NPR ‘Founding Mother’ Susan Stamberg, who in 1972 became the first woman to anchor a nightly newscast in the US, All Things Considered, has died. She was 87.
FRIDAY 10/17/25
Zelenskyy in Washington – This will be nothing like President Trump’s peace deal with Israel and Hamas over the war in Gaza. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in Washington Friday to ask Trump for long-range (1,000-mile) Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine defense against Russia, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Trump says he plans to meet in Budapest, Hungary with Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin and try to strike a ceasefire deal in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s visit should go far better than his “you don’t have the cards” White House meeting with Trump in early March. Trump’s upcoming meeting with Putin in Budapest – where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is Putin’s greatest ally in Europe – will be the first since Trump greeted Putin in Alaska in mid-August with a red carpet and Air Force flyover.
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DOJ Indicts Bolton – This is not like the Justice Department’s retribution indictments of former FBI Director James Comey or New York Attorney Gen. Letitia James. The DOJ indicted Bolton, 76, Thursday for mishandling classified information when he served as national security advisor during the first Trump administration.
What makes this indictment different is the DOJ’s investigation of Bolton began during the Biden administration.
The indictment alleges Bolton shared “diary-like” entries of classified information with two relatives, The Wall Street Journalreports, including sending entries from his private AOL and Google email accounts. Prosecutors did not identify the recipients but people familiar with the indictment told the WSJ the communications involved his wife and daughter.
--TL
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THURSDAY 10/16/25
From Peace in Gaza to War on Venezuela? – President Trump has secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to a report in The New York Times, citing US officials. (How does Trump define ‘covert’?)
Asked whether the administration is considering strikes on Venezuelan territory, Trump told reporters; “We are certainly looking at that now, because we’ve got the sea under control.”
Trump was referring to the US military targeting boats off Venezuela’s coast over the past several months, killing 27. This has been the US war on drug boats from Venezuela, the administration claims, without providing evidence of whether there were drug dealers on the boats – or allowing for due process of alleged Venezuelan criminals.
The president has further claimed Venezuela is responsible for sending illegal immigrants to the US from the South American country’s prisons and mental institutions without providing any more evidence than he has for who was killed on the US boat strikes.
Trump had considered removing Venezuela’s authoritarian left-wing president, Nicholás Maduro, during his first administration. Asked whether he will try to remove him this term, Trump responded, “We’ll see.”
Last Friday, when the White House was celebrating the Gaza ceasefire it had brokered between Israel and Hamas, Maduro’s political enemy and Trump ally María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that Trump had hoped he would get. Machado had run against Maduro last year in a widely believed to be fraudulent election that resulted in Maduro winning his third term.
That same Friday, a US Navy destroyer boarded a Venezuelan fishing boat in its nation’s waters, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yuán Gil said Saturday, according to a report in Newsweek.
On Sunday, Trump dropped a big clue that US strikes on Venezuela have more to do with Maduro’s apparent manipulation of the country’s 2024 election than it has to do with “drug boats” or Venezuelan immigrants from prisons and mental institutions crossing into the US.
“He had an election that was wrong,” Trump told reporters.
Is it legal? … Maduro has called Trump’s attitude “bellicose” and the question is being raised whether US military actions against Venezuela – “covert” or “overt” – are legal. Congress certainly is too busy keeping the government shut down to weigh in. “Covert” CIA operations are nothing new (see Iran, 1953 and Cuban Bay of Pigs, 1961). Conversely, Trump 45’s special envoy to Venezuela, Elliott Abrams, told the BBC, the current Trump administration’s policy toward Venezuela could be a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, to make the US is the “dominant power” in the region.
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Kids Say the Stupidist Things – The Monday after the Turning Point USA co-founder’s tragic assassination at Utah Valley University, Vice President JD Vance said while hosting The Charlie Kirk Show podcast he is “desperate” for national unity, but that finding common ground with people who “celebrated” his friend’s assassination is impossible.
Vance on Wednesday responded to Politico’s explosive report exposing more than seven months of Telegram chats among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont that contained “racist, antisemitic and homophobic content” including jokes about gas chambers, slavery and rape,” including "I love Hitler," saying: “Kids do stupid things, especially young boys.”
“Young Republicans” in the case of Young Republicans are men and, presumably women, age 18 to 40. Many, if not most of them, certainly have been influenced by MAGA hero Charlie Kirk.
The vice president dismissed their group chats as no more than “edgy, offensive jokes,” according to Politico’s follow-up.
The fallout … So far, Peter Giunta has lost his position as a staffer for New York Assembly member Mike Reilly and Joseph Malingo is no longer an employee of the New York State Unified Court System, according to Politico, and Republican colleagues have called for Vermont State Sen. Sam Douglass to step down after being identified in some of the Telegram chats. Reilly was chairman of the New York State Young Republicans and Malingo was general counsel for the organization at the time of the postings.
Those darn kids. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa