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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, uppity Democratic lawmaker and veterans who dared post a brief video reminding the military of their oaths to follow all laws and if needed disobey orders that don't - a bedrock tenet of the military 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: 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 - Whiskey Pete, the preening, fragile, manly creator of the War Dept. famed for strutting on stages to spout lethal 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 gotten "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 appointment, savaged as "an affront" to anyone who ever served, especially after he leaked war plans. Veterans viscerated him as "an absolute jackass," "an imposter," "a coward," "a blowhard" in makeup, "that officer, a total blue falcon" who screws his comrades. So did pols. 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: "He runs around on stage talking about lethality and the warrior ethos (like) a 12-year-old playing army, and it is ridiculous. It is embarrassing. This is not a serious person." He noted the "wild" irony of Hegseth going after him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is what the six traitors recited: "You can't make this shit up." He posted an image of his 20-plus medals to explain how he'd served and loved this country. In response, nasty little 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, 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."
This is what he's been busy doing. This is who this petty macho arrogant sadist 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." In moments, the two helpless men were "blown apart in the water."
The "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 "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 the 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 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 dumb 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 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. An over-the-top, uber-macho cartoon version of a weak man willing to do anything to get by, he fits right in with all the regime's other flame-throwing hacks and sycophants.
Meanwhile, the consensus of 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 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 key 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."
‘Who Wants to Live Like This?’ Locals Fume as Meta AI Data Center Upends Entire Community
The tiny town of Holly Ridge, Louisiana will soon be home to a massive $27 billion artificial intelligence data center being built by Facebook parent company Meta that, when finished, will be the largest in the world.
However, residents of Holly Ridge do not feel honored that they are at the epicenter of Meta's ambitious data center buildout, which they say has upended their entire community.
As reported by New Orleans-based public radio station WWNO last week, the nonstop parade of trucks driving through Holly Ridge has led to a 600% increase in vehicle crashes over the last year, including three truck crashes that occurred just outside Holly Ridge Elementary School.
Penelope Hull, a fourth-grade student at the school, told WWNO that the data center construction trucks are highly disruptive to learning even on days when they don't get into accidents, as they often cause the classroom walls to shake.
"You can't pay attention," she said. "And then you get off track and you lose what the teacher was telling you to do."
Hull also said that the school has had to shut down its playground out of concern that Meta construction trucks will crash into children playing during recess.
The threat of trucks crashing into schools isn't the only problem that the data center has brought. Local residents Joseph and Robin Williams told WWNO that they've noticed their tap water is frequently rust colored since Meta started building the data center, and they say their electricity frequently goes off for hours on end with no warning.
Similar issues were documented by progressive media outlet More Perfect Union, which sent its reporters down to Holly Ridge and found residents felt their concerns were being completely ignored by both Meta and their local elected officials.
"We had no voting on it, no community meetings, no nothing," one local woman told More Perfect Union. "It was done all under the table."
Another local resident told More Perfect Union that Holly Ridge has become "totally different" ever since Meta began AI data center construction.
"Who wants to live like this?" he asked as he looked on at more construction trucks barreling through the community.
Zuckerberg is building a data center in Louisiana the size of Manhattan — while Meta runs ads about how small towns love their data centers, we found furious locals who plan to leave town completely. pic.twitter.com/xHLG4KJMLO
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) November 19, 2025
According to a Monday report in the Wall Street Journal, the massive Meta Louisiana data center is being funded through debt that is being papered over with accounting gimmicks that the paper notes are likely "too good to be true."
Specifically, the Journal said that Meta has created a joint venture known as a variable interest entity with investment manager Blue Owl Capital, in which Meta will rent the data center for up to 20 years as a way to keep the debt from its construction off its books.
"This lease structure minimizes the lease liabilities and related assets Meta will recognize, and enables Meta to use 'operating lease,' rather than 'finance lease,' treatment," the Journal explained. "If Meta used the latter, it would look more like Meta owns the asset and is financing it with debt."
However, the report noted that Meta is relying on "some convenient assumptions" in justifying its use of this accounting tactic, some of which "appear implausible" and "are in tension with one another," which makes it hard to justify keeping debt from the data center off its books.
