The Society for the Rule of Law (SRL) self describes as a group of conservative and libertarian lawyers. SRL presents center-right opposition to Trump’s authoritarian power grabs using traditionally conservative constitutional arguments.

This week, the SRL filed an amicus brief against Trump’s Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.” Trump’s ostensible goal in EO 14399 is to prohibit non-citizens from voting, a problem repeatedly debunked as non-existent. The real goals are to disenfranchise non-MAGA voters, intimidate election officials, and cast doubt on Republicans’ widely predicted trouncing in the midterms, lest results be construed as a rejection of Trump.

Read plainly, Trump’s EO repurposes the United States Postal Service into a partisan regulatory tool controlling federal elections, directing USPS to screen and deliver mail-in and absentee ballots only to addressees included on Trump-approved voter lists. It requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to prepare and send a list of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in federal elections to state elections officials. Under the EO, all outbound ballots must use Intelligent Mail barcodes for tracking; envelopes must be marked with the “Official Election Mail” logo, and USPS is instructed to maintain an approved Mail-In and Absentee Participation List to cross-reference Trump’s list of ‘eligible voters’ with transmitted ballots.

To be clear, Trump has no statutory or constitutional authority to regulate elections; that power belongs primarily to the States. USPS, in particular, has no statutory authority to have any role in administering voter lists. EO 14399, only one piece of Trump’s election-rigging agenda, complements his push to nationalize elections, his insistence that red states gerrymander their congressional maps, and his SAVE Act, which would disenfranchise up to 83% of eligible voters.

An autocrat’s solution in search of a non-existent problem

Anyone kicking the tires on Trump’s nonstop rejoinder blaming immigrants for his election losses knows it’s absurd. Federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting, and has done so for over 100 years. As of 1924, all states had banned noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and by 1996, Congress had added criminal penalties. Facing up to five years in federal prison and immediate deportation for even registering to vote, no immigrant in his right mind would try.

To become U.S. citizens and thus be eligible to vote in federal elections, immigrants must first receive legal permanent residence (aka getting a green card) and typically spend five years in that status before becoming eligible to naturalize. In the case of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, they face a complicated path of a decade or longer to U.S. citizenship and may never find a pathway.

Statistics reflect the hurdles. A Brennan Center for Justice study of the 2016 election found just .0001% suspected noncitizen voting out of 23.5 million votes cast, while forty of 42 surveyed jurisdictions reported no known incidents of noncitizen voting whatsoever. Even the Heritage Foundation, committed to an illiberal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (and the architects behind Project 2025), scoured the nation for immigrant voting fraud and found only 24 cases of noncitizens voting between 2003 and 2023. Other analyses found similarly low numbers depending on the date range, identifying 77 confirmed cases from 1999–2023, and only 68 total cases dating back to the 1980s.

The law as it exists, not as Trump wants it to

The Society for the Rule of Law argues that using the USPS to manage voter lists and regulate ballot delivery both exceeds Trump’s executive authority and violates constitutionally mandated separation of powers. These are largely the same legal impediments identified in over 700 pending cases challenging Trump’s other power grabs, almost all of which invoke wild presidential powers that do not exist, and disregard Congress as the executive branch’s co-equal.

The federal laws relevant to Trump’s EO 14399 charge state agencies—not federal agencies—with the administration of voter registration for elections for federal office. The only two federal laws dealing with voter lists, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), are statutorily limited in scope and do not provide Trump with the authority he claims.

Under the NVRA, federal authority to issue election regulations is limited to two subjects – a mail voter “registration application form,” and reports required to Congress every two years assessing the impact of the NVRA and recommending improvements that Congress—not the president— might enact.

HAVA, the other law that would be modified under EO 14399, was passed in 2002 by the United States Congress to make sweeping improvements to voting systems and voter access. HAVA as enacted emphasizes that voter lists are to be “defined, maintained, and administered at the State level.” It also mandates that the “specific choices of methods of complying with the requirements of HAVA” shall be left “to the discretion of the State.”

It’s good to see conservative pushback

Federal law as it currently exists does not authorize any federal agency to compile, provide, or administer voter lists. Trump’s grubby fingers notwithstanding, under existing federal law, voter lists are compiled and maintained by the states where voters live, not the federal government.

Trump has demonstrated that he will do anything to stay in power, including mass violence, including breaking the law. (See: J6.) As one Secretary of State recently put it, “I don’t think we can put anything past this administration.”

It’s increasingly obvious that Trump is headed for a belated reckoning with American voters. What has not been so obvious is that dedicated conservatives are also fighting back. As Republican lawmakers demonstrate obeisance, compliance, and intimidated alignment with Trump’s plan to trample the Constitution, it is comforting to welcome conservative lawyers like SRL to the resistance.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

With all the ruin emanating from the Oval Office on a daily basis, it’s easy to fall into quiet despair. Following the news feels like monitoring a malignant tumor as it spreads outward from the epicenter of the free world, jumping oceans, URLs, and psyches, threatening the globe on macro and micro levels simultaneously. Only this sickness, this decidedly opportunistic cancer, has never been seen before. Certainly this level of rot has not been diagnosed in our 250 year history.

Trump’s singularly corrupt and destructive appetite, both fed and insulated by the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, is hard to stomach. After SCOTUS handed criminal immunity to a psychopath, despondency set in as the world resentfully assumed that Trump would get away with his crimes against humanity forever.

Then, just there, on the unlit edge of the blackest cloud to have darkened the world in a very long time, a glimmering trace of silver peaked out. In a development that should have streaked across the headlines, but barely got a mention, a federal judge ruled that Trump will pay for at least one of his crimes: J6.

Trump will likely lose his ill-got gains

Measuring the amount of corruption lining Trump’s pocket is like shoveling on a snowy day. As of late January, Trump had pocketed upwards of $4 billion from untraceable crypto currency ventures, suspicious market manipulations, and outright bribery from foreign and domestic sources during his first year back in office. He’d better be thinking on how to hide it, because on March 31, 2026, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Trump. Is. Civilly. Liable for the damages he caused on January 6, 2021.

Judge Mehta’s cautious 79 page ruling (found here) denied Trump civil immunity through a careful analysis largely devoted to distinguishing between Trump’s criminal actions as an office-holder (official-acts immunity), and his actions in seeking office, which were not official acts and therefore are not immune. The decision carefully followed the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, and will allow claims against him from members of Congress and capital police officers to proceed to trial.

After a prior ruling that Trump’s speech on the Ellipse plausibly amounted to incitement, which is not protected under the First Amendment, Trump’s legal team sought to substitute the United States as the defendant under the Westfall Act, arguing that Trump’s acts fell within the scope of his employment as President. That motion was denied. The critical contextual question, following the 2023 decision in Blassingame v. Trump, was whether Trump was speaking or engaging in conduct “in an official capacity as office-holder or instead in an unofficial capacity as office-seeker.”

Applying the immunity ruling, the court observed that “many uses of the presidential bully pulpit fall comfortably within the outer perimeter of [the President’s] official responsibility” and are therefore immune. “The Court’s approach recognizes that presidential speech on matters of public concern will very often be official—and thus immunized.” But the immunity decision itself recognized that there may “be contexts in which the President, notwithstanding the prominence of his position, speaks in an unofficial capacity—perhaps as a candidate for office or party leader.” Trump, 603 U.S. at 629. Acting or campaigning to attain the Office of the President, is not an official function of the office.

Proving damages will be easy

The cause-damages link on J6 is obvious.

On December 19, 2020, Trump sent out a tweet targeting extremist groups, urging them to come to the U.S. Capitol to make their anger known about a “stolen” presidential election. In follow up communications, he teased a “wild” rally, and convinced 74 million supporters who had voted for him that their votes weren’t counted, which, predictably, angered them.

On Jan. 6, 2021, on the White House Ellipse where his summoned supporters gathered, Trump gave a fiery speech telling those in attendance, “We fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” He then urged them to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to “take back our country.”

Following Trump’s instructions, the summoned people then marched to the Capitol Building, which they breached with unprecedented political violence seen around the world. Although many people pleaded with Trump to stop the violence, he safely enjoyed it on TV for over three hours before he told rioters to stop.

At least seven people died from the attack.

Trump will bring this same contempt to the courtroom when he is personally sued for billions over J6, when he falsely brays, again, that he won in 2020. Juries don’t like him, most Americans don’t like him. He has assaulted women, stolen from our nation, and put our fragile democracy on life support. No verdict will be too high, and Americans are here for it.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was hailed by the U.S. right as a Trump-like authoritarian. Orbán, an anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist macho man who self-described as “illiberal,” was the Heritage Foundation’s darling. As foundation president Kevin Roberts described Orbán’s ‘soft dictatorship,’ Hungary was “not just a model . . . but the model,” presumably for turning the U.S. into full-fledged fascism following Project 2025’s blueprint.

As Steve Bannon put it, Orbán was “Trump before Trump.” In power for 16 years, Orbán was called a “21st-century dictator,” a populist strongman, and an authoritarian capitalist. Deliberately pulling Hungary’s “illiberal state” model away from Western European dogmas Orbán considered too egalitarian and liberal, he drew inspiration instead from the oppressive dictatorships of Turkey, Russia and China.

Trump, Vance and the architects of Project 2025, in turn, drew inspiration from Orbán.

Similarities between Orbán and Trump are no accident

Orbán deliberately eroded free markets and the rule of law, goals Trump has adopted with uneven success. Orbán damaged the Hungarian economy through crony capitalism and corruption. He, like Trump, concentrated economic power by empowering and enriching loyalists while weakening the judiciary. Like Trump’s latest moves to ‘own’ equity stakes in corporations seeking regulatory approval, Orbán also created a high-corruption environment that concentrated power among loyalists, widening the gap between Hungary’s haves and have-nots.

Orbán also used the weight of a fascist state, including financial and regulatory measures, to silence critics and kill Hungary’s independent media. Trump flexes similar strongman tactics in the U.S. on a near-daily basis. From direct funding cuts, to FCC/ regulatory ‘investigations,’ to physical restrictions on journalist access, Trump has shown unprecedented aggression in seeking media control.

Critics also describe how Orbán routinely created “imaginary enemies” to distract voters, another Hitlerian maneuver perfected by Trump. From falsely depicting immigrants as violent criminals, to accusing DEI programs of ‘white bashing,’ Trump constantly stokes social division by creating then perpetuating imaginary enemies. Even during his infamous DoorDash delivery this week, Trump clumsily interjected “men playing women’s sports” into a staged conversation about taxes on tips. The forced non sequitur was awkward for its obviousness.

Let the repairs… begin!

Orbán’s delicious comeuppance—a real landslide, unlike Trump’s claimed landslide—will help restore Hungary’s ties to Europe, after years of Orbán efforts to sever them. It will also help Ukraine survive Putin’s illegal invasion.

Newly elected Prime Minister Peter Magyar has already said that Hungary will stop being Putin’s puppet, and will no longer block EU aid to Ukraine or sanctions on Russia. For his part, Zelenskyy hailed Magyar’s win as ‘the victory of light over darkness.’

The website Direkt26, a rare independent outlet still functioning in Hungary, documented how Orbán colluded with Putin over the years, with Orbán describing himself as a ‘mouse’ to Putin’s ‘lion.’ Just before the election, at a Budapest concert, thousands of concertgoers chanted “Russians, go home!”—a public acknowledgement of the problem and the same chant their grandparents used when Russia invaded Hungary in 1956.

Trump, Vance lose their poster boy

As positive as Orbán’s defeat is for Hungary, Ukraine, and the EU, the sweetest reverberations are yet to come— in the U.S.

In the last weeks of Orbán’s campaign, Trump, Vance, Putin, and other authoritarians formally endorsed him. Vance, who broke with longstanding US diplomatic precedent by campaigning for him in person, spoke at a rally in Budapest and declared, "We have got to get Viktor Orbán reelected!"

Double blind to irony, Vance urged Hungarians to act “with no outside forces pressuring you,” despite his own outside pressure on them. Vance seems to assume Orbán voters are as intellectually impaired as Trump’s supporters.

Best of all, Vance’s appearance helped the opposition. Magyar was able to use Vance’s 11th hour appearance as evidence of Orbán’s open embrace of foreign interference, contrary to Orbán’s constant harping against the foreign influence of Brussels, or the EU. Magyar, decidedly not blind to irony, used Vance to flip Orbán’s rhetoric against “Brussels bureaucrats” back onto him, using it to highlight Orbán’s own reliance on Trump/Vance/ Putin’s political backing.

Democracy: 1, MAGA: 0

The Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC), an amalgam of populist and far right activists undecided on women’s suffrage, converged on Budapest for four consecutive years to foster ties between America’s far right politicians and those in other countries. Perhaps, with Orbán gone, C-PAC will meet instead in Moscow. Good riddance.

Trump’s domestic agenda so obviously follows Orbán’s that someday, if Fox News ever decides to report the truth, voters in MAGA will eventually catch on. Orbán used consolidated cronyism and corruption to stay in power for 16 years. The parallels with Trump are obvious.

Come November, the parallels in their political fates will also emerge. As Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy put it, the most important lesson from Orbán’s landslide loss, despite Orbán controlling Hungary’s media and judiciary, is that “(E)ven a guy who rigs the system can be defeated when the people unite and turn out against him.”

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Trump’s Armageddon insanity in Iran reminds me of an old funny-not-funny joke:

‘When it’s my time to die, I want to go peacefully and in my sleep, like my uncle. Not screaming in terror like his passengers.’

The world is careening as an indulged manchild sets the world on fire, while Republicans in Congress dishonor their Constitutional oaths by refusing to stop him. From burning hellscapes in the Middle East to the earth’s rising temperatures, Trump is the quintessential arsonist with a hose: Douse the flames with gas, brandish a spigot, then demand adulation for putting out the fire.

The new ceasefire in Iran, like the one in Gaza, is already shaky. On Monday Trump threatened the world with his own deranged ramblings about the stone age, on Tuesday Americans ate tacos Fox News called ‘victory,’ and by Wednesday bombs were falling again as the Strait of Hormuz was decidedly not open. To Trump’s credit, no one was talking about the Epstein files.

