Military action against al-Qaeda terrorists in Mali is being considered by President Trump

 

Mali. News Nation.

Military action against al-Qaeda aligned terrorists in Mali is being considered by the White House. News Nation. A Washington Post report said that the debate was happening because Mali's JNIM terror group has been having success on the battlefield and could potentially overthrow the government. Russia's Africa Corps, an official formation that folded in former Wagner Group mercenaries into the Russian military, has failed to defeat the terrorists since a coup replaced the pro-American government in 2022. The presence of Russian troops in Mali would complicate things and would likely require deconfliction efforts. JNIM has allied with a local independence group, the FLA, and have had major successes on the battlefield, including killing the Defense Minster. 

My Comment:

I don't know how real these reports are. There is a very strong argument to intervene in Mali. The last thing we need is a new Syria or Afghanistan where al-Qaeda can gather a tax base to fund terror attacks globally. That has absolutely not worked out well in the past, to say the least and not intervening against groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS caused an untold amount of misery. 

But there should be a debate, and it sounds like there is one internally. There is the idea that our forces are already stretched thin due to other military actions this year, most notably Venezuela and Iran. Iran especially has drained our weapons stockpiles and exhausted our troops. Launching another military campaign, even a minor one, might not be the best idea. 

Politically it has risks as well. Folks are pretty tired of the Iran War and the media is already framing this as a new conflict, something that the dove wing of his party is not going to be too impressed with. Pre midterms, joining this conflict will not play that well, even if doing so is necessary from a military sense. 

I do think we would be extremely effective though. Mali's major problem is a lack of intelligence and air support. Most of Russia's forces are deployed in Ukraine, obviously, and the Africa Corps is stretched thin in that area. They have some drones and a few helicopters and SU-24 Fencer attack planes but not what they need to be effective, and Mali has even less in terms of these weapon systems. My first instinct would be that we should end the Ukraine War so Russia could better provide their troops in Mali with the support they need, but that's politically impossible. 

It's unclear how open Mali and Russia would be to working together. Both would obviously benefit from the destruction that the US Military could rain down on these terrorists but Mali's government was pretty anti-America (and anti-French, who used to be handling these terrorists). And, obviously, relations between Russia and the United States remains tragically frosty. 

There are signs that Mali is at least willing to entertain the idea of allowing air strikes. There have been some examples of intelligence sharing and high level diplomatic meetings. It could be that Mali might be able to work with the United States. 

However, I should note that any participation of the United States in Mali is not a done deal. There is a debate happening and they are in the very early stages. There's arguments being made for and against it, and President Trump and his team might very well conclude that it's not worth it. It's also possible that Mali and Russia will be able to reverse the battlefield problems they are facing without US help. Right now, nothing is for certain, and we will have to wait and see.

Democrat Governor of New Jersey says 6600 non-citizens were registered to vote due to an "error".

 

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill. Fox News/Getty.

The Democrat Governor of New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill, said that 6600 non-citizens were registered to vote in the state due to an "error". Fox News. In New Jeresey, people who use the DMV are registered to vote. However, 6600 people were registered despite being non-citizens and indicating so on their DMV registration due to a "software error". Around 400 people in this group then voted illegally. The registrations happened before Sherrill took the office between June of 2023 and June of 2024. Republican investigations into the state had shown the issue but this is the first time the Democrat controlled government admitted it. The illegally registered voters are now being removed from the voter rolls. 

My Comment:

I am skeptical that this is the full extent of this problem and that this was a mistake. It's very possible far more people were registered and voted than the Democrat controlled State of New Jersey is willing to admit. 

However, it's extremely hard to prove either way. There hasn't been an external audit to confirm or disprove any allegations of a wider scandal. I am guessing that will be coming as the Feds have already said they are going to look into it. 

And I also don't know if this really was a glitch. It wouldn't be very hard to make the software do this automatically and it could be passed as a bug. I am no expert on this technology but I would believe it's very possible. However, short of someone confessing that they did so, I don't know how you would ever prove this without some serious forensic investigation, and even then, it would be difficult. 

New Jersey obviously has a motive to lie about what happened here. If only 400 people voted illegally due to this issue, then it probably wasn't enough to change the outcome of any elections. But if there were a lot more than it starts to call into question some of these elections.

