This is How ICE-GESTAPO Treats Random Innocent Hispanics and Latinos

Lawyer Says ICE Detainee Suffered Brain Bleed After Violent Apprehension, Was Guarded by Agents Instead of Given Private Medical Care
Aaron Parnas
Mon, August 17, 2026


Lawyer Says ICE Detainee Suffered Brain Bleed After Violent Apprehension, Was Guarded by Agents Instead of Given Private Medical Care

Jose Mejia Hernandez was violently apprehended by immigration authorities, sustained significant facial injuries consistent with blunt force trauma, and was hospitalized with a brain bleed and swelling, all while under constant ICE surveillance and limited communication with medical staff.

MeidasTouch has obtained a detailed narrative from the attorney representing Jose Mejia Hernandez, describing a violent apprehension by immigration authorities, a resulting brain injury, and what his lawyer characterizes as a hospitalization marked by constant ICE surveillance, limited communication with his own doctors, and days of silence to his family about his whereabouts.

According to the account provided by his attorney, the incident began on the morning of August 11, at approximately 6:30 a.m., as Mejia Hernandez was walking to work. A truck rapidly approached him, and two men got out and ran toward him. Frightened and unsure who they were or what they wanted, he ran. While fleeing, he says he was struck with what he believes was a stun gun or Taser. He has no memory of what happened next, including how he sustained his injuries, how he was transported, or how he ended up at a hospital. He says he next recalls waking up many hours later.

Significant Injuries, Constant ICE Presence

When he regained consciousness, Mejia Hernandez discovered significant facial injuries consistent with blunt force trauma that he has no memory of sustaining. Throughout his hospitalization, his attorney says two ICE agents remained at his bedside at all times, and he was never given a private opportunity to speak with his medical providers.

When he asked the agents what had happened to him, they told him they did not know. His attempts to get information from hospital staff, according to his lawyer, were met with limited answers, and staff appeared reluctant to speak openly with the agents present. He says he came to believe that medical staff were communicating more with the ICE officers than with him, leaving him largely in the dark about his own condition.

A nurse eventually told him quietly, in Spanish, that he had suffered a brain bleed and that there was swelling in his brain. But according to his attorney, he was never given a full explanation of his diagnosis, his treatment, or how the injuries occurred, and he remained largely uninformed about the severity of his condition while under continuous guard.

Family Left in the Dark for Days

For approximately three days, Mejia Hernandez's wife and stepchild had no idea where he was. Neither DHS nor the hospital, to his knowledge, ever notified his family that he had been detained, injured, or hospitalized.

Released Without Understanding What Happened to Him

When ICE officers determined he was to be discharged, his attorney says Mejia Hernandez himself did not understand he was actually being released. He was transported from the hospital, offered food and drink, and told to contact his family. From there he was taken to an ICE office, fitted with a GPS ankle monitor, and issued immigration paperwork, including a Notice to Appear, with instructions to report to ISAP the following Monday. At the time of his discharge, he still did not understand the full extent of his injuries or what had happened to him before he woke up in the hospital.

Back in the Hospital Within Days

By Friday, he felt significantly worse and returned to the hospital, still concerned about the brain bleed and swelling the nurse had described. He was again diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and brain bleed and remained hospitalized for approximately two more days. His attorney says physicians were unable to complete necessary imaging because of the GPS ankle monitor. He was discharged Sunday but still required further evaluation, including an MRI.

A Monitor Standing Between Him and Medical Care

On August 17, Mejia Hernandez attended an ISAP appointment accompanied by counsel, still experiencing pain, dizziness, and headaches. Medical documentation indicated he needed an MRI, and his attorney requested removal of the GPS monitor to allow for imaging. According to the account, ISAP refused to remove the monitor unless a specific MRI appointment date and time was provided, a requirement that forced him to return to the hospital just to schedule the appointment before the monitor could even come off.

The result has been a cycle of back-and-forth between medical facilities and immigration offices while he continues to suffer symptoms of a traumatic brain injury and brain bleed. An MRI was ultimately scheduled for August 18 at 7:00 p.m., with Mejia Hernandez required to return to ISAP earlier that day to have the monitor removed, then return to the hospital for imaging, then have the monitor reattached afterward.

What Remains Unknown

According to his attorney, significant questions remain unanswered. Mejia Hernandez does not know what happened between the moment he was incapacitated and when he regained consciousness. He does not know how his injuries were sustained or what force, if any, was used against him. His family was not informed of his whereabouts for roughly three days. Throughout his hospitalization, ICE agents remained continuously at his bedside, which he believes limited his ability to speak privately with medical staff, and he believes hospital personnel communicated more with the agents than with him directly. He was discharged without a full explanation of his condition, only to require readmission for the same injuries days later, and he continues to face obstacles obtaining diagnostic imaging because of the monitoring requirements imposed on him.

Attorney Demands Full Accounting, Evidence Preservation

His attorney is now formally requesting a complete accounting of Mejia Hernandez's apprehension, injuries, medical treatment, and custody, including the identification of everyone involved, any use of force, transport details, communications between medical staff and ICE, ICE's role in his medical decisions, and the reasons his family was not notified. The attorney is also demanding preservation of all relevant evidence, including reports, recordings, communications, medical records, custody logs, and ICE assignment records.

His attorney says Mejia Hernandez requires immediate access to necessary medical care without interference from monitoring requirements, given that his condition involves a serious neurological injury requiring timely diagnostic evaluation. His attorney says he and his family deserve full transparency about what happened to him, how his injuries were sustained, and how his medical care was managed while he was in custody.

This story was originally published by MeidasTouch on Aug 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add MeidasTouch as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Donald Dumb Hails Achievements of his Zionist-Prodded Iran War Debacle

ALL THAT IRAN HAS TO DO TO WIN THE WAR IS NOT TO LOSE!

No president before Trump has ever given a more, indirect yet astounding, victory to America's enemies. By believing Netanyahu's lies that the regime in Tehran will fall within days of the start of the war, the dumb jackass in the White House fell in a trap. He cannot backtrack now because he'll demonstrate how much of a loser he is. But he can't keep warmongering the way he is doing because that is failing too. 

The only way to, maybe, win against Iran is to invade it. And that, my friends, is what the Americans seem to have finally learned: Huge quantities of soldiers and sophisticated weapons don't necessarily mean victory because you need smartness and intelligence too when it comes to winning wars. And the US has demonstrated it lacks these two qualities when waging wars. The abject failures of the US in such places as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and others are keeping Trump, so far, from trying his luck by invading Iran. He still might do it in desperation as his star is fading fast in the US and across the world. Right now, the dumb moron is grasping at whatever straws he encounters, trying to get himself out of the Iranian swamp.

1- Donald Dumb has effectively violated the US's standard policy of never negotiating with terrorist organizations: He, through his real estate idiot son-in-law, Kushner, is directly negotiating with the terrorist organization Hamas in Egypt. Seems like Netanyahu's pledges and promises to annihilate Hamas have failed to materialize.

2- The War, according to the dumb senile asshole in the White House, is so successful that he "is not in a hurry" to end it. He suggested that those sailors aboard US warships who are complaining about disastrous conditions on their ships should shut up. Meanwhile, the 80-year old plays golf on weekends, is building himself monuments at taxpayers expense, or attaching himself like a leech on other presidents and their monuments in the hope that their glory will ooze out on him, late-night playing with AI to picture himself on a horse next to George Washington, is in love with his 35-year old assistant Natalie Harp, and profits by the billions of dollars from gyrating the stock market up and down through his posts: On Fridays, he threatens Iran, stocks drop, he buys cheap; then on Mondays, he praises progress with Iran, stocks rise, he sells high, and pockets the profits. 

