On Sunday, a tweeter on X with more than 189,000 followers commented
All I have seen is people being shocked and saddened by Rob Reiner's murder. You will always get some lunatic posting but I haven't seen one person on the right say something nasty.
This is a tragedy. He was a massively talented man.
On Tuesday, after he was criticized for "pretending" those conservatives "don't exist to protect your feelings," the tweeter responded "What are you talking about? Since last night I have seen a couple of stupid posts but the vast majority have been respectful. Now do the Charlie Kirk murder."
Unfortunately, he spoke a little too soon
Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it. pic.twitter.com/j3dvzRxLQJ
When Charlie Kirk was murdered, Rob Reiner was asked by Piers Morgan "what was your immediate reaction?" The actor turned director and producer replied
Well, horror. Absolute horror. And I unfortunately saw the video of it and it's beyond belief. What happened to him. And that could never happen to everybody. I don't care what your political beliefs are, that's not acceptable. That's not a solution to solving problems and I felt, like what his wife said at the service, at the memorial they had, was exactly right, totally. And I believe- I'm Jewish but I believe in the teachings of Jesus and I believe in doing to others. I believe in forgiveness and what she said to me was beautiful and absolutely she forgave his assassin and I think that's, that is admirable.
I would have added a point and kept a couple out, and "I believe in doing to others" was inartful. However, the argument was sensitive and generous and its thrust, spot-on: "I don't care what your political beliefs are, that's not acceptable. That's not a solution to solving problems...."
Steve M. lists numerous comments from Trump supporters on the Fox News and Breitbart websites who "pat themselves on the back for not being haters while.... being haters." I've similarly been bombarded on my X timeline by MAGAts with no sense of irony. They blame the left for allegedly "celebrating" (in the word of a few) Charlie Kirk's murder and blaming the right for condoning the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife. Then they themselves admit not a whiff of regret about the latter crime.
Giving credit where credit is due, US Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Mike Lawler of suburban new York also criticized the President for his classless and cruel remark on Truth Social. Surely, there will be many more.
Surely, I'm joking. Although events have proven then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton correct- though injudicious- in realizing half of Trump's supporters should be put into a "basket of deplorables," less blame should go to the President's fans than to prominent Republicans, especially members of Congress who remain silent and Donald himself.
Among random liberals and progressives, there were very few individuals who even with the anonymity of social media expressed pleasure at the assassination of Charlie Kirk, whatever his hostile views toward the LGBTQ+ community and black women. There were even very few who pointed out the irony that he was an opponent of gun safety laws.
That can be contrasted with the views of Trump supporters toward this past weekend's murders in Los Angeles. Even if their response were far more empathetic , however, that would not make a hill of beans difference without condemnation from Republicans on Capitol Hill. More than any, they are the real deplorables.
On November 16, 2023, Representative Ro Khanna appeared onMeet the Press, hosted by NBC News' Kristen Welker. The California congressman and Republican Thomas Massie were the sponsors of, and were heavily invested in, the House bill which purportedly would force the Justice Department to release all of the files pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein.
At that point, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had joined Massie, Representative Nancy Mace, and Representative Lauren Boebert as the few GOP Representatives willing to buck the White House and endorse the Massie-Khanna initiative, although, as Khanna told Welker, he was hoping for at least 40 Republicans overall to jump on board.
So the NBC personality asked the Californian "Your joint bill with Thomas Massie is going to come to a vote on the House floor. It's expected to this week. Do you think you have enough votes for it to pass?" Massie responded "We do, and there's nothing I have been prouder of or more meaningful than this work. The credit goes to the survivors."
If this was his proudest moment, he set the bar very low. The House passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act (with only one "no" vote), the Senate followed suit, and three days after the Meet the Press interview The Washington Post reported that President Donald J. Trump had announced
that he has signed a bill directing the Justice Department
to release the Epstein files, documents related to the sprawling
sex-trafficking investigation into the onetime powerful financier that are
fervently sought by Trump’s political opponents and members of his political
base.
After Trump’s announcement, made in a social media post, the
Justice Department will have 30 days to release all unclassified documents
about Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in
2019 and died in an apparent suicide while in federal custody.
