Authored by Nathan Worcester and Arjun Singh via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

PHEONIX—Kari Lake has won Arizona’s Republican Senate primary, defeating Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and Elizabeth Reye.

“If you think this is a battle between Democrats and Republicans, you’re still sleeping,” Lake said in her victory speech, calling on Trump Republicans, traditional Republicans, “disaffected Democrats,” and others to come together.

Lake, a former Phoenix-area television news anchor and Republicans’ 2022 gubernatorial nominee, was favored to win the primary with a significant lead in most polls.

Her victory sets up a general election contest with Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who ran unopposed in the Democratic Senate primary.

During her victory speech, the Iowa-born Lake brandished what she described as an opposition research file on Gallego, calling him extreme and highlighting his Chicago origins.

Gallego’s victory was called shortly after the polls closed at 7:00 p.m. local time. The Associated Press called Lake’s victory in the primary at 8:44 p.m. local time.

As of 9 p.m. local time, Lake had won 53.3 percent of the vote, according to the Associated Press, and carried all but two counties in the state. Lamb had 40.7 percent as of that same time, while Reye had 6.1 percent.

Lake and Gallego are seeking to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who is not seeking reelection. Sinema was elected as a Democrat in 2018 but left the party after the 2022 midterm elections.

Matthew Martinez, who leads the legal ballot-chasing effort for conservative advocacy group Turning Point Action, lauded Lake’s win in a speech at her victory party.

“This is a good victory… but we have to win our general,” Martinez said on stage.

Senators from Arizona, a battleground state, have often received a spotlight in national politics. The late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ran for president in 2000, where he was Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s primary opponent, and in 2008, when he won the nomination but was defeated in the general election by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

McCain later attracted national prominence for his criticism of candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and, later, during his presidency. McCain succeeded the late Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), who was the Republican nominee in the 1964 presidential election against President Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater later played a key role in defense policy and is often regarded as a pivotal figure in the conservative movement.

Arizona’s other senator, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), is named as a possible running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

“I don’t understand why Kari Lake is afraid of an even, grounded debate,” Gallego said.

Lake said she didn’t want to work with the debate commission, citing her treatment during the 2022 midterms.

“We’ve seen how they treated people the last election cycle back in 2022, where people who decided not to do the debate, namely Hobbs, ended up getting her own half-an-hour. That was my problem,” Lake told reporters on July 30.

She indicated that her campaign would consult with Gallego about a possible debate in another forum.

Authored by Nick Bryant via nickbryantnyc.com,

Interlochen is a prestigious fine arts preparatory school in northern Michigan, and Jeffrey Epstein attended Interlochen “camp” in 1967 as a teenager. But the school disavows that two-time Attorney General William Barr also attended the camp in 1967, despite pictorial evidence that appears to tell a different story. 

At the top of the page, the picture shows teenage Epstein standing in front of his respective lodge at Interlochen in 1967 and a boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to a miniature William Barr kneeling before his respective lodge. In fact, he could be a doppelganger for William Barr if he isn’t William Barr.

Interlochen cannot possibly deny that Epstein attended the camp, because he became a major booster for the school, donating $500,000 that financed construction of the Jeffrey Epstein Scholarship Lodge on the school’s campus. He also held soirees for Interlochen alumni at his New York townhouse, and, of course, he preyed on Interlochen minors. “Jane,” an Interlochen camp alumni, was one of four women who testified at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial. She testified that she met Maxwell and Epstein at Interlochen’s summer camp in the summer of 1994, when she was 13, and they groomed her for sexual abuse that lasted more than five years. 

On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested at the Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Two days later Barr seemingly recused himself from all things Epstein. “I’m recused from that matter because one of the law firms that represented Epstein long ago was a firm I subsequently joined for a period of time,” Barr told reporters. Barr was referring to his tenure at Kirkland and Ellis whose Jay Leftkowitz colluded with Assistant US Attorney Ann Marie Villlafana to work out Epstein’s corrupt, “sweetheart” deal in 2007, which landed Epstein in a county jail for 13 months, even though the Justice Department was aware of more than 30 underage victims of Epstein. 

