Will blur out the faces of some of rioters

Speaker Mike Johnson announced Friday he would begin making all of the January 6th footage available to the public immediately, following through on a promise to right-wing conservatives that started under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The clips will be posted on the Committee on House Administration's website and much of the more than 44,000 hours of security footage from Jan. 6 has already gone up. Around 90 hours of footage is expected Friday and the rest over the coming months.

The clips will blur the faces of private citizens to ensure no one is 'targeted for retaliation of any kind.' The speaker said roughly five percent of the footage would not be posted so as not to release sensitive security information 'related to the building architecture.'

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., had first demanded McCarthy make the footage public in negotiations to get him the speaker's gavel.

Fifteen government departments have been monitoring the social media activity of potential critics and compiling "secret files" in order to block them from speaking at public events, the Observer can reveal.

Under the guidelines issued in each department, including the departments of health, culture, media and sport, and environment, food and rural affairs, officials are advised to check experts' Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts. They are also told to conduct Google searches on those individuals, using specific terms such as "criticism of government or prime minister".

The guidelines are designed to prevent anyone who has criticised the government in the previous three to five years from speaking at government-organised conferences and other events.

A tentative US-brokered deal between Israel and Hamas could free several women and children being held hostage in Gaza — and lead to a five-day halt in fighting, the first since the war began six weeks ago, according to a report that the White House denied.

Dozens of women and children could be freed in the next several days, which would coincide with the first pause since Hamas' shocking Oct. 7 attack on Israel, sources familiar with the deal told the Washington Post Saturday night.

However, in a tweet responding to the report, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson wrote that a deal has not yet been reached "but we continue to work hard to get to a deal."

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters earlier Saturday that "there was no deal on the table" regarding the hostages "as of now," and dismissed "incorrect reports" about the situation, The Times of Israel reported.

According to the Washington Post, military operations on both sides will be suspended for at least five days under close aerial surveillance, per the six-page agreement. During the pause, 50 or more hostages will be released in groups every 24 hours.

Some 239 hostages are being held captive by the terrorist group in total.

Zugzwang: A situation found in chess and other turn-based games wherein one player is put at a disadvantage because of their obligation to make a move; a player is said to be "in zugzwang" when any legal move will worsen their position.

We can now safely say that our previous reading of the Israeli situation appears to be accurate. The U.S. is acting as a rudderless ship, rushing to the MidEast out of reflex with no clear gameplan, and is in fact terrified of Iranian escalations.

We now know this due to a confluence of new data.

Firstly, recall when I said you'd know how serious the U.S. was based on where it positioned its carrier group. It's now turned out that the USS Eisenhower is positioned off the coast of Oman exactly where I said it would be if the U.S. were not serious about doing anything more than posturing. That's because it's too distant to strike the most important targets of Iran, but is safely out of reach of a majority of coastal missile defense systems.

This week's "No Shit Analysis" award goes to Eugene B. Rumer for his Wall Street Journal op-ed, It's Time to End Magical Thinking About Russia's Defeat. Only took him 22 months to figure this out. He may be a slow learner but give him some credit, he finally awakened from his dream world and is beginning to grasp that the Ukraine project is swirling down the toilet.

Eugene B. Rumer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington DC. Previously, he served at the State Department, on the staff of the National Security Council and at RAND.

Despite his pedigree, he is struggling to acknowledge reality and still feels the need to spin nonsense. Here is an example:

Putin has reason to believe that time is on his side. At the front line, there are no indications that Russia is losing what has become a war of attrition. The Russian economy has been buffeted, but it is not in tatters. Putin's hold on power was, paradoxically, strengthened following Yevgeny Prigozhin's failed rebellion in June. Popular support for the war remains solid, and elite backing for Putin has not fractured.

Yep. Russia's economy is so battered that it is headed toward 4% growth, its defense industry is out producing Europe and the United States combined, it is manufacturing new, more deadly drones and the stores across Russia are filled to the brim. If that is "battered" give me some.

Kiev's propagandists are trying to deny the reality that Russia is gaining the edge on the battlefield...

