This appears to be a terrorist attack.

The same app was used to rent the Cybertruck as well as the vehicle involved in the New Orleans attack.

This is not related to the Cybertruck itself but could be a message directed at Trump/Elon Musk.

pic.twitter.com/vUDrgnGtUG

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) January 1, 2025

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(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Hostages once held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip detailed brutal acts of torture and violence perpetrated against them in captivity in a new report prepared for the U.N. by the Israeli government.

The report, dated Dec. 23, draws on testimony of hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks who were subsequently released or set free. Among other abuses, the prisoners testified that the Hamas terrorists subjected them to sexual assaults, brutal psychological torture, branding with hot objects, deliberate starvation and more.

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Speakers who have been featured in recent months—and one who is slated to talk in January—have promoted anti-Israel libels.

Moshe Phillips | Dec 30, 2024
Birkbeck College, part of the University of London. Credit: Ohototram/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.

One of Great Britain’s most prominent institutes for the study of antisemitism is quickly turning into a home for extreme Israel-bashers.

When the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism was created at the University of London in 2010, there was great hope that it would live up to its declared mission of promoting research and teaching to combat “antisemitism, racialization and religious intolerance.” The public had no reason to doubt the institute, which was originally named after its founder, the Pears Foundation, would live up to its mission “to promote genuine advances in the understanding of complex issues.”

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Iran’s ring of fire strategy is in tatters thanks to Hamas’ war, and Iran’s nuclear program is likely about to meet its Waterloo, and with it potentially, Iran’s theocratic dictatorship.

Long-standing Iranian grand strategy in the Middle East has been to use a network of proxy militias to do its bidding and to keep its hands clean hoping to avoid retaliation. The Iranian doctrine involved using its proxy militias to destroy Israel in a ‘ring of fire’ and push the U.S. out of the Middle East before it would settle accounts with its Sunni opponents. To that end, Iran armed, trained, and supported Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Syrian regime, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq all with the goal of finishing off Israel. Iran used its network of regional militias to become a regional military threat in the Middle East perhaps until it could become a nuclear power to dominate the area and threaten Europe. 

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Peloni: I don’t think Trump chose the likes of Rubio to begin a war with China/Russia, but rather to threaten them into accepting an America First price for peace.  Trump is not one to move towards peace thru weakness and capitulation (we could agree to call this the Carlon-Owens plan for peace), but thru strength and resolve.  In fact, failing to act as if war is a clear and obvious choice will not bring peace of any lasting permanence, and doing so would harm America’s standing in the world, something which Trump would not tolerate.  So the question is whether Rubio will be calling the shots or if Trump will, and I think the answer is that Trump will be making the decisions on any war which he embarks on in the coming term.  Notably, there is a precedent for Trump having done something similar to what I am describing here with his inexplicable appointment of  John Bolton in his first term.  Trump gave Bolton little if any heed, even as he used Bolton’s advocacy for war with Iran to intimidate Iran from taking any rash moves – and their nearly impotent response to Suleimani’s death demonstrated how effective hiring a War Hawk might be for Trump’s peace thru strength agenda.  Notably, war with Iran was and remains an unavoidable reality, unless an overt attempt at regime change is successfully employed.

Trump was elected on a platform of closing the border and bringing sanity back to US foreign policy but the early signs indicate Americans who voted for a man of peace could end up with a man of war.

Peloni:  In the wake of  criticisms being revisited over the continued monetized of accounts on X which promote antisemitism, several such accounts are now being demonetized.

Hey Jew-haters, you wanted free speech? Well, congratulations! Now your speech is free, because no one’s paying you for it. pic.twitter.com/MyW6wrncNX

— Awesome Jew (@JewsAreTheGOAT) January 1, 2025

Peloni: Peace thru strength requires the presence of, and willingness to, employ strength to establish peace.

Seth Frantzman tweeted the following in regards to news of Hamas’ bad faith negotiations:

Let’s be honest here. Hamas was told by its hosts and backers to keep the hostages. Hamas goal is to hold them for years maybe up to five or ten years releasing a few at a time. Their backers in Doha and Ankara have calculated that this will bring Hamas to power in the West Bank after Abbas passes. Hamas is laying the groundwork now with PIJ in Jenin, Tulkarm and other areas for this.

Israel has chosen to stay in Netzarim and Rafah but not remove Hamas from Gaza, a calculated approach that goes back to 2007. In this situation there is no pressure for a deal.

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By Walter E. Block

When the British were about to execute three Jews accused of terrorism, the Irgun kidnapped two soldiers from that country and threatened to deal with them in a similar manner. The UK carried through on their plan and so did the Irgun, in retaliation, and in an attempt to preclude such punishments meted out by the English in the future [1]. This sort of behavior on the part of the Irgun, and also the Stern (Lehi) and Hagenah organizations is usually credited with the removal of the imperialistic army of the British from the Middle East. Good riddance to them from the Hebrew perspective, as they were instrumental in reducing and attempting to prohibit the immigration of Jews into what later became Israel, from an area very dangerous to them, namely Europe.

