“So Much Worse than People Realize: US Troops in Middle East Finally Speak Out

Service members, contractors, and military families share photos, videos, and firsthand accounts of the Iran war that they say the Pentagon has kept from the American public.

When the United States went to war with Iran in late February, the American public was told little about what was happening to the troops stationed across the Middle East. There were no embedded journalists. Casualty details trickled out slowly. Images of damage to American bases were almost nonexistent.

Now, service members, civilian contractors, and military families are breaking their silence.

MeidasTouch, in coordination with our partner VALOR Media Network, has obtained dozens of never-before-published photos and videos showing damage to U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, along with firsthand accounts from people who were there. They describe destroyed aircraft, bombed-out barracks and mess halls, troops digging their own foxholes, and military families hiding in parking garages while Iranian missiles flew overhead.

“It’s so much worse than people realize,” one source said.

The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because, they said, they have been repeatedly threatened with disciplinary action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for speaking out or sharing images. The accounts were gathered by VALOR Media correspondents El Powers and What in Clay Nation, who provided their notes and the images to MeidasTouch.

Some of the claims in this report could not be independently verified, and we have noted where that is the case. The Department of Defense has not publicly confirmed several of the losses described below.

“This Is Not a Normal Deployment”

Many of the people who shared their experiences are not new to war. Several have deployed to combat zones before. And all of them said the same thing: nothing compared to this.

“This is not a normal deployment,” multiple sources said. They described a level of mismanagement they had never seen before.

One service member described being called up in mid-February and told to ship out immediately on what was supposed to be a three-week temporary assignment. After arriving, they were told it would be closer to three months. They ended up staying more than seven.

Several said they had no advance knowledge of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. campaign against Iran, even though some of them were directly involved in it. They learned that hostilities had begun the same way most Americans did: from the news.

“We are sitting ducks,” one said.

Unlike past wars, the threat came almost entirely from the sky: drones, rockets, and ballistic missiles launched by an enemy they could not see. One service member described the Iranian drones that targeted their base:

“You can’t see them at night. They have no lights and are GPS navigated via coordinates. It sounds exactly like a small Cessna. Looks like a large falcon if it’s about 400 feet up. We had no defense against the drones.”

Saudi Arabia: Prince Sultan Air Base

Images supplied by U.S. service members and civilian contractors show extensive damage at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia between March and July.

The photos show destroyed dining facilities and workspaces, and damaged dorms where service members were living during the strikes.

One image shows bunkers the military provided to protect troops from drone and missile strikes, with their doors not yet mounted.

Other images show aircraft burning on the tarmac after missile strikes.

One photo shows a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS surveillance plane, tail number 81-005, damaged in an attack that sources say injured between 10 and 12 service members. According to the sources, the same attack damaged multiple other aircraft, including two KC-135 refueling tankers.

[…]

Jordan: “Surprised There Weren’t More Deaths”

At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, service members described roughly three months of near-constant incoming fire beginning in March. Alarms often couldn’t keep up.

“They were taking incoming fire so frequently that the alarms couldn’t keep up,” according to one account.

Sources say multiple U.S. Air Force aircraft were damaged during the strikes, including F-15 fighters, F-35s, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and helicopters, along with command-and-control facilities and critical infrastructure.

One image shows the impact crater left by a ballistic missile that sources say got past interceptors and landed near military bunkers, injuring multiple people.

The most harrowing account involves an attack on the night of July 17 into July 18. According to sources, Iranian ballistic missiles and drones got past the base’s defenses and struck U.S. military barracks. Three service members were killed, and four more were reportedly evacuated.

Multiple sources told MeidasTouch they could hear service members calling for help from inside the flames, but that because of inadequate emergency response and a lack of preparation, they could not reach them.

Sources said the base was overcrowded at the time of the deaths, and that those on the ground were surprised there weren’t more. Deaths occurred, they said, when service members couldn’t make it to shelters in time.

Living conditions deteriorated as the strikes continued. Troops repeatedly ran out of basic supplies, especially personal hygiene items, and the base exchange was often closed during periods of heavy fire. Housing areas were blown up twice. Near the end of the deployment, a hangar storing everything troops were preparing to ship home took a direct hit, destroying gear and personal belongings.

Then, in July, service members were told they were finally going home. They were sitting in the terminal waiting for their flight when they were ordered to stay. Many had already thrown away their bedding and hygiene items. They couldn’t replace them.

[…]

Via https://meidasnews.com/news/so-much-worse-than-people-realize-never-before-seen-images-reveal-damage-at-u-s-bases-as-troops-describe-being-abandoned

At Least 10 Prominent Athletes Dead or Struck by Anomalous Medical Emergencies in Last 21 Days

Large numbers of prominent athletes continue to die unexpectedly or suffer anomalous medical emergencies since the mRNA gene therapies were rolled out.

