Under his authority as commander in chief, the president can blow up pretty much anybody on Earth whom he deems a national security threat. He does not need permission from Congress, the media, or a panel of self-appointed commentators. The missile strikes on drug-running vessels operated by a designated terrorist group are lawful, routine, and predictable. What made the episode explosive was that it enraged exactly the faction that always reacts this way: the political left.

Impeachment is the only real consequence available to the administration’s critics, and after two failed efforts, that prospect does not keep President Trump awake at night. Republican control of the House makes even a symbolic attempt unlikely.

It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict ‘experts’ who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with.

So the disloyal opposition defaults to its remaining weapon: information warfare. Media outlets, activist networks, and hostile bureaucrats have been carpet-bombing the information space with false claims designed to sow dissension among the ranks and mislead the public.

The country needs a president who can act decisively in defense of national security, without media gatekeepers, rogue judges, or partisan lawmakers running armchair military campaigns from the sidelines. The “Seditious Six” tried to undermine the president’s authority and cast doubt on lawful orders. The Washington Post attempted to turn that fiction into fact by quoting anonymous sources with unverifiable claims.

The central allegation is that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” on the vessel. The Post framed it this way: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody.’”

The headline amplified the accusation: “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”

A “spoken directive” means no record. The quote is a paraphrase. Nothing indicates that the source actually heard the Hegseth say those words. This is an anonymous, secondhand characterization of an alleged statement — precisely the sort of raw material the Post loves to inflate into scandal.

Even if the words had been spoken, the context would determine legality. If a commander asks, “How big a bomb do we drop on the enemy location?” and the answer is, “Use one big enough to kill everybody,” that exchange would not be criminal. It is a description of the force required to neutralize a hostile asset.

If these anonymous sources truly believed the secretary issued an illegal order, they were obligated to report it through the chain of command. Their silence speaks louder than any paraphrase. The most plausible explanation is that someone misunderstood — or deliberately distorted — an aggressive statement by Hegseth and nothing more.

The United States targets terrorists. The implication behind the Post’s story is that survivors remained after the first strike and that either the secretary or JSOC ordered a second engagement to kill them. No evidence supports that claim. No one outside the direct participants knows what the surveillance picture showed or what tactical conditions existed immediately after the first blast.

RELATED: White House names names in new ‘media bias tracker’ in wake of ‘seditious’ Democrat video

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Trump stated publicly that Hegseth told him no order was given to kill survivors. The fact that U.S. forces recovered two survivors from the submersible drug vessel undercuts the Post’s narrative even more. Pete Hegseth is far more credible than Alex Horton and the newsroom that elevated this rumor.

— (@)

It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict “experts” who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with. They insist that the presence of wounded combatants instantly transforms a hostile platform into a protected site and that destroying the vessel itself becomes a war crime. Even the New York Times — no friend of the administration — punctured that claim:

According to five U.S. officials … Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile failed to accomplish all of those things … and his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.

The mobs demanding Hegseth’s scalp will be disappointed. The voters who supported this administration expected firm action against terrorist cartels and open-ocean drug networks. Another hostile vessel was reduced to an oil slick, and most Americans see that as a success.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Pete hegseth, Department of war, Pentagon, Navy seals, Venezuela, Missile strike, Drug cartels, Drug trafficking, Survivors, Killed, Law, Illegal order, Seditious six, Media bias, Washington post, New york times, Lies, Caribbean 

The family of a 23-year-old student is grieving her death after she was mauled and killed by three pit bulls that she was caring for in Tyler, Texas.

Deputies found Madison Riley Hull lying in the backyard of the home when they were called on Nov. 21 and said the dogs appeared to want to attack them as well, according to the Smith County Sheriff’s Office.

‘She loved life with her whole heart and moved through the world with a free-spirit that lifted those around her.’

One deputy fired his weapon at the dogs, killing one.

That caused the other dogs to run off, allowing the deputies to carry Hull away from the home safely. She was later declared dead.

The other two dogs were ordered to be euthanized by a justice of the peace.

Investigators said they are considering criminal charges for the owners of the dogs.

“Obviously these people weren’t home at the time that this happened,” said Smith County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Larry Christian to KLTV-TV.

