Firing upon a shipwreck is a textbook example of an illegal order that shouldn’t be followed — one straight out of our military’s own Law of War Manual.
The nerve of these drug cartels to bring their poison into our country. If you want to treat this problem with kid gloves the drug czars will win. Kill them all. No one will miss them. Haven't heard from a single mother of one of these maggots.
This is what happens when a Fox "News" weekend host (not even good enough to make the weeknights) runs the "WAR" Department. Should be the War CRIMES Department.
You mean unnecessary name calling - like calling an entire nation “garbage?” That’s what your hero did. And, for good measure, he also called a congresswoman the same thing, because she was born in that country. Is what I called you as bad as your labeling immigrants “maggots,” or stating all of them are drug runners? Btw, where did your immigrant forebears come from? A garbage country - or a white Christian one, which is your President’s implied message? Dementia, thy name is Trump. Yes, “go Trump” - like “go away please.”
As I presumed. And change your sheets and pillow cases weekly. Of course wash the removed ones. Then vacuum, dust and get to your never cleaned windows. If you follow my teaching, you won't have time to write your hate, racist rants
You mean 500 years, don’t you? Because that’s the actual time that immigrants have come here. Maybe you should’ve gone to that high school history course after all, MAGA ignoramus.
But you got a lot of people’s attention by your very disturbed, hateful comment. You need help. The irrational anger must consume you.
70 years refers to our goverment overlooking these maggots bringing their drugs to us. Finally, we have an administration that is doing what all the others never even tried. Go Trump.
Your reply included unneeded offensive name calling. Poor Ellis
I aint hateful and most certsinly I am not ignorant. I just have no time for illegal aliens (no time for anything illegal), no time for anything involved with illegal drugs. So I have time for Law & Order. And the Order part should be quick punishment.
Please please stay on this. We can not let this go. Hegseth needs to go. He is a 12 year old in charge of the department of defense. Innocent lives lost. We are all at risk. Do not let up. Thank you for sticking with this.
sounds like something who enjoy others suffering crave violence war and hate...bullies....who a healthy society are the people we ware protected from certainly not allowed to have power they rape abuse get high on...despicable deplorable terrible
The illegal order came from an idiot whose only qualification is that he is a warm body. On top of that he is completely ignorant and a blowhard who can’t take responsibility for anything.
His 'warm body' is covered with white Christian Nationalist tattoos. He's not simply an idiot, he's also a malignant narcissist - just like the rest of the administration. Hieronymus Bosch would use them in one of his paintings of Hell.
So what is going to happen to trump and the idiot running our department of defense. Nothing because of the cowardly GOP won’t dare go against him at all
Hegseth throws Admiral Bradley under the bus with a back-handed compliment on his double-tap murder of two persons hanging onto ship debris for dear life. Yet, all of the boat bombings that killed over 80 civilians (under Hegseth orders) were war crimes. Refer to commentary of todays Defiance News by Miles Taylor on substack.com. Curiously, the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) wrote an opinion to give specious cover for these war crimes. Then, it classified the contents of that OLC letter. There are reports that the OLC letter inaccurately claims that the Carribean boat bombings were justified to support and defend Mexico & Columbia from the incursion of drug trafficking. Yet, there is no evidence that Mexico and Columbia ever requested assistance. No matter how you look at it, Hegseth orders were war crimes for all of those boat bombings. And, Trump is telegraphing that the military should unquestioningly follow ALL orders (including illegal), and if their is legal blowback, then Trump will protect political allies and throw military personnel under the bus to take the fall for despicable political allies like Pete Hegseth.
ARE TRUMP'S MISSILE ATTACKS ON BOATS ON THE HIGH SEAS AND HIS MURDERS OF THEIR OCCUPANTS A PRELUDE TO DARKER DAYS AHEAD?
WHERE IS ALL THIS TAKING US IF CONGRESS AND THE COURTS FAIL TO ACT?
