ABC News: DHS says migrant fatally struck by vehicle while fleeing ICE agents

Authorities said Jose Castro-Rivera, 24, was killed in Virginia.

The Department of Homeland Security said an undocumented immigrant was killed after being struck by a vehicle on a highway while attempting to flee immigration officials.

A DHS spokesperson said Jose Castro-Rivera and other occupants traveling in a vehicle were stopped by ICE officers on Thursday as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based immigration enforcement operation.” DHS did not provide further details about the operation.

While DHS did not say where the incident took place, the Virginia State Police reported it happened on Interstate 264 in Norfolk around 11 a.m. and said Castro-Rivera was struck by a 2002 Ford pickup truck and was pronounced dead at the scene. Its report said he was 24 years old.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dhs-migrant-fatally-struck-vehicle-fleeing-ice-agents/story?id=126880492

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dhs-says-migrant-fatally-struck-by-vehicle-while-fleeing-ice-agents/ar-AA1PdOPx

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Democrats Accuse Trump of Targeting Blue States

President Donald Trump has expanded federal authority to target Democratic-led states during an ongoing government shutdown, prompting Democratic backlash for reallocating funds. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Trump has closed five regional offices in Democratic states while keeping four open in Republican states. Critics argued the measures are a result of partisan favoritism and raised concerns over a lack of equitable access to federal services.

Trump said, “We’ll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly, because that’s the way it works. They wanted to do this, so we’re going to give them a little taste of their own medicine.”

The administration has blocked energy projects in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts while allowing projects in Republican-led Virginia. Funding cuts also include $18 billion for New York infrastructure and $7.6 billion in clean energy grants for states who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said, “This has been true of Donald Trump’s whole approach to politics — he doesn’t want to unify America. He governs by division, he stokes anger, and obviously in a perverse way that has worked for him in the past. But I think it is one thing to do that in a campaign, and another to govern through division.”

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) said, “It quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck — and it sure looks like he’s targeting blue states. I’m not sure what they are after, other than he is a retaliatory, vindictive kind of guy. I do think there may be an effort to shift the focus from health care costs that Democrats have linked to the government shutdown.”

Several Democratic states have sued the federal government, alleging that funding cuts violate equitable grant practices. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said, “He is targeting Democratic cities, blue cities — and especially blue cities in blue states. There are blue cities in red states, but he’s targeting blue cities in blue states — and particularly blue governors, Democratic governors.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-accuse-trump-of-targeting-blue-states/ss-AA1P9VXD

Daily Mail: Setback for Hegseth as Pentagon rebrand halted by judge

Pentagon boss Pete Hegseth faced yet another setback in his mission to rebrand the US military as a photogenic ‘warrior’ class following a lawsuit from school children.

The Defense Department was hit with the legal action after Hegseth ordered military schools to remove hundreds of books about race and sex due to their allegedly ‘woke‘ content.

Some of the banned books include Maya Angelou’s classic novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and State of Emergency with a foreword by Cardi B.

In a shock move, a federal judge said Hegseth’s order violated First Amendment rights following a lawsuit brought on behalf of pre-K to 11th grade students.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15218743/amp/pete-hegseth-pentagon-war-woke-lawsuit.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/setback-for-hegseth-as-pentagon-rebrand-halted-by-judge/ss-AA1P2mKL

Guardian: Top US prosecutor’s use of text message auto-delete could be illegal, watchdog groups warn

Lindsey Halligan, who brought cases against James Comey and Letitia James, allegedly violated records-retention laws

A top federal prosecutor’s use of an encrypted messaging application with messages set to be automatically deleted after eight hours was potentially illegal, two watchdog groups said.

Lindsey Halligan, the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, used Signal earlier this month to communicate with Anna Bower, a journalist for Lawfare, about the criminal case she is pursuing against the New York attorney general, Letitia James. Bower published the full conversation on Monday evening and said Halligan had set messages to auto-delete after eight hours.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/23/prosecutor-lindsey-halligan-auto-delete-chats

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/top-us-prosecutor-s-use-of-text-message-auto-delete-could-be-illegal-watchdog-groups-warn/ar-AA1P3xWr

USA Today: ‘Keep your mouth shut.’ Tempers flare in the Capitol with no shutdown solution in sight

The House minority leader yelled at a Republican congressman to “keep (his) mouth shut.” And that’s just the start of it.

Two weeks into a government shutdown with no end in sight, tensions are high and getting hotter among the people with the power to the end it.

At the U.S. Capitol this week, two Democratic senators confronted the Republican speaker of the House outside his office, accusing him of “covering up for pedophiles” by avoiding a vote to release more information on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

On the same day, the Democratic House minority leader separately yelled at a Republican congressman to “keep your mouth shut.” And that’s just the start of it.

The testy scenes underscore an increasingly bitter rapport between America’s two major political parties, as the first government shutdown in seven years approaches the start of a third week. Lawmakers were making little effort to resolve their differences in public. The House of Representatives has not taken a vote in more than three weeks and the Senate has yet to work through a weekend since funding lapsed at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

At the same time, the stakes of the shutdown are rising. On Wednesday, Oct. 15, military service members will miss their first paycheck since the shutdown crisis began. Funding for a key food aid program relied on by millions of mothers and infants will likely run out of money in the coming days. And key economic data needed to calculate Social Security payments for more than 70 million Americans next year doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.

Members of Congress say they are starting to feel the pressure. “I’m trying to muster every ounce of Christian charity that I can,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said of dealing with the Democrats.

“It’s bare knuckles in this fight,” added Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-California.

Senators confront speaker

On Wednesday, Oct. 8, two Democratic senators from Arizona were complaining about Johnson outside his office.

That’s when the speaker emerged and walked toward the senators, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, who then criticized him over refusing to swear in a new Democratic congresswoman from their state during the shutdown.

Once Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva officially takes office, they pointed out, she’ll likely deliver the final vote needed to pass a measure forcing the Justice Department to publicly release more Epstein files.

The senators accused Johnson of keeping members of the House of Representatives away from the Capitol in order to delay the Epstein vote.

“We’re going to do that as soon as we get back to work. But we need the lights turned back on,” Johnson told them, according to video from the news outlet NOTUS. “You guys are experts in red herrings … This has nothing to do with Epstein.”

“You just keep coming up with excuses,” Gallego fired back.

The fiery exchange drew the attention of security guards, staffers and reporters, many of whom stood nearby, phones drawn, watching intently. It ended with all three politicians talking over each at the same time. Video of the encounter spread online.

Johnson drew even more heat when he took calls on C-SPAN the next morning. A rotation of frustrated Americans criticized him for failing to negotiate a solution to the shutdown. One caller in particular, a woman who said she was a military wife in northern Virginia who lives paycheck-to-paycheck, told the speaker of the House that her “kids could die” if troops go without pay.

Top Democrat to congressman: ‘Keep your mouth shut’

In another acrimonious scene the same day, a conversation between a Republican congressman and the leader of House Democrats devolved into a shouting match.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-New York, confronted House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, about his refusal to support a one-year extension of expiring health insurance subsidies, which are at the center of the shutdown fight.

“It’s sad,” Lawler said, holding up a copy of a proposed bill to continue the subsidies, which come in the form of tax credits.

“Why don’t you just keep your mouth shut,” Jeffries said.

The ruckus drew a gaggle of onlookers, many of whom filmed the interaction, which went viral afterward. Talking to reporters after the fracas, Lawler said Democrats are “so full of (expletive), it’s not even funny.”

At a Cabinet meeting in the White House the next day, President Donald Trump weighed in on the shutdown with a series of jabs at the political oppoisiton. “We really don’t know who the hell is leading the Democrats,” Trump said.

Glimmers of bipartisanship

There are still some glimmers of bipartisanship in the halls of the Capitol.

Senators on both sides of the aisle are still talking to each other. Back-channel conversations continue among lawmakers on a potential health care deal that could help bring Democrats around to voting to reopen the government, though Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, described those negotiations this week as “stalled.”

Likewise, Gallego gave the GOP some credit. “I’ve been talking to my Republican friends,” he told reporters. “They do want to figure out a way out.”

http://usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/11/government-shutdown-trump-democrats/86608206007/

The Hill: Hegseth’s ultimatum to generals sparks fears of departures

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “my way or the highway” message to hundreds of generals and admirals at a summit in Virginia last week has sparked fears that some top leaders may choose to bow out of the U.S. military entirely. 

