Mayor DePeña Discovers the Two Official Languages of American Politics: “No Comment” and “God Bless You”

Lawrence Mayor Brian DePeña is apparently having a difficult week.

First, the mayor was arrested over allegations that he misused more than $1.5 million in COVID-19 small-business relief loans. Then, when reporters tried to ask him about it, they apparently encountered a serious language barrier. Yes, he was elected mayor of a Massachusetts town and doesn't speak English.

Not between English and Spanish, mind you. Between English and “no comment.”

DePeña’s lawyer helpfully explained the situation.

"He doesn’t speak English. No comment," the attorney said.

Meanwhile, DePeña smiled at reporters and repeatedly offered the one English phrase he apparently had available for emergency situations: "God bless you," aka Dios te bendiga.

This is certainly one way to handle allegations that you used federal pandemic relief money for your mayoral campaign and personal debts. Why answer difficult questions when you can simply smile, wave, and outsource your constitutional right to remain silent to your attorney?

The video quickly went viral, leaving social media users wondering how someone who has served as mayor of an American city since 2021 somehow managed to conduct the job without speaking English.

Conservative influencer Libs of TikTok summed up the public reaction rather efficiently.

"OMG," the account wrote on X. "How is this real."

Conservative radio host Mike Gallagher was similarly impressed.

"‘He doesn’t speak English, no comment’ says the assistant of the mayor of an American city," Gallagher posted on X. "Our melting pot has completely melted."

Journalist Miranda Devine offered a modest suggestion that apparently needs to be controversial in 2026.

"English fluency should be a basic prerequisite for holding public office," Devine posted on X.

Then came another detail that really put the icing on this particular cake.

Shortly after the press encounter, video surfaced appearing to show DePeña's vehicle crashing into a parked car while attempting to leave.

So, to recap: allegedly questionable use of $1.5 million in federal COVID loans, a lawyer announcing that the mayor doesn't speak English, a mayor repeatedly saying "God bless you," and then an apparent parking lot incident.

At this point, the only thing missing is a federal investigator asking whether the parked car was also somehow eligible for an EIDL loan.

DePeña, 61, was born in the Dominican Republic and was elected mayor of Lawrence in 2021 before winning reelection in 2025. He previously served on the Lawrence City Council. DePeña has also acknowledged that he was once an "undocumented immigrant," saying he came to the United States "without papers," before eventually becoming a U.S. citizen.

Federal prosecutors allege DePeña applied for the pandemic loans on behalf of Tenares Tire Services Inc., his Lawrence tire shop, and then used some of the money for purposes unrelated to helping the struggling business.

U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley wasn't laughing.

"Mayor DePeña was elected to be a leader for the City of Lawrence," Foley said. "He was looked up to and trusted by his constituents, but he betrayed that trust through his alleged corruption and lies. Today’s arrest is just another example of our determination to root out fraud by anyone, even public officials, and hold elected officials accountable."

And if convicted, DePeña faces up to 30 years in prison.

Or, as they might say in Lawrence, la cárcel.

At least that phrase apparently doesn't require a translator.

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Dem Gov Katie Hobbs under criminal investigation by Dem AG's office

Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, like Gov. Katie Hobbs, opened a probe in June 2024 into Hobbs’ administration after the Arizona Republic reported on Sunshine Residential Homes, a Department of Child Safety contractor providing group homes and foster care services.

Sunshine had donated roughly $400,000 to Hobbs’ inauguration fund and the Arizona Democratic Party around the same time it was seeking a substantial rate increase from DCS. Under the Hobbs administration, Sunshine eventually got that increase, receiving treatment critics have described as preferential or unusually generous compared with other providers.

Naturally, this raised a few questions. Nothing too serious, just the usual questions about pay-to-play, conflicts of interest, procurement rules and whether government contracts might occasionally find their way toward politically connected donors.

