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rule of law
Stop Trump's High Seas Killing Spree
The US must immediately end these boat strikes and take accountability for the harms caused to the victims and their families. And Congress must do its job of conducting oversight to ensure transparent and independent investigations of these strikes.
May 16, 2026
The US military has been carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Pacific over the past nine months with impunity.
On May 8, the US military struck another boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor. US Southern Command claimed “the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes” and “was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
According to The Intercept, there have now been 58 such boat strikes since September that have killed at least 193 people. As with the May 8 attack, the names and nationalities of most of these victims remain unknown.
The Trump administration has accused civilian boats of transporting narcotics to the US and says its killing “narco-terrorists.” But the Pentagon has provided no evidence for these claims or any indication that the people killed posed an imminent threat.
The use of unlawful force will become more normalized at home and abroad unless the Trump administration is held accountable for these illegal killings and its blatant abuse of power.
International and US law do not allow the use of the military to kill civilians suspected of crimes. Boat bombing on the high seas is not a legitimate law enforcement operation. Nor is it curbing the flow of drugs into the United States, as President Donald Trump claims, or combating the root causes of drug use.
Even if the boats did carry drugs, the appropriate response would be to lawfully intercept and detain the suspects and afford them due process of law.
In a desperate attempt to provide legal cover for these murders, the Trump administration is asserting that the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with unspecified drug cartels—the same kind of broad legal authority invoked by the George W. Bush administration in its post-9/11 “war on terror.”
But there is no armed conflict in the Caribbean or the Pacific. The people on those boats are civilians who are not legitimate military targets. “You just can’t call something war to give yourself war powers,” noted University of Pennsylvania professor Claire Finkelstein.
Legal and human rights experts agree.
Last October, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned the boat strikes. “None of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law,” Türk said in his October 31 statement.
Despite the unsubstantiated, fearmongering claims pushed by the Trump administration, investigations have shown that several of those people killed were fishermen trying to make a living for their families. On January 20, the US attacked the Ecuadorian fishing boat La Fiorella. None of the eight fishermen aboard have been seen since.
Survivors have also endured abuse. In two separate Pacific attacks on Ecuadorian fishing boats in March, 36 survivors said they were “abducted and tortured by American forces and taken by boat all the way to El Salvador before being returned to Ecuador,” according to an investigation by Drop Site News.
“They handcuffed us, put hoods over our heads and pushed us around. We were terrified they were going to kill us,” recalled Jhonny Sebastián Palacios, one of the survivors, in an interview with The Guardian.
The US must immediately end these boat strikes and take accountability for the harms caused to the victims and their families. And Congress must do its job of conducting oversight to ensure transparent and independent investigations of these strikes.
The use of unlawful force will become more normalized at home and abroad unless the Trump administration is held accountable for these illegal killings and its blatant abuse of power.
When federal immigration agents killed American citizens earlier this year, we saw all too clearly the risks of letting the government shoot people and call them “terrorists.” It leaves all of us less secure, undermines the rule of law, and can’t be allowed to become routine.
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The Tragic Transformation of Todd Blanche
Someday Blanche’s progeny may ask him why—as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States—he helped a rogue president run roughshod over the rule of law.
May 03, 2026
During President Donald Trump’s first term, he bemoaned the failure of his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to protect him from the Justice Department’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to elect Trump in 2016.
“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump erupted, referring to his notorious former fixer who had also been Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hatchet man during the 1950s Senate hearings into communist activity. Trump later fired Sessions.
For a time, Attorney General William Barr was the answer. But the two men parted ways after Barr told him repeatedly that no evidence supported Trump’s obsessive claims that voter fraud had cost him the 2020 election.
In Trump’s second term, it appeared that Pam Bondi fit the bill. She tried valiantly to meet Trump’s every legal need. She transformed the Justice Department into Trump’s personal tool, prosecuted Trump’s perceived enemies, and tried to protect Trump from the fallout over the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors.
