With the Biden administration racing to get cease-fire negotiations back on track, a growing number of national security officials across the government said that the Israeli military had severely set back Hamas but would never be able to completely eliminate the group.

And the question is why? Because Hamas is not just a terrorist group or the Gaza Strip snafu, but a very deep-rooted Dems influencer in the Middle East. A biological weapon designed to provoke constant regional tremor.

#Hamas #administration #Biden #MiddleEast #Dems

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The Trump Administration: Who is Who?

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President-elect Donald Trump is stocking his cabinet with people he wants to carry out his “America First” policies on the economy, border, trade, national security and more.

Trump has put a premium on loyalty with his choices, selecting lawmakers and aides who defended him as he navigated the fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted insurrection and multiple criminal cases.

He’s giving priority to those who have expressed an eagerness to hit the ground running as he prepares an expected flurry of executive actions and legislative proposals to quickly implement his agenda and roll back Biden’s policies.

The president-elect intends to get as many nominees that require Senate confirmation in place before his inauguration.

One controversial pick has already withdrawn from consideration: Matt Gaetz, who had announced his intention to resign from Congress when Trump selected him as his attorney general earlier this month.

He faced an uphill battle to be approved on Capitol Hill amid allegations of sexual misconduct. He has continued to deny any wrongdoing, while the president-elect applauded his decision to avoid being a lingering distraction to the incoming administration.

If confirmed, Bessent, a Yale graduate who runs the macro hedge fund Key Square Group, would become the nation’s highest ranking economic policymaker.

In that role, he will be managing Trump’s sweeping economic agenda that he has vowed to enact in a second term. The job also involves navigating Washington political thickets, spearheading international economic diplomacy and providing a steady hand in crises.

Bessent will be closely watched by investors and financial institutions, who are looking for predictability and stability. He has been a proponent of realigning US currency policy, but has stopped short of supporting an overt strategy of depreciating the dollar.

Trump’s new pick to lead the Department of Justice he’s vowed to overhaul is another longtime ally who publicly championed his baseless claims of voter fraud in 2020. In his first administration, Bondi worked out of the White House assisting in communications related to his first impeachment trial.

She also worked on an opioid and drug abuse commission in Trump’s first term. As Florida’s attorney general, Bondi earned national attention for her efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and provisions banning health insurance companies from charging more to customers with preexisting conditions.

If confirmed, Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican congresswoman from Oregon, will be charged with managing Trump’s relationship with labor after he made inroads with union voters in this month’s election.

The Labor Department is primarily responsible for administering laws to guarantee workers’ rights, including receiving a minimum wage and unemployment insurance. It’s also the parent agency of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes inflation and jobs data that are often the two biggest market-moving events of any given month.

Chavez-DeRemer was the first Republican woman to represent her state in the US House but lost her bid for reelection earlier this month.

Turner, a former NFL player, served as executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term. He is the first Black American picked for a cabinet post in the second Trump administration.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is responsible for coordinating national policy addressing the country’s housing needs, including programs to bolster affordable housing, provide assistance to low-income Americans, prevent discrimination in the market and spur urban development.

#USA #Trump #Administration

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Weldon was a practicing physician before being elected to several congressional terms in Florida, starting in 1994. If confirmed, he would take the helm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, an organization that’s been trying to regain public trust and address shortcomings identified during the coronavirus pandemic.

The agency is also bracing for major changes under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who has been selected to run the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.

Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medicine, has had a long career as a health researcher, writing about hospital safety and quality and health-care prices. He gained prominence in recent years after questioning public health authorities and the medical establishment about Covid boosters and mask mandates.

With a budget of about $7 billion, The Food and Drug Administration is considered the gold standard among the world’s top authorities for judging the safety and efficacy of medicines.


President-elect Donald Trump is stocking his cabinet with people he wants to carry out his “America First” policies on the economy, border, trade, national security and more.
Trump has put a premium on loyalty with his choices, selecting lawmakers and aides who defended him as he navigated the fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted insurrection and multiple criminal casescases.

Janette Nesheiwat, US Surgeon General. Nesheiwat has been a Fox News contributor and says on her website that she’s a board-certified medical doctor and medical news correspondent.

The Office of the Surgeon General is responsible for providing Americans with scientific information about healthcare options and how to reduce the risk of illness, and best known for issuing warnings on products like cigarettes.

