TJFriedGal

law history humor; repost does not always mean endorsement;

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_]

Makes me sick. Survives all of that just to be murdered on US soil by a terrorist who should have never been on the streets.

RIP.

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

JUST IN: Iran moved its uranium into a mountain. The biggest conventional bomb on Earth cannot reach it.

Fox News reported on 11th March, citing US intelligence, that Iran has relocated its remaining enriched uranium stockpile to the facility known as Pickaxe Mountain, Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, a tunnel complex buried 80 to 100 metres deep in granite bedrock one mile south of Natanz. CSIS satellite imagery from February confirms accelerated construction: multiple tunnel portals, concrete sarcophagus shields over entrances, security walls, heavy machinery, and spoil piles indicating rapid interior expansion since the 2025 strikes destroyed Iran’s above-ground enrichment infrastructure.

The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the weapon that hit Parchin, weighs 30,000 pounds. It penetrates up to 200 feet of earth or 60 feet of reinforced concrete. Granite is neither earth nor concrete. It is igneous rock with a compressive strength that exceeds both. One hundred metres of granite is 328 feet. The GBU-57’s maximum earth penetration is 200 feet. The uranium sits 128 feet beyond the reach of the most powerful conventional weapon the United States possesses.

Fourteen GBU-57s were dropped on Iranian nuclear sites during Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025. The strikes destroyed centrifuge halls. They did not destroy the programme. They taught Iran where the ceiling was, and Iran built beneath it. Every bomb that hit Fordow and Natanz was a lesson in depth. Pickaxe Mountain is the final exam: a facility designed specifically to survive the weapon designed specifically to destroy it.

The IAEA estimated 440.9 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium before the war. After the strikes, Grossi assessed approximately 200 kilograms may remain. That material, seven to eleven nuclear weapons’ worth at one week’s further enrichment, is now inside a granite mountain that no bomb can penetrate and no inspector can enter because Iran has denied IAEA access to every site struck since 28 February.

The war’s existential minimum was defined by Defence Secretary Hegseth: no nukes. The nuclear infrastructure must be destroyed with or without regime change. The GBU-57 was the instrument. Pickaxe Mountain is the limit. The instrument has met a material it cannot defeat. The existential minimum has hit a ceiling of stone.

What remains is a decision the United States has never made in the nuclear age. The material cannot be destroyed from the air. It can only be reached through the door. Special forces insertion into a tunnel complex defended by IRGC units operating under the Mosaic Doctrine, with sealed orders, inside a country whose 31 autonomous commands have been firing continuously for fourteen days. The Pentagon is weighing this option. Fox’s Jesse Watters reported it as a “near-impenetrable site requiring potential special forces insertion.” The language is careful. The implication is not.

A ground operation to seize enriched uranium from a granite bunker inside hostile territory would be the most consequential special forces mission since Abbottabad. Except Abbottabad was one compound, one target, one night. Pickaxe Mountain is a tunnel system buried under 100 metres of rock, defended by a military that cannot surrender because its commander is a wounded man issuing orders from a hospital bed through a television anchor, and its doctrine was designed to fight without him.

The bomb cannot reach it. The inspectors cannot enter it. The Supreme Leader will not open it. The material inside is seven days from becoming a weapon. And the mountain does not negotiate.

https://t.co/eMrt5qYYst

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@abbydphillip @ScottJenningsKY Al-Qaeda attacked, part of the goals of extremist Jihadists & Muslim Brotherhood ideology to first weaken the West, spread fear and ultimately take over the entire world. Moslems worldwide disagree one should note.

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@ScottJenningsKY @CNN

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@ScottJenningsKY @CNN

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

Keith Boykin a former Clinton aide just now on @CNN @abbydphillip “ 911 happened because of the Gulf War”explain that!

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

Keith Boykin a former Clinton aide just now on @CNN @abbydphillip “ 911 happened because of the Gulf War”explain that!

[Abby D. Phillip @abbydphillip]

I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead of time. I apologize for the error.

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[שוברים שתיקה @ShovrimShtika]

לכבוד המאורע החגיגי והלא מפתיע שבו הפרקליט הצבאי הורה לבטל את כתב האישום בפרשת ההתעללות של כוח 100 בעציר אחד בשדה תימן, הכנו לכם שרשור עדויות חיילים על התעללות בשדה תימן. או כפי שאמר לנו אחד העדים, "אני יודע שזה קרה, אני יודע שיש לנו מתקן עינויים". מתחילים https://t.co/LMD5rgA19T

[Fania Oz-Salzberger 🇮🇱🕊️🟣 פניה עוז-זלצברגר @faniaoz]

A new low: the IDF advocate general just dropped the charges against soldiers who allegedly tortured and possibly raped a Gazan prisoner in Sdeh Teiman detention camp.
However, the event was videotaped (claims of video tampering disproved), and several witnesses confirmed it (see quoted thread).
Netanyahu has gleefully embraced the decision, attacking the judicial branch once again.
The accused soldiers are celebrating tonight, along with every Bibist out there.
I, along with numerous Israelis, are very concerned that a grave miscarriage of justice has occurred.
This is for the record. We still hope to win our country back again.
Trolls will be mercilessly blocked.

