curated news excerpts & citations
Reuters: Video shows final, confused moments of survivors of US boat strike in Caribbean, say sources
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They were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the U.S. military was weighing whether to finish them off.
“The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – December 4, 2025
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Representative Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, said. “You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel,… killed by the United States.”
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The administration says President Donald Trump has “determined” that the U.S. is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels and that those in the boats are formally “combatants,” but it has not reinforced those claims with the legal authority they need. After informing Congress of the strikes on September 4 to ensure Congress was “fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution,” Trump has since ignored that resolution, which requires congressional approval for hostile actions to continue longer than 60 days, a deadline that passed in early November.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Daily Beast: Real Reason for Pentagon Pete Commander’s Shock Retirement Revealed
FRIENDLY FIRE
Reports initially stated Hegseth had nothing to do with the officer’s abrupt exit.
(Daily Beast more…)
Snopes: Did Adm. Alvin Holsey resign over Hegseth’s Venezuela boat strike orders? What we know
Brian Allen: Hegseth vs Holsey
AP: US military conducts strike on another suspected drug boat as probe into the first strike begins
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Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims: Trump Jr.-backed startup receives $620 million Pentagon loan
In October, Popular Information reported that the Pentagon awarded a contract to Unusual Machines, an obscure drone company that President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., joined as an advisor in November 2024, despite having no notable experience with drones or military contracting.
The contract was for the manufacturing of 3,500 drone motors, and the Army also “indicated it planned to order an additional 20,000 components” from Unusual Machines next year. Trump Jr. was given 200,000 shares of the company’s stock in 2024, which are now worth millions.
Now, another small startup funded by 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm where Trump Jr. is a partner, will receive a $620 million loan from the Defense Department, the Financial Times reported. Vulcan Elements, which currently has around 30 employees, produces rare-earth magnets, which can be used in “drones, radar systems and other military applications.” The contract was awarded just three months after 1789 invested in Vulcan.
(Rebecca Crosby and Noel Sims more…)
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WSJ: Pentagon’s Signalgate Review Finds Hegseth Violated Defense Department Regulations
Marcy Wheeler: Signalgate: “this chat’s kinda dead”
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Jennifer Rubin: Republicans are ‘Nowhere on Healthcare’
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We should not be surprised by the utter disarray on the Republican side. MAGA Republicans have never given up hope of repealing or at least hobbling the ACA. When the White House suggested it would roll out its owncapitulation plan to extend the ACA credits, Republicans on the Hill threw a fit. That leaves Republicans facing a Democratic plan with no alternative of their own.
(Jennifer Rubin more…)
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NBC: Suspect arrested in January 2021 D.C. pipe bomb case
The FBI has arrested a suspect in its investigation into pipe bombs planted near the Republican and Democratic national party headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021, according to a federal law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.
Brian Cole was identified as the suspect in custody, according to two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter. The arrest marks a breakthrough in a case that has stymied investigators for nearly five years.
(NBC more…)Brian Allen: The Arrest America Has Been Waiting For: FBI Nabs Suspect in Jan. 6 Pipe-Bomb Case
Joyce Vance: An Alleged Bomber, Arrested and Charged
Mary Geddry: A Face for the Crime, No Spine for the Truth
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Politico: Trump asserts executive privilege to thwart Jan. 6 lawsuit
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KUT: Supreme Court lets Texas use gerrymandered map that could give GOP five more House seats
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Patricia J Wentzel: Mental Health Respite Centers
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Respite centers are usually run by peer supporters and their approach tends to run at right angles to those of medically oriented crisis stabilization centers. Instead of seeking solutions that favor medications and professional treatment modalities, respite centers are generally client-centered spaces where the questions that are asked don’t involve blood pressure and psychiatric diagnoses. Instead they focus on symptoms as coping mechanisms that deserve curious inquiry. Peer support workers are more interested in understanding how the person sees the world and how they can support the person in resolving the crisis without medical intervention. Instead, resolution is achieved by exploring issues of meaning and identity and relying on internal resources to place the crisis in context and reduce the subjective distress of the person in crisis.
(Patricia J Wentzel more…)
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Christina Pagel: How much should the NHS worry about this winter’s flu wave?
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Allison Gill: Is Pam Bondi Trying to Use the Courts to Justify Withholding Epstein Files?
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My first thought was that this new request is an attempt to pass off their efforts as the “release of the Epstein files” as judge Berman said when asked the first time. And as it turns out, an Epstein survivor named Annie Farmer has the same concerns.
(Allison Gill more…)
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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