Barr had additional reasons to recuse himself from all things Epstein in addition to the conflict of interest engendered by his employment at Kirkland and Ellis. Alex Acosta, who oversaw Epstein’s sweetheart deal when he was the US attorney for Southern Florida, served in Donald Trump’s cabinet as Secretary of Labor alongside Barr. Moreover, Barr’s father, Donald, was the headmaster Dalton School, one of the most prestigious preparatory schools in the United States, when he hired an extremely unqualified, college dropout, Jeffrey Epstein, to teach math and physics at the school—seven years after the above picture was taken. (Interestingly, Donald Barr would resign from Dalton the same year he hired Epstein.) So, Barr had three solid reasons to recuse himself from all things Epstein. 

But the day following Barr’s recusal, Tuesday July 9th, 2019, a Justice Department official announced that Barr consulted with career “ethics officials” at the Justice Department, and came to the conclusion that he didn’t have to recuse himself from Epstein’s 2019 prosecution in Manhattan. However, Barr said he would recuse himself from an internal investigation that delved into Epstein’s sweetheart deal in 2008 in which Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in jail and served 13 months, even though the Justice Department had an extensive list of Epstein’s underage victims. Unbelievably, the Department of Justice ultimately ruled that Epstein’s sweetheart deal, which covered up his crimes against numerous underage victims, was “poor judgement.” 

Throughout the 1980s, Barr bounced between government service and a prestigious Washington law firm. In the wake of the 1988 election, Bush the Elder installed Barr as first assistant attorney general. In 1990, Barr became the deputy attorney general, which is the second most powerful position in the Justice Department. 

Barr’s boss at the Justice Department was Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, and the Department of Justice under Thorburgh played an integral role in covering up the interstate pedophile network run by Lawrence King of Omaha and Craig Spence of Washington, DC, which is discussed in The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse, and Betrayal. Thornburgh was also a close friend of pedophilic pimp Craig Spence. 

The “Franklin” child trafficking network was massive, and it required three hijacked grand juries to cover-up: a state grand jury in Nebraska, a federal grand jury in Nebraska, and a federal grand jury in Washington, DC. Thornburgh and Barr were at the helm of the Justice Department when their minions in Nebraska and Washington, DC perpetrated the egregious cover-ups. Thornburgh relinquished his position as attorney general in 1991 to run for the US Senate, and Barr became the attorney general. Barr then put the finishing touches on covering up the Franklin child trafficking network.

In fact, William Barr specializes in cover-ups. Under his second watch as attorney general, the Epstein child trafficking network was covered up. Despite the Epstein network’s myriad of acknowledged procurers and pimps, Ghislaine Maxwell was the only person to take the fall. And the Justice Department under Merrick Garland went on to facilitate the cover-up.

So … back to the aforementioned pictures. Barr had three conflicts of interest in the Epstein case that he sidestepped to deftly cover-up Epstein’s child trafficking network. If Epstein and Barr had a friendship or, in the very least, were acquittances dating back to 1967, then he surely would’ve had to recuse himself from all things Epstein. The pictures show that Barr has a doppelganger or Interlochen is lying. 

You, the reader, decide.

(The images above were gleaned from the 1967 Interlochen Art Camp directory, and Epstein is on page 63 and the purported picture of Barr is on page 68.) 

Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

A lot of people would like political solutions to their problems, i.e., getting the government to make other people do what they want. People with any moral sense, however, recognize that can only create more problems.

Clever players, therefore, use the government as a tool but do so from behind a curtain. They know that it’s more effective, and a lot safer, to pull the puppet’s strings from offstage. Sometimes, they step into the limelight, depending on the circumstances and the depth of their personal narcissism. But they’re all about two things: Power and money. Call them the Deep State.

Once a country develops an entrenched Deep State, only a revolution or a dictatorship can turn things around. And probably only in a small country.

The American Deep State is a powerful informal network which controls most institutions. You won’t read about it in the news because it controls the news. Politicians won’t talk about it or even admit that it exists. That would be like a mobster discussing murder and robbery on the 6 o’clock news. You could say the Deep State is hidden, but it’s hidden in plain sight.

The Deep State is involved in almost every negative thing that’s happening right now. It’s essential to know what it’s all about.

The State

The Deep State uses and hides behind the State itself.

Even though the essence of the State is coercion, people have been taught to love and respect it. Most people think of the State in the quaint light of a grade school civics book. They think it has something to do with “We the People” electing a Jimmy Stewart character to represent them. That ideal has always been a pernicious fiction because it idealizes, sanitizes, and legitimizes an intrinsically evil and destructive institution, which is based on force. As Mao once said, political power comes out of the barrel of a gun.