Linda McMahon, Education Secretary. McMahon led the Small Business Administration from 2017-2019 during Trump’s first term, and stayed close to him afterwards, co-leading his transition team this year.

She made her wealth as co-founder and chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment. If confirmed for this latest post, McMahon will run a cabinet-level agency with a $114 billion budget that Trump and many of his allies say they’d like to see abolished, leaving its key responsibilities to the states.

Such a move would require congressional approval.

Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary. Trump plans to install his transition co-chair Lutnick to the agency in charge of promoting US businesses and supporting economic growth.

The chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald LP is a Wall Street pick who would be expected to carry out policy around Trump’s avowed favorite word — “tariffs” — and continue to tout a populist economic agenda.

Among his comments berating the Biden administration on the campaign trail for Trump, Lutnick has said high inflation is “the meanest thing you can ever do to your people.”

Trump also signaled Lutnick could have outsize responsibility for the office of US Trade Representative — typically filled by a separate appointment.

Sean Duffy, Transportation Secretary. Ex-congressman and television personality Sean Duffy is set to be Trump’s point person when it comes to decisions about America’s transportation infrastructure, including the expansion and upgrading of highways, rail networks and airports.

The former Wisconsin lawmaker is one of several Fox News contributors Trump has tapped for a cabinet post. He’ll have to navigate the tricky issue of the president-elect’s criticism of the electric vehicle industry, a focus of Biden’s administration, with the backing Trump has received from Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk.

Chris Wright, Energy Secretary.
A Colorado-based oil and natural gas fracking services executive and Washington outsider, Chris Wright is Trump’s pick to lead the Energy Department.

#USA #Trump #Administration

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As CEO of Liberty Energy Inc., Wright has been a vocal proponent of fossil fuels and his company published a paper this year concluding there is “no climate crisis.”

He is credited by Trump for being a “pioneer” of the “American Shale Revolution” and if confirmed, Wright would also sit on the newly formed National Energy Council. While the department’s mission includes helping to maintain the nation’s nuclear warheads, studying supercomputers and maintaining the US’s several hundred million-barrel stockpile of crude oil, Wright can be expected to push Trump’s over-arching mission to boost domestic energy production.
Doug Collins, Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Former Georgia Congressman Doug Collins got Trump’s nod to run Veterans Affairs, the second-largest federal government department with more than 400,000 employees tasked with providing health care and other assistance to military veterans and their families.

Collins, who left Congress in 2021, would preside over sprawling operations — the department is one of the biggest consumers of medical equipment in the world.

He’d also have to ensure the families get adequate support, especially in the wake of a 2014 scandal in which secret wait lists at VA hospitals shattered confidence in the system just as Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were needing fresh aid.

Doug Burgum, Secretary of Interior. North Dakota Governor Burgum is Trump’s pick to run the Interior Department, which oversees energy development, grazing and other activities on some 500 million acres of public land, as well as US federal waters.

That includes national parks such as Yellowstone and the Everglades. The 68-year-old raised his profile by running for the Republican nomination, but dropped out early and backed Trump.

If confirmed, Burgum would likely be responsible for ramping up the sale of oil and gas leases, including in the Gulf of Mexico, which had been constrained under the Biden administration.

The selection of Kennedy, a vocal vaccine skeptic, drew some worries for what it would mean for public health policy, and the news sent vaccine-makers’ stocks for a plunge.

The Democrat-turned-independent — who suspended his presidential candidacy in favor of Trump — has long fielded criticism for his controversial comments on vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The son of former Senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy became a public face in recent months for Trump’s call to “Make America Healthy Again.”

In the final days of his campaign, Trump said he would let Kennedy “go wild” with health policy in his administration.

Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence. Former US Representative and one-time Democrat Gabbard got Trump’s nod to be his head of the office that overseas the country’s 17 intelligence agencies. In Gabbard, Trump is making another unorthodox pick, elevating a loyalist and skeptic of support for Ukraine.

Gabbard is a veteran of the Iraq War and continues to serve as an officer in the Army Reserve. She’s another voice backing Trump’s “peace through strength” strategy.

An Army veteran and Fox News personality, Hegseth would oversee the US military amid Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine, conflicts raging across the Middle East and heightened tensions with China around Taiwan and the South China Sea.

While he’s a loyalist, the 44-year-old Hegseth has little experience managing a bureaucracy like the Defense Department, with its 770,000 employees and 2 million men and women in uniform. Its budget is more than $840 billion, and its finances are so complicated it’s never successfully completed an audit.