Click here to watch the video

Across the NFL, NHL, NCAA football, professional rugby, women’s basketball, and international hockey, athletes ranging in age from just 18 to 56 have suffered major medical events, including pulmonary emboli, cardiac arrest, an aortic dissection, an emergency heart transplant, and several deaths.

In just the first 21 days of OCTOBER 2026, at least 10 cases have made headlines:

  1. Jalen Hurts, 28 (NFL, Philadelphia Eagles) — Diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis and blood clots in BOTH lungs.
  2. Allen Bailey, 37 (Former NFL, Chiefs/Falcons) — Found DEAD at his home. Cause of death remains undisclosed.
  3. Ben Kindel, 19 (NHL, Pittsburgh Penguins) — Suffered a medical emergency aboard the team’s flight, forcing the plane to turn around. Hospitalized; diagnosis undisclosed.
  4. Kasey Redfern, 35 (Former NFL, Lions/Falcons) — DIED following a battle with central nervous system lymphoma.
  5. DJ Jones, 18 (NCAA Football, Missouri Tigers) — Underwent a HEART TRANSPLANT after a serious cardiac condition was discovered.
  6. Heidi Burge Horton, 54 (Former WNBA, LA Sparks/Washington Mystics) — DIED from aggressive brain cancer (glioblastoma).
  7. Hyron Andrews, 31 (Professional Rugby, Johannesburg Lions) — Found DEAD in a hotel shower. Autopsy confirmed a fatal aortic dissection.
  8. Cheryl Waaka, 56 (Former Rugby, New Zealand Black Ferns) — DIED following a battle with stage IV bowel cancer.
  9. Eirik Skadsdammen, 45 (Former Pro Hockey, Storhamar/Norway) — Suffered a FATAL CARDIAC ARREST during a hunting trip.
  10. Jack Davies, 24 (Welsh Rugby, RGC/Caernarfon) — DIED unexpectedly. Cause of death has not been publicly disclosed.

This is not normal.

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/10-prominent-athletes-dead-struck-anomalous-medical-emergencies/5944284

New York Fines Amish Schools After Ending Religious Exemptions from Vaccination

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Amish schools are very small and self-funded, but the New York state government is demanding they pay heavy fines for not complying with vaccine regulations that conflict with their religious beliefs. Photo courtesy of Amish America.

New York has fined three Amish schools a total of $118,000 for enrolling unvaccinated children. According to the Second Circuit opinion, the commissioner of health fined Dygert Road School $52,000; Twin Mountain School, also known as Pleasant View, $46,000; and Shady Lane School $20,000. The schools serve Amish settlements in Clymer, Heuvelton, and near Canajoharie. New York has approximately 25,000 Amish residents, the fifth-largest Amish population of any state.

Under New York Public Health Law § 2164, children attending public, private, or parochial schools for more than 14 days must be vaccinated against specified diseases unless they qualify for a medical exemption. Each violation carries a fine of up to $2,000, and the Department of Health counts each day an unvaccinated student attends school as a separate violation.

For Dygert Road and Twin Mountain, the department assessed $2,000 per unvaccinated student, counting one day of noncompliance for each. Shady Lane provided no student records, so the department calculated its fine based on one student attending for 10 days. The commissioner described the totals as “principled and conservative under the circumstances.”

“That’s $2,000 per student per day,” said Aaron Siri, managing partner of Siri & Glimstad, which represents the Amish families. “The state of New York has now told them… you want to stay in this state, you need to abandon your religious beliefs.”

New York allowed religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements from 1966 until June 13, 2019, when the legislature repealed the exemption following the 2018–2019 measles outbreak. The repeal passed 84–61 in the Assembly and 36–26 in the Senate. The medical exemption remained in place.

The Department of Health audited the three schools in November and December 2021. In March 2022, it charged them with allowing students to attend beyond the 14-day grace period without certificates of immunization or valid medical exemptions.

After an administrative hearing, the commissioner of health upheld the charges and imposed the fines. The hearing judge had recommended against financial penalties, citing inadequate notice, but the department rejected that recommendation.

The schools do not require proof of vaccination because the parents’ religious beliefs prohibit it. According to the complaint, the families regard abortion as murder and believe vaccine development is linked to aborted fetuses. They argue that educating their children together is part of their religious formation and that the fines threaten to close their schools. In filings quoted by Amish America, parents described the schools as church-run, one-room parochial schools that accept no state aid.

“The Amish want to be able to practice their religion in peace in New York,” Siri said. “They want to continue engaging in the manner that they have lived for almost 200 years in New York. These are small one-room classrooms. Amish buildings on Amish land with Amish teachers. All paid for by the Amish.”

“Even over $100,000 is far too much to ask the Amish to pay,” Siri said. “The state of New York knows that. They are intent on having the Amish abandon their beliefs or leave New York.”

Lawyers for the families say the Amish cannot pay the fines without selling land and will move to if they lose their case. Pennsylvania still allows religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements.

