U.S. Boosts Air Support and Hikes Troop Readiness to Deploy for Middle East

The U.S. military said on Sunday it was increasing its air support capabilities in the Middle East and putting troops on a heightened readiness to deploy to the region as it warned Iran against expanding the ongoing conflict.

The announcement came two days after President Joe Biden directed the Pentagon to adjust U.S. force posture in the Middle East amid intensifying concern that Israel’s killing of the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah could prompt Tehran to retaliate.

“The United States is determined to prevent Iran and Iranian-backed partners and proxies from exploiting the situation or expanding the conflict,” Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder said in a statement.

He also cautioned that if Iran or groups Tehran backs “use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every necessary measure to defend our people.”

The Pentagon statement offered few clues as to the size or scope of the new air deployment, saying only that “we will further reinforce our defensive air-support capabilities in the coming days.” (Read more from “U.S. Boosts Air Support and Hikes Troop Readiness to Deploy for Middle East” HERE)

Jury Awards $300,000,000 to Former Children’s Hospital Patients Claiming Doctor Sexually Abused Them

A Virginia civil court awarded $300 million to three young women Friday after the women alleged a hospital’s former medical director abused them while they were patients, WTVR reported.

The case arose from a $930 million lawsuit which 46 former patients of Cumberland Hospital for Children and Adolescents in New Kent County filed against the hospital and its longtime — now former — medical director, Dr. Daniel Davidow, WTVR reported.

The Richmond court ruled — after about seven hours of deliberation and on the 15th day of the trial — each of the three women would receive $60 million in compensatory damages and $40 million in punitive damages, according to the outlet.

The three former patients and their attorney, Kevin Biniazan, broke down in tears after the ruling, Biniazan told WTVR. The three plaintiffs’ case is reportedly the first civil trial.

Cumberland’s parent company, Universal Health Services (UHS), and the UHS of Delaware (UHS-D) were co-defendants in the case, the outlet reported.

(Read more from “Jury Awards $300,000,000 to Former Children’s Hospital Patients Claiming Doctor Sexually Abused Them” HERE)

Austin Orders U.S. Forces to Be Ready to Deploy as Middle East Heats Up

The U.S. is further beefing up its military presence in the Middle East, sending in additional troops and putting others on standby while keeping an aircraft carrier on station as the region prepares for more violence.

The moves come after Israeli forces killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Friday, in a strike that threatens to plunge the region into a wider war.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday ordered the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its attached destroyers to remain in the region, just a month after rerouting them to the Middle East while they were on a planned deployment to the Pacific. The directive comes days after the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group left its home port in Virginia for a scheduled cruise, potentially creating a two-carrier presence in the Middle East for the second time since the summer.

The Pentagon also announced that the U.S. will be sending additional “air-support capabilities in the coming days,” and that the USS Wasp Amphibious Ready Group will remain in the eastern Mediterranean. The group includes the amphibious ships USS New York and USS Oak Hill, along with thousands of Marines capable of performing civilian evacuations from Lebanon if necessary. The Wasp, which can launch small boats ashore, is also loaded with Marine-flown F-35B fighter planes, giving military planners an extra aerial punch if needed.

Those ships have been patrolling the Mediterranean since June and have been at sea since April. The Wasp group replaced a similar group of amphibious ships led by the USS Bataan, which had its own deployment to the region extended several times and ended up spending eight months at sea before heading home in March. (Read more from “Austin Orders U.S. Forces to Be Ready to Deploy as Middle East Heats Up” HERE)

NYT Slammed for Claiming Hezbollah Founder Hassan Nasrallah Wanted ‘Equality’ for All Religions

The New York Times faced widespread criticism and mockery after it published an article critics said tried to soften the image of slain Hezbollah founder Hassan Nasrallah — claiming the terror leader who advocated for the annihilation of Israel was a champion of “equality” for all religious groups in the region.

The article, titled “Protesters Mourn Nasrallah’s Death Around the World” — published Saturday without a byline — heaps praise on Nasrallah as a “gifted orator” who “maintained that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians.”

Nasrallah fervently believed in the destruction of the Jewish state — and his organization carried out numerous horrific attacks on Jews around the world.

The article describes how Narsallah was “beloved” by Shiite Muslims, in part for providing “social services” in Lebanon.

Nasrallah, 64, was killed in a massive aerial bombardment by Israeli forces in Beirut on Friday. He co-founded Hezbollah in 1982, becoming the terror group’s sole leader by 1992. (Read more from “NYT Slammed for Claiming Hezbollah Founder Hassan Nasrallah Wanted ‘Equality’ for All Religions” HERE)

Tragic: 1,000 People Reported Unaccounted for in North Carolina County Hit Hardest by Hurricane Helene

More than 1,000 people have been reported unaccounted for in a devastated North Carolina county where 30 people have already been confirmed dead after Hurricane Helene, officials said Sunday.

Authorities in Buncombe County reported the horrifying toll in an emergency meeting announcing emergency medical shelters and ongoing rescue efforts in areas almost overwhelmed by stormwater.

They also announced a special website to appeal for help finding those unaccounted for — with “more than 1,000 reports so far,” one local official told the live-streamed meeting.

“We’re doing the best we can,” Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said of conditions making it almost impossible to reach the stranded due to collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.

Many of the unaccounted for are hoped to just be those without electricity and efforts to let loved ones know they are safe, officials said. (Read more from “Tragic: 1,000 People Reported Unaccounted for in North Carolina County Hit Hardest by Hurricane Helene” HERE)

Donald Trump: Kamala Born Mentally Impaired

Vice President Kamala Harris was born “mentally impaired,” former President Donald Trump said Saturday in Wisconsin, mocking his political opponent and highlighting the nation’s managed decline.