Prior postings have included summaries [with 2 detailed Appendices on my Substack page] of why 1. Trump's unilateral missile attacks on boats on the high seas and the murders of all their occupants violate International Law, the Geneva Convention, U.S. laws and judicial decisions, the U.S. Department of Defense Rules and the U.S.Military Codes and 2 . why the laws of "armed conflict" refute Leavitt's claim that such laws authorized these murders. Thus far, all 83 occupants on all of the boats he ordered destroyed have been murdered, with not a single survivor to take captive.
For the last few days, the White House, the War Department and the U.S. Navy have been engaged in tongue-twisting double-talk to try to explain away how our government on September 2, after an initial missile attack on a boat that killed 8 and left 2 survivors clinging to the boat wreckage in the water, launched a second attack which they knew would kill the survivors. While Admiral Frank Bradley was offered up as the fall guy claiming to have issued the actual order for the second missile strike that killed these survivors, it was well understood by the Navy Seals present at the scene that the message to leave no survivors had originally come down from a former Fox News celebrity and now Trump's warlord, Pete Hegseth.
Two days ago, the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the strikes were conducted in "self defense" in international waters and "in accordance with the law of armed conflict.” She further declared that Admiral Bradley "directed the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and THE THREAT FROM NARCO TERRORISTS WAS ELIMINATED".
Not only is Leavitt's claim that all of these missile strikes on boats on the high seas were committed in "self-defence" patently ludicrous, but their second claim that they were "in accordance with the law of armed conflict" is so absurd that they must think that the American people are morons to buy it. Below is an Appendix setting forth most, if not all, of the laws, conventions, decisions, and rules defining "armed conflicts", which, in essence, state that there must be two parties engaged in an armed conflict, rather than one party unilaterally attacking another. [That's why they call it a "conflict", rather than the unilateral attacks like the ones Trump ordered on boats on the high seas or the ones that Hitler ordered on bordering countries.]
While all this may appear to be flailings in the night to try to cover-up their outrageous conduct and sophomoric legal claims justifying it, I believe that there is a pattern that is starting to appear and which foretells very dark, serious threats to our democracy ahead. And I believe that all of these unilateral attacks on boats on the high seas are only the beginning of a carefully designed strategy hatched by the ultra-right wing Heritage Foundation, which drafted Project 2025 for Trump to promote once they helped him return to the WhiteHouse.
Where is this all going?
Let's start with Trump's Veterans Day campaign event at Stevens High School in Claremont, New Hampshire, on November 11, 2023, where Trump declared:
“…[W]e pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country..... “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream... THE THREAT FROM OUTSIDE FORCES IS FAR LESS SINISTER, DANGEROUS AND GRAVE THAN THE THREAT FROM WITHIN" (emphasis added).
Trump makes no bones about who is behind the threat from within. They are our migrants. Trump is obsessed with migrants and has repeatedly said that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and called them “animals,” “not people,” while repeatedly dehumanizing them.
This is exactly how Hitler denounced the Jews.
So putting this all together, Trump is making it clear that he has the absolute right to decide who to murder and how to murder people attempting come to the United States to sell narcotics, whom he classifies as "narco-terrorists".
And given his declaration that "The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within", we can expect that he intends to dispense with the same legal restrictions and safeguards domestically as he has done internationally by branding "communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" as "terrorists". .... "They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream...."
And perhaps he intends to invoke what he may claim to be his inherent emergency power to suspend the Constitution and invoke marshal law to deal with these terrorists and call up the National Guard and U.S. military to enforce his orders.
Given that Karoline Leavitt, following Trump's lead, has classified those in the boats heading for the U.S. to sell narcotics here as "narco-terrorists" whom the U.S. has a right to murder before they get here, it would follow that Trump could claim the same right attaches once they get here, whom he would then classify as "domestic narco-terrorists". Following this thread, Trump could then claim that he has the unilateral right to murder domestic narc-terrorists, and for that matter, anyone selling narcotics within the United States.
We are already well on the road to an authoritarian government. Absent the courage of Congress and the Supreme Court to deal with him, there may still be time for the American people to make their voices and ballots known next November.
