Author: HP McLovincraft

Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.

SCOTUS Will Consider the Constitutionality of the Federal Ban on Gun Possession by Illegal Drug Users

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider the constitutionality of the federal ban on gun possession by illegal drug users. The Trump administration is urging the justices to overturn a ruling in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit deemed prosecutions under that law inconsistent with the Second Amendment unless there is evidence that the defendant handled firearms while intoxicated. Contrary to what the 5th Circuit held, the government’s petition argues that categorically disarming drug users is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test established by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

The case, United States v. Hemani, involves a Texas man who was charged with violating 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony for an “unlawful user” of “any controlled substance” to receive or possess a firearm. The defendant, Ali Hemani, was the subject of a terrorism investigation that included two searches of the Lewiston, Texas, home he shared with his parents. During the second search, in August 2022, FBI agents found a Glock 19 pistol that belonged to Hemani, along with less than a gram of cocaine and about two ounces of marijuana.

As Amel Ahmed explained in a Reason story about the case last year, the FBI was unable to substantiate its suspicion that Hemani, a native-born U.S. citizen whose parents are from Pakistan, was implicated in financial crimes involving Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The government’s petition nevertheless implies that Hemani is a dangerous character for reasons that extend beyond his recreational drug use. But that allegation is not relevant to the constitutional question raised by the Supreme Court case.

The law that Hemani was charged with violating applies to millions of Americans who pose no plausible threat to public safety, including cannabis consumers, even if they live in states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. The 5th Circuit first questioned the constitutionality of Section 922(g)(3) prosecutions in 2023, when it overturned the conviction of Patrick Darnell Daniels Jr., who was sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison after he was caught with two guns and the remains of a few joints during a routine traffic stop in Hancock County, Mississippi.

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DARPA is Exploring Physics’ Strangest New Frontier to Develop the Next Generation of Defense Technology

In an effort to reshape the foundations of military computing and electronics, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is exploring one of the newest and strangest frontiers in physics: altermagnetism.

Recently, the agency’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO) issued a Request for Information (RFI) titled “Altermagnetism for Devices,” inviting researchers to help chart a course toward practical electronic and spintronic technologies that could harness this exotic magnetic behavior. 

Altermagnetism sounds like something pulled from science fiction. It combines properties of two long-known types of magnetism—ferromagnetism (the kind that drives refrigerator magnets) and antiferromagnetism (found in many metals but invisible to the naked eye). 

However, its true intrigue lies in what DARPA calls its “non-relativistic spin splitting,” a phenomenon that allows materials to act magnetically without producing any net magnetic field.

In practical terms, altermagnetic materials could enable circuits that manipulate the quantum spin of electrons without the interference, power drain, or sluggishness that plague conventional electronics.

The RFI notes altermagnetism “exhibits features of both ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism.” Like the latter, the magnetic spins inside these materials point in opposite directions, canceling each other out. However, unlike antiferromagnets, the spins are related by a rotational symmetry that still allows for energy band splitting, a property more like ferromagnets.

That seemingly small structural quirk could be transformative. The agency notes that altermagnets “might sidestep the major roadblocks ferromagnets and antiferromagnets face when designing spintronic devices.” This makes it possible to design “ultralow energy computation” technologies that vastly outperform the energy efficiency of traditional semiconductor architectures.

If successful, DARPA’s program could lay the groundwork for an entirely new category of computing systems that are smaller, faster, and orders of magnitude more energy-efficient than anything in existence today.

Spintronics, short for “spin electronics,” has already found its way into the real world. Modern hard drives, magnetic sensors, and emerging MRAM chips all rely on the quantum spin of electrons rather than their charge to read, store, or sense information. These technologies are fast, durable, and energy-efficient. However,  they still use spin only in a limited way.

DARPA is looking to do something more ambitious by using spin to not only store data but also compute with it. That would require materials capable of switching and controlling spin states as quickly and precisely as transistors manipulate charge. 

Current existing options fall short. Ferromagnets, though easy to magnetize, create interfering magnetic fields and switch too slowly for logic operations. Antiferromagnets avoid interference but lack the internal spin-splitting needed to manipulate spin-polarized currents.

However, altermagnets could change that balance. With zero net magnetization yet naturally spin-split electronic bands, they offer the tantalizing possibility of fast, interference-free spin-based computation. This breakthrough could finally make true spintronic processors possible.

