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Trump has loved “travel bans” since his first term in office. It has nothing to do with making America safer or better and everything to do with making America whiter.
People were opposed to Trump’s blanket bans all the way back in 2017, when the heads of tech companies managed to collectively grow enough spine to push back against Trump and his bigoted take on immigration.
Well, it’s now Trump’s second term and for damn sure US tech companies aren’t going to be riding to rescue. The post-truth administration continues to welcome white migrants while doing everything it can to eject non-whites, even if it means repeatedly arresting and jailing actual US citizens.
The thing is that migrants actually make America greater than it would ever be if it was just a nation of white people pretending they’re actually the “native” Americans. Migrants break fewer laws, pay more taxes, and avail themselves of fewer social programs than naturally-born citizens.
This administration is fully engaged in Manifest Bigotry. It has stripped temporary protected status from thousands of people who fled from war-torn countries, abject poverty, and nations known for their perpetual human rights abuses. Those still being allowed to access this particular privilege are the kind of people this administration loves: whites fleeing imaginary “persecution” in a nation where Black people have finally been given the same rights as white people.
While it may seem plausible to extend a travel ban now that Trump has picked an unwinnable fight with a nation capable of destroying the world’s economy for the next several decades, it doesn’t explain why Trump feels the need to strip rights and privileges from so many people who’ve already made their way into the United States.
That US Citizenship and Immigration Services policy has blocked work permits and green cards for people from countries deemed “high risk” by the government including Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela—even though they were already present in the US. That’s led many to lose jobs and put their lawful status in jeopardy as the benefits pause has continued.
As the court notes in its ruling, this targeting of so many migrants is retroactive. Rather than treat the new policy as something that only effects everyone moving forward, the administration treats every new anti-migrant policy as retroactive, clawing back protections awarded them by previous administrations.
All of this is being done by executive order. At no point has Congress passed any laws in support of these executive declarations. And while far too many judges (especially those in certain appellate courts and the Supreme Court) seem to feel they’re incapable of reining in executive power, lower courts are more than willing to lay down a few roadblocks, even when it’s almost inevitable the higher courts will have them removed as soon as fucking possible.
And the administration continues this assault on non-white people, practically daring courts to do anything about it. This court — one that is currently entertaining the thought of sanctioning DOJ prosecutors — is trying to do something about it. And the Rhode Island court — represented here by chief judge John McConnell Jr. — points out the government has sabotaged its own reputation repeatedly while engaging in what appears to be blatant bigotry.
McConnell also found evidence—including derogatory statements about immigrants by administration officials after the National Guard shooting—of pretextual reasons behind the policies.
“The Government effectively invites the Court to shut its eyes and ignore the strong evidence of anti-immigrant animus before it,” he wrote. “Doing so would require profound naiveté on the Court’s part.”
This government wants courts to pretend they’re stupid. It wants the sort of deference handed over to despots, even as it pretends it’s still the leader of the Free World. And so the courts that respect the rule of law get this sort of bullshit from administration officials, who choose to present everything as some sort of liberal conspiracy against the Great Morbidly Obese White Hope:
The administration’s critics on the left have been “running the same gambit with so called ‘animus’ claims since 2017,” James Percival, general counsel for DHS, said in a statement.
“It is sabotage dressed in legal clothing,” he said.
Cause and effect, you racist idiots. If you’re seeing more anti-immigrant animus claims since Trump’s first term in office, it’s because the Trump administration (both versions) is deeply steeped in anti-migrant animus. Correlation and causation. That fewer judges ruled against the Biden administration on animus claims isn’t evidence of judicial activism. It’s nothing more than judges responding to stimuli.
Filed Under: bigotry, cbp, dhs, ice, iran, john mcconnell, mass deportation, nicaragua, nigeria, rhode island, travel ban, trump administration, venezuela
The boat strike program the Trump administration is engaged in isn’t actually supported by law. Even his own in-house counsel can’t seem to agree on what justification to use. Shortly after being threatened with a little congressional oversight, the Office of Legal Counsel shrugged together a legal memo that basically said that the less of a direct threat boats allegedly carrying drugs to the US posed to US national security, the more easily the people in the boats could be killed.
And it’s not like the strikes are discriminate. They’re based on hunches and the administration’s desire to eradicate any boat it thinks has departed from countries it wants to control, like Venezuela. On top of the lack of legal rationale for initial strikes, there’s evidence the Defense Department engages in double- or triple-tap attacks meant to kill the survivors of the original strike — something that’s extremely handy because it also kills potential litigants.
Those extra strikes are illegal under even the United State’s own rules of engagement. And yet they continue. These strikes may have fallen off the radar due to the deluge of unbelievably horrific shit this administration generates daily, but they’re still happening even if the focus has shifted elsewhere.
Fighting a war on drugs doesn’t actually mean you’re engaged in a literal war — you know, the sort of thing Congress used to get angry about if presidents decided they’d rather not deal with any resistance from the legislative branch when getting their war on. This country engages on “wars” on everything from literacy and hunger (but not this administration) to abstract concepts like “woke” and “transgender everywhere.”
That doesn’t mean the administration can drone strike entities still clinging to DEI initiative. Nor can it blow up shipments of cell phones designed for children’s hands just because it believes these “distractions” are leading to lower reading comprehension scores.
The same goes for the War on Drugs. While there’s value in intercepting shipments and arresting those involved, a military program that kills people just because they might be trafficking drugs (much of which appears to headed to other destinations than the United States) is not only illegal, it’s immoral.
Human rights organizations — including those recognized by international governing groups — are making this point as forcefully as possible.
Experts in international and U.S. domestic law told an inter-American human rights organization on Friday that the Pentagon’s campaign of blowing up boats it suspected of smuggling drugs in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean was illegal.
[…]
Ben Saul, the U.N. special rapporteur for protecting fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, accused the United States of “responding with lawless violence that flagrantly violates human rights, in its phony war on so-called narco-terrorism.”
“Drug trafficking is a crime, not war,” said Mr. Saul, a professor of international law. He also said a portrayal of the suspected drug traffickers as being responsible for “speculative drug overdoses” did not constitute a “permissible law enforcement action in personal self-defense or the defense of others.”
Perhaps you’re as cynical as I am. Maybe you see this and wonder what is even the point: some dude said some stuff to the United Nations, which doesn’t mean much now that the Trump administration has decided no other nation or international association of nations has the power to stop it from doing what it wants to do.
Sure, there’s limited utility in statements made to entities the US government is just going to ignore. But don’t let that bury the lede: the Trump administration is engaged in an unprecedented murder program predicated solely on its legally unsupported position that trafficking drugs (to anywhere!) is exactly identical to engaging in terrorist attacks against US citizens.
Here’s how this is adding up so far, according to the tally generated by the New York Times:
The U.S. military has blown up 45 small vessels, killing at least 157 people, in six months of strikes since September.
This is an under-count. There’s no reason to believe the government has released information on every strike, especially since it delayed release of footage showing the military engaging in multiple strikes to murder survivors of its initial boat strike. We may never know the full body count of this extrajudicial killing program. But it’s harrowing to note (as the Times does in its report) that only two rescues of boat strike victims occurred during the last six months, even though the military is obligated — by US law and international law — to attempt to rescue survivors of military attacks it engages in.
The White House is War Crime Central. And now it’s adding to its rap sheet by bombing Iranian schools on top of killing people in international waters. The administration’s response, of course, refused to engage with the allegations made during this conference, choosing instead to claim (1) the Intra-American Human Rights Court (IAHCR) should mind its own business and (2) that it should look at some other cases that don’t involve the Trump administration’s casual human rights violations. You know, the usual stuff: “you’re not the boss of me” + whataboutism.
It’s the State Department pretending you can make a Venn diagram out of humanitarian aid mandates and international human rights laws:
The IACHR lacks the competence to review the matters at issue, which concern the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law, not human rights law, and should not be a pawn in a domestic litigation strategy of the ACLU or any other party.
A normal person would see these concepts as nearly completely overlapping. This administration is not normal. It’s a collective of inhumane people with an inordinate amount of power. And from what’s seen here, it’s clear the body count in international waters will only continue to rise.
Filed Under: boat strikes, defense department, extrajudicial killings, murder, pentagon, pete hegseth, trump administration, venezuela, war on drugs
Judge Boasberg got his vindication in the frivolous “complaint” the DOJ filed against him, and now he’s calling out the DOJ’s bullshit in the long-running case that caused them to file the complaint against him in the first place: the JGG v. Trump case regarding the group of Venezuelans the US government shipped off to CECOT, the notorious Salvadoran concentration camp.
Boasberg, who until last year was generally seen as a fairly generic “law and order” type judge who was extremely deferential to any “national security” claims from the DOJ (John Roberts had him lead the FISA Court, for goodness’ sake!), has clearly had enough of this DOJ and the games they’ve been playing in his court.
In a short but quite incredible ruling, he calls out the DOJ for deciding to effectively ignore the case while telling the court to “pound sand.”
On December 22, 2025, this Court issued a Memorandum Opinion finding that the Government had denied due process to a class of Venezuelans it deported to El Salvador last March in defiance of this Court’s Order. See J.G.G. v. Trump, 2025 WL 3706685, at *19 (D.D.C. Dec. 22, 2025). The Court offered the Government the opportunity to propose steps that would facilitate hearings for the class members on their habeas corpus claims so that they could “challenge their designations under the [Alien Enemies Act] and the validity of the [President’s] Proclamation.” Id. Apparently not interested in participating in this process, the Government’s responses essentially told the Court to pound sand.
From a former FISC judge—someone who spent years giving national security claims every benefit of the doubt—”pound sand” is practically a primal scream.
Due to this, he orders the government to work to “facilitate the return” of these people it illegally shipped to a foreign concentration camp (that is, assuming any of them actually want to come back).
Believing that other courses would be both more productive and in line with the Supreme Court’s requirements outlined in Noem v. Abrego Garcia, 145 S. Ct. 1017 (2025), the Court will now order the Government to facilitate the return from third countries of those Plaintiffs who so desire. It will also permit other Plaintiffs to file their habeas supplements from abroad.
Boasberg references the Donald Trump-led invasion of Venezuela and the unsettled situation there for many of the plaintiffs. He points out that the lawyers for the plaintiffs have been thoughtful and cautious in how they approach this case. That is in contrast to the US government.
Plaintiffs’ prudent approach has not been replicated by their Government counterparts. Although the Supreme Court in Abrego Garcia upheld Judge Paula Xinis’s order directing the Government “to facilitate and effectuate the return of” that deportee, see 145 S. Ct. at 1018, Defendants at every turn have objected to Plaintiffs’ legitimate proposals without offering a single option for remedying the injury that they inflicted upon the deportees or fulfilling their duty as articulated by the Supreme Court.
Boasberg points to the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying that it’s ridiculous that the DOJ is pretending that case doesn’t exist or doesn’t say what it says. Then he points out that the DOJ keeps “flagrantly” disobeying courts.
Against this backdrop, and mindful of the flagrancy of the Government’s violations of the deportees’ due-process rights that landed Plaintiffs in this situation, the Court refuses to let them languish in the solution-less mire Defendants propose. The Court will thus order Defendants to take several discrete actions that will begin the remedial process for at least some Plaintiffs, as the Supreme Court has required in similar circumstances. It does so while treading lightly, as it must, in the area of foreign affairs. See Abrego Garcia, 145 S. Ct. at 1018 (recognizing “deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”)
Even given all this, the specific remedy is not one that many of the plaintiffs are likely to accept: he orders that the US government facilitate the return of any of those who want it among those… not in Venezuela. But, since most of them were eventually released from CECOT into Venezuela, that may mean that this ruling doesn’t really apply to many men. On top of that Boasberg points out that anyone who does qualify and takes up the offer will likely be detained by immigration officials upon getting here. But, if they want, the US government has to pay for their plane flights back to the US. And, in theory, the plaintiffs should then be given the due process they were denied last year.
Plaintiffs also request that such boarding letter include Government payment of the cost of the air travel. Given that the Court has already found that their removal was unlawful — as opposed to the situation contemplated by the cited Directive, which notes that “[f]acilitating an alien’s return does not necessarily include funding the alien’s travel,” Directive 11061.1, ¶ 3.1 (emphasis added) — the Court deems that a reasonable request. It is unclear why Plaintiffs should bear the financial cost of their return in such an instance. See Ms. L. v. U.S. Immig. & Customs Enf’t (“ICE”), 2026 WL 313340, at *4 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 5, 2026) (requiring Government to “bear the expense of returning these family units to the United States” given that “[e]ach of the removals was unlawful, and absent the removals, these families would still be in the United States”). It is worth emphasizing that this situation would never have arisen had the Government simply afforded Plaintiffs their constitutional rights before initially deporting them.
I’m guessing not many are eager to re-enter the US and face deportation again. Of course, many of these people left Venezuela for the US in the first place for a reason, so perhaps some will take their chances on coming back. Even against a very vindictive US government.
The frustrating coda here is the lack of any real consequences for DOJ officials who treated this entire proceeding as a joke—declining to seriously participate and essentially daring the court to do something about it. Boasberg could have ordered sanctions. He didn’t. And that’s probably fine with this DOJ, which has learned that contempt for the courts carries no real cost.
Unfortunately, that may be the real story here. Judge gets fed up, once again, with a DOJ that thumbs its nose at the court, says extraordinary things in a ruling that calls out the DOJ’s behavior… but does little that will lead to actual accountability for those involved, beyond having them “lose” the case. We’ve seen a lot of this, and it’s only going to continue until judges figure out how to impose real consequences for DOJ lawyers for treating the court with literal contempt.
Filed Under: cecot, donald trump, due process, el salvador, james boasberg, pam bondi, pound sand, trump administration, venezuela
Saturday, January 3rd, 2026. The President of the United States stood in his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, and announced that America had toppled Venezuela’s government and would now “run” the country indefinitely.
Not from the Oval Office. Not in consultation with Congress. From Mar-a-Lago, in front of gilded chandeliers and club members, Donald Trump pointed to the men standing behind him—his Secretary of State, his Defense Secretary, his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—and said: “The people standing right behind me, we’re going to be running it.”
Running a nation of thirty million people. Indefinitely. Without congressional authorization. Without a declaration of war. Without even the pretense that constitutional constraints apply.
When asked about the legal basis, Trump cited oil rights he claims were “stolen” from American corporations decades ago. When asked about resistance, he promised a “second wave” of military action. When asked who would govern Venezuela, he gestured at his cabinet and said they would decide.
