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In 2023, court ruled in favor of 16 plaintiffs that officials violated their constitutional right by promoting fossil fuels

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SECRETARY OF WAR

1000 DEFENSE PENTAGON

WASHINGTON, DC 20301-1000

DEC - 9 2025

MEMORANDUM FOR ALL DEPARTMENT OF WAR PERSONNEL

SUBJECT: Harness Artificial Intelligence Now with GenAl

I am pleased to introduce GenAl.mil, a secure generative artificial intelligence (Al) platform for every member of the Department of War. It is live today and available on the desktops of all military personnel, civilians, and contractors. With this launch we are taking a giant step toward mass Al adoption across the Department. This tool marks the beginning of a new era where every member of our workforce can be more efficient and impactful.

The first GenAl platform capability is Google Gemini, a frontier Al application that can help you write documents, ask questions, conduct deep research, format content, and unlock new possibilities across your daily workflows. Gemini is the first of several enterprise Al applications that will be rolled out on the GenAI platform. It is secure, certified up to Impact Level 5 (ILS), and is fully authorized to handle CUI.

Victory belongs to those who embrace real innovation. Rather than being reliant on the dusty, antiquated systems of a bygone era, we are thinking ahead here in the Department of War. GenAl.mil is part of this monumental transformation. It removes wasted time and focuses more of our energy into decisive results for the warfighter.

Access is straightforward. Navigate to GenAl.mil and you will be able to access the tool with your CAC. The platform is certified secure for operational use on NIPR.

I expect every member of the Department to log in, learn it, and incorporate it into your workflows immediately. Al should be in your battle rhythm every single day.

It should be your teammate. By mastering this tool, we will outpace our adversaries. The power is now in your hands.

“Catastrophic” flooding is expected to hit parts of Skagit, Snohomish and King counties Thursday as rivers swell and the region is drenched in rain.

Authorities have ordered evacuation for parts of Orting in Pierce County, parts of Skagit County, including Mount Vernon, and Ebey Island east of Everett. An estimated 100,000 Washingtonians could face evacuation orders as floodwaters continue to rise, Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office said Wednesday afternoon.

Ferguson already declared a state of emergency, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she’s working to get federal assistance for those impacted.

In Grays Harbor County, a nearly century old dam in Lake Sylvia State Park is showing signs of stress. Although it hasn’t failed yet, it could get worse if these weather conditions continue.

The Carbon River near Fairfax; Cedar River near Renton; Puyallup River near Orting; Elwha River near Port Angeles; Snohomish River at Snohomish; Stillaguamish River at Arlington; and the Skagit River at Concrete and Mount Vernon were all expected to either swell above their record height or come within inches of the record.

The Skagit is expected to rise aggressively until a peak around 4 a.m. Thursday in the Concrete area.

Archive link

More articles about the flooding:

• Mount Vernon braces for potentially historic flood - Seattle Times [archive link]
• Floods may force 100K to evacuate near Skagit, Snohomish, other WA rivers - Seattle Times [archive link]
• ‘Catastrophic’ flooding expected in King, Snohomish, Skagit counties - Seattle Times [archive link]
• Governor Ferguson declares statewide emergency responding to major flooding - The Office of the Governor of Washington State [archive link]
• ‘Historic’ flooding prompts WA governor to declare emergency [archive link]
• Pacific Northwest under flood alerts as atmospheric river brings heavy rain - NBC News [archive link]
• Tens of thousands in Washington could face evacuations as rain continues to pound the region - AP News [archive link]

Map:

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that U.S. forces had seized a “very large” oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a major move against the South American country.

“As you probably know, we have just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized actually,” Trump said at an event at the White House.

The White House did not provide additional details about the vessel. A person familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive seizure, said the ship was en route to Cuba. The oil, the person said, would be sold by state firm Cubametales to Asian energy brokers.

https://archive.ph/sgOx3

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/129025

Minneapolis, MN – On December 8, despite subzero temperatures and snow, 300 people gathered at Mayday Plaza for a rally in solidarity with the Somali and Afghan communities in Minneapolis. The event was organized by the Free Palestine Coalition, with a wide range of grass roots organizations participating in the event.

The event was organized in response to the racist rhetoric that has been directed at the Somali community from the Trump administration. While ICE has been active in Minnesota since at least June of this year, the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to direct ICE agents to also focus on detaining members of the Somali community. The Twin Cities has the largest concentration of Somalis in the United States.

“It’s been an incredibly emotionally taxing time,” said Malika Dahir, one of the event organizers. “We are a small community in a large landscape of the United States and in Minnesota quietly living our lives, and now we’re on a national stage getting national exposure being identified and targeted based on how you look. I’m also getting reports from our community members of people who just look Somali, whether they’re Ethiopian or Kenyan – getting picked up and targeted.”

The event happened less than 12 hours after a mosque in Prior Lake caught fire, although the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Montana Hirsch, an organizer with the MN Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) stated, “We did have a recent win – Jacob Frey made an executive order last week that said ICE cannot use public parking lots or ramps to stage raids! This is not Frey doing this out of the goodness of his own heart. This was won after MIRAC and other immigrant rights groups and all of us fought for this. We sat in Frey’s office, got thousands of petition signatures and demanded this! This is a win that only happened because we fought for it!”

Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said, “We have heard multiple – and it’s been reported by local channels as well – of incidents of sexual assault, incidents of police brutality that has been committed by ICE through this operation. We are learning of family separation of children, of U.S. lawful residents. We believe this is the tactic of the ICE operation.”

Protesters expressed commitment to continue to protest if these attacks continue.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #ImmigrantRights #Somali #ICE #Afghan #Trump #MIRAC

From Fight Back! News via this RSS feed

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6989633

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12561

A little-reported provision of the latest military spending bill would direct the US to create a plan to fill the "gaps" for Israel whenever other nations cut off arms shipments in response to its acts of genocide in Gaza.

As Prem Thakker reported Monday for Zeteo, the measure is "buried" more than 1,000 pages into the more than 3,000-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is considered by lawmakers to be “must-pass" legislation and contains a record $901 billion in total spending.

Republicans are shepherding the bill through the US House of Representatives, where—as is the case with most NDAAs—it is expected to pass on Wednesday with Democratic support, even as some conservative budget hardliners refuse to back it, primarily over its $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine.

— (@)

Since the genocide began following Hamas' attack on October 7, 2023, the US has provided more than $21.7 billion to Israel, including hundreds of millions that have been supplied through NDAAs.

The new NDAA includes at least another $650 million to Israel, an increase of $45 million from the previous one, even though this is the first such bill to be introduced since the "ceasefire" that went into effect in October. This aid from the Pentagon comes on top of the $3.3 billion already provided through the State Department budget.

But this NDAA also contains an unprecedented measure. It calls for the “continual assessment of [the] impact of international state arms embargoes on Israel and actions to address defense capability gaps."

The NDAA directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to assess “the scope, nature, and impact on Israel’s defense capabilities of current and emerging arms embargoes, sanctions, restrictions, or limitations imposed by foreign countries or by international organizations,” and “the resulting gaps or vulnerabilities in Israel’s security posture.”

As Drop Site News explains, "this means the US would explicitly use federal law to step in and supply weapons to Israel whenever other countries cut off arms to halt Israel’s ongoing violations across the region."

"The point of this assistance, to be clear, is to make up for any identified insufficiencies Israel may have due to other countries' embargoing it as a result of its ongoing genocide in Palestine," Thakker wrote.

A similar provision appeared in a September version of the NDAA, which the House Armed Services Committee praised because it supposedly “combats antisemitism"—explicitly conflating a bias against Jewish people with weapons embargoes that countries have imposed to stop Israel from continuing its routine, documented human rights violations in Gaza.

Among the nations that have cut off weapons sales to Israel are Japan, Canada, France, Italy, and Spain. Meanwhile, other major backers, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, have imposed partial freezes on certain weaponry.

— (@)

While official estimates from the Gaza Ministry of Health place the number of dead from Israel's military campaign at over 70,000, with more than 170,000 wounded, an independent assessment last month from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany and the Center for Demographic Studies in Spain found that the death toll “likely exceeds 100,000." This finding mirrored several other studies that have projected the true death toll to be much higher than what official estimates show.

