TRUMP REGIME

CNN - Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, has repeatedly criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the US military, calling them part of a “Marxist” agenda to prioritize social justice over combat readiness.

In his 2024 book “The War on Warriors” and in subsequent media promotions this year, Hegseth described both the original “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy and its repeal in 2011 as a “gateway” and a “camouflage” for broader cultural changes that he claims have undermined military cohesion and effectiveness.

In a 2015 appearance on Fox News, Hegseth also argued these policies like repealing DADT “erode standards” in favor of political goals like social engineering.

DADT was implemented under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s and allowed gay people and lesbians to serve in the military — provided they did not disclose their sexuality. Military officials were also barred from asking military members their sexual orientation. If a troop’s orientation came to light, it could lead to their discharge.The policy was repealed during the Obama administration, allowing openly gay service members. Hegseth criticized policies allowing gay people to serve openly in the US military

Taegan Goddard - "Elon Musk has become the first person to reach $400 billion in net worth, the latest milestone for the world’s richest individual,” Bloomberg reports. “The most recent catalyst was an insider share sale of his privately held SpaceX, which boosted Musk’s net worth by roughly $50 billion in one fell swoop to $439.2 billion. 

Independent, UK - Donald Trump’s incoming “border czar” wants officials in America’s third-largest city to “get the hell out of the way” of his plans for mass deportations or risk prosecution. In remarks to a group of Chicago Republicans on Monday night, Tom Homan said the city and the state of Illinois are “in trouble” because “your mayor sucks and your governor sucks.”

Trump’s pledge to arrest, detain and deport people living in the country without legal permission as part of his “day one” agenda would deploy federal, state and local law enforcement into immigrant communities across the country — starting in the Windy City, according to Homan. “We’re going to start right here in Chicago,” he said during a holiday party hosted by the Law and Order PAC and the Northwest Side GOP Club.

“If your Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he can step aside,” he added. “But if he impedes us — if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien — I will prosecute him.” 

Independent, UK -  Donald Trump’s nominee to oversee the federal government’s enforcement of civil rights has spent the last year leading a legal crusade against transgender Americans, signaling where Trump could start with his “day one” pledge to roll back discrimination protections. Harmeet Dhillon, founder of the Center for American Liberty, has filed a barrage of attention-grabbing lawsuits on behalf of right-wing activists against gender-affirming healthcare and school policies and state and local laws designed to protect LGBT+ people across the country. 

NBC News -  The incoming Trump administration intends to rescind a long-standing policy that has prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting immigrants at sensitive locations, such as houses of worship, schools and hospitals, without approval from a supervisor, according to three sources familiar with the plan. President-elect Donald Trump plans to rescind the policy as soon as his first day in office.

Intercept - In a party-line vote on Tuesday, the House advanced a provision targeting health care for transgender youth on military health insurance in the annual defense spending bill. The proposal, which was tacked onto the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, at the eleventh hour, would codify explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ policy into federal law for the first time in decades.  The controversial language, which was pushed by Republican leadership and adopted into a bipartisan compromise bill, would prohibit “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization,” effectively prohibiting access to gender-affirming care for minors with active-duty family members in the military. 

 Intercept -  During the first Trump administration, the Justice Department launched four sprawling leak investigations that ultimately targeted two Democrats in Congress, dozens of congressional staffers from both parties, and eight reporters at three national outlets, as described in a report from the top DOJ watchdog on Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s inspector general found prosecutors never notified courts that they were seeking email and phone records for sitting members of Congress and their aides. The DOJ also did not follow its own rules around spying on journalists, according to the report. 

With Trump weeks away from returning to the White House and packing the DOJ and FBI with loyalists, the report is a grim reminder that agency rules are ineffective to check abuses, especially when the rules themselves are unclear or leave considerable discretion to individual prosecutors about whether and how they apply.