LIVE COVERAGE
Fog Of Bullshit: Racist Clowns, Liars and Psycopaths
The surreal and deadly lurches on. In the last, frantic, script-flipping week, MAGA went from threatening to kill Dems who reminded troops to obey the law to scurrying to parse or ignore the news their macho, bungling Secretary of War Crimes evidently blew apart (at least) two guys in the water for no reason - an action universally deemed either murder or war crime, but def against the law. Now see Kegseth et al thrash, bluster, scapegoat the other guy. Trump doctrine: Deport, raze, blame, kill first; think (sic) later.
Most notably, a flailing presidency of "malevolence tempered by incompetence" - Cue the bonkers holiday greeting, "A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at" - is now embroiled in the detritus of a toxic, slapdash revenge tour targeting perceived, if often outlandish, enemies, both here and abroad. Last week's berserk campaign focused on six, mouthy Democratic lawmakers and veterans who had the chutzpah to post a brief video reminding the military of their oaths to follow the law and if needed disobey orders that don't - a bedrock tenet of the military so vital it's engraved on a plaque at West Point: "Should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers obey the law." Pretty radical.
The measured response from the Mob-Boss-in-Chief: Hysterically charging them with "SEDITION," "TREASON," "MILITARY TRIBUNALS," and calling them "traitorous sons of bitches" who should be "EXECUTED." Even as death threats followed, he was swiftly joined by every MAGA lickspittle, especially the lickspittlest - manly Whiskey Pete, the preening, pig-eyed, fragile creator of the War Department famed for strutting on stage to spout inane bullshit about a "warrior ethos" that demands "more lethality, less (sic) lawyers" 'cause who needs rules and laws? Shrieking the Dems' "screed" was "despicable, reckless, and false," he zeroed in on Sen. Mark Kelly - Macho Twit Goes After Actual Mensch - announcing he'd heard "serious allegations of misconduct” by Kelly, he'd "determine further action," and maybe recall Kelly to active duty so he could court-martial him.
It was a brilliant move by a National Guardsman whose drunken, inept, sexual assaulting career peaked in a Civil Affairs job and a weekend TV host gig until his absurd appointment, savaged as "an affront" to anyone who ever served, especially after he leaked war plans - a move just found to have violated Pentagon policy and put at risk military personnel. Veterans eviscerate him as "an absolute jackass," "an imposter," "a coward," "a blowhard" in makeup, "that officer, a total blue falcon" who screws his comrades. Now pols are too. Sen. and former Marine Ruben Gallego: "This is fucking insane." Kelly, in contrast, is a decades-long, much-decorated Navy pilot who saw 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, an astronaut who flew four space shuttle missions including the mission to recover the Columbia crash victims, a husband who retired to nurse his wife back to health after she was shot in the head, and a respected Senator.
Kelly, who's seen much worse, fought back: "(Hegseth) runs around on stage talking about lethality and the warrior ethos (like) a 12-year-old playing army, and it is ridiculous, embarrassing. This is not a serious person." He noted the "wild" irony of Hegseth attacking him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is what the six traitors recited: "You can't make this shit up." He also posted an image of his 20-plus medals to illustrate how he'd served and loved this country. In response, Pete sneered to "Captain" Kelly not only did he do "sedition" but his medals "are out of order," and he'd get to that. Alexander Vindman (and half of America): "Ever heard of a picture being mirrored? Good reminder: You’re out of your depth." Shut down, a pouting Pete went after our real enemy, vowing to cut support for a DEI-infected Boy Scouts who've become "genderless" and failed to "cultivate masculine values." Welcome to the Gulf of Fragile Masculinity.
This is what the "Secretary of War" is busy doing. This is who this petty macho arrogant jerk is. This is the guy who, as the Washington Post reported days later, allegedly ordered a SEAL Team on Sept. 2, in the first of nearly two dozen military strikes on fishing boats in the Caribbean that have killed 83 mostly anonymous "narco-terrorists" in extrajudicial assassinations, to "kill everybody" after the smoke from an initial strike cleared and revealed two wounded survivors in the water, clinging to wreckage of the burning boat. "Kill them all," writes JoJoFromJerz. "That was the order, plain, deliberate, and damnable, issued by the booze and bronzer-brined (Hegseth) as if American power were his personal cudgel and human life his disposable currency. The directive slithered down the chain of command like toxic runoff," and in moments the two helpless men were "blown apart in the water."
