Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[ColonelCassad] Cole Allen, arrested for the attempted assassination of Trump published a manifesto before the assassination attempt, arguing for the elimination of members of the Trump administration.
He called Trump a traitor, a rapist, and a pedophile (a reference to the Epstein case). Allen believed that by eliminating Trump, he could make the world a better place (it's obvious he hasn't studied dialectics).
Before the assassination attempt, he was a Democratic Party supporter, donated to Kamala Harris, participated in the "No Kings" protests against Trump, and was known for his radical statements.
He was, so to speak, building up his confidence until he finally decided to attempt to assassinate Trump. The whole thing was handled in an extremely amateurish manner, so it's no surprise that it failed.
Trump claimed that God himself was protecting him from assassination attempts.
Trump's entourage is calling on the Democratic Party to take responsibility for the rise in violence and political extremism in the United States and to urge its supporters to renounce their radical views and methods. It is clear that the topic of the failed assassination attempts will be used in the elections in the fall of 2026.
More from Boris Rozhin: Another assassination attempt on Trump
Last night, another attempt was made to take down Trump. This time, it was at the Washington Hill Hotel.
A gunman entered the hotel and opened fire inside the building, attempting to approach Trump.
Ultimately, the shooter was apprehended. A Secret Service officer was also wounded.
The attacker turned out to be teacher Cole Thomas, who confessed to plotting to assassinate Trump administration officials. Judging by the footage, the shooter was an amateur, motivated by ideological hatred of Trump and company. I suspect this won't be the last assassination attempt on Trump we see.
More from regnum.ru Trump dinner shooting suspect writes manifesto
Cole Thomas Allen, the suspect detained in the April 25 shooting at a reception with US President Donald Trump in Washington, had prepared a written manifesto in advance, in which he stated his intention to attack White House officials. He sent the document to his relatives before the incident, according to journalist Jacqueline Heinrich.
"The suspect's written manifesto clearly stated he wanted to target administration officials. Allen's brother notified New London police of the purported manifesto, which he allegedly sent to his family members before the shooting," Heinrich wrote on social media.
According to the journalist, police questioned Allen's sister, who said he had a penchant for radical statements and kept two pistols and a shotgun in their parents' home. However, they knew nothing about this.
The shooting occurred at a hotel where a gala dinner was being held featuring Trump and members of the White House correspondents' pool. Shots were fired inside the hotel. Security evacuated the president and Vice President J.D. Vance.
The shooter was arrested. He was identified as 31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen of Torrance, California. Armed with a shotgun, Allen managed to shoot one of the Secret Service officers.
#2
I don’t think that all of tge Secret Service agents shoot on a regular basis.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/27/2026 6:34 Comments ||
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#3
@2 It's more complicated than that. Qualifying is generally going to a range and shooting at a paper target, the number of hits in the scoring ring determining whether you pass or fail.
I am not a LEO and I've never had to use a gun for self defense, but I am a long time shooter at local competitive events. It's easy to go up to the firing line with a plan, which promptly goes out the window as soon as the timer beeps to start the stage. Over the 30+ years I've lost count of the shooters who went up with a plan and have it come apart.
Another contributing factors is the adrenaline dump that happens when things get real and the affect it has on the human body.
Besides, I'm glad the Secret Service captured him alive. I'm also curious if he will get a public defender or a high priced lawyer. If he gets the high priced lawyer, who is paying that attorney?
#4
On USN ships, we used to drill all the time in the Engining Dept, in Damage Control, for ship handling and for security. It’s not the same as real life, but it does make a difference in real life. The response around the president and other principals looked better than Butler. It looked like the Secret Service this time. The response at the faux magnetometers did not look as organized to me. I could be wrong, I am not a security expert.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
04/27/2026 8:33 Comments ||
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#5
It was rare for LEO to show up at some of the action pistol matches and of the few that did, most of them weren't nearly as good as those of us who shot for fun.
Shooting is a perishable skill. I don't shoot pistol/rifle nearly as often as I used to and I know I'm not nearly as good as I used to be.
