Gulfexplorer

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As an Iranian watching this rescue mission unfold, I was praying the American pilot would make it out alive, not just for him, but so the Islamic Republic could not use him as a bargaining chip or claim some twisted “victory.” At the same time, I felt a deep envy. Your government sent elite special forces, million-dollar aircraft, and moved heaven and earth to bring one American home. No hesitation. No excuses. In Iran, the regime uses human shields and recruited child soldiers to clear minefields during the Iran-Iraq war. They treat their own people like disposable tools. They are now recruiting child soldiers as we speak. The Islamic Republic has zero regard for human life. That’s the brutal difference. One side risks everything to save their own. The other sacrifices their own to stay in power. This hits hard when you have lived under both realities.

Oh Megan — at least have your PR person write you a statement that is grammatically correct if you’re gonna throw girls under the bus.

BREAKING: California doesn't have enough money to finish building a high speed rail system to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles and now they want $125 BILLION MORE! "The entire amount of money we need is not there..." And now they want more money than Amtrak has EVER received in their history. CBS notes: "That’s more funding than Amtrak has received in its history, and still leaves a shortfall of roughly $90 billion." INSANE.

🇫🇷🇺🇸🇮🇷 A French general at Trump’s plan to build a runway inside Iran to fly out uranium under active bombing: “American officials should stop snorting cocaine between meetings.”

To the Commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC): Today, few doubt that little remains of the Velayat-e Faqih dictatorship but a half-dead body. As a result of five decades of warmongering and crimes, you are the real decision-makers of this collapsing system. Your misguided regional policies and apocalyptic madness have brought the theater of war to Iran. Because you used it not for our people but instead militarized it, our country’s economic infrastructure is now in the crosshairs of two powers that have been roaming Iran’s skies for weeks. This infrastructure was built with the national wealth of Iran and is vital for the country’s reconstruction. The corrupt regime of the Islamic Republic is on its way out. Your choice is not between survival and collapse; it is about how you collapse. The end of the current path is the delivery of a scorched earth to the Iranian nation following your inevitable downfall. For the sake of Iran, for yourselves, and for your children, abandon this adventurism and warmongering. Do not leave Iran more bloodstained and wounded than it already is. Allow the country’s infrastructure to be preserved for the Iranian nation. Stop your crimes. Step down from power.

@Johnny_Joey Trump knows history. x.com/s_sultzer/stat…

The fact real actual journalists are still perplexed at how he postures to our enemies while trolling his self-righteous critics is baffling to me.

NPR didn't quote a single member of Michigan synagogue after attack - but interviewed terrorist's pals in Lebanon trib.al/ZZ5htfi

This is the raw, bleeding confession of an Iranian youth. A transmission straight from the dark heart of the cage. I want the entire world to read every single word: I sit in this cage and I eagerly listen to the sounds of war. I am waiting for my turn. I am waiting for the day I take my life in my hands, step back onto the asphalt, and either take my country back or die as a child of Iran. The outside world watches the skies over our homeland, hears the rumble of explosions, and pities us for the fear of falling bombs. But they do not understand a terror that is infinitely darker. Let me tell you what it actually feels like to drive through an IRGC checkpoint in your own stolen city. You see the barricades up ahead. You feel your heart hammer against your ribs. You slow your car down and grip the steering wheel until your knuckles turn white. A militant steps up to your window. He is wearing the uniform of the cannibalistic syndicate holding us hostage. As he looks inside your car, scanning your face, scanning the faces of your loved ones, a single, sickening thought screams through your mind: How many of our children did this man murder during the January uprising? Is this the thug who put a bullet into the head of a teenage girl? Is this the butcher who dragged a bleeding student into an unmarked van? Is he the coward who pulled the lever at the gallows before dawn? This is the absolute psychological torture of our reality. You are forced to look directly into the dead eyes of the men who massacre your generation. You are forced to swallow your rage, bite your tongue until it bleeds, and just keep driving. You must suppress the primal urge to tear them apart with your bare hands, simply because you know they will slaughter your entire family without a second thought. The true nightmare is already here, standing on our streets, holding guns to our heads, demanding submission. But these occupiers are fools. They mistake our forced silence for defeat. They do not realize that every time we are forced through one of these checkpoints, every time we look away from a murderer in uniform, our resolve is forged into absolute steel. You can only strip a nation to the bone for so long before it ceases to be a victim and becomes a weapon. We do not dread the fire in the sky. The only reason we seek to survive the blasts is so we can breathe the air on the first morning of our freedom. Level the playing field and we will finish the job.

