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Brajesh Upadhyay

US lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration for answers about military strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats, after a report alleged that a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors of an initial attack.

Republican-led committees overseeing the Pentagon have vowed to conduct "vigorous oversight" into the US boat strikes in the Caribbean, following the report.

On Friday, The Washington Post reported that a US strike on a boat on 2 September left two survivors, but that a second attack was carried out to comply with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's orders to "kill everybody" on board - raising fresh legality questions.

Hegseth decried the report as "fake news".

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he believed his defence secretary "100%".

In recent weeks, the US has expanded its military presence in the Caribbean and carried out a series of lethal strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in international waters off Venezuela and Colombia, as part of what it calls an anti-narcotics operation.

More than 80 people have been killed since early September.

The Trump administration says it is acting in self-defence by destroying boats carrying illicit drugs to the US.
The ruling further stymies the Trump administration’s use of unusual tactics meant to quickly put or keep largely unqualified U.S. attorneys in place without Senate confirmation.
By Erica Orden

A panel of appeals court judges on Monday upheld the disqualification of Alina Habba, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, rejecting President Donald Trump’s use of unconventional methods to install loyalists atop U.S. attorney offices across the country.

“It is apparent that the current administration has been frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place,” Judge D. Michael Fisher, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in the 32-page opinion. “Its efforts to elevate its preferred candidate for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, to the role of Acting U.S. Attorney demonstrate the difficulties it has faced — yet the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability.”

The ruling further stymies the Trump administration’s use of unusual tactics meant to quickly put or keep largely unqualified U.S. attorneys in place without Senate confirmation. Defendants are also challenging the authority of U.S. attorneys in California and Nevada, where judges have determined the Trump-picked prosecutors are serving unlawfully, and upstate New York.
The FBI continued to interview family and associates of the suspect.
By Pierre Thomas, Aleem Agha, and Luke Barr

As investigators continue to delve into what may have motivated the suspect in the deadly National Guardsmen shooting last week, a portrait of a life of increasing financial stress and a potential mental health crisis has emerged, sources familiar told ABC News.  

Additionally, multiple sources said that investigators are looking into the impact of the recent death of an Afghan commander, who allegedly worked with the suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

The death of the commander -- whom Lakanwal is said to have revered -- had deeply saddened the suspect, sources said.

This may have compounded on Lakanwal’s financial burdens, including not being employed, having an expired work permit and allegedly struggling to pay rent and feed his children, sources said.

Officials said the suspect has a wife and five children. He drove from his residence in Washington state to the nation's capital prior to the shooting and targeted the Guardsmen, officials said.
Capitol Hill factions are trying to figure out what the president wants and how to entice him to their side.
Calen Razor

Congress is back. Welcome to the December of Hellth.

Lawmakers now have a mere 30 days to address expiring Obamacare tax credits and prevent health insurance hikes for millions of Americans. Republicans and Democrats agree success hangs on one question: Will President Donald Trump figure out what he wants?

Interpreting Trump’s intentions has gotten tougher since lawmakers left Washington. Early in the break, Trump appeared to be on the brink of announcing a framework to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies with new eligibility restrictions, only to pull back after GOP criticism. He then said he doesn’t want to extend the subsidies but understands it might be necessary.

Capitol Hill factions are trying to figure out what Trump wants and how to entice him to their side.

“The president has got to sign whatever we do, otherwise it’s a legislative exercise,” says Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, the Pennsylvania Republican who is drafting what he describes as a bipartisan proposal that would largely align with last week’s leaked White House framework.
Opinion by Clay Wirestone, Kansas Reflector

Coldwater residents have learned a valuable lesson: Actions have consequences.

Their town’s twice-elected mayor, Joe Ceballos, has been charged with felony voter fraud by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. Ceballos appears to have registered and cast ballots in multiple elections, despite not being a citizen. While you might expect townsfolk to respond with anger, that’s not the situation at all.

Indeed, a remarkable profile of Ceballos by veteran Kansas journalist Roy Wenzl shows a town shocked that such a good guy — “He’s more American than I am,” a friend said — would be charged. He’s a die-hard Republican in a place full of them. More than 83% of Comanche County voters picked Donald Trump for president last year. More than 78% appear to have chosen Kobach in 2022.

“If deportation happens, I can tell you that Kobach will have trouble showing up here, especially if he asks to stay with us for a while,” said Dennis Swayze, a rancher who mentored Ceballos.

