Soccer isn't most NFL Fans cup of tea so to speak - but it's the biggest sporting event on the planet. It's happening now and in Nth America. So - here's a post about it.
While the fake injuries and play acting are noxious - here are some clips of "the beautiful game" (a name for football that was popularized by Pele)
Ronaldinho was truly amazing - always played with a smile on his face. Scored lots and set up lots of goals for others. Very unselfish.
Maradona - if you've never seen this 2 minute 30 second video of his warm up, it will probably make you smile while he casually does some amazing things with the ball.
And this is a 4 minute tribute to Maradona from a great international player -
I'm not a huge soccer fan though will watch the world cup - here's one of my favorite players who was talented and a bit of a character. Sorry - video is grainy because he played a long time ago.
This is a very good read. I have speculated for a while now that this war has empowered Iran and highlighted their one bit of overwhelming leverage - just by surviving, they can shut the Straits. Their tolerance for suffering is far greater than Trump's/the USAs
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu believed that victory over Iran would reshape the Middle East.
The region is being reshaped. But not in the way they expected. The Islamic Republic of Iran has not been defeated. The risk now is of a long, attritional permacrisis that will lurch in and out of outright conflict.
The Iranian regime has proved to be a much harder nut to crack than Trump and Netanyahu had assumed. Their judgement was wrong, and they have lost control of the consequences.
The latest of those is Iran's downing of the US Apache helicopter. It is another reminder that Iran's rulers can still hurt the Americans and will not budge in their determination to come out of this war on top. For them, victory equals survival and enhanced deterrence, in the shape of acknowledgement of their control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most strategic waterways.
The president and his generals will try to calibrate their response to the loss of the helicopter, to show just as emphatically that they cannot be pushed around, but at the same time to preserve the sluggish and so far unproductive diplomatic process. The Apache's crew survived. Had they been killed, a much harsher response would have been likely.
Trump has been banking on a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and agree the terms of much longer-term talks over the big issues, starting with Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium and its wider nuclear plans.
The war is unpopular in America and he wants a way out he can present as a victory. It is proving to be a tough challenge.
Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau are learning an old lesson.
Ever since humans discovered the art and curse of war, leaders have found out that it is easier to start a war than to end one with a clear victory.
When they led their countries to war with Iran on the last day of February, both issued video statements, choosing words that reflected an assumption that a moment of historical change was coming. The regime that had ruled Iran since the Shah was overthrown in 1979 was on the way out.
In the small hours of the morning at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, Trump, picked up on the promise he had made to Iranian opponents of the regime in January that "help is on its way."
"To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations."
The next morning, Netanyahu stood in the sunlight on the roof of the Kyria, Israel's high rise defence ministry in central Tel Aviv, to record his address. Like Trump, he spoke as if victory was certain.
"This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years: smite the terror regime hip and thigh. This is what I promised – and this is what we shall do."
Throughout his political life, Netanyahu has argued that the real threat to Israel comes from Iran, not from the Palestinians or his country's Arab neighbours. He had tried and failed to get other American presidents to join him in attacking Iran. Trump was different.
For more than two years, since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, Netanyahu had told Israelis that the power of their military, backed by America, would vanquish their enemies and usher in a richer and safer future. Force, not diplomacy, was the answer.
Netanyahu had the air of a man whose moment had come. In contrast, when he faced the cameras after Trump told him to cancel his plans to attack Beirut on Monday, the leading Israeli newspaper columnist Ben Caspit said he looked like a deflated balloon.
Caspit is one of the prime minister's most vociferous critics. But it is clear that Netanyahu's strategy of using force to bend the region to his will has failed.
Trump expected a quick victory. He had watched with delight as the US military abducted the president of Venezuela and his wife, sent them to a jail in New York and installed a compliant successor in Caracas. Textbook regime change, he believed, way better than the forever wars fought by his predecessors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran would be next on the list.
Both men must be wondering what went wrong. The United States has the world's most powerful military. Israel is the superpower of the Middle East.
Trump and Netanyahu saw a regime in Tehran reeling from economic crisis caused by sanctions, mismanagement and corruption. Israel had delivered hammer blows to its allies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its other key ally, Bashar al Assad had been deposed as president of Syria and fled to Moscow. In January the regime crushed huge demonstrations against it by killing thousands of Iranian citizens.