Turns out Trump can’t control Netanyahu, who, continuing the bombing campaign, is as concerned as Trump about staying in power, but isn’t as concerned as Trump about the price of gas. Maybe Trump should have considered the trajectory of Bibi’s political motivations before he let him drag us into Israel’s forever war.

Nah. Just kidding. Anticipating global consequences exceeds Trump’s capacity. But even as we inch ever closer to 12 on the Atomic clock, signs of intelligent life are beeping.

Military brass understands the assignment

Last November, after Trump and Hegseth released one snuff video after another bragging about murdering people on the high seas, Senator Mark Kelly and five other veteran lawmakers released a video reminding U.S. service members that they must refuse illegal orders, citing canned, non-controversial military code. Even though they were announcing the law as it is plainly written, the video got under Trump and Hegseth’s skin, and led them to “investigate” to try to silence Kelly, a retired Navy captain.

Hegseth claimed that Kelly citing the military code of conduct—which Hegseth considers “woke”—was somehow ‘conduct unbecoming an officer.’ Setting aside the scary optics of a Secretary of Defense (not War, sorry, until Congress says so) openly rejecting civilized laws of war, it seems Kelly’s public service announcement may have hit its mark.

Because on Tuesday, MSNBC aired an interview suggesting that military officers were rejecting Hegseth’s civilian targets.

When a dry drunk tells you to bomb civilians, JUST SAY NO

Trump and Fox News may have sold Trump’s surrender to Iran as victory, but hope lurks yet beneath the surface. Because while our Commander in Chief has been tanking 80 years of post-WWII diplomacy, there’s evidence that military brass has been pushing back.

On Tuesday, April 7, Retired Army Major General Randy Manner appeared on MS NOW, where he told Nicolle Wallace that he had secondhand knowledge that military officials were saying “no” to Pentagon leadership. General Manner said in part:

The idea of attacking bridges that are clearly, overwhelmingly for civilian use would be a war crime, and the planners in CENTCOM would not permit that. I have indications that many targets recommended by the Secretary of Defense were rejected by CENTCOM (because) they were civilian targets… It’s secondhand knowledge, but I believe people are already saying no to the hierarchy.”

Because Trump and Hegseth fired JAGs as the first order of business, and excluded military lawyers from strike planning, mapping out the combat missions in Iran falls to CENTCOM, U.S. Central Command. Officers at CENTCOM are now the last line of defense against unlawful orders.

It is reassuring, to put it mildly, that while Republicans are letting a lunatic destroy the global order that has protected America for 80 years, military leaders are taking their oaths of office seriously. Rejecting Trump’s blatantly unlawful orders, military brass is standing up where Congress won’t.

Even Tucker Carlson gets it

Trump’s profanity laden Easter message revealed his frustration at being sold a quick and easy war in Iran, which has turned out to be anything but. Threatening war crimes, he posted that, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran…–JUST WATCH!” He ended his petition for involuntary civil commitment with a mocking, ‘Praise be to Allah!’

There’s no real debate about whether threatening to obliterate 92 million people is a war crime. Nor is there real debate, outside the Fox News propaganda network, about how insane, provocative, and dangerous it was.

Even rightwing firebrand Tucker Carlson was outraged. Carlson urged members of the administration and military to resign if given illegal orders to slaughter civilians. Taking severe umbrage at the mocking “praise Allah” part of Trump’s message, Carlson asked, “Who do you think you are?” Carlson told Trump, “(Y)ou are not God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way… (We are) not a theocracy. We don’t go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective…”

Color me shocked. A broken clock strikes at just the right moment during one of America’s darkest hours. It reminds me of another favorite saying, this one of hope:

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”- Albert Camus

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

From his first days back in power, Trump has set about remaking the nation’s capital in his own gilded image.

He paved over the 1903 Rose Garden, then matched the new patio to his Mar-a-Lago hotel, demolished the entire East Wing, and spray painted Oval Office fixtures in a

Let-them-eat-cake gold frenzy. The Kennedy Center, left alone until one artist after another refused to perform there following Trump’s rebrand, is now facing an unplanned two year “closure” for “comprehensive renovations.” Still in the works are Trump’s massive ‘arch de Trump’ between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial, the conversion of three historic municipal golf courses into private, luxury courses, and a 90,000 square foot ballroom styled after his Palm Beach bordello that will dwarf the White House.

The Commission of Fine Arts is an independent federal agency established by Congress to advise the President and Congress on aesthetics and design in order to preserve the quiet dignity of the nation's capital. After Trump packed its governing board with allies, the Commission voted to approve his gold-appointed ballroom, no notes. However, on March 31, 2026, in a delicious smackdown that got out-noised by Trump’s WWIII insanity, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon put a pin in it.

Addressing the planned ballroom, Judge Leon wrote that the President of the United States “is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families,” however, he is not the owner.

What gives Trump the right to redraw the nation’s capital?

Facing down Trump’s claims of foolproof authority to control what happens to the White House, Judge Leon belabored the historical context in which Congress —not the president— has always controlled construction at the White House. His opinion can be found here.

Leon started by noting that the original White House construction was directed and funded by Congress. The initial build was quickly followed by repairs necessitated by the War of 1812. From there Leon detailed how Congress appropriated funds for construction of the South Portico in 1823, the North Portico in 1829, and the East and West Wings in 1902. In the late 1940s, Leon noted, after the discovery of major structural issues, Congress appropriated funds for “the renovation, repair, and modernization” of the White House but prohibited any change of the “architectural appearance of the exterior of the mansion or the interior of its main floor.”

Despite the clarity of historical precedent, easily found on the White House’s own Historical Association website, the White House announced in August 2025 that, “President Trump, and other patriot donors, have generously committed to donating the funds to build” a 90,000 square foot ballroom, at “zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” (Cancer! Lobotomies! at zero cost!)

Less than two months later, photos circulating online confirmed that the East Wing had been entirely demolished to make way for Trump’s ballroom eyesore.

National monuments don’t belong to Trump’s oligarchs

Trump has claimed repeatedly that he, not Congress, possesses vast powers to control the nation’s purse strings. To construct his ballroom, he claimed the right to supplant Congressional funding with money donated by his wealthy donor class, as if centuries of American tradition could be restyled in Trump’s taste by simply paying for it. Trump’s ballroom donors wouldn’t have $400 million laying around to begin with if not for Trump’s $117 billion in tax cuts lining their pockets.

Issuing a preliminary injunction against the ballroom’s construction last week, Judge Leon ordered it to “stop until Congress authorizes its completion.” Under 40 USC. § 8106, in effect since 1912, “[a] building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.” The statute further instructs the Secretary of the Interior to protect the District of Colombia’s scenery, natural and historic objects “in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Trump’s legal team tried numerous spins around these statutory hurdles, but Judge Leon rejected them in turn, ruling that “no statute comes close to giving (Trump) the authority he claims to have” to bypass Congress for such major alterations, regardless of who’s paying for them.

Ultra vires: ‘beyond the powers of,’ ‘unauthorized’

Letting Trump and his oligarchs pay to control the landscape of our nation’s 235 year capital is blatantly unethical. Donor entities such as Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, and Microsoft, defense contractors, and cryptocurrency firms paying for the ballroom expect paybacks in the form of regulatory breaks, merger approvals, more tax breaks, and lucrative federal contracts. That’s why the Antideficiency Act restricts government agencies from accepting private funds without explicit authorization from Congress- to prevent people and corporations from donating to the government in order to buy influence.

Trump, above that law thanks to SCOTUS, is now freely and openly selling influence and accepting bribes. Aside from the obvious corruption of pay to play, by revising national monuments with private funds, Trump is also trying to transfer the power of Congress, a co-equal branch of government, to his own corporate donors. That Congressional Republicans are letting him do it suggests severe pathologies and hints at a flaw in our founding document.

Fittingly, as to Trump’s lamentations that the work had already begun on the ballroom, with the destruction of the East Wing now leaving an unsightly mess, Judge Leon called it “a hole of the President's own making.”

If that’s not a metaphor for this disastrous presidency, nothing is.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

The First Amendment strictly prohibits the government from favoring one faith over another, or from endorsing religion in general, whether through subtle or not-so-subtle means. As it evolved from Constitutional text into the canons of caselaw, that framework has protected the plurality for over 250 years by heeding our founders’ warnings to keep church and state separate.

In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause for public school officials to sponsor or encourage prayer in school. State regulations in New York required public schools to open each day with both the Pledge of Allegiance and a nondenominational prayer in which the students recognized their dependence upon an un-named and unspecified God. Under that law, students could absent themselves from the prayer if they found it objectionable. A parent sued.

The Court found that the recitation of a state-composed, non-denominational prayer in public schools was a form of religious indoctrination, even if the prayer was not specific to one denomination, even if it was optional.

The rub then and now is that “optional” participation in a setting controlled by the government is never completely optional. The Jewish kid, the Muslim kid, the Buddhist kid, or the child taught to love God as nature instead of a vindictive creep in the sky has to set themselves apart from the other kids in order not to participate in the prayer. Even standing there silently while the popular kids mouth the prayer all around you can signal difference— defiance against the norm, even. Given stigma and peer pressure, the Court acknowledged that there are social ‘costs’ for not adhering to the group norm. That’s why reinforcing religion as a norm is a form of government indoctrination prohibited under the First Amendment.

Hegseth: First Amendment Who???

Despite the decades-long smacking clarity of the law, Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News bobblehead who renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War without permission from Congress, can’t stop imposing his own religion on the military.

Hegseth holds a monthly Evangelical prayer service at the Pentagon. He announces and promotes his monthly worship coven, what some have called “combative Christianity,” through formal announcements to the troops, and by encouraging attendees to spread the word.

Similar to the school prayer case, these ‘voluntary’ services aren’t entirely voluntary even though Hegseth says they are. They are held in the official Pentagon auditorium, and are broadcast on the Pentagon’s internal TV network, a system designed for maximum saturation at military installations available to over 1.4 million active duty personnel, 1.2 million National Guard/Reserve, 650,000 civilian employees, and thousands of military residents.

The First Amendment is woke now?

Hegseth also promotes his personal pastor who preaches that women shouldn’t have the right to vote, and has brought him to the Pentagon. Through this and other means, Hegseth is moving to advance white, male Evangelical troops by merging his brand of church with his brand of state.

The Pentagon says Hegseth is embracing America’s proud history as a “Christian Nation,” which reflects this administration’s appalling historical ignorance. It’s a problem, not just because it’s an ignorant violation of our most revered First Amendment, but because it divides the troops and is therefore dangerous.

Military safety requires troop cohesion, which is why, throughout history, enemies frequently try to divide opposing troops. Hegseth, now in command of the world’s most powerful armed forces, doesn’t seem to grasp this basic, fundamental, ‘War for Dummies’ military logic. A scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs said it best: “The ideological consolidation of the military is something that we have historically not wanted. We want the military to be diverse. We want the military representative of the American people.” To be obvious about it, would you want your son in the trenches with someone he doesn’t fully trust, or who doesn’t fully trust him, because their religious differences have been amplified?

The Pope to Hegseth: God doesn’t like your hateful ways

In promoting Trump’s illegal war in Iran, Hegseth recently invoked Christ’s name in wishing for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ.” Setting aside the blatantly anti-Christian message of “violence” and “no mercy” for human beings, which also violates international laws of combat, Hegseth’s prayer lusts shamefully for violence. Pope Leo XIV isn’t having it.

Pope Leo, in an indirect but pointed rebuke, said during his Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square that “God doesn't listen to the prayers of those who make war, or cite God to justify their violence.” Opposed to Trump’s war in Iran, he then prayed for the Middle East, tacitly acknowledging that civilians, as well as troops under Hegseth’s command, are in danger given Hegseth’s obsession with “killing” people without regard to law.

The chilling effects of Hegseth’s attempt to impose Christian Nationalism on the troops are real. One senior Army civilian who has worked in the Pentagon for decades told the Washington Post that, “people who work there are afraid to talk to one another or their superiors about concerns over Hegseth’s actions…limits that used to exist around proselytizing have evaporated under Hegseth.” The situation, the person said, is “terrifying: If troops are trained to believe that God is on our side, what precludes us from doing anything we want to win? The strength of our military is our people, and their sense of belonging to their unit and their service.”

Advancing Christian Nationalism among the troops is not just an affront to U.S. history and the most revered First Amendment to the Constitution, it puts soldiers at risk. Here’s hoping the Generals are talking amongst themselves.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

As the price of oil explodes, Trump is doing everything he can to kill cheap energy alternatives. The administration just announced that the U.S. is paying one billion dollars to a French company, TotalEnergies, to cancel wind farm projects already underway, in exchange for new investments in oil and gas. Darwin posted a cryptic ‘SMH’ in response to the news.

Doug Burgum announced the deal, claiming, “the era of affordable, reliable and secure energy is here to stay.” Someone might want to tell Burgum that we’re in the middle of a war proving just the opposite. With crude oil prices skyrocketing, and WWIII looming over the Strait of Hormuz, there’s nothing reliable or secure about fossil fuels except for campaign donations to Trump.

Trump’s war on alternative energy has led to an extraordinary transfer of public money to prop up fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change, which Trump still calls a “hoax.” Trump’s fight to overrule science and abandon all climate protections seems more like a compulsion to destroy than to govern; Trump likely assumes he’ll be pushing up daisies before Big Oil ever compensates victims for over $3.1 trillion in climate damages to date.

Courts are stopping Trump’s war on cheap energy

In December, in continued service to Trump’s fossil fuel donors, the Interior Department ordered all work to halt on five wind farms, claiming the projects were a “national security” threat. But a Reagan-nominated judge, after reviewing the classified security report under seal, didn’t see any claimed threat, and ruled that the administration's order halting the wind projects was pretextual and unlawful.

It was the fifth consecutive court victory for wind developers, and it allowed all halted projects to resume.