The departure of two senior leaders last week stoked those worries, though the Pentagon says they were unrelated to Hegseth’s ultimatum.

“His speech directly attacked the values of many of the senior officers and enlisted members in the audience, and I would expect many of them to demonstrate their disgust by retiring,” Don Christensen, a retired Air Force colonel and former military lawyer who watched the speech, said of Hegseth.

The two senior military leaders to leave were Gen. Thomas Bussiere, the head of Air Force Global Strike Command, and Gen. Bryan Fenton, head of U.S. Special Operations Command based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. 

Bussiere, who was appointed by President Trump, was previously nominated to serve as the Air Force’s vice chief of staff in August, but his nomination was pulled just weeks later.

In his retirement announcement, posted to Facebook on Tuesday, he cited “personal and family reasons” as the main driver for his departure, noting he had made the “difficult” decision after much reflection.

Fenton’s retirement came after three years in the role. “FWIW, Gen. Fenton was planning on retiring, it was not tied to SecWar’s speech,” Kristina Wong, an adviser to Hegseth, wrote last week on the social platform X.

The high-profile exits came just hours after Hegseth’s speech to hundreds of top admirals and generals in Quantico, Va., in which he outlined his vision of a military void of “woke garbage,” proposing less restrictive rules of engagement and fewer waivers that allow troops to have a beard. He also declared he would curtail whistleblower and inspector general functions, change how the military handles allegations of hazing and other types of abuse, and allow drill sergeants to “put their hands on recruits.”

“If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” Hegseth told the mostly stoic audience.

The comments prompted The New York Times to run an unusual headline last week, in which it invited senior military leaders to speak to the outlet should they indeed decide to resign.

Some Democrats are urging military leaders who disagree with Hegseth to stay where they are. 

“If the challenge was ‘get out,’ then I would say to those generals, ‘stay put,’” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), an Air Force veteran, said on CNN last week. “Because we need you. We need you and your experience to counter the message of Mr. Hegseth and frankly the president himself.”

Hegseth also promised to continue firing top brass who did not align with his vision. And Friday, he announced the ouster of Jon Harrison, the chief of staff of the secretary of the Navy, who was an appointee during the first Trump administration.

“As you have seen and the media has obsessed over, I have fired a number of senior officers since taking over,” Hegseth said in his Tuesday speech. “The rationale, for me, has been straightforward: It’s nearly impossible to change a culture with the same people who helped create or even benefited from that culture, even if that culture was created by a previous president and previous secretary.”

Carrie Lee, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund, said she would not be surprised to see other retirement announcements following Hegseth’s pointed words. 

“Even though [Bussiere’s] nomination for vice chief of staff of the Air Force had been pulled and his successor had been announced — there wasn’t anywhere else for him to really go, right, career-wise — but the fact that the announcement dropped kind of the night of Hegseth’s speech, I think that’s probably not a coincidence,” Lee told The Hill.

“I would not be surprised to see retirements,” she added. “This is already happening at the more kind of lower senior to kind of upper, mid-grade level. So thinking about colonels and one-stars and two-stars, folks who are refusing assignments, choosing to retire rather than stay in the force, making kind of very personal decisions with their families about whether this is an institution that reflects their values or not.”

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, said he doubts there will be a mass exodus, but he does sense a “widespread anxiety” among those in the armed forces.

“When I talk to military officers, they have a range of views. Most of them don’t want to pick public fights with Trump. Most of them are not at the point of considering resignation. Some of them even like certain aspects of the administration,” he told The Hill. “You put it all together, there are very few people who are indifferent to these kinds of dramatic events, these kinds of changes.”

He added that he believes there are very few people who are getting ready to resign, “but there are a lot of people who are somewhere between nervous and anxious about where the all-volunteer force is headed, where the country is headed, and for the most part, they’re just trying to roll with the punches and do their jobs as long as they’re not being asked to violate the law or their oath.”

Lee pointed out that in declining to use his speech to focus on several pressing issues within the military, including steadily rising suicide rates among service members and persistent sexual assault rates, and instead harping on the Pentagon’s process for handling complaints and accusations, Hegseth likely alienated his top leaders.

