“President Donald Trump has sought to justify the summary execution of suspected drug smugglers by arguing that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with criminal organizations that supply prohibited intoxicants. Yet the Trump administration also insists that U.S. forces are not engaging in “hostilities” when they blow up boats believed to be carrying illegal drugs.
Those positions are consistent with Trump’s disregard for legal limits on his use of the military to prosecute a literalized war on drugs. But they are otherwise hard to reconcile with each other, and their implications underline the immorality and lawlessness of his bloodthirsty antidrug tactics.”
“To convict Comey, prosecutors would have to persuade a jury that there is no reasonable doubt about either of those propositions. It is therefore not surprising that Erik Siebert, Halligan’s predecessor, was not keen to pursue this case, or that Trump managed to get what he wanted only by intervening at the last minute. He replaced Siebert with Halligan, a neophyte prosecutor whose main qualification was her willingness to overlook the weaknesses that had deterred her predecessor, and he publicly ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey before it was too late.
“We can’t delay any longer,” Trump told Bondi. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Five days later, Siebert delivered the indictment that Trump had demanded, although it was such a hasty job that the details of the allegations against Comey are only now coming into focus. Those details reinforce the impression that Trump was determined to get Comey one way or another, regardless of the law or the evidence.”
“Despite Trump promising to stand “with the good people of Cuba and Venezuela,” his administration has fast-tracked deportations for victims of communism.”
“While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, President Donald Trump claimed that “every price is down,” including those paid at the pump. Gas is now “almost $2,” he added.
Gas is not $2 a gallon. The national average is a little over $3 a gallon, about the same as it was a year ago, according to AAA. Even if you’re giving Trump wide leeway for that “almost,” this is what would have been called a gaffe in more normal political times. Remember when President George H.W. Bush didn’t know the price of a gallon of milk?
When you zoom out to Trump’s larger point, things get even more confused. Despite Trump’s claim, prices as a whole continue to rise at politically inconvenient rates. Annualized inflation was 3 percent in September, the most recent month for which data is available. Prices for food and housing are rising faster than overall inflation. Most Americans say they are spending more on groceries now than a year ago.
…
This is the point where I’d normally point out that presidents don’t really exert much influence over prices. There is no “lower gas prices” button in the Oval Office. Yet while it’s true that market forces are the primary reason any price is what it is, this administration has taken a number of actions that directly and deliberately put upwards pressure on prices.”
“Trump has championed coal, oil and gas and sought to squash clean energy efforts in the U.S. and abroad. He has removed the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, for the second time, and has used the threat of tariffs to try to bolster sales of American fossil fuels.
The speeches from a handful of leaders displayed, at times, the anger and dismay that countries feel about the U.S. breaking its promises and attempting to undermine the global effort to tackle global warming.”
“DOJ and FBI leaders rejected at least three different proposals by career prosecutors over the course of 2021 to expand the department’s investigation of the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol to include Trump and his advisers’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The reason? Fear that investigating Trump would seem too political and would upset Republicans.”
“In dozens of interviews in villages on Venezuela’s breathtaking northeastern coast, from which some of the boats departed, residents and relatives said the dead men had indeed been running drugs but were not narco-terrorists or leaders of a cartel or gang.
Most of the nine men were crewing such craft for the first or second time, making at least $500 per trip, residents and relatives said. They were laborers, a fisherman, a motorcycle taxi driver. Two were low-level career criminals. One was a well-known local crime boss who contracted out his smuggling services to traffickers.
The men lived on the Paria Peninsula, in mostly unpainted cinderblock homes that can go weeks without water service and regularly lose power for several hours a day. They awoke to panoramic views of a national park’s tropical forests, the Gulf of Paria’s shallows and the Caribbean’s sparkling sapphire waters. When the time came for their drug runs, they boarded open-hulled fishing skiffs that relied on powerful outboard motors to haul their drugs to nearby Trinidad and other islands.
The residents and relatives interviewed by the AP requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals from drug smugglers, the Venezuelan government or the Trump administration. They said they were incensed that the men were killed without due process. In the past, their boats would have been interdicted by the U.S. authorities and the crewmen charged with federal crimes, affording them a day in court.
…
The Trump administration has justified the strikes by declaring drug cartels to be “ unlawful combatants ” and said the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” with them. Trump has said each sunken boat has saved 25,000 American lives, presumably from overdoses. The boats, however, appear to have been transporting cocaine, not the far more deadly synthetic opioids that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement to the AP that the Defense Department has “consistently said that our intelligence did indeed confirm that the individuals involved in these drug operations were narco-terrorists, and we stand by that assessment.”
So far, the U.S. military has blown up 17 vessels, killing more than 60 people.
…
After seeing clips on social media that mentioned his death, relatives broke the news to his mother, but not until after ensuring she had taken her blood pressure medication. Sánchez’s youngest son, a third grader, could not accept for days that his father was gone. He kept asking adults if his father could have survived the explosion, noting he might still be at sea.