The moment Prigozhin died, I knew Putin’s African project was eventually going to start unraveling. It was already noticeable in Syria, Lavrov tried to institutionalize Wagner through the Foreign Ministry, absorb the mercenary…
The moment Prigozhin died, I knew Putin’s African project was eventually going to start unraveling. It was already noticeable in Syria, Lavrov tried to institutionalize Wagner through the Foreign Ministry, absorb the mercenary networks into a more formal state structure, and double down on blaming France for every failure. But none of that solves the core problem. They also made 4 mistakes, which are predictable given Russian doctrine:
1- Primacy of total regime preservation over meaningful territorial command, sustained by systematic disinformation campaigns.
2- Refusal to grapple with the genuine ethnic and political grievances that give the insurgency its sociological fuel
3- Excision of Mali from any broader architecture of legitimacy or multilateral cooperation. It hurts on intel sharing on jihadists.
4- Chronic underestimation of the adaptive capacity and structural resilience of local insurgent networks.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Daniil Pelymov
[REGNUM] Saturday, April 26, 1986, was a legal day off for all Soviet citizens—almost everyone, except those on shift, was preparing for rest and dacha work. The latter included the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant staff. At 1:23:04 a.m., the plant's deputy chief engineer, Anatoly Dyatlov, ordered the start of the planned experiment in Unit 4.
Within seconds, the situation spiraled out of control. The clock at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant showed 1:23:47 AM when two explosions occurred. The first blew off the reactor's 2,000-ton biological containment plate. The second destroyed the building and released the reactor's molten interior into the atmosphere.
Two days later, a radioactive cloud of nuclear fuel particles and gases reached Sweden, and 10 days later, Japan and North America. By this time, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers—the first victims of the disaster—were dying of acute radiation sickness in Pripyat's Medical Unit No. 126. A mass evacuation from Pripyat would not begin until 36 hours after the explosion.
The event, which the whole world knows by the name of the nearest large city of Chernobyl, went down in history asThe largest nuclear power plant accident and one of the most devastating man-made disasters of the 20th century. Its consequences are still felt 40 years later.
“It never occurred to me then that we were moving towards an event of planetary scale, an event that would likely go down in human history as… the destruction of Pompeii or something close to it,” recalled Academician Valery Legasov, who in 1986 was a member of the government commission investigating the causes and eliminating the consequences.
TECHNICAL FLAWS OR THE "DYATLOV FACTOR"?
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant operated RBMK-1000 reactors (a high-power pressure-tube reactor, later better known as the Chernobyl-type reactor). The press often claims that, until April 1986, RBMKs were considered perfectly reliable, and that only the disaster revealed their shortcomings.
The RBMK reactor did have many advantages over a different reactor design, the VVER (pressurized water reactor). For example, the VVER had to be shut down periodically for fuel loading, while the RBMK reactor was continuously fueled using a special device.
But specialists were also aware of the RBMK-1000's weaknesses. Fortunately, the practice had been relatively long—the first "Chernobyl reactor" was built at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant back in 1973.
The first point is the positive void coefficient of reactivity. This means that when the steam content of the reactor coolant, such as water, increases, the chain reaction in the RBMK does not slow down, as in other reactor types, but rather accelerates.
Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors became extremely unstable when power levels dropped sharply. Operators were unable to anticipate or anticipate the spontaneous acceleration of the reaction.
The second problematic issue was the design of the reactor's control and protection system (CPS) rods.
These rods are needed to regulate the reactor's operation: they are inserted into the core, absorbing active neutrons, suppressing the chain reaction, and reducing the reactor's power. The more rods inserted into the core, the greater the suppression.
The 12-meter rods consisted of two parts. The main part, 7 meters long, contained a neutron absorber—boron carbide. Beneath the absorber was a graphite displacer approximately 5 meters long. It was this graphite part that caused the problem, known as the "end effect."
When the rod insertion rate is high (for example, when an emergency requires an urgent shutdown of the reactor) and there are only a few rods (fewer than 15), the power suddenly increases instead of the desired reduction. As a result, the reactor slows down 5–6 seconds later, and these seconds can be critical. This is what happened at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
Technical details are needed to clarify: a combination of all these flaws played a role in Chernobyl. But human error is to blame. It was also already known that the RBMK reactor's safety systems weren't perfect.