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[Rep. Jake Auchincloss 🟧 @RepAuchincloss]

Donald Trump has replaced an 86-year-old terrorist dictator with a 56-year-old terrorist dictator. Mojtaba Khamenei is a radical Shia Islamist who is committed to hard-line clerical rule at home and to exporting the Islamic Revolution abroad. He has deep, decades-long ties to the IRGC & Basij. He is personally implicated in the torture and murder of tens of thousands of Iranians; and has directed the repression of millions more. The younger Khamenei has less popular legitimacy and is more beholden to extremists than even his father. Weak and insecure at home and abroad, the new Supreme Leader is likely to escalate proxy attacks and race for nuclear capability. 

Mr. President, wtf is your plan?

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

RIP Walid Khalidi

[Nimer Sultany @NimerSultany]

3. Walid Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876-1948

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[Nimer Sultany @NimerSultany]

2. Walid Khalidi, All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (1992)

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[Mezna Qato @meznaqato]

Walid Khalidi, a towering Palestinian historian, has died. He built the Institute for Palestine Studies @PalStudies, a key engine in the Palestinian intellectual world. Here is his monumental (and profoundly moving) survey of villages destroyed in 1948. https://t.co/LupIhH916v

[Alan Mendoza @alanmendoza]

Imagine if a British Minister had the courage to stand up to the pro-Palestine mob in the clear and simple way that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz does. No equivocation. No attempt to play to any domestic voting bloc. Just the unvarnished truth about Israel and Antisemitism.

[Husam Zomlot @hzomlot]

There is a dangerous silence surrounding what is happening in Palestine right now.
As international attention has shifted to Israel’s wars across the region, state-backed settler militias are intensifying their campaign of terror in the occupied West Bank — such systematic terror attacks are being almost entirely ignored by UK and global media.
Last night, three Palestinians were murdered in Abu Falah. Days earlier, settlers killed two brothers — Mohammad Taha Maamar (52) and Faheem Taha Maamar (48) — in Qaryut.
Let us be clear: these settler militias are acting in accordance with the policies of the government of Israel. Operating under cover of occupation forces, they are an arm of the Israeli state, advancing a single goal: the annexation of the West Bank and the systematic erasure of Palestinian national life.
While regional wars dominate the headlines, Israel is accelerating its assault on Palestine — a genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank — shielded by the deafening silence of the global media.
History may not repeat. But it definitely rhymes.
Demand your media covers Palestine. Demand your representatives act. Silence is complicity. #Palestine #Gaza #WestBank
https://t.co/WAZBYLkThm

[Husam Zomlot @hzomlot]

Palestine Mourns a Giant

We bid farewell to Dr. Walid Khalidi — a national treasure, a guardian of memory, and a mentor to generations.

Born in Jerusalem in 1925, he was one of the most commanding Palestinian voices of the modern era. For more than seven decades, he dedicated his life to bearing witness — documenting what happened to Palestine in 1948 with unflinching honesty and scholarly precision, and ensuring that new generations understand Palestine as it was, as it is, and as it must one day be again. He was the teller of our history and the keeper of our collective memory.

I first had the honour of meeting Dr. Khalidi in 2008 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. By then, he had long made Cambridge his home after decades of teaching and research at institutions including Oxford, the American University of Beirut, and Harvard.

Over the years that followed, his home in Cambridge became a place of refuge and reflection. We would sit for hours speaking about Palestine — its past, its wounds, and its future. He gave generously of his time, wisdom, and spirit. Even through the darkest years — and none have been darker than these last two — he remained a source of steadiness and moral clarity. His emails, arriving with the care and weight of a mentor who never stopped believing, were a lifeline. The last came only weeks ago.

Dr. Khalidi’s extraordinary impact was not only in his scholarship but in his refusal to allow Palestine to be erased. Through landmark works such as Before Their Diaspora and All That Remains, and through the institutions he helped build — most notably the Institute for Palestine Studies — he ensured that the story of our people would be preserved with rigour and dignity for generations to come.

He devoted his life entirely to Palestine — through scholarship, diplomacy, and mentorship. To countless Palestinian researchers, students, and public servants, he was a teacher and a guiding light.

Today, as news of his passing reaches us, I was honoured to speak with his son, Dr. Ahmed Khalidi — himself a distinguished Palestinian scholar — to share my condolences and memories. What I felt most was a proud sadness: proud of everything Dr. Khalidi gave to Palestine and to all of us who followed his path, and sad because the world is immeasurably diminished without him.

Today, Jerusalem mourns one of its most distinguished sons, as it once mourned Edward Said. Jaffa mourns as it did with Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. Nablus mourns as it did with Fadwa Tuqan. Palestine mourns a giant.

We shall honour Dr. Walid Khalidi in the only way he would have wanted — by continuing the struggle for truth, for justice, and for liberation, until the day scholars walk freely through the gates of a great university in Jerusalem that bears his name, and the Palestine he devoted his life to documenting stands free.

