Jerome R. Corsi's Blog, page 8
September 14, 2025
‘The truth will not be hidden, or buried or classified’: FBI is NOT ruling out co-conspirators in Charlie Kirk assassination
Erika Kirk mourns the assassination of her husband Charlie Kirk in an image she shared on social media on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025Was the assassination of Charlie Kirk planned by more than one perpetrator?
The FBI is reportedly looking into that possibility as Americans continue to mourn the Christian martyr and civil-rights leader who was gunned down Wednesday at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Journalist Benny Johnson posted on X: “Just spoke with top FBI official who made it very clear that they have NOT ruled out co-conspirators in Charlie Kirk’s assassination: ‘That assumption is premature. This investigation is just beginning. An enormous amount of evidence has been seized both digital and physical.'”
“FBI sources assure me the public will ‘know everything’ about the dark internet history, chats and affiliations of Kirk’s left-wing political assassin,” Johnson continued. “The source then alluded to some online groups attempting to delete or destroy evidence.”
“We have everything. We are focused on the radicalization element. The truth will not be hidden, or buried or classified. The public will know,” according to the source.
Journalist Nick Sortor confirmed the bureau is actively digging through chat logs, dark web history, and affiliations of Tyler Robinson, the suspect in custody, noting: “Another FBI source independently verified to me Benny’s reporting here is accurate.”
“NO STONE should be left unturned. We must know exactly WHO radicalized this degenerate, and lock their asses up.”
Johnson also highlighted concern among neighbors of Kirk’s alleged assassin.
“In the weeks before Charlie Kirk’s assassination, multiple cars with out-of-state plates were seen coming and going from the killer’s townhouse, according to neighbors.”
“They did not give off a good vibe,” one neighbor said.
In the weeks before Charlie Kirk’s assassination, multiple cars with out-of-state plates were seen coming and going from the killer’s townhouse, according to neighbors.
“They did not give off a good vibe,” one neighbor said. pic.twitter.com/eGg8qW2M5F
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 14, 2025
BREAKING: A family member of Lance Twiggs, who was the transgender “boyfriend” of Charlie Kirk’s assassin, Tyler Robinson says family cut ties with Twiggs due to his “hostility toward anyone supporting conservative or Christian values” and confirm Robinson lived with him. pic.twitter.com/29prAG2LS0
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 14, 2025
Conservative commentator Matt Walsh reposted a message he broadcast two weeks ago in which he indicated “now is precisely the moment in which trans militants are the MOST dangerous. They’ve lost. The game is over. Now they’re more desperate than ever. More full of hatred and anger than ever. They’re going down but they’ll take as many sane, normal people with them as they can. It’s going to get worse from here. Be on your guard.”
On Sunday, he added: “Two weeks after I tweeted this, Charlie Kirk was murdered by a deranged LGBT extremist with a trans boyfriend. When I say that these people are very dangerous, it’s not fear mongering. It’s the truth. Now I say again: it will get worse. We must take this threat seriously.”
Two weeks after I tweeted this, Charlie Kirk was murdered by a deranged LGBT extremist with a trans boyfriend. When I say that these people are very dangerous, it’s not fear mongering. It’s the truth. Now I say again: it will get worse. We must take this threat seriously. pic.twitter.com/vbYgv9jqIG
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 13, 2025
Elon Musk blasted left-wing violence and the assassination of Kirk, saying The left is the party of murder and celebrating murder.”
“See how much violence there is on the left, with our friend Charlie Kirk getting murdered in cold blood this week and people on the left celebrating it openly. The left is the party of murder and celebrating murder. Let that sink in for a minute. That’s who we’re dealing with here.”
Elon Musk calls out Left-Wing Violence and the Assassination of Charlie Kirk:
“See how much violence there is on the left, with our friend Charlie Kirk getting murdered in cold blood this week and people on the left celebrating it openly, the left is the party of murder and… pic.twitter.com/Xz3MyJdhPo
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 13, 2025
Jack Posobiec, a friend and colleague of Kirk at Turning Point USA, appeared on CNN where he was asked if he thought America was “at war” right now.
“My friend’s in a box right now. And it wasn’t an accident,” said Posobiec.
“There’s no question we’re clearly facing asymmetric civil warfare. One of the key aspects of that is political assassinations. That being said, the idea that we’re going to a a classic civil-war scenario, I hope and I pray that doesn’t happen.”
