Tag: donald trump

DOJ Charges Man For Trying to Take Down Marine One with Red Laser Pointer While Trump Was Onboard

The Justice Department on Monday charged a man for trying to take down Marine One with a red pointer laser on Saturday.

According to a legal complaint filed on Monday, the suspect, Jacob Samuel Winkler, pointed a red laser at Marine One while President Trump was onboard.

“The red laser beam hit Officer Santiago’s eyes and briefly disoriented him. At this time, Marine One flew at a relatively low height and directly above Officer Santiago and [Winkler’s] location. Marine One was close enough that the rotor noise was loud, and the aircraft appeared large overhead. Officer Santiago approached [Winkler] after being flashed in the face with the red laser. Upon approach, [Winkler] looked up, oriented the same red laser pointer at the direction of Marine One and activated the red laser beam,” the legal complaint said.

“From Officer Santiago’s training and experience, Officer Santiago immediately identified [Winkler’s] action as a danger to Marine One and everyone on-board. [Winkler’s] conduct posed a risk of flash blindness and pilot disorientation, especially during low-level flight near other helicopters (U.S. Park Police, U.S. Marine Corps) and the Washington Monument. This placed Marine One at risk of an airborne collision,” the complaint said.

Winkler was immediately put in handcuffs.

According to the complaint, after Winkler was handcuffed, he got on his knees and said, “I should apologize to Donald Trump,” and “I apologize to Donald Trump.”

“The defendant, Jacob Samuel Winkler, did knowingly aim the beam of a laser pointer at an aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States, or at the flight path of such an aircraft,” the complaint read.

Winkler was charged with 18 U.S. Code § 39A, a law that prohibits aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft.

Keep reading

U.S. Threats to Venezeula Are Ramping Up, Not Down

Reporting has recently emerged that the United States is considering direct strikes on Venezuela that could increase volatility in the region and the risk of war.

Under the pretext of disrupting the flow of drugs into the United States by Venezuelan drug cartels, the U.S. has militarized the waters off the coast of Venezuela, flooding them with Aegis guided-missile destroyers, a nuclear-powered fast track submarine, P-8 spy planes and F-35 fighter jets. On September 2, American forces fired on a small speed boat that the U.S. claims was running drugs for a Venezuelan cartel.

The Donald Trump administration is yet to offer evidence for its claim. They have neither publicly identified who the eleven people who were killed on the boat were nor what drugs they were carrying. Congress has still not been briefed.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the boat was “probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean.” Trump says it was bound for the United States. Turns out, it was headed back to Venezuela.

U.S. officials familiar with the operation have now told The New York Times that, having “spotted the military aircraft stalking it,” the boat has already “altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the attack started.” The twenty-nine second video that Trump posted on social media spliced together several clips but edited out the boat turning around. Despite this lack of imminent threat, the aircraft, either an attack helicopter or an MQ-9 Reaper drone, “repeatedly hit the vessel before it sank.”

The Trump administration has claimed the right to supplant the National Guard and law enforcement with the military and lethal force on the grounds that the drug cartels are terrorist organizations who pose a threat to the national security of the United States because the drugs they bring into the country to kill Americans. The U.S. has invoked the right to self-defense, and Rubio has insisted that the speed boat was “an immediate threat to the United States.” Except that if it had turned around, it wasn’t.

Keep reading

US Officials Say Regime Change in Venezuela Is the Real Goal of Military Action in the Caribbean

US officials have told The New York Times that the real goal of the US military buildup in the Caribbean, and the bombing of boats in the region, is regime change in Venezuela.

The policy is being largely driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long wanted to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power. Back in 2019, when the first Trump administration attempted to back a coup against Maduro, Rubio posted a photo on Twitter of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the moment he was being brutally murdered in an apparent threat to the Venezuelan leader.

The Trump administration claims that Maduro is the leader of a drug cartel, but has not produced any evidence for the charge. Maduro and other Venezuelan officials have forcefully rejected the accusation and have pointed to data that shows the majority of the cocaine that is produced in Colombia doesn’t go through Venezuela.

President Trump has also framed the military campaign in the region as a response to overdose deaths in the US due to fentanyl, but fentanyl isn’t produced in Venezuela, and it does not go through the country on its way to the US.

The Times report, which was published over the weekend, reads: “Several current and former military officials, diplomats, and intelligence officers say that while fighting drugs is the pretext for the recent US attacks, the real goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power, one way or another.”

The US began bombing boats allegedly running drugs in the Caribbean on September 2. According to numbers released by President Trump, at least 17 people have been extrajudicially executed by the US military since the campaign began. US officials have said the Trump administration is considering direct strikes on Venezuelan territory, which could lead to a full-blown war with the country.