But the attorney general hasn’t done anything wrong here. Kansas voters know precisely where Kobach stands and what he means to do. They have voted for him repeatedly. Trump, likewise, made no secret of his desire to oversee the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. Violent or nonviolent, with legal status or not, immigrants would be targeted.
Opinion by Vaishnavi Shetye

Donald Trump and his attacks on Joe Biden don’t seem to be aging well. The 79-year-old had labeled the former President as “Sleepy Joe” in the past while questioning his ability to lead the nation. A recently surfaced picture of Trump appears to be backfiring on him, and netizens are here for it.

Trump had on several occasions challenged Biden’s presidency, referring to his age. Biden was often seen dozing off in the middle of official engagements, and Trump ruthlessly took jabs at his predecessor for the same.

Time hasn’t been kind to Trump because he has now found himself in the same position that he mocked Biden for. People have raised concerns about the President’s health time and again. At 78 years old, he became the oldest person in U.S. history to be inaugurated as the President, and it’s starting to show.

Trump has repeatedly been caught dozing off in front of cameras, gotten names of people and places wrong, and thrown around numbers without data to back them up. He has also constantly appeared disoriented during speeches since getting reelected.

Theories about him showing early signs of dementia have been floating around the internet for months now. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a new photo that recently surfaced on the internet has solidified the theory that Trump’s age is finally taking a toll on him.
During a MAHA Commission event earlier this year at the White House, Donald Trump called Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer a "Democrat." Chavez-DeRemer is a registered Republican and has never been a Democrat.
Story by S.E. Cupp

I remember it well. It was Oct. 7, 2016, a Friday. That afternoon The Washington Post dropped a bombshell, the perfect October surprise, just a month before the presidential election.

Earlier in the week, Hillary Clinton had been hammering Donald Trump on the news that he may not have paid taxes for 18 years.

The vice presidential candidates, Sen. Tim Kaine and Gov. Mike Pence, had had a feisty debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

It had already been a campaign full of crazy turns and fireworks, and it was about to get even crazier.

"Trump Recorded Having Extremely Lewd Conversation About Women in 2005."

In a never-heard-before recording from an "Access Hollywood" interview, Trump describes how he seduces women as a celebrity to host Billy Bush: "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything … grab ‘em by the p*ssy. You can do anything."

It was mayhem after that. Was this the end of Trump's candidacy? Dozens of Republican lawmakers called for him to drop out. The topic took up a considerable amount of attention at the next presidential debate, just two days later. Professional coaches, offended by Trump's excuse that it was merely "locker room talk," condemned the statement.
Story by Lesley Abravanel

President Donald Trump futilely tried to delete his Sunday night Truth Social rant, but his typo-filled fury was captured by various screen shots, The Daily Beast reports.

“Ther [sic] are laws that effect our nation," Trump posted, but then quickly deleted, they note.

On Trump's second attempt at posting, he confused “effect” and “affect,” instead going with what The Daily Beast describes as "the less problematic word" “impact” instead.
During his remarks in a press gaggle today, President Trump tested the limits of his corruption, stating that he wants to throw Representative Ilhan Omar out of the country. Trump stated, "We should throw her the hell out."
Story by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

In yet another gift to corporate criminals, President Donald Trump has reportedly used his executive authority to commute the seven-year prison sentence of a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors of around $1.6 billion.

David Gentile, the founder and former CEO of GPB Capital, was convicted of securities and wire fraud last year and sentenced to prison in May, but he ended up serving just days behind bars. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the White House “argued that prosecutors had falsely characterized the business as a Ponzi scheme.”

One victim said they lost their “whole life savings” to the scheme and are now living “check to check.” Another, who described themselves as “an elderly victim,” said they “lost a significant portion” of their retirement savings.

“This money was earmarked to help my two grandsons pay for college,” the person said. “They had tragically lost their father and needed some financial assistance. So this loss attached my entire family.”

In a statement following Gentile’s sentencing earlier this year, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher Raia—who was appointed to the role by Trump’s loyalist FBI director, Kash Patel—said the private equity executive and his co-defendant, Jeffry Schneider, “wove a web of lies to steal more than one billion dollars from investors through empty promises of guaranteed profits and unlawfully rerouting funds to provide an illusion of success.”
Story by Sohini Sengupta

It’s Thanksgiving week at the White House, which usually just means turkey pardons and awkward speeches. But not this year! This season, President Donald Trump and his team are more interested in going after female journalists instead.

