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Cuban Coast Guard Kills Four People as Tensions Rise Exponentially
New Republic • 2 weeks ago

Cuban Coast Guard Kills Four People as Tensions Rise Exponentially

Cuban officials have confirmed that the country’s Border Guard troops killed four people aboard a speedboat registered in Florida Wednesday morning.The speedboat was one nautical mile from a small island northeast of Cuba when Cuban troops approached the boat, requesting identification for venturing into Cuban territory. As it drew near, occupants aboard the U.S.-registered vessel opened fire on Cuban authorities, injuring the Cuban boat’s commander.“As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six were injured,” reads a statement by Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior. “The injured individuals were evacuated and received medical assistance.”The identities of those killed or injured were not specified. The ministry did note that the boat’s registration number was FL7726SH, and that it was detected near Cayo Falcones, in the country’s central Villa Clara province.American boats face significant legal restrictions with regard to travelling in Cuban waters—in no small part because of the regulations imposed by the U.S. government. The U.S. has maintained a comprehensive embargo on Cuba since 1962, restricting trade and travel between the two countries, a policy that has effectively choked Cuba’s economic growth for more than six decades.U.S. law prohibits any form of tourism to the island, and boats cannot enter Cuban waters without direct permitting and authorization from the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Commerce. Failure to comply with U.S. regulations could result in the government seizure of one’s boat, fines up to $25,000 per day the boat is in Cuban waters, or even imprisonment.“In the face of current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its determination to protect its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a fundamental pillar of the Cuban State in safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region,” the Cuban statement continued.The violence comes just weeks after Donald Trump softened an oil trade ban on the island in the wake of the U.S.’s recent ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a Cuban ally, and its subsequent takeover of Venezuela’s oil supply. Washington allowed shipments of Venezuelan oil for “commercial and humanitarian use” after Caribbean leaders claimed the regional economy would be devastated if they were frozen out of the nearby oil reserve.This story has been updated.

Trump Team Locks Down Whistleblower Complaint Against Tulsi Gabbard
New Republic • 2 weeks ago

Trump Team Locks Down Whistleblower Complaint Against Tulsi Gabbard

The Trump administration is blocking Congress from seeing the classified intelligence report that prompted a whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The Wall Street Journal reports that Gabbard’s office emailed Democratic congressional staffers on February 13 and said it couldn’t send the unredacted intelligence behind the complaint, which concerns an intercepted conversation two foreign individuals had about President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, “due to the assertion of executive privilege to portions” of the information. The Journal learned earlier this month about the complaint, which was filed with the DNI’s inspector general back in May. Gabbard’s office was supposed to disclose the complaint to Congress but didn’t for eight months, prompting an attorney representing the whistleblower to write a letter in November accusing Gabbard of burying the complaint, which has reportedly been locked in a safe. Gabbard’s office eventually relented and shared a redacted version with some members of Congress earlier this month, using executive privilege to justify the redactions. What is known about the complaint is that it accuses Gabbard of limiting the sharing of intelligence for political purposes. After the intelligence, which partially has to do with Iran, was gathered last year, Gabbard met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Following that meeting, Gabbard worked to limit who saw the intelligence, unnamed sources told the Journal. Another part of the complaint is that NSA lawyers failed to report a possible crime to the Justice Department that came up in the conversation between the two individuals for political reasons. The leading Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees, Senator Mark Warner and Representative Jim Himes, are now asking who asserted executive privilege and why, as it is rarely used to prevent sharing intelligence with Congress. “The request and provision of intelligence reports have been longstanding practice between the [intelligence community] and its congressional oversight committees,” Warner and Himes wrote in a letter to Gabbard’s office Tuesday. But writing a letter is all Democrats can do as the minority party in the House and Senate. Kushner doesn’t have a formal job in the Trump administration, but he has been involved in its key foreign policy decisions, such as Middle East negotiations, including the rebuilding of Gaza by the new Board of Peace. If he is compromised internationally, then it’s a matter of national security, and the public should know. The cover-up suggests something of that nature that would be publicly damaging to Trump. What does Gabbard know?

