Brad | Toward a Better Union

I agree that the original attack demands oversight even without a follow-up attack. The legality is highly suspect regardless, especially given that military and legal dissenters were sidelined.

I also agree that reporting (and moral clarity) has been entirely insufficient. Need sustained pressure.

Trump officially pardons ex-Honduran president of drug trafficking conviction The president has framed the case as yet another example of overreach from the administration of Joe Biden.

It's official...the president has followed through on his promise to pardon a convicted narco-kingpin...while bombing alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

Agree that the ex branch will try to block, but both the House and Senate Armed Services Comms have signaled that they expect an accounting of the boat strikes, incl. the legality of the follow-on attack.

True, only stmts of intent so far, but they could matter. Sustained public pressure needed.

Thanks for the reference, Matt. I had to look up the 14 words to understand it:

“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

The two quotes do seem to reflect the same ethnonationalist sentiment, don't they?

2/2
3. International waters offer no license to kill incapacitated people and location doesn’t convert a non-war situation into war

4. The law of armed conflict *prohibits* exactly this: attacking persons rendered hors de combat (out of the fight)

These points simply normalize war-crimes language.

1/2
The WH line doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

1. Self-defense doesn’t justify a second strike to ensure no survivors. (No imminent threat)

2. Vital US interests can’t convert a non-war setting into wartime authority. (Not a blank check for lethal force outside of armed conflict)

The pattern used throughout his second term is unmistakable: Trump is using clemency chiefly to reward allies, erase corruption, and signal impunity, not to serve justice or mercy. It’s a distortion of a power the Framers expected would be used sparingly and with integrity.

#PardonWatch #RuleOfLaw

Table showing all Pardons and Clemencies by President Trump in the month of November, 2025.

Pardon Watch

Presidents traditionally followed a reasoned process & used pardons sparingly and with at least some connection to justice, mercy, or correcting inequities.

This November list shows a very different approach. It’s not mercy, it's about consolidation of power.

#PardonWatch #RuleOfLaw

Odd couples make authoritarianism look small. I’m all in. Since I saw Saul's reply from a Sarah L. post, let's stick to the theme:

Sarah Longwell + Rep. Pramila Jayapal
Disagreement guaranteed, democracy affirmed.

Tim Miller + Ken Burns
KB's pan-and-zoom over Tim’s reaction faces would be art.

By now the authoritarian playbook isn’t mysterious: manufacture a crime crisis, frame political opponents as the threat, promise order.

We must encourage communities that are resilient, informed, and connected. Strong civic networks are hard to terrorize into submission. Break the panic narrative.

100% agree. The “dishonorable journalist” has become one of the cheapest tropes in TV and movie writing. A cardboard cutout that saves writers from doing the hard work of portraying real people with real motives. It reinforces anti-journalism bias and corrodes public trust along the way.

Hegseth taking the OLC shaky logic and leaping straight to “kill anyone affiliated with a cartel” is exactly the danger.

First sideline dissenters -> poor legal reasoning -> repurpose to justify war-powers against human beings -> apply domestically.

Confessing more than they realize.

With a slim majority and growing internal divisions, discharge petitions could become one of the few tools to loosen absolute one-party rule between now and the 2026 midterms.

#Congress101 #DemocracyInAction

On any topic where a bipartisan coalition exists, or where extremist factions buck leadership, this tool can pry open space for governance again. This is one reason why declining presidential net approval ratings and clear-eyed opposition are so important right now. Pressure matters here.

The discharge-petition is the main legislative tool for circumventing a recalcitrant Speaker or committee leadership in the House.

Historically, it’s rarely successful because it requires members of the majority to break ranks. When it does though, it signals real cracks in one-party control.

The point of the Geneva Conventions is that even in war, humanity has rules. ‘Kill them all’ isn’t one of them.

The Framers gave the president the pardon power assuming it would be used with integrity. At the Const Conv, several delegates warned that a president might try to use pardons corruptly.

The response?
If a president ever used pardons that way, impeachment was the remedy. Now a failed safeguard.

The headlines about “drug boat strikes” feel distant to most Americans, but they hide the real danger: the same vague legal language used to justify those attacks is now being repurposed to rationalize military action at home.

When policing and wartime powers blur, US citizens are in real peril.

Most people only see the headline, not the article. When coverage is softened or sanitized, it shapes public perception *more than the reporting itself*. And when major outlets pull their punches out of fear for broader business interests, they become accomplices.

#MediaIntegrity

First step in assessing whether the admin’s defiance of the court’s deportation halt amounts to criminal contempt. If a willful violation, the judge could refer it to DOJ and if DOJ declines (a real possibility), the court can appoint a private prosecutor to protect judicial authority. Watching...

Important info regarding the decision not to comply with the court order. Unlikely that the DOJ or Solicitor General will take action. The *current* Congress is not functioning as a check on executive power.

Opportunity for civil action based on International human-rights violation? Other ideas?

Dismissal will now be part of a broader effort to sanitize the record. (“False charges,” “total exoneration,” “I did nothing wrong.”)

But dismissing a case doesn’t erase the underlying facts, the conduct, or the guilty pleas that did happen. This is a loss for justice but we must not give up.

Hegseth quoting that “orders are presumed lawful” while ignoring the prohibition on following "manifestly illegal" orders is intentionally misleading.

Omitting the second half is designed to chill dissent, intimidate, and to imply that questioning presidential directives is by definition illegal.

Hard to hold leaders accountable when they describe policy in mutually exclusive terms within the same hour. This is not how serious governance works.

True. Not to mention that it actively amplifies bad actors and makes civil, collaborative discussion impossible.

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

Renaming Defense to the Department of War qualifies you for the Peace Prize now.

Provided, of course, that the committee is willing to suspend logic and accept that contradiction is a virtue.

Exactly right. I’m not even sure *this* Senate would fully honor its Advice & Consent role to ensure officials are loyal to the country rather than the president. But if the low bar is deference, the no bar at all is the refusal to assert that constitutional duty, and the guardrails vanish.

Fully agree. Reduced capacity for sustained work would be worrying in any job but in the presidency it’s destabilizing. Beyond the stamina issue, being completely out of touch with younger Americans and their needs is its own form of incapacity.

I would love it if the next step for the GOP was to back the Constitution. But that seems unlikely, at least as a next step for many of them. The tactic now is to assert that, by definition, the President's orders are ALWAYS legal.

Give him time, KC. Pete is currently working on understanding mirror imaging when inspecting Senator Kelly's uniform pics...