Bondi's Deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.
But she bungled the Epstein files. She tried but failed to prosecute two key targets on Trump’s vengeance list: New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. She savaged her own reputation but could not save her job.
Bondi’s deputy, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is now auditioning to remove the “Acting” from his title. He hopes to succeed where his predecessors have failed—to become Trump’s enduring Roy Cohn.
From Democrat to Trump Enabler
Blanche began his legal career in 1999 as a paralegal in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Working days and attending Brooklyn Law School at night, he graduated in 2003. After a stint as an associate in the Davis Polk firm and two federal court clerkships, he returned in 2006 to the US Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor and eventually became co-chief of the violent crimes division.
In 2014, Blanche joined the WilmerHale firm as a partner before moving to another big New York firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft. In 2019, he represented Paul Manafort on state mortgage fraud charges similar to federal crimes for which Manafort had already been convicted in 2018. (Trump pardoned Manafort in December 2020). Blanche got the state law claims dismissed on double jeopardy grounds.
But in April 2023, Cadwalader balked when Blanche, then a registered Democrat, sought to represent Trump in the hush-money case involving payments to Stormy Daniels. So Blanche left Cadwalader and started his own firm. The jury eventually convicted Trump, but for Blanche it began a profitable relationship that generated over $3 million from Trump’s Save America PAC in the new firm’s first year alone.
Blanche went on to represent Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and in the election obstruction case involving Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election. In 2024, Blanche switched his registration from Democrat to Republican.
Trump’s Latest Roy Cohn
Blanche is no longer Trump’s personal attorney, but you wouldn’t know it from his conduct in office.
Although he was the No. 2 official in the Justice Department, in July 2025 he tried to quiet the MAGA backlash over Trump’s breach of an election pledge to release the Justice Department’s Epstein files. Blanche went to Florida where Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislane Maxwell was in prison and interviewed her personally. Openly seeking a pardon, Maxwell said that she had never seen Trump do anything inappropriate.
Mission accomplished.
Shortly thereafter, Maxwell was transferred to a “club fed-type” prison camp—even though her conviction had rendered her ineligible for such placement under Bureau of Prisons policy. Blanche said that threats against her were the reason for the transfer.
As acting attorney general, Blanche has now picked up where Bondi had failed to put Comey behind bars. At an April 28, 2026 press conference, he announced Comey’s indictment alleging that in posting an Instagram photo of sea shells that formed “86 47” on a North Carolina beach, Comey “knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States.”
A sea-shell death threat via Instagram.
“So, I think it's fair to say that threatening the life of anybody is dangerous and potentially a crime,” Blanche said indignantly as he explained that the charges against Comey came with a 10-year potential prison sentence. “Threatening the life of the President of the United States will never be tolerated by the Department of Justice.”
Blanche continued, “[W]hile this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute.”
Really? How about these?
“Hang Mike Pence”—Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists, some of whom may have been responsible for the sign carrying that message and the gallows accompanying it. The statute of limitations on such “threats” is five years. Where was that indictment?
“86 46”—Anti-Biden Trump social media personality Jack Posobiec posted this in January 2022. It also appeared on T-Shirts, caps, and Republican fundraising messages.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) posted this in February 2024: “We’ve now 86’d: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell. Better days are ahead for the Republican Party.”
Wasting Taxpayer Money
Prosecutors face a daunting task proving Comey’s subjective intent to harm Trump. Even longtime Trump apologist Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, acknowledged that the indictment “is unlikely to survive constitutional scrutiny. If it did, it would allow the government to criminalize a huge swath of political speech in the United States.”
When asked at his press conference how he would prove intent, Blanche said “with witnesses, with documents, and with the defendant himself,” adding: “It's very premature for me to do that today.”
That non-answer won’t suffice when Comey’s lawyers provide evidence that this is just another vindictive prosecution on Trump’s behalf at taxpayer expense.