“We don’t know the dynamics of the relationship that this dog sitter, Miss Hull, had with these dogs, if she’s been around them before or whatever. But all of those things will be taken into consideration whenever they decide to make a decision on whether charges will be filed or will not be filed.”

Hull was a student at the University of Texas at Tyler.

RELATED: 1-year-old girl mauled to death by family’s pit bull, police say

Christian said the deputies were called to the home by a neighbor.

“This young lady had a dynamic future ahead of her. And, of course, she lost her life in a tragic manner, and it’s a tragedy for the family,” he added. “We do pray for them as well and just hope that they can gather the strength to get through this. We also pray for those who responded to the call and for the neighbor who had to witness what occurred out there.”

Hull’s mother, Jennifer Hubbell, wrote about her daughter in a post on GoFundMe.

“Madi was love, she was light, she was kindness, she was laughter, she was fierce in the most beautiful and disarming way,” Hubbell wrote. “She loved life with her whole heart and moved through the world with a free-spirit that lifted those around her.”

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​Pit bull attack, College student mauled, Dog mauling death, Madison riley hull, Crime 

In Memphis, Tennessee, where Elon Musk’s xAI initiative spun up a “compute factory” of some 32,000 GPUs, the local grid could not sustain the demand. The solution was characteristic of the era: 14 mobile gas turbine generators, parked in a row, burning fossil fuel to feed the machine. It was a scene of brute industrial force, a reminder that the “cloud,” for all its ethereal branding, is a heavy, hot, loud thing. It requires acres of land for the servers, rivers of water for cooling, and enough electricity to power a small nation.

The appetite of AI is proving insatiable. To reach the next plateau of synthetic cognition, we must triple our electrical output and are constrained by our capacity to do so. And so, with the inevitability of water seeking a lower level, the gaze of Silicon Valley has drifted upward. If the earth is too small, too regulated, and too fragile to house the machines of the future, we shall instead build them in the sky.

The high ground of the 21st century is not a hill, but an orbit.

The proposal is startling, in the way that leaps in engineering often are. In late 2025, Musk noted on social media that SpaceX would be “doing” data centers in space. Jeff Bezos, a man who has long viewed the planetary surface as a sort of zoning restriction to be overcome, predicted gigawatt-scale orbital clusters within two decades.

The pitch is seductive: In the vacuum of low-Earth orbit, the sun never sets. There are no clouds, no rain, no neighbors to complain. There are only the burning fusion of the sun and the cold of deep space, which turns out to be the perfect medium for cooling the heated circuits of a neural network.

The vacuum is valuable because it is an infinite heat sink. The sunlight is valuable because it is free voltage. The plan, as outlined by startups such as Starcloud (formerly Lumen Orbit), involves structures that defy terrestrial intuition. These are not the tin-can satellites of the Cold War but solar arrays and radiator panels four kilometers wide, vast shimmering sheets assembled by swarms of robots. These machines, using technology like the MIT-developed TESSERAE tiles, would click together in the silence, building a cathedral of computation that no human hand will touch.

RELATED: Trump leaves Elon Musk’s Grok, xAI off White House list of AI partners

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

There is a stark beauty to the engineering. On Earth, a data center fights a losing battle against entropy, burning energy to pump heat away. In space, heat can be radiated into the dark. A server rack in orbit, shielded by layers of polymer and perhaps submerged in fluid to dampen the cosmic rays, swims in a bath of eternal starlight, crunching the data beamed up from below. Companies such as NTT and Sky Perfect JSAT envision optical lasers linking these satellites into a single, glowing lattice: a cosmic village of information.

Yet one cannot help but observe its fragility. The modern GPU is a miracle of nanometer-scale lithography, a device so sensitive that a stray alpha particle can induce a chaotic error. The environment of space is hostile, awash in the very radiation that these chips abhor. To place the most delicate artifacts of human civilization into the harshest environment known to physics is a gamble. The engineers speak of “annealing” solar cells and triple-redundant logic. The skeptic notes that a bit-flip in a language model is a nuisance, while a bit-flip in a battle management system is a tragedy.