“The Army has been dealing with very high suicide rates. It’s been dealing with a sexual assault crisis. It’s been dealing with a lot of people issues. And so they have made some very necessary, in my opinion, changes to the organization and to organizational culture that it sounds like Hegseth really wants to roll back,” she said. 

“For many of the officers who are responsible for formations of troops and watched the suicide epidemic really ravage their units, and watched sexual assault tear units apart … to then be told that ‘we don’t care about that anymore,’ when the Army is really a people organization, it doesn’t surprise me that there’s a lot of folks who aren’t going to stick around for that.”

Bussiere’s retirement announcement also follows that of the Air Force’s chief of staff, Gen. David Allvin, who in August said he would retire in November after serving two years of his four-year term. Though Bussiere did not mention Hegseth’s speech in his resignation note, he suggested he would find other ways to support the U.S. military after he leaves.

“While I’m stepping away from active duty, my commitment to service remains. I look forward to finding new ways to support our Air Force, our national defense and the incredible people who make it all possible,” he wrote.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5541871-defense-secretary-hegseth-resignation-fears

Daily Mail: Hundreds of thousands of Americans ‘may lose disability benefits as Trump plans to overhaul Social Security’

A new report has emerged, alleging that the Trump administration is considering removing a key factor from the assessment of an individual’s eligibility for Social Security disability payments.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the Trump administration is reportedly preparing a plan to significantly change how older individuals qualify for Social Security disability benefits.

White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Daily Mail that ‘President Trump will always protect and defend Social Security for American citizens. 

‘The only policy change to Social Security is President Trump’s working families tax cut legislation that eliminated taxation of Social Security for almost all beneficiaries – which every single Democrat voted against,’ Desai added.

According to individuals who spoke with the Washington Post, the proposal would make it harder for older workers to qualify for the benefits, and the change could impact hundreds of thousands of Americans.

This change is also supposedly one of many being considered by the administration in an effort to overhaul the federal safety net for older, poor, and disabled individuals.

The Social Security Administration currently evaluates disability claims by considering a person’s age, education, and work experience to determine if someone can adjust to various kinds of work.

Older applicants, typically those over age 50, have historically been more likely to qualify, as age has been considered a factor that limits a person’s ability to transition to new types of employment.

Under the proposed plan, officials are reportedly considering either removing age as a factor altogether or raising the threshold to 60 years of age. According to three individuals familiar with the proposal who spoke on condition of anonymity, this change would represent one of the most significant shifts in how disability claims are evaluated in decades.

The administration is also reported to be working on modernizing the labor market data used in these assessments. The current database, long criticized as outdated, still includes obsolete jobs such as ‘nut sorter’ and ‘telephone quotation clerk.’ Following a 2022 Washington Post investigation that highlighted these issues, officials are now seeking to replace the old data with more current labor statistics that reflect today’s job market.

Experts say it is difficult to estimate exactly how many people could lose access to benefits under these proposed rule changes. 

However, a recent analysis by Jack Smalligan, a senior policy fellow at the Urban Institute and former Office of Management and Budget official, suggested that if eligibility were reduced by just 10 percent, about 750,000 people could lose benefits over the next decade. 

Additionally, about 80,000 widows and children could lose benefits tied to a disabled spouse or parent.

Smalligan noted that many older Americans who apply for disability benefits often struggle to find new employment. If age were no longer considered, more individuals might opt for early retirement instead, resulting in permanently reduced monthly payments.

The initiative is reportedly being led by Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, who has long sought to revise disability rules. Supporters argue that longer lifespans and less physically demanding work justify tightening eligibility, while critics warn the move could leave vulnerable Americans without needed support.

The Daily Mail reached out to the Office of Management and Budget, as well as contacts for the U.S. Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committees for comment outside of regular business hours.

President Trump has repeatedly pledged not to touch entitlement payments despite significant pushes by him and his allies to cut spending across various areas of government. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15163927/disability-benefits-Trump-Social-Security.html

SFGATE: Pete Hegseth is f—king embarrassing

SFGATE columnist Drew Magary on America’s secretary of war

Pete Hegseth! Remember that guy? Former Fox News weirdo? Famous for drinking on the job? Accused of sexual assault before paying a settlement to make that lawsuit go away? Tapped to head the Department of Defense and then accidentally texted his war plans to the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic? Oh yes, I think you’re quite familiar with Hegseth. He’s a real asshole! And an embarrassing one, too!

