Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“Last night, outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed by a gunman who yelled “Free, free Palestine” after being taken into custody. The deceased—Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26—were set to get engaged to one another; Lischinsky was planning to propose next week in Jerusalem.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/22/israeli-embassy-staffers-killed/
“Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passes the House…It passed narrowly, 215–214, with one voting present, and now faces the Senate.”
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“This bill will extend the 2017 tax cuts that were passed during the first Trump administration.”
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“The old $30,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions will be raised to $40,000 (a bit of a concession to Republican representatives and constituents from New York and New Jersey). Border states will get big chunks of change to offset extra immigration enforcement costs under the Biden administration (or so the framing goes). There’s some reduced Medicaid and food stamp spending, cutting federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by $267 billion over the next decade. The child tax credit will be expanded.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/22/israeli-embassy-staffers-killed/
Anti-fertility terrorism.
Also, guy go crazy.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/18/suspect-identified-in-explosion-at-california-fertility-clinic-00356306
FBI links California fertility clinic bombing to anti-natalist ideology
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-links-california-fertility-clinic-152927861.html
“An Israeli-American soldier held hostage for more than 19 months in the Gaza Strip was released Monday by Hamas in a goodwill gesture toward the Trump administration that could lay the groundwork for a new ceasefire with Israel.”
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“Israel says it still plans to escalate its offensive”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hamas-says-release-american-israeli-073629378.html
A lot of uncertainty in what’s really going on in the air war between India and Pakistan. A lot of propaganda and biased commentators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elImXpteVdI
India and Pakistan War: Here’s What’s Happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVrCpoAsMyc
“The arrest of Mohsen Mahdawi was a test of just how far President Donald Trump’s power over immigrants could go. Mahdawi, a ten-year legal U.S. resident and a student at Columbia University, was at his interview to become a U.S. citizen earlier this month. But because he wasn’t a citizen yet, the Trump administration argued that it could deport Mahdawi for his protest activity, and had Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pick him up at the immigration center.
On Wednesday, however, a federal judge ordered ICE to free Mahdawi, who was born in a refugee camp in the Palestinian territories, while his case proceeded. “The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said at the hearing, according to ABC News. “Mr. Mahdawi, I will order you released.””
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“”Noncitizen residents like Mr. Mahdawi enjoy First Amendment rights in this country to the same extent as United States Citizens,” he emphasized. “If the Government detained Mr. Mahdawi as punishment for his speech, that purpose is not legitimate, regardless of any alleged First Amendment violation. Immigration detention cannot be motivated by a punitive purpose. Nor can it be motivated by the desire to deter others from speaking.””
https://reason.com/2025/04/30/court-frees-palestinian-student-arrested-by-ice-at-his-u-s-citizenship-hearing/
“Last month, there was a terrorist attack in India-controlled Kashmir that killed 26 tourists. Yesterday, India conducted several airstrikes on Pakistan, saying the strikes were retribution for the attack.
The strikes may not have been as successful as the Indian military had hoped. “At least two aircraft were said to have gone down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, according to three officials, local news reports, and accounts of witnesses who had seen the debris of two,” reports The New York Times. “Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens injured after six places were hit on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and in Punjab Province. Residents of the Indian side of Kashmir said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling from the Pakistani side since India carried out its strikes.””
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“”The scale of the strikes went far beyond New Delhi’s response to previous attacks in Kashmir it has blamed on Pakistan, including in 2019 and 2016, which some analysts said meant the risk of escalation was higher,” reports Reuters. But “the last time India and Pakistan faced off in a military confrontation, in 2019, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed,” reports The New York Times.
There’s also, of course, the China factor: Pakistan now gets lots of its weapons from China, whereas India is more reliant on the West; relations between India and China have soured in recent years, while China and Pakistan have gotten much closer.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/07/india-vs-pakistan-and-china/
“the Houthi movement, one of the two rival governments in Yemen, has not attacked commercial ships since the beginning of Trump’s term, when Trump brokered a ceasefire in Gaza. (The Houthis had started the attacks in November 2023, demanding such a ceasefire.) Trump began an air campaign in Yemen three days before the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire broke down. The new Yemeni ceasefire is simply a return to the status quo ante bellum, at least with regard to shipping.
Although no American troops have died during Trump’s war in Yemen, the campaign has been incredibly costly for U.S. military preparedness. The military spent $1 billion in just the first three weeks, a U.S. official told CNN. Last week, the U.S. Navy accidentally dropped a $64 million fighter jet into the sea. It lost another one to a landing accident on Wednesday; the jet was returning to its carrier after the ceasefire was announced. And it’s not just about the financial price tag. The Department of Defense warned Congress behind closed doors that it was “risking real operational problems” due to being stretched thin by the Middle Eastern war.
Significantly, Trump seems to be extracting the U.S. from Israel’s war. Asked whether the deal included a Houthi-Israeli truce, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters that “this is about the Red Sea, the attacking of ships.” Israel was reportedly not even informed of the deal beforehand. After the deal was announced, Houthi leader Mahdi al-Mashat said that the attacks on Israel would continue and warned Israelis to “stay in your shelters.” Trump told reporters at the White House that he “will discuss that if something happens with Israel and the Houthis.”
Just three days ago, Houthi forces hit the international airport in Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile, wounding six people and shutting down all of Israel’s international air traffic.””
https://reason.com/2025/05/07/trump-gets-bored-with-the-war-in-yemen/