This is the anti-Lincoln moment. Not because Trump expanded executive power—Lincoln did that too. But because Lincoln used emergency authority to preserve the constitutional framework, while Trump uses it to declare himself outside constitutional constraint entirely.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to save the Union. Donald Trump announced imperial conquest to extract oil. One defended the regime. One destroys it. Trump isn’t like Lincoln. He’s the structural opposite—doing exactly what Lincoln would have fought against.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Expanded executive war powers. Asserted federal authority over states claiming sovereignty. This is historical fact.
But watch what else he did.
He submitted the habeas suspension to Congress for ratification—which they gave. He accepted that courts could review his actions. He ran for re-election during war and accepted he might lose. He yielded power when constitutional process demanded it.
Lincoln’s logic was always this: the constitutional framework faces existential threat from secession, and extraordinary measures to preserve it are justified—within constitutional bounds and subject to eventual constitutional accountability.
The key word is preserve. Lincoln expanded executive power to save the framework that makes constitutional government possible. Secession would have destroyed the Union. No Union, no Constitution. No Constitution, no self-government. The emergency power served constitutional continuation.
And crucially, Lincoln submitted to the framework even while defending it. Congress could check him. Courts could review him. Elections could remove him. His question wasn’t “How do I escape accountability?” It was “How do I preserve the system that holds me accountable?”
That’s emergency power in a constitutional republic. Extraordinary measures, constitutional purpose, ultimate accountability.
Trump’s announcement Saturday inverts every principle Lincoln defended.
No Congressional authorization under Article I, Section 8. No declaration of war. No emergency requiring immediate action to prevent attack on American territory or citizens. Just the President deciding to wage war, seize another nation’s government, and announce indefinite occupation.
“Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platforms,” Trump said from his club. “The socialist regime stole it from us… Now we’re taking it back.”
This isn’t emergency power to preserve constitutional framework. This is imperial conquest announced as resource extraction. This is the President declaring he will “run” a foreign nation to compensate American corporations for assets nationalized decades ago.
The New York Times got it exactly right: the events “evoked memories of a bygone era of gunboat diplomacy, where the U.S. employed its military might to secure territory and resources for its own advantage.”
Trump hung a portrait in the White House featuring himself alongside William McKinley—the president who seized the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Now he’s acting out McKinley’s imperial playbook, but without even the pretense of Congressional authorization that McKinley obtained.
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress—not the President—the power to declare war. This isn’t ambiguous. This isn’t a gray area. The Founders explicitly rejected giving war powers to the executive because they had just fought a revolution against monarchical power.
Lincoln understood this. Even while expanding executive authority to suppress rebellion, he sought Congressional authorization, submitted to Congressional oversight, and accepted that courts and elections could check him.
Trump’s position, articulated by his defenders, is different: Congressional authorization is irrelevant when the cause is just. Maduro is evil. Venezuela’s people are suffering. Sometimes you have to crack a few eggs. Constitutional process is pedantry when outcomes are good.
This is not Lincoln’s emergency power. This is Carl Schmitt’s sovereignty: the sovereign is he who decides on the exception. The strong leader acts decisively. Constitutional constraint is obstacle, not obligation. Emergency is permanent condition justifying permanent exception.
Lincoln used emergency power within constitutional framework to preserve that framework from destruction. Trump uses emergency claims to declare himself outside constitutional framework—to wage war, seize governments, and extract resources without Congressional authorization, without declaration of war, without even the pretense that constitutional constraints apply to him.
This isn’t isolated. This is the pattern.
When election results constrain him, he claims fraud, attempts to prevent certification, and incites assault on the Capitol.
When courts rule against him, he calls the judiciary illegitimate and promises to ignore adverse rulings.
When Congress investigates, he refuses subpoenas, claims absolute immunity, and purges inspector generals.
When the Constitution limits war powers, he wages war unilaterally from his private club while his defenders mock proceduralism.
Every emergency claim serves the same purpose: eliminate the constraint. Never preserve the framework. Always escape accountability.
His defenders make it explicit. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, said of Venezuela’s interim leader: “We think they’re going to have some unique and historic opportunities to do a great service for the country, and we hope that they’ll accept that opportunity.”
Translation: do what we want, or face second-wave military action. This isn’t partnership. This isn’t liberation. This is imperial diktat backed by armada.
Trump himself was clearer: America will extract Venezuela’s oil, and the partnership with the United States will make“the people of Venezuela rich, independent, and safe”—if they comply. If they resist, he warned: “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground.”
This is conquest. Announced from Mar-a-Lago. Without Congressional authorization. In explicit pursuit of seizing another nation’s resources for American corporate benefit.
Lincoln would have recognized this instantly as what he fought against. This is executive power divorced from constitutional constraint. This is sovereignty claiming exception to law itself.
We’re not in normal politics. Normal politics is policy disagreement within shared constitutional framework. Should taxes be higher? How should we conduct foreign policy? What’s the right balance of regulation?
This is regime crisis. One side claims constitutional constraints don’t apply when emergency or good outcomes justify exception. The other side keeps pretending we’re having normal policy debate.
When the President wages war without Congress, that’s not “foreign policy I disagree with.” That’s constitutional violation requiring constitutional response.
When the President announces from his private club that his cabinet will “run” a foreign nation of thirty million people indefinitely, that’s not “aggressive foreign policy.” That’s declaration that constitutional war powers don’t constrain him.
When his defenders argue the violation doesn’t matter because Maduro is evil and outcomes are good, that’s not “different political philosophy.” That’s rejection of constitutional constraint as governing principle.
Every act of “let’s debate the Venezuela policy” is collaboration with framework destruction. Not because debate is bad, but because they’re not proposing policy within the framework—they’re eliminating the framework while we debate.
You can’t defeat “constitutional constraints are optional” by following constitutional constraints politely while the other side wages war from private clubs. You can only defend the framework by using every power that framework provides.
This is the regime crisis I wrote about in the manifesto. This is what happens when democratic constraint disappears. This is what Lincoln fought to prevent.
And this is what defense of the republic requires us to stop.
We cannot treat this as normal politics.
Lincoln preserved the framework. Trump declares himself outside it.
Your grandparents knew which side they were on when the republic was threatened. They fought. They won. They built the middle class and the democratic alliance that kept the peace for seventy years.
We will do it again.
2026 begins now.
Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. This is an abridged version of a version originally published at his Notes From the Circus.
Filed Under: abraham lincoln, donald trump, marco rubio, venezuela
I’ve criticized Chuck Schumer plenty over the years, generally for being bad on tech policy, but also for not understanding the moment we’re living through. Yes, he’s the leader of a minority party with zero power, but that doesn’t mean he’s powerless. Yet he acts as if he is.
And if he can’t figure that out, it’s time for someone else to do it.
Let’s start with what just happened. As I detailed yesterday, Trump ordered military strikes on a sovereign nation and kidnapped its president without Congressional authorization—a clear violation of the War Powers Act and, you know, the basic constitutional requirement that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war. And don’t buy the claim that it’s okay because this was just “law enforcement”: the Senate Judiciary Committee—including Republican chair Chuck Grassley—has pointed out that the White House refused to brief them, claiming it’s a military action and not law enforcement.
There is no way to describe this other than a massive breach of basic international order and the separation of powers our Constitution established. It’s yet another in a long line of efforts by Donald Trump to act as sovereign king of the US, rather than the elected executive of a single branch of a government with three co-equal branches.
Any opposition leader in such a world should seize the moment, call out the blatant unconstitutional and illegal behavior and make that the story. Over and over and over again.
