[Al-rooters] Using enviro arguments to stop the enforcement against illegals Conservation groups and some U.S. wildlife officials have said expansion of the border wall will fragment habitats and disrupt migration routes in regions such as the Big Bend area of Texas, the San Rafael Valley of Arizona and the Otay Wilderness in California. The Department of Homeland Security has used legal authority to override environmental laws, leading to lawsuits against barriers.
U.S. administrations from both parties have acknowledged environmental risks but argue the barrier is necessary for national security. Officials have incorporated mitigation features like ground-level wildlife openings for small animals such as reptiles and rodents.
In the case of the Mexican wolf, mating between animals from the U.S. and Mexico could increase critically low genetic diversity, said Cyndi Tuell, Arizona and New Mexico director at Western Watersheds Project, a conservation group.
All modern Mexican wolves are descended from just seven wolves that were successfully bred after being captured as part of a binational breeding program started in the late 1970s.
As of this year there are at least 319 wild Mexican wolves in the U.S., around 36 in Mexico and about 380 in captive breeding programs, according to USFWS and conservation groups.
#2
the border wall will fragment habitats and disrupt migration routes in regions such as the Big Bend area of Texas,
Migration routes? The only migratory species that pass through that area are birds, as far I know. Other than illegals. And their migration is exactly what we want to stop.
As for genetic diversity, if the founding population of Mexican wolves was only 7 individuals, they are all practically clones.
#4
The Cincinnati zoo, whose vets pride themselves on making it the sexiest zoo in America, is preparing to get involved in the Mexican wolf breeding program, so all will be as well as possible about a subspecies descended entirely from seven individuals. But since there was nothing left in the wild, all migration routes are entirely artificial, responding to facts on the ground, including the border wall. So the conservationists should confine themselves to agitating for adding more zoo-bred animals to the Mexican side of the border, if they trust the locals not to kill them all again.
[YouTube] In a ruling that will probably go down as one of the most important cases in a century, the Supreme Court just gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. What does that mean, and why are Republicans now poised to pick up a dozen new Congressional seats because of it?
Racial gerrymandering when drawing Congressional voting districts ruled no longer Constitutional.
#1
Can we compromise? All federal district judges to have a 8 year terms. That'll should put some contemplation in their decisions. As for term limits, throw in a set for both the House and Senate.
#2
CORRECT
District Representation must be based on Political view, not COLOR or RACE.
NO Political Party OWES A RACE or COLOR/
BUT !! Could some 3rd party political group already be thinking.
What if they OPENLY named themselves the
"Insert Race or Color" PARTY
and their agenda was along that line.
eg. Christian, Jewish, Islamics, Blacks Lives etc.
#3
SCOTUS ruling makes intentional racial gerrymandering illegal
for sometime Republicans were enthusiastic proponents of this as they would create a few black majority districts who would elect a black democrat and the rest of the State would have republican representatives. The world has changed. Now we have blacks elected from white majority districts, black republicans running in black majority districts and various other changes.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/03/2026 17:46 Comments ||
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#4
The idea that one could only be politically represented by a racial match is proven f*&king wrong by my pasty white "governor" Gavin Brylcream. I voted for Larry Elder.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/03/2026 17:53 Comments ||
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[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The former deputy director of the FBI is worried 'thugs' will come after him after stepping down from the prestigious role, making him 'live in fear.'
The Democrats are making promises in that direction, should they regain power. So the Trump administration just needs to ensure things are cleaned up enough, and enough bad ‘uns driven out that they won’t be able to achieve that goal.
Dan Bongino took on the role in March 2025 under Director Kash Patel. He remained in the role for ten months before announcing he would be stepping down to return to his podcast.
Bongino was a controversial pick for the role, as it typically goes to a senior agent, and the Republican had no previous experience inside the FBI, an organization he had been critical of beforehand.
After he stepped down, President Donald Trump said: 'Dan did a great job.'
Despite the badge of honor from the US leader, Bongino told Fox's Sean Hannity on the journalist's podcast that he's terrified that 'they're going to come for me.'