Embargoes against Israel have been called for by a group of experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council, including Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, numerous human rights organizations, including the leading Israeli group B’Tselem, have said Israel’s campaign in Gaza has amounted to genocide.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6991710

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12607

An official U.S. military social media account on Monday shared a photo collage that included a symbol long affiliated with extremist groups — and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

In a post on X trumpeting the deployment of troops to the Caribbean, U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, shared an image that prominently displayed a so-called Jerusalem cross on the helmet of a masked commando.

The Jerusalem cross, also dubbed the “Crusader cross” for its roots in Medieval Christians’ holy wars in the Middle East, is not inherently a symbol of extremism. It has, however, become popular on the right to symbolize the march of Christian civilization, with anti-Muslim roots that made it into something of a logo for the U.S. war on terror.

Tattoos of the cross, a squared-off symbol with a pattern of repeating crosses, have appeared on the bodies of people ranging from mercenaries hired by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to Hegseth himself.

Now, the symbol has reared its head again to advertise President Donald Trump’s military buildup against Venezuela — an overwhelmingly Catholic country — and boat strikes in the Caribbean.

U.S. military forces are deployed to the #SOUTHCOM area of responsibility in support of #OpSouthernSpear, @DeptofWar-directed operations, and @POTUS' priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland. pic.twitter.com/vLvg9fQ5Lx

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 8, 2025

“As with all things Trump, it’s a continuation, with some escalation, and then a transformation into spectacle,” said Yale University historian Greg Grandin, whose work focuses on U.S. empire in Latin America.

The social media post came amid rising controversy over a series of strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, dubbed Operation Southern Spear.

[

Read Our Complete Coverage

License to Kill ---------------](https://theintercept.com/series/license-to-kill/)

Hegseth is alleged to have ordered a so-called “double-tap” strike, a follow-up attack against a debilitated boat that killed survivors clinging to the wreckage for around 45 minutes. The U.S. has carried out 22 strikes since the campaign began in September, killing a total of 87 people.

The Pentagon’s press office declined to comment on the use of the Jerusalem cross, referring questions to SOUTHCOM. But in a reply to the X post on Monday, Hegseth’s deputy press secretary Joel Valdez signaled his approval with emojis of a salute and the American flag. In a statement to the Intercept, SOUTHCOM spokesperson Steven McLoud denied that the post implied any religious or far-right message.

“The graphic you’re referring to was an illustration of service members in a ready posture during Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR,” McLoud told The Intercept. “There is no other communication intent for this image.”

The original image of the masked service member appears to have come from an album published online by the Pentagon that depicts a training exercise by Marines aboard the USS Iwo Jima in the Caribbean Sea in October. The photo depicting the cross, however, was removed from the album after commentators on social media pointed out its origins.

Amanda Saunders, a spokesperson for the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, the Pentagon-run photo agency, said she was unable to comment directly but forwarded the request to the Marine unit involved in the exercise.

“Content on DVIDS is published and archived directly by the registered units,” she said, “so we don’t have control over what is posted or removed, nor are we able to comment on those decisions.”

Hegseth and the Cross

The Jerusalem cross’s popularity on the right has surged in part thanks to featuring in various media, including the 2005 Ridley Scott film “Kingdom of Heaven” and video games, according to Matthew Gabriele, a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech and a scholar of Crusader iconography.

“It supports the rhetoric of ‘defense of homeland.’”

“It supports the rhetoric of ‘defense of homeland,’” Gabriele told The Intercept, “because the crusaders, in the right’s understanding, were waging a defensive war against enemies trying to invade Christian lands.”

The symbol’s position of prominence in official military communications is just the latest example of a trollish extremism by the Trump administration’s press teams, which have made a point of reveling in the cruelty wrought on its perceived enemies at home and abroad, or “owning the libs.”

[

Related

Team Leader at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites Belongs to Anti-“Jihad” Motorcycle Club, Has Crusader Tattoos](https://theintercept.com/2025/08/06/gaza-aid-security-contractor-mulford-ghf/)

Monday’s post may also be intended as Hegseth putting his thumb in the eye of the Pentagon’s old guard. Hegseth’s embrace of the symbol — in the form of a gawdy chest tattoo — once stymied, however temporarily, his ambitions in the military.