The big problem? No one yet knows how to build a working device out of altermagnets. “While several device-switching proposals have been put forward, the ideas remain experimentally untested,” DARPA writes. 

Additionally, as DARPA notes, “characterization of altermagnetism is also a challenge.” The current “gold standards” for verifying altermagnetism rely on techniques usually reserved for large-scale physics facilities, and methods like spin-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, muon spin rotation, and neutron scattering.

That means many potential research groups lack the infrastructure to explore these materials at all, let alone integrate them into working prototypes.

To change that, DARPA is soliciting “realistic, data- or theory-supported information on the types of improvements expected when using altermagnetism versus state-of-the-art computing architectures.” The agency also wants feedback on the fundamental limitations of such devices, and on the technical hurdles that must be overcome to make them practical.

This suggests DARPA isn’t merely chasing a curiosity—it’s laying the groundwork for a new national research initiative that could parallel other efforts like “INSPIRE” (Investigating how Neurological Systems Process Information in Reality), which seeks to understand how the human brain constructs reality. 

While DARPA’s notice doesn’t explicitly mention defense applications, the potential implications are clear. Altermagnetic devices could become the foundation for ultralow-power AI processors, cryptographic accelerators, or radiation-resistant electronics suitable for space and battlefield conditions.

The Department of Defense has long sought to reduce power requirements for deployed systems, whether in satellites, autonomous drones, or field-deployable sensors. Altermagnetism could offer a way to shrink computational energy costs by orders of magnitude, enabling persistent surveillance and decision-making at the edge without the need for constant resupply or cooling.

It could also revolutionize secure communications. Spintronic devices based on altermagnets might allow quantum-level control of electron spins, paving the way for tamper-resistant data encoding and secure hardware architectures that are inherently immune to many forms of cyberattack.

All of these potential defense applications could also ripple far beyond the battlefield, shaping the commercial technology sector in profound ways. For example, a study published earlier this year showed that the Pentagon’s drive to cut fuel costs during the height of the Global War on Terror inadvertently helped ignite America’s modern clean energy boom.

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A Warning from Lebanon

In not quite one year since the ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Israel has broken the ceasefire 4,600 times. It has killed hundreds of people, including infants, demolished tens of thousands of homes and annexed five areas of Lebanon. It was supposed to withdraw completely.

This situation is being replicated in detail in Gaza. In particular, the ceasefire in Lebanon is “guaranteed” by the USA and France and overseen by an international committee referred to as “the Mechanism”. The “Mechanism” is chaired by the USA. Accordingly the guarantors have refused to acknowledge a single breach of the ceasefire because the US-controlled “Mechanism” calls them counter-terrorist operations aimed at disarming Hezbollah.

The United Nations defers to “the Mechanism” and thus to the USA, and the presence of UN peacekeeping troops in Southern Lebanon is therefore useless. Lebanon is now under control of the US/Israeli puppet administration of General Aoun and effectively being run by US Special Envoy Tom Barrack.

Barrack stated that the borders of Israel and Syria are meaningless and that “Israel will go where they want, when they want, and do what they want to protect the Israelis and their border to make sure on October 7th it never happens again”. This is from the “guarantor” of the Lebanese ceasefire agreement.

There can be no doubt that Trump’s US-chaired “Board of Peace” for Gaza will take exactly the same line as “the Mechanism” in Lebanon. It is axiomatic that Israel will never honor any agreement. They never have.

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How Ukrainian Courts Are Weaponizing Lawfare Against Anti-War Voices

The NATO-backed war in Ukraine is portrayed in the West as an ideological war between the democratic Ukraine and the authoritarian Russia. In reality, Ukraine is far from a liberal democratic paradise. Ukraine has nationalized the news media and banned opposing political parties, moves which President Donald Trump has criticized. With elections canceled and weapons being sent to Ukraine, including to neo-Nazi elements in the armed forces, Ukraine is devoid of actual democratic norms. However, most troubling of all is Ukraine’s treatment of activists who oppose a forever war in Russia.

In June of 2024, I reported on how Bogdan Syrotiuk, a Trotskyist and opponent of the Russia-Ukraine war, was jailed for “committing treason” over his writings for the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Syrotiuk is not a pro-Russian sycophant; as Matt Taibbi reported, the chairman of the Socialist Equality Party, which published the WSWS, opposed the Russian invasion and described the publication as “bitter enemies of the Putin government”. Syrotiuk now faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison with the courts repeatedly extending his pre-trial detention without evidence or bail. These violations of any semblance of due process were so blatant that the European Court of Human Rights has now accepted his case.