The murderous "double-tap" strike was needed, the Pentagon argued, to sink the boat and avoid a "navigation hazard” - a claim Rep. and Marine veteran Seth Moulton called "patently absurd," just like Trump's underlying "novel" claim the U.S. is in an "armed conflict" with oil-rich Venezuela' and its drug cartels. Despite American opposition, to date he's threatened ground strikes, hinted at regime change, and unilaterally declared Venezuelan airspace closed along with 83 killings so politically and legally dubious the U.K. has stopped sharing intelligence on traffic in the Caribbean to not be complicit. All this, despite a total lack of evidence the victims are drug traffickers or any accountability for their deaths, and the fact most potentially lethal fentanyl doesn't even come from the Caribbean. One pundit: "So what gave him the idea blowing up small boats in international waters was a thing?" Especially when, per Marcie Wheeler, it took four shots for these killer clowns to do the lawless dirty deed.
Inept Warrior Pete is on it anyway, damn near swooning from blood lust, with his ridiculous renaming stunt - "WAR.GOV/JOINTHEFIGHT - rabid calls for "lethality," firing of military Judge Advocate Generals who act as legal guardrails against possible future illegal commands (hmm), and queasy, chest-thumping zeal for the fight: "Trump ordered action - and the Department of War is delivering! Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR defends our Homeland!" The WaPo story of his verbal command to "kill everybody" shouldn't surprise anyone; it's part of the long, sordid, bellicose narrative arc of a laws-are-bullshit buffoon who only feels big if he makes others small, or per Trump, "like, dead," and can then brag about it. A wildly unqualified, uber-macho cartoon version of a weak man willing to do anything to prove he isn't, he fits right in with all the other flame-throwing hacks and sycophants now inexplicably handed the terrifying reins of power.
Meanwhile, the consensus of virtually every military expert or lawyer asked is that Hegseth is, by his actions, either a war criminal or a murderer. The legal bottom line: "There is no basis in law for the maritime attacks. Period. Full stop." Even if there were, international and US law render the targeting of defenseless persons - showing them "no quarter" - "patently illegal." They add, "Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both. There are no other options." And anyone who issues or follows those orders should be prosecuted. Many cite for reference a "textbook war crime," as in, "If we were at war, Hegseth committed one. If not, it's outright murder." Laurence Tribe, who taught law at Harvard for 50 years, helpfully adds that the DOD Law of War Manual, Sec. 18.3.2.1 includes the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders. Their example? "Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."
Also, in case anyone ever believed Trump's "war" was about drugs: Last week he pardoned former Honduran president and cocaine kingpin Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year in a US court to 45 years in prison for conspiring to traffic over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.; with his brother, he also helped turn Honduras into a major producing hub and transit point for cocaine heading to the US, and once said he wanted to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos." Trump's brazen flaunting of his "charade" of a drug war may be why even Newsmax (sadly) argues the strikes are war crimes, and Repubs on House and Senate Armed Services Committees say they may even do some oversight of this one crime among so many by their mad king; it remains unclear how many are willing to "fall on their swords" for the grossly incompetent, unsavory Hegseth.
South Park's latest, savage skewering of "fucking douchebag Pete Hegseth" may help them decide, or not. Trump sends him to town to free Peter Thiel; armed with his selfie stick but thrown out by the "woke" police chief, he teargasses the annual, Saudi-sponsored 5K Turkey Trot, mistaking the race for an Antifa mob; then he bickers with ICE Barbie - who shoots another dog livestreaming and yelling, "Like and subscribe, guys! The Department of War will not be intimidated!" Possibly confusing art with life, Hegseth tried Friday to sneeringly meme his way from the outrage by trashing "fake news," doubling down with, "We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists," and posting a grotesque, quickly blasted, parody of kids' icon Franklin the Turtle firing rockets at small boats. Up next: "Franklin Goes to the Hague For War Crimes" and "Franklin On Trial at the ICC."
The White House, meanwhile, feverishly tried to quiet the uproar. Press Barbie babbled the second strike was "in self-defense to protect Americans in vital United States interests" (sic) and insisted "presidentially-designated Narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting." Also, they suddenly found a scapegoat, Admiral Frank Bradley: "Bus, meet Admiral Bradley. Admiral Bradley, meet bus." Hegseth "authorized Adm Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. (He) worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated," said Barbie, a renowned scholar of maritime law. Pete's stupid, rank deceit reportedly set off "furious backlash" at the Pentagon. "He is selling out Bradley and sending chills down the spines of his chain of command," said Sen. Chris Murphy. "A case study in how not to lead."
The morning after the Sept. 3 attack, Hegseth told Fox News he tracked the strike in real time: "I watched it live." At Tuesday's Cabinet circle jerk, Trump dozed from his night's hypomanic episode of rage-posting160 times, and Pete's story slimily shifted. As the big boy leader, he said, of course "you want to own that responsibility." So he saw the first strike, but "at the Dept.of War we got alotta things to do," and he had, umm, a thing, so he didn’t stay for "the hour and two hours or whatever where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs" yada yada. Huh. Hours later, he learned "the commander had made the - which he had the complete authority to do" whoosh under the bus and "we have his back." Asked if he saw survivors, he lost it: "The thing was on fire. This is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices, plant fake stories, nit pick, kill everybody, not based on anything, American heroes, I wrote a book, yada yada, go war fighters!