The families sued the state on June 2, 2023, arguing that the law violates their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and the parental rights recognized in Wisconsin v. Yoder. That 1972 Supreme Court decision allowed Amish parents to end their children’s formal schooling after eighth grade. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York dismissed the case, and the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal in March 2025.

In December 2025, the Supreme Court vacated that ruling and sent the case back for reconsideration in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor. In that 2025 decision, the Court held that parents could opt their children out of school instruction that conflicted with their religious beliefs.

On June 30, 2026, the Second Circuit again ruled against the Amish, holding that the vaccination requirement does not regulate what children are taught and therefore does not impose the type of burden at issue in Yoder or Mahmoud. Alabama and 19 other states filed a brief supporting the Amish.

On September 28, 2026, First Liberty Institute, Siri & Glimstad, Lehotsky Keller Cohn, and attorney Chris Wiest filed a new petition for certiorari. The Supreme Court docketed the case as No. 26-438 on October 2. New York’s response is due November 2.

The petition asks whether the law violates the Free Exercise Clause as applied to the Amish and whether the Court should reconsider Employment Division v. Smith, the 1990 decision allowing neutral, generally applicable laws to burden religious practice.

The Department of Health told Fox News Digital it could not comment on pending litigation. It said the state’s school immunization requirements are based in science and protect the health of all New Yorkers.

It may appear that New York is telling the Amish they can practice their religion as long as they pay a crippling fine, but even that is not the arrangement. Paying the $118,000 would not permit unvaccinated children to keep attending school. The Department of Health counts each day each unvaccinated student attends as a separate violation.

The current fines cover only the 2021 audit, calculated at one day per student for Dygert Road and Twin Mountain and one student for 10 days for Shady Lane, according to the Second Circuit opinion. Under Public Health Law § 12, each violation carries a penalty of up to $2,000, rising to $5,000 for a repeat violation within 12 months. As long as the schools remain open and the children remain unvaccinated, the fines will continue to accumulate.

Just as with COVID, one could argue that the fact that a policy is based on science does not mean it is morally right or even logically sound when the cost-benefit ratio is considered. Locking all children in separate dungeons would reduce disease transmission to 0%, for example, but it would not be worth the suffering it would cause. From a moral and religious standpoint, it seems immoral to force people to violate their religious beliefs.

Also, since the Amish have always avoided vaccination and have never had a problem with massive deaths from communicable diseases, must not be a matter of life and death for them. Furthermore, if the state is worried about contagion, the Amish stay primarily within their own communities. Just as with COVID masks and vaccines, if people outside the community are vaccinated and believe vaccines protect them from disease, they should not care whether someone else is vaccinated, particularly someone they do not come into contact with.

Ironically, New York is shielding illegal aliens, a large community with a high rate of dependence on public benefits, whose members are, by definition, criminals through one or more of the following: illegal presence, illegal entry, illegal employment, or other criminal activity. The Amish are a small, self-sufficient community of U.S. citizens who generally do not accept state money, run their own schools, and want to be left alone.

[…]

Via https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/10/new-york-fines-amish-schools-after-ending-religious/

Pentagon cracks down on insider betting

Pentagon cracks down on insider betting – AP
RT
23 Oct, 2026 15:08  
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has reportedly warned that wagers on military outcomes could expose operations and distort the troops’ judgment

US troops have been warned against using inside information to bet on prediction markets, the Associated Press has reported, citing a directive issued by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who said such wagers could expose military plans and influence operational decisions.

The memo, dated Tuesday and reviewed by AP, covers platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi, where users wager on real-world events, including elections and military action.

The directive bars the use of both classified material and other official information unavailable to the public, with violators facing disciplinary action or criminal charges under military or federal law.

“Our enemies watch movements in these markets,” Hegseth wrote. “When an American service member, intelligence professional, or other Department civilian engages in a financial transaction on a military outcome, they create a signal.”

He also warned that personal financial interests could compromise professional judgment, arguing that “a logistician with money riding on a strike date has an interest in that date” and “an analyst with a position on an outcome has an interest in that outcome.”

The directive follows the prosecution of a US Special Forces soldier accused of profiting from advance knowledge of the January operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Prosecutors allege that Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke used information obtained through his involvement in planning and executing the raid to place more than $32,500 in Polymarket bets, earning over $400,000.

Most of the wagers were allegedly placed on January 2, hours before the attack on Caracas. Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty.

The controversy has extended beyond the military. Newly created Polymarket accounts placed suspiciously timed bets shortly before Trump announced an April US-Iran ceasefire, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. The White House later warned staff against trading on confidential information.

Trump’s former teleprompter operator was separately ordered to surrender more than $107,500 in profits and pay a $65,000 fine after regulators found he used advance access to presidential speeches to bet on which words Trump would say.