The first RBMK reactor units were developed and delivered not to the Ministry of Energy (which was responsible for "peaceful atoms" at nuclear power plants), but to an entity with a very vague name: the USSR Ministry of Medium Machine Building. In reality, the ministry was connected to the military-industrial complex; the reactors were installed on nuclear submarines and for other "non-peaceful" purposes.
The first Chernobyl reactors lacked the safety systems required for nuclear power plant operation. For example, when the first units at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant were installed, it turned out there were insufficient emergency pumps and no hydraulic cylinders at all for the emergency cooling system (ECCS).
Ministry of Energy specialists were fine-tuning the safety systems while the plants were still in operation—Chernobyl Deputy Chief Engineer Dyatlov should have taken this into account. But he didn't.
And he committed criminal negligence, which cost him his life, among others.
Dyatlov scheduled an experiment for April 25, 1986, to test the "turbine generator rotor coastdown" mode. This meant testing whether, if the turbine were de-energized, its rotational inertia would be sufficient to continue powering the pumps.
At 1:23:04 AM, the experiment began. The turbine was shut down. And then the first bullet went off—the positive steam reactivity effect: instead of the reactor's power declining, it began to rise.
At 1:23:40 AM, shift supervisor Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button. This was supposed to be a lifesaver, but instead, it acted as a detonator. "The second gun went off"—the end effect: due to the graphite tips, the rods, upon entering the core for 5-6 seconds, did not shut down the reactor, but rather sharply increased its power.
During those fateful "extra seconds," the first explosion occurred, blowing off the reactor's roof. Human underestimation of the technical shortcomings had a cumulative effect.
HEROISM, NEGLIGENCE AND MISUNDERSTANDING
Those who investigators would later call the first wave of victims arrived at the scene: the fire crews of Lieutenants Vladimir Pravik and Viktor Kibenok. They were unaware they were heading not to a fire, but to the epicenter of a nuclear explosion. Lyudmila, the widow of one of the firefighters, Vasily Ignatenko, recalled:
"Vasya... said, 'Close the windows and go to bed. There's a fire at the station. I'll be there soon.' I didn't hear the explosion itself. I only saw flames. It was as if the whole sky was glowing. The firefighters went there in their canvas jackets. They weren't told there was radiation. They thought they were putting out a regular fire on the roof. Vasya later said the graphite under their feet was hot, like coals in a fire. Their boots were melting. They kicked it away with their feet, this graphite... They weren't told. They didn't know."
Meanwhile, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant's chief engineer, Nikolai Fomin, was "sitting on the phone"—connected with the control panel of Unit 4. The plant's director, Viktor Bryukhanov, was reporting to Kyiv—to the Ukrainian SSR Ministry of Energy and the regional committee secretary—and to Moscow—to the Central Committee and the All-Union Ministry of Energy. In all cases, the situation was described as follows:
"The reactor is intact. We're refilling the apparatus. The emergency control and safety system tank in the central hall exploded. The explosion blew down the tent. Radiation levels are within normal limits."
Fomin and Bryukhanov reported the death of one employee, senior operator of the main circulation pumps of the reactor shop, Valery Khodemchuk, and the severe burns of the adjuster, Vladimir Shashenok.
Director Bryukhanov, Chief Engineer Fomin (who personally participated in the cleanup in the first hours), and Deputy Chief Engineer Dyatlov will be arrested and tried under Article 220 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR—violation of safety regulations at explosive facilities. They were accused of concealing the scale of the accident.
But did they realize the scale of what was happening? Dyatlov recalled:
"I climbed up onto the overpass between the units... There were chunks of graphite under my feet. I knew it was graphite from the core, but my brain refused to accept it. I went to the control room to see Akimov. His face was already brown. I asked, 'What's wrong with the reactor?' He replied, 'We did everything right, pressed the AZ-5 [emergency protection button], but it exploded.'"
The deputy chief engineer assured:
"I still couldn't believe the reactor was gone. I ordered water to be pumped into the core. We poured water into nothing, it evaporated, and carried the contaminants into the city. It was a terrible mistake, but we followed instructions written for a living reactor, not a corpse."
Regardless, following the instructions worsened the consequences of the accident. This water injection—hundreds of tons per hour—became an additional factor in contamination. Instead of containment, management facilitated the spread of nuclides.