At that point, waiting thirty days was no big deal, and that period is almost over as of today, December 14, 2025. However
despite Trump’s signature, there are many reasons to doubt
that a bulk release of the files is imminent — the legislation calling for the
release of the files includes major loopholes, and the Justice Department has
said little about its plans….
What Congress is “legally entitled to” is a more complicated
question than the rhetoric from Capitol Hill might imply.
The legislation that Trump and Congress agreed to pass gives
the Justice Department a few exceptions under which it can refuse to release
material. Among them: if release “would jeopardize an active federal
investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
On Friday, Trump ordered Bondi to launch a federal
investigation related to Epstein — this one aimed at his ties to several
prominent Democrats….
That new investigation could become a reason for the Justice
Department to block release of many files. Bondi and her deputies have
previously said they cannot release information about active investigations.
Other information could be covered by grand jury secrecy
rules. The bill does not explicitly waive those.
The Justice Department has also said many of the files
cannot be released because they contain sensitive victim information and
pornographic material. The legislation contains another exception allowing the
Justice Department to withhold material that “would constitute a clearly
unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” or “depicts or contains child sexual
abuse.”
Nonetheless, Khanna has taken us for idiots. As The Guardian noted
a warning for those in the Trump administration who may find
themselves pressed to withhold information: comply or face the consequences.
“Now, it’s federal law for those documents to be released,
and if the justice officials don’t release it, they will be prosecuted, and
they … could be prosecuted in a future administration,” Khanna told the
Guardian on Wednesday evening, shortly before Trump put his signature on a bill
intended to reveal the truth about what he spent weeks calling a “Democrat
hoax”.
“The career officials [that] are making these
decisions have to think that they’re going to be subject to future contempt of
Congress or criminal prosecution, and they’re taking a huge risk … if they
violate that, given that administrations change,” the California lawmaker added.
Oh my gosh, they're quaking in their boots, they are. We are reminded that in Barack Obama's first term, the President
made it clear that we don’t torture now — but he’s done very
little to ensure that we won’t do it again in the future.
The Justice Department’s Thursday announcement that it has
closed its investigation into all torture-related actions save two particularly
gruesome fatalities was a poignant reminder of that inaction.
Obama has renounced torture. He has issued a new executive
order defining acceptable interrogation techniques. He has reasserted the
illegality of many of the techniques used in American prisons around the world
during the first few years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
But he has also repeatedly expressed his desire to “look
forward instead of looking backward.” As a result, there has yet to be any
accountability for the actions of the Bush/Cheney administration. And none
appears forthcoming.
And without accountability — without either criminal
prosecutions or some sort of official national reckoning of what took place —
there’s no reason to think that the next time a perceived emergency comes up,
some other president or vice president will not decide to torture again.
President Trump has not decided to have anyone tortured- not yet, anyway- but the expansion the power of the Executive branch in his Administration has grown beyond what was expected by even those who long ago warned that he is a fascist. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, he of the "look expected instead of looking backward," remains not only Democrats' most popular politician, but enormously popular in the mainstream media, and in the media generally.
So those career officials Representative Khanna is warning need not fear having to appear before bar of justice in the next presidential administration or at any time. In the very unlikely event they are held accountable, Donald Trump and the American people will little notice, and care less. Even Khanna's admonition itself is telling, being directed not against President Trump, Attorney General Bondi, or even Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, but against "career officials." That's quite a bit down the chain of command.
Evidently, Trump has the least to worry about because we learned in July that
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Attorney
General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche informed President Donald Trump
in May that his name appeared multiple times in the government's files on
Jeffrey Epstein that the Department of Justice and the FBI reviewed.
The officials told Trump of their plan not to release any
additional documents, the report says, because the material contained child
pornography and the personal information of victims.
Here is a safe guess: the child pornography and/or the personal information of victims were not mutually exclusive of the name "Trump."
Now they are, thanks to the FBI's work on behalf of Bondi and Trump. As is probably obvious to Representatives Khanna and Massie, the full, unadulterated Epstein files will not be released even if the Justice Department complies with the law as written. On a positive note, we will know whether the Administration has chosen to be fully transparent or instead hide behind issues of national security, current investigations, or claimed concern for victims. If after release, there is a deep and widespread, fully bipartisan call for President Trump's resignation, we will have seen much of what had been hidden.. If not, we've been had.