They underestimated the resilience, ruthlessness and guile of the Islamic regime. They believed that killing its supreme leader and his closest lieutenants would cause the regime to collapse from within.
They overestimated the efficacy of military force against a regime that had faced repeated threats for almost 50 years, had engineered itself to survive an attack and had thought hard about a conception of national security backed up by its religious and ideological convictions.
The Gulf oil states, allies of the US, and in the case of the UAE and Bahrain of Israel too, have suffered hammer blows. It is not simply lost revenue from petrochemicals and their byproducts, like fertiliser. They have built their futures around creating an oasis of stability and multi-billion-dollar business in the Gulf. Potential investors, and tourists, see the war turning that vision into a mirage.
The Iranian regime believes its survival and the ease with which it put a chokehold on the world economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz and attacking its Gulf Arab neighbours can be translated into long-term deterrence against the US and Israel.
The men who have replaced the old guard of Iranian leaders killed by Israel and the US are just as ideological as their predecessors but much more willing to take risks in what they see as an existential struggle. They believe that words alone will not stop more attacks in the future from the US or Israel. Instead, they want to demonstrate that more attacks on Iran will lead to painful consequences.
A key part of its strategy is linking the war in Lebanon with the war in the Gulf. The regime's message to Trump is that he cannot hope for any kind of deal if Israel continues to bomb Lebanon and to try to destroy Hezbollah, the militia and political movement that it has nurtured since the 1980s as its forward defence against Israel.
By curbing Israel's plans to attack Beirut, on the grounds that a deal was near (a claim he has made before, erroneously), Trump has shown implicitly that he accepts the link between what happens in Lebanon and what happens in the Gulf.
On Monday, Netanyahu said he would not accept the linkage. It was he said, "intolerable and completely unacceptable." His problem is that Trump will put his interests and desire to end the war ahead of Netanyahu's determination for it to continue until he can declare the Islamic regime in Tehran has been crippled.
Netanyahu cancelled a planned attack on Beirut, but since then Israel's military, the IDF, has continued to hit southern Lebanon very hard.
When the Strait of Hormuz was closed in March, there were dire warnings of global economic consequences if it was still closed by June.
Not only does the vital waterway that was open until the US and Israel attacked Iran remain closed. Without remarkable diplomatic breakthroughs, it is hard to see it reopening any time soon.
Must be true if you saw a video online posted by a rando.
Evidence doesn't always make one guilty, nor is it always true. "Randos" these days are very often at the lead of a story. I wouldn't simply shrug them off. A "rando" as you say blew the top off of fraud in Minnesota.
I think the roster has deteriorated since Berry took over. I've been down on Berry for a long time. I think the roster looks better today than it has in years. The single biggest mis-step Berry has made - the trade for Watson. It was calamitous on a biblical scale for multiple reasons both on the pitch, off the pitch and with what we gave up to get him - but clearly Haslam owns at least an equal, possibly bigger slice of responsibility for that.
Honestly I think we will feel good about the team this year even if we struggle to match last year or 'only' get to .500 ... I feel good about 2027 and on.
Former New Mexico AG says he was told to stand down in Epstein ranch probe
Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas first started looking into Epstein and the Zorro Ranch in 2019.
On desolate dry land, about 40 miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, sits a sprawling estate — mostly ignored by people passing by on the nearby highway.
The property, in the town of Stanley, is notorious for its former owner, the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who bought the property in 1993.
Now, the estate, known as Zorro Ranch, is back in the spotlight as state lawmakers probe Epstein’s alleged crimes at the home, what investigators may have missed and what federal authorities may have withheld.
The word “Zorro” appears nearly 14,000 times in files connected to Epstein released by the Department of Justice, but the land has never been searched by federal authorities, and unredacted files have not been turned over to the New Mexico Department of Justice for its ongoing investigation.
Federal investigators told New Mexico attorney general to stand down
Former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas first started looking into Epstein and the Zorro Ranch in 2019.
Allegations of crimes committed at the property include rape, sexual assault of minors, forced births and eugenics, according to accounts from Epstein survivors, their diary entries, and from the millions of files released by the Department of Justice.
Months before Epstein was arrested in 2019, Balderas says he was well into building a state case and had just returned from interviewing an Epstein survivor when he received a call from the Southern District of New York.
