Tag Archives: Iraq

Talking Points Memo: Trump Has Ordered Safeguards Stripped From Procurement As Pentagon Prepares To Spend $1 Trillion

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To summarize, the new executive orders purport not merely to change or improve regulations, but to simply eliminate most of the existing procurement rules developed through years of oversight processes and outside scrutiny. They effectively undo procurement safeguards put in place after tremendous waste was exposed during the Cold War. In their place, the executive orders would elevate certain procedures that allow the government to spend unlimited sums without competition — the so-called “other transactions” process that need not be competed and that circumvents safeguards put in place to protect tax dollars. The Executive Orders say there should be a “first preference” for other transactions processes, which is like having a “first preference” for bringing a pistol with no safety to compete in a boxing match.

It’s all about lining their own pockets. They’ll get a pardon [they hope!] at the end of King Donald’s term and all will be well.

Trump Has Ordered Safeguards Stripped From Procurement As Pentagon Prepares To Spend $1 Trillion
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. The Trump White House this month announced…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-has-ordered-safeguards-stripped-from-procurement-as-pentagon-prepares-to-spend-1-trillion/ar-AA1DLRfe

Politico: Pentagon to resume medical care for transgender troops

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The move is another setback for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has made culture war issues a major part of his role.

The Pentagon will resume gender-affirming care for transgender service members, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO, an embarrassing setback to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s efforts to restrict their participation.

The memo says the Defense Department is returning to the Biden-era medical policy for transgender service members due to a court order that struck down Hegseth’s restrictions as unconstitutional. The administration is appealing the move, but a federal appeals court in California denied the department’s effort to halt the policy while its challenge is pending.

Current score is Wokes 1, Bigots 0!

Pentagon to resume medical care for transgender troops
The move is another setback for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has made culture war issues a major part of his role.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/24/transgender-troops-military-care-00306827

Guardian: Fears grow that Signal leaks make Pete Hegseth top espionage target

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Experts say Pentagon chief has endangered secrets of US defense department and given assistance to foreign spies

As more develops about the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and his repeated disclosures of sensitive military intelligence in unsecured Signal group chats, there are growing concerns his behavior has weakened the Pentagon in the eyes of its foreign adversaries and made him and his entourage a top espionage target.

Allies, already concerned by Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs, have also begun to see the US as an intelligence-sharing liability. There are fears that the mounting firings and leak inquiries in Hegseth’s orbit, along with his inability to manage these internal crises, exposes the entire global US war footing – especially, if a geopolitical and external crisis comes across his desk.

Fears grow that Signal leaks make Pete Hegseth top espionage target
Experts say Pentagon chief has endangered secrets of US defense department and given assistance to foreign spies

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/23/pete-hegseth-pentagon-espionage

The Handbasket: US “relocates” Iraqi refugee to Rwanda via new diplomatic arrangement

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A State Department cable indicates at least 10 more people will be subjected to the same.

Now the U.S. is dumping refugees in Rwanda:

A US State Department cable was sent from the American Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, on March 13th with some major news: Rwanda said it was willing to accept deportees from the United States who are unable to be sent to their country of origin for fear of persecution. A copy of the cable reviewed by The Handbasket in March confirmed the news. And now according to a new cable, which has also been reviewed by The Handbasket, the first person has officially been deported from the US to Rwanda via this new arrangement.

The Trump administration’s efforts to deport as many people as possible is loudly and publicly underway, most notably with the 238 men who were sent to El Salvador in March without due process. Unlike those cases, however, the administration has opted to quietly send Iraqi national Omar Abdulsattar Ameen from the US to Rwanda, wherein Rwanda acts as a “third country.” But it remains unclear what legal processes allowed for this to happen.

The cable, sent today—April 22, 2025—confirms Ameen’s “relocation” has already happened.

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/us-rwanda-relocates-iraqi-refugee-omar-ameen

Politico: Military contractors pitch unprecedented prison plan for detained immigrants

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Erik Prince wants to cut a deal to transport detainees from the US to El Salvador.

If you think things can’t get much worse, think again!

Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and a team of defense contractors are pitching the White House on a plan to vastly expand deportations to El Salvador — transporting thousands of immigrants from U.S. holding facilities to a sprawling maximum security prison in Central America.

The proposal, exclusively obtained by POLITICO, says it would target “criminal illegal aliens” and would attempt to avoid legal challenges by designating part of the prison — which has drawn accusations of violence and overcrowding from human rights groups — as American territory.

…

The proposal would ultimately put Prince in charge of an extraordinary privatization effort that would use his company to handle logistics, including ferrying tens of thousands of detainees from American holding cells to El Salvador’s prison.

Military contractors pitch unprecedented prison plan for detained immigrants
Erik Prince wants to cut a deal to transport detainees from the US to El Salvador.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/11/military-contractors-prison-plan-detained-immigrants-erik-prince-00287208

Alternet: ‘Caught in limbo’: Decorated Iraq War veteran now target of Trump deportations

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What a wonderful way to that a veteran for his service to our country! Not!

A man who served in the U.S. military and survived two combat deployments to Iraq is now at risk of being deported to a country that is refusing to accept him.

Rolling Stone columnist Michael Embrich wrote Wednesday about the case of Army veteran Jose Barco, who is now in deportation proceedings even though he’s an honorably discharged Purple Heart recipient diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Embrich, Barco is “caught in limbo” as he faces deportation to Venezuela, despite not having visited the country since he was a toddler.

