Threat from Iranian retaliation strikes spreads across Middle East, targeting embassies and airports
Source: Washington Examiner · Bias: Right
Summary
After the United States and Israel’s blistering opening strikes against Iran, Tehran turned the conflict into a regional conflict, firing drone and missile salvos at key facilities across and beyond the Middle East. In the aftermath of the joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Saturday morning, Iran fired drones and missiles at no fewer than 10 countries: […]
Threat from Iranian retaliation strikes spreads across Middle East, targeting embassies and airports
Right
After the United States and Israel’s blistering opening strikes against Iran, Tehran turned the conflict into a regional conflict, firing drone and missile salvos at key facilities across and beyond the Middle East. In the aftermath of the joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Saturday morning, Iran fired drones and missiles at no fewer than 10 countries: […]
The Trump administration concluded a recent mineral deal with Kazakhstan that, not surprisingly, enriches not only President Donald Trump’s own family but that of his secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick. Trump’s two eldest sons, part owners of Dominari Securities, are set to profit from the Kazakh tungsten deal. So is Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm run by Lutnick’s two sons.As The New York Times pointed out in its investigation of the scheme, “Their sons were soon doing business with partners in a deal that their fathers were negotiating, continuing a pattern of self-enrichment in the second Trump administration that has few precedents in American history.”The phrases “self-enrichment” and “few precedents” are interesting ways of characterizing this latest instance of the administration’s corruption. Isn’t self-enrichment a good thing, in the sense of profiting from your own hard work? By contrast, the article doesn’t mention the word “corruption” at all. Perhaps the Times is worried about getting hit by yet another Trump legal challenge (in October last year, Trump refiled a $15 billion defamation suit against the paper for its coverage of his 2024 presidential campaign).There are indeed several precedents in American history for what Trump is doing. These previous corruption scandals—Credit Mobilier, Whiskey Ring, Teapot Dome—wrecked the reputations of presidents and cast long shadows over American politics. They also helped to produce the kind of safeguards that Trump is now destroying.Foreign policy is a tool by which the administration levies a toll on any entity that has the temerity to be a country other than the United States. As with much of Trump’s disrespect for norms, his corruption has been massive and largely in full view. The two outstanding questions are: Will Trump and company ever be held accountable for their graft and will this corruption have an enduring impact on political institutions in the United States?Tracking the DamageIf scandalous behavior unfolds in full view of everyone, is it still a scandal? “Scandal” suggests something hidden, something whispered about, something revealed. Trump’s actions are full frontal. They are both brazen and matter-of-fact.According to the Trump administration and its extended family, the money skimmed off the top of economic transactions is just smart politics. The administration has endeavored to negotiate every peace deal, trade agreement, investment arrangement, and mineral pact in such a way as to deliver Trump, his family, and their circle of close supporters a good chunk of change.This is Trump’s interpretation of the American dream: Folks would be downright foolish not to profit from their position. All the great tycoons made their money, from railroads to AI, by being in the right place at the right time with the right amount of ruthlessness. In Trump’s case, however, he is using taxpayer money to cover the risk. And most the time, given the terms of the arrangement, there is hardly any risk because Trump is using his presidential power to game the system. That’s what he really means by the “art of the deal.” Trump only deals from a marked deck of cards.The Center for American Progress runs Trump’s Take, which estimates that the president has received a little over $2.6 billion in cash and gifts since he took office in January 2025.The graft is not secret, though sometimes the actual amounts involved are obscured by layers of complex finance. Trump’s recent mandatory financial disclosure offers some details. But thanks to a number of websites, it’s become quite easy to track in real time the growing amount of Trump’s slice of the pie.The Center for American Progress runs Trump’s Take, which estimates that the president has received a little over $2.6 billion in cash and gifts since he took office in January 2025. Much of this money has come from various crypto schemes, including the Trump meme coin, but also such dubious ventures as the documentary about Melania Trump and a number of legal settlements (more colloquially known as shakedowns). Corruption Counter puts the value at $2.2 billion and includes such recent items as the $100 million savings for Trump from the recent effort to bar the Internal Revenue Service from auditing the president. (Courts blocked the overall $1.8 billion “settlement fund,” but the Justice Department is upholding the IRS amnesty.)If you want to keep track just of the crypto deals, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee maintain the Trump Family Digital Grift Wealth Tracker. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) keeps his own list, which highlights the insider trading around the Iran War and a defense contract with Dell after the president invested in the company. David Kirkpatrick, at The New Yorker, has been keeping a running total of Trump’s ballooning assets. In January, he updated his total to $4 billion, which details, among other things, the Gulf money flowing into Trump pockets.
July 4th events for America's milestone birthday are being threatened by a brutal heat wave. And, Russia has struck Ukraine's capital, killing several people in what it calls retaliatory attacks.
A former Texas middle school teacher was sentenced to more than three decades in prison after being convicted of sexually abusing a 13-year-old student.
Ever since a jury found President Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, the Republican has vowed vengeance against the woman the court declared he forced himself upon in 1996. The Supreme Court has rejected Trump’s attempt to get the $5 million he owes Carroll overturned, and Carroll is now demanding that Trump pay her without further delay.In a new twist, a conservative legal group is attempting to punish the lawyer who successfully defended Carroll.“[National Legal and Policy Center] today filed a complaint with the Attorney Grievance Committee (AGC) of the New York State Supreme Court against Roberta Ann Kaplan for violating the Rules of Professional Conduct regarding the outside funding of E. Jean Carroll’s two defamation lawsuits against President Trump,” the NLPC announced on Thursday. “The lawsuits were funded by left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman through a nonprofit called American Future Republic.”In their complaint, the NLPC claims that Carroll knowingly provided false information when she was asked during a deposition if her legal fees were bankrolled by outside sources. She said she did not, although she later said she made a mistake and her lawyers corrected the mistake as soon as possible. The NLPC also accused Kaplan of a having a “contingency fee she charged Carroll plus the legal fees she was getting from Hoffman” as being “‘excessive fees’ and thus violated New York ethics rules.”The NLPC described Hoffman as having “a near-pathological obsession with Trump and had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.” It omitted to mention that Trump was close friends with Epstein, a child sex trafficker, for decades and was accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in an encounter that Epstein facilitated. He is confirmed to have partied with Epstein privately, while young women were present, on several occasions.“As the complaint noted, it’s not clear Ms. Kaplan informed her client of Hoffman’s association with a sexual convict and his efforts to rehabilitate Epstein’s reputation to get Carroll’s informed consent to use Hoffman’s group to fund her lawsuits,” the NLPC added.Ironically, Trump himself has been accused of committing perjury during the case."That was his defense to sexual abuse. She's not my type," legal expert Adam Klasfeld explained in May. "And in this deposition, he was shown a picture that he was not aware included E. Jean Carroll, pointed to that picture, and confused her with Marla Maples. So clearly, she was his type. He confused her with his second wife."Another legal expert, Katie Phang, pointed out that it’s revealing that Trump and his supporters are not accusing Carroll of perjury regarding the substance of her claim — namely, that Trump sexually forced himself on her in a dressing room in 1996."But here's the thing: you notice how they're not going after her about the substantive testimony she provided about the sexual assault that she was victimized by Trump, right?" Phang observed. "They're not going after that. They're not going after the underlying facts of what she has alleged happened to her at the hands of Donald Trump. That is the tell."
