The Robot That Beat Iran To Two American Pilots

From Daily Wire.com (June 9):

An AI-powered U.S. Navy drone boat played a key role in rescuing the crew of a downed American Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, marking what military officials say is the first real-world rescue operation involving an unmanned surface vessel.

After the helicopter went down, the two American crew members remained stranded in the waters off Oman for nearly two hours as the U.S. military rushed to reach them before Iranian forces could.

On Tuesday, President Trump revealed that Iranian forces had shot down the aircraft and vowed that the United States would respond.

“I have just been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said on Truth Social. “There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

The unmanned vessel responsible for rescuing the crew is a Saronic Corsair, Capt. Tim Hawkins, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told the Wall Street Journal.

“When it comes to search and rescue, you utilize the best asset that is the closest and the quickest, and that was the case in this instance,” Hawkins said.

The drone boat transported the soldiers to a safer location at sea, where they were later hoisted aboard a helicopter and evacuated to receive medical care. Both are in stable condition, according to Hawkins.

While such sea drones have been used in exercises, they have not been used in real-life, he added.

The vessel, which was deployed to CENTCOM in March shortly after the conflict with Iran began, is operated by the Navy’s Task Force 59, which has evolved rapidly since its creation in 2021.

The unit specializes in integrating artificial intelligence and autonomous systems into real-world maritime operations and has already tested more than 23 different unmanned platforms across the Middle East.

According to the Journal, Ukraine has used these types of vessels to target Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The incident comes just days after Iran struck Israel with at least 24 missiles for the first time since the ceasefire went into place about two months ago. In response, Israel fired back before both sides agreed to halt attacks at Trump’s request. [source]

Nice.  Cool American tech.

Islamic extremists disguised as military separated Christians from crowed, slit their throats: bishop

From Christian Post.com (Oct. 7, 2022):

Suspected Islamic extremists disguised in military uniform gathered a crowd of people in Mozambique’s Nampula province, then separated the Christians from the group and tied their hands before slitting their throats, a Catholic bishop said.

Bishop Alberto Vera Aréjula of Nacala told the Catholic group Aid to the Church in Need this week about the killings that occurred last month as was told to him by one of the Christian survivors who managed to flee.

The survivor told the bishop that the terrorists were dressed in military uniform and they gathered people saying they were there to save them.

“When they were all gathered, they started asking who is Muslim and who is Christian. Those who identified as Christian, they started tying their hands behind their back and they cut their throats,” the bishop was quoted as saying.

The bishop said the killings took place on the night of Sept. 6 and the following day, and that “11 people were murdered in total and they left a trail of destruction and a lot of fear.”

On Sept. 6, an 83-year-old Italian nun, Sister Maria de Coppi, was killed in Chipene city when gunmen stormed a Catholic mission compound and set fire to buildings, including the church and hospital, according to reports.

The attack lasted five hours as the militants ransacked and burned the Diocese of Nacala’s mission church, school, health center, dwellings, library and vehicles, Aid to the Church in Need reported earlier.

Aréjula said he knew the nun, “and she was the image of a mother, she was really helping everyone with simple love and humility.”

“Sister Maria de Coppi was a nurse who would help malnourished children in a little room where there was milk and flour, and they destroyed that room as well.

According to reports, the gunmen were likely running away from security forces from Mozambique, Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community.

At least 24 countries have sent troops to support the fight against insurgents in Mozambique, whose army has been accused of being corrupt and having 7,000 “ghost soldiers,” according to the BBC.

Islamic State-affiliated insurgents in northern Mozambique, a Christian-majority country, have internally displaced more than three-quarters of a million people, according to the United Nations.

In the coastal province of Cabo Delgado, Islamic extremists have been exploiting the crisis after a civil war started in 2017. The area is rich with gas, rubies, graphite, gold and other natural resources. Protesters demonstrated at the time against what they say is profits going to an elite in the ruling Frelimo Party, with few jobs for local residents.

“In 2017, jihadist insurgents began in the Cabo-Delgado province, winning over some locals due to the fact that they gave back resources to villagers from the government and killed no one,” the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reported earlier. “This did not last, however, as IS started setting fire to Christian villages, and killing those who lived there.”

Cabo Delgado is a mostly Muslim region where at least 300 Christians have been killed for their faith, according to ICC. There have also been over 100 attacks on churches in the area.

In March 2021, the United States labeled Islamic State-Mozambique as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” ISIS-Mozambique is also known as Ansar al-Sunna and known locally as al-Shabaab. The group reportedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State as early as April 2018 and has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.

In November 2020, Islamic State-linked militants beheaded over 50 people, including women and children, and abducted others in weekend raids in the Miudumbe and Macomia districts of the Cabo Delgado province.

Last December, Human Rights Watch revealed that insurgents had enslaved more than 600 women and girls, many of which had been abused and sold as sex slaves for as low as $600. [source]

Pure intentional evil.

Malcolm McLean: The Unsung Capitalist Hero Who Changed the World One Container at a Time

From Mises.org (Aug. 25, 2022):

Ask the average person what they believe to be the most economically important innovation of the twentieth century, and they’ll probably point to the internet. The internet has certainly disproved Paul Krugman’s prediction that it would have no greater impact on the economy than the fax machine, but even this transformative technology may only warrant a silver medal when compared to something much more banal: the intermodal shipping container.

The shipping container was the brainchild of Malcolm McLean. A twentieth-century rags-to-riches story, McLean began his foray into the transportation business with only a high school education. Working as a gas station clerk, he’d saved up $120 to purchase a used truck by age twenty-one, and in 1944, he founded his first company, McLean Trucking. In the booming postwar economy, McLean was able to expand his business in an increasingly integrated global economy.

McLean’s business primarily involved shipping freight to and from ports for overseas exchange, and he was bothered by a transportation bottleneck that had impeded foreign exchange since the ancient world: every piece of freight had to be unloaded from the truck and reloaded onto ships, dramatically increasing the overall cost of long-distance trade.

McLean had the idea to simply ship the truck itself, but this traded the freight-transfer bottleneck for an inefficient use of space. McLean’s next idea was to load only the truck’s container.

Unfortunately, the Interstate Commerce Commission stood in his way. McLean owned a trucking business, and federal regulations would not allow somebody to own both a trucking and shipping company. McClean sold his trucking company in 1955, which by then had grown to 1,770 trucks, for $25 million dollars.

With the capital he received from the sale of his company, he secured a loan for $22 million and purchased a pair of World War II tanker ships to carry his patented containers, which he designed to stack on top of each other for overseas transportation. The containers could easily be transferred to eighteen-wheelers or railroad cars. By the 1960s, McLean’s new venture was turning a profit, and shipping costs were dropping rapidly. In 1969, he sold his company for $530 million, which he reinvested in further ventures to improve containerization. By the end of the 1970s, he owned a fleet of forty-four hundred container ships.