Great analysis. I would only add that to my understanding, the "narco terrorist" designation is a made up term by the Trump administration to speciously justify their war crimes. In actuality, narcotics cartels are conducting an illegal enterprise whose intention is $$$, not combating US. We, as a country, have had a long law enforcement history of interdicting suspected narco cartel boats for arrest, prosecution and intelligence gathering on the higher-ups of these cartels. Even as Trump regime gives its blustering defense of its Cartibbean war crimes, what does he do recently? Hypocritically, Trump pardons former Honduran president Hernandez, who was operating a narco state (including bribing cartels to transport drugs to the US). Then, after pardoning Hernandez, Trump proclaims, "Make Honduras great again"?!
Thanks Dawn. I agree with all of your well taken points, especially your observation that Trump, by redefining drug runners as "narco-terrorists", believes he now has the right to kill them in cold blood.
The lingering question is one of how we are to tolerate nonsensical governance for another 11 months until the midterm election. What is the level of damage that might be done over that time?
Thanks very much Donald. You ask a good question. Being a lawyer, my first impulse is to recommend bringing a lawsuit in federal court for an injunction against such murders on the high seas, but who would have standing to put this issue before the courts? I read an article this morning that the South American widow of one of the murder victims killed in his boat has filed a complaint in the U.S. with a human rights organization. I believe that she contended that he was only a fisherman. Perhaps the suspected drug runners had hired him and his boat, and perhaps he was unaware of their objective. If so, he was innocently taken out in the murder spree. I would think that an attorney versed in international law would be the first one I would look to. As for your second question, I have the same concerns, though I believe that Mr. Schiff would be in the best position to answer that.
I too am a former prosecutor, albeit only in State Court (Cook County - Chicago) at the beginning of my career. In the 50 years since, I’ve tried 40 cases for defendants in civil court, 115 for plaintiffs to a verdict. I am an octogenarian.
Having volunteered for the draft the same week in August, 1964, when cadet bone spurs won his first deferment, my perspective is somewhat stilted. Generally speaking, I couldn’t agree more with you.
Today, there was also news that an IG (Surprise! They have not all been fired by Trump DOJ) determined that Hegseth recklessly used Signal (second time) in a manner that risked the lives of our military in the Carribean. There are multiple reasons this blood thirsty & foolish Hegseth should be relieved as Secretary of Defense Dept. I am appalled with how our military is being abused.
Your comment is very well written. By reading your other post I now understand you're an attorney. I liked your post so much I posted it on Facebook. Thank you
By the way Bobbi , I would trade everything I said for the one sentence that Dawn (above) used to really get to the heart of Trump's scam, which I further compressed into "Trump, by redefining drug runners as "narco-terrorists", believes he now has the right to kill them in cold blood."
Thanks very much Bobbi. I'm not on Facebook myself so I'm very flattered that you thought enough of it to post it there. Please feel free to post anything of mine that you think is worth posting. Thanks again!
You're welcome. When I read or see something I believe to be true and I believe in, I post it to Facebook. It's my main way to keep up with family and friends.
Congress needs to remove him tout suite. We have an administration full of monsters performing treasonous acts. Its deplorable, unacceptable and it is time Congress took back its powers before you no longer have that option.
What is the Senate doing about anything? We have Gestapo in the streets, we have a con-man criminal in the white house, why is Jared Kushner negotiating business deals directly with Putin instead of the Secretary of State negotiating Peace. What are you doing, everything is falling apart. Do something
We the People have to help do something. Keep showing up in the streets, talk with your family and friends to make sure they understand the moment we’re in. The courts (except scotus) are holding the line because they know the people are behind them; slowly the Rs are seeing our writing on the wall and more of them (even MTG) are finding their backbone. Keep up the pressure! Call your electeds at least 2x/week. There’s no instant solution, but make them see the choice: loyalty to trumpf or standing up to survive another election
Tes, yes, yes...What will it take for some creative response to remove T, his cabinet, 6 SCOTUS members and most GOP reps to arrest, and try for treason? This regime routinely breaks laws and puts our national security at risk. Watching others sit while hand-wringing because we do not currently have a written method for removing these threats...itself is a national security threat in that our very democracy may already be irreparable. We cannot sit around, waiting for elections. T is doing everything he can to undermine that possibility...like a mob boss.
I don’t think much can be done until November, 2026, when we have the opportunity to cure the scourge of the T-Rump government. That might not be possible without flipping Congress altogether.
The real problem is the unpredictable danger with which we will have to stomach for the next 11 months.
How would you propose to get T-Rump out before the House and Senate are flipped? Do you contemplate the use of violence? Are you just relying on the act of The Maker?
So - WHO IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT? Seems our Democrat leaders are only complaining along side US. But where’s the representation? The HELP? I’m an old female stroke survivor living on $1550 a month - but even I spent the money to make a sign and show up, like thousands of others for No Kings Day! I’m a huge fan Senator Schiff - But WE NEED RELIEF FROM THIS FASCIST REGIME. WE NEED HELP NOT JUST WORDS
I do not believe anything coming from the short-fingered vulgarian's mouth. If he ever tells the truth, it's by accident. I recognized him as a liar over 45 years ago, and he's not only gotten worse over the decades, he now is also suffering from dementia.
The 2025 Gang is responsible for all of this, with the Republican Congress in abettance.
Many of us out here would like to know who CAN, outside of our own military, arrest, try and convict accordingly those who commit murder and international war crimes within our military? Someone out there has to know. Please, maybe a video about those laws would be helpful for us.
We know of the ICC, whose authority the U.S. no longer recognizes. We know of The Hague. But why, after 80 people have been summarily murdered over several months, have they done nothing? We know why Congress has done nothing. Congressional Republicans never do anything contrary to Trump's wishes.
I can and have done research on what is possible, but can't find a definitive answer. Are we all just screaming into the ether about the horror of it? Is there something that Congress can and actually will do? Does Congress have any real teeth? I mean, if they can't even enforce their own subpoenas what good are they?
We know all of these strikes are international war crimes. We know it's murder. We know who gave the orders and why. What we don't really know is who can come in and remove these criminals from our government.
Those Indivisible kids say if 3% of Americans (about 10 million) were in the streets across the country every day that would do it. But then they say it's too hard to organize more that twice a year instead of calling us all out every weekend 😡
But i can see quite clearly that if a single million of us went to dc and peacefully encircled the Capitol for a single week (While Congress Is In Session!) that it would snarl traffic and open even Republicans eyes to the issues at hand!
Otherwise we just go to our video game consoles and wait for hell to subsume us the way it has Gaza
It's a great idea, but we'd be tear gassed, shot with non-lethal bullets, shoved to the ground...I'd love to do it though. It may come to that.
I say we all - ALL - just take a sick day from work on the same day. Pick a National Sick Day and stay home. It won't shut anyone down, but it would send a message, and messages are what we need to be sending now.
Maybe we all better watch the first part of the ghandi movie again. Yes, something could go sideways, but that will only make the message more clear to congress.
We could also do it at every district office in every single congressional district during the recess. Harder to organize, but also harder for ice or dhs to target
Not just "potentially" a crime!!! It's murder!!
And the original strike as well!!
Agreed
So, now what happens to the officer who obeyed an illegal order???
The nerve of these drug cartels to bring their poison into our country. If you want to treat this problem with kid gloves the drug czars will win. Kill them all. No one will miss them. Haven't heard from a single mother of one of these maggots.
Kill them all.
This is what happens when a Fox "News" weekend host (not even good enough to make the weeknights) runs the "WAR" Department. Should be the War CRIMES Department.
War crimes!
There is no war. These maggots will not fight- kill them all.
It would be helpful to get behind our administration- only 38 more months till you can vote back joe
You mean unnecessary name calling - like calling an entire nation “garbage?” That’s what your hero did. And, for good measure, he also called a congresswoman the same thing, because she was born in that country. Is what I called you as bad as your labeling immigrants “maggots,” or stating all of them are drug runners? Btw, where did your immigrant forebears come from? A garbage country - or a white Christian one, which is your President’s implied message? Dementia, thy name is Trump. Yes, “go Trump” - like “go away please.”
