dChan
Anonymous ID: a8290a July 15, 2026, 12:13 p.m. No.24829495   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Open Source Intel

@Osint613

A U.S. strike hit the control tower at Iran's Shahid Kalantari Port in Chabahar again Wednesday.

 

https://x.com/Osint613/status/2077299274593747135?

Anonymous ID: a8290a July 15, 2026, 12:17 p.m. No.24829507   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>9638 >>9706

Rand Paul will vote Yes on the SAVE Act

 

Rand Paul

@RandPaul

This talking point from the Left is not only false, but it also paints women as incapable, which we all know is not the case.

 

Showing up to the polls to vote with an ID that proves you’re an American citizen – whether you’re married or not – is common sense. We need to pass the SAVE America Act.

 

https://x.com/RandPaul/status/2076732904411971959

Anonymous ID: a8290a July 15, 2026, 12:18 p.m. No.24829509   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>9638 >>9706

Jack Smith obtained text messages from 44 members of Congress

 

Former special counsel Jack Smith obtained text messages that 44 members of Congress sent to senior White House officials during the final weeks of President Donald Trump’s first term, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley revealed Tuesday.

 

The latest exchanges were part of a trove of materials that the National Archives turned over to Smith’s team following a subpoena for White House records stretching from Oct. 2020 to Jan. 2021. Smith’s top deputies received the materials in August 2023, just weeks after securing a grand jury indictment against Trump — and, according to internal emails Grassley released Tuesday, indicated they were quickly preparing to share them with Trump’s legal team as part of the pre-trial “discovery” process.”

 

Grassley’s release of these materials is part of a broader effort by the Iowa Republican and other Trump allies to portray Smith as a reckless or overaggressive prosecutor in his pursuit of criminal cases against Trump during the Biden administration, which many GOP lawmakers believe were politically motivated.

 

Grassley was already on the warpath for Smith after learning that investigators obtained call records of several Republican lawmakers as part of Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election, which culminated in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

 

“Jack Smith has answering to do, and I intend to have him before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to hold him accountable,” said Grassley.

 

A spokesman for Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Smith testified to the House Judiciary Committee both privately and publicly earlier this year.

 

The newly disclosed records show that a wide range of lawmakers were communicating with the White House in the final months of Trump’s first term — from Grassley himself along with 19 other senators, to top House Republicans like then-GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy.

 

Several exchanges with Democrats, including Sen. Cory Booker and then-Rep. Karen Bass, were also among the subpoenaed materials.

 

Grassley is also seeking to cast the revelation that members’ text messages were divulged to investigators as a potential breach of Congress’ constitutional “speech or debate” protection that prevents the Executive Branch from prying into lawmakers’ legislative business.

 

Unlike executive privilege, which protects a president’s communication from disclosure in many cases, speech-or-debate privilege is explicitly mentioned in the constitution — part of the founders’ effort to prevent the Executive Branch from using its prosecutorial power to bend legislators to its will.

 

Notably, Smith’s investigators labored for more than a year to obtain text messages and emails sent by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) after the FBI seized his phone in August 2022. Perry sued, contending that his phone contained thousands of messages protected by the speech or debate clause, and slowed Smith’s team for more than a year while they litigated the contours of the privilege.

 

Eventually prosecutors won access to about 1,600 of Perry’s messages that judges deemed unrelated to Perry’s work as a legislator.

 

Perry is among the lawmakers whose text messages were obtained in the two-month window before Trump’s first term ended.

 

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/07/14/congress/jack-smith-investigation-update-00997825

Anonymous ID: a8290a July 15, 2026, 12:19 p.m. No.24829512   🗄️.is 🔗kun

House Republicans home in on $80B reconciliation package

 

A proposed farm aid package has shrunk to $11 billion amid hard-liner fiscal concerns.

 

House Republican leaders and White House officials are coalescing around a roughly $80 billion policy package as they prepare for a final summer push to enact party-line budget reconciliation legislation.

 

House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said the bill would pump $67 billion into Pentagon programs and $11 billion to farm assistance, without including offsetting spending cuts. Three other people granted anonymity to describe the negotiations confirmed the outlines of the deal, which is also likely to include several billion dollars in election grants meant to replicate portions of the SAVE America Act that President Donald Trump is pushing for.

 

The lack of offsets threatens to enrage GOP fiscal hawks, who want at least the agriculture portion of the bill to be paid for. But in a nod to those fiscal concerns, the farm aid portion of the bill shrunk from earlier discussions of as much as $20 billion.

 

Speaker Mike Johnson declined to get into specifics about the bill but said he was focused on “building consensus one step at a time.” Several meetings of key GOP officials took place through the day Tuesday, including one at the White House that Johnson, Rogers and other key Republicans attended.