The European Court accepted the case on the grounds that the Ukrainian government has restricted his right to liberty. This is a violation of Article 5 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which Ukraine has partially suspended under martial law. Ironically, the Ukrainian court cited the Iliykov v Bulgaria which forbade countries from denying bail or holding people in pre-trial detention based solely on suspicion. The Ukrainian court completely reversed the meaning of the ruling by citing the case as precedent for its actions. The court’s shady proceedings call into question the very legitimacy of the Ukrainian court system.

Further evidence of Ukraine’s judicial illegitimacy lies in its procedural irregularity. For example, in numerous rulings, the court employed similar language in response to the requests of prosecutions from the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). In fact, large portions were blatantly copied and pasted, suggesting that the courts are merely a rubber stamp for the SBU. Furthermore, in October of 2025, the court ruled against a motion to dismiss the judge for bias. These harsh measures reveal an underlying authoritarian system that punishes dissidents for “thought crimes”.

Syrotiuk has faced horrible conditions in an overcrowded prison in Nikolaev for over a year. Syrotiuk faces severe dental problems exacerbated by the prison’s low-quality food and poor hygiene. Additionally, the Ukrainian government has repeatedly postponed a dental appointment outside the prison. Poor prison conditions and rampant lawfare are designed to discourage dissent. Through measures like these, the Ukrainian government is purposely creating a culture of fear to control the public.

Bogdan Syrotiuk’s story is similar to those of other activists like Gonzalo Lira and Yurii Sheliazhenko. Both Lira and Sheliazhenko were arrested by the SBU for allegedly justifying the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Like Syrotiuk, Lira also faced medical neglect. Shortly before his death in prison, Lira wrote a letter in which he stated “I have had double pneumonia (both lungs) as well as pneumothorax and a very severe case of edema (swelling of the body). All this started in mid-October, but was ignored by the prison.”

Regardless of political persuasion, the right to freedom of speech should be inalienable. Bogdan Syrotiuk’s fight against Ukrainian lawfare and harsh prison conditions is ignored by mainstream media to keep Americans and Europeans supportive of a war that does not serve their interests. Citizens of the West must demand accountability from their governments about the true nature of nations which they are financially supporting. The damning examples of Ukraine using lawfare against political dissidents prove that the Russia-Ukraine war is about geopolitical hegemony rather than a genuine struggle for democracy.

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“The Aircraft Has Collided with an Object”: Investigators Still Baffled by ‘Mystery Object’ That Struck Plane, Caused Minor Injuries

Investigators say the origin of an object that reportedly collided with a United Airlines aircraft last week, causing damage to its windshield and minor injuries to a pilot, remains unknown.

The harrowing incident occurred last week on Thursday October 16, 2025, at approximately 6:44 AM MDT. The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, had been traveling from Denver to Los Angeles when members of the crew reported hearing a loud bang as an object apparently struck the front of the aircraft.

Damage was quickly observed on the right side of the aircraft’s windshield, prompting a diversion to Salt Lake City, where the aircraft safely landed approximately 50 minutes later.

“Unfortunately we have some bad news,” one of the pilots was heard saying over the aircraft intercom according to Heather Ramsey, a passenger aboard the flight at the time of the incident.

“The aircraft has collided with an object,” the pilot told passengers during the announcement.

Ramsey, who shared her account with Fox 11 Los Angeles, said she overheard one of the flight attendants warning other members of the crew to move to the back of the aircraft and to immediately stop in-flight service.

“It was really scary,” Ramsey said, adding that she and other passengers were “holding our breath until the very end.” 

The 134 passengers on board the flight were transferred to another aircraft once they reached Salt Lake City, which carried them on to their destination in Los Angeles.

Shortly after the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a statement saying the aircraft had safely made its way Salt Lake City, and that it was collecting information about the incident.

“The NTSB is investigating a cracked windscreen on a Boeing 737-8 during cruise flight near Moab, Utah, Thursday,” a portion of the statement read. “Operating as United flight 1093 from DEN to LAX, airplane diverted safely to SLC.”