New Jersey is a blue state, but it's one that has been trending red and though the margins aren't so close, it's very possible that some of the more recent elections, even the one that put Sherrill into power, come into question. It's a huge problem and casts doubt into all recent elections in New Jersey. It also calls into question elections in the future even if all 6600 are purged from the voter rolls. Who is to say there aren't more of them?

Democrats have to be furious about this though. They couldn't keep this quiet and it gives ammo for President Trump and his accusations of voter fraud. At this point his accusations are getting harder and harder to deny. Even if many of the claims end up being false, enough are being proven true that it's obvious that our elections need major reform. 

Arson attack in New York City committed by an anti-ICE activist.

 

Andrew Arrabaca detained by police. Fox News/FNTV.

An arson attack in New York City was committed by an anti-ICE activist. Fox News. Andrew Arrabaca, 43, dumped an accelerant outside 26 Federal Plaza and lit up a firework to start the fire. Arrabaca was armed with a airsoft gun (a pellet gun in some reporting) and several melee weapons. Two or three people were injured, with one civilian being hit by the firework and an officer being injured as he detained Arrabaca. 26 Federal Plaza houses an immigration court along with offices for ICE and the FBI. Anti ICE literature was found on the suspect. The suspect was detained almost immediately and the fire was contained quickly. 

#BREAKING: New footage shows anti-ICE activist set fire outside immigration court in NYC. pic.twitter.com/5QncPG0KMD

— Insider Wire (@InsiderWire) July 20, 2026

My Comment:

The reporting in this case is all over the place. In some reports he was armed with a pellet gun and in others he had an airsoft gun. That's a significant difference because airsoft fires plastic pellets and won't cause much in the way of wounds, while a pellet gun fires metal pellets that could actually cause some damage. Some reports say that he fired and hit some of the victims with his gun, some say he didn't hit anyone, some say that he didn't fire it at all. And there isn't agreement of how many folks got injured. With such shoddy reporting, I had to hedge quite a bit in the summary. 

What is clear is that this attack was a failure. The injuries were minor, and the arson didn't actually set the building on fire. Indeed, where he set the fire seemed to have zero chance of actually starting a fire. Instead of inside of the building, he did it on the sidewalk. The fire was easily contained and the suspect was tackled almost immediately. 

In short, this is another example of a terrorist being very stupid. With the weapons he had, he could have done more damage than he did if he had a brain worth using. He was almost certainly never going to get away with it. Given the lack of sophistication and the almost total lack of planning, I feel comfortable in saying that this was a lone wolf attacker with no ties to a larger organization. 

I also feel pretty comfortable saying that this was a terror attack. This guy had anti-ICE literature and supposedly, a manifesto as well. He targeted a building with an immigration court and ICE offices and I am guessing his goal was to burn it all down. That he failed was due to incompetence, not lack of effort or intent. 

Why this guy was so angry about immigration enforcement is beyond me. He is apparently Hispanic, but I know a lot of Hispanic folks that support ICE and immigration efforts. He was also a former soldier during the GWOT and worked as a mechanic on Patriot missile batteries. My guess is he got radicalized online. Either way though, it's a good thing his attack was a failure. 

The United Kingdom has a new Prime Minster after Kier Starmer's resignation. Andy Burnham takes over, but will anything change?

 

British Prime Minster Andy Burnham. Reuters. 

The United Kingdom has a new Prime Minster after the resignation of Keir Starmer. Reuters. Andy Burnham will take the post and will meet with King Charles. Burnham faces extreme problems including poor economic growth and underperforming utilities. Burnham will also have to deal with forming a cabinet and staving off criticism from Nigel Farage's Reform UK party. However, Burnham has already scrapped one of the more unpopular Starmer policies to force digital ID for employment. 

My Comment:

The Reuters article seemed to ignore the elephant in the room and the biggest problem in the UK today, immigration and the two tier treatment for immigrants versus natives. Though the economy is a huge problem too, immigration is the thing that has neutered the Tories and made Nigel Farage's Reform party a real force, and a party that is likely to win during the UK's next elections in 2029.

To be fair, the UK has clamped down on immigration to some degree. There are less immigrants showing up and it sounds like Burnham will be more open to deportation than Starmer is. But the real problem is how Labour can get rid of the immigrants without losing their far left supporters, and I don't think there's a path for that. Without widescale deportations, Burnham is going to be extremely vulnerable to Reform. 