3- The War has caused gasoline and energy prices in the US to skyrocket, but the senile orange mongrel told Americans to shut up, stop complaining, and pay for expensive gasoline because it's the price they have to pay for preventing a non-nuclear Iran from becoming nuclear. Even if Iran becomes nuclear, which is still a hypothetical possibility, it would not be a threat to the US as the other nuclear rogue state North Korea has become.

4- Yet, the Great Moron is protecting North Korea, by eliminating joint military maneuvers between the US and its ally South Korea, which the jackass says are "hostile and inappropriate".

5- Thanks to his imbecility, Donald Dumb has now created a problem that did not exist before he launched his war: The Strait of Hormuz is now Iran's most lucrative and leveraging tool as Iran is using it, and says it plans to use it forever, to blackmail the entire world economy.

6- The dumb moron president of the US has now created a new enemy that heretofore had been one of the most stable ally in the Gulf, the Sultanate of Oman. Because Oman must negotiate with Iran on the Strait of Hormuz traffic modalities, it has become a subject of threats and insults by the Great American Moron, whose only way to deal with Oman is to "bomb the shit of them". That is really the only thing Americans know how to do: Violence.

7- Iran has now put a bounty of $30,000 on the head of any US service member who is caught. It seems that Iran is learning the American way of politics. Since its inception, the Islamic theocracy in Iran has carried out untold number of terrorist actions across the world, including the bombing of the US embassy twice in the Beirut of the 1980s and the murder of 243 US Marines at Beirut Airport in October 1983, among many other acts. Back then, Hezbollah's terrorism literally chased Ronald Reagan, the other republican moron president, out of Lebanon as he fled like a rabbit after the US Marines bombing, and invaded the Caribbean island of Granada the very next day to deflect public opinion from his abysmal failure. Had Reagan stood his ground in Beirut in 1983 - Hezbollah was only a two-year old organization - we would not be where we are today. Some experts say that Iran has so far refrained from resorting to terrorism through its dormant sleeper cells across the West, but if cornered it would not hesitate.

8- The Arab Gulf Girls (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait....), who have been hysterical in their flowing robes at hosting US military bases now targeted by Iranian retaliations, have decided to opt out of the so-called "American protection". Because Trump is pressuring them to fight Iran by themselves, they have decided that American protection is not what it is promoted to be. Note that Iran has not targeted non-American facilities in these Arab Gulf states. Saudi Arabia is now signaling to the dumb jackass Trump that it will seek alternative protection by signing a common defense treaty with Pakistan and Turkiye. This new Sunni Muslim Pact of mutual defense stands in opposition to Shiite Muslim Iran, but one never knows, the Muslim-Islamic vein in these three countries is highly inimical to the West and could one day invite Iran to join, thus displacing any influence the US might have had in the region. If I were the Zionist colony in Palestine, I'd be worried.

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Trump threatens Oman, Iran war in stalemate as 60-day talks window ends
Duarte Dias
Mon, August 17, 2026 

Monday marks 60 days since the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding that called for a wider peace deal to be negotiated within that timeframe. After multiple flare-ups and suggestions of an imminent accord, there do not appear to be any concrete plans to end the 24-week war. President Trump threatened Monday to bomb Oman if the country "gets in the way" of U.S. efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war with Iran, according to Fox News. Earlier, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tehran had reached an agreement with Oman regarding future shipping routes in the strait. Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and adviser, met Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday to discuss the latest U.S.-backed peace proposal for the Gaza Strip, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected last week.

Trump says he has no schedule and he's "not in a hurry" to end the Iran war

President Trump told Fox News' Trey Yingst on Monday that he has "no time schedule" to end the war with Iran, but that the Islamic Republic should "put up the white flag of surrender," according to Yingst.

"I'm not in a hurry," the Fox journalist quoted the president as saying.

Mr. Trump repeated his assertion to Yingst that "the midterms have nothing to do with my thinking" on resolving the war, which the U.S. and Israel launched jointly with a first wave of strikes on Iran on February 28.

Mr. Trump told Fox there was a direct backchannel between U.S. officials and members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but he didn't elaborate on any ongoing talks, saying only that the Iranians are "good poker players, but they're dying."

Trump threatens to bomb Oman if it "gets in the way"

President Trump told Fox News on Monday that the U.S. would bomb Oman if the country "gets in the way" of U.S. efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war with Iran, according to the network's Trey Yingst.

"If Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the s*** out of them," Trump said, according to Yingst's recounting of his conversation with the president.

Earlier, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters Tehran had struck an agreement with Oman regarding shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, but did not elaborate.

Iran and Oman have held talks for weeks aimed at creating a mechanism to manage the strategic waterway in the future, with both having suggested at times that fees may be imposed for ships to use the strait. No concrete plans have been formally announced.

Despite Iran's threats and attacks on ships keeping traffic through the strait at a virtual standstill, Mr. Trump has asserted repeatedly that the U.S. is in control of the waterway, and that it may "keep it."

Kushner met with Netanyahu after meeting Hamas leaders

President Trump's son-in-law and envoy Jared Kushner met on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after holding talks with Hamas leaders the previous day.

The meeting came two weeks after Hamas agreed to disarm in accordance with a U.S.-backed Gaza peace deal, which Netanyahu then rejected, insisting the group must be "genuinely disarmed."

Kushner's meeting with Hamas leaders took place in Egypt, with the goal of translating the plan negotiated by Mr. Trump's Board of Peace into concrete steps, a source told CBS News.

The meeting in Egypt also included discussion of the transfer of all governing responsibilities to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, ensuring Hamas has no future governing role in Gaza, facilitating Israeli withdrawals and deploying an international stabilizing force in the region, among other things, the source told CBS News.

Iran says agreement on future routes through Strait of Hormuz reached with Oman

Iran's foreign ministry said Monday that Tehran had reached an agreement with Oman on routes for ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz in the future.

Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters in Tehran "an understanding has been reached regarding the map of the transit route."

Baghaei did not elaborate on the route or whether any fees would be imposed on ships using it, but both Iran and Oman have previously suggested commercial vessels should enter the Strait of Hormuz using a route close to Iran's coast, and exit it using another near Omani waters.

Baghaei said both sides were working to finalize details before issuing a joint statement on the matter.

Iran considers missing pilots to be prisoners in Qatar

Iran's foreign ministry said Monday that it would consider three missing pilots to be prisoners in Qatar, despite denials by Qatari officials, until Doha offers clarity on the fate of the missing personnel.

Tehran has said the Iranians went missing while carrying out an operation against the United States' Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on March 2, shortly after the outbreak of the war.

On Saturday, Iranian authorities alleged for the first time that the pilots had been captured in Qatar, after previously saying one pilot had been killed and three others were missing following their sortie.

"It is imperative to obtain clarification on their situation," foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said during a weekly news briefing.

"Until the pilots' situation is clarified, we consider them prisoners and will spare no effort to shed light on their fate," he said.

Iran downplays significance of 60-day negotiation period ending

Iran's foreign ministry has downplayed the importance of the 60-day period of negotiations agreed to in the memorandum of understanding with the U.S., which is due to expire Monday.

During his weekly news conference, ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran would not alter its policies due to external pressure or deadlines, adding that the period designated for negotiations was not being implemented due to ongoing U.S. strikes against the country.

"What was included in the memorandum [...] is not being implemented," he said.

"We did not commence negotiations because the United States began violating the memorandum shortly after its June 18 signing," Baghaei said. "Therefore, the 60-day issue essentially has no relevance."