In an earlier ruling, after the administration issued a stop-work order against another wind project that was already 90% complete, the same judge found that Trump was “vocal in criticizing offshore wind farms for reasons unrelated to national security.” As of two weeks ago, that project was back up and running, delivering enough power to New England’s electric grid for 350,000 homes, saving residents $500 million a year. Trump, now paying companies not to produce wind energy that saves Americans money while saving the climate, again looks like a force of deliberate destruction.

The earth is cooking. Only an idiot would turn up the heat.

Last Friday, four different locations in Arizona and California hit 112 degrees, passing the continental U.S. record by 4 degrees for the hottest day in March. The record-breaking heat is expected to continue with a huge heat dome spreading across the country. As it moves eastward, the dome may unleash one of the most expansive heat waves in American history.

On March 23, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), reported that the 11-year period ending with 2025 was the hottest in recorded human history. 2024 was identified as the hottest year ever, followed closely by 2025, confirming an accelerating climate crisis. Despite climate damages already topping $150 billion annually, Trump continues to lie about the causal connection between burning fossil fuels and climate change.

Instead, on brand, the administration is erasing the evidence. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which formerly tracked the cumulative and rising costs of climate-charged weather events, now displays an ominous message on its public website: “In alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will no longer be updating the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product.”

Trump clearly doesn’t want taxpayers to know how much they are paying for local climate damage as they subsidize his wealthy fossil fuel donors.

A scorched earth war in Iran continues the pattern of destruction

While Trump is busy dropping bombs and threatening power plants in Iran, the high-tech munitions in use by all sides are scorching the earth with irreversible deep-soil chemical runoff and chemical saturation. When warhead toxins and heavy metals like lead, antimony, chromium, and arsenic burrow into the soil and penetrate the deep earth, the region’s capacity to grow food and support wildlife is damaged for generations. These pollutants also leach into groundwater where they are absorbed by any crops that do manage to grow. Meanwhile people in the region are being warned that the air is not safe to breathe, as sooty rain falls from a black sky.

The Guardian reports that the war in Iran is not only causing severe environmental damage, it is also accelerating climate destruction, with the emission of 5 million tons of CO2 in just the first 14 days. The soil where the missiles land will not grow food again in our lifetimes.

Sometimes when I’m trying to make sense of the world, I wonder whether Trump is a death force meant to accelerate our species’ removal from the planet. Random cell mutations that serve no purpose other than the destruction of life sometimes form in our bodies. Maybe the planet, also a living organism but of unfathomable intelligence, is hastening our demise so it can get back to healthy trees, clean mountain air, and streams full of salmon. If Trump is but a malignancy meant to usher us off the earth more quickly, maybe MAGA is right, he really is ‘chosen.’

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

On March 21, at 7:44 pm, Trump threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Iran didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. He posted his threat on social media (so transparent! so strong!), promising that if Iran didn’t open the Strait “within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time,” the U.S. “will hit and obliterate” their power plants. And, because the world is his subordinate, he thanked it for its attention to this matter.

Iran relies on 130 thermal plants across the country for more than 95% of its electricity. Targeting all those plants would be a war crime. (This is my own legal opinion so I’m skipping the favored punt, “likely,” as in, it would likely be a war crime. Those lawyers are likely afraid of being sued; this one likely is not.) Intentionally bombing any non-military infrastructure essential to the survival of civilians, like power plants, is a violation of international humanitarian law.

Why? Because when power plants collapse, water pumping and desalination stations stop functioning. With no water, civilians die from dehydration and organ failure, some within days, some within hours. Children and the elderly die first. When hospitals lose power, life-support machines shut down, and surgeries are cancelled. Food production and distribution also collapse without power. Amnesty International observed that, “By threatening such strikes, (Trump was) effectively indicating willingness to plunge an entire country into darkness, and to potentially deprive its people of their human rights to life, water, food, healthcare and adequate standard of living, and to subject them to severe pain and suffering.”

TACO, anyone?

Instead of immediately capitulating, Iran was immediately defiant and threatened war crimes of its own, again against energy and desalination facilities. It’s like watching a cage match of hairy fisted cavemen, only with forced audience participation. We’re paying $8 billion a week for Trump’s war instead of subsidizing healthcare, but we’re getting off relatively easy: Iranians are getting bombed and their children are dying.

Iran told Trump to pound sand and raised him one, promising to close the Strait completely if Trump carried out his threats. Just when the barrel he’d voluntarily jumped into was about to go over Niagara Falls, Trump jumped out. He announced that the U.S. and Iran had suddenly engaged in “constructive” talks and that he was, therefore “pausing” his 48 hour ultimatum.

While Trump managed to save face for now, Iran said there were no such talks, and vehemently denied his claim. Their foreign ministry said there had been “no direct or indirect contact” with Washington whatsoever. So either Trump fabricated an off ramp from his own jump, or the talks are so secret only Jared Kushner knows about them. Trump didn’t say who was doing the talking (strategic ambiguity? or obviously lying?). Perhaps Trump and Jared are sending “constructive” texts to each other.

The war will go on, even if Trump withdraws

In front of audiences that don’t ask hard questions, Trump has repeatedly claimed that the war is “already won” and “very complete.” He told Fox News that he would end the conflict in Iran whenever the hell he felt like it. “It’ll end,” Trump said, when “I feel it in my bones.”

Someone in Trump’s orbit must have figured out by now that Iranians have bones too. The U.S. can’t unilaterally stop Iran from attacking Israel, U.S. assets or the Gulf states. After Trump intentionally alienated allies and started a war without consulting them, the U.S. and Israel stand alone. Even if the U.S. withdraws altogether, Iran is now issuing demands including massive reparations.

Multiple analysts report that Iran is better positioned for a protracted war on its own terrain than the U.S. will ever be. Even though the U.S. enjoys overwhelming conventional military superiority, a protracted conflict would favor Iran’s “asymmetric strategies” including proxy militias, drone swarms, and missile attacks.

Trump made Israel’s problem America’s problem

Just before the bombing started, it looked as if U.S. and Iranian negotiators might have struck a deal. Oman's Foreign Minister, Badr al-Busaidi, acting as a mediator in the talks, reported a potential breakthrough on Feb. 27. He announced that Iran was willing to stop stockpiling uranium, and that a deal on inspections was “within reach.” Unlike his fabricated ‘constructive’ talks, Trump didn’t give the real negotiations 5 days but instead started bombing the next day, on February 28.

Israel had lobbied for US military action against Iran for decades, claiming Iran posed an existential threat to Israel, but other presidents could not be persuaded. Presidents Bush and Obama routinely rejected Israel’s requests because they wanted to avoid another unpredictable Middle Eastern conflict that would exacerbate regional destabilization and bring high U.S. casualties.

Both presidents opted for diplomatic solutions instead. Under the JCPOA, which Trump killed, Iran agreed to constrain its nuclear program by limiting its fuel cycle activities and the production of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. Iran also agreed to unannounced inspections. But in 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA, claiming not that Iran had violated it, but that it was a ‘bad deal.’ Trump argued that the deal's expiration dates or ‘sunset dates’ on some restrictions could eventually lead Iran down a "legitimate" path to a nuclear weapon. Sounds familiar. Also sounds like he killed the deal, and we are at war for Trump’s ego, because it was an Obama achievement.

No one knows where, when, or how this war will end, least of all Trump. In war, nothing is ever certain. But I feel confident I can offer at least this one guarantee: Whatever happens, no matter how many more Americans, Iranians, and others die, Fox News will declare Trump victorious, and 38% of the nation will blindly celebrate him as a hero for it.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

After WWII showcased the horrors of unchecked aggression, “War Departments” around the civilized world became “Departments of Defense.” Following the deaths of 60 million people, leaders of democratic-led nations embraced a shift from offensive victory to integrated deterrence and unified defense.

The pivot in both strategy and messaging was adopted to stop future Hitlers. The U.S. led the way as free nations embraced the United Nation Charter with international laws of war, mutual security, and human rights. In 1947 the U.S. War Department became the National Military Establishment, then all branches of the U.S. military were consolidated into the Department of Defense two years later.

Dismissing the lessons of that era as if human nature had somehow fundamentally changed in eighty years, Trump renamed the DOD the Department of War last September. The shift in messaging was not subtle: Trump considers warlike aggression a brandable asset. Consistent with his rebrand, Trump now uses the most vitriolic war-mongering language ever used by a sitting president.

Trash talking the enemy

There’s a reason world leaders practice restraint in war messaging. To garner respect and military alliances, raw military power must project sobriety, caution, and respect for international laws of combat. Excessive bellicosity and the rejection of restraining norms suggests a lack of maturity or worse—that the leader has gone rogue. No peaceable nation wants to align with a nakedly destructive force; no citizen takes comfort in knowing unhinged toddlers have access to nuclear weapons.

Trump, nevertheless, mocks moderation. A little more than a week ago, Trump announced that he would hit Iran “twenty times harder” and make it “virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back as a Nation” after “death, fire and fury (rains) upon them.” Last week he suggested he might bomb Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub “just for fun.”

Trump spews low-intellect bellicosity like a WWE fighter with too many blows to the head. But query who—and what— this kind of talk incites. Debasing foreign nations, threatening their citizens with non-existence, sows deep-seated hatred and long memories. It may make Trump feel powerful today, but U.S. citizens will eventually pay the price.

Inciting terrorism

Trump’s base loves his war-like rhetoric because they are oblivious to consequences. Studies show direct links between hateful speech, terrorism, and mass atrocities; aggressive rhetoric makes it more acceptable to dehumanize other groups of people. This effect is not limited to domestic actors; the internet carries Trump’s nonstop social media posts of hateful aggression around the world and lands them on terrorists’ hand-held devices.

While tracing direct causation can be difficult, research shows that the cumulative effect of anger rhetoric from a world leader is the creation of an international climate that both legitimizes and increases the likelihood of terrorism. Trump’s use of such rhetoric has already triggered more anti-American sentiment, decreased tourism, and raised safety concerns for American travelers abroad.

The administration knows the way Trump talks could attract another 9-11, which has led some analysts to conclude it’s intentional. The theory, whether paranoia or pattern recognition, is that Trump will parlay any terrorist attack into expanded presidential authority to keep himself in power.

“Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic” news organizations

To drive it home, the administration is trying to force main stream media to adopt Trump’s preferred narrative on Iran, or what FCC Chair Brendan Carr calls “pro-America” content. Trump rails against “truly sick and demented people” in the media who report unflattering accounts of the war. Last Sunday, he attacked a reporter as “a very obnoxious person” for asking, very simply, why we’re sending 5,000 US troops to the Middle East.

Carr, meanwhile, is ratcheting up public threats to revoke broadcast licenses from television networks deviating from the preferred narrative. When CNN detailed how Trump underestimated Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, then confirmed that the U.S.—not Iran— deployed the Tomahawk that killed 175 children, Hegseth hissed, “the sooner David Ellison takes over (CNN), the better.”

It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that Trump started a war in Iran without considering the consequences. It’s also obvious, thanks to Hegseth’s admission and the right wing capture of CBS, that Carr is trying to outlaw criticism. As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) put it, “This is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war... We are not on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. We are in the middle of it.”

A war that focuses on… messaging?

Trump and Hegseth spent last week attacking the news media over polls that show low public support for the war. As Trump tries to thwart Iran’s efforts to block the oil route amid skyrocketing global oil prices, his messaging gets harder.

Trump/Hegseth/Carr’s focus on media coverage suggests that the problem in Iran isn’t the ill-conceived war, the destruction, the economic fallout, or the humanitarian disaster Trump single-handedly created. The problem, to them, is narrative control.

It tracks. Trump became president by selling fantastic claims to a gullible public; he’s just continuing the strategy. After Carr establishes state-run media, modeled after Hungary and Russia, Americans will stop hearing bad news about Iran altogether. When the next 9/11 strikes, we will hear only praise for Trump, who attacked a nation that did not attack us first.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

When the U.S. sent troops into Iraq, 76 percent of Americans approved, after the President spent a year explaining why: First, Bush/Cheney sold the belief, even if contrived, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Second, intelligence claimed that Iraq had close ties to al-Qaida, which was responsible for 9/11.

In Afghanistan, even more Americans—92%— approved of military intervention. Bush communicated a strong national security drive to destroy al-Qaeda training camps, remove the Taliban from power, and assist in creating a regime that would not incubate or harbor terrorist cells hellbent on harming Americans.

Throughout messaging on both campaigns, Bush skillfully showcased U.S. alignment with foreign allies. Bush brandished a coalition of more than 70 nations offering military assistance for both wars, including intelligence, airspace access, and troops for combat operations.

To the American public, solidarity among democratic allies signaled rightness of cause.

Trump didn’t bother with any of that

Fast forward to 2026, Trump, and the war-not-war in Iran.

On February 28, 2026, in the middle of the night, Trump released an 8 minute video announcing that the U.S. had already begun ‘major combat operations’ in Iran. He hadn’t pre-sold his war to Americans, suggesting disinterest in their buy-in. He hadn’t tried to sell the war to Congress either, suggesting fear of scrutiny.

Had a Constitutionally-required debate taken place, complexities involving the Strait of Hormuth, the logistics of global energy, and how attacking Iran would increase the price of oil would have surfaced. Instead, three weeks later, Trump has still not articulated non-contradictory reasons, or specific military objectives, for the war. So no one should be surprised that only 20% of Americans support sending in U.S. troops.

Trump insults allies then expects their support

Trump’s messaging failure at home is even worse among our allies. Just in January, Trump said NATO troops “stayed a little off the front lines” when helping the U.S. in Afghanistan, an outrageous insult not only to our allies, but to the memory of soldiers who perished there.

Trump, while consistently praising Putin, has a well-documented history of publicly insulting America’s allies: France’s Emmanuel Macron is “nasty,” and “nobody wants him;” Angela Merkel “ruined Germany;” Canada’s Justin Trudeau was “dishonest and weak,” then Prime Minister Mark Carney was the “future Governor of Canada.” He called Denmark’s Prime Minister “nasty” for rejecting his plan to purchase Greenland, and claimed he instructed the UK’s Theresa May “how” to effectuate Brexit, which proved disastrous for the UK’s economy.

