UN report accusing Israel of targeting Palestinian kids a ‘predetermined indictment dressed up as an investigation’ - Rikki Zagelbaum

 

by Rikki Zagelbaum

The report is “an embarrassment to the United Nations and a disservice to genuine human rights accountability,” Dina Rovner, of U.N. Watch, told JNS.

 

The United Nations headquarters in New York City as seen through the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial in Turtle Bay in December 2025. Photo by Menachem Wecker.

A new United Nations report, which accuses the Jewish state of targeting Palestinian children deliberately, is yet another instance of the global body engaging in antisemitism, according to Israeli officials and an independent watchdog that tracks the global body.

“This is not serious fact-finding,” Dina Rovner, legal adviser at U.N. Watch, told JNS of the new report from the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry into Israel, which accuses the Jewish state of “genocide.”

“It is a predetermined indictment dressed up as an investigation,” Rovner told JNS. “The commission presents itself as an independent fact-finding body, but even a cursory review of this latest report reveals its bias.”

The panel does not speak for the United Nations, but its findings are likely to be cited before the International Court of Justice, a U.N. judicial body in The Hague, and other international bodies, according to Rovner.

“A report that begins with a conclusion and selectively assembles evidence to support it—that is an embarrassment to the United Nations and a disservice to genuine human rights accountability,” she told JNS.

The report ignores evidence that Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups recruit and use children in combat, which affects the casualty figures which the report cites, according to Rovner.

“While accusing Israel of killing more than 20,000 children in Gaza, citing as its source the Hamas Ministry of Health,” the report “completely ignores the documented fact that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups routinely recruit and use child soldiers: Palestinian boys under the age of 18, some as young as 12 or 13,” she said.

Those terrorist groups have published martyr notices and eulogies identifying minors as members, she said.

The report also accuses Israel of deliberately targeting schools, hospitals, displacement camps and civilian infrastructure without sufficiently accounting for “extensive evidence” that Hamas uses those sites for military purposes, according to Rovner.

“Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and others,” she told JNS. “Its leaders, including Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, have openly acknowledged that Hamas benefits from civilian casualties in Gaza. No credible assessment of child casualties in Gaza can ignore these realities.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry stated that the panel’s report is a “propaganda piece as outrageous as its previous ones.”

“The COI is a fundamentally flawed mechanism whose very purpose is to single out and vilify Israel rather than seek the truth,” it stated. “Using the demagoguery of modern blood libels to defame Israel, the COI actively conceals clear evidence of terrorist atrocities.”

The commission “completely erases Israeli children, who were brutally murdered, kidnapped and targeted by Hamas, while ignoring Hamas’s cynical use of Palestinian children as human shields and pawns of war,” the ministry stated.

“The COI also lacks any credible verification mechanism for its claims,” it said. “Israel utterly rejects this latest libelous sham, as well as all of the COI’s other defamatory reports.”

Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, stated that “this is not an investigative report.

“It is a political blood libel disguised as a U.N. document,” he said. “This commission reaches its conclusions before examining the facts and repeatedly publishes reports that serve one purpose only: to vilify Israel.”

“Instead of addressing Hamas’s crimes, the Oct. 7 massacre, the hostages and Hamas’s cynical use of children and civilians as human shields, the commission has once again chosen to place Israel in the dock,” Danon stated.

According to Rovner, the commission accuses Israel “of the gravest crimes imaginable,” including “intentionally killing children, genocide and extermination.”

But the panel reached those conclusions largely through “second-hand testimony and inference,” without access to the battlefield information needed to determine who was responsible for particular deaths, the circumstances surrounding them or whether militants were present, she said.

“The result is a report that repeatedly presents speculation as fact,” she told JNS. “A report that ignores key evidence and treats speculation as fact does not merely distort public debate. It risks distorting the administration of international justice.”

Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the commission, stated in connection with the report that the “evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces.”

“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law,” he stated.

The 94-page report, the commission’s 17th since its creation in May 2021, accuses Israel of intentionally killing, injuring and maiming Palestinian children in Gaza and of targeting schools, hospitals, displacement camps and other civilian sites where children were sheltering.

Some 30% of those killed in the Gaza war were children, according to the report, which points in part to the Israeli military’s use of powerful explosives and other wide-impact weapons in crowded residential areas, despite what it describes as mounting child casualties, as evidence that the attacks were deliberate.

“This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional,” the report states.

The commission, whose full name is the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, said in September that Israel had committed “genocide” and “war crimes” in the Gaza Strip.

The leaders of B’nai B’rith International said that the commission was guilty “once again” of “outrageously accusing Israel of ‘genocide’ in an unofficial ‘conference paper’ on children in Gaza.”

“This finding is not a legal or factual one but a political assault perpetrated by an ‘investigative mechanism’ intended to craft false narratives vilifying Israelis in perpetuity,” they stated. “The COI, as always, has minimized or completely ignored Hamas’s and other Palestinian terrorist groups’ responsibility for endangering Palestinian children by, among other systematic tactics, deliberately operating from civilian areas, including schools, hospitals and even U.N. facilities, and recruiting minors into combat.”

“The latest COI report again underscores the inherent, gross bias in the way U.N. special procedures ‘investigate’ Israel—rejecting any factual Israeli assertions as unverified, showing little interest in anything Israel proves about Palestinian offenses, trusting anti-Israel sources without question and spending vast amounts of money pushing out a continuous stream of libels against one country alone—the democratic Jewish state,” they added. 

