A British backpacker who struck and killed a man while riding an e-scooter drunk has been jailed for four years in Australia.

Alicia Kemp, 25 – from Redditch, Worcestershire – was driving at speeds of 20 to 25km/h (12 to 15mph) when she hit 51-year-old Thanh Phan from behind on a Perth sidewalk in May.

She had been drinking with a friend all afternoon, the court heard, and had an alcohol level more than three times the legal limit.

Phan, a father-of-two, hit his head on the pavement and died in hospital from a brain bleed two days later.

A friend of Kemp, who was a passenger on the scooter, was also hurt in the crash – sustaining a fractured skull and broken nose – but her injuries were not life-threatening.

Kemp, who was in Australia on a working holiday visa, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in the Perth Magistrates Court in August.

Her sentence will be backdated to 1 June, and she’ll be eligible for parole after serving two years of her sentence. Her driver’s licence was also disqualified for two years.

For all those in search of pop star-infused festive cheer, Mariah Carey’s Holiday Bar opened earlier this month at the Mondrian Hotel’s Skybar.

The pop-up’s Los Angeles debut is steeped with the signature seasonal touch from the Queen of Christmas — neon signs of her lyrics light up the room, massive portraits of the star fill the space and every single song that plays — holiday-themed or not — is from Carey’s discography. (Disclaimer: “All I Want For Christmas Is You” does play every 30 minutes.)

“For as long as I’ve known Christmas, Mariah has always been there. It signals to me that childlike wonder and excitement of Christmas time that kind of harkens back to when I was a kid,” said Cathy Kwon, who was posing for a photo on the decorative sleigh. “The fact that the song itself [‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’] has stayed this popular for this long is remarkable.”

Ever since releasing her holiday album, “Merry Christmas,” in 1994, Carey has established herself as a permanent fixture in the holiday season. Every year, the 56-year-old singer has gift-wrapped a new festivity for her fans.

Last year, she embarked on Mariah Carey’s Christmas Time tour to celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary and this year, she’s doing a Vegas residency called “Christmastime in Las Vegas.” She’s also previously hosted several holiday specials for Apple TV and CBS. And nearly every year, her modern holiday classic, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” climbs to the top of the charts.

Mariah Carey’s Holiday Bar will be open until Dec. 28.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

For her holiday bars, she partnered with the event company Bucket Listers to open four locations across the country, in Los Angeles, New York City, Miami and Las Vegas. The WeHo bar is complete with endless photo ops, including life-size cutouts and large-scale holiday-themed portraiture of the “Obsessed” singer, as well as cocktails featuring her own liqueur company, Black Irish. The bar’s pool is filled with candy cane floaties, twinkling Christmas trees decadently line every walkway and bursts of soapy snow fly through the air (occasionally landing in a cocktail or two).

Bucket Listers founder Andy Lederman says the demand for this experience has “surpassed every expectation” that the company had.

“She’s the queen of Christmas. Outside of Santa Claus and the Grinch, I don’t know if there’s anything more iconic,” Lederman said. “There’s really nothing like her during this time of year. It gives you such a great feeling to be able to celebrate her and to be a part of her wonderland with the people you love.”

Though Carey has since built out her holiday world far beyond its original soundtrack, many of the bar’s patrons came to indulge in the nostalgia provided by the 1994 holiday album. The record is a 10-track collection of reworked classic holiday covers and a handful of originals, offering a diverse selection of love songs, traditional festive tunes and modernized religious hymns.

Shannon Armah was sitting in the bar, catching up with a group of friends. The Miracle Mile resident grew up with the Mariah Carey Christmas album on repeat and describes early memories of listening to its songs in a car seat. To her, it’s the perfect balance of “fun and playful music” and music that is rooted in the religious “reason for the season.”

“We went to a Baptist church growing up, so hearing the gospel influence in the album is reminiscent of our usual Sunday experience,” Armah said. “It was very relatable. It also taps into the ‘90s nostalgia and brings back that feeling of simpler times.”

Maria Castillo takes a picture of Amanda Rico at the pop-up Mariah Carey Holiday Bar at the Mondrian Hotel.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Beyond being played in almost every festive setting, the eternally cheery earworm has tied for yet another record this year. Despite its release 31 years ago, the single currently sits at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It is now tied with Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus for most weeks on top. The track is also Carey’s 19th No. 1 on the Hot 100, the most for any solo artist.

Anthony Escalante, a real estate agent and manager of a luxury retail store, came to the Christmas bar dressed in his holiday best — a well-fitted, all-white vest and matching pants. He says he admires Carey’s holiday music for its ability to tell a story beyond the typical seasonal festivities.

“She’s the pioneer of reinventing modern Christmas songs,” said Escalante. “She speaks beyond a generic Christmas. [‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’] is about experiencing a holiday without the love of your life. She sets a tone for something that is more than just another Christmas song.”

People attend the pop-up Mariah Carey Holiday Bar at the Mondrian Hotel.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The track’s ability to amass popularity year after year is what makes it one of the few contemporary holiday classics. Decked out in their Carey holiday apparel, Sara Rushton and Benji Flowers credit the singer as being one of the few pop stars to successfully put a modern twist on Christmas.

“Growing up, everything Christmas was old-fashioned. Christmas movies were really old, and there wasn’t really a new version of Christmas for millennials, or postmillennials,” said Rushton, who received her first Carey record in her stocking as kid. “But Mariah was someone who celebrates Christmas in a different festive way.”

Flowers, who works as a yoga instructor, looks to the pop star as one of the last exciting elements of the season. He proposes that the Mariah Carey bars should stay open all year, as Carey’s discography can lend itself to more than just the holiday season.

“I do think that it could be like a year-round thing, and they could have seasonal changes to it. She has a song for every moment in life. She’s got slow romantic songs and heartbreak. She’s got hip-hop and old disco. I mean, I can go on and on,” Flowers said. “It’s not a bad idea. At night, it could be all about the EDM remixes of her songs.”

Mariah Carey’s Holiday Bar will be open until Dec. 28.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s Republican-led Senate decisively rejected a redrawn congressional map Thursday that would have favored their party, defying months of pressure from President Trump and delivering a stark setback to the White House ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

The vote was overwhelmingly against the proposed redistricting, with more Republicans opposing than supporting the measure, signaling the limits of Trump’s influence even in one of the country’s most conservative states.

Trump has been urging Republicans nationwide to gerrymander their congressional maps in an unprecedented campaign to help the party maintain its thin majority in the House of Representatives. Although Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina went along, Indiana did not — despite cajoling and insults from the president and the possibility of primary challenges.

“The federal government should not dictate by threat or other means what should happen in our states,” said Spencer Deery, one of the Republican senators who voted no Thursday.

When the proposal failed, 31 to 19, cheers could be heard inside the chamber as well as shouts of “thank you!” The debate had been shadowed by the possibility of violence, and some lawmakers have received threats aimed at persuading them to support the proposal.

Trump tried to brush off the defeat, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he “wasn’t working on it very hard” despite his personal involvement in the pressure campaign.

Two Democratic districts targeted

The proposed map was designed to give Republicans control of all nine of Indiana’s congressional seats, up from the seven they currently hold. It would have essentially erased Indiana’s two Democratic-held districts — splitting Indianapolis among four districts that extend into rural areas, reshaping U.S. Rep. André Carson’s safe district in the city and eliminating the northwest Indiana district held by U.S. Rep. Frank J. Mrvan.

District boundaries are usually adjusted once a decade after a new census. But Trump has cast the issue in existential terms for his party as Democrats push to regain power in Washington.

“If Republicans will not do what is necessary to save our Country, they will eventually lose everything to the Democrats,” Trump wrote on social media the night before the vote.

The president said anyone who voted against the plan should lose their seats. Half of Indiana senators are up for reelection next year, and the conservative organization Turning Point Action had pledged to fund campaigns against them.

David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth, which had backed redistricting, said the vote allowed disloyal Republicans to “stick their finger in the eye of the president of the United States.”

Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels praised the senators for “courageous principled leadership” in rejecting the new map.

A Republican who has vocally criticized Trump, Daniels said the outcome was “a major black eye for him and all the Washington groups that piled in, spent money, blustered and threatened.” He added that “this thing rubbed our state the wrong way and Republicans in our state very wrong from the jump.”

‘A full-court press’

Inside the state Senate chamber, Democratic lawmakers spoke out against redistricting ahead of the vote.

“Competition is healthy, my friends,” Sen. Fady Qaddoura said. “Any political party on Earth that cannot run and win based on the merits of its ideas is unworthy of governing.”

In the hallways outside, redistricting opponents chanted “Vote no!” and “Fair maps!” while holding signs with slogans such as “Losers cheat.”

Three times over the fall, Vice President JD Vance met with Republican senators — twice in Indianapolis and once in the White House — to urge their support. Trump joined a conference call with senators on Oct. 17 to make his own 15-minute pitch.

Behind the scenes, James Blair, Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff for political affairs, was in regular touch with members, as were other groups supporting the effort such as the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA.

“The administration made a full-court press,” said Republican Sen. Andy Zay, who said he was on the phone with White House aides sometimes multiple times per week, despite his commitment as a yes vote.

Across the country, mid-cycle redistricting so far has resulted in nine more congressional seats that Republicans believe they can win and six more congressional seats that Democrats think they can win — five in California. Some of the new maps, however, are facing litigation.

In Utah, a judge imposed new districts that could allow Democrats to win a seat, saying Republican lawmakers violated voter-backed standards against gerrymandering.

Republicans were split over plan

Despite Trump’s push, support for gerrymandering in Indiana’s Senate was uncertain. A dozen of the 50 senators had not publicly committed to a stance ahead of the vote.

Republican Sen. Greg Goode signaled his displeasure with the redistricting plan before voting no. He said some of his constituents objected to seeing their county split up or paired with Indianapolis. He expressed “love” for Trump but criticized what he called “over-the-top pressure” from inside and outside the state.

Sen. Michael Young, another Republican, said the stakes in Washington justify redistricting, as Democrats are only a few seats away from flipping control of the U.S. House in 2026. “I know this election is going to be very close,” he said.

Republican Sen. Mike Gaskill, the redistricting legislation’s sponsor, showed senators maps of congressional districts around the country, including several focused on Democratic-held seats in New England and Illinois. He argued that other states gerrymander and that Indiana Republicans should therefore play by the same rules.

The bill cleared its first hurdle Monday with a 6-3 Senate committee vote, although one Republican joined Democrats in opposing it and a few others signaled they might vote against the final version. The state House passed the proposal last week, with 12 Republicans siding with Democrats in opposition.

Among them was state Rep. Ed Clere, who said state troopers responded to a hoax message claiming there was a pipe bomb outside his home Wednesday evening. Indiana state police said “numerous others” received threats but wouldn’t offer details about an ongoing investigation.

In an interview, Clere said these threats were the inevitable result of Trump’s pressure campaign and a “winner-take-all mentality.”

“Words have consequences,” Clere said.

Volmert, Lamy and Beaumont write for the Associated Press and reported from Lansing, Mich., Indianapolis and Des Moines, respectively.

Elsewhere on the opening night, 2023 world champion Michael Smith beat Women’s World Matchplay winner Lisa Ashton 3-0.

Ashton, who had the majority of the crowd on her side, won two of the first three legs but Englishman Smith, 35, then put together a run of seven successive legs on his way to securing a spot in the last 64.

“That first set was nerve-wracking,” Smith told BBC Radio 5 Live. “As soon as I walked out, the crowd was on me straight away.

“I expected it but I thought if I go 1-0 down, it was going to get worse and worse.

“I tried to force things that weren’t there, but when I took that first set, it was happy days. I started to settle in then and nearly threw it away in the last set, but we’ll take the win.”

German debutant Arno Merk and Latvia’s Madars Razma also made it through to round two with 3-1 wins against Belgium’s Kim Huybrechts and Dutchman Jamai van den Herik respectively.

A total of 128 players are competing in the World Championship, up from 96 last year, for an increased first prize of £1m.

The first round is scheduled to conclude on Friday, 19 December, with the final taking place on Saturday, 3 January 2026.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

A tsunami warning has been issued following a strong quake off northeast coast of Japan.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.7 has hit Japan’s northeastern region, prompting a tsunami advisory from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

The earthquake struck on Friday off the coast of Aomori Prefecture at 11:44am local time (02:44 GMT) at a depth of 20km (12.4 miles), according to the JMA.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) also said that the quake measured 6.7.

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority said there were no immediate signs of abnormalities at the region’s nuclear facilities.

National broadcaster NHK said that the level of shaking from the quake was less than a bigger magnitude 7.5 earthquake that hit in the same region on Monday and tore apart roads, smashed windows and triggered tsunami waves of up to 70 centimetres (2.3ft).

