I try to stay focused on the present and what we can do today to ensure that we fix the mess we are in as a country at the moment.
But I will admit, every so often my mind wanders to the past.
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For example, remember earlier this year when Joe Biden was president? Yes, that’s right. It was earlier this year and not some sepia-toned memory from grandpa and grandma times.
But I also remember specific incidents. One has stuck with me all morning. I tried to remove it with a torrent of TCM movies and a chaser of TikTok, but it didn’t work.
I don’t know why it is so resonant for me. Or so obstinately stuck in my brain box.
It took place in the before times. Back when we had survived one bout of Trump but were recovering as a nation and our hearts were full of hope about the future.
Sigh.
Anyway, my wife and I were at a gala for a ballet company. I know that sounds like just the kind of thing that East Coast liberals do all the time, but to be honest, despite my love of ballet, it was the only time I was ever at a gala for a ballet company. (If you were there too, stop reading at this point because it may become offensive to you depending on who you are and your level of sympathy for assholes.)
(I think I would like to invent some kind of AI equivalent of paywalls that block people from reading further based on their likely reaction to what follows. To protect them, of course.)
In any event, everyone was beautifully dressed and looked very glamorous. Except for me. I was maintaining my resistance to wearing black tie to black tie events because, well, what was all the social progress of the past fifty years for if not to let me not wear black tie. I’ll admit, my resistance may not have been entirely political. It may also have had something to do with those being my pre-Zepbound days and my tux pants not fitting. But I prefer to think it had more to do with my role as a champion of social progress than my vanity.
Anyway, my wife looked glamorous in a spectacular gown. (As an opera singer she has many gowns.) All the donors and would be donors and guests of donors were also glammed to the max. And the ballet company also was there out-glamming everyone.
It was in a glitzy New York setting, one of those places that hosts a gala every night at events where the rich pay to soothe their consciences or for proximity with creative people or activists or just to be near other rich people.
Trust me, although we were among the rich, we were not of the rich.
We were the guests of a friend of Carla’s. (At this point, I think I had better stop identifying people or offering too many more details lest they get me in trouble and I never get invited back any such events again. Which would be a pity. Because the tux pants fit now. Actually, they are too big. Which is something that frankly, I’d like as many people to see as possible.)
Thank you, Eli Lilly.
Anyway, the meal began benignly enough. There was polite conversation. Flattery flowed like wine and the wine flowed like the flattery.
About thirty minutes after everyone sat down for dinner and while the conversation was humming, we were joined at our table by a guy who plunked himself down while still in mid-cell phone conversation, ignoring the rest of us. From the call, he made it very clear that he was in the midst of a big deal. (I’m always tempted to narc on these guys who are spilling sensitive details, using too many companies’ and people’s names and inviting insider trading scandals…especially when they’re doing it just to let us know how important they and the investment bank they work for are. But I restrained myself.)
Once the call was done, he plonks the phone on the table starts shoveling the salad into his mouth and says, while spewing arugula and pine nuts, “So, what’re we talking about?”
The small talk around the table stopped and his wife informed him that we were having a nice conversation about pretty much nothing. She then introduced us and noted that my wife and I were from Washington, DC and that I was someone who was a “political commentator.” That’s not exactly accurate although every once in a while, as you know, drawing on the sense my Mama instilled in me that everyone was interested in my opinions, I do, when I can’t contain myself, opine.
Anyway, that was enough to set him off on why he and his buddies were working hard to get Donald Trump re-elected president. He explained that Trump was the only one who really understood our economy and that the secret to America’s success was to enable the successful among us to do their thing because in the end, that was the way for all the rest of us to ultimately benefit. They were the sled dogs. We were the baggage. Feed the dogs.
I gently pointed out a few problems with his theory—like the fact that the GOP had actually presided over most of the economic downturns of modern times and that Democrats basically spent their time digging out of holes Republicans had put us in.
That’s not true, he said emphatically while demolishing a bread roll. So, calmly, with the warm tones of a friendly school marm, I enumerated each of the seven notable downturns of the past half-century and reminded him that only one, at the end of the Carter Administration, came while a Democrat was president.
He then changed the subject, shifted from ingesting food to guzzling wine, and all too forcefully made the point that Democrats were addicted to spending. I couldn’t help myself and observed that the federal deficit had increased under Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump and that the only times that it had decreased in modern memory were under Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden.
The conversation went on like this. He grew more insistent in his arguments. (He was after all, a moneybro and I was just an opinion-flogging middle-aged Jewish guy from New Jersey.)