The NTSB also said that the damaged windscreen had been sent to a laboratory where it would be examined to try to determine what the object that struck the aircraft might have been, as speculations ensue about whether debris from a spacecraft reentry, or even a potential meteor impact, could have been involved.

“[P]eople are starting to discuss what this might have been, and the ‘space debris’ (whatever that ends up being) idea is most definitely -not- being dismissed as a possibility,” wrote user JonNYC in a posting about the incident on X.

However, Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told The Debrief in an email that there were “no known reentry matches” that link the incident to any spacecraft falling to Earth at the time.

In an update on his website, McDowell noted that there had been three objects that were successfully tracked during reentry last Thursday, involving a Starlink satellite and a pair of Chinese payloads.

“All are ruled out,” McDowell wrote, confirming none of these three objects had been near the location where the object struck the United Airlines flight last week.

While space debris has seemingly been ruled out for now regarding the United Airlines incident last week, McDowell has nonetheless raised concerns over the rise in Starlink satellite reentries, which he says are occurring on a daily basis.

In a statement provided to The Debrief earlier this month, McDowell said that “considering also non-Starlink reentries, there is a risk from reentering debris that I am not comfortable with,” adding that he believes “we should move to banning uncontrolled reentry from large (1 ton plus) space objects.”

Dr. Siamak Hesar, an expert on space debris reentries and CEO of Kayhan Space, similarly told The Debrief that while it is uncommon for space debris reentry to reach flight altitudes, such events are not unheard of, although it requires the debris to be fairly large.

“The material composition also plays a critical role, as objects made from heat-resistant materials have a much greater chance of partially surviving reentry,” Hesar told The Debrief. “Smaller fragments or components made of lighter materials typically disintegrate completely in the upper atmosphere before ever reaching air traffic altitudes.”

Hesar added that the odds of such incidents occurring “are gradually increasing due to the growing number of satellites and spacecraft being launched into orbit.”

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4.4-Million-Year-Old Ankle Bone Discovery Reveals New Clues to the Mystery of How Ancient Humans Moved and Evolved

Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) studying a 4.4-million-year-old ankle bone fossil say the find represents “compelling evidence” to support the hypothesis that the earliest humans evolved from an ape-like creature in Africa.

According to a statement announcing the scientific team’s research, several aspects of the ancient bone have helped to “narrow the range of explanations for the origin of human lineage,” and move us closer to answering one of life’s greatest questions: where do we come from?

Researchers first discovered a nearly complete skeleton of Ardipithecus in 1994, and knew almost immediately it represented an early stage of human evolution. More analysis ultimately determined that the specimen, nicknamed Ardi, was one of the oldest skeletons ever found, dating to approximately 4.4 million years ago. For comparison, the WashU researchers note that Ardi is almost 2 million years older than the well-known Australopithecus skeleton ‘Lucy’ discovered in Africa in 1974.

Study leader Thomas (Cody) Prang, an assistant professor of biological anthropology in WashU’s school of Arts & Sciences, said the analysis of Ardi included several surprises, including the discovery that he walked upright, but still maintained a lot of Ape-like characteristics, such as a grasping foot.

“Apes, like chimpanzees and gorillas, have a big toe that’s divergent, which allows them to grip tree branches as part of a climbing lifestyle,” Prang explained. “Yet it also had features that align with our lineage. That makes Ardipithecus a true transitional species.”

During earlier analyses, scientists initially proposed that Arid probably did not move like African apes and was not a missing link between humans and an ancient ape-like ancestor. Instead, Prang’s team says those earlier works suggested Ardi demonstrated a “more generalized” form of locomotion that was not necessarily Ape-like. Prang’s team said this early conclusion led scientists to determine Ardi’s skeletal construction was “not similar to ape after all,” which came as a “big surprise” to the broader paleoanthropology community, who were still looking for an evolutionary missing link between humans and other primates.

“Based on their analysis, they concluded that living African apes—like chimpanzees and gorillas—are like dead ends or cul-de-sacs of evolution, rather than stages of human emergence,” Prang said. “Instead, they thought that Ardi provided evidence for a more generalized ancestor that wasn’t similar to chimps or gorillas.”

To conduct a new analysis that would either confirm the original determination that ARdi was not an evolutionary missing link, Prang teamed up with Matthew W. Tocheri at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Canada, Biren A. Patel at the University of Southern California, Scott A. Williams at New York University, and Caley M. Orr at the University of Colorado Anschutz.

