Day: September 22, 2026

Fmr. director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent says the problem runs deeper than any single strike:

“We have never meaningfully restrained the Israelis. We’ve never said no to the Israelis.”

It became a national controversy when the vice president admitted the two countries have different security goals, which tells you how much room American officials actually have.

Pull the aid and the UN cover, or keep paying for decisions that drag American troops toward somebody else’s war.

@joekent16jan19
Video
  Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal)🇺🇸 🇮🇷 Trump GAINS LEVERAGE after the midterms either way, because whatever he does next lands on his successor

Fmr. director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent reads the promise that this war ends after November as the president trying to speak an outcome into existence:

“Trump is kind of wish casting here.”

What he wants is everything frozen exactly where it sits, with nobody handing Iran concessions or taking fresh casualties before voters show up, and once the election passes he’s into the back end of his presidency where escalating and folding both leave the bill for whoever comes next, which is what makes the months after November more dangerous than the ones before it.

@joekent16jan19
Video
  —  https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2102586115790147781

I once complained that cybersecurity is basically dead, lol. 🙁

(It really is. Folks may as well have their social security numbers printed on their tshirts at this point.)

Sleep well.

Your nerdy friend,

Mike D

María Corina Machado tried to sail from Panama, then to fly to Aruba, then to Curaçao and finish by boat, and none of those planes were cleared to take off.

Her team counts at least seven blocked attempts since January.

She left Venezuela in December to collect the Nobel in Norway after roughly a year in hiding, and Caracas still refuses to renew her passport.

The Wall Street Journal reports the Trump administration has been the one keeping her out, though the State Department said in July that she’s a Venezuelan citizen with every right to return.

Taking Venezuela’s oil out of China’s hands was a smart move for American energy security, and it’s paying off with Exxon negotiating its way back in and crude heading to Gulf Coast refineries instead of Asia.

That case gets harder to make when the woman who won a Nobel for opposing Maduro can’t board a plane home while the unelected president who replaced him shakes hands in New York.

Somebody in Washington owes an explanation for which Venezuela America is actually backing…

Source: Bloomberg / Writer: Daniel, Val