(April 28, 2004)
The CTG was formed in September 2001. Since then it has provided threat assessments to key EU policymakers. Those assessments are based on information provided by member services having access to all relevant intelligence. CTG also provides a forum for experts to develop practical collaboration and an understanding of the terrorist threat.
US Representative Rashida Tlaib rejected Republican representative Brian Mast’s claim that Lebanese civilians killed by Israel are “terrorists”.
The exchange occurred on Wednesday night during a US House of Representatives session following Tlaib‘s resolution to withdraw US troops from Lebanon, which Mast called “reckless and unserious”.
“Eleven children killed, injured every 24 hours in Lebanon. Are those children Hezbollah? Are those children terrorists?” Tlaib shot at Mast who continued to dismiss Tlaib and her call to protect civilians in Lebanon.
Track AIPAC, an American online project that tracks US political donations by organisations that are part of the Israel lobby, including Aipac, reported that Mast received $881,227 from pro-Israel PACs as of April 2026.
Electoral reforms are necessary but insufficient. The deeper problem is not the ballot — it is the collapse of the organized civic life that once connected voters to the institutions that govern them. Rebuilding that infrastructure is not a workaround. It is the most important work we can be doing today, not just for California but for America.
James is an eighth-generation Texan, former middle school teacher, and Presbyterian seminarian. As a state representative, he’s led the fight against the billionaire mega-donors and puppet politicians who have taken over Texas.
Now, he’s running for U.S. Senate to take his fight against corruption to Washington and win power back for working people.
Israel is pressing the US to restart heavy airstrikes on Iran that would involve the targeted killing of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of Tehran’s lead negotiators, and attacks on the country’s oil infrastructure, Capital & Empire reported on Thursday.
The report, which cited US sources familiar with a classified report circulating within the US intelligence community, said Israel is aggressively pushing for the US to abandon talks with Iran and insisting that destroying oil infrastructure in the country could bring about regime change while also downplaying the impact the renewed full-scale war will have on the global economy.
(May 26, 2026)
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen IEs [or independent expenditures] have this kind of an impact on a governor’s race,” said veteran GOP strategist Martin Wilson, who has worked on every California gubernatorial contest since 1978 and worked on an outside effort backing San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s 2026 bid for governor. “It’s totally unprecedented.”
Yet Lead Left PAC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Galindo’s behalf ahead of Tuesday’s primary runoff. Democrats are accusing Republicans of orchestrating the effort.
“You have an openly bigoted person who has no business in elected office getting boosted by a Republican PAC,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said. “So the Republican leadership here, of course, is going to go to great lengths to hide that.”
The district is a Trump +10, and Galindo would certainly be a weaker opponent for the GOP in November than Garcia.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, the GOP super PAC aligned with House Republican leaders, has declined to say if it’s behind Lead Left PAC.
Galindo caught Democrats off guard when she placed first in the March 3 primary, despite spending just a few thousand dollars on her campaign. After a mysterious super PAC spent nearly $1 million boosting her bid, Democrats were forced to grapple with the possibility that she could win the nomination — an outcome the party worried could jeopardize its chances in the district and tie them to rhetoric they’ve denounced.
Trump handpicked and endorsed Ed Gallrein, whose victory demonstrated the president’s influence over GOP voters and growing frustration with Massie’s opposition to Trump. In recent weeks several other Republicans have been defeated by Trump-endorsed challengers, including Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and several Indiana state senators who defied him on redistricting.
As the Israel lobby attempts to end his political career, the Republican Rep. Thomas Massie has introduced a bill that would require lobbyists working for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly known as AIPAC, to register as foreign agents.
The bill, known as the Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity (AIPAC) Act, would amend the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), which requires those working to influence government policy on behalf of a foreign power to register with the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
(April 22, 2026)
The manifesto published by Palantir Technologies is neither a technical document nor an economic vision. It is an explicit political document announcing a new phase in the trajectory of digital capitalism, a phase in which it has abandoned its claim to neutrality and decided to unmask itself, revealing its full ideological face. Palantir is not an isolated case in the global technological landscape. It is one of several major technology companies that sell their technologies to systems of repression and human rights violations, and has been condemned by international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, for its role in enabling forced deportations, mass surveillance, and the persecution of dissidents.
Most damning of all, documented reports have revealed a direct partnership between this company, alongside other Western technology companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, and the Israeli military, providing data and targeting systems that were used in military operations on Gaza, making it an actual partner in documented war crimes against Palestinian civilians.
Democrats in the House are preparing to force a vote on another War Powers Resolution as early as next Wednesday. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that, this time, he is optimistic the effort to cease American hostilities in Iran will win the votes of the Democratic holdouts on the Massie-Khanna effort earlier this month.
Jeffries was referring to Democrats who voted against the WPR introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY), which failed 212-219 in a March 5 vote on the House floor, favoring instead a proposal by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ).
The most striking moment of the interview came when Kent recounted his final meeting with Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder who was instrumental in the current administration’s rise and the selection of JD Vance as Vice President.