 

The $67 billion defense request is roughly what the White House asked for in a recent emergency supplemental funding package but falls well short of the $350 billion military infusion Trump has called for.

 

The House Budget Committee has set a Thursday morning markup of the fiscal blueprint that launches the budget reconciliation process. Under panel rules, that blueprint would have to be released no later than 10 a.m. Wednesday.

 

“We’re going through a number of different ideas, and we’ll reveal the details when when they’re ready to be revealed publicly,” Johnson said. “But right now, it’s member-to-member, and the White House is directly engaged, and we’re grateful for that because it’s a team effort.”

 

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters the budget framework could come to the floor next week if it clears the Budget Committee Thursday. He said the annual defense policy bill, which GOP leaders hoped to advance last month until an intraparty rebellion derailed that plan, could also return to the floor next week.

 

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/07/14/congress/house-republicans-80-billion-reconciliation-00997839

Anonymous ID: a8290a July 15, 2026, 12:20 p.m. No.24829517   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://abcnews.com/amp/Politics/rubio-expands-plans-high-level-meeting-focused-left/story?id=134730067

Rubio expands plans for high-level meeting focused on 'far-left terrorism'

 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is preparing to host delegations from more than 70 countries this week for a gathering focused on addressing what the Trump administration describes as the overlooked threat posed by "the resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism," according to a State Department official and internal documents reviewed exclusively by ABC News.

 

"For too long this threat has remained a blind spot in the international community's counterterrorism focus, underestimated and under-resourced, despite the danger it poses," a note shared with foreign governments describing the concept of the meeting reads.

 

It goes on to assert that law enforcement and counterterrorism experts have revealed a "clear trend" of "globally networked, politically-motivated terrorists – particularly far-left terrorists" increasingly turning to "organized, deadly violence to advance their political objectives."

 

The meeting, which will take place in Washington on Thursday, will lay the foundation for "coordinated action" to counter international organizations that are "seeking to implement an extreme political vision through intimidation and coordinated campaigns of terror," the document states.

 

Representatives from roughly 60 countries were initially expected to attend, but the State Department said in a post to X on Friday it would expand the ministerial due to "overwhelming interest" by inviting additional countries "working to combat the growing international threat of far-left violence."

 

A State Department official said more than 10 additional invitations had been extended.

 

Some critics of the Trump administration's counterterrorism approach have claimed its focus on threats from the far left is misguided.

 

Analysis conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in 2025 found that while left-wing violence in the U.S. has increased over the past decade, "it has risen from very low levels and remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers."

 

The CSIS report concluded it was "important to resource all dimensions of the terrorism threat."

 

"Left-wing terrorism is a Trump administration priority, but jihadist terrorism also remains a concern even though it has declined," it states. "Right-wing terrorism could come roaring back, especially if in 2028 there are complaints of a 'stolen election' or similar incendiary claims."

 

The ACLU has also taken issue with multiple actions taken by the Trump administration's counterterrorism approach, accusing it of targeting politically opposed but peaceful activists and donors "under the guise of addressing political violence and domestic terrorism."

 

https://abcnews.com/amp/Politics/rubio-expands-plans-high-level-meeting-focused-left/story?id=134730067

Anonymous ID: a8290a July 15, 2026, 12:22 p.m. No.24829521   🗄️.is 🔗kun

https://www.miningmx.com/top-story/65891-why-de-beers-opted-to-shut-venetia-diamond-mine/

Why De Beers opted to shut Venetia diamond mine

 

De Beers is preparing to shutter South Africa’s largest diamond mine for two years, threatening thousands of jobs and removing roughly two-fifths of the country’s diamond production as the industry’s most famous company battles one of the worst downturns in its history.

 

The move is intended to cut costs, while production will be increased elsewhere, enough to leave its overall output guidance unchanged.

 

It’s an especially striking decision because Venetia, in Limpopo, is not an ageing operation being allowed to gracefully expire. And De Beers has already spent about $2.2bn converting the former open-pit mine into an underground operation intended to continue producing into the 2040s. Production at Venetia, in fact, rose 53% to 740,000 carats in the first quarter of 2026 as greater volumes of underground ore were processed.

 

However, “if you want to cut back supply, you close Venetia”, says James Allan, a mining consultant and former top-rated diamond analyst, who argues that it’s more than a simple ranking of which De Beers mines were most expensive.

 

The company’s average production cost in South Africa – where Venetia is its only operating mine – was $110 a carat in 2025, compared with $38 in Botswana, $51 in Canada and $244 in Namibia, according to figures supplied by De Beers.

 

In other words, while Venetia is a relatively high-cost operation, it’s not the group’s most expensive source of diamonds.

 

https://www.miningmx.com/top-story/65891-why-de-beers-opted-to-shut-venetia-diamond-mine/