Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“The bill would prevent larger cities in larger counties from requiring that homes sit on lots larger than 3,000 square feet in new subdivisions of at least five acres.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/03/starter-homes-live-in-texas-die-in-arizona/
“Since retaking power, the Taliban has banned certain music, barred women from parks, and now outlawed chess.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/03/the-taliban-banned-chess/
Good description of Trump’s attempt to negotiate with Iran, it not yet succeeding, and then Israel deciding to attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tFSro590Xg
Iran had not decided if they would pursue a nuclear weapon, but their weapons program continued in a manner that reduced the time they’d need to get a bomb if they made that decision. So, the statement that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon is misleading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS4DJFlqIxs
Did Iran shoot down Israel’s F-35s? What would it mean if they did?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfE5_-vxm70
How Israeli Commandos Hit Deep in Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_cwjNF-sfc
“Even if the regime falls, there’s no reason to be certain that something better will replace it, current and former officials warn. A failed, leaderless Iranian state could be a breeding ground for all sorts of new problems. A much more militarized autocracy also could take over, one unabashedly determined to obtain a nuclear weapon.
“History tells us it can always be worse,” Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. intelligence officer, wrote in an online analysis. “Israel might find itself in a perpetual, ongoing, and far more intense war that is no longer in the shadows, as it has been for years.”
Israel, however, may not be thinking that many steps ahead, argued one U.S. official who has long worked on the Middle East.
“I don’t think they care enough about what comes next as long as it’s too weak to threaten Israel,” the official said.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/13/israel-iran-regime-attack-goal-column-00405153
“Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time. Its leaders seek to weaken and destroy free society, democracy and human rights with Russian and Chinese support. In Iran, women are systematically oppressed and abused. Homosexuals are murdered. Those who think differently are imprisoned and tortured. In Tehran, the cynical abuse of the civilian population in Gaza as human shields is also cold-bloodedly conceived and financed.
According to official state doctrine, the primary goal of the mullahs in Tehran is the annihilation of the State of Israel. Ayatollah Khamenei has described Israel as a “cancerous tumor.” And clocks in the streets of Tehran celebrate countdowns to the “destruction of Israel.”
But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus. Radical Sunni and Shiite Islamism has been preparing for this for decades. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie, 9/11, the attacks in Paris, the caliphate of ISIS — each event was a warning sign. Only those who did not want to see the signs are surprised today. The attacks are directed against our values, our way of life.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/14/israel-iran-attack-freedom-autocracy-00406288
“the more tangible potential rupture with at least parts of the conservative legal movement is coming over Trump’s decision to nominate Emil Bove — formerly Trump’s criminal defense lawyer, currently Trump’s enforcer at the Justice Department — to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Prominent members of the conservative legal movement have been publicly speaking out against Bove’s nomination, arguing that he would be more loyal to Trump than the rule of law. That in turn has sparked a backlash against Bove’s critics from Trump allies eager to install a new set of judges who may be less tied to the old guard on the right.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/16/emil-bove-nomination-conservative-legal-civil-war-00405837
“At 5:30 a.m. on June 10, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tweeted a cryptic, three-minute video warning that “political elite and warmongers” are “carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers” — and that the world is “on the brink of nuclear annihilation.”
Trump saw the unauthorized video and became incensed, complaining to associates at the White House that she had spoken out of turn, according to three people familiar with the episode — two of them inside the administration and all granted anonymity to describe sensitive dynamics.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/17/gabbard-trump-00411685