In a law class (but not in law school) a few decades ago, the law professor periodically would pose to my class a yes/no question and ask for a response. Before he got one, he would answer it himself: "it depends."
And so it was that Bill Maher on his podcast asked Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks "if you had to live in the Middle East, so, tomorrow, where would you live?" He mentioned several cities and countries, Pakistan, Karachi, Cairo, Amman/Jordan, Beirut/Lebanon. Syria, Tel Aviv, West Bank/Ramallah, even name-checking the Houthis. He added "Where would you live/ What city would you live in? Where would you be comfortable- in that dress?
Bill Maher SNAPS at Ana Kasparian after she blames “Islam on whitey.”
MAHER: “If you had to live in the Middle East. Any city. Where would you live where you’d be comfortable in that dress?”
ANA: “I’m sure I would not be comfortable in this dress in any of the various Middle… pic.twitter.com/RyeqrYUkyN
Kasparian would have flunked Professor Rose's class. Instead of defaulting to blaming USA policy on the Middle East, she should have replied "it depends." (The complete discussion of the topic, according to this blogger, is below.)
A rudimentary search for information regarding clothing permissible in the Middle East reveals a confusing array of laws and rules. What can be worn depends upon the country, the sex/gender of the individual, and, to a lesser extent, circumstances. There is no "one size fits all," especially because the government of each nation determines its own regulations. Regrettably, the clearest explanation, and an objective one, comes via artificial intelligence, Google's Gemini:
A woman can wear a dress in nearly all Muslim countries, but
the style and modesty required vary greatly, from Western-style dresses in
fashion-forward cities like Dubai or Istanbul to modest, loose dresses in more
conservative areas, with countries like Turkey, UAE, Qatar, and Central Asian
nations being generally relaxed, while places like Saudi Arabia (which recently
relaxed mandatory abayas) and Iran still have strong cultural expectations for
covering shoulders and knees.
Kasparian could have explained that whether she'd be comfortable in a Middle Eastern country wearing her dress depended on several factors. But of course she didn't.
She didn't do so because she would be acknowledging something the left is loathe to concede. Islam is different than Christianity or Judaism, the other two major monotheistic religions. And although Jewish extremism and Christian extremism present their own particular issues at times and places, in the modern world, Islamism represents both a broader and more serious problem.
Imagine someone being asked whether a normal dress- not even one especially revealing could be worn in Israel, currently being governed by a coalition of the ultra Orthodox; in the USA, in which the base of the governing party is composed of evangelical Christians; or in the white supremacist nation of Russia. The woman would be incredulous that even such a question would be asked.
But being unable to dress as one wishes without threat of punishment is widely, though not universally, prevalent in Muslim countries of the Middle East. And it could not be admitted to Bill Maher by a fairly prominent individual of the left. (Neither, truthfully, is it admitted by most centrists and, yes, conservatives.)
Clothing can be a complicated issue. Nuclear weapons not so much, thus this hypothetical is at least as telling:
MAHER: “Well, they have nuclear weapons, which they don’t use. If Hamas had a nuclear weapon, how many seconds would it take before they used it on Israel?”
ANA: “I don’t know.”
MAHER: “Three. Three’s the answer. Three seconds.”
ANA: “How do you know that, Bill? Come on.”
MAHER: “Because it’s in their charter.”
"I don't know?" A living, breathing human being, co-host of The Young Turks podcast, with 6.7 million subscribers, doesn't know whether Hamas would launch a nuclear weapon at Israel if they had one.
That can't be stupidity or naivete. No one can be that stupid or naive. There is a glaring absence of honesty in political discourse in this country, and failure to recognize the danger of radical and militant Islamism is one of the most dangerous.
ANA: “You wanna get exhilarated right now? I can exhilarate
you.”
MAHER: “I know you’re gonna say genocide, and I’m gonna say,
well, you don’t know what the word means… Hamas is the bad guy. If you don’t
get that, you don’t get much.”
ANA: “What Hamas did on October 7th was disgusting killing.”