But not Schumer. He starts out by needlessly granting the premise that Maduro is bad, and that’s unnecessary. Whether he’s terrible and an illegitimate dictator is besides the point. That doesn’t give Trump the authority to do what he did. But even if you want to start there, you have to follow it up with a serious condemnation. Instead, Schumer goes meekly with the idea that it was “reckless.”
“Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, but launching military action without congressional authorization, without a credible plan, but what comes next is reckless,” Schumer said.
And then he makes clear that his entire strategy is to hope that the Republican elected officials in Congress will come to their senses and push back against Trump, something that anyone who has been awake for more than a few days in the last decade knows will never happen.
Schumer pressed troubled Republicans to back the passage of the bipartisan War Powers Resolution, which he introduced alongside Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and other lawmakers last month. The resolution will be brought to the Senate floor for debate next week, Schumer promised, telling reporters “we’re going to be pushing our Republican colleagues to stand up for the American people to get this done.”
“We have heard from some Republicans in private conversations, chairs, talking to their ranking members, that they have some — they are troubled by this,” Schumer said, adding that he’s in talks with ranking Democrats on relevant committees on how to respond to the administration’s action against Maduro.
There it is. The classic Chuck Schumer move: “We’ve heard from some Republicans in private that they’re troubled by this.” Oh, how wonderful. Some Republicans are “troubled.” They’re always troubled. They’re perpetually troubled. They furrow their brows and express deep concern and then vote with Trump anyway. EVERY FUCKING TIME. This has been the pattern for nine years now, and Schumer keeps acting like this time will be different.
But making it even worse, we learn from Spectrum News that Schumer is publicly dropping the only procedural leverage tool he has:
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York dismissed the idea that there could be another government shutdown at the end of the month as Congress stares down a new funding deadline of Jan. 30.
Appearing on ABC News Sunday, Schumer was definitive in responding “no” when asked if the country was headed toward another shutdown and went on to say that “good progress” is being made toward passing funding bills for the 2026 fiscal year.
“Democrats want to fund the appropriations, the spending bills, all the way through 2026,” Schumer said. “We want to work in a bicameral, bipartisan way to do it and the good news is our Republican appropriators are working with us.”
Read that again. The Democratic leader, faced with a president who just launched an illegal war, publicly announced that he won’t use the one bit of actual leverage he has—the threat of a government shutdown—to force accountability. He just… gave it away. For free. He told Republicans “don’t worry, we won’t actually fight you on this, we’re committed to being ‘reasonable.’”
This is political malpractice of the highest order.
Now, I can already predict some of the replies to this. “What do you expect Schumer to do? Democrats don’t have power! They can’t stop this!” And look, I get it. Democrats are in the minority in the Senate. They don’t control the House. They don’t control the executive branch. In terms of the formal mechanisms of power, they’re largely shut out.
But you know who else was in the minority? Mitch McConnell for most of Obama’s presidency. And he didn’t just sit around hoping Democrats would come to their senses. He built a movement. He shaped a narrative. He made obstruction itself into a political strategy that energized his base and put constant pressure on the majority. He understood something fundamental: being an opposition leader isn’t just about counting votes. It’s about building public pressure, shaping the discourse, and making your opposition pay a political price for their actions.
Here’s what a real opposition leader would do in this moment:
Make the illegality of Trump’s actions the story. Every single day, Democrats should be holding press conferences explaining in great detail how this is illegal and unconstitutional and just generally offensive to American values. They need to keep banging the drum on the only bit that matters: the President cannot do this under the Constitution and the law. The message should be simple and repeated until everyone is sick of hearing it: “The president launched an illegal war without Congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Act. This is not normal. This is not acceptable. This cannot stand.”
Make reporters ask Republicans about it in every single interview. Make them defend the indefensible. Force them to either break with Trump or publicly embrace illegal military action. Don’t let them hide behind vague statements about being “troubled.”
Frame this as a constitutional crisis, not a partisan fight. This isn’t hard. Tell a story that isn’t political or partisan, but that hits at fundamental values. America shouldn’t be engaging in dangerous regime change adventurism for oil (as Trump has repeatedly admitted, even as his Fox News minions pretend its about fentanyl, a drug that Venezuela has nothing to do with). Don’t let Trump and MAGA frame the debate.
Frame the whole issue around fundamental American values that transcend party: the rule of law, constitutional limits on executive power, Congress’s role in decisions about war. Make it clear that this has nothing to do with whether you like Maduro (spoiler: nobody does), but about whether we’re a nation of laws or a nation where the president can do whatever he wants. Americans across the political spectrum understand that distinction, even if their representatives pretend not to.
Create real consequences. Schumer has more leverage than he thinks. Yes, he can threaten a government shutdown—and no, that’s not crazy. Sometimes you have to be willing to fight. But beyond that: refuse to move any of Trump’s nominees until he complies with the War Powers Act. Literally yesterday, a bunch of Democrats (obviously with Schumer’s approval) voted to confirm a new assistant Secretary of Defense. Why? Why would they do that at this moment?
Demand daily briefings on Venezuela and the legal justification for the strikes. Hold public hearings showcasing the legal scholars and national security experts who agree this was illegal. File lawsuits. Encourage state attorneys general to file their own challenges. Make noise. Make trouble.
Inspire and mobilize their base. This is perhaps the most important thing, and the thing Schumer is absolutely the worst at. Millions of Americans are watching this unfold with horror and feeling helpless. They want someone to fight. They want someone to tell them this matters and that there’s something they can do about it. Give them that. Hold rallies. Organize protests. Create a “Restore the Constitution” campaign that gives people something to be for, not just against. Build a movement of Americans who believe the Constitution still matters. Stop hoping those “troubled” Republicans will suddenly grow spines and start building public pressure that makes their continued acquiescence politically toxic.
Shape the narrative about what comes next. Trump’s supporters still want to claim this is about drugs, but Trump himself keeps admitting it was totally about stealing Venezuelan oil and making his donors at the large oil companies rich. Make that the whole fucking story. Connect it to the broader pattern of Trump’s transactional, lawless approach to foreign policy. Paint a picture of where this leads if unchecked. How are Democrats not calling this out over and over again? Keep showing the clips of Trump promising he was against foreign wars, against regime change.
There are so many opportunities and Schumer is letting them all go by because he doesn’t want to feel embarrassed to bump into a GOP Senator at the gym.
Prepare for 2026 and beyond. Even if Schumer can’t stop this action, he can make Republicans pay a political price for enabling it. Identify the vulnerable Republicans who will face tough races in 2026 and 2028. Run ads in their districts highlighting their refusal to stand up to an illegal war. Make them defend their votes. Build a case to the American people that Republicans have abandoned the rule of law. Turn this into a major campaign issue.
None of this requires having a Senate majority. It doesn’t even require getting Republican senators on board, though it could help if Schumer picked off a few Republicans. What it requires is recognizing that an opposition leader’s power doesn’t come solely from their vote count. Mitch McConnell understood this. Newt Gingrich understood this.
The job of the opposition leader, especially in moments like this, is to be oppositional. To fight. To make noise. To create consequences even when you don’t have the votes to block something outright. And that time is now.
Instead, Schumer is doing what he always does: magical wishcasting: hoping against all evidence that Republicans will be reasonable. On top of that, giving away his leverage before negotiations even start, and treating politics like a genteel debate club where everyone follows the unwritten rules. But those rules are gone. Trump lit them on fire years ago. And continuing to pretend they exist is just enabling the erosion of constitutional democracy.
