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.

The DSA’s War On Wealth

Communism is on the rise in the United States and has now entered otherwise mainstream Democratic Party politics.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is on track to increase the number of its members in Congress from two to at least six in January, possibly more. That’s not including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist.

A DSA member named Francesca Hong just came within striking distance of becoming the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin, one of our largest and most important states. Hong was narrowly defeated in the Aug. 11 primary by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.

Don’t be confused by those calling themselves socialists. A few may be well-meaning middle-of-the-road Democrats who favor the Scandinavian socialist model. But others are wolves in sheep’s clothing – communists who use the socialist label to hide their real intentions.

What’s interesting is that many of the new socialists don’t even try to hide their radical leanings. They publicly call themselves socialists and are proud of it.

After the fight against communism in the U.S. in the 1950s and the U.S. victory in the Cold War by the early 1990s, most Americans might assume that communism is no longer a threat to the American way of life and the U.S. political system.

That’s a mistake.

Communist and Marxist ideas are alive and well in the U.S. and are thriving in universities, think tanks, foundations, the media and other institutions that Americans typically think of as having better motives.

The Evolution of Revolution

This ideological infiltration may follow Marxian economics, but the method used by the new communists was anticipated by the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s.

Gramsci agreed with Marx’s goal – the abolition of private property – but he thought the way to achieve it was not through violent revolution but through a long-term struggle for control of society’s cultural and political institutions.

Decades later, this strategy came to be described as “the long march through the institutions.”

In other words, communism would not necessarily win by direct confrontation but by a gradual infiltration of education, culture and governance and the decline of critical thinking.

U.S. institutions would become ideological boot camps and propaganda outlets that would gradually convince Americans that communism, dressed up as “socialism,” was the better path.

From there, it would be a simple task to tear down traditional constitutional structures by getting rid of the Senate, the Electoral College and an independent judiciary.

Top-down communist control would be the final step. No revolution required. Just long-term rot like the proliferation of mold or termites.

For a powerful example of this process, consider the recent controversy surrounding the Smithsonian Institution and testimony before Congress by Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History.

The dispute centered on whether America’s national museums have increasingly emphasized slavery, race and inequality at the expense of the country’s founders and achievements. Hartig defended the museum’s approach and told lawmakers that it does not take sides in America’s political debates.

The Smithsonian’s treatment of Benjamin Franklin, for example, emphasizes his history as a slaveholder. Yet Franklin was also one of the great scientists and founders of the 18th century and, later in life, became a leading abolitionist.

He served as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and, in 1790, petitioned Congress to work toward ending slavery.

Franklin also became the nation’s first postmaster general, helped establish an early fire insurance company and helped found the institution that became the University of Pennsylvania, where I attended law school.

The real issue is one of emphasis: whether America’s national museums should primarily celebrate the country’s achievements or increasingly focus on slavery, race, inequality and other failures in the American story.

That debate is worth having because institutions shape the way Americans understand their own country.

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‘Flashing Red Warning Sign’ for Lawmakers: Poll Shows Voters Reject US-Israel Military Integration

A new poll of US voters published on Tuesday offers a warning for congressional lawmakers backing a plan to deepen military ties between the United States and Israel, finding that a clear majority of voters oppose the proposal – which some critics have called “treasonous.”

The Data for Progress survey of 1,217 likely US voters – conducted August 3–7 for Demand Progress and the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project – revealed that 61% of respondents oppose legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 that would integrate Israeli weapons companies into the Pentagon at a level exceeding that of any other country. That figure rose to 78% among Democrats and 73% among independents.

“This poll is a flashing red warning sign for any member of Congress who supports the defense authorization bill,” Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said in a statement. “A clear majority of voters do not support further integrating the Israeli military and Israeli military companies into the Pentagon, which the NDAA is set to do.”

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted last month 216-212, mostly along party lines, in favor of a record $1.15 trillion NDAA. The military spending bill contains Section 219, a provision that would create a US–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, accelerating joint defense research, development, testing, and integration of technologies including artificial intelligence, missile defense, and counter-drone systems.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) submitted an amendment to strip Section 219 from the NDAA. The measure failed to pass.

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who voted against the NDAA, described Section 219 as “an outrageous threat to our country’s security and autonomy.”