McLean also realized that his business did not depend on the monopoly protection of his design, so he released the patent for his container to the International Organization for Standardization, royalty-free. He understood that holding jealously to his patent would only slow trucking, railroad, and shipping companies’ adoption of his technology, and he had nothing to fear from competition.

The effects of McLean’s innovation are hard to capture in mere numbers, as it helped entire economies—such as Singapore and Hong Kong—leapt from preindustrial to modern seemingly overnight (coupled, of course, with the freest markets in the world, as even the most transformative technology cannot overcome the barriers imposed by a controlling state).

McLean received his flowers in the business community, taking his place in the Forbes Business Hall of Fame in 1982. But he remains largely an obscure figure, despite being perhaps the single most important force behind the explosive growth in global wealth of the second half of the twentieth century. Thanks to McLean’s seemingly simple idea, the cost of loading a ship fell from nearly $6 per ton in 1956 to only 16 cents by 2006 (adjusted for inflation, that would be a reduction from nearly $60 to roughly a quarter)!

McLean is the unsung hero of containerization, the revolutionary economic change that, as Marc Levinson put in the subtitle of his book The Box, “made the world smaller and the world economy bigger.” [source]

American innovation at its best.

'Tired' brain cells may distort your sense of time

From Live Science.com (Sept. 28, 2020):

Time in the brain doesn't follow the steady ticking of the world's most precise clocks. Instead, it seems to fly by at one moment and practically stand still at others. This distorted sense of time may be caused, in part, by brain cells getting tired, according to a new study.

When the brain has been exposed to the same exact time interval too many times, neurons or brain cells get overstimulated and fire less often, the study finds. However, our perception of time is complicated, and many other factors may also explain why time moves slowly sometimes and quickly at others.

We have only very recently begun to understand how our brains perceive time. It was only in 2015, that researchers found the first evidence of neurons whose activity fluctuates with our perception of time. But it wasn't clear if these neurons, found in a small brain region called the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), were keeping accurate time for the brain, or creating a subjective experience of time.

In the new study, the researchers used a "time illusion" on 18 healthy volunteers to figure it out. They hooked participants up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow.

The volunteers then went through an "adaptation" period, in which they were shown a grey circle on a black background for either 250 milliseconds or 750 milliseconds, 30 times in a row.

After this, the participants were shown another circle for a set period of time as a "test stimulus." They were then told to listen to white noise for a certain amount of time and asked if the test stimulus was longer or shorter than the white noise. (They used white noise as a reference because an auditory stimulus isn't affected by the visual adaptation but the visual test stimulus is.) [read more]

So, if someone is late to an appointment or meeting can they use that as an excuse? You know, “Sorry, I’m late. My brain cells might have been tired.” Probably not. Also, I wonder if tired neurons possibly could effect other senses too. So, do they eventually go to sleep? May explain Sen. Mitch McConnell’s brain freezes. Good thing he is retiring.

IRS Chief: I Didn't Retaliate Against Hunter Biden Probe Whistleblowers—It Was the DOJ

From Bob Hoge on Red State.com (May 23, 2023):

In response to the whistleblowers who alleged that the IRS gave preferential treatment to first son Hunter Biden being abruptly taken off the case last week in what appeared to be an obvious retaliatory move, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that it wasn’t his call.

Instead, it was the Department of Justice.

No surprise there, considering we’re living under probably the most politicized DOJ in our history, one that routinely applies two different standards depending on which side of the political aisle someone stands on.

In a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee dated May 17 and obtained by Fox News, the commissioner explains what went down:

“I want to state unequivocally that I have not intervened—and will not intervene—in any way that would impact the status of any whistleblower,” Werfel said.

“The IRS whistleblower you reference alleges that the change in their work assignment came at the direction of the Department of Justice. As a general matter and not in reference to any specific case, I believe it is important to emphasize that in any matter involving federal judicial proceedings, the IRS follows the direction of the Justice Department.” [Bolding mine.]

I love that phrase, “change in work assignment.” We know that means the whistleblower was punished and given some junk job like mopping the closets. Werfel proceeded to use the tactic that it seems all agency heads who appear before Congress use. Namely, cite the desperate need for secrecy:

“When I first learned of the allegations of retaliation referenced in your letter and in media reports on May 16, 2023, I contacted the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). In light of laws and policies designed to protect the integrity of pending proceedings, I am unable to provide details on this matter,” Werfel wrote.

As Red State‘s Bonchie reported last week, a whistleblower claimed that the entire IRS team working on the Hunter Biden probe was removed from the case. The whistleblower’s attorneys formally alleged that the move was “clearly retaliatory” in a letter to Congress soon after.

n an April 27 appearance before the committee, the commissioner said “I can say without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline.”

That didn’t age well.

As I reported in April, an IRS watchdog turned whistleblower alleged that federal prosecutors engaged in “preferential treatment and politics” in their treatment of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter—and even tried to block criminal tax charges against him. On Monday, a second whistleblower was revealed who worked under the original informant and who backed his claims. He was immediately threatened with prosecution from IRS brass. Meanwhile, there are multiple whistleblowers over at the FBI alleging corruption within its ranks.

It’s apparent that Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ aren’t even bothering to pretend anymore that their raison d’être is to pursue equal justice for all. They—the very people in charge of upholding the law—think they’re above it. [source]

Makes sense. The stooge Attorney General Merrick Garland is Crooked Joe's John Mitchell.

FBI Obtained Kash Patel and Susie Wiles Phone Records Under Biden: Reuters

From Newsmax.com (Feb. 25):

The FBI subpoenaed records of phone calls made by Kash Patel and Susie Wiles, now the FBI director and White House Chief of Staff, when they were both private citizens in 2022 and 2023 during the federal probe of Donald Trump, Patel told Reuters on Wednesday.

Reuters is the first to report on FBI actions that took place during the Biden administration, largely when Special Counsel Jack Smith was investigating whether Trump had interfered with the 2020 election and had hidden classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, according to Patel.

Smith was appointed to take over that probe in November 2022.

Patel portrayed the seizing of his phone records by the FBI and efforts to conceal them as an example of overreach by unelected government officials under Biden, a theme often repeated by President Trump.

“It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records – along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles – using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight,” Patel said in a statement to Reuters.

Reuters could not independently verify many of the details about Patel’s claims, including the full extent and timing of the seizure of phone records and the motive for doing so. Patel said the records were filed in a way that made it difficult for him and other FBI leaders to find them after taking over the bureau in February 2025.

Democrats in Congress have consistently defended Smith from GOP criticisms, saying he had acted appropriately in seeking phone records and other evidence they said was necessary to thoroughly investigate allegations of wrongdoing by Trump and his associates.

Investigators routinely subpoena and collect records of phone calls during investigations, even of prominent people, while seeking to determine the key facts in a case and who might be involved in a particular incident. Patel publicly said in 2022 that Trump had declassified the documents taken to Mar-a-Lago, a claim prosecutors disputed and Trump’s lawyers did not make in court.

