Connecticut teacher fired for threatening to kill Trump voters.
She breaks down in tears in this local tv interview.
Wait for the ending. She is not innocent.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1857233166655750590
Elon Musk Met With Iran’s U.N. Ambassador, Iranian Officials Say
The tech billionaire, a top adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, was reported to have discussed ways to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.
Elon Musk, a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday in New York in a session that two Iranian officials described as a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.
The Iranians said the meeting between Mr. Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani lasted more than an hour and was held at a secret location. The Iranians, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy publicly, described the meeting as “positive” and “good news.”
Asked about whether there was such a session, Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s communications director, said, “We do not comment on reports of private meetings that did or did not occur.” Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Karoline Leavitt, the transition spokeswoman for the incoming Trump-Vance administration, said in a statement: “The American people re-elected President Trump because they trust him to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world. When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary action to do just that.”
Mr. Musk has emerged as the most powerful private citizen in the Trump transition, and has sat in on nearly every job interview. During a call last week with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, the president-elect handed the phone to the billionaire. Mr. Musk has played a key role in providing communications capability to Ukraine in the war with Russia.
An early direct meeting between a senior Iranian official and Mr. Musk raises the possibility of a change in tone between Tehran and Washington under the Trump administration, despite a charged history between the president-elect and Iran. One of the Iranian officials said that it was Mr. Musk who had requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.
During his first term Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” and imposed tough economic sanctions on Iranian oil revenues and international banking transactions. He also ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani, in Iraq in 2020.
In response, Iran’s supreme leader banned any negotiations with the Trump administration and Iranian officials vowed to avenge Mr. Suleimani’s killing. Federal prosecutors said in a court filing last week that Iran had plotted to assassinate Mr. Trump before the election.
But in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election last week, Iran has been openly debating whether it can now reach a new and more lasting deal with the United States. Many members of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s new government favor negotiating, arguing that Mr. Trump likes to make deals and that there may be an opportunity to get the sanctions lifted.
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Many in the conservative faction in Iran oppose engagement with Mr. Trump, and any negotiations — or deal — must be approved by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Trump has been an avid supporter of Israel, which has been waging war on the Iranian-backed militias Hamas and Hezbollah since the Oct. 7 attack last year.
On Thursday, in a post on X, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said: “Differences can be resolved through cooperation and dialogue. We agreed to proceed with courage and good will. Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear program.”
Mr. Araghchi made the comments following a meeting in Tehran with Rafael Grossi, the head of U.N.’s atomic watchdog
Analysts said that for all the history of bad blood with Mr. Trump, the Iranians appeared to want to keep the door to diplomacy open. Mr. Trump, too, appears interested, they said.
“Overall, everything is possible with Trump,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group. “He appears to be interested in a deal with Iran.” But some advisers, he said, may favor other approaches, among them increasing the pressure on Iran
The two Iranian officials said that the meeting with Mr. Musk provided a workaround for Iran, allowing it to avoid sitting directly with an American official. Mr. Musk will, however, have an official role soon. He has been named as the co-director of a new government efficiency agency.
One Iranian Foreign Ministry official said that Ambassador Iravani told Mr. Musk during the meeting that he should obtain sanctions exemptions from the Treasury and bring some of his businesses to Tehran.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said it would not publicly comment on the meeting.
https://archive.is/1OwDQ#selection-653.0-653.64
Joe Rogan for press secretary?
Body of man who mysteriously went missing discovered three days later inside tanning bed at Planet Fitness
A man was found dead inside a Planet Fitness tanning bed three days after he went missing.
Derek Sink, 39, was discovered inside the machine at the Planet Fitness on Hardegan Street in Indianapolis, Indiana on Monday around 9am.
His family told police that they last heard from him on Friday before reporting him missing on Sunday.
They told WTHR that a needle was found inside the tanning room with Sink, who has struggled with drugs in the past.
Sink's aunt said that investigators were able to track him to the gym through his ankle monitor. It is unclear why he had the device on him.
A sign was placed on the front door as of Monday that says 'tanning is currently unavailable.'
A gym member, Elizabeth Len, recalled being greeted by a foul smell when she entered the building for her morning workout Monday.
'And I was kind of like sniffing, trying not to look crazy, but I was like, "Something smells really awful here",' Len told WTHR, adding that the smell grew stronger as she neared the tanning rooms.
Len expressed concern as Sink's body was found on Monday, despite the gym being open from 7am to 7pm over the weekend.
'The first thing that kind of went off in my head was you know, lack of attention from staff members at Planet Fitness, which is pretty disappointing because maybe it could've been prevented,' she said.
