Saturday, May 23, 2026

Renewed US combat operations against Iran are ‘matter of when,' former Navy commander says


Former Navy commander says renewed US combat operations against Iran are ‘matter of when’


Retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kirk Lippold said Friday that renewed American combat operations against Iran appear increasingly likely, arguing Tehran has shown no willingness to abandon its nuclear program through diplomacy.

Speaking on "America Reports," Lippold said it is now "a matter of not if, but when the United States is going to recommence combat operations."

"The president has given the Iranians every opportunity to come to the right answer through diplomatic channels," Lippold said. "Iran will not give up their nuclear program."

Lippold’s comments came shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said negotiators had seen some progress in talks with Tehran but cautioned that "there’s more work to be done."

"The President would prefer to do a good deal," Rubio said during remarks at a NATO conference in Sweden.

Lippold, the former commanding officer of the USS Cole, suggested President Donald Trump is using ongoing negotiations to give the U.S. military time to "rearm, refuel, and be ready for combat operations."

He also argued the administration should avoid publicly declaring negotiations over in order to avoid giving Iran time to prepare.

The remarks came as Iranian state media reported that negotiators were not discussing Tehran’s nuclear program at the moment, while a Qatari team remained in Tehran to support talks with the United States.


Israel’s military strikes Hezbollah weapons production site in Lebanon

The Israel Defense Forces said it struck an underground Hezbollah weapons production site in Lebanon overnight. 

The IDF said the site in the Bekaa Valley “served the organization's terrorists for producing weapons intended to harm the civilians of the State of Israel and IDF forces operating in southern Lebanon.” 

“In addition, Hezbollah terror organization infrastructure in the Tyre area was struck, from which the organization's terrorists operated in order to plan and carry out terror attacks against IDF forces,” the IDF also said. “Prior to the strike, steps were taken to reduce harm to civilians, including advance warnings to the population, use of precision munitions, and aerial observations.” 

Qatar’s FM tells Iran that any Strait of Hormuz closure will ‘further deepen the crisis’: report

Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani told Iran's foreign minister in a phone call Saturday that any closure of the Strait of Hormuz will “further deepen the crisis” in the region, a report said. 

The state-run Qatar News Agency said during the call with Abbas Araghchi, Al-Thani “reaffirmed the State of Qatar's unwavering support for efforts aimed at reaching a comprehensive agreement to end the crisis, stressing the need for all parties to engage constructively in order to secure sustainable peace and enduring stability in the region.” 

“His Excellency further emphasized that freedom of navigation remains a fundamental principle that cannot be compromised, warning that any closure of the Strait of Hormuz or attempts to use it as a means of pressure would further deepen the crisis and threaten the vital interests of countries across the region,” it continued. 

Al-Thani also “underscored the importance of adhering to international law and the principles of good neighborliness, while prioritizing the interests of the region and its peoples in a way that reinforces regional and international security and stability and advances de-escalation efforts,” according to the report. 

The call comes as a Qatari negotiation team is in Tehran on Friday and Saturday "to support the U.S. to reach a final deal that would end the war and address outstanding issues with Iran," an official with knowledge of the visit told Fox News on Friday



Iran’s top negotiator warns of ‘crushing, bitter’ consequences if US ‘foolishly’ restarts war


Iran’s top negotiator warns of ‘crushing, bitter’ consequences if US ‘foolishly’ restarts war

Times of Israel is liveblogging Saturday



Iran’s top negotiator and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf told Pakistani army chief during a meeting in Tehran that Iran would not compromise on the rights of its nation and country, state TV reports.

He said that Iran’s armed forces had rebuilt their capabilities during the ceasefire and that if the US “foolishly restarts the war,” the consequences would be “more crushing and bitter.”


Iran’s internet blackout enters 13th week, surpassing 2000 hours

Digital monitor Netblocks says Iran’s internet blackout is entering its 13th week.

“Network data show Iran’s internet blackout is entering its 13th week after surpassing 2016 hours of digital isolation from the outside world,” the watchdog writes on X.

“Daily life for most Iranians is now shaped by the loss of opportunities and access to information others can reach in seconds.”

While Iran’s domestic intranet is largely operational, access to the global internet is severely restricted.


Pakistan army chief meets Iran’s chief negotiator, president and foreign minister in Tehran

Iran’s top negotiator and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf met Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir in Tehran as part of ongoing diplomatic efforts over regional tensions, Iranian state media reports.

Munir also held meetings with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in the presence of Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi during his visit to Iran.


US has almost completely excluded Israel from Iran negotiations, Israeli defense officials tell NYT

The United States has almost completely excluded Israel from the negotiations with Iran, two Israeli defense officials tell The New York Times.

Israel was not involved at all in the discussions ahead of the ceasefire and learned of developments in the talks between the US and Tehran from regional diplomatic contacts, as well as through the use of surveillance, the report says.

The Israeli officials spoke to the newspaper on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue.