Iran's army chief announces $30,000 bounty for U.S. service members

Iran's army chief announced on Sunday a reward equivalent to around $30,000 for the capture or killing of U.S. military personnel.

Speaking at a ceremony in Tehran on Sunday, Major General Amir Hatami said any Iranian who captured or killed a U.S. military service member would receive the reward of around 5 billion Iranian tomans. For any Iranian woman who captures or kills an American service member, Hatami said the reward would be doubled.

Hatami also issued fresh warnings about Iran's determination to control the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a "sacred" geopolitical asset for the Islamic republic. He said Tehran would use its full capabilities to protect the waterway and described control of the strait as an important lever in bringing the war to an end.

Shipping in Strait of Hormuz continues to slow

Transit in the Strait of Hormuz slowed this weekend, according to data by tracking firm Kpler reported by Reuters.

Only five commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday and none on Sunday, according to Kpler, compared to 31 the prior weekend.

At least one ship entered using the Iranian route, and a small tanker laden with Iranian fuel oil exited, data showed.

Some ships may pass with their transponders off, meaning they may not be detectable, but transits are still a long way from the 130 ships that traversed the strait every day before the war started.

60-day memorandum of understanding period expires Monday

Monday marks 60 days since the U.S. and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding that called for negotiations to reach a wider deal to end the war between the two countries and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

However, that 60-day period expires Monday amid a stalemate between the two countries and a deal seemingly nowhere in sight. Over the past two months, talks between the two sides broke down, despite President Trump repeatedly saying a deal was imminent, leading to multiple flare-ups and escalations in the fighting and a constant exchange of threats.

On July 8, Mr. Trump declared that the memorandum of understanding was "over."
Jared Kushner met with Hamas leaders in Egypt to discuss Gaza peace road map

Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and negotiator on Middle East affairs, met with Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday to discuss the latest U.S.-backed peace deal that seeks the group's disarmament and a road map for the transfer of power to a new government, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting.

The meeting was aimed at translating the plan negotiated by Mr. Trump's international Board of Peace into concrete, verifiable steps, the source told CBS News, including maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, beginning to transfer all governing responsibilities to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, ensuring Hamas has no future governing role in Gaza, facilitating Israeli withdrawals and deploying an international stabilizing force to the region, among other things.

The rare meeting in Egypt with Hamas' Khalil al-Hayya was also confirmed to the Associated Press by a regional official and a Hamas official, both speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

CENTCOM chief praises USS Abraham Lincoln crew after visit

Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, praised the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln after he visited the aircraft carrier on Saturday.

In a statement shared on social media, Cooper said his time aboard the Lincoln was "awe-inspiring."

"I wish every American could see the crew in action," he said. "You would beam with absolute pride when witnessing their camaraderie, teamwork and resilience."

The Lincoln, which has about 5,000 service members, arrived in the Middle East in January and has been supporting the U.S. war against Iran. It deployed in November 2025 to the Pacific before it moved to the Middle East. It has spent a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days. U.S. military vessels are normally deployed for about six months.

In the last few weeks, reports have emerged of mental health concerns among the crew and supply issues on board.

Cooper acknowledged the concerns in his statement, but said the Lincoln has among the lowest numbers of cases related to mental health of all the U.S. Navy's 11 active aircraft carriers.

"This doesn't mean that all is perfect," he said. "Find any of the nearly 4 million Navy veterans in America today and they will likely tell you that service at sea for long periods of time isn't for everyone. It is uniquely challenging and tough, and every single one of us, including me, reacts to stressors in different ways."

Cooper applauded the actions of Lincoln's leadership for "stepping up and making mental health and crew resilience a leadership priority."

The USS George Washington aircraft carrier is headed to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln.

Asked Friday if he thought the Lincoln's deployment was too long, President Trump said it was "not nearly long enough."

Donnie (80 years old) is in Love with Natalie (35 years old)

Dem Star Roasts Trump for Obsession With Blonde Companion, 35
Erkki Forster
Mon, August 17, 2026

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff has roasted President Donald Trump over his curious attachment to his 35-year-old White House aide Natalie Harp.

The Georgia senator name-dropped Harp, who has been described as Trump's "human binkie" for being seemingly inseparable from the 80-year-old president, during a scathing takedown at a rally in Atlanta on Sunday.

Accusing Trump of "lying a nation into war, treating citizens as fools, and those who serve as pawns," Ossoff contrasted the sailors who have spent almost nine months at sea aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to the nap-taking billionaire president.

"While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn't want to do his job," the 39-year-old senator told the crowd, before invoking Trump's peculiar relationship with his executive assistant.

"He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar."

Ossoff's barb appeared particularly well-timed: Trump indeed traveled with Harp on his Qatari-gifted Air Force One on Sunday, flying from his New Jersey golf course back to D.C. after spending the weekend there.

Trump’s 35-year-old executive assistant Natalie Harp tagged along with her boss this weekend as he enjoyed a retreat at his New Jersey golf resort. / Annabelle Gordon / REUTERS

Harp has become a near-constant presence in Trump's life, and her estranged brother has called her bond with the president "very unhealthy."

Early in his second term, Trump told his team that Harp "was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and his kids," according to Regime Change, a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Harp, meanwhile, would leave gushing letters for Trump in his "personal spaces," with one reportedly reading, "You are all that matters to me," according to the book.

“She is sort of his Binkie, for lack of a better way of putting it—his comfort blanket,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said. / Evan Vucci/Reuters

Harp's closeness to Trump was underscored last week when it was revealed that she was among the select few aides who accompanied him on a military plane out of Turkey after he snuck off Air Force One in a catering truck amid an Iranian assassination threat.

Other top officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top White House aide Stephen Miller, remained on the "decoy" Air Force One.

Haberman suggested to MS NOW's Jacob Soboroff on Sunday that Trump took Harp because she provided him comfort amid his cloak-and-dagger escape from Ankara. "She is sort of his Binkie, for lack of a better way of putting it—his comfort blanket," Haberman said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zionist Soldiers are Committing Suicide in Unprecedented Numbers

High suicide rates among Israel's troops are indicative of low morale and inconspicuous objections by the soldiers against their own Zionist savagery and brutality in the genocide against the indigenous Palestinians, and does not augur well for a colonial rapist who is intent on continuing its land-theft expansion by ethnic cleansing and extermination of the indigenous Palestinian population.

Far more revealing is the understated doubt that many Israelis have about their long term future in the region. For a colony pretending to be a "country" to have to live on a constant war footing and unable to meet its survival requirements without a massive infusion of aid (money, weapons etc.) from its breastfeeding American mother is a shattering realization. Israel has illusions - whether it knows these are illusions is another matter - that it will one day become a normal country surrounded by friendly countries with whom it has normal relations. That will never happen, I can assure my readers. Israel has done everything it could to alienate anyone who might have been a friend. For it to believe that it can impose its "friendship" by brutality and savagery is stupid, assuming of course that its Jewish supremacist underpinnings are compatible with it seeking subhuman (goyim) friends.

Israel must remember the adage: Without justice there will never be peace. The entire world knows that the de novo creation of a previously non-existent, and hence artificial, state - in reality a foreign colony - in the heart of the Middle East by the eradication of the entire indigenous people and millennial culture of Palestine is of such violence that no justification for it holds. "Neither the Holocaust, nor a so-called "homeland", nor the biblical garbage suffice to explain the cruelty, the inhumanity of the atrocities being committed by those who absurdly claim to be the victim of their own colonized victims.