'The tanning bed has a door, I believe, but still, why are we not concerned that the tanning bed has been closed for three days, potentially?'
Sink's loved ones have remembered him as a loving person.
Following his tragic passing, a friend took to Facebook and said: 'God bless you my friend.'
The family also told the outlet that they hope the company will instill stricter cleaning policies at the end of shifts so staffers can prevent this from ever happening again.
A spokesperson with Planet Fitness told DailyMail.com: 'We were deeply saddened by the passing of one of our members, and the franchise owner is working with the local authorities in their investigation.
'At Planet Fitness, we have robust operational brand protocols in place, as the safety and well-being of our members is our top priority.
'We are working closely with our local franchisee to ensure they are upholding those brand protocols.'
His cause of death has not yet been determined. Police are currently investigating his death as a homicide.
DailyMail.com contacted the Indianapolis Metropolitan police Department.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14076263/planet-fitness-tanning-bed-dead-body-derek-sink.html
The Big Problem for Saudi Arabia’s Futuristic City? The Country Doesn’t Have Enough Money
To fully realize its ambitious plans, the kingdom would need to spend far more than the $1 trillion in its wealth fund.
The giant futuristic planned city of Neom is proving a headache for Saudi Arabia. Costs are up, schedules are delayed and in recent days the world’s largest construction project replaced its chief executive of six years.
Looming in the background: The world’s largest oil exporter is strapped for cash.
Despite its reputation for deep pockets, Saudi Arabia can’t afford the laundry list of glitzy megaprojects and economic initiatives tied to Vision 2030, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to pivot the economy away from oil.
The board of Neom didn’t provide a reason why it abruptly replaced its CEO Nadhmi al-Nasr over the weekend. But former Neom employees said Nasr frequently clashed with Neom’s owner and funder, the Public Investment Fund, over swelling budgets. Billions of dollars have been spent preparing the desert sands for the remote Megalopolis.
Representatives of the Public Investment Fund and Neom didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Critics inside of Neom say money has been wasted on unnecessary groundworks. At the Line—a pair of horizontal skyscrapers to run longer than the distance from New York to Philadelphia—contractors dug out 60 miles of sand. That is despite the first phase of the project only running 10 miles, which was later downsized to 1.5 miles.
Neom isn’t alone. Projects around the kingdom are poised for a similar dynamic, with builders facing massive funding needs as they transition from low-cost early work to building out the bulk of the projects.
The crown prince announced Vision 2030 in 2016 as a sprint to reshape Saudi Arabia’s economy in 14 years. Money poured into initiatives to become a world leader in sports, videogame production and electric-vehicle manufacturing. The country pushed workers to the private sector, which accounted for 45% of gross domestic product in 2023, up from 40% in 2016.
Giant real-estate projects led the plan. Neom is the largest chunk, where officials vowed to sprout a car-free vertical city in the desert of 1 million people by 2030—and a population of 9 million years later. The price tag was $500 billion, though former executives there said it would in reality cost trillions of dollars.
Elsewhere, work is under way on a massive entertainment district near Riyadh with theme parks, the region’s biggest water park and the world’s tallest roller coaster. There is a more than $30 billion cluster of 50 resorts on the Red Sea and a massive Riyadh development anchored by a giant cube that measures one-quarter of a mile tall.
The spending list has grown. In the past 12 months, Saudi Arabia has announced a $100 billion initiative for advanced electronics, has designs on investing in artificial intelligence and has promised to build 11 futuristic stadiums tied to a bid to host the World Cup, including one atop a skyscraper at Neom.
Together, the price tag of all the plans runs into the trillions of dollars if fully built, far more than the country’s $1 trillion wealth fund—which includes investments that would be difficult to sell—has at its disposal.
While the kingdom has enough revenue for everyday services and kept debt levels moderate, the price of oil has left a gaping hole in its ability to generate cash. Oil sales account for half of Saudi Arabia’s budget and prices of Brent crude are sagging at $72 a barrel, far below the $96 a barrel the International Monetary Fund estimates Saudi Arabia needs to balance its budget. The Saudi Ministry of Finance recently projected budget deficits years into the future, scrapping prior forecasts for surpluses.
Saudi officials have said that the private sector would shoulder the costs of its overhaul.
But foreign direct investment was just $26 billion last year and shows no signs of hitting the kingdom’s 2030 target of $100 billion a year. Investors have said they are put off by the complexity of projects like Neom, and wary of legal structures in Saudi Arabia, which the government recently changed to appeal more to Western investors.
The country still has over $400 billion in currency reserves to keep the Saudi riyal tied to the dollar. But the reserves have shrunk in recent years and dropped by over 7% between August and October.