Their latest target is Kate Bennett, who is a former CNN White House correspondent and the author of Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography. She posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Donald Trump seems to reserve his worst insults for female reporters. Kate Bennett added that she believes that it is not only because they’re women but because they’re typically the ones asking the tough questions. And honestly, it does sound like a reasonable theory, considering the patterns.

Now this is where the White House Rapid Response team comes in, and rather than disagreeing with Kate Bennett’s point, they proved it! We are serious because they snapped on a post:

“Give this a thought: how big of a scumbag you must be to have been fired from CNN of all places.”

Aside from being schoolyard-level in its audacity, the attack was also factually wrong, as expected. Kate Bennett wasn’t fired at all because she left CNN in 2023 to work in strategic communications and now serves as VP of brand strategy at the government communications firm Invariant. Her departure was public and (contrary to the White House’s parrots) completely voluntary.
Sen. Mark Kelly fiercely rebukes President Trump, declaring he won’t be silenced or intimidated—even by what he calls death threats. After Trump lashed out at a video featuring Kelly and other Democrats urging troops to reject illegal orders, Kelly accused the former president of bullying and undermining U.S. credibility. Mocking Pete Hegseth’s behavior as childish, he warned that Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous, embarrassing, and damaging to America’s image, insisting he’ll continue speaking out despite mounting political pressure.
Story by Daniel Hampton

President Donald Trump repeated his call for U.S. troops to obey him after six Democrats released a video urging U.S. military and intelligence personnel to defy illegal orders.

The six lawmakers, all with military or intelligence backgrounds, circulated a video online last month reminding service members that under U.S. law, they must disobey illegal orders and uphold the Constitution. The video sparked outrage on the right, who accused the lawmakers of urging troops to ignore orders in general from the president.
During his remarks to the White House Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible several weeks ago in September, Donald Trump downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence, suggesting that it shouldn't be counted as crime. "If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime," Trump callously stated.
Story by Jason Wilson

Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.

The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year in which he also repeatedly railed against the constraints placed on “American warfighters” by the laws of war and the Geneva conventions.

Hegseth is currently under scrutiny for a 2 September attack on a boat purportedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean, where survivors of a first strike on the vessel were reportedly killed in a second strike following a verbal order from Hegseth to “kill everybody”.

Hegseth has denied giving the order and retained the support of Donald Trump. The US president said Hegseth told him “he did not say that, and I believe him, 100%”. But some US senators have raised the possibility that the US war secretary committed a war crime.

In the book, The War on Warriors, Hegseth relates a story about a legal briefing at the beginning of his service in Iraq, in which he told the men under his command to ignore guidance from a military judge advocate general’s (JAG) attorney’s guidance about the rules of engagement in the conflict.

Hegseth writes that “upon arrival in Iraq”, the men were briefed “regarding the latest ‘in theater’ rules of engagement”, adding: “Needless to say, no infantrymen like army lawyers – which is why JAG officers are often not so affectionately known as ‘jagoffs’.”
Story by Lauren Aratani in New York

Costco is suing the Trump administration over its tariffs, arguing that the White House has exceeded its executive authority in instituting tariffs and that it should be entitled to a refund if the tariffs are found unconstitutional.

In a lawsuit filed to the court of international trade last Friday, the retail giant argued the Trump administration had misused the federal law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), it cited to impose the tariffs.

“IEEPA grants the president certain power, but they ‘may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared for purposes of this chapter and may not be exercised for any other purposes’,” Costco said in the lawsuit, quoting the law. The largest warehouse club chain in the US also pointed out the law “does not use the word ‘tariff’ or any term of equivalent meaning”.
Story by Jon Michael Raasch For Dailymail.Com

President Donald Trump downplayed consumers' pricing concerns during a White House Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. He opened his remarks touting his administration's work on lowering prices. 'Our prices now for energy, for gasoline, are really low. Electricity is coming down. And when that comes down, everything comes down,' the president said. He also skewered his political rivals for decrying an affordability crisis under Trump. 'The word affordability is a Democrat scam,' Trump stated. 'They say it, and then they go into the next subject, and everyone thinks, "oh, they had lower prices."'

'No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country,' the president continued, arguing that inflation was worse under Joe Biden . 'Now, some people will correct me, because they always love to correct me, even though I'm right about everything, but some people like to correct me and they say, "48 years."' His refutation that affordability is an issue stands in stark contrast with the latest Daily Mail/ J.L. Partners poll released last week, which found rising prices were the top concern of American voters .

