Result: Deportations can proceed with notice safeguards.
What People Are Saying
Constitutional law expertDavid Super, a professor at Georgetown Law, was asked onJune Grasso’s July 16 Bloomberg Law podcast: “Can you hazard a guess as to why they’re giving Trump everything he wants? Are they just throwing up their hands and saying he’s the president?”
Super: “Well, the chief justice has long been known for wanting to present as united a court as possible. I’m guessing that the chief justice has reached the point of despairing of getting his colleagues to join him and is not eager to override the administration on bare 5-4 or 6-3 votes.”
Roberts authored landmark rulings including Trump immunity
Era marked by decisions on abortion, race, religion and guns
Roberts was sworn in as chief justice on September 29, 2005
The Reuters article goes on to say:
The Roberts Court is the most conservative court in 100 years, and it has laudably corrected major jurisprudential mistakes in abortion, affirmative action, guns and the administrative state. While conservatives may not have won every major policy battle at the court, the consensus is they have won the war – at least for now,” George Mason University law professor Robert Luther III said.
“Conservatives overwhelmingly welcome the court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, its ruling that the (U.S. Constitution’s) Equal Protection Clause bars racial preferences in college admissions, and its various rulings on religious liberty,” said Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who served as a Bush administration Justice Department official.
Roberts has personally written the decisions in some of the biggest cases decided in the past two decades, though on occasion he has been more cautious than some of his fellow conservative justices.
“The modern conservative legal movement had been trying for a half-century to achieve the changes in American constitutionalism that have come under John Roberts, and he has played a significant leadership role in bringing those things about,” University of Pennsylvania political science professor Rogers Smith said.
John Glover Roberts, a 25-year-old graduate of Harvard Law School, arrived in Washington in early 1980. Harvard Law professor Morton Horwitz described Roberts as “a conservative looking for a conservative ideology in American history,” and he found that ideology in the nation’s capital, first as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist and then as an influential aide in Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department.
At the time, Rehnquist and the Reagan administration were at the vanguard of a new conservative counterrevolution in the law—a legal backlash against the historic and liberal-leaning civil rights laws of the 1960s. Just months before Roberts came to Washington, the Supreme Court had significantly limited the scope of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. As a young lawyer, Roberts eagerly took up the conservative cause, becoming a key foot soldier in the effort to preserve that decision and weaken the VRA.
It was a fight Roberts would continue decades later, when he replaced Rehnquist as chief justice and authored the majority opinion in a landmark case gutting the VRA in 2013. Fifty years after the passage of the landmark civil rights law, and 35 years after he first worked so hard to dismantle it, Roberts remains at the center of an impassioned debate about voting rights in America, one that shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
Dec 8, 2025
Lev Shalev, Substack:
1️⃣ SCOTUS POISED TO ELIMINATE INDEPENDENT AGENCIES
The Supreme Court heard Trump v. Slaughter today—can the president fire Federal Trade Commission commissioners at will? If he wins, every independent agency becomes an extension of presidential power. The Federal Reserve, FCC, SEC, FTC, NLRB—institutions designed to operate beyond direct political control. Trump has already fired Democrats from all of them, daring the Court to stop him. Last September’s 6-3 ruling allowing presidential removal of an NLRB general counsel showed where this is headed. The Roberts Court has denied only one of Trump’s 32 emergency petitions. This is Project 2025 made real. As Nick pointed out, we can impeach Supreme Court justices—impeachment can’t be pardoned. We need overwhelming victories in 2026 to take back the House and Senate. Melissa used a Navy analogy: when the hull is breached on one side, you flood spaces on the alternate side to keep the ship righted. “If we don’t flood this election, the ship’s going down.”
Trump announces rare earths deal with DRC and Rwanda
US gains access to critical minerals in African nations after leaders sign agreement to end decades-long war
Paul Kagame (left), the president of Rwanda, Donald Trump, and Felix Tshisekedi, the DRC president in Washington, DC on Thursday Credit: Getty Images North America
04 December 2025 10:03pm GMT
Donald Trump signed a peace deal with the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo that will open the African nations’ reserves of critical minerals to American companies
………….
But there were signs of trouble ahead. Fresh fighting broke out on Thursday between Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and the Congolese army.
The ‘Peace Accord’:
President Felix Tshisekedi signed on behalf of the Government of the DRC, and President Paul Kagame signed on behalf of the Government of Rwanda. The signing ceremony was attended by Togolese President of the Council of Ministers Faure Gnassingbé, Angolan President João Lourenço, Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye, Kenyan President William Ruto, African Union Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Ugandan Vice President Jessica Alupo, Qatari Minister of State Dr. Mohammed Al Khulaifi and Emirati Minister of State Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan.
In addition to the Washington Accords, the following bilateral instruments were signed, hosted by Secretary Rubio:
Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Concerning an Expanded Security Partnership
U.S.-Rwanda Framework for Shared Economic Prosperity
The Washington Accords and the initiatives affirmed today represent an internationally shared commitment to transforming the Great Lakes region into a model of peace, stability, and economic opportunity. By addressing the root causes of conflict, fostering trust, and advancing economic cooperation, the DRC and Rwanda are taking bold steps to create a brighter future for their citizens.
The United States remains steadfast in its support for these efforts, recognizing the immense economic potential of the Great Lakes region will only be realized through the full implementation of peace and security commitments.
The conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the M23 rebel group involves ongoing fighting primarily in the eastern regions, particularly North Kivu, where M23 has captured significant territories, including the city of Goma. This conflict has roots in historical tensions and has escalated due to issues related to ethnic groups, control of resources, and external influences, particularly from Rwanda, which is accused of supporting the M23. Council on Foreign Relations BBC
Hustory of the grievances, said to be made worse by ‘external influences’.