Patel was summoned before a grand jury hearing evidence in the case that year after he was given limited immunity from criminal charges.

Reuters could not independently establish what records the FBI obtained or who approved the subpoenas. The news agency also couldn’t ascertain if Patel or Wiles themselves were under investigation and, if so, why. Both were close to Trump during this period, as he built toward and ultimately launched his campaign to reclaim the presidency in 2024.

Both Patel and Wiles were known to have been interviewed by investigators as part of Smith’s investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents following his first term.

A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment on Patel’s allegations on Wednesday. Biden, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former FBI director Chris Wray, who oversaw the bureau during Smith’s investigations, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Garland appointed Smith as special counsel.

A federal judge on Monday permanently barred the Justice Department from releasing Smith’s report on the documents investigation. Smith has told Congress that he is barred by court orders from discussing any aspects of the probe that have not been previously disclosed in court filings.

Smith previously told Congress that his investigators had serious concerns about obstruction of justice in their investigations. He told lawmakers last month that his office “followed Justice Department policies, observed legal requirements and took actions based on the facts and the law.”

The White House and Wiles did not immediately comment.

Patel said investigators used subpoenas to obtain what are known as “toll records,” which detailed the timing and recipients of calls he and Wiles made, but not what was said on the calls. The government may lawfully obtain phone records via subpoena without a judge’s approval.

Patel said investigators obtained the records around the time Smith led the probe into allegations that Trump illegally took classified documents to his South Florida property, Mar-a-Lago, after he left the presidency in 2021 and allegedly obstructed federal efforts to return those documents.

Smith charged Trump with felonies related to this investigation in 2023 but that case was ultimately dismissed by a federal judge, and Smith dropped an appeal of that ruling after Trump won election to a second term. Trump has denied wrongdoing related to Smith’s investigations.

Patel said he did not know the FBI’s purpose in seizing the phone records of him and Wiles, who became a top Trump adviser after he left office in 2021 and eventually co-campaign manager for his 2024 run against Biden. Patel also was a Trump political ally during this time.

Patel said the collection of phone records extended into Wiles’ time as Trump’s co-campaign manager, though he did not say when exactly the record collection began or ended.

The FBI discovered the phone records in files categorized as “Prohibited,” which makes them difficult to discover on the bureau’s computer systems. Patel said he recently ended the FBI’s ability to categorize files as “Prohibited.”

Smith's investigative techniques have previously drawn denunciation from GOP leaders, including the seizure of phone records of U.S. senators and other Republican officials during Smith’s probe into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Smith testified last year that records of members’ calls helped investigators verify the timeline of events around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and that prosecutors “followed all legal requirements in getting those records.” He told a House panel that the records obtained from lawmakers did not include content of conversations. [source]

Another example of abuse of power by Briben's FBI.

Patel: FBI Leaving Hoover Building, Transferring Agents

From Newsmax.com (May 16, 2025):

FBI Director Kash Patel has confirmed that the bureau will leave its headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building in downtown Washington D.C. and transfer 1,500 employees to other locations around the United States.

Patel said the Hoover Building is being vacated as it is "unsafe," adding that the agency does not deserve to work in the aging structure, reports The New York Post Friday.

"We want the American men and women to know if you're going to come work at the premier law enforcement agency in the world, we're going to give you a building that's commensurate with that, and that's not this place," he told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo in an interview for her Fox News program "Sunday Morning Futures."

The FBI chief didn't outline what safety hazards are going on at the giant building, located on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, but the building has been draped with nets to keep passersby from being hit with concrete that has been falling from it.

Patel also did not specify a time frame for the move or where the bureau's new headquarters will be located.

The Hoover Building, which has come under complaints from President Donald Trump during both terms, was finished in 1975 after being under construction for 10 years.

Before he entered politics, Trump in 2013 said he was considering buying the structure from the U.S. government to use as a private project.

And by 2018, when Trump was in his first term as president, he insisted that he wanted the building to go, as he thought it was "one of the ugliest buildings in the city."

"It's one of the brutalist-type buildings, you know, brutalist architecture," he commented.

Earlier this year, Trump said his administration would build another FBI building in the same location as the Hoover Building, "because the FBI and DOJ have to be near each other."

Former President Joe Biden's administration, however, had plans for moving the headquarters to Greenbelt, Maryland, but Trump blocked that plan after an inspector general's report determined that the selection process had passed over a site in Springfield, Virginia.

Patel told Bartiromo that the FBI is not fully manned, but when it is, 38,000 people are employed.

"In the national capital region, in the 50-mile radius around Washington, D.C., there were 11,000 FBI employees," he said. "That's like a third of the workforce. A third of the crime doesn't happen here, so we are taking 1,500 of those folks and moving them out."

This means every state will get a supplemental supply of agents.

"When we do things like that, we inspire folks in America to become intel analysts and agents and say 'We want to work at the FBI because we want to fight violent crime and we want to be sent out into the country to do it,'" said Patel. "In the next three, six, nine months, we're going to be doing that hard." [source]

I like the idea of decentralizing the FBI agents to the States.  That will make them more effective in fighting federal crimes.

5 Indicators of a Wicked and Evil Heart

From Leslie Vernick on I Believe.com (May 16, 2025):

As Christian counselors, pastors and people helpers we often have a hard time discerning between an evil heart and an ordinary sinner who messes up, who isn’t perfect, and full of weakness and sin.

I think one of the reasons we don’t “see” evil is because we find it so difficult to believe that evil individuals actually exist. We can’t imagine someone deceiving us with no conscience, hurting others with no remorse, spinning outrageous fabrications to ruin someone’s reputation, or pretending he or she is spiritually committed yet has no fear of God before his or her eyes.

The Bible clearly tells us that among God’s people there are wolves that wear sheep’s clothing (Jeremiah 23:14; Titus 1:10; Revelations 2:2). It’s true that every human heart is inclined toward sin (Romans 3:23), and that includes evil (Genesis 8:21; James 1:4). We all miss God's mark of moral perfection. However, most ordinary sinners do not happily indulge evil urges, nor do we feel good about having them. We feel ashamed and guilty, rightly so (Romans 7:19–21). These things are not true of the evil heart.

Here are five indicators that you may be dealing with an evil heart rather than an ordinary sinful heart. If so, it requires a radically different treatment approach.