MAHER: “Well, that’s the easiest thing in the world to say…
If you hate oppression… Hundreds of millions of women have basically no freedom
in the Muslim world.”
ANA: “So we should slaughter them instead, which is what’s
been happening.”
MAHER: “Well, you should prosecute a war to the end. That
does involve slaughter in every war.”
ANA: “Civilians get killed in wars.”
MAHER: “Especially when you hide behind them.”
ANA: “But when 83%, according to the IDF’s own data… 83% of
the people that they’ve killed are civilians—”
MAHER: “Because they hide behind them.”
ANA: “But Bill, do you understand that by killing so many
civilians, they are essentially multiplying extremism.”
MAHER: “I do understand that. Do you understand that there’s
very often in the world two very bad choices… You don’t have a good choice. You
have the bad choice and the even worse choice.”
ANA: “Israel has nuclear weapons, Bill. They have nuclear
weapons.”
MAHER: “Well, they have nuclear weapons, which they don’t
use. If Hamas had a nuclear weapon, how many seconds would it take before they
used it on Israel?”
ANA: “I don’t know.”
MAHER: “Three. Three’s the answer. Three seconds.”
ANA: “How do you know that, Bill? Come on.”
MAHER: “Because it’s in their charter.”
ANA: “You have a difficult time at least acknowledging the
atrocities that have been committed against innocent civilians in Gaza.”
MAHER: “Well, it depends on what you call an atrocity. All
wars are going to have atrocities… During the Civil War, a lot of people would
say, especially in the South, that Sherman did not have to burn Atlanta quite
as badly as he did. I mean, we were pretty brutal. But would you also then just
say, well, we don’t know who the good guys were in that war? No, I think it was
the North.”
ANA: “I think much of the problems we have in the Middle
East are due to the enabling of this expansion. Look, it’s an expansionist
policy.”
MAHER: “They’ve never been trying to expand.”
ANA: “They’re trying to annex the West Bank right now. And
Lebanon—southern Lebanon—and Syria, which they’ve succeeded in.”
MAHER: “Excuse me, these are all places that they were
attacked from. When they became a country in 1947, they said, ‘Okay, we will
accept half a loaf.’ They had as much right to that land as anybody. There was
a continual presence there since 1000 BC, when King David had a kingdom.”
ANA: “I don’t care about that at all.”
MAHER: “But it’s relevant!”
(MAHER AND ANA TALK OVER EACH OTHER)
MAHER: “You’re calling them colonizers. They’re not
colonizers.”
ANA: “They’re expanding, and they’re annexing land. That’s
what colonizers do.”
The favorite character in the Republican Senate caucus is Sergeant Hans Schultz- played by the late John Banner- famous for "I know nothing, nothing" or "I see nothing. I know nothing."
On December 3:
MSNBC: You just outlined the dangers posed by drugs. So what explanation do you have for Trump pardoning the former president of Honduras who was a convicted drug trafficker?
SEN. ROGER MARSHALL: I don't know the details of that pardon. Happy to look into it. I can't speak to… pic.twitter.com/oE1IVQca0m
On NBC, “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker reminded
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas that Trump pardoned a man “who
trafficked more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States.” She
specifically asked, “How does that make America safer?”
The senator professed ignorance. “Well, I haven’t spoken to
the president about that pardon,” Cotton replied, adding, “I’d have to know
more about the circumstances.”
But that was nothing compared to the response of Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri to George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Weekwhen he asked the Republican "Do you support this pardon of the former Honduran president?" Schmitt replied
I'm not
familiar with the facts or circumstances, but I think what's telling here is to
try to imply that somehow President Trump is soft on drug smuggling is just
ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous. He's the -- he has provided border
security like we've never seen before. And the fact is, these cartels now,
because the southern border is closed, they've gone to the high seas.
So, President Trump is acting with his core Article II
powers. No serious legal expert would doubt that the president has authority to
blow narco terrorists out of the water, who are poisoning a hundred thousand
Americans every year. If you watched the SEC Championship Game yesterday, the
Big 10 Championship Game, combine those two stadiums with the number of people
there, that's how many people are dying each every year from the poison that's
coming from these narco terrorists.
So the fact is, George, President Trump has been delegated
the authority by Congress to designate terrorist organizations. He has done
that. He sent a letter to Congress saying he was going to initiate these
strikes. We've had regular briefings about it, including from Secretary of
State Rubio, including from other high-ranking officials in the Department of
Defense. He's executing those.
Article II does not grant the President of the USA any such powers, and it's not a close call. Moreover, the authority granted by Congress to the President to designate terrorist organizations, Executive Order 13224 provides "a means by which to disrupt the financial support network for terrorists or terrorist organizations." It has nothing to do with blowing boats out of the water or even executing terrorists. None.
Donald Trump has practically trademarked the Art of the Big Lie, and now his disciples have joined the game. So, too, have they emulated Donald who, if he is to be believed, knows nothing- nothing. In October, he
granted a pardon to Changpeng
Zhao, the billionaire founder of a cryptocurrency exchange who had pleaded
guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023, and whose company struck a
business deal in May involving the Trump family’s crypto venture. But now the
president has claimed he did not know who Mr. Zhao was.
Mr. Trump distanced himself from Mr. Zhao in an interview
with “60 Minutes” broadcast on Sunday, during which he was questioned about the
decision to pardon Mr. Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 after being accused of
money-laundering violations that allowed criminals to move money on his
cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.
“I don’t know who he is,” Mr. Trump said. “I know he got a
four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch
hunt.”
The President didn't know who he is, though he knew that Zhao received a four-month prison sentence and "heard it was a Biden witch hunt." Trump has made a habit of this, falsely claiming at one time or another not to have heard of one individual or another whom he did know. They include rapper Lil John, lawyer George Conway, former defense secretary Robert Gates, then-Senator Bob Casey, former campaign manager George Papadopoulos, then-acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, Vladimir Putin. He met them, knew them, and even worked with some of them. But he didn't know them. And of course, "I don't really know why" Jeffrey Epstein was taking young women from Mar-a-Lago.
Nonetheless, I can't blame Democrats for ignoring the apparent ignorance of Republicans. If the public cared, it could have elected Kamala Harris over Trump in 2024; Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016; Al Gore over George W. Bush in 2000; and truth be told, John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008, Understanding of such things as government, foreign policy, and the office itself hasn't been a priority of American voters in at least several decades.
In the clip below, Hillary Clinton asks about college students from around the world "Where are they getting their information?" She found in speaking to college students
They were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok. That is where they were learning about what happened on October 7th. What happened in the, you know, days, weeks, and months to follow that is a serious problem. It's a serious problem for democracy, whether it's Israel or the United States. It's a serious problem for our young people.
Though she recognizes a particular obstacle to understanding the Middle East, Clinton realizes it's a serious problem for understanding current events generally. Oddly- or maybe not so oddly- some people disagree.
Hillary Clinton has crawled out of her cave to accuse young people of not knowing the truth about Israel because of “social media.”
She is full of shit.
Social media didn’t drop the bombs on Gaza. Israel did & the U.S. supplied them.
Adults under 30 are much more likely to get news on social
media than older adults. There is a 48 percentage point gap between the shares
of Americans ages 18 to 29 and those 65 and older who get news on social media
at least sometimes (76% vs. 28%).
Compared with older adults, young adults are especially
likely to get news from Instagram and TikTok. The difference is stark even
between those ages 18 to 29 and the next oldest age group, ages 30 to 49.
The tweeter isn't primarily concerned with whether young people get most of their information about current events from social media. However, it is a major part of this argument because, were he to concede social media's impact, he's have to acknowledge the effect of an incredible (in the correct sense of the term) source.
The former Senator and Secretary of State continued
I was talking to (Bush 43 Secretary of State) Condi Rice and you know, she said in an interview that I did after the 2-point peace plan came out, she and I were in CBS and she said when people were chanting "from the river to the sea," she would ask the students "what river, what sea" and they didn't know. I had the same experience.
It's impossible to determine the veracity of the claim that many students Rice and Clinton spoke to didn't know what river and what sea the chant pertained to. Nonetheless, there is plenty of reason to believe that this was their experience and that it was not coincidental. In a poll commissioned in late 2013- after the Israel/Hamas war began- the Wall Street Journal commissioned a poll which found that 86% of students supported the chant. However
less than half (47%) were able to name the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as the boundaries that the controversial chant was talking about.