Keep reading

Congress Must Not Rubber Stamp Trump’s Murder Spree

The Trump administration reportedly wants Congress to rubber stamp the president’s murder spree in the Caribbean and to endorse possible attacks on other countries:

Draft legislation is circulating at the White House and on Capitol Hill that would hand President Trump sweeping power to wage war against drug cartels he deems to be “terrorists,” as well as against any nation he says has harbored or aided them, according to people familiar with the matter.

When Congress approved the 2001 AUMF, it made the mistake of giving the president extraordinary, open-ended authority to wage war against Al Qaeda, which then morphed into a unending global campaign. Ever since then, every administration has abused that authority to target a number of armed groups that had nothing to do with the original attacks on the United States. The bill described in this report would be far worse than the 2001 AUMF by endorsing a much more wide-ranging campaign when there is absolutely no military threat to this country. Congress was wrong to endorse endless war in 2001. It would be insane to endorse an even worse version of endless war when there is no reason for it.

The Trump administration seeks to merge the “war on terror” with its new campaign against cartels by pretending that the latter are terrorists, but all of this is a lie. The drug trade is a serious problem, but it is not one that can be solved by the military. It is not terrorism, and drug traffickers aren’t terrorists. All that involving the military will do is kill a lot of civilians by design.

Drug traffickers aren’t lawful targets. Congress can’t give the president the authority to murder civilians. Trump’s barbaric boat attacks are illegal under U.S. and international law no matter what Congress does with this bill.

We need to reject the administration’s war framing in its entirety. While they may want to claim that there is an armed conflict that lets them kill these civilians, no such conflict exists. None of the groups that they have wrongly designated as terrorist organizations is engaged in an armed conflict with the United States. There is no war to be fought. When the administration uses force against alleged cartel members, they are just summarily executing suspected criminals outside the law. This is as illegitimate and despicable as it gets.

Keep reading

White House slashes medical research on monkeys and other animal testing, sparking fierce new debate

The Trump administration has canceled nearly $28 million of federal grants for animal testing as major federal health agencies are phasing out research on live animals in favor of new alternatives, a joint investigation by CBS News and The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, has found.

“We’re witnessing a watershed moment right now,” said Justin Goodman, the senior vice president of White Coat Waste, an animal rights nonprofit. “We have an administration that’s skeptical of spending, skeptical of establishment science. … We are trying to slash and burn as much animal testing funding as possible.” 

The pressure for change comes from an unlikely coalition of animal rights activists and bipartisan members of Congress who want to halt what animal rights groups estimate as $20 billion a year in federal spending for animal experiments. Long considered a cause of the left, the animal rights movement has expanded and gained steam under the Trump administration. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is leading the charge against high drug costs, vaccine safety and the grinding approval process required to bring innovations to market.

Keep reading

NASA is no longer a space agency. Its new official status is pretty shocking. Here’s what happened

A new order by the Trump administration issued late last month states that NASA will operate as a national intelligence and security agency. According to it, the space agency will now have a different set of primary functions, which includes “intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.” The revelation was made by NASA Watch founder Keith Cowing, as the issue didn’t exactly make headlines at the time. Keith was once a scientist at the space agency, and now closely watches everything that happens there. So, does this mean that NASA will go forward and develop spycraft instead of spacecraft? According to reports, the order is more about labour concerns rather than about the work NASA does. A report from Futurism states that the order adds “NASA to the Federal Service Labour-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS), excluding it from collective bargaining representation.”

This sparked discontent among NASA employees, who staged a protest outside NASA’s Washington, DC, headquarters earlier this week. The change in the status of the space agency came as the president eliminated the union rights for thousands of federal employees. Several lawsuits had been filed to stop the order. As this news made headlines, the thing about NASA becoming a spy agency was sidelined. However, that is expected to have labour implications for the people working at the agency. Government Executive quoted the vice president of the Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association, Monica Gorman, as telling those gathered at the protest, “A huge part of the reason that I have that independence, and that my colleagues do, is that as a union-represented worker I know that I am protected from unfair retaliation.”

Keep reading

Trump To Designate More Leftist Groups As Terrorists

President Trump has announced plans to designate not only Antifa but also other radical left-wing groups as terrorist organizations, signaling a renewed commitment to combating what he described as a “vast domestic terror movement” threatening American safety. 

Trump made the announcement during an Oval office briefing in front of the press.

“We have others we’re going to designate too, but we’re going to look at the people that FUNDED Antifa, see who they are, where they came from and why they did it,” he urged.

This move comes just days after the tragic assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, at the hands, it appears, of a suspect linked to left-wing extremism, and builds directly on Trump’s long-standing warnings about Antifa’s role in fomenting chaos.

Trump declared, “Antifa and their radical allies have crossed every line—it’s time to call them what they are: terrorists. We’re designating Antifa as a major terrorist organization, and we’ll go after every group funding or supporting this sick, dangerous radical left disaster.” 

He further emphasized the breadth of the initiative, adding, “This isn’t just about one group; it’s about the entire network of left-wing extremists who’ve turned our streets into battlegrounds.”