CNN asked me on, and I agreed so I could talk about Charlie
We need to speak plainly about what happened here
This wasn’t some tragic accident, it was a deliberate and willful act of evilpic.twitter.com/XCcfVQNC7J
— Jack Poso (@JackPosobiec) September 14, 2025
Meanwhile on Sunday, a man identified as 19-year-old Ryder Corral allegedly vandalized the memorial for Kirk outside the Turning Point USA headquarters in Phoenix.
The suspect is seen sporting a shirt similar to the one worn by the suspected assassin Robinson.
INFURIATING: The man who was just arrested for VANDALIZING Charlie Kirk’s memorial at TPUSA, 19y/o Ryder Corral, was wearing the SAME SHIRT Kirk’s assassin wore
FBI should be tracking EACH AND EVERY person who has bought this shirt!
Clearly many of them are vioIent. pic.twitter.com/kIQlUvVPaR
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 14, 2025
Charlie’s widow Erika Kirk shared images of herself mourning over her husband’s dead body.
Chilling: Charlie Kirk’s widow bids her husband a final farewell
Erika Kirk shares footage on social media, showing her saying a final goodbye to her husband Charlie as he lies in his open coffin. pic.twitter.com/L2D0bdX8k1
— Breaking News (@TheNewsTrending) September 13, 2025
The impact of Kirk’s killing continues to spread across the globe, as South Koreans joined forces in public to chant, “We are Charlie Kirk!”
South Koreans chanting “we are Charlie Kirk”..
This is wild.. pic.twitter.com/e2ofFhVFIc
— American AF (@iAnonPatriot) September 13, 2025
Follow Joe on X @JoeKovacsNews
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WATCH: Alleged Charlie Kirk assassin not cooperating with law enforcement, governor says
Gov. Spencer Cox, R-UtahThe man accused of killing Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk is refusing to cooperate with authorities, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah said Sunday on ABC.
Authorities arrested Tyler Robinson, 22, early Friday morning, accusing him of fatally shooting Kirk at a TPUSA “Prove Me Wrong” event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, during which he was debating students on hot-button political issues, including transgenderism. Cox told “This Week” host Martha Raddatz that Robinson was in a romantic relationship with a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman — and Robinson’s reported boyfriend is cooperating with authorities.
“He [Robinson] has not confessed to authorities. He is not cooperating,” Cox told Raddatz. “But all the people around him are cooperating and I think that’s very important. There were reports yesterday that we can confirm that his roommate was, indeed a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female. That’s information that the FBI had mentioned yesterday. … And he is cooperating with authorities as well.”
WATCH:
Kirk founded TPUSA, an organization for conservative college and high school students, in June 2012, according to the group’s website. He also hosted “The Charlie Kirk Show,” which started as a podcast, but later became a radio talk show airing on the Salem Radio Network, according to his biography on TPUSA’s site.
Cox also confirmed that Robinson was telling acquaintances online that he was the shooter.
“Some of the suspect’s acquaintances were allegedly talking to him online and joking and thought they recognized him from those early photos,” Raddatz said. “Can you tell us anything about that this morning or anything further on the investigation?”
“All we can confirm is that those conversations definitely were happening,” Cox responded. “They did not believe it was actually him. It was all joking until he admitted that it actually was him.”
Authorities recovered a rifle containing ammunition that was etched with left-wing messaging from a wooded area near the site of Kirk’s assassination.
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WATCH: Anti-Trump historian claims with straight face left-wingers were not ‘celebrating’ Charlie Kirk assassination
Historian Heather Cox Richardson claimed during a Friday podcast that liberals didn’t celebrate the assassination of Turning Point USA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk.
Authorities arrested 22-year-old Tyler Robinson early Friday morning, accusing him of killing Kirk during a TPUSA “Prove Me Wrong” event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, during which Kirk engaged in civil debate with students. Richardson claimed that the “radical right” had created a narrative that Kirk was a “target of the left.”
“As soon as the shooting happened, there is this outpouring insisting that he [Kirk] was a target of the left, insisting that people who were not MAGA were celebrating his death. I didn’t see that absolutely anywhere and I was online significantly that day,” Richardson claimed during her podcast “Politics Talk.” “There was an outpouring from liberals and most of the left — maybe there were some people who thought that he was, you know, live by the sword, die by the sword, because he was quoted — there is a video of him talking about how if we have to have deaths to support the Second Amendment, that’s fair because we need that to support our greater rights, and, you know, people posted that.”