“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way,” Trump said to loud applause. “And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country”:

Trump repeatedly slammed Harris for soaring prices, the southern border invasion, and foreign policy blunders such as the deadly Afghan withdrawal and the Russian/Ukrainian war.

President Joe Biden stated Wednesday that he delegated “everything” as commander in chief to Harris, including foreign policy and domestic policy.

Many critics believe Harris is an empty political shell with intentions to do or say whatever is needed to get elected, even at the cost of selling out citizens who pay taxes and die in all the wars.
Those criticis

(Read more from “Donald Trump: Kamala Born Mentally Impaired” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

U.S. Navy Repels Red Sea Attack: Shoots Down Barrage of Houthi Missiles, Drones

U.S. Navy warships shot down a barrage of Houthi terrorist cruise missiles and drones launched Friday from Yemen at the shipping lanes of the Red Sea.

The Pentagon confirmed the attack and the successful response on Friday.

“We did see a complex attack launched from the Houthis that ranged from cruise missiles and [unmanned aerial vehicles],” said Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for the Defense Department.

The destroyers, the Houthis’ military spokesperson claimed in a televised speech, were targeted as they transited the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea.

Stars and Stripes reports the Iran-backed Houthi claimed to have damaged three U.S. Navy warships in a concentrated bombardment of 23 missiles and bomber drones. (Read more from “U.S. Navy Repels Red Sea Attack: Shoots Down Barrage of Houthi Missiles, Drones” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Joe Rogan’s Scary Prediction: Fears Free Speech ‘Clamp Down’ Under a Harris-Walz Admin

Joe Rogan shared an ominous prediction about the state of free speech if Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz win the November election, arguing the Democratic ticket poses a grave threat to the First Amendment.

Rogan offered his thoughts on the troubling trend of censorship in the US in a conversation with former Navy Seal, ex-CIA contractor and podcaster Shawn Ryan in an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” released Thursday.

“I don’t think it turns around if Kamala Harris gets into office,” Rogan said of the censorship trend, “I think they clamp down more.”

“I think the same stuff they were trying to do with Twitter they’ll try to do with other things,” Rogan added, “They’ve already openly discussed it. She’s openly discussed the same rules have to apply to Facebook have to apply to Twitter. And that Elon Musk could lose his privileges.” . . .

In a 2022 appearance on the podcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed to Rogan that the federal government – including members of the FBI – had pressured the social media giant to censor certain content in the lead-up to the 2020 election. (Read more from “Joe Rogan’s Scary Prediction: Fears Free Speech ‘Clamp Down’ Under a Harris-Walz Admin” HERE)

DOJ Baffled Over Attempts on Trump’s Life

In the wake of two attempts on Donald Trump’s life, government officials are hard at work trying to determine why so many assassins are trying to kill a man government officials want dead. In their fearless pursuit of the truth, the Justice Department this week released a letter from the latest would-be killer in which the gunman offered $150,000 to anyone who would finish Trump off.

In an appearance before the news media, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “I am absolutely appalled that this vicious criminal would offer so much money for what would be fifteen minutes’ work, twenty tops. It’s a very dangerous precedent. After all, just imagine what someone could buy with that much money! Even if you had to lay out, say, 6K for the sniper rifle, you’d still have enough left to buy almost anything you wanted. And boy oh boy, don’t the girls go for a man who flashes that big green? It’s disgraceful that anyone would think loyal Americans would take money to eliminate an existential threat to Democracy.” . . .

Even with the government making strenuous efforts to uncover something that sounds remotely like the truth, crazy conspiracy theorists continue to spin outlandish explanations for why a man with no motivational paper trail of any kind and no online presence except encrypted foreign bank accounts would first send a sophisticated drone to scout out a presidential appearance and then place himself in a perfect position to take an expert-level shot, which was only thwarted by the hand of God, even though God’s application to the Secret Service had recently been turned down because he’s a white man. . .

On one Right-wing platform, for instance, an anonymous silhouette hailed by conservatives as the “most respected schizophrenic in America,” said that history reveals how a cabal of Jews forced Hitler to use precious resources exterminating them so that he would lose World War II, allowing the few surviving Jews to escape to America where they could nuke the Christians in Nagasaki and seize control of our space lasers so that at long last they could use their unbounded power to cluster together in a country the size of a postage stamp where everyone and his uncle can easily vaporize them. These same Jews are the ones who wanted Trump eliminated because he threatened to foil their mass suicide plan by bringing peace to the region.

Some conspiracy theories are more plausible, however. For instance, it is true that the attempts to assassinate Trump were illegal, anti-Democratic, directed at American dissidents and completely incompetent, so they did bear all the hallmarks of a CIA operation. (Read more from “DOJ Baffled Over Attempts on Trump’s Life” HERE)

CNN Interviewed Kids to Get Their Take on Kamala Harris — And the Responses Were Absolutely Savage

Fourth-graders savaged the vice president and Democratic nominee as part of a “study” conducted by professors at Stanford University and Arizona State University and reported Wednesday by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“What’s the first word that pops into your head when you hear the name Kamala Harris?” asked Arizona State professor Asheley Landrum.

“Liar,” a Texas boy fired back without missing a beat.

“It’d be good for us to have a black woman as president for the first time in history, but my vote’s kind of still on Trump,” added a black girl, who was definitely not of voting age.

“I just don’t think a woman would be right for our president,” another Texas girl said.

(Read more from “CNN Interviewed Kids to Get Their Take on Kamala Harris — And the Responses Were Absolutely Savage” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr