A video which is highly embarrassing to UK’s Royal Navy is going viral on social media, with some commenters noting that once upon a time the British navy was actually adept at sailing ships.
A prominent maritime monitoring site observes that the video shows that “Two of the navy’s elite minehunters, HMS Chiddingfold and HMS Bangor, based in Bahrain, were involved in an accident in which the Chiddingfold hit the Bangor.
HMS Chiddingfold and HMS Bangor collide off the docks of Bahrain, 18.01.24.
British defence secretary Grant Shapps recently boasted about how the UK makes up for catastrophically low military recruitment numbers with “a can-do attitude”… pic.twitter.com/5rtdMbewJo
While no personnel were injured in the collision, it reportedly resulted in significant damage for both ships, which will undergo repairs.
The Royal Navy provided few details, but responded to media inquiries with the following statement: “We are aware of an incident concerning two minehunters alongside in Bahrain. There are no casualties as a result of this incident and it would be inappropriate to comment further whilst investigations are ongoing.”
The UK has dispatched a team of engineers to assess the extent of the damage and to investigate the cause of the accident.
Maritime Executivewrites that “Unconfirmed comments from observers point to a likely serious mechanical malfunction which appears to be borne out in the video where the vessel appears to be reversing at speed and continues even after making contact.”
The minesweeper vessels may have been deployed in a supporting role connected to the US/UK-led Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea to defend commercial shipping against Houthi attacks, given the Royal Navy said their mission was “helping ensure the safe flow of trade through [regional] waters.”
Rear Admiral Edward Ahlgren has said the cause of the collision “is still to be established.” Likely this could take weeks to reveal after a thorough investigation.
Photographs of significant damage to the hull of one of the vessels has circulated…
Apparent severe damage to both the inside and outside of the Bangor…
🇬🇧 The internal and external consequences of a collision in Bahrain between two British Navy minesweepers.
“We train our people to the highest standards and rigorously enforce machinery safety standards, but unfortunately incidents of this nature can still happen,” Adm. Ahlgren was cited in BBC as saying.
Too bad for the Royal Navy… what happens in Bahrain does not stay in Bahrain.
Nine months since Riyadh and Tehran restored ties after years of animosity, Saudi Arabia has assumed a new role as an intermediary between Iran and the United States, three sources in Iran told Middle East Eye. High-ranking officials in Riyadh have been instrumental in relaying messages between the countries and reducing tensions over Israel’s war on Gaza.
The process began in November, when Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian attended an emergency summit in Riyadh on the Gaza war attended by leaders from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Arab League countries. An Iranian insider familiar with the matter told MEE that Amirabdollahian carried with him a message for the US to give to Saudi officials. It was a response to one recently received from Washington. The Saudis then conveyed this message to senior officials in Washington, the source said.
Another source in Iran’s foreign ministry told MEE that Saudi Arabia has been used as a conduit between the two sides alongside Oman, Qatar and Switzerland, which occasionally represents the US diplomatically in Tehran. The four countries have had to work as go-betweens repeatedly since the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the war on Gaza.
Iran is the Palestinian group’s strongest backer, and other Iranian-associated groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi movement in Yemen have attacked Israel and Israeli- and US-linked targets as Israel’s assault on Gaza has escalated.
According to the foreign ministry source, the communications passed between Iran and the US have primarily focused on curbing tensions and avoiding greater escalation in the region. The source said Tehran had warned the US about the potential consequences if Israel’s war on Gaza, which has already killed 24,000 people, brings regional tensions to an uncontrollable level. These included Israel being defeated in a broader regional war and increased security pressure on the US military.
Offering concessions
The first source said Saudi Arabia has been used as a conduit when tensions have ramped up following Israel’s assassination of senior commanders from the “Axis of Resistance”, the Iran-backed group of countries and armed groups in the region.
After Israel killed Razi Mousavi, a general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s elite Quds force, on 25 December, a Saudi delegation visited Tehran with a message from Washington that said the US wanted to contain the conflict in Gaza.
According to the first source, the US suggested potential concessions from Israel. One was that the US would not give backing or support to hard-right Israeli officials, which dominate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. This, the source said, would be contingent on Iran not trying to derail efforts to establish full ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a process that was interrupted by the outbreak of the Gaza war.
On January 8, Hossein Akbari, the Iranian ambassador to Syria, said that Iran had received a message from “one of the Persian Gulf countries”. According to Akbari, this country sent a delegation to Iran with a message from the Americans, offering a plan to resolve conflicts for the entire region, rather than solely addressing the Gaza war. MEE understands this Gulf country was Saudi Arabia.
Another Iranian insider told MEE that Washington used Saudi channels to inform Tehran that it was about to strike Yemen’s Houthis, who have been staging attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea to disrupt Israeli supplies and commerce.
