We begin today with Greg Sargent of The New Republic and his many doubt about the Congressional Republicans willingness to investigate the Caribbean boat strikes.
To be sure, this does look like a classic bait and switch. It’s likely Republicans will conduct some moderate oversight on this second strike allegedly killing the two men. But then, whatever they learn, they’ll use that exercise as a back-door way to deflate pressure for transparency on the rest of the operation, which is probably illegal and itself may consistof war crimes.
However, it’s not nothing that Republicans like Representative Mike Rogers and Senator Roger Wicker—the chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services committees—are now vowing real oversight. Democrats can seize on this—because this latest turn exposes how weak and indefensible the case for these bombings truly has become. [...]
There are many more lines of inquiry here. Smith tells me that he will push for public release of a Justice Department memo that purportedly details out a legal justification for the strikes. Experts see the legal case as extremely weak, as it appears to grant Trump unilateral authority to execute civilians who aren’t engaged in an act of war against the United States in any sense. That memo also seeks to preemptively declare that those who carry out these strikes have legal immunity, which some legal types see as a tacit admission of potential legal vulnerability.
Antonio Maria Delgado of The Miami Herald has some details on a phone call between Trump and Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro where the tacky shoe salesman demanded that Maduro leave the country.
The call — which The New York Times reported took place last week — quickly reached an impasse as it became clear that the two sides’ positions were far apart. Washington demanded that Maduro and his top allies leave Venezuela immediately to allow the restoration of democratic rule, while regime leaders proposed handing political control to the opposition but retaining command of the armed forces.
According to the sources, the U.S. message to Maduro was direct: Safe passage would be guaranteed for him, his wife Cilia Flores, and his son only if he agreed to resign right away.
The conversation unfolded amid growing signs that the Trump administration is preparing a more assertive phase of operations targeting Venezuela’s so-called Cartel de los Soles, which Washington says is headed by Maduro and other top officials. [...]
The U.S. has placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro —the largest reward ever offered for a sitting head of state— and $25 million for ruling-party strongman Diosdado Cabello.
Jem Bartholomew of Columbia journalism Review says that journalism cannot get a clearer picture of what has happened in the Caribbean Sea since most journalists not longer work inside the Pentagon.
It’s unclear what the Trump administration’s real purpose or aim is with regard to Venezuela. The obscurity is partly due to the administration’s clampdown on national security reporting. Under Hegseth’s direction, the Defense Department has tried to pour liquid nitrogen on independent journalism. In September, correspondents at the Pentagon were asked to signa pledge not to report unauthorized information, including nonclassified information. Most of them chose to tear up their access badges rather than agree to the loyalty oath. The remaining rump of the Pentagon press corps—MAGA-friendly outlets and influencers—have so far offered little indication that they will hold the administration to account. Journalists who refused to sign the pledge, and are continuing their reporting outside the building, have also spoken about a deepening culture of fear among officials.
Journalists and foreign policy observers have been forced into a guessing game about the administration’s intentions regarding Venezuela, parsing the president’s Truth Social posts like a tarot deck. “We’re learning about things like the deployment of the USS Gerald Ford by tweet,” Nancy Youssef, an Atlantic staff writer on national security, told the magazine’s podcastrecently. Youssef has described reporting as “being in a very large room with a very small flashlight.”
The administration has tried to frame its campaign of air strikes as something like the war on terror. It alleges the boats being blown up are not simply drug traffickers but “narco-terrorists” or “unlawful combatants,” and last month the State Department said that the “Cartel de los Soles” was a foreign terrorist organization led by Maduro. This was despite the department’s international narcotics control strategy report, released in March, not mentioning the organization. The New York Times reports that NGOs and former Drug Enforcement Administration officials say no such cartel even exists; “Cartel de los Soles” is best described as a figure of speech, arising in the nineties, referring to generals corrupted by drug money, rather than an organization with an internal hierarchy, purpose, division of labor, and so on.
Brian Winter of The New York Times says that most Latin American leaders have remained silent on the Trump regime’s various actions in the reason out of fear or, perhaps, silent approval of of Trump’s approach against the region’s cartels
What explains this relative acquiescence? Some leaders have surely kept quiet for fear of ending up in Mr. Trump’s cross hairs themselves. For others, particularly Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, their countries are so economically dependent on the United States that they may perceive quiet pragmatism as the only option. A main reason appears to be that many Latin Americans agree with Mr. Trump’s decision to take a tougher approach against the region’s gangs and cartels.
Although organized crime is hardly a new issue, it has grown measurably worse over the past decade. In that time, the amount of cocaine produced in Latin America has at least doubled. Drug cartels flush with cash have diversified into extortion, illegal mining and human trafficking. Violence has flared even in countries like Costa Rica and Ecuador, once regarded as oases of relative tranquillity. Poll after poll shows that crime has surpassed unemployment or health care as the leading concern of voters throughout much of the region.
Latin America’s politics seem to be shifting further to the right as a result. José Antonio Kast, strongly favored to win a runoff in December for Chile’s presidency, has vowed to build a Trump-like border barrier to keep out migrants he blames for rising crime. Rodrigo Paz Pereira, Bolivia’s first nonsocialist president in some two decades, has restored full diplomatic relations with Washington, and he welcomed a delegation of U.S. officials to his inauguration to discuss potential deals on mining and drug enforcement. With conservative figures also polling well in coming elections in Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica and Brazil, it’s possible to imagine a Latin America that will be even more strongly aligned with Mr. Trump a year from now.
Finally today, Mary Ellen Mcintire of Roll Call reports on that hot race in Tennessee’s 7th district between.Matt Van Epps and Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn; a district won by Trump by 22 points. But this race to replace Rep. Mark Green is now too close to call.
Both parties have poured millions into the 7th District race between Republican Army veteran Matt Van Epps and Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn to complete the unfinished term of GOP former Rep. Mark E. Green, who resigned in July to take a job in the private sector. The election’s outcome will serve as another data point in the fight for the House in next year’s midterm elections with Republicans’ narrow majority on the line.
Polling shows the race for the 7th District — which Donald Trump carried by 22 points last year, according to calculations by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales — has gotten closer. A Nov. 22-24 Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey showed a tight contest, with Van Epps at 48 percent and Behn at 46 percent, within the poll’s margin of error. Another 2 percent said they would support another candidate, and 5 percent were undecided. [...]
Heading into Election Day, Democrats argued that by forcing Republicans to invest in the race, they’d proved that their party has the stronger political momentum.
“Win or lose, Republicans have been forced to spend millions, deploy resources, and pull out all of the stops to try to save a seat in a district that Trump won by 22 points,” Abhi Rahman, a deputy communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.
Everyone have the best possible day that you can!