"Ultimately, the fact pattern Meta relies on to meet its conflicting objectives strains credibility," reports the Journal. "To believe Meta’s books, one must accept that Meta lacks the power to call the shots that matter most, that there’s reasonable doubt it will stay beyond four years, and that it probably won’t have to honor its guarantee—all at the same time."
Commenting on the Journal's story about the data center financing, Wired editor Tim Marchman described it in a post on Bluesky as "the equivalent of a 500-foot neon sign reading 'FRAUD.'"
A Global Message to TikTok: Stop Your Profit Model of 'Toxic and Addictive' Content for Kids
A group of digital activists is set to deliver a message to social media giant TikTok on Tuesday to clean up its "toxic and addictive" business model.
The petition, which has more than 170,000 signatures and is being circulated by human rights watchdog Amnesty International, will be delivered to TikTok's office in Dublin, Ireland by activists Mary Kate Harten and Trinity Kendi of Ireland; Abril Perazzini of Argentina; and Noe Hamon of France.
In the petition, Amnesty accuses TikTok of becoming "a space that is more and more toxic and addictive," and can potentially harm the "self-image, mental health, well-being of younger users."
Amnesty International campaigner Zahra Asif Razvi said that the petition is demanding that TikTok completely redo its business model to be built around user safety.
"These signatures represent a global demand for TikTok to replace its current business model of an app that is addictive by design with one that is safe by design," she said. "TikTok must make its platform safe for children and young people to socialize, learn and access information and not be harmed."
The human rights group says that its own research released last month shows that TikTok prioritizes user engagement over safety, and will often send young users to videos featuring "depression, self-harm and suicide content" on its platform.
Lisa Dittmer, Amnesty International's researcher on children and young people's digital rights, explained that teen users who express interest in content related to mental health can be pulled into "toxic rabbit holes" that glorify self-harm.
"Within just three to four hours of engaging with TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed, teenage test accounts were exposed to videos that romanticized suicide or showed young people expressing intentions to end their lives, including information on suicide methods," she explained. "The testimonies of young people and bereaved parents in France reveal how TikTok normalized and exacerbated self-harm and suicidal ideation up to the point of recommending content on 'suicide challenges.'"
Amnesty's petition comes one week after the American Psychological Association (APA) published research that accumulated data collected in more than 70 other studies and found that excessive use of short-form video apps such as TikTok and Instagram "is associated with poorer cognitive and mental health in both youths and adults."
The research's findings were particularly troublesome concerning the impacts on young people's cognitive development, as they found that "repeated exposure to highly stimulating, fast-paced content may contribute to habituation, in which users become desensitized to slower, more effortful cognitive tasks such as reading, problem solving, or deep learning."
The APA's study found that having the ability to swipe away from videos that don't offer instant gratification "could support a pattern of rapid disengagement from stimuli that do not provide immediate novelty or excitement," and thus "may diminish attentional control and reduce the capacity for sustained cognitive engagement, as cognitive processing becomes increasingly oriented toward brief, high-reward interactions rather than extended, goal-directed tasks."
GOP Spending Law Gives Corporations $16 Billion in Retroactive Tax Breaks: Analysis
Corporations are likely to claim $16 in fresh tax breaks on expenditures made before the passage of the budget legislation signed earlier this year by US President Donald Trump, according to an analysis by a nonpartisan congressional committee released Tuesday.
The analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)—a panel composed of five members each from the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee—came in response to a September query from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) regarding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's (OBBBA) extension of full bonus depreciation, a tax-savings tool allowing businesses to automatically deduct costs of qualifying assets.
As Warren explained in her letter, full bonus depreciation enables corporations "to immediately deduct some or all of the cost of new business investments, such as the purchase of manufacturing equipment, software, and furniture, rather than deducting those costs over the estimated lifetime of those assets."
"This policy was first implemented in 2010 as an intended temporary economic stimulus in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and Congress allowed it to expire the following year," Warren noted.