Judge Strikes Down Sinister Trump Tactic to Fast-Track Deportations
New Republic • 2 weeks ago

Judge Strikes Down Sinister Trump Tactic to Fast-Track Deportations

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy on Wednesday joined a growing list of federal judges ruling that the Trump administration’s mass deportation tactics are illegal and unconstitutional.Murphy was the judge for a class action lawsuit filed against the Department of Homeland Security “on behalf of migrants facing deportation to countries not previously named in their removal orders or identified in their immigration court proceedings,” Reuters reported.The suit contended that DHS was aggressively deporting noncitizens to dangerous areas where they had no connections, in violation of their constitutional rights. On Wednesday, Murphy officially concurred, issuing a scathing write-up of the government’s actions.“This case is about whether the Government may, without notice, deport a person to the wrong country, or a country where he is likely to be persecuted, or tortured.… The Department of Homeland Security has adopted a policy whereby it may take people and drop them off in parts unknown … and, ‘as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone standing there waiting to shoot … that’s fine,’” Murphy wrote. “It is not fine, nor is it legal.”Murphy added that the Trump administration gave him false information twice and ignored one of his court orders when it deported six men to South Sudan in May 2025.The judge’s ruling will almost certainly be appealed by the federal government to the Supreme Court, which features three Trump-appointed judges and has consistently been sympathetic to the federal government’s actions. “I am well aware I’m not going to be the final voice on this,” Murphy said in December 2025.

Trump Suggests Deporting Robert De Niro
New Republic • 2 weeks ago

Trump Suggests Deporting Robert De Niro

The White House’s next immigration target: a pair of Democratic lawmakers and famed actor Robert De Niro.The Academy Award–winning performer headlined Defiance.org’s “State of the Swamp” counter-address Tuesday evening, speaking to America at the same time that the president appealed to both chambers of Congress. But De Niro’s message of love, unity, and kicking Donald Trump out of office did not sit well with the president.In a post on Truth Social Wednesday, Trump said that De Niro should be shipped out of the country, alongside Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who protested Trump’s State of the Union address in person the night before.“They should actually get on a boat with Trump Deranged Robert De Niro, another sick and demented person with, I believe, an extremely Low IQ, who has absolutely no idea what he is doing or saying—some of which is seriously CRIMINAL!” Trump wrote.“When I watched him break down in tears last night, much like a child would do,” Trump continued, referring to a moment in which De Niro was visibly choked up as he spoke about the amount of hate and distrust that Trump has planted in American communities, “I realized that he may be even sicker than Crazy Rosie O’Donnell, who is right now in Ireland trying to figure out how to come back into our beautiful United States.”The bombastic alumna of The View moved to Ireland last March to avoid Trump’s glaring attention (the two have shared a vicious public history, in which the president has repeatedly referred to O’Donnell as a “loser,” a “wacko,” a “mentally deranged person,” and a “big, fat pig”). Earlier this month, O’Donnell revealed that she had made a secret sojourn to the U.S. to visit her family, and to see how difficult it would be to navigate in and out of the country, though she noted to SiriusXM’s Chris Cuomo that she did not regret leaving America “at all.”“The energy that I felt while in the United States … it was scary,” O’Donnell told Cuomo. “There’s a feeling that something is really wrong, and no one is doing anything about it.”Last week, the Federal Communications Commission revealed that it was investigating The View over whether it had violated the broadcast regulator’s “equal time” rule after James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Texas, appeared on the show. Trump also took swings at Omar and Tlaib in the same post, condemning their State of the Union protest while describing the progressive duo as having the “bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people.”“LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized,” Trump wrote, adding that anyone who behaves like Omar and Tlaib should be sent “back from where they came—as fast as possible.”

White House Staffer Seems to Be Behind Deranged MAGA X Account
New Republic • 2 weeks ago

White House Staffer Seems to Be Behind Deranged MAGA X Account

The person behind the massive, deeply biased MAGA X account appears to actually be White House staffer Garrett Wade, according to recent reporting from Wired.Wired revealed that one of Wade’s phone numbers was connected to the “Johnny MAGA” account, and a source later corroborated that information.The account, which boasts nearly 300,000 followers, is essentially scheduled pro-Trump shitposting. But it never disclosed that it’s actually on the administration’s payroll—raising serious questions regarding ethics and transparency. The account frequently amplifies administration talking points.“They’re burning the American flag right now in Minneapolis. And they really expect you to believe that ICE shot an innocent civilian,” the account wrote in January, after Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis.“Gavin Newsom attempts to act hood while meeting Usher in Atlanta,” the account wrote on Tuesday. “Absolute cornball.”Gavin Newsom attempts to act hood while meeting Usher in Atlanta.Absolute cornball. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/kyC1ECd4Up— johnny maga (@johnnymaga) February 24, 2026“Democrats are actually refusing to stand for our gold-winning US men’s hockey team,” Johnny MAGA wrote during the State of the Union. “Unbelievable.”Neither Wade nor any White House staff have commented.“People have a right to know who is trying to manipulate public opinion, and they have a right to know whether or not they’re experiencing astroturf politics,” University of Pittsburgh media ethics professor told Wired. “This lack of transparency and the conflict of interest surrounding this account and the lack of disclosure all amount to a breach of public trust.”

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