Mostly Monday Reads: WTF are we Becoming?

“The Art of the Deal in real life!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The Trump-infested news cycle never ends these days. Gone are the days when weekend news reporting meant a lot of soft topics, and breaking news usually came in the form of natural disasters. Now, everyone’s busy trying to cover Trump’s latest disaster. It wouldn’t be 2025 without Trump making everything worse. Anyone who saw even the slightest bit of the Trump/Zelenski presser got a feel for the deranged statements of Trump. Zelenski’s exhausted and exasperated looks were priceless.

This is from the New York Times. “For Zelensky, Just Keeping Trump Talking Counts as a Win. Though discussions produced little tangible progress, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at least avoided the type of setbacks that have blighted earlier meetings.” Constant Méheut has the analysis. I’ve shared the article so you may read it.

A new round of peace talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump on Sunday seems to have produced little beyond a promise to meet again next month and a reminder of how distant a peace deal remains.

Yet for Mr. Zelensky, even a stalemate in the discussions counts as a measure of success.

Following setbacks in U.S. support for Ukraine this year, one of Mr. Zelensky’s main priorities when meeting Mr. Trump has been to prevent talks from derailing. After the meeting, Mr. Trump signaled that he would remain engaged in the negotiations — a win for Ukraine given his repeated threats to walk away. Mr. Trump also backed away from setting another deadline to reach a peace deal, after having previously floated Thanksgiving and Christmas as target dates.

“I don’t have deadlines,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he greeted Mr. Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago in Florida for the talks. “You know what my deadline is? Getting the war ended.”

Most important for Ukraine, Mr. Trump did not echo Russia’s maximalist demands to stop the fighting, a departure from earlier in his term when he often appeared to side with the Kremlin. The change was also notable because Mr. Trump had spoken with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia just before meeting Mr. Zelensky, the type of last-minute Russian intervention that has derailed Ukrainian hopes before.

That outcome may leave Mr. Zelensky hopeful that Kyiv and Washington have become more closely aligned in the peace negotiations. Several European leaders also joined the talks by phone, and Mr. Zelensky said that the United States might host a new round of negotiations next month that could include them.

“The fact that they’re talking is a victory in and of itself,” Harry Nedelcu, a senior director at Rasmussen Global, a research organization, said of the American and Ukrainian presidents.

Still, Mr. Zelensky acknowledged some division between them on Monday, noting that while Mr. Trump has agreed to help secure Ukraine, he offered such guarantees for only 15 years, short of the several decades that Mr. Zelensky and Ukrainians seek.

The situation between Israel and Gaza certainly shows the lack of any serious negotiations or peace plans in that region. This is from The Nation. This is written by Jeet Heer. “Netanyahu Is Destroying Trump’s Flimsy Peace Plans. The talk of a new Middle East is belied by Israel’s attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.”

No foreign leader has easier access to President Donald Trump than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose scheduled meeting today at Mar-a-Lago will be the fifth time he’s hobnobbed with the US president in the past 10 months. In February, Netanyahu was the first overseas dignitary to visit the White House in Trump’s second term, and now the year ends with another meeting. Few foreign leaders have buttered up Trump with the aplomb of Netanyahu, who describes Trump as Israel’s “greatest friend.”

In Trump’s first four years in office, these enthusiastic words were more than earned. As Al Jazeera noted, “During his first term, Trump pushed US policy further in favour of Israel’s right-wing government. He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognised and claimed Israeli sovereignty over Syria’s occupied Golan Heights and cut off funding to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).”

Remarkable progress has, however, also been made in a year. Mr. al-Sharaa has garnered support from the United States, Russia and China. He has secured the lifting of economic sanctions. He has remained steady in the face of repeated military provocations from Israel, and has begun to lay the basis of state institutions. He has been embraced by Mr. Trump and was ushered to the White House last month.

“There has been growing frustration in Washington that Israeli actions were setting back something most of Washington and everyone in the Middle East would actually like to see succeed: a stabilized, unified Syria. The basic argument to Israel is, look, you actually have leaders in Damascus who are willing to say the word ‘Israel’ and talk about a potential future with normalized relations, yet you just keep bombing or looking for a surrogate to work through.”

And then, there’s the Venezuelan thing. This is from The Guardian. “US struck ‘big facility’ in Venezuela, Trump claimed without offering details. Trump alleged that US forces hit ‘very hard’ in what would mark his team’s first land strike on Venezuela if confirmed.”  Edward Helmore has the lede.

Donald Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.

“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday.

If a US strike is confirmed, it will mark the first land strike on Venezuela since the Pentagon began a buildup of US strike forces in region to interdict drug traffickers operating – the Trump administration claims – under the direction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

The initial, stated purpose of the military buildup has since morphed into a blockade to disrupt the country’s oil exports that uses a global shadow fleet of oil tankers outside of Chevron, the single licensed exporter of Venezuelan oil.

Trump has for weeks warned that US forces are ready to expand the military campaign by striking targets inside Venezuela, a tactic that would in theory require congressional authorization.

The domestic situation of our country is not much better. Most of it is due to the deranged and unfit Trump appointments across the federal government. Nancy Gertner, writing for The Atlantic, has this headline. “Why the Supreme Court Is Giving ICE So Much Power. The Constitution inarguably applies to federal immigration agents—but the Supreme Court has taken away the hope of ever holding them to that standard.

Untold numbers of ICE agents have appeared on America’s streets in recent months, and many of them have committed acts of aggression with seeming impunity. ICE agents have detained suspected illegal immigrants without cause—including U.S. citizens and lawful residents. They have, in effect, kidnapped people, breaking into cars to make arrests. They have used tear gas and pepper spray on nonviolent protesters. They have refused to identify themselves, wearing masks, using unmarked cars, and switching license plates, presumably to avoid detection. They have kept people in detention without access to lawyers. They have questioned people simply for appearing Latino, speaking Spanish, and being in areas believed to be frequented by illegal immigrants.

Many of these tactics are plainly illegal. The Constitution incontestably applies to federal immigration officers: The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and excessive force and requires a warrant to search a private home. The Fifth Amendment guarantees due process and bans self-incrimination. The Sixth Amendment establishes a person’s right to counsel. Why, then, are they getting away with not following the Constitution?

Their impunity traces back to two Supreme Court decisions that put far too much faith in ICE’s commitment to respecting people’s constitutional rights. As a result of these cases, people whose rights are violated by ICE agents have little to no recourse. Contrast that with the rules for police officers. If a police officer kicks down your door and searches your home without a warrant, questions you without a Miranda warning, or illegally arrests you, a provision known as the exclusionary rule may prevent the evidence gathered through those tactics from being admitted in your prosecution. And if you happen to be acquitted, you can sue for damages. None of that is true when it comes to ICE.