The message urged Iran to restrain its allied groups during the US strike. It also indicated that the strikes on the Houthis would not initially be too strong, but if Tehran reacted forcefully then a fierce US response would follow. US and UK forces carried out a first round of air strikes on the Yemeni group on January 12.
That day, during a tour of a coffee shop in Allentown, Pennsylvania, US President Joe Biden said: “I’ve already delivered the message to Iran. They know not to do anything. We will make sure we respond to the Houthis if they continue this outrageous behavior along with our allies.”
Middle East Eye has asked the US State Department and the Saudi foreign ministry for comment.
A desire to avoid conflict
This ongoing communication between Washington and Tehran betrays a desire by both sides to reduce tensions and avoid a larger regional war, a former Iranian diplomat told MEE.
However, the unofficial understanding between Iran and the US to keep things under control is being tested by increased attacks by Iranian-backed Iraqi armed groups on US targets, the former diplomat acknowledged.
Last year, Iran and the US struck a deal, first reported by Middle East Eye, that significantly eased tensions. The United States gave Iran some sanctions relief on oil sales, and in return Tehran agreed to curb attacks by its allies on US targets and decrease uranium enrichment. Iran released five prisoners with US citizenship in return for five Iranians in American prisons being given clemency and $6bn of Iranian assets being unfrozen.
The former diplomat warned that unless a new agreement or understanding is reached between Iran and the US, a possible nuclear crisis could break out alongside the Gaza war or in its aftermath. Saudi Arabia’s involvement as an interlocutor is significant. In March, Tehran and Riyadh agreed to resume full diplomatic ties and reopen embassies.
The diplomatic breakthrough was brokered by China after seven years of extreme hostility, prompted by the 2016 Saudi execution of Shia Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr. In response to his death, Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, with Riyadh subsequently severing ties that were already strained by a number of disagreements over issues in the region, such as the Syrian war.
It’s no secret that politics in the United States is growing increasingly acrimonious — to the point that a 2022 poll found 43% of Americans think a civil war is a least somewhat likely in the next decade.
But here’s what few people realize: The intensity of our division springs from a federal government operating far beyond the limits of the Constitution — fueling a fight for control over powers that were never supposed to exist at the national level.
To put it another way, if the federal government were confined to its actual granted authorities, federal elections would be of little interest to the general public, because the outcome would be largely irrelevant to their everyday lives.
America’s founders drafted the Constitution with great trepidation. Having just escaped British tyranny, the people of the separate states that would comprise the proposed union were wary of centralizing too much power at the federal level, and thus sowing the seeds of a new tyranny.
They therefore set out to create a federal government to which the states delegated only certain limited powers, with all other subjects of governance reserved to the states.
Those powers — only 18 of them — are listed, one by one, in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. They include such things as the power to raise armies, maintain a navy, declare war, borrow money, coin money, establish punishments for counterfeiters and pirates, set standards of weights and measures, secure patents and establish post offices.
Reassuring those who were considering the enormously consequential decision of whether to ratify the Constitution, James Madison wrote,
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. [Federal powers] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce…The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people.”
To win over those would-be ratifiers who still feared the proposed federal government would undercut state sovereignty and infringe individual liberties, ten amendments were drafted — the Bill of Rights. The 10th Amendment codified Madison’s previous assurance about the division of authorities between the federal and state governments:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
We arrive then at a hard fact: Today’s sprawling federal government, which involves itself in almost every aspect of daily American life, is almost entirely unconstitutional.
To rattle off just a random fistful of the federal government’s unauthorized undertakings and entities — brace yourself — there is zero constitutional authority for the Social Security, Medicare, federal drug prohibitions, the Small Business Administration, crop subsidies, the Department of Labor, automotive fuel efficiency standards, climate regulations, the Federal Reserve, union regulation, housing subsidies, the Department of Agriculture, workplace regulations, the Department of Education, federal student loans, the Food and Drug Administration, food stamps, unemployment insurance or light bulb regulations. Even that sampling doesn’t begin to fully account for the scope of the unsanctioned activity.
Don’t let your affinity for any of those enterprises short-circuit your intellectual honesty: Even if you view some of them as benign, that doesn’t render them constitutional. And if you’ve ever invoked the Constitution to spotlight a different kind of government overreach, it would be hypocritical to nod approvingly when it’s violated in ways where you deem the result beneficial.
So how did we get to this place where the intended relationship between federal and state powers has been completely inverted — with a federal government wielding powers that are now “numerous and indefinite” rather than being “few and defined”?
Much of the current state of affairs has been driven by the Supreme Court’s extreme and expansive interpretations of certain clauses of the Constitution. Among the most significant are the General Welfare and Commerce clauses.