Barco — whose father fled Cuba for Venezuela before bringing him to the U.S. at age four — received his Purple Heart medal after an explosion launched him into a wall, resulting in severe burns and a traumatic brain injury. In 2004, he served in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, and saw frequent combat as his deployment was during the height of the Iraqi insurgency.

Embrich went on to write about how Barco was nearly naturalized, as he got help with his U.S. citizenship application from his commanding officer. However, Barco’s file got lost in the application process, and he had no way to track it in the system. As Embrich explained, Barco had a “straightforward path to naturalization” that ended up becoming “an invisible trap door leading to exile.”

‘Caught in limbo’: Decorated Iraq War veteran now target of Trump deportations
A man who served in the U.S. military and survived two combat deployments to Iraq is now at risk of being deported to a country that is refusing to accept him. Rolling Stone columnist Michael Embrich wrote Wednesday about the case of Army veteran Jose Barco, who is now in deportation proceedings even though he’s an honorably discharged Purple Heart…

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/caught-in-limbo-decorated-iraq-war-veteran-now-target-of-trump-deportations/ar-AA1CCw84

Associated Press: Bondi [Bimbo #3] signals probe into Signal chat is unlikely, despite a long history of similar inquiries

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Even as President Donald Trump insisted “it’s not really an FBI thing,” the reality is that the FBI and Justice Department for decades have been responsible for enforcing Espionage Act statutes governing the mishandling — whether intentional or negligent — of national defense information like the kind shared on Signal, a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications but is not approved for classified information.

The Justice Department has broad discretion to open an investigation, though Attorney General Pam Bondi, who introduced Trump at a Justice Department event this month, signaled at an unrelated news conference on Thursday that she was disinclined to do so. She repeated Trump administration talking points that the highly sensitive information in the chat was not classified, though current and former U.S. officials have said the posting of the exact launch times of aircraft and times that bombs would be released before those pilots were even in the air would have been classified.

Bondi signals probe into Signal chat is unlikely, despite a long history of similar inquiries
FBI Director Kash Patel may not have been part of a Signal chat in which other Trump administration national security officials discussed detailed attack plans.

Pam Bondi signals probe into Signal chat is unlikely | AP News

Daily Mail: Pete Hegseth unwittingly reveals controversial new tattoo

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Creepy!

    The new tattoo revealed in the video features the Arabic word ‘kafir,’ which in the Quran means ‘disbeliever’ or ‘infidel’ and is inked below hegseth’s ‘Deus Vult’ tattoo. 

    The discovery sparked anger from activists who are already infuriated about his tattoos featuring Christian and American images. 

    ‘Hegseth just got a kafir (كافر) tattoo under his Deus Vult tattoo—a Crusader slogan. This isn’t just a personal choice; it’s a clear symbol of Islamophobia from the man overseeing U.S. wars,’ wrote Nerdeen Kiswani, a pro-Palestinian activist in New York City on social media. 

    Kiswani described the tattoos as the ‘normalization of Islamophobia at the highest levels of power.’ 

    Others on social media felt similarly about the tattoo.

    ‘The كافر/kafir tattoo in the Quran means disbeliever,’ wrote writer Tam Hussein on X. ‘To the Muslim world the tattoo will be seen as an open declaration of Hegseth’s enmity towards them.’

    Pete Hegseth unwittingly reveals controversial new tattoo
    Eagle-eyed observers of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tapestry of tattoos noticed a never-seen-before Arabic script underneath his arm.

    Pete Hegseth unwittingly reveals controversial new tattoo | Daily Mail Online

    New York Times: Inside Pete Hegseth’s Rocky First Months at the Pentagon

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    The disclosure of battle plans on a chat app created a new predicament for the defense secretary.

    There’s nothing that can’t be cured by few stiff drinks:

    Even before he disclosed secret battle plans for Yemen in a group chat, information that could have endangered American fighter pilots, it had been a rocky two months for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

    Mr. Hegseth, a former National Guard infantryman and Fox News weekend host, started his job at the Pentagon determined to out-Trump President Trump, Defense Department officials and aides said.

    The president is skeptical about the value of NATO and European alliances, so the Pentagon under Mr. Hegseth considered plans in which the United States would give up its command role overseeing NATO troops. After Mr. Trump issued executive orders targeting transgender people, Mr. Hegseth ordered a ban on transgender troops.

    Mr. Trump has embraced Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla. The Pentagon planned a sensitive briefing to give Mr. Musk a firsthand look at how the military would fight a war with China, a potentially valuable step for any businessman with interests there.

    Inside Pete Hegseth’s Rocky First Months at the Pentagon – The New York Times

    Bigoted Secretary of Defense erases memory of another distinguished black female soldier

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    Trump’s fascist Secretary of Defense & drunken wife beater has erased the memory of another distinguished service member, presumably because she was female & black.

    This bigotry inevitably will affect their future recruiting efforts, as women and minorities see that glass ceiling descending around them.

    Maggie Canmore
    Emily Jazmin Tatum Perez was a West Point Graduate. While serving in Iraq, she was Killed In Action by an Improvised Explosive Device on September 12, 2006. She was born in Heidelberg, Germany in…

    https://www.facebook.com/margaret.downsgamble/posts/10238232186086146