Murder Most Foul—Double Tap Survivors

Allowing double tap murder sinks American greatness and restores Nazi U-Boat barbarism most foul.

Kary Love

December 4, 2025

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Growing up surrounded by World War II veterans, most of whom refused to discuss their service fighting the horrid fascist enemies, as kids we turned to the movies to learn about war. The WWII Vets I knew did not brag about their “lethality,” or their “warrior ethos.” Most of them refused to talk about it at all, apparently regarding their service as at best a necessary evil, not something to celebrate. That was the difference between America’s great citizen soldiers and Nazi Germany’s warrior culture that elevated war to be the highest achievement.

In America, we watched movies where the evil Nazi U-Boat captain would surface his sub after sinking an Allied ship, and then grin while he ordered his crew to open fire on the survivors desperately clinging to wreckage in the roiling, often burning ocean. This was the stark difference between America’s heroic citizen soldiers and the murderous Nazi legions. America fought to liberate all humans from evil, Nazi legions lived to kill–even unarmed, unthreatening, defeated opponents. That was why America fought, to rid the world of such cruel, heartless, ignominious, berserker warriors without honor.

The fathers returned from the war preferred to shake the dirt of the necessary evil from their boots and return to the noble, humble work of building a better world for their kids, as plumbers, electricians, carpenters–any profession other than killer. The horrors of war were not to be celebrated. If anything, they had fought, as so many noble soldiers before them, to end war. I was told by one Vet that on his return from war he had jettisoned all his medals and awards from battle because, “I never want anything to do with that again.”

After World War II America led the allies to enshrine in the law of nations a rule of law governing the difference between civilized warfare and barbarians, such as Nazi U-Boat captains, or the cowards in the SS who machine gunned unarmed civilians into mass graves. The resulting Nuremberg Principles emerged as a towering achievement of civilized nations. In the future even war itself would be subject to law. No future Hitler’s illegitimate orders to murder would be followed by honorable soldiers. Those who followed illegal orders would be tried as war criminals. America hung such spineless criminals after Nuremberg Trials.

Such humble heroes, so different from the grinning Nazi U-Boat captain enjoying murdering helpless US Sailors swimming in the sea after the sinking of their warship, seemed to bring the light of a new sun into the world. A world where war, if tolerated at all, was to be subject to law. A just war, fought for human liberation or not at all, was to be fought justly, by honorable soldiers who would do the job and then, like Cincinnatus, return to their farms and plows to feed their fellow humans. Such humble heroes were all around us as we grew up sheltered by their courage, their strength, their morals and their decency. This allowed us to dream, to build, to go to the moon, inhabit space, while on earth, science cured many diseases, comforted the sick, and the only war was the war to end poverty.

Murder most foul, the double-tap murder of helpless survivors of boat sinkings, had been abolished from the earth. A new birth of decency, of hope, of a world that could be united under law, for the uplifting of all people, repudiating the barbaric Nazi “berserker warrior” rose over the earth like a new sun. Imperfect? Certainly. Much hard work remained for true leaders to guide the great mass of humanity upwards remained. But the greatest generation, now mostly passed from the earth, established a pinnacle of accomplishment and achievement.

Murder most foul cannot be allowed to tarnish their admirable heroism. Double tap murders, whether on the high seas, or in marketplaces to which first responders rush, peopled with women and children injured by a terrorist bomb, only to be unscrupulously targeted for a “double tap” are beneath contempt. Those who order such crimes are either repudiated by decent human beings, or the world descends into utter madness. Allowing double tap murder sinks American greatness and restores Nazi U-Boat barbarism most foul.

Kary Love is a Michigan attorney.

IG Probe found US defence secretary’s Signal use to discuss strikes on Yemen could have put US troops at risk: reports

AFP Published December 4, 2025

The Pentagon’s independent watchdog said US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss strikes on Yemen could have put American troops at risk, US media reported on Wednesday.

The probe by the inspector general’s office concluded that Hegseth did not, however, violate rules on classification because he has the authority to declassify information, the reports said, citing sources familiar with the results of the investigation.

The watchdog’s conclusion — which has been transmitted to Congress — is nonetheless likely to reignite debate over conduct by Hegseth, who is already under fire over US strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.

