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ARMED SETTLERS DETAINED A U.S. CONGRESSMAN AT GUNPOINT WITH AMERICAN RIFLES, LINDSEY GRAHAM DIED HOURS AFTER RETURNING FROM UKRAINE, THE PROUD BOYS CASE WAS ERASED FOREVER — AND THE PRESIDENT NAMED A NUCLEAR TARGET ON LIVE RADIO

Armed men surrounded a U.S. congressman’s van in the Occupied West Bank on Wednesday. They carried M4 rifles… made in the United States. They kicked the tires, swore in Hebrew and Arabic, and laughed. A translator told them the man inside was a member of Congress. They said they did not care.

Rep. Ro Khanna was visiting the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta… a Palestinian village abandoned after repeated settler raids. His group was held for more than an hour. When Israeli soldiers arrived, Khanna said he assumed they were there to help. Instead, he said, the soldiers smoked cigarettes with the settlers, chatted, and moved a car to block the road.

Khanna was only freed after calls to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and Israeli police. “The IDF is lying,” he said on Meet the Press Sunday. “They had violent settlers detain American citizens, including an American government official.” The IDF said it “dispersed” the settlers and “reopened the road.” Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Leiter, blamed Khanna for not coordinating his trip with Israel and said “no guns were pointed at him.” Khanna’s video and a New York Times photographer at the scene tell a different story.

Nine Americans have been killed in the West Bank since 2022. Thirty-one Democratic senators signed a letter in March demanding the administration investigate. The IDF said it “dispersed” the civilians and “reopened the blocked road.” Khanna’s video shows something else entirely.

“If they will do this to an American congressman, imagine what is happening to Palestinian families who have no smartphones, no security, and no national platform,” Khanna said. The rifles that detained him were paid for by the country he represents.

NINE AMERICANS KILLED IN THE WEST BANK SINCE 2022. THIRTY-ONE SENATORS DEMANDED AN INVESTIGATION. NOW A CONGRESSMAN WAS DETAINED WITH HIS OWN COUNTRY’S WEAPONS.

BREAKING

Lindsey Graham Died at 71 Hours After Returning from Ukraine — Republicans Are Down to 51 Senate Votes

Senator Lindsey Graham died Saturday night in Washington. He was 71. His office said the cause was aortic dissection… a tear in the main artery from the heart. He had returned from a trip to Ukraine just hours earlier. Trump said he spoke with Graham that evening and that it “could’ve been his last call.”

Graham served in the Senate for 23 years. He chaired the Budget Committee and had just won his Republican primary in June. He was one of the loudest voices backing the war in Iran… and one of the last Republican hawks who also pushed military aid to Ukraine. He spent his final day in a war zone the U.S. is funding.

His death leaves Republicans with 51 voting senators. Mitch McConnell has been in the hospital since mid-June after a fall that left him briefly unconscious. He later developed pneumonia. With both gone from the floor, the GOP margin is the thinnest it has been this term… at a time when some Republicans have broken ranks on the Iran war and the anti-weaponization fund.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster will appoint a replacement. A special primary is set for August 11. The seat was not considered competitive before Graham’s death. Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician running on healthcare and abortion rights, now faces a race with no incumbent. The machine just lost one of its most reliable votes… and the replacement hasn’t been named.

EXPOSED

The Proud Boys Seditious Conspiracy Case Was Dismissed “With Prejudice” — the Judge Said No One Should Mistake This for Agreement

On Friday night, a federal judge erased the seditious conspiracy case against four Proud Boys leaders who led a mob into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The charges were dismissed “with prejudice”… meaning they can never be brought again. Not by this administration. Not by the next one. Not ever.

Judge Timothy Kelly… a Trump appointee who ran the original four-month trial… said he had no legal power to stop it. The DOJ asked for the dismissal. The defendants did not object. “No one should mistake the Court’s granting of the Government’s motion for its agreement with those decisions,” Kelly wrote. He added that the public record of the trial “will not be erased.”

It already has been. The DOJ deleted its own news releases about January 6 arrests earlier this year. It called them “partisan propaganda.” The administration has pardoned more than 1,500 rioters. A proposed $1.776 billion fund… paid by taxpayers… would have sent checks to January 6 defendants. A judge blocked it.

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio posted on X after the ruling: “Proud Boys don’t lose. We WIN. This is OUR victory.”

The same Justice Department that subpoenaed New York Times reporters on Friday night for covering a story about a plane… asked a judge to permanently erase charges against men convicted of plotting to overturn an election. Both requests were granted the same weekend.

“If they will do this to an American congressman, imagine what is happening to Palestinian families who have no smartphones, no security, and no national platform.”

— Rep. Ro Khanna, after being detained by armed settlers in the West Bank

DEVELOPING

The President Named Iran’s Underground Nuclear Facility on Live Radio and Called It “a Nice Big Fat Shot Right in the Front Door”

On Monday, the president went on the Hugh Hewitt show and named a specific Iranian nuclear facility as a bombing target. “Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right in the front door,” Trump said. Pickaxe Mountain is a suspected nuclear site near the Natanz enrichment complex… buried so deep that experts say even America’s most powerful bunker busters may not reach it. UN inspectors have never been allowed inside. Iran calls it a centrifuge assembly plant. Western intelligence suspects it is something else.

“We’re going to hit them very hard tonight and we’re going to hit them hard tomorrow,” he added. “There’s not a damn thing they can do about it.” Earlier that day, Iran’s IRGC struck and disabled two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz… vessels the UAE said were hit in Omani waters. CENTCOM reinstated the naval blockade around Iran.

Oil spiked 9.4% on Monday to $78.14 a barrel… the biggest jump since early April. Gas prices in South Carolina rose 15 cents in a single week. Saudi Arabia bombed Sanaa airport in Yemen the same day… the biggest Saudi strike on Iran-backed Houthis since 2022. The war is no longer between two countries. It now pulls in the U.S., Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Houthis, and at least five Gulf states catching Iranian missiles.

Iran’s national security commission said its options now include withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and closing the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. The president responded to that by naming their most sensitive facility… on a radio show… and calling it a target.

 Connecting the Dots 

▸ The Bigger Picture

Four stories from one weekend. A U.S. congressman was detained at gunpoint by settlers holding American rifles… and Israel blamed him for the visit. The Senate’s loudest war hawk died hours after flying home from the war zone he spent years funding. The men convicted of plotting to storm the Capitol had their case erased forever… on the same night the DOJ subpoenaed reporters for covering a story about a plane. And the president named a nuclear target on live radio while oil spiked 9.4% and the war spread to a new front in Yemen.

The press covers each one on a different desk. A “diplomatic incident.” An “obituary.” A “legal ruling.” A “military threat.” But the thread is the same in every one.

The machine protects its own and punishes everyone else. Settlers who detained an American lawmaker with American guns face no charges. Rioters who stormed the Capitol had their convictions erased by the government they tried to overthrow. But reporters who covered a gift from Qatar got agents at their doors on a Friday night. The rules do not apply equally. They never have. And this weekend made it impossible to pretend otherwise. Protection flows to the loyal. Punishment flows to the ones who ask questions.

Loyalty is the only currency the machine accepts. That’s the Seventh Floor.

They rely on the shadows.
It’s time to turn on the lights.