1. Evil hearts are experts at creating confusion and contention.

They twist the facts, mislead, lie, avoid taking responsibility, deny reality, make up stories, and withhold information. (Psalms 5:8; 10:7; 58:3; 109:2–5; 140:2; Proverbs 6:13,14; 6:18,19; 12:13; 16:20; 16:27, 28; 30:14; Job 15:35; Jeremiah 18:18; Nehemiah 6:8; Micah 2:1; Matthew 12:34,35; Acts 6:11–13; 2 Peter 3:16)

2. Evil hearts are experts at fooling others with their smooth speech and flattering words.

But if you look at the fruit of their lives or the follow through of their words, you will find no real evidence of godly growth or change. It’s all smoke and mirrors. (Psalms 50:19; 52:2,3; 57:4; 59:7; 101:7; Proverbs 12:5; 26:23–26; 26:28; Job 20:12; Jeremiah 12:6; Matthew 26:59; Acts 6:11–13; Romans 16:17,18; 2 Corinthians 11:13,14; 2 Timothy 3:2–5; 3:13; Titus 1:10,16).

3. Evil hearts crave demand and control, and their highest authority is their own self-reverence.

They reject feedback, real accountability, and make up their own rules to live by. They use Scripture to their own advantage but ignore and reject passages that might require self-correction and repentance. (Romans 2:8; Psalms 10; 36:1–4; 50:16–22; 54:5,6; 73:6–9; Proverbs 21:24; Jude 1:8–16).

4. Evil hearts play on the sympathies of good-willed people, often trumping the grace card.

They demand mercy but give none themselves. They demand warmth, forgiveness, and intimacy from those they have harmed with no empathy for the pain they have caused and no real intention of making amends or working hard to rebuild broken trust. (Proverbs 21:10; 1 Peter 2:16; Jude 1:4).

5. Evil hearts have no conscience, no remorse.

They do not struggle against sin or evil—they delight in it—all the while masquerading as someone of noble character. (Proverbs 2:14–15; 10:23; 12:10; 21:27,29; Isaiah 32:6; Romans 1:30; 2 Corinthians 11:13–15) [read more]

Sounds like the Left especially #3. The 5th indication is very definition of a psychopath.

A ten-step program can close loopholes in the US legal system

A ten-step program can close loopholes in the US legal system, strengthen enforcement mechanisms, and generate broader momentum for an international war on kleptocracy. While I [the author] offer these steps with the United States in mind, they invoke general principles that all liberal democracies should rally behind.

End anonymous shell companies. Federal law should require the real ownership of all US companies and trusts to be disclosed and listed in a register, which would be accessible at least to law enforcement agencies and ideally to the public (as is done in the United Kingdom). Deception by owners or agents to mask real ownership should meet with serious civil or criminal penalties. Moreover, the United States should encourage other states to adopt similar laws requiring full transparency in business ownership.

End anonymous real estate purchases. Washington should require all real estate purchases in the United States to reveal the true owner behind the purchase. Real estate agents, lawyers, and other professionals and firms involved in these transactions should have to undertake serious due diligence to verify the true identity of the purchaser, with biting penalties for negligence or deliberate noncompliance. And a new law should forbid any US government agency (especially those conducting sensitive work) from leasing office space from unknown owners or from any owner or business linked to an authoritarian or corrupt government.

Modernize and strengthen the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). We should close the loophole that enables many agents for foreign principals to simply register under less onerous reporting requirements as lobbyists. We need an integrated system for reporting all lobbying and public relations advocacy on behalf of foreign interests. This line of work has exploded in recent years, with an estimated one thousand US lobbyists working for foreign principals, but almost no one is ever prosecuted for noncompliance with the law. The US Justice Department has a staff of only eight people working to enforce FARA; the department needs more staff, more investigative powers, and more painful civil or criminal penalties for violations.

Strengthen prohibitions and monitoring of political contributions by foreign actors. Foreign political and campaign contributions are forbidden in the United States (except by permanent residents), but only comprehensively at the federal level, and some foreign contributions could be filtering in through donations made by lobbyists and agents for foreign actors. Foreign contributions to all candidates and political campaigns, at every level of government, should be prohibited in the United States, and all political contributions by foreign agents should be monitored by a well-staffed federal agency. Other democracies around the world should also ban foreign financial contributions to their political parties and campaigns.

Ban former US officials and members of Congress from lobbying for or representing foreign governments. Soon after entering the White House in January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order restricting the future lobbying activities of his political appointees and banning them for life from lobbying for foreign governments or political parties. This lifetime ban should be embedded in law and extended to retired members of Congress as well. And the Justice Department should maintain a list of foreign businesses, foundations, and organizations that, because of links to their authoritarian governments, are also off-limits for representation by former US officials. We may even want to go further: do we really want to allow some future retired American official or member of Congress to work for a company effectively controlled by the Kremlin or the Chinese Communist Party? [read more]

Source: Hoover Digest Summer 2021 No. 3. (2021) “Exposing the Kleptocrats.”  by Larry Diamond.

Good plan but Congress won’t implement it because they benefit from the kleptocracy.

The rest of the steps:

• Modernize the anti-money-laundering system.
• Increase the resources that the United States and other rule-of-law states devote to monitoring, investigating, and prosecuting grand corruption and money laundering.
• Strengthen cooperation among democracies in fighting kleptocracy and ending “golden visas.”
• Raise public awareness about kleptocracy in Russia and other offending states.
• Increase international support for investigative journalism, NGOs, and official institutions working to monitor and control corruption around the world.

Whistleblower Warns: 'The FBI Will Crush You'

From Newsmax.com (May 18, 2023):

FBI whistleblower Garret O'Boyle, one of three testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Thursday, had a warning for any of his former colleagues who may be thinking about testifying against the agency: Don't do it.

"The FBI will crush you," O'Boyle warned, when committee member Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., asked him what he'd advise. "This government will crush you and your family if you try to expose the truth about things that they are doing are wrong, and we are all examples of that."

O'Boyle said he would tell colleagues that he would take their complaints to Congress for them or put them in touch with Congress, "but I would advise them not to do it."

He admitted that not testifying would not solve the issues the FBI has, or shine light on corruption, but based on his experience, he'd still urge them to turn away.

O'Boyle's words came at the end of a lengthy, often-heated hearing in which he joined two other FBI whistleblowers, Stephen Friend, and Marcus Allen, to testify about the retribution they experienced for coming forward with statements on several issues.

This included the investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol, the investigations of parents speaking out at school board meetings, and other instances that the Republicans on the committee say show the weaponization of the government against the American people.

In O'Boyle's case, he told the committee that he was forced to rely on charity after the FBI moved him and his family from Kansas to Virginia, but soon ended his assignment. He claimed he bureau blocked him for six weeks from getting his family's personal property back.

Chairman Jim Jordan asked all three men for their reactions to the FBI's activities against them, and all insisted they followed the oaths they had taken when they went to work with the agency. They agreed with Jordan that they felt the "full weight of the federal government" come down on them, particularly when the FBI sent a letter to members of the committee to inform them that the agents' security clearances had been revoked.

"Of course, they timed it perfectly," said Jordan. "It's in the letter to us yesterday. We knew they would. We knew it was going to happen that way."

They also testified that their former colleagues have not reached out to them to support them after they found themselves put out.

