Tortured and murdered for being a Jew in a Muslim concentration camp in Paris.  The post Glazov Gang: Remembering Ilan Halimi appeared first on Frontpage Mag.

Senate Republican leaders are signaling that the path forward for the SAVE act demanded by President Donald Trump could be far more complicated than some conservatives expect. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) suggested much of the current pressure campaign surrounding the legislation is being driven online rather than inside the Senate itself. “A lot of that is, it’s in that kind of, you know, paid influencer ecosystem,” Thune said, referring to growing calls from some conservative activists to force action on the bill. The SAVE act would impose new nationwide election integrity requirements, including proof-of-citizenship documentation to register to vote and voter identification requirements for ballots cast both in person and by mail. The House has already passed the bill, and Trump has recently increased pressure on Senate Republicans to move it forward, declaring he would refuse to sign legislation that does not include the SAVE Act. But Thune indicated that even many Republicans remain uncertain about how the Senate could realistically pass the measure. There’s support among GOP senators, he said, but “the process and how do you ultimately try and get a result is still unclear to me.” Some conservatives have floated forcing the legislation through the use of a talking filibuster strategy designed to pressure Senate Democrats and move the bill forward with a simple majority. Thune, however, warned that the tactic would be difficult to execute. “The talking filibuster issue is one on which there is not, certainly, a unified Republican conference, and there would have to be,” he said after a Senate GOP meeting. Under that approach, Republicans would likely face a barrage of amendments and procedural votes, requiring near-perfect unity within the conference. “If you go down that path, you’re talking about the need to table what are going to be numerous amendments and an ability to keep 50 Republicans unified, pretty much on every single vote,” Thune said. “And there’s just not, there isn’t support for doing that at this point.” The procedural uncertainty comes as Republicans juggle several other legislative priorities, including funding the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and pursuing a housing-related bill. “We want to get to the SAVE Act,” Thune told reporters, but cautioned that tackling other priorities becomes “harder to do once you’re in the throes of a talking filibuster.” The debate is unfolding alongside an increasingly public dispute within the GOP over who is responsible for the bill’s slow movement. In the last few weeks, as voters become acutely aware of the stall, several House Republicans and Trump himself have publicly criticized Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), accusing the longtime senator of blocking the legislation. Lawmakers including Ralph Norman (R-SC) and Tim Burchett (R-TN) have openly questioned McConnell’s motives, while Trump mocked the Kentucky Republican online over the stalled bill. McConnell’s office has pushed back on those claims, arguing that the senator does not control whether the measure receives a vote. A spokesperson said McConnell “has not, at any point in time, prevented a floor vote on any version of the SAVE Act,” noting that the latest House-passed version of the legislation is awaiting Senate floor consideration. The dynamic has placed McConnell at the center of conservative frustration over the issue even as Senate leadership emphasizes the procedural challenges involved. For now, Thune’s most recent comments suggest that while Republican leaders say they want to advance the bill, the strategy for actually doing so remains unsettled.