I understand the impulse to be the “adults in the room.” To pretend that acting this way shows that Democrats can govern responsibly: that they won’t play games with government funding, that they’ll work across the aisle. In normal times, that’s potentially admirable. But these aren’t normal times. When a president launches an illegal war, captures a foreign leader, and faces no consequences, you’re not in “normal times” anymore. You’re in a constitutional crisis (the latest in a long line of constitutional crises Trump has kicked off, without much in the way of consequences).
In a constitutional crisis, being the adult in the room should mean fighting back with every tool you have. And Schumer has failed to do that over and over and over again in the last year, enabling Trump to continue to push the boundaries further and further. All while Schumer twiddles his thumbs and waits for the GOP to come around? What is he thinking?
The most frustrating part is that this isn’t even particularly difficult or risky politically. Polls consistently show that Americans don’t want more military interventions abroad. There’s broad skepticism of foreign entanglements. Standing up and saying “the president can’t just launch wars on his own” isn’t some far-left position—it’s basic constitutionalism that should command widespread support. This is a fight Schumer could easily win in the court of public opinion. But he has to actually try.
If Chuck Schumer can’t do these basic things—can’t recognize the moment we’re in, can’t build a movement, can’t shape the narrative, can’t use the tools he has to create political pressure—then he’s not the right person for this job. The Senate needs an opposition leader who understands that leadership means leading, not just reacting and hoping. It needs someone who can inspire people to fight, not someone who tells them to keep calm and hope Republicans will do the right thing.
Democracy doesn’t save itself. Constitutional norms don’t restore themselves. They require people willing to fight for them, especially when it’s hard and especially when the outcome is uncertain. Right now, when it matters most, Chuck Schumer isn’t fighting. He’s hoping. And hope, as we’ve learned over the past nine years, is not a strategy.
Filed Under: chuck schumer, congress, constitutional crisis, donald trump, leadership, nicolas maduro, opposition, senate, separation of powers, venezuela
If you needed proof that Trump’s “war on drugs” is pure theatrical bullshit designed to justify geopolitical adventurism and the transactional nature of how he views absolutely everything, look no further than the past two months of his foreign policy.
Two months ago, Donald Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras who was convicted in a Manhattan federal court of facilitating the importation of at least 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. The conviction wasn’t based on hearsay or shaky evidence—it came after a three-week trial featuring multiple cooperating witnesses, business ledgers documenting drug transactions, undercover video recordings, and testimony detailing how Hernandez turned Honduras’ entire government apparatus into a cocaine superhighway.
As Bloomberg’s detailed investigation lays out, the evidence was quite strong. Hernandez’s brother, Tony (who was also an elected official), had been convicted earlier of basically running a massive drug smuggling campaign, and there were clear ties between Tony’s operation and his brother. And there’s this colorful story:
In 2021, during the trial of another trafficker Sandy Gonzalez had arrested, a former accountant for a Honduran agricultural company testified that he attended meetings with Hernández, who accepted bribes from the accountant’s boss and spoke openly of his connections to traffickers. Hernández, he said, bragged about fooling his American counterparts into thinking he was on their side in the drug war. “He then took a sip of drink,” the accountant said of Hernández, “and he said: ‘We are going to stuff drugs up the gringos’ noses, and they’re never even going to know it.’” At that same trial, witnesses said that in return for protection, the trafficker paid bribes to Hernández to ensure his business enjoyed military protection. Data scraped from the trafficker’s phone—which included the president’s cellphone number in the contact list—showed that on two separate days when news broke about the president’s alleged involvement in Tony’s drug-smuggling activities, the trafficker downloaded driving directions to the presidential palace.
A judge sentenced him to 45 years in prison. Trump pardoned him anyway, claiming he’d been “treated very harshly and unfairly.”
So with that conviction and evidence in mind, let’s look at what Trump claims justifies launching an illegal war. Trump (without the required permission of Congress) ordered military strikes on Venezuela this weekend, and captured President Nicolas Maduro, claiming the operation was justified by… drug trafficking charges.
The charges against Maduro appear less direct and less clear than those against Hernandez.
It also details specific actions that Maduro allegedly took as part of the conspiracy. It says, for example, that between 2006 and 2008 when he served as foreign minister that Maduro sold Venezuelan diplomatic passports to known drug traffickers “in order to assist traffickers seeking to move drug proceeds form Mexico to Venezuela under diplomatic cover.”
He also allegedly facilitated the flights of private planes under diplomatic cover to bring drug proceeds back from Mexico to Venezuela.
Prosecutors allege that Maduro and Flores worked together for years to traffic cocaine that had previously been seized by Venezuelan law enforcement. They say the Maduros had their own state-sponsored gangs to protect their operation, and that they ordered “kidnappings, beating and murders against those who owed them drug money or otherwise undermined their drug trafficking operation.”
Notice what’s missing there: actual convictions, actual evidence of tons of cocaine moved, actual documentation like the ledgers and recordings that convicted Hernandez. And indeed, as The Guardian notes, many experts are deeply skeptical that Maduro is actually the drug kingpin Trump claims:
“It just shows that the entire counter-drug effort of Donald Trump is a charade – it’s based on lies, it’s based on hypocrisy,” said Mike Vigil, the former DEA chief for international operations. “He is giving a pardon to Juan Orlando Hernández and then going after Nicolás Maduro … It’s all hypocritical.”
Contrary to Trump’s claim that Hernández, 57, had been the victim of a “Biden set up”, Vigil said there was overwhelming evidence that the Central American politician was “a big fish in the narco world”. Not only had Hernández helped turn Honduras into a major transit point for South American cocaine heading to the US, but Vigil said he had also transformed it into a cocaine-producing hub which was now home to coca plantations and makeshift labs for processing coca leaves.
[….]
Meanwhile, despite Trump’s claims that Maduro is the leader of a narco organization called the “Cartel of the Suns”, many experts doubt such a group even exists.
“Maduro is not a saint,” said Vigil, noting how he and several allies were indicted for trafficking cocaine in the US in 2020. “[But] they’re not a cartel, they don’t have an infrastructure,” he added, calling such allegations “nonsense”.
So to recap: Trump pardoned a president who was actually convicted in US court of moving 400 tons of cocaine, with overwhelming evidence including recordings, ledgers, and multiple witness testimony. Then, two months later, he launched military strikes—without Congressional authorization, in violation of both US and international law—and captured a different president based on an indictment that experts say lacks solid evidence that he’s running an actual drug cartel.
The main difference? Hernandez sucked up to Trump from the start. From Bloomberg:
President Hernández had enjoyed good relationships with President Obama and Vice President Biden, but he harbored a special affinity for President Trump, whose transactional style suited him well. Hernández had adopted the slogan “Honduras is open for Business.” During Trump’s first term, Hernández established Próspera, an economic development zone on the Honduran island of Roatán. Próspera offered investors a self-governed haven where they could set their own regulations and pay next to nothing in taxes. Libertarian-inclined Trump supporters invested in it.
Hernández had met with Trump in New York just before his brother’s trial, when they signed a series of bilateral agreements intended to encourage a Honduran crackdown on northbound migrants. “You’re doing a fantastic job,” Trump told Hernández. “My people work with you so well.”
He continued to court Trump’s favor even after his brother’s guilty verdict. The following spring, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the US Food & Drug Administration publicly rebuked Trump’s , an anti-malarial medicine, could effectively treat the virus. Hernández seized an opportunity.