"I know for a fact that my former supervisor had a meeting with my squad shortly after I was suspended, and he told them that I was going to be arrested, fired, and charged. So if that's not chilling, I don't know what it is," said O'Boyle.

Friend agreed, commenting that those who have reached out to him "have used encrypted ways to do it because they fear retribution."

Allen added that he's been "ghosted by everybody."

Earlier in the hearing, Allen testified that he was targeted based on "unsubstantiated accusations that I hold 'conspiratorial views' regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and that I allegedly sympathize with criminal conduct. I do not."

O'Boyle said the actions against him came after his testimony in another proceeding that the FBI prioritized investigations of anti-abortion activiy after the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision on legal abortion.

He said Thursday that he was forced to accept a new position in another state and that the FBI ordered him to report when his family's youngest child was only two weeks old.

Friend, meanwhile, said he has filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel saying he was suspended after he raised concerns about the FBI's manipulation of crime statistics, the treatment of Jan. 6 defendants, and the agency's use of SWAT teams.

"The FBI weaponized the security clearance processes to facilitate my removal from active duty within one month of my disclosures," he said, also alleging the agency "initiated a campaign of humiliation and intimidation to punish and pressure me to resign" and refused his request for records so he could get another job "in an obvious attempt to deprive me of the ability to support my family."

He also accused the FBI's Inspection Division of having "imposed an illegal gag order in an attempt to prevent me from communicating with my family and attorneys."

The hearing was organized by Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and comes after the release publication of Special Counsel John Durham's report that revealed the FBI lacked evidence to open its investigation on former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

The hearing also comes after the Judiciary Committee's Republicans released a 1,000-page report with the allegations of the politicization of the FBI and Justice Department politicization. [source]

Not good. Definitely an abuse of power. Good thing America has Kash Patel head of it. But in the future if a Democrat becomes POTUS who knows...

Biden Sues DOJ Over Release of Interview Audio

From Newsmax.com (May 26):

Former Democrat President Joe Biden sued the Department of Justice on Tuesday, seeking to bar the release of audio recordings and transcripts of private conversations with his biographer in 2016 and 2017.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington D.C., comes ahead of the department's planned June 15 release of ​the materials to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and the conservative Heritage Foundation. The foundation sought them after they ⁠were used as part of then-special counsel Robert Hur's 2023 ​investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents. Hur declined to bring criminal charges.

The ⁠department fought the Heritage Foundation's 2024 request for the records as exempt from the Freedom of Information Act until President Donald Trump took office, the lawsuit claims. It announced it would be releasing the records ​in response to the committee's request, which the lawsuit claims is meant only to skirt federal law barring their release.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the committee's request pretextual and invalid, and permanently bar the release of the ⁠records to the committee.

Representatives for the Department of Justice ⁠did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The recordings, made in Biden's ⁠home, ⁠were part of the writing process for his 2017 memoir, "Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose," which detailed Biden's decision to pursue the presidency while his eldest son Beau fought brain cancer. Earlier this month, Biden sought to intervene ​in the Heritage Foundation's lawsuit against the Justice Department over the materials.

Last week, a judge allowed Biden to join the case but barred ​him from pursuing claims about the committee's request for the materials, according to court records. [source]

Why?  What's Briben worried about--or afraid of?

Trump Set to Slash Grocery Costs With EPA Fix

From Newsmax.com (May 21):

President Donald Trump is set to roll back two Biden-era EPA refrigerant rules Thursday in a move the administration says will slash grocery costs and save businesses billions of dollars.

According to an administration official who spoke with USA Today, the changes target federal regulations on hydrofluorocarbons, refrigerants widely used in freezers, refrigerators and air-conditioning systems.

The Trump administration argues the Biden rules imposed costly mandates on supermarkets and other businesses without meaningful environmental benefits.

One action would extend compliance deadlines under the EPA’s 2023 Technology Transitions Rule, giving grocery stores and other companies more time to phase out hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigeration systems.

Hydrofluorocarbonsare considered powerful greenhouse gases, though they remain in the atmosphere for shorter periods than carbon dioxide.

The White House estimates the rollback will generate roughly $900 million in savings, including $800 million for grocery stores, by increasing the supply of approved refrigerants available to businesses and homeowners.

The EPA is also expected to revise the agency’s 2024 Emissions Reduction and Reclamation program by exempting refrigerated trucks and other road transport refrigeration units from new hydrofluorocarbon leak requirements. The administration projects that move alone will save another $1.5 billion.

Trump is expected to announce the changes during a Thursday morning Oval Office event attended by executives from Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Fareway Stores, and other grocery chains.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin blasted the Biden administration’s rules in a statement to USA Today, saying they burdened businesses with unnecessary costs.

"The Biden administration’s refrigerant rules didn’t protect human health or the environment and instead piled on costly, unattainable restrictions beyond what the law requires," Zeldin said.

"Our actions allow businesses to choose the refrigeration systems that work best for them, saving them billions of dollars. This will be felt directly by American families in lower grocery prices," he added.

The refrigerant rollback is the latest step in Trump’s aggressive deregulation agenda, which has targeted a wide range of Obama- and Biden-era environmental and climate policies.

The administration is also seeking to highlight efforts to reduce consumer costs as inflation continues to weigh on Americans ahead of the November midterm elections.

The Consumer Price Index rose 3.8% in April, the sharpest inflation increase in three years, driven largely by rising oil prices tied to the U.S. conflict with Iran.

Meanwhile, grocery prices climbed 2.9% compared with a year earlier and increased 0.7% from March to April. [source]

More stupid Biden regulations that needed to be undone. Another win!

FACT CHECK: Tulsi’s remarkable record at DNI…

From Revolver.news (May 22):

Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as the Director of National Intelligence after quite a remarkable run.

Enrique Alejandro had a remarkable rundown on X of her accomplishments:

Tulsi Gabbard’s Record as America’s TOP Director of National Intelligence❗️

– Referred Russiagate Criminals to DOJ for Prosecution

– Declassified “Russian Collusion” & Impeachment Conspiracy Documents

– Spearheaded the Investigation into Voter Fraud in Georgia

– Investigated the Dark Origins of COVID-19

– Fought the CIA to Declassify Hidden JFK Assassination + MK-Ultra Files

– Revoked Security Clearances From 37 Officials (Russia Hoaxers, Biden/Obama Holdovers, and Impeachment Letter Signers)

– Fired Officials Who Contradicted Trump on Venezuelan Gangs

– Moved CIA’s In-Q-Tel Under DNI Oversight for Greater Accountability

– Uncovered Ukraine Government Plot to Illegally Reroute Hundreds of Millions in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars to Biden’s 2024 Campaign

– Launched Declassification Effort to Expose the Truth About UAPs

– Slashed Bloated Intel Bureaucracy With 50% Staff Cuts at ODNI, Saving $700 Million

– Exposed the Intel Community’s Political Weaponization

All of this, even as the CIA breathed down her neck and tried to tie her hands at every turn.

