Democrats have hit upon a two-pronged strategy for 2028.  One of the strategies is to make members of the military truly uncomfortable about following their orders. The Democrats apparently believe that this will somehow create unrest and chaos. I don’t know how else to explain why Democrats are now suddenly coming out of the woodwork to suggest that a bunch of illegal orders are being issued from the Trump administration that members of the military must now consider. When Democrats such as Senator Mark Kelly or Senator Elissa Slotkin from Michigan say to soldiers, to airmen, to members of the Navy, “If you guys follow an illegal order, you will be punished,” but then don’t define “illegal order,” what they are doing is creating a Catch-22 situation. That’s because if people follow orders, they’re protected in the moment. But down the road, some Democrat may be elected and declare retroactively that those orders were illegal, members of the military should not have obeyed them, and they could end up court-martialed.  Thus, it’s a Catch-22 for members of the military. That is why it is so negative.  All of that is prong number one in the Democratic strategy; a chaos strategy with regard to military orders.  Prong number two is setting up an entire slate of possible Democratic nominees who appear to be moderate. One of the big questions in the aftermath of President Trump winning his second term was: Will Democrats shift over to the Zohran Mamdani Left, or are they going to move toward a more moderate middle? Are they going to jettison much of their culture war baggage or start talking about trans, or are they going to stop talking about trans?: Are they going to up the ante on DEI or move away from DEI? By all indicators, it appears the Democrats are not being morons. It appears that while people like Zohran Mamdani may be winning in places like New York and deep blue areas, what the Democrats are actually attempting to do is play moderate. It seems that more and more often, they’re playing dead on the trans issue. It’s seemingly disappeared from the Democratic lexicon. You don’t hear Democrats talking about “equity” in the same way that they were even a year and a half ago, when this was the be-all, end-all of American politics.  Even on immigration, Democrats have taken a more moderate middle line. They’re no longer arguing, along with AOC, that ICE ought to be disbanded. They’re not arguing anymore that the police ought to be defunded. Instead, what they seem to be doing is arguing that President Trump is largely right on the southern border. They say he’s being overzealous in the prosecution of illegal immigrants who they say have not committed crimes.  Democrats seem to be — at least in image — turning toward the middle. That’s part of what is going on with the controversy swirling around Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. To recap, last week, there was a report from The Washington Post. It argued that the White House had, via Hegseth, given a direct order to basically blow away members of narco-trafficking cartels in the water after they were already put out of commission. Supposedly, Hegseth ordered everyone to be killed, up to and including survivors who were in the water clinging to the wreckage of the burning boat. This raised some fairly significant legal issues because, as it turns out, under the laws of war, under the Geneva Conventions, and under American law, you are not supposed to kill people who are no longer in the fight. The 1949 Geneva Conventions, ratified by the United States, state: Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat (out of combat) by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction based on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above persons: violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture … In other words, you can’t take somebody as a P.O.W. and shoot them. Under the Geneva Conventions, there is no policy of “We take no prisoners.” There is the possibility that these people would not be considered hors de combat, depending on the condition of the boat; the boat may have been dead in the water, but at the same time, they could call their narco-trafficking friends. That is one possible defense. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt read this statement: President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially-designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2nd, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.  The contention here is that there was a general order given to take out the boat, and that possibly Admiral Bradley is the person who actually gave the order to conduct a second strike, if, in fact, a second strike was conducted. The New York Times published a follow-up piece in which they seemed to admit that Hegseth did not give a general kill order, especially for people who were already hors de combat. All of this seems like a convenient way of simply providing support to the Democrats who released the video that told members of the military not to obey orders. This feels ginned up. It feels as though The Washington Post went ahead and reported a story on extraordinarily thin sourcing to create the possibility of an illegal order that, it turns out, may not have been illegal at all, in order to provide support for the Democratic narrative that this administration is lawless, and that only a moderate military veteran who might be running in 2028 can step into the breach. This feels like the predicate for a move by the Democratic Party to elevate somebody like Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who tends to portray himself as a moderate, even though he voted with Joe Biden in the Senate almost all of the time. The Democrats are not going to burn themselves down by openly championing the leftist causes they truly believe in. They’ll wait until they gain power before they turn on that spigot.