The first of these two cases is a 1984 decision, INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, that untethered ICE from the exclusionary rule. In a 5–4 opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor rejected the exclusionary rule for immigration courts, favoring, instead, “a deliberately simple deportation hearing system.” In a typical criminal case, the exclusionary rule is designed to deter police misconduct—the idea being that the police will avoid such conduct if it risks undermining a conviction. But for ICE, the Court decided, such deterrence is not necessary. Unless ICE conduct amounts to an “egregious” violation of the Fourth Amendment, the evidence that agents gather even through illegal means can be used in immigration courts. Key to the Court’s decision was a presumption that Fourth Amendment violations by ICE officers were not “widespread” and that the Immigration and Naturalization Service “has already taken sensible and reasonable steps to deter Fourth Amendment violations by its officers.” Such assumptions may not have been reasonable then; they are certainly not reasonable now.

A second Court decision appears to have eliminated, or at least seriously limited, the possibility of lawsuits for damages after individuals are unlawfully detained, searched, or experience excessive force at the hands of ICE. When the police engage in misconduct, the victimcan sue the responsible officers for damages. Again, not so for ICE. In the 2022 decision Egbert v. Boule, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, denied the rights of plaintiffs to sue Border Patrol agents for excessive use of force in the name of “national security.” There is every reason to believe that the Supreme Court would extend the rationale in Boule to shield ICE from liability as well. The Court would effectively be greenlighting ICE’s abusive tactics and insulating agents from damages when they are, in fact, no different from any state or city police officer who violates a person’s constitutional rights. As in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza,the rationale in Boule relies on the agency’s purported ability to self-regulate; after all, Thomas suggested, Border Patrol “must investigate ‘alleged violations’ and accept grievances.” Can anyone count on such care to come from Border Patrol under this administration? Again, the faith in these institutions to self-regulate seems tragically misplaced.

We’ve definitely seen some terrible things that go against our Constitution and the rule of law. It’s even more sad to see a rogue Supreme Court team up with the Rotter in the White House to initiate authoritarian measures. This final suggested read comes from ProPublica. It shows more evidence of the suppression of our Free Press. “Our Reporters Reached Out for Comment. They Were Accused of Stalking and Intimidation. Our journalists reach out to people they’re writing about to ensure fairness. But in this environment, they’ve found their efforts to do so are more likely to be vilified than appreciated.” Charles Ornstein has the story.

This summer, my colleagues were reporting out a story about the Department of Education’s “final mission,” its effort to undermine public education even as the Trump administration worked feverishly to close the agency.

As we do with all stories, the reporters reached out to those who would be featured in the article for comment. And so began a journey that showed both the emphasis we place on giving the subjects of our stories an opportunity to comment, as well as the aggressively unhelpful pushback we’ve faced this year as we’ve sought information and responses to questions.

Megan O’Matz, a reporter based in Wisconsin on ProPublica’s Midwest team, first asked the department’s press office for an interview in mid-August. At the same time, we emailed top administration officials who were making crucial decisions within the agency, including Lindsey Burke, deputy chief of staff for policy and programs, and Meg Kilgannon, director of strategic partnerships.

In response to the outreach to Kilgannon, department spokesperson Madison Biedermann told O’Matz to “Please direct all media inquiries to press@ed.gov.” Reached on her cellphone that day, Biedermann said she was happy to look into the request. We asked for a response within a week.

At that time, the published press phone number for the department appeared, at all hours, to be a black hole, with a recorded message saying it was “temporarily closed.” (It still indicates that.)

Hearing nothing more, O’Matz emailed the press office again Aug. 18. And again Aug. 28 with detailed questions. She left follow-up messages on Biedermann’s cell. And on Burke’s cell, including once on her husband’s cell as ProPublica tried to find a direct way to contact Burke. To ensure fairness and accuracy, it is our long-standing practice to try to reach those who are part of our stories so that they have an opportunity to respond to them. We’d rather get responses before we publish an article than after.

Reached on her cell Aug. 29, Kilgannon said she had no comment and hung up before O’Matz could explain what we planned to publish about her and her work. She did not respond to a subsequent email with those details.

On Sept. 8, still hearing nothing from Burke, O’Matz reached out to the department’s chief of staff, writing: “We have been seeking to talk to the secretary and to Dr. Burke. … Can you help us arrange that?” A week later, ProPublica arranged for a letter to be delivered via FedEx to Burke’s home outlining what our reporting had found so far and to let us know if anything was inaccurate or required additional context. We invited her again to talk with us, to comment or provide any additional information.

Finally, on Sept. 17, Biedermann wrote: “Just heard from an ED (Education Department) colleague that you sent these inquiries in writing to their home address. This is highly inappropriate and unprofessional. You have also reached out to employees on their personal cell phones, emails, and even reached out to employee’s family members. This is disturbing. Do not use an employee’s home addresses or relatives to contact them.” (The emphasis was hers.)

ProPublica replied the following day that it’s common practice for journalists to reach out to people we are writing about. “In fact, it’s our professional obligation,” O’Matz wrote.

Biedermann responded: “Reaching out to individuals about a work matter at their private address is not journalism — it is borderline intimidation. In today’s political climate it is particularly unacceptable. We received your inquiries (via email, phone calls, text messages, both on work and personal email address) and made a conscious decision not to respond, as we have every right to do.”

“You are not entitled to a response from us, or anyone, ever,” Biedermann wrote.

To be clear, at no time prior to this email did the department tell O’Matz that it had received her inquiries and would not comment. The article ran on Oct. 8, about two months after we first contacted the department. (I would highly encourage you to read it.)

The world has come a long way since the days of “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight,” movies that favorably portrayed journalists knocking on doors and trying to reach sources to tell important stories — in those cases, about the Watergate break-in that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation and the abuse scandal that enveloped the Roman Catholic Church in Boston and beyond.

I know these reads are long and perhaps a bit tedious and difficult to read. However tough it may be, it is essential that we pay attention to every single civil right, law, and constitutional value of this country that is under attack. I hope that next year will bring better responses as we strive to hold these officials accountable. We owe it to ourselves, our future citizens, and to every one of those who worked hard to make this country “a more perfect union.”  We cannot go down this way.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #AttacksOnVenezuala #freedomOfThePress #InvasionOfUkraine #IsraeliAttacksOnGaza #ProPublica #SCOTUSICE

Mostly Monday Reads: Suppression and Lies

“Whoop, there it is! That explains everything!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Freedom of the Press, and the exercise of it, has been an essential part of modern American History. Now, with the invention of technologies that have evolved far beyond the days of the printing press when it was conceived, we have access to more. The generations born since the invention of radio and TV, and those who have followed forward to today’s internet technologies, have relied on the press for truth on wars, governance, social justice, foreign relations, science, medicine, and every other possible human endeavor.