The probe was sparked by the Atlantic magazine’s revelation in late March that its editor-in-chief was inadvertently included in a Signal chat in which US officials, including Hegseth and then-national security adviser Mike Waltz, discussed strikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

The magazine initially withheld the details the officials discussed, but later published them after the White House insisted that no classified information was shared and attacked the editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, as a liar.

The chat included messages in which Hegseth revealed the timing of strikes hours before they happened and information on aircraft and missiles involved, while Waltz sent real-time intelligence on the aftermath of the military action.

In a post to X late on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called the review “a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth”.

Sean Parnell

@SeanParnellASW

This Inspector General review is a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth and proves what we knew all along - no classified information was shared. This matter is resolved and the case is closed.

4:55 PM · Dec 3, 2025

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Waltz fired, Hegseth survives

The Atlantic said that Waltz had set some of the Signal messages to disappear after one week, and others after four, saying it raised questions about whether federal records law was violated.

Trump rejected calls for Hegseth to be fired and largely pinned the blame on Waltz, whom he ultimately replaced as national security advisor, appointing him as US ambassador to the United Nations instead.

US media then reported in April that Hegseth had created a second Signal chat in which the March Yemen strikes were discussed with people, including his wife and brother, but the Pentagon chief likewise weathered that storm and remained in office.

The Houthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after Israel’s offensive in Gaza began in 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.

Houthi attacks prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal, a vital route that normally carries about 12 per cent of world shipping traffic, forcing many companies into a costly detour around southern Africa.

The United States first began conducting strikes in response to the attacks under the Biden administration, and US forces launched a renewed air campaign against the Houthis on March 15.

Trump’s strikes against the Houthis lasted until early May, when a ceasefire agreement was reached with the help of Omani mediation.

Explosive report reveals Hegseth's pre-approved order ahead of strike on boat survivors

Daniel Hampton
December 3, 2025
RAW STORY

An explosive new report Wednesday night undercut Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's attempt to distance himself from an order to kill two survivors clinging to a boat following a strike on an alleged drug boat.

The Trump administration's strategy for drug interdiction has come under intense criticism following a Sept. 2 strike that killed two boat survivors.

Hegseth distanced himself from the strike, claiming he watched the first strike live but then left for a meeting.

"I didn't personally see survivors," Hegseth told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday. "The thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire and smoke. You can’t see it."

Hegseth said he learned of the second strike hours later and praised Adm. Frank Bradley, the special operations commander, for a "correct" decision to neutralize the threat. Even so, he stressed he issued no further orders. President Donald Trump has similarly distanced both himself and Hegseth from the killings.

“Adm. Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” Hegseth said. “We have his back.”

But The New York Times reported Wednesday that before the administration began launching maritime strikes at suspected drug traffickers, Hegseth approved contingency plans for how to handle potential survivors during drug interdiction missions.

"The military would attempt to rescue survivors who appeared to be helpless, shipwrecked and out of what the administration considered a fight. But it would try again to kill them if they took what the United States deemed to be a hostile action, like communicating with suspected cartel members," officials told the Times.

After the first strike on Sept. 2, two survivors emerged, and one radioed for assistance, the officials said. Bradley, apparently acting on Hegseth's orders, promptly ordered a follow-up strike to kill the survivors, thinking that a second boat could retrieve the survivors and any drugs that weren't destroyed.

Congressional investigators are focusing on several aspects of the killings. They seek access to complete documentation, including message logs, Hegseth's execution order, and full unedited video footage of the engagement. The Pentagon is weighing whether to release these materials.

Legal experts have warned that the Trump administration may have committed a war crime with the follow-up attack.

Bradley and General Dan Caine plan to testify before Congress on Thursday.



'Ludicrous': Law expert obliterates Trump admin's claims on shipwreck killings

Daniel Hampton
December 3, 2025

RAW STORY

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaks during the joint press conference with South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-Back, following the 57th Security Consultative Meeting at the Defense Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. Lee Jin-man/Pool via REUTERS

A legal expert swiftly shredded the Trump administration after a new report revealed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pre-authorized contingency plans on how to handle potential survivors during drug strike missions.

Hegseth has tried to distance himself from an order to kill two survivors clinging to a boat following a Trump administration strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. Hegseth claimed he learned of the second strike hours later and praised Adm. Frank Bradley, the special operations commander, for a "correct" decision to neutralize the threat. Even so, he stressed he issued no further orders. President Donald Trump has similarly distanced both himself and Hegseth from the killings.