Like France in Algeria, like the Arab Moors in Spain, like the Crusaders in Palestine, like the English in India, and like virtually ALL colonizers around the world, colonization by foreigners rarely, if ever, succeeds. Am I such a religious idiot to believe that Israel's Yahweh's Chosen People garbage will suffice to ensure the success of the Zionist enterprise? Not by any stretch of logic or reason.
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AI Query returned the following:

Recent suicides among Israeli soldiers have continued to rise, with 16 active-duty troops dying by suicide in 2026 and a total of 61 since the war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Latest incidents include:

In July 2026, two female soldiers—a combat soldier from the Bardelas Battalion and an intelligence officer—died by suicide within two days, bringing that year’s active-duty toll to 16.

In August 2026, an IDF reservist died by suicide in a forest near Be'er Sheva, marking the third such case that week.

Internal probes link these deaths to combat trauma, PTSD, and moral injury from witnessing atrocities and prolonged deployments.

The crisis is exacerbated by reduced mental health resources despite unprecedented demand, with thousands of soldiers receiving psychological treatment.

Cumulative Toll: The number of soldier suicides since October 2023 reached 61 by mid-December 2025, following 16 deaths in 2025 and 20 in 2024.

Recent Incidents: In late 2025 and 2026, multiple reservists and active-duty soldiers, including those from the Golani and Givati brigades, died by suicide after serving in Gaza.

Root Causes: The IDF and medical experts link these deaths primarily to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and moral injury caused by witnessing combat atrocities, handling bodies, and prolonged deployment.

Institutional Response: While thousands of soldiers receive psychological treatment, many suicides occur after discharge or during rest periods, and some soldiers are not officially recognized as "fallen" because they were not on active duty at the time of death.

Democrats Slated to Win the Senate as Well as the House in November

Nate Silver's New Election Model Makes Democrats Favorites to Flip Senate—Prediction Markets Aren't so Sure
Daragh Thomas
Mon, August 17, 2026

Nate Silver's new midterm model launched Tuesday with a striking call: Democrats are 57.3% favorites to win the Senate, a chamber where they need a net gain of four seats against a 53-47 Republican majority.

Prediction market traders are more cautious. Polymarket gives Democrats a 53% chance as of Wednesday morning.

On the House, there is little argument. Silver's model gives Democrats an 87% chance, and Polymarket traders sit at 88%.

The question may no longer be whether 2026 looks bad for Republicans. It's whether President Donald Trump's political environment has deteriorated enough to overwhelm a Senate map that should favor them.

The model, called FLIPR, blends polling, fundamentals such as fundraising and incumbency, and expert race ratings across roughly 40,000 simulations.

Silver's model sees a national environment strong enough for Democrats to compete well beyond the usual battlegrounds.

Republican-held seats in North Carolina and Maine are firmly in play, while races in traditionally red states such as Texas, Iowa and Alaska have also become competitive. Democrats need four net pickups to win the Senate.

Trump's Problems Are Becoming GOP Senate Problems

Silver puts Trump's approval at roughly 38%, citing an unpopular war in the Middle East, anxiety over spiking gas prices and voter fatigue with an 80-year-old lame-duck president and says only 22% of Americans strongly approve of his performance, according to the model's data.

The unpopular Iran war and higher energy costs have added to Trump's problems, while tariffs have kept affordability concerns front and center.

Trump himself is not on the ballot in November. Republican Senate candidates are, and they have to run on the terrain his presidency created.

Texas shows how far the map has shifted. Trump-backed Ken Paxton, who has been plagued by scandals, now faces Democrat James Talarico. Polymarket gives Talarico a slight edge, at 52%.

If Silver Is Right, Trump's Final Two Years Change Completely

If Democrats win both chambers, Trump's final two years could look very different: legislation would be far harder to pass, Democrats would control congressional investigations and subpoena power, and the Senate could block his judges and senior nominees.

Silver now gives Democrats a slight edge to win the Senate. Prediction-market traders remain more cautious, making control of the chamber one of the biggest unresolved questions of the midterms.

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CNN Data Guru Reveals Trump Is Wildly Unpopular on Gas Prices
Cameron Adams
Mon, August 17, 2026 


CNN data guru Harry Enten has exposed the critical issue causing an unprecedented level of "hatred" of President Donald Trump among Americans.

Enten made the claims on CNN on Sunday as gas prices hit a national average of $4.07 a gallon, the highest August price on record, according to AAA.

The price of gas is rising amid continued uncertainty around access to the Strait of Hormuz, a direct result of Trump's war with Iran. Gas prices have hit a new high in August. 

Enten said August's record national average means Americans "can't catch a break," on gas prices.

"The American people very much dislike, dare I say, President Trump when it comes to gas prices," Enten said, noting it was "not a huge surprise" given the soaring cost of fuel.

"But it's to a historic degree, the hatred for President Trump on gas prices," Enten stated.

The analyst then revealed data to back up his claims of Trump's unprecedented unpopularity in regard to the critical cost of living issue.

Using his own "Enten's Aggregate" of polling data, he calculated Trump's public disapproval on gas prices at 79 percent this year, compared to 75 percent for President George W. Bush in 2006, the year in which the Lebanon war led to a temporary surge in global crude oil and U.S. gas prices.

President Joe Biden had a 72 percent disapproval on gas prices in 2022, a year where prices fluctuated due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and President Barack Obama on 68 percent in 2011, after Arab Spring protests caused oil prices to rise globally.

Trump is wildly unpopular due to gas prices. 

Enten said Trump's high disapproval rating translates to around four in five Americans being unhappy with the job he is doing on gas prices, topping Bush, Obama and Biden's highest levels of dissatisfaction over the issue.

"So Donald Trump is breaking records in the ways that you, simply put, do not want to be breaking records when it comes to gas prices and how Americans view the job that he is doing," Enten said.

Enten then attempted to explain Trump's "historically high disapproval rating" on gas prices, noting "you can't reach 79 percent just by Democrats disliking the job that you're doing, or dare I say it, hating it."

CNN data guru Harry Enten finds disapproval of Trump crosses party lines. 

The analyst found the "hatred" for Trump on gas crossed party lines, pointing to a "rare trifecta" of bipartisan dissatisfaction with the president uniting voters.

Enten noted that 96 percent of Democrats disapproved of Trump, and 85 percent of independents, but also 52 percent of Republicans, with Enten citing data from a CNN/SSRS poll conducted taken last month.

"That tried and true Republican base that has stuck with Donald Trump through thick and thin, even... a majority of them, 52 percent, disapprove of the job that President Trump is doing on gas prices."

Enten noted any Republican running in the upcoming midterm elections "you very much want to be running away from President Trump at least on...how Americans view him on gas prices."

To understand why the numbers were so low, Enten looked at Trump's disapproval by income levels.

He found the disapproval from those making less than $50,000 a year was driving Trump's slumping popularity over gas, again citing the CNN/SSRS poll from July.

While the number was highest with Democrats on 93 percent and independent voters on 90 percent, Enten pointed that the overall disapproval level was 86 percent.

"You can't get 86 percent of Americans or even a subgroup of Americans who are not a partisan subgroup to agree on anything," Enten said. "But they do when it comes to gas prices."

He also pointed out that 66 percent of Republicans making under $50,000 a year also disapproving of Trump's gas prices was "very unlucky indeed" for the president.

"I'm sometimes a little hesitant to make predictions," Enten said. "But if these numbers hold for the midterm elections... I really don't understand how it's not going to be a very good night for Democrats indeed."

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

Traitor Trump Butt-Licks Nuclear North Korea While Warring Against Non-Nuclear Iran

Donald Trump is a traitor. He sacrifices his allies to butt-kiss his enemies. He is at war with Iran supposedly to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear bomb. But he knows that Iran is years away from ever acquiring a nuclear bomb, but he is warmongering against it on behalf of his Zionist handlers who want to monopolize their vulgar ultra-religious Jewish violence over the entire Middle East.