The General Welfare Clause, found at the start of Article 1, Section 8, says:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States…
Embedded in a clause focused on the power to tax, the words “general welfare” were meant to ensure that Congress’s taxation and spending would be confined to purposes that were broadly beneficial, rather than catering to narrow or localized interests.
The clause’s language was copied from the Articles of Confederation, where, as Madison explained, “it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers.” Indeed, he said, it was copied for the very reason that its prior use and understanding would hopefully minimize the risk of it being misinterpreted as a grant of power.
It flies in the face of reason that the drafters of the Constitution would take pains to carefully list the Congress’s specific authorities, yet simultaneously say Congress could also do anything it thinks generally beneficial.
Countering those who sought to interpret the clause that way, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “To consider the…phrase…as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.”
Clearly, based on context and history, those two words, general welfare, do not bestow an authority. Indeed, they’re present to limit an authority — the power to tax and spend.
The forces seeking to reshape the federal government by exploiting those two words were held at bay, but only for so long. In 1937, the Supreme Court used the imaginatively expansive interpretation of the General Welfare Clause to turn back a constitutional challenge to the Social Security Act — and to set a precedent that would fundamentally change the nature of our federal government.
That decision — Helvering v. Davis — came as the court was under intense institutional duress. Following a wave of high court decisions rightly striking down various pieces of New Deal legislation as unconstitutional, President Roosevelt — emboldened by his massive landslide reelection in 1936 — pushed a legislative scheme that would enable him to appoint as many as six more justices to the Supreme Court.
Whether to derail that plan or to merely cave to the overwhelming public opinion manifested in FDR’s jaw-dropping 523-8 electoral college landslide, the court — thanks in great part to swing-vote Justice Owen J. Roberts — began stamping its approval on New Deal legislation, with Helvering among the first.
Fittingly for a ruling that eviscerated limited government in America, Helvering’s very language had its own air of authoritarianism:
“Congress may spend money in aid of the ‘general welfare.’ There have been great statesmen in our history who have stood for other views. We will not resurrect the contest. It is now settled by decision.”
As if that proclamation didn’t do enough to demolish the concept of limited federal government, the court proceeded to amplify the damage. While acknowledging that determining what falls under “general welfare” requires discretion, the court declared, “the discretion…is not confided to the courts. The discretion belongs to Congress.” Thus, the court not only granted broad new power to Congress, but also limited the extent to which that power would be subject to checks and balances.
We don’t have to imagine how the “Father of the Constitution” would feel about the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the welfare clause. In 1792, Madison wrote, “The federal government has been hitherto limited to the specified powers…If not only the means, but the objects [purposes] are unlimited, the parchment had better be thrown into the fire at once.”
While the Welfare Clause has been abused to expand federal spending power, Commerce Clause abuse has unleashed sprawling federal regulatory power. As with the Welfare Clause, what was meant to curtail government intrusion into the lives of Americans has perversely been used to expand it.
The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” The Supreme Court’s sham interpretation focuses on “among the several states.”
It’s important to consider that the Constitution was drafted to replace the Articles of Confederation. Among the woes that prompted that evolution was the imposition of tariffs by individual states against other states. The Commerce Clause was intended to enable a free trade zone within the union, by empowering Congress to bar interstate tariffs.
“It grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing,” wrote Madison, “and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government.”
Those working to expand federal authority have argued that “commerce” doesn’t merely apply to trade, but also encompasses manufacturing and agriculture or even “all gainful activity.”
However, in the constitutional ratification debates, the word “commerce” uniformly and narrowly referred only to mercantile trade or exchange — not to manufacturing, agriculture or retail sales, much less to any gainful activity.
Thomas Jefferson underscored the intended scope of the clause:
“The power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes.”
However, the Commerce Clause is now used to justify federal regulation of nearly every aspect of our existence, including activities that happen entirely within a single state. On this front, the Supreme Court did its greatest harm with its 1942 decision in Wickard v Filburn.
In a move that would leave founding farmers aghast, the federal government had fined Ohio farmer Roscoe Filburn for growing more wheat on his small farm than allowed by the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1938.
Filburn wasn’t even growing the wheat for sale — only to feed his own family and animals, and for future planting. This clearly wasn’t commerce as meant by the Constitution’s authors and ratifiers, to say nothing of the fact that Filburn’s activity lacked any interstate character whatsoever.
That didn’t stop the Supreme Court from upholding the law on Commerce Clause grounds. The court creatively declared that, by choosing not to buy wheat in the marketplace, individuals like Filburn could collectively have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
As Rand Paul wrote in a 2012 Supreme Court amicus filing, “Wickard stands for the sad proposition that Congress can prevent a man from feeding his family in his own home with food he grew himself.” Of course, it does far more than that, serving as a key precedent that subjects any activity to the federal government’s control and punishment. All that’s needed is a theoretical, tangential link to the economy — something every single aspect of life has to some degree.