The Deep State

The Deep State itself is as old as history. But the term “Deep State” originated in Turkey, which is appropriate since it’s the heir to the totally corrupt Byzantine and Ottoman empires. And in the best Byzantine manner, our Deep State has insinuated itself throughout the fabric of what once was America. Its tendrils reach from Washington down to every part of civil society. Like a metastasized cancer, it can no longer be easily eradicated.

In many ways, Washington models itself after another city with a Deep State, ancient Rome. Here’s how a Victorian-era freethinker, Winwood Reade, accurately described it:

“Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo.”

The Deep State controls the political and economic essence of the US. This is much more than observing that there’s no real difference between the left and right wings of the Demopublican Party. Anyone with any sense (that is, everybody except the average voter) knows that although the Republicans say they believe in economic freedom (but don’t), they definitely don’t believe in social freedom. And the Democrats say they believe in social freedom (but don’t), but they definitely don’t believe in economic freedom.

Who Is the Deep State?

The American Deep State is a real but informal structure that has arisen to not just profit from but control the State.

The Deep State has a life of its own, like the government itself. Within the government, it’s composed of top-echelon employees of a dozen Praetorian agencies, like the FBI, CIA, and NSA…top generals, admirals, and other military operatives…long-term congressmen and senators…and directors of important regulatory agencies.

But the Deep State is much broader than just the government. It includes the heads of major corporations, all of whom are heavily involved in selling to the State and enabling it. That absolutely includes Silicon Valley, although those guys at least used to have a sense of humor, evidenced by their defunct “Don’t Be Evil” motto.

It also includes the top people in the Fed, and the heads of the major banks, brokers, and insurers. Add the presidents and many professors at top universities, which act as Deep State recruiting centers… top media figures, of course… and many regulars at things like the WEC, Bohemian Grove, and the Council on Foreign Relations. They epitomize the status quo, held together by power, money, and propaganda.

Altogether, I’ll guess these people number a couple thousand. You might analogize the structure of the Deep State to a huge pack of dogs. The people I’ve just described are the Top Dogs.

But there are hundreds of thousands more who aren’t at the nexus but who directly depend on them, have considerable clout, and support the Deep State because it supports them. This includes many of the wealthy, especially those who got that way thanks to their State connections… the 1.5 million people who have top secret clearances (that’s a shocking but accurate number), plus top players in organized crime, especially the illegal drug business, little of which would exist without the State. Plus mid-level types in the police and military, corporations, and non-governmental organizations.

These are what you might call the Running Dogs.

Beyond that are the scores and scores of millions who depend on things remaining the way they are, like the 50%-plus of Americans who are net recipients of benefits from the State—the 70 million on Social Security, the 90 million on Medicaid, the 50 million on food stamps, the many millions on hundreds of other programs, the 23 million government employees and most of their families. In fact, let’s include the many millions of average Joes and Janes who are just getting by.

You might call this level of people, the vast majority of the population, Whipped Dogs. They both love and fear their master; they’ll do as they’re told and roll over on their backs and wet themselves if confronted by a Top Dog or Running Dog who feels they’re out of line. These three types of dogs make up the vast majority of the US population. I trust you aren’t among them. I consider myself a Lone Wolf in this context and hope you are, too. Unfortunately, however, dogs are enemies of wolves and tend to hunt them down.

The Deep State is destructive, but it’s great for the people in it. And, like any living organism, its prime directive is: Survive! It survives by indoctrinating the fiction that it’s both good and necessary. However, it’s a parasite that promotes the ridiculous notion that everyone can live at the expense of society.

Is it a conspiracy headed by a man stroking a white cat? I think not. It’s hard enough to get a bunch of friends to agree on what movie to see, much less a bunch of power-hungry miscreants bent on running everyone’s lives. But, on the other hand, the Top Dogs all know each other, went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, socialize, and, most importantly, have common interests, values, and philosophies.

The American Deep State rotates around the Washington Beltway. It imports America’s wealth as tax revenue. A lot of that wealth is consumed there by useless mouths. And then, it exports things that reinforce the Deep State, including wars, fiat currency, and destructive policies. This is unsustainable simply because nothing of value can come out of a city full of parasites.