There is no “blockade” of Cuba. A blockade involves the use of military forces to interdict commerce. Cuba has run out of money to pay people to send them petroleum, so the ships with petroleum stopped showing up and went instead to places that paid.

Crazy concept, I know, but I still like your video lol. Being a fully grown adult and blocking someone for simply having different political beliefs is wild.

You literally abandoned four Americans to die in Benghazi and lied about a video for weeks afterward. You might want to sit this one out, Ben.

Our hearts are broken. On this Easter Sunday, a wife, kids and grandkids are mourning the loss of this man. Per his agency: Deputy Michael Jimerson, 61, husband, father, grandfather, was shot and killed in the line of duty this week on disturbance call in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Deputy Jimerson and other Jackson County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an apartment complex around 11 p.m. Wednesday. One of the subjects fled, then pulled out a gun and fired as Jimerson pursued. Jimerson returned fire, and in the exchange of gunfire, both were struck. Deputy Jimerson was transported to Ocean Springs Hospital, where he succumbed to his wounds. The suspect died at the scene. Deputy Jimerson had served with the Jackson County Sheriff's Office for 16 years. Survivors include his wife, two children, and grandchildren. His son is a police officer at a nearby police department. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve never gotten a single complaint about him,” Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter told the Sun Herald. “He had a positive impact on everybody he met. The community loved him. Everybody at the Sheriff’s Department who worked with him loved him.” By day, Jimerson worked full-time for Sparklight Internet and Mobile, then spent his evenings patrolling the streets of Jackson County. “He would go to work all day at Sparklight, go home and change, and then go to work for the Sheriff’s Department,” Sheriff Ledbetter said. “Everybody just loved him.” Michael Jimerson. Say his name. His life mattered. REPOST and let's honor him. #thinblueline #Lawenforcement

This picture was taken in the spring of 1988. I landed in Austin, TX at age of 23, fully enjoying my first spring season under freedom. How sweet that rose smelled to me in America! I tried to plan carefully to leave China for two years as an assistant professor at a law school. In order to quit my job and apply for a passport, I must have the permission of the Party boss at law school. Then I had to sign an agreement to promise to return to my job after I obtain my master’s degree. I was so worried about getting stuck inside China, never be able to leave legally. I even dreamed of digging a hole on the ground, swimming across the Pacific Ocean to America. I still have the nightmares today once a while that I was trapped there. I know what freedom means, how precious it is, and I can never take that for granted. I am running for Congress in NH to protect freedom and our Live Free or Die Granite State! Happy Easter and God Bless USA! lilytangwilliams.com