Rikki Zagelbaum

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/un-report-accusing-israel-of-targeting-palestinian-kids-a-predetermined-indictment-dressed-up-as-an-investigation

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Israel must build independent armaments network to end US aid dependency, Netanyahu says - Yonah Davidov

 

by Yonah Davidov

"I want armaments independence. I deeply appreciate the support we have received, and which I have also brought over the years, from our American friends," the PM said.

 

Netanyahu speaks with reservists at Kibbutz Migdal Oz, 18 June, 2026.

(photo credit: MA'AYAN TOAF/GPO)

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his comittment to phase out American military assistance to Israel during a meeting with reservists at a combat officers' course in Gush Etzion last Thursday, the Government Press Office (GPO) announced on Tuesday.

"Right now, we are standing against Iran and its proxies. We have dealt them blows. It is not over yet, but it depends on our strength. Where we will be 30 years from now depends on our strength. Therefore, what we are doing right now is building great strength," said Netanyahu.

"I want armaments independence. I deeply appreciate the support we have received, and which I have also brought over the years, from our American friends. Today I say: We need our own independent armaments network. We must manufacture our own armaments," he added.

The prime minister continued, "To break free from dependency, to build more and more power, to integrate more and more technology, and to train more and more generations of commanders like you, because that is what will ultimately determine where we will be. With God's help and with your help, we will be in a good place."

The comments come after a proposal was filed in Congress by Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Indiana), introducing a resolution calling for negotiations on a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the United States and Israel that would phase out an annual $3.8b. of military assistance to Israel, aiming to replace it with a new framework of cooperative defense and trade.

Netanyahu speaks with reservists at Kibbutz Migdal Oz, 18 June, 2026. (credit: MA'AYAN TOAF/GPO)

Israel must stand on its 'own two feet,' US-Israel relationship one of mutual interest, independence

Stutzman said that Netanyahu expressed support for the proposal in a letter following a meeting between the two last month.

“The time has now arrived for us to move from aid recipient to partner,” the prime minister said in the letter.

According to Stutzman, Netanyahu argued that “it was important to them that they stand on their own two feet and that the relationship between the United States be of mutual interest, independent countries standing together.”

The congressman stressed that ending direct military assistance would not weaken the alliance but instead redefine it around shared strategic interests.

“One of the things that we want to, first of all, acknowledge is that the relationship between the United States and Israel is strong,” he said, adding that the future partnership would be built around “mutual defense projects and joint economic investments and projects.”

The measure has already begun attracting support among congressional Republicans, according to its sponsors, and Stutzman argued that the proposal appeals to both fiscal conservatives and traditional supporters of Israel.

Amichai Stein contributed to this report.

Yonah Davidov

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900352

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IDF surrounds Hezbollah fighters in Tebnit as fears rise of possible kidnapping attempt - Amir Bohbot

 

by Amir Bohbot

Israeli forces have sealed tunnel entrances and instructed troops to operate in small units, amid fears that underground infrastructure could be used for ambush or abduction attempts.

 

An IDF sniper takes aim during operations in southern Lebanon, June 18, 2026

(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

Amid growing concerns over a potential kidnapping attempt in southern Lebanon, Israeli security officials said Tuesday that senior officials reviewed the situation involving dozens of Hezbollah terrorists trapped in the village of Tebnit.

The IDF recently succeeded in cornering dozens of Hezbollah terrorists in an underground complex in Tebnit. Shortly thereafter, troops managed to seal off the entrances to the underground system, and messages were subsequently relayed to Israel through various mediating parties in an effort to secure the safe exit of those inside.

According to a security source, “Israel’s response to all mediating parties was clear: surrender or be killed inside the underground system.”

Additional sources involved in the details of the negotiations told Walla that under the current ceasefire framework, the militants have the option to surrender to the IDF, but at this stage, they are choosing to remain inside the underground system

“Things can change in an instant, but until then, it is important to understand that Israel sees significance in an effective model that will enable the demilitarization of the area from militants and Hezbollah terror infrastructure. Therefore, the focus is on a pilot program,” a source familiar with the details told Walla.

IDF soldiers operate against Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon, June 21, 2026. (credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)

The source added that a similar scenario previously unfolded with Hamas operatives who were trapped in Rafah, and who ultimately were forced to emerge and either fight or surrender.

Concern that Hezbollah will take IDF soldiers hostage to negotiate for their trapped comrades

Meanwhile, concern is rising among Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon that Radwan Force operatives in the area, who are currently avoiding direct confrontations and close-range engagements with Israeli troops, may attempt to identify an operational opportunity on the ground and carry out a kidnapping attack against IDF soldiers in order to facilitate negotiations.

Troops on the ground have been briefed and instructed to move in pairs or groups of three at all times, and to ensure rapid coordination between air and ground forces in the event of an attempted attack or assault on a tank, armored vehicle, jeep, or building.

A military source told Walla that “Some of Hezbollah’s underground systems in southern Lebanon could be intended to facilitate a kidnapping attack during an assault on IDF soldiers and assist in escape or holding captives.” The source emphasized that most of the entrances to the underground systems are camouflaged and difficult to locate. 