We’d be far better off had the founding arrangement endured. The decentralization of power and governance reduces political discord and results in more people being governed in ways they find agreeable.If our federalism matched the constitutional design, we’d see citizens focusing most of their political energy on state and local governments — where they have far more meaningful representation compared to the federal legislature, which now has the average House member representing 761,000 people.
If state law, rather than federal law, were preeminent on the vast majority of topics, we’d also see sharper differentiations in what life is like in each of the 50 states. Americans would be presented with a more diverse selection of places to live, while enjoying the freedom to choose the one that best comports with their views on how things should be.
As it is, the Supreme Court-enabled concentration of power in Washington locks us all into a massive, winner-take-all steel-cage match, forcing us to fight over who gets to impose their philosophy on 332 million people across 3.8 million square miles of territory.
Even when the states comprising the union were far fewer in number and occupied far less territory, the prospect of centralized government was anathema to the likes of George Mason. At Virginia’s ratifying convention, he asked:
“Is it to be supposed that one national government will suit so extensive a country, embracing so many climates, and containing inhabitants so very different in manners, habits, and customs?”
How can we close the Pandora’s box the Supreme Court has opened? Though Helvering, Wickard and similar decisions are objectively outrageous, it’s hard to imagine the Supreme Court setting things right by overturning them.
There’s another long-shot avenue — amending the Constitution. Under Article V, a constitutional amendment convention must be convened if two-thirds (34) of the state legislatures call for one. Such a movement is already underway: As I previously covered, 19 states have now requested a convention, with one of the goals being to limit federal jurisdiction and power.
If we don’t bend the union back into proper shape, it will surely break under the pressure of intensifying discontent with concentrated power and one-size-fits-all governance. Barring a burst of constitutional-amendment momentum, expect the country’s simmering secession movements to grow far more substantial and numerous.
Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com
A new study published by Johns Hopkins own Bloomberg School for Public Health outlines the action items on the billionaire-funded gun control lobby’s wish list and makes the claim that those specific gun control provisions are crucial to stopping an armed insurrection in the United States.
The policy recommendations made by the study include regulating the public carry of firearms, prohibiting “paramilitary” activity, enacting unconstitutional red flag laws that remove due process, and finally (and maybe most sinisterly) repealing state-level preemption laws.
The study’s authors are all gun control lobby veterans. A quick glance at their LinkedIn pages revealed a work history within gun control groups before starting at Johns Hopkins.
In the study, the authors reference a study titled “Views of American Democracy and Society and Support for Political Violence.” Conducted in 2022, the study features a statistic that half (50.1%) of survey participants agreed that “in the next few years there will a be a civil war in the United States.” This statistic is featured prominently within the Johns Hopkins study.
The solutions proposed by the study are currently gun control priorities from the anti-gun lobby, particularly the repeal of state-level preemption laws. For those unfamiliar, state preemption laws say that local governments cannot impose regulations on firearms tighter than State law. This helps to stop a web of inconsistent laws in States where some counties may disagree with State law.
For example, take this recent case in Maryland, in Maryland Shall Issue Inc, et al v. Montgomery County, where the court threw out a local gun restriction because of Maryland’s preemption law.
But because local laws are easier to change than State law, gun control groups like Giffords and Everytown have sought out State lawmakers to convince them to overturn their preemption laws.
In 2021, Giffords convinced Colorado to overturn its state preemption law, which allowed the city of Boulder to pass its own assault weapons ban later.
In an article from governing.com about the overturn of the preemption law, Allison Anderman, senior counsel for the Giffords Law Center, was reported to have spoken with other states about overturning their laws and that the discussions were still “in the early stages.”
It seems as though gun control groups are so frustrated at not being able to pass laws through Congress that they’ve started looking to local jurisdictions to pass their legislative priorities. Interestingly, this strategy mirrors the Soros district-attorney campaigns.
Johns Hopkins’ study looks to increase the legitimacy of these preemption overturn policies and, therefore, make them more appealing to state lawmakers to pass.
Gun Owners of America stands ready to fight the anti-gun lobby, whether on the federal, state, or local level.
* * *
We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.
India Set To Cement Role As New GDP Growth Champion
The growth of most highly developed economies has tapered off since the turn of the century due to an already high level of economic performance.
Yet, as Statista’s Florian Zandt reports, two countries that are now among the nations with the highest gross domestic product worldwide have continued their ascendancy through the ranks: India and China.
While the former is still projected to show significant real GDP growth over the next few years, the latter’s economic upturn is estimated to slow considerably, according to the most recent IMF World Economic Outlook from October 2023.
The People’s Republic reportedly showed real GDP growth of 5.2 percent in 2023, 0.2 percent above target.