In contrast, North Korea has been sanctioned by the entire world for decades while it built itself an arsenal of deadly long range weapons, including a stockpile of nuclear heads. North Korea threatens the US and its allies (Japan, south Korea) on a daily basis with firings of ballistic missiles across the Sea of Japan, and North Korea says it is now capable of striking the continental US with its long range nuclear missiles.

Which of the two countries, North Korea or Iran, poses an immediate threat to the US?

Which of the two countries, North Korea or Iran, are allies with America's top enemies China and Russia?

The answer to this upside down policy of rewarding your worst enemy while beating up on a lesser enemy is simple: THERE IS NO ISRAEL NEAR NORTH KOREA.

Then again, the Great American Moron loves filthy dictators like him. He is in fact envious of those dictators that are not restricted by any sense of democratic rule because, he, in the US, remains subject to the power of democratic institutions. Hard as he has tried to dismantle those institutions, they are just about to defeat him and begin to run him out of town.

Here he is - perhaps to save money and ammunitions that are severely lacking the US armed forces due to his stupid and costly failing war in Iran - telling his army NOT to execute a joint maneuver with our allies in South Korea because "he is friends with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un", saying these joint drills are "inappropriate and hostile". 

The jackass in the White House often complains that his allies (Europeans, NATO, Japan, South Korea and others) do not shoulder with the US the financial responsibilities of their own protection. But watch him squander American lives and treasure as he obeys his orders from his US-taxpayer-paid Zionist masters.

This is treason. Treason to the US. Treason to our allies.
===================================================

Trump says US scaling back military drills with Seoul hours before start
Kang Jin-kyu, with Matthew Pennington in Washington
Mon, August 17, 2026


US President Donald Trump's comments came ahead of the annual 'Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise in South Korea, which is aimed at deterring North Korea (Mandel NGAN)

US President Donald Trump said he ordered the Pentagon to scale back "inappropriate and hostile" military drills with South Korea, hours before the exercises began on Monday.

Trump cited his "good relationship" with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as he said he was unhappy about the drills that were designed to prepare for a possible attack by Pyongyang.

South Korea's defence ministry said it was proceeding as "previously notified and scheduled" with the annual exercise, which has prompted several rounds of warnings from Pyongyang last week.

"Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

"These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful," he added.

As it was too late to cancel the drills, Trump said he had ordered Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to "substantially reduce" them.

The 11-day exercise comes as Pyongyang and Moscow have grown closer, with the North providing military support -- including ground troops -- for Russia's war against Ukraine.

Colonel Ryan Donald, spokesman for the US and South Korean Combined Forces Command, had said the drills would simulate combat against North Korean troops battle-hardened by deployment in the Russia-Ukraine war.

- 'Deterrent' -

Pyongyang has always been angered by the regular exercises, decrying them as dress rehearsals for an invasion.

After test-firing a ballistic missile over the Sea of Japan as a sign of its opposition to the exercise, Pyongyang on Friday warned it could respond with a "new level of deterrent" over the drills.

The US stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country's defences against military threats from Pyongyang, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

But Trump has repeatedly challenged long-standing alliances, including with NATO, as he criticised Western partners for refusing to back his war against Iran.

Trump took aim at South Korea in Sunday's post, writing: "I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, 'No thanks!'"

- 'Damage coordination' -

The exercise -- enlisting 18,000 South Korean troops and counterparts from US forces in the country -- will have a heightened focus on drone warfare, GPS disruption and the role of cyber attacks, Colonel Donald had said.

Downsizing it will "damage alliance coordination, slow the process of South Korea taking on greater responsibility for its own defence, and weaken deterrence against possible conflicts in Asia", Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told AFP.

"The cost savings from downsizing drills are marginal, while the diplomatic benefits for relations with North Korea are doubtful," he added.

Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, told AFP also said Pyongyang was unlikely to be moved by Trump's announcement.

"The North will only view it as meaningful if the joint exercises are cancelled in their entirety rather than scaled back. It has little reason to see this as meaningful," he said.

"I am doubtful it will draw an immediate reaction from Kim Jong Un in that regard."

- 'Most hostile state' -

Experts say that North Korea has expanded its nuclear and missile capabilities since the breakdown of Trump's negotiations with Kim, whom he last met in person in 2019.

North Korea has also sent troops and munitions for Moscow's war in Ukraine, in exchange for financial support, food, energy and military technology, according to analysts.

Kyiv recently said that up to 50,000 North Korean troops are due to deploy to Russia, although it has provided no evidence to back the claim or a timeframe for the deployment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in making the claim, asked Seoul to supply air defence systems to protect against Russian missiles, a request that has gone unanswered by the South.

South Korea's dovish President Lee Jae Myung has reversed the stance of his hawkish predecessor since taking power in June 2025, offering Pyongyang talks without preconditions and to formally end the Korean War.

But the leadership of North Korea has so far only vowed to accelerate its armament build-up, with Kim branding the South the "most hostile state".

msp-kjk/hmn

[Updated] How US Gangs Smuggle Drugs Into Canada

[Appended update follows on Univ of Pennsylvania white fraternities' cocaine ring]

We know the US smuggles guns to Latin American drug gangs who then smuggle drugs into the US. For decades, it's been a very successful joint venture between illicit drug manufacturers in Latin America and weapons manufacturers in the United States. The ONLY driver for this successful enterprise is ADDICTION BY WHITE AMERICANS TO COCAINE, HEROIN AND SUCH. The bulk of these consumers of illicit drugs in the US are affluent, white collar, Wall Street-types with money whose use of illicit drugs is "cool" while causing the death of millions of people as a result of the arms-for-drugs trade between North and Central-Latin America.

Below is one instance, one snapshot, of how illicit materials (nicotine and vapes, not drugs) that are manufactured in the US make their illegal way up to Canada. It doesn't take much more to imagine that more dangerous drugs, like cocaine and heroin, also make their way from the US into Canada,

The American so-called War on Drugs has always been to only fight the suppliers of drugs from Latin America but never to fight the US gun manufacturers who send weapons to the drug cartels who use them to destabilize the countries involved (Mexico, Colombia, etc.). Neither does the US go after the white collar American consumers who spend billions of dollars to satisfy their lifestyle-addictions to illicit drugs. Neither does the US take responsibility for stemming the flow of drugs from its territory into Canada,

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$6.6M in vapes, nicotine pouches seized from US semis entering Canada in 4 days
Phil Brink
Sat, August 15, 2026


CBSA seized nearly CA$6.6 million in nicotine products from three U.S. semis entering Canada. (Photo: CBSA)

Three U.S. semis entered Canada carrying nicotine products worth nearly $6.6 million Canadian within four days. Border officers intercepted all three loads at Ontario's Blue Water Bridge. The seizures included 61,758 vapes plus thousands of kilograms of nicotine pouches. Canada Border Services Agency confirmed the investigations remain ongoing.

The first interception occurred Aug. 7 at the Blue Water Bridge port of entry in Point Edward, Ontario. Officers seized approximately 61,758 nicotine vapes from a commercial driver arriving from the United States. CBSA valued those products at approximately CAD$2,778,177. Three days later, another major discovery followed at the same crossing.

Border personnel seized 570 kilograms of nicotine pouches from a commercial operator on Aug. 10. Authorities estimated that merchandise at CAD$835,200. Officers intercepted another pouch shipment from a separate driver that day. CBSA placed the third load's approximate value at CAD$2,983,500.

