More than once I have come across the view that if British lads of the 1940s could have foreseen the state of their country today, they would never have bothered to fight the Second World War. Few of those who have heard that view may realize that there is empirical evidence to support it … The prevailing tone of their letters is one of bitterness over what had become of the county they once cherished. Of the four or five most often voiced complaints, the most common is over mass migration from other countries and continents, and how that has drastically changed British life, culture and society … “The men who offered their lives have been betrayed and gave their lives in vain. Most of the older people say thank goodness we are ending our lives. It is no longer the Britain that we fought for.”

Even Republican stalwarts like current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are starting to notice that something is shifting in the party … What McConnell deems to be “isolationism” had for much of our history been called America’s traditional foreign policy … What we are now seeing – and it is evident in the polls as well as in speeches of our politicians – is a shift away from interventionism. The mood has changed, and more Americans are tired of being told they must sacrifice to save the rest of the world from itself … All of a sudden interventionism is a loser with more of the American people, and politicians are paying attention. McConnell may think that he can stem the tide by preaching more intervention, but not even the Senate Republican leader can stop an idea whose time has come.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) stunned attendees at a high school solar eclipse event Monday by claiming the rock-solid moon is a “planet” that is “made up mostly of gases” … The former top Democrat on the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee badly botched elementary lunar facts while speaking during the gathering at Booker T. Washington High School in Houston … “Sometimes you need to take the opportunity just to come out and see a full moon is that complete rounded circle, which is made up mostly of gases,” Jackson Lee, 74, told teenage pupils … “And that’s why the question is why or how could we as humans live on the moon? Are the gases such that we could do that?” the congresswoman said. “The sun is a mighty powerful heat, but it’s almost impossible to go near the sun. The moon is more manageable.”

Germany has said Israel’s security is at “the core” of its foreign policy because of the history of the Holocaust, but denied accusations at the UN’s highest court that is aiding genocide in Gaza by arming Israel. Nicaragua has brought a case against Germany at the international court of justice (ICJ) urging judges to order a halt to German weapons sales to Israel, alleging it is in breach of its obligation to prevent genocide and ensure respect of international humanitarian law. On Tuesday, Germany had its chance to respond to the accusations levelled against it after Nicaragua’s legal team opened the case on Monday. Nicaragua told the ICJ that it was “pathetic” for Germany to provide Palestinians with humanitarian aid while supplying the arms that killed them, and that Germany seemed “not to be able to differentiate between self-defence and genocide”.

The case brought by Nicaragua against Germany at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague this week is a powerful example of the unprecedented political impact that the Gaza conflict is having around the world … Nicaragua’s case focuses on Germany’s supply of arms to Israel – the country supplied more than 326 million euros [$349 million] last year, which equated to more than a quarter of Israel’s military imports … Nicaragua says the arms sales mean Germany is “facilitating” genocide … The good intentions that underlie that philosophy – Israel as Germany’s “raison d’état,” in the words of Scholz’s predecessor Angela Merkel – are clear. But Germany’s unquestioning support for Israel is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

… The Russian authorities are aggressively pushing the line that Ukraine and the West were behind last month’s Crocus City concert hall massacre outside Moscow which left 145 people dead. The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for the attack. But soon after the suspected gunmen were detained President Vladimir Putin hinted at a Ukrainian connection. At the weekend Russian state TV broadcast interrogation videos of the four suspects, all citizens of Tajikistan … Not only had the [Islamic State] group announced that it was behind the attack, it had released video of the shooting. By contrast, Ukraine had denied any involvement. What’s more, both America and, reportedly, Iran had warned Moscow of possible attacks on Russian soil.

… A court case in California … is worth noting; the case directly challenges the United States’ support for Israel. Although the case will not force Israel to withdraw from Gaza, it does raise serious issues about the United States’ complicity in Israel’s continuous violation of human rights and humanitarian law as well as its egregious non-compliance with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) … In the California case, United States leaders are accused of illegal complicity in not preventing genocide as well as contributing to Israel’s genocidal actions. Over thirty eminent legal scholars and practitioners, including Richard Falk, Philip Alston, and Andrew Clapham, presented a brief (Amicus curiae) supporting the case before The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth District.

… Under US law, Israel must be banned from receiving its annual package of billions of dollars and arsenal of bombs … For decades, US presidents and members of Congress have willfully turned a blind eye to Israel’s extensive violations of American laws … Americans are being deliberately lied to by their own government as to Israel’s vast and deadly nuclear stockpile, largely built with nuclear materials stolen from the United States. For those on Capitol Hill and in the White House, the incentive for keeping Israel’s secret — and thus allowing it to avoid US laws — is money and power. Millions in campaign donations from wealthy pro-Israel supporters and PACs, and power from lobbies like AIPAC.

… The Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender,” unveiled here for the first time. According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war … The army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians … In the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.

… Clearly, almost all the Republicans in Congress, all of who I hope will be re-elected, are scared to death of money from the Israel Lobby being used against them. They are seemingly afraid to say the word “Israel” without first saying the words “our ally.” However, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, longtime chief of staff to General and Secretary of State Colin Powell, said recently on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s podcast: “Israel is a significant strategic liability for the U.S.” I have nothing against Israel. I have been there twice and have been treated very well both times … My hope for Israel and all countries is for peace and prosperity, but my first obligation is to my own country … There will never be peace in the Middle East unless and until the U.S. adopts a more even-handed neutral policy in that part of the world.

Billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros has been the target of controversy recently after a recent move to become a controlling shareholder in the second-largest owner of radio stations in the U.S. This isn’t the first media brand Soros has bought a substantial stake in, but it worries some people going into the 2024 election. Last year, Soros bought a substantial stake in Vice Media Group. Vice was once worth nearly $6 billion, but Soros bought a stake in the company for pennies on the dollar following its surprise bankruptcy in 2023. The deal valued Vice at roughly $350 million with Soros owning an undisclosed stake in the company. Audacy, the No. 2 U.S. radio broadcaster behind iHeartMedia, recently filed for bankruptcy. The company owns 227 major radio stations in 27 states and 45 cities across the U.S.

… I’m going to try to extract from my experience certain basic sort of tactics that I think the Jewish lobby has used over the years pertaining to my particular situation … The first and major tactic that I discovered in their attack on me was their reliance on lies — just straight-up lies. There’s no other way to describe it, just telling lies. Many of the categories that I will enumerate overlap, and many of them could also come under this general rubric of telling lies. But I think that if one had to isolate a single tactic, it was a tactic of telling lies. I think they’ve elevated telling lies to a very high artistic form.

Police Scotland was deluged with almost 4,000 complaints in the first 48 hours of Humza Yousaf’s controversial hate crime laws coming into force. Officers are said to have received a hate crime complaint every two minutes during the first days of the legislation. Calum Steele, the former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers within Police Scotland, said he understood that the number of complaints received so far could be as high as 3,800. He said that ‘more than half’ are yet to be processed. Police Scotland said it would consider every report made under the law, which became active on Monday.

Last week, Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, told a group of European journalists visiting Israel that London has become the most anti-Semitic city in Western Europe thanks to a mix of the ‘’radical Left’’ and ‘’Islamic extremism.” “The antisemitism we see today in the West is the worst since the 1930s and it is because of a ‘red and green’ alliance – the combination of the radical Left and the radical Islam groups that work together,’’ the Likud minister said. He was speaking during a press briefing at the Israeli foreign ministry in Jerusalem for a group of visiting journalists …

The test for German citizenship will in future include questions on the Jewish religion and the state of Israel in a move designed to filter out anti-Semites among applicants … In the new citizenship test, which applicants must pass to acquire German nationality, candidates could be asked the name of the Jewish place of worship, the founding year of Israel, or Germany’s particular historical obligation to it, according to Spiegel. The punishments for Holocaust denial and the membership requirements for Jewish sports clubs would also be among the possible questions, according to the magazine … In addition to a commitment to the constitution, applicants will now also be required to make a commitment to protecting Jewish life in Germany.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) has come under fire for saying Gaza should be handled like “Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” suggesting that he was calling for a nuclear bomb to be dropped on the Strip, which could kill millions of Palestinians. Walberg made the comments at a town hall last week when asked about the US funding the construction of a port in Gaza, supposedly to bring in more aid. “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid,” he said. “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.” The genocidal comments became public when they surfaced in a video on social media.

President Biden may have recently made history as the first president to discuss snack chips in the State of the Union message … If Biden wanted to stop inflation, he would start by reducing federal spending and paring down the over 35 trillion dollars national debt. These steps would allow the Federal Reserve to reduce its efforts to monetize the federal debt in order to keep borrowing costs low. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, President Biden’s proposed fiscal year 2025 budget fails to cut spending. It also proposes the government borrow nearly two trillion dollars a year for the next decade. While congressional Republicans have declared President Biden’s “big spending budget” dead on arrival, the fact is that, with few exceptions, Republicans are just as addicted to welfare-warfare spending as their Democratic counterparts.

Most Americans disapprove of Israel’s war in Gaza, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday – a downward shift in Americans’ opinions on the war. More than half of Americans – 55 percent – said they disapprove of Israel’s military action in Gaza, while 36 percent approve of it, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,016 U.S. adults this month … The poll shows growing discontent among Americans with Israel’s war in Gaza … Approval of the war fell among both Republicans and Democrats, although those groups remain split: 64 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of Democrats approve of Israel’s military action, according to the March poll. Such sentiments have fallen since November among adherents of both parties …

… For the past year, I worked for the office devoted to promoting human rights in the Middle East. I believe strongly in the mission and in the important work of that office. However, as a representative of a government that is directly enabling what the International Court of Justice has said could plausibly be a genocide in Gaza, such work has become almost impossible … My colleagues and I watched in horror as this administration delivered thousands of precision-guided munitions, bombs, small arms and other legal aid to Israel and authorized thousands more, even bypassing Congress to do so. We are appalled by the administration’s flagrant disregard for American laws that prohibit the US from providing assistance to foreign militaries that engage in gross human rights violations or that restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.

US President Joe Biden has secretly authorized billions of dollars in new bombs and fighter jets for Israel in recent days, according to a report published Friday. Israel’s war on Gaza continues to rage with widespread destruction, displacement and death throughout the coastal enclave … The arms approved this week by the US president include 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, anonymous State and Defense Department officials told the Washington Post newspaper. The State Department last week approved the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines, a US official added. The planes and engines are estimated to be worth around $2.5 billion.