Amir Bohbot

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-900355

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China Taking Scarborough Shoal to Control Entire South China Sea - Gordon G. Chang

 

by Gordon G. Chang

The Philippine claim to Scarborough Shoal is far stronger than China's. 

 

• Manila is concerned that China is seeking to take permanent control of Scarborough by reclaiming the sea and building a military base there.

• The Philippine claim to Scarborough Shoal is far stronger than China's. In 2016, an international arbitration panel in the Hague, interpreting the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, invalidated Beijing's assertion of sovereignty to the South China Sea in general and to Scarborough by implication. China, with virtually no legal support, has consistently maintained that the decision "is illegal, null, and void."

• Why go to all this effort for what is essentially a rock in the sea?

• Scarborough Shoal is strategic: It controls the mouths to Manila and Subic bays of the Philippines.

• And China can use it to control the entire South China Sea.

China, with its recent moves at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, has been precipitating a crisis that can trigger the next war. At the moment, the shoal and nearby waters form the most dangerous hotspot in East Asia. Pictured: A Chinese Navy helicopter flies above Scarborough Shoal on February 18, 2025. (Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

China on May 20 towed a "floating structure" to Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. The Chinese termed it a temporary facility and claimed it was carrying out activities "including scientific research."

The South China Sea Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said it was using the platform for environmental monitoring and sampling and that it was supporting "ecological civilization development."

"More Chinese gray-zone shenanigans" is the way James Holmes, the first J.C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College, called the tactics, referring to Beijing's coercive moves that fall below the threshold of war.

The object has since been removed after vigorous protests from the Philippines, which called it an "illegal presence." The Financial Times reported on June 21 that Manila is concerned that China is seeking to take permanent control of Scarborough by reclaiming the sea and building a military base there.

Beijing, with this move and others at Scarborough, has been precipitating a crisis that can trigger the next war. At the moment, the shoal and nearby waters form the most dangerous hotspot in East Asia.

Scarborough Shoal is 124 nautical miles from the main Philippine island of Luzon and about 550 nautical miles from China's Hainan. As such, the shoal is well within Manila's exclusive economic zone, the band of international water between 12 to 200 nautical miles from the shoreline, where the coastal state has certain economic and other rights against others.

Despite the disparity in distances, Beijing, which calls the feature Huangyan Dao, claims the shoal as its own. "I wish to stress that any activities China conducts around Huangyan Dao, including scientific research, constitutes legitimate rights of a sovereign state, and no other country has the right to interfere," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on the 17th of this month at the regular press briefing.

Scarborough is inside China's infamous "cow's tongue," now defined by ten dashes on official maps. The tongue encloses about 85 percent of the South China Sea.

Beijing claims as "blue national soil" all the waters inside the cow's tongue and claims as sovereign territory all the shoals, reefs, islands, islets, and other features in the tongue.

The Philippine claim to Scarborough Shoal is far stronger than China's. In 2016, an international arbitration panel in the Hague, interpreting the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, invalidated Beijing's assertion of sovereignty to the South China Sea in general and to Scarborough by implication. China, with virtually no legal support, has consistently maintained that the decision "is illegal, null, and void."

Manila initiated the arbitration after Philippine authorities in early 2012 had lawfully detained Chinese poachers at Scarborough. China's vessels then immediately swarmed the feature.

Washington quickly brokered an agreement for both sides to withdraw their craft, but only Manila complied. Beijing has been in firm control of Scarborough ever since. The Obama administration, while Vice President Joe Biden was in charge of foreign policy, did not oppose China's audacious seizure.

"The People's Republic of China first demonstrated its intentions in 2012 when they effectively seized Scarborough Shoal from our treaty ally," James Fanell of the Geneva Center for Security Policy and co-author of Embracing Communist China: America's Greatest Strategic Failure told Gatestone. "Over the past 14 years the PRC has used a combination of maritime forces from the Coast Guard, fishing fleets, maritime militia, and navy to maintain control of the shoal. These actions have dangerously threatened Philippine efforts to reassert legitimate legal claims over this shoal."

Then, as now, vital American interests are also at stake. "The South China Sea is the key waterway that allows American naval forces to transit to and from allied nations in northeast Asia, southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Australia," Fanell said in 2025. "The lynchpin of control over that body of water today is Scarborough Shoal."

So what should America do now?

"The main thing is that we have to be on the scene to compete," said Holmes in comments to Gatestone. "The best we can probably do is mount a layered strategy with the Philippine and U.S. coast guards on the scene, backed up by the Philippine and U.S. navies, along with shore-based air and fire support."

"Moreover, the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory has been experimenting with 'intermediate force capabilities' centered on nonlethal weapons," Holmes added. "There might be some options there as well."

"The U.S. Seventh Fleet should conduct combined naval operations in and around Scarborough Shoal, to include anchoring outside the shoal's entrance and sending in combined U.S. and Philippine navy small boats and divers and special operations forces for security," said Fanell. "While these operations are being conducted, combined U.S. Air Force and Philippine Air Force aircraft should be providing combat air patrol over these forces in the shoal."

Why go to all this effort for what is essentially a rock in the sea?

When Beijing's leaders saw Washington's failure to protect a treaty ally in 2012 at Scarborough, they began moving against Second Thomas Shoal and other Philippine reefs and islets in the South China Sea, went after Japan's islets in the East China Sea, and began reclaiming and militarizing features in the Spratly chain. The Obama administration unintentionally legitimized the worst elements in the Chinese political system by showing everybody else that aggression worked.