"They were concerned that we were getting parallel interviews from the same survivors they were going to use in an aggressive prosecution as well,” Balderas told the Scripps News Group in April.
Balderas paused the state probe, saying federal officials had “the bigger hammer at the time.” In exchange, he says he was promised by then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen Comey that the DOJ would share evidence about the case and allow Balderas to pursue state charges down the road.
That never happened and federal investigators never executed a search warrant on the property.
“I think that they absolutely impacted our case, and I don't think that they were forthright, and I don't they were operating in good faith," Balderas said.
Now, Balderas wishes he had continued to pursue the state case.
"We would have absolutely gone alone and bet on the case that we currently had at the time," Balderas said.
A buried tip
Around the same time Balderas was working the case, local radio host Eddy Aragon received an emailed tip from someone who claimed to have worked on the ranch, alleging the bodies of two foreign girls were buried “in the hills outside the Zorro.”
Aragon says he sent that tip to the FBI, and there was no follow-up.
A Scripps News search of the DOJ files shows the FBI didn't enter Aragon's report into the system until 2021 — two years after he submitted it.
"I don't think anybody investigated it,” Aragon said. “Would you think if we entered it three years later, like nothing was done?"
That tip never made it from the FBI’s desk in New York to Balderas’ office in New Mexico.
Balderas says he only learned about that email this year after Congress voted to release the so-called Epstein files.
“I’m very angry,” Balderas said. "They didn't meet the standard of what a good prosecution team should be working and collaborating with other partners.”
Epstein leased land from the state
The “hills outside the Zorro” mentioned in the allegation sent to Aragon could potentially refer to state land that Epstein leased from New Mexico, extending far beyond his estate’s property line.
That state-leased land would have fallen under Balderas’ jurisdiction to investigate.
Stephanie Garcia Richard oversees that land as New Mexico’s Commissioner of Public Lands. Her office initially discovered Aragon’s email in the released files.
"As soon as I saw that, my heart dropped," Garcia Richard said. “What if the allegations were true?”
When asked whether she had real concern that bodies could be buried on or near the Zorro Ranch property, Garcia Richard said the possibility exists.
"We do know there are missing individuals,” she said. “Those girls ... their bodies have not been recovered. So, you know, there is a potential there.”
The ranch was between 7,500 and 10,000 acres, but Epstein added a 1,200-acre buffer zone through a lease of land from the state. That additional land makes the search for those alleged buried bodies even more challenging. The 2023 sale of the property to former Texas state senator Don Huffines could make a future investigation even more challenging.
“There has been a long span between 2019 and today. We don't know the state of the, you know, the evidence now,” Garcia Richard said.
State lawmakers seek answers
Now, a group of New Mexico state lawmakers are seeking more answers on alleged crimes at the Zorro Ranch and what authorities may have missed.
Republican State Representative Andrea Reeb is among four lawmakers on the bipartisan Epstein “Truth Commission” formed earlier this year. She feels Balderas should have taken more action when he was probing the case.
“You hear, ‘Oh, well, we didn't have the charges or the statutes to charge what the feds could have charged,’ but we had criminal sexual penetration of a minor for all different ages; one of them carries 18 years in prison. We had, may not have had trafficking of humans or sex trafficking charges, but we had enough that we could have definitely gotten some serious jail time on Mr. Epstein.”
Reeb says she would have indicted the case had she been told by federal officials to pause it.
She doesn’t accuse Balderas of wrongdoing, but said it was a missed opportunity.
Balderas counters that belief.
“We were still building a case,” he said. “We were as transparent as we needed to be at that time.”
For its part, the “Truth Commission” announced Monday it will issue 14 subpoenas in connection with its probe. The subpoenas are not directed at specific individuals but target the Epstein Estate, as well as banks and other entities tied to Epstein or related investigations.
Whether the Commission, the New Mexico DOJ or the federal government will get true justice for survivors is still very much an open question. But for many, justice starts with getting more answers.
“I'm convinced that those answers are not in the documents that have been released,” Balderas said. “But they're in the millions of documents that are currently being withheld.”
He has a chance to resurrect his career. If he does all the right things and goes all in on rehab and tries to help others from falling into that addiction. Good for him.
It could also reshuffle the draft.
