Disappointment grows with Delcy in Venezuela

• 106 demonstrations were recently organized across Greece against the genocide of Palestinians and growing Israeli takeover of the Greek economy, the military, and thousands of acres of prime real estate. Above a photo from the protest at the utmost southern tiny island of Gavdos. 
• Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is increasingly involved in key decision making in Iran, growing into the position of his martyred father. He has consolidated his authority by meeting with various high-ranking officials in recent days, including President Pezeshkian and others that have not been disclosed. His physical state has been described as ‘excellent’ (despite western media rumors) and those who have met him say he is involved, diligent, and assertive when necessary. 

• President Trump: ‘The Iranians tried to assassinate me, so I was transported in a food truck’. Sovereignista says this needs a rewrite: President Trump: 'The Israelis told us of a planned assassination attempt on my life by Iran, and so I was hidden in a food truck and taken off to another airplane, while all of my press and other leaders had to take the airplane that was supposedly threatened.' [This was likely another US-Israel psyop designed to ramp-up the fear and hatred of Iran. And also maybe to keep the USS Abe Lincoln aircraft carrier mutiny off the front pages. But it didn't work.]

• Trump desperate to remain “in control”, was spotted casually teeing off in Bedminster, New Jersey with a full-on AN/TWQ-1 Avenger mobile anti-air system armed with Stinger missiles escorting him around the golf course. For weeks, Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory in the Iran war should Tehran fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, even floating the idea privately to senior aides that he’s willing to walk away without a nuclear deal. But that scaled-back objective became more difficult when Iran insisted on its highest price yet for permitting the free flow of traffic in the waterway, seeking billions of dollars in US payments, the removal of American troops from the region and an end of the US naval blockade, among other things.  

• Taybeh, close to Ramallah, has been declared a “closed military zone” by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) after months of repeated attacks by Israeli settlers. 

• Center for Constitutional Rights: The University of Minnesota has paid Israeli-American scholar Raz Segal $250,000 as compensation for rescinding its job offer to head the school’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in 2024. Internal documents confirm that the University’s revocation was based on Dr. Segal’s First Amendment-protected speech under pressure from donors who objected to his criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza. “The attack against me by these donors presented a world turned upside down: my commitment, as a Jewish scholar of the Holocaust and the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors, to stopping a livestreamed genocide in front of our eyes posed, in their minds, a threat to Jews,” said Prof. Segal.

• Kovel, Volyn region of Ukraine: The TCC body snatchers found fresh meat to die for Zelensky. The kid tried to stop his father's death sentence by throwing a toy at the meat hunters, but alas to no avail. 

• China has signaled it will retaliate if the US imposes secondary tariffs over purchases of Russian oil. Liu Chang, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said passage of the US “hell sanctions” bill would backfire on Washington itself. “The use of double standards, as well as coercive and pressure tactics, will ultimately backfire on those who employ them,” Liu Chang stated.

• Defend Democracy Press: Cuba has long struggled under the economic restrictions imposed by the US. But experts say the Trump administration has heightened those pressures, pushing Cuba’s healthcare system to the brink. “Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines,” United Nations human rights commissioner Volker Turk said last month as he called for sanctions relief. “This is unacceptable.” For more than 60 years, Cuba has operated under a comprehensive US trade embargo, the longest in modern history. Rooted in Cold War political rivalries, the embargo has hindered Cuba from accessing medicines and equipment available to much of the world. Cuba is banned, for example, from buying advanced US-made pharmaceuticals and technology in which more than 10 percent of the components originate in the US. According to Cuban officials, European medical suppliers frequently refuse to trade with the island out of fear of US sanctions. 

• In an arrangement described to TIME by three senior US and Venezuelan officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio supervises the framework governing Venezuela’s oil revenues and public finances, effectively administering a joint fund that gives Washington influence over everything from how the country’s export earnings are allocated to the reopening of the energy sector to preferential treatment for American companies. Rubio and Delcy Rodríguez, the acting president of Venezuela, are in near daily contact through phone calls and WhatsApp messages, officials say. Rodríguez consults him on domestic appointments, including her selection of a Defense Minister, according to three officials familiar with the arrangement. “Basically, you have what they call the Rodrígato operating,” says James Story, a former US ambassador to Venezuela under Presidents Trump and Biden, describing an arrangement in which Rodríguez’s government remains in power while carrying out Washington’s strategic priorities. “They are doing everything that we ask them to do.” Israel and Venezuela have announced that they had renewed consular relations 17 years after Caracas severed diplomatic ties with Israel when Tel Aviv invaded besieged Gaza in 2008-2009. 

• A newly updated 2026 report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology exposes that US immigration authorities are abusing immigration powers to launch a nationwide mass DNA surveillance program, violating  constitutional rules and global human rights of migrants, vulnerable groups and even American citizens. The research builds on the institution’s 2024 two-year probe and dismantles the federal government’s long deceptive excuse for mass DNA collection. For years, DHS, ICE and CBP claimed mandatory DNA sampling only served migrant identity verification for immigration management, citing the limited Maryland v. King Supreme Court ruling. However, an internal 2025 ICE legal email confirmed the real core goal: building a national criminal DNA database to solve general crimes, not handle immigration cases. This revelation invalidates the government’s legal defense. The Fourth Amendment bans warrantless, groundless bodily searches solely to stockpile biometrics for future investigations, yet DHS’s mass sampling directly violates this core constitutional protection of bodily privacy.                                    

• Golden Dome’s Space-Based Interceptor program is real and already under contract. On April 24, 2026, Space Systems Command said it had awarded 'agreements' to 12 companies, with a potential combined value of up to $3.2 billion. The objective is a proliferated low-Earth-orbit constellation capable of boost, midcourse, and glide-phase engagements, with an initial capability demonstration targeted for 2028.  Reuters also reported that the 12 firms include SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Anduril. The Pentagon aims to initiate tests by late 2026 for its "Golden Dome" space-based missile defense program, featuring flight demonstrations in 2027 and a final intercept test in 2029.  Despite the aggressive timeline, the program faces significant skepticism regarding high costs and potential arms race risks, according to Bloomberg. "Democratic lawmakers including Senator Ed Markey and Representative John Garamendi have also raised concerns that placing weapons in orbit could fuel an arms race with China and Russia." 

• The Islander: A German journalist who asked how Europe can “help kill more Russians” is the grandson of a senior Wehrmacht officer. Michael Martens of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung put the question to Zelensky in Belgrade: 'How can Europe help kill more Russians?' The same Martens has written openly about his grandfather, Hans-Hermann Martens, a prosecutor and senior officer who served under Hitler's Wehrmacht High Command. A group of Germans have now launched a petition demanding he be dismissed from his post at the newspaper. It has already collected thousands of signatures. The irony of these people claiming there is no Nazi problem in Ukraine...The bloodline is not an accident of history but a continuity.
• They look like ordinary patrol gloves, which is what makes them effective. An officer wearing them can grab your arm and you would notice nothing unusual -- until he presses a switch and sends a jolt of electricity into your body. The manufacturer calls the sensation a "pain stimulus," and says it "typically helps an officer gain compliance within seconds." ICE wants thousands of them. Speaking of fascism....