PAY FOR SLAY CONTINUES

Report unmasks PA’s methods to continue terror stipends

Former terrorist prisoners were added to PA pension rolls or found jobs with P.A. security forces or civil service, according to Palestinian Media Watch.

 

By David Isaac  

 

Israel Today

Feb 9, 2026

 

 

 

The Palestinian Authority has been engaged in a years-long deception, pretending to halt its pay-for-slay program by various means in order to hoodwink international donors, according to a report released by a Jerusalem-based watchdog group on Sunday.

The Palestinian Media Watch report found that the PA’s “Martyr’s Fund,” the program which provides monthly stipends for those imprisoned in Israel for attacks against Israelis, is still going strong.

The Palestinian Authority announced last year that it had stopped pay-for-slay, Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS, explaining the reason PMW released the report.

“In fact, the terrorists who were in prison, of which there are a few thousand, actually did receive lower [pay-for-slay] payments in the last few months. That’s why we had to release this report, to show the hidden salaries,” he said.

According to PMW, the PA paid 23,500 terrorists a total of about $315 million in 2025.

The money is delivered through two programs, according to PMW.

The first adds released terrorist prisoners to the pension rolls, or finds them jobs with the PA security forces and civil service. There are more than 10,000 terrorists receiving terror stipends this way. They accounted for more than $230 million in PA funds last year.

The second program is for terrorists living outside PA-controlled territories, what the PA calls the Palestinian “diaspora.” There are 13,500 recipients in this program, who receive $86 million annually, according to PMW.

“They’re all still getting their money and it’s hidden from international scrutiny. The international community isn’t checking what the PLO is disseminating in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The international community also isn’t looking into who’s getting salaries in the civil service and who’s on pension, and that’s where the PA is hiding all of its people on pay-for-slay,” said Marcus.

In February 2025, to divert public scrutiny, PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the Palestinian Authority would no longer make payments through its Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs. Payments would instead go through a new body, the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI), under the Ministry of Social Development.

The Palestinian Authority claimed PNEEI ended pay-for-slay because Palestinian prisoners would not receive money for their violent acts but instead based on their socioeconomic status.

Although PMW showed at the time that this was a transparent attempt to fool Western donors, some Western journalists accepted the PA’s claim that it had reformed.

PMW’s report threw doubt on whether the PNEEI is even operating. According to a Sept. 20, 2025 Telegram messaging app post by a released terrorist, when he asked whether a released prisoner with military rank in the PA forces still needed to register with PNEEI, he was told it didn’t exist.

“I called the Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners about this … they told me that the situation regarding released prisoners has returned to how it was before. According to the old system, that is. What is called the PNEEI is cancelled. That’s what they told me. I contacted them a little while ago,” he said.

The number of pay-for-slay recipients will increase to about 30,000 this year as 6,000 more individuals have been added as “pensioners,” according to PMW.

“Just this past week, we found conversations between recipients of pay-for-slay. They were discussing the fact that the PA told them that there are 6,000 people who were moved from public pay-for-slay to pensions and PA jobs. Those in the group were a bit frustrated that it wasn’t any of them,” said Marcus.

The PMW report offered insight into the development of the PA’s deception. Some PA moves were a direct result of PMW investigations. In 2020, a PMW expose revealed that 7,000 to 8,000 unemployed former terrorist prisoners were receiving pay-for-slay salaries.

“At the end of 2020, we saw an interview on Palestinian Authority TV with Minister of Prisoners Issa Karake,” said Marcus. “He talked about the tremendous expense that the Palestinian Authority had paying salaries for those 7,000 to 8,000 released prisoners. We published that immediately. Then the United States and Europe said, ‘What’s going on? Why are you paying all these released prisoners?’”

To give the payments a veneer of legitimacy, Abbas issued a Presidential Order in Feb. 2021 that security and civil service jobs be found for all released prisoners who had been imprisoned for at least five years.

A month after Abbas’s order, the Palestinian Authority created a 64-person committee that worked “even on vacation days,” according to Sada News, a Palestinian news agency, to find positions for the released terrorists so that the visible pay-for-slay budget would be reduced.

When the PA realized it would be impossible to find positions for all the terrorists, it hit on another idea—to add them to the pension rolls, according to PMW.

As PA law only provided for PA government pensions to go to PA and PLO employees, Abbas decreed that released terrorist prisoners would be eligible as well, their time in prison to be treated as civil service employment.

First, the decree applied to those 60 or older. But that left many thousands under age 60 without jobs and pensions, so two months later Abbas lowered the pension age for released terrorists to 50.

By Oct. 2021, the Palestinian Authority said it had successfully disguised all 7,000 to 8,000 released terrorists who were receiving salaries from the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs.

“The PA’s greatest depravity is not the hundreds of millions of dollars it spends rewarding terrorists through its pay-for-slay programs. The PA’s policy of rewarding terror is merely a symptom, however repugnant, of its deep and fundamental turpitude—its portrayal of terrorism and the killing of Jews as the highest acts, done in the name of Palestinians and Allah,” said PMW.

“The PA elevates murderers of Israelis to the apex of Palestinian society, presenting them as the ultimate Palestinian heroes, and thus honors and rewards them,” it said, noting Abbas’s remarks from February 2021 expressing this twisted idea: “Prisoners and Martyrs … are more precious than all of us.”