Beijing then made the problem bigger. We cannot afford to let China do that again. Scarborough Shoal is strategic: It controls the mouths to Manila and Subic bays of the Philippines.

And China can use it to control the entire South China Sea.

• Follow Gordon G. Chang on X (formerly Twitter)

 

Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22649/china-taking-scarborough-shoal

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Iran FM Abbas Araghchi says Gaza war to be raised in US talks, reaffirms Hamas support - report - Esther Davis

 

by Esther Davis

The comments came in a phone call with Hamas representative Basem Naim, who praised Iran’s “steadfast support” for Palestinians, according to state and IRGC-linked outlets.

 

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations, aside of US-Iran talks in Geneva, Switzerland, February 17, 2026

(photo credit: REUTERS/PIERRE ALBOUY)

Iran stands with Hamas against Israel, and is raising the issue of Israeli aggression in Gaza with the US during talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told senior Hamas official Basem Naim on Tuesday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported.

Araghchi said the Iranian negotiation team, of which he is a senior member, will "raise the issue of the occupiers' ongoing aggression against Gaza," with Washington, the report noted.

Naim praised Iran's steadfast support for the Palestinian people "against the Israeli regime," in a phone call with Araghchi.

He also thanked Iran for its "consistent and firm position regarding the Palestinian cause," Iranian state media, Press TV, reported.

Press TV reported that Araghchi also thanked Hamas for supporting the IRGC, and reaffirmed the country's support for an international political movement of support for the Palestinian people.

The Islamic Republic of Iran stressed that the recent memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran stresses the cessation of aggression on all fronts.

US Vice President JD Vance (L) stands next to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif prior to the quadrilateral meeting between the United States, Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar at the Burgenstock hotel complex overlooking Lake Lucerne, on June 21. (credit: Fabrice Coffrini/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The US-Iran memorandum of understanding

On June 17, US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed an MoU, beginning a 60-day negotiation period.

The immediately relevant points in the MoU are an end to hostilities on all related fronts, including in Lebanon, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and access to Iran's frozen assets.

The MoU also allows for further discussions regarding Iran's nuclear program and commitments to neither develop nor acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran funds and influences international anti-Israel protests and attacks

A wave of antisemitic attacks in the UK was claimed by an alleged Iranian front group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. After the stabbing in Golders Green in April, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government required “stronger power to tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran, because we know for a fact that they want to harm British Jews.”

In December 2025, after the shooting at the Bondi Beach Chanukah celebration, Israel launched an investigation into Iranian involvement in the attack. 

Four months before the Bondi Beach attack, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the IRGC was behind at least two major antisemitic arson attacks in Australia, leading to the Iranian Ambassador being kicked out of Australia.

Iranian regime actors are engaging in influence campaigns to stoke and fund anti-Israel protests in the United States of America, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned in July 2024.

Haines said that many of the American citizens who participated in the anti-Israel protests were expressing their views on the Israel-Hamas war in good faith, but it was important to warn of foreign actors seeking to exploit domestic political debates for malicious purposes.

“Americans who are being targeted by this Iranian campaign may not be aware that they are interacting with or receiving support from a foreign government,” said Haines. “We urge all Americans to remain vigilant as they engage online with accounts and actors they do not personally know.” 

Esther Davis

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-900362

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The Open-Border Funding and Facilitation Network Part II: Entrenchment, Lawfare, and the Political Money Loop - Stu Cvrk

 

by Stu Cvrk

How sanctuary policies, activist lawsuits, electoral vulnerabilities, and dark-money recycling make the invasion self-sustaining.

 

 

Sanctuary City Machines

Sanctuary policies are a strongly partisan phenomenon at the jurisdiction level, concentrated in Democrat-controlled (“blue”) areas. Roughly 90–95 percent of the sanctuary cities in the United States are located in Democrat-run cities, based on available data from lists of sanctuary jurisdictions (cities, counties, and states that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, such as by restricting ICE detainers).

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the net cost of illegal immigration for the U.S. at the federal, state, and local levels was at least $150.7 billion at the start of 2023, costing each American taxpayer $1,156 per year.

Major sanctuary jurisdictions became primary expenditure nodes. New York City has paid $5.22 billion for the care of new arrivals since 2022. Chicago, which reported 51,643 new arrivals, spent $574.5 million. In fiscal year 2024, New York committed $3.07 billion to immigrant care. A $2.1 billion New York state fund paying unemployment and stimulus benefits to illegal aliens was exhausted in just three months.

Federal money meanwhile continued flowing into sanctuary jurisdictions. In 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) awarded approximately $300 million to sanctuary jurisdictions under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program—representing more than 40 percent of available funding—despite those jurisdictions having adopted policies to obstruct immigration enforcement.

As of July 21, 2024, there were 662,566 illegal aliens with criminal histories free in the United States, a number reflecting only those known to ICE. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the federal government spent over $1.45 billion reimbursing local jurisdictions and NGOs providing travel, shelter, and other services to illegal aliens encountered and released by law enforcement.

