Former National Security Council coordinator Brett McGurk appeared on CNN to detail the “massive” devastation of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. CNN spread fake news for days, but now realizes that “It worked! It seems to have worked flawlessly!” “I think from what I’ve seen, the 20,000 centrifuges… they are all completely destroyed. I am very confident […] The post CNN: Fordo’s Inoperable Possibly Forever & Iran’s Hanging People appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The Supreme Court issued a decision in a case that could accelerate deportations, ruling against a drug-running illegal alien who attempted to appeal his removal order after the deadline. The case, called Riley v. Bondi, concerns a Jamaican illegal alien and drug trafficker named Pierre Riley who overstayed his visa and was ordered to be removed from the United States, but appealed his removal order. The final 5-4 decision clarifies the window of time in which an illegal alien is allowed to contest an order of removal. The illegal alien in the case initially received a deportation deferral order from a judge after claiming that he would be killed if he was sent to Jamaica. The deferral order was revoked, with Riley again attempting to appeal his impending deportation. The illegal alien had previously racked up a criminal record in the United States. “He became a member of ‘a far-reaching and well-organized’ drug trafficking gang and was convicted in 2008 for conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, as well as for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug- trafficking crime,” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito pointed out in the opinion. Riley was then captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after serving his sentence and given an initial order of removal in 2021. The decision in the case specifically sought to clarify if illegal aliens must submit removal appeals within 30 days of receiving a deportation order, or if aliens enjoy a longer window and are allowed to submit an appeal after receiving a decision from the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), a Department of Justice entity that reviews decisions from immigration judges. The Supreme Court explained that removal order appeals must happen within 30 days of the order itself, rather than after decisions from the BIA. “The 30-day filing deadline cannot be satisfied by filing a petition for review within 30 days of the BIA’s withholding-only order,” the court’s opinion reads. The case will now be sent back to lower courts for consideration, with the Supreme Court calling on the courts to issue a ruling “consistent with this opinion.” The Trump administration also received favorable news from the Supreme Court earlier this week when it granted the administration the ability to deport illegal aliens to so-called “third countries,” nations other than the illegal aliens’ country of origin. That decision paves the way for potentially thousands of deportations of illegal aliens who have received deportation protections barring them from being sent back to their country of origin, also enabling the deportation of illegal aliens whose home countries refuse to take them back.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s auto industry has inflated car sales for years through a burgeoning government-backed grey market that registers new cars right off the assembly line and then ships them overseas as “used” vehicles. These so-called “zero-mileage” cars have never been driven but they are being exported as used to markets like Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East, allowing Chinese automakers to show growth and to dispose of cars that it would be difficult to sell domestically, according to a Reuters review of government documents and interviews with five auto dealers and car traders. “This is the outcome of an almost-four-year price war that has made companies desperate to book any sales possible,” said Tu Le, Michigan-based founder of consultancy Sino Auto Insights. The practice only gained national attention after the boss of Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor criticized the sale of zero-mileage used cars within China in May. On June 10 the People’s Daily newspaper condemned the sale of zero-mileage used cars domestically. The paper, which often signals the positions of China’s top Communist Party leaders, blamed these fake used cars for driving down prices amid a withering domestic price war and called for “tough regulatory action” to restore order. But the export and sale of fake used cars is actively encouraged by regional governments in China, according to a Reuters review of state media reports and government documents. Local governments have embraced the practice as vital to meeting ambitious targets for economic growth set by Beijing, according to a Reuters review of local policy documents and state media articles. Reuters has identified 20 local governments in China – including major export hubs like Guangdong and Sichuan – that have described their support for the export of zero-mileage used cars in publicly available government documents. The tactics include creating extra licenses for the export of zero-mileage used cars, fast-tracking tax rebate claims, investing in export infrastructure, and funding networking events to encourage zero-mileage used-car exports, the government documents showed. The zero-mileage used car export market works like this: as a fresh car emerges from the assembly line, an exporter buys the car either directly from the automaker or from a dealer, registers it with a Chinese license plate, and then immediately marks it as a second-hand car for shipping abroad. Along the way, the automaker books the car as sold and logs the revenue. The support for the practice from local governments would make little sense anywhere outside China’s centrally planned economy. But here, showing rapid growth in sales and employment can bring about promotion or unlock new funding while missing economic targets that trickle down from Beijing can lead to demotions of local officials. Because these export firms both purchase and sell a single car, the transaction value is double that of new or used-car purchases, so local governments court them to set up shop on their turf to quickly and artificially boost their GDP statistics, two Chinese auto industry executives said. The tactic is only one sign that China’s car industry – the world’s largest – is allowing production to outpace demand, driving a protracted domestic price war and spurring accusations of automotive “dumping” abroad. Cui Dongshu, the secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association, praised the practice earlier this month during an online panel discussion hosted by Tencent’s news portal, saying it was an alternative channel for automakers in China to access certain markets overseas that they may not be able to access due to rising trade barriers globally. He added that it also helped to satisfy overseas demand for China-made cars in countries where Chinese brands had yet to enter. Reuters contacted all the local governments mentioned in this article for comment but none responded. China’s State Council and commerce ministry did not respond to a request for comment. China’s foreign ministry referred queries on the practice to “the department in charge,” without elaborating. GOVERNMENT SUPPORT Local government support has taken various forms, from simplifying paperwork, to allocating extra quotas for local vehicle registrations, to setting up free warehouses for zero-mileage used cars close to China’s land and maritime borders, the Chinese documents showed. In February 2024, the planning commission of the southern city of Shenzhen, one of China’s richest cities and a tech hub that is home to Huawei and Tencent, pledged to expand the export of zero-mileage used cars as part of efforts to reach an annual target to export 400,000 vehicles of all kinds. Nearby, the southern Chinese metropolis Guangzhou announced earlier this year it had created a mechanism to support and accelerate the export of zero-mileage gasoline vehicles by allocating extra quotas for local registrations that are otherwise capped to mitigate traffic congestion and air pollution in the city. Xinmi, a district of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of China’s third-most populous province of Henan, said in February that it helped local firm Xinjiasheng Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd to “promote zero-mileage used car exports, in order to use exports to drive domestic sales.” Reuters found a dozen local governments were boosting the export of zero-mileage used cars as part of their strategy or core to their plans for growth. Sichuan province, one of China’s most important economic engines, said in October in a policy document it had supported the creation of an “online export ecosystem for zero-mileage used NEVs” by promoting e-commerce platforms like Alibaba International, where 100 Sichuan-based used-car sellers are now active. Xinjiasheng Supply Chain Management and Alibaba did not respond to requests for comment. MARKET SHIFTS The practice began sometime after 2019 when China allowed used cars to be exported to other countries. Now thousands of traders are involved in passing off new cars as used to qualify for the channel, according to Wang Meng, a consultant for the China Automobile Dealers Association. Of the 436,000 used passenger and commercial vehicles exported by China in 2024, 90% are estimated to be “zero-mileage,” Wang said. China overtook Japan to become the world’s largest exporter of new cars in 2023 and exported 6.41 million vehicles last year, according to the China Passenger Car Association. Of these, about 6% would have actually been zero-mileage used cars, according to Wang’s estimates. Two dealers and two industry experts said the majority of zero-mileage used cars are gasoline powered and thus less desirable in the Chinese market. But electric vehicles, which are subject to generous government-funded purchase subsidies, also make up a significant portion. Huanyu Auto, a used-car seller in China’s west metropolis of Chongqing, expanded to the zero-mileage used-car business in 2022. The returns were so good in 2022 and 2023 that they were able to earn 10,000 yuan ($1,400) in profit off an electric sedan that they had purchased in China for 40,000 yuan by selling it in Central Asia, said William Ng, director of the firm’s international market division. Criticism has started to mount. On June 7, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Chinese automaker Changan called for a crackdown on exports of zero-mileage used cars at a Chinese auto conference, saying the practice could “enormously damage Chinese brands’ image” abroad. Changan did not respond to a request for further comment. Xing Lei, the Massachusetts-based founder of consultancy AutoXing which provides insights on Chinese EV companies to foreign investors, said the practice could cause foreign investors to assess Chinese automakers’ sales skeptically. “How many are real or inflated? No one knows,” he said. ‘DUMPING’ CONCERNS The proliferation of new cars being shipped for sale with “used” tags is reinforcing fears that China is dumping subsidized vehicles overseas, at a time when Beijing is scrambling to find export markets outside the United States, now heavily protected by tariffs. Some countries, concerned that the influx of cars will crowd out local dealers and confuse consumers, are starting to push back. “We’re definitely seeing friction and tension in markets where there are already manufacturers on the ground there,” said Michael Dunne, a consultant who closely follows the China auto industry. Russia in 2023 issued a government decree effectively banning zero-mileage used cars from brands that already had official distributors in the country. The commerce bureau of Heihe, a Chinese city that sits on the China-Russia border, said last November on its website that this applied to Chinese brands such as Chery, Changan, and Geely. Geely declined to comment while Chery and Changan did not respond to requests for comment. Other countries’ market regulators, including Jordan, are finetuning their definition of used cars by mandating a longer period after a vehicle’s licensing or production before it is classified as used. Ng, of Huanyu Auto, said growing competition from new entrants such as mom-and-pop stores and even TikTokers selling zero-mileage used cars was causing the trade to become less lucrative. “They used to sell vases, wine and are now selling cars in the same way,” he said of the new entrants. “This is chaos.” (Reporting by Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Additional reporting by Gleb Stolyarov in Tbilisi; Editing by Mike Colias and Michael Learmonth)

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough invoked the ire of Republicans in Congress on Thursday for rejecting provisions in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” championed by President Donald Trump. A couple of GOP lawmakers called for MacDonough to be overruled after she ruled against proposed changes to Medicaid over the view that they do not comply with Senate rules for the budget reconciliation process being used to fast-track the legislation. “The Senate Parliamentarian, an unelected staffer, is gutting the House’s OBBB and axing conservative wins. Her word isn’t law — just advice. Senate Republicans: ignore her and deliver on President Trump’s agenda, backed by 77M Americans!” Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) posted on X. Others are going as far as to demand that MacDonough be forced out of the role she has held since being appointed by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in 2012. “The WOKE Senate Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Harry Reid and advised Al Gore, just STRUCK DOWN a provision BANNING illegals from stealing Medicaid from American citizens. This is a perfect example of why Americans hate THE SWAMP,” declared Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). “Unelected bureaucrats think they know better than U.S. Congressmen who are elected BY THE PEOPLE. Her job is not to push a woke agenda. THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN SHOULD BE FIRED ASAP.” Republicans are working to pass the bill using the reconciliation process, which allows the Senate to bypass the 60-vote threshold for a filibuster. However, the parliamentarian determined proposals for Medicaid and other programs do not adhere to the Byrd Rule, which demands they stay focused on the budget. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) indicated that he did not plan to overrule MacDonough, telling POLITICO, “No, that would not be a good option for getting a bill done.” He also suggested lawmakers will try to work around MacDonough’s rulings even as the July 4 deadline favored by Trump fast approaches, and changes they make will have to be approved by the House, which already passed a version of the legislation one month ago. “These are speed bumps along the way, we anticipated those and so we have contingency plans. Obviously, you have to adjust the timing and schedule a little bit, but we’re moving forward,” Thune said, per Punchbowl News. In years past, some Democrats also called for MacDonough to be overruled or fired after rulings in the reconciliation process did not go their way, like after the parliamentarian rejected a proposed minimum-wage increase in 2021 when they controlled the Senate and Joe Biden was president. One GOP lawmaker in the House, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), pointed out that Republicans did fire the parliamentarian in 2001 in a similar clash over budgetary matters and encouraged Thune to remove MacDonough from her perch now. “This is not about partisanship, it is about rule of law. She has failed to apply the rules of reconciliation accurately on multiple occasions,” Crenshaw said on X, adding that “the current parliamentarian has shown clear political bias, applying ideology and not the rules of the Senate.” Crenshaw took particular issue with the parliamentarian’s ruling against his own proposal. “There are many examples of this so far, but today was the final red line for me. She struck my provision that stops federal funding for gender transition procedures, claiming it doesn’t have budgetary impact and therefore is “out of order,” Crenshaw said. “The FACT is this provision absolutely has a direct budgetary impact. It amends Section 1903(i) of the Social Security Act, which governs federal payments under Medicaid. So MacDonough’s claim that it’s noncompliant on procedural grounds is absolutely wrong.” He concluded: “This is bigger than one provision. It’s about the sanctity of the rules and laws we follow, and the importance of the position of the Head Parliamentarian, who must be an objective non-partisan who applies the rules with consistency, not ideology.”

