There was a 4.7M earthquake in British Columbia and Washington State area on Friday.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11029783/earthquake-bc-friday/
SBA won't try to claw back $155 million in controversial COVID grants given to successful muscians
-An aid program for concert venues shuttered by COVID-19 paid over $200 million to successful musicians.
-Lil Wayne and other artists took millions for luxury clothes and private jets.
-New records reveal that the SBA has closed out reviews of $155 million in grants to celebrities.
The Small Business Administration doesn't plan to seek recovery for more than $155 million in COVID relief grants paid out to successful artists and entertainers, newly public records show.
Congress set aside more than $14 billion during the pandemic to bail out struggling arts groups as audiences stayed home. Business Insider previously reported Lil Wayne, Marshmello, Chris Brown, Alice in Chains and other artists received taxpayer funds for private jets, parties, luxury clothes, and multi-million dollar bonuses for themselves — leaving little for staff salaries or benefits.
The grants could legally be used for "ordinary and necessary" expenses, and the federal government hasn't claimed that the spending was illegal.
Some of the top recipients of Shuttered Venue Operators Grants were clients of NKSFB, a Los Angeles business management firm that says it helps "the world's leading entertainers succeed financially."
In a December 20 email released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, an SBA employee said more than $155 million out of $216.6 million in grants paid out to NKSFB clients — or more than 70% of them — were "closed," meaning that they have been fully reviewed. That leaves about $61 million across 22 grants that could still be under review.
Many grant recipients won't hear from the SBA again after they complete the closeout process, but the agency's FAQ materials say an audit-like process called "monitoring" can take place even after a grant is closed. Sen. Joni Ernst, who leads the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in a statement that she'd be looking into abusive pandemic spending.
"Pandemic relief programs were designed to help small businesses keep their doors open and their employees afloat during an incredibly challenging time," Ernst said. "Unfortunately, the more we learn, the more it is clear that taxpayers footed the bill for the extravagant lifestyles of the rich and famous."
The grant data was gathered in the waning days of the Biden administration. Most of the grant staff have now been laid off or transferred, according to people familiar with the program. The SBA inspector-general was among several agency watchdogs fired by President Donald Trump.
It's not clear which specific NKSFB clients' grants had been closed out and which remained open. The firm has said that it cannot discuss its clients' finances. The firm's lawyer and managing partner didn't respond to comment requests for this story.
The SBA has said it followed the law and had "robust" checks in place to detect fraud. It said current and former employees who criticized its processes didn't have complete visibility into its processes. The agency didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.
But the agency was also bracing for criticism, the newly released records show. Top officials on the SVOG program were listed as attendees at a briefing for Congressional staff in response to Business Insider's reporting last December. The presentation the SBA gave to the staff was completely redacted.
SBA staff were also warned not to talk. One called an email from a BI reporter "phishing." The program's director referred to the outreach as "aggressive," the records show.
"The SBA has cloaked itself in secrecy and hid the full extent of its work from the American people for the last four years," Ernst said. "I will be working with Kelly Loeffler and the Trump administration to bring full transparency to the agency and investigate just what on earth happened with taxpayers' money."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sba-wont-try-claw-back-172153120.html
Trump Wants the U.S. to Control Gaza; So, Who Owns It Anyway?
President Trump wants the U.S. to control the Gaza Strip, but it isn’t even clear who owns it. Determining that might be among the most complicated territorial questions on Earth.
The Palestinian enclave has an almost unique status, as well as a long history of changing hands, making figuring out who ultimately owns the tiny territory a matter of unpacking overlapping land laws laid down over centuries.
Gaza is effectively run by Hamas militants, but the United Nations says it is unlawfully occupied by Israel. Most countries consider the war-torn Strip part of Palestine, which itself isn’t recognized as a state by the U.S., among others. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel doesn’t want to occupy Gaza at the end of the war, and he has praised Trump for what he said was creative thinking in proposing to relocate Palestinians from the Strip, something the U.N. has warned could contravene international law.
