This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
'The choices before Khamenei are no longer between good and bad – or even bad and worse. They are between disaster and catastrophe'
The second round of negotiations between Iran and Western powers is unfolding amid escalating internal tensions within the Islamic Republic. At the heart of this internal strife is a clan known as the "hard core of the regime," which is no longer merely at odds with rival political factions, but seems at times openly defying Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself. This comes after Khamenei expressed tacit support for the talks and the Iranian negotiating team in a recent speech.
This "hard core" comprises elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, plainclothes security forces and key branches of the intelligence apparatus. Though numerically in the minority, they represent the foundation of the Islamic Republic's power structure. These forces are responsible for widespread repression in the streets and for orchestrating acts of violence and executions within the country's prison system.
From its inception, the Iranian regime has based its identity on rigid religious dogma with roots in medieval theology. It has projected this identity outward through slogans like "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," while simultaneously enforcing brutal repression at home. The IRGC was created to serve this dual mission: exporting terrorism abroad and quelling dissent domestically.
Leveraging this ideological hostility, the regime succeeded in consolidating a loyal base of repressive forces internally, while building a network of proxy militias across the region. Yet now, the very regime that once dubbed the United States "the Great Satan" and "enemy of the revolution" finds itself seated across from its former nemesis – negotiating and shaking hands.
Two diverging paths before the regime
Today, the Iranian regime faces a stark binary choice:
Engage in negotiations with the United States and Western allies, which would require abandoning its nuclear program, halting support for proxy forces and stepping back from military interference in the region.
Or, refuse to yield, risking airstrikes on nuclear sites, the full reimposition of maximum sanctions and a scenario comparable to the dismantling of Hezbollah's military infrastructure.
Reports from political circles in Tehran suggest that senior IRGC commanders, along with high-ranking officials – including newly elected president Masoud Pezeshkian – have warned Khamenei that the second path, which entails escalating international pressure and military confrontation, could lead to the inevitable collapse of the Islamic Republic.
It is worth recalling that on March 2, at the onset of Ramadan, Khamenei addressed a gathering of current and former IRGC and government officials, declaring that negotiations with the United States were "neither wise" "nor honorable," and "not rational."
The ideological origins of the regime's hard core
According to an investigative report by the semi-official Etemaad website, the "hard core" of the regime – also called the "ideological-security circle" – consists of factions that define their legitimacy through unwavering allegiance to the revolution's founding ideology: implementing sharia law, rejecting Western engagement and sustaining permanent hostility toward the United States.
This faction emerged in the 1990s and has since remained ideologically rigid. For its members, any compromise – whether on hijab enforcement, foreign policy or diplomatic relations with the West – is viewed as a direct existential threat to the regime.
Historically, their relationship with Khamenei has been one of mutual reinforcement. He saw them as the regime's shield against internal dissent – "the force that paralyzes opposition from within" – and in return, they defined their mission as the "unconditional defense of the Supreme Leader."
Reformists vs. the hard core?
If negotiations proceed, it is expected that so-called moderate and reformist factions will gain momentum, while the hard core will lose influence. "Reformists" oppose measures such as strict hijab enforcement in public that could ignite new waves of civil unrest. They view such policies as accelerants to regime collapse. Still, despite their reformist rhetoric, these groups have largely remained silent amid the rising tide of executions, failing to issue clear condemnations or take meaningful action.
The crumbling pillar of power
Should the regime proceed with an agreement that includes halting its nuclear and missile programs, it will likely weaken the foundational power base that has supported it for decades.
This would empower the so-called reformists or moderates, who believe that negotiating with the United States is not just permissible but essential for the regime's survival. However, these factions appear blind to a critical truth: Any serious engagement with the West will, inevitably, lead to demands for political openness and reform.
And this would come at a perilous moment. In the most recent presidential election, only about 8% of eligible voters participated, many under pressure and amid an atmosphere of intimidation. Such a lack of public legitimacy could become the final accelerant in the regime's collapse.
Can Khamenei really be unaware?
Is it possible that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is unaware of these dangers? It is difficult to believe so. Indeed, Khamenei is acutely aware of the consequences of nuclear compromise and the decline of the regime's hardline base. During the second term of President Hassan Rouhani, from 2016 to 2020, Khamenei directly obstructed progress in the nuclear talks. Not only did he halt negotiations, but he later defended that move with pride. Today, he seems to lack the same power and authority.