I looked today at the rankings from "Draft Buzz" of the QB class. Wow. Outside of Manning, Moore and Sayin. It was all over the place.
The college season will reset the order and Sorsby could be in the mix.
At this stage it is a waste of time because so much can happen.
All we can hope for is that this class has a good number of guys that will carry a first round grade.
There are no guarantees on who the Browns can select.
Given the injuries right off the start of the season to the starting rotation.
I was hoping that by the All Star break the Braves could be over .500 and within 6 games of the lead. Then when they got a couple starters back they could make a run.
They are 17-2-1 in the series they have played. They are 23 games over .500.
They are in first place with a 9.5 game lead.
There is no way in hell I saw this happening.
I am loving this. It would be out of character for their GM to make this deal. But I could see them doing it.
Skubal will be traded more than likely. He will be a mega free agent after this year. So trading for him is most likely a rental.
However, getting Skubal to pair with Chris Sale would give the Braves a hellava one two punch in the playoffs.
Trump directs acting intelligence chief to cut staff amid criticism over Pulte pick
President Donald Trump is reportedly urging his new acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, to start firing employees.
President Donald Trump is urging Bill Pulte, his new acting director of national intelligence, to reduce the size of the office amid criticism over his temporary appointment.
"I've heard that's way too high for way too long," Trump told reporters Friday aboard Air Force One. "If he cut, I wouldn't mind that."
Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an earlier interview Friday that he asked Pulte to start the process of firing employees of an office that has already faced significant cuts during the president's second term.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence oversees the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies and was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to improve information-sharing.
Trump’s decision to put Pulte in charge of that office has faced backlash on Capitol Hill, including from some Republicans, because Pulte has no known national security experience.
Pulte has also targeted the president's perceived political opponents in his other role leading the Federal Housing Finance Agency by making criminal referrals alleging insurance and mortgage fraud.
"Mr. Pulte has no national security expertise. None. We're not even sure if he's got a basic security clearance," said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "This role is too important to be filled by a part-time, unqualified individual."
Trump praised Pulte on Friday, calling him "very talented." He also indicated that he is interviewing five other candidates to permanently replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from the role following her husband’s cancer diagnosis.
"All people that do that kind of thing, and they're very respected people," Trump added, without naming any of the individuals under consideration.
At least for now, concerns over Pulte’s temporary appointment have delayed the renewal of a national security surveillance program that he would help administer. The Senate blocked an extension of the program Friday, but another vote is expected next week before it expires June 12.
Seven Republican senators joined nearly all Democrats in opposing a procedural vote to advance the short-term extension.
The tool is part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and allows agencies like the CIA and FBI to collect communications from foreign targets without a warrant.
Critics have raised concerns that Americans’ communications are sometimes swept up in the process and are pushing for a warrant requirement when accessing those communications. Others argue such a requirement risks hamstringing law enforcement. Negotiations on reforms are expected to continue if a short-term extension is passed.
Matthew 25:31-46 isn't a verse. It's a compete story. You posted your truth. Those aren't facts. They are what you choose to believe and your interpretation of facts.
In case you missed it, "the entire Church" whatever you think that means, does not see things the way you see it either. Much to your surprise it seems you do not speak for all Christians. Also much to your surprise not all who see things differently than you do are some dark, evil forces trying to destroy America either.
Many democrats are Christians. They just believe in the teaching of the New Testament. The message of Christ which was the teachings for the Christians. They don't go back to pick and choose what parts of the Old Testament they want to preach and follow and which parts they decided to ignore the way you do.
Quote
Billy Graham was a great man of God and at one time he was supported by both political parties. What changed?
Could it possibly be that he died in Feb. of 2018? Dear Lord man.
Justice Department says it will stop work on $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" after judge's ruling
Washington — The Justice Department said Monday that it will stop work on the $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund following a district judge's decision temporarily blocking the program.
The move comes after the plan earned intense pushback from Republicans in Congress, which threatened to imperil the GOP agenda on Capitol Hill.
The Justice Department said on X that it would abide by the judge's ruling that halted work on the fund, effectively shelving plans for it for now.
"The Department of Justice disagrees strongly with the decision on the Anti-Weaponization Fund put forth by the United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, wherein the Court stated that, under no circumstances, may the Department of Justice proceed with the Anti-Weaponization Fund recently established in order to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to so many people," the department said on X.