HAMAS'S MOUTHPIECE AT THE UN

Laughing at Francesca Albanese

When a United Nations official becomes a megaphone for Hamas, international law and morality are turned upside down. 

 

By Fiamma Nirenstein 

 

JNS

Feb 9, 2026

 

 

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese has been sanctioned by the Trump administration.

 

Humanity, we are told, now has a “common enemy.” That enemy, according to Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, is Israel—the Jewish state itself.

Albanese delivered this revelation Saturday night via video link at an Al Jazeera forum in Qatar, during a panel titled “The Palestinian Cause in a World Moving Toward Multipolarity.” She appeared on the same conference program as Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. This setting alone should have disqualified any claim to neutrality or moral authority.

Israel, Albanese explained, is the force destroying the world, peace and the lives of all humanity. It is the “common enemy” against which the global community must now unite. A familiar accusation, recycled endlessly through history, merely stripped of its older theological language and repackaged in the jargon of international law.

This is not an analysis; it is a caricature. Israel is a country of roughly 10 million people—seven million of them Jews—so small it barely fits its name on a map. It is surrounded by states that have spent decades and billions of dollars attempting to erase it.

Those states have failed to produce a fraction of Israel’s scientific, agricultural, technological and democratic achievements. To Albanese, this is proof not of vitality or resilience, but of diabolical intent.

She invokes, approvingly, the language of Iran’s supreme leader, who has openly called Israel a “cancer” that must be removed, while financing Hamas and Hezbollah, building nuclear weapons and firing missiles at Israeli cities. Iran, she suggests, should not distract us with its own crimes—tens of thousands of Iranian citizens killed for demanding freedom. No, the Jews are worse. They are the universal enemy.

This is not accidental rhetoric. It is ideological training. Albanese presents herself as the authoritative voice of truth, speaking “in the name of the United Nations,” urging audiences to expel Jews—from schools, workplaces, social life and, ultimately, from Israel itself. The familiar progression is there for anyone willing to see it.

Israel’s repeated offers to share the land are dismissed as propaganda. The Oslo Accords, the withdrawal from Gaza, the steady growth of the Palestinian population—none of this matters. Israel’s real crime, in Albanese’s telling, is that it is still alive.

Her appearance in Doha was particularly revealing. Sharing a platform with Hamas’s leader and Iran’s foreign minister, she condemned countries that maintain relations with Israel or engage in arms trade with it, accusing the West of amplifying a “genocidal” narrative. Yet she insisted that this moment also presents an “opportunity,” because, she claimed, international law has been “stabbed in the heart.”

What Albanese calls the last “peaceful toolbox” for freedom is, in practice, the weaponization of international law against the Jewish state. It is law drained of evidence, context and moral clarity, deployed selectively to justify terror and absolve those who celebrate it.

No, Francesca Albanese. The common enemy of the West—and of all those who genuinely seek peace—is not Israel. It is those who abuse international law to launder propaganda for Hamas, who distort the Holocaust, who deny documented atrocities, and who sit comfortably alongside jihadist leaders and Iranian officials while pretending to speak for human rights.

History has seen this story before. What is new is not the accusation, but the brazenness with which it is now delivered—under a U.N. title, on a Qatari stage, to applause. This is what should convince us to continue fighting until we destroy our enemies.

HE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN HIRED IN THE FIRST PLACE

Lecturer no longer teaching at Texas State University after expletive-filled message goes public

The Facebook message derided its recipient as a “leftist” and “whore” whom he hoped would be deported. The message gained widespread attention when it was shared online. 

 

 

by Jessica Priest

 

The Texas Tribune

Feb 5, 2026

 

 

 

A Texas State University lecturer is no longer teaching at the university after a doctor publicly shared an expletive-filled Facebook message in which an account with his name and picture told her he hoped she would be deported.

The doctor said she received the message via Facebook Messenger and posted screenshots publicly earlier this week, drawing widespread attention online. Texas State University confirmed on Thursday that the lecturer, Bret Bryon, is no longer teaching at the university as of Wednesday, but declined to say whether his departure was related, stating it does not discuss personnel matters.

Dr. Dhivya Srinivasa, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and the CEO and founder of the Institute for Advanced Breast Reconstruction, first shared the screenshots Tuesday evening on Facebook and reposted them Wednesday, tagging Texas State University. The university’s official account replied in the comments that it was “looking into the matter” and would “take appropriate action based on findings.”

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Srinivasa said she has posted political commentary and lifestyle and health matters on social media but had not previously interacted with Bryon. She said the fact that it came from an account with a name and photo, rather than an anonymous profile, prompted her to look up information about him and share the message.

She said she was satisfied with Texas State’s response to the message, which derided her as a “leftist” and a “whore” and included other expletives and pejoratives. She sees the message as part of a broader climate in which social media and political rhetoric have emboldened people to make comments they might not otherwise say.

“This guy was an educator, and it shouldn’t come as a shock that people like this work among us and teach the next generation,” she said. “We should be holding people accountable.”

Bryon did not respond to a request for comment.

Bryon was listed on Texas State University’s website until Thursday as a lecturer and program faculty member in the Department of Organization, Workforce and Leadership Studies in the College of Applied Arts. It’s not clear how long he worked there.

