Trump dismissed a question about the CIA’s finding that Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing of a journalist, saying the writer was someone “a lot of people didn’t like.”

Trump Calls Saudi Prince ‘Respected Man’ as Serial Human Rights Abuser Ups US Investment Promise to $1 Trillion

Julia Conley for Common Dreams

A US-based journalist and human rights defender was dismissed as someone “a lot of people didn’t like,” and the Saudi crown prince who US intelligence experts found had likely ordered the writer’s killing was applauded as “one of the most respected people in the world.”

That was Donald Trump’s assessment of Washington Post columnist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated in 2018, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday at a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House.

Trump and bin Salman met to discuss a range of topics, from a US sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia to agreements on minerals and artificial intelligence.

Bin Salman also told the president he would increase Saudi investment in the US from $600 billion to $1 trillion.

The BBC reported that Trump “bask[ed]” in the $1 trillion pledge, telling the prince it was an “honor” to be his friend and saying the US “very much appreciate[s]” the investment.

“We’re doing numbers no one has ever done,” Trump said.

ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked Trump about his family’s business interests in Saudi Arabia and questioned whether the bilateral deals presented a conflict of interest, before pointedly asking bin Salman about the Central Intelligence Agency’s finding in 2021 that the prince had likely personally ordered the killing of Khashoggi.

“Your royal highness, the US intelligence concluded that you ordered the brutal murder of a journalist,” said Bruce. “Why should Americans trust you?”

Trump was visibly angered by the question and demanded to know what outlet Bruce was with before telling her ABC was “fake news” and calling her comment “horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question.”

“He knew nothing about it,” said the president, contradicting the government’s findings.

Khashoggi responded to Bruce, saying, “It’s really painful to hear anyone losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way.”

Trump, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, will “overlook the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to pad his pockets and boost the bottom line of the military industrial complex.”

Nice ICE

November 22: Holiday sale

Senator Whitehouse reports on his trip to the COP30 climate conference

Trump tried to block him from going

Steve Ahlquist

“Interestingly, we received no support whatsoever from the State Department, which is a first,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) at the start of his online press conference about his trip to Belém, Brazil, for COP30 as the sole representative of the United States Federal Government. “I’ve done a lot of codels [congressional delegations] and the State Department has automatically provided logistical support. [This time,] they wouldn’t even help get our badges. We had to do that through a private organization [the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) Institute]. It was an interesting response from the Trump Administration, the first time.”

The United Nations’ 30th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP30) gathers heads of state, lawmakers, private sector leaders, environmental champions, and civil society leaders from around the world for what is advertised as the largest and most important venue for world governments to gather to solve the global climate crisis.

While at COP30, Senator Whitehouse participated in discussions on the future of offshore wind, clean shipping, and non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. He delivered a keynote at an SEEC Institute panel discussion with other global elected officials on the implementation of climate policies. Over the weekend, the Senator also participated in discussions on methane regulations, net-zero policy implementation, and the impacts of climate change on the world’s oceans, meeting with elected officials, international climate leaders, and business leaders.

“I went there to deliver four messages,” said Senator Whitehouse to reporters.

Conflicting Advice on Covid Shots Likely To Ding Already Low Vaccine Rates

Don't listen to Bobby Jr. - get your COVID shot because it works

Phillip Reese

More than three-quarters of American adults didn’t get a covid shot last season, a figure that health care experts warn could rise this year amid new U.S. government recommendations.

The covid vaccine was initially popular. About 75% of Americans had received at least one dose of the first versions of the vaccine by early 2022, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows. 

But only about 23% of American adults got a covid shot during the 2024-25 virus season, well below the 47% of American adults who got a flu shot. The vaccination rates for flu, measles, and tetanus are also going down.

Yet covid remains a serious, potentially deadly health risk, listed as the primary cause of death on roughly 31,400 death certificates last year. By comparison, flu killed about 6,500 people and pneumonia, a common complication of the flu, killed an additional 41,600, CDC data shows.

Trump Regime Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation

Trump's expanded campaign to protect pedophile rights

by Robert Faturechi and Avi Asher-Schapiro for ProPublica

Online influencer Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist who has millions of young male followers, was facing allegations of sex trafficking women in three countries when he and his brother left their home in Romania to visit the United States.

“The Tates will be free, Trump is the president. The good old days are back,” Tate posted on X before the trip in February — one of many times he has sung the president’s praises to his fans.

But when the Tate brothers arrived by private plane in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, they immediately found themselves in the crosshairs of law enforcement once more, as Customs and Border Protection officials seized their electronic devices.

This time, they had a powerful ally come to their aid. Behind the scenes, the White House intervened on their behalf.

