https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-kelly-hegseth-illegal-orders-lawsuit-210024d0b2d5bd5c8f3c890ba934f608
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is appealing a judge’s order that blocks him from punishing Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot, for participating in a video that called on troops to resist unlawful orders, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

Justice Department officials filed a notice that they wil ask a panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the Feb. 12 ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon.

Kelly, who represents Arizona, said in a social media post that the only reason for Hegseth to appeal is to “keep trampling on the free speech rights of retired veterans and silence dissent.”

“These guys don’t know when to quit,” Kelly wrote on his X account.

Hegseth had vowed to immediately appeal Leon’s decision. “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain,’” he posted on his X account, referring to Kelly by his rank at retirement.

In November, Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers appeared on a video in which they urged troops to uphold the Constitution and not to follow unlawful military directives from the Trump administration. Republican President Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post days later.

Earlier this month, a Washington grand jury declined to indict the lawmakers over the video.

Kelly sued in federal court to block his Jan. 5 censure from Hegseth. Leon’s order prohibits the Pentagon from implementing or enforcing Kelly’s punishment while his lawsuit is pending.

U.S. Air Force officer Gerald Eddie Brown, Jr., a former F-35 Lightning II instructor pilot known by the call sign “Runner,” was arrested in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

The 65-year-old faced criminal charges for providing and conspiring to provide unauthorized defense services to Chinese military pilots in violation of the Arms Export Control Act. Brown, who served more than 24 years and retired as a Major in 1996, commanded nuclear weapons delivery units, led combat missions, and instructed on F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, A-10 Thunderbolt II, and the F-35 Lightning II.

Since at least August 2023, Brown conspired with foreign nationals and U.S. persons to deliver combat aircraft training to the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. He negotiated through a co-conspirator with Stephen Su Bin, the Chinese national convicted in 2016 for hacking U.S. defense contractors to steal military data for the PRC.

Brown traveled to China in December 2023 and stayed until early February 2026. On his first day he answered three hours of questions about the U.S. Air Force. On his second day he presented a brief to PLAAF personnel. He explicitly stated his goal was to instruct fighter pilots again and hoped for assignment to the local equivalent of the U.S. Air Force Weapon School.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5755831-former-air-force-pilot-arrested/

https://caliber.az/en/post/german-law-targets-pensioner-for-satirical-post-about-chancellor
Police in Heilbronn, southwestern Germany, have opened an investigation against a pensioner who referred to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz as “Pinocchio” in a Facebook comment.

In October 2025, the man saw a post on the Heilbronn police’s Facebook page announcing that Merz, along with Baden-Württemberg’s state prime minister Winfried Kretschmann, would attend an upcoming event in the city. He commented: “Pinocchio is coming to HN [Heilbronn],” adding a long-nosed emoji, Caliber.Az reports, citing foreign media.

Three months later, in late January, he received a letter from the criminal police stating that investigations had been launched under Article 188 of the German Criminal Code. Introduced in April 2021, the law criminalizes insults or defamations of politicians “if the offence is likely to make their public work considerably more difficult,” with penalties of up to five years in prison.

A Heilbronn police spokesperson said that the comment was discovered during routine monitoring of social media: “When we come across cases of criminal activity during our monitoring of social media we will file a suit or submit it to the public prosecutor’s office for review.”

The elusive braaphog from >>>/pol/529251869 has been identified as a meteorologist (weatherperson, a type of politician) at some local tv channel.
https://nitter.net/kaylasmithwx
Thanks to everyone who has participated.

Senior advisers to President Trump are pushing for Israel to launch the first strike against Iran before any full-scale U.S. assault.


The private calculus is explicit: an Israeli attack would provoke Iranian retaliation against American targets, creating the political conditions needed to rally U.S. public support for direct American intervention.


Recent polling shows Americans back regime change in Iran but refuse to accept U.S. casualties unless the country or an ally is struck first.


One person familiar with the discussions stated verbatim, “There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action.”


With diplomatic hopes fading fast, the central question inside the administration has shifted to when and how the U.S. bombs Iran.


While a joint U.S.-Israeli operation remains the most probable path, key voices closest to Trump insist the optics improve dramatically if Israel acts alone initially.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed the White House last week to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles and proxy networks.


Simultaneously, Trump’s lead negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner head to Geneva Thursday for one last attempt at a deal.


Yet insiders confirm the prevailing view is “we’re going to bomb them.”