"However, President Trump’s 2017 tax law reinstated 100% bonus depreciation from 2018 through 2022 in what amounted to a massive corporate giveaway," the senator continued, highlighting nearly $67 billion in tax savings for more than two dozen corporations including Google, Facebook, UPS, and Target.
"And after extensive lobbying from billionaire-funded right-wing lobbying groups, the OBBBA reinstated 100% bonus depreciation permanently to the tune of hundreds of billions of more dollars over the next decade," Warren added.
Applying retroactively to capital expenditures since January 19, corporate tax deductions under the OBBBA's reinstatement of the full bonus depreciation will cost $16 billion in lost federal revenue, according to the JCT's analysis. The tool has been hailed as game-changer for Bitcoin miners, who can write off 100% of hardware costs in the year of purchase.
The OBBBA provision allows firms to use the deduction to write off certain qualifying business-related properties, such as corporate jets. Meanwhile, millions of lower-income US households are suffering from the law's unprecedented cuts to vital social programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
While proponents of the full bonus depreciation argue that large corporations benefit most from the tool because they make up the lion's share of investments, critics point out that such breaks are generally poor investment incentives because they are applied after companies have already made their spending decisions.
“Thanks to Donald Trump and Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill, giant corporations will win big while American families see their costs skyrocket," Warren said Tuesday in response to the JCT analysis. "Next year, the federal government will spend over five times more on these tax handouts for billionaire corporations than it spends each year on childcare."
"Time and time again, Donald Trump and Republicans have made clear that they stand with billionaires and billionaire corporations—not American families," she added.
Numerous corporations taking advantage of the full bonus depreciation have paid effective federal corporate tax rates far below the statutory 21%, according to a 2023 analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).
One tax expert called the deduction "a cheat code to saving millions in taxes," as thousands of companies have dodged paying their fair share by effectively reducing their income to zero, or even making it negative.
As Warren noted Tuesday, "over 80% of the 100% bonus depreciation claimed by corporations from 2018-22 went to companies with over $1 billion in yearly income," while "99% of bonus depreciation benefits went to corporations making over $1 million annually."
ITEP federal policy director Steve Wamhoff told the Washington Post Tuesday that “it is quite obvious that if an incentive is retroactive, it is not actually an effective incentive."
“You cannot change what a company did in the past, so that half-year of retroactive effect of the provision is just a windfall to companies," Wamhoff added. "That part is just ridiculous.”
'This Is the Scandal': DHS Data Show ICE Mostly Targeting People With No Criminal Convictions
The libertarian Cato Institute this week further undermined the Trump administration's claims that it is targeting "the worst of the worst" with its violent immigration operations in communities across the United States by publishing data about the criminal histories—or lack thereof—of immigrants who have been arrested and booked into detention.
David J. Bier, the institute's director of immigration studies, previously reported in June that 65% of people taken by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had no convictions, and 93% had no violent convictions.
Monday evening, Bier shared a new nonpublic dataset leaked to Cato. Of the 44,882 people booked into ICE custody from when the fiscal year began on October 1 through November 15, 73% had no criminal convictions. For that share, around two-thirds also had no pending charges.
The data also show that most of those recently booked into ICE detention with criminal convictions had faced immigration, traffic, or vice charges. Just 5% had a violent conviction, and 3% had a property conviction.
"Other data sources support the conclusions from the number of ICE book-ins," Bier wrote, citing information on agency arrests from January to late July—or the first six months of President Donald Trump's second term—that the Deportation Data Project acquired via a public records request.
The data show that as of January 1, just before former President Joe Biden left office, 149 immigrants without charges or convictions were arrested by ICE. That number surged by 1,500% under Trump: It peaked at 4,072 in June and ultimately was 2,386 by the end of July—when 67% of all arrestees had no criminal convictions, and 39% had neither convictions nor charges.
Bier also pointed to publicly available data about current detainees on ICE's website, emphasizing that the number of people in detention with no convictions or pending charges “increased a staggering 2,370% since January from fewer than 1,000 to over 21,000."
