Trump’s War On Venezuela Expands. Shouldn’t, what’s the term I’m looking for, Congress, have a say in this?:
The C.I.A. conducted a drone strike on a port facility in Venezuela last week, according to people briefed on the operation, a development that suggests an aggressive new phase of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the Maduro government has begun.
The strike was on a dock where U.S. officials believe Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, was storing narcotics and potentially preparing to move the drugs onto boats, the people said.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mr. Trump declined to say how the attack had been carried out or by whom but confirmed the United States was responsible.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida. “They load the boats up with drugs. So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”
The Venezuelan government did not directly comment Monday on the strike or Mr. Trump’s remarks, but Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, denounced months of “imperial madness” and “harassment, threats, attacks, persecution, robberies, piracy and murders.”
The White House and the C.I.A. both declined to comment.
A Column I Won’t Read, Nor Link To: “The State Department Font Change Is About Respect, Not Aesthetics”. Bonus points if you can guess where this appeared.
Jeffrey Epstein And Mark Zuckerberg–Fellow Child Traffickers:
In October 2019, a BBC investigation found a 16-year-old girl from Guinea being advertised for sale on Instagram. Her price was approximately $3,800. The listing included her photograph. She was one of dozens of domestic workers the BBC found being sold on Facebook and Instagram in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, but her age made her listing particularly valuable to buyers. She was a child, and Meta’s platform was the marketplace.
Three years later, three women who had been sex trafficked as teenagers sued Facebook in Texas. They had been recruited on the platform, groomed by traffickers who exploited Facebook’s friend suggestion algorithm, and sold. The Texas Supreme Court ruled unanimously that they could proceed. Federal law, the court wrote, does not create “a lawless no-man’s land on the internet” where companies can “knowingly or intentionally participate in the evil of online human trafficking” without consequence.
These are not anomalies. Facebook accounts for 59 to 65 percent of online trafficking recruitment in federal cases. For children specifically, 65 percent. Meta platforms generated 85 percent of all child sexual abuse material reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2022. Meta is the trafficking infrastructure and one man controls it.
Shoulder shrug. In Delaware, legislators carve out special exemptions for such predators. Right, Krista?
Just A Couple Of Oligarchs Slingin’ The Shit With Each Other. The Trump-Netanyahu meeting:
Donald Trump hosted Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for lunch at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. In remarks to reporters before, during and after their meeting, the two leaders said that they were in broad agreement on most issues, from next steps in Gaza and the possibility of bombing Iran again, to how very deserving Trump is of getting another award.
Read. Puke. Perhaps State Rep. Melanie Ross Levin would care to chime in?
ProPublica: 25 Investigations You Might Have Missed This Year. You’ll note that many of these investigations are joint enterprises between ProPublica and independent news organizations throughout the country. Might be some opportunities for our newly-invigorated reportorial community and ProPublica to partner…
PETA Offers Up Insane Proposal:
An animal rights organization is urging Delaware lawmakers to consider a proposal that would require dog guardians to walk their dogs three times a day — including one walk lasting at least an hour. Supporters say the move would help meet dogs’ physical and mental needs, but some dog owners question if it’s realistic.
SOME dog owners?? It’s not realistic. Period. One required hour-walk per day? What about all the dog owners who can’t walk for sixty consecutive minutes, with or without a dog? Who would ever enforce such a law?
I’m all for suggested guidelines on how much exercise your dog should get. But PETA embarrasses itself when it makes a proposal such as this.
‘No Way To Live’. What passes for life in the Carney Concentration Camp:
The number of people living at Christina Park has grown in recent weeks despite cold temperatures, according to several residents. One, who asked to be referred to by his first name, Al, said there were around 12 tents at the park when he arrived in early November. By Dec. 9, there were about 50 tents.
The growth followed a slew of recommendations made by a Wilmington task force that determined the park should be a city-sanctioned homeless encampment.
Despite (well, actually, because of) the recommendation and the population growth, living conditions within the encampment are harsh.
Because there are no public restrooms, people must use buckets to relieve themselves or make the 20-minute walk to the Wilmington train station or to the Sunday Breakfast Mission – the only homeless shelter in downtown Wilmington.
“You have to train your body to be able to do that,” Simmons said. “Or you go in a bucket somewhere up here, or you take your chances behind a tree or something.”
Earlier in the fall, city leaders pledged to install porta-potties at the park – a measure that also was part of the Wilmington homelessness task force recommendations. But Philly said they have yet to be installed.
Spotlight Delaware also has not seen any during recent visits to the park.
Caroline Klinger, a spokeswoman for Wilmington Mayor John Carney, said last week that the administration identified a company that rents trailer-style bathrooms and is “in talks to get those to Christina Park as soon as possible.”
Blahblahblah. You can’t fucking rent port-a-potties like anytime you want?? Too expensive, John? It’s a tall task to become an even worse mayor than Dennis P. Williams, but Carney appears to be up to the task.
Yo, John! You and your bloodless Chamber-centric ghouls created this concentration camp. Are you so devoid of humanity that you feel no obligation to treat the residents there as fellow human beings?
What do you want to talk about?