A recent Reuters report still proposed a grim outlook with a “deepening property crisis, mounting deflationary risks and tepid demand casting a pall over the outlook for this year”.
With the country’s population declining again this past year after 2022 saw the first net decrease in six decades and interest rates not likely to be cut soon, experts are united in suggesting only a broad range of stimuli could help the country’s economy out of its ongoing slump. The lack of said stimuli led the IMF to project China’s real GDP growth to dip below four percent from 2027 onwards.
On the other hand, India is projected to see constant growth of about 6.3 percent over the next five years.
The country’s central bank recently revised its growth forecast for its fiscal year of 2023/2024, which ends on March 31, to 7.3 percent. If this trend continues, S&P Global estimates that the country is set to become the world’s third largest economy by 2030.
This new-found economic success is not shared equally among Indians, however.
In an opinion piece for Nikkei Asia published in December 2023, corporate economist and head of Indonomics Consulting Ritesh Kumar Singh illustrated how large companies prosper due to benefits, tax cuts and lackluster competition control. Meanwhile, smaller corporations are increasingly entangled in a tightening bureaucratic net and households are subjected to ever-increasing economic pressure connected to rising taxes financing said benefits.
Writing in The Atlantic, David Frum, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and cheerleader for endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror, warns us that if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election NATO will be wrecked, our allies around the world will suffer “potential disaster,” and “above all” Ukraine will be left to the mercy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Given Frum’s track record of advice about wars, one wonders why anyone would take his advice.
Frum takes credit for Bush’s phrase the “axis of evil” to describe Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.
Frum’s advice about war should be labeled the “axis of error.”
The twin debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan and the endless Global War on Terror – the wasted blood of American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen (and women) and the wasted American treasure provided to the “military-industrial complex” – should make Frum more humble about giving war advice.
How many times does Frum have to be wrong before he fades away into the obscurity he so richly deserves?
But here he is again spouting the neoconservative line about the importance of Ukraine to U.S. national security.
He condemns Republican Senators who have voiced support for Trump even though they know he will “cut off Ukraine” and “wreck NATO.”
Of course, while he was president, Trump did not “cut” Ukraine and did not “wreck” NATO.
In fact, NATO unfortunately expanded under Trump–Montenegro joined in 2017 and North Macedonia joined in 2020. Trump did and does demand that NATO members contribute more to their own defense–something that U.S. policymakers and legislators have done for the last 50 years or more.
Trump does question the wisdom of providing aid to Ukraine–which is fighting to hold on to its eastern provinces and to take back Crimea–when America is experiencing a broken southern border and faces the existential threat of Communist China.
Respected national security experts such as Frank Gaffney, Elbridge Colby, and others–as opposed to a neoconservative speechwriter–agree with Trump on that issue.
How easy it is to advocate war abroad from an office in Washington or New York. Unlike American troops, David Frum didn’t suffer the casualties for 20 years that resulted from his “axis of error,” and he does not suffer today from his war advocacy in Ukraine. If he feels so strongly about it, perhaps he should join–or even lead–an Abraham Lincoln-type brigade of volunteers. In the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), writers, professors, journalists, lawyers and others volunteered to fight on the Republican side. They put their lives on the line for a cause they believed in.
Frum and others in the neoconservative camp (like Max Boot, Robert Kagan, and Bill Kristol) seem to jump from war to war, crusade to crusade, always searching for the next enemy for other Americans or “allies” to fight.
In a recent post on X, Frum promoted Anne Applebaum’s recent article opposing a ceasefire in Ukraine entitled “The West Has to Defeat Russia.”
In another post, Frum writes that the 2024 election will decide the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
“If Trump wins, Ukraine will be betrayed. If Biden wins, Russia loses its last and only route to victory and must accept defeat.”
Will Frum be right this time?
Or is this just another mistake in his axis of errors?
If so, she has a bit to learn after intentionally hitting a police officer with her Lexus and then declaring “F— these cops, it’s a lesson to him.”
A video captures Dula driving the wrong way on Park Avenue near East 71st Street around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday when an officer approaches the vehicle to turn it around.
She then floored the black Lexus and hit the officer.
A BLM activist involved in NYC pro-Palestine protests has been arrested for ramming a car into an NYPD officer on Jan. 17. Sahara Dula was arrested on suspicion of assault with serious physical injury, vehicular assault, reckless endangerment and more. pic.twitter.com/PT3fKXuERd
“I told the cop I wanted to go straight, and he wouldn’t move, so I hit him. I did it on purpose. F— these cops! He wouldn’t move!”
The wounded officer suffered a broken leg and extensive bruising. However, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Lucy Shephard did not charge Dula with attempted murder. Instead, she will face an array of charges for first-degree attempted assault, attempted aggravated assault upon a police officer, second-degree assault, second-degree reckless endangerment and operating a vehicle while ability impaired by drugs and reckless driving.