A SOLUTION?

Many Americans undoubtedly believe Donald Trump is a solution to what ails the US. They think he’s a maverick who will smash the Deep State. That’s understandable since he’s a cultural conservative. He wants the country to resemble the happy days of yesteryear, when Mom, apple pie, and Chevrolets were more important than Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He’s a nationalist, a traditionalist, and business-oriented. That’s all very well. But irrelevant to the Deep State.

The problem is that Trump will almost necessarily surround himself with Deep State players; they’re really all there is in and around the Washington Beltway, Wall Street, Academia, or the media. He’s not about to abolish government agencies (although he might prune a few) and fire scores of thousands of government employees. His lack of a philosophical core will guarantee that instead of trying to abolish the State (in the manner of Millei or Ron Paul), he’ll just use it in ways he thinks are righteous. The proof of that is the trillions of new government spending and deficits he approved of when he was in power. He’ll spend trillions more if he’s re-elected. And all of it will feed the Deep State.

On the bright side, if Trump is elected, his rhetoric will be less objectionable than Kamala’s. There will probably be less overtly disastrous legislation enacted, and some regulations will likely be cut back.

On the not-so-bright side, I’m afraid the Democrats could win come November. They have control of the apparatus of the State, and they absolutely don’t want to give it up. The Deep State will be just fine if Trump wins, of course. But nobody wants to take a chance; there might be some broken rice bowls. He might turn into a loose cannon. So the Deep State, the Establishment, will be even fatter and happier if the Dems take control.

That’s what they’ll work for. And that’s the way to bet.

*  *  *

It’s clear there are some ominous social, political, cultural, and economic trends playing out right now. Many of which seem to point to an unfortunate decline of the West. That’s precisely why legendary speculator Doug Casey and his team just released this free report, which shows you exactly what’s happening and what you can do about it. Click here to download it now.

New Jersey AR-15 fans were handed a big victory on Tuesday, after US District Judge Peter G. Sheridan issued an order declaring that the Colt AR-15 rifle is not an “assault firearm” as defined in the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice Section 2C:39-1, and that doing so is incompatible with recent precedent set by the US Supreme Court.

“The AR-15 Provision of the Assault Firearms Law is unconstitutional under Bruen and Heller as to the Colt AR-15 for use of self-defense within the home,” Sheridan wrote in an accompanying memorandum citing the two cases decided in 2022 and 2008 respectively.

Under the Heller decision, the right of Americans to own and keep firearms in their homes for lawful self-defense is covered under the 2nd Amendment, while Buren established a history-and-tradition-based test for owning guns.

According to Sheridan, New Jersey’s AR-15 prohibition therefore cannot stand, as it’s inconsistent with America’s historical tradition of gun regulation by banning an entire class of commonly used firearms that are used for home defense.

“In this court’s understanding of Supreme Court precedent, a categorical ban on a class of weapons commonly used for self-defense is unlawful,” he wrote.

That said, Sheridan declined to extend his determination to roughly 60 other guns defined under New Jersey law as “assault firearms,” as the court had only been fully briefed on the AR-15 and none of the other firearms on the restricted list.

“Given the variety of firearms regulated in the Assault Firearms Law and the nuances that each individual firearm presents, the Court’s analysis of the Assault Firearms Law is limited to the firearm with which the Court has been provided the most information: the AR-15,” he wrote.

Sheridan also upheld the state’s ban on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) which can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The only way residents can possess them is if they’ve registered an “assault firearm” in line with state law, and use said LCM in connection with sanctioned competitive shooting matches.

As the Epoch Times notes further, Sheridan argued that the LCM ban is different than the categorical ban on AR-15s because the law doesn’t restrict the number of magazines a person can own, just their capacity. He also reasoned that the “unprecedented rapidity and damage of mass shootings support a nuanced reading” of the historical analogs under the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen.

He argued that large-capacity detachable magazines can be traced directly to military heritage and brought up the historical analogy of restrictions on Bowie knives.

“Like these restrictions, the LCM Amendment is precisely that—a restriction responding to safety concerns present in our time,” he wrote, arguing that the burden on New Jersey residents’ right to self-defense is comparable to that imposed by historical laws restricting the way that Bowie knives could be carried and used.

“As such, these historical analogues provide the basis for the following conclusion: that the State may regulate the permissible capacity of the large capacity magazines.”