You have a comeback for any comment. Look at your kitchen counter tops and let me know how neat, clean, organized they appear-
As I presumed. And change your sheets and pillow cases weekly. Of course wash the removed ones. Then vacuum, dust and get to your never cleaned windows. If you follow my teaching, you won't have time to write your hate, racist rants
Get behind fascism? Really?
70 years we have allowed these maggots free reign. Kill them all
You mean 500 years, don’t you? Because that’s the actual time that immigrants have come here. Maybe you should’ve gone to that high school history course after all, MAGA ignoramus.
But you got a lot of people’s attention by your very disturbed, hateful comment. You need help. The irrational anger must consume you.
70 years refers to our goverment overlooking these maggots bringing their drugs to us. Finally, we have an administration that is doing what all the others never even tried. Go Trump.
Your reply included unneeded offensive name calling. Poor Ellis
Hateful & ignorant
I aint hateful and most certsinly I am not ignorant. I just have no time for illegal aliens (no time for anything illegal), no time for anything involved with illegal drugs. So I have time for Law & Order. And the Order part should be quick punishment.
Please please stay on this. We can not let this go. Hegseth needs to go. He is a 12 year old in charge of the department of defense. Innocent lives lost. We are all at risk. Do not let up. Thank you for sticking with this.
Trouble is they already have a pal of JD ready to step in.
Heaven help us if JD ever becomes president. He is as incompetent as Hegseth. Of course, JD will have Peter Thiel telling him what to do 🤬
True, but what he won't have is the devout loyalty of the MAGA cult. That means Republicans in both the House and Senate will stand up to him.
Kamala is more fit. dei
So what? We just let Drumpf be president until he dies? This is a bullshit argument.
JD is a stooge. No personality, no charisma, no strength. Maga's will not want to follow him.
Exactly. First we get rid of trump and then we assess where we’re at and make the next move.
Fool. Sit quiet for 36 months. Go Trump
Only if he croaks before 2028. Otherwise we have to eject him.
Maybe so but at least one person will have been held accountable.
JD, and Mike Johnson, will be implicated and removed along with tRumPutin.
Innocent? Are you blind, or do you use the drugs in those 20 boxes in the bow of that boat?
sounds like something who enjoy others suffering crave violence war and hate...bullies....who a healthy society are the people we ware protected from certainly not allowed to have power they rape abuse get high on...despicable deplorable terrible
The illegal order came from an idiot whose only qualification is that he is a warm body. On top of that he is completely ignorant and a blowhard who can’t take responsibility for anything.
His 'warm body' is covered with white Christian Nationalist tattoos. He's not simply an idiot, he's also a malignant narcissist - just like the rest of the administration. Hieronymus Bosch would use them in one of his paintings of Hell.
Its long past due time for Hegseth to go! He's a criminal and a murderer who cares nothing for military law and has no moral compass.
So what is going to happen to trump and the idiot running our department of defense. Nothing because of the cowardly GOP won’t dare go against him at all
Idiot? Remember the last dei hire.
Hegseth’s confirmation to be Secretary of Defense will be one of the great mysteries in history. This guy needs a team of Shrinks.
Hegseth is a warm body who is a Trump loyalist 😖
Hegseth throws Admiral Bradley under the bus with a back-handed compliment on his double-tap murder of two persons hanging onto ship debris for dear life. Yet, all of the boat bombings that killed over 80 civilians (under Hegseth orders) were war crimes. Refer to commentary of todays Defiance News by Miles Taylor on substack.com. Curiously, the DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) wrote an opinion to give specious cover for these war crimes. Then, it classified the contents of that OLC letter. There are reports that the OLC letter inaccurately claims that the Carribean boat bombings were justified to support and defend Mexico & Columbia from the incursion of drug trafficking. Yet, there is no evidence that Mexico and Columbia ever requested assistance. No matter how you look at it, Hegseth orders were war crimes for all of those boat bombings. And, Trump is telegraphing that the military should unquestioningly follow ALL orders (including illegal), and if their is legal blowback, then Trump will protect political allies and throw military personnel under the bus to take the fall for despicable political allies like Pete Hegseth.