The jabs and insults flew during his first term then morphed into an economically illiterate tariff diplomacy in his second term. He is now trying to alpha the world by imposing tariffs on American consumers.

Following his sophomoric and self-defeating attacks on our allies, Trump now “demands” their help in Iran.

The bully needs a favor

Now that oil has topped $100 a barrel, Trump needs our allies—the ones he harmed economically and insulted like an 8th grade bully—to send back up warships to the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for 20% of the world's oil. On March 14, Trump declared that other countries should secure the Strait even though he endangered it without first consulting them; he reiterated his petulant cry on March 16.

Trump also promised that the U.S. Navy would guarantee the safety of all maritime traffic in the Strait. Since the Strait remains closed to the US and our allies, it’s pretty clear the U.S. Navy can guarantee no such thing.

By Sunday night, Trump signaled that the U.S. could not go it alone, and threatened repercussions for countries that refused to help, telling reporters, “I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their own territory.” He added the next day that, “The United States should not be very much involved” in the strait, asking illogically why we aren’t being reimbursed for the effort and the economic fallout he unilaterally foisted on the world.

Insulted allies are not moved

Most U.S. allies have responded to Trump's request for help in the Strait of Hormuz with yeah, but no.

Germany’s Defense Minister stated, “This is not our war; we did not start it.” Throwing Trump’s endless chest beating back in his face, he added, “What does Trump expect from, let’s say, one or two handfuls of European frigates in the Strait of Hormuz that the “powerful American Navy cannot accomplish?”

The UK’s Prime Minister said the UK “will not be drawn into the wider war” with Iran. The French foreign ministry said much the same, while the Polish foreign minister said that Poland had also “ruled out” sending forces into the conflict. Japan’s Prime Minister said there were no current plans to dispatch warships; Australia’s Transport Minister noted that Australia ‘is not contributing to this specific military effort.’ Spain also declined participation, labeling the conflict “illegal” while also banning U.S. aircraft from using joint bases in the war.

Consequences

Allied responses to Trump’s request hit home how grievously Trump has injured America’s standing in the world. Our relationship with NATO and other allies may never recover.

As the EU foreign policy chief put it, “This is not Europe’s war. Nobody wants to go actively in this war, and of course everybody is concerned what will be the outcome.”

It’s a shame Trump didn’t anticipate the predictable volatility of energy prices before he attacked Iran; it’s a shame he didn’t consult allies first. Mainly, it’s a shame Americans elected a president who doesn’t understand that a pugnacious bully will never have friends when he needs them.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Donald Trump recently told reporters he’d have “no problem” releasing video of US strikes off the Venezuelan coast where two survivors clinging to the shipwreck were shown no quarter — executions that violated federal law, the US Code on War Crimes, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibiting murder.

But when asked about the video three days later, Trump denied ever agreeing to release it, claiming, “You said that, I didn’t say that. This is ABC fake news,” before pivoting to “whatever Pete Hegseth decides” to release to the media will be fine with him.

It was a safe punt. The Secretary of Defense has fought media access to the Pentagon like no secretary before him. Hegseth will keep spinning his “kill everyone” strikes, his Signalgate publication of war plans, and every other military crime he can get away with until he is stopped.

Ministry of Truth

Hegseth, a former Fox News bobblehead with barely-there military credentials, fights the release of any Pentagon information that he hasn’t choreographed.

In September, Hegseth announced a new DOD policy that essentially required journalists to get his permission before they publish. Journalists were required to sign pledges acknowledging that if they ask the wrong questions, or probe into department employees in any way that could elicit the wrong kinds of information, they could be labeled a national security risk, lose their Pentagon press badges, and be blocked from the building.

When Hegseth announced the change, credible media outlets cried foul.

The New York Times called it an attempt to “constrain how journalists can report on the US military, which is funded by nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars annually,” adding that the public has the “right to know how the government and military are operating.”

The National Press Club echoed that with, “For generations, Pentagon reporters have provided the public with vital information about how wars are fought, how defense dollars are spent, and how decisions are made that put American lives at risk. That work has only been possible because reporters could seek out facts without needing government permission.”

Last week, the NYT put teeth into their criticism, and filed suit to restore media access.

Illegal 'prior restraint'

Hegseth’s reach for a “media oath” smacks of prior restraint, a type of government censorship before publication that has long been deemed unconstitutional. Several early cases examined when national security interests were strong enough to overcome First Amendment freedoms in times of war; during WWII, “Loose lips sink ships” reflected an awareness that advance public disclosure of military secrets could be dangerous.

But in 1971, the Supreme Court held that prior restraint on speech by the government is unconstitutional, requiring an "exceptional" showing of "grave and irreparable" danger.

In The New York Times vs. the United States, the Nixon administration tried to block publication of the Pentagon Papers by arguing that publication of classified documents about the Vietnam War would endanger national security, necessitating prior restraint to protect vital security interests. The Supreme Court ruled that the public’s right to know outweighed the danger of publication, and that vague security claims aren't enough to censor the press.

In order to support an issuance of prior restraint today, the government must prove that publication would cause inevitable, direct, and immediate danger to the United States. In Hegseth’s “kill everyone” bombings, it’s hard to fathom how releasing video after the fact would jeopardize anything other than his own spin, as all victims are dead, their ships obliterated, and Trump himself repeatedly posts snuff videos of the violence.

National security risk

Blind to irony, both Hegseth and Trump have personally modeled why some military secrets should not be published, at least not in advance of the act.

In March, Hegseth’s Signal chat published US plans of attack in Yemen, including the exact time and location of the planned attack, which easily could have led to ambush or counter attacks costing American lives.

In June, Trump posted that the US knew where Iran’s enriched uranium was stockpiled, giving Iran advanced warnings to move it before the bombing began, which Iran did.

Both Trump and Hegseth seriously jeopardized national security by releasing US military plans of attack in advance, which no media outlet has sought the right to do.

Nonetheless, Hegseth’s new media restraints require Pentagon approval before public release of even unclassified information, because “unauthorized disclosure … poses a security risk that could damage the national security of the United States and place personnel in jeopardy.”

Press in MAGA hats

After 80 years of free press access to the Pentagon and military professionals who work there, Hegseth has granted himself sole authority to determine when journalists pose “national security risks.”

Based on a journalist's “receipt, publication, or solicitation of any ‘unauthorized’ information,” Hegseth has unbridled discretion to block, eject, and blacklist them. This amounts to authority to revoke reporters' access to the Pentagon for engaging in lawful newsgathering, which is an illegal, prior restraint to stop speech before it happens.

Hegseth has now replaced all credible media outlets with MAGA content creators, whom he welcomed to the Pentagon earlier this week for press briefings. These MAGA influencers, despite their lack of reporting or military beat experience, are the “new Pentagon press corps.” They include the My Pillow guy, nutjob Trump whisperer Laura Loomer, and Tim Pool, who was paid to produce videos for a company secretly funded by the Russian government.

All of them signed Hegseth’s required pledge.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

On November 26, 2025, in a quiet northern suburb of Hong Kong, an aggressive fire broke out in the middle of the day. The fire was unusual in its intensity and duration, consuming 7 of 8 high rise towers in a residential complex. Despite the quick response of well-equipped fire trucks, the blaze spread quickly and burned for more than 43 hours.

Although the death toll is not final, at least 160 people suffered the most horrific deaths imaginable, with dozens so charred they may never be identified.

The ferocity of the fire has been blamed on a private contractor’s use of highly flammable materials including polystyrene foam boards placed over windows, along with substandard scaffolding netting that failed to meet fire-retardant codes. The buildings were undergoing renovations when the fire hit, and numerous fire alarms also failed to warn.

The fire could have been prevented with government inspections

A tragedy like this gives pause, in part because it should have been prevented. Fire analysts say that more rigorous inspections, including thorough sample testing of materials used on higher floors, not just of easily accessible ground level floors, would have identified the use of non-compliant, cheaper materials before the blaze started.

Although the Chinese government will never admit any fault for the inadequate inspections and has instead jailed people for asking, it’s already clear that standard building inspections would have prevented the loss of life. Lapsed and loose inspections, and possible corruption, meant officials did not detect that flammable materials were used where they should not have been, or that fire safety systems were not functioning, despite residents alerting officials of these problems a year prior to the fire.

It’s also the kind of tragedy lying in wait in the US, ready to strike after Trump's all-out war on safety standards and regulations meant to protect the public.

The Trump administration has put Americans in danger

Since his re-election, Trump has rewarded his corporate donors by dismantling costly regulations they dislike. In the process, time-honored regulations and safety standards that quietly protected life have been gutted, setting us up for a Hong-Kong tragedy of our own.

Federal government regulations designed to protect health and lives include, in the broadest sense, workplace safety, transportation safety, food and drug safety, and environmental protection. Under Trump 2.0, each of these categories of protection have either been gutted outright, or are now so attenuated due to funding cuts they barely function.

Each federal agency with regulatory authority, including OSHA, the FDA, the EPA, and DOT, among others, has been significantly weakened with reduced investigations into wrongdoing and corruption, and fewer cases for failing to comply with safety and environmental standards. Trump has also imposed across the board budget cuts for regulatory enforcement, including inspector staffing across a wide spectrum of industries.

None of these changes will continue in a vacuum; other than ignoring climate change which is already wreaking havoc, we won’t know what other unenforced regulation will lead to tragedy until it strikes.

Trump’s attacks on regulatory agencies

Under Trump’s profits-first-people-last strategy, the EPA has launched the largest deregulatory action in U.S. history. Trump dismantled EPA regulations protecting air, water, and soil, relaxed emissions standards for power plants, increased toxic vehicle emissions, weakened water protections, limited scientific research into the risks, and rolled back greenhouse gas reporting and soot standards, all to boost industry profits at the expense of citizens who live and work in those communities.

Trump also shuttered 11 OSHA offices in states reporting unusually high workplace fatalities, most of them Republican controlled. Louisiana, for example, ranks the sixth most dangerous state for workers in the U.S. Louisiana is also home to more than 200 chemical plants and refineries dotting an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River dubbed “Cancer Alley” because of the high rates of cancer and birth defects linked to petrochemicals.

Former OSHA Director David Michaels said that with these closures, “enormous oil and petrochemical facilities with significant safety and health hazards will be inspected even less frequently than they are now.”

According to DOGE, the government will save $109,346 from the closures.

Statistics are only dry until you’re in them

If a Hong Kong-type tragedy strikes, Trump will first block information about it, Karoline Leavitt will call it fake news, and Fox won’t report it. Then, after the tragedy dominates mainstream media headlines, the whole administration will pivot to blaming Biden.

But the danger is real, it is now, and it is not about politics.

Americans have lived for generations with barely-there inspections, leading to Cancer Alleys, occupational disease, dangerous products, collapsing infrastructure, etc. But now Trump has expelled almost all regulatory watchdogs in service to his corporate donors. Because less regulation means higher profits, corporate America is rewarding Trump handsomely in what amounts to quid pro quo.

In a functioning democracy, this would amount to criminal recklessness. In a rule of law republic, the resulting tragedies, when they strike, would lead to charges of foreseeable homicide.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

]The latest South Park episode nailed it: When “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth gets wind of a small Colorado town’s annual holiday race, he declares it an “Antifa uprising” and calls out the troops to crush it. While armed forces assemble their AK-47s, Hegseth struts around filming himself for well-coiffed social media content, unaware that his obsession with “lethality” looks unhinged.

South Park’s point, previewed during Hegseth’s shameful speech at Quantico, and his sophomoric tome championing war without rules, is that Donald Trump has reduced the US military to an absurdist prop so grotesque it raises questions of insanity.

After a series of US strikes in the ocean killed 87 people suspected of trafficking drugs, strikes properly assessed as murder regardless of whether people died in the first, second, or whichever strike, Congress is finally alarmed as calls for Hegseth's impeachment grow.

Strikes cannot be justified

Two days after the Washington Post first reported that Hegseth issued a command to “Kill them all” in a September attack on the high seas, which led to a second strike that killed survivors, Hegseth posted a juvenile cartoon making light of his own crime. Hegseth’s post depicted a chubby turtle standing on helicopter skids, laughing as he fires a bazooka close-range at boats below.

Aside from depicting the slaughter of humans as a children’s war game, Hegseth’s post also perpetuates a lie: Neither drugs, nor rifles, nor weapons of any kind have appeared in any of the snuff videos Hegseth and Trump keep posting to brag about the killings. To date, the administration has offered no intelligence or evidence whatsoever, other than Trump’s personal opinion, to support the claim that the destroyed boats were carrying drugs, arms, or illicit cargo. Even if they were, military law requires interdiction, seizure and process, not unilateral, on-the-spot executions.

Hegseth also claims the strikes are in compliance with the laws of armed conflict, and “approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.” Except there weren’t any top lawyers left “up and down the chain of command” after Hegseth fired the top Judge Advocates General (JAGs) for the Army, Navy, and Air Force in February.

JAGs come back to haunt

The JAGS didn’t slink away quietly. After Hegseth fired them, they formed a watchdog. Former JAGs Working Group. now warning that Hegseth’s orders on the high seas “constitute war crimes, murder, or both.” They also echoed six Democratic lawmakers reminding servicemembers of their duty to disobey patently illegal orders, adding, “anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both.”

After Hegseth and Trump appeared to throw commanding officer Adm. Frank Bradley under the bus, blaming Bradley, not Hegseth, for the second strike that killed the survivors, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt read a statement that Bradley’s conduct was “well within his authority and the law directing the engagement.” Except, of course, it wasn’t.

The administration seems to be arguing that the strikes are lawful, despite not knowing the identities of anyone onboard, because Trump has “determined” that the US is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels. But Congress has not declared any such war, and one-sided orders to execute suspects do not constitute an ‘armed conflict’ under any military code.