Well, guess what? The leaders of our armed forces also got to know this brave, pickled s—t for brains. In case you’ve stopped reading the news because it makes you want to seek out the sturdiest rafter in your basement, President Donald Trump and Hegseth summoned the top brass of the American military to Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday for an all-hands meeting. This would be a super cool idea in, say, a “Mission: Impossible” movie. In real life, it’s a conference call that could have been an email. S—t, Hegseth is already a veteran of blasting out group messages for doing war. But using secure channels to issue directives means that Hegseth wouldn’t get to be seen issuing them. And in Donald Trump’s government, being seen is all that matters. So let’s see Hegseth rallying the troops on Tuesday and feel inspired!

Yes, the man in charge of our newly rechristened Department of War really took the stage in front of a bunch of seasoned, professional, high-ranking officers and proceeded to go epic bacon mode. Here’s the showstopper line from that clip:

“Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies, FAFO. If necessary, our troops can translate that for you.”

(sigh) It stands for “F—k around and find out.” What a powerful message to send. Because until Trump took office, we all know that other countries were like, “You know, the Americans seem pretty chill. I bet they’d never violently overreact to any perceived slight!”

I wish that this were the only cringe-worthy thing that Hegseth said to the crowd on Tuesday. But this is 2025, where wishes are zip-tied and forcefully deported to El Salvador. So Hegseth took the opportunity to deliver a full speech of cringe to our troops; a sort of “F—k you for your service” message that surely left all of the men and women in that room confident that their new boss totally knows what he’s doing. With that in mind, I collected a few more choice passages from Hegseth’s address for your perusal so that you and I can say “F—k you” right back to him. Let’s hear more!

“You see, this urgent moment of course requires more troops, more munitions, more drones, more Patriots, more submarines, more B-21 bombers. It requires more innovation, more AI in everything and ahead of the curve, more cyber effects, more counter UAS, more space, more speed.”

Just last month, Congress passed a funding bill for Hegseth’s department that clocked in at nearly $900 billion, a record high. I think that number allows for all the munitions, drones and robot sharks our military could possibly need. Then again, shouldn’t there be more AI in there, so that a drone pilot can take a pee-pee break while WarGPT detects and neutralizes a threat coming from Afgharistad? 

“Our warfighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders.”

Does that mean you’re resigning? Because that would probably do the trick.

“That is who we need you all to be. Even then, in combat, even if you do everything right, you may still lose people because the enemy always gets a vote.”

Just in case you were thrown by the vagueness here, “the enemy” in question is a gay voter.

“The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things. … You might say we’re ending the war on warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that.”

He did. Pete Hegseth wrote that book. Stick around after having your job threatened and he’ll sign YOUR copy! And you should stick around, because for far too long, this country has been far too hostile to its “warfighters.” Why just this past weekend, I watched NFL league officials burn a flag before kickoff between the Packers and Cowboys, and then kick every member of the color guard square in the crotch! Disgusting!

“For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts.”

I can’t believe we promoted BLACKS to higher ranks. Did Jackie Robinson really die for this?

“We became the woke department.”

So true. Remember when they painted the Pentagon rainbow colors for Pride month?

“This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics.”

How’d you do it, Pete?

“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses.”

Oh thank God. No more trans in uniform! That’s diluting our killforce with politics! You can’t hunt down Osama bin Laden using a gender-neutral latrine!

“No more climate change worship.”

Finally, I can stop worshipping the false idol that is the only inhabitable planet in the known universe. Earth: What it is good for?

“No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris. As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that s—t.”

OMG HE SWORE! This guy isn’t some namby-pamby sissy boy! He’s like Axl Rose!

“The new War Department golden rule is this: do unto your unit as you would have done unto your own child’s unit. Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or under trained troops or alongside people who can’t meet basic standards, or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in, in a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance and warfighting? The answer is not just no, it’s hell no.”

When I was in middle school, I had a T-shirt that said HELL NO TO FAT CHICKS. So I’m glad to see Secretary Pete is fully aligned with my values. And he’s not done taking it to our fattest service members! Give ’em hell, sir!