Reid Wiseman told his two teenage daughters where to find his will before he got on this rocket. He’s raised them alone since their mom died of cancer six years ago. Right now, he is 252,757 miles from home, farther from Earth than any human being has ever been. Wiseman grew up outside Baltimore. Got rejected from the Naval Academy, went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute instead, studied computer engineering. Became a Navy fighter pilot, flew F-14 Tomcats (the jet from Top Gun) on combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Two Middle East deployments by his mid-twenties. He saw a Space Shuttle launch in person in 2001 and couldn’t let go of it. Applied to NASA while at sea on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. They picked him. Nine people out of 3,500 applicants. His astronaut class, nicknamed “The Chumps,” included Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian who’s floating next to him right now. Wiseman’s first trip to space was 165 days on the Space Station in 2014. Two spacewalks. Thirteen hours outside the hull in nothing but a suit. He climbed all the way up to Chief of the Astronaut Office, the person who decides which astronauts fly and which ones sit. Then he gave it up in 2022 to put himself back on the flight list. His wife Carroll was a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit. She got cancer. Fought it five years. Died in May 2020 at 46. His mother died from Alzheimer’s just weeks before that. Wiseman raised both daughters by himself after that. NASA’s own bio says he considers being a single parent his hardest challenge and the best part of his life. Even while she was dying, Carroll told Reid not to step back from his career. She made him keep going. His brother is a Navy SEAL. His father is 83 and battling cancer too. The old man told reporters he wanted to stay alive long enough to see his son launch. Before liftoff, Wiseman’s daughters snuck homemade cookies into his flight bag. He posted a photo with them in front of the rocket and wrote “I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.” The previous distance record from Earth belonged to the Apollo 13 crew. 248,655 miles, set in April 1970, and it was an accident. An oxygen tank blew up and the emergency route home happened to swing them farther out than anyone before. Wiseman broke that record by 4,100 miles, and his distance is on purpose. Today he flies within 4,600 miles of the Moon, photographs stretches of the far side that were too dark or at the wrong angle for any of the 24 Apollo astronauts to see, and watches a solar eclipse that nobody on Earth can see, only the four people inside that capsule. Then he turns around and spends four days flying home to his girls.

James Carville is extending the rage rhetoric to threatening Trump that, once back in power, Democrats are "going to go after your stupid jackass kids and their spouses." This type of hateful rhetoric is thrilling for rage addicts today... youtube.com/watch?v=JBTHn6…

Timmy, i’ve paid more than $100 million in taxes. I’ve created thousands of jobs, which enabled thousands of people to feed their families. I’ve contributed millions to wounded warriors, pediatric aids and support 1400 African children. And what have you accomplished in life?

I took this picture on April 5, 2015, the last time my birthday fell on Easter. It was not a great day for me. I fought back tears at church, and not in the overwhelmed-by God's-great-mercy way. Little did I know at the time, my year was going to take much worse turns. But I was newly pregnant with my second child, and though very sick and feeling pretty sorry for myself that Easter morning, I knew I was blessed with this new life and a Savior who loves me. I took this photo because it was a reminder of new life and bread of life, and the light of the world. Later that year, I would lose my husband while 7 months pregnant. He died in September. My daughter was born in November. A lot of people wonder, and have asked me, how does one keep her faith through those dark days. I always wondered, how could I have made it through without it? I was angry and scared and so, so thankful I had met Jesus before that moment. I met Him while reading one of those 90s teen study bibles with neon graphics, in my childhood bedroom. In my sad, grey adult bedroom, I woke up panicking in the night, but He was always with me. I prayed Jeremiah 29:11 to calm myself down: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.'" I prayed it even though I didn't really believe it at the time. It's not that Jesus solved all my problems in this fallen world or fixed my immediate pain right up. But I was in it with Him and with His promises. And he put the kind of brother in my life who would move in with me to help raise the kids for six months. He put parents in my life who showed up every weekend. He put a neighbor in my life who mowed my lawn every week and another who was a SEAL wife and understood grief like few do, and a best friend who could work out my paperwork (death is so much paperwork) when I couldn't. "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world," C.S. Lewis writes in "The Problem of Pain." I learned a lot while I was being shouted at. I think about Jeremiah 29:11 and 11 years ago today. I think about how my little girl who was not yet born then baked my birthday cake today. I think about how she has three siblings now and the most amazing dad— I remarried in 2020 and he adopted the girls. He took all four of our kids to the store to pick out something for my birthday and then let them each choose a walkout song on the karaoke machine as he gave them a Bruce Buffer announcement call when they came down the stairs to present them to me. I think about how they've gained grandparents and cousins and love and faith. (Our first holiday with Steve's family was Easter, and I took it as a good sign.) I pray they've watched our lives and gained trust in their Lord. I think about how my patience was tested by them several times today, as the patience of a parent always is, and how infinite my Father in heaven's patience for me must be. I think about how much I love each of them, and how much my heart grew when each was born just to fit it all in, and how much greater still is my Father's love for me. I think about how much I have to learn and how my faith is still not as mature as it should be at this point (occasionally illustrated on this app). Today in the car, my kids requested "No Fear" by @jonreddick , "Your Way's Better," by @forestfrank , and "Jesus Is Alive, It's a Happy Day" — that one came with sign language by the 3- and 4-year-old, which I recommend for making your heart soar on a Sunday. They listen to secular music, too, but those are their favorites. One time, reading the Christmas story with my kids, I read "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people," and my eldest (about 5 at the time) said, "Mom, the angel always says that!" She's right, the angel always says that! It is so hard not to be afraid, but we have a Good Shepherd. Our lives were touched by death, but He has conquered it. My kids like new worship songs, but I love the classics, and today as on every Easter, I sang "Blessed Assurance," because Jesus is mine. And in the darkest times, He is new life and bread of life, and the light of the world. I am remembering to rejoice in that every day.