“Well, I never spoke to a scientist,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, “but I will tell you this: I did speak with the president of Honduras, just a little while ago. I didn’t bring it up—he brought it up. He said they use the hydroxychloroquine, and he said the results are just so incredible, with the hydroxychloroquine. Check with him. Call him. The president of Honduras. A really nice guy.”
For the rest of Trump’s term, even as his Justice Department was compiling more evidence of his ties to trafficking, members of the administration repeatedly praised Hernández for his commitment to battling migration and organized crime.
What’s really going on doesn’t take a very deep analysis: Hernandez was a right-wing ally who supported Trump’s policies and had publicly supported Trump. Maduro is a left-wing adversary. One gets pardoned despite a conviction based on overwhelming evidence. The other gets military strikes based on flimsier charges.
Even more absurd: Trump has been conducting all these “kinetic strikes” we’ve written about on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, killing approximately 80 people and destroying about 20 boats—most of which likely contained far less cocaine than Hernandez was convicted of moving, and many of which may have just been impoverished fishermen. Meanwhile, he’s letting the guy actually convicted of industrialized drug trafficking walk free.
Once again, this is all about political alignment and personal loyalty. Hernandez worked with the Trump administration, endorsed Trump’s preferred candidate in Honduras’ recent election, and had allies like Roger Stone lobbying for his pardon. Maduro is a geopolitical adversary Trump wants removed.
To everyone who can keep more than one thought in their head at the same time, the hypocrisy is clear: you can’t credibly claim your military action is justified by the need to combat drug trafficking when you just pardoned someone convicted of far more extensive drug trafficking. You can’t bomb boats supposedly carrying cocaine while freeing a man who moved 400 tons of it. You can’t invoke “law enforcement” as justification when you’re simultaneously undermining the very legal proceedings that proved another leader’s guilt.
This is nothing more than naked illegal geopolitical maneuvering dressed up in drug war rhetoric. And the fact that the administration thinks this narrative will fly shows how little they think of the public’s ability to notice the contradiction sitting right in front of us.
As one expert put it to The Guardian:
Orlando Pérez, a Latin America expert from the University of North Texas at Dallas, said Trump’s double standards on which drug-smuggling presidents to pursue revealed there was no consistent strategy to fight the region’s drug traffickers. “It’s all ad hoc and based on political considerations,” he said.
“One [Hernández] is a rightwing supporter of the US – and the other [Maduro] is not,” Pérez added. “It is ideological. It is political. It is self-interested in terms of advancing an ideological agenda – and it has nothing to do with effective anti-drug policies.”
When your “drug war” pardons the convicted trafficker and invades over the unproven allegation, you’ve pretty much admitted it was never about the drugs at all.
This is about way more than the hypocrisy, though the hypocrisy is staggering. We should be aghast at the complete erosion of any pretense that US foreign policy is guided by law, evidence, or principle rather than personal loyalty and political convenience. When the same action (drug trafficking) earns you a pardon or an invasion based solely on whether you’re useful to Trump, you’ve turned “law enforcement” into a pure protection racket. And when you can’t even maintain the fiction for two months, you’ve stopped pretending the rules matter at all.
Filed Under: donald trump, drug trade, honduras, hypocrisy, invasion, juan orlando hernandez, nicolas maduro, transactions, venezuela
Yeah, the economy sucks and trade-war tariff agendas are only making things worse. But as Trump promised/threatened during a recent national address from the White House, things are turning around, even if you (MAGA voters especially) are too stupid to see it.
It looks like the first growth market to see a significant increase might be law firms specializing in maritime law. (And those of you who specialize in Third Amendment law might want to hang around for a bit before becoming Costco greeters or whatever.)
The Trump administration has been straight up murdering people in international waters for the past few months. The regime’s “shoot first, demand all questioners be hit with sedition charges” plan hasn’t exactly worked out. Questions are actually being asked, and in response, the administration has been engaged in some last-minute retcon. Following the controversial boat strikes, the government has now declared drug cartels and drugs themselves to be terrorists worthy of extrajudicial killings.
Not only has Trump declared a controlled substance to be a “weapon of mass destruction” (fentanyl), he’s also pretty much directly asked oil companies if they’re interested in seeing a foreign government overthrown — an offering that ensures the CIA won’t be getting the holidays off this year.
Trump kills people in boats and commandeers Venezuelan oil tankers while relying on plenty of specious legal assertions. If there’s anyone who loves specious legal assertions, it’s the people who worship Donald Trump. This is the new hotness awaiting us in 2026: the addition of mercenaries to an undeclared war of opportunity.
Here’s Senate head Mike Lee with a proposal to allow regular-ass Americans to participate in actions that are already extremely questionable in terms of legality.
U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced legislation today that would allow private entities to stop drug cartel smuggling and violence. The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act authorizes President Trump, as provided under the Constitution, to commission American operators under letters of marque to seize cartel property and persons on land or sea. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN) introduced the House version of the legislation.
“The Constitution provides for Letters of Marque and Reprisal as a tool against the enemies of the United States,” said Senator Mike Lee.“Cartels have replaced corsairs in the modern era, but we can still give private American citizens and their businesses a stake in the fight against these murderous foreign criminals. The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act will revive this historic practice to defend our shores and seize cartel assets.”
Lee’s bill is hardly worth reading. It only runs three pages and basically says “the president can hire whatever mercenaries he wants” before heading to a conclusion that claims the president can declare whoever he wants to be a “cartel” and therefore a worthy target of whatever sort of Blackwater-murdering-civilians might ensure.
Of course, every Senate bill must be matched with something similar. No one specially asked congressional reps Tim Burchett and Mark Messmer to speak up, but they’ll be damned if their bootlicking will go unnoticed.
Here’s a bit of Rep. Burchett’s CV:
On March 28, 2023, Burchett responded to the Covenant School shooting, where three nine-year-old students and three staff members were killed in Nashville, by telling reporters: “It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the second world war, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.'” Burchett also said he sees no “real role” for Congress in reducing gun violence, other than to “mess things up”.
[…]
After a local D.J. was killed and 22 others were wounded in the 2024 Kansas City parade shooting, Burchett inaccurately identified an adult attendee of the Kansas City rally, Denton Loudermill Jr., as the shooter, claiming he was an “illegal alien”. Burchett’s social media post received 1.4 million views.
Yeah, so he’s one of those people.
Burchett’s buddy on this one is Rep. Mark Messmer, who used to be a pretty normal person before being elected to his current position. Now he’s just a guy who says stuff like this:
“I agree with President Trump that drug cartels are foreign terrorist organizations and are a serious threat to all Americans,” said Rep. Messmer. “The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025 would add another arrow in our national security quiver, guaranteeing that President Trump has all the authority he needs to protect our citizens from criminal and terrorist-linked threats.”
These two rubes were at least ahead of the game. They tossed this one into the congressional pool back in February 2025. That one has been copied word-for-word by Sen. Mike Lee, who looks like he’s desperately trying to shore up his toady credentials now that Trump has pretty much declared war on anything traversing international waters while in the vicinity of Venezuela. Everything old is new again, except for Donald Trump, who is older than last time and far less likely to remember this idea got pitched months ago.
The Trump administration has never seen a bad idea it can’t make worse. And while Trump has chosen to legislate from the executive office as often as possible, he’ll always have a place in his heart for the desperate sycophants who are willing to give him whatever he wants, no matter the cost to their own careers.
