Most Americans have probably never heard of the European Union’s (EU) recently passed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). According to the EU, the “aim” of the CSDDD “is to foster sustainable and responsible corporate behaviour in companies’ operations and across their global value chains. The new rules will ensure that companies in scope identify and address adverse human rights and environmental impacts of their actions inside and outside Europe.” //

As my colleagues Justin Haskins and Jack McPherrin note in a recent Heartland Institute Policy Study outlining the CSDDD:

It is not hyperbolic to say the CSDDD is one of the most economically restrictive and nakedly authoritarian laws in the history of western democratic civilization. The directive attempts to globally institutionalize sweeping ESG objectives by mandating practices for large companies doing business in the European Union, regardless of whether those companies are headquartered in the EU. Even worse, the CSDDD forces those companies to impose the same standards on many of the businesses operating within their global supply chains— fundamentally transforming all social and economic activity around the world. It is one of the gravest threats to freedom that Americans face today.

Under the CSDDD, all U.S. businesses, from multinational corporations to small family farms, would have to adhere to the EU’s environmental regulations that prioritize the mass adoption of expensive and unreliable so-called green energy while restricting the production of abundant, affordable, and reliable fossil fuel energy.

In essence, the CSDDD “is a transition plan for climate change mitigation aligned with the 2050 climate neutrality objective of the Paris Agreement as well as intermediate targets under the European Climate Law,” says the EU. //

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods explained on Fox News’ Special Report recently that the EU’s CSDDD represents a non-tariff trade barrier that Trump is intent on eliminating as his team negotiates with EU officials.

Woods also recommended that Congress draft legislation that deems the EU’s CSDDD irrelevant to U.S. businesses. I highly suspect that Trump would sign such a bill with gusto.

“Our democracy cannot very well function if individual judges issue extraordinary relief to every plaintiff who clamors to object to executive action,” U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said in her ruling on Monday. “It is not the role of a district court judge to direct the policies of the Executive Branch first and ask questions later.”

Those are the words many observers of the ongoing judicial coup have wanted to hear from a federal judge since the first wave of injunctions from tyrannical district court judges started coming down early in the Trump administration’s tenure, blocking the president elected by the American people to do what they elected him to do.

They finally came from Vyskocil, a Trump appointee serving in New York, when she dismissed a case from teachers unions attempting to get the court to “commandeer,” as she put it, $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University. The Trump administration canceled the funding because of the school’s inability to handle pro-Palestine protests and violence on its campus.

“With no apparent sense of irony, lawyers for an organization called ‘Protect Democracy’ insist that a district court judge should order the Executive Branch immediately to restore the flow of taxpayer dollars to an elite university, which funding Defendants represent is inconsistent with the priorities of the duly elected President of the United States,” Vyskocil added. //

Vyskocil dismissed the case because the unions had no standing to sue, and Columbia University is “conspicuously absent” from the case as a plaintiff. //

She then went through the litany of bizarre counts against the Trump administration from the unions that did not describe any more than a tenuous relationship to the funding cuts at best. The unions even argued that the fact that they chose to spend money to oppose potential (yes, potential, not real) action from the Trump administration meant they had standing.

An organization “cannot spend its way into standing simply by expending money to gather information and advocate against the defendant’s action,” the judge wrote, quoting the Supreme Court.

Teachers unions, and universities for that matter, apparently believe they are entitled to federal funding and that any cut is a constitutional impossibility representing some kind of free speech violation. But as Vyskocil soberly pointed out in her second appeal to the fact that elections have consequences, the cuts are often made simply because the president — and the people who elected him — have priorities that differ from those of the unions and universities.

It has long been clear that the leftist activists who succeeded in getting “Juneteenth” added as a federal holiday meant to strip Independence Day of some of its moral and historical significance. The timing of Juneteenth, only a fortnight and change before the Fourth of July, is intended to usurp some of the Fourth’s glory. At the same time, the theme of the new holiday is designed to suggest that slavery, rather than liberty, is the defining feature of our founding. It’s an attempt to make 1776 vie with 1619, with the abolition of slavery being portrayed as our real moment of independence, in place of the moment when we actually proclaimed our independence and declared that “all men are created equal.” //

Per the Office of Personnel Management, the official name of the holiday to be observed on June 19 is “Juneteenth National Independence Day.” The official name of the holiday to follow 15 days later is “Independence Day.” It could hardly be clearer that Juneteenth was intended to compete with, and partially marginalize, the Fourth of July.