Interviews and records reviewed by ProPublica show a White House official told senior Department of Homeland Security officials to return the devices to the brothers several days after they were seized. The official who delivered the message, Paul Ingrassia, is a lawyer who previously represented the Tate brothers before joining the White House, where he was working as its DHS liaison.

In his written request, a copy of which was reviewed by ProPublica, Ingrassia chided authorities for taking the action, saying the seizure of the Tates’ devices was not a good use of time or resources. The request to return the electronics to the Tates, he emphasized, was coming from the White House.

The incident is the latest in a string of law enforcement matters where the Trump White House has inserted itself to help friends and target foes. Since entering office for a second term, Trump has urged the Justice Department to go after elected officials who investigated him and his businesses, and he pardoned a string of political allies. 

Andrew Tate is one of the most prominent members of the so-called manosphere, a collection of influencers, podcasters and content creators who helped deliver young male voters to Trump. And news of the White House intervention on behalf of the accused sex traffickers comes as Trump is under fire over his ties to notorious child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his administration’s recent efforts to stop the public release of the so-called Epstein files.

How Trump Has Exploited Pardons and Clemency to Reward Allies and Supporters

With Trump, everything is for sale (or barter)

By Jeremy Kohler for ProPublica

The beneficiaries of Donald Trump’s mercy in his second term have mostly been people with access to the president or his inner circle. Those who have followed the rules set out by the Department of Justice, meanwhile, are still waiting.

Trump has granted clemency to allies, donors and culture-war figures — as well as felons who, like him, were convicted of financial wrongdoing. On Friday, he granted pardons to 77 people, including Rudy Giuliani and other allies tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, though they are mostly symbolic because federal pardons do not apply to ongoing or possible state prosecutions, which many of the grantees face. 

Those clemencies came on top of the commutation awarded last month to George Santos, the disgraced former New York congressman found guilty of defrauding donors and lying to the House of Representatives. Trump cut short Santos’ seven-year sentence after less than three months.

For those who followed the standard protocol set out by the Department of Justice, the sense is growing that the process no longer matters; they’ve watched the public database of applicants swell with thousands of pending cases, while Trump grants pardons to people who never entered the system at all.

In just over nine months back in office, roughly 10,000 people have filed petitions for pardons or commutations, about two-thirds the total of the 14,867 applications submitted during the entire Biden presidency.

Under Justice Department standards and requirements, people seeking pardons generally must wait five years after their release from incarceration, demonstrate good conduct and remorse, and file petitions through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. But Trump’s actions in his second term show he has largely abandoned that process.

Aboard Starship Trump

Oink

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts

Grifting gets some pretty bizarre results

by Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski for ProPublica

ICE Barbie shooting a taxpayer-paid political ad at
Mount Rushmore

On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: “Break our laws, we’ll punish you.” 

Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration. Her agency invoked the “national emergency” at the border as it awarded contracts for the campaign, bypassing the normal competitive bidding process designed to prevent waste and corruption.

The Department of Homeland Security has kept at least one beneficiary of the nine-figure ad deal a secret, records and interviews show: a Republican consulting firm with long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The company running the Mount Rushmore shoot, called the Strategy Group, does not appear on public documents about the contract. The main recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware company, which was created days before the deal was finalized.

No firm has closer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Strategy Group. It played a central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her top adviser at DHS, has worked extensively with the firm. And the company’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin.

The Strategy Group’s ad work is the first known example of money flowing from Noem’s agency to businesses controlled by her allies and friends.

Homeland Security wants your driver’s license data for citizenship checks

Trump's latest push to invade your privacy

By Jen Fifield and Zach Despart for ProPublica

Co-published with The Texas Tribune

The Department of Homeland Security says it intends to add state driver’s license information to a swiftly expanding federal system envisioned as a one-stop shop for checking citizenship.

The plan, outlined in a public notice posted on October 30, is the latest step in an unprecedented Trump administration initiative to pool confidential data from varied sources that it claims will help identify noncitizens on voter rolls, tighten immigration enforcement and expose public benefit fraud.

According to emails obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, DHS approached Texas officials in June about a pilot program to add the state’s driver license data, but it’s not clear if the state participated.

Earlier this year, DHS added millions of Americans’ Social Security data to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, system, allowing officials to use the tool to conduct bulk searches of voter rolls for the first time. According to the document filed Thursday, SAVE also recently expanded to include passport and visa information.

Incorporating driver’s license information would allow election officials whose rolls don’t include voters’ Social Security numbers to conduct bulk searches by driver’s license number. Ultimately, the system would link these two crucial identifiers for the purpose of citizenship checks, said Michael Morse, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It is the key that unlocks everything,” Morse said.