The judge ruled that the LCM ban is constitutional. He issued a 30-day stay on his decision, meaning the AR-15 ban remains temporarily in effect.

Several of the plaintiffs in the consolidated case have already filed an appeal.

New Jersey residents Mark Cheeseman and Timothy Connelly (dubbed the Cheeseman plaintiffs in the case) and gun rights advocacy group Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed a notice of appeal on July 30.

FPC said in a statement that the appeal targets “legal deficiencies” in the judge’s opinion and that the motion seeks the “full relief” that was originally requested from the district court, which included a request to overturn the “assault firearm” restriction as it applied to the list of 60-plus guns and ones that are “substantially similar.”

“Bans on so-called ‘assault weapons’ are immoral and unconstitutional. FPC will continue to fight forward until all of these bans are eliminated throughout the United States,” FPC President Brandon Combs said in a July 30 statement.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, one of the defendants in the case, said in a statement posted on social media that he plans to appeal the portion of the ruling that declares the AR-15 ban unconstitutional while praising the other aspects of the ruling.

“I am disappointed that the district court has held that individuals have a constitutional right to possess the Colt AR-15,” he said, calling such firearms an “instrument designed for warfare.”

“All New Jerseyans should know that the overwhelming majority of our law remains intact today.”

Platkin noted that the court upheld the LCM ban and didn’t allow individuals to possess any other guns classified as “assault firearms.”

He said he remains committed to defending the entirety of New Jersey’s firearm law and looks forward to pressing the state’s arguments on appeal.

Restrictions on magazine capacity ranging from 10 to 20 rounds of ammunition are in effect in 14 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Concealed Carry Association (USCCA).

Bans of so-called assault weapons have been adopted in nearly a dozen states, according to the USCCA.

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A new congressional report suggests that the U.S. military lacks the required capabilities to preserve the nation’s strategic interests and could lose a potential war against China.

The report, published on July 30 by the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, found that “the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.”

“The Commission finds that the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United States and its allies and partners,” the report reads.

Eric Edelman, who serves as vice chair for the commission, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that China’s communist regime was outpacing the United States in military development.

He said that fact could increase the likelihood of a conflict between the two powers and the likelihood of the United States losing.

“There is potential for a near-term war and a potential that we might lose such a conflict,” Mr. Edelman said.

“We found that China is in many ways outpacing the U.S.,” he said. “While we still have the strongest military in the world with the farthest global reach, when we get to 1,000 miles of China’s shore, we start to lose our military dominance and could find ourselves on the losing end of a conflict.”

To that end, Mr. Edelman underscored that the growing strategic partnerships between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia were a “major strategic shift” that U.S. defense planners failed to fully account for.

He said that with those four authoritarian regimes working together against the United States in an unprecedented way, the United States could face a global conflict that would stretch all of its national resources thin.

“It makes each of those countries potentially stronger militarily, economically, and diplomatically, and potentially can weaken the tools we have at our disposal to deal with them,” Mr. Edelman said.

“And it makes it more likely that a future conflict, for instance in the Indo-Pacific, would expand across other theaters, and that we would find ourselves in a global war that is on the scale of the Second World War.”

Therefore, the Commission’s report calls on Congress and the various government departments to “rewrite laws and regulations to remove unnecessary barriers to adopting innovation, budgeting, and procurement” in pursuit of increased deterrence.

Likewise, the report recommends that the national strategy be radically transformed by moving away from the “bipolar” Cold War strategic model to a “multi-theater model” that accounts for the fact that the United States could face armed conflicts against multiple nation states across the globe simultaneously.

Time is not on the United States’ side, the report says, and China is likely to increase its hostile behavior in the coming years in an effort to “normalize unlawful behavior” as it pursues “establishing advantageous conditions for future coercion or conflict.”

The report does not equivocate on the issue. If changes are not made to the national strategic posture, the armed wing of China’s communist rulership, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), will likely surpass the strength of the U.S. military.

“If these trends continue, the PLA will be a peer, if not superior, military competitor of the United States across domains, a situation the United States has not faced since the height of the Cold War,” the report reads.

Commission Chair Jane Harman told the committee the United States should synthesize all instruments of its power, including private industries, to propel military innovation and the adoption of new technologies.