WATCH:
“But the, the radical right created this atmosphere that somehow people who weren’t MAGA were cheering on political violence and in order to back away from that, some of the people in that space started to defend him as being an exemplar of democratic values, which, again, I feel like — if you have one thing that you should take with you after your life on earth, it’s how you presented yourself,” Richardson continued. “You had all those years to do it. Why would somebody suddenly change who you were?{
Grabien News founder Tom Elliot posted a supercut of liberals and left-wingers celebrating Kirk’s assassination on X Sunday, in response to a Daily Caller News Foundation reporter’s post showing the video of Richardson making the claim. The video included online posts wishing for the deaths of President Donald Trump and Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro.
ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith expressed his disgust with online celebrations of Kirk’s murder during Thursday’s episode of his SiriusXM show, a day before Richardson’s podcast aired.
“I don’t care what his political beliefs were! I don’t care what he felt! I care about the fact that a man was gunned down in front of two of his children who are 5 years of age or less,” a visibly angry Smith said. “That he’s dead at the age of 31. That his wife is a widow. That his children are fatherless because his ideas and his beliefs differed from somebody else, apparently.”
“And then I’m going online and I’m seeing people celebrating it!” he continued, his voice raising. “Shame! Shame on you!”
Multiple people have been fired for online comments either celebrating Kirk’s assassination or attacking him. Democratic elected officials have either criticized those mourning Kirk’s death or have attempted to equivocate, often citing the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol building.
TPUSA events in high schools and colleges across the country have faced violent efforts to disrupt them. Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, a vocal critic of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports, was assaulted during an April 6, 2023, event at San Francisco State University hosted by TPUSA, where she spoke about the issue.
Richardson is known to be a Trump detractor and has spoken out against the president’s administration deporting gang members who had entered the U.S. illegally, suggesting that the policy amounted to a “really slippery slope” in March. She had implied the previous month that Trump’s renaming of the body of water south of the continental U.S. to the “Gulf of America” was an act of authoritarianism.
The historian had said in a July video posted to YouTube that far-left Democratic New York City nominee Zohran Mamdani is “not a socialist.”
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‘ZERO sympathy’: School official fired after horrific comments about Charlie Kirk
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Batman spinoff comic series author canceled after celebrating Charlie Kirk assassination
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‘There I said it’: High-school teacher sidelined over Kirk remarks
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MSNBC fires political analyst over hateful comments about Charlie Kirk
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Why the peace deal in Ukraine runs through China
President Donald Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok)In the past several months, the Trump administration has leaned hard on the Kremlin, seeking to force a breakthrough toward a durable peace in Ukraine. The White House has spent great political and diplomatic capital to bring the warring parties to the negotiation table. Washington has employed multiple instruments of national power, including sanctions, weapons shipments, and political pressure to secure a ceasefire, and lay the groundwork for a long-term peace deal. Predictably, these efforts have failed miserably. Every American attempt to move the needle towards a truce has been met with deliberate delay and stalling by the Russian side. The hard truth is that neither a ceasefire nor any peace settlement can be reached without addressing the factor too often overlooked: China.
Unlike the Biden administration, which isolated Moscow, rallied allies, and armed Ukraine, more or less successfully, the Trump administration placed greater emphasis on brokering a peace deal. In doing so, the White House pressured Kiev and pushed Brussels to align them with its new policy. While managing to keep its allies in line, Washington’s efforts have produced no tangible results with Moscow. A series of direct phone calls and meetings with the Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Alaska revealed that neither the United States nor the EU possesses leverage or political capacity to compel Moscow into a ceasefire, let alone a peace agreement.
The elephant in the room is China. And to a certain extent, Moscow is fighting a proxy war for Beijing. Considering its political, economic, and technological isolation from the West, Russia is no longer an independent global player as it had been before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It’s worth noting that today, Russia’s war machine, resource-based economy, technological capacity, and foreign policy are increasingly dependent on China. Hence, Western leaders who seek diplomatic solutions while ignoring the growing power asymmetry in the Sino-Russian relationship, misunderstand the reality of the conflict and risk prolonging the war indefinitely. Only a string of decisive actions that up gun Ukraine, sanction Russia, and engage China will alter Putin’s calculations as a drained, weakened, and cornered Kremlin will have little choice but to acquiesce.
