Category: Just Desserts

Like that ‘not a cartel per se’ matters

US labels Maduro-tied Cartel de los Soles as a terror organization. It’s not a cartel per se

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by designating the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. But the entity that the U.S. government alleges is led by Maduro is not a cartel per se.

The designation, published Monday in the Federal Register, is the latest measure in the Trump administration’s escalating campaign to combat drug trafficking into the U.S. In previewing the step about a week ago, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, of being “responsible for terrorist violence” in the Western Hemisphere.

The move comes as Trump evaluates whether to take military action against Venezuela, which he has not ruled out despite bringing up the possibility of talks with Maduro. Land strikes or other actions would be a major expansion of the monthslong operation that has included a massive military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and striking boats accused of trafficking drugs, killing more than 80 people.

Venezuelans began using the term Cartel de los Soles in the 1990s to refer to high-ranking military officers who had grown rich from drug-running. As corruption expanded nationwide, first under the late President Hugo Chávez and then under Maduro, its use loosely expanded to police and government officials as well as activities like illegal mining and fuel trafficking. The “suns” in the name refer to the epaulettes affixed to the uniforms of high-ranking military officers.

The umbrella term was elevated to a Maduro-led drug-trafficking organization in 2020, when the U.S. Justice Department in Trump’s first term announced the indictment of Venezuela’s leader and his inner circle on narcoterrorism and other charges.

“It is not a group,” said Adam Isaacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization. “It’s not like a group that people would ever identify themselves as members. They don’t have regular meetings. They don’t have a hierarchy.”

Maduro’s government in a statement Monday categorically denied the existence of the cartel, describing the Trump administration’s accusation as a “ridiculous fabrication” meant to “justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela.”

Up until this year, the label of foreign terrorist organization had been reserved for groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida that use violence for political ends. The Trump administration applied it in February to eight Latin American criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, migrant smuggling and other activities.

The administration blames such designated groups for operating the boats it is striking but rarely identifies the organizations and has not provided any evidence. It says the attacks , which began off the coast of Venezuela and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean, are meant to stop narcotics from flowing to American cities.

But many — including Maduro himself — see the military moves as an effort to end the ruling party’s 26-year hold on power.

Since the arrival of U.S. military vessels and troops to the Caribbean months ago, Venezuela’s U.S.-backed political opposition also has reignited its perennial promise of removing Maduro from office, fueling speculation over the purpose of what the Trump administration has called a counterdrug operation.

 

Trump Cuts Off Tax Money Pipeline to Gun Control Groups

There’s little that is as upsetting as seeing your tax dollars spent on something you are morally opposed to with every fiber of your being. It’s especially upsetting when that something is an attack on one of our basic civil liberties that’s expressly protected by the United States Constitution.

However, as we found out earlier this year, our tax money was ending up in the bank accounts of various gun control groups, thus we were being forced to fund the effort to strip us of our God-given right to keep and bear arms.

Much of that funding was cut off already, but not all of it.

As the NRA-ILA notes, though, President Trump has cut off even more.

The loss of funding resulted in a lawsuit against the Trump administration brought by five non-profit entities, lead by the progressive Vera Institute of Justice, alleging the cuts were unconstitutional, illegal, and arbitrary and capricious. In July, an Obama-appointed judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia denied injunctive relief and granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show the court had jurisdiction over their arbitrary and capricious claim and failed “to demonstrate a violation of any constitutional right or protection.”

The other shoe on these grants has just dropped.

The Trump administration has reportedly retooled the eligibility criteria and focus for these grants going forward. Eligibility to apply for an estimated $34 million in grant money has changed to exclude community-based organizations and non-profit applicants.

The focus is more explicitly on “supporting law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improv[ing] police-community relations” through law enforcement officer and related personnel hiring, equipment purchases that specifically support violence prevention and intervention, youth violence intervention programs, and generally by “increasing the capacity of local government, law enforcement, and the criminal justice system to coordinate comprehensive crime reduction strategies.”…

A look through the archived list of past federal grant recipients (FY 2022 and FY 2023) shows that many of the previous CVIPI grantees have also been funded by Everytown Support Fund’s Community Safety Fund. A very cursory examination of the archived list also reveals a few grant recipients with clear anti-Second Amendment, pro-gun control elements.