In many ways, the IDF is the successor of these three Jewish militias. How would this organization now act if it were to borrow a leaf from these three predecessors?  This can only be speculative of course, but one course of action might be to send a message to Hamas:

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Peloni:  Trump addresses a series of questions from the press, including doubling down on support for both H1b visas and Speaker Johnson’s re-election.  He closes with the following statement:  “They better let the hostages go soon!”

Also, Raylan Givens reports that members of American hostages are expected to attend Trump’s inauguration.

By Hugh Fitzgerald | Dec 31, 2024

The latest tales of derring-do from the annals of Mossad and the IDF’s military intelligence,, with particular attention to their infiltration of Hezbollah, can be found here: “Internal espionage: How Israeli spies infiltrated Hezbollah for decades – NYT,” Jerusalem Post, December 29, 2024:

Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was the culmination of extensive spy infiltration and intelligence gathering from the terror group that spanned decades, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The NYT investigation, based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former Israeli, American, and European officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations, revealed just how extensively Israeli spies had penetrated Hezbollah as part of two decades of methodical intelligence work in preparation for an all-out war that many expected would eventually come.

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The Citizenship Amendment Act passed in 2019 by Modi’s government allowed Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from neighbouring countries. [Non-Muslims] who fled to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014, were eligible for citizenship.

Peloni:  This is a very thorough review of Qatar’s role in promoting terrorism around the world.

Visegrad 24 | Dec 30, 2024

Click on Photo for full Thread

By Robert Spencer | Dec 30, 2024

Did the Times know he was Hamas? Would the Times brass have cared if they did know?

“Israel arrests Gaza hospital director who wrote for New York Times, accuses him of being a Hamas terrorist,” by Ronny Reyes, New York Post, December 29, 2024:

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By Hugh Fitzgerald | Dec 30, 2024

The chief drafter of Resolution 242 was Lord Caradon (Hugh M. Foot), the permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations from 1964 to 1970. At the time of the Resolution’s discussion and subsequent unanimous passage, and on many occasions since, Lord Caradon always insisted that the phrase “from the territories” quite deliberately did not mean “all the territories,” but merely some of the territories.

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If the barbaric acts of Hamas murderers, rapists, and kidnappers are emulated and glorified by pro-Hamas supporters, what prevents them from crossing the line into the acts of violence we have seen over the past year

Ron Jager | Dec 30, 2024

One of the most famous Jewish lawyers of our time, Alan M. Dershowitz, himself a renowned attorney, law professor, and author, wrote a book about the biblical patriarch Abraham who was not only the forefather of the Jewish people, but according to him was also the world’s first Jewish lawyer; “the patriarch of the legal profession: a defense lawyer for the damned who was willing to risk everything, even the wrath of God, in defense of his clients.”

Dershowitz demonstrated how today’s typical American Jewish lawyer and the patriarch Abraham share many characteristics such as a willingness to challenge authority and stand up for the rights of others.

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Peloni: The war between the Tech Sector and the core MAGA base over H1b is revealing the tragedy which came from free speech on the internet being secured at the will of one man, namely that at any given moment, the degree to which free expression might be secured is dependent upon the interest or perspective of that man.  Hence, while antisemitism is sanctioned as free speech on X, contrary voices challenging the H1b immigration scam is throttled, thus exposing an even greater issue than the H1b visas which must be addressed by the incoming Trump administration.

Sundance | Dec 30, 2024

Something very interesting and openly obvious is happening amid the backlash that Elon Musk and the Silicon Valley network are facing to their H1B position.

Effective December 26, Elon Musk changed the Twitter algorithm to diminish those voices who would openly confront his network of supporters within Silicon Valley and beyond. If large follower Twitter accounts, like those of Musk himself, David Sacks, Vivek Ramaswamy and Musks’ promoted network of influencers begin blocking accounts on the platform, then the voices of those accounts get purposefully diminished by the algorithm.

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by Eric R. Mandel | 12/27/2024

Most Americans are unaware that today’s Middle East is an artificial construct created by British and French diplomats (Sykes and Picot) after World War I to advance their empires’ economic and political interests. They carved up the Middle East map with the stroke of a pen, and we have lived with the consequences ever since.

The San Remo Conference in 1920 codified colonial interests out of the remains of the defunct Ottoman Empire. Ethnic, religious and topographical considerations were ignored or minimized.

Now, just over a hundred years later, we are at another crossroads in the aftermath of the collapse of Syria, one of the Western-created nation-states. Many wars have been fought to keep these artificial states together, but they have more compelling reasons to be divided than to stay whole. As Conrad Black wrote in Brussels Signal, “The collapse of the Assad government in Syria must rank as the final unflattering death knell of the attempts at nation-building by the victorious Allied leaders at the end of World War I.”

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