NATO is in far bigger danger than anyone realizes. And the reason has nothing to do with defense budgets. The real danger is psychological. It’s cultural. Europeans didn’t just free-ride on American security for 80 years. They built an entire identity around the idea that they evolved past the Americans protecting them. That identity is now the single biggest obstacle to Western survival. And the darkest irony is: we helped build it. After World War II, Europe wasn’t just economically shattered. Its culture was in ruins. The cities, the universities, the concert halls, the museums. Rubble. The Marshall Plan rebuilt the economy. But culture wasn’t a priority. Not at first. Then the Iron Curtain dropped. And suddenly culture became a weapon. American diplomats, academics, artists & scholars flooded Western Europe. We funded their universities. Supported their orchestras. Rebuilt their museums. Promoted their intellectual life. Not because European culture needed saving for its own sake. Because Eastern Europeans were struggling for Maslow’s mist basic needs. We needed the view from the other side of that Wall to be intoxicating. So America built Western Europe into a showcase of self-actualization. Art. Philosophy. Cafe culture. Long vacations. Universities where people studied literature instead of surviving. We were manufacturing jealousy. And it worked. The Wall came down. But here’s what no one accounted for. When you give a society self-actualization on someone else’s tab long enough, they forget it was a gift. They start believing it was organically theirs. And when they look at the country that funded it all, a country busy building aircraft carriers and semiconductor fabs and shale fields instead of reaching the Maslow’s pinnacle. An overweight American in a ball cap who can’t tell Monet from Pissarro. Who eats fast food. Who drives a truck. Who builds strip malls instead of piazzas. And to a culture trained in aesthetics but stripped of strategic awareness, that American looks uncivilized. So the arrogance takes root. And once a culture decides another is beneath them, they stop listening. Americans say wars are sometimes necessary: crude. Oil is the backbone of prosperity: unsophisticated. Kids build companies in garages that reshape the planet: crass. Wall Street finances the global economy: vulgar. Europe has no world-class technology sector. No military capable of strong defense. No energy independence. No AI capacity. What Europe has is culture. The culture we paid for at the expense of us reaching Maslow’s pinnacle. For decades that was fine. We funded the museums, protected the sea lanes, and tolerated the sneering because the arrangement worked. Then Europeans stopped keeping the contempt private. They started saying it to our faces. In their media. In their parliaments. At every international forum. “Americans are stupid. Americans are violent. Americans are a threat to democracy.” We could have moved the Louvre to NY. We could have built a Venice here. We could have stolen your best artists, designers, philosophers and more… like your conquering armies did for centuries. Instead we funded them. And all we asked for in return was to let us visit. You don’t have the military to defend your borders. You don’t have the technology to compete. You don’t have the energy to heat your homes without begging dictators. What you have is an 80-year superiority complex FUNDED BY AMERICANS, protected by American soldiers, and built on the false belief that self-actualization is civilization. It isn’t. Civilization is the ability to sustain itself. By that measure, Europe isn’t a civilization at all. It’s a dependency with better wine. That’s not a threat. It’s a weather report. Build a Navy. Or don’t. But stop lecturing the people who made you “better than us” Our “crudeness” our “stunted liberal education” our “ugly strip malls” are because we sacrificed our culture to support yours.

Sue Bird says the IOC policy protecting women’s sports is fear mongering and solving a problem that doesn’t exist. Angela Carini and Melissa Bishop would likely beg to differ.