In addition to publishing an article on Cato's site, Bier detailed the findings on the social media platform X, where various critics of the administration's immigration crackdown weighed in. Among them was Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), who said: "These are the facts. I've spoken to dozens of people held inside ICE detention centers in Arizona and this tracks."
US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) declared: "This is the scandal. Trump isn't targeting dangerous people. He's targeting peaceful immigrants. Almost exclusively."
The US Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, also jumped in, as did DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. Responding to Murphy, McLaughlin said in part: "This is so dumb it hurts my soul. This is a made-up pie chart with no legitimate data behind it—just propaganda to undermine the brave work of DHS law enforcement and fool Americans."
Bier and others then took aim at McLaughlin, with the Cato director offering the raw data and challenging her to "just admit you don't care whether the people you're arresting are threats to others or not."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that "DHS's spokeswoman lies AGAIN," calling out her post as "either a knowing lie or an egregious mistake."
"The data David J. Bier published was distributed to multiple congressional staffers and is just a more detailed breakdown of data, which is publicly available on ICE's own website," he stressed.
Journalist Jose Olivares noted that this is "not the first time Tricia McLaughlin has said that ICE's own data is 'propaganda.' Months ago, she slammed me and my colleague at the Guardian on PBS... even though we used ICE's own data for our reporting."
White House Claims Trump 'Has the Authority to Kill' Survivors of Boat Strikes
While continuing to deny that the Pentagon chief ordered those carrying out the first known US military strike on an alleged drug-running boat to "kill everybody" on board, the top White House spokesperson on Monday reiterated the administration's position that President Donald Trump has the authority to take out anyone he deems a "narco-terrorist."
Rights advocates, legal scholars, American lawmakers, and leaders from other countries have condemned the boat bombings in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, which began on September 2, as murders, and rejected the Trump administration's argument to Congress that the strikes are justified because the United States is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels.
A week after the first bombing, the Intercept reported that people on board survived but were killed in a follow-up attack. The Washington Post provided more details on Friday, including that Adm. Frank M. "Mitch" Bradley ordered a second strike on two survivors to fulfill US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's alleged directive to kill everyone.
CNN also spoke with an unnamed source who confirmed Hegseth's supposed edict—which the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, denied on Monday.
During Monday's press briefing, NBC News White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez noted Trump's "confidence" in Hegseth's claim that he did not give an explicit order to kill everyone on the first vessel, and asked Leavitt, "Does the administration deny that that second strike happened, or did it happen and the administration denies that Secretary Hegseth gave the order?"
"The latter is true," Leavitt said. She then read a statement that she often referred back to throughout the briefing:
President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.
"And I would just add one more point," Leavitt continued, "to remind the American public why these lethal strikes are taking place: Because this administration has designated these narco-terrorists as a foreign terrorist organizations, the president has a right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America, and if they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate—which is what they are doing."
Asked by Gutierrez to confirm Bradley ordered the second strike, Leavitt did so, saying that "he was well within his right to do so."
Multiple other reporters also inquired about the recent reporting, including Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, who said: "You said that the follow-up strike was lawful. What law is it that allows no survivors?"
Leavitt responded: "The strike conducted on September 2 was conducted in self-defense to protect Americans and vital United States interests. The strike was conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict."
Noting that exchange on social media, former Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said: "This is not how self-defense works. Everyone understands that self-defense requires an immediate physical threat and proportionality. Repelling a missile attack with a missile is self-defense. Blowing up boats hundreds of miles from US shores is not. This isn't complicated."
"This is not how self-defense works... Repelling a missile attack with a missile is self-defense. Blowing up boats hundreds of miles from US shores is not.
Ryan Goodman, a former Pentagon special counsel who's now a New York University law professor and Just Security coeditor-in-chief, also weighed in. "This has got to be one of [the] most painful responses to watch," he said, also pointing out that "the 'law' Leavitt cites is utterly irrelevant (self-defense is non sequitur, it's not armed conflict, and 'no survivors' is a crime)."
"Part of the pain in watching that response is knowing how the reported patently illegal orders will affect US service members," Goodman added, referring to a new Just Security essay by Mark P. Nevitt, a retired judge advocate general who is now an associate law professor at Emory University.