Wait. "The fog of war"? You mean the fog of bullshit? You mean the cloud of smoke you see in your own air-conditioned office far away as drones on a screen incinerate small boats and the poor souls in them, also the rare survivor who desperately hangs on in the flames and water until you flick a blithe switch to kill him too? That fog of "war"? Fuck you, you gutless vapid self-serving ghoul, whining and snarling you're all doing "what is necessary, dark and difficult things (on) behalf of the American people." Right. On Tuesday, the Columbian family of one victim filed the first court petition charging their husband and father, Alejandro Carranza Medina, 42, was illegally killed in a 2nd US strike on Sept. 15. They said he was a fisher who often set out for marlin and tuna; they named Trump and Hegseth as his killers. Trump had bragged that day of "a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and terrorists." He said they were "from Venezuela."
Update: Good news from The Borowitz Report for the Manchild King: The Hague has invited him to receive an award. "They said it was in response to things I've done as president," he boasted, before nodding off.
Flooding Kills 1,000+ Across South Asia as Climate Crisis Fuels More Extreme Rain
More than 1,100 people across South Asia have died after torrential rains fueled by warming temperatures caused widespread flooding and landslides in recent days.
Following days of unprecedented cyclone conditions, people across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have been left with their homes destroyed and forced to flee for their lives. A separate cyclone in Sri Lanka has left hundreds more dead.
The worst devastation has been seen in Indonesia, where Cyclone Senyar has claimed over 500 lives as of Sunday. On the island of Sumatra, rescue teams have struggled to reach stranded people as roads have been blocked by mudslides and high floodwaters. Many areas are still reportedly unreachable.
As Reuters reported Monday, more than 28,000 homes have been damaged across the country and 1.4 million people affected, according to government figures. At least 464 were reported missing as of Sunday.
Other countries in the region were also battered. In Thailand, the death toll was reported at 176 as of Monday, and more than 3 million people are reported to be affected. The worst destruction has been in the southern city of Hat Yai, which on November 21 alone experienced 335mm of rain, its single largest recorded rainfall in over 300 years.
At least two more have been killed in Malaysia, where nearly 12,000 people still remain in evacuation centers.
Sri Lanka has witnessed similar devastation in recent days from another storm, Cyclone Ditwah, that formed around the same time as Senyar. Floods and mudslides have similarly killed at least 330 people, and destroyed around 20,000 homes, while leaving around a third of the country without electricity. More than 200 people are missing, and over 108,000 are in state-run shelters, officials say.
Work has begun in Indonesia to restore damaged roads, bridges, and telecommunication services. But after he visited survivors in Sumatra, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said that the work will extend beyond merely recovering from the storm.
“We need to confront climate change effectively,” Prabowo told reporters. “Local governments must take a significant role in safeguarding the environment and preparing for the extreme weather conditions that will arise from future climate change.”
Southeast Asia was top-of-mind for many attendees at last month's COP30 climate summit in Brazil. As Winston Chow, a professor of urban climate at Singapore Management University and part of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Straits Times, this is because the region "is highly vulnerable to climate change."
"As a whole, it faces multiple climate risks and hazards, such as rising temperatures, sea-level rise, increasing droughts and floods, and the intensification of extreme events like typhoons," he continued.
In recent years, the region has been hit by annual devastating heatwaves, resulting in record-shattering temperatures. In Myanmar, where temperatures exceeded 110°F last April, Radio Free Asia reported that 1,473 people died from extreme heat in just one month.
Floods have likewise grown more deadly in recent years. Just this month, floods killed dozens more people in Vietnam, and a pair of typhoons killed hundreds more in the Philippines and forced over a million people to evacuate their homes.
While it's difficult to determine the extent to which any one disaster was caused by climate change, in aggregate, they are growing more intense as the planet warms.
"As the world’s oceans and atmosphere warm at an accelerating rate due to the rise in greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, tropical cyclones are expected to become more intense," explained Steve Turton, an adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity Australia in The Conversation on Sunday. "This is because cyclones get their energy from warm oceans. The warmer the ocean, the more fuel for the storm."
According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, October 2025 was the third-warmest October on record globally and had above-average tropical cyclone activity.
"The warming atmosphere is supercharging the global water cycle, and peak rainfall rates are increasing," Turton said. "When more rain falls in a short time, flash flooding becomes more likely."