Fighting in Congo has killed 7,000 since January, DRC prime minister says
February 24, 20255:48 PM GMTUpdated February 24, 2025
…………..
The latest fighting, and M23’s advance, are part of a major escalation in eastern Congo of a conflict over power, identity and resources dating back to the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s.
Rwanda rejects allegations from Congo, the United Nations and Western powers that it supports M23 rebels with arms and troops.
Suminwa urged the world to act and to impose “dissuasive sanctions” on Rwanda amid mass displacements and summary executions.
“It is impossible to describe the screams and cries of millions of victims of this conflict,” she said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres, at the Geneva meeting, said human rights around the world were being “suffocated” and made reference to horrifying abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“If this question of the violation of territorial integrity isn’t resolved, the situation could degenerate,” Suminwa told Reuters in a press briefing after her address to the Council.
About 40,000 people have fled to Burundi, one of the nine countries that borders the DRC, in two weeks to escape the fighting, the U.N. said on Friday.
Suminwa warned that the worsening security situation with M23 and other armed groups could spill over to neighbouring countries, posing a danger to them.
Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Miranda Murray and Bernadette Baum
……….This does not mean, however, that Russia is in any imminent danger of losing Crimea, let alone of losing the war that it has illegally fought against Ukraine both overtly and covertly for a decade now. The importance of Crimea in this war was established long before the beginning of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022
In the shadows of two controversial elections and the worst European war since the defeat of Nazi Germany, one truth has emerged with brutal clarity: Donald Trump was never an agent of peace.
He was the delivery mechanism for Vladimir Putin’s blueprint to dismantle Ukraine, and along the way, the democratic alliances that once defined American strength.
traces back to Andrii Derkach — a U.S.-sanctioned Ukrainian ex–minister, wanted for treason, now sitting comfortably as a senator in Russia. This is the same Derkach who, in 2018–2019, was pushing Russian disinformation against the Bidens with Rudy Giuliani — the very man I warned Rudy not to touch. My sources are telling me that this so-called corruption evidence was essentially carried straight into that October Miami meeting by Kirill Dmitriev, pre-packaged out of the Kremlin, and dropped on the table as justification to go after Yermak and dismantle Zelensky’s inner circle — all under the banner of “reform,” but in reality as part of a pressure campaign for regime change.
Now Yermak is gone. A new configuration, led by Rustem Umerov, is put in charge of negotiating. They are flown across the ocean, to a billionaire’s private resort owned by the very man who helped shape the original deal with Putin’s money men.
Andriy Derkach was recruited by Russian forces in 2016, according to a testimony
Derkach set up several firms tasked with helping Russians enter Ukrainian cities
Derkach was also accused of attempting to help Russian forces take over Kyiv
Authorities in Ukraine said they have uncovered a Russian spy network that involved the participation of a Ukrainian lawmaker who was previously accused by the United States of being a Russian agent.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said Friday that Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach was responsible for setting up a network of private security firms tasked with helping Russian units enter Ukrainian cities during the Feb. 24 invasion, according to a testimony from Ihor Kolesnikov, Derkach’s parliamentary aide.
And the ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine? Lev Parnas says:
And hovering over all of it: hundreds of billions in frozen Russian assets and the promise of reconstruction contracts that would turn Ukraine’s ruins into somebody else’s profit center.
Then Dean Blundell, on Substack points out:
According to a new bombshell Wall Street Journal report, Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner aren’t just in Moscow talking ceasefires and borders. They’re negotiating business deals – lining up U.S. companies (and Trump‑world donors) to cash in on Russia’s comeback and Ukraine’s reconstruction once the shooting slows down.
That’s not a peace plan. That’s a hostile takeover with air support.
Back to Lev Parnas:
Trump’s inner circle wants to trap Zelensky between two doors.
And robbing Ukraine of her future:
Russia sent abducted Ukrainian children to North Korea, officials say
Satellite images locate Ukrainian kids abducted by Russia: Laboratory
Get ST’s newsletters delivered to your inbox
People hold a banner reading “No peace treaty without the return of Ukrainian deported children”, during a demonstration in Paris, France, in August 2025.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:UkraineSummary
Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) used satellite imagery to locate Ukrainian children abducted by Russia.
HRL found 210 re-education/military camps after Russians posted selfies with geolocation data, revealing camp locations.
The lab estimates 36,000 children have been abducted; data was shared with Ukraine and Europol due to funding cuts.
Lukoil gas station in Slovakia.Jozef Kotulič (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday extended authorization for Lukoil-branded gas stations outside Russia to continue operating, suspending some sanctions on the Russian energy giant
And Ukraine continues to hit the shadow fleet, even when they are sailing by Senegal:
Ukraine Hit Russian Shadow Fleet Tankers, Undermining Moscow’s Sanctions-Evasion Fleet
ByDavid Kirichenko,Contributor. David Kirichenko is a journalist focusing on war and technology.Follow Author
Nov 30, 2025, 09:57pm ESTNov 30, 2025, 11:58pm ESTShareSaveComment
Ukrainian Sea Baby naval drones struck two Russian oil tankers operating in international waters off Turkey’s Black Sea coast on November 28, marking a significant expansion of Kyiv’s maritime drone campaign targeting the Kremlin’s oil revenue.
The attacks targeted the Kairos and Virat, both vessels flagged under Gambian registry but identified by Western authorities as part of Russia’s shadow fleet designed to evade international sanctions. A source from Ukraine’s Security Service told the Kyiv Independent that the domestically produced drones disabled vessels capable of transporting nearly $70 million worth of oil.
Turkish maritime authorities continue firefighting and stabilization operations on two sanctioned tankers struck by Ukrainian naval drones in the Black Sea, while a separate incident involving another alleged shadow fleet vessel off Senegal’s coast has raised fresh concerns over Russia’s shadow fleet operations.
Turkey’s Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure confirmed that the fire aboard the tanker Kairos has been completely extinguished, with discussions now underway regarding towing arrangements. The 274-meter vessel, which was en route from Egypt to Russia’s Novorossiysk port when it suffered an explosion and fire approximately 28 nautical miles offshore, had all 25 crew members safely evacuated by Turkish coastal safety units
It is fascinating to read this piece about Paganism in the Medieval era. This is an extract:
As the twelfth century wore on, fewer and fewer European pagans remained. Some persisted in remote, scattered groups of nomadic shamanic peoples such as the Sami in northern Scandinavia. Some were Asiatic intruders, such as the Kumans who threatened eastern Hungary. However, by 1200, just one region of Europe, on the southern and eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, was populated by large groups of indigenous pagans. They included Estonians and Livonians, both shamanistic Finnic peoples. And, to their south, occupying most of modern Latvia, Lithuania and northern Poland were the Balts. This is the story of how their ancient way of life finally came to an end.
Here is a map from this article, related to the Medieval time:
In 1200, the Balt peoples occupied lands bordering the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Riga. These were the same homelands their ancestors had occupied ever since the bronze age.
By the C13th, the political situation was further confused by the increasing interference of neighbouring powers with different agendas. These included the Catholic Poles whose stated desire to fend off pagan raiders masked a not so hidden agenda of territorial expansion. To the east there were the Orthodox Russians, whose animosity to paganism was exceeded only by their hatred of Catholics. In the sea to the west were Gotlanders, more concerned to curb Baltic pirates than convert pagans.
The Balts themselves were an ancient people. Various migrations and invasions gradually reduced their range. However, around the Baltic coast, they continued to maintain much the same way of life as they had since pre-Roman times. They never fell under Rome’s influence, the Huns passed them by, Slavic migration failed to dislodge them, and they had weathered the storm of Viking raids.
Note here how the Orthodox Russians aversion to paganism and Catholicism.
The History of the Russian Orthodox Church began in the late 10th century. In 988 AD, Prince Vladimir of Kiev converted to Christianity, marking the start of Orthodox Christianity in Russia. This pivotal event laid the foundation for the church’s growth and influence in the region.
By adopting Christianity, Vladimir not only changed the religious landscape but also set the stage for the integration of Orthodox traditions into Russian culture. This conversion was instrumental in shaping the spiritual and cultural identity of the Russian people.
The Byzantine Influence
The early Russian Orthodox Church was heavily influenced by Byzantine practices. The church adopted the Byzantine liturgy, ecclesiastical structure, and artistic styles. This period saw the establishment of key church institutions and the development of a distinctive Russian Orthodox identity.
During this time, Russian monks and missionaries traveled to Constantinople to study and bring back religious and cultural practices. These influences helped mold the church’s rituals, art, and architecture, creating a blend of local and Byzantine traditions.
The Russian Orthodox Church traces its origins to the time of Kievan Rus’, the first forerunner of the modern Russian state. In A.D. 988 Prince Vladimir made the Byzantine variant of Christianity the state religion of Russia. The Russian church was subordinate to the patriarch of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), seat of the Byzantine Empire. The original seat of the metropolitan, as the head of the church was known, was Kiev. As power moved from Kiev to Moscow in the fourteenth century, the seat moved as well, establishing the tradition that the metropolitan of Moscow is the head of the church. In the Middle Ages, the church placed strong emphasis on asceticism, which evolved into a widespread monastic tradition. Large numbers of monasteries were founded in obscure locations across all of the medieval state of Muscovy. Such small settlements expanded into larger population centers, making the monastic movement one of the bases of social and economic as well as spiritual life.[Source: Library of Congress, July 1996 *]
After the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Russian Orthodox Church evolved into a semi-independent (autocephalous) branch of Eastern Christianity. In 1589 the metropolitan of Moscow received the title of patriarch. Nevertheless, the Russian church retained the Byzantine tradition of authorizing the head of state and the government bureaucracy to participate actively in the church’s administrative affairs. Separation of church and state thus would be almost unknown in Russia. *
As Western Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance and the Reformation, Russia remained isolated from the West, and Russian Orthodoxy was virtually untouched by the changes in intellectual and spiritual life being felt elsewhere. In the seventeenth century, the introduction by Ukrainian clergy of Western doctrinal and liturgical reforms prompted a strong reaction among traditionalist Orthodox believers, resulting in a schism in the church.
While the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was in power, the Moscow Patriarchate illegally built a church next to the site of one of Kyiv’s earliest churches – Desyatynna, or the Tithe Church. The State Museum of History is nearby and has responsibility for the surrounding area, which is protected as a historical site.
See book, Three Years on Fire, Andrey Kurkov
The Tithe Church:
According to the chronicles, the beginning of construction of the Tithe Church dates back to 989. It was built by Russian and Greek architects for 6 years as a cathedral not far from the prince’s tower – a stone north-eastern palace building, the excavated part of which is located at a distance of 60 meters from the foundations of the Church of the Tithes. Nearby, archaeologists found the remains of a building considered to be the house of the church clergy, built at the same time as the church (the so-called Olga’s tower).
Viktor Yanukovych (born July 9, 1950, Yenakiyeve, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. [now in Ukraine]) is a Ukrainian politician who served as prime minister (2002–05, 2006–07) and president (2010–14) of Ukraine. Yanukovych’s political base disintegrated in February 2014 after Ukrainian security forces opened fire on protesters in Kyiv, killing scores and wounding hundreds. On February 22, 2014, he was impeached by Ukraine’s parliament and fled to Russia ahead of a raft of criminal charges.