Disaster or catastrophe?
The choices before Khamenei are no longer between good and bad – or even bad and worse.
They are between disaster and catastrophe.
Because none of the available options guarantee his survival.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
CNN poll notes significant upward swing since 2016
A new poll shows a whopping 56% of Americans want all illegal aliens deported from the county – so reports CNN data analyst Harry Enten.
A week after Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead, state health investigators in New Mexico found a severe rat infestation at their home, according to a report.
Hackman, 95, died days after his wife and caregiver, 65-year-old Betsy Arakawa, was killed by a rat-borne illness.
New Mexico officials who performed a health assessment of the home found rat droppings, dead rats, and rat nests in some outbuildings and garages, the Daily Mail reported.
The discovery could explain how Hackman's wife came to contract hantavirus, a rare but deadly respiratory disease that spreads through infected rat feces.
Police bodycam video released Tuesday shows deputies discovering the couple's partially mummified remains inside their squalid home.
One of the couple's surviving German Shepherds was found guarding Arakawa's body in the bathroom. Hackman was found on the other side of the house.
Police also shed light on Arakawa's last hours alive, sharing details of her final communications, an Amazon order and internet searches.
The new information was shared over the objections of Hackman's family, who sought to block records from the death investigation for privacy reasons. A judge allowed most of those records to be released but ordered images of the bodies to be blurred.
According to a police report, Arakawa used Google to look up if COVID causes dizziness or nosebleeds on February 10.
The next day, she emailed her message therapist to cancel an appointment, while noting her husband had flu and cold-like symptoms, although he tested negative for COVID. Arakawa also ordered oxygen canisters from Amazon to help with breathing.
It was previously reported that she sought medical treatment from a local clinic. She never answered a missed call placed on February 12, her presumed date of death. Hantavirus can kill a person within 24 to 48 hours of the first symptoms, if left untreated.
Hackman may have been unaware that his wife was dead for several days before he succumbed to heart disease, with Alzheimer's a contributing factor, on February 18. One of the couple's dogs also died from starvation and dehydration.
Their bodies were not found until a week later on February 26, when neighborhood security made the grim discovery.
Hackman, one of the most esteemed actors of his generation and an Oscar winner, had been out of the public eye for years before his shocking death.
The White House is ending the privileged press access that left-leaning news wires like the Associated Press have traditionally received.
The AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg will no longer get a guaranteed slot in the daily press pool that covers White House business, the New York Post reported. The wire services now have to compete with print publications for access on a rotating basis.
The press pool travels with the president and covers events where space is limited, such the Oval Office and Air Force One. Trump is known to engage with pool reporters in long, discursive Q&A sessions.
The makeup of the press pool has traditionally been dictated by the White House Correspondents' Association, which represents journalists, but the Trump administration has been taking that over, with press Secretary Karoline Leavitt deciding which organizations get pool access each day.
Wire services like the AP and Reuters provide syndicated news copy to news outlets around the globe. Their widely disseminated coverage often comes with a liberal spin.
For example, the AP has described the illegal immigrant at the center of a current international controversy, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as a "Maryland man" despite the fact that he entered the United States illegally from his native El Salvador.
The AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg have traditionally had guaranteed access to White House events, but the Trump administration is changing that. In lieu of a reserved space for the three wire services, the White House is adding a second slot for print journalists, and the wire services will be treated like other print media.
The move is an apparent workaround to a court ruling that ordered the White House to unblock the AP, which has been barred from the pool since February for refusing to change its style guide to reflect Trump's executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
US District Judge Trevor McFadden's ruling that the AP "cannot be treated worse than its peer wire services” gave the White House some flexibility.
The administration's moves have been condemned by legacy media as an attack on press freedom, but the White House has said the shakeup will make the White House more accessible to a wider variety of sources.
“The makeup of the pool is far more reflective of the media habits of the American people in 2025,” a senior White House official told The New York Post.
“The White House press policy continues to be grounded in fairness for all outlets that wish to cover the White House.”