The Senate version of the military spending authorization bill has a related provision – Section 1217, the United States-Israel FUTURES Act – and the two chambers will need to reconcile their NDAA legislation before the final language is decided. Reconciliation is not expected to occur before November at the earliest.

“It’s time for Congress to listen to the American people for once, and not the same voices who always want to cut Israel a blank check,” Kharrazian said. That “blank check” has totaled more than $174 billion in non-inflation-adjusted aid since the modern state of Israel was founded in 1948.

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Your Bank Data Could Become A Profit Center – And You’ll Pay the Price

A forthcoming federal rule on open banking may allow banks to charge new fees for access to consumer data, a move critics say would harm consumers and runs counter to other parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Open banking allows consumers to authorize banks and other financial institutions to securely share their financial data electronically with third-party providers.

Why now?

The White House was reviewing the anticipated rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as of last week, according to reporting by Bloomberg Law. The rule would help shape the federal framework for open banking in the U.S., building on a broad provision contained within the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

Dodd-Frank was passed to enhance transparency and accountability and strengthen consumer protections in the financial industry after the economic crisis of 2008. The law is just under 850 pages long, and Section 1033 – which provides the legal basis for the open banking ecosystem that has evolved in the U.S. – was not one of its central provisions. Section 1033 is about one page long and it ensures that Americans have the legal right to access their own financial data upon request. Financial institutions must provide consumers’ financial data relevant to the sought-after financial product or service in “an electronic form usable by consumers.”

The law gives the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau broad authority to define and standardize this process, which is partly why affected industries have anticipated federal rulemaking on open banking for more than a decade.

The Biden administration issued the long-awaited rule in late 2024, which required banks to provide data directly to third parties authorized by consumers and prohibited banks from charging third parties fees for accessing the data, among other provisions. Banks pushed back, suing the bureau claiming it was exceeding the authority it was granted under Section 1033 and challenging those provisions in court.

Banks have said the rule would require them to build and maintain costly interfaces for third-party access while preventing them from being able to recoup those costs.

Last summer, JPMorgan Chase & Co. submitted proposed fees to data aggregators like Plaid for accessing Chase customers’ financial data.

The Trump administration has said the Biden administration’s rule was unlawful, “arbitrary and capricious” and began working on a rewrite of the rule last August. The lawsuit is essentially paused until the new rule is released, and the court ordered that enforcement of the Biden rule be stayed.

The Trump administration’s version reportedly includes a provision that would allow banks to charge volume-based fees to fintech companies to access consumer financial data, meaning banks could begin charging fintech companies once they make more than a certain number of requests for customer data.

Who pays the price?

News that the Trump administration’s rule would include a data-rationing provision prompted numerous objections from fintech companies and consumer advocacy groups, who argued that if banks didn’t pay for the data sharing, consumers ultimately will.

“Inevitably, if [the cost] is on the third party, it’s going to go back to the consumer,” said Todd Zywicki, a George Mason University law professor who formerly led a CFPB task force on federal consumer financial law and served in a leadership role at the Federal Trade Commission.

A third party is really a false choice, according to Zywicki, and between consumers and banks, he thinks banks are the much better option.

“The bank already has built-in incentives to collect the data, keep the data safely, use the data, and under law would already be required to share the data with consumers for them to be able to use it to shop for themselves,” Zywicki told The Center Square, “To then say, OK, now you have to also let Plaid access my data or Mint access my data, so they can go find me a better savings account than recommended to me or suggests this product instead of that product just strikes me as the only way to really make sense on this.”

The five largest banks in the U.S. reported a record-worthy second quarter. JPMorgan reported its highest quarterly profit in history, Goldman Sachs had its best second quarter ever, and Citigroup enjoyed its best quarter in a decade. Bank of America also posted strong results, while Wells Fargo beat Wall Street expectations. Collectively, they brought in $49 billion in profits.

Zywicki and other sources who spoke to The Center Square also maintained that banks have already done much of the work to build an open banking ecosystem and any costs they might incur to share data with more third parties would be relatively small.

“Banks already are collecting and holding information securely… They’ve already got to share the information for free with the consumer. It’s just a matter of whether a third party can get the information on behalf of the consumer,” Zywicki added.