Hobbs has denied any wrongdoing or personal involvement in the contracting decision. Her office says there is no evidence she participated in it and insists the department acted in the best interests of foster children.

Which is certainly reassuring. After all, when a company gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians and then receives a major increase in taxpayer-funded payments, the first thing everyone wants to hear is that nobody involved remembers having anything to do with it.

As of mid-August 2026, the investigation is still underway. Mayes’ office has requested a formal interview with Hobbs, a request first publicly reported around April 2026, but the interview has not yet occurred. Hobbs says her office is communicating with investigators and that she looks forward to the investigation concluding.

Mayes has described the probe as being “near the end” and has indicated that results are expected before the November 2026 election.

So apparently Arizona voters may get to discover what happened just in time to decide whether they would like four more years of the person allegedly not involved in anything that happened.

For the record, no charges or indictment have been filed against Hobbs.

Separate Republican-led reviews in the Arizona House, including an effort involving outside counsel, have also examined the allegations. But the criminal investigation belongs to the attorney general’s office.

And then there is the internet’s favorite part of the story: claims that the Arizona Senate somehow “indicted” Hobbs over RICO allegations or other conspiracy theories.

It did not.

The legislature does not have the authority to indict people. Apparently, even political satire has to observe certain constitutional limitations.

For now, the Sunshine Residential Homes controversy remains a major political headache for Hobbs as she campaigns for reelection. The investigation could eventually clear her, produce charges, or simply continue long enough for everyone involved to become extremely familiar with the phrase “ongoing investigation.”

The status described here reflects public reporting as of mid-August 2026 and could change.

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Eric Swalwell and the Chinese Honeypot That Keeps Giving

This is getting almost too good to be true.

We already knew former Rep. Eric "Boom-Boom" Swalwell (D-CA) had a rather unusual relationship with a Chinese intelligence-linked honeypot named Christine Fang, aka Fang Fang. Now, thanks to documents released by the FBI, we apparently get to see what was happening behind the curtain, and it should scare normal Americans.

And suddenly, the California political scene looks even more entertaining.

According to newly released FBI memos, investigators believed 'the Fangster' may have compromised a Democratic congressman through sex, foreign interns and potentially illegal campaign donations. The FBI was even trying to recruit her as an informant because of her connections to Chinese intelligence.

The whole thing sounds less like congressional politics and more like the rejected plot of a low-budget spy movie.

Swalwell admitted to having a physical relationship with Fang., who he says he met in 2012, and diddled up until 2015.

The FBI eventually dropped Swalwell from the investigation and focused exclusively on Fang's alleged activities. So, at least according to the bureau, the congressman somehow managed to survive an investigation involving a Chinese intelligence-linked woman, while the woman herself remained the person of interest.

The FBI documents, obtained after President Donald Trump declassified them, describe a probe into Swalwell and Fang that was opened on March 17, 2014, under the wonderfully ominous name “Freshman Fifteen.”

The investigation centered on allegations that Swalwell provided congressional internships in exchange for campaign contributions. Investigators identified Fang as the alleged facilitator of the arrangement and accused her of using intermediaries to disguise the source of prohibited foreign donations.

“The FBI developed evidence that a Chinese woman with direct ties to that country’s intelligence service had potentially compromised a Democratic congressman from California with sex, foreign interns and illicit donations while she was being recruited to become a bureau informant a decade ago, according to bombshell memos that expose another threat to America’s political system from Beijing.”

That is quite a sentence.

Apparently, the FBI was not merely investigating a congressional intern who happened to have a funny accent. Investigators believed they were looking at a Chinese national with connections to Beijing's intelligence apparatus who had cultivated relationships with American politicians.

The documents say the FBI opened its investigation after allegations emerged that congressional internships were being exchanged for campaign contributions. Fang was allegedly the person making the arrangements.

“Investigation has revealed Fang ‘Christine’ Fang, a Chinese foreign national residing in the United States, is the facilitator of a scheme to trade access to Swalwell and internships in his congressional office in return for campaign contributions […]” the memo reads.