But GDP growth, he said insistently! Nope, I replied. GDP grew on average around 4.3 percent under Dems while under Republicans it grew substantially less fast, only about 2.5 percent.
But…jobs!
No. Of the 51 million jobs created since 1990, roughly 50 million were created under Democrats.
He was furious. My wife nudged me. Or maybe she stabbed me with her salad fork. I’m not sure which, but I still have a mark on my upper thigh.
I tried to change the subjects. He then went on to say that he knew that what Trump intended to do was stand up to the world in the way Democrats were too feckless and weak and woke and diverse to do. He explained, as if it would add weight to his argument, that he was talking with some buddies (undoubtedly over golf…I have a theory that if we closed all the golf courses in America we would be much better off…because there would be fewer inappropriately confident conversations among those who believe their wealth is validation of their wisdom)…anyway, he was talking with his Republican buddies at some club on the Upper East Side and they saw a new boom coming in America because Trump was going to bring back tariffs in a big way and that this was a good way to knock a few foreign heads together and get people to invest and make things here.
I tried to gently bring up Smoot-Hawley and the colossal failure this strategy had helped trigger and he then challenged me, asking me where I, column writer and talking head, got off questioning him, big swinging dick, about this stuff. I pointed out that on trade I had a little experience, that once upon a time, I was Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Trade Policy and then for almost half a year I was Acting Under Secretary for International Trade. I also pointed out that most of the jobs he said would be brought back were actually exported to the past and not overseas due to tech-driven increases in productivity. (I did not point out that he probably had made a nice load of cash helping to finance those “efficiencies.”)
Before I could get any more words out of my mouth, however, my wife explained that we needed to go home and change the channel so the dog could watch his favorite show. (Which was a lie. She knew the TV was already tuned to HGTV so he could watch “Love It or List It” all night as was his wont at the time. He has since moved on to “House Hunters International.”)
We made our excuses and left and if I’m being honest with you, she was not happy with me during the car ride back to our hotel. But, hey, I didn’t bring the subject up. I didn’t escalate it. I didn’t go all New Jersey on the guy. I just served up some facts to go along with the filet mignon and the something something on the side that was served with a reduction of something.
But now, in retrospect, after a year of Trump, the thing that sticks with me as I reflect on that moment was just how transcendently and smugly confident this Ivy-league educated, much-wealthier-than-me guy was about his views, which were all, entirely, completely, and subsequently proven again to be totally and inarguably, wrong wrong wrong. Wrong. He was wrong about everything.
That’s clear now, right? I mean we won’t have to explain this again, will we?
The whole myth that Republicans were better at economics just because rich guys liked them is done, right?
That’s all dead and buried along with sensible trade or fiscal policies, our ability to attract the best minds to America, dependable rule of law, and (soon) the independence of the Fed, right?
I mean it must be clear by now that the reason the rich guys like Republicans is that the Republicans were actually not interested in the overall economy at all, they didn’t care about outcomes for the country or the people. They just ensured that, over the course of the past half century, America’s wealthiest got wealthier and wealthier.
They have proven that they-really-don’t-care-do-they that the cost to the economy, to society, was damaging in the long run…and that in turn is because they don’t really care about the long run. The long run is for schmucks. When you have a billion dollars, or even “just” hundreds or tens of millions, you never have to run again. People will run for you. Social collapse doesn’t touch you. Job losses and rising prices don’t matter. Even faltering American competitiveness doesn’t matter because the super rich and super empowered are global citizens, able to tap into upside and exploit downside wherever on the planet they may find it.
They can live above the law. Do what they want. Shatter lives. And toast it all afterwards.
The reason they supported Trump was that they knew he was like them and vice versa. Their metrics of success were his metrics of success. Their blindspots and lack of concern for the world at large meshed with his.
While Democrats were foolishly hung up on economic and social and national security policies for America, these guys were focused on getting through the programs and policies that would ensure they never had to care about any of those things ever again.
And frankly, thinking back on this guy, they actually may even have liked it a little bit that they would do well while everyone else was being screwed. One of the appeals, you see, of being elite, of traveling in the world of galas and limos and dancers performing just for you is that it is all just for you…no crowds…no lines…no wait…no anxiety…no worrying about the rent…no glum talk. No bothersome facts. No ugly realities.
And if you’re lucky, no obnoxious former economic officials to point out just how wrong they are about well, pretty much all of it. (I’m pretty sure that’s where he came out on all this because we were never invited back again.)
Needless to say, the rich guy was right about the election results in 2024 and the earnest ink-stained wretch and sometime Dem activist and wonk was, as it turned out, wrong.
