DOUBLE TAP: Democrats in Congress are calling for release of the “double tap” drug boat strike and claiming a cover-up by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who proudly released video of the first strike on the boat destroyed on September 2^nd. Hegseth has said that releasing the follow-up video in which two survivors were killed “could compromise sources and methods.”

  He has released video of all the other strikes.

  Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week” that “It seems pretty clear they don’t want to release this video because they don’t want people to see it.” 

  Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee who also saw the video, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the two survivors “were barely alive, much less engaging in hostilities.”

  He said: “It’s not lost on anyone, of course, that the interpretation of the video, which, you know, six or seven of us had an opportunity to see last week, broke down precisely on party lines. And so this is an instance in which I think the American public needs to judge for itself.”

  President Trump said he would have no problem releasing the video but Hegseth said on Saturday,“We’re reviewing the process, and we’ll see.” 

THE REGIME: Defense Secretary Hegseth made it clear over the weekend that the Pentagon is another political arm of the Trump administration and the President’s new national security doctrine.

  In a speech at the annual Reagan Defense Forum Hegseth demanded that allies must fend for themselves and took a softer approach to China’s increasingly threatening armed forces. “Out with idealistic utopianism,” he said. “In with hard-nosed realism.”

  The US should not be “distracted by democracy building, interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralizing and feckless nation-building,” Hegseth said. “We will instead put our nation’s practical, concrete interests first.”

  But even while claiming Europe in particular needs to take care of itself, the new Trump national security policy calls for ethnic nationalism in that part of the world and “restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity.”  Translated: Trump is saying that white people are being replaced by immigrants in Europe and he wants to put a stop to it.

  The “America First” philosophy ignores the possibility, even the stark reality, that American interests do not begin at our shores. But the  speech supported an administration moving toward recognizing zones of influence for the great powers — China in the Pacific, the US in the Western Hemisphere and Europe. Hegseth made only a passing reference to Russia, which is unlikely to sit on the sidelines.

— Immigration agents yesterday tried to capture the Texas parents of Any Lucía López Belloza, a 19-year-old Massachusetts college student who was abruptly deported to her home country of Honduras.

  Agents were reported to have tried to detain Francis López in Austin as he washed his car in his driveway.  López dashed for his back yard and then into his house where he locked the door. Agents entered the back yard but never even knocked on the door and left after about two hours.

  Any López came to the US with her parents when she was seven. The family’s application for asylum was denied about 10 years ago, but they say they never received an order of deportation. They have two younger children ages 5 and 2 who are US citizens.

— Despite President Trump’s stiff tariffs, China says its trade surplus with the US reached a record $1.08 trillion in just 11 months. Although China is exporting fewer goods to the US because of the tariffs, it seriously cut back on what it buys from the US, including soy beans.

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told Lesley Stahl on last night’s “60 Minutes” that President Trump told her he didn’t want to release the files on sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein because, “People will get hurt.”

— President Trump hosted the Kennedy Center honors last night making a somewhat joking reference to the “Trump-Kennedy” Center.

  Honored last night were members of the metal-rock band Kiss, country music singer George Strait, disco queen Gloria Gaynor, and actors Sylvester Stallone and Michael Crawford.

  The President made himself chairman of the center and fired all Democratic appointees on the board. Ticket sales have fallen since his takeover and some artists have refused to perform there.

  Trump was himself last night. He claimed rave reviews before the show was even over. He said: “Well, we’re really having a good time tonight. So many people I know in this audience. Some good. Some bad. Some I truly love and respect. Some I just hate.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Fern Michaels, once a New Jersey suburban mother of five who took up writing and ended up “scribbling” 200 books, died on November 12th at home in Summerville, South Carolina. She was 92.

  “When my youngest went off to kindergarten,” she recalled on her website, “my husband told me to get off my ass and get a job.” 

  Michaels was her pen name. Her actual name was Mary Kuczkir. She churned out family dramas, mysteries, and of course, bodice rippers. She had a NY Times #1 bestseller with “Weekend Warriors” and ultimately sold 150 million nooks translated into 20 languages.

  Just to give you an idea, here are the titles of her “Captive” series:

“Captive Passions,”  “Captive Embraces,” “Captive Innocence,” “Captive Secrets,” and “Captive Splendors.”

THE SPIN RACK: CBS News reports on incidents in Austin, Texas in which Waymo self-driving taxis fail to stop for stopped school buses. So far no one has been hit. — A NASA study says reflections from satellites orbiting Earth could ruin more than 95% of images taken by some space telescopes in the next decade. 

BELOW THE FOLD:  The National parks have dropped Martin Luther King Jr. Day and  Juneteenth from its “fee free” calendar and added Donald Trump’s birthday.