“The last time I saw Charlie Kirk on this Earth was in June, in the West Wing,” Kent told Carlson. “He looked me in the eye and he said… ‘Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran.’”
According to Kent, Kirk—who was assassinated on September 10, 2025—was one of the few top-tier advisors vocally urging the President to avoid a Middle Eastern conflagration and to “rethink” the unconditional nature of the U.S.-Israeli partnership.
Joe Kent publicly announced his resignation as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center on March 17, stating that he “cannot in good conscience” support the U.S.’s war with Iran.
Kirk was shot dead during a public appearance in Utah on September 10, 2025. A day after his resignation, Kent appeared on The Tucker Carlson Show, where he claimed that his investigation into the killing was blocked.
Joe Kent is a former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the President’s principal counterterrorism advisor, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army with 11 combat deployments fighting terrorist networks with the 75th Ranger Regiment, Army Special Forces, and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, earning six Bronze Stars. Joe is also a Gold Star husband whose first wife, Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, also served and was killed while fighting ISIS in Syria in 2019.
Trump aides and allies denounced Kent as a leaker immediately after his resignation became public.
Kent wrote in his resignation letter that Iran poses “no imminent threat to our nation” and accused Trump of initiating the war “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
The FBI and the White House declined to comment.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, talks to Tucker Carlson about Iran and his resignation letter. Ana Kasparian discusses on The Young Turks.
“There was no intelligence that said, hey, on whatever day it was, March 1st, the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack, they’re going to do some kind of a 9/11, Pearl Harbor, etc. They’re going to attack one of our bases. There was none of that intelligence,” Kent said.
Trump and the the White House have repeatedly cited an imminent threat posed by Iran as an impetus for launching strikes against the country.
Kent further argued that the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who died last month in joint US and Israeli strikes, had been moderating the country’s nuclear program.
Throughout the west, criticizing the Netanyahu government is now a crime punishable by imprisonment. Glenn Greenwald on the end of free speech.
CHICAGO — Gov. JB Pritzker emerged as the kingmaker in deep-blue Illinois after pouring millions of dollars and staking his political reputation to deliver his hand-picked Senate candidate a primary victory on Tuesday.
The result strengthens Pritzker’s standing within his party at a critical moment, as he prepares for a November gubernatorial campaign for his third term and looks ahead to a potential presidential run in 2028.
The primary’s biggest winner might be Stratton’s top booster: Gov. JB Pritzker.
The Democratic governor, who is widely seen as a 2028 presidential contender, was unopposed in his own primary as he seeks a third term. But he pumped millions of dollars into lifting Stratton over two members of Congress in the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.
More than $32 million in outside spending poured into four Chicago-area House contests, a tidal wave of cash led by groups tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the crypto sector and the artificial intelligence industry.
AIPAC and the A.I. industry wound up with split decisions. The crypto sector lost the two races where it spent roughly 90 percent of its money. And progressives failed to build momentum early in midterm primary season.
Here are four takeaways from primary night in Illinois:
(video)
On Friday morning, I taped an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s program to discuss the ongoing Iran War, growing Israeli influence in the U.S., and proliferating attacks on free speech in the West in the name of shielding that one foreign country from critique (I presume it will air in the next few days). Perhaps the most notable part of our conversation was what Tucker told me prior to the cameras rolling.
Tucker said he had learned from several high-placed sources — and he obviously has many within the Trump administration — that the CIA was preparing a criminal referral about him to the DOJ. The subject of the agency’s report of suspected crimes: conversations he allegedly had with Iranian officials and others in Iran prior to the start of the Trump/Netanyahu war. The clear implication was that Tucker had committed acts of subversion or even treason by speaking to Iranians in advance of the war that was about to be launched on their country.
(March 11, 2026)
When Cuban-American billionaire Jorge Mas Santos (henceforth, Mas) visited the White House last week, the meeting was less focused on Inter Miami’s MLS Cup victory and more on the evergreen influence of Miami’s business elite over Washington’s Cuba policy.
Mas, the chairman of a powerful family business empire and longtime political player in South Florida, has spent decades advocating for tightening U.S. sanctions on Cuba until the island’s political system changes. He inherited the position from his father, Jorge Mas Canosa, who formed the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) with the help of the Reagan administration as part of Washington’s effort to counter leftist governments in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The survey also probed the question of Israeli influence over Trump’s decision-making. Americans were split over the question of Trump’s loyalty, with 47% saying he is more responsive to the American people than to Israel, and 46% saying he is more responsive to Israel.
Among independents, a crucial voting block that swung the election to Trump, half – 50-44% – said that Trump prioritizes Israeli interests over those of Americans. Among Republicans, 17% said the same. Democrats overwhelmingly held that view, 75-17%.
Asked if the Trump administration was pursuing its war with Iran “primarily for American interests” or “primarily for Israeli interest,” the public was also divided, but half – 50-41% – said that he was considering America first. Another 9% said they didn’t know.