HOT, TERRIBLE DAY
As Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant employees with lethal doses of radiation began arriving at Medical Unit No. 126, the city of Pripyat was enjoying a peaceful Saturday—and preparing for the May Day holiday. People were strolling with their children and fishing in a pond where the water was filling with radioactive isotopes.
Residents of the former city recall that the weather that weekend was unseasonably hot. People poured out onto the streets.
Radiation levels on the bridge at the entrance to the city (later called the Bridge of Death) were already measured in hundreds of roentgens, but no one set up a cordon.
The government commission arrived only in the evening. And only on April 27, 36 hours later, was the decision made to evacuate. From the diaries of liquidator Sergei Gazin, an eyewitness to the evacuation:
"The worst was on the 27th. A column of buses—no end in sight. People were told, 'We're leaving for three days, take only valuables and documents.' It was a white lie, so we were told, to prevent panic. But this lie was criminal. People left their pets, their windows open... I remember an old woman who didn't want to leave her apartment: 'Darling, I survived the Germans, and I'll survive this atomic bomb of yours.' They led her out by the arms. She cried because she hadn't milked the cow in the barn. She didn't realize that the cow was already glowing in the dark."
REAL PEOPLE WHO WERE CALLED "BIOROBOTS"
While there were and are legitimate questions about the plant's management and the party and economic leadership (from the bosses in Pripyat to the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR), the heroism of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant engineers and workers and the liquidators is undeniable.
These included firefighters fighting the blaze on the roof and helicopter pilots hovering just 200 meters above the burning Unit 4, dumping sand, boron, and lead into the crater. The lead sheets they placed under their seats to shield themselves from the radiation from below were of little help; the radiation permeated the cockpits.
Miners from Tula and the Donbass performed equally terrifying work. They dug a 136-meter tunnel under the reactor's foundation to install a cooling plate. In a confined space, in temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius, the miners worked practically without clothing or respirators. In the Donetsk and Aleksin mines, people were accustomed to the dust, but here it was deadly.
A special place in this chronicle is occupied by those semi-officially called "biorobots." When German "Joker" technology and Japanese radio-controlled robots malfunctioned, losing control due to ultra-high gamma radiation, people came out onto the roof.
Conscripts and reservists wearing homemade lead aprons ran to a direct line of sight to the reactor. They had just 45 seconds to scoop up a piece of graphite or a fuel rod fragment with a shovel and throw it into the hole.
For one such exit, a person received a lifelong dose of radiation, essentially trading their health for seconds of safety for the rest of the world. This massive feat helped curb the elements.
A PAINFUL LESSON
After Chernobyl, work was done to correct the mistakes. RBMK reactors were now supplied with 2.8% enriched fuel, eliminating the first Chernobyl hazard—the void coefficient of reactivity. A new design of emergency control rods was installed—they entered the core in no more than 2.5 seconds, eliminating the second hazard—the terminal effect.
But it was practically impossible to “roll back” the main effect.
The Chernobyl disaster sparked a phobia against nuclear energy. In Western Europe, it gave carte blanche to the green movement (including its political wing)—the complete closure of nuclear power plants in Italy and Germany was essentially an "echo of Chernobyl."
In the USSR, the tragedy became one of the main themes of perestroika journalism. During the "half-life" of the Soviet Union, opposition and separatist movements played the environmental card, among other things.
But one can hardly blame the average citizen for opposing nuclear power plants—after all, the scale and consequences of the disaster were obvious. For the nuclear industry, the experience of Chernobyl's "man-made hell" was a painful lesson, remembered even by today's specialists. Failure to account for design defects and the inability of people to react promptly turn a source of "clean" electricity (a properly operating nuclear power plant has minimal impact on the environment) into a weapon of mass destruction.
[Blaze] ’It's a managed oligarchy with democratic trappings.’
In a truly free nation, 10 things must be present, says Glenn Beck: "rule of law," "free, fair, and regular elections," "protection of individual rights," "separation of powers," "independent judiciary," "a free press and open information," "civilian control of the military," "protection of minority rights," "economic freedom and property rights," and "a culture that values freedom."
When weighed against these standards, Canada, he argues, is the opposite of free.