But there’s another cost to consumers that could be even greater than any immediate impact on their wallets, advocates warn, and that’s the cost of continued fervent fintech innovation.

“We have already seen the nation’s biggest banks take advantage of regulatory ambiguity to impose fees and throttle access. Further uncertainty could stop the next great startup from forming and prevent consumers from accessing affordable financial products,” said Miranda Margowsky, head of communications for the Financial Technology Association.

Fintech innovation can do more than help consumers manage their finances. Startups like Carefull, a fintech company that analyzes customers’ financial activity for unusual patterns, can help detect warning signs of dementia or cognitive decline, potentially years before a clinical diagnosis.

“The goal here is to create a competitive framework where… small banks, for example, or fintech providers, or whoever can compete against the big banks that are currently holding the data,” Zywicki said. “It’s not really much of a fair playing field if banks can continue to use this information to market their [own] products.”

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How Secretary Bessent Is Going Full-Hegseth Retard to No Avail

Six months after Trumpy & Bibi launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28th, the so-called kinetic campaign has settled into a costly stalemate, at best. And a de facto military defeat as a practical matter.

In fact, what began as another furious “shock and awe” military offensive designed to quickly and fatally degrade Iran’s nuclear program, missile forces, leadership, and regional power projection capability has instead produced:

  • no regime change.
  • no collapse of Iranian governance.
  • the severe depletion of American high-end munitions.
  • badly damaged US forward bases across the entire Persian Gulf (Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan)
  • significant personnel casualties, including 18 dead and 400 injured US servicemen.
  • Massive Federal budget costs now approaching $100 billion and rising rapidly.

Even more importantly, this misbegotten war has handed Tehran a durable pretext for restricting maritime traffic through and around its territorial waters and the Strait of Hormuz (SOH). That is, with virtually inexhaustible supplies of homemade missiles, drones and other tools of sabotage, Iran has been handed what amounts to a global economic Kill Switch.

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“Doom Loop” Engaged: US Debt Hits $40 Trillion As Treasury Enters The Endgame

The largely expected news came just hours after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unexpectedly announced the Treasury’s latest attempt to rein-in long-term borrowing costs from multi-year highs, the most important component of the growth in debt. The Treasury stunned the market when it said, just two weeks after the latest Refunding Announcement where it should have made this change, that it was ramping up the support for longer-dated securities by “increasing, by at least double, the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities (the 10-year to 20-year sector and the 20-year to 30-year sector).”

The announcement that sent yields plunging, if only for the time being. 

Remarkably, it was less than 5 years ago that US debt hit $30 trillion back in January 2022, illustrating the rapid growth in federal borrowing needs. And there’s no end in sight. 

As Bloomberg notes, “Republicans have long opposed revenue-raising tax increases,” while Democrats are best known for spending like drunken sailors to maximize socialist central planning, and both parties are loathe to sign on to politically toxic cuts to healthcare and retirement benefits for seniors. Many observers anticipate Congress and the administration of the day will only act if forced by a financial-market disruption.

That won’t stop them from talking about it all the time, though, as both parties at least pretend to understand that the US is on a catastrophic collision course should debt growth continue at this pace, and if the AI bet – which is now an all-in for virtually everyone – fails to dramatically boost productivity. Bessent, for one, said a key reason he got involved in politics was to help tackle deficits running at a pace unprecedented for times outside of major wars, pandemics or depressed job markets. So far he has failed catastrophically, and worse, he is doing precisely the kind of activist issuance “Twisting” for which he bashed his predecessor, Janet Yellen.

Economists, the Congressional Budget Office and Wall Street all see little or no progress in coming years for the deficit-to-gross domestic product ratio.

“Optically, I’m sure crossing thresholds like $40 trillion will focus attention on the issue in the near term,” said Matthew Luzzetti, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank AG. “But it does not represent a magical threshold for debt dynamics, and projections have anticipated this outcome for some time.”

More important, Luzzetti said, is the climb in US Treasury yields, which is steadily increasing the cost of servicing the record debt load. Last Thursday, the department’s latest 30-year bond auction resulted in the costliest such sale in a quarter century. A 10-year auction a day earlier drew the highest financing cost at that tenor since 2007, and only today’s announcement which sent yields tumbling prevent today’s 20Y Treasury auction from pricing at the highest yield on record. 

As buyers demand higher yields, that in turn drives up the Treasury’s borrowing needs. With two months left to go in the fiscal year, the government’s tally for interest costs so far for 2026 is $1.37 trillion – a 20% increase on the same period a year before. That in turn adds to the debt, potentially fueling further investor calls for higher rates, in a pattern known as a “doom loop.”

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‘We’ll Bomb the Sh*t Out of Them’: Trump and the War on Morality

Consider this hypothetical:

Two apartment buildings share a single parking lot. Management from both Building A and Building B are engaged in negotiations over how the parking lot will be organized, painted, maintained, and paid for.

Across the street is a restaurant. The restaurant’s customers primarily come from Building A, and internal studies have shown that Building B’s tenants overwhelmingly patronize the restaurant’s competition. Therefore, the restaurant is seeking to sway the parking lot negotiations to make it easier for Building A’s tenants to get to their shop, and harder for Building B’s tenants to get to the competitor.

Through back-channel discussions, the restaurant learns that Building A may be conceding to many of Building B’s requests for how the parking lot should be organized. Worried that this will help their competition, the restaurant announces on social media that if Building A doesn’t get their act together and negotiate more aggressively, they will “bomb the sh*t out of them.”

Now, that’s quite a leap. How did we go from negotiations one day to threats of mass murder the next?

If this scenario were to occur in Anytown, USA, we would immediately see this as unhinged and immoral. No, you cannot use murder as your default method of settling disputes. The vast majority of us accept this in our day-to-day lives, and the proof of this is that the vast majority of us have never murdered anybody. We settle disputes verbally, or through contractual agreements, and if negotiations fail we tend to just walk away. But for some reason when it comes to the global stage, where the harm caused by these decisions is far greater in scale, many struggle to see the issue with this type of rhetoric.

The Hormuz negotiations

Iran and Oman have been engaged in negotiations over the future governance of the Strait of Hormuz for the past few weeks. We were told in the early stages of the talks that a deal was within reach, but it is yet to materialize. The fact that these talks are even happening seems to imply a quiet U.S. admission that Iran will control the waterway in some capacity going forward, which is a major diplomatic climb-down from Donald Trump. With this concession, the focus seems to have shifted. Whereas before the goal was to “liberate the Strait,” the objective now is to get a deal that Trump can spin into a victory.

To this end, Trump has sought to influence the Iranian-Omani negotiations. In an August 17 phone call with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, Donald Trump said “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.”

This frustration seems to have been caused by the lack of progress towards opening the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians and Omanis said weeks ago that a deal was almost complete, only to have negotiations extend longer than anticipated. Trump, desperate for a deal that can help bring down oil prices and sooth the economic stress at home, chose to lash out at Oman, who he believes is being too favorable to Iran.

This sadly is not an unusual sentiment from Donald Trump, who has made a habit out of threatening to bomb countries as a negotiating tactic. The regularity with which Trump threatens mass murder does not make it civilized or moral, however. It makes it even more unsettling.

As a result of Trump’s loss at the hands of Iran, the American empire has been dealt a severe dent to its armor. The image of American bases scattered across the Middle East – once a symbol of military dominance – has been quite literally shattered. Trump can no longer rely on previously held assumptions about American power in order to get his way. Thus, he must lower himself rhetorically to the level of a brutal warlord.

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NATO whines it cannot fight simultaneous wars against Russia, China and Iran

NATO war planners rarely discuss their “nightmare scenarios” in public and appear even less prepared for real-life confrontations on that scale. This is particularly true when it comes to simultaneous or near-simultaneous wars in which the most aggressive racketeering cartel in recorded history has to fight in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. As the pillar of NATO, the United States would be forced to manage wars against Russia, Iran and China at once. One of the most infamous mainstream propaganda machine outlets, The Atlantic, explored this possibility, calling it “NATO’s nightmare”. The analysis largely focuses on “a coordinated assault by Beijing and Moscow” and how difficult it would be to “muster a viable defense” (obviously implying that NATO wouldn’t attack first, which is beyond laughable given its history).