That survey found that cost of living and inflation, health care costs and economic growth and job creation were the top three worries nationwide. 'Since last January we've stopped inflation in its tracks,' Trump said. 'And there is still more to do. There's always more to do, but we have it down to a very good level.' Democrats have been seizing on the message of affordability following a slew of successful liberal victories in November.
Story by Eleanor Watson

The U.S. military's early September strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat — the first salvo in a months-long string of attacks — has drawn new scrutiny in recent days, as the White House confirmed that the vessel was struck twice.

The confirmation followed a Washington Post report that the first boat was struck a second time, killing a pair of survivors — prompting calls for investigations and concerns in Congress that the follow-up strike may have constituted a war crime. A Pentagon manual on the law of war says combatants that are "wounded, sick, or shipwrecked" no longer pose a threat and should not be attacked.  

The Trump administration has defended the series of boat strikes, casting them as a necessary tactic to stem the flow of narcotics from South America. But U.S. officials have not provided specific evidence that the vessels were smuggling drugs or posed a threat to the U.S. Some lawmakers from both parties have questioned the  legality of the strikes.
Story by Sarah Ewall-Wice

President Donald Trump quickly distanced himself from a deadly U.S. strike on an alleged drug boat amid growing scrutiny over whether the attack was legal.

The Washington Post reported that two people survived the first blast and were clinging to the side of the burning vessel on September 2. They were then killed in the second strike.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns over the report and have vowed congressional review.

Trump defended blowing up alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, but he said he relied on the defense secretary for information about the September 2 strike.

“As far as the attack is concerned, I didn’t, you know, I still haven’t gotten a lot of information because I rely on Pete,” Trump said.
Story by Alexander Willis

As the fallout grows over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s alleged order to “kill” all survivors of a strike on a suspected drug-carrying sea vessel, recent developments suggest that a growing number of Republican lawmakers may be willing to turn on the top Trump official and impeach him, Zeteo reported Tuesday.

According to a whistleblower, Hegseth allegedly ordered on Sept. 2 a follow-up strike on a sea vessel off of Trinidad’s coast, a strike designed to kill two survivors of an initial attack who were observed clinging to the wreckage.

If proven, experts say it would be a blatant violation of international law and a potential war crime.

Hegseth outright denied that he issued the order to kill the survivors — a claim that President Donald Trump said he believed. Should it have actually happened, however, Trump said that he “wouldn’t have wanted a second strike,” and at least one Republican — Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) — said that Hegseth’s order, if true, would constitute an “illegal act.”
Story by Sarah Nassauer, Gavin Bade

Costco became the latest and one of the biggest companies to sue the Trump administration over tariffs in an effort to secure a full refund should the Supreme Court rule the sweeping duties illegal.

In a filing with the U.S. Court of International Trade on Friday, Costco said the lawsuit is necessary to make sure it is eligible for refunds if the Supreme Court rejects the administration’s reasons for tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Costco executives declined to comment.
Story by Travis Gettys

The family of a Colombian fisherman has filed a formal complaint accusing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of murder.

Alejandro Andres Carranza Medina was killed Sept. 15 in a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean, and the 42-year-old fisherman's wife and four children filed the complaint Tuesday with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) alleging the United States committed human rights violations in an “extra-judicial killing," reported The Guardian.

“From numerous news reports, we know that Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Defense, was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats," reads the filing. "Secretary Hegseth has admitted that he gave such orders despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings."

"U.S. President Donald Trump has ratified the conduct of Secretary Hegseth described herein," the filing adds.
Story by Breanne Deppisch

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Wednesday ordered two Jan. 6 defendants pardoned by President Donald Trump to be refunded in full for restitution payments made and fines incurred as part of their earlier criminal cases — a reversal from just months earlier, when the same judge rejected their bid for repayment.

Boasberg used a memo order Wednesday to outline the fairly complex case history for Cynthia Ballenger and her husband, Christopher Price, both of whom had been tried and convicted on misdemeanor charges in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and ordered to pay hundreds of dollars in assessment fees and restitution.

Boasberg's order effectively clears the way for the government to refund them both in full.
Story by Claude Wooten

While President Donald Trump complained about Somalis living in Minnesota and referred to them as “garbage” during his cabinet meeting on Tuesday, MAGA-aligned U.S. Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) wrote on social media: “America was founded by settlers and missionaries, not immigrants. Coming to America was always about duty, not entitlement. Deport all illegals!”

Ogles is getting slammed on social media with responses including: “Settlers are immigrants” and “Settlers are, by definition, people who migrated from one place to another. Labels don't change the fact that movement from one land to another is migration. History is clearer when we use accurate language.”

The arguments represent further evidence of how much the political discourse has changed since then-Senator John F. Kennedy — before his presidency — wrote his book about the founding of America which he titled, simply and uncontroversially, A Nation of Immigrants.
Story by Robert Birsel

President Donald Trump has reportedly asserted executive privilege to prevent his courtroom opponents from getting access to evidence in the lawsuit in which he is accused of stoking violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Newsweek contacted the White House for comment by email after office hours.

Why It Matters
What occurred on January 6, 2021—when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden‘s win in the 2000 election—has become one of the most contentious political issues of recent years.

The attack caused millions of dollars of damage at the Capitol and about 140 police officers were injured, some of whom brought legal action.

Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was fatally shot by police during the event, while trying to climb through a barricaded door to enter the Speaker’s Lobby on January 6. An investigation found that the officer’s shooting was justified.

What To Know
It is unclear exactly which records Trump is aiming to keep out of the hands of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

However, Politico has reported that a White House spokesperson confirmed that the president has decided to fight disclosure of some material subpoenaed last year from the National Archives and Records Administration.

“The President asserted executive privilege over the discovery requests in this case because the overly broad requests demanded documents that were either presidential communications or communications among the president’s staff that are clearly constitutionally protected from discovery,” the spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, said in a statement.

The police officers who filed the lawsuit say Trump’s remarks to a crowd of supporters fueled the riot that nearly derailed the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden.
Opinion by Chris Lehmann

A barrage of bad economic news has spurred Trump to unleash his hate-infested id on any nonwhite target that flits through his overtaxed brainpan.

Chris Lehmann
Remember “economic anxiety”? That was the central concept in an all-too-representative Democratic effort to explain away the mass movement aligning behind Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Back then, the liberal commentariat was mocking the notion that Trump’s supporters were motivated by questions of economic policy like trade and globalization. What really mattered to the MAGA faithful, in this overconfident diagnosis, was pure race hatred; the alleged economic worries fueling the Trump phenomenon were really only a fig leaf for a resurgence of white supremacist rancor on the right.

Of course, things weren’t that simple, as Brian Beutler, who had pioneered the ironic online usage of “economic anxiety” to underline the racial animus of MAGA insurgents, admitted in August 2016:

Trump’s racism explains why he has essentially no support from poor minorities but, at a time of stagnant wages and high inequality, it doesn’t necessarily explain his appeal entirely. Even if, as I suspect, his stated empathy for the white working class is purely affected, some white workers believe it is sincere and support him for it…. Liberals should be interested in improving economic conditions for everyone, even the most loathsome racists in the Trump coalition, but if we overinterpret racism’s role in Trump’s support, and then find that 40 percent of Americans support him, we will draw inaccurate conclusions about the extent of racial discord in our society, and our inclination to work in tandem with chastened Republicans to lift up downscale whites will start to diminish.
Story by Charlie Nash

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth asked U.S. Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey to retire in October after Holsey expressed concerns about the legality of the Trump administration’s boat bombings in the Caribbean, according to a new report.

Audiologists Tested 17 Hearing Aids. Here’s the Best
Story by The Associated Press

The FBI has made an arrest in its nearly 5-year-old investigation into who placed pipe bombs in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The arrest marks the first time investigators have settled on a suspect in an act that had long vexed law enforcement, spawned a multitude of conspiracy theories and remained an enduring mystery in the shadow of the dark chapter of American history that is the violent Capitol siege.
Story by Scarlett O'Toole

Donald Trump was ripped apart on CNN after the president made a whopping 13 false claims during a cabinet meeting.

The 79-year-old held his last cabinet meting of the year on Tuesday, December 2, with the event being broadcast live on CNN's Inside Politics. Anchor Dana Bash hosted the show and turned to fact-checker Daniel Dale for his thoughts about what Trump said.

Dale accused the president of having dropped "a whole lot of lies on a whole lot of sunjets" as he looked back at what Trump had claimed, accusing the president of making five false statements. Once the cabinet meeting was over, Dale took to X to share a comprehensive list of 13 false claims Trump had made.
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