Donald Trump

Trump Vetoes Colorado Clean Water Bill—Then Tells State’s Officials to ‘Rot in Hell’

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Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

President Donald Trump takes questions at his Mar-a-Lago estate on December 22, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The bill vetoed by Trump would have provided funds to finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a 130-mile pipeline designed to deliver clean, filtered water to 50,000 residents in the eastern part of the state.

President Donald Trump issued the first veto of his second term this week when he rejected a bill with bipartisan support aimed at ensuring access to clean drinking water in rural Colorado.

As reported by Colorado Public Radio on Tuesday, the bill in question would have provided funds to finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a 130-mile pipeline designed to deliver clean, filtered water to 50,000 residents in the eastern part of the state.

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In a statement announcing his video [veto?] of the bill, Trump cited concerns about the size of the US deficit, even though the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that finishing the conduit will cost less than $500,000.

“My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies,” said Trump, whose signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is projected to increase the US deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next decade. “Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the nation.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), a longtime Trump ally who sponsored the legislation, blasted the president for vetoing “a completely non-controversial, bipartisan bill that passed both the House and Senate unanimously.”

Boebert also hinted that Trump’s reasons for passing the bill could be political retribution over her effort to force the release of files related to the criminal prosecution of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who for years was a friend of the president.

“I sincerely hope this veto has nothing to do with political retaliation for calling out corruption and demanding accountability,” Boebert said. “Americans deserve leadership that puts people over politics.”

It’s not clear what Trump’s motives were for vetoing the bill, though he has been feuding with elected officials in Colorado over the continued imprisonment of Tina Peters, the former county clerk of Mesa County, Colorado who was convicted in 2024 of seven charges related to her allowing unlawful access to voting machines in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has demanded that Colorado release Peters, and he even went so far as to give her a presidential pardon, even though she was convicted on state charges rather than federal charges where such a pardon would carry real legal weight.

In a New Year’s Eve Truth Social post, Trump once again made false claims about Peters’ case.

“God Bless Tina Peters, who is now, for two years out of nine, sitting in a Colorado Maximum Security Prison, at the age of 73, and sick, for the ‘crime’ of trying to stop the massive voter fraud that goes on in her State,” Trump wrote.

In reality, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Colorado during the 2020 election.

Trump finished off his post by lashing out at Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a Republican whose office successfully put Peters in prison for a nine-year sentence.

“To the Scumbag Governor, and the disgusting ‘Republican’ (RINO!) DA, who did this to her (nothing happens to the Dems and their phony Mail In Ballot System that makes it impossible for a Republican to win an otherwise very winnable State!), I wish them only the worst,” Trump wrote. “May they rot in Hell. FREE TINA PETERS!”

Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.

Continue ReadingTrump Vetoes Colorado Clean Water Bill—Then Tells State’s Officials to ‘Rot in Hell’

ICE Plots $100 Million ‘Wartime Recruitment’ Drive Aimed at Hiring Gun Enthusiasts

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Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Federal agents block people protesting an ICE immigration raid at a nearby licensed cannabis farm on July 10, 2025 near Camarillo, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The propaganda blitz will be aimed at “people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear,” according to the Washington Post.

The Trump administration is planning a massive propaganda campaign aimed at recruiting thousands of new federal immigration enforcement officers to carry out its mass deportation agenda.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that it had obtained internal documents revealing that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is planning to spend $100 million over the next year on what the agency describes as a “wartime recruitment” drive.

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The propaganda blitz will be targeted at highly specific demographics, including “people who have attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear,” according to the Post.

The ICE drive would also use an ad-targeting technique called “geofencing” to send recruitment ads to users’ phone browsers if they are in the vicinity of certain locations, such as military bases, NASCAR races, college campuses, and gun shows.

The ads being designed for the recruitment drive will be based around current appeals that depict joining ICE as part of a “sacred duty” to “defend the homeland” from “foreign invaders,” the Post reported.

This rhetoric is similar to the language used in a recent ICE job post flagged by University of Wisconsin–Madison sociologist Jess Calarco. The listing asked prospective recruits if they are “ready to defend the homeland” by joining “an elite team dedicated to… securing our nation’s safety.”

Calarco noted that the job post “reads like a video game ad,” which she said “is almost certainly by design.”

Sarah Saldaña, a director of ICE under the Obama administration, told the Post that it is worrying to see the Trump administration casting such a wide net for people who lack any experience in law enforcement and who may be eager for what the Post described as “all-out combat.”

The recruitment blitz comes amid new indications that the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign is falling far short of its goals.

The New Republic‘s Greg Sargent on Wednesday wrote that immigration arrests this year have fallen far short of the goal of 3,000 people per day set by top Trump aide Stephen Miller, and it seems highly unlikely that Miller will realize his dream of deporting 1 million people per year.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, told Sargent that “it’s clear that they have not achieved the shock-and-awe campaign of mass deportations that they wanted, and they are still running into quite a lot of obstacles.”

