United States | News & Politics

Tensions are rising between US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the US’s approach to the war on Iran, three former US officials and a senior regional official familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye.

Rubio and Hegseth were described as “at each other's throats” over the question of whether the US should deploy troops to Iran at Israel’s request, the sources told MEE.

Hegseth is supportive of the position, while Rubio is deeply wary of entangling the US in a long war, the sources told MEE.

The US has mainly confined its operations to air strikes and standoff strikes using cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, but CNN reported this week that the CIA has begun training and arming Kurdish fighters to operate in Iran.

One Gulf official told MEE that US officials have discussed sending special operations teams into Iran to target senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials and people familiar with Iran's nuclear programme.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43916300

The executive order, issued in December, prevented the Council on American-Islamic Relations from receiving government benefits.

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' order to classify a prominent Muslim civil rights group as a terrorist organization, calling the Republican's action "a political statement at the expense of others’ constitutional rights."

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction against the governor's actions related to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

DeSantis issued an executive order on Dec. 8 calling CAIR a "terrorist organization," which prevented the organization from "receiving any contract, employment, funds or other benefit or privilege."

"The First Amendment bars the Governor from continuing the troubling trend of using an executive office to make a political statement at the expense of others' constitutional rights," Walker wrote.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted that the U.S. was forced into the war with Iran by Israel while speaking with reporters on Monday. He explained that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had effectively boxed in the Trump administration, taking the decision out of American hands.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” Rubio explained. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

GOP Sen. Steve Daines made the last-minute decision to to prevent Democrats from fielding a top recruit for the open Montana seat, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Daines was aware that if he withdrew too soon then Democrats would have a chance at fielding one of several potential Democrats — namely former Sen. Jon Tester or former Govs. Brian Schweitzer or Steve Bullock. Any of those Democrats could have put the state on the map in the midterms and likely have sucked up enormous cash, as Democrats have done in red states like Alaska and Ohio, scrambling the race for the majority in the fall.

Instead, Daines withdrew from the race minutes before the Wednesday evening filing deadline. Kurt Alme, who was US attorney in Montana, filed to run eight minutes before the deadline. With the deadline closed, no top-tier Democrat can now jump in the race.

Tl;dr: It went down party lines with the exceptions of Rand Paul & John Fetterman. The two independents, Angus King & Bernard Sanders, caucus with the Dems and voted yea.

Stupid dog, you made me look bad!

Barb, a 74-year-old retired mental health counsellor based in North Carolina, wrote in to the Guardian: “We can be sure that Trump has launched this war for selfish purposes.

“Whether to flaunt his power, to control the headlines (away from Epstein), or to entertain himself, this needless war is not for the benefit of the Iranian people,” she continued.

Press F to Fistbump Barb

Mission? Hostilities? Don’t call it a war, say G.O.P. lawmakers grappling with the political and legal challenges of the operation in the Middle East.

Gift link — uses URL shortener because lemmy removes gift token

"We can't afford to keep our hospitals open, but we can afford a billion dollars a day to bomb Iran?"

Hey look everyone! More of that famous populism Trump rode into power on!

Some Democrats aren’t ruling out voting for a multibillion-dollar military infusion, setting up a potential internal clash in the weeks ahead for a party whose political base is aghast at President Donald Trump’s aggression against Iran.

The Trump administration’s top defense and intelligence officials told lawmakers this week that the Pentagon could soon send an emergency supplemental funding request to Capitol Hill. They didn’t offer a timeline or dollar value, but the White House is reportedly mulling a $50 billion ask.

That’s a massive sum on top of the more than $990 billion Congress has shelled out for defense capabilities in recent months between the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” and the latest government funding package.

To pass any new military funding measure through the Senate, the support of at least seven Democrats will be needed to overcome the filibuster. It’s far from certain the votes are there

Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) was accused of breaking the hand of Marine veteran and anti-war activist Brian McGinnis.

During a break in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, McGinnis put his hand through a hole in the wall to prevent Capitol Police from removing him from the room.

A video recorded by another anti-war activist showed Sheehy getting in on the melee by grabbing McGinnis and attempting to force him through the doorway.

"His hand! His hand! Oh!" one onlooker shouted.

"The senator broke his hand!" someone else exclaimed.

"A US Senator just broke the hand of a Marine," another member of the audience yelled. "A US Senator just broke the hand of a Marine; you're a coward."

Sheehy turned and walked away without successfully dislodging McGinnis.

"Yeah, go f--- yourself," someone muttered.

The video linked from the article:

https://x.com/alanhe/status/2029301477341061613/mediaViewer?currentTweet=2029301477341061613&currentTweetUser=alanhe

Genuine [WARNING] if you are squeamish, as best I can tell, at least one bone in the Marine's forearm snapped, and this can be heard, and seen.

... Right before his arm snaps, (which did not seem to affect his ability to grip the door he was clinging to) he shouted ~~"No one wants to die for Israel!"~~

(See below revision)

UPDATE:

The link to the video on X no longer works.

It worked when I made this post.

Alternate camera angle of same event:

https://www.vxinstagram.com/reel/DVexfyRAWrn/

Thanks to ZephyrXero for the link.

REVISION:

I was mistaken, he did not, immediately prior to his arm snapping, say "No one wants to die for Israel!"

He said "No one wants to fight for Israel!'

https://web.archive.org/web/20260304105404/https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=54e1cf706a41af84

They pulled it from a number of recruiting sites but Kagi still had the results in their cache.

https://archive.ph/Kude7