America does not need, should not have, and does not legitimately have, two Independence Days. Designating Juneteenth as “National Independence Day” intrudes upon our actual Independence Day. It suggests that Americans’ freedom doesn’t really trace to the Declaration of Independence but rather to the Emancipation Proclamation — or, more exactly, to awareness of that proclamation (more than two years after it was issued). It also suggests that our actual Independence Day doesn’t apply to all Americans. //

PBS writes, “Juneteenth commemorates when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free.” This, however, is false. After Juneteenth, which marks the moment when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in June 1865 and announced that all slaves in Texas were free, people were still held in slavery in Delaware and Kentucky, border states unaffected by the Emancipation Proclamation. //

Only Congress and the states, through the passage of a constitutional amendment, had the power to end slavery on a national basis.

This fact, and the fact that slavery remained in existence in Delaware and Kentucky after Juneteenth, likely would have been raised in the Senate had it bothered to engage in a genuine debate over whether Juneteenth should be a federal holiday. Instead, that body, which once prided itself on its vigorous deliberations, passed the Juneteenth bill under a unanimous consent agreement in the wake of the George Floyd riots, an act of true irresponsibility and political cowardice.

Since Juneteenth marked the end of slavery in Texas, rather than the end of slavery in the U.S., it a much more sensible holiday for Texas than for the U.S. as a whole.

On a national basis, a date truly worth commemorating would be December 6, the day on which the 13th Amendment was ratified, marking our constitutional triumph over an inherited evil that clashed with our founding principles. On that day in 1865, Americans successfully amended their Constitution to read, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” That is a day, and those are words, worth celebrating.

Congress should make December 6 a federal holiday to celebrate America’s abolition of slavery, while eliminating Juneteenth as a federal holiday and thereby confirming that we have but one Independence Day.

President Trump’s vision for the Middle East is bold: bring Gulf states into the U.S. ecosystem through trade, investments, and partnerships; align Arab nations with Israel; isolate Iran, eliminating its nuclear enrichment capability; shift attention to countering China. He believes Qatar, lured by economic deals, will join the Abraham Accords and normalize ties with Israel — a grand coalition with the capitalist West.

It’s audacious. But is it realistic?

For more than 25 years, Qatar — a tiny Gulf emirate with roughly 300,000 citizens and 12 percent of the world’s natural gas — has used its obscene wealth as a geopolitical weapon to buy global power. The goal? Control the narrative, shape Western discourse, and whitewash its radical Islamist agenda behind a diplomatic mask.

Qatar’s American and Global Influence
This isn’t conjecture. It’s a sophisticated, calculated, and well-funded campaign. As The Free Press exposed in “How Qatar Bought America,” the influence Qatar gained in the U.S. has no modern parallel. Doha, Qatar’s capital, has spent nearly $100 billion propagandizing U.S. institutions — Congress, universities, media organizations, think tanks, and corporations. It has transformed Middle East studies programs into Muslim Brotherhood indoctrination mills, radicalizing students against America, Israel, and Jews. //

Qatar is hardly moderate. It is ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood — a transnational Islamist movement bent on establishing Muslim world dominance via a global caliphate under Sharia law. Its strategy is simple: ignite chaos, then offer to fix it — for a price. It wants to appear indispensable to all, but accountable to none. //

The Saudis, for all their flaws, have cracked down on the Brotherhood, opened to Israel, and eased some of their hardline policies. Qatar has done none of that.

In 2017, President Trump noted that the nation of Qatar “has been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” //

American presidents must stop mistaking money for loyalty or diplomacy for morality. Hosting U.S. troops doesn’t grant absolution. Economic deals don’t erase terror ties.

If Trump’s visit becomes just a PR win for Doha, the message is damaging: buy enough jets, host enough troops, grease enough palms, and anything is forgiven.

Qatar is not a confused ally. It is a highly sophisticated player with a clear, dangerous agenda. That agenda is not ours.

President Trump has the leverage. He must use it — not to flatter, but to demand accountability. Insist on transparency. Force real change.

If he doesn’t, Qatar’s friendship will remain exactly what it has always been: a polished performance masking something far darker.

Dieter Schultz NtxTwenty6
9 minutes ago

There is little reason to accept the increased risk of a non stealth (non bomber), turbo prop aircraft like a C-130.

As someone has pointed out here, as long as we have undisputed, and unchallenged, control of the Iranian skies it doesn't matter whether we use a B-2 stealth aircraft or a C-130.

It may be more esthetically pleasing to use a B-2 but using a C-130 has one thing that using the B-2 can never have... the deniability that the US conducted the mission.

The implication isn't exactly subtle. Iran is now claiming it has a nuclear weapon to launch at Israel or U.S. positions in the Middle East. What that actually amounts to is a pretty big question, and there are two ways to look at this.