Notably, Trump suggested last month that Democratic members of Congress who previously served in the US military and intelligence agencies and recently warned service members of their duty not to comply with illegal orders should be hanged. The Pentagon has since threatened to court-martial one of them: Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired US Navy captain.
Asked by CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang about Hegseth's reported spoken directive to kill everybody on the boat. Using Trump's preferred term for the Defense Department's leader, she said: "I saw that quoted in a Washington Post story. I would reject that the secretary of war ever said that. However, the president has made it quite clear that if narco-terrorists... are trafficking illegal drugs toward the United States, he has the authority to kill them, and that's what this administration is doing."
According to a CNN timeline, from September 2 to November 15, at least 22 US boat strikes killed 83 people and left two survivors who were initially taken onto a warship but ultimately returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador.
So far, Congress has failed to advance war powers resolutions intended to stop Trump's boat-bombing spree. However, since the Post reporting, top Democrats on both the US House and Senate Armed Services Committees have promised vigorous oversight.
Following Leavitt's remarks on Monday, the New Republic's Greg Sargent said that "it's doubly relevant that Adm. Bradley is in talks about briefing the House Armed Services Committee," and pointed to his new interview with Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the panel's ranking member.
The congressman told Sargent he will pressure GOP members of the committee, including Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), to "use whatever leverage is available to us to try to get answers," including subpoenaing top civilian and military officials.
Smith also discussed the reporting during a weekend appearance on MS NOW. Posting a clip of it on social media Monday, he declared that "Americans want to live in a constitutional republic, not an authoritarian dictatorship."
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the chamber's floor Monday that "I don’t think we have ever seen someone so unserious, so childish, so obviously insecure serving as secretary of defense as Pete Hegseth—and that should alarm every single one of us."
Schumer called on Hegseth to release the tapes "that would show exactly what happened during these military strikes," and to "come before the Congress to testify under oath about the nature of his order, the evidence supporting the strikes, and an explanation for what the goals are in Venezuela."
'Time Is Ticking': GOP Lawmakers Urged to Back Healthcare Tax Credit Extension
"Anything less is a choice to raise healthcare costs, strip millions of people of their coverage, and deepen America’s ongoing healthcare crisis," said one campaigner.
With less than a month remaining before Affordable Care Act healthcare tax credits are set to expire—which would cause monthly premiums to soar for an estimated 20 million Americans and potentially leave millions without coverage—Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocacy groups on Tuesday implored congressional Republicans to back a three-year extension on the vital subsidies.
While President Donald Trump and Republican legislators have promised lower healthcare costs, prices are soaring and millions of families are facing major premium hikes if the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies end as scheduled on December 31. That leaves lawmakers with just 12 legislative days to act.
Trump has expressed openness to extending the ACA subsidies, even teasing a policy framework featuring a two-year extension with income caps and minimum premium payments for enrollees in the program also known as Obamacare.
However, the president has put the brakes on his proposal under pressure from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other congressional Republicans, many of whom are seeking a guarantee that the Hyde Amendment—which prohibits federal Medicaid funding for most abortion services—will be expanded to further restrict reproductive healthcare.
Calling Republicans "a total mess" who "don’t know what to do," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday: "One day, Trump floats a so-called 'healthcare plan.' The next day, Speaker Johnson forces him to shoot it down. Some Republicans say they want to dismantle the ACA, probably a majority of them in the House and a large number in the Senate want to just dismantle it altogether."
"Other Republicans seem to be more focused on eradicating reproductive care in every state than helping people afford healthcare," Schumer continued. "The bottom line is that Republicans are in total disarray on healthcare."
"And while Republicans continue the infighting, who is paying the price? The American people," he added. "The people whose premiums are going up by $500 to $1,000 a month. These people know that Trump and Republicans are to blame."
Democratic lawmakers are pushing more lawmakers to sign a discharge petition, which would require Johnson to hold a vote on legislation to extend the ACA subsidies for three years. Such a bill is backed by numerous healthcare and economic advocacy groups.
