The Morning Sixpack - November 25, 2025

Caribbean tensions spike, Trump’s government shutdown cause ratings drop, Pentagon targets critics, Boy Scouts face a breakup, and a North Carolina Senate office goes off the rails.

Judge Tosses Trump-Era Cases After Ruling His Handpicked Prosecutor Was Never Legally in the Job

A federal judge just erased two of Trump’s marquee prosecutions because his personally suggested prosecutor was never lawfully appointed in the first place.

In a sharply reasoned ruling, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie torpedoed the indictments against James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, finding that Lindsey Halligan—Trump’s chosen avenger—was never eligible to serve. The 120-day interim appointment window had long since closed, shifting authority to the district’s judges, not Attorney General Pam Bondi, who installed Halligan anyway.

Currie didn’t mince words, repeating verbatim in both dismissals that “all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment…constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside.” That line will probably echo through future separation-of-powers fights, and for good reason: Halligan is now the fourth Trump-aligned U.S. attorney declared unlawfully serving.

The fallout is harsh for Trumpworld. The indictments were tossed without prejudice, but the statute of limitations has almost certainly lapsed—especially in Comey’s case—because an invalid indictment doesn’t pause the clock. Comey, for his part, called the prosecution “malevolence and incompetence,” saying, “I am not afraid, and I believe in an independent federal judiciary, a gift from our founders that protects us from a would-be tyrant.”

Letitia James struck a similar tone, calling the decision heartening as her lawyer Abbe Lowell blasted the entire saga: “The President went to extreme measures to substitute one of his allies to bring these baseless charges after career prosecutors refused.” Meanwhile, the White House insists it will appeal, with Fox News amplifying claims that the judge is “shielding” Trump’s foes—because of course they did.

Source: The Hill

The Trump Regime promises an appeal because, of course, they will.

Editor: So once again, the rush to install loyalists ends in a legal face-plant. Maybe—and hear me out—the Constitution isn’t a suggestion box for presidents who want revenge tours.

Pentagon Targets Sen. Mark Kelly Over “Illegal Orders” Video, Escalating an Alarming Clash Between the Military and Congress

The Pentagon just opened an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly—a sitting U.S. senator—over a video reminding troops they can refuse unlawful orders, and that should set off every alarm bell in the Republic.

In a move that would’ve been unthinkable before Trump’s second term, the Defense Department publicly threatened Kelly with potential recall to active duty for court-martial. The trigger: a video featuring six Democratic lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds urging service members to uphold the Constitution. Kelly, the only one formally retired from the military, is the only one under Pentagon jurisdiction—making him the administration’s target of choice.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blasted Kelly’s conduct as bringing “discredit upon the armed forces,” while Kelly fired back that he won’t be cowed by “bullies.” The broader message of the video wasn’t exactly radical: “you can refuse illegal orders,” Kelly said, as others called on troops to “stand up for our laws…our Constitution.” But coming amid Trump’s orders to blow up suspected drug-running boats and his attempts to deploy the National Guard into U.S. cities, the administration clearly saw threats where there were none.

Legal scholars are already waving red flags. Georgetown’s Stephen Vladeck noted a recent rise in court-martialing retirees, but constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis put the issue bluntly: disciplining a sitting senator at the president’s behest “violates a core principle of legislative independence.” That principle exists precisely because kings—real kings—used to punish legislators who got in their way.

The irony? Troops already have a duty to reject unlawful orders, and military lawyers literally train commanders on this. But as one former service member noted, the video probably didn’t even reach most troops because it lived only on X and was too long for the platforms where service members actually get information. The Pentagon’s outrage machine may end up being the only thing giving the video a wider audience.

Source: AP News

Editor: If the administration thinks the best use of the Pentagon is disciplining a senator for saying “follow the Constitution,” maybe the problem isn’t the senator. It’s the people who fear those words.

Pentagon Moves to Cut Ties With Scouting America, Calling It “Genderless” and a Threat to National Security

The Pentagon is preparing to sever its century-old partnership with Scouting America, accusing the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts of undermining “boy-friendly spaces” as part of a sweeping culture-war purge.

