Will Trump be tried for murdering drug traffickers like former Philippine president Duterte is being tried?

 

... Duterte was arrested in March by Philippine authorities on a warrant issued by the ICC. He is now being held at an ICC facility in the Netherlands.

Supporters of Duterte criticized the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Duterte's political rival, for arresting and surrendering the former leader to a court whose jurisdiction his supporters dispute. ...

More. 

I suppose it depends on a future president giving Trump up to arrest by the International Criminal Court somehow.

... The strikes on Venezuelan narcoterror smuggling boats provide one possible avenue. Shortly after the U.S. Navy destroyed the first such vessel, Ken Roth, a former head of Human Rights Watch, endorsed ICC intervention. “Trump just did what the International Criminal Court has charged former Philippines Pres. Duterte with doing—ordering the summary execution of alleged drug traffickers,” Mr. Roth tweeted. Venezuela is a Rome Statute party, which in the court’s thinking gives it jurisdiction over U.S. officials and servicemen involved in the attacks. The ICC has already launched an investigation against a nonmember state (Israel) based on a single boarding of a vessel flagged by a member state, so it has all the precedents it needs.

Mr. Trump has thus far taken an incremental approach to the ICC. He revived a first-term executive order authorizing sanctions against the court and applied it against four ICC officials. None of this has significantly reduced the risk to the U.S. or led the ICC to change its ways.

The ICC’s supporters don’t see the existing sanctions as an “existential threat.” The tribunal can easily ride it out by lying low until a Democratic president lifts the sanctions, as Joe Biden did. The court takes a long view—its prosecutors and judges have nine-year terms, and its other staffers are part of a global deep state who can expect to remain at their jobs indefinitely.

International lawyers are already developing multiple lines of attack against the administration and its officials. ...

More.

Secretary of War Crimes Pete Hegseth wants you to know he was just following orders

German General Anton Dostler was executed by firing squad in December 1945 after admitting he ordered the executions of fifteen captured American soldiers in March 1944 because he was ordered to do so by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring.

The latter was convicted in the Ardeatine massacre of hundreds of Italian citizens and sentenced to death in May 1947, but, incredibly, pressure exerted by the sympathetic English, including by Winston Churchill and Harold Alexander, resulted in a commutation of his sentence to life in prison by General John Harding in July 1947.

Kesselring would have died in prison, but even more incredibly was released from there in October 1952 for health reasons, and didn't die until 1960 of a heart attack.

The Kesselring affair is emblematic of the decadent trajectory of the English character still plumbing new depths even today, a trajectory America is also on. At least the Americans of the time dispatched Dostler expeditiously within months of his arrest.

The Italians hated Kesselring about as much as they hated Mussolini.

It's probably too early to guess how Pete will be remembered here. After all, he has crimes to go before he sleeps, and promises to keep.

 

Trump couldn't defeat the Houthis in the Red Sea, now picks on someone his own size in what is both a phony and illegal Caribbean war, all because he needs a victory to save face

 Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told

 

...  In this case, the Trump administration is conflating the trafficking of an illicit consumer product and associated crime with an armed attack, asserting in the notice that cartels “illegally and directly cause the deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens each year.” But it has not explained how selling a dangerous substance constitutes a use of force, and Congress has not authorized the use of any type of military force against cartels. ...

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, accused Mr. Trump of deciding that he could wage “secret wars against anyone he calls an enemy.” The president “offered no credible legal justification, evidence or intelligence” for the strikes, Mr. Reed said.

“Drug cartels are despicable and must be dealt with by law enforcement,” he said. “But now, by the president’s own words, the U.S. military is engaged in armed conflict with undefined enemies he has unilaterally labeled ‘unlawful combatants,’ and he has deployed thousands of troops, ships and aircraft against them. Yet he has refused to inform Congress or the public.” ...

In addition to noncombatant drug runners, what Trump is executing is this magnificent old tree to make room for his stupid new $200 million ballroom

 

There's a killer on the loose in the Caribbean

Military Strikes Second Venezuela Drug Ship Headed to the U.S.