The author, Simon Shuster, warns that “about a year ago, General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s top commander in Europe, publicly warned of the risk of a two-front war involving Russia and China and urged European allies to help the US prepare”. He quotes Florence Gaub, director of research at the NATO Defense College, who described it as “the scenario we’re currently not ready for”. She warns that “NATO strategists know the gap exists, but have not closed it” and that “despite growing military cooperation between Russia and China, Western governments have conducted only a handful of low-profile exercises examining what a joint attack might look like”. Although there weren’t any publicly acknowledged drills with this specific scenario in mind, Western-led military exercises in different areas of the world certainly focused on such a possibility.

However, The Atlantic admits that even when such scenarios were conducted as part of war games, the results were “less than optimistic”. The report quotes Mark Montgomery, a retired US Navy rear admiral who participated in major war games and stated that he last studied such a scenario roughly 15 years ago. Montgomery recalled that “it didn’t go well” because “even then, the US lacked the weapons stockpiles and industrial capacity to sustain a prolonged multifront war”. Even when numerous US allies, vassals and satellite states are added to the mix, “it made no difference at all”. What’s more, Montgomery warns that “those metrics have worsened, even as some NATO countries have increased defense spending”. To prove this is truly the case, one simply needs to look at the US aggression against Iran, which demonstrated remarkable resilience.

Worse yet (for America), Tehran also uncovered the Pentagon’s woeful incompetence in fighting a remotely capable opponent. A single country that the US promised to “defeat in three days to two weeks tops” has not only withstood all attacks in the last six months, but has also successfully retaliated against US occupation forces across the Middle East. It should be noted that Iran has been under Western sanctions for nearly half a century at this point. Now imagine how a direct confrontation with Russia or China would unfold, even separately, much less simultaneously. The Atlantic fears that “Moscow and Beijing have actually improved their positions”. The report points to the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict, which “pushed Russia’s massive industrial base onto a war footing and sharpened its use of drones”.

It also warns that “while China has not fought a major war in decades, it now surpasses the US in warships and long-range missiles”. Obviously, the Asian giant hasn’t fought a major war in nearly half a century because it has refused to do so. Nothing prevents Beijing from fully restoring its sovereignty over Taiwan by force. However, it seeks to resolve the dispute through peaceful means, just like it did when restoring sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao back in 1997 and 1999, respectively. This is precisely what the US fears the most, as a non-violent transition would only strengthen China and effectively break US dominance in the Asia-Pacific without firing a single shot. Washington DC would much rather see Taiwan destroyed than give up its influence there peacefully. This is why the US maintains tight control over local military forces.

However, directing “controlled chaos” is not enough for the Pentagon to “feel safe”. Namely, growing Sino-Russian ties are what really makes the political West “shiver” (or should we say, suffer panic attacks). The Atlantic is particularly concerned by the “no-limits partnership” Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced back in February 2022. NATO simply has no mechanisms to prevent Moscow and Beijing from building their alliance. On the contrary, its truly unprovoked aggression against the entire world has only strengthened their strategic partnership. The Atlantic thinks that “from Russia’s and China’s perspective, the timing may look favorable”, primarily because “the US is stretched by conflict in the Middle East, has shifted ships and aircraft away from Europe and Asia, and has depleted much of its advanced air-defense missile stockpile”.

Well, nobody forced Washington DC to wage yet another war of aggression. Neither Moscow nor Beijing forced the Trump administration to foolishly attack Iran. However, even the Middle East pales in comparison to how Western forces would fare in a fight against adversaries such as Russia and China, particularly now that the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict has turned the Russian military into the deadliest fighting force on the planet. The Atlantic concludes that “in a two-front war, the side most likely to prevail may be the one that acts with common purpose and stays united”. It would seem NATO didn’t learn from the strategic mistakes of its Axis predecessors, because that’s precisely what’s going to happen if it continues with its aggression against the entire world, which will have no other choice but to unite.

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Accuser Tells House Ethics Panel Democrat Rep. Jimmy Gomez Assaulted Her

Attorneys for an unnamed woman told the House Committee on Ethics that Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) sexually harassed and assaulted her, disputing the California Democrat’s claim that his conduct was “consensual in nature.”