Someday Blanche’s progeny may ask him why—as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States—he helped a rogue president run roughshod over the rule of law.
He probably won’t tell them about Roy Cohn.
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The Erosion of Moral Leadership: Trump’s War With Iran
A nation that persists in waging illegal war and pirating resources for profit, risks becoming a pariah in the international community, and its soldiers who blindly follow orders without critical analysis, war criminals.
Apr 13, 2026
President Donald J. Trump’s current intervention in Iran is not without precedent. It echoes events many Iranians remember well. While Trump and, likely, many Americans may be clueless about the violent history of American-Iranian relations, most Iranians are acutely aware of America’s involvement in the 1953 coup that ousted their democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Following the coup, Iran became a client state of the United States, exploited for its oil, and governed by the Western puppet, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose leadership was marked by oppression and ruthlessness. As a consequence, America’s intervention and the Shah’s corrupt, repressive regime fueled the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the pro-Western monarchy and established the anti-Western, theocratic Islamic Republic—the same government President Trump now seeks to overthrow through military action.
Further, despite claims of supporting freedom and democracy in the region, the US provided military intelligence and chemical weapons targeting data to Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s invasion and subsequent bloody eight-year war against Iran. Recently, under President Donald Trump, US and Israeli attacks have resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,500 Iranian civilians, including 175 children killed when a US Tomahawk missile struck a school in Minab.
This legacy of violence perpetrated against the Iranian people over the past 80 years reveals the treachery and hypocrisy of which the United States is capable. While promoting itself as a champion of freedom and democracy, it has repeatedly undermined democratic ideals and governments for its own economic and strategic gain.
Promises Made, Not Kept
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump criticized the “forever wars” of previous administrations and promised the American people that when elected, he would end foreign entanglements, prioritize domestic issues such as housing affordability, public safety and trust, economic relief, etc. According to his administration’s National Security Strategy, which emphasized non-interventionism, “the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests.” Despite these promises, in less than two years of his second term, Trump has intervened militarily at least seven times—in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, Venezuela, and has threatened military action in Cuba, Columbia, and Greenland. These are hardly the actions of someone who has proclaimed himself the “Peace President.”
President Trump has yet to provide Congress, and more importantly the American people, with a clear and coherent rationale for his war with Iran.
In so doing, he has ignored both the Constitution, which grants only to Congress the authority to declare war, and the United Nations Charter, which requires member states to settle disputes peacefully, and to use violence only as a last resort, either in self-defense or with UN Security Council authorization. According to Chapter II, paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter to which the United States and Israel are signatory, “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”
When called to task by historical allies for waging illegal war and ignoring the obligation to fight rightly—most notably the dictates of International law—rather than to explain and clarify America’s actions, Trump’s “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth criticized and demeaned our allies by characterizing their legitimate concerns as “wringing their hands and clutching their pearls.” Instead of acknowledging the gravity of these violations of law, Hegseth boasted about the precision and lethality of the slaughter, viewing the large-scale killing of Iranians as something of which to be proud and dismissing restrictions on warfighting—rules of engagement—as “stupid” and as an impediment to achieving victory. At the same time, Trump was demanding NATO Allies come to his aid in reopening the Straits of Hormuz.
In a recent Christian Worship Service at the Pentagon, Hegseth echoed Mark Twain’s The War Prayer, his searing anti-war lament on how religious and patriotic fever blinds people to the cruelty and insanity of war. Clearly misunderstanding Twain’s intent, Hegseth’s prayer was a literal invocation for violence calling for divine wrath against America’s enemies and portraying his war as righteous and necessary:
...Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness... Break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish. Let their bulls go down to slaughter for their day has come, the time of their punishment. Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind.