Hierarchical PartnershipRussia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has led to the collapse of Russia’s trade with the West. The U.S. and the EU isolated Moscow internationally, pushed it out of Western markets, and choked it off from advanced Western technologies, forcing Russia to pivot almost entirely to China. Beijing, taking advantage of this rift, stepped in to fill the vacuum. In a short time, China has become a primary feeder of Russia’s military machine, a key financier of its war economy, the largest importer of its sanctioned oil and gas, the major supplier of its consumer goods, and a main provider of dual-use technologies. Given circumstances, Russia, once the senior partner in the strategic partnership, finds itself a dependent state, forced to accept Chinese terms in trade, energy, economy, investment, and even foreign policymaking.
China’s Strategic Benefits From the WarRussia’s military quagmire in Ukraine has turned into a geopolitical windfall for China. By buying Russia’s sanctioned fossil fuels at steep discounts, China not only secured the cheap energy, but also tightened Moscow’s dependence on China’s demand. At the same time, Russia has become increasingly reliant on Chinese products. Currently, Chinese companies export semiconductors, vehicles, electronics, communications equipment, machine tools, household products, and other means indispensable for the state’s function and its arms production, replacing Western competitors, while consolidating economic dominance over the Russian market. This increasing economic imbalance has reinforced Russia’s vulnerability to Beijing’s leverage, boosting China’s role as Russia’s indispensable lifeline.
Beyond trade and energy, Beijing has also inserted itself in Russia’s technological and defense sectors. With sanctions barring Russia from Western know-how, Beijing has moved in to fill the void, making itself increasingly significant and largely indispensable for the survival of Russia’s tech industry. While Chinese platforms, standards, and infrastructure tend to dominate Russia’s technological ecosystem, Moscow’s capacity to build and innovate is eroding rapidly. Hence, Huawei and other Chinese companies are not only filling the gap, but they are also rewriting the rules of Russia’s digital future, hollowing out the Russian tech sector while transforming and repurposing it to run on the Chinese operating systems.
Meanwhile, the war has turned Ukraine into a live laboratory for Beijing. Chinese-made drones and electronics are tested on the battlefield in real time, while Chinese strategists are observing and studying Western military strategies, sanction packages, and resilience under pressure. It could be easily asserted that Russia’s defense industrial complex, once feared and respected worldwide, has now been tethered to Chinese suppliers, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to Beijing’s political calculations.
Near AbroadThe Ukraine war, not only exposed Russia’s limits, but also eroded its influence across its so-called near abroad. Central Asia once Russia’s unquestioned backyard, is now increasingly shaped by China’s capital, trade, and security incentives pushed through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Digital Silk Road backed by Chinese Techno-Authoritarianism, reshaping the broader Eurasian landscape. The South Caucasus tells a similar story as the local actors are drifting towards China. While Russia is consumed by the war and its militarized policies, the local governments embrace China as a more reliable and less threatening partner, with China not Russia, emerging as the region’s predominant power.
The Kremlin’s dependency on Beijing indicates that Russia can’t secure a ceasefire, negotiate a peace deal, or recalibrate its strategy without Beijing’s approval. Only Beijing has the leverage to tame Putin and push the Kremlin toward ending the war in Ukraine. It is no surprise that current Western pressure to shift Moscow’s strategic calculus without Beijing’s backing has failed repeatedly..
China is uniquely positioned to influence Moscow’s foreign policy formation as it continues to sustain Russia’s economy, keep its industries running, and provide Russia with the true political lifeline on the global stage. If Beijing were to withdraw even part of its support, Russia would risk full collapse, making Beijing not Washington or Brussels, the only capital with real leverage over Moscow’s decision to prolong or end the war.
Yet, Beijing has little incentive to act swiftly. The war weakens Russia, tightens Moscow’s dependence on Beijing, and diverts Western attention. As the war’s primary beneficiary, China’s goal is not to end the war, but to sustain it. China aims to keep Russia strong enough to bleed the West, but weak enough to remain tethered to China’s strategic orbit. Consequently, for Beijing, a protracted war in Ukraine, aligns well with its long-term strategic interests.
Why China Holds the KeyIt’s been proven that a ceasefire or any peace deal in Ukraine will never be achieved by pressing Moscow alone. Any strategy that ignores China is doomed from the start, because China now holds the decisive leverage on Russia’s economic and military survival. Beijing, however, has no real incentive to end the conflict as it profits from Russia’s growing dependence and the U.S. distraction. Yet China is not without weaknesses as its geopolitical rise-economic growth and technological advance depend greatly on trading, partnering, and working closely with the particularly with the U.S.. This package of relationships creates a narrow but genuine opening for diplomacy.