But I was right about what would happen if Trump were elected.
To which, I can hear this guy saying through a fine spray of micro greens, who cares?
Because he is getting what he wanted. And then some. Forty years of GOP and Centrist Dem engineered gains in inequality in this country have been kicked into high gear. Taxes are lower. Regulations are being expunged. Regulatory agencies are being shuttered. Anti-fraud and corruption lawyers are being assigned to help round up Latino nurses and school teachers in Chicago. Corruption at the highest levels of our society is in bloom as never before. The power centers of the entire U.S. government and political system—from White House to Congress to Supreme Court to the donor class who pick so many of our maintstream candidates for high office—are all working to serve the interest of a smaller and smaller subset of America’s elite while the rest of us are left inhabiting the world they are rapidly trying to exist and dealing with the consequences of their rampant, pathological greed.
That said, one other thing strikes me: Just as they are raping the system as never before, the consequences of their action are more visible than ever, more painful to millions. The patter of their con artist front man in the White House is being revealed daily to more and more people as bullshit. Trump can say affordability is a hoax but if your healthcare bill is tripling, energy costs are rising by double digits, food is more expensive and there is no relief in sight…while Trump paints the White House gold and builds a ballroom for billionaires that will dwarf with gut-wrenching metaphorical accuracy “the People’s House”…then the message is clear.
The modern GOP has betrayed its voters, betrayed the country and is just now playing a cynical game of stealing the valuables out of a house it has set alight.
Fortunately, that kind of pain can motivate the masses as it has in the past when the era of trust-busting followed the last Gilded Age or when the nation pulled itself up by its own bootstraps in the wake of the Great Depression.
Around every dinner table in this country…far from the galas and the White House ballroom…there will be Americans who can speak from experience when they debunk the lies of MAGA and Trump, of “trickle down” and “rising tides lift all boats.”
Lessons are being taught in real time. Lived experiences are communicated more forcefully than recounted historical facts.
The politicians may not get it. The rich guys who write the checks for them may not get it. But the abuses are now so egregious, the failures touch so many tens of millions among us, the contempt for those on top for all the rest of us is so clear, that I truly do believe the tide will turn politically for America over the next months and years. 2026 will be an important watershed as Democrats regain control of one or both houses. 2028 will be the year the lies of MAGA are buried with their leader, the most promiscuously dishonest leader in American history.
I don’t necessarily trust our political class and their hired gangs of communicators to get this message through nor do I trust the American media, much of it now largely compromised, to tell the story as they should. But they won’t have to.
Because we can see the truth with our own eyes.
And as in the past, that kind of reality can finally silence the arrogance and smugness of those who think they have outsmarted us all, who think they have gamed not just financial markets but the country and the world.
We know the difference between the myths on which they have depended and the reality we wake up to every morning.
I only wish that after our collective voices are heard, I could once again sit opposite my dinner debate opponent and ask him, gently, of course, what he thought was behind the political earthquake that came once Americans demanded leaders who put the people ahead of the billionaires and their buddies.
But, I don’t expect it will happen. Because, as you may have guessed, we’ve never been invited back to join these people at that or any other fancy dress galas.
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The view from Al Jazeera journalists of the additional trauma adding to the Gazans long term suffering as Storm Byron drowns their fragile existence:
Heavy rains flood tents sheltering the displaced, heaping misery on Gaza
Flooding worsens the crisis for Palestinian families, as an acute Israeli-enforced aid shortage threatens those uprooted multiple times by the genocidal war.
Heavy rain floods the Abu Marhil Camp in the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City. [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]
Heavy rainfall in advance of Storm Byron began before dawn on Wednesday, submerging thousands of tents in several areas across the besieged and bombarded territory.
Palestinian Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal warned in a video statement of an “imminent humanitarian disaster” resulting from the severe weather conditions.
On Tuesday, the Gaza Government Media Office warned that a polar low-pressure system would affect the enclave from Wednesday until Friday evening, threatening hundreds of thousands of displaced families.
Most municipal wastewater networks in Gaza are destroyed or severely damaged by Israel, so any floodwater from the storm is highly likely to mix with raw sewage, significantly raising the spread of diseases like dysentery and cholera.
With rubbish collection largely halted, vast piles of solid waste have accumulated across the besieged enclave, meaning that heavy rains could mobilise medical waste, plastics, animal remains and debris into areas where displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
Groundwater resources that are tapped by residents could also be contaminated, while surface flooding could stagnate in some areas instead of receding since stormwater drainage and pumping stations are offline.