The FBI also alleged that Fang “used conduits to conceal herself as a prohibited Foreign National source,” for illegal campaign contributions “at least twice in 2013 and at least two more times in 2014.”

And then there is Jack Smith.

During the early stages of the investigation, the FBI regularly briefed the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, which was then headed by Smith. Smith would later become famous for leading the Biden administration's investigations and prosecutions of Trump.

Washington really does have a remarkable talent for producing recurring characters.

Eventually, after interviewing Swalwell multiple times, the FBI determined that it had not found evidence that the congressman himself had violated federal statutes. On February 8, 2017, the bureau reclassified the investigation, dropped Swalwell as a subject and concentrated on Fang's alleged campaign finance violations.

So Swalwell survived.

Politically speaking, this was apparently the congressional equivalent of walking away from an exploding building without even getting dust on the suit.

But the FBI's interest in Fang went considerably further than her relationship with Swalwell.

Before investigating her alleged illegal activities, bureau agents spent months trying to recruit her as an informant. They used an undercover employee and even created a fictitious company in an effort to persuade Fang to cooperate.

The objective was to obtain information about Chinese influence operations targeting American public officials, several of whom Fang was reportedly close to.

The operation was given the appropriately subtle name “Rusty Thumbs.”

According to the memos, an undercover FBI employee met with Fang several times, learned about her background and offered her a consulting position with the fictional company. The proposed job would have involved using her Chinese connections to assist the business.

Fang apparently wasn't eager to provide a detailed biography of her life in China. The memos say she was vague about her past, declined to explain her parents' positions with the Chinese government and would not disclose where she attended undergraduate school.

She was apparently much more comfortable discussing her political activities in America.

Those activities reportedly included helping connect donors to Swalwell's congressional campaign.

Eventually, Fang agreed to work with the fictional company. On June 14, 2013, she signed a contractor agreement for the consulting position.

The FBI has the contract in its files.

So there you have it. A Democratic congressman, a Chinese national with alleged intelligence connections, congressional internships, campaign contributions, a physical relationship, an undercover FBI operation, a fake company and something called “Rusty Thumbs.”

At this point, all that seems to be missing is Tom Clancy receiving a royalty check.

The important distinction, of course, is that the FBI ultimately concluded it had not established federal criminal violations by Swalwell himself. But the newly released documents nonetheless provide a remarkable look at how seriously the bureau viewed Fang's activities and the possibility that Beijing was using relationships with American politicians to gain influence.

And somehow Eric Swalwell still gets to participate in American politics.

Apparently, surviving a Chinese honeypot scandal is now considered a qualification for higher office in California.

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Jason Arday: the Cambridge D.E.I. professor and his sad demise

On August 5th Jason Arday, Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, resigned after being outed for plagiarism allegations, personal qualifications and alleged achievements.

The D.E.I. hire was appointed in 2023 as Cambridge's youngest Black professor, but investigations by the school cast doubts about his claimed accomplishments which became public. 

For example, Arday claimed to have run 30 marathons in 35 days. I've run a dozen in my life and let me just say, this is almost impossible. And in one version, he claimed to have suffered an epileptic seizure and fractured his leg on the 21st marathon but finished the rest. He also claimed to have run 300 miles in 3 days, and 600 miles in 6 days, occasionally describing it as Edinburgh to London. 

He also claimed to have raised over £5 million (or specifically £5.5 million and counting) for 70–80+ charities over roughly 18–20 years, most notably Shooting Star Children’s Hospices and Shelter, largely through the ultra-running challenges. (He later said this was as part of a larger syndicate/collective of about 100 people whose names he could not disclose due to NDAs.) Earlier versions of his story included lower but still substantial figures, such as nearly £250,000 by his late 20s or over £100,000 since age 17.