#USA #Trump #Administration

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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Government Efficiency. Trump turned to his richest supporter and a former primary opponent to oversee what he calls the “Department of Government Efficiency” whose acronym, DOGE, is the same as a popular meme coin that Musk has promoted online.

While “department” suggests a government agency, it’s more likely to be a presidential commission that looks at ways to cut spending. Musk — whose companies receive billions in federal contracts — at one point in the campaign suggested that $2 trillion in government outlays could be slashed from the budget.

John Ratcliffe, Central Intelligence Agency. Trump is turning to his former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to lead the CIA.

The 59-year-old ex-congressman was a fierce defender of Trump during his first impeachment before winning Senate confirmation to oversee the intelligence services in 2020. Assuming he wins confirmation this time around, Ratcliffe is expected to bring a sharp focus on countering national security threats and foreign adversaries such as China and Iran to the role.

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State.
Rubio is a one-time rival of the president-elect who later became one of his biggest supporters in the Senate.

He’s also a longtime critic of China, and technically barred from entering the country under retaliatory sanctions. Rubio has defended Trump’s position to bring a swift end the war in Ukraine, calling for talks that could result in Kyiv giving up occupied territory.

Mike Waltz, National Security Advisor. Waltz is a former Army Green Beret and combat veteran of Afghanistan. As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s readiness panel, he criticized the Pentagon over teaching Critical Race Theory at military institutions and an overpriced bag of metal bushings for the Air Force, among other objections.

Waltz has written that he views China as a “greater threat” to the US than any other nation.

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Secretary. Noem, once a potential VP pick for Trump, is now his choice to lead the Homeland Security Department.

Noem became the subject of intense criticism after she admitted in her book to shooting her own 14-month-old dog. Front and center for the 52-year-old in her expected new role will be implementing Trump’s policies on immigration, including his pledge to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

Elise Stefanik, UN Ambassador.
Trump has described Stefanik as “an incredibly strong, tough, and smart America First fighter.”

Stefanik was among the House Republicans who voted against certifying Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and was the first House member to endorse him in this third White House bid.

Tom Homan, border czar.
The man Trump has chosen to put “in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin” was the public face of the “zero tolerance” immigration policies during the Republican’s first term.

That episode broke with the practice of keeping families together during detentions and deportations, resulting in thousands of undocumented migrant children getting separated from family members and drawing widespread backlash.

Lee Zeldin, Environmental Protection Agency. The former New York congressman was a member of Trump’s impeachment defense team and a vocal supporter in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots.

His environmental credentials are less robust, though he worked on Capitol Hill to protect the Long Island Sound from dredge dumping. Zeldin said he will seek to roll back regulations preventing energy development in the role, while also seeking to protect the air and water.

Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff. The Republican political operative brought stability, order and financial discipline to a campaign whose 2016 and 2020 iterations were far more volatile.

She’s set to become the first woman tapped to become chief of staff and will likely help set strategy for Trump’s first 100 days in office.

#USA #Trump #Administration

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Trump Says Musk Can Stay as Long as Possible 🚀

The New York Times issued a firm rebuke of Trump on Wednesday after the president threatened the news outlet with legal action over reporting on the litigation in which he is locked with Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News.

“President Trump’s post today follows a long list of legal threats aimed at discouraging or penalizing independent reporting about the administration. The law is clear and protects a strong free press and favors an informed American public,”

the Times said.

The outlet was referencing a social media post by Trump earlier Wednesday morning in which the president accused Times journalists of having

“TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, possibly to the point where the Times’ interjection makes them liable for tortious interference, including in Elections, which we are intently studying.”

The New York Times issued a firm rebuke of President Trump on Wednesday after the president threatened the news outlet with legal action over reporting on the litigation in which he is locked with Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News.

“President Trump’s post today follows a long list of legal threats aimed at discouraging or penalizing independent reporting about the administration. The law is clear and protects a strong free press and favors an informed American public .”