My parents heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor almost immediately on the radio.  I watched a man walk on the moon. My children have instant access to everything on their phones. Information is a vital part of the American Dream. Now, it has become part of the American Nightmare. Freedom of information has always relied on the availability of trusted sources. Our modern history is full of examples of state propaganda that we Americans have always pooh-poohed, the Tokyo Roses, the Baghdad Bobs, but we’ve always taken seriously the propaganda and acts of  Paul Joseph Goebbels, who committed suicide to avoid being held to account. Free Speech is a pillar of democracy.

America, we have a huge problem.

This first read is from Today’s New York Times. It concerns the ongoing suppression of News at CBS. “‘60 Minutes’ Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It ‘Political.’ Sharyn Alfonsi, a “60 Minutes” correspondent, criticized the network’s decision to remove her reporting from Sunday’s edition of the show.”  Michael M. Grynbaum has the byline.

In a move that drew harsh criticism from its own correspondent, CBS News abruptly removed a segment from Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador.

CBS announced the change three hours before the broadcast, a highly unusual last-minute switch. The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment. CBS News said in a statement that the segment would air at a later date and “needed additional reporting.”

But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, rejected that criticism in a private note to CBS colleagues on Sunday, in which she accused CBS News of pulling the segment for “political” reasons.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

The inability of the rotter in the White House to deal with criticism means the rest of us must not read or see anything that might be off-putting to his serious ego problems. NPR has this take on the story. “CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls ’60 Minutes’ story, sparking outcry.” David Folkenflik has the story.

Just a day and a half before it was set to be broadcast, new CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss pulled a planned 60 Minutes investigative segment centering on allegations of abuses at an El Salvador detention center where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants last March.

Weiss told colleagues this weekend the piece — planned for Sunday night’s show — could not run without an on-the-record comment from an administration official. She pushed for 60 Minutes to interview Stephen Miller, senior advisor to President Trump, or someone of his stature. That’s according to two people with knowledge of events at the network who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing job security.

The correspondent on the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, condemned the decision in an email to 60 Minutes colleagues on Sunday evening, saying she believed it was “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.” (The email was obtained by NPR and other news organizations.)

A press release sent out Friday morning from CBS News’ publicity team had promoted the story, promising a look inside CECOT, “one of El Salvador’s harshest prisons.” The network ran a video promotion which has since been taken down on the air and on social media. The announcement cited “the brutal and tortuous conditions” some recently released deportees said they endured there. The release has since been revised.

The story had undergone repeated formal reviews by senior producers and news executives, as well as people from the legal and standards division, according to the two people at CBS, echoing Alfonsi’s account.

Alfonsi wrote that she and her colleagues on the story had sought comments and interviews from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department.

“Government silence is a statement, not a VETO,” Alfonsi wrote in the email. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient.” (Alfonsi did not respond to an emailed request for comment.)

This is the take of the Washington Post and its reporters, Liam Scott and Scott Nover. “‘60 Minutes’ correspondent says CBS’s Bari Weiss abruptly pulled segment on Trump deportations. The segment on the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison was postponed after the Trump administration refused to grant the network an interview.”

CBS News abruptly pulled an investigative “60 Minutes” segment on the Trump administration’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison after the Trump administration refused to grant an interview, according to a correspondent who shared her concerns in an email obtained by The Washington Post.

The decision came directly from the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, according to an internal email sent to producers from the segment’s correspondent, Sharyn Alfonsi, who called the decision tantamount to handing the White House a “kill switch.”

“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Alfonsi wrote.

“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Alfonsi wrote.

Weiss defended the decision in a Monday morning editorial meeting.

“As of course you all have seen, I held a ‘60 Minutes’ story, and I held that story because it wasn’t ready,” Weiss told staffers, according to a person who attended the meeting and spoke on the condition of anonymity to share nonpublic comments. “The story presented very powerful testimony of abuse at CECOT, but that testimony has already been reported on by places like the Times. The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment in this prison. So to run a story on this subject, two months later, we simply need to do more.”

She continued: “And this is ‘60 Minutes.’ We need to be able to make every effort to get the principals on the record and on camera. To me, our viewers come first, not a listing schedule or anything else, and that is my North Star, and I hope it’s the North Star of every person in this newsroom.”

I’m not convinced. Are you?

Here’s a ridiculous story featuring the Louisiana Governor who truly is the state’s village idiot. It’s a continuation of Donald Trump’s quest to basically take over independent nations. It’s caused quite a stir because it appears to be illegal for the governor to accept this. We continue to see a Regime that thinks itself above the law or doesn’t care. This is from the AP. “Trump’s appointment of envoy to Greenland sparks new tension with Denmark.”

The leaders of Denmark and Greenland insisted Monday that the United States won’t take over Greenland and demanded respect for their territorial integrity after President Donald Trump ‍announced the appointment of a ‌special envoy to the semi-autonomous territory.

Trump’s announcement on Sunday that Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry would be the envoy prompted a new flare-up of tensions over Washington’s interest in the vast territory of Denmark, a NATO ally. Denmark’s foreign minister told Danish broadcasters that he would summon the U.S. ambassador to his ministry.

”We have said it before. Now, we say it again. National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said in a joint statement. “They are fundamental principles. You cannot annex another country. Not even with an argument about international security.”

Here’s the take from the Louisiana Illuminator. “Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry selected by Trump to be special envoy to Greenland. This is reported by Julie O’Donoghue. “Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry selected by Trump to be special envoy to Greenland.”

President Donald Trump announced Sunday night that Gov. Jeff Landry would serve as his special envoy to Greenland.

“I am pleased to announce that I am appointing the GREAT Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, as the United States Special Envoy to Greenland,” Trump said through a post to his social media network Truth Social.

“Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security, and will strongly advance our Country’s Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World,” the president wrote.

Landry will remain Louisiana governor while serving in his new role for Trump.

“This in no way affects my role as governor of Louisiana!” he posted on the social media platform X.

Greenland has significant oil and gas reserves and has been a focal point for Trump on-and-off since he entered politics a decade ago.

On several occasions earlier this year, the president publicly mused about an American takeover of the island, which is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. The threats have upset not only the Danes but also the European Union and Russia.

One of the more embarrassing quotes from Landry makes the purpose of the position even more off-putting. This is also from the AP source.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said on X it was ‘an honor to serve … in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US’

Greenland and Denmark are less than enthused. This is from The Independent. “Greenland outraged after Trump appoints envoy to make country ‘part of the US’. Trump stated Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry understands ‘how essential Greenland to our National Security’.”

The leaders of Denmark and Greenland have insisted the US will not take over the latter, and are demanding respect for the island’s territorial integrity following President Trump’s appointment of a special envoy.