The real mindblower was regarding his personal background and overcoming adversity. Supposedly, he was diagnosed with autism along with other developmental delays, at age 3, and was non-verbal until age 11, just prior to his 12th birthday, when he "miraculously" spoke. He claimed to have been illiterate until age 18. Other related details in his self-accounts of his history include learning disabilities, epilepsy, a benign brain tumor, and other health challenges.

But wait . . . there's more.

Arday also claimed to have played academy-level/semi-professional football, did relief work with WaterAid, [installing water points in South America and West Africa. He was also an Olympic torch bearer for the London 2012 Olympics as a highlight of his fundraising work, and was shortlisted many times for The Mirror's Pride of Britain Fundraiser of the Year Award which earned him various honors tied to these efforts.

His PhD thesis was clearly plagiarized and he even incorporated the same grammatical errors the students from whom he copied and pasted, or whatever, made.

Sadly, Jason Arday was found dead on Friday, 14 August 2026. Multiple reports from outlets including the Associated Press, BBC, CBC, and others stated he was found unresponsive at a home in Battersea, south London. His family, via his publisher Simon & Schuster, expressed shock at the loss. The death was listed as non suspicious and I suspect he was responsible himself.

I blame Cambridge for not vetting him beyond his claims and race. He checked all the victim boxes and Cambridge had to be licking their chops when he applied there for employment.

I suspect Arday just couldn't stand the public humiliation and having to face the reality of who he actually was. 

D.E.I. is also dying and in this case, that's a good thing.  

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Likud launches billboard ahead of elections with the four Horses Asses of the Apolcalypse

Likud billboard with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem. August 16, 2026. 

Likud has apparently decided that the best way to kick off election season is to remind Israelis that, when it comes to political enemies, there is always room for a few more.

The party unveiled a billboard featuring Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem. Israeli social media accounts shared images of the billboard Sunday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helpfully reposted the image with the caption: “Don’t let them win.”

The billboard itself reportedly reads: “They want Netanyahu to lose, don’t let them win.”

The Jerusalem Post, however, believes the billboard is not actually in Jerusalem, as social media posts claimed, but in Tel Aviv overlooking the Ayalon Highway. Apparently even billboards are getting caught up in the Israeli election geography dispute.

Naturally, Israeli politicians were not going to let Likud have all the fun.

Yashar, the party led by former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, produced its own version. Its billboard read: “They want the IDF to collapse, don’t let Netanyahu win.”

“Netanyahu, we fixed for you,” the X/Twitter caption read. “Only Eisenkot will establish a fully Zionist government.”

Then MK Naama Lazimi entered the fray with perhaps the most politically loaded Photoshop job of the day.

She replaced Likud’s four villains with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Netanyahu’s current strategic adviser Yonatan Urich, former media adviser Eli Feldstein, and former political adviser Srulik Einhorn, all of whom are believed to be connected to the Qatargate affair.

Qatargate concerns an investigation into Netanyahu aides who allegedly received payments from Qatar while involved in hostage negotiations with Hamas. Nothing says Israeli political unity quite like accusing your opponent of being compromised by the country associated with Hamas.

Lazimi changed the billboard's message to: “They want Netanyahu to win, don’t let them lose.”

“Netanyahu, I updated this to the Qatargate version,” she wrote. “The invoice will be submitted on October 7.”

At this point, Israeli election campaigning has apparently evolved into a national Photoshop competition with the added benefit of an occasional national security implication.

And the polls suggest voters have plenty of choices. Eisenkot’s Yashar currently leads with 24 Knesset seats, followed by Netanyahu’s Likud with 22 and Naftali Bennett’s B'Yachad with 15.

The election has not even arrived yet, and the candidates are already putting each other on billboards with Ayatollahs, terrorists, foreign leaders and alleged scandal participants.

Israelis may want to buckle up. Election season is apparently going to be a long one.