Trump has offered few concrete details about his plans for Gaza, beyond saying that the U.S. would invoke “United States authority” to control it. He has said the U.S. wouldn’t buy Gaza or use American troops to take it, but that the U.S. should have long-term control to turn the Philadelphia-size territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The nearly two million Palestinians living in Gaza would relocate to Jordan and Egypt in Trump’s vision. He has threatened to withhold aid from those countries if they refuse to take the displaced people, though he has since said such freezes wouldn’t be necessary.
The plan has been denounced by Arab states including Saudi Arabia, and European allies of the U.S. have said they don’t support it. The Palestinian Authority, which ruled Gaza before Hamas, has said Trump’s proposal for Gaza represents a violation of international law and has pledged that Palestinians won’t relinquish their goal of a Palestinian state.
Hamas has vowed to fight Israel until the establishment of a Palestinian state that includes the Strip. Regular Gazans, most descended from Palestinians who were moved in 1948 from land that is now Israel, have pledged to stay put.
“Gaza was under the Palestinian Authority until it was taken by force by Hamas,” said Yossi Beilin, who helped craft the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority that ruled Gaza until Hamas seized power in 2007. Should Trump want to legally take control of Gaza, “he has to talk to the PA,” Beilin said.
Because Gaza has changed hands so often, the legal framework governing individual ownership of the land is a knot of British, Egyptian and Palestinian laws. Some rules even date to when the area was under the control of the Ottoman Empire during the 400 years leading up to World War I.
Private individuals own as much as half of the land in Gaza, which can be freely bought or sold, according to a 2015 study of land ownership in the enclave by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
But more than one-third of that land is estimated to be unregistered because of difficulties, including establishing a so-called chain of ownership, and complex land laws and registration procedures, according to the study. Some owners in the past didn’t register land to avoid paying tax, it said.
Unregistered private land can be registered by the owners only if they are able to prove a historical chain of ownership. If not, owners are subject to restrictions: They can sell the land, but can’t mortgage it, for example. Unregistered land owners are considered the owners unless proven otherwise, the study said.
Deeds of ownership have in the past been required to build in Gaza, where about one-third of the territory is considered land for public use, though that is often occupied by private individuals, the study said.
Before the recent war, plots of land in Gaza were registered with the Palestinian Land Authority and taxed by the Property Tax Directorate in Gaza’s Ministry of Finance.
Palestinian refugees who fled the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that created the state of Israel also reside in eight refugee camps that have since become permanent townships, where residents informally exchange ownership of property. A small part of Gaza is also allocated as an Islamic endowment for religious purposes.
Estimates vary, but the U.N. says about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either destroyed or damaged, including more than 245,000 housing units. Entire city blocks are flattened and Palestinians say their neighborhoods are unrecognizable, making working out who owns what and where even more challenging.
About 50 million tons of debris created during months of bombing are expected to take more than a decade to remove, and experts say it will take tens of billions of dollars to rebuild Gaza. The rubble also sits on top of hundreds of miles of Hamas-built tunnels that the Israeli military has tried to destroy, leaving a fragile demolition site both above and below ground.
The U.N. says international law generally prohibits the forced displacement of people from land, but exceptions can be made for national security or public-order reasons, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In those instances, the U.N. says, the people affected should be given the opportunity to challenge the decision and provide their consent. “Displacement should never be carried out in a manner that violates the rights to life, dignity, liberty and security of those affected,” according to the UNHCR.
https://archive.is/TTjBa#selection-6059.0-6059.526
Trump Wants the U.S. to Control Gaza; So, Who Owns It Anyway?
President Trump wants the U.S. to control the Gaza Strip, but it isn’t even clear who owns it. Determining that might be among the most complicated territorial questions on Earth.
The Palestinian enclave has an almost unique status, as well as a long history of changing hands, making figuring out who ultimately owns the tiny territory a matter of unpacking overlapping land laws laid down over centuries.
Gaza is effectively run by Hamas militants, but the United Nations says it is unlawfully occupied by Israel. Most countries consider the war-torn Strip part of Palestine, which itself isn’t recognized as a state by the U.S., among others. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel doesn’t want to occupy Gaza at the end of the war, and he has praised Trump for what he said was creative thinking in proposing to relocate Palestinians from the Strip, something the U.N. has warned could contravene international law.