Following Monday’s quake, which injured at least 50 people, the JMA issued a rare special advisory warning to residents across a wide area, from Hokkaido in the north to Chiba, east of Tokyo, to be on alert for an increased possibility of a powerful earthquake hitting again within a week.

The northeast region is haunted by the memory of a massive magnitude 9.0 undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that left about 18,500 people dead or missing.

The JMA issued its first special advisory in 2024 for the southern half of Japan’s Pacific coast warning of a possible “megaquake” along the Nankai Trough.

The government has said that a quake in the Nankai Trough and subsequent tsunami could kill as many as 298,000 people and cause up to $2 trillion in damages.

Amid fears of a “megaquake”, NHK reported on Thursday that people in the northeast of Japan were stocking up on disaster-related goods such as torches, water storage tanks and support poles to prevent furniture toppling over due to tremors.

One shop in Hokkaido’s Hakodate City reported sales of bottled water and disaster kits tripling following Monday’s quake.

“We decided to prepare, so I bought disaster kits for everyone,” a male customer in his 30s told NHK while visiting a shop with his family.

Japan sits on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific “Ring of Fire” and is one of the world’s most seismically active countries.

The Pentagon is continuing to rapidly add military capabilities to Operation Southern Spear, a mission that began as a counter-narcotics effort but is increasingly aimed at Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Images emerged online today of Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) aircraft having arrived in Puerto Rico. In addition, KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refuelers are now flying missions out of the Dominican Republic. We also found that KC-46 Pegasus tankers have been flying sorties out of the U.S. Virgin Islands for months, with a major ramp-up in activity in recent weeks. This is all on top of yesterday’s arrival of EA-18G Growler electronic attack jets in Puerto Rico and the news we broke today that USAF F-35As are being sent to the Caribbean, as well.

Clearly, the Pentagon is moving into a posture in the region that is much better equipped for tactical air combat operations over hostile territory than it was just days ago.

Despite all this movement, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday afternoon that U.S. President Donald Trump does not want to see a protracted conflict in Venezuela.

“A prolonged war is something the president is not interested in,” she said, adding that Trump wants to “see the end of illegal drugs trafficked into the United States.”

On Thursday, Reuters published photos showing HC-130J Combat King II combat search and rescue (CSAR) planes and HH-60W Jolly Green Giant II CSAR helicopters on the ramp at Roosevelt Roads, the former U.S. Navy facility in Puerto Rico. These aircraft are stationed at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, though the helicopters reportedly arrived from deployment to Kadena Air Base in Japan.

A Reuters image from today (11 Dec) shows 3x USAF HC-130Js from Moody AFB on the ramp at Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico.

Credit: Ricardo Arduengo/Reuters. pic.twitter.com/oAV7VEp9yn

— LatAmMilMovements (@LatAmMilMVMTs) December 11, 2025

The deployment of dedicated CSAR aircraft to the region is a sign that the Trump administration could be about to drastically increase its pressure on Maduro and go after the cartels inland with strikes. The aircraft are needed for rapid rescues of any aircrews that are lost during military operations, specifically over contested territory. While the Marine aviation force from USS Iwo Jima and its escorts are also capable of this mission, as are helicopters from the USS Gerald R. Ford, to varying degrees, the unique capabilities and the highly specialized crews the HC-130J and HH-60W bring to the table are prized. This is especially true now that USAF tactical airpower in the form of F-35As is about to arrive in-theater.

The Stratotankers arrived in the Dominican Republic sometime around Sunday or Monday, according to the @LatAmMilMovements X account, an open-source tracker who has been closely following these deployments. They are now taking up a good portion of an entire runway at the airport.

A Sentinel-2 pass from today (10 Dec) shows a total of six USAF KC-135s at Aeropuerto Internacional Las Américas (SDQ/MDSD) in the Dominican Republic.

From here, the tankers will continue to support E-3G and RC-135 missions in the Caribbean.

Work w/ @MikeRomeoAv. pic.twitter.com/tzJ8PNhqdD

— LatAmMilMovements (@LatAmMilMVMTs) December 10, 2025

Forward deploying the tankers reduces the amount of time needed to fly to the region and thus increases time on station and sortie rates. The presence of these jets in the Dominican Republic also represents a widening of the mission’s footprint, a U.S. official told us. The bulk of U.S. land-based operations are run out of Puerto Rico, and Roosevelt Roads in particular.

Noted parked up at Santo Domingo Airport ( SDQ ) in the Dominican Republic today, 6 Boeing KC135 refueling aircraft of the United States Air Force pic.twitter.com/U4bnLhhFIQ

— Michael Kelly (@Michaelkelly707) December 11, 2025

“This is an expansion of Southern Spear,” the U.S. official said of the Stratotanker presence in the Dominican Republic. “This is about capabilities and location. In case of any service support needed, you want to have that in a strategic area. The Dominican Republic is not too close, not too far and they have the capabilities to support a number of aircraft.”

The Dominican Republic presence, however, was not the first tankers operating forward in the region. They have been operating out of the U.S. Virgin Islands for months.

The KC-46s have been in the U.S. Virgin Islands since the middle of September, according to archived satellite imagery. This presence has grown steadily with now between five and six tankers being seen on the ramp there at any given time. The low-resolution satellite photo below was taken Dec. 9 and obtained by The War Zone via Planet Labs.

As the relatively sudden surge of assets to the Caribbean continues, the world waits to see what the Trump administration plans to do with all of it.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

It’s that horny time of year again!

As 2025 comes to a close, Pornhub has released its 12th annual Year in Review report.

Like previous years, the data was full of spicy revelations regarding the “ever-evolving desires, curiosities, and cultural obsessions shaping our world.”

2025 proved to be an incredible year for LGBTQIA+ diversity, with “lesbian” being the top category on the platform and terms like “lesbian scissoring and “lesbian MILF” seeing an increase in searches.

The “Trans” category also saw an influx in traffic, becoming the second most viewed category on the platform. Searches for “trans threesome” and “trans amateur” rose by 67% and 49% respectively.

Other LGBTQIA+-inclusive terms that became more popular in 2025 included “queer,” “bisexual,” and “femboys,” the latter of which made this year’s Top 10 Search Terms list.

While “Twink” was the number one most viewed gay category for another year, the top 5 featured a few changes, with “Big Dick” rising three spots to take second place, “Bareback” moving one spot to take third place, “Black” rising three spots to secure fourth place, and “Group” moving up one spot to land in fifth place.

The “Daddy” and “Straight Guys” categories remained in the top 10 but saw a slight decrease in viewership, dropping two and four spots, respectively.  

Tyler Wu, Malik Delgaty, Sandro Jenner, Rhyheim Shabazz, Jkab Ethan Dale, Legrand Wolf, Hunnypaint, Yummy Prince, Dante Colle and Mtwunk were the top 10 most viewed performers in the gay sector of Pornhub.

The top 10 most-viewed trans performers were: Emma Rose, Eva Maxim, Ariel Demure, SissyMilana, PuppygirlXO, Vicats, Daisy Taylor, DOTADASP, femboyhami, and Erica Cherry.

The United States held on to its title as the country leading the most traffic to Pornhub. At the same time, Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Canada followed close behind.

As for the country with the longest time spent per visit, Japan took the top spot at 11 minutes and 2 seconds. The Philippines, Canada, the United States and Australia were neck and neck, with all four countries clocking in at 10 minutes, separated by a few seconds.

When analysing age demographics, the report found that 18-24-year-olds accounted for the largest share of viewers at 29%, followed by 25-34-year-olds and 35-44-year-olds at 23% and 17%, respectively.

The data also provided insight into each generation’s unique tastes. For Gen Z, “Party,” “Feet,” “POV,” “Virtual Reality,” and “Vertical Video” were their top five viewed categories.

Millennials flocked to the “Fetish,” “Role Play,” “Squirt,” “Red Head,” and “Toys” categories, while Gen X enjoyed “Fisting,” “Bukkake,” “Blonde,” “Vintage,” and “Double Penetration” the most.  

Among the boomer generation (aged 55 and up), “Brunette,” “Babe,” “Casting,” “Mature,” and “Interracial” were the top five viewed categories.

Read the full Pornhub year in review here.

Political cartoons have infuriated kings, crooks and captains of industry since the days of the penny press in 19th century England. In a new video produced by two talented Los Angeles Times staffers, Armand Emamdjomeh and Don Kelsen, I describe how I carry on this satirical tradition in a world of iPads and online news. Please check it out.

One thing I may not have stressed enough in the video is the work that comes before dreaming up ideas and doing drawings. I learned about that early from one of the masters, Paul Conrad. From 1964 to 1993, Conrad was a formidable editorial voice at this newspaper. His cartoons won Pulitzer Prizes in three different decades. I was lucky enough to meet Conrad when I was just starting my career, and I asked him how I could be a better cartoonist. His answer was simple: “Read, read, read.”

And he was right. It’s not just about drawing. It’s not just about humor. It’s about knowing enough to intelligently engage in the great debates of our times. It is a privilege to have a job where I can jump into that debate, and it’s an honor to practice my craft in the place where Conrad once raised political art to a lofty standard.

For close to two centuries, cartoonists such as Conrad ruled the world of political satire — or were, at least, the most lauded court jesters. Now, in the star-power glare of comic commentators such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, plain old political cartoons can seem old-fashioned.

Still, I think the best cartoons retain a unique, subversive capacity to get inside people’s heads and speak truth to power. Traditionally a creature of print, political cartoons are now finding a new life and new relevance in the world of digital journalism. Cartoons are visual and succinct — key attributes in grabbing the attention of wide-roaming online readers.

Excuse me now, it’s time to do the hard work. I need to go read, read, read.

NEW YORK — Anders Lee scored twice and had two assists, and David Rittich made 31 saves as the New York Islanders beat the Ducks 5-2 on Thursday night.

Simon Holmstrom had a goal and two assists and defensemen Travis Mitchell and Ryan Pulock each scored as the Islanders won for the fifth time in six games.

Leo Carlsson and Troy Terry scored for the Ducks, who had their three-game winning streak ended.

Islanders leading scorer Bo Horvat left about seven minutes into the second with a lower-body injury after he became tangled with Ducks defenseman Drew Helleson.

The Islanders took a 3-0 lead in the opening period, starting with Mitchell’s first NHL goal. The 26-year-old was playing his seventh game following his recall from Bridgeport of the AHL.

Lee made it 2-0, beating Ducks netminder Ville Husso on the power play. The Islanders captain scored again with the man advantage late in the first, his eighth goal. Lee has 297 career goals, fifth-most in franchise history.

Carlsson rifled a shot past Rittich in the second for his team-leading 17th goal.

Terry made it 3-2 with a shorthanded goal early in the third. The Islanders pulled away when Holmstron scored his sixth and Pulock added his first.

The Islanders are 14-6-2 in their last 22 games and continued strong play against top-tier competition since losing to Washington on Nov. 30. New York has since defeated Tampa Bay twice, plus Colorado and Vegas.

Rittich improved to 7-3-1 with a sharp performance against the improved Ducks, who have 19 wins in 31 games.

Husso made 32 saves.

Up next for the Ducks: at New Jersey on Saturday.

Dec. 11 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday said he granted “a full Pardon” to election denier Tina Peters who was convicted for helping outsiders illegally breach voting machine security, though Colorado officials say he has no power to do so for state crimes.

Peters, a 70-year-old former Mesa County, Colo., clerk, is serving a nine-year prison sentence. She was convicted in August 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant and criminal impersonation for aiding an unauthorized person in copying voting-machine hard-drive data during a 2021 software update.

That data, including sensitive election-system information, was later leaked online by election-fraud conspiracy theorists who claimed it proved Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

While maintaining the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was stolen, Trump has been a vocal supporter of the effort to secure Peters’ release, describing Peters as a pro-democracy activist.

“Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” Trump said Thursday evening in a post to his Truth Social account.

“Today I am granting Tina a full Pardon for her attempts to expose Voter Fraud in the Rigged 2020 Presidential Election!”

Colorado state officials have been adamant amid Trump’s demands for Peters’ release that he does not have the authority to pardon her, as she was convicted on state charges.

“Tina Peters was convicted by a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws, including criminal impersonation,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement Thursday in response to Trump’s announcement.

“No President has jurisdiction over state law nor the power to pardon a person for state convictions,” Polis continued. “This is a matter for the courts to decide, and we will abide by court orders.”

Trump has feuded with Polis, a Democrat, over Peters’ incarceration, calling the governor a “SLEAZEBAG” earlier this month on Truth Social for refusing “to allow an elderly woman, Tina Peters, who was unfairly convicted of what the Democrats do, cheating on Elections, out of jail!”

Trump’s declaration of Peters’ pardon came hours after her lawyer, Peter Ticktin, announced he had formally asked Trump to pardon his client, whom he called “a necessary witness in exposing election misconduct.”

“Tina Peters is rightfully in Colorado state prison,” Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said in a statement on X on Thursday.