“Adm. Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” Hegseth said. “We have his back.”But

However, The New York Times reported Wednesday that Hegseth had previously approved contingency plans on how to handle potential survivors.

"The military would attempt to rescue survivors who appeared to be helpless, shipwrecked and out of what the administration considered a fight. But it would try again to kill them if they took what the United States deemed to be a hostile action, like communicating with suspected cartel members," officials told the Times.

Ryan Goodman, a former Department of Defense lawyer, laid into Hegseth in a thread on X.

"USG has a new explanation on why they (now admittedly) intentionally killed 2 shipwrecked men. It does not pass the laws-of-war smell test," he said. "Worse for Hegseth, NYT: 'Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved contingency plans for what to do if an initial strike left survivors.'"

Goodman specifically took issue with Hegseth's reported contingency plan.

"First it's absurd on its face that communicating to be RESCUED is a hostile act. That's the definition of being shipwrecked and helpless. The whole point of a legal prohibition on killing people who are shipwrecked is that they must be rescued or left to be rescued instead," he said.

Goodman then tore into the explanation that in retrieving the men, the cartels may also retrieve cocaine.

"It's legally ludicrous to claim - as Hegseth et al would need to do - that such activity equals failure to 'cease all active combat activity," he said.

The lawyer, now a chaired professor at NYU Law, pointed to the Commander's Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, which states, "Shipwrecked persons do not include combatant personnel engaged in seaborne attacks who are proceeding ashore, unless they are clearly in distress and require assistance. They qualify as shipwrecked persons only if they have ceased all active combat activity."

"Let Hegseth (or [Adm. Frank Bradley] or [General Dan Caine]) try to defend the idea that retrieving the cocaine is active combat activity. They can't. They're digging themselves in worse," Goodman warned.

Goodman then ripped the Trump administration's attempt to call cocaine boats "legitimate 'war-sustaining' targets," which he said makes the government's new explanation "fall apart."

"War-sustaining does not equal active combat activities. These 11 people were civilians, and retrieving the cocaine does not make the 2 less than shipwrecked," he said, concluding that the "entire exercise is Alice in Wonderland for legal experts."

"That's because the truth is: It's not an armed conflict. The laws of war thus don't apply. The more restrictive rules of human rights apply. It's extrajudicial killing."

Journal Finally Retracts Roundup Cancer Study Reliant on Monsanto Research and Ghostwriting

“Now that much of the research finding glyphosate poses no cancer risk has been undermined, it is especially outrageous that the Trump administration is seeking to bolster Bayer’s case,” said one campaigner.


Customer shops for Roundup products at a store in San Rafael, California

(Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Dec 03, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Just two days after President Donald Trump’s administration sided with the maker of glyphosate-based Roundup over cancer victims in a US Supreme Court case, the scientific journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology retracted a landmark 25-year-old study on the pesticide’s supposed safety, citing various ethical concerns involving Monsanto.

Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018, maintains that the weedkiller can be used safely and is not carcinogenic. However, the company faces thousands of lawsuits from people who developed cancer after exposure to its glyphosate products. The retraction stems from the US litigation, which in 2017 revealed Monsanto correspondence about the study.




Trump DOJ Sides With Roundup Manufacturer Over Cancer Victims in Supreme Court Case



A Month After Trump Doubles Down on Atrazine, WHO Dubs It ‘Probably Carcinogenic to Humans’

While Bayer told the New Lede‘s Carey Gillam that Monsanto’s role in the 2000 study was adequately disclosed, the journal’s editor-in-chief, Martin van den Berg, does not agree. He wrote in an explanation for the retraction that “the apparent contributions of Monsanto employees as cowriters to this article were not explicitly mentioned as such in the acknowledgments section.”

“This article has been widely regarded as a hallmark paper in the discourse surrounding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate and Roundup,” he highlighted. “However, the lack of clarity regarding which parts of the article were authored by Monsanto employees creates uncertainty about the integrity of the conclusions drawn.”

Of the study’s three named authors—Gary M. Williams, Ian Munro, and Robert Kroes—only Williams is still alive. Van den Berg wrote that he reached out seeking an “explanation for the various concerns,” but “did not receive any response.”