We keep hearing that Americans should stop focusing so much on the Middle East and focus a lot more on what’s going on here at home. I agree with this 100%, because many terrorists are here. And — they have the tacit and not-so-tacit support of the mayor of New York City and his wife. Over the weekend, an anti-Islamist protest took place outside Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s home. It was titled “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” and run by a white supremacist named Jake Lang. Roughly 20 people showed up. 20 people were apparently too many for 18-year-old Emir Balat, who threw an ignited device toward the protest area. He was shouting at the time — wait, wait, wait for it — you’re never going to guess — “Allahu Akbar!” I know, I know, a shocking surprise. Balat then apparently ran toward 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi, and he grabbed a second device. He lit that, and then began running. Eventually, he dropped it. Both men were arrested. The criminal complaint stated: After the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) arrested them at the scene, BALAT and KAYUMI both made statements referring to ISIS. For example, as KAYUMI was being placed inside an NYPD vehicle to be transported, an individual from the surrounding crowd yelled to KAYUMI and asked, in substance and in part, why he had done this. KAYUMI responded, in part and as captured on NYPD body-worn camera footage, “ISIS.” BALAT and KAYUMI also referred to ISIS in recorded post-arrest statements they made after receiving and waiving their Miranda rights. These were not smoke bombs. They were IEDs. According to the New York Post, the IEDs were homemade. They were packed with nuts, bolts, and screws, and also a household concoction nicknamed by international terrorist groups the “Mother of Satan.” Law enforcement sources told the Post the IEDs were so volatile they wouldn’t even have needed a fuse to go off. To no one’s surprise, Balat traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, for more than three months last year, and Kayumi traveled to Istanbul in 2024. It turns out there are a lot of people in Turkey who are really, really, Islamist. The pair admitted to law enforcement that they had watched ISIS videos and were inspired by ISIS. This should be the biggest story in the country: yet another attempted terror attack by a radical Islamist shouting “Allahu Akbar.” I say “another’ because in the past ten years or so, there have been a wide variety of such attacks. The Austin nightclub shooting just last week, where the terrorist wore a sweatshirt reading “Property of Allah”; the New Orleans terror ramming of January 1, 2025, killing 14, where the suspect had an ISIS flag in his truck; the New York City truck attack on October 31, 2017, in which a terrorist ran down eight people; the Saint Cloud Mall stabbing in September 2016, in which ten people were stabbed by a terrorist shouting “Allahu Akbar”; the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting of 2016 — which was to that point the deadliest mass shooting in American history with 49 killed and the guy was shouting “Allahu Akbar”; the University of California, Merced stabbing of 2015.  And of course, this wasn’t even the only suspected terror bombing in the West over the weekend. In Norway, the U.S. embassy was bombed early Sunday morning local time. But that’s not the biggest story here. The biggest story was the reaction from the mayor in New York. The mayor’s office released a statement condemning — the Anti-Islamist protesters! Not a word about the attempted bombers, as of Sunday night. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s press secretary said, “The crusade against Islamification gathering held outside Gracie Mansion today by Jake Lang, a vile white supremacist, was despicable and Islamophobic. Thankfully, the mayor and the First Lady are both safe, though the events are a stark reminder of the threats they both face regularly.” The mayor put out another statement: “Yesterday, white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie Mansion rooted in bigotry and racism. Such hate has no place in New York City. It is an affront to our city’s values and the unity that defines who we are. What followed was even more disturbing. Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are.” Did you notice something in those statements? Jake Lang was condemned in the fullest possible terms. So were the protesters. But, you may have noticed, you would have no idea from those statements who the people were that threw the IED. What did they actually believe? Were they wrong?  Not a word of condemnation. Not one single word. In fact, if you read the mayor’s statement without context, you would come away thinking that Lang and his group threw the IED, which is disgusting and crazy and vile, because it turns out that if ISIS devotees throw a bomb at the “Stop the Islamic Takeover rally,” the people who ought to be called out are the ISIS devotees. They are the ones who threw a bomb. So you have one group that’s saying stuff you don’t like, and you have another couple of guys who are lone wolves associated with ISIS who literally built IEDs to throw at a crowd. And Zohran Mamdani’s response is, “Man, that rally was superbad. And the violence that happened afterward, I mean, that was bad.” What the hell is he talking about? We know. We know what’s happening here. This is not a shock. Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, is a lifelong supporter of terrorists, going all the way back to his days as a failed rapper. And, as it turns out, so was the first lady of New York. She repeatedly liked social media posts celebrating October 7 as it unfolded. She even liked one post calling New York Times reporting on the rape of Israeli women by Hamas “a mass rape hoax.” What was Mamdani’s response to the reports that his wife had liked a bunch of posts sympathetic to terrorists? You know, my wife is the love of my life, and she’s also a private person who has held no formal position on my campaign or in my city hall. I, however, was elected to represent all 8.5 million people in the city, and I believe that it’s my responsibility, because of that role, to answer any questions about my thoughts and my policies and my decisions. I have a question for him. Why did your statement about ISIS affiliates throwing bombs at a rally not mention ISIS, radical Islam, terrorism, or anything else about that? Are we supposed to believe that the husband of the woman who was sympathetic to October 7 disagrees with any of her sentiments? And if so, precisely why? The problem here isn’t just a fringe issue. It is now a mainstream issue for the Democratic Party, which has decided that pooh-poohing radical Islam is de rigueur in order to condemn both America and Israel. And Mamdani is the face of their movement.

Brent crude, which is considered the international benchmark price point for oil, reached nearly $120 per barrel on Monday morning before plummeting to below $90 in the afternoon as President Donald Trump gave another positive update on the war in Iran. The rapid drop in U.S. crude late in the day came as President Donald Trump said the war, which has lasted for over one week, is “very far ahead of schedule” after initially predicting a four-to-five-week operation. Following Trump’s latest comments on the Iran conflict, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 also climbed. The Dow initially fell around 900 points early on Monday before closing the day up 261 points, while the S&P 500 turned a 1.5% fall in the morning into a gain of nearly 1% by the closing bell. “I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” Trump told CBS News in a phone interview. “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force,” Trump said. “Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones.” “If you look, they have nothing left. There’s nothing left in a military sense,” he added. Snippets of Trump’s interview were posted by CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang just after 3:15 p.m. ET, which was roughly the same time that the steep drop in Brent crude and the rise in the markets began. Trump also told CBS News that he is considering taking control of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital passage between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, where around 20% of the world’s oil typically traverses each day. Since the conflict in Iran began, tankers have been mostly halted from passing through the strait and into the open ocean. Trump said on Monday afternoon, however, that ships are once again moving through the strait and added that the Iranian regime would be completely obliterated if it threatens ships. “If they do anything bad, that would be the end of Iran, and you’d never hear the name again,” Trump said. If tankers are prevented from passing through the Strait of Hormuz for more than two weeks, oil could reach $150 per barrel, some experts warned, according to the Associated Press. Gas prices in the United States have surged since Trump’s Iran operation began. The national average for gas has climbed to $3.47 per gallon since last week, according to AAA. Before the recent rise, gas prices in the United States had mostly fallen since Trump took office last year. Trump has not said when exactly “Operation Epic Fury” would end, but during remarks to Republican lawmakers in Doral, Florida, later Monday afternoon, he said that the U.S. military “will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.” U.S. forces have decimated the Iranian navy and military capabilities, and the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Seven U.S. troops have been killed since the United States launched its major military operation on February 28.

'Not getting better'

'Sustained conflict in Iran will prolong these burdens'

'There has been a natural alliance'

clear legislative authorization

'A heartbreaking tragedy'

No criminal charges have been filed as of early Monday