Other students polled gave answers including the Nile and the Euphrates rivers, the Dead Sea and even the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
They didn't know what the chant pertained to, yet they supported it. They didn't know that if there is a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, it would encompass the occupied territory of the West Bank, the territory known as the Gaza Strip, and Israel proper.
It's likely, therefore, that they didn't know that Gaza was controlled by Hamas, elected in 2006 and at the time serving in the 17th year of their four-year term. It is even less likely that they understood that Arabs in Israel proper enjoy more rights than they do in any other nation in the Middle East.
And it is a safe bet they didn't know that the "Palestinian" is a term originating relatively recently for political purposes. Nor would they understand that Israelis, living on the historical land of Palestine, are Palestinians while "Palestinians" living in the diaspora are not Palestinian but Arabs who are residents of Jordan or other nations.
But it's likely they do understand that "from the river to the sea" is a shortened version of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Thus, most of the pro-"Palestine" crowd know that a "free Palestine" would amount to a "no more Israel." They do know that Israel is the designated Jewish state, created because of past wrongs committed against Jews, especially in Nazi German. (Jews did not generally fare well in most of the Arab world, either, but anyone under 60 or so can be forgiven for not knowing that.)
In late September, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, and Portugal recognized a state of Palestine announced plans to recognize "Palestine." Soon afterward, Israel launched a military strike against Qatar, ostensibly to kill Hamas officials who were meeting there. Shortly afterward, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, euphemistically referred to as a "20-point peace plan."
France apparently defined "Palestine" as including the West Bank and Gaza. Great Britain referred to the "occupied territories," presumably the West Bank and Gaza, which is governed by Hamas. The United Nations currently gives "permanent observer" status to the Palestinian Authority, which is the governing authority in the West Bank and only the West Bank.
This is a muddled situation because "Palestinians" has become an operative term only in the past few decades, as it has become politically useful messaging. However, the ancient land of Palestine encompassed everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The slogan "from the river to the sea" or "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" pertains to the entire area and evisceration of the State of Israel.
As usual, Hillary Clinton was right, in this case about two things:. the ignorance of many college students about a Palestinian state and about social media's impact. And that is a much greater problem.
Batya Ungar-Sargon maintains that she once was a liberal and now is a conservative. A podcaster who unfortunately has an hour-long show on weekends on CNN's NewsNight With Abby Phillip, she addressed the controversy over the military's air strike on a boat in the Caribbean. She says in the video below
But I'm saying the whole point here is, is it still a legitimate target or not? If they can get on that debris and call for the rest of the narco-terrorists to show up and save them, it's still a legitimate military target..... If the radio is still working on the boat, then it's still a legitimate military target.
Seen and heard in context, Ungar-Sargon clearly means "the radio was still working ton the boat and therefore it's still a legitimate military target."
NYT: "The military would attempt to rescue survivors who appeared to be helpless, shipwrecked and out of what the administration considered a fight. But it would try again to kill them if they took what the United States deemed to be a hostile action, like communicating with… pic.twitter.com/87gAeeP4id
In its reporting, the New York Times reporters she cites named as their sources "Pentagon officials," "U.S. officials," several U.S. officials," and, most often, "officials."
By contrast, Ungar-Sargon was confident, if not certain, notwithstanding presumably realizing that Admiral Frank M. Bradley, who commanded the operation, and General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were due to testify before a House of Representatives Committee the following day. Oops:
The two men killed as they floated holding onto their
capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early
September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top
military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according
to three sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.
As far back as September, defense officials have been
quietly pushing back on criticism that killing the two survivors amounted to a
war crime by arguing, in part, that they were legitimate targets because they
appeared to be radioing for help or backup — reinforcements that, if they had
received it, could have theoretically allowed them to continue to traffic the
drugs aboard their sinking ship.
Defense officials made that claim in at least one briefing
in September for congressional staff, according to a source familiar with the
session, and several media outlets cited officials repeating that justification
in the last week.