St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, Kyiv, Ukraine. It is the mother church and headquarters of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Kirill I (born November 20, 1946, Leningrad [now St. Petersburg], Russia) is the Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia from 2009.
,………..
Upon assuming the partriarchate, he expressed his long-standing desire for increased dialogue to end the church’s millennium-old rift with the Roman Catholic Church. In February 2016 he and Pope Francis I held the first-ever meeting between the leaders of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
St. Basil the Blessed Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed in Moscow. K. Scholz/H. Armstrong Roberts
Membership of the Soviet spy agency was a requirement for any religious figure who travelled abroad, according to a paper called The Mikhailov Files: Patriarch Kirill and the KGB, by historian and human rights activist Felix Corley.
After ascending to the rank of archbishop in 1976, Kirill spent the next 20 years developing a uniquely modern, but deeply conservative style of worship.
,………..
How Putin helped shore up Kirill’s power and wealth
Mystery surrounds the first meeting between patriarch and president, but both men ascended to the height of their powers shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Russian Orthodox Church emerged from the Soviet era with a mission to regain its status as Russia’s most powerful ideological institution and ultimate moral authority.
Those at the top set about rebuilding the congregation and their places of worship, after decades of persecution and the destruction of thousands of churches.
But some of the ways they used their new-found privileges stoked controversy.
The church was alleged to have been among the largest suppliers of foreign cigarettes in Russia at the time of the duty-free import scandal. (MF/WS via Reuters)
The Kyiv-Mohyla Academy became not only an educational institution but also a cultural symbol of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. It demonstrated a commitment to independence and integration with the European educational space, distinguishing the Ukrainian Church from the Moscow Church, which was more isolated and focused on internal consolidation.
The educational system established by Petro Mohyla and his successors laid the foundation for the distinctiveness of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. The Latin influence and adherence to high educational standards remain key factors that differentiate the Ukrainian Church from the Russian Church to this day.
This is a work in progress as more emails are released by the House Oversight Committee and Epstein’s 1953 Estate.
9/19/2014 1:21 AM – 9:35 PM
JE: You need to talk to boss
KR: Agreed, but I need to be prepared to say yes before I talk to him.
JE: understood. it comes down to high risk / reward / low risk / reward. professional , emotional. and financial
KR: Most girls do not have to worry about this crap.
JE: “girls?” ,, careful I will renew an old habit, . this week, thiel, summers, bill burns, Gordon brown, Jagland, ( council of Europe and noble chairman ). mongolia pres , hardeep puree ( india), boris ( gates). jabor ( qatar ). sultan ( dubai, ), kosslyn ( Harvard), leon black, woody. you are welcome guest at any….. also if you think there are interesting people in town, everyone here for climate summit , clinton ,security council, holy shit im on [REDACTED] for next 30 minutes.
KR: Doesn’t look like you are prioritizing your schedule very effectively…..how are you going to manage all of that? this is unga week [United Nations General Assembly] so the boss [Obama] will be in town too…..I’ll be here all week — you may get sick of me….just sat down on a train so can’t talk freely.
And we check, and find:
Link between Barrack Obama and Jeffrey Epstein Detailed in Court Filing
‘In 2014, Epstein called Ms. Ruemmler within weeks of her leaving the Obama White House…’
According to the court filing, Epstein had a business relationship with Kathryn Ruemmler, who was Obama’s White House counsel from 2011 to 2014 and now works at Goldman Sachs.
Mere months before Epstein’s arrest and death, he set up a meeting with a JP Morgan executive and Ruemmler in February 2019, the court filing said. Epstein scheduled the meeting because Ruemmler wanted to open an account with JPMorgan and Epstein thought she “would bond” with the JP Morgan exec, the filing said.
Jeffrey Epstein’s estate fights to shield over 250 emails with top Goldman Sachs lawyer
Follow Jacob Shamsian
Kathryn Ruemmler, now the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs, maintained a correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein after leaving the Obama White House.Getty Images; Getty Images
Dec 3, 2025, 9:44 PM GMT
Jeffrey Epstein’s estate asserted attorney-client privilege for 277 emails with Kathryn Ruemmler.
A court document says Ruemmler communicated with Epstein about lawsuits involving Epstein’s victims.
The estate says it shouldn’t have to turn over the emails in a lawsuit.
Those emails aren’t the entirety of the communications between her and Epstein.
Epstein’s estate is keeping secret 277 additional emails between him and Ruemmler, saying they are protected by attorney-client confidentiality. Many of those emails contain discussions of lawsuits by women who accused Epstein of sexual assault, according to a court filing made public this week.
US President Donald Trump, has been slapped with a $310 million lawsuit for a trafficking venture which is almost identical to the sex-trafficking venture of Jeffrey Epstein. The lawsuit filed on November 24, in Palm Beach County, has named Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Notably, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence is in Palm Beach.
Elon Musk, a South African white man, may or may not have realised the power he wielded when he discarded the USAID budget in order to fund tax cuts for billionaries like him.
Nearly 15,000 will have died already because of Trump and Musk’s cuts to USAID, advocacy program claims
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has saved more than 25 million lives since it began in 2003
And now we can look at the facts on an hourly death rate basis, from a website using the much acclaimed AI ability to search a wealth of data – although check their disclaimer!