To prove his case, he lists 20 recent examples of how Canada has abandoned these core pillars of freedom.
1. Lab scandal cover-up
In 2021, Canadian Parliament learned that a top-security lab scientist had sent live Ebola samples to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and worked with the Chinese military on biological weapons research. Parliament demanded the documents four times, but the Liberal Party repeatedly blocked access, sued to prevent disclosure, delayed, and even triggered a snap election to shut down the probe.
#1
Canada hosted the Chinese Military. That was the first time Red Chinese Commie Military stepped foot on American Soil. That right there, are grounds to make Canada an United State's territory. I always joke our girlscouts with an auxiliary of brownies could successfully collapse the canadian govt.
[Reuters] Market reaction to DeepSeek's preview of its long-awaited next-generation artificial intelligence model has so far been subdued compared with the Chinese startup's outsized global breakthrough last year after the launch of its low-cost AI models.
The release and overseas reception of DeepSeek-V3 and R1, which the Hangzhou-based company said were trained with a fraction of the computing power used by U.S. rivals, triggered a global tech share selloff as investors questioned the logic behind massive spending on AI infrastructure.
That moment was widely viewed by analysts as a "black swan" event that forced a sudden repricing of assumptions about cost, competition, and China's ability to innovate under U.S. chip restrictions.
But the muted reaction so far to DeepSeek-V4, launched on Friday, highlights how quickly those assumptions have shifted. Markets and industries have grown accustomed to low-cost, highly efficient models developed under computing constraints, reducing the element of surprise.
[Kolbcenter Book Review] Alien Intrusion is the product of many decades of research into the UFO phenomenon, separating fact from fiction, and concluding that while some UFO phenomena are simply the result of optical illusions, hallucinations, fraud and the like, there are some that cannot be explained away with any kind of natural explanation. The author, Gary Bates, makes a very good case that the UFO phenomena that are real — i.e. that have been verified by reliable witnesses and that have no natural explanation — are of diabolical origin. In short, he demonstrates that "aliens" that have been encountered by thoroughly honest witnesses are actually demons whose UFOs are products of their preternatural powers. The demons use their preternatural powers to reinforce the faith of millions of people in molecules-to-man evolution and in the existence of "highly-evolved," "advanced civilizations" elsewhere in the universe, frequently informing their dupes that they have come as saviors to save us from ourselves and to usher in a New Age of peace.
#2
Does it seem like media commentators are suffering brain damage at an alarming rate? Beck, Carlson, Owens, MGT, etc. Could it be something like the Havana Brain-scrambler?
#4
Demons are coming in ufos because they need to assume the form of aliens to trick mankind because the bible said so. What a bunch baloney.
Wanna talk some science, back in the holy land, LIDAR shows a whole megalithic mega-complex under the soil of the Rephaim Valley. The whole valley, not just locations, has a very interesting radar signature suggesting massive stone works and significant urbanification. Goliath was reported from one of the ancient cities in the Valley.
My point here: The Rephaim were a legendary race of giants in the Hebrew Bible, often associated with the Nephilim, and there's more evidence of them under the ground in the holy Land than whatever they are conjuring: demons from the multidimension cosplaying as aliens.
#5
Gary Bates .. makes a very good case .. that "aliens" .. are actually demons whose UFOs are products of their preternatural powers.
If these are products of their preternatural powers, one would need something more powerful than science to explain them, as the scientific method is constrained to natural causes.
[AmericanGreatness] … piece by piece, leaving a hollow state with nothing left but bluster and collapse.
A famous saying of Anton Chekhov’s has been making the rounds. "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall," Chekhov advised, "in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there."
I wonder if the thugs and theocrats who have been plundering 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... for the last 47 years have read Chekhov. If so, I conclude that they are slow learners. In January, the Iranian authorities slaughtered more than 40,000 protesters—Iranian citizens, mind you, who were fed up with the oppressive death cult that has been oppressing Iran since the dour clown Ayatollah Khomeini waddled off that plane from Gay Paree in Tehran in 1979. Over the course of about a month this past winter, the US assembled a huge military presence in the waters around Iran: two aircraft carrier strike groups and innumerable air assets.