“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular hard PT, so can every member of our joint force. Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”

This part makes perfect sense when you remember that President Lard wants everyone working for him to be hot enough to appear on television. If you’re a general in our army, and you’re not on an aggressive HGH regimen, or you’re unable to rock a pair of stiletto heels that makes Rupert Murdoch harder than an AP exam, you’re OUT.

“Also today, at my direction, every warrior across our joint force is required to do PT every duty day. It should be common sense, and most units do that already, but we’re codifying it. And we’re not talking, like, hot yoga and stretching.”

We’re not talking about QUEER physical training. And if you ask for avocado toast at the mess hall, that’s five months in the brig.

“This also means grooming standards. No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We’re going to cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards.”

Has this idiot met the vice president? Because JD Vance has a beard for FM radio. 

“Because it’s like the broken windows theory in policing. It’s like you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes, so you have to address the small stuff.”

The broken windows theory was discredited many years ago and served largely as a template for then-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani to send turnstile jumpers directly to the electric chair.

“This is on duty, in the field and in the rear. If you want a beard, you can join Special Forces. If not, then shave. No more beardos. … The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”

Damn, he hit JD with the “beardo” tag. No coming back from that. Anyway, I appreciate the War Department instituting a no facial hair policy right after the New York Yankees abandoned theirs (the Yankees stranded three runners in the bottom of the ninth Tuesday night and lost 3-1 to the hated Boston Red Sox).

“The definition of toxic has been turned upside down, and we’re correcting that. … We’re talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic.”

The war on hazing is over! And just to make certain that bullies and hazers can flourish in the new Department of War, Hegseth and his boss are making it easier for enlistees to squeal on their commanding officers if those officers go toxic (woke)! Just like in the good old days! In fact, Hegseth now has a process for determining if you’re sufficiently old-school, and it’s rooted in hard science!

“Here are two basic frameworks I urge you to pursue in this process … the 1990 test and the E-6 test. The 1990 test is simple. What were the military standards in 1990? And if they have changed, tell me why.”

Because it’s 35 years later? Because American morale in 1990 was so low that Kurt Cobain was able to turn that ennui into culture-altering music?

“Was it a necessary change based on the evolving landscape of combat, or was the change due to a softening, weakening or gender-based pursuit of other priorities? 1990 seems to be as good a place to start as any.”

Here’s a random year that Pete drew out of a hat. BE MORE LIKE THIS YEAR. LISTEN TO MORE TRIXTER.

“Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formation since 1948. The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal. Those kinds of infractions will be ruthlessly enforced.”

BUT …?!

“But telling someone to shave or get a haircut or to get in shape or to fix their uniform or to show up on time, to work hard, that’s exactly the kind of discrimination we want.”

We will NOT tolerate discrimination in our ranks. Unless you’re fat, or weak, or gay, or trans, or a woman reporting sexual assault, or you have that sort of dirtbag goatee that every liquor store clerk has.

“We know mistakes will be made. It’s the nature of leadership.”

Like when you texted war plans to the Atlantic, yeah?

“But you should not pay for earnest mistakes for your entire career. And that’s why today, at my direction, we’re making changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records that will allow leaders with forgivable earnest or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity.”

All of you are entitled to violate a maximum three of your subordinates with a broomstick. If you need these violations to wage war properly, so be it.

“An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that ‘our diversity is our strength.’ … They were told females and males are the same thing, or that males who think they’re females is totally normal. They were told that we need a green fleet and electric tanks. They were told to kick out Americans who refused an emergency vaccine.”

I will NOT stand here and let the department of woke discriminate against any soldier willing to infect his entire platoon with smallpox!

“We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”

This was always the goal of conservatives decrying political correctness and wokeness. They didn’t just want license to treat nonwhite, non-hetero, non-males like garbage. They wanted license to abuse and to kill them should those people ever dare to pilot a boat. This ambition was clear during Trump’s first administration, when he pardoned former Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who used his position as a sniper to gun down innocent Iraqis at randomAmon Goeth-style. SecWar Pete would now like all of our troops to Be Like Eddie. So don’t let the wokescolds tell you that killing is “wrong.” God, those people are such tight-asses!

“Today is another liberation day, the liberation of America’s warriors, in name, in deed and in authorities. You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don’t necessarily belong always in polite society.”