The State Department’s designation of drug cartels as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” does not provide legal authority to execute them because the “imminent threat” rule limits lethal force to immediate threats to life. Trump/Hegseth’s assumption that these small boats: 1. are carrying drugs; 2. are destined for the US; 3. will make it that far; 4. without sufficient fuel; 5. will eventually cause deaths; 6. of some Americans; 7. who choose to use the drugs, does not support an “imminent threat” analysis under any law, for reasons that should be obvious from the string-along assumptions listed.

Guilt (and execution) by association

After the first boat strike on Sept. 2, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the military could have interdicted the vessel, which is how the Coast Guard normally responds to drug vessels, but chose instead to kill everyone on board because Trump wanted to “send a message.”

Hegseth continues to parrot Trump’s “message,” posting recently, “Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” and, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”

It matters little which strike ended the lives. Trump’s legally suspect campaign of executing people based on a suspicion that they are smuggling drugs didn’t start with Hegseth’s order to “Kill them all,” it started with Trump’s assumption that the presidency makes him judge, jury and executioner.

Legal authorities rejecting Trump’s assumption include the DOD’s Law of War Manual; the Hague Regulations; the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act; the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibiting extrajudicial killings; the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and state and federal statutes prohibiting murder.

People disinclined to read the law but inclined to think the government can execute people suspected of committing crimes should consider: If a police officer thinks I am going to beat my wife when I get home, can he shoot me in the face before I get there?

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

In late November, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent instructions to US diplomats directing them to sell Trump’s immigration policies to allies who don’t want them.

In a barely reported move, Rubio instructed American diplomats serving Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada to start “raising concerns” about “immigrant crime” with foreign leaders, while encouraging them to adopt harsher entry restrictions.

Rubio’s directive suggests he is unaware that Canadian, and most European leaders, regard Trump as an undisciplined moron. Unable to read the global room, Rubio instructed American diplomats to “regularly engage host governments” on immigrant crime, and to ‘report back’ on allies who seem “overly supportive of immigrants.”

The goal, Rubio said, is to build foreign support for Trump’s “reform policies related to migrant crime, defending national sovereignty, and ensuring the safety of local communities.”

The result, most likely, will be a collective eye roll.

Rubio is exporting lies

Trump, Fox News, and hard right politicians like Viktor Orban have built their brands around fear mongering, portraying immigrants as dangerous criminals. But educated leaders outside the right wing echo chamber instantly recognize these claims as false.

In 2024, the National Institute of Justice released figures comparing arrest rates between undocumented immigrants and native born US citizens, tracked over a seven year period. The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born citizens for violent and drug crimes, and at a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes. For homicide, undocumented immigrants had the lowest arrest rates throughout the entire study, averaging less than half the rate of US-born citizens. Another multi-year study from Stanford shows the same, with immigrants 30% less likely overall to commit crimes than US born natives.

Studies in Europe show similar results. In Germany, where Elon Musk’s darling, the far-right Alternative for Germany party claims that “violent gang rapes” and “knife crimes” by immigrants are “skyrocketing,” media outlets' fact-checking teams showed those claims were false. In early 2025, researchers found no correlation between immigration and crime rates in Italy, Germany, the UK, France and Belgium. The same results were reported in August for Canada and Australia.

Most importantly, disinformation is more tightly controlled in Europe, and the news media is not allowed to fearmonger the way Fox News does, so when Trump tries to export his playground bully diplomacy, members of the public are more skeptical.

Trump is trying to export economic failures

Setting aside perceptions, foreign leaders are aware, even if Trump is not, that his anti-immigrant push has hurt global and local economies.

In the US, no sector has been hurt more by Trump’s anti-immigration push than farmers. American farmers today say their #1 challenge isn’t the weather, equipment costs, or even the mortgage- it’s finding enough labor. With over 40% of American farm workers lacking legal status, people who used to do the heavy lifting are now staying home in fear while crops rot in the fields.

When ICE started raiding farms earlier this year, a large California farmer told Reuters that around 70% of the migrant workforce stopped coming to work, which meant “70% of your crop doesn’t get picked.” She also said out loud what Trump refuses to admit: “Most Americans don’t want to do this (backbreaking) work.”

Although ICE’s effect on food supplies will take more time to assess, immigration policies that ignore regional labor requirements are a long-standing problem. Several years ago, the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association begged Congress to expand their accessible labor pool as the dairy industry faces “an acute national labor crisis” without immigrant labor. In 2025, farm labor, and the dairy labor crisis, have worsened.

Industry leaders in Europe say the same. Migrant workers are as crucial to construction, hospitality, and agriculture in the EU as they are in the US. Immigrants in Europe also comprise over 50% of the skilled workforce in technology. Overall, immigrant labor has become more crucial, not less, as Europe faces declining population trends.

Bad timing

Emphasizing foreign ‘sovereignty’ in their anti-immigrant efforts, Rubio and Trump somehow miss that exporting Trump’s xenophobia, and dictating its ignorant spread, doesn’t respect our allies’ sovereignty, it offends it.

Trump and Rubio seem to project their own Fox News-based myopia onto the world, assuming foreign audiences accept their fact-free propaganda as blindly as MAGA does. But they don’t. Fox couldn’t hack the UK’s accuracy-in-the-news legal requirement and stopped trying to broadcast there several years ago. In result, EU audiences are better equipped to discern fact from fiction than far right audiences in the US.

As the administration calls for a travel ban on entire countries full of “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,” Rubio’s timing could not be worse. He is pushing Trump’s hatred just when EU allies are credibly accusing him of blackmail, and South America leaders are accusing the administration of murder.

Rubio obviously misapprehends how little regard Europeans and Canadians have for Trump’s uninformed bellicosity. Poor timing on his immigration cable alone suggests our allies will soon start letting his calls go into voicemail.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Back in August, a publication written by and for US military members groused about the danger of National Guard troops performing lawn care in the nation’s capital.

Credibly ranked as having no political bias, The Military Times observed that the real threat to 2,300 troops deployed to D.C. wasn’t Trump’s imaginary “magnitude of violent crime” in war-torn domestic environs, but domestic assignments that rendered them sitting ducks.

Military analysts had warned for months that such deployments presented a “heightened threat environment” that was both wounding morale and risking the lives of enlisted soldiers. Uniformed troops gardening in the US capital also contradicted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s focus on “lethality” and his “warfighting ethos.” After Hegseth announced that any activities that distract from lethality “shouldn’t be happening,” his rake-wielding fighters were mocked by foreign media outlets as “Trump’s lethal landscapers.”

Trump’s use of the military as Made-for-Fox News video props alarmed critics and supporters alike. Aside from sending troops into cities where they are not wanted, Trump’s politicization and purging of the military prompted a rare rebuke from former defense secretaries including Lloyd Austin and Trump’s own first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who submitted a joint letter to Congress warning about Trump’s recklessness.

Military is legally and functionally different from law enforcement

For more than 150 years, for reasons easily traced back to the founding era, using military troops for domestic law enforcement has been illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act. Unless there’s an insurrection or rebellion, two specific words denoting specific conditions on the ground, a president cannot deploy the US military to enforce federal, state, or local law. The Insurrection Act, widely understood to be an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, also requires specific conditions on the ground such as rebellion or an extreme level of violence necessitating military assistance.

Despite the clarity of federal law, Trump has sent military troops to US cities in the absence of rebellion, insurrection, or widespread rioting, using a revolving door of justifications from “quelling violence in Democratic-controlled cities” and “cracking down on crime” to “supporting deportation initiatives,” meaning, to help ICE, which is another form of domestic law enforcement.

Whatever excuse he trots out, Trump appears to be doing his level best to cause violent rioting in the streets so that there will be insurrection or rebellion. He’s counting on it, even though most Americans do not want cities occupied by troops.

The US military is not allowed to be used for law enforcement, because service members are trained to kill. The military’s primary mission is to defend the nation against foreign threats. Combat-ready military forces are trained to defeat adversaries through readiness and weapons training on lethality, resilience, and mission readiness in hostile environments, prioritizing skills like weapons proficiency, combat tactics, and survival. In obvious distinction, law enforcement officers exist and are trained to enforce domestic laws and protect civilian populations, which is best accomplished through de-escalation, proportionality, and the preservation of life.

Simply put, domestic law enforcement and the US military differ in terms of purpose, training, mission and goals, and it’s both disrespectful and dangerous to confuse them.

Attacking the truth

On Nov. 20, 2025, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of the military to the nation’s capital was illegal, and ordered an end to it. On Nov. 26, still deployed despite the court order, two members of the National Guard were tragically shot outside a D.C. Metro station while on foot patrol.

After one of the service members died, instead of offering introspection or comfort, Trump lashed out, doubled down, and blamed Joe Biden. Referring to the suspect's origins in Afghanistan, Trump told the press: “There was no vetting or anything. They came in unvetted. And we have a lot of others in this country, we’re going to get 'em out.”

A reporter then pointed out that Trump’s own DOJ Inspector General confirmed the vetting, so why, exactly, was Trump was still blaming Biden? Trump exploded: “Because they let them in. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? Because they came in on a plane along with thousands of other people who shouldn’t be here, and you’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”

Trump attacked the question because it didn’t fit his narrative: The shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was thoroughly vetted by both the CIA and the FBI because he previously worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, assisting in US combat missions.

Doubling down on lies won’t make us safe

Military advisers have long warned that putting American military members on city streets put them in increased danger. After the D.C. shooting, a member of the California National Guard texted the New York Times that he “knew that this would happen.” Having served six years in the Guard, the soldier said he and his commanders worried that the assignment “increased our risk of us shooting civilians or civilians taking shots at us.”

Instead of rethinking the obvious danger of putting military troops on US street corners, Trump has decided to double down by deploying 500 more troops to D.C., and stopping immigration entirely from poor nations. DHS announced further that, “The Trump administration is also reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration.”

Except, as Reuters pointed out, Lakanwal wasn’t granted asylum by Biden. He was granted asylum, this year, by the Trump administration.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

• Kak·i·sto·cra·cy- (kakə̇ˈstäkrəsē): a government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state

A ‘kakistocracy’ is a system of government where the most unfit, incompetent, and unscrupulous individuals are in power. Such a system does not reflect rational decision-making. Instead, Trump’s kakistocracy is emerging as the consequence of systemic failures (by Trump’s design), corruption (ditto), and societal dynamics (manipulated, but not wholly created, byTrump).

Malevolence may also be a factor. Outside his naked lust for power, profit, and retribution, Trump has shown little interest in governing. After DOGE trashed most federal services, the only departments left fully operational are Trump’s well-funded instruments of power and control: ICE/ DHS, the FBI, the DOJ, DOD, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the US military.

But as Trump seeks to grossly expand his reach through these entities, it is gratifying to watch his hand get slapped back, largely due to his and his administration’s incompetence, by federal courts insisting on the rule of law.

Sheer incompetence led to the dismissal of Trump’s pet prosecutions

On Monday, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie threw out Trump’s cases of political retribution against James Comey and Letitia James after a parade of incompetence.

The cases were dismissed without prejudice when Currie ruled that Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was acting without authority when she obtained the Comey and James indictments. This slap came not for Halligan’s career-ending errors, like failing to present the complete indictment to the complete grand jury, misstating the law to jurors, or for doing Trump’s illegal partisan bidding, but because her appointment as the interim U.S. Attorney was unlawful under both federal law and the US Constitution.

The arcana of judicial appointment procedure may seem boring, even inconsequential, but what Trump tried to do with Halligan demonstrates that it is anything but. Judicial appointments are governed by the article II of the Constitution, and 28 U.S.C. § 546. Under these authorities, a president gets to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for a 120-day appointment. When that 120 day period runs out, the authority to fill the position then shifts to the federal judiciary, not the president acting through his Attorney General.

That shift is enormously consequential. It was designed to block rogue actors from appointing one interim US attorney after another, running through a roster of unethical lawyers willing to break the law by pursuing cases based on politics rather than law.

That is exactly what happened with Halligan.

Trump tried to install a revolving door of lawless sycophants

Judge Currie held that the initial 120-day appointment clock began in January with Trump’s appointment of Erik Siebert, the previous interim U.S. Attorney. Seibert’s 120 day interim period expired on May 21, 2025, but the district court judges, following federal law, reappointed Seibert to serve until the vacancy was filled. Trump then nominated him for the full-term position, so he continued to serve.

However, in September, Siebert refused Trump’s request that he pursue criminal charges against Trump’s political enemies James Comey and Letitia James. Trump loyalists claimed that James falsified property records to receive better loan terms, and that Comey made a false statement to Congress, despite the lack of evidence. Seibert spent five months investigating, but ultimately determined there was not enough evidence to proceed with either case. (When Fair Housing officials agreed in internal memos that James committed no crime, they were dismissed.)

Because Seibert refused to pursue unethical and unsupported indictments, Trump wanted to fire him, but Seibert beat him to the punch and resigned in September. At that point, AG Pam Bondi backdoor installed Halligan as Seibert’s replacement, but that decision was up to the courts, not Trump. Because Halligan was not legally appointed to serve as interim US attorney, the court ruled that she had no authority to pursue the Comey and James indictments and threw them out.

Trump’s legal clowns keep dropping balls they shouldn’t be juggling

When Seibert said no, he wouldn’t risk his law license to pursue Trump’s wet dream prosecutions unsupported by law, he wrote a ‘declination memo,’ a standard memo outlining the reasons why. That memo featured prominently in a related hearing that revealed yet another lawless DOJ move.

DOJ counsel refused to answer Judge Nachmanoff’s simple ‘yes or no’ question about whether Seibert wrote such a memo. When Nachmanoff got irritated by the DOJ lawyer’s cagey responses, he pressed until the lawyer finally admitted the reason for his reticence: Because Todd Blanche, Trump’s Deputy Attorney General, instructed him not to admit the declination memo existed.

Federal trial attorneys know that lying by omission to a federal judge, or a lack of candor in response to any judge’s inquiry, if proved, is grounds for disbarment. I’ll go out on a limb here and predict that many of Trump’s DOJ lawyers will find alternative careers when Trump leaves office.