According to draft memos obtained by NPR, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to end all military support for the Scouts—from medical teams and logistics at the National Jamboree to allowing troops to meet on U.S. and overseas bases. The documents paint Scouting America as an institution corrupted by inclusion, diversity and letting girls earn Eagle—moves Hegseth derides as “genderless” and incompatible with “masculine values.” It’s a spectacular reversal for a relationship formalized in 1937 and embraced by presidents of both parties.

Hegseth is invoking a national-security exemption normally used sparingly, claiming that providing trucks, medics and aviation demos for a 10-day youth event would endanger America by diverting resources from border operations. That argument runs headfirst into reality: the military uses the Jamboree as a recruiting pipeline, and internal Navy memos warn that cutting ties would kneecap officer recruitment because so many leaders come from Scouting. Military families stationed around the world rely on base-based Scout troops to help their kids integrate—something a retired staff sergeant said the Pentagon seems willing to toss aside in favor of ideological theatrics.

The Scouts, for their part, are diplomatically brushing off the leaked plans, reminding everyone they’ve worked with every administration for more than a century. And they’re right: Scouting has helped shape millions of civic-minded Americans, including the very service members Hegseth now claims he must “protect” from the horrors of girls earning merit badges.

What’s striking is how neatly this fits Hegseth’s tenure: slashing DEI programs, firing senior women and Black officers, and preaching that diversity weakens the military. His stance on the Scouts isn’t an outlier—it’s the blueprint. Even conservatives inside the Pentagon are uneasy, warning the proposed ban is “too restrictive” and cuts against the military’s own interests.

Whether Congress lets Hegseth bulldoze a century of cooperation is uncertain, but planning for next summer’s Jamboree is already underway—and the Pentagon’s draft letter to Scouting America ends with a cheery farewell: no troops, no equipment, but “best wishes.” A breakup note with a wink.

Source: NPR

Editor: Imagine claiming national security depends on shielding the Pentagon from kids who tie knots and volunteer at food drives. If this is the hill they’re choosing, it’s not the Scouts who lost the plot.

Trump’s Disapproval Hits New Second-Term High as Voters Blame Shutdown and Economy

President Trump’s disapproval rating has climbed to its highest point of his second term, and it’s no mystery why: Americans are fed up with the shutdown fiasco and a stubbornly sour economy.

Decision Desk HQ’s massive polling average—634 surveys—shows 55.5 percent of Americans now disapprove of Trump’s performance. That edges out the previous record set just days earlier and marks a steep slide from the early months of his return to office. The spike arrives as Congress overwhelmingly voted to force the release of every Epstein-related document—a move Trump resisted until the political pressure became too heavy to ignore.

Analysts point to the recently ended 43-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, as a defining driver of voter frustration. The shuttered agencies, snarled air travel, and threatened food assistance programs turned into a national stress test that the administration failed. Add in the continued anxiety over the cost of living—reflected in small but persistent increases in unemployment and consumer prices—and voters clearly aren’t buying Trump’s economic optimism.

DDHQ’s Geoffrey Skelley summed up the mood: people are “very negative on the state of the economy,” and the very issues that helped Trump win in 2024 are now boomeranging on him. While Trump’s sudden embrace of the Epstein Files Transparency Act earned some attention, Skelley doubts it moves voters one way or another. It certainly isn’t helping.

What’s most striking is how quickly things turned. Trump opened his second term with a 56 percent approval rating. By early February, that goodwill had evaporated. A brief rebound in late winter fizzled, and he hasn’t been above water since. A president who rode economic discontent to victory is now being judged—relentlessly—by the same metric.

Source: MSN/The Hill

Editor: When more than half the country decides they’ve had enough, it’s not a “messaging problem.” It’s a governing problem—and no amount of poll-watching will fix the fallout from a 43-day shutdown you personally engineered.

The Caribbean Is Becoming a Geopolitical Powder Keg — And Everyone Pretended It Was Just for Vacations

The Caribbean is morphing from a postcard paradise into one of the most volatile military flashpoints in the Western Hemisphere, and the fuse is burning fast.

Over the past year, Washington has turned the region into a floating armory: destroyers, subs, F-35s, drones, and the kind of “precision strikes” that always sound cleaner on paper than they look in the body count. Officially, it’s all about cracking down on narco-networks tied to Venezuela’s political elite. Caracas, naturally, calls that fiction—though it doesn’t help their case that they deny narco links while simultaneously begging the U.S. to buy their oil again.

Meanwhile, Nicolás Maduro is staging militia mobilizations and hammering through military drills, insisting this is all a pretext for regime change. Hard to sell “foreign fabrication” when your own economy is held together with duct tape and wishful thinking. But Maduro knows the game: threaten defiance in one sentence, offer discounted crude in the next. A geopolitical two-step.

Airspace isn’t any calmer. The FAA is warning carriers about “heightened military activity”—bureaucratic code for “don’t be shocked if your plane suddenly gets buzzed by something with afterburners.” Airlines have started retreating, prompting Venezuela to bark back with demands that they resume flights or face consequences. Nothing says “confidence-inspiring governance” like threatening Delta mid-escalation.

At sea, things are even more fraught. The U.S. naval presence is at its highest level in decades, and Caribbean nations are watching this buildup with the same quiet horror you feel when your neighbor’s argument jumps from yelling to the sound of furniture breaking—technically not your business, but also very much your business. Smaller states worry about sovereignty, accidents, and the general unease of having superpower hardware idling just offshore.

Here’s the twist: even as the two sides flex, diplomacy isn’t dead. Washington still wants Venezuela’s oil, sanctions have diminishing returns, and nobody’s itching for a long-term conflict in their own backyard. Caracas knows its economic survival depends on keeping at least one negotiation window cracked open.

And beneath all the saber-rattling is a global backdrop we can’t ignore. Shipping lanes are already strained from the Red Sea to the Panama Canal. If the Caribbean becomes a maritime anxiety zone, supply chains will feel it fast—another crisis politicians will claim was “unforeseen” despite everyone seeing it coming. Throw in Russia and Iran’s vocal support for Venezuela, and this stops looking like a regional squabble and starts resembling a proxy conflict waiting for ignition.

Source: The Guardian, Reuters, Wikipedia

Editor: When cruise lines are rewriting their disaster plans more often than their drink menus, you know the region’s vibes have officially shifted from “tropical escape” to “call your risk analyst.”

And let’s not forget: Blowing up fishing boats off the coast is ILLEGAL. War crimes will be charged when Trump is out of office. Mark my words.

A North Carolina GOP Senator’s Office Just Became a Crime Blotter — And Not the Minor Kind

A legislative assistant to North Carolina Republican State Senator Norman Sanderson has been arrested for allegedly setting a house on fire while two people were still inside.

Diane Cook, 38, is now facing a first-degree arson charge after Raleigh authorities booked her into the Wake County Detention Center. Local Fox8 reports that investigators have not yet determined any connection between Cook and the residents of the home she’s accused of “willfully” and “maliciously” targeting. That’s the kind of detail that raises more questions than answers, and none of them good.

If this all sounds like a bad week for Sanderson’s office, it’s because it follows an already bad year for Sanderson himself. The former sheriff’s deputy was arrested in October after blowing a .16 on a breathalyzer—twice the legal limit—along with picking up charges for an open container and ignoring a traffic order. He called it “a regrettable mistake.” That’s one way to frame it.

Cook is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday at 1:30 p.m., but the political fallout is already baked in. One staffer accused of arson, one senator charged with DWI—this is not what you’d call a stable operation. North Carolina voters tend to notice when an office starts resembling the police blotter more than the statehouse.

As for whether Sanderson knew anything or just has catastrophically bad luck hiring staff, that’s a subplot Raleigh will be watching closely. For now, the office’s public image is burning almost as fast as the house Cook is accused of torching.

Source: My Daily Grind

Editor: When both the boss and the aide have mugshots in the same calendar year, maybe the background checks need more than a fresh coat of polish. Or—just spitballing here—hire people who don’t require a fire extinguisher and a breathalyzer to get through the day.