The statement, released Wednesday by attorneys Lisa J. Banks and Sarah E. Nesbitt, escalates a probe the committee announced Monday into whether Gomez engaged in “inappropriate sexual contact with a House staffer.”

The attorneys said their client sat for an interview with the panel and directly contradicted the congressman’s account of his own behavior.

“We represent one of the women who was interviewed by the House Committee on Ethics about her experience of sexual harassment and assault by Representative Jimmy Gomez,” Banks and Nesbitt wrote. “Contrary to Representative Gomez’s assertion in his statement, his actions were not ‘consensual in nature’ with respect to our client. We fully expect that the House Committee on Ethics will come to the same conclusion in its investigation.”

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U.S.-Registered Drone Detected at Site of Suspected CIA Boat Strike

In the hours after a mysterious attack on an Ecuadorian fishing boat near the Galápagos Islands on March 17, a drone registered to U.S. defense contractor Shield AI was hovering just 500 meters from the burning vessel, La Negra Francisca, according to a review of flight tracking data by Drop Site News. This represents the first known vehicle to arrive at the site of the strike.

The unattributed bombing of three Ecuadorian fishing boats in January and March, and the subsequent abduction and torture of 36 fishermen, was first reported by Drop Site in April. Last week, The Washington Post, building on Drop Site’s ongoing investigation, reported that the attacks were part of a covert CIA operation.

According to flight and vessel tracking data from Radar 24 and Global Fishing Watch, the drone was a V-BAT model, primarily used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, but capable of carrying a weapons payload and switching its signal on and off to avoid detection.

The Shield AI drone matches the fishermen’s descriptions of the drones that circled their boats before the bombing, and bears the same red and green lights eyewitnesses reported seeing as they photographed the explosion.

Shield AI did not respond to a request for comment.

The CEO of Shield AI, Brandon Tseng, has publicly stated that the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy are using V-BAT drones “to interdict and destroy billions of dollars’ worth of drugs that were headed for the United States of America.” In 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard signed a $198 million contract with Shield AI for V-BAT drones; in April 2026, Shield AI announced it had received an $800 million contract for V-BAT drones from the U.S. Navy.

No drugs were found on any of the three fishing boats investigated by Drop Site—the Negra Francisca, Don Maca, and Fiorella—all of which were searched and cleared by Ecuadorian coast guard personnel prior to the strikes.

Last month, Drop Site published NASA thermal imagery consistent with an explosion at coordinates 1.5822°N, 87.6958W°, recorded at 1:02 p.m., the time fishermen say they were hit, and in the location where their transponder stopped broadcasting.

Tracking data suggests that the drone launched from a nearby boat on March 17, seven hours after the strike on La Negra Francisca and then circled near the site, its signal disappearing and reappearing. Ascending and descending patterns of movement indicate that the drone may have been landing on a boat and then resuming its flights.

Drop Site previously reported that vessel tracking data showed a U.S. Coast Guard cutter leaving a Galápagos military base a day before the Negra Francisca bombing—despite claiming it only deployed the cutter as a post-incident rescue effort. The Coast Guard vessel’s signal went dark and later appeared in Central American waters 24 hours before the fishermen were placed in El Salvador’s custody.

Video recordings, taken by eyewitnesses to the bombing, show the U.S. Coast Guard patrolling in the aftermath of the airstrike. Drop Site asked the U.S. Coast Guard in June to account for the cutter’s movements after its signal went dark. The Coast Guard responded that it “does not disclose cutter movements during law enforcement missions for operational security.”

In June, the U.S. Coast Guard told The Guardian it deployed its Bertholf cutter for a search-and-rescue operation after receiving a Mayday alert, contradicting prior statements by the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees maritime operations in the Pacific, that it had no knowledge of any U.S. involvement in the incidents. To date, the U.S. Coast Guard has not acknowledged using drones in its purported rescue efforts.

The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Southern Command, and the Central Intelligence Agency did not respond to questions for this article.

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Disney Sues FCC for ‘Retaliatory’ Investigation of ABC

The broadcast network ABC, parent company Disney, and eight ABC affiliates filed a lawsuit today against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

ABC alleges the government is targeting the network for its speech, and it makes a convincing argument.