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Illegal alien woman demands citizenship, goes ballistic in Espanol: calls for end of ICE doing their job

In a bold stand for the sacred right to ignore the law for decades while expecting freebies, furious Americans took to social media to blast an illegal alien who has been present in the United States for 37 years after she demanded amnesty in a Spanish rant alongside top Democratic Party leaders.

"I ask that you be champions of a change in the immigration laws," said Margarita Cielo Balbuena, in Spanish, flanked by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ), through an interpreter earlier this week. 

"We need a path to citizenship for those of us that have been present for at least seven years in this country," she continued. "We need a stop to these raids that immigration is using to terrorize Dover [New Jersey]." 

Basically, Balbuena wants ICE to stop doing their damn job.

"It is not just that someone like me, who has been in this country since 1989, [and still doesn't speak English] who pays taxes, who is a homeowner, who is a business owner who gives work to others, someone who has children and grandchildren who are born in this country — that I have to suffer the psychological and physical abuse and that I also have to suffer the humiliation that is the violent arrest and detention in a detention center," said Cielo Balbuena.

By violent arrest, Balbuena is referring to being arrested without incident. No wounds, no blood, but somehow it's violent.

The foreign-born woman was detained in ICE's Elizabeth Detention Center for two months, and claimed that she was treated inhumanely, according to the New Jersey Globe. Apparently, being held for repeatedly violating U.S. immigration law after nearly four decades of freeloading off the system counts as "abuse" in the progressive dictionary.

Jeffries faces growing pressure as democratic socialist-backed candidates gain influence in New York, raising new questions about the party's ideological direction. But online opponents of illegal immigration were not sympathetic to Cielo Balbuena's call. 

Shockingly, some people still believe that entering and remaining in a country illegally for 37 years does not entitle you to a participation trophy and a passport. 

Among her most prominent and harshest critics was former U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commander-at-large Gregory Bovino."You have lived in the United States since 1989. That is 37 years. You still need a translator," he said. "At a Democratic event you stood up and demanded a path to citizenship for anyone who has been here just 7 years," Bovino continued. "Notice the arrogance. Notice the entitlement." 

He went on to claim that Democrats' open borders policies allowed so many foreigners into the country so quickly that "assimilation is no longer required." 

"There can be no amnesty and there can be no exceptions. All illegals must go," the John Birch Society said on X in response to the video. 

"No English. No citizenship," said popular online personality Brigitte Gabriel. "No. Someone who wanted to be a citizen would care enough to learn the language. In any country," said another post that garnered over 1,000 likes.

"Immediate deportation," said actor Matthew Marsden. "A just country that cares about its citizens should defend it. That includes getting rid of people like this."

Rep. Jeffries spoke at the event, and demanded the closure of Delaney Hall, another ICE detention facility in New Jersey that was subject to intense protests and sometimes violent riots for months earlier this year. 

"Delaney Hall needs to be shut down," Jeffries said. "That will remain a high priority for us until it takes place. The behavior that ICE is engaging in is inconsistent with our values and what America should represent." [The values Jeffries refers to is the end to law and order, open borders, and defunding the police.]

The White House fired back in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying: "These types of smears by sanctuary politicians are contributing to our ICE law enforcement officers facing a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats. Our ICE officers are heroes who put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists from American communities. Democrats must stop demonizing our officers for simply enforcing our nation’s laws," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said. 

At press time, Democrats were still searching for a way to explain how demanding citizenship after 37 years of lawbreaking while needing a translator somehow advances the cause of justice, fairness, and not turning America into a free-for-all.

Ya es hora de deportar a todos los extranjeros ilegales.

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IDF seizes huge Iran terror axis arsenal but the fingerprints on them are damning

Israel’s capture of a vast arsenal from Iran’s terror proxies reveals an axis with the most unexpected originsAmong the weapons taken from Hezbollah was a Nazi-era MG-34 machine gunFox News Digital was granted rare access to the Israel Defense Forces’ Tzrifin Base in central Israel. There, stored in careful order, lies a formidable collection of rockets, grenades, drones, sniper rifles, automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers, mortars and assorted firepower seized from Hezbollah and Hamas.