"If Republicans in Congress truly cared about lowering costs for their constituents, they would swallow their pride and sign on to the discharge petition to force a vote on extending healthcare tax credits,” Unrig Our Economy campaign director Leor Tal said in a statement Tuesday.
“Republicans in Congress have spent months attacking Americans' access to healthcare while giving tax breaks to billionaires," Tal added. "Now, it is time that they finally put their constituents first, sign on to the discharge petition to extend these healthcare tax credits, and stop voting to undermine access to healthcare for millions of Americans.”
Michelle Sternthal, director of government affairs at Community Catalyst, a national health justice organization, said Tuesday that "Congress should pass a clean extension of the tax credits, repeal the dangerous healthcare provisions of the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ and protect the communities who rely on them the most."
"Because affordable, accessible care isn’t just good policy—it’s the foundation of a stronger, more resilient nation," she added.
Reproductive rights defenders sounded the alarm over Republican efforts to further restrict abortion care—which has been eviscerated by Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices and GOP-led state legislatures with sometimes deadly results—in any ACA tax credit extension.
Noting previous GOP efforts to strip abortion care from the ACA, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Reproductive Freedom for All said in a joint statement on Monday:
Anti-abortion members of Congress want to create an additional abortion coverage ban on the ACA marketplace by making plans that include abortion coverage prohibitively expensive and unworkable. They want to restrict coverage for more than 20 million enrollees and prohibit people using tax credits from buying plans that cover abortion. This restriction conflicts with decisions some states have made to require coverage of abortion. In states that allow plans to cover abortion, since plans would be significantly more expensive without the availability of tax credits, insurers would likely drop abortion coverage because these plans would be unattractive and onerous to consumers.
The ACA already prohibits federal funding from being used to pay for abortion coverage under marketplace plans except in the very limited circumstances of rape, incest, and life-endangerment. What anti-abortion politicians are calling for would be an expansion of abortion restrictions into the private insurance market. This would only cause more chaos and confusion for those seeking their health insurance through the marketplace. The ACA was passed with the intent of providing affordable coverage, but anti-abortion politicians want to place new and expanded barriers to abortion coverage and push healthcare out of reach for people who rely on the marketplace.
Congressional Democrats echoed the advocacy groups' calls for their Republican colleagues to support the discharge petition.
"Democrats have an active discharge petition, and all we need are a handful of House Republicans to join us and we can trigger an up-or-down vote on a three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits to save the healthcare of the American people in every single state in this country, and protect the healthcare of people who these so-called Republican members allegedly represent, but who have failed to do a single thing to make their life better," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Monday.
Congresswoman Nikki Budzkinski (D-Ill.) wrote on the social media platform Bluesky, "At the end of this month, the ACA tax credits will expire—plunging millions of Americans even deeper into the affordability crisis as their healthcare costs skyrocket."
"It’s time for President Trump and Republicans in Congress to get serious about saving healthcare," she added.
The healthcare crisis continues to loom and it’s time we extend the healthcare tax credits NOW to ensure folks are able to afford quality healthcare.TIME IS TICKING AND WE CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGER!
— Rep. Frederica Wilson (@repwilson.bsky.social) December 1, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Noting that the GOP spending bill signed by Trump in July "made the biggest Medicaid cuts in history to fund trillions in tax breaks for billionaires," Congresswoman Summer Lee (D-Pa.) warned Tuesday that "when these cuts go into effect, over 17,000 people in my district will lose healthcare."
Other lawmakers argued that Congress should go even further and pass Medicare for All legislation led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
"We must stop tinkering around the edges of a broken healthcare system," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a cosponsor of the bill, said Monday. "Yes, let's extend the ACA tax credits to prevent a huge spike in healthcare costs for millions. Then, let's finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits. We need Medicare for All."
As Critics Condemn 'Murder, Plain and Simple,' Hegseth Backs Admiral Order to Kill Boat Attack Survivors
"Making Adm. Bradley the fall guy in the administration's 'Protect Pete' campaign is disgraceful and destructive," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal. "Hegseth must go—resign or be fired."