The paper is reliant on company research. As van den Berg detailed, “the article’s conclusions regarding the carcinogenicity of glyphosate are solely based on unpublished studies from Monsanto,” and “the authors did not include multiple other long-term chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity studies, that were already done at the time of writing their review in 1999.”

“Further correspondence with Monsanto disclosed during litigation indicates that the authors may have received financial compensation from Monsanto for their work on this article, which was not disclosed as such in this publication,” he noted.

“The paper had a significant impact on regulatory decision-making regarding glyphosate and Roundup for decades,” he continued. “Given its status as a cornerstone in the assessment of glyphosate’s safety, it is imperative that the integrity of this review article and its conclusions are not compromised. The concerns specified here necessitate this retraction to preserve the scientific integrity of the journal.”



Michael Hansen, senior scientist of advocacy at Consumer Reports, emphasized the years between the retraction and the release of documents exposing Monsanto’s role in the study. “What took them so long to retract it?” he asked Stacy Malkan of US Right to Know. “The retraction should have happened right after the documents came out.”

Van den Berg, who has been in his role since 2019, told Malkan and Le Monde‘s Stéphane Foucart that he began reviewing the paper after a September article from Alexander Kaurov of New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington and Naomi Oreskes of Harvard University.

Kaurov and Oreskes’ article in the journal Environmental Science and Policy begins by stressing that “corporate ghostwriting is a form of scientific fraud” and goes on to examine the paper’s influence—or as they put it, “how corporate authorship shaped two decades of glyphosate safety discourse.”

The Netherlands-based van den Berg said that “it simply never ended [up] on my desk being at first primarily a US situation with litigation. The paper of Oreskes triggered it this summer and these authors made an official request and complaint.”

He also told Malkan that “if you have more papers regarding Roundup published in RTP with possible problems, let me know.”

Although Bayer on Wednesday pointed to the thousands of other studies on glyphosate and “the consensus among regulatory bodies worldwide,” the retraction could affect both regulations and ongoing litigation. As Gillam reported:
Brent Wisner, one of the lead lawyers in the Roundup litigation and a key player in getting the internal documents revealed to the public, said the retraction was “a long time coming.”

Wisner said the Williams, Kroes, and Munro study was the “quintessential example of how companies like Monsanto could fundamentally undermine the peer-review process through ghostwriting, cherry-picking unpublished studies, and biased interpretations.”

“Faced with undisputed evidence concerning how this study was manufactured and then used, for over two decades, to protect glyphosate sales, the editor-in-chief... did the right thing,” Wisner said. “While the damage done to the scientific discourse—and the people who were harmed by glyphosate—cannot be undone, it helps rejuvenate some confidence in the otherwise broken peer-review process that corporations have taken advantage of for decades. This garbage ghostwritten study finally got the fate it deserved. Hopefully, journals will now be more vigilant in protecting the impartiality of science on which so many people depend.”

Le Monde‘s Foucart noted Wednesday that the retracted study “is cited around 40 times in the 2015 European expert report that led to the herbicide’s reauthorization in 2017.”

In the United States, Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity—who has been highly critical of the Trump administration’s various decisions favoring the pesticide industry that contradict its so-called Make America Healthy Again promises—urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take action in response to the retraction.

“The pesticide industry’s decades of efforts to hijack the science and manipulate it to boost its profits is finally being exposed,” he said in a statement. “The EPA must take immediate action to reassess its finding that glyphosate is not a carcinogen. That means rather than relying on Monsanto’s confidential research of its own product, the agency needs to follow the gold standard of independent science established by the World Health Organization in its finding that glyphosate probably causes cancer.”

He also pointed to the Monday briefing in which US Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the country’s top court to hear a challenge to a verdict that awarded $1.25 million to a man who claimed Roundup caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Now that much of the research finding glyphosate poses no cancer risk has been undermined, it is especially outrageous that the Trump administration is seeking to bolster Bayer’s case,” Donley said. “Trump promised the American public his administration would protect Americans from dangerous chemicals and pesticides, but now it’s throwing its full weight behind Bayer’s desire to deny cancer victims their day in court. This is a massive betrayal of the public and an unabashed prioritization of corporate wealth over public health, plain and simple.”