Bryon also holds a Texas educator certificate in mathematics, physical science and engineering for grades 6-12, according to state records.

Texas State has taken a more public approach in at least one past case involving faculty speech made outside the classroom. In September, Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse announced the firing of history professor Thomas Alter for remarks he made at an off-campus socialist conference. The remarks were clipped and circulated on social media, and Alter sued the university, alleging his First Amendment rights were violated.

MAMDANI WANTS MAN WHO CHARGED AT POLICE WITH LARGE KITCHEN KNIFE TO RECEIVE MENTAL TREATMENT AND NOT BE PROSECUTED

Dramatic video shows moment NYPD shoots knife-wielding man — but Mamdani wants to send social workers

By Joe Marino and Amanda Woods

 

New York Post

Feb 4, 2026

 

 

Jabez Chakraborty, 22, advanced toward responding officers with a knife, according to the NYPD bodycam footage. 

 

Heart-pounding bodycam footage shows the moment an NYPD officer shot and wounded a mentally ill 22-year-old man who lunged at the cop with a knife inside a Queens home last week.

The Jan. 26 police shooting of schizophrenic man Jabez Chakraborty has prompted backlash from the family, and fueled a renewed push from Mayor Mamdani for his proposed Department of Community Safety to deal with mental health crises.

The clip, released by the NYPD on Tuesday, begins with a 911 call from a female relative who requested “involuntary transportation” for Chakraborty, who she said had been hurling glass against the wall. 

The family member initially asked for only EMS — not police — referring to a previous time that officers responded to a call involving Chakraborty, who officials described as having a “history of mental issues.” 

“Last time when something like this happened, we called for the cops and they said we should have called for an ambulance instead,” the relative said. 

But the operator replied that “normally both parties” – meaning the NYPD and FDNY – respond to such cases.

The footage then moves to the moment two officers – including Tyree White – arrived at the doorstep on Parsons Boulevard near 85th Avenue in Briarwood and knocked, before stepping back. 

 

A female relative tried to hold the blade-wielding Chakraborty back, the video shows. 

 

“Ever since I’ve been watching videos, I don’t stand by the door no more,” White can be heard saying. 

“I know, you just never know, right?” the second officer replied.

A woman answered the door and the uniformed cops followed her into the living room – only for Chakraborty to immediately grab a knife from the kitchen and brandish it as he stepped toward White. 

A female relative stood in front of him and tried to block him with her arm, but he continued to step forward, blade in hand. 

“Put the knife down! Drop the knife!” White could be heard yelling multiple times. 

 

“Put the knife down! Drop the knife!” White could be heard yelling multiple times. 

 

White walked into the vestibule and closed a door to keep Chakraborty from advancing on him, the clip shows.

But Chakraborty pushed his way through the door and again stepped toward White, knife in hand, according to the footage. 

That’s when White opened fire, hitting Chakraborty four times, as family members yelled and cried. 

Chakraborty was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition. 

 

Chakraborty, 22 (pictured), has a “history of mental issues,” officials have said. 

 

Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said in a statement that the officers involved “did their job professionally and with restraint under terrible circumstances.”

“The video makes it clear that these police officers walked into an unpredictable, fast-moving and dangerous situation,” the union head said. “There was no time or space for them to de-escalate the situation before they were forced to act.”

But the wounded man’s family slammed cops’ response, claiming in a Wednesday statement that officers “caused the situation to escalate quickly and unnecessarily.”

“Rather than de-escalate the situation, the officer instead further escalated by drawing his gun and yelling orders at Jabez.” 

 

The shooting has fueled a renewed push from Mayor Zohran Mamdani for his proposed Department of Community Safety to deal with mental health crises.  

“Within a minute of NYPD’s arrival, Jabez was shot multiple times and almost killed, while he was calmly eating food just minutes earlier,” the family said. “This is why officers should not be responding to medical support calls.” 

The family also called on the Queens DA’s office to “drop the prosecution against our son.”

“Given our experience, and that of many other families, we call on the Mayor for systems where we can call for responders who are not police,” the statement said. “We call for changes where the needs of families in the aftermath of such incidents are centered rather than further traumatized over and over.”

In response, an NYPD spokesperson said Wednesday that “the 911 caller requested an involuntary transport. EMS cannot transfer someone involuntarily and NYPD must be present.”

Mamdani on Tuesday said he didn’t believe Chakraborty should face criminal charges, telling reporters, “in viewing [police body-cam] footage, it is clear to me that what Jabez needs is mental health treatment, not criminal prosecution from a district attorney.”

He argued that Chakraborty’s shooting highlighted the urgent need for a different mental health response system.

“That is why I proposed creating a Department of Community Safety to build a mental health system rooted in prevention, and sustained care, and a real crisis response, so officers no longer have to handle these situations alone,” he said at an unrelated press conference.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Had a social worker responded to this call instead of a cop, he would have turned around and left or he would have been stabbed. In either case, the cops would have been summoned and shot Chakraborty if he charged at them with the knife.  