Let’s understand that no matter what a program accomplishes with regard to reducing violent crime, if they don’t support gun control, Everytown isn’t backing them. I don’t care what they might claim in that regard; that’s just the simple truth. They’re an anti-Second Amendment organization, and they only support their fellow travelers.

But by changing the criteria like they did, the DOJ has cut off funding that might not explicitly go toward gun control, but would free up other revenue for those purposes. Something else I don’t care about is the claim that the money wasn’t for anti-gun activities, because money is fungible and a dollar in is a dollar in. They only promise not to use X amount for anti-gun efforts.

While gun control organizations are trying to frame this as killing efforts to prevent so-called gun violence, the reality is that there’s little evidence these efforts did a damn thing. Plus, if Everytown and its buddies are that bothered, they’re free to issue their own grants. I’m sure Michael Bloomberg has a spare $34 million lying around.

Why should we, the American people, be on the hook for something that doesn’t seem to do much?

Gov’t. Grant Money for ‘Gun Violence Prevention’ Withheld from Non-Profits

By Dave Workman

The Guardian is reporting that the Trump administration is this year cutting off government grants for so-called “gun violence prevention” programs to certain non-profit groups which the grants were reportedly built around.

While the news agency didn’t specifically say so, there have been concerns within the Second Amendment community that public funds were being utilized by some groups to push a gun control agenda. Essentially, gun owners—as taxpayers—were helping to fund efforts which ultimately were aimed at eroding their Second Amendment rights. At least, that’s the concern.

According to The Guardian, “The Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), was created in 2022, to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence and fund research studying the programs’ efficacy.”

But following Donald Trunmp’s return to the White House, these “community-based organizations” were allowed to apply for grant funds. Now, those monies are limited to city, county and tribal governments, and the new goal of the program is to “support law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improve police-community relations.”

As noted by The Guardian, when Trump returned to office in January, he immediately dismantled Joe Biden’s White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which was a thinly-veiled “in-house” gun control effort. Instead, Trump nominated Pam Bondi to the office of Attorney General, and she has subsequently led the Justice Department in a full 180-degree shift from gun control to Second Amendment protection. The DOJ, with Harmeet Dhillon as U.S. assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights essentially leading the charge, has gone after the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for dragging its feet in the issuance of carry permits, holding up the process for up to two years.

Dhillon has also argued against the semi-auto ban in Illinois before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Earlier this year, the Guardian noted that the Justice Department cut more than $800 million in grants that would have gone to “organizations that prevent and respond to gun violence, sexual assault and hate crimes” and other groups.

Trump Administration Cuts Flow of Tax Dollars Funneled to Leftist Gun Control Orgs and NGOs.

The Trump administration has released solicitations for a grant program meant to stop gun violence in underserved communities. But this year, the non-profits the grant was built around are disqualified from applying, according to an application notice released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in September.

The Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), was created in 2022, to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence and fund research studying the programs’ efficacy.

The pioneering program was born out of a recognition by the Biden administration that such community-centered programs were among the most successful tools in combating the US’ deep-rooted gun violence problem, and had played a crucial role in helping reduce homicides in major US cities.

Before Trump’s inauguration, community-based organizations, non-profits and local and state governments were eligible to apply for the grant. Now, only city, county and tribal governments are allowed. And the stated goal of the program has been changed from “comprehensive, community-based prevention” to “supports law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improve police-community relations”.

Since 2022, the federal government has awarded more than $300m to over 120 non-profits, city and county governments and research institutions through the initiative, according to an archived list of grant recipients.

The department of justice, which oversees CVIPI, did not respond to a request for comment.