At a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins delivered a sweeping update on the nation’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), revealing what she called “rampant fraud” and announcing a dramatic escalation in the administration’s effort to force state compliance with federal oversight. Rollins said that under the president’s tenure, “about 800,000” Americans have already moved off SNAP, a program serving 42 million people, and she argued the trend underscores the need to restore integrity to a system she said has been “abused for far too long.” Rollins detailed new findings from the department’s data-matching initiative — an effort she said was repeatedly obstructed by blue states. “We found 500,000 people receiving benefits more than twice,” she said. “We had a couple of people receiving benefits in six states.” She noted that in February, USDA asked all 50 states to submit their SNAP recipient data so the federal government could help identify fraud. Twenty-one states, including California, New York, and Minnesota, refused. As a result, Rollins announced the administration will withhold federal funds from those states beginning next week unless they provide the data and “allow us to partner with them to protect the American taxpayer.” The secretary also contrasted the current crackdown with the previous administration, stating that President Biden — “working to buy [the] election a year ago,” in her words — expanded the food-stamp budget by 40 percent. 50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at DailyWire.com/cyberweek. The confrontation over state cooperation intensified in mid-November when Rollins disclosed an alarming figure: 186,000 deceased individuals were receiving SNAP benefits, a number she said far exceeded the initial estimate of 5,000 in a single month. Rollins explained that on her first day in office, she asked states to share basic personal data for all SNAP recipients — names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses — asserting the information was needed both to identify fraud and to ensure benefits were not going to illegal immigrants. She claimed Democrats opposed data-sharing because, in her view, their political strategy “depends on protecting illegal aliens.” According to Rollins, 29 mostly red states complied, and the fraud numbers identified so far come only from those data sets. “Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue-state data?” she said. She argued that full transparency will enable USDA to rebuild the program from the ground up, require every recipient to reapply, and make certain SNAP is reserved for Americans who “literally cannot survive without it.”

An illegal immigrant cop who was arrested by federal authorities in October and later released has since been brought back onto the force. The Hanover Police Department announced Tuesday that it has brought Radule Bojovic, an illegal immigrant from Montenegro, back on as an officer following his release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in October. Bojovic overstayed a B2 tourist visa that required him to leave the United States on March 31, 2015, the Department of Homeland Security said at the time of his arrest. An immigration judge granted a $2,500 immigration bond just two weeks after he was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Bojovic returned to work Monday and will receive a paycheck for the time he missed while he was detained, the department said in a statement Tuesday. “Given that his bond was not contested and he remains authorized to work by the federal government, the Hanover Police Department determined that he may return to work,” the department said. “His first shift back since his detention took place yesterday. The Village and Hanover Park will provide Officer Bojovic back pay for the time he was on leave,” they added. Despite his immigration status, Bojovic was hired in January because he had a federal work permit and passed all background checks, the department said. Bojovic was eligible to receive a starting salary of $78,955.70 when he was hired, according to the Department of Homeland Security. His 2025 earnings were $205,707, including $9,276 for FICA/Medicare taxes. At the time of his arrest by the feds, Bojovic told Real America’s Voice reporter Ben Bergquam that he was authorized to carry a firearm while on duty.

Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo does not believe that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — or any of the Democratic Party’s “horses,” for that matter — truly love more about the United States than they hate about it. Cuomo made the comments during a recent podcast conversation with progressive podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, using his father — former Governor Mario Cuomo (D-NY) — as a point of reference. WATCH: ?NEW: Chris Cuomo says he doesn’t think AOC loves America?? “I don’t believe AOC — any of your horses — I have a hard time believing they love the country. I think they hate more about it than they love about it.” “I can’t think of the last time I heard AOC say something good… pic.twitter.com/WOiQgyg7hD — Jason Cohen ?? (@JasonJournoDC) December 2, 2025 “What did my father have? Okay, I know I’m a white guy, okay? I know, I’m not saying anything but that,” Cuomo began, noting that his father had not been considered so. “My father was not considered a white guy. He was considered an ethnic, okay? He had that other thing going.” “He was an other. And he hated it. And he hated the people who got to decide that, and who kept opportunities from him. So he was a real one, okay? But he loved the f***ing country,” Cuomo continued. “That’s the part that you guys, in my opinion, don’t get right. I don’t believe AOC — or any of your horses — I have a hard time believing they love the country. I think they hate more about it than they love about it. And that may be unfair. But if it is unfair, it’s because of how they’ve made their own case about themselves.” Cohen pushed back, claiming that patriotism in the United States was largely performative and “jingoistic” in the way that kids are trained to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance. He explained that he’d taught in France, and said that the students there found the concept of such actions “foreign.” 50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at DailyWire.com/cyberweek. But Cuomo wasn’t finished. He went on to expand that because Democrats had pushed away from patriotism with such force, they’d effectively allowed the Right to take complete ownership of symbolic America. “Here’s my point: Why are people surprised when they see an American flag on my truck, or in front of my house? Why were the Democrats okay with that becoming a party symbol for the GOP?” Cuomo asked, adding, “You are absolutely right, and every political philosopher has only agreed with you that dissent and criticism of your government is one of the strongest forms of patriotism. I don’t even think that’s really an open question.” The problem, Cuomo argued, was that the Left had not found a way to balance dissent with patriotism — and the result was that they gave the appearance that they hated the country, whether that was true or not. “What do you balance it with?” he asked. “When’s the last time you heard Democrats say something good about this country? That’s true, too. And I think it goes to your point about, hey man, you gotta play the game where it stands. I think that a real one who hates certain things that were done to them — systemic, cultural — and is fighting to change it because they believe so much in what this country can be, is, and is at her best. That’s the sweet spot. I can’t think of the last time I heard AOC say something good about the country.”

