The White House summoned a key Republican lawmaker to the Situation Room on Wednesday for a meeting over the effort to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. read more
President Donald Trump mentioned political correctness, President Joe Biden and renaming Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery after laying a wreath for the holiday.
Some prominent conservative influencers sought to downplay newly released emails from Jeffrey Epstein in which the convicted sex offender wrote that Donald Trump "knew about the girls," arguing the messages were part of a broader Democratic hoax targeting the U.S. president.
Iran is grappling with its worst water crisis in decades, with officials warning that Tehran -- a city of more than 10 million -- may soon be uninhabitable if the drought gripping the country continues. read more
A suburban Chicago father and his 1-year-old daughter were pepper-sprayed at close range as they headed grocery shopping over the weekend and happened upon federal immigration agents, the family said. read more
Trump, allies reach out to Boebert, Mace ahead of Epstein discharge petition deadline
thehill.com
... Trump also called Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Wednesday morning, but she missed his call and had been playing phone tag with him as of early Wednesday afternoon, a source told The Hill, adding that there had not been outreach from White House staff. ...
'No one has threatened me': MAGA firebrand and rape survivor Nancy Mace holds firm that Epstein files must be released
www.independent.co.uk
... Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) pushed back on allegations that President Donald Trump had attempted to pressure her against signing a discharge petition in the House of Representatives to force a vote to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Mace spoke to The Independent exclusively as she headed to the House floor after a discharge petition proposed by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) reached the requisite 218 signatures Wednesday after Speaker Mike Johnson swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.).
Mace said she had not spoken to Trump since Friday.
"I've been traveling, and I had a big press conference yesterday, so he and I've been on the road, but he and I've been playing phone tag," she said.
She is one of three Republican women who joined the discharge petition alongside Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Boebert was summoned to the White House Wednesday for what was reportedly a crisis meeting in the super-secure Situation Room to try and get her to remove her name from the petition. ...
@#4 ... Lewzer likes victories, doesn't like veterans. ...
Quite succinct.
John Kelly confirms Trump privately disparaged U.S. service members and veterans (2023)
www.nbcnews.com
... Former Trump White House chief of staff John Kelly is blasting his onetime boss over disparaging remarks he says the then-president repeatedly made about service members and veterans and for what he called Trump's untruthfulness about his positions on various groups as well as on abortion.
In a statement to CNN published Monday, Kelly delivered a scathing criticism of former President Donald Trump while confirming reporting in The Atlantic in 2020 that detailed the comments he made during his presidency.
"A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all suckers' because there is nothing in it for them,'"
Kelly said of Trump. "A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because it doesn't look good for me.'
A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family -- for all Gold Star families -- on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America's defense are losers' and wouldn't visit their graves in France." ...
More ...
MAGA lawmaker's shock comment after attending Situation Room crisis meeting on Epstein
www.yahoo.com
... A loyal MAGA follower of President Donald Trump is raising eyebrows with comments after she attended an emergency White House Situation Room meeting on the Jeffrey Epstein files.
In an unusual move, top administration officials met with GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday to discuss a House vote on the release of documents related to child sex offender Epstein, the Independent reported.
"I guess I'm pretty high profile," Boebert said.
ABC News reported that White House and Justice Department officials pressed Boebert to take her name off a House discharge position which looks to force a vote on releasing files related to Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019.
The petition at the time had 217 signatures, one shy of the 218 total signatures needed for it to go into effect. Boebert is one of four Republicans who have signed on to the measure.
Following the Situation Room meeting, Boebert wrote on X, "I want to thank White House officials for meeting with me today. Together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people."
The lawmaker told CNN that Trump did not attempt to pressure her to remove her signature from the petition.
"Doesn't that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?" White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
However, Leavitt added, "I'm not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room."
When asked why the meeting was held in the ultra-secure Situation Room, Boebert said "it's just an easy [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] to get to."
However, the Situation Room is historically the venue where high-level matters of national security are coordinated, such as the deadly 2003 attack on 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. ...
@#2 ... Most of those were manned, and using pretty iffy technology. ...
Iffy? I'm not yet there. We got to the moon and back.
But under-powered compared to today?