'I'm scared, man,' he said on Hang Out with Sean Hannity during Tuesday's episode. 'I know what I did. And I'm proud of my work. And I am proud of what me and Kash [Patel] accomplished in the past year.'
Bongino insisted he and Patel did everything 'by the book,' including hiring an outside lawyer to oversee things.
But the former deputy director is convinced a Democratic administration would 'rewrite the book, just like they did for President Trump,' referencing when they charged the President after he left the White House.
'After reading what I read about how many people did this to President Trump, this Russia hoax, collusion, Crossfire Hurricane bulls**t, and not a single person stopped them,' he said.
'I'm terrified,' he continued. 'They’re going to send some thugs to my house.'
Bongino has previously referred to FBI agents as 'thugs,' but it is unclear who he is referencing here.
Crossfire Hurricane was an FBI investigation that linked Trump to the Russian interference in the 2016 election. The FBI became suspicious of Trump in 2017 after then-FBI Director James Comey raised questions about obstruction of justice, prompting an investigation.
Trump has called the investigation a 'hoax' and has often said negative things about Comey. The Trump Administration recently indicted Comey over a social media post where it claimed the lawyer threatened the President.
Comey had posted a photo of seashells with the numbers 86 and 47 in May 2025. The number 86 is a slang term for remove and Trump is the 47th president.
The former director also declared his innocence in an April 2026 video, saying: 'I’m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let’s go.'
Now, Bongino said he is 'extremely concerned they are [going to] weaponize the justice system and start arresting people for jaywalking or mattress tag ripping. It worries me every day. I'd be lying to you if I said otherwise,' he told Hannity.
'I'm terrified that they're just not going to do the right thing when they're in charge,' he said, referring to Democrats.
While in the role, Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, clashed with then-Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the Epstein files, especially the supposed document that contained the sex trafficker's client list.
Bondi and the Justice Department insisted the list did not exist and that Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell.
Bongino reportedly took a day off work to contemplate his future with the organization due to the clash, reports at the time said.
The security footage inside the jail on the night Epstein died was famously missing a minute of it, which Bongino was internally blamed for, Axios reported.
Bongino also took issue with Bondi's overpromising when it came to the Epstein files, while saying he believes she underperformed the delivery.
#1
Went in to this term expecting Patel to deliver on his promise to shut down the DC operation of the FBI. Expected to see a bunch of people who ran a decade long coup be indicted. Bongino was hired, participated in the status quo, and left. They may come after him, but he was largely irrelevant. With regard to Epstein, Bongino appeared to be a Maureen Comey apologist. At this point, all the kiddie molesters are in the clear. Our goal of electing Trump was not to have people go to Washington and come back and tell us that they saw secret scary stuff. This is very disappointing.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/03/2026 9:18 Comments ||
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#2
Exactly correct Supe. We already suspected the bastar*s were crooked. Confirmation and notification of the obvious does not equate to change.
From last Thursday. More on the efforts of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has been getting creative.
[CoffeeAndCovid] Late last week, Rooters thinly reported, "US sanctions wallets tied to Iran, freezing $344 million in cryptocurrency, Bessent says." The story was so thin it was just one sentence. (Crypto News provided a little more detail.)
So far as I can tell—and the facts remain as murky as the water at the Kharg Island dock— the State of 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... owned the seized cryptocurrency. Since crypto’s main purpose is to preserve anonymity (like cash), it was likely used for smuggling, evading international sanctions, funding terror proxies, cybercrimes and ransomware, and other nefarious purposes.
Anyway, Scott Bessent is vacuuming it all up now. He reported yesterday that the total seized is now up to $500 million.
Yesterday, Secretary Bessent told Fox Business that the Treasury Department is ramping up "Operation Economic Fury" and is now "sprinting for the finish line."
Specifically, the US Treasury has found and frozen secret bank accounts owned by IRGC officials, preserving the money "for the Iranian people." Hilariously, Bessent also announced we are now seizing IRGC officers’ "villas in the South of La Belle France and all over the world," including, unsurprisingly, London. (Because nothing screams ’Death to the Great Satan™!’ quite like yelling it from the balcony of your six-bedroom chateau in Cannes while sipping mimosas and checking your crypto wallet.)
In his bland, straightforward way, Bessent said, "We will track them down," sounding more like he was announcing a scheduled expansion of Treasury restroom facilities instead of burning up IRGC officials’ bugout bags amidst a war.
This is the key. We’ve learned that the Iranian Elite Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) is a parasitic mega-corporation that has co-opted the elected government of Iran, and uses the apparatus of state to suck blood and treasure out of the Iranian people, all to enrich a secretive class of demented hypocrites who cosplay as religious maniacs but are really violent mostly peaceful mobsters with missiles and an army.
You couldn’t possibly imagine a less democratic system of government. It’s not a theocracy. It’s a heavily armed kleptocracy.
Not that any of that troubles our corporate media types. We shouldn’t judge other cultures. But let’s do a thought experiment. Suppose we discovered that all our top Pentagon officials had secret overseas bank accounts stuffed with millions, villas in the South of La Belle France, and so on. How would the U.S. media report that? But when it comes to Iran— crickets.
So Operation Economic Fury may not simply be a curious sideshow to the greater war. That, combined with the Trump Blockade, might be the main action. The United States Military has defanged the IRGC’s military capabilities. For proof, just ask yourself— when was the last time Iran lobbed a missile at anyone?
Its oil wells are full and will soon begin losing permanent capacity. Its ports are closed to any kind of foreign trade, especially oil sales. It’s under a naval blockade. Now comes the real leverage— taking the IRGC mobsters’ toys and Swiss bank accounts away. It’s what you might call a "rubber meets road" moment. The IRGC’s ’mullahs’ constantly brag about how they’ll happily become deaders if needed.
But ... are the anonymous leaders of Iran’s private army willing to become paupers for the cause? That’s the real question.
#4
Could it be as easy as just filing liens on the properties at city hall, just like plumbers who have unpaid bills? But the national government no doubt needs to be formally informed of the addresses with proof, as well.
[IsraelTimes] Two leading contenders would pull terror group in different directions: prioritizing fighting to keep a grip on the Strip or conceding the battlefield in exchange for survival
Battered but still breathing, Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... is set to hold a long-delayed internal election to choose a new chief and political bureau in the coming weeks.
The vote, coming after a years-long military campaign aimed at dismantling the terror group’s rule over 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, will likely offer an indication of Hamas’s future direction while broadcasting its continued existence as an organized entity and its ability to project power.
Coming amid slow-moving negotiations aimed at disarming the group and installing a transitional leadership in Gaza under US President Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... ’s ceasefire proposal, the vote will serve to telegraph whether Hamas plans on continuing to fight Israel over Gaza or whether it will shift to a less aggressive stance aimed at buying the time needed to rehabilitate its strength in the Strip and beyond, according to expert Michael Milshtein.
"These elections are about which arena will lead Hamas," said Milshtein, who heads the Paleostinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center.
Hamas generally holds leadership elections every four years, but the latest vote, initially scheduled for 2025, was delayed by the war sparked by the terror group’s October 7, 2023, massacre. During the war, Israel assassinated most of the group’s senior political and military commanders.
According to reports in Arab media, the vote is now expected to take place in the coming weeks, roughly a year behind schedule, though the exact timing remains unclear.
Fighting in Gaza broke out following the October 7 onslaught into southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 251 were kidnapped, most of them civilians. Israel vowed in the wake of the worst massacre in its history to wipe out the group, launching a war that left much of Gaza in ruins and killed much of Hamas’s command structure.
However,
you can observe a lot just by watching... many vestiges of Hamas rule and military strength remain intact since the October 2025 ceasefire took effect, particularly in the approximately 47 percent of Gaza outside of Israeli military control, where nearly all of the enclave’s Paleostinians live.