In the meantime, these dismissals are gratifying because they prove that evil intent can be thwarted—trumped, if you will, by vast incompetence.

As a 30 year litigator, I know it is unseemly—unprofessional, even— to enjoy seeing a strident lawyer with more confidence than competence get her comeuppance for acting unethically.

But in this space, I’m a political writer suddenly laughing at the realization that authoritarianism can’t prevail here because it requires competence. It’s funny as hell and the schadenfreude is delicious.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Since Donald Trump has been back in office, energy prices have increased at more than double the rate of inflation. The Consumer Price Index from the end of October reported an “all items price index” increase for food, shelter, and transportation of 3.0 percent over a 12-month period, while energy services for the same period rose by 6.4 percent.

After promising to slash energy prices, Trump has done the opposite. His energy policies reflect the same ethos driving everything else in his retribution playbook: reward donors and inflict pain on Democrats, even when the economic consequences are nationwide.

Lust for retribution

In early October, Trump announced the claw-back of billions of dollars in federal funding for utilities, money that had been appropriated to reinforce power grids and reduce electricity prices.

Targeting blue states exclusively, Budget Director Russ Vought announced the cancellation of “nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.” In all, 321 Congressionally set awards supporting 223 wind, solar, and transmission projects were trashed.

Trump’s aversion to clean energy isn’t the only factor driving costs. His refusal to upgrade the grid, his half-baked export and tariff initiatives, and his blind support for energy-sucking AI data centers are all contributing to surging energy prices with no relief in sight.

As Canary Media framed it, “Trump slapped tariffs on certain wind turbine materials and opened a sham “national security” probe to pave the way for even more. He halted construction on a nearly completed offshore wind farm and moved to revoke permits for two more. He canceled hundreds of millions in port funding critical to offshore wind development and imposed new directives to stifle renewable projects on federal lands.”

Trump’s dedication is showing: after only ten months of Trump 2.0, US household electric bills have increased by 10 percent, and are expected to continue climbing.

UN Climate Summit

Trump is doing more than reversing US climate successes, he’s also undermining progress in other parts of the world. Last month, when the International Maritime Organization agreed on the world’s first carbon tax on global shipping to encourage the transition to cleaner fuels, Trump released a childish Truth Social rant threatening to retaliate.

This month, he ignored the UN Climate Summit in Brazil. Thankfully, California Governor Gavin Newsom attended, representing the world’s fourth-largest economy. Newsom highlighted California's efforts to step up on climate where Trump has stepped out.

Facing down the embarrassment of an antiquated, know-nothing, pro-fossil fuel regime, Newsom didn’t hold back. When asked about the US retreat from global climate action, he called Trump “an invasive species … He’s a wrecking ball president trying to roll back progress of the last century … he’s doubling down on stupid.”

Newsom did more than talk. While he was at the summit, he signed new Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with Brazil, Colombia, and Chile to advance clean energy, wildfire prevention, and other climate-related initiatives. He also expanded California’s existing partnerships with China and Mexico on clean energy development and zero-emission freight corridors.

Newsom managed to bolster California's profile as a stable international business and climate partner despite the optics of a US president ruled by ego and impulse.

Our loss, China’s gain

In September, addressing the UN, Trump called climate change a “con job” and urged other world leaders to abandon their climate efforts despite the Earth’s rising temperatures. Trump claimed falsely that China sells wind turbines to the world without using them at home, and told assembled leaders, “If you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail.”

The next day, China pledged the reverse. Xi Jinping announced China’s plan to increase electric vehicle sales and dramatically increase wind and solar power, targeting a 600 percent increase over 2020 levels.

Despite Trump’s claim, China has vastly expanded wind power developments at home, adding 46 gigawatts of new wind energy this year alone, enough to power than 30 million homes. Meanwhile, our Cro-Magnon regime froze permits for wind farms and issued stop work orders, ending tens of thousands of wind energy jobs in the process.

Critics agree that Trump’s withdrawal from climate efforts ceded valuable ground to China, which is now rapidly expanding its renewable and EV industries. China’s Ming Yang Smart Energy just unveiled OceanX, a two-headed offshore wind turbine. OceanX is expected to cut offshore energy costs to one-fifth of Europe’s costs while allowing wind farms to operate with fewer, more powerful turbines.

“China gets it,” Newsom said at the UN Climate Summit, “America is toast competitively, if we don’t wake up to what the hell they’re doing in this space, on supply chains, how they’re dominating manufacturing, how they’re flooding the zone.”

Newsom is right. Americans are suffering the tragedy of an uninformed and unstable president who rejects science, a president who wants to take us back to the 19th century. We have also inflicted our tragedy on the rest of the world.

Pope Leo frames climate action as a moral and spiritual imperative, tying the “cry of the Earth” to the “cry of the poor,” because small island nations and the global south, including poor states in the US, will continue to suffer the most from extreme weather and climate destruction.

Trump will be dead before climate change becomes an obvious existential threat. As Newsom said, he is only temporary. But the global destruction he leaves behind could be permanent. We owe it to our children, ourselves, and all the earth’s inhabitants to never again elect an imbecile, and to shut this one down before he kills us all.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) governs the conduct of every person in the United States military, and applies equally to all ranks and branches, whether in combat, or not.

All service members are taught, and are expected to understand, its core principles. Ignorantia juris non excusat, or “Ignorance of the law,” is not a legal defense in the US military. Under Art. 92 of the UCMJ, members have a duty to obey all lawful commands, and they have a parallel duty to disobey all unlawful commands. Obeying a manifestly illegal order, like an order to target civilians, can expose a service member to criminal liability.

The duty to disobey manifestly illegal orders is a cornerstone of international law, with foundations in Nazi atrocities-related post-WWII trials like Nuremberg. Orders of such nature that their unlawfulness is clear and obvious, such as an order to target unarmed civilians, are considered manifestly illegal.

Manifestly illegal orders

Donald Trump has ordered the summary execution of at least 83 people so far in strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth call these targets “narco-terrorists” because they think that means they can treat them as enemy combatants in a war that does not exist.

It doesn’t. Even if the victims were “narco-terrorists,” for which Trump has provided zero evidence, at worst, they are citizen criminals entitled to interdiction and legal process under US and international law.

No country has the right to execute non-combatant civilians unless faced with imminent threat, otherwise unhinged leaders could shoot people for sport, which Trump’s snuff videos are chillingly starting to resemble.

International condemnation of Trump’s campaign is growing, along with a global chorus accusing him of murder that would be louder if Trump weren’t threatening foreign trade like a mob boss. Formerly strong US allies, including the UK, Colombia, and the Netherlands, have either refused or suspended related intelligence sharing with the US. Military support groups are starting to talk in earnest, offering counseling and advice on what to do when faced with illegal order situations.

Calls to execute US lawmakers

Against this legal framework, the President of the United States has called for the prosecution, conviction, and death penalty for federal legislators, for reminding military personnel that they must follow the UCMJ. After Democratic legislators, all veterans of Intelligence or the US military, released a video reminding members of their duty to disobey illegal orders, Trump came unglued, unleashing a series of posts confirming that he is a danger to all Americans and unfit to lead the military.

Trump wrote:

"It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET."

"SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" he added in a later post.

Eliciting stochastic violence, Trump then reposted other posts calling the lawmakers "traitors" and "domestic terrorist Democrats" and another reading, "HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!"

Trump is criminally insane. What are officials waiting for to remove him?

The evidence that Trump is unfit to lead, and is a metastasizing threat to the US citizenry, is objectively irrefutable:

• He is using the US military for domestic law enforcement, which has long been illegal under federal law
• He has openly turned the Department of Justice into a lawless political weapon
• He is sending armed, masked and insufficiently trained federal agents to attack people in their beds, at schools and churches, and on the sidewalks
• His closest advisors publicly encourage excessive brutality as his “War” Secretary praises “lethality” unconstrained by the laws of combat
• Advancing his violence toward the media, last week he defended the dismemberment of a journalist critic
• He has officially declared groups who oppose him politically to be “domestic terrorists” in clear violation of the First Amendment
• His administration has been caught lying about peaceful protestors threatening ICE agents in order to justify ICE brutality.

At the same time Trump is violating the rule of law at home, transforming the nation into an occupied military zone, his national security blunders have seriously increased the risk of harm from outside forces by:

• Sharing a plan of attack through unsecured sources
• Posting juvenile social media rants that gave Iran advance notice to move their enriched uranium
• Accidentally declaring part of Mexico as US territory now under US command
• Alienating NATO, demoralizing Ukraine, and supporting Putin’s murderous regime in Russia
• Claiming victory in Gaza even as both sides continues attacking on the other
• Selling fighter jets to Saudi Arabia despite national security warnings.

These cumulative blunders suggest he doesn’t care about long-term, or even short-term, risks to national security. For example, Trump’s plans to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia ignores consistent warnings from national security officials that he will be letting China steal the American military’s advanced technology. Trump either doesn’t care, or lacks the cognitive capacity to understand, that Riyadh and Beijing have a formal security partnership.

“We will be doing that, we’ll be selling F-35s,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, because the Saudis “want to buy them, they’ve been a great ally.”

These facts trigger a duty to act, regardless of politics.

Federal officials, including his cabinet, and members of Congress, all swore an oath to follow the Constitution and protect the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Legal tools within their reach include impeachment and removal, Congressional oversight and the power of the purse, and the 25th Amendment.

This is not a partisan issue. America is in danger. Federal officials’ complicity and failure to act is now a dereliction of duty in deference to a man whose cognition is in question, who still has access to the nuclear codes.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) governs the conduct of every person in the United States military, and applies equally to all ranks and branches, whether in combat, or not.

All servicemembers are taught, and are expected to understand, its core principles. Ignorantia juris non excusat, or ‘Ignorance of the law,’ is not a legal defense in the US military. Under Art. 92 of the UCMJ, members have a duty to obey all lawful commands, and they have a parallel duty to disobey all unlawful commands. Obeying a manifestly illegal order, like an order to target civilians, can expose a service member to criminal liability.

The duty to disobey manifestly illegal orders is a cornerstone of international law, with foundations in Nazi atrocities-related post-WWII trials like Nuremberg. Orders of such nature that their unlawfulness is clear and obvious, such as an order to target unarmed civilians, are considered manifestly illegal.

Trump, Hegseth are issuing manifestly illegal orders to murder civilians

Trump has ordered the summary execution of at least 83 people so far in suspected drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Trump and Hegseth call these targets ‘narco-terrorists’ because they think that means they can treat them as enemy combatants in a war that does not exist.

It doesn’t. Even if the victims were “narco-terrorists,” for which Trump has provided zero evidence, at worst, they are citizen criminals entitled to interdiction and legal process under US and international law. No country has the right to execute non-combatant civilians unless faced with imminent threat, otherwise unhinged leaders could shoot people for sport, which Trump’s snuff videos are chillingly starting to resemble.

The widespread international condemnation of Trump’s campaign is growing, along with a global chorus accusing him of murder that would be louder if Trump weren’t threatening foreign trade like a mob boss. Formerly strong US allies, including the UK, Colombia, and the Netherlands, have either refused or suspended related intelligence sharing with the US because of the illegal strikes. Military support groups are starting to talk in earnest, offering counseling and advice on what to do when faced with illegal order situations.

Trump calls for the execution of US lawmakers

Against this legal framework, the President of the United States has just called for the prosecution, conviction, and death penalty for federal legislators, for reminding military personnel that they must follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice. After democratic legislators, all members or Veterans of Intelligence or the US military, released a video reminding members of their duty to disobey illegal orders, Trump came unglued, unleashing a series of posts confirming that he is a danger to all Americans and unfit to lead the military. Trump wrote:

"It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET."

"SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" he added in a later post.

Eliciting stochastic violence, Trump then reposted other posts calling the lawmakers "traitors" and "domestic terrorist Democrats" and another reading, "HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!"

Trump is criminally insane. What are officials waiting for to remove him?

The evidence that Trump is unfit to lead, and is a metastasizing threat to the US citizenry, is objectively irrefutable:

• He is using the US military for domestic law enforcement, which has long been illegal under federal law;
• He has openly turned the Department of Justice into a lawless political weapon;
• He is sending armed, masked and insufficiently trained federal agents to attack people in their beds, at schools and churches, and on the sidewalks;
• His closest advisors publicly encourage excessive brutality as his “War” Secretary praises ‘lethality’ unconstrained by the laws of combat;
• Advancing his violence toward the media, last week he defended the dismemberment of a journalist critic;
• He has officially declared groups who oppose him politically to be “domestic terrorists” in clear violation of the First Amendment; and
• His administration has been caught lying about peaceful protestors threatening ICE agents in order to justify ICE brutality.

At the same time Trump is violating the rule of law at home, transforming the nation into an occupied military zone, his national security blunders have seriously increased the risk of harm from outside forces by:

• Sharing a plan of attack through unsecured sources:
• Posting juvenile social media rants that gave Iran advance notice to move their enriched uranium;
• Accidently declaring part of Mexico as US territory now under US command;
• Alienating NATO, demoralizing Ukraine, and supporting Putin’s murderous regime in Russia;
• Claiming victory in Gaza even as both sides continues attacking on the other;
• And, most recently, selling fighter jets to Saudi Arabia despite national security warnings.

These cumulative blunders suggest he doesn’t care about long term, or even short term, risks to national security. For example, Trump’s plans to sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia ignores consistent warnings from national security officials that he will be letting China steal the American military’s advanced technology. Trump either doesn’t care, or lacks the cognitive capacity to understand, that Riyadh and Beijing have a formal security partnership. “We will be doing that, we’ll be selling F-35s,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, because the Saudis “want to buy them, they’ve been a great ally.”

These facts trigger a duty to act, regardless of politics.

Federal officials, including his cabinet, and members of Congress, all swore an oath to follow the Constitution and protect the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Legal tools within their reach include impeachment and removal, Congressional oversight and the power of the purse, and the 25th Amendment.