THIS IS WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE VOTED FOR.

We looked into Enrique’s claims below and they all checked out. [read more]

Hope her replacement does just as good a job. Prayers and thoughts to her husband getting better.

A Reminder About the Moral Difference Between the Christian and Muslim Worlds at This Time

From Townhall.com (Aug. 16, 2022):

About 30 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued his fatwa calling for Muslims to murder Salman Rushdie, the Indian author was finally attacked and nearly killed.

Stabbed 10 times by a young Muslim living in America, Rushdie is in a hospital, where his prognosis as of this writing is partial paralysis and the loss of an eye.

What was Rushdie's "crime"? He "insulted" Islam.

Tens of millions of Muslims believe that if a person insults Islam, Muhammad or the Quran, he should be killed. Any Muslim who does kill a person deemed to have insulted Islam goes straight to heaven when he or she dies.

The most famous case of Muslims murdering people charged with insulting Islam occurred in 2015, when two French Muslims entered the Paris editorial offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and murdered 12 people and wounded 11 others. Charlie Hebdo had printed cartoon images of Muhammad, which most Muslims consider forbidden even to non-Muslims.

That same week, Muslims also entered a kosher supermarket in Paris and murdered four Jews. For many Muslims, Jews don't have to do anything to insult Islam; their mere existence is an insult to Islam.

It is instructive to compare Christian reactions to insults to Christianity with Muslim reactions to what they perceive as insults to Islam.

If Christians reacted to insults to Christianity the way Muslims react to insults to Islam, there would be daily murders in America and elsewhere. Christianity is constantly insulted in America and elsewhere in the West, and Christians are regularly murdered by Muslims in the Middle East and Africa.

Perhaps the famous example of the former is the "artwork" by Andres Serrano titled "Piss Christ," which features a crucifix in a jar of urine.

Imagine how many people radical Muslims would kill if a Quran or an image of Muhammad submerged in a jar of urine were displayed in museums around America. It would never happen because museums would never put their staff or their visitors in that kind of danger. Museum staff and visitors to museums that featured this work would be killed.

Why doesn't that argue for the moral superiority of most Christians relative to most Muslims at this time in history? After all, some scholars argue that Muslims and Muslim civilization were morally superior to Christians and Christian civilization at various times during the Middle Ages. Whether or not that is accurate, no one charges the scholars who make that argument with an anti-Christian phobia or with harboring anti-Christian bigotry. Yet, anyone who would argue that contemporary Christian civilization is on a more elevated level than Muslim civilization -- while of course acknowledging that this does not apply to all Muslims or to all Christians -- would be attacked as an "Islamophobe," lose his reputation and quite possibly lose his job and career.

This inability to judge the West -- which was created by Christians and has, with all its many flaws, been rooted in Judeo-Christian morality -- as morally more elevated than the Muslim world goes to the heart of the crisis facing the West: the Left's desire to destroy it. Western elites in academia, media, politics and the business world -- in short, everywhere -- are moral fools.

They claim to be unable to make moral distinctions between the two civilizations -- because of Western slavery and treatment of native populations, for example. Yet, they either do not know or simply ignore Muslims' far worse history of slavery and wiping out native populations. And they know but choose to ignore the fact that the worldwide antislavery movement began in the West and was founded by Christians. It did not begin in the Muslim world, which had no such widespread movement.

The Left has the same morally bankrupt view regarding Israel and its Muslim enemies. On the Left, Israel, with its robust freedoms that extend to its large Muslim minority, is not morally superior to its unfree, terror-honoring Muslim neighbors (e.g., Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Hamas).

It is true that it was only one Muslim who stabbed Salman Rushdie. But it is millions of Muslims who believe anyone who "insults" Islam should die. It was also one Muslim who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh for "insulting" Islam's take on women. And it was a lot more than one Muslim member of the Islamic State who slit the throats and beheaded countless infidels -- that is, non-Muslims.

Author Taslima Nasrin fled her native Bangladesh, fearing for her life, after a court said she had hurt Muslims' religious feelings with her novel "Lajja" ("Shame"). Unlike virtually every Western author and leader, her reaction to the attack on Rushdie noted that the would-be murderer was Muslim: "I just learned that Salman Rushdie was attacked in New York. I am really shocked… If he is attacked, anyone who is critical of Islam can be attacked."

Exactly. [source]

The African Slave Trade Wouldn’t Have Been Possible without African Elites

From Mises.org (Aug. 26, 2022):

There is a revival in the study of the transatlantic slave trade. Several studies pinpoint the slave trade as the genesis of defects in African societies. Continuing in the intellectual tradition of Walter Rodney, these later works posit that the transatlantic slave trade underdeveloped Africa. However, there is no verdict on the transatlantic slave trade’s effects because scholars are still divided over its consequences.

But despite their differences, opposing camps in the literature adopt a lopsided stance by fixating on the implications of the slave trade instead of discussing Africans’ agency. Researchers tend to explore how the slave trade altered African societies rather than showing that European traders became embedded in Africa’s complex sociopolitical networks.

Africans were building empires and chiefdoms long before interactions with Europeans, so when Europeans arrived in Africa, they quickly recognized that their fortunes were linked to the benevolence of African elites. Without complying with local regulations, European traders could not engage in business. Frequently, it is taught that Europeans constructed forts in Africa, but it is rarely noted that such forts could not have been built absent the African elites’ permission.

In the Galinhas empire, the Vai adage “Sunda ma gara, ke a sunda-fa,” which means “A stranger has no power but his landlords,” describes foreign traders’ relationships with African rulers. Africans were unwilling to tolerate squatters, so Europeans had to pay for their quarters.

In West Africa, for example, the Akwamu collected rents from European forts and employed a customs officer to oversee trade flow. This excerpt from a report compiled by a Danish official captures the authority of African rulers: “The King of Akwamu charges customs duties here on all goods which pass along the river and to ensure that these are paid, he has employed an official to take care of his interest.”

Not only did Africans extract financial benefits by charging Europeans for building forts on African soil, but they also retained property rights to the land. In some cases, Africans invited Europeans to their trading centers. Renting space to Europeans became so lucrative that on the Gold Coast, African elites permitted one European group per trading town. Further, the intense rivalry between Europeans elevated Africans’ position and allowed them to benefit from lower prices and a wider array of goods.

The transatlantic slave trade was a harrowing event, but it was a business nonetheless and can be analyzed using economic tools. The trade’s victims were disproportionately African, but this should not conceal the fact that for many Africans, the slave trade was a legitimate venture connected to preexisting trading arrangements. In his new book, Slave Traders by Invitation: West Africa’s Slave Coast in the Precolonial Era, Finn Fuglestad avers that the slave trade was sustained by Africans who beckoned Europeans to trade.

