Gaza talks mediators pushing to secure truce, Israel says

 Efforts to secure a deal on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza are ongoing, Israel's intelligence agency Mossad said on Saturday, despite dimming hopes for a truce during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Mossad chief David Barnea met on Friday with his U.S. counterpart, CIA Director William Burns, to promote a deal that would see hostages released, Mossad said in a statement. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Saturday that Burns remained in the region.

"Contacts and cooperation with the mediators continue all the time in an effort to narrow the gaps and reach agreements," Mossad said in the statement, which was distributed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules the Palestinian enclave and has been locked in a war with Israeli forces since its deadly Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel, have traded blame over the apparent deadlock in talks in the run-up to Ramadan, which begins on or around March 10.

A Hamas source told Reuters the group's delegation was "unlikely" to make another visit to Cairo over the weekend for talks.

Egypt, the U.S. and Qatar have been mediating truce negotiations since January. The last deal struck was a week-long pause in fighting in November during which Hamas released more than 100 hostages and Israel freed about three times as many Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas blames Israel for the impasse in negotiations for a longer ceasefire and the release of 134 hostages believed still held in Gaza - saying it refuses to give guarantees to end the war or pull its forces from the enclave.

Mossad said Hamas was digging its heels in and aiming for violence in the region to spiral during Ramadan. Israeli officials have said that the war will end only with the defeat of Hamas, whose demands Netanyahu has called "delusional".

Biden, who has repeatedly called for a temporary ceasefire, said in an MSNBC interview that it was "always possible" that a deal could be reached before Ramadan. But he did not elaborate.

While reiterating steadfast U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself, Biden told MSNBC his message to Netanyahu about the need to limit Palestinian civilian casualties is that he is "hurting Israel more than helping" by acting in a way "contrary to what Israel stands for."

Asked whether he would be willing to return to Israel, where he visited in mid-October in a show of solidarity, to address lawmakers, Biden said "yes." But he declined to elaborate.

'RELEASE THE HOSTAGES'

In a statement marking Ramadan, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh vowed the Palestinians would continue to fight Israel "until they regain freedom and independence".

Five months into Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza, health authorities there say nearly 31,000 Palestinians have been killed.

The war was triggered by the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

At an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday, some demonstrators blocked a highway and were dragged away by police. Another rally was led by families of hostages who called for their loved ones' release.

"The pain and anger are still running through my blood," said Agam Goldstein, a teenager freed from Gaza with her mother and two brothers in November, addressing the hostage-related rally. "Hamas, if you have any humanity left in you, release the hostages."

Charity workers loaded relief supplies bound for Gaza on to a barge in Cyprus as part of an international effort to launch a maritime corridor to a Palestinian population on the brink of famine.

The U.S. also has said its military will build a temporary floating dock off Gaza's coast to bring in aid, though it does not envision deployment of U.S. troops on the ground.

Israel was coordinating with the U.S. on the dock project for shipment of aid "after it undergoes full Israeli inspection", to be delivered to Gaza civilians through international organizations, said Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

A U.S. Navy logistics support vessel was headed for the eastern Mediterranean carrying the first equipment to be used to help establish the pier, the U.S. Central Command said.

Amid continuing tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border where Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants have regularly exchanged fire, Lebanese security sources said an Israeli strike killed a family of five and injured nine people in southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.

'RED LINE'

In a somewhat contradictory exchange, Biden told MSNBC that Israel’s threatened invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza would be his “red line” for Netanyahu but then immediately backtracked, saying there was no red line and "I’m never going to leave Israel."

Concerned about further heavy civilian casualties, Biden has urged Netanyahu not to launch a major offensive in Rafah unless Israel has first crafted a plan for mass evacuation from the last area of Gaza it has not yet invaded with ground forces.

More than half of Gaza's 2.3 million people are sheltering in the Rafah area.

During a Biden campaign speech in the presidential election battleground state of Georgia, a protester yelled "genocide Joe" but was quickly drowned out by the crowd's chants of “four more years" and was removed by security.

“There’s a lot of Palestinians who are being unfairly victimized," Biden quickly responded.

Stepping up pressure in Gaza, Israel struck a 12-floor residential tower in Rafah, leaving dozens of families homeless, though no casualties were reported. Israel's military said the block was being used by Hamas to plan attacks on Israelis.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-strikes-landmark-residential-tower-111804218.html

'Irish government 'walloped' by referendum defeats'

 Irish voters have rejected proposals to replace constitutional references to the makeup of a family and a mother's "duties in the home" in a significant defeat for the government.

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar had pitched the vote, held on Friday to coincide with International Women's Day and counted on Saturday, as a chance to delete some "very old-fashioned, very sexist language about women".