CEOs called out to their faces for 'groveling' to Trump

Carl Gibson
December 3, 2025 

ALTERNET

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) spent a significant portion of a recent address criticizing members of his audience for their obeisance to President Donald Trump.

Politico reported Wednesday that the two-term governor — who is presumed to run for the presidency in 2028 — told audience members at the New York Times DealBook Summit that they were complicit in some of the Trump administration's worst abuses. At one point, he suggested they should buy the kneepads with Trump's signature he's selling on his website, given their pattern of "groveling to Trump’s needs."

"Some of you may need to buy them in bulk," Newsom added.

The outlet reported that Newsom's segment was sandwiched between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Turning Point CEO Erika Kirk (wife of slain MAGA activist Charlie Kirk), and he spent much of it attacking the Trump administration. He specifically called out the administration's deployment of federal agents ahead of the campaign kickoff for the Prop 50 initiative (which was passed in November as a means of countering Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas and elsewhere).

“Some of you are probably fine with it,” Newsom told the audience. “A lot of people figured it out. They know the game, state capitalism, crony capitalism, the great grift. A lot of you are doing extraordinarily well.”

Politico reported that Newsom's speech was met not with boos, but with muted applause. Two people in the audience described the California governor as a younger version of President Joe Biden. Another said he was impressed by Newsom's presentation.

According to the New York Times, the DealBook Summit's attendees typically include "high-level executives, leaders and entrepreneurs from the worlds of financial services, technology, consumer goods, private investment, venture capital, banking, media, public relations, policy, government, academia and more."

Click here to read Politico's report in its entirety.

'Bread and butter corruption': Senator suspects sinister plot behind Trump's pardon spree

And it's kind of wild that Trump doesn't know anything about it, that it's happening behind his back.

Matthew Chapman
December 3, 2025

RAW STORY

Donald Trump (Reuters)


Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tore into President Donald Trump's recent string of pardons for powerful and well-connected criminals and criminal defendants — and suggested there is something much more sinister going on below the surface.

Specifically, he argued to MS NOW's Chris Hayes on Wednesday, there is a whole lobbying network at play that has set up a cash-for-pardons pipeline to the White House.

"I mean, he has made a series of what would seem to be audaciously politically toxic pardons," said Hayes. "I mean, a man convicted and sentenced for 40 years for trafficking cocaine into the U.S., someone convicted of an enormous fraud enterprise and defrauding investors. I think today he's now pardoning someone who is indicted by his own Justice Department this July. And when he's asked about it, he says, I don't know who they are. What are we supposed to make of that?"

"Yeah, I mean, my sense is that somebody is getting rich ultimately, that there is a cabal of administration officials and MAGA-friendly lobbyists that are in league together," said Murphy. "They all huddle together at these elite restaurants and clubs in Washington, D.C. and they likely hatch deals in which if somebody pays a MAGA-affiliated lobbyist a couple hundred thousand dollars, then maybe you'll be able to get a pardon and somehow, you know, that deal will be consummated down the line."

"The Binance owner, the owner of one of these big crypto companies, was pardoned," said Murphy. "And this is a bad, bad guy. He pled guilty. I mean, it wasn't like he was contesting the charges. He had essentially set up a company that was being used to launder money for terrorists and for child sex predators, and he got a pardon pretty explicitly because his company had chosen to give Trump's crypto coin advantage in the marketplace."

"And remember, that's not just Trump making money," he added. "That's anybody that gets inside information from Trump on when he's going to boost the cryptocurrency. If they get just two minutes notice of that, they can make millions of dollars and so on. The cryptocurrency stuff, there's clearly a whole group of people around him that are making millions of dollars, and they're handing out favors to folks in the form of pardons in order to make sure that they get their pockets lined."

"I mean, that's like just bread and butter corruption," said Murphy. "And it's kind of wild that Trump doesn't know anything about it, that it's happening behind his back."

'Totally disgusted': Victim aghast after Trump frees fraudster

Robert Davis
December 3, 2025 
RAW STORY

CNN screenshot

A victim of a fraudster that President Donald Trump recently let out of jail spoke out on Wednesday, railing that the president's move "makes no sense."

Carolann Tutera, who was defrauded by David Gentile, the former CEO of GPB Holdings, discussed the impact of Gentile's fraud on her family during Wednesday's broadcast of "The Lead" with Jake Tapper. Gentile was convicted in May of leading a $1.6 billion Ponzi scheme and sentenced to seven years in federal prison. He served just 12 days before Trump commuted his sentence.