Well, yeah.
How the IBM 7094 Gave NASA and the Air Force Computing Superiority in the 1960s (2016)
fedtechmagazine.com
... The IBM 7094 is regarded as one of the most powerful and advanced mainframe computers of the early 1960s. NASA and the Air Force used the 7094 for critical operations, and the mainframe played a large role in the Gemini and Apollo space program, as well as early missile defense systems to guard against intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. ...
he 7094 had a basic machine operating cycle of 2 microseconds, and a new processing unit that improved transfer instructions and let it compare operations. It also allowed for two instructions per core storage cycle, substantially reducing instruction cycle time.
A physically large device that used a cabinet to house its processing circuits, the 7094 had an amount of core memory that seems unbelievably miniscule today: 150 kilobytes, just enough to manage a handful of Microsoft Word documents.
Still, it is regarded as "the classic mainframe because of its combination of architecture, performance, and financial success: hundreds of machines were installed at a price of around $2 million," according to the book A History of Modern Computing by Paul Ceruzzi. ...
150kB of memory?
Wow.
... Dreher later wrote in his post describing the meeting. "It is not a fringe movement, in that it really has infiltrated young conservative Washington networks to a significant degree." ...
Reminds me of the TV series that was aired during back in 2016 during Pres trump's first campaign...
BrainDead
en.wikipedia.org
... BrainDead is an American political satire science fiction[1][2][3] comedy-drama television series created by Robert and Michelle King.[4]
The series stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Laurel Healy, a documentary film-maker who takes a job working for her brother Luke (Danny Pino), a U.S. Senator, when the funding for her latest film falls through.
Assigned as his new constituency caseworker, she discovers that Washington, D.C. has been invaded by extraterrestrial insects which are eating the brains and taking control of people, including members of Congress and their staffers.
Much of the internal comedy of the series was that, in the altered reality of Washington, D.C. politics, only a few people noticed. ...
The episodes of the series often featured then candidate Trump speaking on TVs in the background of the scenes.
(wow, misspell episodes, and the spell-check suggestions are, ... interesting.)
Analysis: The Gulf's water crisis: Why cooperation is crucial -- and complicated (July 2025)
www.mei.edu
... On June 19, false reports of an Israeli strike on Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant sparked alarm across the Gulf.
Though denied by Israeli officials, the claim traces back to a warning from Qatar's prime minister of a potential catastrophe in the event of nuclear contamination -- no water, no food, no life -- due to the Gulf's reliance on desalinated seawater.
Gulf governments moved quickly to reassure the public that no radiation had been detected, but the episode underscored the region's growing sense of vulnerability. A regional approach to water security could help to mitigate such risks.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was founded on the principle of regional cooperation to address shared challenges. Yet, despite this spirit of collaboration, one of the region's most pressing challenges -- water scarcity -- has largely remained a national rather than a collective concern.
With all GCC members except Oman classified as extremely water-scarce, and water needs met largely through energy-intensive desalination, the region faces mounting threats from rising demand, climate change, and geopolitical risk.
This article explores the missed opportunities for regional water cooperation, the reasons behind this fragmented governance, and the strategic case for a united response.
The threat of water (in)security
Whether viewed through the lens of traditional state security or the broader framework of human security, more extensive regional collaboration on water issues across the GCC is not only desirable, but also increasingly urgent.
As climate risks intensify, infrastructure vulnerabilities deepen, and political uncertainties persist, the imperative for collective action is becoming harder to ignore.
The Gulf region collectively faces a serious water security challenge, relying heavily on non-renewable sources such as fossil groundwater and desalinated water, which together account for over 90% of the region's overall water resources. Groundwater remains the main water resource across much of the region, although desalination plays an increasingly important role and is already the primary source of water for some Gulf states.
As the supply of groundwater continues to deteriorate and it becomes a less dependable water source, desalination is increasingly seen by regional governments as the solution. Gulf countries are the most desalination-dependent nations in the world, collectively producing around 40% of the world's desalinated water, with their capacity expected to double by 2030. ...
Related ...
AfD trip to Russia sparks 'treason' accusation (Noverber 7, 2025)
www.dw.com