The White House Correspondents' Association cried foul, saying the latest changes are meant to "retaliate against news organizations for coverage the White House doesn’t like.”
The AP said, "The administration’s actions continue to disregard the fundamental American freedom to speak without government control or retaliation. This is a grave disservice to the American people.”
Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro shared hospital footage of his recovery from bowel surgery, as he continues to deal with the aftermath of a stabbing that almost killed him.
The right-wing leader miraculously survived losing 40% of his blood after he was stabbed in the abdomen while campaigning for the presidency in 2018. He has since undergone multiple surgeries stemming from the attempted assassination.
The latest surgery, a 12-hour operation to treat a bowel obstruction that involved reconstructing part of his abdominal wall, was his most complex and invasive yet. The procedure was successful, and Bolsonaro was sent to the intensive care unit (ICU) for observation.
Bolsonaro shared videos of him moving around with help from a walker and hospital staff at DF Star Hospital in Brasilia.
- Jair Bolsonaro.
- Michelle Bolsonaro.
- DF Star - Rede D’OR.
- Brasília/DF, 15 Abr 15h30 Terça-Feira. pic.twitter.com/97zlDiEiK3— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) April 15, 2025
"This is the period in which the organs that were manipulated during the procedure lasting more than 12 hours begin to deflate, allowing us to observe the first signs of a real situation," he said.
"I remain focused on the recovery process, which from what I understand was the most invasive procedure that took place, seeking strength to get out of bed once again, after facing the sixth surgery resulting from the stabbing suffered by a former member of the PSOL, a historic ally of the PT," Bolsonaro wrote on X, tying the attack to the ruling Workers' Party.
The ex-president was still sharing updates from the hospital Tuesday, his third day in the ICU.
Bolsonaro had been planning to campaign across Brazil's northeastern region when he was hospitalized with severe abdominal pain Friday in Santa Cruz, Rio Grande do Norte.
He was later brought to a hospital in Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, and then transferred to the nation's capital Brasilia on Saturday.
A vocal support of President Trump, Bolsonaro has faced a thicket of legal troubles since narrowly losing re-election in 2022 to current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro was recently cleared of charges for faking a COVID vaccine certificate, but he is still facing trial for an alleged coup attempt, and he is legally barred from running for office until 2030.
The 70-year-old has denied any wrongdoing, saying he's the target of political persecution by his leftist rival, Lula.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Then he suddenly starts shouting about 'DIGNITY'
Joe Biden, whose son Hunter has complained people don't want to pay him to speak any longer, this week got one of those speaking engagements.
He addressed a national conference of Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled in Chicago on Tuesday.
And he spoke about being outraged as a 4th-grader back in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"And I'd never seen – uh I'd never seen hardly any black people in Scranton at the time and I was only going on 4th grade. And I remember seeing the kids going by at the time called colored kids on a bus going by," Biden said, suggesting that "sparked his outrage."
He also randomly started screaming about, "SIMPLE DIGNITY. EVERYONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED WITH DIGNITY … REGARDLESS OF WHO THEY ARE."
He also lashed out at President Donald Trump.
"In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has made … has done so much damage and so much destruction."
He cited the thousands of federal workers whose jobs were eliminated at the Social Security Administration, accusing Trump of "taking a hatchet" to the federal workforce.
"Now they're getting ready to push thousands more out."
He also claimed that 30% of Americans now have "no heart."
"It's never been this divided."
A report at the Gateway Pundit pointed out it was his first major public speech since he left office, as his speech at the National High School Model United Nations last week was covered by "not one media outlet."
The report documented how Biden "struggled" in his speaking. And it noted how Biden's "outrage" as a 4th-grader "never happened."
Biden has a well-established reputation for telling stories that never happened.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Elon Musk: Twice as many cards are issued than the total number of federal employees
The Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, has suspended almost half a million government credit cards in use by federal officials as of this week, Newsweek reports.
Like a parent canceling the ill-advised gift of a credit card to a teenager, DOGE chief Elon Musk has deactivated credit cards issued to employees of 30 federal agencies.
Since its inception, DOGE has recommended the firing of more than 200,000 federal workers, and 75,000 workers have accepted the Trump administration's offer to voluntarily resign, notes the Newsweek report.
