Kathy Ruemmler, the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs, resigned after emails revealed she had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. She also served as a White House counsel under President Obama, among other positions. Reummler described Epstein as her older brother and downplayed his sex crimes.  She also called him Uncle Jeffrey. She had a […] The post Obama’s Former White House Counsel Resigns Over Her Relationship with Epstein appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned of “a deep rift” between Europe and the United States. He argued that the latter “will not be powerful enough to go it alone.” He decried JD Vance’s speech last year about the value of free speech, and he repeated his commitment to climate change and the CCP-tied WHO. […] The post German Chancellor Merz Scolds President Trump in Munich appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

President Donald Trump said Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” signaling a markedly harder posture toward Tehran as U.S. military assets continue to flow into the region. “For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking, and in the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk,” Trump said. “Legs blown off, arms blown off, faces blown off — this has been going on for a long time. So let’s see what happens. In the meantime … tremendous power has arrived and additional power — as you know, another carrier is going out.” #BREAKING: President Trump today said regime change in #Iran “would be the best thing that could happen. For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk. Legs blown off, arms blown off, faces blown off. We’ve… pic.twitter.com/SVtF3MDaU8 — Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) February 13, 2026 The remarks come as defense analysts say Iran’s strategic position has fundamentally shifted following the recent 12-day conflict, altering longstanding assumptions about both the regime’s durability and its military priorities. According to senior policy officials at the Jewish Institute of National Security of America (JINSA), Tehran is emerging from the conflict weaker in some respects, but more dangerous in others. “The clocks have been reversed,” said Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at JINSA, referring to the balance between regime longevity and nuclear breakout timelines. “Their nuclear program is back to zero — and they aren’t reinvesting,” following last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer, that destroyed three vital nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran. Instead, Misztal and other analysts said, Iran has redirected resources toward systems that proved most effective during the fighting, particularly ballistic missiles. “Iran’s ballistic missile program has gone leaps and bounds in both quality and quantity,” said Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at JINSA. “They are getting fuel mixtures from China. They started the 12-day war with 2,500 medium-range ballistic missiles, they are already back to 2,000.” That figure does not include what Cicurel described as thousands of short-range ballistic missiles currently in Iran’s arsenal. More concerning to U.S. defense planners, according to JINSA officials, is Iran’s evolving operational doctrine. Rather than relying on single-system attacks, Tehran has increasingly adopted mixed bombardment tactics designed to overwhelm air and missile defenses. Those strikes combine suicide drones, short-range missiles, and medium-range ballistic missile barrages to confuse radar, exhaust interceptors, and complicate targeting decisions. That strategy appeared to gain traction toward the end of the conflict. The United States alone expended roughly 150 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors during the fighting, according to JINSA estimates. “That represents about 25% of the American stockpile,” said Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow for American strategy at JINSA. “It could take 18 months to replenish that.” Ruhe added that War Secretary Pete Hegseth has already pressed manufacturers to expand production, but warned that industrial ramp-ups take time. Taken together, the assessments paint a more complex picture than traditional regime-change debates. Iran’s nuclear ambitions may have been set back substantially, but its conventional strike capabilities, particularly missiles designed to stress U.S. and allied defenses, are rapidly rebounding. Iranian officials, for their part, are publicly striking a defiant but conciliatory tone, insisting that Tehran seeks diplomacy even as it prepares for escalation. In an interview aired Tuesday on PBS NewsHour, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei rejected the idea that Iran is driving the current confrontation, portraying the regime as a long-standing victim of Western aggression. “No human person of common sense welcomes war. No one wants war,” Baghaei said. “For the past 47 years, we have been facing these threats, which are unlawful, unwarranted, unjustified. We have always lived with these looming threats.” Baghaei argued that Iranian society has grown accustomed to the prospect of conflict and framed resistance as a matter of national survival rather than ideological choice. “Our people have been courageous,” he said, describing U.S. pressure as an attempt “to impose their will on our people.” He also sought to shift responsibility for the breakdown in U.S.–Iran relations squarely onto Washington, citing what he described as an “unlawful attack” on Iran’s nuclear facilities during previous diplomatic efforts. “The distrust between the United States and Iran is very deep, and it is not because of Iran’s behavior,” Baghaei claimed, adding that Iran’s decision to reenter talks despite past outcomes was itself an act of restraint. The divergence between U.S. analysts and Iranian officials is the foundation of the central tension facing U.S. policymakers: Iran publicly speaks the language of negotiation, even victimhood, while investing heavily in the tools of coercion. The United States, meanwhile, confronts an adversary whose nuclear clock may have been reset, but whose conventional strike capacity is recovering faster than Western stockpiles can be replenished. Trump’s comments suggest a growing impatience with that equilibrium. Whether Iran’s professions of restraint signal genuine diplomatic openness or simply a pause before the next phase of confrontation remains the unresolved question hanging over Washington, Tehran, and the region.