This is not a partisan issue. America is in danger. Federal officials’ complicity and failure to act is now a dereliction of duty in deference to a man whose cognition is in question, who still has access to the nuclear codes.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

On Monday, the Trump administration submitted arguments to the Supreme Court claiming that no court — including the Supreme Court — can question Trump’s decision to deploy military troops against US cities.

Trump lawyers wrote that “the President’s determination to call up the National Guard is a core exercise of his power as Commander in Chief over military affairs, based on an explicit delegation from Congress. That determination is not judicially reviewable at all; at minimum, it is entitled to extremely deferential review, under which (Trump’s deployment) should be upheld.”

Claiming Trump called up the National Guard in Chicago “in light of the violent, organized resistance” ICE agents face, Trump attorneys insist his decision is not subject to judicial review, citing a case from 1827 that they apparently have not read.

Martin v. Mott arose from the War of 1812, and held that military subordinates could not second guess a president’s judgment about military threats. Although it is often mis-cited, Martin did not even discuss judicial review, much less hold that no court can ever review a president’s decision.

Americans don’t want this

Most Americans have a strong moral resistance to military intrusion into civilian affairs. An easy majority of Americans today, across party lines, oppose sending military troops into US cities in the absence of a foreign threat.

Our resistance can be traced back to the Revolutionary War. After living under the tyranny of King George III, whose hated armed troops ate their food and slept in quarters they were forced to provide, colonists held a widespread fear of a national standing army, because it threatened individual liberty and the sovereignty of the separate states. Because of that distrust, the founders carefully apportioned responsibility over the “militia” — today’s National Guard — between the federal government and the States.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 15 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress, not the president, the power to call forth the National Guard “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” That foundational authority in turn supports Title 10 USC 12406, which allows a president to call forth the militia but only under specific, statutorily defined circumstances. It also supports the Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1385, which forbids the use of any part of the federal armed forces to execute laws, except where “expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress,” reflecting “the deeply rooted and ancient opposition in this country to the extension of military control over civilians.”

Exaggerated threats

Trump officials, with daily assistance from Fox News, report extreme violence among ICE protestors, significantly more violence than eyewitnesses, or state and local law enforcement officers, have observed.

Trump lawyers claim ICE agents “are facing incessant violent resistance on the streets of Illinois — including ambushes where their vehicles are rammed by trucks and dangerous projectiles are thrown at them, potentially motivated by bounties placed on their heads by violent gangs and transnational cartels. Federal agents faced with such threats and violence — in Chicago and elsewhere— operate, on a daily basis, in a climate of fear for their lives and safety, forced constantly to focus on self-defense and protection instead of executing federal law.”

It is no surprise that eyewitness accounts largely dispute these claims, often with video evidence. Examples of disputed ICE claims include:

• In instances where ICE agents alleged their vehicles were rammed by activists, video footage showed the federal agents' vehicles were the aggressors, ramming the other vehicles first.
• Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino admitted he was not hit by a rock until after he deployed tear gas at a Chicago protest, contradicting earlier claims that it happened in reverse.
• DHS claimed a middle-aged, heavy set woman, a WGN news producer, went out of her way to assault an ICE agent; eyewitness said she was simply standing there taking video. She was eventually released without charges.
• After DHS claimed a “more than 1,000 percent rise” in assaults on ICE agents, reporting from NPR and a review of federal court filings found no public evidence to support that claim.
• Videos circulating online show unprovoked, excessive violence from federal agents against protestors, with several showing agents pointing guns at peaceful observers.

To date, there is no known case addressing what happens when an unhinged president deliberately escalates violence and civil unrest in order to feel powerful/beat his chest/justify siccing the military on US citizens.

'Regular forces'

The Ninth and Seventh Circuit Appellate courts have addressed Trump’s National Guard deployments into US cities. Both appellate courts rejected Trump’s argument that military deployments are not reviewable, noting that the statute’s plain text lists specific predicate conditions before a president can deploy the National Guard, and “nothing in the text … makes the President the sole judge of whether these preconditions exist.”

The Ninth Circuit decision is awaiting full en banc review, while the Seventh Circuit concluded that facts on the ground weren’t what ICE said they were. The Seventh Circuit decision is now before the US Supreme Court, which recently directed the parties to file supplemental brief letters on the meaning of 10 USC 12406(3), which allows a president to call up the National Guard when he is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

Trump’s belief that his deployment of military forces is immune from judicial review is ominous, given his demonstrated lust for violence against unarmed people. His sinister plans for Americans who don’t support him, now officially labeled “domestic terrorists,” will depend greatly on whether the Supreme Court checks him with this case.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Now that we have learned that Jeffrey Epstein was trying to leverage dirt on Trump when he “committed suicide” in a federal jail under Trump’s control, am I a conspiracist for pivoting backward, wondering how Epstein really died? And what does it say that I care more about atrocities Trump will commit in order to change national headlines than I care about how Epstein died?

Trump has already demonstrated his capacity for murder. Military analysts have written extensively about Trump’s summary execution of people in fishing boats. The proper term, under the US Code of Military Justice, the UN Charter, and the International Criminal Court, is “murder.”

So I guess that reality—Trump’s extrajudicial killings, aka murder— was already top of mind when I learned that Epstein was getting ready to spill the beans on Trump, and Trump likely knew it, before Epstein died under suspicious circumstances.

Epstein was shopping dirt on Trump

The House Oversight Committee has released 23,000 pages of correspondence maintained by Epstein’s estate, which is only a portion of the complete file. Salacious details will likely keep peppering the headlines as thirsty staffers read each page, or, more accurately, scan those pages into AI with a command to “select key words and phrases.” But it’s already clear that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were thinking hard about the best way to turn on Trump, and how to capitalize on whatever dirt they had on him.

By now, most people have seen Epstein’s 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell about Trump not ‘barking.’ After he had been under criminal investigation for several years, an investigation that grew legs as more victims came forward and high profile “clients” were named, Epstein wrote to Maxwell, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim’s name] spent hours at my house with him.” Maxwell, obviously aware of Epstein’s meaning, replied, “I have been thinking about that…” Several years later, still shopping his dirt, Epstein asked a reporter, would you like to have “photos of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?”

Epstein also turned to journalist Michael Wolff for advice how to hurt Trump. A few months after Trump announced his first run for president, Wolff advised Epstein that he should just let Trump ‘hang himself.’ Wolff wrote, “If (Trump) says he hasn’t been on (the Lolita Express) or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win (the presidency) you could save him, generating a debt.”

Trump had to know Epstein was gunning for him

Trump knew his friend Epstein was a pedophile, but that’s old news. Trump said publicly in 2002 that Epstein “was fun,” and liked girls “on the younger side...” There’s no nuance here. Epstein was a pedophile. Trump knew it. They remained close nonetheless, until they didn’t.

Epstein was originally sentenced in 2008, but served only 18 months under a sweetheart deal arranged by Miami’s U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who later became Trump’s labor secretary. But Epstein was arrested again ten years later, after the Miami Herald published Perversion of Justice, about the leniency Acosta showed to Epstein.

That year, Epstein emailed one of his lawyers, Reid Weingarten, and asked him to dig into Trump’s finances, specifically Trump’s mortgage on Mar-a-Lago and a $30 million loan. Accusations of money laundering and other suspicious high dollar real estate transactions have followed Trump for years; Epstein said Trump’s finances were “all a sham” years before Trump was convicted of fraud.

Epstein eventually tried to get Vladimir Putin involved. After Trump became president, before he met Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Epstein tried to get a message thru to Russia: If you want to understand Trump, you need to talk to me.

Did Trump get wind of that and decide enough’s enough?

By the spring of 2019, Trump’s DOJ was building another criminal case against Epstein. Knowing what we know now about Trump’s perversion of the DOJ into his own personal pitbull, it’s likely the DOJ was asking questions and feeding Epstein’s accusations back to Trump.

That fall, Epstein was confined at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, which was under the direct control of Trump’s Federal Bureau of Prisons. On August 10, 2019, prison guards found Epstein dead in his cell. Federal investigators concluded he killed himself by hanging.

People who knew Epstein said it was impossible for him to have committed suicide, and the physical proofs seem to support that claim:

• A forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother, Dr. Michael Baden, noted multiple fractures in the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage of Epstein’s neck, and concluded they were more indicative of homicidal strangulation than suicide by hanging.
• Reports and photos from Epstein's jail cell indicate that both his mattress and his body had been moved before FBI investigators arrived, and basic forensic tests were not conducted.
• Crucial surveillance video footage taken outside Epstein's cell at the time he died either went missing, was recorded over, or came from feeds other than the camera pointed at Epstein’s cell door.

The fear factor over Epstein files

Now that Epstein is back in the headlines, Trump is again bullying Republican lawmakers into looking the other way. Trump warned on Wednesday that “only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that (Epstein hoax) trap.”

In February of this year, Eric Swalwell, (D-CA), said his Republican colleagues were “terrified” of crossing Trump, and it was not as simple as being afraid of being primaried. “It’s their personal safety” they fear for, with their spouses saying, ‘We will have to hire around-the-clock security’ (if you cross Trump). In April, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) confirmed Swalwell’s comments, and that US Senators, indeed, have genuine fear of Trump.

The evidence matches the hunch. Trump has killed 66 people so far, that we know of. Sixty six people on fishing boats have been murdered without legal process, murdered without evidence of their crimes. That Trump calls them “Narco-terrorists” and “unlawful combatants” offers cold comfort, given that Trump has also issued an Executive Order labelling all Americans who dislike him “domestic terrorists.”

Whatever new atrocities Trump has planned for Americans, he is obviously pre-selling his narrative, getting his Proud Boys riled up. Whatever his plans, they will be executed miles away from due process and the rule of law, just like Epstein’s life and death and 66 people buried at sea.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

The tariffs case pending before the Supreme Court is one of those rare cases where, even as a federal litigator, I hope the Republican majority does the wrong thing.

Against the odds, I’m rooting for a Trump win. Not because I think that’s the correct legal outcome (it isn’t, see below), but because Trump’s disastrous tariffs, if sustained, could deliver a sorely-needed political lesson to Americans flirting with autocracy.

MAGA voters need to experience real and sustained pain in the pocketbook to learn the perils of electing a charismatic imbecile. The other cohort responsible for this mess, 86 million voters who couldn’t be bothered last November, needs to find out what happens when a felon campaigning on revenge and terror isn’t real enough to move them to vote. They may not care about ICE brutality, but they will care about soup kitchen lines when they’re standing in them.

The economic pain is real, and worsening, even after Tuesday’s election blowout. But if there’s any upside to giving nuclear codes to a toddler, it’s that Americans, myself included, are learning an abiding lesson: We’ve been taking our precious democracy for granted.

Trump’s tariffs announced our folly to the world

Trump’s haphazard and sloppy imposition of tariffs confirmed to the world that the US is led by a man who knows nothing about economics, who lacks an understanding of contemporary manufacturing. He has no idea, for example, that car manufacturers rely on global supply chains, using components sourced across multiple countries. If nine components come from nine different countries, taxing the assembling parts each time they go back and forth is asinine.

Because he lacked the curiosity or discipline to learn which US manufacturers would be affected by which tariffs, or which components would become prohibitively expensive due to retaliatory tariffs, Trump first proposed a lazy, across the board tariff formula that foreign media described as “insane.” He said each US tariff would be half the rate of the other country’s tariffs, with a 10% floor. But this was based on eliminating trade deficits, an impossible goal due to differing population sizes, differing economies, trade barriers, and currency differences.

The Constitution vests power to regulate commerce and tax with Congress

Tariffs are not all bad, all the time. Used surgically, they can help strengthen key industries struggling against imports. Precise, agreed, or reciprocal tariffs can also solidify trade partnerships in service to national security.

But even when tariffs make sense economically, which Trump’s do not, how they are adopted matters. The Supreme Court confirmed long ago that all presidential power must stem from either the Constitution or an act of Congress. That means Trump cannot just grab power because he likes how it feels on his fingers.

Plaintiffs challenging Trump’s tariffs before the Supreme Court point out that “Tariffs are taxes. They take dollars from Americans’ pockets and deposit them into the U.S. Treasury.” The founders gave taxing power to Congress alone in Article I of the US Constitution which vests Congress — not the President — with the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,” and to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” Unless Congress clearly and specifically delegates that authority through valid legislation, it remains as written.

Why didn’t Trump involve Congress to begin with?

At the heart of the case, Trump’s attempt to usurp Congressional power over commerce offends the Constitution’s separation of powers, the lynchpin that holds the Constitution and the rule of law together. Because he lacks an appreciation for the US Constitution, Trump seems unable to comprehend the importance, or even the meaning, of the separation and balance of powers.

Having imposed the tariffs by fiat, Trump now claims the tariffs case is “one of the most important cases in the history of our country,” and “literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country,” claiming a Supreme Court reversal of his tariffs could “lead to another Great Depression.”

Economists say Trump’s economic incompetence could trigger a depression or at least a recession, regardless of tariffs. So it appears that Trump’s drama is an early attempt to scapegoat the high court for his own economic malfeasance, because he knows economic collapse is a real possibility.

Trump’s devout prayer for tariffs also invites the question: if he felt so strongly that only tariffs can restore the nation to greatness, why didn’t he pursue them the legal way, and get Congress to pass legislation? Republicans have a majority in both houses, why must he rule by tantrum?

Giving Trump authority to define “emergencies” is in fact a life and death matter

Following Wednesday’s oral arguments, the Supreme Court will consider whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) delegated tariff authority to the president and whether, under the major questions doctrine, the IEEPA did so with a clear Congressional mandate.

The most critical part of the case, as I see it, will be how an ‘emergency’ can be declared. The IEEPA requires an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US that constitutes a national emergency to trigger the president’s powers under the Act. Trump’s top henchman Stephen Miller claims that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency is never subject to judicial review, arguing that the president has absolute power in such matters and that “the judiciary is not supreme.”

It’s ludicrous that Trump would try to declare trade imbalances an “emergency,” given that trade imbalances have existed for decades. But far more consequential than tariffs is Trump’s dangerous assertion that he alone can decide when there’s an “emergency” triggering expanded presidential powers.