Activist Lawfare Groups

The legal resistance architecture is well funded and institutionally coordinated. United We Dream, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Abundant Futures Fund launched the Defending Our Neighbors Fund, a $30 million initiative to scale up financial support to legal organizations nationwide providing representation to immigrant families facing deportation.

The Acacia Center for Justice (ACJ), the primary contractor for the federal Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP), received federal dollars under a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule providing “legal representation for unaccompanied alien children in both immigration-related and non-immigration-related contexts.” The ACJ openly bragged in its 2024 Year In Review about being the primary UCP contractor. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan described the arrangement as one that involved “hundreds of millions of dollars” in taxpayer funding flowing to groups providing social services and legal representation to illegal aliens to help them remain in the country.

At the municipal level, the pattern was well established long before the 2025 enforcement surge: Philadelphia budgeted $300,000 to publicly fund immigration attorneys for aliens facing deportation; the New York City Council budgeted $16.6 million for the same purpose.

Cartel Transport Corridors Subsidized by the UN and NGOs

The cash infrastructure described above directly subsidized cartel transport routes by eliminating the financial barrier to migration. According to Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Senior National Security Fellow Todd Bensman, all the money, vouchers, and UN/NGO assistance was intended for illegal aliens who would otherwise not make the caravan journey due to fears about food and safety—effectively removing the economic deterrent to crossing. The UN’s own murals in Tapachula, Mexico, prominently advertised UN agency presence and assistance along the northward migration corridor.

The IOM’s cash-based interventions program increased by 77 percent between 2019 and 2020, with critics arguing that Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policies were a motivating factor—the UN/NGO infrastructure was being expanded specifically to counter U.S. enforcement measures.

H-1B Visa Corruption and Labor Replacement

A Trump administration proclamation in September 2025 documented that the H-1B program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor,” with the “large-scale replacement of American workers through systemic abuse” undermining both economic and national security. The number of foreign STEM workers in the U.S. more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, from 1.2 million to nearly 2.5 million, while overall STEM employment grew only 44.5 percent in the same period.

A CIS investigation documented “industrialized” fraud in the H-1B system, with a Foreign Service officer describing firsthand systemic fraud at U.S. consular posts in Chennai, India, where officials adjudicated 220,000 H-1Bs and 140,000 H-4 family visas in 2024 alone—including forged degrees and falsified employment credentials. The DOL launched 175 investigations into H-1B abuse, uncovering over $15 million in calculated back wages, and documented “benching”—where H-1B holders are paid nothing between work projects in violation of program requirements.

Ballot Infrastructure and Electoral Ecosystem

The electoral dimension is the most contested analytically, with a meaningful distinction between the structural conditions enabling noncitizen registration and the proven scale of actual illegal voting. The structural vulnerabilities are documented.

The Motor-Voter law (NVRA, 1993) was identified by the Center for Immigration Studies as a primary facilitation mechanism, with provisions explicitly forbidding officials from taking “any action the purpose or effect of which is to discourage applicants from registering to vote”—meaning officials cannot discourage ineligible non-citizens who don’t realize they aren’t eligible. States offering driver’s licenses to illegal aliens (California, New York, and others) feed directly into automatic voter registration systems.

The structural argument is distinct from the voting question: the mass importation of illegal alien populations creates permanent demographic and political pressure for open-border policies and amnesties, reshaping the political landscape independently of any direct voting by non-citizens.

Some Democrat-dominated jurisdictions have gone further—New York City in December 2021 extended the right to vote in municipal elections to lawful permanent residents and other non-citizens authorized to work in the United States.

ActBlue and Foreign Money Laundering

ActBlue is the leading online fundraising platform that enables Democrat candidates, progressive organizations, and nonprofits to collect and distribute small-dollar donations efficiently from grassroots supporters—and, as we are discovering, from foreign (illegal) sources. A House investigation found that ActBlue detected at least 22 “significant fraud campaigns” in recent years—nearly half of which had a foreign nexus. Over a 30-day window during the 2024 election cycle, ActBlue detected 237 donations from foreign IP addresses using prepaid cards. The investigation revealed that ActBlue trained employees to “look for reasons to accept contributions” even in the face of suspicious activity.

Within four months following the 2024 election, ActBlue’s entire legal and compliance team was gone—having resigned, having been fired, or having stepped out on extended leave. A House joint committee report characterized this as a direct consequence of ActBlue’s “knowing and willful acceptance of illegal foreign contributions, and the subsequent cover-up.”

The Republican-led inquiry documented at least 237 overseas transactions using prepaid cards between September and October 2024, from Brazil, Colombia, India, Iraq, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia. ActBlue’s own outside counsel, Covington & Burling, warned in a February 2025 internal memo that “it could be alleged that ActBlue accepted and/or facilitated the acceptance of foreign-national contributions into American elections” in violation of federal law.

Five depositions of key ActBlue fraud-prevention and legal personnel were conducted by the House committees. Employees invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to every single substantive question—146 times in total. President Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the attorney general to investigate, and Texas AG Ken Paxton filed suit against ActBlue in April 2026.

Concluding Thoughts

The system’s architecture is not accidental: it is layered, legally defended, institutionally entrenched, and self-reinforcing—with the legal-lawfare layer actively resisting enforcement, the electoral layer protecting the political coalition that funds it, and the campaign finance layer recycling foreign and domestic money to sustain pro-open-border political infrastructure. The political coalition includes the entirety of the Democrat Party and their Republican allies who seek to exploit cheap labor.