WELFARE FRAUD: IT'S THE POOR THAT ARE GETTING CHEATED

How $30BILLION of taxpayers' money put aside for welfare pot became a 'slush fund' for states with lack of oversight: 'Fraud by design'

 

By James Gordon 

 

Daily Mail

Feb 8, 2026

 

 

President Donald Trump has intensified scrutiny of federal welfare spending, with his administration targeting billions in assistance funds over concerns about fraud and misuse

 

More than $30 billion in taxpayer-funded welfare money intended to help America's poorest families has instead beeen used as a 'slush fund' - diverted into programs ranging from college scholarships to government budget backfills.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, known as TANF, was created nearly three decades ago to provide direct financial support and services to struggling families. 

Today, the program distributes about $16.5 billion annually in federal funds, supplemented by roughly $15 billion in state contributions.

But federal auditors and analysts say the program's structure, which gives states broad control over spending with limited reporting requirements, has made it difficult to track how billions of dollars are ultimately used.

States often use TANF money to finance programs with only indirect connections to helping poor families, said Hayden Dublois of the Foundation for Government Accountability. He described the system's lack of oversight as 'fraud by design.'

'There are very little, if any, safeguards,' Dublois told the Wall Street Journal. 

He estimates that roughly one in five TANF dollars, or about $6 billion each year, is misspent.

 

Former President Bill Clinton is seen signing a controversial welfare reform bill in White House Rose Garden in 1996. At the time he spoke of 'ending welfare as we know it'

 

Despite the program's size, fewer families now receive direct cash assistance than in previous decades.

Federal data shows that about 849,000 families received monthly TANF payments in fiscal year 2025, down from approximately 1.9 million families in 2010.

Instead, states have increasingly directed funds to contractors, nonprofits and other government programs.

Nick Gwyn, a policy expert with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the shift reflects a broader transformation in how the program operates.

'The program has drifted away from the core purpose of supporting families with very little income,' Gwyn told the WSJ.

Audits conducted in multiple states have uncovered persistent problems with oversight and financial reporting.

In Louisiana, auditors found in 2024 that state officials failed to verify required work participation hours tied to TANF eligibility - the 13th straight year auditors flagged the same issue. 

The audit also found gaps in documentation showing how TANF funds were distributed to contractors.

 

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has faced scrutiny amid major fraud investigations involving federally funded child care and nutrition programs in his state

Americans line up for food assistance, as critics warn billions in welfare funds intended to help vulnerable families may be diverted to programs with limited direct benefit to those in need

 

Louisiana officials said they agreed with the findings and would improve oversight.

In Connecticut, auditors reported that the state did not adequately review financial reports from more than 130 subcontractors receiving $53.6 million in TANF funds, making it difficult to confirm whether the money was spent on approved purposes.

Connecticut officials said they would strengthen compliance procedures.

Auditors also identified oversight problems in Florida, underscoring how weaknesses in TANF spending controls extended across states regardless of political leadership.

In Oklahoma, state auditor Cindy Byrd said her office has similarly found weak documentation tracking TANF expenditures.

State and federal records show TANF money has been used for a wide range of programs critics say fall outside the program's intended mission.

These include college scholarship programs benefiting students from middle-income families, payments to antiabortion pregnancy centers, and child welfare programs already supported by other federal funding sources.

In Michigan, more than $750 million in TANF funds were directed into scholarship programs between 2011 and 2024, according to the Michigan League for Public Policy.

In Texas, federal data shows the state spent about $251 million in TANF funds in fiscal year 2023 on foster care and child welfare programs, while just 1.9 percent of TANF spending went directly to basic assistance payments.

Ann Flagg, who oversaw TANF at the federal level during the Biden administration, said the program's layered structure made it difficult for federal officials to monitor spending.

'Knowing that there were so many layers between the activity on the ground and the federal perch, there were many, many instances, I am sure, that funds were used in crazy ways,' Flagg said.

The biggest scandal involving TANF funds took place in Mississippi. The embezzlement scheme saw at least $77 million of taxpayers' money go toward frivolous things instead of helping those in need in America's poorest state, according to authorities.

Instead of helping the less fortunate, cash was splurged on a lavish home in Jackson, cars, paying off a non-profit leader's speeding ticket, and funding a new $5 million volleyball stadium at Mississippi University, among other items, authorities said.

A total of seven people have pleaded guilty to state or federal charges related to the fraud case, but former WWE wrestler Ted DiBiase Jr decided to plead not guilty and stand trial.

Concerns about misuse of public welfare funds have been amplified by a series of major fraud scandals in Minnesota, where federal and state investigators uncovered schemes involving millions of taxpayer dollars intended for child care and food programs. 

Trump's fraud crackdown was ignited by issues in Minnesota, but the state's cases are unrelated to TANF. 

In one case dating back to the 2010s, authorities found the operators of several daycare centers billed the government for services that were never provided, with surveillance footage appearing to show parents briefly bringing children to facilities before leaving immediately. 

Prosecutors later said the scheme allowed providers to collect reimbursement payments despite not delivering actual care, and several individuals pleaded guilty to felony theft by swindling.

More recently, federal authorities have investigated what they described as a vast fraud network involving federally funded child nutrition programs.

FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau had 'surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota' to dismantle fraud schemes exploiting federal assistance programs. 

Patel warned that such activity may represent 'the tip of a very large iceberg,' adding that 'fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide.'

Federal watchdog agencies have also repeatedly warned about weaknesses in TANF oversight.

The Government Accountability Office found that audits in 37 states identified 162 deficiencies in financial oversight, including 56 considered severe. 