A regime-change scale attack would expose U.S. assets across the region to full Iranian retaliation, with no Iron Dome protection, guaranteeing American casualties and the exact political trigger advisers now seek.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/25/white-house-politics-israel-strikes-iran-00799456

https://www.reuters.com/world/fedex-sues-us-refund-trumps-emergency-tariffs-2026-02-23/
LOS ANGELES, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Global transportation company FedEx (FDX.N) on Monday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking a refund for President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs, one of the highest profile moves to recover funds since the U.S. Supreme Court last week deemed the tariffs illegal.
A flood of lawsuits to recover billions of dollars is expected by trade attorneys after the blockbuster ruling. The recovery process still has to be worked out by a lower court, though, complicating the matter.
More than $175 billion in U.S. tariff collections are subject to potential refunds after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled 6-3 that Trump overstepped his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a sanctions law, to impose tariffs on imported goods, Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists said.
"Plaintiffs seek for themselves a full refund from Defendants of all IEEPA duties Plaintiffs have paid to the United States," FedEx said in the lawsuit, referring to tariffs Trump imposed.
FedEx and its logistics arm served as importer of record on goods subject to IEEPA tariffs. The Memphis-based company did not provide the dollar value of the refund it is seeking.
FedEx in its lawsuit named U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency's commissioner Rodney Scott and the United States of America as defendants. CBP and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/26/china/us-air-force-pilot-china-instructor-charges-intl-hnk-ml
A former US Air Force fighter pilot with more than two decades of experience with nuclear delivery systems and aircraft, including advanced F-35 stealth jets, has been arrested and charged with conspiring to help the Chinese military.

Gerald Eddie Brown Jr., 65, was arrested in Jeffersonville, Indiana, on Wednesday and charged with violating the Arms Export Control Act by providing training to pilots in China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), according to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

“Providing US military training to our adversaries represents a significant threat to national security,” Lee Russ, executive director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations Office of Special Project, said in the statement.

Before his retirement at the rank of major in 1996, Brown served 24 years in the US Air Force.

“During his military career, Brown commanded sensitive units with responsibility for nuclear weapons delivery systems, led combat missions, and served as a fighter pilot instructor and simulator instructor on a variety of fighter and attack aircraft,” the statement said.

He also flew a range of jets, from the Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom to more modern F-15s and F-16s, according to the statement.

After retirement, Brown flew commercial cargo aircraft before joining two US defense contractors to work as an instructor in flight simulators training US pilots to fly the US F-35 stealth fighter and A-10 attack jet, the statement said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-ambassador-france-banned-meeting-french-government-2026-02-23/
PARIS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, has been banned from meeting members of the French government after not showing up at the Foreign Affairs ministry earlier in the day, where he had been summoned over comments on the killing of a French far-right activist last week, diplomatic sources said on Monday.
"Following the publication by the U.S. Embassy of comments on a tragedy that occurred in France and concerns only our national public debate – which we refuse to allow to be exploited – ambassador Charles Kushner was summoned today to the ministry. He did not show up," the source added.
French far-right activist Quentin Deranque was beaten to death in a fight with alleged hard-left activists, in an incident that shocked the nation and has been called "France's Charlie Kirk moment", referring to last year's shooting of the U.S. conservative activist.
The U.S. Embassy in France and the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism said they were monitoring the case, warning on X that "violent radical leftism was on the rise" and should be treated as a public safety threat.
"Faced with this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of an ambassador who has the honour of representing his country, the minister requested that he no longer be allowed direct access to members of the French government," the source added.
This was the second time Kushner did not show after being summoned. In August 2025, he had been asked to explain himself at the French Foreign Affairs ministry after having publicly raised his concern about the rise in anti-Semitic acts in France and criticising the French authorities for not doing enough against it.

https://www.startribune.com/ice-fourth-amendment-whistleblower-congressional-democrats-forum-testimony-blumenthal/601587162

>WASHINGTON — A former ICE teacher at a Georgia training center told congressional Democrats on Feb. 23 that new agents are trained to run roughshod over constitutional rights, including the right against a home invasion, and that the federal agency is “broken.”

>Ryan Schwank, who resigned from Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Feb. 13, told the forum that ICE is training new agents to violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

>“ICE is lying to Congress and the American people about the steps it is taking to ensure its 10,000 new officers faithfully uphold the Constitution,” Schwank, who joined ICE as legal counsel in 2021, said in the draft.

>The DHS on Monday denied his allegations.

>But Schwank said one two-hour program was cut to 10 minutes, “shoe-horned into a lesson [on the Fourth Amendment,” Schwank said, answering a question from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat.

>Klobuchar asked Schwank to go over what programs had been skipped or condensed, noting, “It’s been my constituents that have been dragged out of their homes.”

>The Department of Homeland Security, which runs ICE, has said all of its officers were following federal law throughout Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis and other widespread escalations such as in Chicago.

>Schwank said he was told to teach officer candidates they could apprehend individuals with only an administrative removal order, not a judge’s warrant — a practice used in Minneapolis.
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>“Never in my career had I received such a blatant or unlawful order,” Schwank said.

>Schwank also said in a run-up to hire more officers by year’s end, courses about legal searches and seizures, the use of force and the limits of an officer’s authority were all condensed.