Firstly, I think you have to take this seriously. When a nation led by Islamist lunatics says they are going to launch a nuke, that's not something you can just write off as rhetoric. No doubt, Israeli and American forces are on high alert, and all possible countermeasures are ready to be used.

This does seem to put to bed the idea claimed by isolationists that the entire case against Iran is manufactured and that they had no intention of developing a nuclear weapon. As the vice president, who is the furthest thing from a warhawk, explained on Tuesday, the intelligence they've seen is clear, and even if it weren't, there is no other reasonable explanation for the levels of enrichment Iran has sought and achieved. //

What we do know is that given this latest threat, there's no way this war can end with a negotiated settlement that allows Iran to keep its nuclear program. That has to be completely off the table at this point, and all indications from President Donald Trump are that it is. The job must be finished, and Iran's nuclear threat taken off the board for good. //

Ashram, the Black Knight
3 hours ago edited
Gee, didn't Iran claim that their interests in nuclear research didn't include the development of a weapon because it was against their religion?

Now they are basically admitting that was a lie.

How surprising.

The poll, which was prepared by GrayHouse for the Senate Republican Committee, showed MAGA far from being fractured, with a staggering 80 percent of Trump voters voicing their support for the U.S. providing Israel with offensive weapons in its efforts to destroy Iran's military and nuclear capabilities.

That's not all. Poll results show that 83 percent of Trump voters support the strikes on Iran's nuclear program, with 72 percent supporting the U.S. taking "direct military action" to prevent Tehran from developing its nuclear capabilities. //

Perhaps the most telling bit of information to emerge from this new poll is how MAGA feels about relying on diplomatic efforts to resolve the escalating conflict. In short, they're against it, with 73 percent stating they don't trust Tehran to keep their end of any diplomatic deal. This is the number that shatters the narrative that one side of MAGA supports diplomacy while the other side is in favor of military action. MAGA, it seems, is united in its determination that ensure that Iran does not develop and use nukes, and they're behind the president taking all necessary action to stop them. The schism that some X users love to talk about simply doesn't exist.

CBP
@CBP
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Thanks to the tireless efforts and diligent work of the men and women of CBP and the leadership of @POTUS and @Sec_Noem, USBP released 0 (not a single one) illegal aliens into our country in May, down from more than 62,000 in May of last year.

This administration has seen the Show more
Last edited
1:56 PM · Jun 17, 2025

FBI Los Angeles

@FBILosAngeles
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United States Attorney Bill Essayli, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis, and IRS Special Agent in Charge Tyler Hatcher warn would-be offenders of the consequences of aiding and abetting acts of violence during civil unrest. @USAO_LosAngeles, @IRSCI_LA

3:45 PM · Jun 17, 2025

his text is a brief description of the features that are present in the Bash shell (version 5.2, 19 September 2022). The Bash home page is http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/.

This is Edition 5.2, last updated 19 September 2022, of The GNU Bash Reference Manual, for Bash, Version 5.2.

Bash contains features that appear in other popular shells, and some features that only appear in Bash. Some of the shells that Bash has borrowed concepts from are the Bourne Shell (sh), the Korn Shell (ksh), and the C-shell (csh and its successor, tcsh). The following menu breaks the features up into categories, noting which features were inspired by other shells and which are specific to Bash.

This manual is meant as a brief introduction to features found in Bash. The Bash manual page should be used as the definitive reference on shell behavior.

My WebGUI hostsallow contained ONLY external IP addresses and not my local lan addres.

Solved it by editing (blanking) _hostsallowed variable in /etc/rc.d/lighttpd and restarting lighttppd.

PS: The script /etc/rc.d/lighttpd generates the config /var/etc/lighttpd; editing this config file directly does not work.

///

Temporary fix to regain access to WebGUI

Currently we can have a home or small office NAS server from manufacturers such as QNAP, Synology or ASUSTOR among other manufacturers. However, you can also mount a NAS with the hardware you want, you will only have to install an operating system oriented to a NAS server, such as XigmaNAS. This operating system is one of the best we can find to use as a NAS server, it comes with a large number of services already installed, and it will even allow us to install any software that is compatible with FreeBSD. Do you want to know everything about this NAS-oriented operating system and how to configure it from scratch?

When using thermocouple sensors, the thermocouple wire used to carry the signal is just as important as the thermocouple sensor itself. Thermocouple wire is made from the same allow materials as the thermocouple sensor, and its primary role is to extend the thermocouple circuit from sensing junction (“hot junction”) to the measurement instrument (“cold junction”) without introducing additional errors.