The team’s initial analysis focused on comparing Ardi’s ankle bones to the ankle bones of chimpanzees and gorillas. This began with studying the large talus bone found in gorilla and chimpanzee ankles, which joins the foot with the tibia of the leg and the calcaneus (heel). This bone is critical, the team notes, because it offers insight into how early hominin species “transitioned” to bipedal (two-footed) locomotion.

When comparing the bone in Ardi with the same bone found in gorillas and chimpanzees, the research team found a surprising similarity. According to their statement, the comparison found that Ardi’s ankle bone “is the only one in the primate fossil record that shares similarities with African apes.”

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Trump bet $40B on Milei, but what do Americans get out of it?

It has been a busy week for U.S. policy towards Argentina.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Wednesday that the U.S. would be doubling the assistance it is marshaling for Argentina from $20 billion to $40 billion. The increase comes ahead of legislative elections on October 26 that will elect half the lower house and one-third of the upper house, and represents an increasingly strenuous effort in Washington to bolster Argentine President Javier Milei financially and politically.

Ironically, one reason for an even bigger bailout package might have been a comment by the White House itself. Heading into a meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, an optimistic Milei is reported to have said “we will have dollars pouring out of our ears.” During the meeting, Trump burst that bubble, remarking that “if he loses, we’re not going to be generous with Argentina,” a remark that immediately hit markets.

A day later, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to remedy the situation, saying that beyond the original amount the U.S. had committed to lend Argentina, the Trump administration was coordinating the delivery of another $20 billion for the country from banks and sovereign wealth funds. Bessent invoked an “economic Monroe Doctrine” and said the outcome of upcoming elections in Chile and Colombia depended on the fate of Milei’s presidency. He thus grounded the need for assistance in the possibility that electorates in those countries might follow the cue from Argentine voters despite their very different circumstances (as detailed below).

Milei’s first term ends formally in 2027, but he is under severe pressure from domestic politicians and international investors. Argentina was a darling of the markets following Milei’s election in 2023 as he pushed through radical reductions in the size of government by decree, arguing that it was the only way to deliver the country from a long history of high inflation and serial defaults.

However, in early September, his party received a drubbing from voters tired of austerity in the province of Buenos Aires, home to roughly 40% of the population. This hit Argentine bonds and led to a sharp depreciation of the Argentine peso. Local and foreign investors fled, worried that the results in the provincial election were a harbinger of worse to come in the congressional polls.

By the end of September, the U.S. had stepped in, offering Milei’s government a level of support practically unprecedented in recent history (and yet apparently still not enough). The Treasury offered an arrangement where Argentina could borrow dollars against pesos, hinted that it might buy the country’s debt, and later even purchased the country’s currency in foreign exchange markets.

While Mexico did receive ample support from the U.S. in 1995, when that country suffered its own devaluation shock, the U.S. Treasury did not actually buy Mexican pesos on that occasion, unlike its actions during the current intervention in Argentine markets. And the U.S. rescue efforts for Mexico were for a country that was a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, already the U.S.’s third-largest trading partner (it is now the biggest), and supported a new president about to enter a six-year term after an election.

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Company Takes Credit for UFOs over NJ, Raises More Questions

The swarms of unidentified aircraft over New Jersey late last year were classified tests approved by the military, according to a leak from an elite tech summit. A protected source told the New York Post how one contractor claimed responsibility for the mysterious flying objects, which began baffling Garden State residents in November of 2024. “You remember that big UFO scare in New Jersey last year? Well, that was us,” an employee of the contractor allegedly said.

The Army UAS and Launched Effects Summit is an exclusive gathering of the military’s top brass and the nation’s best private contractors. During the event, the unnamed contractor also demonstrated a manned aerial craft with a unique design that makes it difficult to detect from certain angles. This potentially explains why so many reported the New Jersey UFOs vanishing suddenly while zipping across the sky.

Although this alleged admission answers some questions, it raises several others, such as why the scale of the tests was so large, and why there was an utter lack of transparency that confused even the state’s top lawmakers and the FBI. The densely populated test area also has some wondering about the purpose of these exercises.

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Will Trump really attack Venezuela?