“Trump’s corrupt and political attempts at a pardon won’t work here. Once again, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

Since returning to the White House, Trump has used his powers to issue pardons to many of those connected to the effort to overturn the 2020 election who were convicted on federal charges, including the more than 1,500 people who stormed Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

For the first time since the termination of the Cold War, a major military crisis is heating up in the Caribbean. Since early September 2025, United States aerial combat drones have been patrolling and targeting the suspected smuggler boats in the international waters of the Caribbean Sea. These strikes were initially portrayed as kinetic measures to choke off the drug trade through the Caribbean Sea. According to US officials, by 04 December, 22 strikes have been conducted and 87 narco-terrorists have been killed. However, it’s worthy to note that the majority of cocaine production is centered in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico and enters into the United States through an inland or Pacific route—not through the Caribbean Sea. Out of 22 strikes, only 10 have been conducted in the Pacific waters.

Washington’s political ambitions eventually became evident in October once it forward deployed a naval flotilla at the strike range to Venezuela. Currently, eight US Navy vessels are operating in the Caribbean Sea. The USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, with its vast combat aviation wing comprising F-35C Lightning IIs, F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets, and a variety of support fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, is currently stationed in the US Virgin Islands. Other forward-deployed naval vessels include the MV Ocean Trader command vessel and the USS Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship with over 4,000 marines. These ships are supported by two Ticonderoga-class cruisers, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and the USS Newport News, a Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine (SSN), each equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles. The presence of this naval flotilla suggests that the USN has mustered enough capability to not only launch aerial and cruise missile strikes but also conduct amphibious operations at the Venezuelan coast. In parallel, Venezuelan airspace has been declared ‘closed’ by the Trump administration. Such assertive measures are not meant for anti-narcotic operations but perhaps for regime change either through coercive diplomacy or through direct military action. Whatever the case may be, it’s evident that for the first time in decades, the United States is apparently preparing for a direct military conflict in its own hemisphere.

Understanding how this crisis escalated requires looking back at the recent history of bilateral tensions. The fractures began to appear in US-Venezuela relations from 1999, when Hugo Chávez came to rule on a wave of anti-American populism and nationalized the country’s oil industry. Within three years, mutual relations collapsed so abruptly that first Washington imposed sanctions and then briefly removed Chávez from power through a CIA-backed coup. Chávez regained the rule in a matter of a few days. This move, however, further intensified anti-American sentiments in the Venezuelan public. Chávez made subversion of Washington a political identity; his successor Nicolás Maduro turned it into state doctrine. In 2019, Washington even declared Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader of Venezuela, as the country’s ‘legitimate president.’ Besides the open political signaling of the White House, the CIA also attempted another coup to topple the Maduro regime but again failed to achieve the requisite results.

Maduro successfully exploited continuous intervention by the United States to augment its political narrative at the public level and managed to earn a third consecutive term in 2025. However, the results of elections were regarded as dubious and were generally dismissed as fraudulent, further degrading relations with the West.

For Venezuela, oil has attracted more trouble than prosperity. The country has more than 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves—more than Saudi Arabia (267 billion barrels)—yet it produces less than 10 percent of its 1990s highest productivity rate. The Venezuelan crude oil is ultra-heavy (8-12° API) and has very high sulfur content. Such dense oil is not only very challenging to refine—both economically and technologically—but also very hard to transfer and cannot be pumped through pipelines without imported diluents. In a nutshell, despite possessing the largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela cannot refine and export its black gold without significant foreign assistance. The current oil infrastructure, developed during the Cold War, is gradually crumbling. Pipelines are either blocked or leaking, and refineries are now operating below 15 percent capacity. Approximately 58 billion USD worth of investment is required to repair and revive the current infrastructure. Being a struggling economy, Venezuela simply does not have the financial capacity to do so. Meanwhile, the majority of technical expertise has been eroded due to brain drain. For example, PDVSA once employed more than 40,000 engineers but now has a total strength of only 12,000 with a large portion of untrained manpower. Currently, while Gulf nations are earning huge revenue from oil exports, Venezuela stands isolated as an oil superpower that cannot even power itself.

The aforementioned factors have imparted grave consequences on the Venezuelan economy. Its national GDP has shrunk from about 300 billion USD to a mere 110 billion USD approximately. More than half of the population is living in poverty, and unemployment has crippled public development. Roughly 28 percent of the total population is in need of humanitarian assistance. These financial woes have compelled common Venezuelan citizens to seek refuge outside the country. Currently, nearly 8 million locals have left the country and are living as refugees in neighboring countries, including Columbia, Peru, Brazil, and even the United States.

To survive internal implosion, Caracas has sought external assistance from Washington’s strategic competitors, including Russia, China, and even Iran. Both Russia and Venezuela are signatories of the 10-year Strategic Partnership Treaty, which was ratified in Oct-Nov 2025 with the overarching objective of combating unilateral coercive measures. Russia has provided military assistance and technical support for the training of troops and maintenance of military equipment, which is predominantly of Soviet origin. China has repeatedly provided diplomatic support and financial loans to support Venezuela’s energy infrastructure. Both Russia and China have vetoed resolutions at the UN Security Council for imposing stringent sanctions against Venezuela. With Iran, Venezuela also shares a strong relation, which was formalized by a 20-year agreement in 2022. Their domains of cooperation include trade, repairing of energy infrastructure, modernization of the defense force, and technology sharing for refinement of crude oil. For the United States, these collaborations are meant to develop a foothold in Latin America by Russia, China, and Iran—something Washington considers intolerable.

When the Trump administration returned in 2025, within weeks, it scrapped Chevron’s license, eliminating Venezuela’s last stable revenue stream. The most significant escalation came on July 25, 2025, when the US Treasury designated Venezuela’s military leadership—the Cartel de los Soles—as a global terrorist organization. No foreign military in American history had ever received such a label. Simultaneously, the reward for the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro has been doubled to 50 million USD by the Trump administration on federal charges of narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. And now, with a fully equipped US naval strike force sailing in the Caribbean Sea, the situation is getting increasingly volatile. The Venezuelan military simply does not possess the capability to defend against such a strike force.

If hostilities break out, then instead of placing boots on the ground, the United States is likely to conduct targeted strikes at key assets, impose and sustain a naval blockade, and eventually undermine the Venezuelan military’s and nation’s loyalty to Maduro through coercive diplomacy. The current crisis illustrates that although the Trump administration claims to have taken numerous initiatives to end conflicts and promote trade & collaboration in the Eastern Hemisphere, it will show little to no tolerance for the growing influence of Moscow and Beijing in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Monroe Doctrine, the United States seeks to sustain its control in the Western Hemisphere, including Latin America. For Trump, an example can be crafted out of Venezuela to demonstrate the potential consequences of deepening collaboration with Moscow and Beijing in Washington’s backyard.

BBC Question Time host Fiona Bruce had some important news to share during tonight’s show – Fiona paused a debate surrounding the lifting of the two-child benefit cap to make the announcement

Question Time host Fiona Bruce made a huge announcement about the BBC show’s future during tonight’s episode.

Thursday evening’s panel consisted of Stephen Flynn, Anas Sarwar, Russell Findlay, Angela Haggerty and Lord Malcolm Offord, who has defected to Reform. The current affairs debate was coming from Paisley in Scotland.

After discussing the two child benefit cap Fiona said: “It’s been quite hard work this programme really to get a word in edgeways with you guys but we’re going to try aren’t we.” She then shared some important news about the programme’s future.

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She said: “Before we get to the next question, we want to say this is our last show of 2025. We’re back on January 22 in Macclesfield. So if you live in or around Macclesfield and you would like to come and be part of the audience, apply (on) our website, and hopefully we will see you there on the 22nd of January.”

After the brief announcement the panel continued answering questions from audience members. James Sinclair put a question to the panel about the percentage of children in schools who don’t speak English as a first language.

When does the show take breaks throughout the year and why?

This break is just one of the usual breaks which the show takes as they work around Parliament’s schedule. Since the MPs will not be sitting over the festive season the show takes the opportunity to go off air.

They also break for a couple of weeks at Easter, the dates vary depending on when the holiday falls. There is a further and longer break of around 6 weeks during Parliament’s summer recess.

BBC Question Time returns on January 22 in Macclesfield and then on January 29 in King’s Lynn.

WASHINGTON — Republican critics of affirmative action hailed Monday’s Supreme Court decision as a mandate for even more sweeping action by Congress and vowed to press home their attack on federal programs of racial preference.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole called the ruling–that preferential treatment based on race is almost always unconstitutional–”one more reason for the federal government to get out of the race-preference business” and summoned fellow lawmakers “to follow the court’s lead and put the federal government’s own house in order.”

Dole, once a supporter of affirmative action, has called for hearings on the subject in the Senate, and has said he may sponsor legislation to rewrite many of the programs. He was joined in his praise of the court ruling by fellow presidential contender Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), who said Monday’s decision “greatly strengthens the prospects” that he would seek to amend all funding bills passing through Congress this year to bar the use of federal dollars for “quotas and set-asides.”

The court’s dramatic ruling, meantime, thrust President Clinton and other Democrats into a new bind both legally and politically. Administration officials acknowledged it has disrupted a review of the federal government’s 180-odd affirmative action programs now under way. Clinton had sought the review to help deflect criticism both from the GOP and conservative forces within his own party.

Legally, Clinton now can hope to save parts of affirmative action only if he can come up with new rationales that are defensible under the narrow terms outlined by the Supreme Court on Monday. The court said affirmative action programs can be upheld as a means to correct specific, provable cases of discrimination, but not to correct suspected discrimination by a society over time.

That, in turn, underscores Clinton’s political challenge in dealing with the charged issues of race and gender. The President must either acquiesce in cutbacks to affirmative action programs, thereby risking alienation of minority voters who are crucial to his party’s base, or actively defend the programs and risk offending large numbers of white voters.

“This has really intensified the question of which programs should live and which should die,” said one Senate Democratic aide. “And that really raises the heat on what Clinton has been doing.”

The White House has said it expects to complete its review of affirmative action by the end of this month. Before the court announced the rulings, officials familiar with the review have predicted that it would essentially affirm most principles of federal affirmative action, while calling for changes in the procurement “set aside” programs that have attracted so much criticism.

Administration aides were in general agreement that the decision now would considerably delay the results of the review, which were to be released in a major thematic speech.

“If we’re not back to square one, we’ve at least moved back some distance,” said one Administration official.

But with the White House still contemplating its next move on the issue, House Republicans are set to redraft completely the controversial programs that were launched in the early 1960s to compensate women and minorities for past discrimination in higher education and the job market.

Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.), a one-time Democrat who now chairs the House Judiciary Committee’s constitution subcommittee, is set later this month to unveil legislation that would forbid the federal government to use gender or race preferences in any federal program, and dismantle many of the programs that have come to be central to affirmative action.

The House bill would effectively repeal one of the central features of 160 government programs that use racial and gender preferences in hiring and promoting federal workers, granting federal contracts and awarding benefits under federal programs. It would call a virtual halt to federal programs that “set aside” slots and pools of funding for businesses owned by minorities and women, and would require substantial changes in other programs.

On Monday, Canady said the court’s decision “gives impetus” to Republicans’ political efforts to roll back many such programs, by making clear the court’s intent to “return to a focus on individual rights” over groups’ rights.

But the complex ruling, he added, also makes it vital for Congress to weigh in quickly with its own views on affirmative action. “You’ll now see all kinds of challenges and litigation moving through district appeals courts, all the way to Supreme Court,” Canady said.

But Democratic proponents of affirmative action on Monday said that the court’s ruling had increased pressure on the White House to act, and to do so quickly, before Congressional Republicans seize the initiative.

“It is perhaps even more important that the President take time to delineate a vision and a course of action . . . as only the President can do,” said Rep. Kweisi Mfume, (D-Md.) former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Mfume, focusing on one of the majority opinion’s few comments that could be construed as justifying existing programs, lauded the court for acknowledging that “race discrimination is real and government has a role in eradicating it.”

“For those Republicans who have some notion that they ought to do away with all set-asides in the government because there’s no need for them, the court is saying, that is not correct, there is still,” he said.

Mfume’s positive tone was echoed by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who said she was “somewhat disappointed . . . but certainly not discouraged” by the stringent standards called for by Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.

“We may have to do a lot more work and it’s going to be a little confused,” said Waters. But she asserted the new standards applied by the Supreme Court would by no means spell an end to existing affirmative action programs at the federal level.

“This ruling suggests that the strict scrutiny standards would have to be met, and that there is overwhelming and compelling reasons out there to meet them. It doesn’t take a Harvard scholar to do that. The group certainly has been discriminated against.”

The author of major affirmative action laws in California, Waters stated that with a simple technical change, California statutes allowing set-asides for women- and minority-owned contractors would be able to meet the standards set out by the Supreme Court Monday.

Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.