Three seizures within four days

CBSA valued the three seizures at approximately CAD$6.6 million combined. The agency has not identified any trucking companies connected with the loads. Officials also withheld shipment details, citing federal privacy law. Investigations into the cases remain ongoing.

CBSA would not disclose what triggered closer inspections of the commercial vehicles. The agency uses several risk-based indicators when deciding whether freight requires additional examination. Those reviews can lead officers to examine a shipment or investigate further. CBSA declined to provide specifics about what raised concerns in these cases.

The Blue Water Bridge connects Port Huron, Michigan, with Point Edward, Ontario. Commercial traffic makes the crossing an important freight gateway between both nations. The location has also produced several large contraband discoveries involving trucks. Recent cases there have included hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine. 

Organized crime fuels enforcement concerns

CBSA views illegal nicotine and tobacco sales as a source of revenue for organized crime. Profits can strengthen criminal networks and finance other illegal operations in Canada and internationally. The agency identified that connection while discussing its broader enforcement efforts. Investigations into the three Blue Water Bridge seizures remain ongoing.

The crossing has produced major commercial smuggling cases involving other contraband. Officers intercepted 1,317 kilograms of cocaine from truck shipments there through October 2025. They also seized 349 kilograms of methamphetamine during the same reporting period. Those cases made Blue Water Bridge a recurring location for large commercial vehicle interceptions.

That activity continued into 2026 with another major drug seizure. Officers found 266.4 kilograms of suspected methamphetamine in a truck at the crossing in February. Authorities arrested the driver and transferred the case to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. RCMP later filed importation and possession for trafficking charges.

CBSA confirmed the latest nicotine products were seized with no terms of release. Investigations remain active, and authorities have not announced charges involving any commercial driver. Federal privacy restrictions prevent the agency from identifying carriers or providing additional shipment information. CBSA also withheld destinations and declared commodities. FreightWaves will update this story if authorities announce charges or release additional details about the investigations.

Three multimillion-dollar interceptions within four days show how commercial freight can become part of cross-border contraband investigations. Carriers and brokers need visibility into drivers, shipments and unusual activity moving through their networks.

FreightWaves offers Certified Fraud Compliance Officer training focused on verification, risk identification and consistent decision-making. In my opinion, stronger training can help transportation teams recognize warning signs before questionable freight enters legitimate networks. CFCO provides a structured process for knowing when additional scrutiny makes sense.

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Another example of how Americans traffic drugs and guns between Mexico and Canada: 

American man from Nevada smuggled 140 'military-style' rifles and guns to Mexican drug cartels

Sun, August 16, 2026

A US-born white Nevada man was charged with purchasing high-powered firearms and ammunition to sell to drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico, money laundering and employing people illegally in the U.S.

Between April 2020 and last September, Luis Alberto Osorio and accomplices bought 140 firearms, magazines, and ammunition on behalf of violent Mexican drug-trafficking cartels, which would be sold south of the border for a profit.

The guns included large caliber and long-range firearms such as the Ohio Ordnance Works M2-SLR .50 BMG, the Barrett M82A1 and M107A1 .50 BMG antimaterial rifles, the FN Herstal M249S 5.56x45mm and the FH Herstal SCAR 17S 7.62x51mm rifles.

Osorio, of Elko, Nevada, pleaded guilty to one count of straw purchasing of firearms; one count of trafficking in firearms; one count of harboring certain aliens; and one count of conspiracy to launder money.

Americans who traffick military-style firearms and ammunition to drug organizations in Mexico fuels violence strengthen criminal networks and threaten communities on both sides of the border.

"In the world of organized crime and drug trafficking, guns and drugs go hand-in-hand," David S. Olesky, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Los Angeles Field Division, which covers Nevada, said in a statement. In a related event, a four-door Lexus crossing the U.S. border into Mexico was found to contain a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher and dozens of additional weapons hidden in the vehicle.

Tucked in a cavity under the seats, officials found the RPG tube, four rifles, an Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK-style) pistol, 16 AK rifles, 24 rifle magazines, 16 rifle stocks, 20 pistol grips and other weapon parts in the vehicle as it attempted to cross the border at the Area Port of Nogales, near Tucson, Arizona.

While authorities note the scale of weapons smuggling across the U.S. border and the volume that can be transported in a single vehicle, they never take any action against the purveyors of these US-manufactured weapons: The American gun manufacturers and the gun shop owners. Yet, they express concerns about cartel firepower and the flow of U.S.-sourced weapons into Mexico. 

Why US authorities never go after the gun manufacturers and the vendors of these guns and weapons is because of a racist posture that deliberately ignores the role played by white Americans while going after individuals at the bottom of the trade ladder, typically Hispanics and Latinos. US authorities hide behind the 2nd amendment of the constitution that protects the right of any American to buy all kinds of weapons, including military-style weapons. In addition, American lax laws on weapons and drug use create a favorable incubator for the drugs-weapons trade, both inside the US and across the border. Catching a small-fish smuggler doesn't address the fundamental problem of a deeply-entrenched culture of violence in the US that is promoted by the gun cartels and is protected by a primitive constitution from the 18th century.

Statements by US officials, like "The United States Attorney’s Office is proud to work alongside the Department of Homeland Security to make sure we choke off the flow of weapons to violent actors in Mexico and bring their accomplices in the United States to justice," are a hypocritical self-patting on the back in a war on drugs that has been around for several decades without any significant achievement: Americans, mostly of the affluent white middle and upper classes, continue to go unpunished for purchasing cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and other illicit drugs, and creating the demand that drug cartels south of the border satisfy with drug smuggling into the US.

====================================================

Here is an example of how affluent white students at Pennsylvania State Univ. organize their cocaine supplies and distribution:

Pennsylvania cocaine trafficking case has ties to 2 fraternities [at Penn State U]
Associated Press
Tue, August 18, 2026

A total of 14 defendants — 13 of which were Penn State University students at or around the time of the alleged crimes in 2023 and 2024 — were charged Monday over their alleged ties to a cocaine-trafficking ring. - Rob Carr/Getty Images

More than a dozen people were criminally charged Monday over their alleged ties to a cocaine-trafficking ring in Pennsylvania that involved two fraternities and students.

A total of 14 defendants — 13 of which were Penn State University students at or around the time of the alleged crimes in 2023 and 2024 — were charged Monday, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office.

White Students at Penn State U, Agostino Abbatiello and Thomas Robinson, are accused of being the main suppliers of cocaine for a massive distribution ring where 14 people were charged.

Four defendants face charges of felony corrupt organizations, conspiracy and other offenses, while a fifth is charged with felony conspiracy and other crimes. Eight other student-aged defendants are charged with misdemeanor counts, like possession. One defendant, who is the father of a student, is accused of tampering with evidence and hindering the investigation.

At least four of the defendants are current students, according to the attorney general's office.

Two defendants, who were the main suppliers, made routine trips to Philadelphia and New York to get large amounts of cocaine, according to the office. The cocaine was then packaged mainly at the Sigma Chi and Delta Upsilon fraternity houses and distributed primarily to Penn State University students.

"This is very serious criminal conduct. There was nothing junior or childlike about this type of conduct," Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said Monday at a news conference. "This was an upper level trafficking organization for this region in Pennsylvania."

Sunday said fraternity brothers packaged the cocaine and that authorities found a pattern of some pledges being indoctrinated into both fraternities through cutting and bagging cocaine. Investigators did not hear about drugs being packaged on the Penn State University campus, Sunday noted.

Delta Upsilon Executive Director Justin Kirk said in a statement that the international fraternity was aware of the allegations and that those involved who had ties to Delta Upsilon were expelled or suspended if they did not resign.

"We will continue to work closely with the university on any investigative efforts," Kirk added.