Upgun Ukraine, Sanction Russia, and Engage ChinaA common view is that the battlefield, not the negotiating table will decide the war. Western “peace talks” or “compromise solutions” are well-intentioned but dangerously naïve. Because Putin’s war in Ukraine, is not just a territorial conflict-it is a structural, systemic war with the European security architecture and the global order at stake. The negotiation positions of Kiev and the Kremlin remain irreconcilably far apart: Ukraine cannot afford to cede territory, while Putin’s survival depends on delivering a victory. Ultimately, the outcome will be decided by military means on the ground. Any ceasefire or peace deal reached under current conditions would be temporary as both sides would rearm and prepare for the next round of war. The result will be a frozen conflict that unfreezes at Russia’s convenience-just as it did in Georgia in 2008, and in Ukraine after 2014.
Nevertheless, if Washington and Europe are serious about ending the bloodshed, they must abandon half measures. What’s now needed are decisive and result-oriented actions. Leveraging China’s influence must be accompanied by some significant policy changes, namely, Ukraine must be fully armed with the means not only to defend itself- not just drip-fed assistance under tight restrictions- but to hit back decisively. The restrictions must be lifted, and Ukraine must be allowed to strike legitimate military targets deep inside Russia.
In parallel, while reinforcing the measures already in place, Washington must sanction Russia’s oil giants, banks, and the shadow fleet. It must also crack down on ports, and service providers tied to the shadow fleet. These measures must be backed by secondary sanctions on foreign banks and financial institutions that facilitate Russian oil and gas sales, undercutting the Kremlin’s ability to circumvent the sanctions.
Lastly, the United States and the EU must confront the elephant in the room. Russia is not a truly independent power, its survival hinges on Beijing. The West must employ both sticks and carrots to compel Beijing to lean on Moscow. The strategy of pressure and incentive will make Beijing understand that it cannot have it both ways-enjoying access to Western lucrative markets while funding Putin’s war. The West needs to make Beijing choose.
A package of actions such as up gunning Ukraine, crippling the Russian war economy, and leveraging Beijing’s influence will offer the only realistic path to compel Moscow to accept a ceasefire and ultimately agree on a peace agreement. Anything short of this is managing the conflict, not solving it. The time for symbolic gestures has passed, it is now time for decisive action.
Miro Popkhadze is a Senior Fellow at the Delphi Global Research Center and a Fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.It makes more sense to produce hydrogen with nuclear, not renewables
Hydrogen is often thought to be linchpin of a future 100% renewable economy. To make up for wind and solar’s deal-breaking intermittency and to rid industry of energy-dense fossil fuels, the surplus cheap electricity that renewables produce during times of abundance would need to be channeled into electrolyzers that split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen could then be collected, stored, transported, and eventually combusted for on-demand energy.
But is this scenario really the most cost-effective and environmentally-friendly option? Would it make more sense, for instance, to produce hydrogen from another carbon-free source – nuclear power?
A trio of scientists in the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering at the University of Pisa in Italy explored that question. Utilizing data from the International Atomic Energy Agency Hydrogen Economic Evaluation Programme, the group performed a feasibility assessment to compare various methods of producing hydrogen from futuristic Gen IV nuclear reactors. Their findings are published in the journal energies.
Two methods of producing hydrogen from nuclear power rose to the top. First, engineers could construct an attached electrolyzer system just like with renewable energy. Since a nuclear reactor is almost constantly running as “baseload” power, plant operators could simply divert power to the electrolyzers when grid demand wanes. The researchers estimate the cost of hydrogen with this setup would be 2.71 USD/kg with paltry carbon emissions of 0.3 kgCO2e/kgH2.
Second, the authors envisioned a system where futuristic Gen IV reactors operating at high temperatures (between 550 and 1000 °C) can produce hydrogen through the hot steam they emit. This high-temperature steam electrolysis is similar to how hydrogen is produced from steam reforming via natural gas. They predict costs here to be 3.57 USD/kg with slightly higher emissions of 0.8 kgCO2e/kgH2. Costs are higher because it a more novel system, even though it is “the most efficient coupling since it better exploits the electrical and thermal energy resources produced by the reactor,” the researchers write.