It continued: "This Fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted, or persecuted, whether they were Democrat, Republican, Conservative, Independent, or otherwise. The Department will abide by the Court's ruling."
They caught and arrested the fleeing fugitive...............
ICE officer wanted in the shooting of a man during the Minneapolis crackdown is arrested in Texas
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal immigration officer wanted in the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s Minnesota crackdown was arrested Friday in Texas, authorities said.
Christian Castro, of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, was taken into custody 11 days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged him with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 nonfatal shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis.
Hennepin County, Minnesota prosecutors said the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension located Castro, 52, in Texas, and the Texas Rangers said they assisted in the arrest in Cameron County, which borders Mexico in the southernmost part of the state.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General said its agents were not involved in or present for Castro’s apprehension, denying the Hennepin County Attorney’s office’s claims in press statements about the arrest.
“Any characterization that DHS OIG agents participated in or led the arrest operation is inaccurate,” the Office of Inspector General said in a statement.
Messages seeking comment were also left with ICE and the Texas Rangers.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Castro, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he has one.
In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty heralded the arrest as “a critical step forward in our prosecution of Mr. Castro.”
Castro is the second federal agent to be charged over their conduct during the Minnesota crackdown, which was known as Operation Metro Surge. He is one of two agents that ICE Director Todd Lyons said lied about the circumstances of the incident.
According to prosecutors, Castro fired through a home’s front door and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S., Moriarty said.
Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel. A federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether the officers lied about what happened.
In a statement after the charges were announced, ICE said the U.S. attorney’s office was investigating statements made by the officers, who could face disciplinary action including being fired and prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.” DHS’s Inspector General’s Office, which Moriarty credited with assisting in the arrest, is separate from ICE and is meant to serve as a watchdog for DHS agencies, including ICE.
Minneapolis last month released video showing the moments before Sosa-Celis’s shooting, captured from a distance by a city-owned security camera.
The video appears to show a person standing with a snow shovel outside the house, near the street, then retreating toward the house and tossing the shovel into the yard. This happens as a person being chased by another person runs up from the street, falls on the sidewalk, gets up, and keeps heading toward the house.
The three appear to scuffle near the front steps for about 10 seconds. The exact moment when Sosa-Celis is shot isn’t clear. A car with flashing lights pulls up, and another person walks up.
The Trump administration sent thousands of officers to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area as part of President Donald Trump’s national deportation campaign and considered Operation Metro Surge a success.
But tensions mounted during the weekslong campaign, and the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers sparked mass unrest and raised questions about officers’ conduct.
Minnesota leaders and the Trump administration have clashed over who has the authority to investigate and prosecute federal officers for on-duty conduct.
Moriarty’s office last month charged immigration agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car on a highway. He turned himself in last week, and his lawyer disputes the charges.
The county is also investigating Good’s and Pretti’s killings and sued the Trump administration in March to gain access to evidence in those cases and the Sosa-Celis shooting.
Lead prosecutor on former FBI Director Comey's 'seashells' case withdraws without explanation
The department did not include any explanation for the move.
The lead prosecutor tasked with overseeing former FBI Director James Comey's prosecution stemming from his post of seashells that the Justice Department claims amounted to a threat against President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the case, according to a court filing.
Matthew Petracca was the lone prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina assigned to the case when it was unsealed late last month.
On Friday evening, however, the Justice Department filed a notice with the court indicating that Petracca has been replaced by assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo.
The department did not include any explanation for the move in the high-profile case.
Comey's attorneys are expected to make a vigorous push to have the case dismissed before it can go to trial through a variety of legal challenges.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Comey was charged with threatening to kill Trump by posting a photo on Instagram of seashells on a beach arranged in the numbers "86 47." Citing the slang meaning of "86" as to "nix" or "get rid" of something, allies of the president allege that the post was a veiled threat against Trump, who is the 47th president.
Following backlash over the post, Comey removed the photo from Instagram and said he was unaware that the post could be associated with violence.
Critics of Trump say the indictment is another effort by the administration to punish the president's perceived enemies after a judge last year threw out an indictment against Comey on unrelated charges.
At a press conference announcing the charges last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued that Comey's post crossed the line between First Amendment-protected speech and speech that warrants prosecution.