A proposal to expand the definition of family from a relationship founded on marriage to include other durable relationships was rejected by 67.7% to 32.3%.

A second referendum on a proposal to replace language surrounding a woman's duties in the home with a clause recognising the role of family members in the provision of care was rejected by 73.9% to 26.1%.

Campaigners argued the proposal would enshrine care as a private responsibility, and not a state one.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin on Saturday, Varadkar said voters had given his government "two wallops".

"It was our responsibility to convince a majority of people to vote yes, and we clearly failed to do so."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ireland-looks-set-reject-constitutional-133940033.html

Army Intel Soldier Charged With Selling Secrets About US Weapons, Ops

 An active duty US Army intelligence analyst was arrested on Thursday for sending secret military documents to an unidentified foreign national over a nearly 2-year period. The charges include the unlawful export of defense information to China, but the indictment doesn't indicate if the foreign national was working for a government. 

Sergeant Korbein Schultz was arrested at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he's assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and holds a Top Secret clearance. According to the 25-page indictment, Schultz provided someone identified only as "Conspirator A" -- who claimed to reside in Hong Kong -- with "information regarding the operability of sensitive U.S. military systems and their capabilities." Those systems included F-22A fighters, the HH-60W helicopter, intercontinental ballistic missiles, B-52 bombers, air defense systems, HIMARS rocket launchers and hypersonic weapons. 

Sergeant Korbein Schultz raked in more than $42,000 for betraying his fellow soldiers, prosecutors say 

Schultz, a native of Dallas exurb Wills Point, received 14 payments that totaled some $42,000. It's not clear if this Sergeant Schultz will plead "I know nothing!" 

In addition to weapon-specific information, prosecutors say Schultz also shared big-picture documents, including US research on foreign countries such as China, studies on the future development of US military forces, and recaps of American military drills and operations. The files included documents, maps, manuals and photographs. 

Conspirator A's identity was revealed to the grand jury that indicted him, but, for now, it's a secret to the rest of us. The indictment only describes the individual as "a foreign national purporting to reside in Hong Kong" who claimed to work for a "geopolitical consulting firm based overseas." The word "purported" would seem to suggest that investigators either don't know if Conspirator A lived in Hong Kong, or they know that he or she doesn't. The indictment doesn't say if Conspirator A was working for a government.

There's something of a disconnect between the indictment -- which includes multiple charges of Unlawful Export of Defense Articles to China -- and the Department of Justice press release, which doesn't mention the China aspect. However, the Export Control Act charges imply that investigators are confident the recipient was in China. 

Schultz allegedly shared information about the US HIMARS platform, among many other weapon systems (Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images via Newsweek)

Conspirator A sent a variety of specific requests to Schultz. At the outset of the illicit arrangement, Schultz was requested to share lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, and "with those lessons, what the United States could and should do to help defend Taiwan from an attack," reads the indictment.

After fulfilling that request in the summer of 2022 and receiving a whopping $200, Schultz is said to have proposed a long-term relationship. Prosecutors say it kept going until his recent arrest. In August 2022, he told Conspirator A that he wished he could be Jason Bourne. Then there's this amusing anecdote: 

On or about May 20, 2023, Conspirator A told KORBEIN SCHULTZ that Conspirator A would like to meet him at a Formula 1 race overseas and make him a "senior partner" with a "big signing bonus." KORBEIN SCHULTZ responded, "Oh snap!"

“The conduct alleged in today's indictment represents a grave betrayal of the oath sworn to defend our country," said FBI Executive Assistant Director Larissa Knapp. "Instead of safeguarding national defense information, the defendant conspired with a foreign national to sell it, potentially endangering our national security.”

The arrest of Sergeant Schultz comes just days after a retired Army lieutenant colonel was charged with sending Ukraine war secrets to a 'woman' he met with on a foreign dating site, in what appears to have been a classic honeypot intelligence ploy. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/army-intel-soldier-charged-selling-secrets-about-us-weapons-ops

War Always Works

 President Biden’s State of the Union Address reminded me of James Madison’s reflections on war—and not in a good way.

Millions of people in the United States—especially of the working and middle classes—are now struggling against the combination punches of inflation and high interest rates. Apart from the privileged cohort that is highly insulated from reality and accurate information, most people instinctively sense there is something badly amiss in our Republic that is riven with daily drama and rancor.

In the midst of this atmosphere of dread, our purported Commander-in-Chief issued a battle cry in the House Chamber that produced glimmers of unification for our august lawgivers—namely, that battle cry to “send weapons to Ukraine” to fight the perfidious Putin. This, we were told, is the purpose and the mission of the American people.