‘A simple reform that will improve the security of our federal elections’

Annals of AWFL Excess: If It's ICEy, Burn It Down

Back on January 19, a D.C. Water sewer pipe burst ahead of a major winter storm, sending hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated sewage — collected from homes and businesses in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs — into the Potomac River and triggering not only a foul smell and unspeakable solids, but levels for bacteria such as e. coli soaring to 4,000 times above safe levels for recreational use. As of this week, concerns remain and questions have arisen as to D.C. Water’s grasp of the situation and basic transparency. And with a major waterway in the greater Washington D.C. area serving as both a source of drinking water and the backdrop to major events celebrating America’s 250th birthday, one would think story would merit national attention. Instead, the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC have refused to mention it on their flagship broadcast network morning or evening shows. In contrast, NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich Tonight covered it twice, serving as the plunger to what would otherwise largely be a blocked-out system. The first time was on January 28 and was set up by Pavlich teasing a segment on “something truly horrifying lurking in the Potomac River” that’s become “a crisis of epic proportions.” Pavlich began her extended “Gloves Off” segment by catching viewers up on the fact that “hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage and wastewater surged into the Potomac north of Washington, D.C.” when it normally “safely transports as much as 40 million gallons...out of sight and out of smell.” This January 28 segment on @KatiePavlichNN is the longest anyone in TV news has talked about the sewage spill on the Potomac and what would become the largest sewage leak in U.S. history 66 Olympic-sized pools worth of exercement and such -- in the D.C. area's biggest waterway! pic.twitter.com/JDLVy7rOvG — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 13, 2026 Making matters worse, she explained, was that the size of the burst pipe meant the leak “created a literal geyser that, at times, launched sewage feet into the air before running into what may now be more accurately referred to as the Pootomac River, the D.C. version of Old Faithful, basically.” “It’s 66 Olympic-sized pools worth, which is so disgusting. Despite the incident happening amid sub-freezing temperatures — thank God for that — those tasked with responding to the poounami described the smell as horrific and said the concentration of raw sewage, even taking water samples, a public health risk,” she added The real concern, she explained, is that matters will grow worse “when things thaw out in the spring” and that, if “a private company at fault, we know there would be investigations, fines, and probably more regulations as a result.” Even more than that, if this had happened in a red state or red jurisdiction, it’s a safe bet there would be a torrent of coverage and attempt to make a wider commentary about the right and, oh, maybe racism. Pavlich also spoke with Potomac Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks, who said he was “a little frustrated with D.C. Water’s response to this” and “led the public and a lot of elected officials to believe that the sewage spills was being contained in the CNO Canal and it finally is largely being contained, but there’s still sewage discharge in the river.” “[T]he primary [drinking water] intakes are upstream above Great Falls, so that’s a good thing. But again, you know, we now have all the sewage that’s kind of trapped in ice and snow. Is there going to be a delayed down the road? I don’t think anybody knows. This is really an unprecedented 300 million gallons of sewage,” he added. On Naujoks’s point about D.C. Water’s diversion, that certainly seems to have been the case hours earlier on NBC News NOW when they ran a piece from an NBC Washington reporter. Also on January 28 was another embarrassing note for the network blackout as even far-left, soon-to-be cancelled Late Show host Stephen Colbert spent nearly two minutes joking about the geyser of number ones and twos. The Fox News Channel covered it as well on the Sunday, February 