The scandals have intensified scrutiny of prediction markets, which several US states have accused of sidestepping gambling laws and consumer protections. The Trump administration, however, has argued that the platforms should remain regulated by federal financial authorities rather than under individual states’ gambling laws.

The president’s family also has business ties to the industry. Donald Trump Jr. serves as a strategic adviser to Kalshi and holds an investment in Polymarket through his venture firm, 1789 Capital.

Via https://rt-english.com/news/647587-us-pentagon-insider-trading/

US troops say Pentagon ‘abandoned’ them amid devastating Iranian attacks

(Photo credit: ABC News)

The Cradle

OCT 23, 2026

A new report provides photo evidence and firsthand testimony of the havoc wreaked on unprepared US troops and family members by Iranian strikes as the war began

New photographs, videos, and firsthand witness accounts detail extensive damage to US military bases and the failure of the US military to protect its troops and their families from Iranian attacks during the ongoing war, according to a new investigation by MeidasTouch and VALOR Media Network published on 23 October.

In the report, US service members and military families describe destroyed aircraft, barracks, and military infrastructure, inadequate air defenses, shortages of basic supplies, and a lack of preparation or advance warning from military commanders.

“It’s so much worse than people realize,” one source said.

Multiple sources said they were shocked by the level of mismanagement and poor planning by military leaders as the war began.

One service member described being called up in mid-February for a three-week temporary assignment that ended up lasting more than seven months.

Several said they had no advance knowledge of the US and Israeli attack launched against Iran on 28 February, despite their direct involvement in the war.

They only learned the war had begun by watching the news.

“We are sitting ducks,” one said, from Iranian drones, rockets, and ballistic missiles launched by an “enemy they could not see.”

“You can’t see them at night. They have no lights and are GPS-navigated via coordinates. It sounds exactly like a small Cessna. Looks like a large falcon if it’s about 400 feet up. We had no defense against the drones,” stated one service member.

Photos shown to MeidasTouch and VALOR by US troops and civilian contractors showed extensive damage at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia between March and July.

Dining facilities, workspaces, and living quarters where service members were living were all heavily damaged in the Iranian strikes, the photos showed.

One photo shows a US Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS surveillance plane. According to the sources, the attack injured between 10 and 12 service members and damaged multiple other aircraft, including two KC-135 refueling tankers.

A video obtained by MeidasTouch showed US interceptors failing to stop a ballistic missile that then struck the base.

At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, “They were taking incoming fire so frequently that the alarms couldn’t keep up,” according to one source.

Multiple US Air Force aircraft were damaged during the strikes, including F-15 fighters, F-35s, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and helicopters, along with command-and-control facilities and critical infrastructure.

On one of the worst nights of attacks, 17 July, Iranian ballistic missiles and drones struck a military barracks at the base, killing three service members and injuring four others.

Multiple sources said, “They could hear service members calling for help from inside the flames, but because of inadequate emergency response and a lack of preparation, they could not reach them.”

In Kuwait, some service members were forced to scatter into the desert for safety and lived out of a van for three months.

Photos taken in September at Camp Buehring in Kuwait show the base as almost completely abandoned by the US military.

In the UAE, service members had no warning that the US would launch the war, and no shelters to protect them from Iranian retaliatory strikes.

Some service members sought safety away from their base in civilian hotels while others dug their own foxholes.

Images from the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain showed heavy damage to the Fifth Fleet headquarters after it was struck by Iranian drones or missiles.

Families say the Pentagon refused to allow families of US service members to be evacuated according to plans established after the US and Israel launched a 12-day war on Iran in June 2025.

They were told evacuations would “make the situation look bad at home.”

At the same time, some senior leaders were evacuated under the pretext of training exercises.

“We were used as pawns in the war,” stated the spouse of one service member in Bahrain.

“There were many opportunities to get us out BEFORE things broke bad. The planes were sitting, waiting for the call to be made, but the powers that be didn’t make the call to evacuate dependents, and then the Bahrain Airport was damaged, and we were trapped,” the spouse stated.

“The risk that they took using dependents as pawns in a game is unforgivable,” the spouse added.

During the initial wave of Iranian retaliatory strikes, some spouses and children hid in a mall parking garage. “Sources say some of the children were so traumatized they couldn’t eat for days,” the report stated.

Via https://thecradle.co/articles-id/40694

The Black Nobility and the Ruling Class That Rome Never Lost

The Colonna and the Orsini, two of Rome’s oldest families, have both claimed Julius Caesar as an ancestor.

The Massimo say they descend from Quintus Fabius Maximus, the general who wore Hannibal down in the third century BCE.1

When Napoleon asked Prince Massimo if his family really came from Fabius, the prince answered that he couldn’t prove it, but the story had been going around the family for twelve hundred years.2

What these families inherited from the Roman aristocracy was its playbook.