At COP30, protesters from across Southeast Asia assembled to demand action from global leaders. On November 10, shortly after her home in Manila was battered by a pair of typhoons, 25-year-old activist Ellenor Bartolome savaged corporations and world leaders who have continued to block global action to reduce fossil fuel usage.
“It gets worse every year, and for every disaster, it is utterly enraging that we are counting hundreds of bodies, hundreds of missing people... while the elite and the corporations are counting money from fossil fuels," she told attendees as they entered the conference.
Ultimately, many climate activists and scientists left the conference enraged yet again, as the final agreement stripped out all language related to fossil fuels.
Trump Admin Threatens Blue State SNAP Funds Unless They Turn Over Recipient Data
The Trump administration is threatening to strip away funds used to provide food assistance to poor Americans in Democrat-led states beginning next week, unless they provide information identifying who receives benefits.
At a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said states would be denied the ability to access billions of dollars that Congress has appropriated to administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), unless they provide the federal government with personal information—including names, Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, and immigration status—of aid recipients.
SNAP provides Americans with incomes below 130% of the federal poverty line with roughly $6 per day on average to pay for food. Roughly 1 in 8 Americans—over 42 million—rely on the program. Rollins originally ordered states to provide this information to the government in May in what she said was an effort to verify the eligibility of those receiving benefits.
“As of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer,” Rollins said Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, 29 states had provided the information, but many Democratic ones, including New York and California, had not. Rollins claimed that those states were choosing to "protect illegals, criminals, and bad actors over the American taxpayer.”
While the benefits paid to individuals would not be cut, states that don't comply stand to lose millions of dollars that they use to administer the program, which could delay benefits and force them to push some recipients off the program.
In its efforts to enact sweeping cuts to social safety net programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies, the Trump administration has often fallen back on false claims that the services are being abused by ineligible people, including undocumented immigrants.
"Undocumented immigrants are not eligible to receive federal benefits under [SNAP]," explained Melissa Cruz of the American Immigration Council in November. "However, SNAP benefits are provided to households rather than individuals. If, for example, the head of a household is undocumented, they may still apply for SNAP benefits for their U.S. citizen children. But benefits are calculated based on the number of eligible people in the household, so the assistance would only cover the US citizen children—not the entire household.”
Rollins has elsewhere claimed that 186,000 deceased individuals receive benefits, while 500,000 individuals receive duplicate benefits, citing it as evidence of fraud. But as the current US Department of Agriculture website explains, these are the result of administrative efforts—such as states being slow to update eligibility rolls when recipients die or move to a new state. The USDA says that over the past 15 years, it has reduced the prevalence of illegal benefit trafficking in SNAP from 4% to 1%.
The USDA's order comes on the heels of the largest cut to SNAP in the program's history. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by Trump in July, cut funding to the program by roughly 20%.
Like with other programs, Rollins suggested on Tuesday that the goal of USDA's order was not simply to root out "fraud," but to further slash Americans' benefits: “As [former President] Joe Biden was working to buy an election a year ago, he increased food stamp program funding by 40%, so now... we continue to roll that back,” she said.
Rollins' 40% claim is also an exaggeration; according to an estimate by the Cato Institute last month, the spending increase was actually about 21%.
Like President Donald Trump's previous efforts to deny SNAP benefits to states during this fall's government shutdown, the USDA's order has run into legal hurdles.
After 22 states sued, a federal judge in San Francisco, Maxine Chesney, issued a preliminary injunction in October blocking the administration from demanding the data.
Chesney found that these actions likely violated the SNAP Act, which says that states are only allowed to release data related to administering the program. She also found that states would likely succeed in their argument that the administration might illegally share the data with other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, to aid mass deportation efforts.
Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP director at the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center, told the Washington Post that the USDA's demands for this data were likely illegal.
“The federal law restricts USDA access to this,” Plata-Nino said. “The agency has always relied on anonymized data or small samples to perform oversight… Them saying, ‘We’re going to go ahead and remove this funding,’ it’s just so unprecedented.”
The Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee accused Trump and Rollins of "illegally threatening to withhold federal dollars."
"SNAP has one of the lowest fraud rates of any government program, but Trump continues to weaponize hunger," they said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), whose state had nearly 3 million food stamp recipients as of 2024, asked why Trump was again threatening to strip the state of SNAP funding after his previous attack on the program during the shutdown.
"Genuine question: Why is the Trump administration so hellbent on people going hungry?” Hochul asked.
Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst who focuses on SNAP and other antipoverty programs at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that while cutting funds, Trump has also scrapped the nation's most comprehensive food insecurity survey, the Household Food Security Report, which would measure the effects of those cuts on Americans.