As journalists on Tuesday continued to demand answers about the "double-tap" strike that started an illegal US bombing campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth kept pointing the finger at Adm. Frank M. "Mitch" Bradley while still claiming to support the Navy leader who the Trump administration says ordered the military to take out two survivors of the initial attack.
Sitting beside President Donald Trump during a Cabinet meeting, Hegseth—who has denied the Washington Post and CNN's reporting that he gave a spoken directive to kill everybody on the boat before the September 2 bombing—told reporters that he left the room after the first strike, and Bradley ordered the second strike.
"I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do, so I didn't stick around for the hour, and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs," Hegseth said, using Trump's preferred term for his department.
"So I moved on to my next meeting," the Fox News host-turned-Pentagon chief said. "Couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the—which he had the complete authority to do, and by the way—Adm. Bradley made the correct decision, to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat... And it was the right call. We have his back."
Asked whether he saw the survivors after that first strike, Hegseth said: "I did not personally see survivors... The thing was on fire."
"This is called the fog of war," he added. "This is what you in the press don't understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill, and you nitpick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about 'kill everybody' phases on anonymous sources not based in anything, not based in any truth at all, and then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes."
On Sunday, US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said during an ABC News appearance that the second strike on September 2 was either "plain murder," or a war crime—if you accept the Trump administration's contested argument that the United States is "in armed conflict, at war... with the drug gangs," which many lawmakers and experts reject.
Responding to Hegseth's Tuesday remarks on the social media platform X, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee member said that "Secretary Talk Show Host may have been experiencing the 'fog of war,' but that doesn't change the fact that this was an extrajudicial killing amounting to murder or a war crime. One thing is clear: Pete Hegseth is unfit to serve. He must resign."
Calls for Hegseth's resignation or firing have mounted since Friday's reporting, exacerbated by his Monday X post in which the defense secretary said Bradley "has my 100% support" and "I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made—on the September 2 mission and all others since."
Replying to that post, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that "making Adm. Bradley the fall guy in the administration's 'Protect Pete' campaign is disgraceful and destructive. It signals to military professionals down the ranks they'll be thrown under the bus for lawbreaking by Hegseth and other political leaders."
Despite recent bipartisan vows of "vigorous oversight" for the September 2 attack, Blumenthal said that "Republicans have shown no clear sign they'll buck the administration's blame gaming and begin a prompt investigation with subpoenas, witness depositions, hearings, and more. One immediate imperative: Demand that evidence be preserved—like all videos, emails, correspondence."
"Hegseth must go—resign or be fired," the senator added. "No question that murders or war crimes were committed on his watch. His criminal culpability may be contested, but no question that he's ultimately accountable. He directed the strikes be lethal and total. The buck stops with him."
Blumenthal is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which, alongside the relevant House panel, is set to hold a classified briefing on Thursday with testimony from Bradley. Critics in Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have also called on Hegseth to testify under oath about the 22 boat bombings in the Caribbean and Pacific—which have killed at least 83 people—and potential US attacks within Venezuela, which the defense secretary and Trump teased again on Tuesday.
Ryan Goodman, a former Pentagon special counsel who’s now a New York University law professor and Just Security coeditor-in-chief, offered some potential questions lawmakers could ask based on Hegseth and Trump's Cabinet meeting comments.
The first: "Mr. Secretary, do you hereby testify—under penalty of perjury—that all your public statements about your involvement in the September 2 strike are true? We provided you a copy of all your statements before this hearing."
Noting Trump's claim that "Pete didn't know about [the] second attack having to do with two people," Goodman suggested that lawmakers inquire: "Oh. Well then, when did Pete know about it, and what did he do about it? When he found out about it, did he know the second attack was in order to kill the shipwrecked?"
Goodman and other experts argued in a Monday analysis for Just Security that "the United States is not in an armed conflict with any drug trafficking cartel or criminal gang anywhere in the Western Hemisphere," so "the individuals involved have not committed war crimes," but "the alleged Hegseth order and special forces' lethal operation amounted to unlawful 'extrajudicial killing' under human rights law," and "the federal murder statute would also apply."