Dula has a record of past arrests including a criminal mischief arrest in March 2022 after destroying property.
The charges were dropped.
She was also arrested at least twice in New Hampshire, including an arrest in 2020 for failing to stop at an intersection in the town of Henniker and striking another vehicle.
She then fled the scene. She was also arrested for simple assault after an incident at Concord Hospital.
There are reports that Dula has been under treatment for mental illness, including possible bipolar illness.
It is difficult for courts to balance such elements.
This is a person who has gone to school and reportedly supports her mother and family while struggling with mental illness.
On the other hand, she just admitted to intentionally striking down an officer.
It is not clear if the defense will argue the mental illness as a defense and argue that she was experiencing an uncontrolled episode due to medication problems. Yet, how is a judge to handle such a claim? Dula is not institutionalized due to a view that she is able to function in society. The defense could argue that the episode showed that she requires institutionalization and treatment, but that she was not in control of her actions.
Former President Donald Trump said he believes the U.S. Supreme Court will “intervene” in multiple cases to prevent him from appearing on state ballots, forecasting that the three justices he nominated to the high court will rule in his favor.
Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday evening, the former president said that the justices are “not going to take the vote away from the people” because of “three great justices” and “other great justices up there.” During his term in office, President Trump nominated Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
“I’m sure the Supreme Court is going to say, ‘We’re not going to take the vote away from the people,’” he continued to say, saying that Democrats are the real “threat to democracy” in the United States.
Last month, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a 4–3 decision to prevent the former president from appearing on state ballots, citing their interpretation of the “insurrection” clause of the Constitution’s 14th amendment. They claimed that they believed President Trump engaged in an insurrection against the U.S. government despite him having not been convicted or charged with the crime in any court.
Days later, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, issued a unilateral decision to bar the former president from that state’s ballots under similar pretexts. Unlike Colorado, which is expected to lean heavily Democratic in the 2024 election, Maine could be considered a battleground state, and President Trump won one of the state’s four electors during the 2020 contest.
Meanwhile, according to the former president, the Supreme Court justices should factor in his strong poll numbers and recent win in the Iowa caucuses. National polling averages show that he has a 50-point advantage over the second-place and third-place GOP presidential candidates—former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“But I don’t think the Supreme Court would [agree with decisions to keep him from ballots] because you can’t take the vote,“ the former commander-in-chief added to Mr. Hannity. ”You know, I’m leading in every poll … I’m leading the remaining Republicans … they’re barely hanging on. How can you possibly take the vote away?”
In a Truth Social post earlier on Thursday, President Trump said he hoped that it would be “an easy decision” for the Supreme Court. “God bless the Supreme Court,” he added.
The former president several weeks ago appealed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court before the high court accepted it. Arguments in the case are scheduled for next month.
Other Activity
This week, more than 170 congressional Republicans—including some of its leadership—filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing to keep President Trump on the 2024 ballots.
“Disqualification under Section 3 is an extraordinarily harsh result, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s own text confirms that Congress, representing the Nation’s various interests and constituencies, is the best judge of when to authorize Section 3’s affirmative enforcement,” the lawmakers wrote in their brief.
The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision, they added, “will only supercharge state officials to conjure bases for labeling political opponents as having engaged in insurrection.“ What’s more, the nine justices should overturn that ruling to reduce the ”partisan incentive“ to remove political opponents from ballots under the 14th Amendment’s Section 3, or ”insurrectionist ban,” according to the lawmakers.
Also this week, a Maine Superior Court judge concluded she lacked authority to stay the judicial proceedings but she wrote that she did have authority to send the case back to the secretary of state with instructions to await the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court case before withdrawing, modifying or upholding her original decision.
In the decision, the judge said that the issues raised in the Maine case mirror the issues raised in the Colorado case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She wrote that her decision “minimizes any potentially destabilizing effect of inconsistent decisions and will promote greater predictability in the weeks ahead of the primary election.”
Days before that, in Oregon, the state Supreme Court issued a statement saying that it would not rule on a ballot-related challenge against President Trump “for now” until the U.S. high court renders its decision.
A number of other federal and state judges in different jurisdictions have also rejected similar ballot-related lawsuits seeking to bar the former president from appearing on the ballots.
The nation’s highest court has never ruled on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. Some left-wing legal scholars and activists say the post-Civil War clause applies to President Trump, while some have noted that he was never charged with those crimes.
In California, Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement last month rejecting a push to bar the former president from his state’s ballots in 2024, writing that in the Golden State, “we defeat candidates at the polls.” He added, “Everything else is a political distraction.”
As I sat at the Christmas dinner table, my fork poised over a baked potato crisped to perfection, I found myself enrolled in an impromptu seminar on the curious world of “furries,” courtesy of my teenage relatives.