On Sunday Mr Trump named Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as the US special envoy to Greenland, reigniting tensions over Washington’s interest in the vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, which is a Nato ally.

The Danish foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, announced he would summon the US ambassador to Copenhagen, expressing particular dismay at Mr Landry’s endorsement of Trump’s stated aim.

In a joint statement, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, declared: “We have said it before. Now, we say it again: national borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law. They are fundamental principles. You cannot annex another country. Not even with an argument about international security.

“Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, and the US shall not take over Greenland. We expect respect for our joint territorial integrity.”

The Trump administration put further pressure on Copenhagen on Monday, when it suspended leases for five large offshore wind projects being built off the East Coast of the U.S., including two being developed by Denmark’s state-controlled Orsted.

Mr Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire for Greenland, which is largely self-governing, to become part of the United States, citing security concerns and its valuable mineral resources. He stated on Truth Social: “Jeff understands how essential Greenland is to our National Security, and will strongly advance our Country’s Interests for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Allies, and indeed, the World.”

This item shows a significant issue with the position. Discussion among those of us who have been part of Louisiana’s higher education institutions will hopefully raise a few flags to the local politicos and media.

Screenshot

 

I’m seriously getting tired of my state and my country continually exhibiting behaviors and speech that give us pariah status. It’s embarrassing, and the actions are unjustifiable in any civilized, democratic nation.  On the good side, if he goes there at all, we could find a good iceberg and let some hungry polar bears at him.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#UberFascistJeffLandry #JohnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #AttacksOnVenezuala #BariWeiss #freedomOfThePress #Greenland #OrangeCaligula #SharynAlfonsi #SixtyMinutes

Finally Friday Reads: Deadly Dysfunction

“I’m not sure, but that Cabinet Meeting may have been the most entertaining one yet. Two hours of trump fighting off sleep, like the toddler he obviously is, while his minions heaped praise upon his barely coherent body.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

And, hello again from Occupied New Orleans. We’ve had cold rainy weather for quite some time. Perhaps it will wash aways some of the dirty ICE terrorizing the city. The stories get more horrific and we’re barely into the first week of it. The complete idiocy with which this administration operates is ruining the country and a lot of it brings unnecessary death. I only wish we had a Congress that would function the way it was designed and a much better press. Let’s dig in while my tea is still hot.

The latest maneuvering of RFK jr’s death panels is once more directed to childhood vacinations. Where are all these supposedly pro-life people when something other than a fertilized egg is involved. No one cares about actually breathing children? This is from the Washington Post. “CDC panel makes most sweeping revision to child vaccine schedule under RFK Jr.. The panel voted to eliminate a long-standing recommendation for every newborn to receive a hepatitis B shot, excluding those born to mothers testing negative.”

An influential vaccine advisory panel on Friday voted to lift a long-standing recommendation that all newborns receive a vaccine for hepatitis B, marking the most significant change to the childhood immunization schedule under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices approved the change despite fierce objections from medical groups who said the recommendation had proved a successful public health strategy, nearly eradicating the dangerous virus among U.S. children.

The committee voted 8-3 to eliminate a recommendation, dating to 1991, for every child to receive a first dose of a hepatitis B vaccine shortly after birth. The panel said the newborn shot is no longer necessary for babies born to mothers who test negative for the virus. They suggested parents of those children delay the first dose for at least two months and consult with their doctors about whether or when to begin administering the three-dose series.

Supporters of the change said the universal recommendation regardless of risk was overly broad and undermined informed choice. Retsef Levi, an ACIP panelist who voted to change the language, said he believes the intention is to push parents to consider whether they want to give another vaccine to their child.

“It’s actually suggesting a fundamental change in their approach to this vaccine and maybe more broadly,” said Levi, a professor of operations management at MIT.

The recommendation from the group of outside government advisers goes to the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for final approval.

Medical experts have argued that it’s important to vaccinate all newborns for hepatitis B, even if their mothers test negative, because babies are at risk of infection if their mothers receive a false negative or become infected after testing. Some of the dissenting panel members pushed back on the change — one called the revised guidance on hepatitis B unconscionable, while another said the move was rooted in “baseless skepticism.”

“We will see hepatitis B infections come back,” said panelist Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “The vaccine is so effective, it does not make sense in my mind to change the immunization schedule.”

Select lawmakers were around yesterday for a hearing about the lastest, criminal act by our country against Venezuelan boats. The stories offered up by the Department of War were quite different than the story told by the film. This is from CNN. “Exclusive: Survivors clinging to capsized boat didn’t radio for backup, admiral overseeing double-tap strike tells lawmakers.”

The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.

As far back as September, defense officials have been quietly pushing back on criticism that killing the two survivors amounted to a war crime by arguing, in part, that they were legitimate targets because they appeared to be radioing for help or backup — reinforcements that, if they had received it, could have theoretically allowed them to continue to traffic the drugs aboard their sinking ship.

Defense officials made that claim in at least one briefing in September for congressional staff, according to a source familiar with the session, and several media outlets cited officials repeating that justification in the last week.

But Thursday, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley acknowledged that the two survivors of the military’s initial strike were in no position to make a distress call in his briefings to lawmakers. Bradley was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command at the time of the strike and was the top military officer directing the attack.

The initial hit on the vessel, believed to be carrying cocaine, killed nine people immediately and split the boat in half, capsizing it and sending a massive smoke plume into the sky, the sources who viewed the video as part of the briefings said. Part of the surveillance video was a zoomed-in, higher-definition view of the two survivors clinging to a still-floating, capsized portion, they said.

For a little under an hour — 41 minutes, according to a separate US official — Bradley and the rest of the US military command center discussed what to do as they watched the men struggle to overturn what was left of their boat, the sources said

During that time, Bradley also consulted with the uniformed lawyer on duty during the operation, he told lawmakers, according to two of the sources. The JAG officer, or judge advocate general officer, assessed it would be legal to move forward with a second strike, the sources added.

Ultimately, Bradley told lawmakers, he ordered a second strike to destroy the remains of the vessel, killing the two survivors, on the grounds that it appeared that part of the vessel remained afloat because it still held cocaine, according to one of the sources. The survivors could hypothetically have floated to safety, been rescued, and carried on with trafficking the drugs, the logic went.

Another boat was targeted by the Pentagon in the Pacific.  This is from The Guardian. “Pentagon announces it has killed four men in another boat strike in Pacific. Strike comes amid congressional turmoil over legality of US attacks on suspected drug smugglers.”

The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US military had conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific, as questions mount over the legality of the attacks.

Video of the new strike was posted on social media by the US southern command, based in Florida, with a statement saying that, at the direction of Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization”.

“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the statement added.