On Tuesday, DOGE wrote on X that it had deactivated about 470,000 credit cards in its crackdown on federal spending.
"Credit Card Update! The program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has been expanded to 30 agencies. After 7 weeks, ~470k cards have been deactivated. As a reminder, at the start of the audit, there were ~4.6M active cards/accounts, so still more work to do," the post said.
Musk added on X Wednesday: "Twice as many credit cards are issued and active than the total number of government employees! Crazy."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
'The American people don't need an obscure agency to 'protect' them from lies'
One of the most damaging attacks on Americans' constitutional rights in recent years actually came from the government itself, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he's working on President Donald Trump's campaign promise to "close the book" on the "weaponization" of the bureaucracy's agenda to "silence, censor, and suppress the free speech of ordinary Americans."
He's doing that by eliminating organizations like the Global Engagement Center, a key player that once had a huge role in the censorship industrial complex.
In a commentary posted at the Federalist, he explains:
"Over the past half-decade, bodies like GEC, crafted by our own governing ruling class, nearly destroyed America's long free speech history. The enemies of speech had new lingo to justify their authoritarian impulse. It was 'disinformation,' allegedly pushed by nefarious foreign governments, that was the No. 1 threat to 'our democracy.' To protect 'our democracy,' this 'disinformation' had to be identified and stamped out"
He then explained that GEC got its start in 2011 as the Center for Strategic Counter Terrorism Communications, responsible for advising the government on how to counter narratives from terrorists such as al-Qaida.
Then it strayed, he said.
"In early 2016, the Obama administration renamed CSCC the 'Global Engagement Center,' stripping away the explicit focus on international terrorism. Then, after Donald Trump's historic victory in 2016 but before he took office, GEC's mission was expanded to cover any and all 'foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.'"
That was a deliberate move, he charged.
"Obama's man in charge at GEC, Rick Stengel, touted his efforts to protect 'democracy' while redefining it so that 'democracy' came to mean silencing the part of the electorate he doesn't like. In 2019, Stengel directly equated President Trump's campaign with foreign and terrorist propaganda, writing, 'Trump employed the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians and much the same scare tactics as ISIS.' That same year, Stengel wrote an entire article about 'why America needs a hate speech law,'" Rubio charged.
America has paid a price for the leftist ideology.
That agenda created "the hoax that Russian interference, misinformation, and 'meddling' is what caused President Trump's victory in 2016, rather than a winning political message that only he was offering."
He added, "In 2020, a coronavirus from a Chinese lab swept the globe, and GEC popped up with a report warning that a 'Russian disinformation apparatus' was behind public speculation that the virus was an 'engineered bioweapon' or that it existed due to 'research conducted at the Wuhan institute.' GEC tarred not only specific claims as foreign propaganda but also specific users. It created lists of thousands of accounts that were accused of being foreign propaganda vectors simply for sharing articles or even following certain accounts. These lists were sent to social media companies for 'review,' but nobody was fooled — the purpose of this was to pressure private companies in the direction of more censorship and less free speech."
Further, "GEC was an enthusiastic participant in the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), an infamous group established under constitutionally questionable conditions to monitor 'disinformation' about the 2020 election. The EIP pretty much exclusively singled out accounts and narratives associated with President Trump and his supporters and, in fact, directly flagged President Trump's tweets, along with his family members and friends of the administration," he said.
GEC even, "when it wasn't directly nagging social media companies to censor more, the GEC paid private actors to do it for them. With its multimillion-dollar budget, paid for by American taxpayers, GEC funneled grants to organizations around the world dedicated to pushing speech restrictions under the guise of fighting 'disinformation.'"
The former Florida senator confirmed he chose to publish his piece in the Federalist, because one group funded by taxpayers, the British Global Disinformation Index, "once produced a list of the top 10 'riskiest online news outlets' in a direct bid to drive off their ad revenue and put them out of business. Every one of those 10 sites was on the political right, and The Federalist was among them."
He cited another group getting State Department dollars, NewsGuard, "a company that rates the reliability of various websites, once again for the purposes of driving traffic and ad revenue away from those rated poorly."
"NewsGuard claims to be nonpartisan — but its board of advisers has included one Rick Stengel, the very man who built the Global Engagement Center, who says Donald Trump uses ISIS propaganda tactics, and who believes that propagandizing the American people is a good thing."