Trump has offered few concrete details about his plans for Gaza, beyond saying that the U.S. would invoke “United States authority” to control it. He has said the U.S. wouldn’t buy Gaza or use American troops to take it, but that the U.S. should have long-term control to turn the Philadelphia-size territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The nearly two million Palestinians living in Gaza would relocate to Jordan and Egypt in Trump’s vision. He has threatened to withhold aid from those countries if they refuse to take the displaced people, though he has since said such freezes wouldn’t be necessary.
The plan has been denounced by Arab states including Saudi Arabia, and European allies of the U.S. have said they don’t support it. The Palestinian Authority, which ruled Gaza before Hamas, has said Trump’s proposal for Gaza represents a violation of international law and has pledged that Palestinians won’t relinquish their goal of a Palestinian state.
Hamas has vowed to fight Israel until the establishment of a Palestinian state that includes the Strip. Regular Gazans, most descended from Palestinians who were moved in 1948 from land that is now Israel, have pledged to stay put.
“Gaza was under the Palestinian Authority until it was taken by force by Hamas,” said Yossi Beilin, who helped craft the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority that ruled Gaza until Hamas seized power in 2007. Should Trump want to legally take control of Gaza, “he has to talk to the PA,” Beilin said.
Because Gaza has changed hands so often, the legal framework governing individual ownership of the land is a knot of British, Egyptian and Palestinian laws. Some rules even date to when the area was under the control of the Ottoman Empire during the 400 years leading up to World War I.
Private individuals own as much as half of the land in Gaza, which can be freely bought or sold, according to a 2015 study of land ownership in the enclave by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
But more than one-third of that land is estimated to be unregistered because of difficulties, including establishing a so-called chain of ownership, and complex land laws and registration procedures, according to the study. Some owners in the past didn’t register land to avoid paying tax, it said.
Unregistered private land can be registered by the owners only if they are able to prove a historical chain of ownership. If not, owners are subject to restrictions: They can sell the land, but can’t mortgage it, for example. Unregistered land owners are considered the owners unless proven otherwise, the study said.
Deeds of ownership have in the past been required to build in Gaza, where about one-third of the territory is considered land for public use, though that is often occupied by private individuals, the study said.
Before the recent war, plots of land in Gaza were registered with the Palestinian Land Authority and taxed by the Property Tax Directorate in Gaza’s Ministry of Finance.
Palestinian refugees who fled the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that created the state of Israel also reside in eight refugee camps that have since become permanent townships, where residents informally exchange ownership of property. A small part of Gaza is also allocated as an Islamic endowment for religious purposes.
Estimates vary, but the U.N. says about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either destroyed or damaged, including more than 245,000 housing units. Entire city blocks are flattened and Palestinians say their neighborhoods are unrecognizable, making working out who owns what and where even more challenging.
About 50 million tons of debris created during months of bombing are expected to take more than a decade to remove, and experts say it will take tens of billions of dollars to rebuild Gaza. The rubble also sits on top of hundreds of miles of Hamas-built tunnels that the Israeli military has tried to destroy, leaving a fragile demolition site both above and below ground.
The U.N. says international law generally prohibits the forced displacement of people from land, but exceptions can be made for national security or public-order reasons, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In those instances, the U.N. says, the people affected should be given the opportunity to challenge the decision and provide their consent. “Displacement should never be carried out in a manner that violates the rights to life, dignity, liberty and security of those affected,” according to the UNHCR.
https://archive.is/TTjBa#selection-6059.0-6059.526
Gaza captor told hostages that Hamas collaborates with US campus protesters, lawsuit alleges
A Hamas member who held Israelis hostage in Gaza told the captives that the terror group was coordinating with “allies” on college campuses and in the media, according to a lawsuit filed in US court on Friday.
The lawsuit was filed by former hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv. All three were taken from the Nova music festival in southern Israel during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel.