As the players walked out at a packed Celtic Park, and a stirring rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone echoed around the stadium, the camera cut to Nancy.

The disco lights, which were splurged out on for these European nights, flashed towards the Frenchman.

Hart said the ground in the east end of Glasgow is a “special place” on such occasions but the mood of that place has turned sour in recent times.

Long before Nancy’s arrival, the club was riven with disharmony.

The events of last summer – recruitment issues, Champions League dismay, Brendan Rodgers’ acrimonious departure – had cast a long shadow.

Martin O’Neill’s interim stint back at the club steadied matters, with seven wins from eight games and an uplift in the mood.

But by the time Roma had a fourth goal ruled out in the closing stages on Thursday, large swathes of the crowd had gone home. Many fans had seen enough.

“It breaks my heart to see [Celtic Park] like this,” said Hart. “The atmosphere just isn’t there. This is such a special football club, but it’s only special when it’s united.

“It’s not easy for a new manager and new system, but it’s not rocket science and Nancy’s got to learn quick.”

Perhaps one thing all of a green and white persuasion could agree upon was that Roma were rampant as they cantered to a second win in Glasgow this term.

“It wasn’t good enough, especially first half, we lost too many duels and too many sloppy balls,” midfielder Arne Engels – who missed a first-half penalty – said.

“We know we can do better and hopefully we can move on because we have a final in a few days. We need to keep our heads high and move on.

“It’s up to us to react. We need to look to ourselves to keep performing.”

These are the key developments from day 1,387 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Friday, December 12:

Fighting

• Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked the Russian army after its forces reportedly took control of the town of Siversk in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s military responded, saying it remained in control of the town.
• News agencies were unable to verify the battlefield claims around Siversk, a longstanding target in Russia’s drive to capture all of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
• Moscow’s forces have also taken control of the village of Lyman in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, Russian state news agencies reported, citing the Ministry of Defence.
• Russia said Ukraine launched a major aerial attack with at least 287 drones downed over a number of regions inside the country, including Moscow. Russia’s Defence Ministry said at least 40 drones were shot down over the Moscow region, home to more than 22 million people.
• Ukrainian drones hit two chemical plants in Russia’s Novgorod and Smolensk regions, the commander of Kyiv’s drone forces said. Ukrainian drones also struck Russia’s Filanovsky oil platform in the Caspian Sea for the first time, halting production at the facility owned by Lukoil, according to a Ukraine Security Service official.
• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called on Britain to disclose what British soldier George Hooley, who was recently killed in Ukraine, was doing in the country.
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused London of helping Kyiv carry out “acts of terrorism” on Russia, but provided no evidence for her assertion. Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Hooley died while observing Ukrainian forces test a new defensive capability away from the front line with Russian forces.

Peace deal

• Ukraine has presented the United States with a revised 20-point framework to end its war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that the issue of ceding territory to Russia remains a major sticking point in negotiations.
• Zelenskyy said, as a compromise, the US is offering to create a “free economic zone” in Ukraine-controlled parts of the eastern Donbas, which Russia has demanded Ukraine cede.
• “They see it as Ukrainian troops withdrawing from the Donetsk region, and the compromise is supposedly that Russian troops will not enter this part of Donetsk region. They do not know who will govern this territory,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Russia is referring to it as a “demilitarised zone”.
• Zelenskyy also said that Ukrainians should vote on any territorial concessions in a referendum and that he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine in a video call with top US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff.

• Speaking at a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” – a group of 34 nations led by Britain and France that have pledged support for Ukraine against Russian aggression – Zelenskyy said that holding elections in Ukraine during wartime would require a ceasefire.
• US President Donald Trump said the US will send a representative to participate in talks in Europe on Ukraine this weekend if there is a good chance of making progress on a ceasefire deal.
• “We’ll be attending the meeting on Saturday in Europe if we think there’s a good chance. And we don’t want to waste a lot of time if we think it’s negative,” Trump said.
• Earlier, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump had grown weary of multiple meetings that never reached an agreement on ending the war in Ukraine.

Regional security

• NATO chief Mark Rutte urged allies to step up defence efforts to prevent a war waged in Europe by Russia, which could be “on the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured”.
• In a speech in Berlin, Rutte said too many allies of the military alliance did not feel the urgency of Russia’s threat in Europe and that they must rapidly increase defence spending and production to prevent war.

Sanctions

• Russian and Belarusian youth athletes should compete in international events without access restrictions, the International Olympic Committee said, marking a first step in easing sanctions imposed following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

• European Union governments have started a process to freeze Russian central bank assets immobilised in Europe for the long term to avoid votes every six months on rolling over the freeze, a move that would pave the way to use the money to provide a loan to Ukraine.
• Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Vincent Van Peteghem said Russian frozen assets will have to be used for Ukraine at some point, adding that Brussels “would not take any reckless compromises” before it agreed to any deal on the issue.
• Brussels has opposed an unprecedented plan to use Russian funds frozen in the EU – primarily in Belgian banking institutions – to fund a loan to Ukraine, saying it places the country at outsized risk of future legal action from Moscow.
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that the EU’s “manipulations” with Moscow’s frozen assets would not go unanswered.
• Germany’s top fiscal court has ruled that authorities cannot, for now, sell or use an oil tanker and its cargo seized off the Baltic Sea coast, siding with the vessel’s owners in two separate cases.
• The Panama-flagged Eventin was found drifting off Germany’s coast in January after departing Russia with about 100,000 metric tonnes of oil worth about 40 million euros ($47m). German authorities suspect the vessel is part of a “shadow fleet” used by Russia to skirt EU sanctions

Economy

• Russia’s revenues from exports of crude oil and refined products fell again in November, the International Energy Agency said, touching their lowest level since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The midwestern state of Indiana has dealt a setback to United States President Donald Trump’s redistricting push ahead of the pivotal 2026 midterm elections, voting down legislation to redraw its congressional map.

Late on Thursday afternoon, Indiana’s state Senate voted 31 to 19 to reject the proposed congressional districts, despite a strong Republican majority in the chamber.

Of the state Senate’s 50 seats, 39 are held by Republicans, and the state has voted consistently Republican in every presidential race since 1968, save for a single flip for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.

The vote is likely to reinforce the sentiment that the Republican Party is fracturing under Trump’s leadership, as his poll numbers slump during the first year of his second term.

Trump was confronted with the results of the Indiana vote at an Oval Office signing ceremony shortly after it happened.

“Just a few moments ago, the Senate there rejected the congressional map to redistrict in that state,” one reporter said. “What’s your reaction?”

Trump responded by touting his successes in pushing other Republican-led states.

“ We won every other state. That’s the only state,” the president said, before referencing his three presidential bids. “It’s funny because I won Indiana all three times by a landslide, and I wasn’t working on it very hard.”

Trump then proceeded to denounce the Indiana Senate president, Rodric Bray, and threatened to support a primary challenge against the Indiana leader.

“He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is. I hope he does,” Trump said.

“It’s, I think, in two years, but I’m sure he’ll go down. He’ll go down. I’ll certainly support anybody that wants to go against it.”

Fractures in the caucus

Currently, Indiana sends nine Congress members to the US House of Representatives, one for each of its nine districts. Two of those seats are currently occupied by Democrats.

Republican leaders in the state, however, had proposed a new map of congressional districts that sought to disempower Democratic voters in the state, clearing the way for conservative candidates to claim all nine seats in next year’s midterm races.

The proposed map was part of a nationwide effort by the Trump administration to defend Republican control in the US Congress.

Already, the partisan map had passed the lower chamber of Indiana’s legislature. On December 5, Indiana’s House of Representatives voted 57 to 41 to send the House Bill 1032 to the state Senate.

The bill had the backing of Indiana’s Republican Governor Mike Braun, who encouraged the state senators to emulate their colleagues in the lower chamber.

But even before the bill arrived in the state Senate, there were cracks in the Republican caucus. Twelve Republicans in the state House broke ranks to vote against the map.

And certain Republican state Senators likewise expressed reticence.

Some Republicans, like Indiana state Senator Greg Walker, had a history of opposing redistricting efforts. He was quoted in the Indiana Capital Chronicle as saying, “I cannot, myself, support the bill for which there must be a legal injunction in order for it to be found constitutional.”

Partisan redistricting has long been a controversial practice in US politics, with opponents calling the practice undemocratic and discriminatory.

Critics also pointed out that the Indiana proposal would force some voters in urban centres like Indianapolis to commute more than 200 kilometres for in-person voting.

Walker joined a total of 21 Republican state Senators, including Bray, in voting against the redistricting bill on Thursday.

A nationwide campaign

But the Trump administration had invested significant time and effort into swaying the vote.

In October, Vice President JD Vance travelled to the Hoosier State to try to convince wary Republicans. US House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly made personal phone calls to state leaders. And a day before the critical state Senate vote, Trump took to social media with a mixture of cajoling and pressure.

“I love the State of Indiana, and have won it, including Primaries, six times, all by MASSIVE Majorities,” Trump began in a winding, 414-word post.

“Importantly, it now has a chance to make a difference in Washington, D.C., in regard to the number of House seats we have that are necessary to hold the Majority against the Radical Left Democrats. Every other State has done Redistricting, willingly, openly, and easily.”

Currently, the US House of Representatives holds a narrow 220-member Republican majority, out of a total of 435 seats.

All of those seats, however, will be up for grabs in the 2026 midterm elections, and Democrats are hoping to flip the chamber to their control.

Starting in June, reports began to emerge that Trump was petitioning the state legislature in the right-wing stronghold of Texas to redistrict, in an effort to help conservative candidates sweep up five extra congressional seats.

Texas Republicans complied, and in August, the state legislature embraced a new redistricted map, overcoming a walkout from state Democrats.

Republicans in other states, including Missouri and North Carolina, have followed suit, passing new maps that seek to increase right-wing gains in the midterm races.

But Democrats have fired back. In November, California voters passed a referendum to suspend their independent districting commission and adopt a Democrat-leaning map created by state lawmakers.

Indiana, however, appeared poised to buck the redistricting trend. In Wednesday’s lengthy post, Trump warned that the state could put Republican power “at risk” if it failed to pass a new map.

He also called Bray and other Republican splinter votes “SUCKERS” for the Democrats.

“Rod Bray and his friends won’t be in Politics for long, and I will do everything within my power to make sure that they will not hurt the Republican Party, and our Country, again,” Trump wrote.

“One of my favorite States, Indiana, will be the only State in the Union to turn the Republican Party down!”

In the wake of Thursday’s defeat, Trump and his allies doubled down on their threats to remove the 21 Republican state senators who voted against the bill from office.

“I am very disappointed that a small group of misguided State Senators have partnered with Democrats to reject this opportunity,” Governor Braun wrote on social media, calling it a decision to “reject the leadership of President Trump”.

“Ultimately, decisions like this carry political consequences. I will be working with the President to challenge these people who do not represent the best interests of Hoosiers.”

HOLLYWOOD actress Sydney Sweeney unmasks herself as a secret tourist during a whirlwind trip to the UK.

The Euphoria star enjoyed a sightseeing tour around London before heading to Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire for some relaxation.

Sydney, 28, shared pictures from her whistle-stop visit — including putting on a facemask with a pal in a hot tub and horse riding.

The trip was organised by designer brand Miu Miu, which recruited Sydney as an ambassador in 2022.

Sharing the snaps online, Sydney, whose psychological thriller The Housemaid is released later this month, told her fans: “Little London getaway.”

Last week Sydney broke her silence over her American Eagle advert backlash. 

read more on sydney sweeney

SWEENEY BOD

Sydney Sweeney breaks silence over ‘great jeans’ row and hits back at critics

cheeky!

Sydney Sweeney covers boobs with hands to avoid corset mishap in steamy new snap

Speaking out about the ad, which saw her backed by President Donald Trump, Sydney said: “I was honestly surprised by the reaction. 

“I did it because I love the jeans and love the brand. 

“I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign.” 

The star added: “Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true. 

“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together. I’m against hate and divisiveness. 

“I have come to realise my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it.

“So I hope this new year brings more focus on what connects us instead of what divides us.” 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) delivered a nearly 13-hour filibuster Wednesday of John Brennan’s nomination to lead the CIA. Paul used his time on the floor to question the legality of the White House‘s policies on drone use, beginning at 11:47 a.m. EST and ending at 12:39 a.m. EST Thursday.

Below is the transcript of Paul’s remarks, as his office released them, hour by hour.

Hour 1:

I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court. That Americans could be killed in a cafe in San Francisco or in a restaurant in Houston or at their home in bowling green, Kentucky, is an abomination. It is something that should not and cannot be tolerated in our country. I don’t rise to oppose John Brennan’s nomination simply for the person. I rise today for the principle.