Costs and carbon emissions for both methods compare favorably with current costs of hydrogen produced from fossil fuels and renewables. In Europe in 2023, hydrogen made via methane reforming cost 3.76 EUR/kg (4.39 USD) and produced emissions of at least 11.6 kgCO2e/kgH2. Hydrogen made from a direct connection to renewables cost 6.61 EUR/kg (7.71 USD) with emissions similar to production from nuclear.
The researchers’ assessment is highly preliminary, of course. There’s only one commercial nuclear reactor in operation today that matches the reactor they modeled. It’s in China. Their cost estimates could also be overly rosy, and it’s likely that the cost to produce hydrogen with renewables will come down over time as solar panels grow more efficient.
The world currently produces 52.6 million tons of hydrogen per year, used mostly to make ammonia for fertilizer. The process of making this hydrogen accounts for two percent of the world’s total energy consumption and contributes roughly the same proportion of global carbon dioxide emissions. Even if hydrogen doesn’t find wider use in industry, transportation, and grid storage, we still need a lot of it to feed the world, preferably produced in a far cleaner manner than it is currently. Nuclear energy could provide it in abundance.
Source: Buzzetti, R.; Lo Frano, R.; Cancemi, S.A. Sustainable Hydrogen Production from Nuclear Energy. Energies 2025, 18, 4632. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18174632
This article was originally published by RealClearScience and made available via RealClearWire.Europe’s Palestine recognition gambit
On July 24, President Emmanuel Macron announced France will recognize Palestinian statehood at the September UN General Assembly. France becomes the first G7 nation to take this step. The UK followed suit on July 29, with conditional support pending Israeli actions. Ireland and Spain already extended recognition on May 28, 2024.
These decisions ignore operational reality. Which entity would Europe recognize? The Hamas-controlled parliament that last convened in 2007? The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas, whose authority extends to isolated West Bank enclaves? The recognition exercise parallels Somalia’s 1991 international recognition amid state collapse. Recognizing governance structures that don’t exist constitutes diplomatic theater, not statecraft.
The European initiative strengthens the case for sustained Israeli military control. Without functioning Palestinian governance, Israel faces a binary choice: maintain security control or accept vulnerability. The evidence points in one direction.
Israel currently controls approximately 80 percent of Gaza’s landmass. IDF forces maintain positions in Gaza City, Jabalya, Rafah, and the Netzarim corridor. This deployment represents strategic necessity, not temporary positioning.
Hamas took control of Gaza through armed force from June 10-15, 2007, killing 161 Palestinians and wounding over 700. That takeover created the conditions that produced October 7, 2023, when Hamas forces killed 1,139 people and took approximately 250 hostages. The experiment in Palestinian self-governance ended in massacre.
The operational question isn’t whether occupation is ideal. It’s whether alternatives exist. Palestinians at the neighborhood level could potentially accept Israeli-backed governance arrangements with economic integration and airport access. This scenario requires Hamas’s complete surrender and verified demilitarization. That prerequisite remains absent.
On July 25, 2025, the United States cut short ceasefire negotiations in Qatar, accusing Hamas of lacking good faith. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff brought the negotiating team home after Hamas refused to commit to releasing all hostages while seeking to maintain its military capabilities. Hamas stated it would consider leaving formal power but not surrendering weapons. This position demonstrates the organization’s continued commitment to armed resistance over governance.
Israel allocated NIS 1.6 billion, approximately $473 million, for Gaza humanitarian aid in August 2025. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich separately announced NIS 3 billion for the same purpose, though the final budgetary allocation remains the lower figure. The Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings remain operational for food, water, commercial goods, and fuel transfers.
The IDF coordinates airdrop permissions for eight nations: Jordan, Egypt, UAE, Spain, Germany, France, Belgium, and Italy. While the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs lists over 200 NGOs in its coordination mechanism, fewer than ten international organizations maintain direct operational authorization in Gaza due to their failure to comply with minimal Israeli security requirements: Don’t work with Hamas.
Turkey’s regional actions demonstrate why releasing territorial control invites exploitation. Turkey deployed Syrian fighters to Libya beginning December 2019. UN Report S/2024/914, issued December 13, 2024, confirms 16,500 to 18,000 Syrian mercenaries remain under Turkish command in Libya.
On April 16, 2025, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry issued Statement No. 84 condemning Greece’s Maritime Spatial Planning. Turkey submitted its “Blue Homeland” maritime claims to UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission on June 12, 2025. These actions demonstrate Turkey’s systematic effort to destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean alliance between Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and the United States.