Karen Young, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said there is a realization in the Saudi government that the expansive list of announced projects won’t be built in full. From the beginning, she said, Saudi officials were clear that if they completed half of what they set out to do, it would be a success.
“We’re now at that point where you start cutting,” she said, a move she believes won’t prove controversial with a public accustomed to quick swings in policy.
Mohammed al-Jadaan, the fiance minister, told a podcast earlier this year the government studied all its proposals and found a “gap” where the demands for money were greater than what would be available. Since then, unannounced projects were canceled and others were scaled back, he said.
Still, they have yet to disclose many cuts publicly. The International Monetary Fund said making changes public “will be important to help provide clarity on government priorities to investors and the public.”
On an October investor call, the Danish freight company DSV said the start of significant work on a $10 billion planned logistics venture with Neom would be delayed longer than expected, but couldn’t tell investors exactly for how long.
“We will see,” said Jens Lund, the company’s CEO. “I’m sure that they want to complete or reach the milestones that they have set out. Otherwise, they will announce something.”
The next steps for Neom under its new leader—an executive who comes from the Public Investment Fund—are unclear.
Work is now under way on early foundation work on another part of the Line, where contractors have dug a massive 150-foot hole and are installing thousands of concrete columns further into the ground. A major boost in spending, though, only starts in the next phase: building up.
https://archive.is/Mgt09#selection-5997.0-6061.279
J6 Shocker: Phone companies dispute FBI testimony on pipe bombs suspect, key lawmaker reveals
Cellular carriers have told Congress they possess intact phone usage data from the vicinity where two pipe bombs were planted during the Jan. 6 incident, directly disputing FBI testimony that agents couldn't identify a suspect because the phone data was corrupted, a key House chairman tells Just the News.
The revelations from Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., the chairman of the House Administration oversight subcommittee, adds new intrigue to a debate that has gripped Washington for nearly four years: Why can't the FBI with so much evidence and manpower identify the suspect who planted the explosive devices at the Democrat and Republican Party headquarters hours before the Capitol was breached.
“In the days and weeks following January 6, 2021, the FBI opened an investigation into the pipe bomber and attempted to identify the suspect by analyzing cell phone data linked to the area surrounding the RNC and DNC,” Loudermilk told Just the News.
“In June 2023, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Steve D’Antuono, who oversaw the pipe bomb investigation, said that the FBI received corrupted data from one of the cell carriers and that it most likely contained the identity of the pipe bomber. Given the significance of this information, my Subcommittee sent letters to the three major cell carriers, asking them to respond to Mr. D’Antuono’s claim of corrupted data,” he said.
“Every major cell carrier responded and confirmed that they did not provide the FBI corrupted data,” Loudermilk said.
“Additionally every major cell carrier confirmed they were never notified that the FBI had any issues accessing the data. This contradictory testimony raises some serious questions about the status of the investigation into the pipe bomber and about why the case remains unsolved nearly four years later,” he added.
Last year, D’Antuono told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI did not a receive complete phone data from telephone carriers because some of it had been corrupted.
“We did a complete geofence. We have complete data. Not complete, because there's some data that was corrupted by one of the providers, not purposely by them, right. It just – unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers,” D’Antuono testified in a transcribed interview.
“But for that day, which is awful because we don't have that information to search. So could it have been that provider? Yeah, with our luck, you know, with this investigation it probably was, right,” he said.
D’Antuono served as the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office until he stepped down in late 2022. A lawyer for the retired agent did not immediately return an email Wednesday seeking comment.
The concerns about the unsolved Jan. 6 pipe bombs have been heightened by evidence Loudermilk disclosed in the last year showing that then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was taken within 10 yards of one of the live bombs on the morning of Jan. 6 because the Secret Service did not do a thorough security sweep.
In addition, Loudermilk also provided security camera video footage and still photos of the suspect holding a device that lawmakers believe was a cell phone, further making the phone data a potential case-solving piece of evidence.
Loudermilk sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray this fall demanding to know whether D'Antuono's testimony was accurate and whether the bureau ever went back to the cell phone carriers to get a fresh set of uncorrupted data. Just the News obtained a copy of the letter.
"The Subcommittee requests that the FBI provide a response to Mr. D’Antuono’s claim that the FBI received corrupted data," loudermilk wrote Wray.
The letter specifically demands that the FBI chief answer whether the bureau ever "inform the cell carrier(s) that provided corrupted data that the data they provided was corrupted or otherwise unusable."
You can read the letter here.
File
10.16.2024-Letter_from_Chairman_Loudermilk_to_FBI_Director_Wray[75].pdf
The bureau was able to obtain photographic and video evidence of the prime suspect, but have so far been unable to locate the individual, to the consternation of congressional investigators. A $500,000 reward for information about the suspect remains in effect, according to the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
The FBI declined to comment on the investigation.