The architecture spans every level of government and every sector of civil society. At the international level, the United Nations and its migration agencies—primarily funded by U.S. contributions—distributed cash, debit cards, and logistical support to hundreds of thousands of migrants moving northward through Latin America toward the U.S. border.

At the federal level, the State Department, USAID, DHS, HHS, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement functioned not as enforcement or humanitarian agencies in any neutral sense, but as funding conduits routing billions of dollars annually to a network of NGOs whose operational purpose was migrant facilitation, interior resettlement, and legal resistance to deportation.

At the state and local level, sanctuary jurisdictions (~95 percent Democrat) provided a territorial shield—refusing cooperation with federal immigration enforcement while delivering taxpayer-funded housing, healthcare, legal representation, and income support to illegal alien populations, often reimbursed in part by the same federal government whose laws they were obstructing.

U.S. taxpayers have been unwittingly underwriting the network that is destroying their own constitutional republic. This must stop!

Photo: ANTELOPE WELLS, NM - MAY 18: A large group of migrants walk and stand while being detained by border authorities in the early morning hours after crossing to the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border and turning themselves in, at the Antelope Wells port of entry, on May 18, 2019 in Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Migrants are frequently turning themselves in and asking for asylum at the location after crossing the border. Approximately 1,000 migrants per day are being released by authorities in the El Paso sector of the U.S.-Mexico border. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) 

Stu Cvrk retired as a captain after serving 30 years in the U.S. Navy in a variety of active and reserve capacities, with considerable operational experience in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he received a classical liberal education that serves as the key foundation for his geopolitical commentary.

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/24/the-open-border-funding-and-facilitation-network-part-ii-entrenchment-lawfare-and-the-political-money-loop/

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How Steve Hilton Can Become California’s Next Governor - Edward Ring

 

by Edward Ring

California’s political machine has left Republicans with a simple challenge: convince voters that change is worth crossing the aisle for.

 

 

A very successful businessman—and a major contributor to Democratic Party candidates and causes—once explained to me why he talked, acted, and thought like a Republican but never considered supporting any Republican candidate, ever. “We’ve already got the Republicans,” he told me.

This is the transactional essence behind corporate support for Democrats in California, the one-party state. Republicans have no political power, and whenever the Democrats in the state legislature are surprisingly split on a matter of concern to business interests, the handful of Republican politicians will invariably cast pro-business votes.

This has been going on for a long time. Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature since 1997 and the governorship since 2011. A signature moment came in 2010 when Jerry Brown defeated the hapless billionaire Republican Meg Whitman to begin his second two-term stint as governor. That’s when the California Chamber of Commerce made an internal decision to start supporting “pro-business” Democrats.

So it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the California Chamber of Commerce has endorsed Xavier Becerra for governor, the Democrat who will face Republican Steve Hilton this November.

In a guest op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal on June 17, candidate Hilton reiterated the case for change. Per-capita state government spending has nearly tripled over the last two decades, without a single quality-of-life metric improving. More than two million Californians moved out of the state during Newsom’s years as governor. Major businesses have relocated, with more on the way out. California has the highest taxes, the highest levels of unemployment, the highest poverty rate, and the highest cost of living in America.

It’s a familiar refrain, and yet Californians keep electing Democrats. Hilton faces an uphill battle. Republicans are only 25 percent of registered voters; Democrats are 45 percent, with No Party Preference voters at 23 percent, nearly outnumbering Republicans. In the last four gubernatorial elections in the state, Republicans barely captured 40 percent of the vote. Brian Dahle got 40.8 percent in 2022; John Cox got 38.1 percent in 2018; Neel Kashkari got 40.0 percent in 2014; and Meg Whitman squandered $170 million in her 2010 gubernatorial quest in exchange for only 40.9 percent of the vote.

These are remarkably consistent numbers. Can Hilton overcome them? In California’s preposterous jungle primary, where, in this most recent iteration, there were 63 candidates, Hilton captured 24.7 percent to come in second to Xavier Becerra, who got 28.1 percent. Hilton had to contend with Tom Steyer, a bona fide fascist billionaire who masquerades as a social democrat and who, unlike Meg Whitman, hired a campaign team that knew what it was doing and wasn’t just going through the motions. Steyer’s hard-left campaign attracted 22.9 percent and almost edged out Hilton for a spot on the ballot.

Also complicating Hilton’s ascension to the runoff was another Republican, Chad Bianco, who pulled in 10.2 percent of the primary vote. Which brings us to one of Hilton’s major challenges if he hopes to defy history and beat the odds. He will have to pull in Bianco’s voters, who are, generally speaking, further right of center than Hilton voters.

This won’t be easy. The battle between these two Republicans turned bitter. In a perfect post-primary world, Hilton and Bianco would meet, put aside their differences, and make some joint campaign appearances. The formula whereby Hilton picks up 50-plus percent in November is hard enough. He needs Bianco’s 10 percent, or as much of it as possible.

If voters were practical, Hilton could take for granted 10.2 percent from Bianco voters in the general election, along with another 1.2 percent from voters who supported one of the other 10 Republican candidates on the crowded primary ballot. But these voters not only made an initial choice for a Republican other than Hilton. More than any other voting cohort in the state, they are disgusted with the whole system—the jungle primary, the rigged election laws, and the perception that Republicans will never win and even if they did, they wouldn’t fix anything.