The agency criticized what it described as 'opaque accounting practices' among groups receiving TANF funds.

The GAO has recommended since at least 2012 that Congress strengthen reporting requirements and expand federal oversight. 

Those recommendations have not been enacted.

 

The ongoing fraud scandal in Minnesota dates back a decade as a 2015 video shows parents appearing to pretend to drop their children off at a phony daycare center

FBI Director Kash Patel said federal agents have 'surged personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota' as part of a crackdown on large-scale fraud involving taxpayer-funded assistance programs

 

In testimony to Congress, GAO official Kathy Larin said states often use TANF funds precisely because of their flexibility.

'States told us they use TANF because it's more flexible and can cover costs not eligible' under other federal programs, she said.

TANF was created in 1996 as part of sweeping welfare reform legislation signed by President Bill Clinton, who described the measure as 'ending welfare as we know it.'

The reforms replaced an open-ended federal entitlement with block grants, giving states significant authority over spending decisions.

Supporters credited the program with reducing welfare dependency, but critics say the system created incentives for states to redirect funds away from direct aid.

Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who helped draft the legislation, said the program has drifted from its original goals.

 

Recipients gather at a food distribution site, highlighting the low-income families the TANF program was originally designed to support through direct assistance and services

 

'Today all states are in de facto violation of the law' because they aren't spending all TANF funds on the intended purposes outlined in the original law, Rector said.

He added that both Republicans and Democrats share responsibility for failing to enforce stricter oversight.

The Trump administration has recently moved to freeze billions in federal welfare-related grants to several states over concerns about fraud and misuse, including funds tied to TANF. 

Several states challenged the move in court, and a federal judge temporarily blocked the freeze.

Despite growing scrutiny and repeated warnings from auditors and watchdog agencies, Congress has not enacted any comprehensive reforms.

WHILE AMERICAN OLYMPIANS SHOULD REFRAIN FROM MAKING ANTI-AMERICAN OR ANTI-TRUMP PUBLIC COMMENTS, TRUMP HAS ONLY HIMSELF TO BLAME IF THEY DO

Donald Trump attacks Team USA skier after 'real loser' launched into 'anti-American' rant at Winter Olympics

 

By Jake Fenner 

 

Daily Mail

Feb 8, 2026

 

 

President Trump hit back at a member of Team USA, calling him a 'real loser'

 

President Donald Trump is going on the offensive after a member of Team USA competing at the Winter Olympics criticized the direction of the United States' political climate.

American athletes competing at the games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo have been asked questions about their feelings on the country's current political climate - which has drastically shifted under Trump since he took office a second time.

While some athletes have expressed their thoughts and feelings - including those against the shifting political temperature - with diplomacy, others have taken a more direct approach.

Hunter Hess, a freestyle skier from Oregon set to take part in the halfpipe competition, revealed his mixed feelings about representing the United States during such a difficult time in the country's history.

'It's a little hard. There's obviously a lot going on that I'm not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren't,' the 27-year-old said. 'Just because I'm wearing the flag doesn't mean I represent everything that's going on in the US.'

Trump took to his account on Truth Social and fired back to say that Hess shouldn't be competing for the US if he's going to be vocally against his administration.

 

Freestyle skier and Oregon native Hunter Hess, who will compete in the halfpipe, said he 'doesn't represent everything going on' in the US given the country's current political climate

Hess was derided on social media, with some saying he should be kicked off the team

 

'U.S. Olympic Skier, Hunter Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics,' Trump said - slightly distorting Hess' words.

'If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it. Very hard to root for someone like this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'

Hess' comments were fuel to the fire for Trump's base, who jumped on it and criticized him and fellow Team USA skier Chris Lillis - who shared a similar sentiment.

'You shouldn’t be representing the U.S.A. if you hate it here,' said one user on X. 'So tired of this Anti-American rhetoric.'

Another posted: 'Chris Lillis and Hunter Hess should be sent back home immediately. They have insulted our entire nation on the world stage and should no longer be allowed to represent us.'

'I won’t watch the Olympics anymore or support @TeamUSA if they can’t just be athletes and proudly represent their country on the world stage without opining their own stances on political issues that have no place in sports. This is beyond disgusting and embarrassing,' fumed a third.

'I'd say, "you're off the team. Pack up and get your a** home." No ifs, ands, or buts,' a fourth wrote.

While another put: 'The anti-ICE, liberal athletes are already insufferable at the Olympics. If you’re not proud to represent the red, white, & blue, stay home.'

LINDSEY VONN: THE BRAVE COMPETITR'S COMEBACK ENDS IN BONE-BREAKING CRASH

Ski legend Lindsey Vonn's leg is BROKEN after brave Olympic comeback ended in horror crash and airlift to hospital

 

By Riath al-Samarrai and Ed Carruthers 

 

Daily Mail

Feb 8, 2026

 

 

 

The comeback of Lindsey Vonn, one of the greatest skiers ever, ends in bone-breaking crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics 

 

Lindsey Vonn suffered a broken leg in the horror crash that wrecked her Olympic dream on Sunday.

The 41-year-old, who was sent cartwheeling down the piste in Cortina after clipping a flag just 13 seconds into her downhill run, was airlifted to hospital in Treviso, where surgery was performed on her left leg.

