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Category: Politics

Trump’s pardon of Honduras’s ex-president shows counter-drug effort is ‘based on lies and hypocrisy’

Trump’s pardon of Honduras’s ex-president shows counter-drug effort is ‘based on lies and hypocrisy’

Tom Phillips writes: He was a Latin American president accused of colluding with some of the region’s most ruthless narco bosses to flood the United States with cocaine. “[Let’s] stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” the double-dealing politician once allegedly bragged as he lined his pockets with millions of dollars in bribes and turned his country into what many called a narco-state. The description might sound like a sketch of Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, who…

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FBI is a ‘rudderless ship’ under Kash Patel — he and Bongino are focused on social media, report says

FBI is a ‘rudderless ship’ under Kash Patel — he and Bongino are focused on social media, report says

The New York Post reports: FBI Director Kash Patel is facing withering criticism from an alliance of active-duty and retired agents and analysts, days after the White House denied media reports that the president is about to fire him. A troubling new report card on the first six months of Patel’s leadership concludes he is “in over his head” and his deputy, Dan Bongino, is “something of a clown,” according to the alliance, which in two previous reports warned about…

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Flock uses overseas gig workers to build its surveillance AI

Flock uses overseas gig workers to build its surveillance AI

Wired and 404 Media report: Flock, the automatic license plate reader and AI-powered camera company, uses overseas workers from Upwork to train its machine learning algorithms, with training material telling workers how to review and categorize footage including images people and vehicles in the United States, according to material reviewed by 404 Media that was accidentally exposed by the company. The findings bring up questions about who exactly has access to footage collected by Flock surveillance cameras and where people…

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Haunted by history, Japanese Americans fight against Trump’s immigration crackdown

Haunted by history, Japanese Americans fight against Trump’s immigration crackdown

The New York Times reports: From the passenger seat of a sky blue Prius, Amy Oba craned her neck to get a look at the federal detention center, a hulking tower surrounded by a black chain-link fence and laced with barbed wire. On a recent evening, she was on patrol, part of a group of Japanese Americans who are keeping a watchful eye on the actions of immigration agents in Los Angeles. “I definitely think about my family when we…

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Costco sues Trump administration, seeking refund of tariffs

Costco sues Trump administration, seeking refund of tariffs

NBC News reports: Costco Wholesale has sued the Trump administration, asking the Court of International Trade to consider all tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act unlawful. The company said in a filing Friday that it is seeking a “full refund” of all duties under the act paid as a result of President Donald Trump’s executive order that imposed what he called “reciprocal” tariffs. “Because IEEPA does not clearly authorize the President to set tariffs … the Challenged…

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The Kremlin pitched the White House on peace through business. Trump and his cronies are on board

The Kremlin pitched the White House on peace through business. Trump and his cronies are on board

The Wall Street Journal reports: Three powerful businessmen—two Americans and a Russian—hunched over a laptop in Miami Beach last month, ostensibly to draw up a plan to end Russia’s long and deadly war with Ukraine. But the full scope of their project went much further, according to people familiar with the talks. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line to beat European competitors to the dividends….

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Trump plans to pardon an ex-president who flooded America with cocaine

Trump plans to pardon an ex-president who flooded America with cocaine

The New York Times reports: He once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” He accepted a $1 million bribe from El Chapo to allow cocaine shipments to pass through Honduras. A man was killed in prison to protect him. At the federal trial of Juan Orlando Hernández in New York, testimony and evidence showed how the former president maintained Honduras as a bastion of the global drug trade. He orchestrated a vast trafficking conspiracy that…

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Trump frees executive who defrauded thousands of investors, just days into seven-year prison sentence

Trump frees executive who defrauded thousands of investors, just days into seven-year prison sentence

The New York Times reports: President Trump has set free a private equity executive who had served less than two weeks of a seven-year sentence for his role in what prosecutors described as a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of victims. David Gentile, 59, a onetime resident of Nassau County, N.Y., had reported to prison on Nov. 14, and was released on Wednesday, according to Bureau of Prisons records and a White House official who was not authorized to…