But even if we suppose Hilton can muster the traditional 40 percent support that Republicans have typically earned, he still has to find another 10 percent elsewhere. And if, like his predecessors, he garners 40 percent when only 25 percent of voters are Republicans, he will have already pulled significant votes from the 23 percent No Party Preference voters along with a handful of Democrats.

Simply by virtue of the overwhelming advantage in registration that Democrats have in California, the main chance for Steve Hilton—the only chance—is for him to convince them that a vote for him is preferable to a vote for Becerra. That ought to be obvious. The state has blown through literally trillions of dollars over the past few Democratic administrations, and nothing has improved. But three things win elections: the party affiliation, the policy agenda, and the candidate’s personality. Hilton can’t win the first of these, but he can attract defecting Democrats if he wins the other two.

Ordinarily, the Democrats win on policy because their rhetoric goes down easy. Inclusion. Compassion. Environmentalism. And “affordability,” their latest mantra. But increasing percentages of Californians realize the results have delivered the opposite of what the rhetoric promised. Hilton, on the other hand, has developed detailed policy solutions that offer a new approach to every challenge where Democrats have failed. Can he sell them?

This is where personality will be decisive. Everybody wants change, but by successfully stereotyping Republicans as mean-spirited, Democrats have positioned themselves as the only option despite their failing policies. This is the context in which Hilton emerges from a bruising primary campaign where his tactics and persona were necessarily abrasive. Now he needs to return to his genial, upbeat roots. His winning strategy is to focus overwhelmingly on the solutions he offers and the dreams they can fulfill for all Californians. If Hilton comes across as someone who will govern as a bridge builder, voters will trust him. If he comes across as someone who is upbeat and optimistic about the future, voters will like him.

Meanwhile, California’s business community has a choice to make. They can stick with Democrats, accepting an essentially fascist political economy where only the largest corporations will survive the escalating regulatory onslaught and increasing taxes, and only then if they always play ball with the one-party regime. Or they can return to their roots, accepting competition instead of cronyism, and supporting candidates who are trying to roll back a government that has lost its way.

Steve Hilton is the best candidate for governor that California has had in years. Regardless of their party affiliation, Californians who vote for him have nothing to lose and everything to gain. 

Edward Ring

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/24/how-steve-hilton-can-become-californias-next-governor/

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Trump team ditches the delusion: Sex ed returns to actual sex, not woke propaganda and promiscuity - Amanda Head

 

by Amanda Head

Trump’s HHS is bringing back common sense and biology to sex education and leaving the Democrats’ porn, role play and abortion-pushing lessons in the rearview mirror.

 

On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is reportedly poised to strip nearly $70 million dollars from a Biden-era sex education program that focused on abortion, masturbation, and other sexually explicit material, returning to more need-to-know, traditional teaching on the sensitive topic. 

"Federal funds may not be used to indoctrinate America's children with radical ideologies or other inappropriate material," read a statement from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.

The Office of Population Affairs, under the Assistant Secretary for Health, reviewed the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and decided to end 53 of its 67 grants. The programs, awarded during the Biden administration, included materials promoting pornography, contraception, abortion and gender ideology to middle and high school students, according to department documents.

HHS said the funded curricula violated the program’s authorizing statute and referred to the programs as not only sexually explicit but also "medically inaccurate" and "age inappropriate."

In their place, the department is launching two new funding opportunities totaling roughly $8.3 million for projects that emphasize “body literacy,” and that "do not promote material that depicts, describes, exposes, or presents obscene, indecent, or sexually explicit content, including content that normalizes or promotes sexual activity for minors.”

"Gender identity" and promoting pornography as "healthy"

Among the terminated grants were monies awarded to “Positive Prevention Plus,” which was aimed at high schoolers, which defined gender identity as a “deeply-felt sense of being male or female, or being something in-between.” 

It also outlined California’s laws allowing minors to obtain abortions without parental notification or consent, calling the procedure “very safe” with major complications occurring in less than 0.25% of cases, which may be a significant undervaluation depending on procedure and gestational age.  

The “Wrap It Up” program for grades 9 through 12 included content suggesting pornography could be used “in a safe, private way” to generate ideas for sexual activity.

“Love Notes,” for ages 14 to 19, featured excerpts from a celebrity interview detailing exposure to violent and abusive pornography starting at age 11.

Other curricula, such as “Making Proud Choices” for ages 11 to 16 and “Linking Families and Teens,” included hands-on condom demonstrations using models, discussions of dental dams, and role-playing scenarios involving sexual decisions. Department officials said the reviewed materials often normalized sexual activity among minors and promoted topics including transgender identities and abortion access.

The terminations and new funding priorities reflect a shift toward programs the administration says better align with statutory requirements and focus on preventing risk factors for teen pregnancy without explicit content. 

Democrats putting the "X" in sex ed

Democrats have a history of pushing the boundaries of appropriateness in sex education. In 1994, during former President Bill Clinton's presidency, his Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders publicly suggested that masturbation "is part of human sexuality and perhaps should be taught" in schools as part of comprehensive sex education to help reduce risky teen sexual behavior. 

Her comment at a United Nations AIDS conference caused a major backlash and Clinton quickly distanced himself from it and forced Elders to resign, calling it one controversy too many. 