“The Trump administration’s approach,” Bergh said, “has been enacting the deepest cuts to food assistance in history, needlessly disrupting SNAP benefits during the government shutdown, and terminating the most reliable measure of food insecurity to hide the consequences of those decisions.”
Medicare for All Sees Key Polling Shift as Americans Fume Over Surging For-Profit Insurance Premiums
With Affordable Care Act premiums surging and lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle scrambling to cobble together a last-minute fix, recent polling data shows that a strong majority of the American public supports a transformative proposal that few members of Congress are vocally advocating.
Data for Progress released survey results late last month showing that 65% of likely US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—either strongly or somewhat support "creating a national health insurance program, sometimes called 'Medicare for All,' that would cover all Americans and replace most private health insurance plans."
Overall support for such a system dropped just two percentage points when survey respondents were informed that Medicare for All would replace insurance premiums with higher taxes, abolish most private insurance, and eliminate copays and deductibles. In an analysis posted last week, The Lever's David Sirota observed that those results are a shift from earlier polling showing a sharp decline in support for Medicare for All once respondents were told the proposal would wipe out private insurance.
"That might have been the end of Medicare for All for another generation—except now the ACA is epically and undeniably failing to guarantee 'affordable' healthcare," Sirota wrote. "As private health insurers are now jacking up premiums for tens of millions of Americans, a new poll shows a huge majority of Americans now want Medicare for All—even if it entails eliminating private insurers and raising taxes."
The Data for Progress survey came as Republican and Democratic lawmakers continued floating temporary, Band-Aid solutions to avert catastrophic premium increases stemming in large part from the looming expiration of enhanced ACA tax credits, which lapse at the end of the year.
A new poll released Thursday by KFF found that "six in ten adults (61%) who buy their health coverage on the ACA marketplace say it is very or somewhat difficult to afford their deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for medical care."
"When asked what they would do if the amount they pay for health insurance each month doubled, one in three enrollees (32%) say they are very likely to shop for a lower-premium plan (with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs), and one in four (25%) say they would be very likely to go uninsured," KFF noted.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday pitched a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies ahead of a planned vote next week—a proposal that Republicans are certain to oppose.
On the Republican side, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)—who is linked to the largest Medicare fraud case in US history—is convening a group of Republican lawmakers to craft a likely dead-on-arrival ACA alternative that would implement some proposals floated by President Donald Trump, including new savings accounts that critics say would further enrich banks and insurance giants.
Scott warned in a statement to Axios earlier this week that "the more Republicans refuse to engage on this issue, the more we allow radical Democrats to lead our country on a slow creep towards the Socialist single-payer healthcare system they've always wanted."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), meanwhile, is reportedly planning to finalize a healthcare bill early next week, though no details were immediately available.
There's also a bipartisan framework led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), which calls for a one-year extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits "with targeted modifications," including intensified means-testing that would phase out the subsidies for those with incomes between 600% and 1,000% of the federal poverty level.
The Medicare for All Act, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) in the House, would have no such means-testing, guaranteeing comprehensive coverage to all for free at the point of service.
"Everybody recognizes that our current healthcare system is broken. That’s why over 60% of the American people support Medicare for All," Sanders said at a rally with nurses in the nation's capital on Wednesday. "The day will come when working-class Americans will be able to go to the doctor, dentist, or a nursing home without having to worry about the cost. We’re going to win this fight."
'Where Is Yuanxin?' 6-Year-Old Missing in DHS Custody After ICE Separated Him From Father at Check-In
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams on Thursday said the Trump administration continues to tell the "cruel lie" that it does not separate children from their families in immigration enforcement, as he joined other city officials and advocates in demanding the Department of Homeland Security immediately release a six-year-old boy who was taken from his father during an immigration check-in in Manhattan more than a week ago.
"Six-year-old asylum-seeker Yuanxin has been separated from his father, held at an undisclosed location," said Williams.
As The City reported Tuesday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Yuanxin's father, Fei, when they arrived at 26 Federal Plaza—the ICE headquarters and immigration court that's become notorious for federal agents' violent treatment of immigrants and advocates under President Donald Trump—on November 26.
Fei, who sought asylum when he and his son crossed the US border in April, was sent to Orange County Jail in New York, while his son, a public school student in Queens, was separated from him. ICE agents did not tell Fei where they were taking Yuanxin.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, said in a statement this week that while agents were attempting to take Fei north to Orange County, he "was acting so disruptive and aggressive that he endangered the child’s well-being." She accused him of attempting to "escape and abandon his son."
While acknowledging that the two had been separated, McLaughlin said, "ICE does not separate families.”
A judge "administratively closed" the family's asylum case in September, The City reported, which "would have been seen as a positive step and indicated that DHS wasn’t actively seeking the person’s deportation" under previous administrations.