The Sigma Chi headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The majority of defendants facing felony charges were arraigned Monday morning, Sunday said at the news conference.

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Dumb Poles, Dumb Lebanese: Their Huge Religious Statues Match their Barbarity

Lebanon and Poland share the same ultra-religiosity. They both equate their religious fervor with building giant statues of the Christian pantheon, while the reality on the ground is utter barbarity, superstitions and rejection of Reason. Which is why thousands of Poles fleeing Nazi Germany found shelter in Lebanon, then dominated by the Maronite Catholics.

As a Polish village has just erected Europe's tallest Virgin Mary (see below), I cannot help but see the similarity with Lebanon's pathological obsession with erecting giant statues.

I have also resurrected a couple of opinions that I wrote some time ago about Poland's appointing Jesus as "King of Poland", and about a passage in the Gospels that shows Jesus was a racist Jewish supremacist fanatic who described the Lebanese as dogs to their Jewish masters.

Enjoy.
=================================================

A query to AI returned the following:

Lebanon is home to several monumental statues of saints and religious figures, most notably the world's largest statue of Saint Charbel, which stands 23 meters (75 feet) high in Faraya and weighs 40 tons. Constructed in 2017 by sculptor Nayef Alwan using fiberglass to withstand harsh weather, this 27-meter-wide monument was erected as a thanksgiving for a miraculous healing and is located at an altitude of 6,070 feet in Mount Lebanon.

Other significant religious monuments include:

Our Lady of Lebanon: A giant statue of the Virgin Mary located in Harissa, overlooking the Jounieh bay and serving as a major pilgrimage site revered by both Christians and Muslims.

Saint Charbel (Hammana): A 16-meter tall statue erected in July 2018 at the southern edge of Hammana, featuring a chapel in its base.

Christ the Redeemer (Al Qaa): A massive 26-meter monument (16m statue on a 10m base) installed in March 2026 on Jabal Al-Salib near the Syrian border, designed to symbolize hope and resilience amidst regional conflict.

Christ the Redeemer (Zouk): A 12-meter statue atop a 45-meter base, overlooking the Nahr El Kalb Valley, which has been a landmark since 1952.

Saint Charbel's Statue on a mountaintop in Lebanon

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Comment:
Please note that the saints represented in these Lebanese statues always have a finger wagging at their faithful. Not unlike fundamentalist Muslim clergy such as feu Hassan Nasrallah (of Hezbollah fame) whose grandeur was boosted with his wagging his index finger all the time as he gave his pathological drivels to his followers. The wagging finger means a bunch of things: You, the faithful, are dumb and I am showing you the Way. Or you, the faithful, are sinners and I (the saint or the preacher) am scolding you for your bad behavior, etc. Wagging a finger at someone in civilized society is generally considered offensive and threatening.
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Europe's tallest Virgin Mary statue rises in Polish village
Ilaria Federico
Sat, August 15, 2026


Europe's tallest Virgin Mary statue rises in Polish village

A 55-metre statue of the Virgin Mary now towers over the Polish village of Konotopie, the tallest Marian monument in Europe and second in the world after the Mother of All Asia effigy in the Philippines.

The concrete and steel figure will be blessed on 15 August, the Catholic feast of the Assumption, though the site remains unfinished, with debris still scattered across a muddy car park.

The statue was funded by billionaire Roman Karkosik at an estimated cost of 100 million zlotys (around $26 million), according to local media. Officials in nearby Kikol, one of the region's poorest municipalities, hope it will draw pilgrims and create jobs. Coaches were already arriving while scaffolding was still up, a site guard said.

Not everyone is convinced. Some residents told AFP the money would have been better spent on a hospital or orphanage.

Poland remains a Catholic stronghold, but is secularising fast: 71% identified as Roman Catholic in the 2021 census, down from 88% a decade earlier.

===============================================
Re-post from LEBANON IZNOGOOD:

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Poles Turn Right: Back to Stupid with KING JESUS

The Polish people have long been known for their stupidity. We all have heard Polish jokes in the US and Europe. Regressive right-winging is fashionable again - you know, the degenerate British numskulls and their Brexit, the backwoods Neanderthals of the American South and Midwest and their election of Donald Dumb, and many others... in a global domino effect taking the planet back to early 19th century.

And the stupid Polish people are, of course, in the vanguard of idiocy. What have they done now? Well, they have done what the stupid Jews of Bronze Age Palestine could not do: They have declared one Jesus Christ - an obscure Jewish rabbi from said Bronze Age Palestine who mounted a failed rebellion against the Roman occupation - as KING OF POLAND. You got it. Catholic Poland now has a Jewish Palestinian king from the Bronze Age. Too bad Jesus wasn't mummified like Egyptian pharaohs.

Mind you that the Vatican was opposed to the idea. It wasn't the senile Bishops' idea to begin with, so they wouldn't have it. But says "father" Paul McDonald in Rorate Caeli BlogSpot: "This was done in the official presence of the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. Many pilgrims were present in Poland for this event. The act will be repeated in all the Polish cathedrals and parishes. This took place yesterday, Saturday, at the Church of Divine Mercy in Krakow."

And "father" McDonald (no relation to the infamous Canadian child molester priest, whose blog should more aptly be entitled "Rorate Braccis" [drop your pantaloons]) continues in his nonsensical theological garbage: "The providential and proximate origin of the act is to be found in revelations received, or said to be received, by the Servant of God Rosalia Zelkova. The Lord -- she said -- demanded that He be enthroned as King by the Polish Nation as such, and not just in the hearts of the Poles, in a particular manner, and this would have saved Poland in the war that was coming." Sounds almost Socratic in its logic.

And to buttress this solid argument with even more obtuse trash, McDonald expounds: "But the social kingship of our Divine Lord is absolutely founded in necessary and dogmatic truths about Christ. It is not merely an element of private revelation. St. Gregory the Great said that they were heretics who denied that Christ is the King of and over everything." Case closed. McDo nailed it.

Not one history book from the contemporaries of the said renegade rabbi Jesus mentions him. There are serious doubts as to whether he actually existed. His fame was built up out of nothing by some of his followers who went to Rome to continue the rebellion after the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. Soon, he became a legend of sorts, then he was made to be the son of God and to have been born out of a virgin who was impregnated by God without breaking her hymen - the angel Gabriel apparently stealthily "beamed" the sublime sperm across her hymen, and she didn't even feel anything. She had to be told later that she was knocked up - and mystery of mysteries, she remained a virgin even after giving birth to the rebellious baby in a stable with donkeys around. Then he was made to have risen from the dead and ascended to the Big Zombie in the sky. 

These stories told by his "disciples" a century after the death of the rabbi became fertile ground for exaggerations and mystification, so much so that the credulous wife of a Roman Emperor facing extinction at the hands of the northern barbarians (the Polish people's ancestors, to be exact) became a secret follower of the Jesus movement and convinced her husband to dump Jupiter for Yahweh, Juno for Mary, and Apollo for Jesus and embrace the new religion. Roman practices did not change much with the switch and adoption of Jesus as the new hero: They still built statues to worship, lit candles, intoned hymns, sacrificed slaves, ate flesh and drank blood (figuratively, but still), enslaved other peoples.... all the way to about the 19th century, with much destruction of so-called “pagan” cultures (like our Phoenician culture here in Lebanon), genocide and inquisitions in between, when secularism opened the eyes of a few enlightened humans who liberated us from the barbarity of Christianity, and for that matter from that of Judaism and Islam as well.