Folling the January 6 insurrection, according to Hegseth and reporting by the Washington Post, Hegseth was ordered to stand down rather than deploy with his National Guard unit ahead of the 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden. The decision to treat Hegseth as a possible “insider threat” came after a someone flagged a photo of a shirtless Hegseth to military brass, according to the Washington Post.

“I joined the Army in 2001 because I wanted to serve my country. Extremists attacked us on 9/11, and we went to war,” Hegseth wrote “The War on Warriors,” his 2024 memoir. “Twenty years later, I was deemed an ‘extremist’ by that very same Army.”

Hegseth was hardly chastened by the episode and has since gotten more tattoos with more overt anti-Muslim resonance, including the Arabic word word for “infidel,” which appeared on his bicep sometime in the past several years. It’s accompanied by another bicep tattoo of the Latin words “Deus vult,” or “God wills it,” yet another slogan associated with the Crusades and repurposed by extremist groups.

The use of the image to advertise aggressive posturing in a majority-Christian region like Latin America may seem odd at first glance. In the context of renewed U.S. focus on Latin America, however, it’s a potent symbol of the move of military action from the Middle East to the Western Hemisphere.

“They’re globalizing the Monroe Doctrine.”

The post comes on the heels of the release of the Trump’s National Security Strategy, a 33-page document outlining the administration’s foreign-policy priorities that explicitly compared Trump’s stance to the Monroe Doctrine, the turn-of-the-century policy of U.S. dominance in Latin America in opposition to colonialism by other foreign powers. Grandin, the Yale historian, described the document as a “vision of global dominance” based on a model of great-powers competition that can lead to immense instability.

“They’re globalizing the Monroe Doctrine,” Grandin said. “I’m no fan of the hypocrisy and arrogance of the old liberal international order, but there’s something to be said for starting from a first principle of shared interests, which does keep great conflict at bay to some degree.”

The post Official Propaganda for Caribbean Military Buildup Includes “Crusader Cross” appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6991705

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12605

The revelation that Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, is playing a key role in Paramount Skydance's hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery underscores the extent to which the current administration's open corruption "is fundamentally distorting economic and governmental policymaking at the direct expense of the interests of the American people," a watchdog group said Tuesday.

Kushner's private equity firm, Affinity Partner, is listed in a regulatory filing as one of the organizations financing Paramount's $108 billion bid for Warner Bros., which owns CNN. Ethics experts say Kushner's involvement represents another glaring conflict of interest on top of preexisting concerns about the bid, stemming from Trump's relationship with Paramount CEO David Ellison and his billionaire father, GOP megadonor Larry Ellison.

"America is devolving into a caricature of crony capitalism," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Tuesday. "Factions aiming to shrink media competition are fighting over who can show the greatest fealty to Donald Trump. Paramount seems to have won the prize, bringing in presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner—whose investment vehicle is flush with Saudi funds, deposited only because of his personal relationship with Donald Trump—as a partner."

"A working antitrust policy would block the merger of Warner Bros. Discovery with one of the existing media goliaths. It would never be influenced by personal connections to the president," Weissman added. "This case underscores that the corruption pervading the Trump administration isn’t just about making Trump and his family and hangers-on ever richer. That corruption is fundamentally distorting economic and governmental policy making, at the direct expense of the interests of the American people.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that "the Warner Bros. merger was already suspect, but now Trump’s family is getting in on the act."

"Paramount already had deep ties to the White House," he added, "now Trump's family will directly profit if they win."

Asked Monday about Kushner's financing role, Trump said he has "never spoken to him about it."

Paramount, which the Trump administration reportedly favored to take over Warner Bros., announced its bid for the company days after the streaming behemoth Netflix and Warner Bros. leadership reached an $83 billion acquisition deal. The president immediately criticized the Netflix agreement and pledged to intervene in the federal review process.

"The blurred line between running the government and the family's business interests is expanding each day," Scott Amey, general counsel with the Project On Government Oversight, told Reuters.

Antitrust experts and advocates have argued that both of the proposed mergers are likely illegal and should be blocked.

Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said Monday that either merger "would further deepen the media consolidation crisis that is eroding our creative economy and freedom of expression."