In order to achieve this, the report calls for increasing taxes to expand U.S. defense spending to Cold War levels, which it suggests fell between 4.9 and 16.9 percent of GDP.

Assuming the United States maintains its 2023 GDP of about $27 trillion, that would mean an annual defense budget of at least $1.3 trillion to as much as $4.5 trillion, though the report says that advances in commercial technologies would reduce the cost burden compared to the Cold War era.

“We found that the joint force is at the breaking point of maintaining readiness today. Adding more burden without adding resources to rebuild readiness will cause it to break,” Ms. Harman said.

“We recommend fundamental change in the way the Pentagon and other government agencies do business, the way they incorporate private sector technology, and a full embrace of our partners and allies. Shorthand for this is we recommend using all elements of national power.”

Mainstream media headlines both in US and European media often portray as an ‘aggressor’ and ‘terrorist state’ while simultaneously presenting Israel as purely the victim each instance there is escalation.

But arguably Iran has been somewhat restrained in responding militarily to Israel after having endured covert assassinations of some of its top scientists and military officials stretching back over a decade. This has been a war waged between the shadows: Iran supports several proxies throughout the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah, while Israel has sent intelligence assets and hit squads to strike Iranian officials swiftly and suddenly.

There have also been a series of Israeli sabotage attack targeting Iranian nuclear sites and infrastructure over the past years. Below is a list of assassinations of prominent Iranians which have been linked to Israeli intelligence (and it is believed some covert operations may have been carried out with the help of US intelligence).

* * *

Middle East Eye takes a look at the assassinations in Iran that were attributed to Israel. 

Masoud Alimohammadi

In January 2010, Masoud Alimohammadi, a professor specialising in particle physics at the University of Tehran, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb that had been attached to a motorcycle near his home.

He was a supporter of the Iranian opposition movement, which led some to accuse Tehran authorities of carrying out the assassination. 

However, Tehran’s chief prosecutor blamed the CIA and Mossad, pointing out that Alimohammadi was a nuclear scientist, and the US and its allies were attempting to curb Iran’s nuclear programme. 

The US State Department described the accusations as “absurd”. 

Iranian authorities arrested several suspects in his killing, accusing them of working for the Israeli intelligence service.

Majid Shahriari

Ten months after the killing of Alimohammadi, another nuclear scientist, Majid Shahriari, was killed in similar circumstances. 

Shahriari was reportedly a member of the nuclear engineering department of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. 

A motorcyclist pulled up to Shahriari’s car and attached a bomb, killing him in the explosion. His wife and driver were wounded but survived. 

Then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the attack was “undoubtedly the hand of the Zionist regime” and its western allies. 

Shahriari was a colleague of Alimohammadi, Al Jazeera reported at the time. 

Darioush Rezaeinejad 

In July 2011, the next scientist to be assassinated in Iran was Darioush Rezaeinejad.

Two men riding motorcycles fatally shot Rezaeinejad and wounded his wife. An unconfirmed report in an Israeli intelligence publication said that Rezaeinejad had been working on a nuclear detonator.

Iranian authorities rejected the claims, stating he was merely an academic. 

An Israeli intelligence source told German publication Der Spiegel that Mossad was behind the attack. Israeli officials did not comment.

Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam

Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam was among 17 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) killed during a blast in Tehran in November 2011. 

Moghaddam had been described as the “architect” of Iran’s missile programme, and was crucial in developing artillery and missile units. Ayatollah Ali Khamanei was among those to attend his funeral. 

Iran officially described the event as an “accident” during the routine transfer of munitions. 

A source with close links to Iranian authorities told The Guardian the operation had been carried out by Mossad. Time magazine also cited a western intelligence source as stating that Mossad was responsible. 

Tehran dismissed such reports, with the armed forces chief of staff stating that “the recent incident and blast is not related to Israel or America”. Israel neither confirmed or denied its involvement.

Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan

In January 2012, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan became the latest Iranian scientist to be killed.

A motorcyclist was once again used in the killing, riding up to Roshan’s car and attaching a magnetic bomb that killed the scientist and his driver. 

Roshan was a professor at a technical university in Tehran and a department supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.

Then-vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi blamed the attack on Israeli agents. 

Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah

The New York Times reported in November 2020 that deputy al-Qaeda leader Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah had been assassinated by Israeli agents in Tehran three months earlier. 