Reichlin-Melnick also predicted that “there will still be millions of people here who are undocumented” after Trump leaves office in 2028, as the administration “will not be able to deport even the majority of undocumented immigrants in four years.”

The Trump administration earlier in the year announced plans to entice new ICE recruits by offering them $50,000 sign-up bonuses and assistance with repaying student loans in a bid to double the agency’s head count.

Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue ReadingICE Plots $100 Million ‘Wartime Recruitment’ Drive Aimed at Hiring Gun Enthusiasts

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Trump Suggests US Bombed ‘Big Facility’ in Venezuela. No One Seems to Know What He’s Talking About

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Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A US Air Force C-130 Hercules taxis at Rafael Hernandez Airport in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, on December 18, 2025. US President Donald Trump’s administration is conducting a military campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, deploying naval and air forces for what it calls an anti-drugs offensive. 
(Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP via Getty Images)

Administration officials have yet to provide any details about the supposed strike, which would mark a massive escalation in the president’s lawless military campaign.

President Donald Trump claimed during a recent discussion about his high-seas boat bombing blitz that US forces took out “a big facility” as part of the Venezuela-centered campaign—but no one seems to know what he’s talking about.

Trump said Friday during an apparently impromptu phone call to billionaire supporter John Catsimatidis—who owns and hosts programming on WABC radio in New York—that South American narcotraffickers “have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from,” and that “two nights ago, we knocked that out.”

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“We hit them very hard,” the president added.

On Monday, Trump was asked during a meeting with fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify Friday’s claim.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” the president said, “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.”

Neither Trump nor anyone in his administration offered any evidence to support the claim. There have also been no public statements from any Venezuelan government official regarding any US attack.

Trump did say during a Christmas Eve call to troops taking part in escalating hostilities against Venezuela—whose socialist leader, President Nicolás Maduro, has long been in Trump’s regime-change crosshairs—that, after more than two dozen boat strikes, “now we’re going after the land.”

Threats by Trump to bomb targets inside Venezuela—or even invade the oil-rich South American nation in order to oust Maduro—are nothing new. The president has deployed an armada of warships and thousands of US troops to the region and has also authorized covert Central Intelligence Agency action against Maduro. Earlier this month, Trump vowed that the US would attack Venezuela “on land,” and “very soon, too.”

However, Trump’s remarks on Friday left observers scratching their heads and scouring news reports in a fruitless effort to make sense of the president’s claim.

One US official interviewed by the Intercept on condition of anonymity said the US targeted a “facility”—but declined to disclose its location, or whether it was attacked by US forces.

“That announcement was misleading,” the official said of Trump’s claim last week.

There is some speculation that a Christmas Eve explosion and fire at a warehouse on the grounds of a Primazol chemical plant in Zulia state may have been caused by a US strike. However, the site—which reportedly makes products including chicken feed—is not located directly on any coast, and Primazol issued a statement “categorically” rejecting claims that the facility was bombed.

If Trump did order any bombing of targets in Venezuela, it would be a major escalation and clear act of war by a man who, while billing himself as “the most anti-war president in history,” has now, with last week’s attack on Nigeria, bombed more countries than any president in history.

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Continue ReadingTrump Suggests US Bombed ‘Big Facility’ in Venezuela. No One Seems to Know What He’s Talking About

30th Strike in Trump’s High-Seas Kill Spree Claims 2 More Lives

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Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

This photo shows the aftermath of a US military strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea on October 3, 2025.
 (Photo: screenshot/Donald Trump/Truth Social)

At least 107 people have been killed in US bombings of boats that the Trump administration claims—without evidence—were involved in narco-trafficking in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

The US military said Monday that two alleged drug smugglers were killed in the bombing of another boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, but—as has been the case throughout 30 such strikes—offered no verifiable evidence to support its claim.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said on X that, on orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters.”

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“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” SOUTHCOM added. “Two male narco-terrorists were killed. No US military forces were harmed.”

According to the Trump administration’s figures, at least 107 people have been killed in 30 boat strikes since early September. The administration has tried to justify the strikes to Congress by claiming that the US is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, while legal scholars and Democratic US lawmakers counter that the bombings are likely war crimes.

War powers resolutions aimed at reining in President Donald Trump’s ability to extrajudicially execute alleged drug traffickers in or near Venezuela failed to pass the Senate in October and the House earlier this month.

Monday’s strike came amid Trump’s escalating aggression against Venezuela, including the deployment of warships and thousands of US troops to the region, authorization of covert CIA operations targeting the country’s socialist government, and threats to launch ground attacks.

Trump claimed Monday without providing evidence that US forces destroyed a “big facility” in an unspecified country where narco-traffickers’ “ships come from.”

Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue Reading30th Strike in Trump’s High-Seas Kill Spree Claims 2 More Lives