I know I feel better when the man tasked with supervising the most lethal military in world history addresses his charges like they’re the prisoners from “Con Air.” Like Trump, Hegseth delivers this speech as if he’s starring in his own biopic. You can hear him waiting for a standing ovation that never comes, and it’s pathetic. This meeting served only the secretary’s whiskey-addled daydreams, and not a single active member of our armed forces. Many of the quotes you read above will be etched in stone one day, on a monument that will be torn down by a joyous protest mob.

This has been a deeply embarrassing time to be an American, and somehow Pete Hegseth has made that embarrassment even more pronounced. I bet all of the men and women and gender-fluid people (I’m woke, deal with it) in that room on Tuesday were also embarrassed. These people enlisted out of love for their country, and to do something valuable with their lives. Now they have to take orders from a narcissistic lunatic who wants them to cut weight so they can kill and pillage more efficiently. It’s disgraceful. It’s also just so, so uncomfortable. I wanna bury myself alive when I read all of this dogs—t.

At least Hegseth, toward the end of his speech, gave those same hardworking Americans an out:

“If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service.”

That’s actually a threat, because this administration knows only how to speak in threats. But you know what? I say you folks should call the man’s bluff. Please, all of you, resign. Quit your jobs. Don’t work another second for this corrupt department. Pete Hegseth spent all of Tuesday f—king around with our service members. Time for him to find out.

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/pete-hegseth-is-embarrassing-21078716.php

Irish Star: ICE agents drag children out of bed as they ransack Chicago apartment complex

Chicago residents described the shocking experience following a late-night ICE raid on Tuesday, during which children were dragged out of their beds as the apartment complex was ransacked

Chicago community is reeling following a late-night immigration raid on a South Side apartment complex.

Over 300 armed federal agents swarmed a five-story apartment complex late Tuesday evening in what became an hours-long immigration raid.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, alongside the FBI and U.S. Border Patrol agents, were targeting over 30 suspected members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said 37 people were arrested.

Federal agents were seen rappelling from a Black Hawk helicopter on top of the building.

“My building is shaking. So, I’m like, ‘What is that?’ Then I look out the window, it’s a Blackhawk helicopter,” witness Dr. Alii Muhammad told ABC7 Chicago.

Residents said they ducked for cover as they heard several flash bangs go off, reports MSNBC.

One resident described the experience as “terrifying.”

“It was terrifying. The kids was crying. People were screaming. They were very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner because they were bringing the kids out too, they had them zip-tied together,” said resident Eboni Watson to ABC7 Chicago.

“It was scary because I never had a gun put in my face,” another resident told the outlet.

Although the raid was aimed at detaining the suspected gang members, many residents say that U.S. citizens and children were swept into the mix.

Watson told the outlet that trucks and military-style vans were used to separate parents from their children. Other neighbors said agents destroyed property to get in the building, with doors blown off their hinges and holes in the wall, reports ABC7 Chicago.

According to MSNBC, dozens of residents were pulled from their homes in zip ties, including children. Residents were detained and held for hours, and cops told them that if they had any unrelated warrants, they would not be returning to their residences.

The raid on the apartment complex comes as Chicago residents have continuously staged protests against increased immigration enforcement activity in downtown Chicago. U.S. President Donald Trump previously vowed to deploy National Guard Troops to fight crime in Chicago, mirroring his current approach in Washington, D.C.

Beginning on Sept. 9, the Trump administration sent ICE to the city through Operation Midway Blitz. The U.S. The DHS launched the operation, which focuses on individuals in the country without legal status who also have criminal records or pending charges.

On Tuesday, during a massive military meeting at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia, Trump declared that Chicago is one of many Democratic cities that should be used as a “training ground” for the U.S. military.

https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/ice-agents-drag-children-bed-36011822

Fox Business: Newt Gingrich: This country is sliding into a pro-Chinese, communist dictatorship

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich defines the ‘real distinction’ in Erika Kirk’s remarks at Charlie’s memorial and warns which country is ‘sliding’ into a dictatorship on ‘Kudlow.’ 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/newt-gingrich-this-country-is-sliding-into-a-pro-chinese-communist-dictatorship/vi-AA1N6d24