“We’ll root them out to protect every American,” he added.

These words, delivered with the gravitas of a leader under siege, underscore Trump’s determination to wield executive authority against domestic threats, echoing his 2020 pledge that never fully materialized due to bureaucratic hurdles.

Keep reading

Adam Schiff, Tim Kaine Introduce Bill To Protect Caribbean Drug Traffickers From Trump Strikes

Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced a resolution on Friday aimed at halting U.S. military strikes on drug trafficking operations in the Caribbean, saying the actions were launched without congressional approval.

The measure, filed under the War Powers Act, would prohibit use of the military against non-state groups involved in drug trafficking unless Congress authorizes it. War powers resolutions are privileged, meaning the Senate must take up the measure for debate and a vote.

The move follows two recent military strikes in the Southern Caribbean Sea—on Sept. 2 and Sept. 15—that targeted vessels that were carrying narcotics. Democratic lawmakers say they have not received key details about the incidents, including who was on board, the cargo, and the legal basis for lethal force.

President Donald Trump has said the vessels belonged to “extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists” operating out of Venezuela. He said the boats were carrying narcotics bound for the United States, calling them a direct threat to U.S. national security and vital interests.

“If you are transporting drugs that can kill Americans, we are hunting you,” Trump said after the Sept. 15 operation, which killed three people. He added there was “recorded evidence” that drugs were on board, including large bags of cocaine and fentanyl scattered in the water after the strike.

“Congress alone holds the power to declare war,” Schiff said in announcing the resolution. “And while we share with the executive branch the imperative of preventing and deterring drugs from reaching our shores, blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens.”

Kaine alleged the Trump administration had failed to explain why standard interdiction methods were not used.

“President Trump has no legal authority to launch strikes or use military force in the Caribbean or elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere,” Kaine said, adding that “Congress simply cannot let itself be stiff-armed as this administration continues to flout the law.”

The White House has said the earlier strike on Sept. 2 targeted the operations of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan transnational gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization, and that it was conducted in defense of U.S. national interests.

Keep reading

Donald Trump vows to defend Poland if it came up against Russia after its drones sparked ‘biggest escalation since WWII’

Donald Trump has vowed to defend Poland if it came up against Russia after its drone incursion sparked the biggest escalation since World War II. 

The US President made the commitment when speaking to journalists gathered outside the White House today as he left to attend the memorial for assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk. 

He was asked: ‘Will you help defend Poland and the Baltic States from Russia if Russia keeps escalating?’

The American premier responded: ‘Yeah, I would, I will.’ 

It comes after suicide drones sent by Russian president Vladimir Putin ‘repeatedly violated’ Polish airspace earlier this month during a Kremlin attack on Ukraine. 

The Nato country was forced to scramble its air defenses to take out the craft in the early hours of September 10 – in its first engagement since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022. 

Some 19 Shahed-2 drones entered Polish airspace with at least three shot down – and just days later, another was neutralised over Poland’s presidential palace. 

It saw Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warn ‘we are closer to war than any time since World War II’ as he denounced the ‘large-scale provocation’, which tests ‘Nato’s response threshold’. 

Keep reading

Trump Says ‘Bad Things Are Going to Happen’ If Afghanistan Doesn’t Hand Over Bagram Air Base

President Trump on Saturday warned that “bad things would happen” if Afghanistan didn’t agree to hand over the Bagram Air Base back to the US military, an idea that’s been rejected by the Taliban-led government in Kabul.

“If Afghanistan doesn’t give Bagram Airbase back to those that built it, the United States of America, BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

While Trump claims the US built Bagram, the airfield was first constructed by the Soviet Union. Bagram became the largest US military base in Afghanistan during the 20-year US war in the country, and US forces pulled out of the airfield during the withdrawal in 2021.

Trump said during his visit to the UK last week that one of the reasons he wants Bagram is because it’s “an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.” The president made similar comments while he was on the campaign trail in 2024, saying that if he were still president during the withdrawal, he was going to “keep Bagram” and leave 4,000 troops at the facility.

In response to Trump’s latest comments, the Taliban-led government, known officially as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, called on the US president to uphold the Doha agreement, referring to the deal that was negotiated by the first Trump administration and led to President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“Under the Doha agreement, the United States pledged that it will not use or threaten force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan, nor interfere in its internal affairs. Therefore, it is necessary that they remain faithful to their commitments,” said Afghan government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat, according to TOLO News.

Trump had suggested that the US may be working on a diplomatic deal with Afghanistan on Bagram, but that was rejected by Fasihuddin Fitrat, the chief of staff of Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry.

“Recently, some voices claim that we are in talks with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to negotiate the return of Bagram Airfield, or that we are seeking a political settlement after failing to take it by force. We assure the people of Afghanistan that no agreement over even an inch of our soil is possible,” Fitrat said.

Keep reading