They were also released on a yearlong parole after having been previously detained, and were required to visit 26 Federal Plaza for check-ins with ICE.
According to the Deportation Data Project, at least 151 children under the age of 18 have been arrested and detained by ICE since January.
Diana Moreno, an immigrant rights advocate who is running for the state Assembly in District 36, spoke to CBS News on Tuesday about Yuanxin's detention.
"To see their classmates disappear overnight is something that no parent wants to explain to their kid why this is happening," said Moreno.
The New York Immigration Coalition also demanded that the father and son "be reunited with each other immediately," while Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani condemned the Trump administration's "cruelty."
"Six-year-old Yuanxin had just enrolled in the first grade at an elementary school in Astoria," said Mamdani. "Now he's in custody, alone. ICE won't say where. This cruelty serves no one. It must end."
Chuck Park, a candidate for US Congress in New York's 6th District, also in Queens, said Yuanxin "looks like my son did at that age."
"Big glasses. Sweet smile," said Park. "Now alone, scared at an unknown ICE detention center. Taken from his dad at a routine check-in. This is what we're fighting against. This kid is who we're fighting for."
Top Dem Says Video of Military 'Attacking Shipwrecked Sailors' Among 'Most Troubling Things' He Has Ever Seen
US Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed horror on Thursday after watching a video of the September 2 double-tap strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.
Speaking to reporters after a briefing on the strike delivered by Adm. Frank Bradley, Himes (D-Conn.) called the video he saw of the attack "one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service."
Himes proceeded to describe the video, which showed the US military firing missiles at two men who had survived an initial attack on their vessel and who were floating in the water while clinging to debris.
"You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, [who] were killed by the United States," he said.
Himes then started to walk away before a reporter asked him to describe more of what he saw in the video. The Connecticut Democrat then said the video showed a clear "impermissible action," according to the laws of armed conflict.
"Any American who sees the video that I saw will see its military attacking shipwrecked sailors," he said. "Now, there's a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in position to continue their mission in any way... People will someday see this video and they will see that that video shows, if you don't have the broader context, an attack on shipwrecked sailors."
Himes finished his talk with reporters by saying that Bradley told lawmakers there had not been a "kill them all" or “no quarter” order given to him by higher-ups. Asked by a reporter if he thought the full video should be released to the public, Himes said, "I do."
Himes' reaction to the video stood in stark contrast to the reaction of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who praised the military for its actions.
According to HuffPost reporter Jen Bendery, Cotton described the strikes on the two survivors as "righteous strikes" that were "entirely lawful."
Cotton also claimed that the video showed "two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs, bound for the United States, back over, so they could stay in the fight."
Reports from the US government and the United Nations have not identified Venezuela as a significant source of drugs that enter the United States, and the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the primary cause of drug overdoses in the US.
Additionally, many legal scholars have said that a strike on the two men who survived the initial attack on the boat is very likely either an act of murder or a war crime, regardless of whether they were intending to traffic illegal drugs in the US.
After Trump Vow to Intervene, Kushner Linked to Paramount's Hostile Bid for Warner Bros.
"The correct option is neither Paramount nor Netflix buy Warner," said one antitrust advocate.
Paramount Skydance on Monday launched a hostile bid to take over Warner Bros. Discovery shortly after US President Donald Trump publicly expressed skepticism of Netflix's proposed deal to acquire parts of the media company—and pledged to intervene in the federal review process.
"It is a big market share, there’s no question about it," Trump said late Sunday of Netflix's proposed $83 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) film studio and streaming business.
"I’ll be involved in that decision," the president added.
Hours after Trump's comments, Paramount CEO David Ellison—the son of billionaire GOP megadonor and close Trump ally Larry Ellison—announced the hostile bid to buy WBD, attempting to subvert the Netflix deal by taking an all-cash, $30-per-share offer directly to Warner Bros. shareholders.
Observers expressed alarm over the seeming coordination between the president and Paramount's chief executive as the fight over Warner Bros. escalates. Trump reportedly favored Paramount to win the bidding war for WBD, which owns CNN, HBO Max, and other major assets.
Axios reported Monday that "Affinity Partners, the private equity firm led by Jared Kushner, is part of Paramount's hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, according to a regulatory filing."
"Affinity Partners was not mentioned in Paramount's press release on Monday morning about its $108 billion bid," Axios noted, "nor were participating sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar."
Ellison was reportedly at the White House last week urging the Trump administration to block Netflix's bid for WBD.
Speaking to CNBC on Monday, Ellison said that "we've had great conversations with the president about" Paramount—which controls CBS News thanks to a merger that the Trump administration approved—potentially becoming the owner of CNN, a frequent target of Trump's vitriol.