Many observers thought the display was all for show. Notwithstanding Operation Midnight Hammer last summer, an astonishing precision strike that destroyed Iran’s chief nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, many commentators decided that President Trump was too risk-averse to mount a frontal assault on Iran. "TACO"—Trump Always Chickens Out—was the acronym of the moment.
But then, for about six weeks, beginning on February 28, the United States and Israel systematically decapitated both Iran’s military and its political and technological leadership, beginning with the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> . The list of people "eliminated" is long (those quotation marks are not rhetorical but dispositive). As for the country’s war-making capacity, it was essentially obliterated; its industrial capacity to manufacture armaments was, too. All that remains of Iran’s navy are a few dozen speedboats. Their air force was destroyed, likewise their air defenses. Most of their drones and ballistic missiles were incinerated, along with most of their launchers. Even as this demolition was proceeding, Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, declared that "Trump is hysterical and struggling with last final breaths. Americans are at the end of their rope. Enemy is caught in desperate swamp. . . . Netanyahu pumped up US to attack, we will exact vengeance." I am not sure exactly when Larijani uttered that prognostication, only that it was before March 17, when he was eliminated by an air strike in Tehran.
In mid-April, President Trump declared a ceasefire in order to pursue negotiations. Iran moved to close the Hormuz Strait to allied shipping. It also said it would exact a "toll" of $2 million for ships passing through the Strait. President Trump upped the ante by directing the US Navy to open the Strait to all ships except those en route to or from Iranian ports. "Saw your bid," he said, "and raised you two." President Trump also directed the US Navy to stop ships from Iran anywhere on the high seas. Called that hand. No oil. No money. No economy. Time to bluster, then fold.
The Iranians have been engaged in a Persian version of the Lobster Quadrille, blustering, pretending to negotiate, then walking off in a huff. As I write, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are en route to Islamabad, Pakistain. They were supposed to be going in order to negotiate with the Iranians. But, as usual, the Iranians, once negotiations were announced, are playing hard—not hardball, mind you, but their coquettish version of hard to get. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Pakistain. For talks? Yes. Wait, make that No. Witkoff and Kushner were supposed to go to negotiate. But Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency says that no talks are slated to take place. Vice President JD Vance was "standing by," just in case the negotiations turn out to be serious for once. In the event, they didn’t. At the last moment, Kushner and Witkoff got out of their 17-hour plane ride and JD got to go to the White House Correspondents Dinner.
In other words, there is a lot of movement at the moment. But the movement is not confined to Iranians pretending to negotiate and then retiring to their boudoirs to pout and lay mines. The United States is also making some moves. In the last couple of days, the USS George H.W. Bush carrier group has joined the carrier groups USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Abraham Lincoln in the waterways around and within striking distance of Iran. There are also reports of many air transports laden with additional military assets arriving in the area. President Trump, taking a page from Mick Jagger, observed that time was on his side in this pas de deux. Iran is losing something on the order of $500 million per day. Unable to move its oil, its entire petroleum industry teeters on the brink of self-inflicted destruction. The IRGC is said to have seized a ship that "collaborated with the US." Meanwhile,
...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system... President Trump has assembled a rifle, or rather an imposing armory. It is hanging on the metaphorical wall around Iran. What remains of the Iranian leadership may posture, bluff, and bluster. Their only real asset at the moment is their disarray. With whom shall President Trump negotiate? With the religious leaders? Many reports say the new Supreme Leader, son of the one who was eliminated on February 28, has also succumbed to his wounds. Does real power rest in theocratic hands? Or is it with the remnants of the politicianship? Or is it with the IRGC, the thuggish "revolutionary guard"? The signals, to indulge in a bit of understatement, are mixed. In the event, they didn’t.
#1
Does Trump dismantle?
Or does Trump make deals?
As we see, saw, in Gaza, Trump makes deals.
I will remain optimistic, but I expect the Old Deal will meet the New Deal, just a rearranging of the chairs and paradigms.
#2
Israel has been, and continues to, dismantle Hamas organization charts in Gaza, leaving President Trump free to make whatever deal he can with whoever remains from one day to the next. But since the deal ultimately requires Hamas to give up their armed “struggle”, they are not serious about finalizing it.
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.
...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 