There is also the matter of the debris. We have already cluttered orbits with the husks of our previous ambitions: spent rocket stages, dead weather satellites, flecks of paint moving at 17,000 miles per hour. To introduce massive, kilometer-scale structures is to invite the Kessler syndrome, a cascade of collisions that could imprison us on the surface for generations. We are proposing to solve the environmental crisis of terrestrial computing by potentially creating an environmental crisis in the exosphere. It is the American way, the frontier way: When one room gets messy, simply move to the next, larger room.

The drive to do this is not merely economic, though the economics are potent. If Starship can lower the cost of launch to under $200 per kilogram, the math begins to close. If energy in space is effectively free, the initial capital outlay is justified by the lack of a monthly utility bill. But the impulse is also older, that of the Russian scientist and mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who called Earth the “cradle” of humanity, which, like a mature human being, eventually we must leave. We are seeing the embryonic stages of the “noosphere,” a sphere of pure mind encircling the planet. By exporting our cognition to the heavens, we are externalizing our logic. The logos of our civilization will physically reside above us, a silent pantheon of servers ordering and facilitating the lives of the creatures below.

There is a geopolitical texture to this as well. The concept of “sovereign cloud” takes on a new meaning when the data center is orbiting over international waters. Intelligence agencies and defense contractors are quietly investing, sensing that the high ground of the 21st century is not a hill, but an orbit. To control the compute is to control the speed of thought.

Whether this will work remains to be seen. The history of spaceflight is a graveyard of optimistic PowerPoints. It is possible that the radiation will act as a slow acid on the silicon, that the robotic assembly will jam, that the cost will remain stubbornly high. But the momentum is real. The mobile gas turbines in Memphis are a stopgap. The data centers consuming the aquifers of Arizona are a liability. The logic of the market and the machine points upward.

We stand at a peculiar intersection. We are attempting to use the most primal forces of the solar system, the burning star and the freezing void, to power our most refined tools. It is a grand, ambitious, and entirely human endeavor. We are building a computer in a jar and hanging the jar in the sky, hoping that the view will be clear enough to see the future.

​Tech 

Costco is suing the Trump administration.

Yes, Costco. The warehouse temple of middle-class stability where Americans stock their freezers, fill their carts, and feel briefly insulated from the chaos of the broader economy. Costco thrives when the American consumer thrives.

Remember, when faced with a choice between standing with the American worker or protecting the globalist status quo, Costco sided with the status quo.

So why file suit against the administration? The company’s board donated heavily to Democrats in the 2023-2024 cycle, and now its leadership wants its tariff money back. The lawsuit doubles as a political favor and a financial windfall.

In short, Costco refuses to accept the new populist moment.

Fighting the populist tax revolt

Trump’s tariff program funds his most audacious promise: eliminating income taxes for working Americans and issuing a $2,000 tariff “dividend” as early as next year. This would mark the largest direct transfer of economic power to workers in modern history.

Costco wants to stop it.

The company that markets itself as the moral alternative to Walmart now positions itself as the moral critic of tariff-driven tax abolition. For decades, Americans have trusted Costco as the “good” warehouse store — high quality, honest pricing, reliable value. But the rotisserie chicken glow fades fast when the company sues to block a working-class tax cut.

Costco insists its lawsuit is about fairness. Please. It’s all about politics.

Stuck in a pre-Trump mentality

Trump upended the left’s narrative by putting workers — not donors, not multinationals — at the center of national policy. The tariff-funded tax revolution threatens decades of Democratic posturing about “helping the little guy.”

So Costco’s leadership had to intervene.

The company claims it fears a pending Supreme Court ruling that overturns tariffs without refunding the money companies paid. In reality, Costco wants a heads-I-win, tails-I-win scenario.

If tariffs stay, Costco raises prices to recoup costs. If tariffs fall, Costco demands a refund. What it will not do is refund customers who paid higher prices.

Costco argues that tariffs fall under Congress’ taxing authority. A federal circuit court agreed, ruling that tariffs are a core congressional power. That argument never troubled Democrats when they rebranded an Obamacare tax as “not a tax” to shove it through the courts.

When Democrats extract revenue for their political projects, the courts call it progress. When tariffs return money to American workers, Costco calls it unconstitutional.