Based largely outside of Gaza, Hamas’s politburo manages the group’s strategic priorities, including on the diplomatic front, and also directs the Hamas military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which primarily operates in Gaza and the West Bank. According to Milshtein, a hierarchy remains intact whereby strategic decisions are made by the leadership abroad, while the military wing carries them out.
The elections have historically been conducted in secrecy, with only a few hundred to a few thousand senior members quietly casting ballots and Hamas keeping results under wraps to shield its operatives from exposure to Israeli liquidation attempts. In 2021, however, the group’s confidence in its firm entrenchment in Gaza, with even Israel recognizing its de facto rule over the Strip, led the group to hold the vote in the open and officially announce who had won roles in the political bureau.
This time, Milshtein assessed, the process will likely be more limited and far more covert, given the heavy blows Hamas has sustained across multiple fronts.
"In 2021, Hamas held elections among some 20,000 people in Gaza — almost public elections. You can’t do that in Gaza in 2026," he said, citing the devastation in the Strip and the extensive targeting of Hamas operatives. The only place where he believes organized voting can realistically take place is abroad.
Voting in other areas will also be challenging, at least in part due to Israeli actions against Hamas leadership since the October 7 attack.
"The entire Hamas leadership in the West Bank has been arrested and imprisoned since October 7, and the leadership structure inside prisons itself has been dismantled," Milshtein said, referring to steps taken by the Israel Prison Service that ended the previous system of internal organization and autonomy for Paleostinian security prisoners, including Hamas.
Despite these constraints, Milshtein stressed that coordination between Hamas leadership abroad and its military wing inside Gaza remains strong — and is expected to continue even after the selection of a new leader, who will likely remain outside the Strip for the foreseeable future.
"The ability of those outside Gaza to control what happens inside remains very high," he said. "In Israel people often say there’s a disconnect, that they’re not communicating — that’s nonsense. There is ongoing consultation with those inside Gaza — Mohammed Oudeh, Ali Amoudi, Izz al-Din Haddad — but the hierarchy is clear: the strategic decisions are made outside the Strip, and they implement them."
PARTY OF FIVE
Hamas has not had an elected leader since July 2024, when a bomb planted by Israel in Tehran killed Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintained a separate PM in the West Bank. Zapped during the 2023-24 war, to eveyone's satisfaction... , who was elected to a second term as terror chief in 2021. Following the liquidation, Hamas announced that Yahya Sinwar, its top official in Gaza, would take over as leader, without holding internal elections.
Sinwar, a former al-Qassam chief who is credited as the criminal mastermind of the October 7 assault, assumed the role while in hiding from Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on the Strip, and his tenure lasted just three months before he was killed in the Rafah area.
Since his death, Hamas has not formally named a successor or interim leader. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching... various reports indicate that the group has since been led by a quintet of bigwigs based outside Gaza, primarily in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... member, but not the most reliable... The crew is reportedly made up of Khalil al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy and the group’s chief negotiator; Khaled Mashaal, who heads Hamas’s external leadership and had headed the group before Haniyeh; Mohammad Darwish, head of the advisory Shura Council; Zaher Jabarin; and Nizar Awadallah. Most had been in Gaza but left the Strip shortly before the October 7, 2023, attack.
These officials have been seen over the past two years in numerous meetings with representatives from Qatar and Turkey, and in Cairo during ceasefire negotiations over Gaza.
Hamas’s accession to the Trump ceasefire deal has underscored its ability to make strategic decisions even without a single leader at the helm, a feature built into Hamas’s structure. Though organized hierarchically, Hamas also maintains the ability to operate in a decentralized way, with factions in the West Bank, Gaza, Israeli prisons and abroad able to act independently of each other.
Even after many senior figures in Gaza were killed, the external leadership was able to fill the vacuum, continue decision-making, and maintain contact with those still inside the Strip.
Hamas also operates under the principle of "shura," or consultation, requiring decisions to be made collectively rather than by a single individual.
Still, Milshtein noted that the five-headed leadership represents an unusual moment in Hamas’s history, with the group likely seeking a return to a single figure at the top guiding its direction.