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

The most important number in this war is not the oil price or the casualty count. It is $2,500.

That is what a Ukrainian interceptor drone costs. It flies into an incoming Shahed and destroys it midair. The Shahed costs Iran roughly $30,000. A Patriot PAC-3 missile costs $3 to $13 million depending on the variant. Standard doctrine fires two Patriots per incoming drone to maximize kill probability.

Ukraine has been fighting this exact cost war for four years. Russia launched 54,538 Shahed type drones at Ukraine in 2025 alone. Ukrainian forces shot down over ninety percent of them. By February 2026, interceptor drones accounted for thirty percent of all Russian aerial targets destroyed, with a 68 percent success rate per engagement and a single night record of 64 Shaheds downed by interceptors alone.

Now look at the Gulf.

Iran has launched over 2,000 Shaheds across the Middle East since February 28. The UAE alone detected 1,072 drones in the first week. Seventy one penetrated, a 93 percent interception rate that sounds impressive until you calculate what it cost. Gulf states and American forces are using Patriot interceptors, THAAD rounds, and ship based missiles to kill $30,000 drones. At two interceptors per target and conservative missile pricing, the defense is spending between 100 and 500 times what the attacker spends per engagement.

Iran can sustain this. The defenders cannot.

That is why Zelenskyy’s March 5 announcement matters more than any military briefing this week. Ukraine is sending specialists and the AI enabled Merops interceptor system to the Gulf. The Financial Times confirmed the Pentagon and at least one Gulf government are in talks to buy Ukrainian interceptors. Trump told Reuters he would accept help from any country.

The penetrations that occurred tell their own story. An Iranian drone destroyed a $1.1 billion early warning radar in Qatar. The Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia halted 550,000 barrels per day of production after a debris fire. The US embassy in Riyadh was hit. The Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain took a strike.

Ninety three percent interception. Seven percent penetration. And that seven percent destroyed a billion dollar radar, shut down half a million barrels of daily refining, and hit an embassy.

The math is brutal. If Iran launches 300 drones daily and seven percent penetrate, that is 21 hits across the Gulf every day. The cost to Iran is $9 million. The cost to defenders in interceptor munitions alone exceeds $500 million. Thirty days of that arithmetic and either the interceptor inventory is empty or the budget is.

Ukraine cracked this equation by replacing million dollar missiles with thousand dollar drones. The specialists arriving carry four years of combat data against the exact weapon. They know its radar signature, its flight profile, its GPS vulnerability, and every modification Russia made since 2022.

Nobody knows the Shahed better than the people it has been trying to kill every night for four years. They are on their way to the Gulf. The arithmetic changes the day they arrive.

https://t.co/ULBgEzZ3A8

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal #Noem @SenThomTillis sorry it took so long but the hearings were important to inform the public of the bipartisan cooperation

[CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk]

President Trump ousts Kristi Noem as Homeland Security chief and names Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin as her replacement.
https://t.co/q00xvCUBtl

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇦🇪🇺🇸 Prominent UAE billionaire Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor just published an open letter to Trump. It's brutal.

"Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war with Iran? Who gave you permission to turn our region into a battlefield?"

Al Habtoor's a major figure: billionaire, former diplomat, outspoken political voice in the Gulf. When he talks, UAE leadership's listening.

His questions:

* Was this your decision or Netanyahu's pressure?
* Did you calculate collateral damage before firing?
* You placed GCC countries at the heart of danger they didn't choose
* Your "Board of Peace" initiatives were funded by Gulf states. Now we're getting attacked. Where did that money go?
* You promised no wars. You've conducted operations in 7 countries: Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, Syria, Iran, Venezuela
* 658 airstrikes in your first year back = Biden's entire term (which you criticized)
* War costs $40-65 billion for operations, possibly $210 billion total
* Your approval rating's down 9% in 400 days
* Americans were promised peace. They're getting war funded by their taxes

The sharpest line: "Before the ink has dried on your Board of Peace initiative, we find ourselves facing military escalation that endangers the entire region. So where did those initiatives go?"

Al Habtoor's not some random critic. He's establishment. Connected. When UAE elites start publicly questioning Trump's decision-making, that's America's closest Arab allies saying "we didn't sign up for this."

The letter ends: "True leadership is not measured by war decisions, but by wisdom, respect for others, and pushing toward achieving peace."

@KhalafAlHabtoor

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

RIP

[Josh Barzon @JoshuaBarzon]

This kid just died in the Iran conflict… and it hits hard because he’s from my city.

I know people who went to school with him.

Sgt. Declan J. Coady.

20 years old.

West Des Moines, Iowa.

Graduated high school just two years ago.

Pray for his family.

[Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins]

Whoa >

[TJFriedGal @TjFried]

@galexgal

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

This is a huge opportunity for Europe. Welcome Anthropic with open arms. Roll out the red carpet. Visa for all employees.

Europe already controls the AI hardware bottleneck through ASML. Add the world's leading AI safety lab and you have the foundations of an AI superpower.