But Thursday, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley acknowledged that
the two survivors of the military’s initial strike were in no position to make
a distress call in his briefings to lawmakers. Bradley was in charge of Joint
Special Operations Command at the time of the strike and was the top military
officer directing the attack.
So Ungar-Sargon, at least at this point, appears to have been wrong about her loud and confident implication that the last two individuals murdered by missile were trying to get their comrades to come rescue them. Worse yet, arguably, was the "narco-terrorism" or "narco-terrorists" phrase the right is bandying about.
Even if all the individuals were involved in terrorism, they were not terrorists. They would have been distributing drugs not for political gain, but for profit. And the victims were not innocent bystanders but, depending on where the drugs were headed, foolish customers or profit-oriented drug salesmen themselves.
Republicans have figured out that invoking "terrorism" or "terrorist" is popular justifies almost anything with a huge segment of the public. Additionally, the news media is reluctant to question the designation. In the odd case in which that doesn't work, claiming we are at "war" often carries the day. Much of politics is a battle of messages and thus far Democrats are losing this one.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put
half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you
name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them
up....some of those folks—they are irredeemable, but thankfully
they are not America.” -Hillary Clinton, 9/9/16
An "America First" (according to her bio) tweeter, with, according to Elon Musk, 347,300 followers on X:
“President Trump is trying to silence me, threatening to kill me for saying what is true”
WTF is he talking about?! Trump has never threatened to k@ll him. What an outrageous lie!
On November 20, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had told reporters
that President Trump does not want to execute members of Congress who
urged the military not to follow unlawful orders, but that he wants to see them
“held accountable.”
Trump earlier Thursday responded to a video made by six
Democrats with military and intelligence backgrounds, calling it “seditious
behavior from traitors” and later posting “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by
DEATH!”
“Does the president want to execute members of Congress?” a
reporter asked Leavitt.
“No,” Leavitt said. “Many in this room want to talk about
the president’s response, but not what brought the president to responding in
this way."
Well, hey, whenever a President calls for the execution of a specific American- six, in this case- it tends to be a topic of conversation. As Senator Kelly put it in the video above, "seeing that video, here is how any other President would have responded. They would have said two words: "of course. But that's not how this President responded."
Any other President would have but Donald Trump has a very different vision of America. The Arizona senator added
My family knows the cost of political violence. My wife Gabby was shot in the head and nearly died while speaking to her constituents. The President should understand this, too. He has been the target of political violence by himself. The Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Elizabeth Hortman, and her husband were murdered in their home this year. The governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, had his house firebombed this year.
Then, Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University, a place I had visited just a few weeks ago with Republican senator John Curtis. Faced with a wave like this, every other President we have ever had in the history of this nation would have tried to heal the nation. But we all know Donald Trump. He uses every single opportunity to divide us.
Shortly after the murder of Charlie Kirk, Donald was aske on Fox News how his Administration would stem extremism of the left and the right and commented
I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. They don't want to see crime. They're saying "We don't wan these people coming here. And we don't want you burning our shopping centers. We don't want you shooting our people in the middle of the street.
The radicals on the left are the problem. They're vicious and they're horrible. And they're politically savvy, although they want men in women's sports. They want transgender for everyone. They want open borders.
Violence from the right, according to a President who evidently views it as righteous, is driven by opposition to crime. Donald was criticized for these remarks but only modestly.
Contrast to the outrage- the ongoing outrage- over Hillary Clinton's remarks on the campaign trail in September of 2016. She described "basket of deplorables" as "the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic- you name it. It remains a cliche in national politics as if the candidate had been condemning all of Donald Trump's supporters. However, a moment later, she noted that Trump "tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric and
Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they
are not America. But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends
from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South
Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that
other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them
down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries
about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate
for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy
everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be
different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to
heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to
understand and empathize with as well.
And so the guy who defeated Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024 charges six members of Congress with seditious behavior, says the penalty for that is death, and some of his supporters appear to believe that Trump has not threatened the lives of those Democrats. The greater problem, as Hillary Clinton would realize, occurs when the President's spokesperson is hateful, dishonest, or evasive. Donald Trump selected a press secretary in his mold, and she never disappoints.