Basal said aid entering Gaza still falls far short of meeting the needs of the territory’s 2.4 million residents, who are facing a severe humanitarian crisis, and called for immediate international action.
According to earlier data from the media office, Gaza requires about 300,000 tents and prefabricated housing units to meet the most basic shelter needs of Palestinians after Israel destroyed infrastructure over two years of the genocidal war.
Rainfall began before dawn on Wednesday, submerging thousands of tents in several areas across the enclave. [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]Nearly 850,000 people, currently sheltering in 761 displacement sites in the Gaza Strip, face the highest risk of flooding this week, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]Three days of cold thunderstorms are expected to hit Palestine starting from Wednesday, the Palestinian Meteorological Department has warned. [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]Previous storms have contaminated displacement sites with sewage and solid waste, swept away families’ tents, and forced them out of makeshift shelters. [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]Gusts will reach speeds of about 50km/h (31mph), accompanied by a drop in temperatures and heavy rain across most of Gaza, including occasional icy hail, with conditions continuing overnight, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department. [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]Flooded tents in Abu Marhil Camp in the Zeitoun neighbourhood. [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]Gaza requires about 300,000 tents and prefabricated housing units to meet the most basic shelter needs of Palestinians after Israel destroyed infrastructure over two years of the genocidal war. [Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu]
President Trump appointed Alina Habba to serve as New Jersey’s interim U.S. attorney, but she was neither confirmed by the Senate nor appointed by district trial court judges.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Alina Habba resigned as U.S. attorney in New Jersey on Monday after a panel of federal judges ruled last week that she was serving in the position unlawfully.
Court Rejects Intimidation Campaign to Silence Investigative Reporting on Suspicious Loans President’s Company Took from Putin-Tied Lender
Washington, DC – Mincey Bell announces a landmark victory for its client, Truth Social Whistleblower Will Wilkerson, after a trial court in Sarasota, Florida, dismissed Trump Media & Technology Group’s (TMTG) defamation lawsuit against him.
Trump Media brought the lawsuit— which also named The Guardian and other major media outlets— after the publication of several articles reporting on a federal criminal investigation related to TMTG’s receipt of two suspicious payments totaling $8 million.
On March 15 and March 17, 2023, The Guardian published two articles stating federal prosecutors in New York were conducting a money laundering investigation related to the payments, which were wired through the Caribbean from Paxum Bank and ES Family Trust, entities with ties to an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin and a history of providing banking services to the sex worker industry. The articles reported Wilkerson’s statements that the origins of the loans caused alarm at TMTG, and the company’s CFO weighed returning the money. President Trump’s company ultimately kept the suspicious offshore money.
The Guardian is owned by the Guardian Media Group, which is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was established to ensure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian. Wikipedia Oregon Public Broadcasting
Dec 11th, 2025
Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from ICE custody after judge’s orders as he fights criminal charges
Judge slams Trump administration’s ‘punitive’ attempts to deport Salvadoran immigrant after rearrest
The stunning Dec. 11 development – federal prosecutors’ requests for grand jury indictments are almost always successful – is yet another setback in the Justice Department’s attempts to prosecute someone who has been explicitly targeted by President Donald Trump.
Trump Weighs In After Judge Dismisses Cases Against James Comey and Letitia James
WASHINGTON — Key evidence about an ally of former FBI Director James Comey was temporarily ruled off limits by a judge late Saturday, complicating the Justice Department’s efforts to re-indict him. US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that prosecutors can’t use evidence from email accounts and a computer that belonged to Daniel Richman, someone who could potentially shed light on whether Comey lied to Congress as prosecutors alleged.
“The Court concludes that Petitioner Richman is entitled to a narrow temporary restraining order to preserve the status quo while the Court evaluates his Motion for Return of Property and awaits full briefing and argument from the parties,” Kollar-Kotelly ruled.
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
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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.
Just in time for the holidays, a legion of priests and other representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church descended on Capitol Hill last week. These bearded visitors might evoke old Saint Nick, but there was nothing jolly about their appearance in the middle of the Christmas season.
American lawmakers need to recognize: These unholy men were in Washington on Kremlin business.
Predictably, the Muscovite delegation told anyone who would listen that Ukraine persecutes Christians.
It is propaganda that is as well-worn as it is false.
The crux of the Kremlin allegations is that Kyiv has cracked down on the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin summed up the claim earlier this month, saying that “The Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is practically banned.”
Ukraine is actually one of the most religious countries to come out of the former Soviet Union. More Ukrainians than Russians identify as Orthodox Christians.
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.
borderslynn 
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