They were held in Gaza by Abdallah Aljamal, according to the lawsuit and the IDF. Aljamal was a writer for the Palestine Chronicle, a news outlet run by the People Media Project, a US-based, tax-exempt nonprofit that is the focus of the lawsuit.
The hostages were rescued after 246 days in captivity in an IDF operation in June that also extracted hostage Noa Argamani, who was held separately nearby. Aljamal, his wife Fatima and his father Ahmad Aljamal were all killed during the hostage rescue mission. The family’s children survived.
Jan initially filed the lawsuit last year. The judge in the case granted a motion to dismiss the case last month, saying there was insufficient evidence to prove the defendants were aware that Aljamal was a Hamas operative. The judge allowed Jan to refile an amended complaint, however.
The new complaint was filed on Friday, adding Kozlov and Ziv as plaintiffs. The lawsuit, backed by the National Jewish Advocacy Center, was filed in a federal court in Washington State, where the People Media Project is based.
The case argues that the Palestine Chronicle provided Aljamal with a platform to “disseminate Hamas propaganda,” providing material support to a US-designated terrorist organization, in violation of international law.
According to the amended complaint, Ziv said Aljamal “repeatedly expressed his hatred for the State of Israel and the United States,” and told the hostages that “Hamas was in contact and actively coordinating with its affiliates in the media and on college campuses.”
Aljamal told the hostages that “Hamas was going to ensure that the United States, as well as Jews and Israelis, are hated everywhere and that Hamas in Gaza was coordinating with its allies, including its allies in the media and on college campuses, to foment hatred against Israel and Jews,” the complaint said.
There were no further details about the cooperation between the terror group and campus protesters or the media.
The Palestine Chronicle was reporting about US campus protests around the same time, and in August 2024, published an article about Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal urging university students to protest.
Aljamal was previously a spokesperson for the Hamas-run labor ministry in Gaza. He was open about his affiliation with the terror group, appearing publicly in Arabic media as a spokesperson and posting Hamas graphics and photos of his son wearing a Hamas headband on social media. He began writing for the Palestine Chronicle in 2019 while still serving as a spokesperson for Hamas’s labor ministry, according to the lawsuit.
Aljamal appears to have had foreknowledge of the Hamas attack. On October 7, at 5:43 a.m., immediately before the invasion, he posted a message on TikTok that said, “O God, guide us.. O God, grant us the victory that you promised.. O God, acceptance, acceptance, acceptance.. Your victory, O God,” followed by a heart emoji.
Later in the day, Aljamal praised the attack on Facebook.
He began writing for the Palestine Chronicle more frequently after the attack, sometimes publishing multiple articles per day, while he was holding the Israelis hostage and communicating with the outlet’s staff in the US.
His social media activity, personal correspondence with the defendants, and public position with Hamas meant that the defendants were aware of his connections to the terror group, the lawsuit argues.
Defendant Ramzy Baroud, the editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle and head of the People Media Project, and Aljamal are from the same town in Gaza and in 2017, co-authored an article for Al Jazeera.
Immediately after the hostage rescue, the Palestine Chronicle changed Aljamal’s description on its website from “correspondent” to “contributor,” then later described him as a “freelance contributor” writing on “a voluntary basis.” It also eulogized him in an article after his death, calling him a “well-known journalist murdered in Gaza,” and denied that he had been holding the hostages.
The hostages were aware that Aljamal was communicating with terror groups, recording footage and writing about their own captivity, the complaint said. All three were “terrorized” during their captivity, subjected to arbitrary punishment, physical threats, and physical and psychological abuse, the lawsuit said.
The outlet’s tax-exempt status means US taxpayers were subsidizing Hamas propaganda published to a US audience, the lawsuit argues, adding that the salary he was paid also helped him imprison the hostages.
The Palestine Chronicle and lawyers for the defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gaza-captor-told-hostages-that-hamas-collaborates-with-us-campus-protesters-lawsuit-alleges/
AI cracks superbug problem in two days that took scientists years
A complex problem that took microbiologists a decade to get to the bottom of has been solved in just two days by a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool.