CNBC: Do you think the president embraces the idea of you being the owner of CNN given his criticism for that network?
DAVID ELLISON: Ah -- we've had great conversations with the president about this but I don't want to speak for him in any way, shape, or form pic.twitter.com/FdwBzfP3eO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2025
Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, said in response to Ellison's remarks that "the correct option is neither Paramount nor Netflix buy Warner."
"The president inserting himself in the deal is obviously problematic, regardless of the parties involved," said Hegde. "If Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, who Trump called a great person, finds a way to appease him, that is also not good!"
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) expressed similar concerns about Trump's potential corruption of the regulatory process. The proposed Netflix deal is expected to face a review by the US Justice Department's Antitrust Division, where top officials were recently ousted for "insubordination" amid criticism of agency leaders' corporate-friendly approach to merger enforcement.
"Is that an open invite for CEOs to curry favor with Trump in exchange for merger approvals?" Warren asked after Trump pledged to insert himself into the Netflix-WBD review process.
"It should be an independent decision by the Department of Justice based on the law and facts," added Warren, who called the Netflix-WBD deal "an anti-monopoly nightmare."
ICE Goons Pepper Spray Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva During Tucson Raid
"If federal agents are brazen enough to fire pellets directly at a member of Congress, imagine how they behave when encountering defenseless members of our community," Grijalva said.
In what Arizona's attorney general slammed as an "unacceptable and outrageous" act of "unchecked aggression," a federal immigration officer fired pepper spray toward recently sworn-in Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva during a Friday raid on a Tucson restaurant.
Grijalva (D-Ariz.) wrote on social media that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers "just conducted a raid by Taco Giro in Tucson—a small mom-and-pop restaurant that has served our community for years."
"When I presented myself as a member of Congress asking for more information, I was pushed aside and pepper sprayed," she added.
Grijalva said in a video uploaded to the post that she was "sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent, pushed around by others, when I literally was not being aggressive, I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of Congress."
The video shows Grijalva among a group of protesters who verbally confronted federal agents over the raid. Following an order to "clear," an agent is seen firing what appears to be a pepper ball at the ground very near the congresswoman's feet. Video footage also shows agents deploying gas against the crowd.
"They're targeting small mom-and-pop businesses that don't have the financial resources to fight back," Grijalva told reporters after the incident. "They're targeting small businesses and people that are helping in our communities in order to try to fill the quota that [President Donald] Trump has given them."
Mocking the incident on social media, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin contended that Grijalva "wasn’t pepper sprayed."
"She was in the vicinity of someone who *was* pepper sprayed as they were obstructing and assaulting law enforcement," she added. "In fact, two law enforcement officers were seriously injured by this mob that [Grijalva] joined."
McLaughlin provided no further details regarding the nature of those injuries.
Democrats in Arizona and beyond condemned Friday's incident, with US Sen. Ruben Gallego writing on social media that Grijalva "was doing her job, standing up for her community."
"Pepper spraying a sitting member of Congress is disgraceful, unacceptable, and absolutely not what we voted for," he added. "Period."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said on social media: "This is unacceptable and outrageous. Enforcing the rule of law does not mean pepper spraying a member of Congress for simply asking questions. Effective law enforcement requires restraint and accountability, not unchecked aggression."
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also weighed in on social media, calling the incident "outrageous."
"Rep. Grijalva was completely within her rights to stand up for her constituents," she added. "ICE is completely lawless."
Friday's incident follows federal agents' violent removal of Sen. Alexa Padilla (D-Calif.) from a June press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Congresswoman LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) was federally indicted in June for allegedly “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers" during an oversight visit at a privately operated migrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey and subsequent confrontation with ICE agents outside of the lockup in which US Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman and Rob Menendez, both New Jersey Democrats, were also involved.
Violent assaults by federal agents on suspected undocumented immigrants—including US citizens—protesters, journalists, and others are a regular occurrence amid the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.
"If federal agents are brazen enough to fire pellets directly at a member of Congress, imagine how they behave when encountering defenseless members of our community," Grijalva said late Friday on social media. "It’s time for Congress to rein in this rogue agency NOW."
Gavin Newsom Wants a 'Big Tent Party,' But Opposes Wealth Tax Supported by Large Majority of Americans
"A wealth tax is a big tent policy unless the only people you care about are billionaires," said one progressive organizer.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, considered by some to be the frontrunner to be the next Democratic presidential nominee, said during a panel on Wednesday that he wants his party to be a “big tent” that welcomes large numbers of people into the fold. But he’s “adamantly against” one of the most popular proposals Democrats have to offer: a wealth tax.
In October, progressive economists Emmanuel Saez and Robert Reich joined forces with one of California's most powerful unions, the Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers West, to propose that California put the nation’s first-ever wealth tax on the ballot in November 2026.