House Republicans previously raised several concerns about the FBI’s handling of the investigation born from D’Antuono’s testimony.
D’Antuono told Congress his investigators were not able to determine the whether the pipe bombs were placed as a diversionary tactic for the riot at the Capitol and was unable to recall if they had interviewed a key witness—the individual who discovered the pipe bombs. Additionally, D’Antuono gave testimony that the pipe bombs were deemed inoperable, despite the Quantico laboratory coming to a different conclusion.
At a hearing earlier this year about assessing the law enforcement response to the pipe bombs, Loudermilk reiterated concerns about the FBI’s investigation.
"Despite the suspect’s appearance on numerous USCP CCTV cameras, and the FBI’s efforts interviewing over 800 individuals and assessing more than 300 tips, the suspect remains at large,” Loudermilk said.
“Unfortunately, FBI has failed to provide substantive updates on the investigation despite numerous requests from congressional committees. Today, they have declined to participate in our hearing,” he added.
The pipe bombs, which were planted at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and Republican National Committee headquarters relatively undetected, are one of the most prominent security failures that took place on January 6.
In one episode that represents the extent of the security lapse which left experts disturbed, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was brought within yards of where the pipe bomb had earlier been planted, according to security footage reviewed by Just the News last year and released publicly by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight.
The footage shows that the suspect calmly sitting at a park bench near the DNC's garage entrance the night before, taking out the explosive device and planting it between the bench and a bush about 10 yards from the driveway before walking off. A photo of the device as it was found while Harris was still visiting the DNC shows it clearly visible to the human eye.
Despite the bomb's proximity to the garage entrance where Harris arrived, the footage shows the Secret Service motorcade bringing the future vice president into the driveway and into the building the next day, seemingly unaware that an explosive device was in the immediate vicinity. Harris was only evacuated after a passerby notified the Secret Service detail of a suspicious object, which turned out to be one of the pipe bombs.
https://justthenews.com/government/security/hldcell-companies-refute-fbi-testimony-j6-pipe-bomber-investigation-loudermilk
House rejects bill enabling punishment of non-profits supporting ‘terrorism’
A bill that would have allowed the government to strip tax-exempt status from any non-profit it deemed to be supporting “terrorism” was narrowly blocked in the House of Representatives on Tuesday evening.
The bill was widely feared as a tool that Donald Trump could use to punish dissent, and critics argued the measure could have disproportionately targeted groups that criticize Israel and support Palestinian causes – and that it was designed to do just that.
The vote failed with 145 votes against it, falling short of the two-thirds required to circumvent regular House rules. Fifty-two Democrats voted in support of the bill.
The bill, called Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, or HR 9495, joined two measures together – one allowing the treasury department to withhold tax-exempt status from any non-profit it decides is a “terrorist-supporting organization” and another, less controversial measure, which would offer tax relief to Americans imprisoned unjustly abroad or held by terrorist groups.
Providing material support to US-designated terrorist groups is already illegal.
Critics of the bill argued that Republicans cynically pushed to fast-track the bill by merging the measure targeting non-profits with the provision offering tax relief to Americans imprisoned abroad, and described it as a gift to Trump, who made retaliation against “enemies” within the US a centerpiece of his campaign.
“This bill authorizes Donald Trump to recklessly impose a death penalty on any non-profit in America that happens to be on his enemies list,” said the Texas Democratic congressman Lloyd Doggett before the bill was taken to a vote. “With this bill, he can destroy the very life of civil society in this country, one group after another, even though the group involved that he targets as a terrorist supporting group has not violated a single law.”
Activists who have publicly criticized Israel amid its assault on Gaza have faced steep recriminations already, including doxxing, harassment and – in the case of one Cornell University student – the threat of deportation. Pro-Israel politicians have regularly claimed that pro-Palestinian groups are aligned with the militant group Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group.
Some critics of HR 9495 worried the bill would disproportionately target such activists.
“It could target major liberal funders who support Palestinian solidarity and peace groups who engage in protest. But it could also theoretically be used to target pro-choice groups, and I could see it being used against environmental groups,” Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council Action, told the Intercept.
But it was Trump’s impending second presidential term, and concerns about how he could use, or abuse, the law, that appear to have stopped the bill in the house.
“With Trump’s election, the conditions have changed,” said Doggett, who said he had supported an earlier version of the measure. “The dangers of granting additional power to him are far outweighed by any benefits from this bill.”
https://archive.is/NWo3s#selection-1311.0-1311.76
When you don't overthink.
The mat said Welcome.