The changes at CVIPI are the latest in the Trump administration’s heel-turn from the Biden administration’s approach to gun violence prevention, which positioned Black and Latino-led groups working to address violence as legitimate solutions to crime in the nation’s hardest hit locales. Shortly after his inauguration, Trump dismantled the White House office of gun violence prevention, and in March his administration removed the former surgeon general Vivek Murthy’s advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ website.

— Abené Clayton in Gun violence prevention groups disqualified from grants built around their work

 

Lord Rothschild: Trump Is Threatening To Destroy The New World Order

Lord Rothschild has warned that President Donald Trump threatens to destroy the New World Order and “must be stopped at all costs.”

Rothschild family-owned magazine, The Economist, branded Trump a “present danger” to the “New World Order” and admitted that the globalist elitists that formed it are “spinning in their graves.”

“Perhaps the greatest danger at present is the incumbency of an American president who despises international norms, who disparages free trade and who continually flirts with abandoning America’s essential role in maintaining the global legal order,” writes The Economist.

Infowars.com reports:  Despite listing off legitimate threats like jihadism and terrorism, Communist Chinese expansion, and North Korean hostility, an article published by The Economist names Trump as the biggest threat to the “liberal” New World Order.

Iran’s Quds Force Commander Esmail Qaani killed in Israeli strike, reports say. Who was he?

Esmail Qaani took command of Iran’s Quds Force after the assassination of his predecessor, Qasem Soleimani, in a US drone strike in 2020

The Quds Force is an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) responsible for extraterritorial military operations and supporting proxy groups across the Middle East.

Qaani began his military career during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, leading several brigades before becoming deputy commander of the Quds Force in 1997, serving under Soleimani. Unlike Soleimani, who was often seen on the frontlines with Tehran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, Qaani has maintained a lower profile, conducting meetings privately and away from public view. His leadership has coincided with increased Israeli airstrikes against Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah and other paramilitary groups.

In October 2024, Qaani was reported missing after Israeli airstrikes targeted the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. He had travelled to Lebanon following the death of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in late September. The attack also targeted Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s presumed successor, who has also been unreachable since.

“Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”
– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

IAF launches major strike on Iran and its nuclear program; PM: A decisive point in our history

Iran has been secretly advancing a plan for the “technological advancement of all parts of the development of a nuclear weapon,” the Israeli military says, after launching strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Reported to have been killed, so far:

Mohammad Bagherim, Chief of the Iranian military
Gholam Ali Rashid, Deputy Chief of the Iranian military
Hossein Salami, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
Ali Shamkhani, reported to be Supreme Leader Khamenei’s right hand man
Mohammad Tehranchi, President, Azad University, theoretical physicist.
Fereydoon Abbasi, former head, Atomic Energy Organization & MP.

Strikes reported on:

The D2O (heavy water) manufacturing facility in Arak.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps HQ in Tehran
The Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan

David Hogg Has Humiliating Meltdown on ABC News

On Sunday’s episode of ABC News’ “This Week,”  former Trump White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus made mincemeat out of DNC Vice Chair David Hogg during a heated exchange as Priebus successfully cornered Hogg into defending one the Democratic Party’s recent messaging debacles — advocating for a suspected MS-13 gang member, wife beater, and human trafficker who was deported.

Priebus didn’t hold back, ripping into the current state of the Democratic Party: “They’ve got no message, they’ve got no movement, they’ve got no leader. I mean, it doesn’t get any worse than that.” He blasted Hogg for “defending Harvard” and the DNC for “traveling to El Salvador for MS-13 gang members,” mocking the party’s apparent priorities.

When the host interrupted to note that the deportee in question was only an “alleged” gang member, Priebus criticized Hogg’s pledge to spend $20 million to primary incumbent Democrats.

“You’re taking $20 million… it’s $20 million out of the DNC’s pocket,” he argued. “You can’t be on the board of the fishing and forest company and on Greenpeace at the same time,” he added, calling into question the DNC’s blurred lines between activism and governance.

Hogg jumped in, visibly agitated.

“Let me push back against that,” he began. “This was not an MS-13 gang member, and you damn well know that.”

But Priebus didn’t flinch.

