Michelle Hart

Hopes fade in Congress for a health care deal before premiums soar in January Billions of dollars in tax credits under the Affordable Care Act are poised to expire at the end of the year. Lawmakers in both parties say they're nowhere close to a deal to renew them.

Hopes fade in Congress for a health care deal before premiums soar in January
www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

Hegseth’s Decadeslong Quest to Rewrite the Rules of Engagement The former Army National Guard major and TV personality endeared himself to Trump by defending troops accused of war crimes.

Pete Hegseth, who won over Trump by defending troops accused of war crimes, is now at the center of a debate about whether a September strike against a suspected drug boat amounts to a war crime.

Gerrymandering sucks, but may we please not let anyone think their vote doesn’t matter? It wouldn’t be this bad without the SCOTUS and POTUS we have, and we wouldn’t have this SCOTUS and POTUS without our votes. Our votes have consequences, and that’s on US.

But the Honduran president ….

Meet the new Deputy Chief of Staff at the CDC.

“Persons who have been incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack." reads the Pentagon’s Law of War Manual theintercept.com/2025/12/02/h...

1. At least one of the WaPo reporters who broke the story is an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran.

2. Hegseth appears to be railing against journalists for scrutinizing government actions, which is a core value of journalism.

3. Hegseth could, you know, grant a reporter access to these operations.

Can’t imagine calling that guy, “boss.”

NEW: The official USCIS guidance on this pause is out. Until further notice from the USCIS Director, all immigration benefits (including citizenship) are indefinitely suspended for nationals of 19 countries, as are all affirmative asylum applications from nationals of any country.

This alone is impeachable behavior.

Court blocks Texas redistricting, finding it likely unconstitutional, with DOJ largely to blame "DOJ Asked Texas to Engage in Unlawful Racial Gerrymandering," a Trump appointee wrote for the 2-1 majority. Texas is appealing to the Supreme Court.

We still don't have any SCOTUS order in the Texas redistricting case. As Texas noted in its filing: The "deadline for candidate filing [is] ... December 8."

Alito's "administrative" stay of the district court order means the new districts are in effect absent a further order.

Background:

Hopes fade in Congress for a health care deal before premiums soar in January Billions of dollars in tax credits under the Affordable Care Act are poised to expire at the end of the year. Lawmakers in both parties say they're nowhere close to a deal to renew them.

NEW: Hopes fade in Congress for a health care deal before premiums soar in January

Two weeks before recess, they're nowhere close.

Senate to vote on a bill of Dems' choosing; expected to fail.

Enhanced ACA funds set to expire, as many Republicans want.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

“The loss of retirement income has made a significant impact on our daily lives. Our inability to meet our housing expenses necessitated in us taking on credit card debt to maintain our home in which we provide housing for our handicapped son. You can imagine the anxiety this has caused us in providing for his and our needs. We now have over $100,000.00 in credit card debt in addition to the interest we have incurred to allow us to maintain our mortgage and remain in our home. At the time of this investment we had NO credit card debt! As elderly senior citizens at the age of 82 and 76 our ability to find additional income is extremely limited. We are now at a point of looking at our belongings to sell to allow us to stay in our home. The emotional stress of this has taken a fiscal and mental toll on our ability to function. We felt we planned well for our retirement years and feel robbed by the actions of this crime.” D.E. DOJ0002356. • “Since the GPB fraud stated, we have lost well over half of our family[’]s net worth [and] a large portion of our income . . . At 74, I have been unable to retire now. My wife [] has contracted cancer and has ongoing treatment. And our daughter [], who has cerebral palsy, has had to ensure the ensuring stress from all of that.” M.F. DOJ0001930.

Here are just two of the victim impact statements in the David Gentile sentencing memo.

We need to find a way to start talking about the victim impact of Trump's crime endorsement wave.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

DOGE Isn’t Dead. Here’s What Its Operatives Are Doing Now Contrary to popular reports, DOGE has “burrowed into the agencies like ticks,” government sources tell WIRED.

NEW: DOGE isn’t dead, despite recent reports.

Operatives are still rolling out coding tests, leading software pilots, and more.

w/ @telliotter.bsky.social
www.wired.com/story/what-i...