Republicans Suddenly Care About US Airstrike Massacres—But Only Obama's
House Speaker Mike Johnson falsely claimed that "nobody ever questioned" Obama's hundreds of drone strikes, while defending the Trump administration's high seas murder spree.
Republicans on Tuesday invoked drone strikes during then-President Barack Obama's tenure in a dubious effort to justify what experts say is the Trump administration's illegal boat bombing campaign against alleged drug traffickers, while falsely claiming that Democrats and the media ignored airstrikes ordered by the former president.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was asked during a Tuesday press conference about a so-called "double-tap" airstrike—military parlance for follow-up strikes on survivors and first responders after initial bombings—that killed two men who survived a September 2 attack on a boat in the southern Caribbean Sea.
Although US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has denied it, he reportedly gave a spoken order to “kill everybody” in the boat, which was supposedly interpreted by Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley as a green light for launching a second strike after the discovery that two of the 11 men aboard the vessel were alive and clinging to its burning wreckage.
Responding to the question concerning the strike's legality, Johnson pointed to upcoming congressional consultations on the matter and said that such attacks are "not an unprecedented thing."
“Secondary strikes are not unusual,” he noted. “It has to happen if a mission is going to be completed.”
“It’s something Congress will look at, and we’ll do that in the regular process and order," Johnson continued, referring to a classified briefing with Bradley and some lawmakers scheduled for Thursday. "I think it’s very important for everybody to reserve judgment and not leap to conclusions until you have all the facts."
“One of the things I was reminded of this morning is that under Barack Obama... I think there were 550 drone strikes on people who were targeted as enemies of the country, and nobody ever questioned it," he said.
RAJU: If defenseless survivors were killed, would that constitute a violation of the laws of war?
MIKE JOHNSON: I'm not going to prejudge any of that. I was pretty busy yesterday. I didn't follow a lot of the news. pic.twitter.com/v38JWhNx0k
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 2, 2025
The lack of attention to Obama's strikes claimed by Johnson is belied by congressional hearings, lawsuits, and copious coverage—and condemnation—of such attacks in media outlets including Common Dreams.
Progressive lawmakers and Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky were among the numerous US officials who criticized Obama-era drone strikes.
Trump administration officials have reportedly cited the Obama administration's legal rationale for bombing Libya to justify the boat strikes to members of Congress.
Other Republican lawmakers and right-wing media figures noted on Tuesday that Obama—who bombed more countries than his predecessor, former President George W. Bush and was called the "drone warrior-in-chief"—ordered strikes that resulted in massacres of civilians at events including funerals and at least one wedding.
At least hundreds of civilians were killed in such strikes, including 16-year-old US citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who according to an Obama administration official was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was slain in Yemen in 2011. This, after al-Awlaki's father—an accused terrorist who was also American—was assassinated by a drone strike ordered by Obama.
Asked by a reporter about the legality of assassinating US citizens without charge or trial, then-White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs infamously asserted in October 2012 that Abdulrahman al-Awlaki should have had "a far more responsible father."
Buried deep in a New York Times article published earlier that year was the revelation that Obama's secret "kill list" authorized the assassination of US citizens, and that his administration was counting all military-age males in a strike zone as "combatants" regardless of their actual status in an effort to artificially lower the reported number of civilian casualties.
“Turns out I’m really good at killing people,” Obama once boasted, according to the 2013 Mark Halperin and John Heilemann book Double Down. “Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine.”
A third member of the al-Awlaki family, 8-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki—also an American citizen—was killed in a US commando raid in Yemen ordered by President Donald Trump in early 2017.
Tens of thousands of civilians were killed by US airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen during the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations as part of the decadeslong so-called Global War on Terror, in which more than 900,000 people were slain, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
At least thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded by US bombs and bullets in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen during Trump's first and second terms, during which rules of engagement aimed at protecting noncombatants have been loosened.
At least 83 people have been killed in 21 strikes on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September, according to Trump administration figures. Officials in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as relatives of victims, claim that some of them were civilians uninvolved in narcotrafficking.