Professor José R Penadés and his team at Imperial College London had spent years working out and proving why some superbugs are immune to antibiotics.
He gave "co-scientist" - a tool made by Google - a short prompt asking it about the core problem he had been investigating and it reached the same conclusion in 48 hours.
He told the BBC of his shock when he found what it had done, given his research was not published so could not have been found by the AI system in the public domain.
"I was shopping with somebody, I said, 'please leave me alone for an hour, I need to digest this thing,'" he told the Today programme, on BBC Radio Four.
"I wrote an email to Google to say, 'you have access to my computer, is that right?'", he added.
The tech giant confirmed it had not.
The full decade spent by the scientists also includes the time it took to prove the research, which itself was multiple years.
But they say, had they had the hypothesis at the start of the project, it would have saved years of work.
Prof Penadés' said the tool had in fact done more than successfully replicating his research.
"It's not just that the top hypothesis they provide was the right one," he said.
"It's that they provide another four, and all of them made sense.
"And for one of them, we never thought about it, and we're now working on that."
The researchers have been trying to find out how some superbugs - dangerous germs that are resistant to antibiotics - get created.
Their hypothesis is that the superbugs can form a tail from different viruses which allows them to spread between species.
Prof Penadés likened it to the superbugs having "keys" which enabled them to move from home to home, or host species to host species.
Critically, this hypothesis was unique to the research team and had not been published anywhere else. Nobody in the team had shared their findings.
So Mr Penadés was happy to use this to test Google's new AI tool.
Just two days later, the AI returned a few hypotheses - and its first thought, the top answer provided, suggested superbugs may take tails in exactly the way his research described.
The impact of AI is hotly contested.
Its advocates say it will enable scientific advances - while others worry it will eliminate jobs.
Prof Penadés said he understood why fears about the impact on jobs such as his was the "first reaction" people had but added "when you think about it it's more that you have an extremely powerful tool."
He said the researchers on the project were convinced that it would prove very useful in the future.
"I feel this will change science, definitely," Mr Penadés said.
"I'm in front of something that is spectacular, and I'm very happy to be part of that.
"It's like you have the opportunity to be playing a big match - I feel like I'm finally playing a Champions League match with this thing."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyz6e9edy3o
One dead, several police wounded in ‘Islamist’ stabbing attack in France (authorities tried to deport him 10 times)
AFP — One person was killed and two police officers were seriously injured Saturday in a knife attack in eastern France that President Emmanuel Macron said was an “Islamist terror act.”
Prosecutors said three more officers were lightly wounded in the attack in the city of Mulhouse, carried out by a 37-year-old suspect who is on a terror prevention watchlist, prosecutor Nicolas Heitz told AFP.
The suspect was in custody.
France’s national anti-terror prosecutors unit (PNAT), which has taken charge of the investigation, said the suspect first attacked the municipal police officers, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).
Witnesses confirmed to AFP that the suspect had several times shouted the words in Arabic that are used by Muslims as an exclamation of their faith.
February 22, 2025. (SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP)
AFP — One person was killed and two police officers were seriously injured Saturday in a knife attack in eastern France that President Emmanuel Macron said was an “Islamist terror act.”
Prosecutors said three more officers were lightly wounded in the attack in the city of Mulhouse, carried out by a 37-year-old suspect who is on a terror prevention watchlist, prosecutor Nicolas Heitz told AFP.
The suspect was in custody.
France’s national anti-terror prosecutors unit (PNAT), which has taken charge of the investigation, said the suspect first attacked the municipal police officers, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).
Witnesses confirmed to AFP that the suspect had several times shouted the words in Arabic that are used by Muslims as an exclamation of their faith.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
Newsletter email address
Your email
Get it
By signing up, you agree to the terms
A civilian passer-by who intervened was fatally injured, the PNAT said in a statement. According to Mulhouse prosecutors, he was a 69-year-old Portuguese national.
Macron said there was “no doubt” that the incident was “a terrorist act,” specifically “an Islamist terrorist act.”
The government was determined to continue doing “everything to eradicate terrorism on our soil,” Macron added.