This arsenal, manufactured in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia, China, and by local workshops in Lebanon and Gaza, and even including a relic of the Nazi era, formed the machinery with which Hamas and Hezbollah waged war against Israeli civilians and the IDF after the October 7, 2023, massacre. 

The IDF notes that Hezbollah directed some of the same weapons against Lebanese civilians as well. Both groups belong to Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance.” Together they have killed more than 300 American citizens, according to available reports. 

At the height of the conflict Israel fought a multi-front war against Iran and its proxies. Tehran fired these weapons into civilian areas, including Tel Aviv and Be’ersheva. Days after the joint American-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, the regime launched a ballistic missile into Beersheba, wounding 19 people.

To the untrained eye the small Nazi swastika emblem on a German Second World War MG-34 machine gun, recovered from a Hezbollah compound in Lebanon, is almost invisible. 

For Lieutenant Colonel (reserve) Idan Sharon-Kettler, commander of the IDF’s Captured Equipment Evacuation Unit, identifying such markings is routine. “The German MG-34 has the markings of an eagle carrying a swastika stamped on it,” he explained. The gun, he told Fox News Digital, appears to have served “propaganda or for morale” among the Iranian-backed terrorists in Lebanon. A second Nazi-era weapon, the MP 44 (also known as the StG 44), was likewise taken from Hezbollah.

Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated terrorist organizations by the United States, showed particular ingenuity in converting ordinary vehicles into instruments of high-intensity attack. Dual-use technology, equipment that serves civilian purposes one day and military ones the next, is their stock in trade. 

“Motorcycles like these took Israelis hostages,” Sharon-Kettler said, indicating an Egyptian Halawa Motors motorcycle captured inside Israel on 7 October. That day Hamas murdered more than 1,200 people, among them more than 40 American citizens, and abducted over 250 others. 

The IDF also recovered rockets belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad that had been employed as “propaganda dummies” in Gaza parades directed against Israel. From Hezbollah in Lebanon came all-terrain vehicles designed to carry rockets and fighters. One such ATV was fitted to hold six rockets complete with launchers. “You can sit on top of a hill and control a road that goes underneath. And with six anti-tank rockets you will stop almost any vehicle that passes,” Sharon-Kettler observed. 

In the broken, hilly terrain of southern Lebanon the vehicles offered obvious tactical advantages. 

Iranian-made mortars were found in quantity. “We found hundreds” in Lebanon, Sharon-Kettler said. Drones, including decoy models, were seized as well. Some of Hezbollah’s drones, according to Sharon-Kettler, exist chiefly “to make noise” and thereby “divert [IDF] resources.” 

Dozens of Iranian-produced cannons were taken from villages in southern Lebanon, the organization’s heartland. “In many houses the canons were pointing out of windows,” he reported. One of the captured pieces was of Russian manufacture. The storage halls also contain Russian AK-47 assault rifles in various configurations, together with more recent AK-103 and AK-104 models recovered in southern Lebanon. “Light sniper rifles, some made in Iran, some Russian, are very common with Hezbollah and Hamas,” Sharon-Kettler noted. 

Among the more unexpected finds was a highly decorated Turkish hunting rifle used by Hezbollah, as well as sophisticated Austrian Steyr sniper rifles, including the Steyr HS .50-calibre model. An Iranian-made replica of the Steyr was also displayed. Sub-machine guns of Chinese and Russian origin, and anti-tank launchers produced in Russia and Iran, completed the collection of small arms and support weapons.Uniforms manufactured in Syria, China and Lebanon, helmets, anti-shrapnel vests and medical kits further illustrate the professional and guerrilla equipment amassed by these groups. 