The footage showed a large explosion suddenly overtaking a small boat as it moved through the water, followed by an image of a vessel in flames and dark smoke streaming overhead.

It is the 22nd strike the US military has carried out against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing the death toll of the campaign to at least 87 people since September, when the strikes began.

U.S Foreign and Military policy has become so incoherent, illegal, dangerous, and likely leaked to our country’s traditional enemies, that our European partners no longer trust us. This link was shared to me by BB this morning and comes from The Economist. “Donald Trump’s bleak, incoherent foreign-policy strategy. Allies may panic; despots will cheer.”

YOU MIGHT think that in Trumpworld a new National Security Strategy (NSS) would not count for all that much. John Bolton, a national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, frequently laments that his boss had no strategy at all. Instead, the president worked by impulse—and without the encumbrance of too many briefings. From one day to the next, he veered in opposing directions.

Despite that, the new NSS matters. Released, weirdly, in the dead of night on December 4th/5th, it will be pored over by soldiers, diplomats and advisers in America and around the world. It is the latest and fullest statement of what “America First” means in foreign policy. It sets the terms for a soon-expected review of military power, and lays out the priorities for all those trying to interpret the president’s wishes. And, for many of its readers, it will be profoundly alarming.

For the most part, the new NSS rejects the decades-old insight that a common set of values are what cement America’s alliances. It declares that it is “not grounded in traditional, political ideology” but is motivated by “what works for America”. Instead, it embraces what it calls “flexible realism”. That means being “pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist’, realistic without being ‘realist’, principled without being ‘idealistic’, muscular without being ‘hawkish’, and restrained without being ‘dovish’.”

If that sounds like a dog’s breakfast, that is because it is. Shorn of the enlightened values that have long anchored foreign policy, America First becomes a naked assertion of power that owes more to the 19th century than the world that America built after the second world war. And that leads to a document riven by contradictions.

In some parts of the world, in particular in Asia, Mr Trump expects countries to behave as willing allies. In most others they are to submit meekly to America’s economic and military will. In one place the NSS rejects the interventionist idea of urging countries to adopt “democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories”. That suits Russia, China and the monarchies of the Middle East. Yet in Europe, where MAGA worries about wokeism, migration and the dominance of liberal values, the NSS bluntly declares that “our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory.”

When the NSS applies this formula to the world, region by region, the full consequences of this shift start to become clear.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the section covering the western hemisphere. “We want to ensure that the western hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States,” it reads. Governments in the Americas will be enlisted to control migration and curb drug flows. They are expected to grant America control of key assets, resources and strategic locations, or at least a veto over “hostile foreign” ownership of them—a clear warning to refuse Chinese investments that offer a sway over ports or such assets as the Panama Canal. Where law enforcement has failed to halt drug smuggling, America will use armed forces, the NSS warns.

This swaggering right of intervention is called a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. That is a deliberate tribute to the “Roosevelt Corollary”, President Theodore Roosevelt’s assertion of  gendarme-like enforcement rights over the western hemisphere in 1904.

All this seems sure to provoke angry recollections of high-handed American interventions in the region in the 20th century, from military invasions and blockades to CIA-backed coups or security pacts that saw America arming and training autocracies guilty of extra-judicial murders and torture in the cold war. With its talk of conditioning aid and trade on co-operation from Latin American governments, the NSS signals a belief that resentment will not stop Latin Americans from doing as they are told.

In Asia, by contrast, allies will read the NSS with a mixture of immediate relief and long-term gloom. The passages on Taiwan could have been worse. The nightmare scenario for such allies as Japan, the Philippines and South Korea would have involved an NSS declaring that the fate of the democratically ruled island of Taiwan is not an existential interest for America.

Instead, the NSS restates America’s position that it “does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait”. True, there is nothing about Taiwan’s importance as a friendly, pro-Western democracy whose people overwhelmingly oppose coming under rule by China. But the strategy does make a cold-eyed realist case for Taiwan’s importance as a usefully-located redoubt in the middle of the “First Island Chain” that runs from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines, penning in China’s navies and air forces. In addition, the NSS nods to Taiwan’s importance as the largest source of advanced semiconductors.

Accordingly, America will sustain forces capable of deterring any attempt to take Taiwan or to control the sea lanes near that island, or in the South China Sea. Asian allies must also spend much more on their own defences and grant America more access to their ports and bases. In short, the NSS demands that Asian countries risk China’s wrath by helping America contain Chinese ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. But there is not a word of criticism for China’s (or indeed Russia’s) expansionist ambitions or their desire to overthrow the post-1945 legal and multilateral order.

The NSS spares its sharpest barbs for Europe. The old world, it says, is undergoing a profound crisis, and this is not so much about economic decline or military weakness as it is about the loss of national identity, leading to the “stark prospect of civilisational erasure”.

Warning that “it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” the NSS warns that “it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.” In other words, immigrants will corrupt the values of the societies they move to—a shocking assertion from a country that is itself built on immigration.

The NSS’s prescriptions for Europe flow from this assertion of Judeo-Christian nationalism. The NSS calls for “unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history”, encouraging the revival promoted by “patriotic European parties”. That is a reference to the populist right, including National Rally in France, Reform UK in Britain and Alternative for Germany, which the vice-president, J.D. Vance, embraced earlier this year when he spoke at a conference in Munich. If that is the Trump administration’s programme, how are the centrist governments in Europe, who see these parties as a grave threat, supposed to treat America as an ally?

When the NSS applies this rationale to Ukraine, it draws some devastating conclusions. Suggesting that most Europeans want peace even if it means surrendering to Vladimir Putin, and asserting that their governments are standing in the way, the strategy calls for a rapid end to the war in order to prevent escalation. It says that America should curb the sense in Europe that Russia is a threat and warns that NATO cannot be “a perpetually expanding alliance”. Alarmingly, it has nothing to say about the repeated aggression and hostility of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. To much of Europe, this sort of appeasement will only serve to set up the next conflict.

“In everything we do, we are putting America First,” reads the letter from Mr Trump to the American people that opens the NSS. But it is the preceding sentence that will be read by allies with gloom, and with glee by China and Russia, for it is hopelessly at odds with reality: “America is strong and respected again—and because of that, we are making peace all over the world.” Alas, that claim comes from an administration that is indeed feared, resented and obsessed over, but one that is less respected or trusted than any American government in decades.