"Paramount specifically would be well-positioned to manipulate the news to please the president, which David Ellison made clear it intends to do in an interview earlier today," said Stoller. "There is a reason that policymakers and workers in Hollywood have come out against each iteration of this deal. Rather than allowing further consolidation in the industry, policymakers must reregulate the market with prohibitions on vertical integration.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

A prominent genocide prevention group has termed Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks on Israel’s war on Gaza as “outright genocide denial”, in a statement released on Tuesday.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security said Clinton had misdiagnosed Israel’s battered reputation among Americans during her talk at the Israel Hayom Summit on 2 December.

In her talk, the former US first lady and secretary of state said Israel “has the worst PR of any group”, blaming TikTok, in particular, for presenting what she called “pure propaganda”, referring to Israeli violence against Palestinians during its genocide in Gaza.

“Secretary Clinton’s framing is not at all an accurate reflection of why Americans are growing more critical of Israel,” the institute said.

The institute added that Americans did not fall prey to propaganda, but rather to years of videos “uploaded by Palestinian journalists, ordinary people trying to survive in Gaza, IDF soldiers, and ordinary Israelis themselves”, referring to the Israeli army in using the acronym "IDF".

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/56637513

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/56633438

We already know anyone still visiting the US supports fascism, but now the US wants to be sure.

Lets try this link...

Why the NSPM-7 fueled FBI blacklist isn’t considered news

People not Politicians, the main organization behind the effort, said they submitted more than 300,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office, nearly triple the number required to block the map from going into effect. Missouri’s Republican secretary of state now needs to review the signatures.

All over the world democratic socialism failed in the face of ascendant fascism, as a fickle fascination with form saw “socialists” ally themselves to bourgeois republics. The many millions of dead call to us from beyond the grave to not repeat this mistake.

The post The DSA Is Repeating the Historic Failures of the Social Democrats appeared first on Left Voice.

Many on the U.S. Left are viewing the current political moment with optimistic caution. They see Mamdani’s victory as evidence of the viability of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) strategy of electoral entryism in the Democratic Party as a program for achieving socialism on a broad scale. It is in this climate that Left Voice has called on the DSA to break from the reactionary capitalist graveyard of social movements that is the Democratic Party. It’s vital in this disruptive moment to keep a clear analysis of what is happening, what we want to happen, and what history tells us could happen.

Build a Working-Class Party to Defeat the Far-Right

So what does this have to do with Zohran Mamdani? For one thing, his election has created new enthusiasm for the politics of parliamentary socialism, with many newly activated adherents perhaps unfamiliar with how tired and trite some of the arguments for that strategy are. As the DSA debates the merits of a dirty break, a clean break, a party surrogate model, and myriad other “strategies,” they ignore the history of failure penned in blood by their parliamentary forebears, and even fall short of the progressive credentials those groups had. If the SPD in Germany and PSI in Italy were ultimately reduced to the political status of liberals, they still proposed a more progressive agenda than the DSA does now. After all, what good is it to infiltrate the Democratic Party, the most important imperialist party in the world, with a socialist Trojan horse just to end up another liberal albatross? And yet they call to us to join them in the marsh. We, on the contrary, are urging them to change course.

We should also examine the historical role of the elected socialists. What happens when a revolutionary philosophy is applied as an administrative force within a capitalist country?

The legacy of the so-called Sewer Socialists in places like Milwaukee serves as an important lesson. Having accomplished remarkable achievements, like the namesake installation of the sewer system, these officials presided over roughly 40 years of massively popular electoral successes, creating a seemingly unbreakable coalition in the process. While it is hardly fair to task them with defeating the national repression of McCarthyism single handedly, their failure was most importantly in not tying their achievements to a broader revolutionary socialist movement. They occupied a political wilderness in spite of recurring victories, while primarily implementing ideas that were largely amenable to private capital and slapping a buzzword on it. When the hammer of reaction came down nationwide, they stood alone amidst the wonders they had made, unable to rally a fight against it. A lot could have happened in 40 years, but didn’t.

It is in this spirit that rank-and-file DSA members should reorient their organization away from the reformist strategy condemned by history. With the Far Right emboldened and normalized, now is not the time for timidity. This is also not to condemn the powerful role of electoral campaigns. Taking executive positions such as the mayor of New York City without a revolutionary program only leads to well-meaning progressives presiding over the systems they campaigned against, and “socialists” representing billionaires.