A statement from the hospital read: ‘In the afternoon, she underwent orthopedic surgery to stabilise the fracture sustained in her left leg.’

It is understood that she was then transferred to intensive care for the sake of extra privacy, rather than any greater medical necessity. The US team have stated the 2010 gold medallist is ‘stable’.

Vonn could be heard screaming in agony after the crash, which followed just nine days after she ruptured cruciate ligaments in her left knee during a warm-up competition in Switzerland. She went on to cause surprise by declaring her intention to compete Italy and threatened a monumental outcome by finishing third fastest in final practice.

However, her crash brought the curtain down on her fifth Games appearance in distressing fashion. Vonn is yet to comment.  

 

Sequence shows Vonn as she clipped the fourth gate with her right arm that led to her crash.  

 

 

The former Olympic champion crashed during the women's downhill final on Sunday and had to be airlifted to a hospital

 

Vonn sped over a hill and careered into one of the plastic markers on the side of the track before hitting the ground. Her right leg appeared to hit the ground first, as a cloud of powder engulfed the American. Vonn then tumbled forwards again, appearing to smash her shoulder into the ground, before coming to a halt on the slope.

The Cortina crowd fell silent as medical crews arrived to attend to Vonn, who was later airlifted off the mountain.

Serious concerns were raised when Vonn, whose skis had not detached from her boots, was seen wincing in pain as she lay on her back in the snow. The American was also heard crying out in agony as the medics placed her onto a stretcher.   

Around six hours after the horror incident, the US Ski and Snowboard Team also shared an update on Vonn's condition.

'Update: Lindsey Vonn sustained an injury, but is in stable condition and in good hands with a team of American and Italian physicians,' a spokesperson said. 

Vonn's horrified family watched on in shock from the base of the slope. Her sister, Karin Kildow emotionally opened up on the devastating scenes. 

'I mean that definitely was the last thing we wanted to see and it happened quick and when that happens, you're just immediately hoping she's okay,' Kildow said on NBC, per USA Today.

'And it was scary because when you start to see the stretchers being put out, it's not a good sign. But she really ... she just dared greatly and she put it all out there. So it's really hard to see, but we just really hope she's okay.

 

Vonn is transported into the back of an ambulance after being airlifted off the course

 

'She does have all of her surgeons and her PT staff here and her doctors, so I'm sure they'll give us a report and we'll meet her at whatever hospital she's at.'

Vonn had defied the impossible by coming back to compete after rupturing her ACL prior to the Games and had completed multiple training runs in the build-up to Sunday's event.

While concerns have arisen over whether the 2010 Olympic champion was taking a risk in entering the competition - having undergone a reconstruction in her right knee back in 2024 and rupturing her ACL before the tournament - Vonn had made the decision to compete in Sunday's downhill final. 

She had posted a time that was 1.39 seconds off the fastest run during a training session on Friday. 

The American, who has won 84 World Cups across multiple alpine skiing events during her glittering career, would improve on that on Saturday, posting a time of one minute and 38 seconds, which was 37 seconds shy of team-mate Breezy Johnson, who went on to claim gold on Sunday. 

As Vonn left the gates on Sunday, her coach was heard shouting, 'keep charging, keep pushing'.  

The downhill event was subsequently suspended, with other competitors removing their skis at the top of the slope as they waited for Vonn to be evacuated.

HAMAS TELLS TRUMP TO TAKE A FLYING LEAP

Hamas to Trump: We will never disarm

At Doha summit, Khaled Mashaal hails Oct. 7 massacre, vows to defeat Israel, and denounces Trump-backed Gaza stabilization plan.

 

By Ryan Jones

 

Israel Today

Feb 8, 2026

 

 

Believing that Hamas will voluntarily lay down its arms is the height of naivety.

 

Once again, Hamas has made its intentions crystal clear—and once again, the world will pretend not to hear them.

Speaking Sunday at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha, senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal rejected outright any possibility of disarming as part of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, instead doubling down on war, jihad, and the violent “resistance” that led to the slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7.

“We will defeat our enemy, Israel, Allah willing,” Mashaal vowed.

Trump’s 20-point roadmap calls for Hamas to lay down its arms under a Phase 2 stabilization plan—backed by the US and Arab partners—which would involve an international force entering the Gaza Strip and a transitional Palestinian body formed without Hamas participation.

Mashaal’s reply was clear: Never.

“As long as our people are under occupation [sic],” he told the forum, “talk of disarmament is an attempt to turn our people into victims, to make their elimination easier.”

He went on to defend Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre—calling it a strategic victory that “returned the Palestinian cause to the forefront” and made its resolution “a necessity.” No mention was made of the 251 hostages taken. No apology. No regret. Only pride.

Disarmament was never on the table

Though President Trump claimed last month at Davos that “Hamas had agreed to give up their weapons,” this latest speech is just the latest in a long line of categorical rejections by Hamas leaders.

“Not for a single moment did we talk about surrendering weapons,” senior official Musa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera on January 28.

Mashaal had already made that position clear at a December summit in Istanbul, declaring that Hamas’s weapons were “the honor and pride” of the Islamic nation and a sacred right of “resistance.”

On Sunday, he reiterated that “resistance is the right of occupied peoples”—explicitly framing Hamas’s actions on October 7, including the slaughter of women and children, as both justified and praiseworthy.