They described the measure as an "emergency billionaires tax" aimed at recouping the tens of billions of dollars that will be stripped from California's 15 million Medicaid recipients over the next five years, after Republicans enacted historic cuts to the program in July with President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which dramatically reduced taxes for the wealthiest Americans.
Among those beneficiaries were the approximately 200 billionaires living in California, whose average annual income, Saez pointed out, has risen by 7.5% per year, compared with 1.5% for median-income residents.
Under the proposal, they would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total net worth, which is estimated to raise $100 billion. The vast majority of the funds, about 90%, would be used to restore Medicaid funding, while the rest would go towards funding K-12 education, which the GOP has also slashed.
The proposal in California has strong support from unions and healthcare groups. But Newsom has called it “bad policy” and “another attempt to grab money for special purposes.”
Meanwhile, several of his longtime consultants, including Dan Newman and Brian Brokaw, have launched a campaign alongside “business and tech leaders” to kill the measure, which they’ve dubbed “Stop the Squeeze." They've issued familiar warnings that pinching the wealthy too hard will drive them from the state, along with the critical tax base they provide.
At Wednesday's New York Times DealBook Summit, Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Newsom about his opposition to the wealth tax idea, comparing it to a proposal by recent New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who pledged to increase the income taxes of New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million per year by 2% in order to fund his city-wide free buses, universal childcare, and city-owned grocery store programs.
Mamdani's proposal was met with a litany of similar warnings from Big Apple bigwigs who threatened to flee the city and others around the country who said they'd never move in.
But as Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein explained in October for the American Prospect: "The evidence for this is thin: mostly memes shared by tech and finance people... Research shows that the truth of the matter is closer to the opposite. Wealthy individuals and their income move at lower rates than other income brackets, even in response to an increase of personal income tax." Many of those who sulked about Mamdani's victory have notably begun making amends with the incoming mayor.
Moreover, the comparison between Mamdani's plan and the one proposed in California is faulty to begin with. As Harold Meyerson explained, also for the Prospect: "It is a one-time-only tax, to be levied exclusively on billionaires’ current (i.e., 2025) net worth. Even if they move to Tasmania, they will still be liable for 5% of this year’s net worth."
"Crucially, the tax won’t crimp the fortunes of any billionaire who moves into the state next year or any later year, as it only applies to the billionaires living in the state this year," he added. "Therefore... the horrific specter of billionaire flight can’t be levied against the California proposal."
Nevertheless, Sorkin framed Newsom as being in an existential battle of ideas with Mamdani, asking how the two could both represent the Democratic Party when they are so "diametrically opposed."
"Well, I want to be a big-tent party," Newsom replied. "It's about addition, not subtraction."
Pushed on the question of whether there should be a "unifying theory of the case," Newsom responded that “we all want to be protected, we all want to be respected, we all want to be connected to something bigger than ourselves. We have fundamental values that I think define our party, about social justice, economic justice.”
"We have pre-distribution Democrats, and we have re-distribution Democrats," he continued. "Therein lies the dialectic and therein lies the debate."
Polling is scarce so far on the likelihood of such a measure passing in California. But nationally, polls suggest that the vast majority of Democrats fall on the "re-distribution" side of Newsom's "dialectic." In fact, the majority of all Americans do, regardless of party affiliation.
Last year, Inequality.org examined 55 national and state polls about a number of different taxation policies and found:
A billionaire income tax garnered the most support across party identification. On average, two out of three (67%) of Americans supported the tax including 84% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.
In national polls, a wealth tax had similarly high levels of support. More than three out of five Americans supported the tax including 78% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.
That sentiment only seems to have grown since the return of President Donald Trump. An Economist/YouGov poll released in early November found that 72% of Americans said that taxes on billionaires should be raised—including 95% of Democrats, 75% of independents, and 48% of Republicans. Across the board, just 15% said they should not be raised.
Support remains high when the proposal is more specific as well. On the eve of Mamdani's election, despitre months of fearmongering, 64% of New Yorkers said they backed his proposal, including a slight plurality of self-identified conservatives, according to a Siena College poll.
Many observers were perplexed by how Newsom proposes to maintain a “big tent” while opposing policies supported by most of the people inside it.
"A wealth tax is a big tent policy unless the only people you care about are billionaires," wrote Jonathan Cohn, the political director for Progressive Mass, a grassroots organization in Massachusetts, on social media.
"Gavin Newsom—estimated net worth between $20 and $30 million—says he's opposed to a billionaire wealth tax. Color me shocked," wrote the Columbia University lecturer Anthony Zenkus. "Democrats holding him up as a potential savior for 2028 is a clear example of not reading the room."