These bright-eyed purveyors of contemporary oddities regaled tales from a Sydney satellite city’s school, a veritable hotbed of furry fandom. I’d heard whispers of this subculture—apparently false reports of cat litter being offered up in schools—but the depth and fervour of this phenomenon had previously eluded my grasp.
So, what in the Dickensian landscape of modern subcultures are “furries”?
The term defies a neat, one-size-fits-all definition. But if one were to ask Kathleen Gerbasi—a scholar armed with a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Rochester in New York—a “furry” is an individual who finds themselves spiritually aligned with, or even adopting the traits of, a specific animal species.
Ms. Gerbasi isn’t a mere casual observer in the furry fray; she was the pioneering mind behind a 2008 scholarly paper that delved into the intricacies of “fursonas.”
This revelation at the dinner table, nestled between the gravy boat and the cranberry sauce, left me bewildered and bemused, with a forkful of potato suspended in mid-air as I pondered the depths of human identity and expression.
As I ventured further into this festive feast of absurdity, my youthful informants—let’s affectionately label them Hannah, Olivia, and Izzy—served up a narrative far more peculiar than the conventional understanding of “furries.”
In their academic jungle, a peculiar breed flourished: students who, in the early wilderness of years 7 to 9, donned their furry personas with the fervour of a Shakespearean actor in a sold-out show.
But, as the curtain fell on Year 9, these fur-clad thespians seemed to vanish into thin air.
Had they retreated to more domestic pursuits, like purring on the laps of doting mothers or honing their mousing skills?
The trio couldn’t say.
Dedication to Stay in Character
The truly baffling aspect, as relayed by my earnest narrators, was the unwavering commitment these furries had to their roles.
Not once did they break character within the hallowed halls of school.
Speech was forsaken for meows and barks; answers to teachers’ questions were met with stoic silence. These furry aficionados, eschewing the drab garb of school uniforms, adorned themselves with sewn-on tails and headbands crowned with furry ears.
Hannah recounted a tale that bordered on the Kafkaesque: a non-furry lad from Year 9 dared to bark at a furry and found himself chastised by the teacher, who sternly reminded him to respect the feline identity of the student.
“The teachers just let them do their thing,” Olivia chimed in, while Izzy added that this furry phenomenon was not exclusive to their school, although was conspicuously absent from the city’s private education where the girls were now enrolled.
Izzy shared a surreal episode about a girl who, perched atop a tree during lunch, refused to descend until the principal’s arrival. Upon alighting, she flapped her arms bird-like, then barked—a furry identity crisis if ever there was one.
According to this teenage trio, the furry hierarchy at their school was dominated by cats, dogs, and, intriguingly, lorikeets.
As I digested this feast of the bizarre, alongside my impeccably baked potato, I found myself marvelling at the ever-evolving teenage expression, a world where the lines between human and animal, reality and fantasy, were not just blurred, but enthusiastically erased.
It’s Everywhere
This furry frenzy isn’t just an Aussie fad. It’s a global epidemic, spreading faster than a kangaroo on a hot tin roof.
It started in the United States but now even the Brits are hopping on the bandwagon.
The Sun splashed across its pages that the UK’s “Safer Schools” group was telling teachers and parents to keep their eyes peeled for kids prancing about as furries.
The advice? Don’t mock or make a fuss.
Easy for them to say—they don’t have a kid in a cat costume purring on their dining table!
Meanwhile, in Wollongong, another satellite city outside Sydney, a state school has become a veritable zoo.
As reported in the Herald Sun, kids are crawling on tables, meowing in packs, and grooming each other like it’s a feline beauty parlour.
Over in the world of social platform X, UAP Senator Ralph Babet has been sounding the alarm. He reckons this is what happens when the “radical left” runs amok, unchecked, and untamed.
He wrote, “Can we just put a stop to this garbage right now? You go to school to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic.”
Then there’s Michael Carr-Greg, a child psychologist who’s seen it all, except, apparently, an abundance of these fur-clad youngsters.
As reported in the Herald Sun, he says it’s a rare spectacle. These furry fellows, he observes, are leading pretty normal lives, apart from the occasional meow.
The big question, he muses, is whether this is a passing cloud or a full-blown storm of mental illness.
The jury’s still out, but Mr. Carr-Greg’s got his eye on the impact on the trifecta of life: friendships, school, and family. If these get muddled up by the furry business, then, and only then, does he start to worry.
Bridging this concern with the broader cultural spectacle, it’s evident that while experts like Mr. Carr-Greg ponder the psychological ramifications, the wider world is grappling with its own perceptions and reactions.