Still courted, still platformed

That this speech was delivered in Qatar, on stage at the Al Jazeera Forum, should surprise no one. Doha continues to shelter Hamas leaders, bankroll their operations, and dress up their ideology in media-friendly packaging.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry rightly condemned the forum ahead of time as a “gathering of jihadists and their support staff.”

The invitation list proves the point: Iranian officials, sanctioned UN operatives, and terror leaders like Mashaal—given not only legitimacy, but applause.

“Qatar is a small country,” Mashaal said, “but its role is great and respected.”

Indeed, it is. Respected by Hamas. Resented by Israel. And, for now, tolerated by Washington.

But the bigger issue is not Qatar. It is the international refusal to listen to what Hamas says plainly.

Hamas’s plan is not peace

While the US continues to advance proposals to stabilize and reconstruct Gaza under the assumption that Hamas is on the way out—or on the way to moderation—Mashaal’s speech makes clear that the group has no intention of going quietly. Or going at all.

They are not signaling flexibility.

They are openly preparing for the next war.

“The resistance and its weapons are the ummah’s honor and pride,” Mashaal said in December. Sunday’s speech only reaffirmed it.

He also rejected the Trump-backed National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, calling it a form of “foreign rule” and declaring that “we do not accept the logic of guardianship.”

In other words: No to disarmament. No to outside governance. No to coexistence. Yes to endless war.

A question with an answer

The world continues to ask: How can there be peace if Hamas won’t compromise?

But Mashaal answered that. And so did Abu Marzouk. And so has Hamas, in word and deed, every month since October 7—and for many years before.

They don’t want peace. They want victory.

They don’t want coexistence. They want elimination.

They do not view October 7 as a stain—they view it as a template.

And until that reality is acknowledged, every peace plan will be a fantasy, and every ceasefire an intermission.

TRUMP HAS GIVEN THE JIHADIST ARMY OF AHMED AL-SHARAA A GREEN LIGHT TO TO INVADE THE KURDISH TERRITORY AND BUTCHER ITS POPULATION TO THE DELIGHT OF AL-SHARAA'S SPONSOR, ERDOGAN

US troop withdrawal from Syria will destabilize the region

The vacuum will most likely be filled by the army of Turkey, as a NATO member that is also an ideological champion of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 

By Joseph Puder 

 

JNS

Feb 7, 2026

 

 

US President Donald Trump welcomes Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to the White House in Washington, DC on November 10, 2025, just days after the al Qaeda terrorist was removed from a terrorism blacklist.

 

While all eyes are focused on U.S. President Donald Trump as he weighs when or if the United States will attack the Islamic Republic of Iran, Washington is reducing U.S. forces in the Middle East. In fact, it is leaving a vacuum in Syria that will most likely be filled by the army of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his former Al-Qaeda terrorist proxy, Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Such an eventuality would threaten Israel’s aerial freedom in its operations against Iran and might destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which would, in itself, be a strategic threat to Israel. Worse yet, it will bring the region closer to a regional war, as hostile entities such as pro-Iranian Shi’ite militias, as well as Turkish and Syrian forces, converge on Israel’s eastern and northern borders.

The Trump administration has mercilessly turned its back on the Kurds in northeastern Syria and has given the jihadist army of Ahmed al-Sharaa, the unelected president of Syria, a green light to invade the Kurdish territory and butcher its population to the delight of al-Sharaa’s sponsor, Erdoğan. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a strong ally of America in the war against the Islamic State, has been sacrificed to please Erdoğan, with the U.S. envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, executing this shameful betrayal.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), in late January 2026, announced he would introduce the “Save the Kurds Act,” legislation aimed at imposing “crippling sanctions” on any government or group involved in hostile actions against the Kurds.

During his first term in the White House, Trump announced that he planned to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria. Israel was able to influence Trump to reconsider that decision, and currently, about 900 U.S. service personnel are stationed in Syria. This time, however, Trump is determined to withdraw them.

Graham responded on Jan. 23, posting on X: “If true, ISIS would love that. A small footprint of Americans working with locals is an insurance policy against the reemergence of ISIS (Islamic State) and an attack on our homeland. I believe it’s time for a new approach and new eyes on Syria. I am confident that many senators on both sides of the aisle share my concerns about the implications of withdrawal when Syria is so unstable.”

 

Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Presidential Palace in Damascus on Sept. 12, 2025. 

 

In his recent meeting with Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, raised the issue of the U.S. withdrawal of forces from Syria. Apparently, the Pentagon’s new official National Defense Strategy calls for the reduction of American troops in the Middle East. The question is, which country benefits from this position—the United States, or Iran and Turkey? The ayatollah’s regime has long sought the removal of U.S. forces from the region. And Erdoğan, who Trump has called a “good friend,” is similarly interested in such a withdrawal.