The terror watchlist, called FSPRT, compiles data from various authorities on individuals with the aim of preventing “terrorist” radicalization. It was launched in 2015 following deadly attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices and a Jewish supermarket.
One of the seriously wounded police officers sustained an injury to the carotid artery, and the other to the thorax, Heitz said.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau was expected to travel to the scene of the attack later Saturday.
Police established a security parameter after the attack that happened shortly before 4:00 pm (1500 GMT) during a demonstration in support of the Democratic Republic of Congo in a busy part of Mulhouse, a city of around 110,000 inhabitants.
Military units were sent to the scene as backup and forensic scientists searched for evidence, working hurriedly to examine blood stains before rain could wash them away.
The suspect was born in Algeria and has been under judicial supervision and house arrest, with an expulsion order from France.
Retailleau told French broadcaster TF1 that France had tried to expel him 10 times, with the Algerians refusing each time to accept him.
“Horror has seized our city,” Mulhouse mayor Michele Lutz said on Facebook. The incident was being investigated as a terror attack, she said, but “this must obviously still be confirmed by the judiciary.”
The PNAT said it is investigating the attack for murder, and attempted murder “in connection with a terrorist enterprise.”
Macron, who spoke during a visit to France’s agriculture fair, said the “solidarity of the nation” was with the attack victim and his family.
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said that “fanaticism has struck again, and we are in mourning.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/one-dead-several-police-wounded-in-islamist-stabbing-attack-in-france/
Taxpayers fund Seattle masturbation club for gay men
Tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money were given to a Seattle foundation that supports bondage programming and “jack-off clubs” where members can “share masturbation and mutual touch in an open, group setting.” Volunteers, calling themselves WA DOGE, revealed that Washington’s Arts Commission gave the funds to the Pan Eros Foundation, an organization that "celebrates and cultivates consent & sexuality through the arts & education for all."
The organization received $2,000 in the 2023-2025 biennium, according to the Evergreen State’s “open checkbook” website. Tax forms reveal that the organization received $60,000 in “government grants.”
One of the ongoing programs listed on the organization’s calendar is Rain City Jacks "a traditional jack-off club." According to the event listing, calling it an "associated event," “Rain City Jacks hosts regular, private events for its members to share masturbation and mutual touch in an open, group setting. Membership is available to adult men who desire and value what we have to offer, respect the Jacks culture of mutual respect and consent, and adhere to the RCJ Code of Conduct.”
Membership is required for participation in RCJ events and Rain City Jacks “welcomes all adult men, including trans men, regardless of age, race, ability, physicality, sexual orientation, or other subjective external traits.”
Another program listed is "Queering Tantra presents Pleasure and Healing: genital massage, breathwork, and tantric meditation for better, more connected sex."
The listing stated that the class “for this couples (or moresomes) workshop to learn tantric massage and meditation, somatic curiosity and breathwork, as avenues to discover yourself and your partner(s) in a new and ever-unfolding way! Using meditation we cultivate practice with ourselves and explore focusing our attention where we would like it to go. Using touch we connect ourselves to another to be curious and explore sensations and pleasure.” Participants straight and queer, will “learn more about their anatomy, rewrite sexual societal and gendered scripts, learn genital massage for pleasure and healing (practicing on partner(s), connect more deeply with partners, and meditation techniques.”
The “gender expansive” workshop includes “guided practice, live demonstration, and lab time. Using touch, curiosity, and breath you will be taught multi-step tools for learning and noticing what sensations, wounding, and pleasure potential you store in your pelvic floor and genital tissue.”
In "Shibari for Snuggling," "Bondage can be sexy and kinky, but it can also be relaxing and cuddly" a class that covers "a variety of web style harnesses and tying methods and incorporates blankets and pillows (or stuffies!) for bondage."
WA DOGE volunteers, inspired by President Donald Trump and X CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have discovered over $1.5 billion in state government waste, as Washington faces a $12-16 billion budget deficit due to out-of-control spending.
https://thepostmillennial.com/seattle-state-funded-non-profit-promotes-bondage-jack-off-clubs?cfp
Why Trump chose Razin Caine as nation’s top General
Dan Caine may not have been on Washington's radar before Friday night. But President Donald Trump's fascination with the retired three-star general, his surprise pick to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appears to go back to their first meeting in Iraq in 2018.