ICE’s ‘Frightening’ Facial Recognition App is Scanning US Citizens Without Their Consent

They can scan and store your face but you can't even see theirs

Stephen Prager for Common Dreams

Immigration agents are using facial recognition software as “definitive” evidence to determine immigration status and is collecting data from US citizens without their consent. In some cases, agents may detain US citizens, including ones who can provide their birth certificates, if the app says they are in the country illegally.

These are a few of the findings from a series of articles published this past week by 404 Media, which has obtained documents and video evidence showing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents are using a smartphone app in the field during immigration stops, scanning the faces of people on the street to verify their citizenship.

The report found that agents frequently conduct stops that “seem to have little justification beyond the color of someone’s skin... then look up more information on that person, including their identity and potentially their immigration status.”

While it is not clear what application the agencies are using, 404 previously reported that ICE is using an app called Mobile Fortify that allows ICE to simply point a camera at a person on the street. The photos are then compared with a bank of more than 200 million images and dozens of government databases to determine info about the person, including their name, date of birth, nationality, and information about their immigration status.

What a malignant narcissist might do if all is lost to them

Trump's deeper descent into nihilism

By Rich Snowdon

Over the weekend, I was re-reading the history of Hitler's last days.

I found myself paying special attention to March 19, 1945. 

When he understood the war was lost, instead of taking responsibility for the mass destruction and death he'd caused, instead of surrendering to end the war, Hitler decided that the German people, being losers…

Did not deserve to live.

In his Gotterdammerung frame of mind, in his nihilistic despair, he issued what was called "The Nero Decree." 

He commanded that the infrastructure of Germany be destroyed—water systems, electrical grids, railways, food supplies, all of it. Scorched earth. He said it was to prevent the enemy from using any of those things.

But really...

He was punishing his Germans.

Because they had failed...

     Had failed him.

And if his Decree had been carried out, millions of Germans would have died. But Albert Speer and others flew around the country countermanding the order.

This morning as I watched the news, I asked myself: Why is Trump so…

Hellbent on destruction?

And Hitler's Decree came to mind.

All his life, Trump has been acting out, massively. He's always been desperate for genuine love, but he's never known how to get it. So he sucks attention instead. From anybody and everybody. From the whole world. He keeps hoping this will fill him up, which it doesn't and can't.

And now here he is, the most powerful man in the most powerful nation—for a second time!

What more could he possibly do? But it's not enough. It's not working. It's not saving him from his childhood pain...

So checkmate.

No moves left to make, no hope left, as more and more Americans turn against him. And why would this not trigger rage? A helpless, desperate nihilistic rage.

The way I see it this morning, Trump wants to…

Make America feel his pain.

He wants us to pay a price for failing him. An existential price.

Look at what he's doing. It's all destruction...

He's taking healthcare away from millions.

He's taking food assistance away from millions.

He's destroyed trade relationships that millions of Americans depend on.

He's deporting immigrants who key industries depend on and can't do without.

He's wrecking the institutions we count on.

He's destroying the rule of law.

He’s doing his damnedest to put an end to our country.

There's no greatness here, only a surrender to death, as he delivers his final message...

     "To hell with you, America."

EDITOR'S NOTE: More needs to be said about Trump's end game. As he continues to lose his grip and descend into madness, his reactions and actions have become bizarre and extreme. He has also become more aware of his own mortality speaking for the first time recently about whether he will "go to heaven" or the other place.

Psychiatrists deem him to be a malignant narcissist - he checks just about every box - and that makes him especially dangerous.  As such, it is impossible for him to accept responsibility for any failure or error. It's always someone else's fault and generally he will find some way to punish them.

I would add to Rich Snowdon's list Trump's fixation on nuclear weapons. Even in his first term as well as his second, Trump has blathered on about who deserves to be nuked, a list that has included Iran, China, North Korea, though not Russia. He has bombed Iran and Yemen and is preparing an invasion of Venezuela. 

He has threatened military action against Canada, Mexico, Panama, Greenland, Gaza in addition to his worldwide trade war. He has threatened to re-invade Afghanistan to reclaim Bagram Air Base, apparently not knowing that Bagram was actually built by the Soviets during their failed war with Afghanistan.

At a certain point, as Snowdon points out, none of this will feed his ego enough. His polls drop. The courts rule against him. Millions march in the street against him. November 4 was a humiliation for him. And he can see death's door ahead of him.

Of course, he believes none of this is his fault - it's ours. At what point will he decide it's time to make us pay the ultimate price?

- Will Collette

American justice

I wonder if Epstein meant it as a compliment or something else?