ARE TRUMP'S MISSILE ATTACKS ON BOATS ON THE HIGH SEAS AND HIS MURDERS OF THEIR OCCUPANTS A PRELUDE TO DARKER DAYS AHEAD?
WHERE IS ALL THIS TAKING US IF CONGRESS AND THE COURTS FAIL TO ACT?
Prior postings have included summaries [with 2 detailed Appendices on my Substack page] of why 1. Trump's unilateral missile attacks on boats on the high seas and the murders of all their occupants violate International Law, the Geneva Convention, U.S. laws and judicial decisions, the U.S. Department of Defense Rules and the U.S.Military Codes and 2 . why the laws of "armed conflict" refute Leavitt's claim that such laws authorized these murders. Thus far, all 83 occupants on all of the boats he ordered destroyed have been murdered, with not a single survivor to take captive.
For the last few days, the White House, the War Department and the U.S. Navy have been engaged in tongue-twisting double-talk to try to explain away how our government on September 2, after an initial missile attack on a boat that killed 8 and left 2 survivors clinging to the boat wreckage in the water, launched a second attack which they knew would kill the survivors. While Admiral Frank Bradley was offered up as the fall guy claiming to have issued the actual order for the second missile strike that killed these survivors, it was well understood by the Navy Seals present at the scene that the message to leave no survivors had originally come down from a former Fox News celebrity and now Trump's warlord, Pete Hegseth.
Two days ago, the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the strikes were conducted in "self defense" in international waters and "in accordance with the law of armed conflict.” She further declared that Admiral Bradley "directed the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and THE THREAT FROM NARCO TERRORISTS WAS ELIMINATED".
Not only is Leavitt's claim that all of these missile strikes on boats on the high seas were committed in "self-defence" patently ludicrous, but their second claim that they were "in accordance with the law of armed conflict" is so absurd that they must think that the American people are morons to buy it. Below is an Appendix setting forth most, if not all, of the laws, conventions, decisions, and rules defining "armed conflicts", which, in essence, state that there must be two parties engaged in an armed conflict, rather than one party unilaterally attacking another. [That's why they call it a "conflict", rather than the unilateral attacks like the ones Trump ordered on boats on the high seas or the ones that Hitler ordered on bordering countries.]
While all this may appear to be flailings in the night to try to cover-up their outrageous conduct and sophomoric legal claims justifying it, I believe that there is a pattern that is starting to appear and which foretells very dark, serious threats to our democracy ahead. And I believe that all of these unilateral attacks on boats on the high seas are only the beginning of a carefully designed strategy hatched by the ultra-right wing Heritage Foundation, which drafted Project 2025 for Trump to promote once they helped him return to the WhiteHouse.
Where is this all going?
Let's start with Trump's Veterans Day campaign event at Stevens High School in Claremont, New Hampshire, on November 11, 2023, where Trump declared:
“…[W]e pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country..... “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream... THE THREAT FROM OUTSIDE FORCES IS FAR LESS SINISTER, DANGEROUS AND GRAVE THAN THE THREAT FROM WITHIN" (emphasis added).
Trump makes no bones about who is behind the threat from within. They are our migrants. Trump is obsessed with migrants and has repeatedly said that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and called them “animals,” “not people,” while repeatedly dehumanizing them.
This is exactly how Hitler denounced the Jews.
So putting this all together, Trump is making it clear that he has the absolute right to decide who to murder and how to murder people attempting come to the United States to sell narcotics, whom he classifies as "narco-terrorists".
And given his declaration that "The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within", we can expect that he intends to dispense with the same legal restrictions and safeguards domestically as he has done internationally by branding "communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" as "terrorists". .... "They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream...."
And perhaps he intends to invoke what he may claim to be his inherent emergency power to suspend the Constitution and invoke marshal law to deal with these terrorists and call up the National Guard and U.S. military to enforce his orders.