And there are plenty of violent, bigoted sycophants in the private sector just dying for an opportunity to get their violent racism on. They, too, are now being given a chance to claim a chair at the Big Boy table and to engage in lawlessness this administration will always celebrate, rather than condemn.
Filed Under: boat strikes, drug war, due process, extrajudicial killings, mark messmer, mercenaries, mike lee, murder, tim burchett, trump administration, venezuela
We’ve noted repeatedly how right wing billionaire Larry Ellison hired Bari Weiss to run CBS for a very obvious set of reasons: to coddle wealth and power, validate and amplify right wing grievance bullshit, divide and distract the electorate, and undermine real journalism.
And she’s doing all of those things incredibly well.
Weiss’ first major move was to host a town hall with a right wing opportunist nobody was actually interested in. Her second major move? To effectively kill a major 60 Minutes story about the president’s concentration camps. More specifically, to derail a 60 Minutes story focusing on the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to a brutal prison in El Salvador (CECOT).
CBS announced they were “postponing” the story, which had already seen multiple layers of fact checking and legal review, just three hours before it was poised to broadcast. Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi was understandably pissed off, and shared a must-read complaint with her colleagues about Weiss’ ham-fisted effort to undermine the network’s journalism:
Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T03:37:37.741Z
It’s quite a letter, which leaked almost immediately:
News Team,
Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.
I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.
We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.
If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient.
If the standard for airing a story becomes “the government must agree to be interviewed,” then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast.We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.
These men risked their lives to speak with us.
We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.
CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that “low point.” By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.
We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it.
When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of “Gold Standard” reputation for a single week of political quiet.
I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.
Sharyn
Before killing the segment, Weiss had recommended numerous changes, including adding a new interview with Trump’s unhinged racism-czar Stephen Miller, and replacing the term “migrants” more frequently with words like “illegals.” You know, to be fair and balanced:
“Ms. Weiss first saw the segment on Thursday and raised numerous concerns to “60 Minutes” producers about Ms. Alfonsi’s segment on Friday and Saturday, and she asked for a significant amount of new material to be added, according to three people familiar with the internal discussions.
One of Ms. Weiss’s suggestions was to include a fresh interview with Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown, or a similarly high-ranking Trump administration official, two of the people said. Ms. Weiss provided contact information for Mr. Miller to the “60 Minutes” staff.
Ms. Weiss also questioned the use of the term “migrants” to describe the Venezuelan men who were deported, noting that they were in the United States illegally, two of the people said.”
Alfonsi notes that the 60 Minutes team had already asked for comment from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. She also noted that Weiss had basically implemented a “kill switch” for any journalism the Trump White House finds inconvenient.
One presumes they found this particular story extra problematic not just because it exposes the Trump administration’s brutal and unconstitutional industrialized racism machine, but because it humanized Venezuelans at a time when the administration is trying to inflame racial tensions to justify its illegal, militaristic pursuit of Venezuelan precious metal and oil resources.
CBS, of course, wasn’t exactly a bastion of independent, hard-nosed journalism before Weiss and Ellison came to town. The network’s very first response to authoritarianism was to hire more right wing voices. Like many media outlets, it had already been compromised by generational bullying by the U.S. right wing, designed to discredit all factual opposition of right wing ideology for having a “liberal bias.”
Weiss was just hired to finish the job.
The latest paper-edition of the Onion satirical newspaper put it pretty well:
This should not have surprised anybody who has been paying attention. As noted previously, Weiss doesn’t have any actual experience in journalism (certainly not enough to warrant the promotion). She’s an opportunistic, contrarian-for-contrarianism’s-sake troll who built a blog dedicated to culture war grievance and lazy engagement bait.
Billionaires hired Bari Weiss to inflame cultural divides, disorient the public, and undermine journalism. They fire real journalists and replace them with Weiss (and others like her) to divide and distract the electorate from the actual causes of most U.S. dysfunction: usually unchecked corporate power, extreme wealth disparity, corruption, and our increasingly sociopathic, technofascist billionaire class.
Weiss part of an army of fake journalists employed by U.S. billionaires for this purpose (aided in some instances by hostile foreign intelligence), and despite the agenda never being subtle, the consolidated corporate media (the remnants of which Ellison is steadily trying to buy up and dominate) is utterly incapable of being honest with itself about any of it. Quite by design.
I see a lot of commentary pointing out that “Bari Weiss isn’t very good at journalism,” which distracts from the point that she wasn’t hired for journalism. She was hired to blow smoke up the ass of establishment right wing power, whether that’s Trump’s concentration camps or Netanyahu’s industrialized murder of toddlers.
If Weiss gets fired sometime next year it won’t be because she’s a terrible journalist that undermined the outlet’s already sagging credibility, it will be because she’s a clumsy propagandist and a ratings bore.
Filed Under: 60 minutes, bari weiss, cecot, concentration camps, disinformation, journalism, media, propaganda, sharyn alfonsi, venezuela
Companies: cbs, paramount
The Trump Administration’s murder-in-international-waters program debuted far ahead of its legal rationale. Many people inside the administration were blindsided by this sudden escalation. Those expected to stay on top of these things — military oversight, congressional committees, etc. — found they were even further behind the curve than the late-arriving “justification” for extrajudicial killings of alleged “narco-terrorists” that used to be handled by interdiction efforts that left everyone alive and anything of value (drugs, boats, weapons) in the hands of the US government and its foreign partners.
This was something new and horrible from a regime already known for its awfulness. Even after the belated (and then hastily revised) justification was delivered by the Office of Legal Counsel, it was difficult to see how the US government could justify extrajudicial killings of alleged “terrorists” who were — at worst — simply moving narcotics from point A to point B.
The administration’s bizarre insistence that the mere existence of an international drug trade constituted a deliberate, violent attack on America was further undercut by a lot of inconvenient facts. First of all, most of those being killed had no connection to the top levels of drug cartels. They were merely mules tasked with transporting drugs. In other cases — including the one that involved a double-tap strike (which was actually four strikes) to ensure the survivors clinging to boat wreckage could no longer be referred to as “survivors” — the drugs allegedly being trafficked were headed to midpoints that suggested the narcotics were actually headed to Europe, rather than the United States.
To be clear, this administration doesn’t actually care whether or not it engages in murder or other acts of violence. What it does care about is allowing the killing to continue for as long as possible before the system of checks and balances finally gets around to dialing back the murders a bit.
A recent article from the New York Times gives the game away, even if the lede gets a bit buried. The headline mentions a White House “scramble” to “deal with” people who survived initial extrajudicial killing attempts. In one case, two survivors were rescued by the US military after failing to die during the initial strike. The White House said they should be sent to El Salvador’s torture prison. The State Department — currently headed by Marco Rubio — said this simply wasn’t possible. Both survivors ended up being sent back to their countries of origin.
Two weeks later, another murder attempt failed to murder everyone on the boat, leading to another hasty conference call between the White House, career diplomats, and Defense Department leadership. The ultimate goal was to get rid of these people as quickly as possible, which necessarily involved hasty arrangements made with government officials in their home countries.
The real reason for these hasty talks — and the secrecy surrounding them — is this: The administration definitely doesn’t seem confident that it’s fully justified in ordering military members to engage in actual war crimes; specifically, the murder of people military bylaws make clear they are supposed to be rescuing.