Executive summary
Multiple peer-reviewed forecasts and real-time trackers estimate that USAID funding cuts could already have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in 2025 and will cause many millions more by 2030 if not reversed. A Lancet modelling paper projects roughly 1.78 million excess all-age deaths in 2025 from per‑capita funding reductions and more than 14 million cumulative excess deaths through 2030 under complete defunding; independent real‑time trackers and commentators put current, already‑occurred deaths in the hundreds of thousands range [1][2][3][4].
And at a 6 month anniversary since the cuts, this is what Africa experienced:
In dollar terms, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Ethiopia have seen the greatest cuts. However, their large populations and economic heft may obscure the true impact of the cuts, which may appear more visible in smaller and less diversified economies such as Mozambique and Mali, where USAID funding accounted for a greater proportion of Gross National Income (GNI).
Fig 2
Reframing the data to examine those countries most affected in terms of USAID funding as a proportion of GNI shows that the impact is most acute in smaller and less diversified economies. This includes Liberia, Somalia – as well as Malawi and Mozambique, highlighted in the first chart.
Take Liberia for example, founded by American slaves, and yet has had a cursed existence, now continuing in its sorrowful path since tariffs and cutting of USAID:
MONROVIA, Liberia — Why is Liberia poor? The answer is long and nuanced, the multifaceted causes are deeply ingrained in the system of governance and socioeconomic ecosystem. However, one of the most widely spread root causes for nation-wide poverty is violent conflict. This is certainly the case for Liberia, the West-African nation originally founded in 1821 by former American slaves under the American Colonization Society.
Founded on pillars of liberty and freedom, its recent history is marred by a coup in the 1980s, which followed with years of civil war, a repressive government under Charles Taylor until 2003 and then a serious outbreak of Ebola in 2014. It is only now that Liberia can begin its road to recovery.
The U.S. is trying to facilitate a total financial support package of up to $40 billion for Argentina, but only $20 billion comes from U.S. government funds.
The deal includes a $20 billion currency swap between the U.S. Treasury and Argentina’s central bank. That was authorized in October and was heavily criticized in both countries, especially after President Donald Trump initially tied support to President Javier Milei’s performance in the October election in Argentina. Critics argue that using financial assistance to influence foreign elections sets a dangerous precedent.
The remaining $20 billion was originally expected to come from private banks and sovereign wealth funds, coordinated by the Treasury Department to invest in Argentine debt. But in November 2025, a group of banks backed out of a plan for the matching $20 billion package, instead opting to explore a smaller, short-term loan deal, according to reports.
The September 2 2025 killing by drone strike of 2 survivors, clinging to debris after their boat was destroyed by a US military strike in the Caribbean, has caused distress, outrage and a massive response in the media.
Hegseth gives chilling reply amid report of ‘kill them all’ order during first Caribbean boat strike: ‘Just begun to…’
Story by Shuvrajit Das Biswas
• 8h
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly issued an order to ‘kill everyone’ during the first US boat strike in the Caribbean.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a chilling one-liner after a Washington Post report claimed he’d given a directive for everyone to be killed during the first Caribbean boat strike.
Hegseth, on X, said “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”
And Jack Goldsmith has written an analysis of the legal position.
I am a Harvard Law School professor, a non-resident senior fellow @AEI, and former head of the Office of Legal Counsel. I teach and write about, among other things, the presidency. My work can be found at jackgoldsmith.org.
He wrote a piece on Substack today, here is an extract:
One can imagine stretching Article II of the Constitution to authorize the U.S. drug boat campaign. The wildly overbroad Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) precedents, as I have written before, provide “no meaningful legal check on the president.” And there are dim historical precedents one could cite. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted in The Imperial Presidency that in the 19th century presidents unilaterally engaged in “[m]ilitary action against Indians—stateless and lawless by American definition—pirates, slave traders, smugglers, cattle rustlers, frontier ruffians [and] foreign brigands.”
One might also, possibly, stretch the laws of war to say that attacks on the drug boats are part of a “non-international armed conflict,” as OLC has reportedly concluded. This line of argument likely draws on a super-broad conception of the threat posed by the alleged drug runners as well as the expansive U.S. post-9/11 practice of treating as targetable (i) dangerous non-state actor terrorists off the battlefield; (ii) those who merely “substantially support” the groups with whom one is in an armed conflict; and (iii) activities that provide economic support to the war effort, such as Taliban drug labs or ISIS oil trucks. I don’t think this argument comes close to working without deferential reliance on a bad faith finding by the president about the non-international armed conflict and much greater stretches of precedent than the United States previously indulged after 9/11. Still, the unconvincing argument is conceivable.
But there can be no conceivable legal justification for what the Washington Post reported earlier today: That U.S. Special Operations Forces killed the survivors of a first strike on a drug boat off the coast of Trinidad who, in the Post’s words, “were clinging to the smoldering wreck.”
Prohibition Against Declaring That No Quarter Be Given. It is forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given. This means that it is prohibited to order that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees, such as unprivileged belligerents, will be summarily executed. Moreover, it is also prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors, or to threaten the adversary with the denial of quarter. This rule is based on both humanitarian and military considerations. This rule also applies during non-international armed conflict.
This is an old principle of the laws of war. The Hague Regulations of 1907 state that “it is especially forbidden . . . [t]o declare that no quarter will be given.” The 1863 Lieber Code—the famous U.S. government rules governing military conduct during the Civil War—provides: “Whoever intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death, if duly convicted, whether he belongs to the Army of the United States, or is an enemy captured after having committed his misdeed.” And the currently governing DOD Manual in Section 5.9 states clearly that persons “placed hors de combat may not be made the object of attack.” The Manual defines “hors de combat” to include “persons . . . otherwise incapacitated by . . . shipwreck.”
In short, if the Post’s facts are correct, it appears that Special Operations Forces committed murder when the “two men were blown apart in the water,” as the Post put it.