It is repulsive, how Trump, Hegseth, and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when recounting the plan of battle, clearly relish describing and emphasizing the KILLING of Iranians and celebrating the violence. Even many war-hardened combat veterans understood that the killing of those deemed the enemy was not something of which to be proud, choosing instead to use euphemisms—“wasting,” “capping,” hosing,” smoking,” etc.—to describe their taking of human life on the battlefield.
As American coffins began returning from the war and were being transferred to a waiting vehicle, Trump violated the “dignity” of the ceremony and again showed his disrespect and contempt for fallen soldiers and their family members by failing to remove his hat and later using a photo of the event in a fundraising email. Perhaps anticipating future fundraising opportunities, Trump prognosticated a warning that the numbers of killed and wounded Americans will increase as death and injury is inevitable in war.
Lessons Learned from War
As a veteran of the American War in Vietnam, I have firsthand knowledge of the realities of war and do not require President Donald Trump, who used his family’s wealth and influence to escape military service, to explain it to me. I know its effects on participant’s bodies, minds, and souls; I’ve lived it and spent a lifetime laboring to understand and to heal from the experience.
I learned that war is abhorrent and should never be entered into lightly. Certainly not as a “wag the dog” distraction from domestic controversies or crimes that Trump may wish to conceal. I learned that there is no glory in war. That war is unwarranted and should be waged only if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the alleged enemy poses a real and imminent existential threat, and then only as a last resort, and after all diplomatic avenues for the peaceful resolution of differences have been fully explored and exhausted.
Whether Trump’s war with Iran satisfies the criteria for a just war (jus ad bellum) is highly doubtful even among Trump’s inner circle. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress in March that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and the late Supreme Leader Khamenei did not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Though I had admired Gabbard’s adamant opposition to unnecessary war when she sought the Democratic nomination for president during the 2020 election cycle, I am disappointed that she lacked the courage of her convictions, changing her position after criticism and intimidation by Trump, claiming, though not very convincingly, that her testimony had been taken out of context by a dishonest media. Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, agreed with Gabbard’s initial assessment and became the first senior Trump Administration official to resign in protest over the Iran war. In a letter to Trump posted on X, Kent wrote: “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby."
Before any military action is undertaken—prior to the dropping of the first bomb or the firing of the first bullet—the commander in chief is obligated to present a clear and compelling justification for war. This process requires formally seeking authorization from Congress in accordance with the Constitution, as only Congress is granted the power to declare war. Furthermore, it is essential that the president request debate and approval from the United Nation’s Security Council, thereby ensuring that the United States’ actions are aligned with International Law and global standards for conflict resolution.
Additionally, before initiating any military action, the president has the responsibility to fully inform the American people about the reasons for the conflict, the precise nature of the threat, and the objectives to be achieved through military engagement. Such transparency is vital to establishing the legitimacy of the war and maintaining the trust of both Congress and the American people.
Further, if the president believes war to be so important and necessary to warrant the inevitable cost in lives, sanity, and resources, then its risks and burdens should be borne by ALL who benefit—not merely by those less fortunate who lack the wealth and influence he enjoyed to avoid “service,” nor solely by other people’s children instead of his own. Wars tend to appear less "necessary" and become less frequent when politicians and those who advocate for war have blood in the game. According to a study conducted by scholars at Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown, politicians and supporters whose children are of military age are less inclined to support war and vote for hawkish policies were their children subject to conscription and required to fight.
America at a Crossroads
A comprehensive report published by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) institute at Sweden's University of Gothenburg has documented a significant decline in the quality of democracy in the United States during President Trump’s tenure. According to this report, several alarming trends have emerged, including the growing concentration of power within the Executive Branch, persistent violations of both domestic and international laws, intentional efforts to bypass Congress, and direct assaults on free speech and the media.
As a consequence of this undermining of the foundational principles of American democracy, the United States has experienced a dramatic drop in its democracy ranking, falling from 20th to 51st place among 179 nations. This decline reflects not only the internal challenges facing American governance but also the broader implications for the nation’s standing as a global model of democratic values.