Trump Says Military Hit THIRD Drug Boat From Venezuela...

Do you not see what's happening here? The Trump administration is declaring everything it doesn't like to be terrorism in order to justify autocratic repression of it using the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force

The run of the mill narco smugglers from Venezuela suddenly are terrorists under Trump, so they blow them up.

Suddenly the left wing Charlie Kirk critics are being transformed into terrorists, too, so they say they will also destroy them.

Who's next? Where will it end? 

J. D. Vance once wanted to stop this underlying basis for neo-con adventurism. Now the chameleon is part of its expansion to include unconstitutional domestic repression.

These people must be stopped. 

Stephen Miller: We Will Dismantle And Destroy "Terrorist Networks" That Led To Charlie Kirk Assassination

 

 

 

Judge, Jury, and Executioner hopes he's found guilty and gets the death penalty, you know, like those guys in the Venezuelan fast boat that had turned around but still got blown out of the water by the president of the United States

 

I say Venezuela, you say Venezuala, you say Leaked Memo, I say Leaked Mama

 

LEAKED MEMO SHOWS VENEZUALA WAR PLANS... DEVELOPING...

Not the first time, either!

 

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants

 

They think they've been appointed judge, jury, and executioner, but are in violation of the Sixth Amendment

 

Anonymous Department of Defense official says Trump attack on Venezuela fast boat was criminal

 Story.

  

 

Uniparty Trump hides behind the skirts of the 2001 anti-terror legislation to murder so-called terrorists near Venezuela after cutting and running from the Houthis in the Red Sea

<insert tough guy image here>

MEXICO CITY — U.S. forces could have stopped the boat that officials say was carrying illegal drugs from Venezuela to the United States on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, but President Donald Trump chose instead to destroy it, killing 11 people on board, to send a deterrent message to traffickers. ...

The action was a dramatic escalation for the U.S. in its fight against drug traffickers. Lawmakers and legal analysts questioned the legality of launching a lethal strike against civilians in international waters outside of an armed conflict.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that the strike was “conducted against the operations of a designated terrorist organization and was taken in defense of vital U.S. national interests and in the collective self-defense of other nations,” an apparent reference to the 2001 authorization for the use of military force enacted by Congress after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that year. It authorizes the use of force against the perpetrators of the al-Qaeda attacks and to prevent “future acts of international terrorism.” Various lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully for years to repeal the measure, including Vice President JD Vance, who as a senator in 2023 co-sponsored the End Endless Wars Act. ...

The U.S. Coast Guard sometimes shoots out the engines of go-fast boats during maritime interdictions, the former agent said, but killing the crew is new for the United States. ...

Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, said the strike violated international law. The U.S. is not in armed conflict with Venezuela or its criminal elements, she noted, which means it violated the suspects’ right to life. ...

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the attack “murder.”

“We have been capturing civilians transporting drugs for decades without killing them,” Petro said. “Those who transport drugs are not the big drug lords, but very poor young people from the Caribbean and the Pacific. ...

 More. 

Tulsi Gabbard has fired intelligence officials who concluded Venezuela wasn't directing gang activities in the United States

 Another disappointing performance by Tulsi Gabbard.

Tulsi, former leftist, keeps proving she can turn with the wind with the best of them.

And I had such high hopes for her. 🤷 

 

A Trump-appointed judge has ordered another Venezuelan wrongly deported to El Salvador returned to the United States

 ... U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in Baltimore on Wednesday ruled that removing him without a chance to complete his asylum petition or challenge his deportation violated the settlement agreement. Cristian, and any other person who had been removed in violation of the settlement agreement, should be returned, she said. ...

More.

Looks like Trump & Co. blinked on Friday night after discovering the Supremes were getting involved in their latest Venezuelan deportation operation

 

As legal fight raged, ICE buses filled with Venezuelans heading toward airport turned around, video shows

 

Video from Friday night shows Immigration and Customs Enforcement buses full of Venezuelan migrants headed toward an airport in North Texas before abruptly turning around before the Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must, for now, refrain from deporting Venezuelan men based in the state under the Alien Enemies Act. ...