Using thermocouple-grade wire or extension-grade wire helps ensure maximum temperature measurement accuracy - minimizing errors related to alloy composition or calibration mismatch.

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. It is a life of faith, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us “go.” The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success.

Just last week, USAID officials and three company executives pleaded guilty in a massive fraud and bribery scheme involving at least 14 contracts totaling over $550 million

The trial showed that USAID contracting officer Roderick Watson took bribes and was showered with lavish gifts—including cash, laptops, thousands of dollars in tickets to a suite at an NBA game, a country club wedding, downpayments on two residential mortgages, cell phones, and even jobs for his relatives.

In exchange for these bribe payments, Watson influenced the award of over $550 million in contracts by manipulating the procurement process at USAID. He now faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
https://dallasexpress.com/crime/usaid-official-three-executives-plead-guilty-in-550m-bribery-scheme/ //

The solution is twofold.

The first part is to root out and eliminate these programs, which are currently managed by unelected bureaucrats and shouldn’t exist in the first place. //

The only way to do this is to elect representatives who agree with these principles, and then hold them accountable to ensure they do what we’ve elected them to do.

The second part is to enforce radical transparency and accountability in all future government activity. This part is much more difficult.

It starts with only allowing programs to be created in public through the official legislative process. No more administrative decree. If an elected official isn’t willing to go to the public and say, “Here’s what I want to create, here’s why, and here’s how it will work,” then it shouldn’t be allowed to exist. But it’s not just elected officials who play a role here—as citizens, we have a duty to make our voices heard during that process and then look at the results of the programs that our tax dollars, whether federal or local, are spent on and determine if they’ve been effective. //

ibt
an hour ago
Every grant of funds to an NGO should have to be signed for by a Representative or Senator. Then, that person should be held accountable for any fraud with those funds. After all, it is the JOB of the Representatives and Senators to responsibly spend taxpayer money. Oh, if the Representative or Senator loses their election in November, the funds should be frozen until another one signs for it. "Please explain to this court why you allowed the NGO to steal this money."

Likely most alarming to critics, the desired reforms emphasized tossing out the standards that the NRC currently uses that "posit there is no safe threshold of radiation exposure, and that harm is directly proportional to the amount of exposure."

Until Trump started meddling, the NRC established those guidelines after agreeing with studies examining "cancer cases among 86,600 survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II," Science reported. Those studies concluded that "the incidence of cancer in the survivors rose linearly—in a straight line—with the radiation dose." By rejecting that evidence, Trump could be slowly creeping up the radiation dose and leading Americans to blindly take greater risks.

But according to Trump, by adopting those current standards, the NRC is supposedly bogging down the nuclear industry by trying to "insulate Americans from the most remote risks without appropriate regard for the severe domestic and geopolitical costs of such risk aversion." Instead, the US should prioritize solving the riddle of what might be safe radiation levels, Trump suggests, while restoring US dominance in the nuclear industry, which Trump views as vital to national security and economic growth.

Although Trump claimed the NRC's current standards were "irrational" and "lack scientific basis," Science reported that the so-called "linear no-threshold (LNT) model of ionizing radiation" that Trump is criticizing "is widely accepted in the scientific community and informs almost all regulation of the US nuclear industry."

For experts in estate planning, the question may start to arise as more AI ghosts pop up. But for now, writing "no AI resurrections" into a will remains a complicated process, experts suggest, and such requests may not be honored by all unless laws are changed to reinforce a culture of respecting the wishes of people who feel uncomfortable with the idea of haunting their favorite people through AI simulations.

For the first time since launching in 2009, WhatsApp will now show users advertisements. The ads are “rolling out gradually,” the company said.

For now, the ads will only appear on WhatsApp's Updates tab, where users can update their status and access channels or groups targeting specific interests they may want to follow. In its announcement of the ads, parent company Meta claimed that placing ads under Updates means that the ads won’t “interrupt personal chats.”

Meta said that 1.5 billion people use the Updates tab daily. However, if you exclusively use WhatsApp for direct messages and personal group chats, you could avoid ever seeing ads.

Rare RCA control panel from 1966 may be the only surviving example of its kind.

a certain kind of chrysanthemum flower contains toxins that kill insects and deter mice, all while making your home look inviting and pretty.

Chrysanthemum cinerariifolium, also classified in the Tanacetum and Pyrethum genera, is in the aster family and is sometimes called the "painted daisy." It's mildly toxic to people and mammals, so you might not want to plant it where your pets can reach it. However, you'll want to plant it around your home where you suspect mice are congregating. They'll move out of there fast!

Mice will stay away from chrysanthemums, but you can use their disdain for them strategically to either get rid of mice or prevent them altogether.