They held land and married for advantage. They stayed close to the most powerful institution in the city, and they outlasted every government that tried to replace them. My argument is that the families known as the black nobility are extensions of the old Roman ruling class and that they still hold power today through banks, foundations, palaces, and the Order of Malta, the sovereign Catholic order that stands beside the papacy.

In my book The Hidden Hand: Wealth, Power, and Control from Pharaohs to Corporations, I argue that a handful of Roman patrician family lines, the same houses that ran the Republic’s networks of patrons and clients, found a new and lasting home inside the Papal States during the Middle Ages. The families that survived did what the Church did after Rome fell. They stopped depending on any one office and wove themselves into the institutions around them.

[…]

In 1870, Rome’s aristocracy lost its uniform but kept everything else. On the morning of September 20, 1870, Italian artillery blew a hole in the Aurelian Walls near the Porta Pia. Soldiers of the new Kingdom of Italy poured into the city, and a papal government that had ruled central Italy for about a thousand years came to an end. Pope Pius IX pulled back behind the Vatican walls. He refused to recognize the kingdom and called himself a prisoner.4

Rome’s old families had to pick a side. Some went over to the new royal court, and the city called them the white nobility. Others shut their palace doors and dressed in black to mourn the pope’s lost kingdom. Romans called them the nobiltà nera, the black nobility.5

How does a ruling class survive when the state that created it dies? My book names four mechanisms that elites have used for five thousand years to stay on top. Coercion is force or the threat of force. Alignment means separate institutions backing each other up without anyone giving orders. Amnesia wipes out the memory of how things used to be, so the present setup feels like the only one possible. Conflict keeps ordinary people fighting each other instead of looking up. The black nobility used all four.

The Barons: A Feud That Built a City

The heads of Rome’s baronial families ruled their own subjects from hilltop castles and used their own troops to control the roads and borders around their lands. In the 1400s, King Ferdinand I of Naples complained that the barons of the countryside, the Orsini and Colonna among them, didn’t recognize the pope’s authority “in life or in death.” They were, he said, “the true lords of the land.”6 A family with a son on the papal throne could also make loyalty to itself look like loyalty to God.

The Orsini rose in the late 1100s, when Giacinto Orsini became Pope Celestine III in 1191. His gifts to his nephews started the family’s land fortune. Over the next century, the Orsini led the Guelphs, the faction that backed the papacy. Their rivals, the Colonna, led the Ghibellines, who sided with the Holy Roman Emperor. The fight between the two houses ran Roman politics for generations.7

[…]

In 1303, the Colonna took part in the armed seizure of Pope Boniface VIII at Anagni, an attack the family’s own history calls the “Anagni Slap.” A little over a century later, the family gave the Church Oddone Colonna, who became Pope Martin V in 1417. He ended the Great Western Schism and brought the papacy back to Rome in 1420. Once in power, he loaded his relatives with church and government offices and gave them estates such as Marino and Rocca di Papa.8 The Orsini answered with popes of their own, from Celestine III in the 1190s to Benedict XIII in 1724.9

Accounts of the black nobility name about a dozen houses, including the Colonna, Orsini, Massimo, Borghese, Chigi, Barberini, Odescalchi, Ruspoli, Pallavicini, Sacchetti, and Theodoli.15 The black nobility was never one bloodline. It was many, tied together by marriage, and it kept taking in new money and new names as long as they came in through the papal throne.

[…]

The papal throne kept a black noble at its side for almost a century and a half after the Papal States fell. The influence these families carried into Europe ran through marriage and money, into royal houses and the banking world. It survived every change of government in the twentieth century because none of it looked enough like power to be worth abolishing.

The Order of Malta: Sovereign Without a Country

The Order of Malta, whose top offices these families held for centuries, has lost its territory more than once, and each time it came back with more standing.

It started in Jerusalem in the eleventh century as a hospital brotherhood that cared for sick pilgrims. Its members later became known as the Knights Hospitaller of St. John. After Jerusalem fell in 1187, the knights moved from one Mediterranean base to another until they settled on Rhodes. Along the way, the hospital brotherhood turned into a military and naval power with its own fleet and its own courts.31

The Knights Templar had built a network across Europe and had gone into banking and lending.

[…]

Kings fought the handoff. The Hospitallers got nothing in Portugal, where King Denis moved the Templars’ land and members into a new Order of Christ, approved in 1319. Valencia’s Templar estates went to another new order, Montesa, and Castile gave the Hospitallers very little. They did take over the Templar holdings in Aragon, Catalonia, Navarre, and Majorca, and across much of the rest of Europe.33 So the Order of Malta inherited a big share of the Templar fortune through a papal decree that kings bargained down. A military order that had become a banking power was wiped out, and its land went to a rival order loyal to the same pope. That’s alignment.