Abdullah, also known as Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was allegedly killed by two Israeli operatives on motorcycles, at the request of the United States. 

Miriam, the widow of Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza and Abdullah’s daughter, was also killed, according to US intelligence sources who spoke to the New York Times.

Abdullah had been indicted in the United States for the 1998 bombings of its embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. 

Iran, Israel and the US did not publicly acknowledge the killing. 

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

Top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was gunned down in Tehran in November 2020. 

Fakhrizadeh was renowned as the architect of Iran’s military nuclear programme.

He became the face of Iran’s nuclear ambitions when named in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2015 “final assessment” of open questions about Iran’s nuclear programme and whether it was aimed at developing a nuclear bomb.

According to the New York Times, a Mossad team killed Fakhrizadeh with a computerised machine gun that required no on-site operatives.

The device weighed around a tonne and was smuggled into Iran in smaller parts and later reassembled.

Hassan Sayyad Khodaei

In May 2022, gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a vehicle in Tehran, killing senior Republican Guard officer Hassan Sayyad Khodaei.

Khodaei was killed by five gunshots, according to Iranian state media. 

He was a member of the Quds Force, which was responsible for the Republican Guard’s foreign operations. Khodaei reportedly served in Syria. 

Tehran blamed Israel for the killing and vowed revenge.

Citing intelligence officials briefed on the matter, the New York Times reported that Israel had informed American officials that it was behind the killing.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

A lot of people seem to think that the summer of 2024 is a time to party, but the truth is that this is a time when they should be feverishly preparing for the extremely chaotic times that are ahead of us.  I just don’t know what it is going to take for people to wake up and realize how late it is.  Donald Trump got shot and that shook people up for a few days, but that didn’t last for long.  Then there was a soft coup in the Democratic Party, and that got people fired up for a little bit, but that quickly faded.  Of course there is a small minority that is awake and that understands that we are living in truly historic times, but the vast majority of the population appears to be clueless. 

The following are 5 reasons why you should be prepping like crazy right now…

#1 As I have been warning for a long time, the results of the election in November will unleash a flood of negative emotion.  Whichever side loses is going to have a massive temper tantrum, and there is a very high risk that we could see widespread violence.  In fact, one recent survey actually discovered that 41 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that there will be a “civil war” within the next five years…

The possibility that America could face another civil war soon is not too far-fetched for a lot of voters.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 41% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the United States is likely to experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years, including 16% who consider such a scenario Very Likely. Forty-nine percent (49%) don’t think another civil war is likely in the next five years, including 20% who say it’s Not At All Likely. Another 10% are not sure.

#2 Armed conflicts are raging all over the globe.  The war in Ukraine continues to intensify, China has been threatening Taiwan, and the war in the Middle East could potentially escalate to an apocalyptic level by the end of this calendar year.  Meanwhile, riots, revolutions and civil unrest are erupting everywhere you look.  For example, it appears that Venezuela is right on the verge of erupting in flames…

Venezuela has been engulfed by violent riots as opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia announced he has proof he won Sunday’s disputed election hours after President Nicolas Maduro claimed he’d secured a third term in power.

Thousands of enraged protesters flooded the streets of the capital and several other cities, chanting ‘Freedom, freedom!’ and ‘This government is going to fall!’ as they set fire to tyres and rubbish and organised barricades to block police vehicles.

Security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds but were forced to recoil from Molotov cocktails and rocks hurled by the oncoming demonstrators, many of whom carried Venezuelan flags.

#3 The world is facing a long-term food crisis that isn’t going to go away.  Global supplies of food are getting tighter and tighter, and the UN is reporting that hundreds of millions of people did not have enough food to eat last year…

Around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa, according to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report published today by five United Nations specialized agencies.

#4 Many health experts are warning that it is just a matter of time before the next great global pandemic hits us.  A lot of people are keeping a very close eye on the bird flu, but I am also very concerned about the frightening outbreaks of Mpox that we have been witnessing in Africa.  According to the BBC, the Central African Republic is “the latest country in the region to declare an outbreak of the mpox virus”…

The Central African Republic has become the latest country in the region to declare an outbreak of the mpox virus.

Infections have spread to the capital, Bangui, after being restricted to rural areas, health minister Pierre Somse said.

He also told a local radio station that some families were hiding infected relatives due to stigma, thus increasing the risk to others.

