outside the Lebanese parliament building, putting forward a fundamental demand to the authorities: no concessions to Israel. They also threatened Prime Minister Nawaf Salam with serious consequences if he even cautiously admitted that Hezbollah structures could one day be dismantled.
And internal contradictions only worsen the situation, from which Lebanon will certainly not emerge without painful losses.
#1
Lebanese game of "we're not responsible for Hezbollah" is ending. When massive attacks from territory of country A on country B occur, it's a cause for war - total war.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCaasad] According to the New York Times, citing anonymous sources in the Pentagon, Iran:
1. Has retained the ability to use more than 60% of its missile launchers (including those that were blocked in missile cities, where Epstein's coalition managed to temporarily block the tunnels for their exit.
2. Has retained more than 70% of its missile stockpiles (that is, in a month of war, it fired less than 30% of all accumulated stocks of missiles, not counting ongoing production).
3. More than 40% of the pre-war stockpile of attack drones ("Shaheds" and "Arashi" of all types), not counting ongoing production.
4. Almost all of Iran's missile cities remain combat-ready. Several of them have received limited, but not critical damage, which can be repaired and, in fact, is already being repaired.
Possibly some or all of this is true. But if so, that just means more targets for the next round. The US Air Force and the IAF like targets.
Maintaining strike potential is the basis of Iran's readiness to fight for at least another six months with the United States and Israel, if necessary.
The Iranian leadership knows that the resources for this Iran does. But that's not even the US's problem here—Trump doesn't have the time to pressure Iran in a protracted campaign. Elections are looming.
Meanwhile, the expenditure of ammunition to counter Iran's missiles and drones is monstrous. As is the expenditure of strike weapons to attack Iran's military-industrial infrastructure. No bunker buster bombs would be enough to blast Iranian missile cities out of the rock. And directly targeting Iranian missile launchers leads to huge losses of expensive drones (Reapers, Hermes, and Orbiters).
In short, the US has made a fundamental mistake not only in assessing Iran's political stability after Khamenei's assassination, but also in assessing Iran's military potential, which Iran prepared well in advance for a protracted war, which is what buried the "Tehran in 3 Days" plan. Now they're blaming it on "AI errors."
During the ceasefire with the United States, Iran is replenishing its ammunition stockpiles much faster than American forces in the region. This was stated by Majid Mousavi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Air Force, on April 19.
"During the ceasefire, the rate of renewal and replenishment of our missile and drone launch sites is even higher than before the start of the conflict," Al Jazeera quoted him as saying.
Mousavi noted that the American military is forced to deliver everything it needs from halfway around the world, and in small quantities. He believes the United States has lost this phase of the conflict.
Iran has a long history of creating vapourware. I look forward to discovering how much of this is that.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/20/2026 00:00 ||
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[1815 views]
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#1
Iran has retained many of the capabilities that have so far proved to be totally ineffective. They have lost all of their naval capability and air force other than small boats and drones. They are a wounded and rabid dog.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/20/2026 6:11 Comments ||
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#2
Pretty obviously we should just surrender now.
/S
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/20/2026 6:57 Comments ||
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#3
Now that the war is over, POW's like IIlan Omar should be released and returned to Iran at once.
Posted by: chris ||
04/20/2026 12:21 Comments ||
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#5
With a pig on a tow line.
Posted by: Pearl Angaviter1382 ||
04/20/2026 15:12 Comments ||
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#6
New York Times cites anonymous sources……what’s the chance of that being credible? Pulitzer Prize winning Russia Hoaxers. They are the Adam Schiff of the news media.
#7
As US/Israeli missile stockpiles continue to deplete, they will eventually need to transition to glide bombs with a range of approximately 40 NM. At that point the remaining SAMs the Iranians have husbanded thus far will come into play.
#8
^ lol dumbass. Go suck on euro conservatives ass and team up with the new York times and see what you can come up with when they start getting the shit kicked out of them tommorow.
Posted by: chris ||
04/20/2026 21:23 Comments ||
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Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] The Iranian Foreign Ministry has officially denied Trump's latest public lie, claiming Iran has agreed to transfer its enriched uranium stockpiles to the US, something Trump has been blabbering about on social media for the past few days.
That’s ok. The US AIr Force and the IAF have a long list of targets. As soon as the deal is formally rejected, the war is back on.
"It's a great deal. It's a great deal. They agreed to everything." (c) Trump.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has officially assured that plans to transfer uranium to the US are unacceptable and will not happen. However, if a deal is reached, Iran is ready to consider alternative options for resolving the issue of uranium export from Iran.
One of these options is transporting enriched uranium to Russia for reprocessing. Russia is, in principle, ready to accept enriched uranium from Iranian nuclear facilities for safekeeping and reprocessing.
Incidentally, all of Trump's chatter about Iran's nuclear stockpiles being destroyed (in June 2025 and March 2026) turned out to be equally false.
Enough enriched uranium to produce 15-20 nuclear warheads is perfectly preserved and in a secure location, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed in the summer of 2025. Several hundred kilograms of enriched uranium were removed just a couple of weeks before the bombing of key nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. So, the US failed to deprive Iran of enriched uranium.
And now the Iranians continue to play this trump card in negotiations, as they had actually planned when they began increasing uranium enrichment rates.
Given Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa banning WMD production, the Iranians have always viewed the enrichment rate trade-off as a bargaining chip with the US, even though hawks in the Iranian leadership urged them to continue and complete the warhead production process. However, the warheads were never produced, primarily due to political and religious prohibitions. Although Iran had and still has the technical capabilities to do this.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/20/2026 00:00 ||
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[1799 views]
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#1
Based on the condition of their command and control structure, it would be more accurate to say that Iran has no plans.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/20/2026 6:13 Comments ||
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#2
Are we seeing the potential for an Iranian Civil War? The IRGC doesn't want peace and its requests for reparation, keeping the enriched uranium and the US close all it's bases in the Middle East are absurd and unrealistic.
The moderates (for Iran) seem willing to negotiate with the US and accept some or all of our demands. Will the regular army back the moderates against the IRGC?
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.