The principle is one that as Americans we have fought long and hard for and to give up on that principle, to give up on the bill of rights, to give up on the Fifth Amendment protection that says that no person shall be held without due process, that no person shall be held for a capital offense without being indicted. This is a precious American tradition and something we should not give up on easily. They say Lewis Carroll is fiction. Alice never fell down a rabbit hole and the White Queen’s caustic judgments are not really a threat to your security. Or has America the beautiful become Alice’s wonderland? ‘No, no, said the queen. Sentence first; verdict afterwards. Stuff and nonsense, Alice said widely – loudly. The idea of having the sentence first? ‘Hold your tongue, said the queen, turning purple. I won’t, said Alice. Release the drones, said the Queen, as she shouted at the top of her voice.

Lewis Carroll is fiction, right? When I asked the President, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It’s an easy question. It should have been a resounding and unequivocal, “no.” The President’s response? He hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’re supposed to be comforted by that.

The President says, I haven’t killed anyone yet. He goes on to say, and I have no intention of killing Americans. But I might. Is that enough? Are we satisfied by that? Are we so complacent with our rights that we would allow a President to say he might kill Americans? But he will judge the circumstances, he will be the sole arbiter, he will be the sole decider, he will be the executioner in chief if he sees fit. Now, some would say he would never do this. Many people give the President the – you know, they give him consideration, they say he’s a good man. I’m not arguing he’s not. What I’m arguing is that the law is there and set in place for the day when angels don’t rule government. Madison said that the restraint on government was because government will not always be run by angels. This has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican. Were this a Republican President, I’d be here saying exactly the same thing. No one person, no one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country.

This isn’t even new to our country. There’s 800 years of English law that we found our tradition upon. We founded it upon the Magna Carta from 1215. We founded it upon Morgan from Glamorgan and 725 A.D. We founded upon the Greeks and Romans who had juries. It is not enough to charge someone to say that they are guilty.

Now, some might come to this floor and they might say, “Well, what if we’re being attacked on 9/11? What if there are planes flying at the Twin Towers?” Obviously, we repel them. We repel any attack on our country.

If there’s a gentleman or a woman with a grenade launcher attacking our buildings or our Capitol, we use lethal force. You don’t get due process if you’re involved with actively attacking us, our soldiers or our government. You don’t get due process if you’re overseas in a battle shooting at our soldiers. But that’s not what we’re talking about. The Wall Street Journal reported and said that the bulk of the drone attacks are signature attacks. They don’t even know the name of the person. A line or a caravan is going from a place where we think there are bad people to a place where we think they might commit harm and we kill the caravan, not the person. Is that the standard that we will now use in America? Will we use a standard for killing Americans to be that we thought – killing Americans to be that we thought you were bad, we thought you were coming from a meeting of bad people and you were in a line of traffic and so, therefore, you were fine for the killing? That is the standard we’re using overseas. Is that the standard we’re going to use here?

I will speak today until the President responds and says no, we won’t kill Americans in cafes; no, we won’t kill you at home in your bed at night; no, we won’t drop bombs on restaurants. Is that so hard? It’s amazing that the President will not respond. I’ve been asking this question for a month. It’s like pulling teeth to get the President to respond to anything. And I get no answer.

The President says he hasn’t done it yet and I’m to be comforted, you are to be comforted in your home, you are to be comforted in your restaurant, you are to be comforted on-line communicating in your e-mail that the President hasn’t killed an American yet on the homeland. He says he hasn’t done it yet. He says he has no intention to do so. Hayek said that nothing distinguishes arbitrary government from a government that is run by the whims of the people than the rule of law. The law’s an amazingly important thing, an amazingly important protection. And for us to give up on it so easily really doesn’t speak well of what our founding fathers fought for, what generation after generation of American soldiers have fought for, what soldiers are fighting for today when they go overseas to fight wars for us. It doesn’t speak well of what we’re doing here to protect the freedom at home when our soldiers are abroad fighting for us, that we say that our freedom’s not precious enough for one person to come down and say, enough’s enough, Mr. President. Come clean, come forward and say you will not kill Americans on American soil. The oath of office of the President says that he will, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He raises his hand, his right hand, puts his left hand on the bible, and he says, “i will.” The President doesn’t say, “I intend to if it’s convenient.” “I intend to, unless circumstances dictate otherwise.” The President says, “I will defend the Constitution, I will protect the Constitution.” There isn’t room for equivocation here, Mr. President. This is something that is so important, so fundamental to our country that he needs to come forward. When Brennan, whose nomination I am opposing today, was asked directly, “is there any limit to your killing? Is there any geographic limitation to your drone strike program?” Brennan responded and said, no, there is no limitation. So the obvious question would be, if there’s no limitation to whom you can kill and where you can kill and there’s no due process upon whom you will kill, does that mean you will do it in America? So the Senator from Oregon asked him that question directly in committee. And this so-called champion of transparency, this so-called advocate of some kind of process responded to the senator from Oregon by saying, “I plan to optimize secrecy and optimize transparency.” Gobbledygook.

You wer will you kill Americans on American soil? Answer the question. Our laws forbid the CIA From doinghat. It should have been an easy question. The 1947 national security act says the CIA Doesn’t operate in our country. We have the FBI. We have rules. We have separated powers to protect your rights. That’s what government was organized to do. That’s what the Constitution was put in place to do. To protect your rights. So when asked, he says, no answer. He says, “I will evade your answer.” And by letting him come forward, we let him get away with it. So I have hounded and hounded and hounded, and finally yesterday I get a response from Mr. Brennan, who wishes to be the CIA Chief, and he finally says, I will obey the law. Well, hooray. Good for him. It took a month to get him to admit that he will obey the law. But it’s not so simple.

You see, the drone strike program is under the department of defense, so when the CIA Says they’re not going to kill you in America, they’re not saying the defense department won’t. So Eric Holder sent a response, the attorney general, and his response says, “haven’t killed anyone yet. I don’t intend to kill anyone but I might.” And he pulls out examples that really aren’t under consideration. There is the use of lethal force that can always be repelled. If our country is attacked, the President has the right to defend and protect the country. Nobody questions that. Nobody questions if planes are flying towards the Twin Towers whether they can be repulsed by the military. Nobody questions whether a terrorist with a rocket launcher or a grenade launcher is attacking us, whether they can be repelled. They don’t get their day in court. But if you are sitting in a cafeteria in Dearborn, Mich., if you happen to be an Arab-American who has a relative in the Middle East and you communicate with them by e-mail and somebody says, oh, your relative is someone we suspect of being associated with terrorism, is that enough to kill you? For goodness sakes, wouldn’t we try to arrest and come to the truth by having a jury and a presentation of the facts on both sides of the issue? See, the real problem here, one of the things we did a long time ago is we separated the police power from the judicial power. This was an incredibly important first step. We also prevented the military from acting in our country because we didn’t want to have a police state. One of the things that we greatly objected to at the British was they were passing out what were called general writs or writs of assistance. These were warrants that allowed them to go into a house but allowed them to go into anyone’s house. And so what we did when we wrote our Constitution is we – we made the Constitution, we made the fourth amendment specific to the person and the place and the things to be looked for. We didn’t like the soldiers going willy-nilly into any house and looking for anything. So we made our Constitution much more specific.

I think this is something we shouldn’t give up on so easily. I think that the idea that we can deprive someone of their life without any kind of hearing, essentially allowing a politician. I’m not casting any aspersions on the President. I’m not saying he is a bad person at all, but he is not a judge. He’s a politician. He was elected by a majority, but the majority doesn’t get to decide who we execute. We have a process for deciding this. We have courts for deciding this, to allow one man to accuse you in secret, you never get notified you have been accused. Your notification is the buzz of the propellers on the drone as it flies overhead in the seconds before you’re killed. Is that what we really want from our government? Are we so afraid of terrorism, are we so afraid of terrorists that we’re willing to just throw out our rights and our freedoms, things that have been fought for and that we have gotten over the centuries.

At least 800 years if not 1,000 years’ worth of protection. Originally, the protections were against a monarch. We feared a monarch. We didn’t like having a monarch. We came to this country, so when we set up our presidency, there was a great deal of alarm, there was a great deal of fear over having a king, and so we limited the executive branch. Madison wrote in the federalist papers, he said that the Constitution states what history demonstrates, that the executive branch is the branch most prone to war, most likely to go to war, and therefore we – we took that power to declare war and we vested it in the legislature. We broke up the powers. Montesquieu wrote about the checks and balances and the separation of powers. He was somebody who Jefferson looked towards. They separated the powers because there was a chance for abuse of power when power resides in one person. Montesquieu said there can be no liberty when you combine the executive and the legislative. I would say something similar. There can be no liberty when you combine the executive and the judiciary. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re allowing the President to be the accuser in secret and we’re allowing him to be the judge and we’re allowing him to be the jury. No man should have that power. We should fear that power. Not because we have to say oh, we fear the current President. It has nothing to do with who the President is. It has nothing to do with whether you’re a Republican or Democrat. It has to do with whether or not you fear the consolidation of power, were you – whether you fear power being given to one person, whether they are a Republican or a Democrat. This is not necessarily a right-left issue.

Kevin Gosztola who writes at FireDogLake, writes the mere fact that the President’s answer to this question, whether you can kill an American on American soil, that the President’s answer was yes is outrageous. However, it fits the framework for fighting a permanent global war on terrorism without any geographic limitations, which the present administration, President Obama’s administration has maintained that it has the authority to waive. What’s important here is that we’re talking about a war without geographic limitations, but we’re also talking about a war without temporal limitations. There is no limit, no limit in time to this war. When will this war end? It’s a war that has, I think, an infinite timeline. So if you’re going to suspend your rights, if there is going to be no geographic limits to killing, which really means we’re not at war in Afghanistan, we’re at war everywhere and everybody that pops up is called al-Qaida now, whether they have ever heard of al-Qaida or not, whether they have any communication with some kind of network of al-Qaida, everybody is al-Qaida, but there is a new war or an ongoing war everywhere in the world, there is no limitations.

Glenn Greenwald has written also about this subject, and he was speaking at the freedom to connect conference, and he says there is a theoretical framework being built that posits that the U.S. Government has unlimited power. Some caw this inherent power. Inherent means it isn’t – it hasn’t been defined anywhere, it hasn’t been expressly given to the government. They have just decided this is their power, they are going to grab it and take what they can get. This isn’t new. The Bush Administration did some of this, too. When the Bush Administration tried to grab power, though on the left and some of us on the right were critical. When they tried to wiretap phones without a warrant, we raised a ruckus. Many on the right and many on the left. There was a loud outcry against President Bush for usurping, going across due process, not allowing due process, not obeying the restraints of warrants. Where is that outcry now? Glenn Greenwald writes – “there is a theoretical framework being built that posits that the U.S. Government has unlimited power. When it comes to any kind of threats it perceives, it makes the judgment to take whatever action against them that it warrants without any constraints or limitations of any kind.” As Greenwald suggests – this is going back to Gosztola words, as Greenwald suggests, answering yes to the question that you can kill Americans on American soil illustrates the real radicalism that the government has embraced in terms of how it uses its own power. To think that we were opposed to them listening to your conversations without a warrant but no one’s going to stand up and say they can kill you without a warrant, a judge’s review or a jury, no one’s going to object to that, where is the cacophony that stood up and said how can you tap my phone without going to a judge first? I ask how can you kill someone without going to a judge or a jury?

Are we going to give up our rights to politicians, to any politician of any stripe, are we going to give up the right to decide who lives and who dies? Gosztola goes on to say that the reason the administration didn’t want to answer yes or no to this question of can you kill Americans on American soil is because he says that a no answer would jeopardize the critical theoretical foundation that they have very carefully constructed that says there are no cognizable constraints on how U.S. Government power can be asserted.

Civil libertarians once expected more from the President. In fact, it was one of the things that I liked about the President. I’m a Republican. I didn’t vote or support the President either time, but I admired him, particularly in 2007 when he ran. I admired his ability to stand up and say we won’t torture people, that’s not what America does. How does the President’s mind work, though? The President that seemed so honorable, seemed so concerned with our rights, seemed so concerned with the right not to have your phone be tapped now says he’s not concerned with whether you can be killed without a trial. The leap of logic is so fantastic as to boggle the mind. Where is the Barack Obama of 2007? Has the presidency so transformed him that he has forgotten his moorings, forgotten what he stood for? Civilian libertarians once expected more from the President. Ask any civil libertarian whether or not the President should have the right to arbitrarily kill Americans on American soil and the answer is easy. Of course, no President should have the right or that power under the Constitution.

Now, Brennan has responded in committee that the CIA Now does not have the right to do it on American soil. The problem is that this program is under the department of defense, so it’s once again an evasive answer, not answering the true question will the government of America kill Americans on American soil? Gosztola from FireDogLake writes there may never be a targeted killing of a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil and the question of whether a U.S. citizen could be targeted and killed on U.S. soil may remain a hypothetical question for some time, but the fact that the Obama Administration has told a U.S. Senator that there is a circumstance where the government could target and kill an American citizen on American soil without charge or without trial is a stark example of an imperial presidency. This is what our Founding Fathers wanted to fight against. They wanted to limit the role and the power of the President. They wanted to check the President’s power with the power of the Senate, with the power of the house, with the power of the judiciary. Three co-equal branches. Not one of them should be able to run roughshod on the other.

