News Day

This week’s firehose of news threatens to drown us all. I feel like I’m treading water, but even so, a few of the week’s stories stand out: more revelations of massive corruption in the Trump administration, dangerous escalations of electronic surveillance of all of us, a particularly nasty swatting attack on Pete Buttigieg’s family and four-year-old twins, and Timothy Snyder’s cogent analysis of “an alternative Nazi reality.” 

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Seems like every week brings more news of government surveillance. You’d think the right wing would be up in arms about this government overreach and invasion of privacy—but it’s their folks who are taking the photos and setting up the databases of protesters and immigrants and anyone else who happens to get captured on some law enforcement camera. The primary targets: 

• Protesters—captured on camera by local ICE and other federal agencies and some local police forces; 
• Travelers—captured on camera at airports; 
• Immigrants—anyone who applies for a green card, for asylum, for refugee status, plus anyone who is ever picked up by ICE or the Border Patrol, including children. 

Are all of these fed into a gigantic federal database?

No, says ICE. We just take photos and names and other information and keep the records. For at least 15 years. 

“Keeping the records” is just another name for maintaining a database.

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On June 16, Kash Patel announced on social media that an alleged plot to mount a drone attack on Trump’s UFC fight had been “stopped cold.” And then the story went away. Why?

This attack was not international terrorism. Even Patel could not spin it as a left-wing plot. Those arrested came from home-grown, right-wing accelerationists. Federal authorities were alerted after the mother of 19-year-old Tycen Proper called local police with concerns about her son’s gun-buying and online associates.  

The right-wing accelerationist movement in the United States believes in an inevitable race war and white victory. They use violence to create chaos and accelerate the movement toward the total breakdown of society. For a discussion of history and accelerationist organizations, see The Conversation’s “A field guide to ‘accelerationism’: White supremacist groups using violence to spur race war and create social chaos.”

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Bombing schools and hospitals is a war crime. Deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime. Yesterday’s fulminations from the Führer in the White House go beyond war crimes to announce that he intends genocide: the wiping out of an entire people and civilization.

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Five years after the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, the attacks on democracy and on elected officials continue. Yesterday, two politicians currently under attack by the Trump administration spoke out with anger and eloquence.

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The New York Times today has plenty of coverage of who, how, when, and where the United States illegally attacked Venezuela and abducted its president and first lady. But that’s far from the whole story. A few easily overlooked but essential facts: 

• Trump claims that Vice President Delcy Rodriguez welcomes the intervention and will cooperate with whatever he plans—totally false. At the same hour that he made this preposterous announcement, she was speaking on Venezuelan television to denounce the U.S. actions, insist that Maduro is still the rightful president, and decry the “Zionist undertones” of the U.S. action. 
• Venezuela actually has a legitimately elected president who is NOT Nicolas Maduro. That is Edmundo González, who won the July 2024 election by a wide margin. Maduro refused to leave office and falsely claimed that he won the election. González is living in exile in Spain. Trump has not mentioned González or made any move to support him. 

For informed insights on the consequences of Trump’s attack on Venezuela, see: 

• Timothy Snyder’s analysis of the Venezuela situation in the light of historical precedents;
• Robert Reich’s warning about oil companies, oligarchs, and the looting of both Venezuela and the United States; 
• Stephen Vladeck’s careful dissection of the legal issues involved in the law-breaking invasion and Trump cabal’s “deeply thuggish” approach to foreign policy. 

50 USC Ch. 33: WAR POWERS RESOLUTION

§1541. Purpose and policy

(a) Congressional declaration

It is the purpose of this chapter to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations.

(b) Congressional legislative power under necessary and proper clause

Under article I, section 8, of the Constitution, it is specifically provided that the Congress shall have the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution, not only its own powers but also all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

(c) Presidential executive power as Commander-in-Chief; limitation

The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

(Pub. L. 93–148, §2, Nov. 7, 1973, 87 Stat. 555.)

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 11

Article I Legislative Branch

Section 8 Enumerated Powers

• ArtI.S8.1  Overview of Congress’s Enumerated Powers …
  • Clause 11 War Powers To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

Over at Law Dork, Chris Geidner has a great column on the four key lessons we can and must take from 2025. The first: pushing back is essential — and it works. I won’t try to summarize his column, but encourage you to go and read it and, if you can, support the good work he does year-around by subscribing.

For a more humorous insight–grimly humorous, but still, laughing at tyrants is good for us and them–here’s Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent post on X [below] celebrating a big reduction in drug overdose deaths. Just one problem, which led her to quickly remove the post: the reduction took place entirely in the Biden administration. The chart she posted ends in October 2024.

Jamal Khashoggi was a U.S. permanent legal resident and a columnist for the Washington Post in 2018 when Saudi operatives lured him to the Saudi consulate in Turkey, and then abducted, tortured, and murdered him. Then they cut up his body with a bone saw. U.S. intelligence agencies investigated and determined that his assassination was ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. 

The U.S. intelligence report was issued in 2021, and the Biden administration shamefully failed to censure Mohamed bin Salman, although they did impose sanctions on some other Saudis implicated in the assassination.

Now Trump has gone several steps further, welcoming Mohamed bin Salman to the White House, praising him effusively, and holding an Oval Office press event with him. When a journalist asked bin Salman about the assassination of Khashoggi, Trump interrupted and chastised the journalist. Trump then answered the question that had been directed to bin Salman: 

“You’re mentioning somebody [Khashoggi] that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him, or didn’t like him, things happen. But he [bin Salman] knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.”

“Things happen.” 

That is what the president of the United States has to say about abduction, torture, and assassination—”things happen.” 

That is what the president of the United States has to say, while sitting next to his good friend, the man who ordered the abduction, torture, and assassination. 

Things happen. Donald Trump knows a lot about things that happen. He makes things happen. 

Things like the January 6 insurrection. 

Things like illegally bombing Venezuelan and Colombian boats, resulting in the deaths of 83 people and counting. 

Things like thousands of death threats against six Congress members after Trump called them traitors and said they should be executed.

The “thing” that should happen now is the impeachment, trial, conviction, and removal from office of Donald Trump.