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Lawmakers horrified by video of military strike killing shipwrecked sailors

Lawmakers horrified by video of military strike killing shipwrecked sailors

The Intercept reports: Lawmakers who saw a video of a U.S. attack on wounded and helpless people clinging to the wreckage of a supposed drug boat on September 2 described the footage as deeply disturbing. A small number of members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate and House Armed Services committees, as well as some staff directors, saw the recording during closed-door briefings Thursday with Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the head of Special Operations Command,…

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Life during wartime in New Orleans as feds terrorize Latinos who saved a city

Life during wartime in New Orleans as feds terrorize Latinos who saved a city

Will Bunch writes: When the day New Orleans had feared for weeks finally came on Wednesday, it began with a lie as wide as the meandering Mississippi River. A port city somehow dubbed the Big Easy despite its centuries of big trouble woke up to a frigid blast of Arctic air and a claim from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that local immigration raids it’s named the “Catahoula Crunch” would narrowly target “criminal illegal aliens roaming free thanks to…

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Condemning millions for one man’s crime

Condemning millions for one man’s crime

George Packer writes: Most of us are lucky enough to avoid any direct encounter with the true nature of Donald Trump’s presidency. But over time, abstract nouns such as authoritarianism and xenophobia lose their hard edges with too much use. It can take some personal experience to bring home what the Trump administration is doing to human lives and values. The solitary Afghan man who allegedly shot two members of the West Virginia National Guard near the White House last…

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Federal judge bars some warrantless immigration arrests in D.C.

Federal judge bars some warrantless immigration arrests in D.C.

The New York Times reports: A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday ordered federal immigration officers to stop making arrests there without a warrant unless they could show that a suspect was a flight risk. It is the latest in a series of decisions in lower courts that have challenged President Trump’s immigration tactics as he escalates his mass deportation agenda and expands his deployment of law enforcement officers to major urban centers across the country. Some of those…

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ICE recruits violent misfits ‘not ready to tie their own laces’

ICE recruits violent misfits ‘not ready to tie their own laces’

The Daily Mail reports: The Trump administration’s frantic push to hire 10,000 new deportation officers by year’s end has spiraled into what insiders describe as a national embarrassment – with lax vetting and a signing bonus of up to $50,000 luring in a wave of woefully unfit recruits. An exhaustive Daily Mail investigation has exposed how Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lowered standards so dramatically that the new cohort now includes recent high school graduates and applicants who can ‘barely…

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For Dozzy Donald, war is peace

For Dozzy Donald, war is peace

Susan Glasser writes: Just after 1 P.M. on Thursday, Donald Trump appeared at the newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, in Washington, D.C., to preside over a signing ceremony with the Presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Trump praised the two leaders for having the courage to put their names on the “very detailed, powerful agreement” to end the decades-long conflict between their countries—and praised himself for “succeeding where so many others have failed” in…

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Killing shipwrecked survivors isn’t just illegal — it endangers U.S. servicemembers

Killing shipwrecked survivors isn’t just illegal — it endangers U.S. servicemembers

Mark Nevitt writes: According to recent media reports, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth verbally ordered special forces to “kill everybody” ahead of a Sept. 2 operation targeting alleged drug traffickers in international waters. That order allegedly resulted in a follow-on “double tap” strike that killed two survivors who were clinging to wreckage. I agree with Professor Jack Goldsmith that if the media reporting is accurate, this military operation is a “dishonorable strike” that is illegal under international law and the laws…

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Family of Colombian fisherman killed in U.S. boat strike files complaint alleging he was murdered

Family of Colombian fisherman killed in U.S. boat strike files complaint alleging he was murdered

ABC News reports: The family of a Colombian fisherman who died in a U.S. military boat strike in September has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging the U.S. government illegally killed him. Alejandro Carranza was killed in a strike in the Caribbean on Sept. 15, according to the petition, filed on Tuesday. “From numerous news reports, we know that U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like…

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Pentagon watchdog report: Hegseth risked endangering troops with Signal messages

Pentagon watchdog report: Hegseth risked endangering troops with Signal messages

The Atlantic reports: For nearly nine months, Trump-administration officials have defended top national-security leaders who shared information in a Signal chat about U.S. strikes in Yemen, first reported by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was inadvertently included in the group. Officials played down the severity of the breach and insisted that the information wasn’t classified. Now the Pentagon’s top watchdog has concluded that the information Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared in the chat could have put the…

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FBI headquarters seeks ‘seditious conspiracy’ probe of Democratic lawmakers

FBI headquarters seeks ‘seditious conspiracy’ probe of Democratic lawmakers

Bloomberg Law reports: FBI headquarters is pressuring the bureau’s domestic terrorism agents to open a seditious conspiracy investigation into six Democratic lawmakers who advised military service members to defy unlawful orders, according to three people familiar with the situation. Such an investigation, which has not yet been opened, would mark a more serious step than the FBI’s voluntary inquiry that several of the Democrats derided last week and would escalate the administration’s use of law enforcement to probe the president’s…

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Speaker Johnson faces a growing rebellion

Speaker Johnson faces a growing rebellion

The New York Times reports: Representative Elise Stefanik of New York called Speaker Mike Johnson a habitual liar. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina has told people she is so frustrated with the Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he has run the House — particularly how women are treated there — that she is planning to huddle with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress. Representative Anna…

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Does the Heritage Foundation support discrimination against women?

Does the Heritage Foundation support discrimination against women?

Henry Olsen writes: The Heritage Foundation has had a tough month. President Kevin Roberts’s decision to vigorously defend Tucker Carlson’s platforming of the noted anti-Semite and white nationalist Nick Fuentes has pushed the conservative think tank into a tailspin. One board member, the Princeton professor Robert George, resigned; a number of staff departed; and a task force to combat anti-Semitism severed its ties. Yet Heritage’s problems are hardly limited to its handling of Fuentes. The think tank’s recent decision to…

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Long-term calorie restriction in diet may slow biological aging in the brain

Long-term calorie restriction in diet may slow biological aging in the brain

PsyPost reports: A new study suggests that restricting calorie intake over a lifetime may slow the biological aging of support cells in the primate brain. The research provides evidence that a thirty percent reduction in calories preserves the metabolic function of cells responsible for insulating nerve fibers. These findings were published in the journal Aging Cell. The brain relies on complex networks of communication to function correctly. This communication depends heavily on white matter, which consists of nerve fibers coated…

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Trump denigrates Somali immigrants as he orders ICE to target them. Local officials push back

Trump denigrates Somali immigrants as he orders ICE to target them. Local officials push back

The New Republic reports: Donald Trump is openly threatening Minnesota’s Somali American community and making racist attacks against them. After the president’s Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump told reporters that he heard “Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars. Billions. Every year, billions of dollars. And they contribute nothing. The welfare’s like 88 percent. They contribute nothing. I don’t want ’em in our country, I’ll be honest with you. Somebody would say, ‘Ooh, that’s not politically correct.’ I don’t…

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