As the fur flies in this increasingly barmy debate, one thing’s clear: in the world of fursonas, it’s a jungle out there, and everyone’s just trying to find their way—on foot, paw, or claws.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
‘Not Tough, Smart, Or Respected Enough To Be My VP’ – Trump Taunts Haley, Dominates New Hampshire Polls Despite MSM Onslaught
The mainstream media appears to have got the message from the ‘uniparty’ – Nikki Haley is our gal. The neocon’s recently improving trend in New Hampshire Republican Primary polls has sparked a wave of supportive headlines (and anti-Trump sub-texts) pushing Haley as the last, best hope for bringing down the advance of ‘literal Hitler’ to become the Republican candidate and into The White House.
“We always wanted to be strong in Iowa and even stronger in New Hampshire, and we’re on track to do that,” Haley Campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, told reporters at a luncheon hosted by Bloomberg News in Manchester.
“Beating Donald Trump is not easy. He’s a juggernaut. But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time,” she said.
But although she’s shot up 30 points over four months in the Granite State, she still trails Trump by nearly 16 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
But that won’t stop the media trying…
Here’s Bloomberg today – running three separate stories within hours of each other about how great Haley is doing…
Trump at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, on Friday evening said Haley was “OK” when serving as his UN ambassador but did not have “presidential” material.
“Now when I say that, that probably means that she’s not going to be chosen as the vice president,” Trump said, adding that:
“She’s not tough enough. She’s not smart enough. And she wasn’t respected enough. She cannot do this job. She’s not going to be able to deal with President Xi. She’s not going to be able to deal with Putin and Kim Jong Un.”
The war of words continued as Haley accused the Republican frontrunner of “telling a whole lot of lies.”
“If he’s gonna lie about me, I’m gonna tell the truth about him,” she added.
But, much to the chagrin of the media’s recent fixation on Haley, Trump has expanded his nationwide lead among Republican voters…
But Washington is not giving up in their OrangeManBad efforts.
Echoing warnings that Vivek Ramaswamy recently issued, Tucker Carlson laid out the potential ‘cunning’ plan underway to push Washington’s favorite heel-wearer over the ‘Orange Tyrant’.
In Iowa – before he ended his presidential primary run – Ramaswamy warned that the current system “wants to narrow us down to a two-horse race between Donald Trump and a puppet who they can control,” namely Nikki Haley.
Carlson extends the thinking…
Tucker is saying exactly what Vivek has been warning us about. If this happens, don’t blame democrats. Blame trump voters for ignoring the warning. pic.twitter.com/UDvhotjmtI
As Ron Faucheux writes at RealClearPolitics,there is one fragile, complicated scenario that gives Haley (or DeSantis) a glimmer of hope – and that’s if the dynamics of the race change because of a Trump conviction.
The first step, they believe, is for Haley or DeSantis to quickly become the “last woman (man) standing” against Trump, and to consolidate Republican voters who are resistant to supporting the former president. While that bloc of votes – three out of 10 – isn’t enough to win the nomination, it could add up to decent showings in a few key states. And that, they think, would keep their campaigns on life-support while waiting for the big break.
The big break is entirely out of the control of either Haley or DeSantis – and that’s a Trump guilty verdict, one that resets the race. The problem is that there may not be a verdict in time. Even if there is, it may not be guilty, and even if it’s guilty, it may not reset the race.
If there is a guilty verdict before the July convention, the Trump resistance could try to release delegates from their earlier commitments. It’s possible some Trump delegates would rethink their support for him if, as a convicted felon, he no longer appeared to be electable in November. But rest assured, Trump’s hardcore supporters would hit the barricades to stop such a maneuver.
This scenario may be a vanishing star for Haley and DeSantis to wish upon, but it is effectively the strategic underpinning of their current campaigns; it’s all they have left.
But, it won’t be easy.
Despite Haley reportedly spending $4 million on an advertising campaign in her home state of South Carolina, JustTheNews reports that Tony Fabrizio, a Trump-aligned pollster on Friday, circulated a private memo including survey results that showed Trump ahead of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by 39%, The Hill reported.
Trump claimed 64% support in the survey, while Haley claimed 25% and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis earned 8% support.
“President Trump is set to deliver a South Carolina smackdown to Nikki Haley in her home state where she is best known,” Fabrizio said of the poll results.
News of Trump’s lead in South Carolina comes after South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott endorsed Trump on Friday evening – a direct blow to Haley who appointed Scott to the Senate in 2012.
“We need a president who understands that the American people are sick and tired about being sick and tired,” Scott said, joining Trump at his rally. “We need a president our foreign adversaries are afraid of and our allies respect.”
Scott is now the third major candidate who previously ran for the 2024 Republican nomination to back Trump.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy also joined Trump in recent days to throw their support behind him.
Trump told supporters Friday evening that New Hampshire “could end it.”
“We’ll finish it off,” he said. “And then we can focus on the worst president,” he added, looking ahead to a likely rematch with Joe Biden.