In May, Denver Public Schools fired French language teacher Jennifer Honka at Northeast Early College after an investigation and administrative review found she had assigned graded classroom skits that required students, frequently same-sex pairs of girls, to kiss one another. "The safety, emotional well-being and dignity of our students are the absolute highest priorities of Denver Public Schools," district spokesman Bill Good said in a statement to The Jefferson City News Tribune. "We commend the bravery of the students who came forward to report these incidents, as well as the school staff who acted immediately as mandatory reporters."

Amanda Head is White House Correspondent for Just The News. You can follow her here. 

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/trumps-hhs-brings-back-common-sense-biological-approach-sex-ed

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Taxpayers stuck paying off student loans for nonprofits’ employees: ‘It’s about who you work for’ - Ashe Short

 

by Ashe Short

Employees at any organization designated as a tax-exempt nonprofit is eligible for a federal student loan forgiveness program, even organizations who are avowedly anti-American.

 

U.S. taxpayers are paying off the student loans of those who go to work for nonprofits, even nonprofits one wouldn’t consider a charity, or whose mission doesn't align with many taxpayers' values. 

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program allows those who work for a U.S. federal, state, local, tribal government, the military, or qualifying nonprofit organizations to have their student loans forgiven after making 120 qualifying payments.

“Qualifying employment for PSLF isn’t about the specific job that you do for your employer—it’s about who you work for,” the PSLF website says. While many taxpayers might agree with providing the benefit to accept military service, public safety, health and disability work, or even early childhood education as public service, the PSLF program allows those at many radical organizations designated as tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3)s to have their student loans forgiven.

Employees of groups with ties to terrorists are allowed to be taxpayer funded

This includes States United Democracy Center, which Just The News previously reported has been working with Democratic attorneys general across the country to prosecute President Donald Trump’s supporters.

Dompet Dhuafa USA employees are also eligible for student loan forgiveness. Dompet’s main organization has apparent ties to designated terrorist groups, Just The News previously reported, including openly calling Hamas “freedom fighters” immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities in Israel.

The PSLF website says for-profit organizations, labor unions, and “partisan political organizations” are ineligible for the program, but the “partisan” label only applies to groups formally affiliated with a political party or one designed to support a political candidate or party policies, normally designated by the Internal Revenue Service as 501(c)(4). This means that employees at the Center for American Progress, a known left-leaning organization, with a 501(c)(3) status can benefit from the program. 

Conversely, conservatives at the right-leaning Heritage Foundation can also benefit. The Heritage Foundation itself is registered as a 501(c)(3) research and educational think tank. However, it operates alongside its designated 501(c)(4) "social welfare" and political advocacy sister organization, Heritage Action for America.

750,000 borrowers received debt relief under Biden rule changes

The PSLF was established in 2007 and signed by President George W. Bush. The first group of borrowers to be eligible for the program came about in 2017, but strict rules ensured all but a tiny fraction were denied debt forgiveness. Then, during the Biden-Harris administration, temporary waivers were issued to allow borrowers to receive credit for loan payments that weren’t typically eligible for the program. In December 2024, the Department of Education announced that nearly 750,000 borrowers received debt relief through the PSLF, NPR reported. 

In late 2025, the Trump administration’s Department of Education limited who can be defined as a “qualifying employer,” excluding organizations “that engage in unlawful activities such that they have a substantial illegal purpose, including supporting terrorism and aiding and abetting illegal immigration.”

“Taxpayer funds should never directly or indirectly subsidize illegal activity. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was meant to support Americans who dedicate their careers to public service – not to subsidize organizations that violate the law, whether by harboring illegal immigrants or performing prohibited medical procedures that attempt to transition children away from their biological sex,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said when the rule was announced. 

Focusing on those deserving debt relief

“With this new rule, the Trump Administration is refocusing the PSLF program to ensure federal benefits go to our Nation’s teachers, first responders, and civil servants who tirelessly serve their communities.”

A Just The News investigation of the PSLF website has found that nearly any 501(c)(3) organization qualifies, despite the Trump administration’s attempts to refocus the program. 

Ashe Short

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/its-about-who-you-work-taxpayers-paying-student-loans-ngo-employees

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Eight immigration protesters with alleged ties to Antifa sentenced to decades in federal prison - Kevin Killough

 

by Kevin Killough

The case against the defendants involved a shooting outside a ICE immigration detention center in Texas in which a police officer was wounded.

 

Eight protesters whom the Justice Department accuses of having ties to Antifa were sentenced Tuesday to decades in federal prison in connection to a shooting last year outside a federal immigration detention center in Texas.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, who was one of two judges overseeing the trial, said the demonstration wasn't a protest but “an assault on democracy.” He said the need to deter the type of behavior seen at the protest is high. 

One of the eight protesters, Benjamin Song, who was a former U.S. Marine Corps reservist, was convicted of firing a gun during the July 4, 2025, demonstration and wounding a police officer. He was sentenced to 100 years in prison, according to the Associated Press. 

Another defendant, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was convicted of corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. Others pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial, the wire service also reports. The other defendants received prison terms of 30 to 70 years.  

Kevin Killough

Source: https://justthenews.com/nation/crime/eight-immigration-protesters-alleged-have-ties-antifa-sentenced-decades-federal-prison

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