Releasing Gaza without security guarantees creates another platform for regional powers to project influence through proxy forces. The Libya precedent demonstrates how quickly ungoverned spaces become staging grounds for mercenary deployments and regional destabilization.
President Trump proposed on February 4, 2025, that the United States should develop Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” The White House clarified on February 5 that this vision would not involve U.S. troops or funding but would require relocating Gaza’s Palestinian population. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar issued a joint rejection on February 1, 2025. President Trump today will convene a meeting at the White House on a “comprehensive plan” to end the war in Gaza, as Special Envoy Steve Witkoff explained to Fox News “one way or another.”
Hamas could end this conflict immediately through verified weapons surrender and hostage release. Each day of refusal validates Israeli security measures. Europe faces a choice between accepting operational requirements or continuing diplomatic performances that ignore truth on the ground.
The international community must decide: pressure Hamas toward complete demilitarization enabling conditional Palestinian self-governance, or accept Israeli security control as the barrier between relative stability and renewed October 7-style attacks. Those demanding immediate Israeli withdrawal without Hamas’s military defeat advocate for predictable catastrophe.
Israel will maintain neighborhood-by-neighborhood security control while facilitating humanitarian access until Palestinian leadership chooses demilitarization over terrorism. This solution satisfies no political constituency, but it prevents massacres.
The operational timeline extends indefinitely absent Palestinian leadership willing to prioritize governance over armed resistance. Israel learned from 2005 to 2023 that territorial withdrawal without security guarantees produces dead civilians, not peace. That lesson shapes policy until facts on the ground change.
Gregg Roman is executive director of the Middle East Forum.
This article was originally published by RealClearWorld and made available via RealClearWire.U.S. Department of Defense spending lacks transparency, checks
A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle prepares to refuel while flying over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. William Rio Rosado)Topline: Recent reports have revealed continued spending on two controversial parts of the Department of Defense’s budget — congressional increases and unfunded priority “wish lists” — that send billions of dollars to projects the military arguably does not need and oftentimes does not even want.
Key facts: The president submits a budget request every year to tell Congress how much money he believes each federal agency should receive, but the DOD receives special treatment during the process. The secretary of defense must list additional “wish list” items the military should receive money for in excess of the president’s request.
The lists became a legal requirement in 2017, leaving the Pentagon vulnerable to unnecessarily high spending. Even if the president were to hypothetically request $10 trillion for the Pentagon, military officials would be required to ask Congress for even more money.
Former Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord opposed the wish lists, telling Elizabeth Warren that they are “not an effective way to illuminate our top priorities.”
The wish lists are not released publicly but have been obtained by the American Enterprise Institute. They total $51.7 billion for fiscal year 2026, adding onto the record $1 trillion President Trump requested for the DOD’s budget. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has the largest list at $11.9 billion.
The 2026 spending bills have not been signed into law yet, but the DOD’s wish list is typically funded in its entirety.
After the wish lists are submitted, members of Congress add even more congressional increases into the Pentagon’s budget. These are functionally earmarks for items important to individual lawmakers. They are projects that the president did not think were important enough to include in his budget request, and Pentagon officials did not think were important enough to include in their wish lists.
Transparency about the increases is lacking. There is not yet any public report listing what Congress members have added into the 2026 budget, and the public only recently learned some of what was added into the 2025 budget.
Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates the cost of congressional increases in 2025 at nearly $15 billion. The watchdog noted that even though the dollar total is lower than in 2024, when increases cost $22.7 billion, it “is not an indication of congressional restraint.” The 2025 budget was a continuing resolution that mostly kept funding levels the same from 2024, and the fact that Congress members were still able to slip in increases “underscores Congress’ lack of fiscal restraint when it comes to padding the Pentagon budget.”
The Pentagon typically releases a report every August listing congressional increases from the previous year, but OpenTheBooks was unable to locate one from this August. Our auditors previously filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a list of all congressional increases from 2025, but we were told that none exists.
Between the $51.7 billion for wish lists in fiscal year 2026, and $15 billion in congressional increases in 2025, this unnecessary spending totals $66.7 billion.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com .
Summary: When potentially wasteful military spending is required by law, it take focus off the priorities that most directly benefit our men and women in uniform.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.New York police conceal a hit-and-run crash
Topline: The New York Police Department’s highly paid director of traffic Franklin Sepulveda allegedly sideswiped a parked car and then told his subordinate to file a fake report about the incident.