The identity of that person, and where he hails from, will likely be a major factor in shaping the organization’s trajectory in the coming years, particularly regarding the centrality of Gaza in its priorities.
GAZA OR SURVIVAL
The upcoming elections amount to "a battle for the survival of the concept that has dominated Hamas over the past 20 years — since the group seized control of the Gaza Strip by force — according to which Gaza is Hamas’s crown jewel," Milshtein said.
Prioritizing the Strip as its main area of investment, Hamas built up its military wing in Gaza and entrenched its civilian rule there. The October 7 attack put Hamas’s consolidation of its power there to the test, risking its rule over the enclave, the lives of millions of Paleostinians, tens of thousands of whom were ultimately killed, and the enclave’s entire future.
Gaza’s place in the group’s priorities is now particularly critical as Hamas engages in efforts to negotiate the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, which could strip it of civilian control over the enclave.
While the first phase of the ceasefire required little more than halting hostilities, Hamas is now facing more immediate and consequential decisions about its future in Gaza — including how much power it will retain, whether it will relinquish its weapons, and whether it will maintain a long-term ceasefire with Israel.
Hamas has not publicly named the leading candidates in the upcoming elections, but the two figures most frequently mentioned in recent months — al-Hayya and Mashaal — represent sharply divergent visions regarding Gaza’s importance in Hamas’s broader agenda, and whether the Strip should remain the central arena or give way to building the organization’s strength on other fronts against Israel.
Al-Hayya is closely tied to the Gaza Strip. Born and raised there, he spent his entire life in the territory until the October 7 massacre. Just days before the attack, he left the Strip along with other senior figures in Hamas’s Gaza-based political bureau and relocated to Qatar, where he has remained since.
Despite his current residence, Milshtein said, "he is not from abroad — he is a Gazook in every sense," in terms of his priorities and the emphasis he places on investment in the Strip.
For al-Hayya, Milshtein explained, "it is far more important to continue developing the issue of control in Gaza and the matter of [military] rebuilding."
That preference is also reflected in his role. Until Sinwar’s killing, al-Hayya served as his deputy — effectively making him deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza. After Sinwar’s death, Hamas referred to al-Hayya as the group’s leader in Gaza, even though al-Hayya is not in Gaza and no formal internal elections were held for the position.
Shielded from Israel by a reported US guarantee protecting his safety, al-Hayya has become one of Hamas’s more recognizable public faces, appearing before cameras to deliver key speeches on behalf of the organization at major moments.
He also led negotiations for a ceasefire, building something of a rapport with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, reflecting his senior standing and international cachet.
Despite agreeing to a deal that ostensibly includes Hamas’s ouster from Gaza and disarmament, he has also broadcast stances that place the group’s control of Gaza as a central priority and one worth continuing to fight Israel over.
Mashaal, on the other hand, has pursued a different strategy, one that sees Hamas surviving by maintaining quiet in Gaza and improving relations with the Paleostinian Authority, according to Milshtein.
"For Gaza, it is far more important to continue developing governance and the struggle [against Israel]," he said. "But Mashaal, in his discourse, talks about reconciliation with Fatah and about [Paleostinian-wide] elections."
Unlike al-Hayya, Mashaal was born in the West Bank and spent most of his life abroad. Since 2011, he has been based in Qatar.
During his tenure as Hamas leader between 2011 and 2017, Mashaal promoted reconciliation efforts with Fatah, and he has continued to call for such reconciliation since leaving the post.
That message has persisted during the war in Gaza. In June 2024, speaking at a conference in Beirut, Mashaal said that reorganizing "the Paleostinian house" — referring to reconciliation between the rival Paleostinian factions — had become essential.
"We cannot wait until the end of the [military] campaign; we must address it in the midst of the campaign," he said.
Milshtein framed the divide as "a battle over emphasis," and stressed that Mashaal’s position should not be seen as "moderate," noting that it does not reflect a fundamental ideological departure from Hamas’s broader stance of continued confrontation with Israel.
"It is pragmatic," he said. "What matters to him is preserving Hamas, and that is currently more important than when the next round with Israel [in Gaza] takes place."
According to Milshtein, this approach could entail a willingness to curb Hamas’s power, including by pursuing a compromise with Fatah, committing to long-term calm, or relinquishing some degree of control of Gaza, in exchange for ensuring the organization’s survival.
THE IRAN FACTOR
Hovering over the vote will likely be Iran, which has provided Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars annually, weapons expertise and military training, and which may be seeking to torpedo a Mashaal leadership bid.
Ties between Tehran and Hamas ramped up following Mashaal’s ouster in 2017, largely cultivated by Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, who relied on Iranian support in planning and executing the October 7 assault.
Al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy, is seen as continuing that line within Hamas and maintaining ties with Tehran.
Mashaal fell out with 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... as early as 2011, when he and other Hamas leaders based in Damascus were expelled after criticizing the Assad regime, a key Iranian ally.
Correspondence between Hamas and Iran uncovered by the IDF during the Gaza war suggests that years later, relations between Mashaal and Tehran remained strained, with Iranian officials seeking to sideline him from decision-making within Hamas.
In one such letter, Mahmoud Saeed Izadi, head of the Paleostine branch in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, wrote to Sinwar in 2021 that Mashaal’s "misguided policy bears responsibility for many of the failures and problems that have emerged in the axis of resistance, because he did not fulfill his role and did not make use of his leadership and influential position."
In the same letter, Izadi made clear that Iran opposed placing a Hamas military force established with its support in Leb ...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?... under Mashaal’s command, despite his formal role as head of Hamas’s external wing.
The issue also surfaced within Hamas itself. According to documents reportedly seized during the Gaza war, Sinwar wrote to Haniyeh on March 6, 2023, recommending that Mashaal not be included in a Hamas delegation to Iran and stressing the need to assure Tehran that its financial support would not be directed to Hamas’s external branch, led by Mashaal.
Milshtein said the trove of material captured during the war "illustrates just how much the Iranians resented Mashaal — how much they disliked him," Milshtein said.
Should the more Gulf-centered Mashaal emerge as Hamas leader, ties between the group and Tehran may be strained once again. However,
you can observe a lot just by watching... Milshtein noted that what Iran thinks likely matters less at this point, with its ability to exert influence weakened by strains on its resources due to weeks of US and Israeli attacks.
Iran viewed Mashaal as someone seeking to curb its influence over Hamas and favor ties with Gulf states such as Qatar instead, meaning his election could significantly strain relations between Tehran and Hamas.
"Its standing has declined" within Hamas regardless, he said.
In the absence of strong Iranian backing, Hamas is expected to continue relying on the countries hosting its leadership — chiefly Turkey and Qatar. On this front, Milshtein said there is little meaningful difference between the candidates, with both Mashaal and al-Hayya currently based in Qatar and maintaining stable ties with Doha.
There is also the possibility that neither candidate will be chosen and that Hamas will opt instead for a compromise figure — a relatively low-profile individual without a clear ideological stance on the movement’s future, such as Shura Council leader Mohammad Darwish or Mohammad Nasr, a relatively obscure senior figure who has been part of the team negotiating in Egypt over the Gaza ceasefire.
[AmericanThinker] Nearly a decade ago, before anyone in Argentina knew quite who this long-haired, hot-tempered economist was, his videos were racking up millions of views on YouTube. In those recordings, many filmed in low-budget cable studios, others in university lecture halls, Javier Milei dismantled John Maynard Keynes' General Theory point by point, with a mix of technical rigor and moral fury that was hard to look away from.
The videos spread across Argentina, but also through Spain, Mexico, Chile, and, more recently, libertarian communities in the United States. The algorithm did the rest: Milei became a go-to reference for popular anti-Keynesianism before he ever set foot in Congress as a legislator in 2021.
