TV News LIES

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Pentagon’s efforts to censure Sen. Mark Kelly and lower his retirement rank in the wake of a video in which the Arizona senator and other Democrats called on service members to reject unlawful orders.    

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, noted the military principal that servicemembers enjoy weakened First Amendment protections to preserve discipline in the armed forces, but said that no court had ever extended that doctrine to retired service members.

He said he would not be the first to do so. 

“This Court has all it needs to conclude that Defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees,” the judge wrote.

Leon quoted singer-songwriter Bob Dylan to say, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

“To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their Government,” the judge added, “and our Constitution demands they receive it!”  

Hegseth wrote on X that the ruling will be “immediately appealed.”

“Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain,'” the Defense secretary said.

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A Washington DC grand jury declined to indict six Democratic lawmakers who were denounced by Donald Trump after they made a video urging troops to refuse illegal orders.

Federal prosecutors had sought an indictment against the Democrats who participated in the video, including Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan, who all have military and intelligence backgrounds.

Slotkin, a former CIA officer, organized the video in which the lawmakers said officers can resist unlawful commands. Trump was outraged by the clip, and described it “seditious behavior by traitors” that was “punishable by death”.

Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, formally censured Kelly, a retired Nasa astronaut and decorated navy captain, over the incident and attempted to reduce his rank and pension. Kelly filed a lawsuit against Hegseth last month arguing the video he and other Democrats made was protected free speech, and that the secretary had undertaken an “unconstitutional crusade” against him.

In response to news of the failed indictment, Kelly described it as an “outrageous abuse of power by Donald Trump and his lackies”.

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The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said the Pentagon is ending all military training, fellowships and certificate programs with Harvard University, marking the Trump administration’s latest escalation against the Ivy League school.

“The @DeptWar is formally ending ALL Professional Military Education, fellowships, and certificate programs with Harvard University,” Hegseth said in a statement posted on X, labeling Harvard as “woke”.

Hegseth, a former Fox weekend host, attacked the university as “one of the red-hot centers of Hate America activism”.

“Too many faculty members openly loathe our military; they cast our armed forces in. a negative light and squelch anyone who challenges their leftist political leanings,” said Hegseth, who made no mention of the masters in public policy he earned from Harvard’s John F Kennedy school of government.

“With some exceptions,” Hegseth added, “the Ivy League as a whole has pervasive institutional bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the coddling of toxic ideologies that undercuts our mission.”

“That is why, in two weeks’ time, components of all of our departments – army, navy and air force – will evaluate all existing graduate programs for active-duty service members at all Ivy League universities and other civilian universities,” he added.

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The US military on Thursday said it killed two alleged drug traffickers in a strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific, bringing the death toll from Washington’s campaign to at least 128.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the US Southern Command said in a post on X. It said “no US military forces were harmed” in the operation.

President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting alleged smuggling boats in early September, insisting it was effectively at war with alleged “narco-terrorists” operating out of Venezuela.

But it has provided no definitive evidence that the vessels are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations, which have expanded from the Caribbean to the Pacific.

In January, the US military carried out another strike in the eastern Pacific, killing two alleged drug traffickers.

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The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its three accompanying warships have sailed into the Middle East region, providing President Trump additional military firepower if he decides to strike Iran. 

The USS Abraham Lincoln, which is equipped with Mk 57 Mod3 Sea Sparrow surface-to-air missile launchers and can carry squadrons of bombers and early warning planes, and its strike group are in the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) area, which encompasses the Middle East region, the command confirmed Monday.

The addition of the carrier in the region comes as Trump warned Thursday that the U.S. is sending an “armada” toward Iran following nationwide protests in the country, where thousands of demonstrators have been killed by authorities. 

“We have a big flotilla going in that direction,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One. “We have a big force going toward Iran. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely.”

Over the weekend, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, said the nation has its “finger on the trigger” at the U.S. following Trump’s warning.

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The US military said on Friday that it carried out a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing two people.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the US Southern Command said in a statement.

Friday’s strike marked the first known attack since Trump ordered the US military to capture the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

The statement said “two narco-terrorists were killed,” and a search for a survivor was under way. A video accompanying the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames.

The US military has carried out more than 30 strikes against boats that it alleges were smuggling drugs off South American waters since early September. Those strikes have killed more than 100 people, according to the Associated Press, citing information from the Trump administration.

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