For perspective on the U.S. military strikes on suspected drug boats and the legal concerns, Geoff Bennett spoke with retired Maj. Gen. Steven Lepper. He served as the Air Force's Deputy Judge Advocat...

The Steady State | October 31, 2025

The covert official was included in a list of names shared by Gabbard online.

The Steady State: by Tom Wolfson

Conservative writer William Kristol raged in the Bulwark against a “Politburo meeting, in which the highest-ranking government officials of the world’s oldest and once greatest democracy abased themselves ridiculously before their presidential idol.” “Every Trump apparatchik took a turn in the Cabinet Room adulating their leader. They even sought to outdo each other,” Kristol wrote, adding that U.S. diplomat “Steve Witkoff’s fawning may have taken the prize.” “There’s only one thing I wish for: That that Nobel Committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since that Nobel award was ever talked about,” Witkoff told Trump and the rest of the group. READ MORE: 'It’s a real gut punch': Rural voters 'stunned' by Trump’s damage But there was stiff “Butt-snorkeling” competition, said Kristol, quoting retired Gen. Ben Hodges “The flattery is so over-the-top as to be — in short doses, at least — entertaining. And watching the other cabinet secretaries being sure to vigorously nod along to their colleagues’ moments of adoration, lest they seem less than fully enthusiastic, is a sight to behold,” said Kristol. Kristol said Trump added his own piece to the show, mocking critics who dare to claim he’s behaving like a dictator. “A lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’ But I’m not a dictator,” Trump mused. “We have a president who rejects any checks on presidential power, and who is trying to normalize the view that dictatorship maybe isn’t so bad,” Kristol said, adding that Trump also attacked the idea that an opposition to the president and his agenda “has some sort of right to exist.” READ MORE: Trump's reckoning may be right around the corner — here's why “The Trump administration rejects that,” Kristol said. “On Monday night, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, appeared on Fox News. He called the opposition party ‘an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gangbangers, and illegal, alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.’ “So much for the rule of law,” said Kristol. “So much for limits on the power of the executive. So much for the legitimacy of opposition to the government.” Read Kristol’s Bulwark report at this link.