…………….
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive,according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.
The Post then reports that after then-Joint Special Operations Command chief U.S. Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley became aware of the survivors, he “ordered the second strike to fulfill Hegseth’s directive that everyone must be killed.” This makes it seem like Hegseth—even if his initial “order” was (as it seems) a command to take no quarter—might not have been in the loop between the first and second strikes.
I do not believe, based on the facts in the Post story, that Bradley could have relied on Hegseth’s order—even if Hegseth formally ordered the second strike. The prohibition on targeting a disabled combatant is so clear that Bradley had a duty, in the words of 18.22.4 of the Manual, “to refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit violations of the law of war.”
According to the Post, Bradley at some point argued that “the survivors were still legitimate targets because they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo.” That is wrong. The theoretical possibility of calling other traffickers for help is not the test. The incapacitated survivors simply may not be targeted unless, as Section 5.9 of the Manual says, they affirmatively committed a “hostile act” or “attempt[ed] to escape.” If the Post’s facts are in the vicinity of the truth, that could not have happened. (The Intercept, which reported the kernel of this event in September, said that the survivors were “killed shortly after in a follow-up attack.”)
I wrote a few weeks ago about the possibility of an OLC golden shield as a defense to illegal conduct in connection with the boat strikes. OLC is forbidden to “advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law” and is exercising power delegated from an Attorney General unflinchingly beholden to the President. But I do not believe that even the Bondi OLC could legally justify the events the Post reported. In an opinion last summer upholding the general legality of the drug boat campaign, OLC apparently stated (or at least assumed) that the law of armed conflict governed the strikes. In this light, it is hard to see how OLC could bless these strikes, much less do so ex post. Which leaves the pardon power as the option that can, and no doubt will, eventually immunize what happened.
Hegseth has emphasized that he wants to restore the “warrior ethos” in the U.S. military. In the hours after the story, he signaled generic support for the boat strike campaign and chest-thumped that “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”
Yet the warrior ethos has always demanded honorable conduct in warfare. The Navy Seals, for example, describe themselves as “a special breed of warrior” but the Seal Ethos thrice emphasizes the importance of honor, including “on . . . the battlefield.” And surely the warrior ethos, whatever else it means, doesn’t require killing helpless men clinging to the burning wreckage of a blown-up boat. The DOD Manual is clear because the law here is clear: “Persons who have been incapacitated by . . . shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack.”
Dec 1st, 2025
White House, protecting Pete Hegseth, now appear to throw Admiral Bradley ‘under the bus’ for having ordered the ‘double tap’ killing of survivors clinging to previously struck boat.
Who is Admiral Bradley?
Adm. Frank M. Bradley is a U.S. Navy SEAL Officer. Originally from Eldorado, Texas, ADM Bradley is a 1991 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he studied physics and was a varsity gymnast. He began his career as a SEAL after completing Basic Underwater Demolition school (BUDs/SEAL) Class 179 in 1992.
He has commanded at all levels of special operations, including Joint Special Operations Command, Special Operations Command Central, and Naval Special Warfare Development Group. He has multiple tours in command of joint task forces and was among the first to deploy into Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Additionally, he has served with SEAL Team FOUR, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team TWO, and the Italian Incursori (Italian SEALs) as an international exchange officer.
Adm. Bradley earned a Masters in Physics from Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he received a provisional patent for his research in 2006.
His staff duty has included service as the Assistant Commander, Joint Special Operations Command as well as the J-3 Technical Operations Division Chief and the Deputy J-3; the Vice Deputy Director for Global Operations for the Joint Staff J-3; the Executive Officer for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr.; and the Deputy Director for CT Strategy for the Joint Staff J-5.
Intelligence on U.S. Military’s Boat Strikes Is Limited
What Happened: A New York Times investigation found the U.S. has killed over 80 people in Trump’s Caribbean/Pacific boat-strike campaign despite having little idea who was being targeted. The Pentagon concedes it only has vague confidence the boats carried drugs, meaning many victims may have been fishermen, couriers, or civilians.
Why It Matters: The U.S. is carrying out lethal operations with almost no intelligence, normalizing extrajudicial killing, and risking massive blowback. Lawmakers warn the strikes mirror discredited “signature strikes,” erasing oversight and creating long-term security risks.
Trump says the U.S. will ‘very soon’ take action on land to stop alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers
What Happened: Trump said the U.S. could “very soon” begin land strikes in Venezuela, escalating a months-long military campaign that has already killed at least 83 people in maritime operations. His comments come as he massed major naval assets in the Caribbean, designates a pro-Maduro faction as a foreign terrorist organization, and weighs a broader military intervention.
Why It Matters: Threatening ground operations pushes the U.S. to the brink of an unauthorized war driven by politicized claims about drug trafficking that experts say have little basis. Trump is using a narcotics pretext to justify regime-change and an oil grab, raising the risk of regional conflict and catastrophic miscalculation.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for his role in helping drug traffickers move hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States, was released from prison following a pardon from President Donald Trump, his wife announced Tuesday.
How did this happen? Well, thanks to Ed Martin, the ‘pardon’ lust producer, also was the lawyer for Jan 6th insurrectionists, and Roger Stone’s letter:
Roger Stone claims Trump announced pardon for Juan Orlando Hernández “three hours after” he sent Trump a letter from the former Honduran president
Ana García de Hernández to Stone: “We also want to express our helpful gratitude for the support that you had given … to my husband and the father of my daughters. Since you start speaking about this case, you made such a huge difference.”
The latest strike came the same day Navy Adm. Frank Bradley was in Congress to brief lawmakers on the U.S. military’s Sept. 2 strike against an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean, where 11 people were killed.
During the briefings, which were held in both chambers, Bradley, the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, denied reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” aboard before the Sept. 2 operation.
The briefing from Bradley came as lawmakers in both parties were asking the Trump administration for more information regarding the Sept. 2 mission, where the U.S. military conducted four strikes, two to kill those on board and two others to sink the vessel.
Since early September, the U.S. military has conducted more than 20 strikes against purported drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 87 people, according to the Trump administration.
Thursday’s strike in the eastern Pacific represents the first U.S. strike against an alleged drug-smuggling vessel since mid-November, when the U.S. military blew up a purported drug-smuggling boat and killed three “narco-terrorists.”
Summary of Trump pardons (to Dec 10, 2025) for criminals who can afford to buy a pardon:
Trump pardons major drug traffickers despite his anti-drug rhetoric
What Happened: Trump has granted clemency to more than 100 people convicted of drug crimes, including Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, gang leader Larry Hoover, Baltimore drug boss Garnett Gilbert Smith, and Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández, tied to 400 tons of cocaine entering the U.S. The pardons come even as Trump orders lethal strikes on suspected boats under the guise of countering drugs.
Why It Matters: Trump is freeing some of the world’s most notorious traffickers, exposing clemency as a tool of loyalty and influence rather than public safety. The contradiction undercuts his drug-war theatrics and shows how violent offenders walk free while militarized operations serve political showmanship.
How the rich and powerful jockey for pardons from Trump
What Happened: Trump has issued nearly 1,600 pardons this year, an unprecedented wave that bypasses the Justice Department and turns clemency into a political weapon. Wealthy allies, lobbyists, and insiders now compete for influence as Trump overrides prosecutors and hands out pardons to figures like a Honduran ex-president convicted of drug trafficking, Rep. Henry Cuellar, and even an executive charged by his own DOJ.
Why It Matters: Trump has turned clemency into a loyalty marketplace, rewarding allies while clearing corruption cases and delegitimizing Biden-era prosecutions. By collapsing the formal pardon system, he’s turned justice into a patronage network where money, access, and allegiance decide who walks free.
UK poised to approve massive Chinese embassy in London
China angrily warned of “consequences” if the embassy was not granted planning permission.
A flag flies atop a pole on the roof of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United Kingdom, on Portland Place in London on November 18, 2025. | Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images
LONDON — Keir Starmer is set to approve a new Chinese “super-embassy” in central London despite a string of security concerns which were raised through the planning process.
The Times reported Friday that intelligence services MI5 and MI6 are now satisfied that the project — long a source of controversy in the U.K. — should go ahead, with some “mitigations” to protect national security.
In a plot twist straight out of a techno-thriller — if techno-thrillers starred incompetent billionaires and corrupt presidents — Elon Musk just got busted sneaking 2,000 TONS of Chinese electrical transformers straight into the heart of America’s top-secret AI supercomputer—the Pentagon’s own xAI “Colossus”.
And here from the Daily Beast:
Musk’s AI Fortress Hides a Secret That Trump Will Hate
Trump Planning New Superclub With India? All About Buzz On New Core-5 Grouping
The idea is to create a new body of major powers, one that isn’t hemmed in by the G7’s requirements that the countries be both wealthy and democratically governed.
US President Donald Trump is reportedly exploring a new elite ‘C5’, or ‘Core Five’, forum of world powers that would bring together America, Russia, China, India and Japan, sidelining the existing Europe-dominated G7 and other traditional democracy and wealth based groupings.
While so far there has been no official word on the matter, American publication Politico reported that the idea for the new hard-power group came up in a longer, unpublished version of the National Security Strategy that the White House published last week.
The publication said it could not confirm the existence of the longer plan, but it was reported by Defense One.
The idea is reportedly to create a new body of major powers, one that isn’t hemmed in by the G7’s requirements that the countries be both wealthy and democratically governed.
“The strategy proposes a ‘Core Five,’ or C5, consisting of the United States, China, Russia, India, and Japan – several countries with populations over 100 million. It would meet regularly, like the G7, at summits on specific topics. The first on the proposed C5 agenda: security in the Middle East, specifically the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” the report said.
A “Trumpian Idea”?
According to Politico, the White House has denied the existence of this document, with press secretary Hannah Kelly insisting that “no alternative, private, or secret version” of the 33-page official plan exists.
However, national security experts believe the idea has a “Trumpian” ring to it, and the creation of the C5 could be appropriate for the current White House.
“This is consistent with how we believe President Trump views the world, which is non-ideological, through a sympathy for strong players, and through a tendency to cooperate with other great powers that maintain spheres of influence in their region,” Torrey Taussig, who served as director for European affairs on the US National Security Council during the Biden administration, told the publication.
She noted that Europe does not feature in the theoretical C5, “which, I guess, would make Europeans believe that this administration views Russia as a leading power capable of exercising its sphere of influence in Europe.”
Michael Sobolik, an aide to US Republican Senator Ted Cruz during the first Trump administration, noted that the creation of C5 would be a departure from Trump’s China policy in his first term as president.
“The first Trump administration adhered to the concept of great power competition, and that’s how we framed and discussed relations with China… This is just a huge departure from that,” he said.
Allies’ Concerns
The report comes at a time when Washington is already debating how much the second Trump administration intends to upend the world order. The idea casts existing forums like the G7 and G20 as inadequate for a multipolar world, prioritising deal‑making among major population and military‑economic powers.
US allies view the move as legitimisation of “strongmen” by elevating Russia over Europe and potentially weakening Western unity and NATO cohesion.
