TV News LIES

A US soldier who played a role in the January capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is now in custody after allegedly cashing in over $400,000 on wagers about the politician’s removal from office, federal authorities announced on Thursday.

Prosecutors say beginning in early December the soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, was involved in planning for the military operation to capture and depose Maduro.

Between early December and early January, Van Dyke allegedly placed 13 bets on Polymarket, a popular prediction market, related to American forces invading Venezuela and taking its head of state.

Van Dyke has been charged with commodities and wire fraud in addition to unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, according to the Department of Justice (DoJ). He is facing up to 60 years in prison.

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Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is holding up hundreds of Coast Guard promotions over an issue with Eastern Shipbuilding Group, a Florida shipbuilder.

In a statement to The Hill on Wednesday, Scott said he has questions about what happened with contracts with the company since President Trump took office and “they haven’t been answered yet.”

Eastern Shipbuilding Group, based in Panama City, in 2016 won a multibillion-dollar deal with the Coast Guard to deliver four new Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPC).

But the company, which was supposed to deliver the first such ship in June 2023, hit several snags in production. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last year decided to cut the order from four down to two vessels, citing “failing to meet delivery agreements.”

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Dozens of US military veterans, some with visible disabilities, were arrested on Monday during a protest against the ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran. Approximately 60 veterans and family members gathered in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill, many wearing military fatigues. They unfurled banners reading “End the War on Iran” and “We Can’t Afford Another War” while standing stoically at attention.

The group held a flag-folding ceremony to honor American service members who have died in the conflict and those who might be killed if fighting resumes. Several protesters held red tulip flowers in memory of Iranians killed since the war began on Feb. 28.

Mike Prysner, executive director of the Center on Conscience and War (CCW), was among those arrested. Before his detention, he said: “This war is already deeply unpopular, and it is already a crisis for the Trump administration.” Prysner noted that more than 100 service members have already filed as conscientious objectors, adding: “If even more stand up, and some speak out, we have a real chance of deepening this crisis for Trump in a way that forces them to pull back from this war.” According to the center, roughly five dozen protesters were arrested by US Capitol Police for civil disobedience.

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The U.S. has seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz after firing on its engine room, President Trump said in a post on social media.

Trump wrote that the U.S. Navy Guided Missile Destroyer USS Spruance intercepted the Touska in the Gulf of Oman.

The U.S. Navy "gave them fair warning to stop. The Iranian crew refused to listen, so our Navy ship stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engineroom," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

He said U.S. Marines have custody of the vessel and that it is "under U.S. Treasury Sanctions because of their prior history of illegal activity."

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US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth read a fake Bible verse from Quentin Tarantino's 1994 cult classic film Pulp Fiction on Wednesday, during a Christian prayer and worship service at the Pentagon. 

Addressing a large Christian congregation at the Pentagon's headquarters, Hegseth, who is facing multiple impeachment charges tabled by House Democrats, claimed the prayer was passed to him by a lead mission planner involved in the rescue operation for two US Air Force crew members who were recently shot down in Iran.

Before reciting the prayer, Hegseth said it was titled "CSAR 2517", alluding to the Biblical verse Ezekiel 25:17.

"The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men," Hegseth said.

"Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children.

"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee, and amen," he added.

The first few lines of the prayer were written by Tarantino and Roger Avary for the hit film Pulp Fiction. The second part of the verse is taken from the Bible, where the speaker condemns the Philistines and the Cherethims, who were alleged to be enemies of the Israelites.

In Pulp Fiction, the character played by Samuel L Jackson falsely claimed the entirety of the verse was Ezekiel 25:17. He utters the verse before executing a terrified young criminal.

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U.S. military survivors of an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait have accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of overstating how protected their unit was.

On March 1, six soldiers were killed and more than 20 wounded when an Iranian drone strike hit an operations center in the heart of a civilian port in Kuwait, miles away from the main Army base.

The Iranian attack was the deadliest suffered by the U.S. since the war began.

But one of the injured soldiers told CBS News that Hegseth's suggestion that the drone slipped through the defenses of a fortified position — an apparent "squirter" — was false.

They told the broadcaster the unit "was unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position."

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