DL Open Thread: Friday, November 28, 2025
Idle Thought: Every single day, Trump says and/or does stuff that show he is unfit to be President. Some enterprising Democrat with a platform (Newsom is doing it to some extent, but not particularly related to the 25th Amendment) should hold a daily press briefing calling out Trump’s unfitness for office based on the stuff he did that day (or the day before). Drive the point home while driving Trump even crazier. If the enterprising Democrat has a sense of humor, more the better.
The Trump administration on Thursday blamed Biden-era vetting failures for the admission of an Afghan immigrant suspected of shooting two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., but the alleged gunman was granted asylum this year under President Donald Trump, according to a U.S. government file seen by Reuters.
FBI Director Kash Patel and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, both Trump appointees, said during a press conference on Thursday that the Biden administration had failed to conduct adequate background checks or vetting on Lakanwal before allowing him to enter the U.S. in 2021.
Neither official provided any evidence to support their assertion.
Under the Operation Allies Welcome program, Afghans evacuated to the U.S. were granted a two-year “parole” that allowed them to live and work legally and then apply for a more permanent status.
The document reviewed by Reuters said Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23 of this year, three months after Trump took office. Lakanwal, 29, who resided in Washington state, had no known criminal history, the official said.
The government file on Lakanwal said he had been vetted by the U.S. because of his work with U.S. government partners during the war in Afghanistan, and no potentially disqualifying information had been found.
“This animal would’ve never been here if not for Joe Biden’s dangerous policies which allowed countless unvetted criminals to invade our country and harm the American people,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.
Blahblahblah.
The man suspected of shooting two National Guard members near the White House this week — one of them fatally — is an Afghan national who came to the United States in September 2021 because of his work with the U.S. government, including the CIA, according to authorities.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal had been a member of a partner force in Kandahar, a province in southern Afghanistan that saw significant fighting during the war.
Lakanwal was part of one of the CIA’s “Zero Units” that were involved in combat missions to seize or kill suspected terrorists, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.
The Zero Units, also known as National Strike Units, were involved in dangerous and often deadly night raids and other missions to kill or capture members of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. The CIA and U.S. military provided intelligence and logistical support to the squads.
The CIA has never publicly acknowledged its work with the Zero Units,which have been shadowed by allegations of human rights violations, including a 2019 Human Rights Watch report that found they had conducted summary executions and other abuses.
Lakanwal and other Afghan paramilitary members would have undergone extensive vetting before joining the Zero Units and were supposed to be monitored closely once in service, people familiar with the matter said.
U.S. officials have said the Zero Units were effective fighters and that they played a critical role in assisting with the chaotic American evacuation from Afghanistan in late August 2021, probably saving U.S. lives.
We created ‘this animal’.
Josh Marshall sums it up. Briefly:
No one should lose sight of the fact that the National Guard was only in Washington, DC as part of an extended political messaging stunt. They are there because of a legal lacunae created by the district’s non-statehood and consequent lack of democratic sovereignty. The shooter (the man in custody is suspected of but not proven to be that person) is guilty of the attack and the carnage surrounding it. Donald Trump is responsible for them. This episode is the collateral damage of, downstream of Trump abusing his powers as President.
Israeli Troops Murder Palestinians Who Surrendered:
Video of an Israeli military raid in the West Bank shows soldiers summarily executing two Palestinians they had detained seconds earlier.
The shooting on Thursday evening, which was also witnessed by journalists close to the scene, is under justice ministry review, but has already been defended by Israel’s far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who declared that “terrorists must die”.
Somebody be sure to give Rep. Melanie Ross Levin a pat on the back at Shabbos services.
Delaware’s Wetlands At Risk. Because of (a) Trump; and (b) a lack of state protections. You can guess who’s on both sides of the issue, and you’d be right:
Delaware’s “whale wallows,” also known as Delmarva Bays, provide homes for rare and endangered frogs, salamanders, plants and birds.
But these ephemeral wetlands that appear each spring could disappear as the Trump administration proposes to rescind Clean Water Act protections for certain waterways in an effort to expand landowner rights.
Other types of permanent freshwater wetlands are scattered throughout coastal Delaware, providing critical habitat and buffering flood waters in the state. These are also at risk of being impacted by development.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Nov. 17 announced proposed changes to the definition of “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, that would limit the types of waterways protected under the landmark law.
The change would codify a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that removed federal protections for wetlands that are either seasonal or aren’t connected to streams, lakes, rivers and oceans. The case was brought forth by Michael and Chantell Sackett, an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near a lake.
In Delaware, that leaves freshwater wetlands, many of which are on private land, vulnerable to development, said Steve Gold, a professor of law at Rutgers Law School. Property owners are more likely to fill in a wetland before selling their land, because wetlands degrade overall property values.
“If somebody owns a piece of swampland that is not connected by surface water to some nearby river or lake, then under federal law, as it’s now being interpreted, the owner of that swamp would be able to do anything they wanted to that without getting a federal permit,” Gold said.
Builders, developers and farming organizations praised the move. In a statement, Associated Builders and Contractors said the move would alleviate delays and provide a “clear definition of WOTUS.”
But environmentalists say the move could impact critical habitats, and increase the risk of flooding in areas like coastal Delaware, which are vulnerable to sea level rise and increasingly intense storms caused by climate change.
As a result of the Sackett decision, about 75,000 acres of Delaware’s wetlands were taken out of consideration for protection by the federal government. It wasn’t the first time nontidal wetlands in the state faced challenges. In fact, federal regulations for wetland protections have been declining for the past 20 years.
Delaware is the only state in the region without broad protections for these waterways. Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey have state laws that provide protections that supersede federal regulations.
What do you want to talk about?