The report notes that in the run-up to the start of the war against Iran earlier this year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in close coordination with Trump and was leading a discussion in the Situation Room in Washington predicting the fall of the regime in Tehran.

“The banishment from the cockpit to economy class has potentially significant consequences for Israel,” the newspaper says.


Araghchi tells UN chief that US is making ‘repeated excessive demands’

Tehran has accused the United States of making “excessive demands,” Iranian media says, as US media reports raised the prospect that Washington is mulling new strikes and leaders of the Islamic Republic consider the latest proposal.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a call with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that Tehran was engaged in the diplomatic process despite “repeated betrayals of diplomacy and military aggression against Iran, along with contradictory positions and repeated excessive demands” by the United States, according to the reports.

Pakistan’s powerful army chief arrived in Tehran yesterday to bolster mediation and US President Donald Trump abruptly changed his plans, saying he would skip his son’s wedding to stay in Washington due to “circumstances pertaining to government,” fueling speculation that the situation had entered a sensitive stage.

Trump has described the stop-start negotiations this week as teetering on the “borderline” between renewed attacks and a deal to end the war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 and led to competing blockades around the strategic Strait of Hormuz that have roiled the global economy.

Weeks of negotiations since an April 8 ceasefire — including historic face-to-face talks hosted by Islamabad — have still not produced a permanent resolution or restored full access to the strait, choking vast quantities of global oil supply.

US media outlets Axios and CBS News, citing unnamed sources, reported the White House was considering strikes on Iran, although both added a final decision had not been made yet.

Talks between Pakistan army chief and Iran’s Araghchi lasted late into night, says Iranian state media

Pakistan army chief, Asim Munir, held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran yesterday as Islamabad steps up diplomatic efforts to help mediate between Iran and the United States, Iran’s state media reports.

Both sides exchanged views on the latest diplomatic initiatives aimed at preventing further escalation and ending the Iran war in talks that lasted late into the night, the report says.


Trump reportedly moving toward ordering strikes on Iran but no final decision made

The Trump administration is readying to launch a wave of fresh US strikes against Iran, CBS News reports, amid ongoing diplomatic mediations for a deal between the United States and Islamic Republic.

The report stresses no decision has been made, but notes US President Donald Trump is skipping his son’s wedding to stay at the White House and quotes sources with direct knowledge of the planning as saying that some American military personnel and members of the intelligence community have cancelled their plans for Memorial Day weekend.

A separate report by the Axios news site says Trump met Friday with top members of his national security team to discuss Iran, with sources saying he is seriously weighing new strikes unless there is an eleventh hour breakthrough in the talks.

Citing unnamed sources, the report says Trump has “grown increasingly frustrated about the negotiations with Iran over the past several days,” with his position through the week shifting from favoring diplomacy toward ordering a strike.

Like CBS, Axios reports Trump has yet to make a decision on whether to resume the conflict.

A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, tells CBS in response that “the president has been clear about the consequences if Iran fails to make a deal.”

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The Lynch Mob Is Back


The lynch mob against Jews is back


Three years ago, anyone referring to Jews as pigs would not have gotten away with it. Nor would suggesting that an entire race be annihilated or their homeland wiped off the map.  

Those unforgivable and highly prejudicial sentiments would have resulted in being looked upon as an evil, uncouth person who should be shunned and dismissed as a sociopath, lacking total empathy and completely indifferent to social norms.

The fact that these comments have become accepted in our world, over a period of a few short years, only attests to a rapid deterioration of humanity, evidencing a regression of returning to a more primitive time of tribal infighting, acting out one’s internal hatred towards others.

To imagine it happening in 2026 is inconceivable, but how else can you describe a pro-October 7th massacre conference which is scheduled to be held in Toronto this November?

The Canadian group known as the Masar Badil Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, already labeled a terrorist organization, is set to host the gathering, under the banner of “Resistance and Return from the Belly of the Beast.”  

The Masar Badil organization, said to be “closely linked to Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidary Network, is only one of many such groups that openly and unashamedly espouse bigotry. 

Sadly, they are all too reminiscent of the darkest days humanity has ever known, when it comes to the profound cruelty that is able to be shown towards one’s fellow man.

Describing itself as a “radical popular political movement, established by Palestinian, Arab and international will … to be a framework and a popular resistance movement confronting Zionist colonialism…” there’s not much doubt that it is an ideology meant to mainstream Jewish bigotry. Their concept of resistance is manifested in the call for violent attacks against Israel.

Since it supports youth and student movements, it’s not hard to connect the dots when hearing some of the loudest bigotry coming from the mouths of campus protestors, many of whom have called for the death of fellow Jewish students.   

But why wouldn’t they? Because when you characterize Israel as a “Zionist colonialism,” entity, that super-charged term is understood by young people as a force of oppression, of which they have a personal responsibility to end. 

So, is it any wonder why the hatred grows, feeling that their justified bigotry can be expressed as a reasonable reaction to a serious perceived threat?