The truth about taxes

Income tax is the burden of wage earners, not the wealthy. Costco knows it. Democrats know it. Everyone knows it.

The wealthy use capital gains, trusts, foundations, and investment shelters. Eliminating income taxes barely touches them. It liberates the working class — precisely the group Democrats once claimed to defend while quietly shifting their coalition toward illegal aliens and the ever-expanding alphabet of sexual identities.

Trump exposed the contradiction: Democrats talk about workers. Trump delivers for them.

RELATED: Is a tariff a tax?

Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images

Costco chose poorly

Costco’s lawsuit will not collapse its business model. Americans will still buy their bulk salsa, tires, kayaks, paper towels, and of course, the hot-dog combo that has famously resisted inflation for decades.

But they will remember this moment.

When faced with a choice between standing with the American worker or protecting the globalist status quo, Costco sided with the status quo. A company famous for its generous return policy may soon see a return movement of its own as consumers decide they want their tariff-inflated dollars back.

The company’s lawsuit reveals something not so flattering about the “good” big-box store: Liberal elites love talking about helping workers — as long as it never requires losing money for workers.

The Trump tax-and-tariff revolution threatens that arrangement. And Costco’s leadership made its position clear. I’ll still eat their hot dogs after making a few returns and taking a few extra free samples.

​Opinion & analysis, Costco, Democrats, Lawsuit, Donald trump, Tariffs, Trade, Tax rebate, Refunds, International trade, Economy, Prices, Inflation, Hot dogs, America first, Workers, Income taxes, Elites, Wealthy 

For all of human history, the four-stage debt cycle has remained the same: Discipline leads to economic prosperity; prosperity creates complacency; complacency tees up excessive spending; excessive spending turns into debt, which reaches a breaking point, necessitating discipline and restarting the cycle.

This has been true for every great empire the world has ever seen.

While the rise and fall of nations is nothing new, what is happening right now in global economics, says Glenn Beck, is indeed new — and it should terrify everyone.

“For the very first time in world history … the entire globe is riding the same wheel at the same time,” he warns.

“Right now, America, Europe, China, Japan, and every other major power … have all hit stage four at the same time.”

“The bond markets are shaking. The currencies are all volatile. Politicians are praying that no one notices the numbers. … Stage four is not coming. We are now living inside the opening act,” Glenn warns.

And yet a recent report from the National Retail Federation’s annual holiday forecast estimates that U.S. holiday retail sales will surpass $1 trillion for the first time ever.

Glenn, who says he is floored by the prices of food and goods and often wonders how the average person can afford to live right now, fears that the American people are making the same mistake as these governments on the brink of financial collapse.

“We’re spending, spending, spending, and I don’t understand it. … We’re just spending because we think we can get out of it,” he laments.

But our government and its constituents would be wise to remember what happens when stage four of the debt cycle is complete.

“It’s called the reset,” says Glenn, and it culminates in either crushing inflation, outright default and political chaos, or war.

For this to happen in any one country is terrible, but imagine the unmitigated catastrophe that would unfold if several global superpowers collapsed simultaneously.

“Rome collapsed by itself. France collapsed alone. Weimar collapsed by itself. Britain declined while America rose. It was always one country coming down and another country coming up,” says Glenn, but “this time all countries on both sides — the free world and the not-so-free world — there’s no one rising.”

“So what does that mean?” he asks.

While the history books can’t inform us, as this widespread teetering is unprecedented, we can only assume it means that rampant inflation, political upheaval, and war won’t be regional but “global” and “systemic.”

The silver lining is that collapse also “[creates] the conditions for renewal.” But until then, we are faced with a choice: Will we continue to spend ourselves into oblivion, or will we exercise the discipline it takes to create prosperity?

“The next chapter is not written. What happens to us is not written,” says Glenn, “and whether we rise or fall from what’s coming depends not on Washington, not on Wall Street, but on us in our homes and our families and our churches and our communities.”

To hear more of Glenn’s commentary, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Financial collapse, Economic crisis, Christmas, Holiday sales, Global collapse, Global superpowers, Debt cycle, Debt, National debt, Debt crisis, Blazetv, Blaze media