The problem has become is that we have allowed this to happen. Not me personally but Congress in general has allowed the President to usurp this power. If there were an ounce of courage in this body, I would be joined by many other senators saying that they will not tolerate this, that we will come together today in bipartisan fashion and tell the President, tell any President that no President will ever have the authority to kill Americans without a trial. Now, when the President says he doesn’t intend to do so, you really have to think that through.

The President a year ago lined up – signed a law that says that you can be detained indefinitely, that you can be sent from America to Guantanamo Bay without a trial, and he wants us to be comforted, he wants us to remember and think good of him because he says I don’t intend to do so. It’s not enough. I mean, would you tolerate a Republican who stood up and said well, I like the First Amendment, I’m quite fond of the First Amendment, and I don’t intend to break the First Amendment but I might. Would conservatives tolerate someone who said I like the Second Amendment? I think it’s important and I am for gun ownership and I don’t intend to violate the Second Amendment, but I might. Would we tolerate that he doesn’t intend to do so as a standard? We have to think about the standards being used overseas. The President finally admitted they interviewed him at Google not too long ago, they interviewed him and asked him can you kill Americans at home and he was evasive and he said but if there are rules, he said the rules would be different outside than inside. Well, I certainly hope so. Outside the United States, the rules for killing are you can kill someone through a signature strike. We don’t have to know what your name is, who you are, who you’re with. If you’re in a line of traffic and we think you’re going from talking to bad people to talking to other bad people, we’ll kill you. I mean, is that going to be the standard in America? Now, when they are questioned about ‘have you killed civilians in your drone strikes?’, they say no, but they don’t count you as a civilian if you’re a male or if you’re between the ages of 16 and 50, you’re a potential and a probable combatant if that’s your age range.

So my question is if you’re not a civilian, if you’re in proximity to bad people, is that the standard we’re going to use in the United States? So if we’re going to kill Americans on American soil and the standard is going to be signature strikes that you’re close to bad people or that you’re in the same proximity as bad people, would that be enough? Are we happy with that standard? Are we hap that we have no jury, no trial, no charges, nothing done publicly? In Eric Holder’s response, the attorney general’s response to me, they maintain they’re not going to do this, just trust them. It’s not really about them, know. It is about the law. The law restrains everyone equally, regardless of your party, whether you’re Republican or Democrat. The law is out there for the time when somebody inadvertently elects a really bad person.

You know, when World War II ended, the currency was being destroyed in Germany in 1923, the paper money became so worthless that people wheeled it in wheelbarrows. They burned it for fuel. It became virtually worthless overnight. The beginning of September 1923, the paper, I think it was like 10, 15 marks for a loaf of bread. September 14, it was a thousand marks. September 30, it was 100,000 marks. October 15, it was a couple of million marks for a loaf of bread.

It was a chaotic situation. Out of that chaos, Hitler was elected, Democratically. They elected him out of this chaos. The point isn’t that anybody in our country is Hitler. I am not accusing anybody of being that evil. It is a misused anology. In a democracy you could someday elect someone who is very evil. That’s why we don’t give the power to the government. And it’s not an accusation of this President or anybody in this body. It’s a point to be made historically that occasionally even a democracy gets it wrong. So when a democracy gets it wrong, you want the law to be there in place. You want this rule of law.

As I mentioned, Hayek said this is what distinguishes us. Heritage has an author who has written some about the oath of office. His name is Kesavin. He writes that the location and the phrasing of the oath of office for the President – this is something I explained earlier – that the President says he will protect and defend and preserve the Constitution. The oath is – you know, words are important. The oath doesn’t say, “i intend to preserve, protect, and defend.” It says “I will.” Kesavin writes that the location and phrasing of the oath of office strongly suggests that it is not empowering but limiting. So the President doesn’t take an oath of office that says, “I intend to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, but I also feel that I have inherent powers that were never mentioned by anybody that I will be the sole arbiter of interpreting what those powers are.” That sounds more like a king. That’s not what we wanted. We did not want a imperial presidency. What Kesavin suggests is that the oath of office is not empowering but that it is limiting, that the clause limits the President and how the President can execute or how the executive power can be exercised. One unanswered word in that Constitution includes the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. What does the Fifth Amendment say? The Fifth Amendment says that no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury. It is pretty explicit.

The Fifth Amendment protects you, it protects from you a king placing you in the tower, but it also should protect from you a President that might kill you with a drone. We were granted due process. It’s not always easy to sort out the details of who is a threat to the country and who’s not a threat to the country. If it were people with grenade launchers on their shoulder, that’s easy. And in fact I agree completely … You don’t get due process if you’re actively attacking America. But you have to realize that there have been reports that over half of the drone strikes overseas are not even directed towards an individual; they are directed towards a caravan of unnamed individuals. You also have to realize that overseas I have no problems if people are shooting at American soldiers, by all means, they get no due process. But you also have to realize that many – we don’t know because they won’t tell us the number – but many of the drone strikes overseas are done when you’re walking – I don’t know where you are a walking … To church, you’re walking along the road – they’re done when you’re in a car driving, they’re done when you’re in a house eating. They’re done when you’re at a restaurant eating. They’re done when you’re in a house sleeping. I am saying that they’re not actively involved in something that’s an imminent threat and if they were in America, they would be arrested.

If we think you are a terrorist in America we should arrest you. But here’s the question: You who is a terrorist? That’s why I’ve been so concerned about a lot around here who say that if you’re associated with terrorism that your government has already put out things that I think are of questionable nature. The Bureau of Justice put out a bulletin within the last year describing people who you need to be worried about. These are the people that you’re supposed to say something. If you say something, you’re supposed to say something. Who are these terrorists that live among you?

People who might be missing fingers on one hand, people who might have stains on their clothing, people who might have changed the color of their hair, people who like to pay in cash, people who own more than one gun, people who own weatherized ammunition, people who have seven days of food in their house. These are people that you should be afraid of and that you should report to your government. So says your government. Are they going to be on the drone strike list? I think we need to get an answer from the President.

If you’re going to kill people in America, we need rules, and we need to know what your rules are. Because I certainly don’t want to have seven days of food in my house if that’s on the list to terrorism. Interestingly, on government websites there are some government websites that advise you to have it in your house. If you live in a hurricane-prone area you’re supposed to keep some area food around. Who is going to decide when it’s okay to have food in your house and when it’s not?

There’s something called fusion centers, something that are supposed to coordinate between the federal government, the local government to find terrorists. The one in Missouri a couple years ago came up with a list and they sent this to every policemen in Missouri. The people on the list might be me. The people on the list from the fusion center in Missouri that you need to be worried about, that policemen should stop, are people that have bumper stick theirs might be pro-life, who have bumper stickers that might be for more border security, people who support third-party candidates, people who might be in the Constitution party. Oooh, isn’t there some irony there.

You believe in the Constitution so much, you might be a terrorist – you believe in the Constitution so much, you might be a terrorist. We need to be concerned about this. Things are not so black and white. If someone is shooting at us, a canon, a missile, a rocket, a plane, it is pretty easy to know what lethal attacks are. We’re talking about people in their homes, at a restaurant, or a cafe that someone is making an accusation. If the accusation is based on how many fingers you have on your hand, I have got a problem with that standard. If the standard to be used for killing Americans is whether you pay in cash, I’ve got a problem with that. If the standard to be used in America is being close to someone who is bad or the government thinks is bad is enough for you to be killed and not even account you as an accidental kill, to count you as combatant because you were near them – see, here’s the problem, and this is no passing problem; this is an important problem.

There was a man named al-Awlaki. He was a bad guy, by all evidence available to the public that I’ve read, he was treasonous. I have no sympathy for his death. I still would have tried him in a federal court for treason and I think you could have been executed. But his son was 16 years old, had missed his dad, gone for two years. His son sneaks out of the house and goes to Yemen. His son is then killed by a drone strike. They won’t tell us if he was targeted. Suspect, since there were other people in the group, about 20 people killed, that they were targeting someone else. I don’t know that. I don’t have inside information on that. But I suspect that.

But here’s the real problem: When the President’s spokesman was asked about al-Awlaki’s son, you know what his response was? This I find particularly callous and particularly troubling. The President’s response to the killing of al-Awlaki’s son, he said he should have chosen more responsible father.

You know, it’s kind of hard to choose who your parents are. That’s sort of like saying to someone whose father is a thief or a murderer or a rapist, which is obviously a bad thing, but does that mean it’s okay to kill their children think of the standard we would have if our standard for killing people overseas is, you should have chosen a more responsible parent.

It just boggles the mind and really affects me to think that that would be our standard. There’s absolutely no excuse for the President not to come forward on this. I’ve been asking for a month for an answer. It’s like pulling teeth to get any answer from the President. Why is that? Because he doesn’t want to answer the question the way he should, as a good and moral and upstanding and someone who believes in the Constitution should; that absolutely no – no American should ever be killed in America who’s I thinking in a cafe. No American should ever be killed in their house without a warrant and some kind of aggressive behavior by them. To be bombed in your sleep? There’s nothing American about that. There’s nothing Constitutional about that. But he says trust him. He says he hasn’t done it yet. He says he doesn’t intend to do so, but he might. Mr. President, that’s not just good enough. That’s not enough – it’s not enough for me to be placated. It’s not enough for me to be quiet.

So I have a come here today to speak for as long as I can – I won’t be able to speak forever. But I’m going to speak as long as I can to draw attention to something that I find really disturbing. People ask about this nomination process, because I’ve actually voted for a couple of the President’s nominees, some of whom I’ve objected to coming of whom I’ve had personal as well as political differences. This is not about partisanship. I voted for the Secretary of State, John Kerry. I’ve almost nothing in common with him politically. I have disagreed with him repeatedly on the floor. But gave the President the prerogative of choosing his secretary of state, because I think the President won the election. He deserves to get to make some choices on who is in his cabinet. I voted for the very controversial Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. There were things liked about him, things I disliked about him. I filibustered him twice before I voted to let him go forward. And people in my party given me a hard time, conservatives from my party have blasted me for doing that. But I gave the President that prerogative. So I’m not standing down here as a Republican who will never vote for a Democrat. I voted for the first two – I voted for the first three nominees by the President. This is not about partisanship. I have allowed the President to pick his political appointees, but I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution. I cannot sit at my desk quietly and let the President say he will kill Americans on American soil who are not actively attacking the country.

The answer should be so easy. I cannot imagine that he will not expressly come forward and say, no, I will not kill Americans on American soil.

The Fifth Amendment says that no person shall be held for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on the presentment or indictment of a grand jury. It goes on to say that no person will be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process. Now, some hear “due process” – and if you’re not a lawyer, I am not a lawyer – when you first hear that you think, what does that mean? What does it mean to have due process? What it means is you’re protected. You get protections. Is our justice system perfect? No.

Sometimes you go all the way through due process in our country. We’ve actually convicted people innocent. Fortunately it’s very rare, but think about that. We’ve actually convicted people who are innocent.

What are the chances that the President going through PowerPoint slideshows and flash cards might make a mistake and innocent or guilty? I would say there is a chance. Even our judicial system, it goes through all of these processes with the judge reviewing the indictment, with a jury reviewing it, then with the sentencing phase, with all of that going forward, we sometimes make mistakes. What are the chances that one man, one politician, no matter what part they’re from, could make a mistake on this? I think there’s a real chance that that exists. That’s why we put these rules in place. Patrick Henry wrote that the Constitution wasn’t given or written or put down to restrain you. The Constitution was to restrain us. There’s always been, since the beginning of time, since we first had government, this desire to restrain the government, to try to keep the government from going too strong, to keep the government from taking your rights. It’s interesting when you look at the Constitution, the Constitution gave what are called enumerated powers to government, and Madison said that these enumerated powers few and defined. The liberties you were given, though, are numerous and enumerated. Unlimited. So it is about 17 powers given to government which we’ve now transformed into about a gazillion or at least a million new. We don’t pay much attention to the enumerated powers for the Constitution anymore. But the Constitution left your rights as unenumerated. Your rights are limitless. So when we get to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, it says specifically that those rights not granted to your government are left to the states and the people respectively. It didn’t list what those rights are.

The 14th Amendment talks about privileges and immunities are left you to also. They’re to be protected. But I don’t think there is a person in America – that’s why I can’t understand the President’s unwillingness to say, he’s not going to kill noncombatants. Think about that. He’s unwilling to say publicly that he’s not going to kill noncombatants, because that’s what we’re talking about here. I’m not talking about someone with a bazooka a grenade launcher on their shoulder. Anyone committing lethal force can be repelled with lethal force. No one argues that point.