The lawyer for Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras who had been convicted in the US of drug trafficking charges, says his client had been released from a federal prison in West Virginia after receiving a full pardon from President Trump. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/12/...

Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors, Sources Say Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s actions could spark investigations for war crimes or outright murder, sources told The Intercept.

Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors, Sources Say

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s actions could spark investigations for war crimes or outright murder, sources told The Intercept.

theintercept.com/2025/12/02/h...

i spent a little while going through the AIDS quilt and picked out a few panels that stuck out to me for one reason or another. may the memories of all these beautiful, far too young souls be a blessing.

Kelly: He runs around on stage talking about lethality and the warrior ethos.. That’s not the message that should be coming from the Secretary of Defense… He runs around on a stage like he’s a 12 year old playing army. It’s embarrassing.

A 19-year-old college student was about to board a flight to surprise her family for Thanksgiving when she was detained at Boston Logan International Airport and deported to Honduras two days later, her father and lawyer said. nyti.ms/3M8DUMA

Green Card Interviews End in Handcuffs for Spouses of U.S. Citizens

"We followed everything we were supposed to do"

Legitimate green card applicants with US spouses are being
arrested by armed, masked men at scheduled immigration interviews, taken away from their children, sent to prison

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...

Former Trump lawyer Alina Habba disqualified as New Jersey prosecutor, US appeals court rules A federal appeals court says the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep President Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Alina Habba as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor were illegal and she's disqualified.

A U.S. appeals court rules former Trump lawyer Alina Habba is disqualified as New Jersey prosecutor.

The U.S. government’s failure to acknowledge World AIDS Day takes us back to a troubling time Perhaps AIDS activists’ famous slogan, “Silence = Death,” needs an update for this troubling moment.

The U.S. government’s failure to acknowledge World AIDS Day takes us back to a troubling time. The federal government had recognized this awareness day every year since its inception in 1988. www.statnews.com/2025/11/29/w...

In Announcing Pardon of Drug Trafficker While Threatening Venezuela, Trump Displays Contradictions

Gift link:
In Announcing Pardon of Drug Trafficker While Threatening Venezuela, Trump Displays Contradictions www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...

Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence

$1.6bln: The amount of his fraud scheme

7: Years of his sentence

10,000: Victims of his fraud

1,000: Letters from victims to the court

13: Days he served

1: Pardon from Trump

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/u...

• If the U.S. military operation to interdict and destroy suspected narcotraFicking vessels is a “non-international armed conflict,” as the Trump Administration suggests, orders to “kill everybody,” which can reasonably be regarded as an order to give “no quarter,” and to “double-tap” a target in order to kill survivors, are clearly illegal under international law. In short, they are war crimes. • If the U.S. military operation is not an armed conflict of any kind, these orders to kill helpless civilians clinging to the wreckage of a vessel our military destroyed would subject everyone from SECDEF down to the individual who pulled the trigger to prosecution under U.S. law for murder.

Highlighted sentence at the end of the document reads: Again, the bottom line is that, since orders to kill survivors of an attack at sea are “patently illegal,” anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both.

Former US military lawyers speak out:

"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."

Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes

1/2

Five-byline alert: 🚨

“.. the full scope of [Witkoff’s talks] went much further, according to people familiar .. They were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold—with American businesses first in line .. to the dividends. 🇺🇦

www.wsj.com/world/russia...

11:19 14 in shot, i the Post's facts are correct it appears that Special Operations Forces committed murder when the "two men were blown apart in the water," as the Post put it. It is unclear from the Post's Seporting precisely what role Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

Harvard Law School’s Jack Goldsmith:

“In short, if the Post’s facts are correct, it appears that Special Operations Forces committed murder when the ‘two men were blown apart in the water, as the Post put it.’”

open.substack.com/pub/executiv...

I second the motion to adopt this term.

At 95, David Amram Still Makes Music. And Nobody Can Put Him in a Box.

Composer profile: Davis Amram turns 95. Good advice: “Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat as long as possible.”

Photos from St. Paul today captured by MPR photojournalist Kerem Yücel. He filed them even after being hospitalized after being injured by a less lethal munition.