The business ties that Trump’s Middle Eastern envoys (his friend Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner) have with Qatar and Turkey increased the influence of these two Muslim Brotherhood ideological champions on U.S. policies in Syria and Gaza. Apparently, Trump’s understanding of history is not on par with his business acumen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 –  

 

 

 

 

Ahmed al-Sharaa (L) with his sponsor, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan 

 

Otherwise, he would understand that Erdoğan seeks to triumph where his Ottoman predecessors failed. The Ottomans were at the gates of Vienna in 1683, on a quest to secure Europe for Islam. Erdoğan is an arch-Islamist and a vicious antisemite who harbors hatred for the Jewish state and the West. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar, is subverting the American education system by pouring billions into America’s prestigious campuses, and now, elementary education, to promote Islam; downgrade Western culture; and insert anti-Israel and anti-Jewish content into the curricula.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Jan. 28 that the U.S. Department of Education’s recent launch of a portal containing foreign-funding disclosures by universities was even greater than officials likely realized. Newly disclosed evidence, unsealed earlier this month in federal court, reveals that foreign funders may be exerting the kind of outsized, hidden and nefarious influence on university programs critics have long feared. The details demand congressional action to protect Americans’ rights.

On Jan. 6, a federal district court in Pennsylvania unsealed a court order in Yael Canaan’s suit against Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. She alleges that the university harbors a culture of antisemitism and discrimination, in part due to the influence of more than $1 billion from Qatar and its affiliates. Carnegie Mellon denies Canaan’s allegations, including that it is influenced by Qatar, which hosts its Doha campus. But based on eye-opening university documents, the court on Dec. 5 rejected the school’s argument and ordered CMU to produce many of the documents Canaan requested.

Israel faces a strategic dilemma. Turkey under Erdoğan is trying to establish itself in Syria with multiple bases throughout the country, which would inevitably bring about a clash between the Israeli and Turkish militaries. Turkey is still a NATO member, with close ties to the Trump administration.

Should Israel refrain from operating over Syria, especially if attacked by Iran—or in need to protect the Druze and other minority populations near its border—it would be seen as weak and lose its deterrence. Yet a clash with Turkey may have far-reaching consequences for the region. Hence, an American force remaining in Syria is crucial in preventing a possible war between Israel and Turkey.

JANUARY 27 WAS HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Thanks to the foresight of my father, I am a Holocaust survivor

 

By Howie Katz

 

(EDITOR'S NOTE: My sister asked me to republish this post from last year.)

1943: Off they go to be exterminated in the Nazi gas chambers of Auschwitz 

 

 

2023: Off they go to be exterminated in the Hamas tunnels of Gaza

 

 

Today was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Six million Jews were murdered or starved to death by the Nazis during World War II.

The extermination of Europe's Jews was referred to as the 'final solution' by the Nazis and planned by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich.

 

 

Heinrich Himmler (L) and Reinhard Heydrich planned the extermination of Europe's Jews, known as the 'Final Solution'

 

Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933. By 1936 the Nazi persecution of Germany's Jews was in full swing. Unlike most German Jews who believed their persecution was just a passing phase, my father saw the handwriting on the wall.

My father found a sponsor in the (department store) Macy family who sponsored us which enabled us to come to America.

Today much of the world hates Israel and the Jews. Most of the Europeans would just as soon forget the Holocaust. Ireland's schweinehund of a president took the Holocaust Remembrance occasion to castigate the Jews for the way they have fought Hamas in Gaza

Following are just a few pictures for remembering the Holocaust:

 

  This photo shows a German soldier shooting a Ukrainian Jew during a mass execution in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, sometime between 1941 and 1943.

A German in a military uniform shoots at a Jewish woman after a mass execution in Mizocz, Ukraine. 

 

American soldiers silently inspect some of the rail trucks loaded with dead which were found on the rail siding at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, on May 3, 1945.

Bodies lie piled against the walls of a crematory room in a German concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. 

 

Three U.S. soldiers look at bodies stuffed into an oven in a crematorium in April of 1945.

 

This heap of ashes and bones is the debris from one day's killing of inmates at the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar in Germany, shown on April 25, 1945 

 

General Dwight D. Eisenhower and other American officers in the Ohrdruf concentration camp, shortly after the liberation of the camp in April of 1945.

 

American soldiers walk by row after row of corpses lying on the ground beside barracks at the Nazi concentration camp at Nordhausen, Germany, on April 17, 1945.

 

Liberating soldiers of Lt. General George S. Patton's 3rd Army, XX Corps, are shown at Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945   

 

General Patch's 12th Armored Division, forging their way towards the Austrian border, uncovered horrors at a German prison camp at Schwabmunchen, southwest of Munich.

 

These dead victims of the Germans were removed from the Lambach concentration camp in Austria, on May 6, 1945, by German soldiers under orders of U.S. Army troops.

 

Some of the skeleton-like human remains found by men of the Third Armored Division, U.S. First Army, at the German concentration camp at Nordhausen on April 25, 1945

 

Lt. Col. Ed Seiller of Louisville, Kentucky, stands amid a pile of Holocaust victims as he speaks to 200 German civilians who were forced to see the grim conditions at the Landsberg concentration camp, on May 15, 1945.

 

Dead bodies piled up in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 15, 1945.    

 

A pile of bodies left to rot in the Bergen-Belsen camp, in Bergen, Germany, found on April 20, 1945  

 

Piles of the dead at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 30, 1945. Some 100,000 people are estimated to have died in this one camp alone.

 

 

Thanks to my beloved father's foresight, I am not in one of the above photographs. Thanks to my father's foresight, I was able to write this piece. Thanks to my father's foresight, I've had the privilege of living in America since 1936.

 

And above all, thanks to my father's foresight, I am a Holocaust survivor.