A few days ago, the Kiev TV channel 1 + 1 reported that the Ukrainian army did not conduct a counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, and all the information about it was merely a brilliant psychological operation targeted against the enemy.

The story made use of popular stereotypes to show Ukrainians in the most favorable light - as skillful and smart people, capable of finding an original solution to a difficult task. The video was accompanied by memes popular in the late 2000s, which millennials would easily relate to.

The story was accompanied by the following comments:

"The war is being waged not only on the ground and in the air, but also in the minds [of people]. In the future, Ukrainian psyops will be analyzed in textbooks. One of the most successful such operations is the 'counteroffensive'. For several months, we deceived the enemy, claiming that we were conducting a large-scale offensive operation. Our cyber troops spread this information on the enemy's social networks and [implanted it] in their minds. For several months, Russians have been subjected to a powerful psychological attack while our troops are getting stronger [and preparing] for a real counteroffensive."

Not only does the Ukrainian media deny reality, but it also continues to deceive people, promising a new counteroffensive once the troops are ready.

Why is the Ukrainian media doing this? Why do Ukrainians need such stories? How and why did the 'information confrontation' become a public affair? And is it true that the Ukrainian counteroffensive didn't take place?

Biden has been labelled "Genocide Joe" by protesters in the United States and around the world who are incensed by Washington's complicity in Israel's mass killing of Palestinians over the past five weeks.

Well, what a descent into the gutter. Only a few months ago, U.S. President Joe Biden was given a rapturous welcome when he visited the Irish town of Ballina. It is from here that his ancestors emigrated to the United States in the mid-19th century.

At the weekend, the town held a protest to condemn the genocide in Gaza and denounced the American president for his administration's disgraceful support to Israel. Biden was roundly vilified as Genocide Joe.

It was a relatively small gathering in Ballina of a couple of hundred people. But there have been several protests all over Ireland in recent weeks as well as in the major cities of Belfast and Dublin. The Irish demonstrations are part of a worldwide tide of protests against the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the Western governments' support that enables it.

The PM condemned civilian casualties in the Israel-Hamas war...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged leaders from the Global South to forge a consensus in addressing emerging challenges, particularly those unfolding in the Middle East, amidst the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

Modi, in his opening remarks during the second 'Voice of Global South' summit, which New Delhi is hosting, reiterated India's condemnation of the terrorist attacks on Israel that occurred on October 7.

"With restraint, we emphasized the need for dialogue and diplomacy. We strongly condemn the death of civilians in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. After talking to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, we also sent humanitarian aid."

He asserted that countries in the Global South should talk in "the same tune" for the "greater good." They should strive for 'One Earth, One Family, and One Future' - the theme of the G20 under India's presidency - follow the principles of "consultation, cooperation, communication, creativity, and capacity building," Modi underlined.

The leader of the Quds Force made the pledge following reports that Tehran was seeking to avoid direct involvement in the Gaza conflict...

The head of Iran's elite Quds Force has vowed to do "whatever it takes" to back Hamas in its war with Israel, claiming that the Palestinian militant group was headed for an "impressive victory" in Gaza.

The Quds Force is the foreign operations arm of Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), responsible for military and intelligence missions beyond Iran's borders.

In a letter addressed to the commander of the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Quds Force leader Esmail Qaani declared:

"Tehran and its allies will not allow this brutal enemy and those standing behind him to conquer Gaza and its heroic people. We will do whatever it takes in this historic battle. Hamas proved to everyone that the resistance in Gaza is capable of initiative and innovation, while maintaining its organization and field capabilities."

Published on Thursday by the state-backed Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Qaani's letter comes a day after Reuters reported that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had informed Hamas that his country would not get directly involved in the Gaza war. Khamenei reportedly restated Iran's long-standing "political and moral support" for Hamas, but ruled out military intervention.

With President Biden's 81st birthday right around the corner, his ancient brain - barely clinging to reality, is no longer responding to whatever cocktail of drugs and blood transfusions (we can only assume) have been keeping him marginally functional since his inauguration.

Four weeks ago Biden staggered out to speak with the press on Air Force One, when he grabbed his face, looked at the floor, and then spat a word-salad of gibberish about mass shootings in between long, geriatric pauses.