[…]

Reporters started connecting the Order to American intelligence in the 1980s. Mother Jones in 1983 and The Washington Post in 1984 reported that William Casey, then the director of the CIA, was a member, and an earlier CIA director, John McCone, has been named too. In 1986, the magazine CovertAction ran a full exposé on the Order’s ties to American intelligence. In 2011, the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh told an audience in Doha, Qatar, that top commanders in U.S. special operations were members or supporters of the Knights of Malta.39 A body with no territory and no voters holds a seat at the United Nations and has ambassadors in more than a hundred capitals. Standing like that has to be paid for.

[…]

Venice and the Three Hundred: The Making of a Legend

Online and in a few books, a bigger version of this story circulates. It says the black nobility is a secret bloodline that has ruled Europe, and now the world, from behind the scenes for a thousand years. These families never gave up power, and on that point the legend is correct. They didn’t need a secret government to keep it. They held it in plain sight, through palaces, banks, marriages, and a sovereign order with a seat at the United Nations. The legend’s wild claims do them a favor, because they make the real power easier to laugh off.

Part of the legend comes from Venice. In 1297, Venice passed a law called the Serrata, Italian for “closing.” It locked the city’s Great Council, the body that ran the government, to the families who already had seats in it. Those families’ names later went into an official register called the Golden Book, and only they could hold office or help choose the Doge, Venice’s elected ruler. After a few generations, people could hardly remember a time when Venice had been more open. This closed group ran the city for five hundred years. It ended on May 12, 1797, when Napoleon’s army was closing in and the Great Council voted to shut itself down, taking the Republic of Venice with it.48

Venice’s closed nobility and Rome’s black nobility were two different groups. They lived in different cities, and more than seventy years separate them. Venice’s ruling families gave up power in 1797, and Rome’s black nobility didn’t get its name until 1870. The legend glues them together into one “Venetian Black Nobility” and claims it never died.

We know who built this legend, because they put their names on it, and each writer added a new layer. In September 1981, Webster Tarpley, then writing for Lyndon LaRouche’s political movement, published “The Venetian Conspiracy” in the movement’s magazine, The Campaigner. LaRouche’s publications spent years presenting a “Venetian oligarchy” as the hidden hand behind European history.49 About ten years later, John Coleman’s Conspirators’ Hierarchy: The Story of the Committee of 300 listed a “Venetian Black Nobility” among the branches of a single committee he said ran the world.

[…]

Coleman’s number has a real source. Walther Rathenau was the heir to the fortune behind AEG, Germany’s version of General Electric. He sat on dozens of corporate boards before he took over the company himself, so he saw up close how Europe’s money moved. In a newspaper article on Christmas Day 1909, he wrote that about three hundred men, all of whom know one another, direct the economic destiny of Europe and choose their successors from among themselves. He was describing the boardrooms he sat in.

[…]

Today’s Power Bases

The Torlonia fortune shows how much of the old machine is still running. In 1923, Giovanni Torlonia founded the Banca del Fucino. For nearly a century, it was a princely family’s private bank and the oldest private bank in Rome.55 It took its name from the Fucine Lake, which Alessandro Torlonia had drained in the 1860s and 1870s.56 After the younger Prince Alessandro Torlonia, the last Prince Assistant, died in 2017, the family sold the bank to Igea Banca in 2019. The sale turned into a legal war among the heirs, and Roman prosecutors have investigated it.57 The bank was gone, but the fortune it had built stayed with the family.

[…]

Old power now sits on bank boards and in religious orders that carry diplomatic passports, not in parliament. These families don’t publish their guest lists.

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/bloodlines-beneath-vatican/5944192

Europe’s War on Vitamins: Campaigners in Ireland Warn EU Supplement Restrictions Could Spread Worldwide

A new campaign launched in Ireland is warning that plans by the European Union (EU) to restrict dosages of vitamins and minerals in supplements could have severe consequences for millions of people worldwide.

Called ‘Save Our Supplements’, the campaign is opposing efforts to introduce Europe-wide maximum permitted levels for popular essential nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin D, magnesium, and vitamin B6.

With campaigners warning that the restrictions could not just remove higher-dose supplements from the European market but set a precedent for other countries as well, they are calling on people everywhere to support their petition defending consumer choice and free access to effective, safe nutritional products.

The focus of the campaign centers on the EU’s ‘Food Supplements Directive’, controversial legislation adopted in 2002 that provides for the introduction of maximum permitted levels of vitamins and minerals in supplements. Although at the time the law was passed the European Commission – the unelected executive body in Europe – did not set specific limits on dosages, it is now edging closer to doing so.

A Threat to Supplement Choice Across Europe

Following pressure from a group of countries led by Germany, the Commission has confirmed that setting maximum levels is on its agenda. Significantly, Germany is Europe’s largest pharmaceutical market and the third largest globally, after the United States and China. Our Foundation has long warned that the drug industry would be a major beneficiary if supplements were subjected to draconian restrictions.

Countries supporting the setting of limits on dosages claim that having common EU-wide levels would improve consumer safety and establish consistent rules across the European market. But opponents fear the move could prevent people from easily obtaining nutrient levels they have used safely for years.