I’m talking about whether you can kill noncombatants, because many of the people being killed overseas are noncombatants. Are they potential combatants? Maybe. Maybe the standard can be a – less overseas than it is here for people involved in a battle, but it’s getting kind of murky overseas as well, but for goodness sakes in America, we can’t just sort of have this idea that we’re going to kill noncombatants. We’re talking about people eating in a cafe, at home, in a restaurant. I think we need to be a little more careful.

The power that was given by the Constitution to the Senate was that of advise and consent. This Constitutional provision provides us with the power to consent to nominations or withhold consent. It’s a check on the Executive Branch but it only works if we actually use it. I’m here today to speak for as long as I can hold up to try to rally support from people from both sides to say for goodness sakes, why don’t we use some advice and consent? Why don’t we advise the President that he should come forward and say he will not condone nor does he believe he has the authority to kill noncombatants? As a check on the Executive Branch, this power that’s granted is the right to withhold consent. The Constitution doesn’t provide Senators with the specifics or the criteria of why we withhold consent. That’s left to us to decide. I withhold my consent today because I’m deeply concerned that the executive branch has not provided an answer, that the President refuses to say that he won’t kill noncombatants. The President swore an oath to the Constitution. He said he will protect, defend and preserve the Constitution. He didn’t say I intend to when it’s convenient. He said I will defend the Constitution, and it’s inexcusable for him not to come forward.

There is an author that writes for The Atlantic who has written a lot about the drone program by the name of Connor Friedersdorf. He recounts the tale of al-Awlaki’s son who was killed, and he said when the President’s spokesman was asked about the strike that killed him, the President’s spokesman replied well, he would have been fine if he had had a more responsible father. If that’s our standard, we have sunk to a real low. Cornered by reporters after this, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs attempted to defend the kill list, which is secret, of course. You have to remember, if we’re going to kill noncombatants in America or people we think might someday be combatants, the list will be secret, so you won’t get a chance to protest hey, I’m not that bad. I might have said that one time, but I’m not that bad. All right. I have objected to big government, not all government. I don’t – I’m not fomenting revolution. I was critical at that meeting. I was at a tea party meeting and I was critical of the President, but I’m not a revolutionary. Please don’t kill me.

Should we live in a country where you have to be worried about what you say? Should we live in a country where you have to worry about what you write? What kind of country would that be? Why is there not more moral outrage? Why is there not every senator coming down to say you’re exactly right, let’s go ahead and hold this nomination, and why don’t we hold it until we get more clarification from the President? Connor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic writes that it’s vital for the uninitiated to understand how team Obama misleads when it talks about the drone program. Ask how their kill list can be justified, Gibbs, the President’s spokesman replies, when there are people who are trying to harm us and have pledged to bring terror to these shores, we have taken the fight to them.

But since the kill list itself is secret, there is no way to offer a specific counterexample. It’s one thing to say yeah, these people are going to probably come and attack us, which to tell you the truth is probably not always true. There are people fighting a civil war in Yemen who probably have no conception of ever coming to America. Friedersdorf goes on to say we do know the U.S. drones are targeting people who have never pledged to carry out attacks in the United States, so we’re talking about noncombatants who have never pledged to carry out attacks are being attacked overseas. Think about it, if that’s going to be the standard at home, people who have never really truly been involved with combat against us. Take Pakistan where the CIA kills some people without even knowing their identities. This is more from Friedersdorf. As Obama nears the end of his term, officials said the kill list in Pakistan has slipped to fewer than ten al-Qaida targets, down from as many as two dozen, and yet we’re killing hundreds of people in Pakistan.

There is a quote that I think sort of brings this and makes this very poignant. There is a quote from an ex-CIA Agent, I think it’s Bruce Riedel, who says the drone strike program is sort of like a lawnmower. You can keep mowing them down, but as soon as the lawnmower stops, the grass grows again. Some people have gone one step further and said for every one you kill or maybe for every one you accidentally kill that you didn’t intend to kill, 10 more spring up.

Think about it. If it were your family member and they have been killed and they were innocent or you believe them to be innocent, it’s going to – is it going to make you more or less likely to become involved with attacking the United States?

I have written a couple letters to John Brennan who has been put up for the CIA nomination. It looks like the first letter was sent January 25. So here we are into March and I only got a response when he was threatened. So here’s a guy who the President promotes as being transparent and wanting to give a lot of information to the American people, he won’t respond to a U.S. Senator. How do they – they treat the U.S. Senate with disdain, basically. Won’t even respond to us much less the American people when I asked him these questions. He finally responded only when his nomination was threatened, so when it came to the committee, and it appeared as I had bipartisan support for slowing down his nomination if he didn’t answer his questions, then he answered his questions. It doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that in the future going forward, if he is approved, that he is going to be real forthcoming and real transparent about this. I don’t have a lot of anticipation or belief that we’re going to get more information after this nomination hearing.

Some are now saying, you know, you have gotten your pound of flesh. Let him go and we’ll keep working on this. The problem is once he’s gone, the discussion’s over. Others in my party have been trying to get information about what went horribly wrong in Benghazi and have gotten some of that information, but only by using it as leverage to try to get the President to do what is the honorable thing, and that is to be more transparent with his ways. In the first letter that I sent to Brennan, I asked him the question is it legal to order the killing of American citizens and that you would not be compelled to even give your reasoning, not even specific to the case but any of your reasoning? So finally as these questions came forward, some of the things were leaked out.

One of the most troubling things that came out is when Brennan and the President finally began to talk about the drone strike program, which according to the former press secretary they were to deny that it existed for years, when they finally came out, they told us a couple of things about their interpretation of it. One, that they have no geographic limit to their drone strikes. The second thing is they told us what they thought was imminent. And this is pretty important because a lot of Americans, myself included, believe that if we’re being attacked, you can respond with lethal force, but a lot of Americans think that you have to actually be engaged in that to respond with lethal force, but they told us that the way their lawyers interpret imminent is imminent doesn’t have to mean immediate. Well, only a bunch of lawyers could get together, government lawyers get together and say that imminent is not immediate.

And you have to understand and what we should be asking the President is “is this your standard for America? If you are going to assert that you have the right to kill Americans on American soil, are you going to assert, are you going to assert that your standard is that an imminent threat doesn’t have to be immediate?”

I’m quite concerned when I hear this kind of evasiveness, that sort of nonresponse to questions. We also asked would it not be appropriate to require a judge or a court to review this? See, here’s the real interesting thing: We had a President who ran for office saying your phone shouldn’t n tapped without a warrant. – Shouldn’t be tapped without a warrant. I happen to agree with candidate Obama, but what happened to candidate Obama who wanted to protect your right to privacy of your phone who doesn’t care much about your right not to be killed by a drone without any kind of judicial proceeding? I think we should demand it.

The way things work around here, though, is people kind of say yes, we’ll demand it and maybe later on this year we’ll talk about a bill or talk about getting something. What they should do is just say no more, we’re not going to move forward until we get some justice. We’re not going to let the President, any President, Republican or Democrat, do this. One of the other questions I asked the President was it is paradoxical that the federal government would need to go before a judge to authorize a wiretap on U.S. citizens even overseas but possibly not have any kind of oversight of killing an American here in America. We have asked him how many citizens have been killed. We haven’t gotten an answer to that. They say not many, and hopefully it hasn’t been many, but I think it’s important to know. I think it would be important to know if we’re going to target Americans in America, if that list exists. I think it would be important to know if being close to someone is also justified. You know, just because you – what if you just happen to live in the neighborhood of somebody who is a suspected terrorist. Is it okay because you were close to them? What if you happened to go to dinner with a guy you didn’t know or a woman you didn’t know and the government says they’re a terrorist? Just because you’re having dinner with them and you are a male between the ages of 16 and 50, does that make you a combatant? We also asked the question do you condone the CIA’s practice of counting civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes as militants simply because they were of the same age? Like every other question, no answer. We asked him whether al-Awlaki’s son was a target. No answer. We asked how many people have been targeted. No answer. Part of the problem with this is that we are or Congress in general is sloppy about writing legislation in general. I will give you an example. When Obamacare legislation was written, it’s over 2,000 pages but it leaves up to the secretary of health I think 1,800 times the power to decide at a later date what the law or the rule would be. So since Obamacare of 2,000 pages has been written, there have been now 9,000 pages of regulations. Dodd-frank is kind of the same way. Dodd-Frank was a couple thousand pages. It’s now going to wind up with 8,000 or 9,000 pages of regulations.

We abdicate our responsibility by not really writing legislation. We write shells of legislation that are imprecise and don’t retain the power, and because of that, the executive branch and the bureaucracy, which is essentially the same thing, do whatever they want. This happened also with the use of authorization of force in Afghanistan. This happened over 10 years ago now, 12 years ago. I thought we were going to war against the people who attacked us, and I’m all for that. I would have voted for the war. I would have preferred it to have been a declaration of war.

I think we were united in saying let’s get those people who attacked us on 9/11 and make sure it never happens again. The problem is as this war has drug on, they take that authorization of use of force to mean pretty much anything. And so they have now said that the war has no geographic limitations, so it’s really not a war in Afghanistan, it’s a war in Yemen, Somalia, Mali. It’s a war in unlimited places. Were we a body that cared about our prerogative to declare war, we would take that power back. But I’ll tell you how poor – and this is on both sides of the aisle – how poor is our understanding or belief in retaining that power here? About a year ago, I tried to end the Iraq war. You may say, well, I thought the Iraq war was already over. It is, but we still have an authorization of use of force that says we can go to war in Iraq any time.

And since they think the use of force in Afghanistan means limitless war anywhere, any time in the whole world, for goodness sakes, wouldn’t we try to take back a declaration of war, an authorization of force if the war is over? But here’s the sad part. I actually got a vote on it and I think I got less than 20 votes. You can’t end a war after it’s over up here. And it has repercussions, because these authorizations to use force are used for many other things. So the authorization of force says you can go after al-Qaida or associated terrorists. The problem is, is that when you allow the Executive Branch to sort of determine what is al-Qaida, you’ve got no idea.

Hour 2:

You know, or how much – if there’s an al-Qaida presence there trying to organize and come and attack us. Maybe there is. But maybe there’s also people who are just fighting their local government.

How about Mali? I’m not sure in Mali they’re probably worried more about trying to get the next day’s food than coming over here to attack us. But we have to ask these questions and we have to ask about limitations on force because essentially what we have now is a war without geographic boundaries and we have many on my side who come down here and they say, oh, the battlefield’s here in America.

Be worried. Be alarmed. Alarm bells should go off when people tell you that the battlefield’s in America. Why? Because when the battlefield’s in America, we don’t have due process. What they’re talking about is they want the laws of war. Another way of putting that, they call it the laws of war. Another way to put it is to call it martial law. That’s what they want in the United States when they say the battlefield is here.

One of them, in fact, said if you – if you – if they ask for a lawyer, you tell them to shut up. Well, if that’s the standard we’re going to have in America, I’m – I’m quite concerned that the battlefield would be here and that the Constitution wouldn’t apply. Because, to tell you the truth, if you are shooting at us in Afghanistan, the Constitution doesn’t apply over there. But I certainly want it to apply here. If you’re engaged in combat overseas, you don’t get due process. But when people say, oh, the battlefield’s come to America and the battlefield’s every, where the war is limitless in time and scope, be worried, because your rights will not exist if you call America a battlefield for all time. We’ve asked him whether the strikes are exclusively focused on al-Qaida and what is the definition of being part of al-Qaida.

In 1947, the National Security Act was passed and it said the CIA doesn’t operate in America. Most people, most laypeople know that. The CIA is supposed to be doing surveillance and otherwise outside the U.S. of foreign threats. The FBI works within the United States. They do some of the same thing but they’re different groups. The CIA operating in Iraq or Afghanistan doesn’t get a warrant before they do whatever they do to snoop on our enemies. The FBI in our country does. They operate under different rules, and for a reason. So we don’t want them to operate in the United States.

It’s not that we’re saying the CIA are bad people, we just don’t want them operating with no rules or the rules we allow them to operate with overseas. We don’t want them operating that way in our country. The disappointing thing is that a month ago when I asked John Brennan this question, as his nomination came forward, is that I couldn’t get an answer. He would not answer the question about the CIA operating in the United States. Only after yanking his chain, browbeating him in committee, threatening not to let him out of committee, does he final sale he’s going to obey – finally say he’s going to obey the law. We should be alarmed by that. Alarm bells should go off when we find that what we’re – what is going on here is that it takes that much for him to say he’s going to obey the law.

Now, the President has said, don’t worry because he’s not going to kill you with a drone unless it’s infeasible to catch you. Now, that would – sounds kind of comforting, but I guess if our – if our standard for whether we kill you or not is whether it’s practical or not, that – that – that does bother me a little bit. Just doesn’t sound quite strict enough. Because I’m kind of worried that, you know, maybe there’s a sequester and the President says we can’t have tours of the White House.