If that doesn’t give you geopolitical goosebumps, I don’t know what will.  Meanwhile, we’ve been experiencing press coverage that’s not providing us the information we need. This article is from The Nation. “A New Roosevelt Institute Report Confronts the Roots of Our Media Crisis—and Calls for Breaking Up Corporate Media.” Today’s journalism crisis wasn’t inevitable, but it’s time to free journalism from the straitjacket of turning a democratic obligation into a profit-maximizing business model.”  Concentration in this market is dumbing up America big time.  This story is reported by Bilal Baydoun, Shahrzad Shams, and Victor Pickard

The desire to attack and ultimately control the media is a through line of modern authoritarian governance across the globe. President Donald Trump’s reign as the defining political figure of the last decade has demonstrated how quickly that tactic can take hold here. In courtrooms, agencies, and White House briefings, Trump and his allies have sought to punish and delegitimize journalists. In the second Trump term, the bully pulpit has been turned into a battering ram, with open or implied threats to withhold the broadcast licenses or block the media mergers of insufficiently loyal companies. But a singular focus on state meddling has, ironically, obfuscated how authoritarians come to wield such great power over the media system in the first place, and why a free press must be protected from both state and commercial coercion.

What we’re experiencing now is a dangerous convergence of the two.

The truth is that the administration’s threats have rippled across a media ecosystem buckling under the weight of commercial pressures—pressures that existed long before that fateful golden escalator ride more than a decade ago. It’s these longstanding commercial imperatives that Trump knows how to weaponize to manipulate media institutions. He understands that newsrooms accountable first and foremost to investors will sell out their accountability function to survive. Likewise, media conglomerates pursuing mergers cannot afford to anger the administration holding the regulatory pen. When journalism is trapped inside a commercial straitjacket, it can’t fight back.

In our oligarchic age, where billionaires can decide which fledgling outlets live or die for pennies on the dollar and even themselves command powerful roles in government, the line between state-run media and state-aligned media through private means becomes vanishingly thin. A press dependent on the whims of the ultra-wealthy cannot claim meaningful independence from the political forces its owners serve. And even though our Constitution protects the press for democratic reasons, our policy regime assumes that news organizations should behave like profit-maximizing firms.

How did we get here? As we show in our new Roosevelt Institute report, today’s media crisis wasn’t inevitable, but the consequence of policymakers embracing a corporate libertarian approach to media policy. This framework treats our information ecosystem as an ordinary market, rather than vital democratic infrastructure, resulting in a media system riddled with structural deficits. The result is a media environment that’s vulnerable to pressure from every direction, from the White House to the C-Suite.

The consequences of this policy failure have been catastrophic. Newsrooms have been gutted as advertising revenue collapsed. Local papers have closed or been absorbed by vulture capitalists whose short-term incentives are fundamentally at odds with journalism’s public mission. More than 1,000 counties now lack the equivalent of a single full-time journalist; the number of journalists per 100,000 residents has fallen 75 percent since the early 2000s. Platforms dominate news distribution, leaving publishers dependent on algorithmic systems designed to maximize engagement rather than inform the public. A handful of billionaires can bend the flow of information with the proverbial push of a button, and conglomerates continue conglomerating: Just earlier today, after a major bidding war, Netflix beat out Paramount Skydance and Comcast in a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, resulting in a merger that will further concentrate cultural and informational power in fewer hands.

Today, most Americans, and even many policymakers, take these developments and the system that led to them for granted. As the late media scholar Robert McChesney argued, media policy has been rendered invisible, designed behind closed doors in the public’s name, but without the public’s consent—placing core questions related to our information ecosystem outside the purview of democratic contestation. This invisibility has given cover to a set of neoliberal assumptions that define the boundaries of what’s possible, empowering a small set of wealthy private actors to decide, for the rest of us, what our media system looks like, and whose interests it serves.

Such invisibility obscures how our media system’s design—and the many problems ailing it—is the result of policy decisions. Over the course of decades, policymakers diluted the meaning of the media’s public interest responsibilities, refashioning them into something more akin to consumer preferences. At the same time, the media market faced a series of re-regulatory structural moves that shifted power away from the public and into the hands of corporate actors. And well before Trump dismantled the CPB, Congress resisted meaningful public media investment. All these developments were in turn legitimized by a First Amendment media jurisprudence that prioritizes unbridled commercial speech over the public’s “right to know.” Combined, these constraints created a media system that treats commercial imperatives as natural law, and democratic obligations as optional.

I’ve probably over shared most of the excerpts and it will take you some time to get through them all.  BB also wrote yesterday on the many ways our country is run by idiots with an angend American’s do not approve of and in a way that is beyond incompetent.  Any of us in cities Occupied by the National Guard and Ice have horrors stories that sound more like NAZI Germany than your backyard. They have no incentive stop and they’re even ignoring court orders.  This article is the view point of my home city by the BBC. “New Orleans residents in fear as immigration crackdown descends on their city.” The BBC’s North American Correspondent, Tom Bateman, is here and reports the story.

Two labourers stand on the roof of a house in Kenner, outside New Orleans, as US Border Patrol agents clamber up a ladder, getting closer.

As the agents move in, trying to arrest them, the men step to the roof’s edge, poised in an apparent act of resistance – but it’s too high to jump.

On the ground in the mostly Latino neighbourhood, an officer trains his weapon towards the rooftop while a sniper moves into position. Now, neighbours, activists, and crews of local press are gathering at the scene, watching in bewilderment: US President Trump’s new front line on immigration enforcement has just arrived.

It is day one of “Catahoula Crunch”, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has labelled its operation, taking its name from an American leopard dog known for being well-muscled, powerful and territorial.

“These people came to work today to provide for their families and themselves,” said Zoe Higgins, an activist documenting the Border Patrol operation in New Orleans.

“That they could just be abducted, removed from all stability – I can’t imagine how terrifying that is,” she said, shortly after the agents coaxed the men down and detained them.

According to DHS, its agents were conducting immigration enforcement this week when “several illegal aliens climbed on the roof of a residential home and refused to comply with agent commands”.

An “illegal alien” was arrested, DHS officials told the BBC, but they did not answer questions about the immigration status of the labourers involved, nor whether agents had a warrant to access the property.

None of this sounds lawful.  I’m not a Constitutional lawyer, but I do know that everyone deserves their day in court. Disappearing people is criminal.

So, I’m going off today to see my doctor for just a normal check up. But my body tells me every day that it’s not coping well with any of this. I usually can drop my blood pressure by meditating. My skills are no longer up to this fight or fly response I feel continually. I just put my birth certificate in my purse. I still doing my whistle brigade thing.  This country is not going doing on my watch. This city and every one in it is not going to be given the No Quarter treatment here; especially when they’re not really a threat to any of us in any way.

What’s on your Reading. Action and Blogging list today?

#johnbussBskySocialJohnBuss #antiVaccinationTwits #attacksOnVenezuala #noQuarter #rfkJrWeirdo #theMediaSucks

Mostly Monday Reads: Trumperville

“That peace prize is a shoo-in next year.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I’ve had a rough few days here in my hometown of New Orleans. I’ve been working on getting signal whistle kits together and have enjoyed the camaraderie of brothers and sisters in arms. As the sky has turned quite gray the last few days and temperatures have dropped, it sets a scene that I knew was coming, but now I’ve seen. Of course, the National Guard is overwhelmingly visible in the French Quarter. I’ll share some photos taken by friends who were gigging or living their lives there from Saturday.