Key facts: Sources interviewed by the nonprofit newsroom The City said a department traffic manager who parks Sepulveda’s car was the first to notice the damage. Sepulveda allegedly told the manager to say that Sepulveda’s car was the one that had been damaged in a hit and run. Internal Affairs allegedly later found footage showing that Sepulveda was the perpetrator.
Sepulveda made of salary in 2024 and $3,000 of “other pay” for a total of $199,412, according to records obtained by OpenTheBooks.
One senior NYPD official told The City that Sepulveda is “in a lot of trouble.” Other sources said he has a reputation for disciplining his employees when they damage their own city-owned vehicles.
It’s unclear when the crash occurred or why Internal Affairs thought to review the damage, and the NYPD did not answers questions from The City. The department is allowed to suspend Sepulveda without pay for up to 30 days before a potential disciplinary hearing.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com .
Background: Sepulevda is the highest-paid employee in the New York City payroll records with the word “traffic” in his job title, but the city is paying even more to many of his fellow police officers.
There were 628 police employees who earned $200,000 or more in 2024, up to $347,512. Unlike in many other large cities, plenty of the police officers are earning high amounts even without large overtime payments. There were 377 officers whose base salaries alone were higher than $200,000.
Summary: A traffic ticket can often be expensive, but it’s nothing compared to funding a $200,000 salary for a traffic cop who can’t even report his own accidents.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.Trump ending $350 million grants for ‘Hispanic-serving institutions’
President Donald Trump delivers remarks on a partnership deal with U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel at the U.S. Steel Corporation-Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, Friday, May 30, 2025. (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok)The Trump administration will cut a federal program that provides funding to colleges and universities with large Hispanic student populations, as well as numerous other discretionary grants designed to support minority serving institutions of higher education, RealClearPolitics is first to report.
It is the result of recent legal wrangling and the latest in Trump’s ongoing crusade to overhaul academia.
The Department of Justice previously declined to defend the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program against a legal challenge brought by Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions. The longstanding federal initiative, HSI, has made additional grants available to colleges where more than 25% of the student body is Hispanic. But in a July letter to Congress, the DOJ deemed that effort a discriminatory and unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon agrees with that assessment, and now the Department of Education intends to broaden the aperture by ending HSI funding, as well as at least half a dozen major education grants that determine eligibility by race.
“To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that illegally restrict eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas,” McMahon said in a statement.
Added the education secretary: “The Department looks forward to working with Congress to reenvision these programs to support institutions that serve underprepared or under-resourced students without relying on race quotas and will continue fighting to ensure that students are judged as individuals, not prejudged by their membership of a racial group.”
A senior administration official, who declined to speak on the record, clarified that the change would not affect historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which do not rely on racial quotas as part of admissions.
The Education Department has already singled out seven major federal grant programs intended to help minority students at Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Asian American, and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions.
The administration believes programs that restricted eligibility on racial lines violated the Constitution and served as a vehicle for advancing so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The administration expects $350 million in annual savings from the cuts. The monies are expected to be reallocated toward other programs that align with “administration priorities.”
But there is only so much that the administration can do on its own. Congress passed, and then President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, signed into law legislation that created the assistance program for HSIs. They simultaneously set aside other grants for other minority serving institutions. As a result, the Education Department can reprogram discretionary funds, but McMahon’s hands are tied with respect to certain mandatory spending.
All the same, this kind of budgetary overhaul would have been politically unthinkable to most Republicans pre-Trump. It would have been impossible prior to a landmark 2023 ruling by the Supreme Court that found race considerations in university admissions unconstitutional. A sea-change moment, the ruling bowled over affirmative action programs that had been a pillar of higher education.
The move by McMahon to end the minority students’ grants is a direct downstream result of the court case. The DOJ specifically cited the Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, in its letter to Speaker Johnson announcing its decision not to defend the Hispanic college program.
“For too long,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in that decision, universities “have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.”
This has given the Trump administration a free hand in efforts to uproot affirmative action from the academy.
When Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions filed suit to challenge the HSI program earlier this year, Francisca Fajana, Director of Racial Justice Strategy at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, condemned the lawsuit as “a direct attempt to erase programs that remedy racial and ethnic disparities and strip away essential resources from institutions that serve Latino students.”
At the time, Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, countered that “no student or institution should be denied opportunity because they fall on the wrong side of an ethnic quota.”
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.Jerome R. Corsi's Blog
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