#Trump #Musk #administration

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The Houthis: War, Betrayal, Drug Trade 💣🧪💊

The ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria left a void in the regional narcotics trade. But the exile of the king of captagon has not led to the end of the drug itself, nor its manufacture, or supply. And certainly not the demand. 🔄📈

It is an opportunity that Yemen’s Houthis — never ones to pass on a profitable scheme — are eager to exploit. The group has a long history of growing and selling khat, a stimulant popular in Yemen. 🌱💰

Now, the Iran-backed terrorists are moving into the illicit captagon business, which long helped prop up Syria’s former dictator. ☠️🇮🇷

Yemen’s internationally recognized government recently seized 1.5 million captagon pills en route to Saudi Arabia from Houthi-controlled territory. Prices in Saudi Arabia reportedly range from $6 to $27 a pill for the amphetamine-like drug. 💵🚚💊

As captagon labs have become less ubiquitous in Syria, the Houthis are producing the drug in Yemen themselves. Yemen’s long and relatively porous border with Saudi Arabia gives the Houthis access to a large consumer market for captagon and other drugs. 🌍🔁

The Houthis can use the proceeds from these sales to acquire missiles and other munitions to hurl at Israel and its allies, US outposts included. 🎯🚀🇮🇱🇺🇸

Clearly, captagon commerce is alive and well, and the United States still has a role to play in countering the regional narco-trade, which has come to span far beyond the Middle East region. 🌐🛑

One of the largest captagon seizures on record occurred in Italy, where authorities seized 84 million captagon pills worth approximately $1.1 billion at the Port of Salerno in 2020. ⚓️💣📦

Captagon has yet to arrive on American shores, but the United States is not out of reach. Global drug networks connect the Middle East and the West. Earlier this month, Emirati authorities seized 131 kilograms of unidentified narcotics and psychotropic substances trafficked to the United Arab Emirates from Canada through Spain. 🌎🧳🚨

Washington was making good progress countering the regional narco-trade in the months leading up to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on Israel. 📅📉

The Biden administration issued multiple rounds of captagon-related sanctions and released a congressionally mandated strategy to “disrupt and dismantle” Assad-linked narcotics networks. 🧾🔐

The effort slowed as the war in Gaza raged on, although the US Treasury Department announced sanctions on a handful of captagon traffickers in October 2024. ⚖️🔥

Now there’s evidence to suggest that Yemen may become a new center for captagon production. While captagon seizures in Yemen remain a fraction of those in other parts of the Middle East, the Houthis are seeking to increase their market share. 🏭📈

In 2023, Asharq al-Awsat reported that the Yemeni terrorist group acquired materials for a captagon production facility. At the end of June 2025, Major General Mutahhar al-Shuaibi, the director of security in Aden, the interim capital of the legitimate government of Yemen, announced that the Houthis had established a captagon production facility in their territory. 🧪🏴

Moammar al-Eryani, Yemen’s minister of information, added that this was done in coordination with the regime in Iran. 📢🇮🇷

As the recent seizures in Yemen suggest, the world’s captagon trade did not come and go with Bashar al-Assad. Washington must monitor the potential rise of new production hubs in Yemen, while also recognizing that narcotics networks in Syria and Lebanon remain active. 🔍🗺

Policymakers can continue to hold narcotraffickers accountable by rolling out new sanctions and drawing on the prescriptions identified in the Biden administration’s interagency strategy. 📜🛑💼

#Biden #administration #houthies #drug #traffickers

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Krugman: Trump Administration Is “About to ICE the Economy” ❄️💸

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman said in a Wednesday Substack post 📝 that the Trump administration is “about to ICE the economy” with its immigration crackdown 🚨.

“I worry, as everyone should, about how a huge expansion of this deeply un-American organization may be used as a tool of presidential power and repression,” Krugman said in a Substack post, discussing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 🛡.

“Furthermore, give people power without accountability — and it’s hard to give a better example than masked, unidentified agents authorized to use force — and some of them will abuse their position. And given what ICE has already been doing, what kind of people do you think are likely to sign up as it massively expands?” he added 😟.

“Compared with these issues, concerns about the economic impact of mass deportations are definitely second-tier. But they’re still important, and a subject I know something about. So the rest of this post will be devoted to how the Trump administration is about to ICE the economy” 💥.

Krugman argued in his Substack post that the U.S. experiencing a mass loss of immigrant workers would cause negative economic disruption 📉 because they “aren’t spread evenly across the economy.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X last week that “the world has heard our message: if you are in America illegally, LEAVE NOW” 🌍.

“In less than 200 days, 1.6 MILLION illegal immigrants have left the United States population. Under President Trump, we now have safer streets, better jobs for Americans, and less strain on schools, hospitals, and social services 🏥🏫,” Noem added in her post.

