North America

As U.S. troops recover flood victims in Texas, Russia cozies up to North Korea with nuclear winks, and the PKK drops its guns after 40 years, one thing’s clear—conflict’s shifting, but the uniforms never really leave the picture. Welcome to SOFREP’s Evening Brief for Saturday, July 12, 2025.

Pete Hegseth just kicked the Pentagon’s red tape into a shallow grave and basically told America’s warfighters: “Get drones, get lethal, and get moving.”

Rear Admiral Donnelly spent decades landing jets on a postage stamp in the middle of the ocean, only to get shot down by a sailor in eyeliner and a high heels.

In a move that smells more like a bureaucratic slap on the wrist than true accountability, the Secret Service sidelined six agents after a would-be assassin nearly turned Butler, Pennsylvania into Dealey Plaza 2.0.

Sean Duffy running NASA is like handing the keys to a spacecraft over to your cable news commentator—entertaining, sure, but maybe not the guy you want plotting a course to Mars. To be fair, it’s supposed to be a temporary gig. Let’s see who comes next.

The DOJ wants you to believe Epstein ran a global sex ring without clients, kept no records, and killed himself off-camera—because pretending none of it ever happened is easier than naming names.

On his first mission Scott Ruskan dropped into a biblical flood with nothing but a harness, grit, and the kind of calm resolve that makes you believe some men were born to drag others out of hell.

From Elon Musk blowing up his bromance with Trump to start the America Party, to the gator-guarded swamp gulag known as Alligator Alcatraz, to deporting foreign convicts to a war zone they’ve never set foot in, American politics this week feels less like a constitutional republic and more like the fever dream of a Red State Dr. Moreau. Welcome to Sunday, July 6th, 2025. This is your SOFREP morning brief.

This Independence Day, as we fire up the grills and look up to the skies ablaze with fireworks, let us also light the torch of accountability in our own hearts—because freedom, as our forefathers knew, isn’t a gift handed down, it’s a responsibility earned every day.

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” throws a fat wad of cash at the Pentagon like a drunken high roller in Vegas, while quietly gutting social programs and daring the debt ceiling to blink first.

What started as a night of beats and bottle service ended in blood and ballistic trauma, another savage entry in Chicago’s grim summer playlist.

Navigating VA dental benefits can be a headache, but knowing where you stand could save you from paying out of pocket—or chewing on the wrong side for the rest of the year.