As the motorcade was headed for the airport, a last-minute federal hearing on the matter was taking place in Washington.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who has been hearing a case related to the flights to El Salvador, scheduled an emergency hearing for Friday evening — just hours after a bus rolled up to Bluebonnet.

Shortly before that hearing kicked off, ACLU attorneys also asked the Supreme Court to step in.

“We hear they are on buses on the way to the airport,” said Lee Gelernt, the lawyer for the ACLU arguing on behalf of detainees on the verge of being deported under the Alien Enemies Act. ...

 

Supremes vote 7-2 to pause deportations of Venezuelans

The Trump administration has been bragging that the Supremes let them deport Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which of course is a half-truth. The April 7 decision 5-4 stipulates that due process be followed, which is why they ordered 9-0 the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who didn't get it, and the Supremes this morning aren't sure that's the case either with the latest group set to be deported.

 

 U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halts deportations of Venezuelan migrants under wartime law

The U.S. Supreme Court early on Saturday paused President Donald Trump’s administration from deporting Venezuelan men in immigration custody after their lawyers said they were at imminent risk of removal without the judicial review previously mandated by the justices. ...

At issue is whether the Trump administration has met the Supreme Court’s standard for providing the detainees due process before sending them to another country - possibly to the notorious prison in El Salvador where others are jailed. ...

Their deportation would be the first since the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that allowed removals under the 1798 law while specifying that “the notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek habeas relief in the proper venue before such removal occurs.” ...

On March 15, the Trump administration deported more than 130 alleged Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador. Many of the migrants’ lawyers and family members say they were not gang members and had no chance to dispute the government’s assertion that they were. 

 

 

The economy under Biden was a catastrophe now requiring draconian tariffs, just like we're being invaded by Venezuelan gangs everywhere requiring extraordinary measures which violate due process of law

Everything is either awesome or awful, Republican or Democrat, white or black in our hysterical country.

The economy went from being enviable by others in the world in October to a catastrophe just like that in January.

And now it really might become a catastrophe but you'll hear only that it's AWESOME.

Can wage and price controls be far behind?

 

 

Venezuelan gangs in America are an invasion like January 6th riots were an insurrection

 Brought to you courtesy of the UniParty, the Red, White, and Blue.

 Count me out.

 

 

Judge Boasberg was correct to order the flights to El Salvador to turn around, Trump administration now admits it made a mistake deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

-- Fifth Amendment

Due process exists to prevent such mistakes. Dictator Trump didn't care about following it.

Who will be his next victim?

From the story here:

 ...  The Trump administration acknowledged late Monday that it had inadvertently deported a man to El Salvador last month despite a court’s determination that he had a legitimate fear of persecution in his home country.

“This removal was an error,” a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official wrote in a statement to a federal judge.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran, was on one of three deportation flights to his home country on March 15 amid a frantic legal fight over President Donald Trump’s decision to invoke war powers to hasten the deportation of more than 100 Venezuela nationals to El Salvador. In addition to the Venezuelans subject to Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act were other deportees with purported gang ties. ...

He was arrested by ICE on March 12 and sent to El Salvador on March 15, where his wife recognized him in a video showing the shackled and shaven prisoners being arrayed by Salvadoran authorities.

The Trump administration now says there’s nothing it can do to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to U.S. custody. ...

The constitutional crisis that many feared from a vengeful, re-empowered Trump is here

 Congress is cowed; that’s one supposedly coequal branch of government down. But federal courts are proving more resistant to Donald Trump’s trampling of laws and the Constitution. Now, just two months in office, the president has all but crossed the red line — defying a judge’s order — that for more than two centuries has separated the rule of law in this country from its undoing. ... 

The chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr., schooled both the congressman and the president, issuing a rare statement of what should be obvious: “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

But Trump won’t be educated. ...

In effect, and denials aside, Trump and his lieutenants defied the law ...

Jackie Calmes for The Los Angeles Times, here.