Searchable News & Info From Reliable Online Sources.
- Pentagon Ready to Go With New Name for Iran War in Sign Fighting May Resume Immi...
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein The Pentagon is considering a name change for what President Donald Trump has referred to as the “Iran Excursion,” the latest sign the ceasefire may be ending, according to a report by NBC News. The strikes against Iran were controversial from the beginning, and Trump has received scathing criticism from the right as well as the left as the war has continued. The massive cost of the war — $29 billion and counting — and the inflationary impact on gas prices have been major points of contention. Trump has been increasingly vocal in recent days about the terms the U.S. will demand to continue the ceasefire, bashing Iran’s proposals as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” in a Truth Social post and telling reporters the ceasefire was on “massive life support” after he had rejected a “garbage” deal from the Iranian government. A new report Tuesday by NBC News reporters Mosheh Gains, Courtney Kube, and Monica Alba cites two U.S. officials anticipating the ceasefire collapsing and the Department of Defense engaging in a rebranding attempt as a result. The military operations had been conducted as “Operation Epic Fury” until April, when Trump declared an end to it, and the two sides agreed to a ceasefire to start negotiations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Operation Epic Fury was “over” and “concluded” when speaking to reporters last week. However, as the NBC News report noted, “the Pentagon has continued to describe the conflict with Iran as Operation Epic Fury, including when providing public updates,” and “[o]ne Pentagon official said that Epic Fury continues and that the ceasefire simply has paused major combat operations.” The plan, according to the two U.S. officials who spoke to NBC News, is to re-label the war “Operation Sledgehammer,” although some other names are still under consideration. Besides any strategic public relations reasons to relabel the operation, the name change “could allow Trump to argue that it restarts the 60-day clock that requires congressional authorization for war,” NBC News reported. Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the president has to notify Congress within 48 hours of starting combat or a 60-day deadline starts ticking for the president to withdraw the troops or get authorization from Congress. Epic Fury paused at the 40-day mark, and the Trump administration has argued the time had not yet run out.The post Pentagon Ready to Go With New Name for Iran War… [TheTopNews] Read More.1 hour ago - The View’s Sunny Hostin Offers Rare Praise for Trump On ‘Good Policies’ â€...
The View’s Sunny Hostin offered some rare positive feedback for President Donald Trump’s administration — while also questioning his motives on “good policies.” On Tuesday’s The View, Hostin applauded the administration’s announcement that they would expand fertility care benefits, even recalling her own struggles starting her own family. The Trump administration announced on Sunday that the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Treasury created a rule to include a “new category of limited excepted benefits to further expand the ability of employers to offer meaningful fertility benefits to their employees.” Hostin said: As someone who also struggled with infertility, Manny and I went through our entire life savings to have our children. There was no insurance. We were fortunate enough to have a home that his parents gave us a down payment for, and we borrowed against our entire home and our entire savings to have our two beautiful children. And so the fact that something like this is available, where you do have help with IVF, that you do have help with the IVF drugs, I think is a win. She went on to call out Trump and accused him of “misogyny” and “racism,” but she also offered positive words for “Trump Accounts” — the IRA-style investment accounts for children established last year. “There’s so much to criticize Donald Trump for — especially his racism and his xenophobia and his misogyny, yes — but these particular things where you have an account, a Trump account where your children can have $200,000 when they’re 18 years old and the help with infertility, which is also a crisis in the country, I think you call a thing a thing and I think these are good policies,” Hostin said. Whoopi Goldberg said she’d give credit to the administration when they start taking care of adults as well. “I think the infertility is great, and I’ll believe it when I see people actually getting to do it, but I will not give him this until he takes care of the kids from birth to 18 or 20. I’m sorry. That’s me,” she said. Hostin often makes clear she is no fan of the administration and she fears democracy may be at risk under Trump. On Tuesday, Hostin blasted filmmaker Billy Bob Thornton for pushing fellow celebrities to pipe down on politics. “I think we are at a crisis point… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago - ‘So Did You!’ Kash Patel Gives Head-Scratching Reply When Being Accused of L...Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and FBI Director Kash Patel sparred for a second time during Tuesday’s Senate Appropriations Committee hearing as Van Hollen accused Patel of lying earlier in the day about the Senator’s trip to El Salvador. Van Hollen, the ranking member of the committee, asked Patel during his second round of questioning, “Have you had a chance to listen to or read about Brian Driscoll’s statements about what you said to him and the reasons for his firing?” Patel replied, “No, I have not.” “So, let me just say this, Mr. Director. In your response to me earlier, where you had a little bit of a blowup, you made a couple of provably false statements,” Van Hollen continued, pivoting back to his earlier dust-up with Patel. Patel shot back, “So did you” — an apparent acknowledgement that he did indeed mislead Congress earlier. “No. Mr. Director, I was reading about and asking you to respond to allegations that are made. In fact, I’m allowing you to do that. And you took that opportunity. But in the process, you made these provably false statements that I know are sort of like urban legend in right-wing media about margaritas in El Salvador, which is provably false,” Van Hollen replied, adding: And so coming from the mouth of an FBI director to make provably false statements in a hearing like this is extremely troubling. And it leads me to ask whether or not the other things you’ve been saying are false statements. And so my—because that’s a provably false statement. You made a couple of others that are provably false, and this is from the mouth of the FBI director. My final question to you, Mr. Director, is do you know that it is a crime to lie to Congress? You know that. That’s my last question. “I have not lied to Congress,” insisted Patel. Van Hollen replied, “I didn’t ask you that.” Patel fumed, “The only one who lied to Congress is you,” as Van Hollen hit back, “I’m not testifying here, sir.” Read the rest of the heated exchange below: Patel: Maybe the next time you run up a $7,000 bar tab, we can talk about it. Van Hollen: Well, see, there you go lying again. You suggested… Patel: It’s in the FEC report. I’ll post it right now. Van Hollen: It wasn’t public money, as… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago
- Joe Rogan Guest Tells Podcaster It ‘Doesn’t Pass the Smell Test’ to ‘Fea... Joe Rogan had a heavy exchange with guest Gad Saad when the podcast star claimed there is a “big fear” in the United States that Israel is covertly forcing President Donald Trump and other politicians to do the country’s bidding. The two discussed the U.S.-Israel relationship during the latest episode of The Joe Rogan Experience on Tuesday. “In this country, the concern with Judaism is the support of the Israeli military,” Rogan said. “That’s the concern. The concern is the amount of influence that it has on the United States government, how we got into the Iran war, why we give them so much influence over our military, over our decision making, over our politicians.” Rogan continued, saying AIPAC “famously” supports a large number of American lawmakers. “That’s the big fear, that there’s an inordinate amount of influence that Israel has over foreign policy, our decisions, and even our political structure,” he added. Saad — a Canadian marketing professor who is currently teaching at the University of Mississippi — responded by saying there were a lot of ways to tackle this issue. But he started off by saying that, even if you take Israel out of the equation, there are plenty of other countries like France and the United Kingdom that would be thrilled if Iran never obtained a nuclear weapon. “So to frame the issue of the U.S. is attacking or is involved in the attack on the Iranians as the United States doesn’t have personal agency, [that] they’re all wood crickets that are being puppeteered by this incredibly powerful lobby called Israel — that simply doesn’t pass the smell test,” Saad told him. Saad continued by saying Israel has “shared interests with the United States — as most allies would — where they both agree that probably an Iranian regime that has nuclear weapons would not be a good thing for world peace.” He added: Because these two countries have maybe greater testicular fortitude than the NATO countries, it seems as though the Israelis are puppeteering the Americans. But do you really think Donald Trump is sitting and saying, “You know, had I not been such a weak guy with no personal agency, I wouldn’t have fallen sway to the incredibly influential Zionist lobby?” Rogan didn’t answer his question. “Well, it’s not just incredibly influential; it’s the amount of financial support they gave his candidacy,” Rogan countered. “And… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago
- Top Senate Republican Makes Clear Most of $1 Billion Request For Trump’s Ballr...Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) made clear that the $1 billion proposal from President Donald Trump‘s administration would not actually be spent on Trump’s White House ballroom. Thune was among the GOP Senators who attended a closed-door lunch on Tuesday with Secret Service Director Sean Curran, who provided handouts that contained a breakdown of the ballroom funding allocations, according to Politico. Reporters asked Thune to shed some light on the lunch conversations. “So, the question I think that he was addressing was how is the money going to be used, the billion dollars, and so he walked through the various categories,” Thune recalled of Curran’s approach. “About 20 percent of that is going to be used to secure the modernization of the East Wing. Most of it is going to be used for other purposes.” The “other purposes,” Thune said, include “training facilities, technology” and “lots of other things that law enforcement, particularly in this case, Secret Service, needs to ensure that they keep their president and other top officials safe.” Thune called the lunch a “good back and forth” discussion as Senators strove to “get the details” and “precision” about how the money would be allocated. “I think the director did a very good job of laying it out and developing the case for why these resources need to be used to update, modernize and make sure the security service is capable of doing its job — Secret Service, I should say,” Thune said. Trump’s contested ballroom has faced a series of roadblocks, with a federal appeals court ruling he could continue with construction ahead of a June 5 hearing. The decision put a temporary hold on an order from Judge Richard Leon, which allowed the president to proceed with construction of the underground “military complex” portion and above-ground site as “strictly necessary” for safety and security. Watch above via C-SPAN.The post Top Senate Republican Makes Clear Most of $1 Billion Request For Trump’s Ballroom Won’t Actually Be Spent on the Ballroom first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago
- Senator Presses Kash Patel on His Beer-Chugging Visit to Olympics: ‘How Much D...Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) asked FBI Director Kash Patel during a Tuesday hearing how a beer-chugging trip to the Olympics helped in his mission and what exactly it cost American taxpayers. At a Senate hearing, Coons asked Patel about his viral trip, from which a video of the FBI director pounding a beer after Team USA’s victory over Canada went viral. Patel said he kept a separate mission “quiet” and purposefully timed it around the Olympics. “Hs I mentioned in my opening, the top cyber criminal from the [Chinese Communist Party] was housed in Italian custody. That while there we were able to work an agreement, an arrangement to have that individual expelled from Italy instead of going back to China, like has so often happened in places like Serbia. And so we accomplished that mission and we kept it quiet and that individual was returned to America two weeks ago,” he said. Check out the exchange below: CHRIS COONS: Director, I have to ask you one last question. You attended the Olympics in Milan. How much did your trip cost? And to what extent did that help you carry out your mission as director of the FBI? KASH PATEL: I greatly appreciate the question, senator. As you know, the FBI and [Department of Homeland Security] are responsible for the security of the Olympics, the World Cup, the F1, the Super Bowl, and everything else. We had 250,000 Americans travel to Milan. We’re proud that we stood up our jock there and had zero major security incidences involving American citizens. And what we did was we purposely planned that trip around the Olympics because, as I mentioned in my opening, the top cyber criminal from the [Chinese Communist Party] was housed in Italian custody. That while there we were able to work an agreement, an arrangement to have that individual expelled from Italy instead of going back to China, like has so often happened in places like Serbia. And so we accomplished that mission and we kept it quiet and that individual was returned to America two weeks ago. Watch above CSPAN.The post Senator Presses Kash Patel on His Beer-Chugging Visit to Olympics: ‘How Much Did Your Trip Cost?’ first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.3 hours ago
The Searchable USWebDaily.com and TheTopNews NewsBank Helps You Be Better Informed, Faster! Spread The Word.