The character he built one appearance at a time arrived in power in December 2023. And on April 28th, on the 80th anniversary of Keynes' death, seated before an auditorium packed with cabinet ministers, economists, and libertarian activists at the Palacio Libertad (the former Kirchner Cultural Center, renamed with a symbolic weight the government makes no effort to hide) he did exactly the same thing again. But this time from the presidency.
A TRIBUTE TO KEYNES, BUENOS AIRES-STYLE
The event, formally titled "Keynes and the General Theory," brought Milei together with economist Juan Carlos De Pablo, one of his key intellectual references, and congressman and close ally Adrián Ravier as moderator. On Keynes' work, Milei argued that it "made economists spend 37 years arguing about anything and everything," and described the British thinker as someone who was "intellectually a genius -- just an evil genius."
He also went after the Keynesian multiplier: "From that idea comes a monstrosity called the multiplier. It's magic. If you double investment, output multiplies. It's magic!" On the consumption function, he was equally blunt: "Keynes says consumption is a fraction of income... that, from an analytical standpoint, is an aberration." He pushed further still: "Keynes is the operating arm of the sinister."
He also went after the Keynesian multiplier: "From that idea comes a monstrosity called the multiplier. It's magic. If you double investment, output multiplies. It's magic!" On the consumption function, he was equally blunt: "Keynes says consumption is a fraction of income... that, from an analytical standpoint, is an aberration." He pushed further still: "Keynes is the operating arm of the sinister."
His closing remarks distilled his political and ideological worldview in characteristically unfiltered fashion: "See how Keynes' alternative is different. He wants to control all demand and leaves the means of production in the hands of businessmen who end up becoming nothing more than managers, and that has a name and a last name: it's called Hitler and it's called Mussolini, meaning Nazism and fascism. So let's not go down that road, and long live freedom, damn it!"
THE CRITIC WHO CAME BEFORE THE PRESIDENT
What makes Argentina's current moment unusual is that Milei did not enter politics and then learn to critique Keynes. It happened the other way around. For nearly a decade, his television appearances and academic talks circulated widely on social media, long before he was a candidate for anything. Those videos built a loyal following that eventually became a voter base.
Now, the logic has stopped being purely academic and turned political; arriving at a moment of real pressure on the government: inflation posted a sharp rise in March, and the opposition has renewed its challenges to the administration's economic direction.
Rather than soften his message, Milei doubled down on his critique of the economic thinking dominant in many universities and international institutions, while defending his reform agenda. The implicit argument is that the current problems are not a consequence of his model, but of the lingering damage from the one before it. The answer is not more government, but less.
THE AGENDA AHEAD: 2026 AS THE PIVOTAL YEAR
The intellectual crusade maps directly onto the legislative agenda. Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger spelled it out plainly to the Financial Times: "The focus has to be on getting things done in 2026, because 2027 is already an election year." After more than doubling its congressional bloc in the October 2025 midterms, the government now has a parliamentary foundation it never had before to push through reforms that previously died in Congress.
What does that agenda look like? Sturzenegger has outlined plans to deregulate the capital markets, the real estate industry, and the insurance sector, with a key measure being a reform of the cabotage law to allow free navigation of inland waterways. He has also announced a competition law overhaul to tear down barriers to entry, a reform of the state apparatus to enshrine in law the powers previously established through executive decrees, and a corporate law reform that would introduce a legal framework for "artificial intelligence companies," firms with no human employees.
On top of that comes a labor reform already moving toward greater flexibility in wage negotiations, and a tax reform. The government argues that the labor changes could drive a 15 to 20 percent increase in formal employment.
All this has an internal logic, and that logic is exactly what Milei is reinforcing with events like the one at the Palacio Libertad. The Austrian School (Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek above all) is the theoretical foundation running beneath both his rhetoric and his policy decisions. Where Keynes saw insufficient demand and prescribed public spending, Mises saw distortions driven by artificial credit. Where Keynes trusted the multiplier, the Austrian tradition saw an accounting illusion. And where Keynes justified deficits as a countercyclical tool, Milei sees the root cause of decades of Argentine inflation and decline.
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 
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