Africans even formalized trading relations with Europeans by participating in treaties that governed the purchase of slaves. Moreover, according to the fifteenth-century reports of Portuguese official Diego Gomez, some monarchs were so inclined to their pursue economic interests that they demonstrated an “overwhelming willingness” to offer natives as slaves. Collaborating with Africans was crucial to the success of the slave trade and European trading centers like Liverpool.

According to David Richardson, Africans were instrumental in establishing the networking and institutional arrangements that enabled British slaving to thrive. “Without African agency and support, British slaving could not have reached the scale that it did,” he writes.

Other than downplaying African agency, historians usually argue that the transatlantic trade undermined African economies. But this assumption is a failure to understand economic utility. If imported items satisfied Africans’ demands, then we cannot argue that imports made them worse off.

Africans had the upper hand in trade negotiations and often determined the quality and prices of the products they obtained from Europeans. Before deciding to import copper, for instance, Daniel Cunha explains that Africans would check “the quality of copper by evaluating its material properties of redness, luminosity, and sound, which served to embed it into ritual and mythological systems.”

Due to African traders’ high standards, goods were in fact frequently rejected without even an explanation. Neither is there compelling evidence to indicate that imports impeded local production. Notwithstanding imports, the iron industry flourished in Cameroon and Bassar as late as the nineteenth century. Pieter Emmer in a classic article completely shatters the myth that the transatlantic slave trade had a substantial impact on African economies:

The value of the European imports into West Africa could not have been more than 5 percent of the value of Africa’s internal production and that is assuming that the Africans pro­duced no more than their subsistence…. In sum, there is no evi­dence to show that between 1500 and 1800 either quan­ti­tatively or qualitat­ively the Atlantic trade in goods could have made much of a differ­ence to the economy of West Africa.

Indeed, the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade evokes feelings of hostility; however, emotionalism should not deter us from studying the topic with an objective eye. For centuries, slavery was considered legitimate commerce; hence, Africans, like their peers, sanctioned it and were willing to participate in the sale of their people to advance economic and political agendas. Whitewashing Africa’s involvement in the transatlantic trade only succeeds in infantilizing black people. [source]

In other words, the powers-that-be sanctioned the slave trade—“trade” is the opportune word here because the slaves weren’t stolen—they were traded.

At least 5 whistleblowers come forward against Biden family

From Breitbart.com (May 15, 2023):

The whistleblowers are in addition to the multitude of witnesses that Republican members of Congress have interviewed behind closed doors.

The whistleblowers range from an IRS agent to an Obama administration stenographer, encompassing alleged corruption in Ukraine and Mexico, along with the FBI and DOJ.

1) Chuck Grassley: Whistleblowers Say FBI Has Evidence Joe Biden Involved in Family Business Schemes

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who testified before the House’s new Select Subcommittee on Political Weaponization in 2023, said whistleblower disclosures indicate the FBI has evidence that Joe Biden is aware of the family business schemes, a statement that directly contradicts the president.

Grassley said the whistleblower disclosures “make clear the FBI has within its possession very significant, impactful, and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter and James Biden.”

It is unclear why the FBI has not acted on the alleged evidence.

The FBI is in possession of Hunter Biden’s infamous “Laptop from Hell,” which has caused many to dub the Biden family the “Biden Crime Family.”

2) Former Hunter Biden Partner Tony Bobulinski Meeting with Senate Investigators to Turn Over Information

Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter, personally met with Joe and Hunter Biden in 2017 for an hour to discuss “the Bidens’ family business plans” for a Chinese energy deal. That deal appears to have never been finalized. The deal included ten percent “held by H for the big guy,” who Bobulinski said was Joe Biden.

“We discussed the Bidens’ history, the Bidens’ family business plans with the Chinese, with which he was plainly familiar at least at a high level,” Bobulinski told reporters in 2020 about the business meeting with Joe Biden.

Bobulinski has handed over intelligence about the deal to former FBI “point man” Timothy Thibault, who reportedly buried the information.

He also has conveyed emails, WhatsApp chats, agreements, documents, and other evidence to a Senate investigation committee.

3) Ex-White House Aide: FBI Ignored Joe Biden’s Role in Ukraine Business Dealings

Former Obama White House stenographer Mike McCormick alleged in 2023 that the FBI has ignored Joe Biden’s role in the family’s foreign influence-peddling “conspiracy” in Ukraine.

McCormick, who told the New York Post he has relevant information implicating Joe Biden in the family’s business affairs in Ukraine, submitted a tip to the FBI in February. McCormick said he never heard back from the FBI — the same law enforcement agency which allegedly “shut down” the investigation into Hunter’s abandoned “Laptop from Hell.”

According to McCormick, Biden’s former national security aide, Sullivan, told reporters on April 21, 2014, on Air Force Two as an anonymous “senior administration official” that the United States intended to help Ukraine’s natural gas industry.

Unknown to the public at the time, Hunter Biden was already a board member of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company. Hunter’s position on the board was not disclosed by the company until May 12, 2014, nearly a month after Sullivan’s statement to reporters.

4) IRS Whistleblower Says Biden Admin Interfering in Hunter Tax Fraud Probe

An IRS whistleblower alleged in 2023 that two Biden administration political appointees within the Justice Department are working to block charges against Hunter Biden for tax violations against recommendations.

In addition, the whistleblower alleges Weiss asked to be named as a special counsel in the probe to provide a degree of separation between the probe and Joe Biden. That request was apparently turned down.

According to the whistleblower’s attorney, Mark Lytle, his client wishes to speak with congressional investigators to corroborate his claims of political interference in the probe, which he has reported to the Justice Department’s top watchdog, according to a report.

5) Joe Biden Bribery Allegations Were Flagged to DOJ in 2018

Bribery allegations were brought to the Justice Department by a whistleblower in 2018 against President Joe Biden; but the allegations were ignored, a former federal prosecutor revealed last week. The second allegation of bribery against Joe Biden involves Hunter Biden’s board membership for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, the New York Post reported:

Bud Cummins, a former federal prosecutor, first reported the bribery allegations to then-New York US Attorney Geoff Berman on Oct. 4, 2018, in an email claiming he had evidence that Joe Biden had “exercised influence to protect” his son’s Ukrainian employer “in exchange for payments to Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, and Joe Biden.”

In the email obtained by John Solomon’s Just The News, Cummins said that Ukraine’s then-Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko wanted to travel to the United States to meet Berman, and could produce two “John Doe” witnesses to corroborate his claims about the Bidens.

Despite Cummins claims, Berman did not respond. [source]

It's like Biden is a mob boss.

Dream-shaping tech from MIT channels suggestions into your dreams

From Live Science.com (Sept. 25, 2020):

MIT scientists have figured out how to manipulate your dreams by combining an app with a sleep-tracking device called Dormio. In their new study, the researchers were able to insert certain topics into a person's dreams, with some pretty bizarre outcomes.