Given that Karoline Leavitt, following Trump's lead, has classified those in the boats heading for the U.S. to sell narcotics here as "narco-terrorists" whom the U.S. has a right to murder before they get here, it would follow that Trump could claim the same right attaches once they get here, whom he would then classify as "domestic narco-terrorists". Following this thread, Trump could then claim that he has the unilateral right to murder domestic narc-terrorists, and for that matter, anyone selling narcotics within the United States.
We are already well on the road to an authoritarian government. Absent the courage of Congress and the Supreme Court to deal with him, there may still be time for the American people to make their voices and ballots known next November.
Great analysis. I would only add that to my understanding, the "narco terrorist" designation is a made up term by the Trump administration to speciously justify their war crimes. In actuality, narcotics cartels are conducting an illegal enterprise whose intention is $$$, not combating US. We, as a country, have had a long law enforcement history of interdicting suspected narco cartel boats for arrest, prosecution and intelligence gathering on the higher-ups of these cartels. Even as Trump regime gives its blustering defense of its Cartibbean war crimes, what does he do recently? Hypocritically, Trump pardons former Honduran president Hernandez, who was operating a narco state (including bribing cartels to transport drugs to the US). Then, after pardoning Hernandez, Trump proclaims, "Make Honduras great again"?!
Actions speak louder than words.
Thanks Dawn. I agree with all of your well taken points, especially your observation that Trump, by redefining drug runners as "narco-terrorists", believes he now has the right to kill them in cold blood.
Dawn: Please see my additional comment below.
This is a brilliant analysis
The lingering question is one of how we are to tolerate nonsensical governance for another 11 months until the midterm election. What is the level of damage that might be done over that time?
Thanks very much Donald. You ask a good question. Being a lawyer, my first impulse is to recommend bringing a lawsuit in federal court for an injunction against such murders on the high seas, but who would have standing to put this issue before the courts? I read an article this morning that the South American widow of one of the murder victims killed in his boat has filed a complaint in the U.S. with a human rights organization. I believe that she contended that he was only a fisherman. Perhaps the suspected drug runners had hired him and his boat, and perhaps he was unaware of their objective. If so, he was innocently taken out in the murder spree. I would think that an attorney versed in international law would be the first one I would look to. As for your second question, I have the same concerns, though I believe that Mr. Schiff would be in the best position to answer that.
I too am a former prosecutor, albeit only in State Court (Cook County - Chicago) at the beginning of my career. In the 50 years since, I’ve tried 40 cases for defendants in civil court, 115 for plaintiffs to a verdict. I am an octogenarian.
Having volunteered for the draft the same week in August, 1964, when cadet bone spurs won his first deferment, my perspective is somewhat stilted. Generally speaking, I couldn’t agree more with you.
Thanks Donald.
Today, there was also news that an IG (Surprise! They have not all been fired by Trump DOJ) determined that Hegseth recklessly used Signal (second time) in a manner that risked the lives of our military in the Carribean. There are multiple reasons this blood thirsty & foolish Hegseth should be relieved as Secretary of Defense Dept. I am appalled with how our military is being abused.
Well said but u left out the Federalist Society who funded Project 2025.
Point well taken Wog. They supply the brains. Trump supplies the mouth.
Your comment is very well written. By reading your other post I now understand you're an attorney. I liked your post so much I posted it on Facebook. Thank you
By the way Bobbi , I would trade everything I said for the one sentence that Dawn (above) used to really get to the heart of Trump's scam, which I further compressed into "Trump, by redefining drug runners as "narco-terrorists", believes he now has the right to kill them in cold blood."
Thanks very much Bobbi. I'm not on Facebook myself so I'm very flattered that you thought enough of it to post it there. Please feel free to post anything of mine that you think is worth posting. Thanks again!
You're welcome. When I read or see something I believe to be true and I believe in, I post it to Facebook. It's my main way to keep up with family and friends.
Kill them all, it's that simple
Congress needs to remove him tout suite. We have an administration full of monsters performing treasonous acts. Its deplorable, unacceptable and it is time Congress took back its powers before you no longer have that option.
