TV News LIES

The Pentagon on Tuesday scapegoated a navy admiral for the extrajudicial double-tap strike that killed survivors of a 2 September attack on an alleged drug boat and vowed to continue operations, even as lawmakers investigate whether the attack constituted a war crime.

At a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday, Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary said that the decision to re-strike the “narco terrorist vessel” was made by Adm Frank M Bradley, “operating under clear and long standing authorities to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated”. Wilson added that Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon secretary, “stands behind Admiral Bradley, 100%”.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, on Monday explicitly named Bradley as the officer who “directed the engagement”, distancing Hegseth from accountability despite a Washington Post report that he ordered the deaths of everyone on the boat.

Wilson dismissed critical reporting of the incident as “fake news”.

During a cabinet meeting alongside Donald Trump on Tuesday, Hegseth said: “We’ve only just begun striking narco boats and putting narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean.” He defended Bradley, who is set to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers overseeing the military on Thursday, saying Trump “always has our back” and that “we always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations”.

More...

The Trump administration has threatened to suspend Snap food assistance to several Democratic-led states unless they turn over recipient data to the federal government.

The agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, said on Tuesday that the USDA could begin blocking funds as early as next week if Democratic-led states continue to reject federal requests for Snap recipient data – information that includes immigration status and social security numbers.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Rollins said the USDA needed the data from each state to “root out this fraud, to make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them, but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected”.

“Twenty-nine states said yes – not surprisingly, the red states, and that’s where all of that data, that fraud comes from. But 21 states including California, New York and Minnesota, blue states, continue to say no. So as of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer.”

In a separate statement to the Guardian, a USDA spokesperson said: “USDA established a Snap integrity team to analyze not only data provided by states, but to scrub all available information to end indiscriminate welfare fraud.

More...

Donald Trump on Tuesday called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they should be sent back home in a rant that came as the administration is reportedly increasing immigration enforcement against undocumented Somalis in Minnesota.

In a xenophobic rant during a cabinet meeting, Trump went off on Somalis and Ilhan Omar, the congressional representative who is from Somalia and is a US citizen. He said Somalia “stinks” and is “no good for a reason”.

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” he said. He called Omar “garbage” and said “we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country”.

“These are people who do nothing but complain,” he said. “They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing … When they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area, where most Somalis reside, would see stepped-up deportation efforts this week, focusing primarily on Somalis who have final deportation orders. It would use “strike teams” of ICE agents and other federal officers, bringing in about 100 agents from across the country, the Times reported. Other media outlets, including the Associated Press, have confirmed the reporting.

TVNL Comment:  Just when you think he can't go any lower...

More...

The Trump administration is backing Monsanto in its effort to get the Supreme Court to shield it from liability over cancer claims related to its Roundup weedkiller, a move that could anger the Trump administration’s allies in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.

The Trump administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that lawsuits alleging that Monsanto failed to warn consumers of the health impacts of its Roundup weedkiller are preempted by federal law.

The brief comes in support of Monsanto’s effort to get the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that the company had to pay damages for failing to warn about its product’s health impacts.

The Trump administration’s brief notes that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers Roundup ingredient glyphosate not likely to be cancer causing and has approved its use.

It says that states should not be able to impose further requirements that give rise to failure-to-warn lawsuits.

“The labeling requirements imposed by Missouri’s failure-to-warn law are preempted by [the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act,]” the brief states.

More...

The killing of two unarmed Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Jenin has provoked international outrage after video footage of the incident went viral on Friday.

Credited to the local Palestine TV station, the footage shows two young Palestinian men surrendering to Israeli soldiers and lying on the ground in front of a garage under soldiers’ instructions. They then appear to be directed by the soldiers to go back inside the garage, where one of the troops is seen aiming and shooting at him as he lies on the ground.

Their hands were raised, they posed no threat, and Israeli soldiers murdered them anyway.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the victims as Muntaser Billah Abdallah, 26, and Yousef Asaasah, 37. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the killing in a statement, calling it “a war crime” and a case of “extrajudicial killing.”

More...

The Israeli army on Monday again targeted several locations in southern Gaza that fell under the military-controlled yellow zone, according to local witnesses.

Residents told Anadolu that Israeli artillery heavily bombarded eastern parts of Rafah, with columns of smoke rising from the struck areas.

They also reported Israeli helicopters unleashing intense gunfire on eastern Khan Younis.

There was no immediate report of casualties.

According to the Gaza Government Media Office, the Israeli army has carried out more than 590 violations of the ceasefire, killing at least 357 Palestinians and wounding 903 others.

The ceasefire deal, mediated by Türkiye, Egypt, and Qatar, and backed by the US, came into force on October 10 to halt two years of Israeli attacks that have killed more than 70,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 170,000 others since October 2023.

Phase one of the ceasefire deal includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The plan also envisages the rebuilding of Gaza and the establishment of a new governing mechanism without Hamas.

More...

Ninety-one years ago this week, millions of Ukrainians starved to death while grain rotted in Soviet warehouses. Stalin’s regime seized their harvests, blocked aid, and watched them die. The Holodomor – “death by hunger” – was genocide: deliberate, calculated, and monstrous.

History does not repeat itself exactly, but it certainly rhymes.

Russia’s war against Ukraine is not about territory, NATO expansion, or any other excuse that Vladimir Putin offers. It is about erasing Ukraine as a nation. The methods have changed – missiles instead of grain seizures, filtration camps instead of forced collectivization – but the goal remains the same: to destroy Ukrainian identity and make Ukraine disappear.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya captured this continuity in a statement today on her X account: “On the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holodomor, we remember the millions starved by the Soviet regime in a genocide against the Ukrainian nation. Today, Russia repeats the same evil in its war of aggression. Ukraine will prevail, and Russia must be held accountable.”

She is right. And the world knows it.

Yet here comes Donald Trump, already threatening to cut aid unless Kyiv accepts a “peace deal” that rewards Russian aggression. He wants Ukraine to surrender territory, accept occupation, and legitimize conquest. He calls it pragmatism, but we all know it is capitulation.

More...https://www.kyivpost.com/editorial/64777