The potential impact of the plan is illustrated on the Save Our Supplements website, which compares potential maximum levels with amounts currently available in Ireland. According to the figures highlighted by campaigners, the maximum permitted daily amount of vitamin B6 in supplements could fall from 25 mg to just over 5 mg. Zinc could be reduced from 25 mg to a mere 7.4 mg, while manganese may even be banned altogether.

At the time of writing, these figures are not official EU proposals. Nevertheless, they demonstrate why campaigners are becoming concerned about the possible consequences.

Regulators Are Ignoring Modern Nutritional Science

One of the central arguments of the Save Our Supplements campaign is that vitamins and minerals should not be regulated in the same way as harmful environmental chemicals. As the website points out, traditional methods of assessing chemical safety were largely developed to protect people from over-exposure to toxic substances such as pesticides and industrial pollutants. Essential nutrients are different, the campaigners argue. Unlike pesticides, vitamins and minerals are safe essential substances that the human body needs in order to thrive and survive.

The Save Our Supplements campaign also points out that a one-size-fits-all approach ignores important differences in people’s nutritional requirements. While age, diet, lifestyle, medical conditions, medications, and individual biology can all influence a person’s nutrient needs, the EU essentially appears to be taking little account of this.

Vitamin D provides a particularly vivid example. People living in northern hemisphere countries such as Ireland tend to have limited exposure to strong sunlight for much of the year, making achieving adequate vitamin D status a significant public health concern.

Yet even in Mediterranean countries, where sunshine is far more abundant, research has found that vitamin D deficiency remains widespread. This illustrates why individual circumstances, rather than geographical location alone, need to be considered when assessing vitamin D requirements. Imposing a single maximum supplement level across an entire continent risks overlooking these important differences.

Other factors also deserve consideration. Certain prescription medications are well-known to negatively affect nutrient absorption or metabolism. Categories of drugs that have been found to deplete nutrient levels in the body include antacids, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, antiretrovirals, beta-blockers, cholesterol-lowering drugs, contraceptives, corticosteroids, diabetic drugs, diuretics, gout medications, laxatives, psychotherapeutics, ulcer drugs, and others.

Against this background, the Irish campaigners argue that regulations on maximum limits should reflect the full range of scientific evidence, rather than concentrating disproportionately on the potential risks associated with higher doses and giving insufficient consideration to the consequences of inadequate nutrient intake.

Why the Rest of the World Should Pay Attention

There is also a particularly important historical precedent for these concerns. Between 2003 and 2007, as an official observer delegate, I attended seven international meetings of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and its various committees. When doing so I witnessed firsthand the development and completion of the so-called ‘Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements’, which were adopted in 2005.

During those negotiations, the EU played a major role in promoting provisions closely aligned with its own ‘Food Supplements Directive’. The similarities between the finished Codex and EU texts remain striking, with the sections dealing with vitamin and mineral maximum levels containing almost identical wording.

This history raises an obvious question: If the EU succeeds in establishing restrictive maximum permitted levels for supplements in Europe, could it then seek to extend the same approach internationally through Codex? Given what happened during the development of the original 2005 Codex guidelines, there are strong grounds for taking this possibility very seriously.

Such a development could have consequences far beyond Europe. Although Codex standards and guidelines are not automatically binding on individual countries, they can strongly influence national regulations and international trade policies. Restrictions that begin in the EU could easily eventually affect supplement availability in other parts of the world.

Health Stores Ireland President Erica Murray believes this possibility makes international support for the Irish campaign essential.

“Once set, EU limits will likely set a precedent for global guidelines to be brought in by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, severely restricting consumer choice worldwide,” she says.

“Such restrictions would significantly limit access to effective doses of essential vitamins and minerals,” Murray explains. “We’re therefore urging people everywhere to stand with us by signing and sharing our petition.”

Murray’s warning highlights an important concern. People living outside the EU, including in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have good reason to follow these developments closely.

In our increasingly globally connected world, regulations developed in one major market can often influence policy debates and commercial decisions in others. A restriction introduced in Europe today could potentially have serious consequences far beyond Europe’s borders tomorrow.

Does the Government Really Know Best?

Ultimately, this dispute raises questions that go far beyond the technical details of conducting vitamin and mineral safety assessments. Should governments and regulators even have the right to enact draconian restrictions on the available dosages of essential nutrients, for example? And is it morally acceptable to prevent individuals from making informed decisions about their own health? Moreover, if certain pharmaceuticals are available over the counter in higher dosages than vitamins and minerals, does that send a signal that regulators bizarrely consider such drugs to be safer?

Consider the example of aspirin, a pharmaceutical drug that is widely available without prescription and carries well-established risks, including gastrointestinal bleeding. Yet while consumers can purchase aspirin over the counter, the EU is considering limits that could restrict the availability of supplements containing higher amounts of the essential mineral magnesium. Does it make sense to restrict access to essential nutrients while allowing potentially hazardous drugs to remain freely available?

