US Seizes Venezuelan Oil Tanker

It was a sanctioned oil vessel used to transport crude from Venezuela and Iran. Bloomberg: US forces intercepted and seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking a serious escalation of tensions between the two countries. “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” President Donald Trump said at the White House. “And other things are happening.” A senior Trump administration official referred to the craft as “a stateless vessel” that was last docked in Venezuela. Bloomberg News was first to report the seizure. Oil futures rose on the news, with Brent crude settling up 0.4% in London (Bloomberg). Attorney General Pam Bondi: Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations. This seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely—and our investigation alongside the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil continues (Bondi w/video).

House Passes $901 Billion Defense Authorization Bill

Pushing peace through strength. The vote was 312 to 112. 18 Republicans voted “no”—along with 94 Democrats. The House armed services committee explains what it accomplishes: • Codifies President Trump’s efforts to end left-wing ideology, wokeism, and DEI in the military and restores focus on lethality, meritocracy, and accountability. • Fully funds and provides additional authorities to DoW to support DHS border security efforts. • Fundamentally reforms the DoW acquisition process, supporting President Trump’s EO and  speeding the delivery of innovative new technologies to the warfighter. • Carries out President Trump’s efforts to improve the quality of life for our servicemembers with a 3.8% pay raise and improved benefits for military families. • Fully supports President Trump’s top priorities, in Fully supports President Trump’s top priorities, including the Golden Dome, F-47 fighter aircraft, submarines, warships, and autonomous systems. •Advances President Trump’s efforts to revitalize American shipbuilding (Armed Services).

Fed Cuts Interest Rate a Quarter Point

It was the third consecutive interest rate cut—coming this time with three dissenters in a 9-3 vote. Dmitri Bolt of Townhall: they seemed very unwilling to do more, as they are internally divided over which problem is worse, inflation or the job market. The interest rate was cut to between 3.5 percent and 3.75 percent, a three-year low, and is aimed at protecting against a sharp slowdown in hiring. The vote was 9-3, which is the first time in six years that three officials dissented. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid argued that the reduction wasn’t needed, while Fed governor Stephen Miran favored a larger cut, by half a point. The cut signals the Fed is more worried about the labor market than it is about inflation. Hiring has cooled in recent months as companies adjust to policy changes in trade and immigration policy (Townhall). Bloomberg: Conflicting data helps explain why there hasn’t been a unanimous vote on the FOMC since June. Unemployment moved to 4.4% in September, up from 4.1% in June. But prices — as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge of inflation — rose 2.8% in the year through September, still meaningfully higher than the central bank’s 2% target (Bloomberg).

A Secure Border: Seven Months, Zero Releases

The president complained yesterday that when the border is secure, no one is talking about it. But the news is good—and deserves mention. Michael Banks, Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol: Border security reached historic milestones in November. Apprehensions remain at record lows, with daily averages down 95% from previous years. Border Patrol remains committed to enforcing our nations laws and safeguarding our nation. • November encounters are even lower than October’s historic low – 30,367 total encounters nationwide • Seven straight months of zero releases • Average of 245 apprehensions a day, compared to an average of 336 AN HOUR in December 2023 (Banks). Texas Rep. Chip Roy (R): Good news. It’s time Congress passes legislation to keep President Trump’s SUCCESSFUL border policies for good (Roy). Meanwhile: Axios reports that “Trump brings legal immigration to a screeching halt”: President Trump promised the most deportations in decades to reverse illegal immigration. But the system for legal immigration is also buckling under his pressure. In just the last few weeks, the Trump administration has threatened to expand the travel ban list, paused all asylum decisions and signaled it will reopen cases from the Biden administration (Axios).

Daughter of Venezuela’s Machado Accepts Nobel Peace Prize on Her Behalf

PBS: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway on her mother’s behalf Wednesday, and said in a speech written by Machado that Venezuela shows the world “we must be willing to fight for freedom” (PBS). The Venezuelan opposition leader had secretly fled Venezuela by boat—but did not make it to Norway in time to receive her award. Wall Street Journal: Venezuelan Nobel laureate María Corina Machado left the country on Tuesday by boat and traveled to the Caribbean island nation of Curaçao, U.S. officials said, in a secret effort to reach Norway and collect her Peace Prize. The opposition leader’s allies worked to keep the trip from becoming public to protect her safety. She was unable to collect her prize in person at Wednesday’s ceremony but said she would travel to Oslo, dispelling concerns about her safety after the Nobel Committee had said it didn’t know her whereabouts. Traveling to the Norwegian capital risks forcing Machado into exile. She has spent most of the past year in hiding in Venezuela to avoid arrest. In a phone call with Nobel Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes, published on the Peace Prize website, Machado said “so many people” had risked their lives for her to travel to Oslo (Wall Street Journal). Given the pressure Maduro is under to flee, Machado is all the more consequential for Venezuela’s future.