Both Hezbollah and Hamas embed their fighters among civilian populations, placing them inside residential neighborhoods, hospitals, schools and mosques. This is how these terrorists operate, but it seems the Left doesn't like to discuss this situation.

Sharon-Kettler offered a blunt assessment of Israel’s continued presence in Lebanon. “Even after the agreement we had with the Lebanese army and government, once we entered Lebanon again, we kept finding everything that is here. For me, it means, if we are not doing the work to clean Lebanon from military entities targeting are civilians, nobody else is doing that.” He referred to the November 2024 ceasefire arrangement between Lebanon and Israel that was meant to end the fighting begun when Hezbollah joined Hamas’s war on 8 October 2023.

A State Department official, speaking on background, recently informed Fox News that the American-led effort to secure the disarmament of Hezbollah by the Lebanese government and a phased withdrawal of IDF forces from southern Lebanon continues. The next round of talks is scheduled for early September in Rome. “We feel good about the trajectory,” the official said, adding, “We are not naive about the difficulties. . . "

Hezbollah, of course, is trying to sabotage the process.  

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Texas Airports Discover the Shocking Concept of Religious Neutrality

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-of course) has apparently committed the unforgivable sin of asking whether government-owned airports should be in the business of providing religion-specific amenities.

Abbott ordered a review of state funding for airports across Texas after learning about Islamic ablution facilities at two of the state's largest airports. The question is fairly simple: If government is supposed to remain religiously neutral, why is it providing specialized facilities for the practices of one particular faith?

“These ablution facilities appear designed to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion. That is illegal,” said Abbott.

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport plans to install separate foot-washing stations for men and women so Muslims can perform wudu, the ritual washing conducted before Islamic prayer. The project was originally listed as privately funded, with an estimated price tag of $300,000 and an August 31 start date.

Apparently, however, the phrase "privately funded" was experiencing a brief identity crisis.

DFW later told the Dallas Express that the facilities would actually be paid for with airport funds. The airport blamed an outside design firm, which mistakenly selected "non-publicly funded" on a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

“That was an error and it should have indicated that airport funds would be used projects. We are putting in firm erroneously selected no dollars for its operation to prevent that kind of error in the future,” said DFW.

This is reassuring. Nothing makes taxpayers sleep better than learning that hundreds of thousands of dollars in airport spending may have been accurately described as private funding due to an unfortunate encounter with a dropdown menu.

Abbott's review could result in existing state grants being revoked and future funding denied to airport operators, including DFW and George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

He has also asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to investigate both airports for possible religious discrimination.

While DFW is still deciding whether to install its ablution facilities, IAH [George Bush International Airport] already has one connected to a prayer room.

“Both airports are government-owned facilities,” said Abbott. “The federal and state constitutions prohibit government from facilitating this sort of discrimination.”

Abbott also asked Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to have the Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration review the facilities and take corrective action if necessary.

Both airports receive federal funding and are required to comply with federal laws prohibiting religious discrimination. Which raises an awkward question for the modern bureaucracy: If government cannot favor one religion over another, how exactly did taxpayers wind up underwriting religious foot baths?

Surely this is all just a misunderstanding.

Perhaps tomorrow the airports will announce that Christians can receive complimentary baptismal pools, Jews can get kosher ceremonial washing stations, Hindus can receive a taxpayer-funded purification room, and atheists can be provided with a comfortable chair where they can contemplate the absurdity of the entire arrangement.

DFW's explanation does little to calm the situation. According to the airport, the outside design firm selected the wrong funding designation on the paperwork.

Apparently the airport's religious neutrality was not the problem. The checkbox was.

X users backed Abbott's move, with some calling for similar scrutiny of other airports.

At this rate, the next great airport security breakthrough may not involve detecting explosives. It may involve detecting whether the government has accidentally decided to become the facilities manager for someone's religion.

And somewhere, a taxpayer is still waiting for the airport to build a special foot-washing station for him.

He just hasn't figured out which religion gets one yet.

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