"I'm totally disgusted because it wasn't only myself, it was my elder mother in her 90s and my sister as well. We all got defrauded," Tutera told Tapper.

Tutera said she lost about $500,000 in Gentile's scams and has since been able to recoup about $40,000. She told Tapper that she realized she was being scammed after her late husband died, and she asked for her money back.

"You're not really functioning for quite some time after you lose your spouse of many, many years," Tutera said. "And when I asked for money back, they said they're just waiting. What are they waiting for? Call me in about six months. Time went on, and there was no money. None."

Gentile is not the only white collar criminal Trump has granted clemency for during his second administration. He pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who was convicted of money laundering and forced to pay a more than $4 billion fine. Trump has also pardoned Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, who was also convicted of money laundering.

Trump pardons media exec indicted by his own DOJ

Matthew Chapman
December 3, 2025

RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a breakfast with Republican Senators at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. November 5, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to Tim Leiweke, a media executive who co-founded the Oak View Group, according to CNN on Wednesday.

The move is notable as, unlike many other controversial Trump clemencies for rich and well-connected people, this pardon is for a charge brought by his own Justice Department earlier this year.

"A federal grand jury indicted Leiweke, then the CEO of the live entertainment group, in July for 'orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university in Austin, Texas,' according to a press release from the Justice Department announcing the charge," noted the report. Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater proclaimed at that time, “As outlined in the indictment, the Defendant rigged a bidding process to benefit his own company and deprived a public university and taxpayers of the benefits of competitive bidding.”

Ironically, according to the report, Leiweke has a history of criticizing Trump on social media, posting that he was the “single greatest Con man” and lauding former Vice President Mike Pence for standing up to Trump's scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Leiweke was represented in his quest for a pardon by former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a former ally of the president.

This comes just hours after Trump sent House Republicans into chaos by pardoning conservative Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, who was charged alongside his wife with a $600,000 bribery scheme on behalf of an oil and gas company tied to foreign entities. GOP lawmakers had hoped to leverage his criminal charges to unseat him in his South Texas district.

'Cowboy Chernobyl': Trump admin accused of rushing approval of experimental nuke reactor

Brett Wilkins,

 Common Dreams
December 3, 2025 


View of pipes of nuclear power plant near Dampierre-en-Burly town, France. (Photo credit: BearFotos / Shutterstock)

A leading nuclear safety expert sounded the alarm Tuesday over the Trump administration’s expedited safety review of an experimental nuclear reactor in Wyoming designed by a company co-founded by tech billionaire Bill Gates and derided as a “Cowboy Chernobyl.”

On Monday, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it has “completed its final safety evaluation” for Power Station Unit 1 of TerraPower’s Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, adding that it found “no safety aspects that would preclude issuing the construction permit.”

Co-founded by Microsoft’s Gates, TerraPower received a 50-50 cost-share grant for up to $2 billion from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The 345-megawatt sodium-cooled small modular reactor (SMR) relies upon so-called passive safety features that experts argue could potentially make nuclear accidents worse.

However, federal regulators “are loosening safety and security requirements for SMRs in ways which could cancel out any safety benefits from passive features,” according to Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear power safety director Edwin Lyman.

“The only way they could pull this off is by sweeping difficult safety issues under the rug.”

The reactor’s construction permit application—which was submitted in March 2024—was originally scheduled for August 2026 completion but was expedited amid political pressure from the Trump administration and Congress in order to comply with an 18-month timeline established in President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14300.

“The NRC’s rush to complete the Kemmerer plant’s safety evaluation to meet the recklessly abbreviated schedule dictated by President Trump represents a complete abandonment of its obligation to protect public health, safety, and the environment from catastrophic nuclear power plant accidents or terrorist attacks,” Lyman said in a statement Tuesday.



Lyman continued:
The only way the staff could finish its review on such a short timeline is by sweeping serious unresolved safety issues under the rug or deferring consideration of them until TerraPower applies for an operating license, at which point it may be too late to correct any problems. Make no mistake, this type of reactor has major safety flaws compared to conventional nuclear reactors that comprise the operating fleet. Its liquid sodium coolant can catch fire, and the reactor has inherent instabilities that could lead to a rapid and uncontrolled increase in power, causing damage to the reactor’s hot and highly radioactive nuclear fuel.