A Warning From Israel, 1: Hezbollah Is Rebuilding

And Israel may be pressed into another offensive. YNET: Israel is increasingly frustrated by what it sees as insufficient Lebanese action to disarm Hezbollah. Israeli officials warn that the terrorist group is rebuilding “on all fronts” and are sending an explicit message that Israel will not “wait forever.” Still, Israel is effectively holding off on any major move while awaiting approval from the person seen as having the final word, U.S. President Donald Trump, who does not want escalation to derail the regional “peace” he has been promoting (YNET). Raylan Givens: The U.S. has set the end of 2025 as the deadline for the government to disarm Hezbollah, but for several months the Shiite organization has actually been rearming. In Israel, there has been a period of refraining from offensive actions to thwart Hezbollah’s rebuilding, even though the ceasefire agreement in principle allows dealing with emerging threats. The assessment in the political system is that this issue will also be decided at the meeting between Netanyahu and Trump in two and a half weeks (Givens). More from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (Preston Stewart).

A Warning From Israel, 2: Judea and Samaria Preparing Their Own October 7-Type Attack

Our Israeli friends live in a dangerous neighborhood. Nadav Shragai: The recently discovered “primitive” rockets near Tulkarem, only a few kilometers from Highway 6 in central Israel, are not the first such devices the IDF and the Shin Bet security agency have intercepted in advance. Dozens of similar attempts have been uncovered in recent years along the security barrier facing Israel’s central region. This is precisely how the process began in Gaza between 2000 and 2002, when terrorists first turned to home-made rocket production. Gazans extracted explosives from land mines, mixed them with improvised substances and used hollow metal pipes or anything else they could find. Much of this work took place in garages and workshops. In Gaza, the first batches of propellant were made at home from sugar and chemical fertilizer. Later, metalworkers began adding stabilizing fins made of steel sheet. The same process is now taking place in Judea and Samaria, with one crucial difference: unlike Gaza at the time, the IDF and the Shin Bet are physically present on the ground, both operationally and in intelligence gathering (Israel Hayom).

Erika Kirk Defends Herself in Face of Unhinged Conspiracy Theories About Her Husband’s Death

There’s a dark cruelty to the wild-eyed and ungrounded theories that continue to circulate. Erika doesn’t have the time for it … she’s busy building. Erika Kirk: It reminds me so much of chapter six in the book of Nehemiah. He’s building a wall and the townspeople are at the base of that hill, saying “Nehemiah!” calling him all these names saying all these things, “Come on down!” every single time. He had the same message four times in a row: “I cannot come down. I am busy building.” That is how I feel. I do not have time to address the noise. My silence does not mean that I am complacent…. Come after me. Call me names. I don’t care. Call me what you want. Go down that rabbit hole, whatever. But when you go after my family, my turning point USA family, my Charlie Kirk Show family. When you go after the people that I love and you’re making hundreds and thousands of dollars every single episode—going after the people that I love because somehow they’re in on this? No. This is righteous anger because this is not okay. It’s not healthy. This is a mind virus. Yes, I believe in our judicial system. I do. We have a hell of a team working on this. Excuse my French, but this is not okay (X).

Founder of Assisted Suicide Organization Takes His Life by Assisted Suicide

And it’s all celebrated as the outworking of “self-determination.” The man who took his own life is Ludwig Minelli. The group he founded in Switzerland is Dignitas. Guardian: Ludwig Minelli, who founded the group in 1998, died on Saturday, days before his 93rd birthday, Dignitas said. It added: “Right up to the end of his life, he continued to search for further ways to help people to exercise their right to freedom of choice and self-determination in their ‘final matters’ – and he often found them.” Dignitas said it would “continue to manage and develop the association in the spirit of its founder as a professional and combative international organisation for self-determination and freedom of choice in life and at the end of life”(Guardian). Albert Mohler: They used the word combative in their own statement. Their group exists to be a “combatant” in the fight for death, for self-determination in death. And I want to go back to the fact that when I was a very young person and some of this was being discussed, people with enormous foresight like the theologian and apologist Francis Schaeffer were looking at this and saying, “this is coming. This is inevitable given the worldview slide into the pure secularism.” And yet it wasn’t legal anywhere but Switzerland at the time…. But now it is all throughout Europe, not in every jurisdiction, but it’s all over the map in Europe. And in North America … Canada has one of the most extreme laws and it’s about to become even more extreme given court decisions there. And you look at also South America … and Asia, places in which there would have been enormous resistance to this (Mohler).

In Appreciation of the Declaration of Independence

Hugh Hewitt is among the many voices who are deliberately and cheerfully working to develop in Americans or rekindle in Americans a growing enthusiasm for the uniqueness of our great American experiment. Hugh turned to Matthew Spalding of Hillsdale College—author of “The Making of the American Mind: The Story of Our Declaration of Independence” (Amazon). Hugh Hewitt: George Washington sends a letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham, about which I’ve been ignorant until I read “The Making of the American Mind,” and he says, “much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness.” …. what a great summation of the three qualities of a revolutionary. Matthew Spalding: No, absolutely, and I have a whole chapter in the book on the question of prudence, which the declaration has these principles, “all men being created equal” a chief among them, but then its “prudence will dictate” and prudence in particular is a classical virtue, which is the key practical verb, if you will, of the declaration is this movement of prudence, which again, it signals to us very clearly it is a dominant, extremely important word in political writing and in law, and it really signals to us that this document is not written in the modern world. This is written in this older understanding of the nature of things need to recover. It’s not a modern French revolution (Hughniverse).