President Donald Trump’s official website is now selling a “Trump Daddy” t-shirt, just a day after NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte referred to the president by the affectionate title. ? “DADDY” MERCH OUT NOW!https://t.co/YAxVOAdj8y pic.twitter.com/08PnAHhtFX — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 26, 2025 Rutte, a Dutch politician, discussed with Trump the president’s actions during the Israel-Iran war. Rutte brought up the fact that, after a ceasefire agreement had been reached, Iran struck Israel one last time, leading Trump to express his annoyance by saying that, “They don’t know what the f*** they’re doing.” In reference to that, Rutte commented, “Daddy has to sometimes use strong language.” Agreeing, Trump added that, “Every once in a while you have to use a certain word.” Later, responding to a reporter from Sky News inquiring about Rutte’s comment, Trump said “I think he likes me. If he doesn’t, I’ll let you know. I’ll come back and I’ll hit him hard, okay? He did it very affectionately. ‘Daddy — you’re my daddy.'” Following that humorous interaction, which left Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth chuckling behind the president, the White House released a video of Trump’s visit to the NATO summit captioned “Daddy’s home… Hey, hey, hey, Daddy” with Usher’s song “Hey Daddy” playing over it. Then, Thursday morning, Trump’s official shop released a memo showcasing the new merchandise: a red T-shirt with Trump’s official portrait and the word “DADDY” underneath. Rutte has since clarified his comment. “What I said is that sometimes, in Europe, I hear sometimes countries saying, ‘Hey, Mark, will the U.S. stay with us?’ And I said that sounds a little bit like a small child asking his daddy, ‘Hey, are you still staying with the family?’ So in that sense, I used ‘daddy’– not that I was calling President Trump daddy.”

New York City is on the verge of electing an actual communist mayor of the city, and this requires us to ask a question. Why? What is happening with the Left that they’ve decided to opt for Bernie Sanders over anything like a mainstream Democratic Party candidate? Of course, this has been coming for a long time. Bernie Sanders ran an incredibly strong race against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Bernie Sanders then ran an incredibly strong race against Joe Biden in 2020. Thus, there is something happening inside the Democratic Party — and it’s growing —and it’s growing — and it’s growing. That doesn’t mean the Democratic Party is growing and growing. In fact, the Democratic Party is shrinking even as this movement is growing. It’s essentially a tumor destroying the health of the Democratic Party from the inside. But something is happening. Zohran Mamdani, the former no-name, 33-year-old trust fund kid who’s a socialist and anti-Semite, who has worked for all of three combined years, I believe, in his entire adult life (and that includes him rapping), is now on the verge of becoming the mayor of the most important city in the West. I think reasonable people look at this and think he is winning in spite of those things. I think that’s missing the point. He’s winning because of those things. That’s because there’s an Omnicause on the Left; the Scavenger cause, which is to tear down all the systems. Inchoate rage at the system channeled into socialist economics, Howard Zinn-inspired foreign policy, and destructive hatred of traditional institutions. WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show That Scavenger philosophy has gained tremendous credence with the dissatisfied Left, a Left that achieved many of its victories and now has plunged itself directly into nihilism. The problem with the Left over the course of the last several decades has been that they caught the car. In the 1960s, the Left in the United States began to catch the car with everything from the sexual revolution to the overturning of the constitutional order. In doing so, they then had to construct a system. The problem is that when you construct a system and then the system fails and fails and fails again, and then the backlash happens in the form of a Donald Trump, you start to lose your mind, you start to become insane. Thus, instead of them wanting to capture the commanding heights of the system and change the system from within incrementally, “make it better,” which used to be the Democratic way, now they just want to burn everything down. That is not a particularly attractive message to a broader American public that does not want to burn everything down. The secret about President Trump is that when President Trump ran in 2016, pledging that he was going to burn everything down, the reality is that people realistically believed that he was going to burn some things down, but he was certainly not going to burn everything down. They actually thought he would be a lot more moderate than he said he would be. It turned out in many ways that he was significantly more institutionalist in his approach from 2016 to 2020 than people expected him to be. Even today, all the crazy people who are yelling about him challenging democracy, won’t recognize that democracy is not under threat, that the courts are not under threat. This idea that Donald Trump is simply running roughshod over our most cherished institutions is a lie. But Democrats have always used revolutionary language in order to push forward evolutionary ends. Interestingly, Donald Trump did the same thing inside the Republican Party. He used revolutionary language to achieve evolutionary ends. All of that is normal politics in the United States. That’s what’s currently happening to the Left. Bernie Sanders and his entire wing of the party are using revolutionary language because they want an actual revolution. This is why you have seen the Left nodding at riots over the course of the last decade, at actual attempts at revolution in the streets. It’s why so much of the Left was fine with Luigi Mangione shooting the United Healthcare CEO, because revolution requires a few broken eggs, and it is why Bernie Sanders now has the whip hand in the Democratic Party. Zohran Mamdani is simply channeling Bernie Sanders at this point, with a few added features. He’s ethnically diverse, he’s not originally born in America, his father is a postcolonial studies professor at Columbia University of Shia Muslim descent, and his mother is an Indian-American filmmaker of Punjabi Hindu descent. All these things add a smattering of exoticism to Zohran Mamdani. The fact that he is a rabid anti-Semite obviously sprinkles a lot of pizazz atop the Omnicause stew. He’s Greta Thunberg with a beard, with a more ethnically exotic background, and with a lot more charisma. He is the face of the international Left in a nutshell. In his victory speech, he said: Let me close with this. In these dark times, I know that it is harder than ever to keep faith in our democracy. It has been attacked by billionaires and their big spending by elected officials who care more about self-enrichment than the public trust, and by authoritarian leaders who rule through fear. But above all, our democracy has been attacked from within. For too long, New Yorkers have strained to find a leader who represents us, who puts us first, and we have been betrayed time and again after so many disappointments.  The heart hardens, belief becomes elusive, and when we no longer believe in our democracy, it only becomes easier for people like Donald Trump to convince us of his worth, for billionaires to convince us that they must always lead. And I pledge to you that we will remake this great city not in my image, but in the image of every New Yorker who has only known struggle. “Known struggle?” Are you kidding me? Mamdani has experienced a shocking lack of struggle in his young and non-achievement-oriented life. According to Forbes: At a panel in Harlem in February, New York state assembly member Zohran Mamdani discussed a piece of proposed legislation that would strip Columbia University of various tax breaks and redirect the revenue to fund the City’s university system. Mamdani’s no stranger to Columbia—his father is a Harvard-educated, renowned professor there, and he grew up in university-owned housing. “Columbia was our first landlord,” he told the crowd, according to an account in the student newspaper. … Forbes estimates Mamdani to be worth around $200,000. … Mamdani attended Bank Street, a prestigious Manhattan private school that now costs as much as $66,000 a year for elementary school students, before graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s best public schools. … he studied Africana Studies at Bowdoin College, a private liberal arts school in Maine. After graduating, he worked on his mom’s sets. He tried his hand at a rap career using the monikers Young Cardamom and Mr. Cardamom, and “took jobs working on several political campaigns and community organizing efforts.” That is legitimately his entire work history. This is a person who is campaigning for those who “have only known struggle.” What is he actually saying? What he is saying is that if you are unsuccessful in life, what is required is a revolution: a revolution led by someone like Zohran Mamdani, a trust-fund kid. That’s what he is. And yet he is treated as though he is a revolutionary. By the way, a dirty little secret about revolutions: They are very rarely led by true members of the low-income classes. They are usually led by upper-middle-income people who feel upset that they didn’t get their “fair worth.” That’s Mamdani. And so he is taking Bernie Sanders’ economics and slapping on top of that all of the spicy peppers that makes so many liberals go absolutely gaga, particularly white, highly-educated, rich, elite liberals. All the things that normal people see in Mamdani as problems are nectar to the Left. When I say that Bernie Sanders is taking over the Democratic party, this is what I mean. AOC is Bernie Sanders wearing AOC’s face. Mamdani is Bernie Sanders wearing Mamdani’s face. There’s a reason that leftists are marching with a queer flag and a Palestinian flag and an Iran flag and also voting for Zohran Mamdani: because they are about destroying the things that work — in the name of nothing. It is not as though they want to build a better system. They do not have the capacity to build a better system. This is about a shout and a cry at the “establishment,” screaming at the moon in the name of revolution. That is Bernie Sanders. Bernie has never been on a major piece of legislation. Bernie is a lifelong loser. He’s a loser. But that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. Losers can absolutely be dangerous.

Their ideas do not stay contained

Ahh ... now it all makes sense