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Inside the White House, David Sacks represents the ‘technocratic oligarchy’

Inside the White House, David Sacks represents the ‘technocratic oligarchy’

The New York Times reports: In July, David Sacks, one of the Trump administration’s top technology officials, beamed as he strode onstage at a neoclassical auditorium just blocks from the White House. He had convened top government officials and Silicon Valley executives for a forum on the booming business of artificial intelligence. The guest of honor was President Trump, who unveiled an “A.I. Action Plan” that was drafted in part by Mr. Sacks, a longtime venture capitalist. In a nearly…

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The Trump kleptocracy

The Trump kleptocracy

Tom Burgis writes: A crusading prosecutor in the Balkans comes under pressure to drop a big case. Vietnamese villagers learn they are to be evicted. A convicted crypto kingpin in the Gulf receives a pardon. All have one thing in common: they appear to be connected to the Trump family’s campaign to amass riches around the world. Since Donald Trump’s re-election a year ago, warnings that his use of presidential power to advance personal interests is corroding American democracy have…

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Without any authority to do so, Trump declares Venezuelan airspace closed

Without any authority to do so, Trump declares Venezuelan airspace closed

The New York Times reports: President Trump warned airlines and pilots on Saturday that the airspace near Venezuela was closed, ratcheting up what his administration has characterized as a war against drug cartels. In a post on social media to “all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers,” the president wrote that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.” Mr. Trump did not go into further detail in his post, but it came after…

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Under Hegseth’s direction, Special Operations Forces apparently committed murder

Under Hegseth’s direction, Special Operations Forces apparently committed murder

Jack Goldsmith, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel, writes: [T]here can be no conceivable legal justification for what the Washington Post reported earlier today: That U.S. Special Operations Forces killed the survivors of a first strike on a drug boat off the coast of Trinidad who, in the Post’s words, “were clinging to the smoldering wreck.” Section 5.4.7 of the DOD Law of War Manual says: Prohibition Against Declaring That No Quarter Be Given. It is forbidden to…

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Trump, antidrug crusader, pardons convicted drug trafficker (because presidents always deserve pardons)

Trump, antidrug crusader, pardons convicted drug trafficker (because presidents always deserve pardons)

The New York Times reports: President Trump and his top aides have said that drug cartels present one of the most pressing dangers to the United States, and have promised to eradicate them from the Western Hemisphere. As part of that effort, Mr. Trump signaled on Saturday that he was ratcheting up his campaign against drug cartels, saying in a social media post that airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.” Less than 24 hours…

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New York’s political shift happened across the state from suburbs to rural areas

New York’s political shift happened across the state from suburbs to rural areas

Politico reports: Zohran Mamdani’s decisive win in New York City — along with key victories in New Jersey and Virginia — suggested Democrats are headed into the midterms from a position of strength. But they didn’t capture how deep that strength ran. Across suburbs, rural counties and small towns in New York, Democrats posted electoral gains that rival — and in many cases surpass — the party’s 2017 “Blue Wave.” In a state with enough competitive House races to decide…

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Trump was warned that members of the military could be attacked

Trump was warned that members of the military could be attacked

Juliette Kayyem writes: Before an Afghan refugee, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, yesterday shot and seriously injured two National Guard members who had been deployed by President Donald Trump to Washington, D.C., military commanders had warned that their deployment represented an easy “target of opportunity” for grievance-based violence. The troops, deployed in an effort to reduce crime, are untrained in law enforcement; their days are spent cleaning up trash and walking the streets in uniform. Commanders, in a memo that was included in…

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Trump post hints at stopping nearly all legal immigration to the United States

Trump post hints at stopping nearly all legal immigration to the United States

Stuart Anderson writes: In a new social media post, Donald Trump hinted that he might stop nearly all legal immigration to the United States. The post came after an Afghan national killed a National Guard member in Washington, D.C. during an attack. In 2020, during Trump’s first term, the president suspended the entry of nearly all immigrants and temporary visa holders, citing the economic conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic. In a Truth Social post on Thanksgiving evening, Donald Trump…

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