The two attacks discussed above happened nearly two months after the double-tap boat strike that definitely looks like a war crime. But the Trump administration definitely isn’t going to bring back survivors to face justice by charging them and giving them their day in court. If it does that, it might lose everything it likes about murdering people in international waters.
Legal cases in the United States involving survivors would force the administration to present more information to try to back up its rationale for the attacks.
[…]
“From the administration’s point of view, there are good reasons to be averse to bringing survivors to Guantánamo Bay or to the continental United States,” [former State Dept. lawyer Brian Finucane] said.
If the U.S. military brings the survivors to the Navy-run prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, lawyers defending them could file a habeas corpus lawsuit in U.S. federal court questioning whether there really is an armed conflict, for legal purposes, between the United States and cartels. Congress has not authorized the United States to engage in any such conflict.
To use the ever-popular poker parlance, that’s an obvious “tell” — something that indicates the administration has very little confidence in the legal rationale for these extrajudicial killings. If it thought it’s arguments had a very good chance of holding up in court, it wouldn’t be hastily returning “narco-terrorists” to their home countries as quickly and quietly as possible, where they’ll presumably immediately resume their “narco-terrorism.”
That’s also why the first double-tap strike occurred only days into Trump’s undeclared war on alleged drug boats. As far as we know, this hasn’t been repeated, despite everyone who hasn’t already resigned from the Defense Department (or been thrown under the bus by those whose positions are unassailable thanks to their deference to Trump) claiming either ignorance of the double-strike or saying lots of stuff about “saving” the country from being murdered by inanimate fentanyl (or whatever).
Any survivor is just another chance to prove the US government wrong. And if it isn’t immediately clear survivors have somewhere to be hastily dumped, you can probably assume the military will resort to Plan B: mob-style “hits” to make sure these witnesses can’t talk.
Filed Under: boat strikes, crimes against humanity, defense department, doj, donald trump, extrajudicial killings, frank bradley, marco rubio, mass deportation, murder, pete hegseth, trump administration, venezuela, war on drugs
A recent shooting involving a former Afghani US counter-terrorism asset who worked with the CIA (!!!) has become the tragedy the Trump administration apparently needed to go from “consistently racist” to “openly racist.” The wounding of two National Guard troops led directly to the president spending the holiday doing what he always does on holidays: ranting about a bunch of shit rather than just wish the people he supposed to serving a happy Thanksgiving.
Trump went on a multi-day Truth Social bender, beginning with multiple invective-filled posts on Thanksgiving that led to a marathon 158-post (!!!) barrage over a three-hour period starting late Monday (December 1) night.
Trump dropped back-to-back “bangers” on Truth Social, both loaded with bigoted language that made it clear the US — under Trump — is only interested in importing white people.
This post first blamed Biden for some stuff before moving on (within the space of a sentence) to declaring the termination of asylum/visa applications from nations Trump considers to be unworthy of entering the former Land of Opportunity.
I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.
It appears the administration will decide which countries fit the “Third World” descriptor on a case-by-bigoted-case basis. This means the ten countries considered too inherently dangerous to be allowed to be part of the migration ecosystem are (lol) in the minority. If you’ve been paying attention, the original list of countries whose residents are forbidden from entering the US contains a lot of countries this administration wants to send deportees like Kilmar Abrego Garcia to, despite much-friendlier countries (Costa Rica, for example) offering to take Garcia off the US government’s hands.
Mr. Trump’s June proclamation imposed a near-total restriction on the entry of people from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Another 19 countries have been added to Trump’s list of presumable “shit holes” — a list that includes many of his current infatuations:
The Trump administration has halted all immigration applications filed by people from 19 countries, its latest move to restrict legal immigration pathways following the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., last week, according to internal government guidance and a source familiar with the move.
[…]
It also partially suspended the entry of travelers and immigrants from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The latest proclamation means all 19 of these countries are on Trump’s shit list. The limitations are now effectively a complete ban on migration. And former residents of the listed nations can expect to be deported ASAFP. (“Feasibly.”)
That’s not even the end of it. The day after Trump’s thumb-wrecking Truth Social posting spree, DHS dog-killer-in-chief stepped up to the mic to promise even more racism and pain.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is recommending that the Trump administration’s travel ban list include between 30 to 32 countries, marking an increase from the current list of 19 countries, according to a source familiar with the matter.
[…]
Noem said Monday that, following a meeting with President Donald Trump, she recommended a “full travel ban” on “every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”
Huh. Will the US of A be added to that list, considering it generates plenty of “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies” on its own? The simple fact is that immigrants commit fewer crimes, pay more than their share of taxes, and generally do everything they can to stand on their own two feet, even when the government insists on depriving them of their bootstraps every time a bunch of bigots seize an inordinate amount of power.
And that leads us back to what’s always been propelling this mass deportation surge: the GOP’s racism, currently embodied by an aged, obese man with bad hair who has never wanted for anything in his life: Donald Trump.
His immediate follow-up (one [1] minute later [!!]) to his pseudo-Thanksgiving well-wishing was this post, which immediately attacked political opponents not just because they opposed him, but because they were not as white as Trump is (current level of spray tan notwithstanding).
I’m going to quote quite a bit of it (for which I kind of apologize) because you have to see all of this for yourself and ABSOLUTELY KNOW this has all been written by a man who currently holds the office of the President of the United States. (All emphasis mine.)
YOUR WALL OF TEXT AWAITS.
The official United States Foreign population stands at 53 million people (Census), most of which are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels. They and their children are supported through massive payments from Patriotic American Citizens who, because of their beautiful hearts, do not want to openly complain or cause trouble in any way, shape, or form. They put up with what has happened to our Country, but it’s eating them alive to do so! A migrant earning $30,000 with a green card will get roughly $50,000 in yearly benefits for their family. The real migrant population is much higher. This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America, something that did not exist after World War II (Failed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages, and large deficits, etc.). As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for “prey” as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone. The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst “Congressman/woman” in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how “badly” she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…
Yeah. This is “racist grandpa” shit except that it’s being said by perhaps the most powerful man in the world. There are lies about the costs immigrants create, followed by a bunch of stereotypes, the casual use of the word “retarded” to describe another politician, and the well-past-the-point-of-insinuation claims that Ilhan Omar not only married her brother but comes from a country that shouldn’t even be considered a country.
And if you think that’s the worst thing Trump said about Somalia or Somalians within just the past three days, I have the sort of bad news you knew I’d be delivering when you first starting reading this sentence:
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he did not want Somali immigrants in the U.S., saying residents of the war-ravaged eastern African country are too reliant on U.S. social safety net and add little to the United States.
[…]
“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country,” Trump told reporters near the end of a lengthy Cabinet meeting. He added: “Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.”
[…]
Trump also renewed his criticism of Omar, whose family fled the civil war in Somalia and spent several years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the U.S.
“We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way, if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said. “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
Man, I can only hope that when the face-eating leopard party really starts stripping faces off the MAGA faithful, their asylum requests will be rejected with the same callous shrugging about how these people are “garbage” that shouldn’t be allowed to enter other countries because the United States “stinks” and their pasty white nationalists “contribute nothing” to the world at large. And I also hope these little Mussolini wannabes the GOP caters will take a look at history and wonder whether it’s truly worth it to be the worst Americans imaginable just because it plays well with the Nazis.
Filed Under: bigots, dhs, hatred, immigration, kristi noem, mass deportation, trump administration, venezuela
Companies: truth social
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