“Government censorship is deeply un-American,” the lawsuit begins. “That fundamental principle predates the Republic, with our Founders recognizing that ‘the freedom of the press is one of the great[est] bulwarks of liberty.'”

The filing cites NRA v. Vullo, a 2024 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected the state of New York’s efforts to prevent banks and insurance companies from doing business with the National Rifle Association.

The government, wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, cannot “use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.” According to ABC’s lawsuit, “This case concerns the Administration’s sustained effort to do just that. Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.”

Plaintiffs typically face a difficult task proving selective or vindictive treatment by the government. But this is not a typical situation: The lawsuit catalogues dozens of times that President Donald Trump suggested broadcast networks, including ABC, should be taken off the air for displeasing him.

“ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97% BAD STORIES,” he wrote last year in a characteristic Truth Social post. “IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC.”

“If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party,” he complained in another, “shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!”

Trump has said this for years, even though it’s not how it works: Networks create content, but the local affiliates that air it have broadcast licenses. Disney only owns eight of ABC’s hundreds of affiliates, meaning the vast majority are owned by third parties.

Just last month, Trump threatened to revoke ABC’s and NBC’s broadcast licenses for not airing one of his speeches.

But Trump is not the only example cited in the lawsuit. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has also repeatedly threatened Disney and ABC with reprisal over what largely amounts to hurting the president’s feelings.

In September 2025, when Jimmy Kimmel suggested in his late-night show’s monologue that slain conservative activist was killed by a member of “the MAGA gang,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr called on ABC’s affiliates to “step up” and reject the network’s programming; otherwise, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he warned. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Numerous affiliates preempted Kimmel’s show, and ABC suspended production until the following week.

This year, Carr threatened ABC’s daytime chat show The View for not following the federal “equal time” rule that says when a candidate for public office appears on a broadcast network, their opponents must be offered equal time. The FCC had exempted shows like The View from the rule for decades before Carr reversed course.

Carr also opened an investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies; while Disney had already rolled back its DEI programs, “significant concerns remain,” Carr claimed.

ABC’s lawsuit calls the investigation “pretextual.” Indeed, it formed the basis of an action earlier this year, when the FCC called in the broadcast licenses of all eight Disney-owned ABC affiliates for “early renewal,” years before any of them were set to expire. Notably, though, it came just days after Kimmel made another intemperate comment at Trump’s expense.

“Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” Trump wrote on Truth Social the day before the FCC announced it was calling in the licenses.

ABC’s lawsuit seeks relief from the review, which it characterizes as completely unprecedented. The FCC “had not called for a renewal application ahead of schedule in more than half a century,” the filing claims. “Nor had it ever demanded simultaneous early renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned by a single broadcast network.”

Carr apparently agrees: “It’s probably been 50, 60 years or longer since the FCC has used this tool,” he told the Financial Times. “If you didn’t take us seriously, now you should.”

And last month, Carr suggested that ABC’s decision not to air Trump’s speech would factor into the FCC’s review.

ABC’s lawsuit says the network faces “irreparable harm” from the government, but it also suggests dire potential consequences for the entire broadcast industry. “If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government,” it warns. “In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free.”

“The current FCC has repeatedly used its power over broadcast speech to jawbone, punish, and threaten censorship of its political opponents,” David Inserra, a fellow for free speech and technology at the Cato Institute, said in an emailed statement. “Today’s lawsuit by ABC Disney against the FCC directly challenges the broad and abusive powers that Congress and prior court decisions gave the FCC. No government agency should ever be empowered to restrict free expression based on what it thinks is fair, equal, or in the best interest of the public. In a world where the American people and press can speak through print, broadcast, cable, satellite, internet, and other forms of media, there is no justification for the FCC to continue to wield such significant power over broadcast speech.”

“Disney is entirely justified in asking a court to stop the FCC’s attempt to coerce its broadcast stations’ programming through an unlawful campaign of regulatory scrutiny,” added Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The lawsuit makes clear that this campaign has already chilled ABC’s speech. The First Amendment prohibits the government from using regulatory threats to chill speech that the government doesn’t like, which is exactly what the FCC is doing here.”

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