And I also don't see how he fixes the two tier policing problem the UK has. That's not something you can simply switch off, you have to fight a couple generations worth of indoctrination that puts Muslims above Christians, immigrants above citizens and Brown before White. And I don't know if Burnham even wants to do anything about it either. Burnham is saying the right things about this, but I get the feeling he isn't actually going to do anything. 

As for the Economy, I don't know how he can fix that either. I think if he wanted to, he could open up the North Sea for drilling, which would massively reduce energy costs over the long term, but Labour is unable to act on that issue. Same with ending energy sanctions on Russia, that's not happening either, even though it would greatly help. I also don't think any of their left wing economic theories are ever going to help their economy. 

But the news isn't all bad. They are getting rid of the absolutely draconian digital ID for work. Ostensibly, the digital ID was going to be used to ensure illegal immigrants couldn't get work, but folks thought, correctly, it would be abused by the government to keep their political opponents from work. The proposal was mostly dead under Starmer but it's completely scrapped now and it's good to see some successful pushback against digital tyranny. 

Regardless, I don't think Burnham is going to be successful. There are signs that Labour is starting to get some idea of what is wrong with the UK, but I just don't see them doing enough to reverse course. I do wish him well and I think he can hardly do worse than Kier Starmer... 

DHS finds 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states.

 

A demonstration in favor of the SAVE act. New York Post/Getty.

The Department of Homeland Security has found 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states. New York Post. The majority of these registrations were in California, with 191,000, but New Jersey (35,000), Nevada (16,000) and Pennsylvania (14,500) had many as well. It is unclear how many of those non-citizens actually voted and if they had any impact on any major races. It's a felony for a non-citizen to register to vote, though it's up to the states to confirm if the voter has a right to vote. The revelation was one of many revealed during President Trump's speech tonight on election security. 

My Comment:

I missed President Trump's speech tonight by accident, so I didn't see what he had to say about this, so this post will mostly be about the non-citizen voter issue. Trump also talked about China stealing US election data, major vulnerabilities in voting machines and inaccurate voter rolls. The non-citizen voter issue is the one that had numbers attached to it, as of this writing, so it's a little easier to analyze. 

To be clear, it's not proven that all of these people voted in elections. Some of these numbers may be mistakes, things like naturalized citizens data not getting updated, so I would expect that the numbers are a little bit better than they are. 

That doesn't mean that this is acceptable in any way. Even one illegal vote taints an entire election, and even if you managed to eliminate 90% of these voters as not actually being illegal, you have enough illegal votes to change outcomes of close races. 

Even more concerning is the fact that two of these states, Pennsylvania and Nevada, are swing states that could have entire presidential elections swing based on 10,000 to 15,000 illegal votes. And while New Jersey and California aren't swing states, they still have House districts, senate races and local elections too. And even New Jersey could potentially be a swing state in future elections, given how close Republicans have gotten in the past few elections. 

It's pretty clear that some of these votes could have changed election results in a few races. The margins might not be enough to overturn who won which states in 2020 or 2024, but they absolutely could have flipped congressional districts or even Senate races. 

And we don't know how bad the problem is. It's very possible that more voters are registered illegally in these states, and maybe more will be found. Worse still, this is only 4 states out of 50, who knows how bad this problem is in other states, most notably swing states? Even if the problem isn't much worse in other states, it could mean we have a million illegal voters. That's totally unacceptable. 

I do think that the SAVE act, currently stalled out in the legislative branch, could solve much of these issues. If you have to prove citizenship while registering to vote, which the SAVE act would mandate, it's almost impossible, without a huge effort to get fraudulent documents, to register illegally. It might not entirely eliminate the problem, but it would get rid of most of it. 

Either way, I do think it's pretty clear that folks don't trust our elections. Indeed, the people complaining about Trump pointing out that our election security is garbage, foreign citizens are registered to vote, and that China may have been attempting to influence or interfere with the election, are hugely hypocritical. Indeed, Trump's entire first term was about how he supposedly colluded with Russia to beat Clinton (which was false, but the accusation was made). 

The problem now is that both sides in America are only really going to trust elections when they win (and even then, I still don't trust them). Reform is absolutely necessary to bring back faith in our elections. The things we want are common throughout the rest of the civilized world, and even countries as dysfunctional as India (!!!) are able to get their election results in a day. It's absolutely time for America to step up and fix our elections.