When it comes to mesmerizing a nation—to distract its people from their own divided house and troubles at home—war always works. As Madison observed at the Constitutional Convention.

The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.

About ten years later he wrote in a letter to a friend:

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Make no mistake: the American people are being prepared for war with Russia. Our political class will continue to insist it’s just a matter of supplying weapons to Ukraine, but I have a strong hunch that supplying weapons and training will spill over into direct confrontations.

Just as our political class committed (as Dr. Peter McCullough put it) the Great Gamble of COVID-19 Vaccine Development in 2020—thereby gambling with the health of the entire population—this same political class will gamble that Russia will NOT use tactical or strategic nuclear weapons.

Already in the fall of 2020, I was pretty confident that the Great Vaccine Gamble would go the wrong way. I’m now equally concerned that the blundering gamble against Russia will also end badly. Like serial killers, getting away with the Great Vaccine Gamble has emboldened our psychopathic politicians to commit another terrible crime against the American people with even greater brazenness.

The American people should bear in mind that the United States has NOT won a war (in the sense of winning a favorable political outcome) since the defeat of Germany and Japan in 1945. We should also remember that Russia did the lion’s share of fighting against the Germans, and the United States only prevailed against Japan by bombing its civilians with incendiary and atomic weapons.

It seems to me that the spirit that pervaded that House Chamber last night was not that of reason and prudence, but of bellicose atavism. Not God, but the devil was presiding over that assembly and the horrible speech that was delivered to it.

John Leake--True Crime Writer. Coauthor with Dr. Peter McCullough of "The Courage to Face COVID-19.: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Biopharmaceutical Complex."

https://substack.com/profile/106297185-john-leake

Challenging Election Irregularities in Maryland

 By Jack Gleason

United Sovereign Americans, a nationwide group dedicated to fair and honest elections, has joined with Maryland Election Integrity, LLC, in filing a lawsuit in Maryland Federal Court against the Maryland State Board of Elections with Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher presiding. 

“This action seeks declaratory and injunctive relief from deficient voter registration rolls leading to violations of Federal and state laws, the certification of results from a provably flawed, inaccurate, and obscure process outside the view of impartial witnesses or the public, including the use of voting systems in Maryland that are believed to have void EAC certifications in violation of federal law, and the refusal of the Maryland State Board of Elections to comply with Public Information Act (PIA) requests and Federally required transparency.” 

The suit cites multiple federal laws regarding election conduct, including Article 1 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, Sections 1 and 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act. 

The lawsuit states:  

“Meticulous analysis of the official Maryland State Voter Registration Database reveals a minimum of 79,392 current apparent registration violations…The analysis revealed 1,699 instances of duplicate registrations, 25,084 instances of registrants with questionable inactive status, 3,366 instances of active registrations without a certified US Post Office mailing address, 5,680 instances of active registrants who moved at least 4 years ago, 605 instances of registrations with no residential address, 296 instances of active registrants with a nonstandard address, 1,218 instances of active registrants who are deceased, 883 instances of age discrepant registration (younger than 18 or older than 115), and 40,518 instances of questionable registration date.” 

They continue:  

“In sum, the voting system error rates are exponentially above the maximum allowable error rates. Inaccuracy and the specter of fraud have irretrievably damaged the reliability and credibility of results. The Maryland State Board of Elections dismissed these 

concerns without any meaningful review or response and intends to administer and certify Maryland’s 2024 general election under the same inaccurate conditions. Despite mandatory statutory language requiring current and accurate voter rolls, which shall include only the names and registration information of eligible citizen voters, and Maryland law specifying processes to do so, Maryland has failed to keep voter rolls accurate.”

They conclude:  

“Plaintiffs allege that voter rolls are highly inaccurate, error rates on the voting systems exceed the maximum allowable error rates, voting systems were not certified correctly, machines have been used that have VOID EAC certifications, large numbers of blank ballots were cast, and the MDSBE is unlawfully withholding evidence of such. This has caused abridgement to their right to vote “[a]nd the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise” Reynolds v. Sims, (377 U.S. 533). The right to vote is paramount “[e]specially since the right to exercise the franchise in a free and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964). Inaccurate voter registration practices have led to voting system error rates well above the statutory threshold causing dilution of eligible voter’s votes. Use of the ES&S Voting Systems in a noncompliant manner has resulted in dilution of Plaintiff’s votes and has resulted in an impaired election process resulting in concrete harm to Plaintiff’s rights to vote. Denial of Plaintiff’s PIA requests resulted in Plaintiffs not being able to access information in which they are entitled.” 