“Oh, come on,” he fired back. “So keep defending this guy, you’re just digging your own hole.”

Priebus is right. Evidence of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s connections to MS-13 came out last week, as did court documents showing that his wife accused him of domestic abuse and that he’s suspected of human trafficking.

Nevertheless, Hogg dug himself in deeper with the same old talking points we’ve heard before.

“In America, we have due process and we are a land of law and order,” he said. “This administration is repeatedly showing time and time again, they do not care about what the Supreme Court says, they do not care about the rule of law.”

Priebus responded with a reality check. “CNN just did a poll… most Americans think that all illegal immigrants should be deported, by the way.”

Hogg claimed that Abrego Garcia was denied counsel and due process and that “you cannot defend sending people… to another country where they don’t have rights.” Actually, you can defend sending an illegal immigrant back to his home country.

Naturally, Priebus didn’t let the moment slip. “If you want to try to defend the constitutionality of deporting an illegal immigrant that’s here — he’s here illegally,” Priebus insisted before pointing out that “every intel community agency and the White House say he is a member of MS-13.”

The Pentagon Must Go on the Offensive to Defeat Politicized Officers.

That Space Force colonel in command in Greenland – well, formerly in command in Greenland – who ran her fool mouth to undermine her commander-in-chief demonstrates an all-too-common problem with today’s senior military officers.

We keep seeing these passive-aggressive, and not so passively aggressive, officers acting out and throwing childish tantrums of resistance to the President that the people of the United States elected. It’s inconceivable to those of us from the military who won the Cold War; we stayed the hell out of politics. Somehow, they must have missed that civilian control block of instruction; non-partisanship is a vital principle of our officer corps.

To be political on duty is a violation of our oaths. It’s a violation of our ethos as officers. And it’s got to be brutally crushed – even Barack Obama understood that when he properly canned General Stanley McChrystal for having a staff that thought it was okay to diss the President to reporters (incredibly, after this massive leadership failure, McChrystal has gone on to sell his leadership insights to eager civilian suckers, but that’s another story).

We simply cannot have a functioning military that tolerates individuals putting their own personal prerogatives ahead of the mission – and that’s exactly what this political posturing is.

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Trump Administration Sends Brutally Honest Response Saying Judge Can’t Undo a Perfectly Good Deportation

The Justice Department filed an application for an emergency stay of an order requiring an adjudicated MS-13 member be brought back the United States that stopped within inches of calling the district court judge who issued the order a moron. In a tersely worded brief that demolished the entire proceeding, the Justice Department’s brief ridiculed the order by Obama-appointed Judge Paula Xinis to “facilitate and effectuate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the US by Monday night, saying: “Because the United States has no control over Abrego Garcia, however, Defendants have no independent authority to “effectuate” his return to the United States—any more than they would have the power to follow a court order commanding them to “effectuate” the end of the war in Ukraine, or a return of the hostages from Gaza;” see Judge Orders Trump to Return Deported Man Sent to El Salvadoran Prison, Sets Up a Massive Showdown – RedState.

Garcia, a citizen of El Salvador, who is portrayed as a “Maryland father” in most news reports, entered the US illegally in 2011. In 2019, he was arrested on allegations of membership in the violent Salvadoran gang called Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. At that time, he applied for political asylum, which was denied. He was given an order of removal, but a judge put his deportation on hold on the grounds that he might be in danger if he returned to El Salvador. In early March, Garcia was arrested and put on a plane to El Salvador and the Terrorist Confinement Facility, CECOT.

His attorneys sued, and a judge ordered the Trump administration to return Garcia to Maryland. In her order, the judge called the deportation “an illegal act.”

When White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt reacted by saying, “We suggest the Judge contact [El Salvador’s] President [Nayib] Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador,” it struck me, and many others, as the kind of remark you can make if you are in no danger of facing the judge in a courtroom. As it turned out, she perfectly captured the tone of the administration’s request for a stay of her order.

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Looks like ‘Stop Drop & Roll’ didn’t cut it for the jihadi.
Orange car in the lower right center