These types of questions have been central to the Dr. Rath Health Foundation’s work for over two decades now. Throughout that time, we have fought for people everywhere to have free access to science-based nutritional approaches for protecting and improving their health. The developments in Europe are a timely reminder that the fight isn’t over yet.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/campaigners-ireland-warn-eu-supplement-restrictions-spread-worldwide/5944254

Israeli forces arrest 90, including US congressional candidate, during West Bank raid

US Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander shared this image of himself on a bus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on October 21, 2026. (Photo via social media)

Israeli forces have detained 90 people, including US congressional candidate Brad Lander, during an olive harvest in the occupied West Bank, as the Israeli regime intensifies its military raids across the territory.

According to Israeli rights group Rabbis for Human Rights, Lander, the Democratic Party nominee for New York’s 10th congressional district, was accompanying Palestinian farmers during an olive harvest near Bethlehem and had been supporting them for around two hours when Israeli forces arrested him.

“I’ve been detained by the Israeli military, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers,” Lander said in a post on the social media platform X on Wednesday, sharing a picture of himself on a bus.

“We were simply harvesting olives in a grove” in the West Bank, he continued. “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”

Lander previously posted that he was visiting the occupied West Bank with the “Protect the Harvest” coalition, which he said was “bringing people together from around the world to help Palestinian farmers harvest olives in the face of state-sanctioned settler terrorism.”

“Our goals for the trip are to help protect the olive harvest — and to shed a light on the reality of the occupation,” he said in a post published on X on Monday.

Lander, a political ally of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has been critical of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and wounded over 175,000 others, while destroying around 90% of the civilian infrastructure in the besieged strip.

Two Israeli lawyers, who work on similar cases, described Wednesday’s incident as the largest mass abduction of activists in the occupied West Bank in at least a decade, NPR reported.

Rabbi Arik Asherman, a longtime Israeli human rights proponent, also called the abductions “unprecedented.”

In a press release, T’ruah, a Jewish human rights group, called the Israeli military actions “an outrageous abuse of power, and part of a systematic, state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing aimed at driving Palestinians from their land.”

Last week, illegal Israeli settlers carried out two high-profile assaults in the occupied West Bank, injuring Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine in one attack and targeting European diplomats in another.

A United Nations report published in July said more than 900 Palestinians had been injured in Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year, while 76 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces or settlers, or died of their injuries, over the same period.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/10/21/778882/Israeli-forces-abduct-90-activists,-including-US-congressional-candidate,-in-West-Bank

AIPAC ends direct campaign contributions for US candidates


The Cradle

22 Oct 2026

Due to public backlash over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the powerful lobby group is seeking to support pro-Israel politicians in more discreet ways.

Via https://t.me/thecradlemedia/69805

US Troops and Diplomats Evacuating Posts Across the Middle East

Two US soldiers pose with the ‘Now Leaving’ sign on the edge of Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, March 22, 2023

Dave DeCamp | October 21, 2026

Sources told NBC News that a similar drawdown happened before the US and Israel attacked Iran in February.

The US military has been scaling back its presence at bases across the Middle East, and the US has ordered staff reductions at multiple diplomatic posts in the region, NBC News reported Wednesday, amid growing signs that the US and Israel may be preparing to launch another attack on Iran.

Sources told NBC that similar drawdowns were carried out before the US and Israel launched the war against Iran on February 28. US troops at bases in Jordan are among those that have been moved as Iran pounded the facilities during exchanges of strikes in the summer, attacks that caused significant US casualties. The US is also pulling troops out of facilities in Kuwait and Qatar.

One US official told the outlet that moving troops out of harm’s way was part of the US military’s planning as President Trump considers restarting “major combat operations” against Iran potentially before or after the November 3 US midterm elections. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also appears eager to restart the bombing campaign as he’s facing elections in less than a week.

The NBC report said that on Wednesday, chiefs of mission at multiple diplomatic posts in the Middle East were notified they would operate with reduced staff. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott denied an earlier report from Reuters that said the US was preparing to issue an order for the departure of some personnel and family members at US embassies across the region, but acknowledged that such an order has been given for Saudi Arabia.

“The US Department of State issued an ordered departure for non-emergency US government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only,” Pigott said.

Saudi Arabia continues to face major attacks from Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, since Riyadh reignited the war by bombing the Sanaa International Airport. The US is strongly supporting the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen, which has inflicted significant civilian casualties, by providing intelligence and refueling Saudi warplanes.

“Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions,” Pigott said. “The safety and security of Department personnel and their families remain our highest priority, and we will continue to take all necessary steps to protect and support them.”

Via https://news.antiwar.com/2026/10/21/report-us-troops-and-diplomats-evacuating-posts-across-the-middle-east/