In any case, the regression of the Polish people back to the Bronze Age is astounding. "King Jesus", as far as I can tell, cannot form a government or enact budgets to manage the country. All he can do is "miracles" - often intended as brief suspensions of natural physical laws, and of reason of course. Obviously, none of Jesus's disciples and the thousands of other super-human Christian heroes known as saints was ever able to regrow a severed limb, for example. That would actually be enough to convince me into returning to the faith. Unfortunately, all Catholic miracles are cryptic, invisible, sudden and unproven claims of healing that only an idiot with half a brain can believe. No saint has ever resurrected a dead person, for example. Why? After all, Jesus is claimed to have done it with Lazarus and himself. So if a saint or an apparition of Mary can heal an invisible cancer or quadriplegia, why can't they bring back the dead? Or grow a severed limb?

I used to like the Polish people - not for having given us a Pope by the name of John-Paul II - but for having stood up to dictatorships and for always being victims of oppressive Russians or Nazi Germans. I admit, I used to like the Polish people also because of an impenetrable (meant only metaphorically, of course) Polish woman I met long ago by the pseudonym of Lidia who, in between fantastic voyages to the twilight zone, used to proofread scripts for Roman Polanski. Now, I don't know anymore. I think Polish people, like all stupid people, almost always deserve their predicaments. The Lebanese people are one outstanding example.

So, after congratulating Aoun in Lebanon, Trump in the US, and soon Marine LePen in France, let me extend my heartfelt congratulations to the right-wing extremist, anti-refugee isolationist, white supremacist Jewish King Jesus of Poland. Perhaps Latin might catch up again, and King Jesus might ban anyone who is not Catholic from entering paradise upon their death. After all, jackass King Donald Dumb, himself a descendant of euro-trash peasants, wants to ban anyone who is not a white anglo-saxon protestant from entering the earthly paradise called the United Scams of America.

Halleluiah, brothers and comrades. Ad Majorem Dei Ignominiam.

Posted by Hanibaal at 2:25 PM
2 comments:

Anonymous said...
Read the Bible: St. John 18;33-38 and 19;4.

Anonymous said...
Yeah, so? What idiot would believe the "scriptures" as historically real? What Bronze-age minded imbecile would take these texts as verifiably true? Greeks and Romans used to believe in gods who had wives and children, who were born out of virgins, etc. Christianity cloned the Roman pantheon, replacing Jupiter with God, Juno with the Virgin Mary, Apollo with Jesus, and all the rest of them with saints.... By what measure of sanity can you believe this mythology to be true in this 21st century? Yes, sure, the message of Jesus is one of goodness, just as the words of any "star" of the other extant religions (Islam, Judaism, Buddhism...). They and all of humanity have known this ethics (the Golden Rule) long before some eccentric rabbi in Bronze Age Palestine called Jesus delivered his own drivel on humanity. Grow up, my friend, grow up.
======================================================
Re-post from LEBANON IZNOGOOD:

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Jesus is Racist: Calls the Lebanese "Dogs"

I cannot stand religions and all the idiotic tales and fantastic fabrications that they have been spinning for millennia. I particularly abhor the monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - with all their racism, fascism and claims to exclusivity that led their followers to commit atrocities and mass murder. Original sin, chosen people, splitting of oceans, sticks springing water in the desert, virgin impregnation and birth, miracles, resurrection from the dead, seal of the prophets, the final message, winged horses taking prophets to the heavens, etc.

I wonder how my fellow Lebanese, who are otherwise somewhat educated, have not emulated the European secular enlightenment of 300 years, given that they imitate the West like baboons when it comes to consumption and material pursuits. After years of misinformation, I have finally seen the light and the truth, and it has liberated me. I don’t believe in God. I believe that we are part of the web of life that sprung on this earth because of the specific conditions that exist on this planet (which itself is no more than a speck of dust in the gigantic universe made of billions and billions of galaxies). We are no more than the products of chance and the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. We are not only primates, related to the other primates (monkeys and apes), but we are related to bacteria and viruses and every other form of life. In all our apparent diversity, our biology is exactly like theirs, our DNA is like theirs, and we all make the same products and perform the same functions.

Religion is good for those whose minds are incapable of confronting reality. When we are born, we are born as human beings, not as Christians, Jews, Muslims or any of those labels. It is only after years of indoctrination that we are taught to become "Christian" or "Muslim" or "Jewish". We are not born in these religions; we are only indoctrinated into them. And as we grow up and begin to realize the lies, fallacies, and fabrications we have been brainwashed with, most of us understand but refuse to accept reality and the truth. There are people who prefer to stay in the safe cocoon of religious lies than to venture into the emancipated world of reality. They behave exactly as they are expected to behave: Like farm animals bred for certain tasks, they spend their lives like domesticated, brainless, tamed animals.

The Lebanese are one of the most hypocritical peoples when it comes to their strong attachment to their religions of birth (more of a tribal thing than true belief), yet they practice none of the tenets of their religions. The Lebanese are some of the most materialistic, superficial, consumer-oriented societies whose members care nothing for their fellow Lebanese or human beings in general. The major challenge that the Lebanese are facing - and any other religious people everywhere - is to secularize their minds, like all westerners have done. Religion should become a hobby, something one does on a weekend, to kill the time or to fill a void. Religion should not be the primary criterion in instituting governments. 

For decades, the Lebanese have, in their inferiority complex, worshiped the French. Yet, somehow it always escaped the Lebanese that the French are one of the most secular, anti-religious, anti-clerical, atheist people on earth. Why can the Lebanese easily copy French culture, but not French secularism? I don’t know the answer, but that is not inconsistent with how the Lebanese in general hypocritically define themselves: Westernized Arabs, or Phoenicians, or Christians.... anything to separate them from the "scum" surrounding them. Yet, they are identical to the scum surrounding them, specifically in their attachment to religion.

There is a story in the Gospels that I remember reading once, and wonder how do the Lebanese, the Christians in particular, explain it. The language is very clear.

In the Gospel of Mark (7:24-30), a Phoenician woman comes to Jesus who was visiting Sidon and Tyre. In her very Lebanese way, she lies to Jesus about how much she has faith in him (because she wants something from him) and, having heard that he is some kind of medicine man who heals people, she begs him to heal her sick daughter. Now Jesus, who elsewhere in the fucking Gospels says that he has come for everyone and that he has come to change things and all that crap, suddenly feels like a Jewish ultranationalist, calls the woman a non-Jewish "dog" unworthy of him and that he does not dispense his miracles to non-Jewish dogs like her. She, again, as the persistent lowlife Lebanese haggler-beggar that she is, tells him that "even dogs [like her] eat from the crumbs of their [Jewish] masters". And, to conclude this otherwise disgusting exchange, Jesus now is seduced by her persistence that he deigns to step down from his superior Jewishness and grants her her favor, namely to heal her daughter, at a distance mind you, without seeing the daughter or going to her bedside.

I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. But if I were a Lebanese Christian and I happen to read this story, I would immediately renounce Christianity. Jesus hated the Phoenicians, my ancestors. He called them "dogs". He referred to the Jews as “masters” over the Phoenicians. They should return the favor, call him a fucking dog and not the son of God and a virgin Jewish underage teen bitch whom God supposedly impregnated via an angel and without breaking her hymen….

REASON, my friends, is what saved Europe and made the West what it is today: A haven of individual freedoms, human rights, respect for all life, equality, scientific progress, democracy. REASON, not God. It is by banning God from the public square and from government that the West is what it is today.

Here is the text of Mark (7:24-30):

24
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,
25
but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
26
Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
27
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
28
But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29
Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”
30
So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Or the same text from Matthew 15:21-28:

21
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22
A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
23
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."
24
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
25
The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
26
He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
27
"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
28
Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.