They are seeking an injunction from Judge Gallagher to force the Maryland State Board of Elections to keep accurate voter rolls and enjoining them from certifying any future elections unless voter rolls are updated, registration records are corrected, and the entire voting process is reformed to follow all applicable federal and state laws. They also seek the decertification of the ES&S EVS 5.2.0.0 electronic voting system currently in use. 

Finally, they ask the court to establish a Special Master to guide the Maryland State Board of Elections, among other things, to ensure changes are implemented prior to the November 2024 election to verify voters are U.S. citizens, and the ballot custody process is corrected and auditable.  

Maryland Election Integrity, LLC, a group of citizen volunteers in Maryland, is led by Kate Sullivan and David Morsberger. They recently filed a  report detailing the results of their statewide voter canvass and their examination of Maryland voter rolls.  

Their canvas found 58 inaccurate records, which was 15 % of the 383 records surveyed. The Baltimore County canvass found 61 inaccurate records -- 14% of the 418 individuals contacted. 

Based on their results, they calculated that the canvass percentages would equate to 5,625 apparent fraudulent votes in the Maryland 2020 general election.  

The team also analyzed Maryland voter rolls and found 79,349 current apparent registration violations, 62,075 voting violations in the 2020 general election, and 27,623 voting violations in the 2022 general election. 

United Sovereign Americans was born out of New York Citizens Audit, which has produced similar reports about the voter rolls in New York state for 2020 and 2022. Co-founders Marly Hornik and Harry Haury formed United Sovereign Americans to share what they’ve learned about database investigations and legal strategies to ensure fair and honest elections for our country. They now have chapters in over 25 states doing research and preparing lawsuits. 

Regarding the Maryland lawsuit, Hornik said “the Maryland action is the first of many lawsuits we will be participating in to force state boards of elections to comply with clearly-defined federal laws that ensure election validity. Without trustworthy elections, the American public will have no confidence in the announced results.” 

The Maryland legal action heralds a new wave of federal lawsuits targeting the sloppy conduct of elections as well as lax, or even criminal, management of voter roll databases across the country. Judicial Watch announced their own lawsuit about board of elections conduct in Illinois this Tuesday. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/03/challenging_election_irregularities_in_maryland.html

CBP wants to keep quiet about the national security disaster at our borders

We’ve long said that President Biden’s open border policy is deeply damaging to America, the nation he swore to defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. 

But now you don’t have to take our word for it. 

You can just ask Joe’s wave-them-in henchmen!

3

Last year, 43 airports trafficked some 320,000 undocumented people.AP

In the course of a Freedom-of-Information lawsuit by the indefatigable Center for Immigration Studies, Biden’s Customs and Border Protection has admitted that the administration’s “let illegal migrants fly around the country with no ID” policy is dangerous.

So dangerous, in fact, that even letting the public know the names of the 43 airports trafficked some 320,000 illegal entrants last year would “reveal operational vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors.”

Turns out erasing our border, letting jumpers jet around the country and creating a taxpayer-funded app to let would-be migrants schedule their illegal crossings utterly undermines national security. 

Who’d a thunk it?  

And — more crucially — what evidence does the CBP have that these “bad actors” aren’t currently exploiting the “security vulnerabilities” Biden created?

It’s not like the cartels and transnational gangs like MS-13 can’t get reports back from migrants who’ve taken the flights on where they landed.

No: This is Team Biden again only keeping migrant flights secret from the American public, just as with the Westchester charters The Post has exposed.

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Joe Biden has attempted to make the passage of migrants’ easier.AP

Now, every rational person has long known what the CBP’s belatedly admitted. 

Solid borders are the sine qua non of national security (and indeed of nations themselves). 

So even if Biden had “only” let in the 320,000 who got on planes, it would be a disaster of historic proportions. 

That figure, for comparison, is larger than the population of most US state capitals. 

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Reportedly 7.2 million undocumented people have come through the Southern border.AP

But it pales next to the full amount Biden’s let in: 7.2 million across the southern border, greater than the population of 36 states.

And the influxes show no signs of stopping. 

The resulting waves have crushed tiny border towns like Eagle Pass, Texas, almost to the breaking point. 

The arrivals have put massive fiscal pressure on cities and their human-services infrastructures as far away as New York, where migrant costs are expected on the most optimistic forecast possible to hit $10 billion over the next fiscal year. 

As gratifying as it is to see the feds squirmily admit the truth, it’s beyond obscene that this fact had to be pried from them by legal action. 

As it is that, under Biden, the agencies tasked with securing the border have become little more than concierge services for illegal immigrants. 

Until Open Borders Joe is gone, expect the chaos to continue. 

https://nypost.com/2024/03/09/opinion/cbp-admits-border-crisis-is-a-national-security-disaster-but-wants-to-keep-it-quiet/