It is this kind of normalization that brings about societal acceptance, putting aside the need for any diplomacy or dialogue that might have a chance to facilitate a better understanding and a way forward to dispel the mounting hostility. 

But nowadays, open hostility serves as a useful weapon, when endeavoring to erase a despised ethnicity, such as the Jews.  It’s the new mob mentality of getting people riled up enough to stigmatize their enemy group, calling for their isolation, followed by their extermination.  

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Globalist Larry Fink Fears Americans Will Wake Up and Start Sabotaging AI Data Centers


Globalist Larry Fink Fears Americans Will Wake Up and Start Sabotaging AI Data Centers



Americans are starting to wake up to the fact that the thousands of AI data centers being built across all 50 states are not just for the purpose of competing with China for industrial and military supremacy, as President Trump and his big tech cohorts keep saying.

As myself and others have been reporting, the bigger picture is to create enough AI computing power to implement a surveillance state, a 24/7 control grid similar to what they have in China to keep people in line and under the thumb of their oppressors. This control grid will include a biometric digital ID for every citizen along with digital/programable stablecoins or some other version of digital currency to eventually replace the dying U.S. fiat currency. All human movement and all financial transactions, no matter how big or small, will be tracked in real time. Free speech will continue to be phased out of existence once people realize that saying, writing or posting facts or commentary outside of the mainstream will get your bank account turned off and your digital “money” restricted.

This is also, in my opinion, why the government is expanding federal prison space at breakneck speed (see my Feb. 4 article on that topic here.) They know Americans are waking up and a segment of them will fight back as they lose their jobs and livelihoods to AI. Even those who don’t lose their jobs will find themselves priced out of their homes as they can no longer afford the cost of electricity, water, and rising insurance and property taxes. AI will suck up most of the electric power and fresh water, leaving us scrambling to afford what little is left over.

The latest evidence showing that the globalist power elites are expecting blowback against their very unpopular AI takeover plans comes from President Trump’s good friend, Larry Fink.

Fink, the CEO of the mega-financial investment capital firm BlackRock, who also co-chairs the globalist World Economic Forum, admitted in a recent interview that he is concerned that ordinary Americans will use inexpensive drones to attack and destroy billion-dollar AI data centers.

Jimmy Dore put out a segment on this in a recent episode of The Jimmy Dore Show.

He sees it as “proof that the ruling class knows a popular revolt is coming and is preparing for it.”

He noted that Trump allocated $80 billion for new prison space while making it illegal for local governments to regulate AI data centers. Like I pointed out in my Feb. 4 article, Dore believes the expanded array of federal prisons are not for immigrants, as advertised, but for Americans who rise up against the surveillance state and mass job displacement caused by AI.

As I reported in my May 5 article, Trump last July signed Executive Order 14318declaring data centers to be “military installations” and a part of America’s “national security” apparatus.

Interestingly, Klaus Schwab, who chaired the WEF before Fink took over last year, predicted a couple of years ago that the globalists were expecting to encounter “an angrier world.” They knew we would become angry because they knew their policies of AI surveillance and AI job replacement were anti-human and would ultimately prove to be extremely unpopular. But, despite their unpopularity, they also knew these policies would be crammed down our throats without so much as a public referendum or vote of the people. That can only breed division, dissent, and civil strife.

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Trump skips son’s wedding amid reported Iran strike preparations


Trump skips son’s wedding amid reported Iran strike preparations
RT


US President Donald Trump has abruptly canceled plans to attend his son Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding this weekend, saying he must remain in Washington due to unspecified “circumstances pertaining to Government.”

The Trump administration was preparing for a fresh round of military strikes against Iran, but no final decision had been made, CBS News reported on Friday, citing sources with direct knowledge of the planning.

The US president convened his senior national security team on Friday morning, where Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe briefed him and Vice President J.D. Vance on possible scenarios if talks with Tehran collapse, according to Axios.

Trump “didn’t foreclose the possibility” of renewed strikes, even as he told aides he wanted to give the diplomatic process more time to work, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, D.C., at the White House during this important period of time,”Trump later wrote in a cryptic message on Truth Social. Trump had hinted at the reason on Thursday, telling reporters that the wedding was “not good timing”because of “a thing called Iran and other things.”

The White House has changed Trump’s weekend schedule as Washington awaits Tehran’s response to what was described as the “final” US proposal to end the nearly three-month war.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before flying to India that the US expected to receive Iran’s response through Islamabad, which has acted as an intermediary. Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir traveled to Tehran on Friday, while a Qatari delegation also arrived to support the mediation effort.

The US and Iran have refrained from striking each other since a fragile ceasefire began in early April. However, Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the stalled negotiations in recent days and, according to Axios, has raised the possibility of a final “decisive” major military operation, after which he could declare victory and end the war.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned this week that any renewed US or Israeli attacks could widen the conflict beyond the Middle East, promising “crushing blows” in places Washington and West Jerusalem “cannot even imagine.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that talks were ongoing but that a deal was not close. Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the focus remained on ending the war and that “details related to the nuclear issue are not being discussed at this stage.”