1 edition of Fox & Friends Weekend with co-host Charlie Hurt discussing it in his weekend news round-up with The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman (click “expand”): HURT: And then, there’s this. After federal taxpayers — that would be you — paid $2 billion to build a new sewer system in your nation’s capital, 300 million gallons of sewage went gushing into the Potomac River this week, one of the largest sewage spills in U.S. history. Cleanup efforts could reach $10 million. One local riverkeeper describes the sewage, saying “the vile and putrid smell from the torrent of sewage discharging to the — to the Potomac River for eight days straight is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen in 25 years as a riverkeeper,” and of course all of “this can lead to dead zones...and harmful algal blooms,” and massive fish kills. Of course, it’s all still sort of a little bit frozen right now because it’s so cold there. It’s going to thaw. It’s going to be disgusting. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where your Environmental Protection Agency is located — In this city — and they’re dumping this into the Potomac River and in the Chesapeake Bay. LYMAN: Yeah, and this riverkeeper literally said that had proper maintenance been done to the facilities that transport this — HURT: Right. LYMAN: — this wouldn’t have happened, and that seems to be like this key theme. You think of the bridge that came down, right? If proper maintenance had been done, you wouldn’t be seeing this. So the big question becomes what are you paying your taxes for — HURT: Yeah. LYMAN: — if not to protect your rivers. HURT: Right? Exactly. And all of it, and you will be, the taxpayers will be on the hook for all of the cleanup. LYMAN: Yes! Fast-forward to this week and news that the spill became the largest in U.S. history. NBC News NOW again brought it up. This time, senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson had a brief on her eponymous show Wednesday that “a huge clog of non-disposable wipes is being blamed for the latest sewage spill in the Potomac River” that “knocked out a couple of the aboveground pumps being used to divert wastewater.” Pavlich returned to the poo-nami on Thursday night: “What started as a poopgiser in the Potomac River at the end of last month is officially the largest spill of wastewater in U.S. history. We covered the ecological calamity days after the doo-doo disaster began.” Risk for Potomia is very high. Worst sewage spill in U.S. history    pic.twitter.com/1iDW0eYnE3 — Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) February 13, 2026 After a clip from her interview with Naujoks, Pavlich explained how damaging the spill was and will continue to be. She also put the volume of doo-doo in comparison to the Exxon Valdez spill, which the left has tried to flush away since they’re in charge at all levers of power in local and state governemnts (click “expand”): Today, 300 million gallons have overflowed into the river. For comparison, Exxon — Exxon Valdez spill — oil spill into the ocean was 11 million gallons. But the officials tested the river downstream, they botched their math and dangerous pathogen levels were 100 times higher than initially reported. Even worse, DC Water officials say it could be another six weeks until the problem is actually fixed. This now historic disaster raises questions about accountability. And where are the environmental alarmist? You know, the types glue themselves to highways and twerk in traffic to protest injustice against the Earth? This is a real catastrophe. And yet, they’ve been oddly silent. Is it to avoid making Democrats who run D.C. look bad? This record-setting spill is bad for the environment. It’s a threat to public health. It’s a rest to wildlife, fisheries, and tourism. And it will be a very stinky issue once things thaw out. And it may even be a party pooper for America 250. The Democrats who run D.C., Maryland, and Virginia need to fix it and fast. Since Pavlich’s second segment, Friday brought about mentions on Newsmax’s American Agenda and then the Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier. Perhaps ABC, CBS, and NBC could have sacrificed a few seconds from their Bad Bunny celebration and done their doodie and not let others to scoop them.