To do so, the researchers at MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces — a group that develops wearable systems and interfaces to enhance cognitive skills — used a technique called targeted dream incubation (TDI).

Prior studies have shown that during a rare dream state known lucid dreaming, in which a sleeper is aware that a dream is taking place, dreamers can use that awareness to consciously shape aspects of their dreams. TDI takes advantage of an early sleep stage, known as hypnagogia, to achieve a similar result (though not quite "controlling" dreams outright), researchers told Live Science.

During hypnagogia — a semi-lucid dream state that occurs during the onset of sleep — TDI introduced "targeted information" to a sleeper, "enabling direct incorporation of this information into dream content," the scientists wrote in a new study, published in the August issue of the journal Consciousness and Cognition. They conducted dream experiments by performing "serial awakenings" during daytime napping sessions in 25 participants.

Subjects first recorded audio prompts in an app, such as, "remember to think of a tree" and "remember to observe your thoughts," and then prepared for sleep, according to the study.

A hand-worn sleep tracker monitored the subject's heart rate, electrical changes on the skin surface, and the amount their fingers were bent or relaxed, to detect when a sleeper entered hypnagogia and was therefore "open to influence from outside audio cues," said lead study author Adam Haar Horowitz, a doctoral candidate in MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group. The Dormio sleep tracker communicated with the app, "which delivers audio at the correct times, and records audio of dream reports" when the subject is awake, Haar Horowitz told Live Science in an email.

Just as a subject drifted off to sleep and entered hypnagogia, Dormio would coordinate with the app to wake them up with the pre-recorded prompts. This cycle repeated several times, with the sleeper also recording a brief "dream journal" entry into the app when they were awakened.

"Simply put, people tell us whether the prompts appear in their dream," Haar Horowitz said. "Often, they are transformed — a 'tree' prompt becomes a tree-shaped car — but direct incorporation is easily identified."

The scientists found that 67% of the subjects' dream reports mentioned dreams that incorporated a tree. "I was following the roots with someone and the roots were transporting me to different locations," one participant recalled. Another mentioned "a tree from my childhood, from my backyard. It never asked for anything." The same subject, in later awakenings, described "trees splitting into infinite pieces" and "a shaman, sitting under the tree with me, he tells me to go to South America."

"Dream reports increased in bizarreness and immersion with each awakening," but the scientists did not develop a universal rating system for the bizarreness of the dreams, the study authors reported. [read more]

Sci-fi to sci-fact. The benefits and drawbacks of the tech from Grok:

MIT's TDI/Dormio tech offers exciting opportunities for creativity boosts, therapy, and self-understanding by bridging waking intention with dreaming. However, it comes with ethical pitfalls around autonomy, privacy, and unintended psychological effects. As dream engineering advances, balancing benefits with safeguards (as the MIT team has discussed in their ethics work) will be crucial. More independent, long-term studies are needed before widespread adoption.

IED near Alabama reservoir detonated after officials warn of 'unprecedented' critical infrastructure threat

From Fox News.com (May 15):

A grenade-type improvised explosive device was discovered and detonated in an Alabama reservoir that serves as the sole drinking water source for roughly 350,000 people, officials said Thursday.

Divers surveying the Converse Reservoir Dam for routine maintenance discovered the bomb, which the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System (MAWSS) described as a "grenade-type IED," and immediately alerted the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), according to authorities.

The device was secured and detonated by a multi-agency team of operators including personnel from the FBI Bomb Squad, Mobile Police Department Explosive Ordnance Detail, Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's Bomb Squad, MCSO and the Daphne Search and Rescue Team, according to MAWSS.

MAWSS Director Bud McCrory called the IED discovery "an unprecedented threat" to the area's drinking water, adding "we are fortunate that this device was discovered before it could cause serious damage to our water supply or harm to individuals."

The Converse Reservoir is the sole source of drinking water for the Mobile area's 350,000 residents, according to MAWSS.

"We are grateful for the professionalism and competency of our law enforcement partners – as well as the quick thinking of our contractors and divers – in identifying this device and safely destroying it," McCrory said.

MAWSS said it is working with law enforcement agencies to investigate how the bomb got in the reservoir and how long it had been there. The agency will also work with law enforcement to increase security around the dam.

The Converse Reservoir and its dam are federally designated critical infrastructure. The dam is classified as a high hazard potential, according to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.

The high hazard designation means a structural failure would "probably cause loss of human life," according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Fox News Digital contacted MAWSS, MCSO and the FBI for additional comment. [source]

Glad the divers found the IED in time. 

Treasury Sanctions Iran Shipping, Banking Networks

From Newsmax.com (May 19):

The Treasury Department announced new sanctions Tuesday targeting businesses, vessels, and financial networks accused of helping Iran move billions of dollars through oil sales, foreign currency exchanges and covert shipping operations despite existing U.S. sanctions.

The action targets more than 50 companies, individuals and vessels that Treasury said helped Iran access the international financial system and move money tied to oil, petrochemical and other commercial transactions.

"Iran's shadow banking system facilitates the illicit transfer of funding for terrorist purposes," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

"As Treasury systematically dismantles Tehran's shadow banking system and shadow fleet under Economic Fury, financial institutions must be alert to how the regime manipulates the international financial system to wreak havoc," he added.

Treasury said Iranian exchange houses and front companies use networks across multiple countries to process foreign currency transactions, move money for sanctioned Iranian banks and disguise the origin of Iranian oil and petrochemical exports.

Treasury accused some companies of managing cross-border money laundering operations, while others allegedly arranged payments tied to Iran’s petroleum, metals, manufacturing and automobile industries.

Treasury also targeted vessels accused of transporting Iranian oil, liquefied petroleum gas, petrochemicals and fuel products through shipping networks operating under multiple national flags.

The sanctions campaign aims to reduce revenue available to Iran’s government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

"Treasury is aggressively advancing Economic Fury and has disrupted billions in projected oil revenue, taken actions that have led to the freezing of nearly half a billion dollars in regime-linked cryptocurrency, and cracked down on Tehran's shadow banking networks," the department said.

The Trump administration warned foreign companies and financial institutions that they could also face penalties if they help facilitate Iranian commerce or sanctions evasion.

The latest action follows other recent Treasury enforcement efforts tied to Iran sanctions.

One case announced Monday involved a settlement with a company tied to Indian billionaire Gautam Adani after Treasury accused it of arranging liquefied petroleum gas imports that allegedly originated in Iran.

Treasury said the imports were routed through a Dubai-based supplier claiming the gas came from Oman and Iraq, but investigators concluded warning signs should have alerted the company to the fuel’s Iranian origin.

The company agreed to pay $275 million and adopt additional compliance measures to settle potential sanctions violations. [source]

Good! It would be better if the IRGC's bank accounts were frozen, but a still pretty good tactics to put pressure on them.