Caine, then the deputy commander of a special operations task force fighting Islamic State, told the president that the militant group could be destroyed in just a week, Trump recalled during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2019.
Since then, he has retold the story about how he met "Razin" Caine multiple times - and the praise has only grown more effusive.
"He's a real general, not a television general," Trump said in Miami on Wednesday, two days before his Truth Social post catapulted Caine from retirement to a nomination to be the most senior active-duty officer in the U.S. military.
If approved by the Senate, Caine will take over a military that is undergoing change in the first 30 days of the Trump administration and will inherit a Joint Staff rattled by Trump's surprise firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown.
Caine, a retired F-16 pilot, will be promoted to four-star general, and then have to undergo a potentially grueling Senate confirmation process to get a four-year term as the uniformed head of the nation's military.
Just last month, Caine joined a venture capital firm known as Shield Capital. His LinkedIn profile showed that starting last month, he was associated with two other investment firms.
Caine's military career is a far cry from the traditional path to becoming the president's top military adviser. Previous generals and admirals have led a combatant command or a military branch of service.
Caine did not rise that high in the ranks before retirement. According to Trump, he was "passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden."
"But not anymore!", Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Earlier this year, Caine described on a podcast how as a young man he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, a fighter pilot.
"We started moving around as a kid. So I felt like this was something that I really, really, really wanted to do, was fly jets in the Air Force," Caine said.
He graduated in 1990 from the Virginia Military Institute with a bachelor's degree in economics.
Caine, who flew more than 2,800 hours in the F-16, was one of the pilots tasked with protecting Washington on September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda hijackers slammed commercial jets into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York City.
Caine realized he might have to shoot down a hijacked plane if one crossed his path.
"I was very mindful that if we made a mistake or if we got it wrong or if we missed somebody and we did not shoot, the consequences of that could be catastrophic," Caine, who has also flown the T-37 and T-38 aircraft, said in an article posted on the CIA website.
Caine held a number of posts in the capital from 2005. He was a special assistant to the secretary at the Department of Agriculture and then policy director for counterterrorism at the White House's homeland security council.
According to his official Air Force biography, Caine was a part-time member of the National Guard and "a serial entrepreneur and investor" from 2009 to 2016.
He was most recently the associate director for military affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency, before his retirement late last year.
But it was his time in Iraq from 2018 to 2019 that helped him gain Trump's attention.
Caine will be under particular scrutiny to ensure that he is apolitical, a concern that was heightened by the Friday night firing of Brown, a four-star general. Uniformed military officials are supposed to be loyal to the U.S. Constitution and independent of any party or political movement.
A senior U.S. military official who has worked with Caine for more than a decade said he would seek to keep the military out of politics.
Caine "puts the mission and troops above politics. He is not a political guy," the official said.
The official added that when Caine found out he would be picked for the top job by Trump, his first concern was that Brown was taken care of and treated with respect.
How far Cain can keep the military out of politics may largely depend on Trump - who in the past has dragged the military into partisan issues.
In a recent re-telling of their first meeting in Iraq, Trump said that Caine was in the hangar where service members started putting on "Make America Great Again" hats.
"They all put on the Make America Great Again hat. Not supposed to do it," Trump said during a speech last year.
"I said, 'you're not supposed to do that. You know that.' They said, 'It's OK, sir. We don't care.'"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hes-real-general-trump-chose-050620805.html
Sarah Smith
@Defundmedianow
General CQ Brown wanted a reduction in white officers. How was this acceptable!?!
https://x.com/Defundmedianow/status/1893148025804984568/photo/3
Benny Johnson
@bennyjohnson
Tom Homan is going BEAST MODE:
"President Trump will wipe them off the face of the earth."
"We're not just going to attack in Mexico, the Jalisco cartel. We're going to attack them in the 43 countries they have operations. We are attacking worldwide."
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1893121752676336014