A U.S. law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told Reuters that an Arizona sheriff is blocking FBI access to key evidence surrounding Nancy Guthrie's abduction and that it's hampering the federal agency's ability to assist in the probe.The FBI asked Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos for physical evidence in the case — including a glove and DNA from the home of the 84-year-old victim — to be processed at the FBI's national crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, but Nanos insisted on using a private lab in Florida instead, the official told Reuters.'It risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute.'While Reuters said Nanos didn't respond to its requests for comment, the outlet noted that Nanos said in a late Thursday interview with Tucson television station KVOA-TV that the FBI agreed with his decision to send newly discovered evidence to the lab, which has worked with his office for years.However, the U.S. law enforcement official noted to Reuters that move is delaying the FBI's ability to assist in the case.Still, Nanos denied the allegations, Reuters said, and called them "not even close to the truth" in the KVOA interview."Actually the FBI just wanted to send the one or two they found by the crime scene. ... I said, 'No, why do that? Let's just send them all to where all the DNA exist, all the profiles and the markers exist.' They agreed, makes sense," Nanos told KVOA, according to Reuters.More from Reuters:In a daily press update released earlier in the day, the sheriff's department said investigators had "recovered several items of evidence, including gloves," adding that all viable evidence is submitted for analysis." The agency did not elaborate.The Pima County sheriff has primary jurisdiction over the case, and FBI assistance must be officially requested by the county, otherwise the FBI is legally precluded from taking part in the investigation. The official said the county has spent some $200,000 so far to send evidence in the Guthrie case to the Florida lab."It risks further slowing a case that grows more urgent by the minute," the official told Reuters earlier Thursday, citing unspecified "earlier setbacks" in the investigation.RELATED: How the FBI actually got the Google Nest footage of Nancy Guthrie’s alleged kidnapper The official added to Reuters that "it's clear the fastest path to answers is leveraging federal resources and technology. Anything less only prolongs the Guthrie family's grief and the community's wait for justice."More from Reuters:Signs of friction between the FBI and sheriff's department emerged as the search for Nancy Guthrie stretched into its 12th day, as investigators intensified their search for clues in the presumed kidnapping for ransom.Nancy Guthrie was last seen on January 31 when family dropped her off at her home following an evening dinner with them, and relatives reported her missing the following day, authorities said.The sheriff has said the elder Guthrie had extremely limited mobility and could not have wandered off far from home unassisted, leading investigators to conclude early on that she had been abducted by force.In addition, officials said last week that DNA tests confirmed traces of blood found on Guthrie's front porch were Guthrie's blood, Reuters reported, adding that law enforcement and family members have described Guthrie as frail health-wise and requiring daily medication to survive.What's more, Reuters also noted that at least two purported ransom notes have surfaced since Guthrie vanished — and both of them initially were delivered to news outlets and set two deadlines that have since lapsed.However, Reuters noted that no proof of life is known to have surfaced following Guthrie's abduction.Savannah Guthrie, 54 — co-anchor of the popular NBC News morning show "Today" — has posted several video messages with her brother and sister that appeal to their mother's captors for her return, Reuters said.The siblings even state a willingness to meet ransom demands in the clips, Reuters added.In addition, authorities released doorbell camera video at Guthrie's home near Tucson showing an armed prowler in a ski mask and gloves trying to disable the camera, Reuters said, adding that the clip was recorded around the time that Guthrie was believed to have been taken from her residence by force.More from Reuters:Investigators were likely seeking to bring facial recognition analysis to bear on the video to produce a composite image of a suspect that they can run against a national database that includes all U.S. drivers with Real ID licenses, according to a former FBI agent.Law enforcement officials on Thursday said a black latex glove found discarded on a roadside was recovered and undergoing forensic examination.The FBI on Thursday doubled the reward offered for information leading to the location of Nancy Guthrie, or arrest and conviction of a suspect in her abduction, to $100,000.Like Blaze News? 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