NASHVILLE—It was freezing and windy with the occasional snowflake, and no, we aren’t talking about the libs. Election Day in Tennessee was cold, but the race between Democrat Aftyn Behn and Republican Matt Van Epps is hot. Voters hit the polls in District 7 on Tuesday with certain issues top of mind. Tennesseans told The Daily Wire that the economy was the issue that hit home. The Daily Wire talked to one woman who said affordability is what she wants to see in Tennessee. “For me it’s affordable housing, that’s a part of our country that needs a lot of help.” Both candidates have focused on economic issues throughout the race. Van Epps said he backs President Donald Trumps’s “America First” agenda. His plan for the economy is to partner with Trump to rebuild the economy by bringing manufacturing back to U.S. soil, unleashing American energy, and creating jobs. Behn argues that Trump’s tariffs are hurting the U.S. economy and has raged against “tax cuts for billionaires.” She also claims that she would push to make healthcare more affordable for people in Tennessee. After speaking to voters on Tuesday, it’s clear that dollar signs are on their minds. “We want economic change, and we want to feel like our taxes are going to things that matter,” one voter said. Other voters expressed border security and abortion as top concern. One voter told The Daily Wire that Behn’s leftist views, especially on abortion, were too radical for middle Tennessee. “The abortion, it’s a human life. I can’t vote for it,” the voter said. “Some of Aftyn Behn’s views aren’t what I want in this district.” President Donald Trump and Republican leaders have also ripped Behn for her radical leftist views, urging conservatives to hit the polls hard. “This is a big deal, because right now we’re like, three votes up on the radical left, and this would be a wonderful victory for us,” Trump said, according to the New York Post. “It’ll be really a positive sign.” RELATED: ‘A Big Deal’: Trump Calls On Tennessee Republicans To Surge To The Polls Behn has come under fire for saying that she hates Nashville, parts of which she’s running to represent. In a clip from a podcast appearance in 2020, Behn said, “I hate the city, I hate the bachelorettes, I hate pedal taverns, I hate country music.” Behn walked back her past comment, saying in a video after the clips resurfaced that she does not hate the city she wants to represent. But is that enough for Music City residents? “It doesn’t look good for sure,” a voter told The Daily Wire. But some voters didn’t care that Behn has said some negative things about their city. “It doesn’t bother me. I think there’s a lot of people that are not comfortable with the city,” a woman said. One Van Epps supporter, however, didn’t hold back his feelings of Behn. “This girl is as dumb or may be dumber than AOC.”   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by The Daily Wire (@realdailywire) Leftist New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got behind Behn during the special election campaign and spoke during a virtual rally for the Tennessee Democrat on the eve of the election. Behn is just two points behind Van Epps, a former Army helicopter pilot. Trump won Tennessee’s 7th district  by 22 points in 2024, and Republicans have breezed to victories in House elections in recent years. Most Republicans aren’t expecting that big of a victory on Tuesday night, but President Trump is hoping Van Epps will outperform expectations. “I want Matt to do better than me, even,” Trump said on Monday. Polls close in Tennessee’s 7th district at 7:00 p.m. CT.