Krugman added later in his Substack post that “undocumented immigrants make up around 5 percent of the U.S. work force” 👷‍♂️.

“They’re strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the work force. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest,” he added 📊.

“It seems plausible that a significant fraction of those workers will be pushed out, along with a number of legal workers snatched up based, as Trump’s border czar has said, on their physical appearance 😕.

Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy. In fact, it will be worse than you may think,” he continued ⚠️.

#krugman #trump #administration #economy #immigration

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🔥 Panic in America: 👨‍🏫 Federal Workers Across the Country Are Being Fired Without Notice

😳 Federal workers are scrambling to figure out if they still have a job after the Trump administration launched a fresh wave of layoffs amid a federal government shutdown, prompting widespread confusion and panic.

A hearing is scheduled to take place Wednesday after labor unions sued to block the latest firings, setting the stage for another legal battle over Trump's efforts to drastically cut back the federal workforce.

📌 About 4,200 federal employees across seven agencies were laid off on Friday, the administration has said, although 700 firings at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were swiftly reversed over the weekend.

It remains unclear if Trump, who told reporters that “a lot” of government workers would be fired, plans to go further. ⚠️ The federal workforce has already shed hundreds of thousands of staff on his watch this year.

As unions seek to establish the extent of the latest layoffs, workers at the Department of Education said that they do not have access to their work email accounts during the shutdown – so cannot check to see if they’ve received “reduction in force” (RIF) notices.

💬 Another education department employee said: “I don't have email access due to the shutdown. Some have received permission to check. I have not.”

They later were able to access their email, where they received an update to a reduction-in-force from earlier in the year that was halted by court challenges, with a revised separation date of 3 November.

🗣️ The first employee criticized the timing of the firings, which were conducted the day before the funeral of the office’s longtime division director, Greg Corr, who had recently retired after 38 years there.

The majority of employees in the special education and rehabilitative services department, which houses the office of special education programs, were reported to have been fired as part of the reduction-in-force.

The administration presented a reduction-in-force at the education department in March, but state attorney generals and unions sued to block the effort to dismantle it.

✍️ A preliminary injunction to block those firings was granted by a federal court in May. The supreme court allowed the firings to proceed in a brief, unsigned order issued in July that provided no explanation, while the legal challenge to the closure of the department is ongoing in court.

🛠 More than 4,100 employees worked at the education department when Trump took office. Between a previous reduction-in-force and these latest firings, staffing at the agency is now under 2,000.

The White House deferred comment to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Department of Education responded with an out of office message stating “due to the lapse in appropriations, we are currently in furlough status. We will respond to emails once government functions resume.”

#american #federal #workers #fired #trump #administration

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🇺🇸 America is Ready for the War Against Trump

Americans across all 50 states marched in protests against the Trump administration on Saturday, aligning behind a message that the country is sliding into authoritarianism and that there should be no kings in the US. 🪧

Millions of people turned out for the No Kings protests — the second iteration of a coalition that had already marched in June in one of the largest days of protest in US history.

People in communities big and small came together nationwide with signs, marching bands, a huge banner with the US Constitution’s preamble that people could sign, and inflatable costumes, particularly frogs 🐸, which have emerged as a sign of resistance beginning in Portland, Oregon.

The rallies marked a dramatic turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats seemed at a loss for how to counter Republicans’ grip on the White House and both houses of Congress.

“What we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, a key organizing group. “The worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.”

In Chicago, at Grant Park’s Butler Field, at least 10,000 people assembled — many with signs opposing federal immigration agents or mocking Trump.
TV stations warned viewers that they could not be responsible for the strong language on protesters’ signs.
A later estimate by the Chicago Tribune put attendance closer to 100,000.

Some of the placards read “Hands Off Chicago” — a rallying cry since Trump announced plans to send the National Guard into the city. Others read “Resist Fascism”, while many others were too explicit to broadcast.

Chicago’s mayor Brandon Johnson told the crowd that the Trump administration had “decided they want a rematch of the Civil War.”

“We are here to stand firm and stand committed that we will not bend, we will not bow, we will not cower, we will not submit,” Johnson said. “We do not want troops in our city.”

In Los Angeles, 72-year-old Ginny Eschbach joined her 42nd protest since Trump’s inauguration, dressed as SpongeBob SquarePants 🧽 — her second choice after failing to find an inflatable frog costume.