What is the Senate doing about anything? We have Gestapo in the streets, we have a con-man criminal in the white house, why is Jared Kushner negotiating business deals directly with Putin instead of the Secretary of State negotiating Peace. What are you doing, everything is falling apart. Do something
We the People have to help do something. Keep showing up in the streets, talk with your family and friends to make sure they understand the moment we’re in. The courts (except scotus) are holding the line because they know the people are behind them; slowly the Rs are seeing our writing on the wall and more of them (even MTG) are finding their backbone. Keep up the pressure! Call your electeds at least 2x/week. There’s no instant solution, but make them see the choice: loyalty to trumpf or standing up to survive another election
Tes, yes, yes...What will it take for some creative response to remove T, his cabinet, 6 SCOTUS members and most GOP reps to arrest, and try for treason? This regime routinely breaks laws and puts our national security at risk. Watching others sit while hand-wringing because we do not currently have a written method for removing these threats...itself is a national security threat in that our very democracy may already be irreparable. We cannot sit around, waiting for elections. T is doing everything he can to undermine that possibility...like a mob boss.
I don’t think much can be done until November, 2026, when we have the opportunity to cure the scourge of the T-Rump government. That might not be possible without flipping Congress altogether.
The real problem is the unpredictable danger with which we will have to stomach for the next 11 months.
Dictators are not voted out; they are FORCED OUT.
How would you propose to get T-Rump out before the House and Senate are flipped? Do you contemplate the use of violence? Are you just relying on the act of The Maker?
So - WHO IS DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT? Seems our Democrat leaders are only complaining along side US. But where’s the representation? The HELP? I’m an old female stroke survivor living on $1550 a month - but even I spent the money to make a sign and show up, like thousands of others for No Kings Day! I’m a huge fan Senator Schiff - But WE NEED RELIEF FROM THIS FASCIST REGIME. WE NEED HELP NOT JUST WORDS
I do not believe anything coming from the short-fingered vulgarian's mouth. If he ever tells the truth, it's by accident. I recognized him as a liar over 45 years ago, and he's not only gotten worse over the decades, he now is also suffering from dementia.
The 2025 Gang is responsible for all of this, with the Republican Congress in abettance.
Senator Schiff,
Many of us out here would like to know who CAN, outside of our own military, arrest, try and convict accordingly those who commit murder and international war crimes within our military? Someone out there has to know. Please, maybe a video about those laws would be helpful for us.
We know of the ICC, whose authority the U.S. no longer recognizes. We know of The Hague. But why, after 80 people have been summarily murdered over several months, have they done nothing? We know why Congress has done nothing. Congressional Republicans never do anything contrary to Trump's wishes.
I can and have done research on what is possible, but can't find a definitive answer. Are we all just screaming into the ether about the horror of it? Is there something that Congress can and actually will do? Does Congress have any real teeth? I mean, if they can't even enforce their own subpoenas what good are they?
We know all of these strikes are international war crimes. We know it's murder. We know who gave the orders and why. What we don't really know is who can come in and remove these criminals from our government.
Those Indivisible kids say if 3% of Americans (about 10 million) were in the streets across the country every day that would do it. But then they say it's too hard to organize more that twice a year instead of calling us all out every weekend 😡
But i can see quite clearly that if a single million of us went to dc and peacefully encircled the Capitol for a single week (While Congress Is In Session!) that it would snarl traffic and open even Republicans eyes to the issues at hand!
Otherwise we just go to our video game consoles and wait for hell to subsume us the way it has Gaza
It's a great idea, but we'd be tear gassed, shot with non-lethal bullets, shoved to the ground...I'd love to do it though. It may come to that.
I say we all - ALL - just take a sick day from work on the same day. Pick a National Sick Day and stay home. It won't shut anyone down, but it would send a message, and messages are what we need to be sending now.
Maybe we all better watch the first part of the ghandi movie again. Yes, something could go sideways, but that will only make the message more clear to congress.
We could also do it at every district office in every single congressional district during the recess. Harder to organize, but also harder for ice or dhs to target