Of particular concern, NRC staff has assented to a design that lacks a physical containment structure to reduce the release of radioactive materials into the environment if a core melt occurs. TerraPower argues that the reactor has a so-called “functional” containment that eliminates the need for a real containment structure. But the NRC staff plainly states that it “did not come to a final determination of the adequacy and acceptability of functional containment performance due to the preliminary nature of the design and analysis.”

“Even if the NRC determines later that the functional containment is inadequate, it would be utterly impractical to retrofit the design and build a physical containment after construction has begun,” Lyman added. “The potential for rapid power excursions and the lack of a real containment make the Kemmerer plant a true ‘Cowboy Chernobyl.’”

The proposed reactor still faces additional hurdles before construction can begin, including a final environmental impact assessment. However, given the Trump administration’s dramatic regulatory rollback, approval and construction are highly likely.

Former NRC officials have voiced alarm over the Trump administration’s tightened control over the agency, which include compelling it to send proposed reactor safety rules to the White House for review and possible editing.

Allison Macfarlane, who was nominated to head the NRC during the Obama administration, said earlier this year that Trump’s approach marks “the end of independence of the agency.”

“If you aren’t independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident,” she warned.

'Absolute moron': Analysts flag dangers of Treasury secretary's latest 'performance act'

Robert Davis
December 3, 2025 

RAW STORY


FILE PHOTO: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 5, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's recent interview with Aaron Ross Sorkin raised red flags for a pair of analysts on Wednesday.

Sorkin interviewed Bessent at The New York Times' DealBook Summit, an annual gathering of business leaders, where the Treasury secretary made a series of questionable claims, according to Jonathan V. Last and Tim Miller of The Bulwark. Among them: Bessent's defense of Trump's appearance at Tuesday's cabinet meeting — where he appeared to fall asleep — and suggestion that he doesn't read the news.

Miller described the interview as a "performance act" during a new episode of "Bulwark Takes." He pointed to Bessent's repeated attacks against the media.

"Scott Bessant and JD Vance are just condescending p----s with no sauce," Miller said. "And they think that they can borrow some of Trump's sauce by going into these interviews and instead of engaging with the questions that are being asked by a smart, fair person like Andrew Ross Sorkin and he's like, 'I'm just going to attack the New York Times and and then you know the MAGA Chuds are going to cheer for me and go, Yay, Scott Bessent.' No, it doesn't work. It's awkward. You seem weird."

Last also warned that Bessent's suggestion that he doesn't read the news was revealing for all of the wrong reasons. Miller wondered if Bessent would be trustworthy enough to guide the economy out of a true crisis.

"Everything is fine having this absolute moron as secretary of the Treasury so long as there's no crisis," Last said. "But if you wind up in a crisis where you know the president, the secretary of the Treasury, and the chairman of the Fed, what they say and their standing within the financial community is incredibly important because people need to be able to trust their representations."

'People are having trouble getting by': Conservative slams Trump's economy on Fox News

Robert Davis
December 3, 2025

  RAW STORY

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump smiles during an announcement about "Trump accounts", in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., December 2, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

A conservative columnist on Wednesday slammed President Donald Trump's economy during an interview on Fox News.

Byron York, a columnist for The Washington Examiner, discussed Trump's economy during an interview on "The Ingraham Angle" with host Laura Ingraham. He noted that the economy is one area where the Republican Party is not addressing a lot of people's concerns, and that could be bad news for the party in the midterms.

"Look at credit card balances; they have gone up and up," York said. "People are using credit cards for essential items. Car loan delinquencies are going up. These are real indicators that people are having trouble getting by every single day."

Throughout his second term, Trump has repeatedly made misleading claims about the economy. For instance, he's claimed that the second administration "defeated inflation," even though economic data shows otherwise. He has also claimed unprecedented job growth, despite data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing job growth has been flat since he took office.

Fact-checkers have consistently challenged Trump's economic narratives, pointing out exaggerations about manufacturing job creation, trade deficits, and economic recovery.


York seemed to undercut Trump's narrative on inflation during the interview.


"The inflation that went up under Biden is still there," York said.