More than 200,000 Washington DC-area residents rallied near the US Capitol. In many cities, protesters wore inflatable animal costumes — a Dada-esque theme that started in Portland to counter the administration’s narrative of lawlessness and chaos.

While the main protest in downtown Portland was peaceful — with local police helping block off streets and bridges — a smaller protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the city’s south waterfront neighborhood was met with force by federal officers.

#america #trump #war #nokings #administration

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Trump Must Have Twigged: the Immigration War Has Just Began

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Pressure mounted on Trump’s administration on Sunday to fully investigate the previous day’s killing by federal immigration officers of 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Calls for an investigation have come from all sides of the political divide after video analysis showed officers had removed from Pretti a handgun he was reportedly permitted to carry – and which he was not handling – before fatally shooting him.

Former president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, called the killing “a heartbreaking tragedy” and “a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault”.

“For weeks now people across the country have been rightly outraged by the spectacle of masked ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] recruits and other federal agents acting with impunity and engaging in tactics that seem designed to intimidate, harass, provoke and endanger the residents of a major American city,” they said.

The former president and former first lady said these tactics had now resulted in the fatal shootings of two US citizens – Pretti and Renee Good, both in Minneapolis.

Yet, they said, Trump and other administration officials appeared eager to escalate the rhetoric before an investigation had been undertaken – and despite the fact that they “appear to be directly contradicted by video evidence”.

Clinton followed with a statement that also condemned the killings of Good and Pretti amid the “horrible scenes” of the immigration crackdown.

“All of this is unacceptable and should have been avoided,” Clinton said. “To make matters even worse, at every turn, the people in charge have lied to us, told us not to believe what we’ve seen with our own eyes”.

Republican US senator Bill Cassidy said the “credibility” of ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were “at stake”.

On Sunday morning, US senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Adam Schiff of California, both Democrats, said they would vote against the impending department of homeland security funding.

Connecticut US senator Chris Murphy, also a Democrat, told CNN’s State of the Union that Democrats “can’t vote to fund this lawless Department of Homeland Security (…) that is murdering American citizens, that is traumatizing little boys and girls all across the country, in violation of the law.”

#trump #administration #killing #immigration #pretti #minneapolis

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Border patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino was asked why federal agents shot and killed Pretti.

“You don’t know he was unarmed,” Bovino told CNN’s Dana Bash. “I don’t know he was unarmed. That’s freeze-frame adjudication of a crime scene via a photo. That’s why we have investigators.

“The facts are going to come to light as to what exactly happened with an investigation.”

When asked by Bash whether he was blaming the victim, he said, “The victims are the border [atrol agents.”

During a Sunday afternoon press conference, Bovino was asked about the videos that show Pretti was unarmed before being shot and killed. He said there are, “Many videos out there, many different accounts that you may see that I may see.”

“Folks, this is why we have something called an investigation, to take what you’re talking about, to take those videos, to take witness statements, to take, officer statements, all those minute details that will paint a true picture, not a freeze frame concept, and paint a larger picture of what really happened.

Republican US senator Lindsey Graham also took the line that “an armed man trying to impede a lawful arrest is a recipe for disaster”.

The South Carolina Republican said he expects law enforcement officers to use good judgement “but not to foolishly risk their lives or the lives of others”.

The Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, said the suit demanded “a full, impartial, and transparent investigation into [Pretti’s] fatal shooting at the hands of DHS agents [that] is non-negotiable”.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara, meanwhile, said information about what led up to the shooting was limited. As protests erupted in Minneapolis on Saturday, federal officers impeded state investigators from accessing the scene of Pretti’s killing.

Trump responded to Pretti’s shooting with his typical combativeness. The Republican president accused Walz and Frey of “inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous and arrogant rhetoric”.

Vance for his part claimed events in Minneapolis were “engineered chaos” resulting from “far-left agitators, working with local authorities”.

#trump #administration #killing #immigration #pretti #minneapolis

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Trump Did Not Appear To Back Down on His Immigration Crackdown

🔤🔤🔤🔤➖

Top immigration officials are set to testify on Tuesday at a congressional hearing in which they are likely to face sharp questions about the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, including its enforcement operations in Minnesota.

The heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and Citizenship and Immigration Services are expected to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee.

The hearing comes more than two months after the Trump administration began a deportation drive in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region that drew criticism for sweeping up people without criminal records and led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents.