Trump is not, nor has he ever been, a soldier. Nor does he embody the qualities of a president.
This deterioration of democratic principles has not gone unnoticed. Across the nation, tens of thousands have taken to the streets during events such as the No Kings Days demonstrations voicing their outrage over President Trump’s policies and ongoing wars. In addition, protesters feel the urgency to “take back America,” and to resist the weakening of political rights, civil liberties, the rapid decline toward authoritarian rule, and reaffirming the rule of law as set forth in the Constitution, the framework of government that countless Americans, including those who wore the uniform, took an oath to defend. The message is clear: America is not a monarchy, and President Trump is not a king, despite his apparent desire for the mantle.
President Trump has yet to provide Congress, and more importantly the American people, with a clear and coherent rationale for his war with Iran. There has been no substantive explanation of why it is in America’s interest to sacrifice American lives and to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the conflict—resources that could better be used on domestic programs such as affordable housing, adequate healthcare, and other social programs. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimate the cost of the war in Iran has already surpassed $38 Billion with the White House now seeking supplemental appropriations that would provide more than $200 billion in additional funding.
In recent public statements and posts on Truth Social, which are often marked by bellicose and vulgar rhetoric, Trump avoids calling the attack on Iran a “war.” Instead, he refers to it as a “military operation” in an apparent attempt to circumvent the constitutional requirement for congressional approval for acts of war, as if merely changing the terminology grants him unchecked, monarchical power to kill and to destroy at will.
Conclusion
America stands at a pivotal juncture in our nation's history, a time of great economic and social upheaval. Though the illusion of America’s greatness and beneficence persists, by surrounding himself with spineless, incompetent sycophants and enablers who do his bidding without question, Trump has abandoned principled leadership. As a result, America under Trump has lost its moral compass and forfeited any moral standing or leadership it may have had in the world. Further, by waging illegal wars, threatening war crimes such as the total destruction of the Iranian civilization, seizing millions of gallons of Venezuelan oil, and planning to do the same in Iran (to the victor belongs the spoils), he has denigrated the nobility of the profession of arms and transformed our military into a well-equipped and highly trained band of brigands, marauders, and war criminals.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s attack on Iran without regard for International Law failed to make the Middle East, Israel, the United States, and the world safer. In fact, it probably had the opposite effect. This attack has increased the likelihood of nuclear proliferation by convincing leaders of nonnuclear nations that possessing nuclear weapons is necessary to deter attacks from powerful nuclear states. Interestingly, Israel agrees. Unlike Iran, Israel, while neither confirming nor denying its nuclear arsenal, is widely believed to have some 90 nuclear weapons with enough fissile material to produce hundreds more. Again, unlike Iran, Israel is not signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor does it allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, despite numerous demands that it bring all its nuclear facilities under the oversight and safeguards of the IAEA, arguing that maintaining a nuclear deterrence is vital for survival in a hostile region.
Perhaps it is not too late to restore this nation’s integrity, moral character, and sanity. To do so, we must continue building a viable opposition, foster a groundswell of resistance to a political leadership that sees war, violence, tariffs, and intimidation as a tool of governance and a substitute for the hard work of diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of differences.
Until rational and principled leadership prevails, Trump must be prohibited from initiating policy, especially from sending our military into harm’s way to fight in wars he clearly does not understand, care about, or, as in the past, lacks the courage to participate in himself. A nation that persists in waging illegal war and pirating resources for profit, risks becoming a pariah in the international community, and its soldiers who blindly follow orders without critical analysis, war criminals. War is not a game.
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity," said Dwight D. Eisenhower.
...And Trump is not, nor has he ever been, a soldier. Nor does he embody the qualities of a president. Perhaps we should take him at his word and know him by his actions, that he is first and foremost a businessman and war is a convenient tool for increasing his personal wealth and a manifestation of his malignant narcissism.
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