Maybe he’s not got enough people to go arrest you. He had policemen by him and he said he was going to lay off the policemen. Of course, he doesn’t have anything to do with the policemen so don’t worry about that. But he had the policemen by him and says he’s going to lay them off. So maybe he’s going to lay the policemen off because he’s going to kill you.

I know that sounds like a slippery slope beyond what we’ve asked for, but if the standard is it’s infeasible to capture you and that’s what you’re hanging your hat on, I would be a little concerned that that might not be enough protection for Americans on American soil. Now, there is a law called posse comitatus. It says the military doesn’t operate on U.S. soil unless there’s a declaration of an insurrection or civil war.

There has to be a procedure that Congress goes through. And we’ve had this law for a long time. And once again, the reason we do it is not because we think our military are bad people. I’m proud of our soldiers, I’m proud of our army, I’m proud of what they do for our country. But they operate under different rules. And it’s a much more dangerous environment they operate under. And it’s different. It’s still dangerous in America, but policemen have a different rules of engagement than your soldiers have. And there’s – there’s more restrictions and restraint on what we do in our country. So that’s why we say the military can’t operate here. So when we asked the President, can you kill Americans on American soil with your drone strikes, which is part of the military, it should be an easy answer. In fact, I hope someone’s calling him now and asking him for an answer. It would save me a lot of time and breath, and my throat’s already dry and I just got started. But if they would ask him for an answer, can the military operate in the United States? Well, no. The law says the military can’t operate in the United States.

It’s on the books and he should simply do the honorable thing and say he will obey the law. It’s simple. But I don’t get why they refuse to answer it – Why they refuse to answer it. It worries me that they refuse to answer the question, because by refusing to answer it, I believe that they believe they have expansive power, unlimited power. The real irony of this is, is that many on the left, Senator Barack Obama included, were very critical of the Bush Administration. They felt like the Bush Administration usurped power. They felt like the Bush Administration argued invalid aggrandizement or grasping for power. John yew was one of the architects of this, basically just saying hey, if I’m going to protect you, I can do whatever the hell I want. Many on the left objected to that. Some of us on the right also objected to this – this usurpation of power by the Republican President. But the thing is, is it – now the shoe’s on the other foot and we’re not seeing any of that. We’re all of a sudden now seeing a President whose worried about wiretaps not at all worried about the legality of killing Americans on American soil with no judicial process. But the – the law of posse comitatus presents this from happening.

It’s very clear. It’s been on the books 150-some-odd years. I would think it would be pretty easy for the President to go ahead and say he will obey the law. We asked Brennan the question on this and we got no answer. The answers that we’ve gotten are almost more disturbing than getting an answer really, to tell you the truth. Because when the President responds that “I haven’t killed any Americans yet at home” and that “I don’t intend to do so but I might,” it’s – it’s incredibly alarming and really goes against his oath of office. He says in his oath of office that I will preserve, I will protect, and I will defend the Constitution. It doesn’t say I intend to or that I might. Can you imagine the furor if people were talking about the second amendment? Can you imagine what conservatives would say if a President said, well, yeah, I kind of like the second amendment and I intend to, when convenient, when it’s feasible, to protect the second amendment? Or what about those who believe in the First Amendment. If the President were to say, I haven’t broken the First Amendment yet, I intend to follow it, but I might break it? Or I intend to follow it when it’s feasible? So I have all these rules – and that’s what the President answered.

When he was at Google campus a couple weeks ago, they asked him the question, can you kill Americans on American soil? And he said, well, the rules will probably be different outside the U.S. Than inside, which basically means yes, he thinks he can kill Americans on American soil but he’s going to have some rules. Don’t worry about it because he will maybe some rules and there will be a process but it won’t be due process. It will be a process that he sets up in secret in the White House, and I – I – I don’t find that acceptable. The only answer really acceptable – you know, we asked a question that could be “yes” or “no.” Can you kill an American on American soil? It’s a yes or no question. They’ve been evasive and they have never really answered the question. But when we asked it, we pretty much knew only one answer was acceptable and that answer’s no. And if you don’t answer it, basically by not answering it, you’re saying yes. I was actually a little bit startled when I finally got the answer, “yes, we can kill Americans on American soil.”

I thought for sure that they would just be evasive to the end and try get their nominee through without opening Pandora’s Box. But they have opened Pandora’s Box and it would be a mistake to ignore it. It would be a mistake for us to ignore the ramifications of what they’ve done. When we separate out police power from judicial power, it’s an important separation. You know, the police can arrest you, they’re allowed to do certain things, but the policeman that comes to your door and puts handcuffs on you doesn’t decide your guilt. Now, sometimes we don’t always think about how important this separation is but it’s incredibly important that those arrests – who arrest you do not – they’re not even really the ones who ultimately accuse you. The court, through the people, accuse you and then you’ve given a trial to determine your guilt.

And it’s complicated. It isn’t always clear who’s innocent and who’s guilty. Judges and juries make mistakes. But at least we have a process, you get appeals most of the time. So we have a significant process going on that has a several hundred year tradition at the least. So what really gets me about the process that the President favors is, it’s sort of – it’s the “trust me” process.

You know, I have no intention of doing bad things, I will do good things, I’m a good person. And I’m not really disputing his motives or not saying he isn’t a good person. But I’m disputing someone who’s naive enough to think that that’s good enough for our republic, that his good intentions are good enough for our republic. It never would have been accepted, it would have been laughed out of the Constitutional Convention. The Founding Fathers would have objected so strenuously that that person probably would never have been elected to office in our country. Someone who doesn’t believe that the rules have to be in place and that we can’t have our rights guaranteed by the intentions of our politicians. Think about it. Congress has about a 10 percent approval rating. Do you think the American people want to base whether they’re going to be killed by a drone on a politician? I certainly don’t. Doesn’t have anything to do with whether he’s a Republican or a Democrat. I would be here today if this were a Republican President.

Because you can’t give that much power to one person. We separated the police power from the adjudication or from the jury power from the decisions on innocence and guilt, it’s separate from the police power purposefully so and with great forethought. Some transform this, and the President’s tried, Brennan has tried to transform this into, oh, well, we need to reserve this power for when planes are attacking the Twin Towers. Well, that’s not what we’re talking about, Mr. President, and I think you misunderstand or you purposely misunderstand or you purposely obfuscate or you purposely mislead. No one is questioning whether the U.S. can repel an attack. No one is questioning whether your local police can repel an attack. Anybody involved in lethal force, the legal doctrine in our country and has been historically, has always been that the government can repel lethal attacks. The problem is, is that the drone strike program is often not about combatants. It is about people who may or may not be conspiring but they’re not in combat.

They’re in a car, they’re in their house, they’re in a restaurant, they’re in a cafe. If we’re going to bring that standard to America, what I’m doing down here today is asking the President to be ex– is asking the President to be explicit. If you’re going to have the standard that you’re going to kill noncombatants in America, come forward and please say it clearly so we know what we’re up against. If you’re not going to do it, come up with the easy answer, is I’m not going to kill noncombatants. That would have been easy for him to say. And he could have said, well, the military at some point in time, you know, has to repel invasions.

We know that, Mr. President, we’re not questioning that. But we are questioning a drone strike program that – you know, we don’t know, because nobody will tell us the numbers – the numbers are secret – one Senator said in a public meeting the other day, 4,700 people have been killed overseas. If I had to venture a guess, a significant amount of them weren’t involved in shooting at American soldiers. But if they were, by all means, kill them. If we’re fighting a war in Afghanistan, which we have been, and if there are soldiers around the bend that are a threat to our soldiers, there is no due process at that point. But that’s not what we’re arguing about. We’re arguing about targeted strikes of people not involved in combat. That’s my concern. My co

When seven distance runners from Anaheim High waiting to cross a street near campus were struck by a car on Wednesday driven by a suspected drunk driver, it once again brought into focus the dangers coaches and athletes must deal with while training on the streets of Southern California.

For Hernan Herrera, the incident brought back memories to his senior year at Monroe High as a member of the cross-country team in 2009. He was struck by a car in North Hills that ran a red light. He said he was hospitalized for weeks with knee and pelvic injuries that required surgery and left him sidelined for months.

Herrera was 17. Now he’s the dean of students and wrestling coach at Monroe. He doesn’t see changing the practice routine used by most high schools running in the neighborhood to fulfill weekly requirements of 45 to 60 miles of training to prepare for competitions.

“Everyone understands accidents happen and there’s no one to blame other than the person behind the wheel,” Herrera said.

Yes, schools could transport students to quieter streets or hilly areas with running trails, but that would lead to additional costs and there are many schools far away from such areas.

Coaches have been assigning adults to supervise street workouts for years. Monroe coach Leo Hernandez said he got his position in 1999 because he could run with his athletes to keep watch over them.

Maybe there needs to be additional meetings and reminders for those running on sidewalks or crossing streets to be cautious and to reinforce following traffic rules while being on the lookout for distracted drivers.

Herrera said athletes must get in their workouts beyond running around the school track to be able to compete well in cross-country or distance races in track and field.

“I don’t think there’s anything to do to mitigate the situation,” he said.

Dec. 11 (UPI) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a wrongfully deported Salvadoran immigrant, was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention Thursday following a federal judge’s order.

Garcia is facing U.S. charges by the Trump administration. His attorneys confirmed that he had been released by Thursday afternoon.

Immigration Customs Enforcement officials sought to deport Abrego Garcia to an African nation where he has no connection, despite his ongoing protection from removal to El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said that the Trump administration lacked the legal authority to continue holding Abrego Garcia in an ICE detention facility.

“Because Abrego Garcia has been held in ICE detention to effectuate third-country removal absent a lawful removal order, his requested relief is proper,” according to U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.

The judge mandated his “immediate” release.

“Separately, respondents’ conduct over the past months belie that his detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal, lending further support that Abrego Garcia should be held no longer,” Xinis added.

The order cleared ICE to release Abrego Garcia, but he still must comply with pretrial conditions in an ongoing human smuggling case.

“This is naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote on social media.

DHS claimed the order “lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national who illegally entered the U.S. almost 15 years ago and drew nationwide attention after his wrongful March deportation to El Salvador’s notorious megaprison despite a protective order.

He has accused the White House of vindictive prosecution.

It ignited controversy amid U.S. President Donald Trump‘s hardline immigration enforcement push.

The administration labeled him an MS-13 gang member, which he has denied.

“The history of Abrego Garcia’s case is as well known as it is extraordinary,” said Xinis.

With a standing order that prevents deportation to El Salvador, Trump administration officials pivoted to proposing an African destination.

“This evidently remained an inconvenient truth for respondents,” Xinis wrote.

“But more to the point, respondents’ persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego Garcia to African countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation to the court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” the judge wrote.

Twenty states had challenged the end of the programme, meant to make localities more resilient to natural disasters.

A federal judge has said the administration of United States President Donald Trump acted unlawfully in ending a programme aimed at helping communities become more resilient to natural disasters.

The Trump administration had targeted the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) programme as part of a wider effort to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

But on Thursday, US District Judge Richard Stearns ruled that the administration lacked the authority to end the grant programme. The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by 20 states, the majority led by Democrats.

Stearns said the administration’s action amounted to an “unlawful executive encroachment on the prerogative of Congress to appropriate funds for a specific and compelling purpose”.

“The BRIC program is designed to protect against natural disasters and save lives,” Stearns wrote, adding that the “imminence of disasters is not deterred by bureaucratic obstruction”.

Stearns had previously blocked FEMA from diverting more than $4bn allocated to BRIC to other purposes.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell was among the plaintiffs praising the decision.

“Today’s court order will undoubtedly save lives by preventing the federal government from terminating funding that helps communities prepare for and mitigate the impacts of natural disasters,” she said in a statement.

BRIC is the largest resiliency programme offered by FEMA, designed to reduce disaster-related risks and bolster efforts to recover quickly.

The programme is emblematic of efforts under FEMA to take preventive measures to prepare for natural disasters, as climate change fuels more extreme weather across the country.

According to the lawsuit, FEMA approved about $4.5bn in grants for nearly 2,000 projects, primarily in coastal states, over the last four years.

Upon taking office for his second term, Trump initially pledged to do away with FEMA, with the agency sitting at the crossroads of the president’s climate change denialism and his pledge to end federal waste.

Trump has since softened on his position amid pushback from both Republican and Democratic state lawmakers. He has said he plans to reform the agency instead.

In November, acting FEMA head David Richardson stepped down from his post. That came amid internal pushback over Richardson’s lack of experience and cuts to the agency.

In a letter in August, nearly 200 FEMA staffers warned the cuts risked compounding future disasters to a devastating degree.

Upon taking on the role in May, Richardson threatened he would “run right over” anyone who resisted changes to the agency.