It’s ironic that in the same week that President Donald Trump escalated the drug war in the Caribbean by unleashing the CIA against Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, the Department of Justice won an indictment against former National Security Adviser John Bolton, the architect of the failed covert strategy to overthrow Maduro during the first Trump administration.

The one thing the two regime change operations have in common is Marco Rubio, who, as a senator, was a vociferous opponent of Maduro. Now, as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, he’s the new architect of Trump’s Venezuela policy, having managed to cut short Richard Grenell’s attempt to negotiate a diplomatic deal with Maduro. Regime change is on the agenda once again, with gunboats in the Caribbean and the CIA on the ground. What could go wrong?

Donald Trump’s penchant for turning the metaphorical war on drugs into a real one by deploying the U.S. military dates back to his first administration, when he threatened to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorists and proposed launching missiles to blow up drugs labs in Mexico. During the recent presidential campaign, he declared, “The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels.” Apparently, he meant it.

Back in office, he named six Mexican cartels, the Salvadoran gang MS-13, and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and ordered the Pentagon to draw up plans for military action against them. Early on, White House officials seriously debated military strikes against cartel leaders and infrastructure inside Mexico, but decided that cooperation with the Mexican government would be more fruitful. Nevertheless, the unusual appointment of a veteran Special Forces military officer to head the Western Hemisphere Affairs office of the National Security Council signaled that Trump was still was serious about resorting to military force to wage the war on drugs.

The focus then shifted to Venezuela. The day before the New York Times broke the story about Pentagon planning for action against cartels, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the U.S. government was offering a $50 million reward for information leadings to Maduro’s arrest, accusing him of the “use cocaine as a weapon to ‘flood’ the United States.” Trump claimed Maduro was directing Tren de Aragua in “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States,” a claim that the intelligence community concluded was untrue, despite pressure from Trump political appointees to make the estimate conform to Trump’s claim. The two senior career intelligence officers who oversaw preparation of the estimate were summarily fired.

In August, the Trump administration deployed a naval task force to the Caribbean, including three guided-missile destroyers, an amphibious assault ship, a guided-missile cruiser, and a nuclear-powered attack submarine. The following month, U.S. forces began air strikes on vessels allegedly smuggling narcotics in international waters off the Venezuelan coast. When Democrats and some Republicans questioned the legality of summarily killing civilians who posed no immediate threat, Trump informed Congress that he had determined that the United States was in a state of “armed conflict” with unnamed “drug cartels,” whose drug trafficking constituted an attack on the United States. Therefore, traffickers were “unlawful combatants” subject to being killed on sight. Admiral Alvin Holsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command, resigned on Thursday, reportedly because of concerns over the extrajudicial killing of civilians in the air strikes.

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El Paso family claims Border Patrol killed their dog during search, CBP reviewing incident

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says they are reviewing a “use of force incident” in El Paso, after a family says a Border Patrol agent unjustifiably shot and killed their dog.

According to CBP, the incident happened on Tuesday at around 7:15 a.m.

Without offering specifics, CBP said that during a migrant smuggling investigation in El Paso, a U.S. Border Patrol Agent “was involved in a use of force incident” involving a dog.

CBP stressed that it is taking the matter seriously and said it will provide more information when it becomes available, providing no mention of any migrants being found.

However, KFOX14/CBS4 spoke with a distraught family from the Upper Valley who claimed to have been the victims of this incident and said the agents went into the home and shot and killed their dog.

The father, who wished to remain anonymous, said Border Patrol agents in jeans and t-shirts showed up at his son’s home looking for migrants after receiving a tip.

The son answered the door and, while he permitted the agents to search his home, claiming he had nothing to hide, he asked if they could wait first while he put the family dog, Chop, a Rottweiler, away in the bathroom before they walked in, as the dog could be aggressive.

Border Patrol agents then asked the son if he could show them some identification.

According to the family, it is at this point that the son went to his pickup truck to retrieve his ID and a Border Patrol agent entered the home and, as a result, ended up shooting the dog.

The family stressed that the agents knew– the son had told them– that Chop was put in the bathroom for their safety and that the agents opened the door, let Chop out and shot him.

The family appeared upset and disgusted by the agent’s actions, saying that they were following orders and trying to be upstanding citizens, only for an agent to kill “a family member.”

Furthermore, the family said none of the Border Patrol agents helped the family, who desperately tried to render aid to the dog, which bled to death on the kitchen floor.

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