Yesterday morning, during my walk, I spoke with the two professors who have a woodworking shop in an old storefront across the street from me. They were given 2 weeks’ notice to move out of the apartment they shared for 31 years. The landlord was eager to renovate the property and convert it into student housing. Today’s walk left me even more stunned.

There was an old black man pushing a luggage cart up and down the street with all of his earthly goods and his cat on top. I didn’t take a photo because it felt too sacred to capture. He headed up towards the Abandoned Navy Base and then up to the bridge area. The large gray Tabby looked like a prince, while the old man just kept muttering Stay, stay, stay. I saw my first real discussion on a group Signal Chat of a large contingent of ICE stooges getting ready to make a raid. There are tears in my eyes as I write this.

I guess making America Great these days means putting old people on the street, ensuring our hard-working neighbors stay holed up in their houses, relying on the good-hearted to protect them and bring them provisions. It means separating families and shipping them off to the swamp hellholes of Louisiana here while everyone desperately searches for their whereabouts. It also means appointing illegal prosecutors to cases “for the people”, massive Bachanalia on the taxpayers’ money in a shit hole in Florida, and an illegal attack on Venezuela. You can also read about it as rural clinics and hospitals shut down, making small-town America unlivable during a time when we’re seeing a plague of measles and other diseases long thought gone.

We’ve never been a perfect union, but I’ve never seen or read about such a great undoing as the one we’re living through now. The midterms are more important than ever.  All of this makes it very scary to go outside. I’m going to continue with the Hegseth/Venezuela disaster that BB wrote about yesterday.

This is from Jennifer Rubin writing for The Contrarian. “War Crime…or Murder? Killing shipwreck survivors is patently illegal and morally abhorrent.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who makes up in false bravado what he lacks in judgment and expertise, appears to have committed an inexcusable, unjustified violation of black-letter international and domestic law, according to a stunning Washington Post story released last Friday. The incident occurred during our Sept. 2 Caribbean military operation against suspected drug traffickers:

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.

After the attack, two survivors clung to the “smoldering wreck.” Then, in an action that should shock the conscience, forces murdered the two survivors. “The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack—the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere—ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said,” The Post reported. “The two men were blown apart in the water.”

The Trump regime claims the report is false, but the evidence has not been specifically debunked. No explanation has been given as to why the video was edited to omit this part of the attack.

Putting aside for the moment the legitimacy of the underlying order to shoot these boats out of the water (which, frankly, is hard to justify based on a false theory and made-up facts), it is impossible to imagine any Pentagon lawyer blessing this action. The concept of hors de combat—literally, out of combat—is a fundamental aspect of the law of war that prevents harming those disabled from combat.

If we are at war, this is a shocking violation of the law of war and specifically the Department of Defense Law of War Manual (updated in July 2023). Per the latter, those shipwrecked (or “those in distress at sea or stranded on the coast who are also helpless”) are protected under the Geneva Convention, and in turn, U.S. law. Not only must shipwrecked individuals “not be knowingly attacked, fired upon, or unnecessarily interfered with,” but our military must “without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked at sea, to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care, and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled.”

Conservative lawyer Jack Goldsmith reiterates, “ 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.” Todd Huntley, a former Special Operations military lawyer cited in The Post report, agrees that even if the U.S. were at war an order to kill all the survivors “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime.”

Meanwhile, Trump is saying Hegseth didn’t give that order. They’re also more than doubling down on attacks against Venezuela. This feels like one more thing to get everyone to stop investigating the Epstein Files. However, this is a deadly distraction and one that will tarnish our National image in South America, sending it back to the 1960s. This is from AXIOS. “Trump backs Hegseth as Congress plans boat strike review.” This article was written by Avery Lotz.

President Trump said he believesDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s denial of a report alleging he ordered military forcesto leave no survivors in a strike on a suspected drug trafficking boat from Venezuela.

The big picture: The U.S. has ramped up its military pressure on Venezuela and President Nicolás Maduro despite legal experts and lawmakers sounding the alarm over the legality of the strikes on alleged drug traffickers that have killed dozens.

• Hegseth slammed The Washington Post’s report that he directed military officials to kill everyone aboard a vessel, which allegedly resulted in a secondstrike to take out two survivors. The Intercept also previously reported on the follow-up attack.
• He dismissed the allegations as “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory” on X but said “these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.'”

Driving the news: “He said he did not say that, and I believe him 100%,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.

• The president added that “we’ll look into it” and thathe wouldn’t have wanted a second strike.
• “The first strike was very lethal. It was fine. And if there were two people around, but Pete said that didn’t happen,” he said. “I have great confidence.”
• Trump added, “Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,”

Friction point: But lawmakers have expressed increasing concern over the shadowy operations and are seeking to conduct their own oversight of the strikes.

• House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said in a Saturday statement that they “take seriously” the reports of follow-up strikes and are “taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question.”
• Similarly, Senate Armed Services Committee ChairSen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said in a statement the committee will conduct “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”

What they’re saying: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that if the allegations are proven true, “this rises to the level of a war crime.”

• Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also said on CBS that there “are very serious concerns in Congress about the attacks on the so-called drug boats down in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the legal justification that’s been provided”

There are many more sad stories about how this cruel administration is turning its back on the GLBT community. If I haven’t been crying about the things above, I’ve also been crying on the Anniversary of AIDS Awareness and World AIDS Day.  Each year reminds me of all my beautiful friends from high school and university who were lost to this disease. Now, I think about the adults and children all over the world who have lost access to medicines. This is from Forbes.  “On This World AIDS Day, The U.S. Declines To Participate.”  This was written by “Dave Wessner, a virologist who covers infectious diseases.”

The United States will not formally commemorate World AIDS Day this year. This decision comes on the heels of recent federal funding cuts that threaten to disrupt hard-earned progress combatting this global epidemic. Despite significant scientific advancements in HIV treatment and prevention, many people worry about our efforts to end this ongoing crisis.

Since 1988, December 1 has been recognized as World AIDS Day by communities throughout the world. It is a day to remember the people who have died of HIV/AIDS, demonstrate our continued support for people living with HIV and strengthen the global efforts to end this epidemic.

U.S. presidents have recognized the day in various ways. Seventeen years ago, President George W. Bush discussed the unparalleled success of his signature initiative, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He also noted that the red ribbon displayed at the White House was, “a symbol of our resolve to confront HIV/AIDS and to affirm the matchless value of every life.” Just a year ago, President Joe Biden remarked that, “we renew our commitment to accelerating efforts to finally end the HIV/AIDS epidemic.”

