Iran Suspends U.S. Talks as Israel Kills 8 More in Lebanon & Expands Occupation
Far Left
Israeli drones have killed at least eight people in Lebanon despite an announcement Monday by U.S. President Donald Trump that both Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop fighting. Trump’s intervention came as Israel threatened new strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, leading Iran to suspend indirect negotiations with the U.S. to protest Israel’s expanding military offensive in Lebanon. Since March 2, Israel has killed more than 3,400 people in Lebanon while seizing large swaths of the country and displacing about one-fifth of the population.
Lebanon is “a weak state, it doesn’t have a lot of leverage, and a lot of people are concerned,” says Associated Press reporter Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut. “They sort of feel beholden to the regional and global powers on their fate.”
Supporters of Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol on Jan 6, and then saw their lives fall apart in criminal charges, lost jobs and shattered families, had a brief glimmer of hope after the president’s Justice Department agreed to a $1.8 billion “slush fund” that would compensate them for their troubles.But late Monday, the president snatched it away, and longtime GOP campaign consultant Rick Wilson was ready and willing to taunt them for getting “played” by the president. Again.Late Monday, Axios reported that the DOJ, on Trump’s orders, was pulling the plug on going forward with the $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" after massive blowback from Republican lawmakers who raked acting Attorney General Todd Blanche over the coals during a closed-door meeting last week.With the fund reportedly “dead,” Wilson used his Substack platform to pummel Trump’s MAGA fans for trusting the president again."You stormed the Capitol. You used bear spray on a cop, shat in the Rotunda, hunted for Mike Pence, or you just milled around in your Temu Tactical gear demanding Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts…and you got caught. And many, many of you. rightly. went to jail. Let’s be clear: you f——— deserved it,” he wrote.“But the last couple weeks have been good, right? Because the word went out. There was going to be money. Real money. A $1.8 billion 'Anti-Weaponization Fund,' a glittering, gold-leaf taxpayer-funded piñata, and you, patriot, were going to swing the bat and collect. And then, on a Friday, one judge named Leonie Brinkema picked up a pen and the whole thing seized up like a Cybertruck in a car wash," he continued before bluntly pointing out, ”You should have seen this coming, because the pattern is older than most of your felonies. Welcome to the Trump Suckers Club, gentlemen. The dues are steep and the membership is permanent."According to Wilson, Trump's DOJ deal was just another in a long line of promises built on bluster and little else, that included his plan to get Mexico to pay for his border wall that US taxpayers ended being on the hook for, as well as, "He told you he’d release the Epstein files. For the last 2 months he’s been telling you the very real Iran War is over, done, settled, done and dusted.""Here’s the part where I’m supposed to feel for you, and I want to be honest about my own limitations as a human being: I don’t. I give exactly zero f---s for your imaginary suffering and well-deserved loss," he pronounced."I have no emotion for you beyond contempt and revulsion. Not even a little. Because none of you were owed a dime. The fund was never about justice. It was a slush fund, a loyalty bribe, taxpayer money laundered through a fake lawsuit Trump filed against his own government to compensate the people who beat cops with flagpoles in his name," he wrote. "Your god-emperor, your tariff-wielding strongman, your two-scoops Caesar, got stopped cold by one Clinton appointee in one Virginia courtroom on one ordinary Friday afternoon and just rolled over. One judge said maintain the status quo, and the whole $1.8 billion edifice just deflated. No fight. No appeal that mattered yet. Just a slow, sad hiss.""So pour one out, fellas. Frame the indictment. Hang the mugshot. You earned those. The money was always going to be someone else’s. It’s always going to be someone else’s. That’s the deal, and it’s the only deal he’s ever actually kept," he concluded.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday morning on the State Department budget request, as negotiations to end the three-month war in Iran have hit a roadblock. The optimism that President Trump projected last week toward securing a deal with the Iranian regime to end hostilities and…
President Donald Trump is still optimistic the US can reach an interim peace deal with Iran soon, after the Islamic Republic threatened to suspend talks because of Israel’s escalating attacks in Lebanon.
