TV News LIES

Senate Democrats are furious that the Trump administration held a briefing for lawmakers on Wednesday about U.S. military strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and only invited Republican senators to attend.

“What the administration did in the last 24 hours is corrosive not only to our democracy but downright dangerous for our national security,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Thursday, warning that the move set a “troubling precedent” that had trampled on the longheld bipartisan tradition of bipartisan briefings of Congress on U.S. military activities abroad.

“They know they screwed up,” Warner added of Trump’s White House. “And where in the hell were my Republican senators, whom we have worked on everything [with] in a bipartisan fashion? Why didn’t they say, ‘Isn’t this a little bit weird they don’t have any Democrats in the room?’”

The U.S. military killed 14 people in missile strikes against alleged drug cartel boats in the Eastern Pacific earlier this week, part of nearly a dozen attacks on vessels off the coast of Venezuela in recent months. Critics have called the use of force unconstitutional since it lacks congressional authorization. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pressed for more information about the strikes, including their legal justification.

More...

President Donald Trump demanded that former Special Counsel Jack Smith be hauled off to jail amid the political leader’s repeated, sweeping calls for the prosecution and jailing of his perceived political opponents.

In a Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump complained that “these thugs should all be investigated and put in prison.”

He added, “A disgrace to humanity. Deranged Jack Smith is a criminal!!!” alongside an article titled, “More than 160 Republicans potentially investigated in FBI’s Arctic Frost probe, House panel says.” The piece was published by right-leaning outlet Just the News Tuesday.

Trump’s post came after Axios reported that 160 Republican figures may have been investigated amidst the FBI’s Arctic Frost probe into alleged efforts by Trump’s allies to overturn the 2020 election, according to newly released documents.

Trump followed up his calls for Smith’s arrest in a separate fiery Truth Social post Thursday.

“He is a CRIMINAL AND SHOULD BE IN JAIL. A MAJOR LOWLIFE AND FAILURE. An ugly person, both inside and out! I beat him badly, and love watching him squirm now,” he wrote.

More...

Christine Faltz Grassman was stunned when she received a layoff notice from the Department of Education on Oct. 11, 10 days after being furloughed due to the government shutdown.

Grassman, who is blind, helps oversee a federal program that offers government contracting opportunities to blind vendors. She wondered how she would cover her mortgage and bills — and who would make sure the government is following a New Deal-era law meant to boost employment among blind Americans.

Her shock quickly turned to anger as she thought about the Trump administration’s treatment of workers with disabilities.

“The mentality of these people is if we have a disability and we have a job, we’re taking it away from an able-bodied person,” said Grassman, 56. “It’s not enough that I went to an Ivy League school, that I went to law school and can run circles around half the Cabinet… It doesn’t matter, because we’re blind.”

More...

A three-star general who worked on the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Joint Staff,, is retiring from the role after reported friction with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Caine. 

“General McGee is retiring, and the War Department is grateful for his service,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed Thursday in a statement to The Hill.

McGee, who retired from his post earlier this month, was the director for strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Staff, advising Caine on long-term military strategy. 

McGee objected to Hegseth and Caine on a range of issues, including the Trump administration’s strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and the Russia-Ukraine war, according to CNN, which first reported on McGee’s departure.

More...

Israel said Wednesday that it has begun “renewed enforcement of the cease-fire in response to Hamas’ violations,” a day after a series of airstrikes killed more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strikes, carried out Tuesday on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s orders, targeted Hamas commanders and sites the military described as “positions of ongoing threat.” Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 104 people were killed, including 46 children, and 253 others were wounded.

According to the IDF, the operation “struck 30 terrorists holding command positions” following what it called “Hamas violations” of the cease-fire agreement.

Netanyahu on Tuesday had directed “forceful strikes” against Gaza, accusing Hamas of a “clear violation” of the truce. The escalation came after Israel said the remains of an Israeli hostage returned Tuesday by Hamas were not those of a person listed in the cease-fire deal. Netanyahu’s office said the body was that of Ofir Tzarfati, whose remains were previously recovered by Israeli forces in November 2023, with additional fragments found in March 2024.

When will Israel be held accountable for the war crimes being committed even after the 'so-called' cease-fire? The answer, of course, is 'NEVER"!

More...

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Wednesday that Russian troops have surrounded Ukrainian forces in two key eastern cities of Ukraine and offered to negotiate a deal for their surrender. Ukrainian military officials vigorously denied the claim.

Putin, speaking at a meeting with wounded soldiers at a Moscow military hospital, suggested that the Russian military was ready to open safe corridors for Ukrainian and Western journalists to “let them see with their own eyes what’s going on.”

He claimed Ukrainian troops are encircled in Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Donetsk region, and in Kupiansk, an important rail junction in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Russia has recently been pushing its significant advantage in troops and weapons at key points along the around 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, almost four years after it invaded its neighbor.

More...

The White House has fired six members of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, the independent federal agency that advises the president and Congress on design plans for monuments, memorials, coins and federal buildings. The seven member commission is made up of experts in architecture, art, urban and landscape design. Since its creation in 1910, the commission has reviewed plans for everything from Arlington National Cemetery to Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

As first reported by The Washington Post, the commissioners who were terminated are Bruce Redman Becker, Peter D. Cook, Lisa E. Delplace, William J. Lenihan, Justin Garrett Moore and vice chair Hazel Ruth Edwards. The chair position, now vacant, was held by Billie Tsien, one of the architects working on the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Lenihan confirmed in an email to NPR the six were terminated "effective immediately."

In an email to NPR, the White House said it is "preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump's America First Policies."

The commissioners would have advised President Trump on his anticipated White House ballroom and his plans for a monument similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which he says will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. In an email to NPR, architect Bruce Redman Becker, one of the commissioners who was fired, wrote that "Neither project has been submitted for review yet."

More...

Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive candidate for Congress, has been indicted on federal charges related to her participation in protests outside an ICE processing facility near Chicago in September.

The indictment, filed last week, alleges that the 26-year old Palestinian American candidate and five other individuals “physically hindered and impeded” a federal agent who was “forced to drive at an extremely slow rate of speed to avoid injuring any of the conspirators”.

Abughazaleh, who is running for Illinois’s ninth congressional district to replace the outgoing Democrat Jan Schakowsky, was charged with conspiracy to forcibly impede or injure a federal agent, and assaulting or impeding the agent while they were performing official duties.

According to the indictment, the group “conspired with one another and others, known and unknown, to prevent by force, intimidation, and threat, Agent A, a United States law enforcement officer, from discharging the duties of his office”.

More...