This year, the U.S. State Department sent an email to employees that stated, “The U.S. Government will not be commemorating World AIDS Day this year.”

One could argue that a day of commemoration does not save lives. But funding does. And the HIV/AIDS funding landscape has changed dramatically during the Trump administration. Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS, noted in a recently released report that, “this year’s disruption to the global response has exposed the fragility of the progress we have fought so hard to achieve.”

My friend John Autin captured this photo Saturday night in the French Quarter of the National Guard Occupation.

Politico reports today on the number of Trump nominees withdrawing. “Record-setting personnel issues are marring Trump’s second term. The president has nearly doubled Joe Biden’s mark for nominees withdrawn from the Senate in the first year.” Something rotten is in the beltway.

On the surface, President Donald Trump’s second-term personnel operation has been a smoothly running machine. The Senate has confirmed more than 300 civilian nominees since January, even changing the chamber’s rules to move them faster.

But there are clear signs of breakdowns behind the scenes. Trump has withdrawn a record number of nominees for a president’s first year in office as he faces a combination of GOP pushback against some picks, vetting issues, White House infighting and, in some cases, the president’s own mercurial views.

Trump has withdrawn 57 nominations, according to Senate data — roughly double the 22 nominations he withdrew during the first year of his first administration and the 29 his immediate predecessor, Joe Biden, withdrew during his first year.

The pace of withdrawals, the highest since at least the Ronald Reagan presidency, has flown below the radar in the day-to-day churn on Capitol Hill, with many Republican senators expressing surprise at the data in interviews. But they also acknowledged the obvious: In some instances, the White House just isn’t making sure Trump’s nominees can get the votes.

“It would appear that some nominees haven’t been vetted, and … somebody says, ‘Go with them anyways,’” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview.

After POLITICO reported he made racist comments in a group chat, Ingrassia withdrew despite telling senators he had “no recollection of these alleged chat leaks, and do not concede their authenticity.” But Senate Republicans had already privately telegraphed to the Trump administration for months that his nomination was in serious peril.

Asked about the withdrawals, a person close to the White House granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics pointed to Ingrassia as a key example.

“Would I say some vetting has been questionable? One thousand percent,” the person said, adding of Ingrassia: “That was a vetting nightmare that was only allowed to happen based on certain relationships and acquaintances with people that are making the decisions.”

DHS outside the Boggs Bldng on Poydras. Downtown New Orleans

The New York Times reports that Alina Haba was found to be an illegal U.S. Attorney by an Appeals Court. “Appeals Court Says Alina Habba Is Unlawful U.S. Attorney. The judges wrote that the Trump administration appeared to have become frustrated by legal and political barriers that have prevented its preferred U.S. attorneys from leading federal prosecutors’ offices.”  All the best people, you know.

A federal appeals court said on Monday that Alina Habba had been serving unlawfully as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, dealing a blow to the Trump administration and most likely setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court.

Ms. Habba is one of a number of U.S. attorneys whom the Trump administration has sought to keep in power through a series of unusual maneuvers even though she was neither confirmed by the Senate nor appointed by district trial court judges — the two traditional pathways. Defendants in New Jersey had challenged her authority as U.S. attorney, leading to Monday’s decision.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel, based in Philadelphia, affirmed an earlier ruling by a Federal District Court judge. The court said that the government’s tactics had violated the law as written and concluded that, overall, the Trump administration appeared to have become frustrated by legal and political barriers to placing its favored U.S. attorneys in charge.

The maneuvers undertaken to keep Ms. Habba in charge exemplified the difficulties the administration had faced, the judges wrote. And yet, they said, “the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. attorney’s office deserve some clarity and stability.”

There is no moral, legal, or intellectual clarity to anyone who serves this administration. I firmly believe their goal is instability. This makes the Midterm elections even more significant.

And, again, hello from Occupyied New Orleans.  The national news has started covering us as the movement of ICE goons into the area continues. This is from CNN. “What we know – and don’t know – about the immigration crackdown expected in New Orleans this week.”

As Department of Homeland Security agents are expected to surge into New Orleans this week, the latest Democrat-led city targeted by a federal immigration enforcement crackdown, a common thread has emerged among local officials: They’re being kept in the dark – and it’s spiking fear among the immigrant community.

There is “mass chaos and confusion” as the campaign looms, newly elected Councilmember at-Large Matthew Willard told CNN. He said he and other local officials have received scant details about the operation – and the information they have received “isn’t reassuring.”

“We’re really just fearful of the unknown, and looking at the coverage that we’ve seen in other cities by CNN, we certainly don’t want that here in the city of New Orleans,” he said.

Our new mayor is a Latina who was born in Mexico. This is what Councilwoman Helena Morena had to say.  CNN also talked to Orleans Parish’s Congressman.

New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, who was born in Mexico, has said she’s received limited information about the expected operation but that the fear among immigrant communities is palpable.

“You have parents who are scared to send their children to school,” Moreno, a Democrat, told CNN affiliate WWL. “At my church,” she said, “there is a one o’clock service, Spanish-speaking service every Sunday, that keeps getting smaller and smaller. People are really, really scared.”

Her office has released guidelines for interacting with immigration enforcement agents, urging people to comply with orders from law enforcement and to record with their phones if they feel safe.

US Rep. Troy Carter, who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, told WWL he also wasn’t briefed on any Border Patrol operations and suggested federal agents had profiled people in other cities.

“Turn on the television. Turn on the internet. Pick up a newspaper and you find some people who were profiled because they looked a certain way,” Carter said. “Never mind the fact that they were actually US citizens.”

My Holiday Craft Project

There’s a huge rally this evening at the Park that is deep in the city’s complex of Federal Buildings. When I worked at the New Orleans Fed, my office faced directly towards it. I’m actually hoping they get an overflow of people. It’s right there on St. Charles near the Old City Hall, and you’ve undoubtedly seen it if you’ve watched any Mardi Gras parades on TV.

So, I’m so sorry I’m such a Debbie Downer today. I’m going to go pack up more signal whistle kits for the rally.

I hope you had a wonderful long weekend. I’m not going anywhere. This country is not going down on my watch.  If my Daddy could bomb NAZIs, I can certainly frustrate a few.

Please stay safe out there… these ICE GOONS are serious!  Our legislature and the Governor have empowered them.  I just weep for my city and neighbors today.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

#alinaHaba #attacksOnVenezuala #iceImmigrationRaids #nationalGuardInNewOrleans #occupiedNewOrleans #peteHegsethWeirdoSexualAssaulter #splendidIsolation #trumpWithdrawsRecordNominations #venezuelaBoatStrikes #warrenZevon #worldAidsDay