#5 I am entirely convinced that historic natural disasters will continue to be a major theme during the second half of this year and beyond.  Even here in the United States, there has been quite a bit of highly unusual shaking lately.  If you can believe it, one county in Texas has actually declared a state of emergency because it has been hit by more than 100 significant earthquakes within the past week…

So many earthquakes have struck the west Texas county of Scurry in the past week – more than 100 at last count – local officials have declared a state of emergency.

Scurry County Judge Dan Hicks wrote in his Friday declaration of disaster that since the first earthquake, registering magnitude 4.9, was felt the night of July 22, “damage has been found throughout Scurry County in businesses and residences.”

The county’s buildings can handle a few quakes here and there, but the cumulative effects of so many small ones, punctuated by larger shaking, have become cause for concern.

Right now, we are only experiencing the very early stages of “the perfect storm” that is now upon us.

During the months and years that are ahead, things are going to get so much worse.

I highly recommend stockpiling food and supplies, because it won’t be too long before our world goes absolutely nuts.

Stocking up doesn’t have to be complicated.  At this point, so many people are buying emergency food that even Costco is stocking it on their shelves…

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feed fine — because Costco has an emergency dinner kit, dubbed “the apocalypse bucket” online, that lasts 25 years.

The Readywise Emergency Food Bucket, which boasts 150 freeze-dried and dehydrated meal servings, has caused a stir on social media. With an online price tag of $79.99, the bucket boasts that it’s more than just food in its product description — it says it provides “readiness in the face of uncertainty.”

The bucket features 80 entrees and sides, 30 breakfast servings and 40 drink servings that just need water to prepare, for a total of 25,280 calories. The meal options range from teriyaki rice, tomato basil soup and pasta Alfredo to cheesy macaroni and apple cinnamon cereal.

The good news is that there are now millions of preppers in this country that are preparing for the apocalyptic times that are rapidly approaching.

The bad news is that the total population of the United States is 333 million.

When things finally hit the fan, most people will be completely and utterly unprepared, and that truly will be a nightmare scenario.

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Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

During a performance in Washington DC on Sunday, Billie Joe Armstrong, frontman for the band Green Day, was pictured holding aloft a representation of Donald Trump’s head, prompting swift backlash.

The ‘head’ was a plastic Trump mask with ‘idiot’ written on it.

The image was posted to a fan account on X:

I’m not a part of the maga agenda #greenday pic.twitter.com/B8JP8bBl62

— Green Day Inc. (@GreenDayInc) July 30, 2024

pic.twitter.com/j42sRSrpKl

— Green Day Inc. (@GreenDayInc) July 30, 2024

pic.twitter.com/2SgRNyKA1h

— Green Day Inc. (@GreenDayInc) July 30, 2024

Considering not even three weeks have passed since an attempt was made to shoot Trump dead, the reaction has been one of disgust.

Green Day had a concert here in DC last night.

They decided it’d be a good idea to hold up a severed Trump head.

Just TWO WEEKS after he was sh*t in the head.

These people are SICK. pic.twitter.com/Fn7eP4RTFQ

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 30, 2024

Yes, liberals want to kill their political opponents, as we have recently seen.

— It’s Chinatown, Jake (@DetectiveJake1) July 31, 2024

Inciting violence.

— Disenfranchised (@BostonSweetSox) July 31, 2024

im a green day fan im going to see them next week in concert. separate art from the artist thats how it should be 100% of the time. i definitely don’t agree with this i think it’s sick

— Giancarlo Bintarelli 🇮🇹🇮🇹 (@gcbintarelli) July 30, 2024

As we have previously noted, Green Day have been ‘raging for the machine’ for some time now.

Armstrong, now aged 51 but still sporting bleached hair as if he is a teenager, often changes the words of the song ‘American Idiot’ from “I’m not a part of the redneck agenda,” to “I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda.”

Many have pointed out that the original lyrics of American Idiot were embraced by Americans at the time who stood in opposition to the warmongering neocon administration led by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Ironic then that Trump is the only President of the modern era not to have sent Americans to war.

Armstrong clearly didn’t pay any attention to the reaction Jack Black and his Tenacious D band mate Kyle Gass received after declaring a desire that the shooter had not missed Trump just days afterwards.

The band were forced to cancel their entire tour and leave Australia in the wake of the comments.

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