A Dangerous Line Crossed In Trump’s Lethal High Seas Attack

Many things have happened. Here are some of the things. This is the morning memo of TPM. Register For the e-mail version.

Abu Ghraib meets the Gulf of Tonkin

The surprising American attack on an alleged drug boat in international waters off Venezuela is precisely the kind of unhindled fight that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, opened the way when he began to dismiss military lawyers as soon as he settled in his online office.

As bad as some of the American offenses during the world war against terrorism – and I can hardly believe that I write this – there was always an understanding among the Dick Cheneys of the world they needed to find at least one argument for what they counted, as pretextual, non -persuasive and which is not perpetuating.

This amazing NYT sentence suggests that President Trump – entirely immune to his official acts of the Roberts Court – even demonstrated a demonstration of legal justification for this week: “Pentagon officials still worked on what legal authority, they said to the public, were used to retreat the extraordinary strike in international waters.”

First shoot, determine the legal coverage later.

The Trump administration could not even put its facts directly on the story it tells publicly, Trump saying that the boat was heading for the United States and Secretary of State Marco Rubio stating that he was heading for Trinidad. Rubio then brought his public declarations in accordance with that of Trump.

At this point, it would be gullible to accept without further evidence that the administration claims that it was a drug ship – a proof will be difficult to provide because the boat was exploded and that its 11 occupants were killed.

In particular, it should be noted in particular the unrealized claim of Trump, these targeted in the murder were gang members of Tren of Aragua. Trump has appointed ADD as a terrorist organization and used this justification to invoke the Act respecting extraterrestrial enemies for the notorious moves of Venezuelan nationals, many of whom are not now members of ADD. In an ironic turn, the attack on the boat came the same week as the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals conservative judged that TDA did not have the United States for law on extraterrestrial enemies, which made Trump’s invocation of the status of war illegal.

Assuming was A drug boat, the former lawyer for the State Department, Brian Finucan, examines the legal landscape for a fatal attack on the alleged drug traffickers on the high seas. “The use of deadly force in this attack seems free and the administration did not explain why the tools for applying the law were inadequate to approach the situation,” he wrote.

Another difference from Gwot is that when the line was crossed – Abu Ghraib comes to my mind – there has been an official effort to minimize, reject and keep the administration of the incident. Although this avoids real responsibility, it suggested the most marked recognition that a situation was problematic, if not wrong. Not now. The president himself, as well as his defense and state secretaries, celebrate this attack.

Geopolitical buildings are looming on all this that Trump actively attaches. On its orders, a massive naval deployment of the region was already underway, degenerating tensions with Venezuela. Trump’s saber fights on its ribs while putting a bonus of $ 50 million on the head of President Nicolás Maduro is the kind of flexion that echoes decades of American intervention in Latin America.

As frightening as the attack is, we can come to see it as a Golf Tonkin style precursor to a greater effort to destabilize Venezuela with unpredictable and even more disastrous consequences.

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Of a reader mm:

Assassin people in a boat. Thought it was. We spent weeks in a law in law taught by Jack Goldsmith to find out if you could even place prisoners in Guantanamo and give them military trials. This guy is right here, letting violent idiots jump on tastosterone murdering people in broad daylight as if it were a fucking video game. It makes me sick.

The notorious Louisiana prison now sheltering migrant detainees

Angola, the former plantation of Louisiana which has become one of the most brutal penitentiaries in the country, now houses migrant detainees within the framework of the mass expulsion program of President Trump. The attorney general Pam Bondi and the secretary of the DHS, Kristi Noem, have personally visited the new installation, which the managers already turn into a meme: “Louisiana Lockup”.

The 2020 election takes place and January 6 never ends

In the background, the creation of a revisionist history of the 2020 elections which can be used for new reprisals continues tirelessly. Just this week:

• The House Republicans have created a new subcommittee led by representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) to reinvest the attack on January 6.
• The Doj Trump looked for access to voting machines in Missouri which were used in the 2020 elections. At least two county clerks were contacted by the manager of the MJ Andrew McCoy “Mac” Warner, a former secretary of state of Virginie-Western, according to a shared service with electoral officials and obtained for the first time by the Missouri independent request for public files.
• Texas Ken Paxton’s Attorney General (R) is head of the “Fire Rights Rights” event with a high -level rioter on January 6, reports Hutter Walker from TPM.

Folder note of the day

In his decision that the attack on the Trump administration against Harvard is unconstitutional, the American district judge Allison Burroughs rendered fire from the Supreme Court on behalf of all the federal judges:

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