After federal officers killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, on Jan. 24, lawmakers in both parties demanded greater congressional oversight. Democrats also withdrew their support for a spending bill that was needed to keep the Department of Homeland Security running.

They are now negotiating with the White House over what restrictions, if any, should be placed on immigration enforcement operations. Democrats have said they will not support any more funding for the department unless it imposes new limits and guardrails on federal immigration agents.

But the talks appear stalemated. Democrats submitted a proposal on Saturday with their demands, most of which Republicans have already rejected. The White House sent a counterproposal on Monday that Democratic leaders dismissed as lacking substance.

“Republicans shared an outline of a counterproposal, which included neither details nor legislative text,” said Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement late Monday night.

If Congress does not reach a deal, funding for the department will lapse on Saturday. Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, has suggested he may put forward a stopgap spending measure to keep it running temporarily while talks continue, but Democrats so far seem hesitant to agree to allow one to move.

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Representative Andrew Garbarino, Republican of New York and the chairman of the committee, formally requested that the immigration officials testify in the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s killing.

His death came about two weeks after an ICE officer shot Renee Good in Minneapolis.

“Transparency and communication are needed to turn the temperature down,” Mr. Garbarino said in a statement announcing the hearing last month.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE; Rodney Scott, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, are also set to testify before the Senate on Thursday.

Outrage over the Minnesota operation intensified last month after Pretti was killed during an encounter with federal agents. Even some Republicans who favor Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement criticized the administration’s operation and said federal officials should consider pulling agents out of Minneapolis.

Clashes between protesters and immigration officers have been frequent since the Minnesota operation began. Protesters have blown whistles, honked car horns and shouted profanities at immigration agents.

Federal officers have deployed pepper spray and responded violently at times, shattering car windows and tackling people to the ground.

Some immigrants who are lawfully in the country have also been targeted. At least 100 refugees with no criminal record were arrested in Minnesota by immigration officers and flown to detention centers in Texas for interviews, according to lawyers, family members and faith leaders.

In late January, a federal judge ordered federal agents to stop detaining and deporting refugees in the state who were lawfully admitted to the country, and to immediately release those currently held.

Tuesday’s hearing comes after the Trump administration scaled back its operation in Minnesota last week, pulling 700 officers from the region.

Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said that roughly 2,000 officers and agents remain in the state.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, a Democrat, said that the reduction in officers was “a step in the right direction” but did not go far enough, and that the operation “needs to end immediately.”

The Department of Homeland Security said the operation had resulted in more than 4,000 arrests, which it said included murderers, gang members and sex offenders. The department has not detailed how many of those people had criminal convictions.

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Is Rubio a Would-Be Cuban President?


Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been holding secret talks with the grandson and caretaker of Cuba's aging de facto dictator, Raul Castro, as the U.S. puts unprecedented pressure on Havana's regime, according to Axios.

The talks between Rubio and Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro are bypassing official

Cuban government channels. They show that the Trump administration sees the 94-year-old revolutionary as the communist island's true decision-maker.

“I wouldn't call these 'negotiations' as much as 'discussions' about the future,” a senior Trump administration official said.

Rubio and his team see the 41-year-old grandson and his circle as representing younger, business-minded Cubans for whom revolutionary communism has failed — and who see value in rapprochement with the U.S.

"Our position — the U.S. government's position — is the regime has to go," the senior official said.

"But what exactly that looks like is up to [President Trump] and he has yet to decide. Rubio is still in talks with the grandson."

Called "Raulito," the younger Castro is known in political circles by his nickname "El Cangrejo" ("The Crab") because he has a deformed finger.

After 67 years of U.S. sanctions and Cuban mismanagement, the totalitarian government appears closer than ever to collapse as the island teeters on the edge of a humanitarian crisis.

The power grid is failing. Hospitals are limiting surgeries. Food and fuel are increasingly scarce. Tourism is drying up. Uncollected garbage is piling up on some street corners.

The troubles accelerated after Trump ordered the Jan. 3 abduction and extradition of Venezuela's indicted socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro, who essentially supplied free oil to Cuba.

On Jan. 29, Trump threatened sanctions on the island's other large oil supplier, Mexico.

The U.S. military's success and technical superiority in the Maduro operation shook Cuba's leadership after American forces suffered no losses and killed at least 32 Cuban intelligence and military officials who were supposed to be guarding Maduro, U.S. officials say.

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