And poor Memphis population:
Aug 13, 2025 1:00 PM GMT
‘We Are the Last of the Forgotten:’ Inside the Memphis Community Battling Elon Musk’s xAI
Five days after Elon Musk’s Grok 4 became one of the most powerful large language models in the world, Alexis Humphreys had her first severe asthma attack in 15 years. She laid down in her house in Boxtown, Memphis in the humid, sticky summer, struggling to breathe, inhaling a smell of gas that had started wafting into her neighborhood about a year before. “It felt like my chest was caving in,” Humphreys, 28, says on her front porch a couple of days later.
The countries involved in the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes alliances and their partners
Five Eyes countries: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
Nine Eyes countries: The Five Eyes plus Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and France
Fourteen Eyes countries: The Nine Eyes plus Italy, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, and Spain
Partners of the Fourteen Eyes: Israel, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, British Overseas Territories
It’s worth noting that although all countries in the Fourteen Eyes share information within their group, the Nine Eyes and Five Eyes are both more secretive.
While the Five Eyes are privy to the information collected by the Nine Eyes, Fourteen Eyes, and the partners, not all the information collected by the Five Eyes is available to the others. The same is true of the Nine Eyes. The partners, while they do share information they collect with the other alliances, do not have any access to the information collected by the alliances on alliance countries.
As the want for increased surveillance grows, more countries apparently align themselves with this global surveillance system. This system of alliances seems to have a hierarchy of secrets.
Trump’s intel chief freezes out Five Eyes allies on Ukraine
The intelligence alliance of the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as the U.S. is one of the closest in the world.
The move by Gabbard is the second major curb on intelligence-sharing by President Donald Trump’s administration this year. | POOL photo by Eric Lee/EPA
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is blocking America’s closest intelligence allies from receiving updates on Russia-Ukraine peace talks in a shock move that upends decades of tight cooperation.
That effectively cuts America’s Five Eyes partners — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — out of the loop, stunning the intelligence community that has relied on the network since the end of World War II.
December 6, 20255:58 PM GMTUpdated December 6, 2025
Summary
US could withdraw from some NATO planning mechanisms if unsatisfied with progress
Unclear how US would measure progress
Trump rhetoric towards alliance runs hot and cold
WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) – The United States wants Europe to take over the majority of NATO’s conventional defense capabilities, from intelligence to missiles, by 2027, Pentagon officials told diplomats in Washington this week, a tight deadline that struck some European officials as unrealistic.
The message, recounted by five sources familiar with the discussion, including a U.S. official, was conveyed at a meeting in Washington this week of Pentagon staff overseeing NATO policy and several European delegations.
Howard Lutnick was a neighbor of Jeffrey Epstein from 1998, when he purchased the property next to Epstein’s townhouse, until Epstein’s death in 2019, making it approximately 21 years. Newsweek Go.com
So some emails between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein, recently released show Trump visited Howard Lutnick in 2019:
5/13/2019 1:07 PM – 1:22 PM
The homes of Jeffrey Epstein and Howard Lutnick, #9 and #11 E. 71st St., NYC
JE: i won’t be home otherwise i could have come out an waved.
SB: Ha! I love it
Howard Lutnick
The economy is not stopping. It just doesn’t feel that way to me,” said Lutnick, who became CEO of Cantor in 1991 and chairman as well in 1996.
Lutnick joined Cantor in 1983. He is known for rebuilding Cantor after the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center terrorist attacks. The company lost more than two-thirds of its then 960 New York-based employees, including Lutnick’s brother. Cantor and its affiliates now have more than 10,000 employees globally.
President Donald Trump said last month his tariffs on Chinese goods are causing companies to move production out of China and into places such as Vietnam.
Once those supply chains move, China won’t be able to get them back, argued Lutnick, also chairman and CEO of BGC Partners, a brokerage that was spun off from Cantor in 2004.
“I think each 6 months [of the trade war] will cost China 1% of GDP,” Lutnick told CNBC’s Bob Pisani. Therefore, “they’ll try to make a deal with the [Trump] administration before” the 2020 presidential election, he added.
‘Total disregard’ for the law: Inside Howard Lutnick’s sports betting gambit
Cantor Gaming was years ahead of the mobile sports betting craze. But it repeatedly ran afoul of state and federal regulators.
Cantor Gaming, a company founded by Donald Trump’s Commerce secretary pick, Howard Lutnick, repeatedly violated state and federal laws, authorities said. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
There were 46 donors who contributed to the transition effort, according to a copy of the list published by The New York Times, which reports the transition raised slightly more than $14 million and spent $13.7 million.
Among the biggest names on the list are billionaires Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, who co-chaired the transition effort and went on to be named Commerce Secretary and Secretary of Education, respectively.
And Lev Parnas comments after becoming tired of press conferences where Trump has degraded and insulted female reporters when they ask a question based on facts:
For me, this is where I draw the line: if Donald Trump cannot treat women journalists like human beings, then no respectable outlet should be in that room. Major networks and newspapers need to stop pretending this is business as usual. Journalists’ organizations and unions should be demanding better — not just for their members, but for every woman who’s watching this and learning what men in power can get away with. Editors and executives have a decision to make: are you journalists, or are you producers for Trump’s abuse show?
We cannot keep rewarding this behavior with ratings and ad dollars. We cannot keep sending women into a room where their job description now includes being humiliated on live TV by a man who ran with Epstein and sees women as disposable
Oil reserves that remain have a calculation attached which tells producers how many years remain that they could expect wealth from this fossil fuel.
Present regimes of United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia might not like Venezuela holding the highest oil reserves, as they know their own leadership in producing the highest amount currently merely emphasises they will drill to the last drop in decades from now.
borderslynn 
You must be logged in to post a comment.