He said the Trump administration rejects propaganda, and the belief that information Americans get must be censored.
"The American people don't need an obscure agency to 'protect' them from lies by pressuring X to ban users or trying to put The Federalist out of business."
He explained one of his projects has been to "liberate American speech by abolishing forever the body formerly known as the Global Engagement Center."
It was "supposed to be dead already," he noted. But when Republicans in Congress ordered the end of its funding last year, "Biden State Department simply slapped on a new name. The GEC became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) office, with the same roster of employees. With this new name, they hoped to survive the transition to the new administration."
Not so, he said. "Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead. It will not return."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
'The administration's actions continue to disregard the fundamental American freedom to speak without government control or retaliation'
The ongoing battle between the Trump administration and the Associated Press is heating up again as the White House has reportedly decided to completely eliminate a press-pool slot specifically reserved for wire services covering the president's daily actions.
The Hill reports: "A source in the West Wing confirmed the changes to The Hill on Tuesday evening and said moving forward, the press pool will be made up of the following group: one print journalist who will serve as the 'print pooler' each day, one additional print journalist, a crew from one of the major television networks, a crew from a secondary television network or streaming service, one radio journalist, one 'new media' or independent journalist and four photojournalists."
In addition to AP, Reuters and Bloomberg are news wire services.
As WorldNetDaily reported last week, a federal judge ordered the White House to restore AP access to the Oval Office and other spaces after President Trump banned the news agency's reporters for their continued use of the previous Gulf of Mexico name for the Gulf of America.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ordered access for the AP into the Oval Office, Air Force One and other limited spaces when available to other members of the media pool.
"Under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists – be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere – it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," McFadden wrote.
The Hill noted of the new protocol: "The White House official said eligible outlets will be chosen for the pool on a rotating basis, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will retain day-to-day discretion to determine composition of the pool.
"Wire-based outlets will be eligible for selection as part of the pool's daily print-journalist rotation as part of the shake-up, but they will no longer have a permanent slot in the group.
"The official said outlets will be eligible for participation in the pool, 'irrespective of the substantive viewpoint expressed by an outlet.'"
AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton said the wire service was "deeply disappointed" over the new restrictions.
"The wire services represent thousands of news organizations across the U.S. and the world over," she said. "Our coverage is used by local newspapers and television stations in all 50 states to inform their communities.
"The administration's actions continue to disregard the fundamental American freedom to speak without government control or retaliation. This is a grave disservice to the American people."
NBC correspondent and former White House Correspondents' Association President Kelly O'Donnell blasted the latest White House decision.
"Wire reporters are among the most knowledgeable and dedicated to the White House beat," she said on X.
"They are on duty every day of the year and anywhere in the world needed to cover a president. Their work is a key building block for other media's work. Wires fill a critical role in the public's understanding of government and important events."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
'The only thing agents should be armed with are calculators'
House Republicans have begun pushing a plan that would take guns and ammunition away from agents of the Internal Revenue Service.
Likely among the most feared agencies, those agents now have thousands of guns and tons of ammunition.
But a congressman has determined that, "The only thing IRS agents should be armed with are calculators."
A Fox News report explains the plan, called the "Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act," would disarm the agents and their agency.
It would prohibit the commissioner of the IRS from using funds to buy, receive or store firearms and ammunition, and require the bureau to transfer the arms it already has to the administrator of General Services.
From there, they would go to auctions or sales to licensed dealers, the report said.
And taxpayers actually would benefit from the income from those sales.
The plan comes from U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., who was blunt in his assessment: "The IRS has consistently been weaponized against American citizens, targeted religious organizations, journalists, gun owners, and everyday Americans.
"Arming these agents does not make the American public safer. My legislation, the Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act, would disarm these agents, auction off their guns to Federal Firearms License Owners, and sell their ammunition to the public. The only thing IRS agents should be armed with are calculators."
Cosponsors included GOP Reps. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Mary Miller of Illinois and Clay Higgins of Louisiana.
Moore explained, on social media on Tax Day this year, "Tax Day is a great reminder that it's time for the IRS to stop wasting our taxpayer dollars stockpiling guns and ammo."