If the Supreme Court gives credence to this claim, granting Trump the authority to declare any “emergency” he wants, independent of facts on the ground, concern about tariffs, commerce, and the price of cars will seem trite.

If Trump can make up emergencies to expand his own power as he goes along, he will continue to murder people in fishing boats in South America based on suspicion alone, as his masked ICE agents at home start replacing pepper balls with bullets.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

In December, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was tragically gunned down in Manhattan after receiving numerous threats relating to his company’s denial of healthcare coverage. The shooter, Luigi Mangione, harbored hatred towards corporate America. In a rage over corporate profiteering that hurts the little guy, he shot Thompson in the back as he was going to a meeting.

While the violence was shocking, even more shocking was that a sizable number of Americans sympathized with the murderer rather than his victim. Public polls found that a majority could personally relate to Mangione’s rage over deny, delay, don’t pay rejections of private insurance claims.

What is clear is that Americans harbor pent-up resentment and despair toward private insurance. Ordinary Americans report ongoing battles with coverage denials, ballooning medical bills, and cumbersome appeals processes that drag on for months or years as insurers seek to maximize profits by minimizing what they pay.

Trump’s plan to privatize the federal government

Characteristically tone deaf to the wants and needs of ordinary Americans, Donald Trump is seeking to increase rather than decrease privatization of all government services, seeking to extract profits from heretofore not-for-profit entities.

Thanks to Citizens United, the disastrous 2010 Supreme Court case that gave wealthy corporations outsize influence over elections, Trump is indebted to hundreds of industry leaders from tech, auto, education, banking, arms, prison, healthcare, and fossil fuel sectors. Attuned to quid pro quo expectations, Trump is working out which government agencies to hand over to his billionaire donors, and which agencies should be shuttered altogether because they are unable to turn a profit.

Pursuant to the mandates of Project 2025, which Trump disavowed adamantly but disingenuously during his 2024 campaign, the Trump administration is actively seeking to defund many departments entirely. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called it a tool of “creepy billionaires” who seem to get unhealthy pleasure from depriving Americans of the government services their tax dollars have paid for.

In service to Project 2025’s oligarchic takeover of the remaining agencies, Trump is targeting these federal agencies for privatization:

• U.S. Postal Service (USPS)
• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
• National Weather Service
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage companies
• National Parks
• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Handing agencies to wealthy donors

Trump and his billionaire cabinet are either unaware or uninterested in the fact that most Americans oppose privatizing most government services. In a 2022 survey, 85 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans said the federal government should play a major role, for example, in responding to natural disasters.

It also doesn’t take much imagination to envision national parks Disneyfied for maximum profit, or how Trump’s plans to extract resources like coal and rare earth minerals will affect America’s public lands and the remaining animals that live there.

In a 2025 survey, the vast majority of Americans also opposed privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, with APWU’s president noting that plans to privatize the Post Office “are about enriching Wall Street and not serving Main Street,” as privatization will lead to higher prices for postal services across the board.

Research confirms system abuses, other ugly effects

While some claim a profit motive could make some government services more efficient, research shows the harmful effects of privatization across a broad spectrum:

• Healthcare: A recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine examined outcomes at hospitals over a 10-year period, concluding that private equity ownership of hospitals resulted in measurably higher— 13 percent--death rates among Medicare emergency patients caused by corporate owners’ pursuit of higher profitability. Data illustrate that when hospitals companies cut costs leading to staff cuts, lower wages, and more patient transfers, more patients die.

• Education: Research from the National Coalition for Public Education concludes that vouchers do not significantly increase test scores on average, and may even result in worse outcomes for students. Not only do many students’ test scores deteriorate when they attend private schools through voucher programs, research from the Economic Policy Institute confirms that vouchers also harm the quality of education delivered in public schools by diverting resources from them.

• Corrections: As reported in Labour Economics, Washington State University researchers have shown that privatized prisons lead to more inmates, more abuse, and longer sentences. For-profit correctional facilities hinder rehabilitation rates because they receive funding through service contracts, many of which are based on the total number of inmates and their average length of time served.

• Corruption: Privatized corrections also introduce a new avenue for corruption. One documented example was the “kids for cash” scandal in Pennsylvania, where judges were bribed by a private prison company to give harsher sentences to juvenile offenders instead of probation, to order to increase occupancy at for-profit detention centers.

The transfer of governance to private entities not only consolidates power in private hands, but also erodes fundamental legal safeguards, including environmental, civil rights and accountability. We have recently seen how Trump’s private ICE detention centers evade standards of civil rights imposed on government-run facilities, resulting in cruelty and violations that remain hidden from public view unless someone sues, and even then, public disclosures may be limited by protective orders.

In his poignant Substack essay The Age of Bought Loyalty, former Wall Street healthcare analyst Mark McInerny observes, “What we’re seeing isn’t generosity. It’s the transfer of sovereignty from public to private hands.” To paraphrase the rest, when billionaires run the government, they aren’t patching a hole in the system — they’re proving the system now belongs to their class.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump disavowed familiarity with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation plan for autocratic takeover of the US. That disavowal proved as truthful as Trump's promise not to disturb the East Wing of the White House.

Curtis Yarvin, whose philosophy punctuates the main tenets of Project 2025, supported Trump’s campaign because he thought Trump would overthrow democratic institutions and replace the presidency with a “Monarchist CEO,” who would run the country like a for-profit corporation.

Profiting from office like no other president in US history, Trump is well on his way. On Oct. 28, Forbes reported that only ten months into his second term, Trump has nearly tripled his net worth, from $2.5 billion in 2020 to $7.1 billion today, largely from crypto schemes and pay-to-play federal transactions.

Accumulating corruption

Last week, Trump announced a list of 37 wealthy donors funding his 90,000 square foot $300 million gilded ballroom. Donors include several billionaire individuals, along with data-analytics company Palantir, defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, YouTube, Apple, Comcast, Amazon, T-Mobile, Chevron, Google, Hard Rock International, and Meta, most of whom have already seen or expect to see a surge in federal contracts.

In The Corruption Chronicles, Issue One compiled a partial list of other ways Trump has monetized the presidency by transforming it into a vehicle for his own private gain. From selling access to his administration to using foreign visits to attract financial support for his own businesses, Trump has officially turned his presidency into a for-profit venture.

Examples of illegal, shady, or ethically suspect activities to date include:

• Every nation Trump visited on the first official foreign trip of his second term had ongoing private business deals with the Trump Organization
• Trump has made billions of dollars through crypto ventures since last November, including his (and Melania’s) launch of memecoins — cryptocurrency products widely understood as having no utility
• 92 percent of the top 25 investors in Trump’s cryptocurrency memecoin scheme appear to be foreign nationals
• The United Arab Emirates’ investment fund, MGX, recently made a $2 billion investment into the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, using a stablecoin called USD1, created by a firm with close financial ties to the Trump family
• Trump accepted a $400 million luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar which could cost American taxpayers up to $1 billion to retrofit into Air Force One
• After private prison company GEO Group gave $1.75 million to pro-Trump super PACs and Trump’s inaugural committee, Trump awarded them a 15-year government contract to reopen an immigrant detention facility
• Private investors spent $148 million to attend an exclusive dinner with Trump at his golf club in the northern Virginia suburbs of D.C. in May
• The Pentagon, according to the Financial Times, recently awarded a significant contract to Unusual Machines — a drone company in which Donald Trump Jr. owns millions of dollars of stock
• Trump is selling a new $5 million “Trump gold card” investment visa to give wealthy foreigners permanent US residency status and the ability to make political contributions
• Trump raised Mar-a-Lago membership fees to $1 million, up from $200,000 in 2017
• Donald Trump Jr. co-founded a Trump-aligned private club in Washington, D.C., charging a $500,000 membership fee to rub shoulders with administration officials, “with no danger of running into reporters”
• Trump is now demanding a quarter-billion dollar private payment, threatening to sue the federal government he “runs” if he doesn’t get it.

Billionaires can’t directly fund government agencies

After openly soliciting and accepting sums of money the corporate media is reluctant to call bribes, Trump most recently announced a $130 million “gift” to help pay military service members during the government shut down. Timothy Mellon, of the Carnegie-Mellon robber-baron dynasty, wrote the check. Mellon, who donated even more than Elon Musk to get Trump re-elected, is a recluse who opposes immigration and programs for the poor, while he supports deep tax cuts for the rich.

A long-standing federal law prohibits Mellon’s type of “gift” for several reasons. The primary issue is Article I of the Constitution, which directs Congress, not the executive, to control federal spending. Because of Art. I, a president’s ability to spend money or incur debt requires explicit congressional approval. The Antideficiency Act protects the balance of power at the same time it guards against foreign and domestic private influence over federal affairs.

Trump ignored this Constitutional constraint and seems to regard federal assets, including the armed forces, as his personal property. By letting a wealthy heir cut a check for the military, Trump circumvented the Constitutional framework under which both he and Congress are supposed to operate, and permanently sealed his contempt for Congress.

Project 2025 and the roots of Trump’s takeover

The New Yorker reported that Yarvin, the Project 2025 philosopher, proposed “that the U.S. government be replaced with a monarchy led by a ‘CEO-king’ that would have “absolute power, dismantle democratic institutions, and liquidate the existing government bureaucracy.”

But earlier this month, Yarvin lamented on his Substack that Trump hadn’t gone far enough, fast enough.

Perhaps Trump’s unprecedented 13 billionaires serving as his “cabinet” can read Yarvin’s lament and get to the part where he intuits that Democrats’ 2026 midterm blowout will bring a tsunami of legal reckoning. Yarvin is so fearful of what he calls “liberal vengeance” to come that he has publicly revealed plans to leave the country.

There’s also speculation that Trump and his enablers will do the same rather than face legal fire if Republicans can’t rig the 2026 midterms.

What really may be driving Trump’s private ventures abroad is his predator’s sense that his second coup attempt, like his first, will fail.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Trump has ordered more deadly bombings of small boats, killing everyone onboard, this time in the Eastern Pacific ocean. After another strike was carried out on Friday, killing six more people, Pete Hegseth announced the bombing of 4 additional ships on Tuesday, killing 14 more people and bringing the number of civilian fatalities to 57.

Not long after the bombings began off the coast of Venezuela, unidentified bodies with burn marks and missing limbs started washing ashore on the coast of nearby Trinidad. Without releasing photos or any credible evidence to back it up, Trump claimed that the victims’ vessels were “stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too.” Trump says they were “smuggling a deadly weapon poisoning Americans,” on behalf of various “terrorist organizations.”

Trump is calling the victims ‘terrorists’ so that he can treat them as enemy combatants in a war that does not exist, just as he is doing at home.

Domestically, we know Trump calls groups who oppose him politically “domestic terrorists.” We know he fabricated a domestic terrorist organization he calls ‘Antifa’ to sell his plan for violence. We also know his administration is lying about peaceful protestors threatening ICE agents in order to justify ICE brutality, and that ICE refuses to wear body cams.

Details in South America are sketchy in part because Hegseth tightly controls what the media can say about military operations. The only media outlets now covering the Defense Department are pro-Trump right wing propaganda machines, but Trump’s firehose of lies about domestic ‘terrorists’ cast doubt on his similar claims about ‘terrorists’ on the high seas.

Is Trump confusing South America with China and Mexico?

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has credibly accused Trump of murder. In response, instead of offering legal justification, Trump said he was cutting off foreign aid to Colombia.

Bragging about the killings, Trump falsely claimed that every exploded shipping vessel “saves 25,000 American lives.” In the factual world, about 100,000 Americans die each year from drug overdoses, mostly by fentanyl, which does not come from Venezuela, Colombia or any South American country.

The fentanyl killing Americans comes from labs in Mexico and China. Given his difficulty with geography, Trump may not know the difference. At any rate, South America produces marijuana and cocaine, not fentanyl. Most of the killing fentanyl is smuggled into the country by US citizens, over land.

Legal arguments don’t hold water

Legal experts on the use of armed force say Trump’s campaign is illegal because the military is not permitted to target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities.

Key legal instruments prohibiting extrajudicial killings and murder include the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Statute of the International Criminal Court, and customary international humanitarian law. The Trump administration has not publicly offered a legal theory that comports with any of these laws.

Designating drug cartels as “terrorist organizations” is also factually suspect. Drug cartels exist for profit; all purveyors of illicit drugs are in the business to make money. In contrast, “terrorists” by definition are motivated by ideological goals often involving politics or religion—not profit. Even if they were terrorists, international law would only allow the executive branch to respond through legal methods like freezing assets, trials and imprisonment.

Hegseth and others involved will eventually face court martial

Trump and Hegseth’s legal arguments have been universally rejected by military legal experts including former lawyers in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who have condemned the attacks as unlawful under both domestic and international law. Undeterred, Hegseth has stated enthusiastically that the military will continue these executions.

In February, Hegseth fired the JAGs whose job was to assess the legality of military actions. He may have deliberately done so to engage in illegal conduct and later claim a ‘mistake of law’ defense, but that maneuver won’t save him. In US Servicemembers’ Exposure to Criminal Liability for Lethal Strikes on Narcoterrorists, Just Security lays it out:

An extrajudicial killing, premeditated and without justification or excuse and without the legal authority tied to an armed conflict, is properly called “murder.” And murder is still a crime for those in uniform who executed the strike even if their targets are dangerous criminals, and even if servicemembers were commanded to do so by their superiors, including the President of the United States.

Under this analysis, “every officer in the chain of command who … directed downward the initial order from the President or Secretary of Defense” would likely fall within the meaning of traditional accomplice liability, and could be charged for murder under Article 118.

Even if a partisan Supreme Court gave Trump criminal immunity for murder (an unsettled question), that immunity does not extend to Hegseth, or to other service members piloting the drones or firing the missiles. These orders are obviously illegal, and trigger service members’ obligation to disobey them.

Those who choose to follow them should expect to follow Hegseth to court martial when this period of insanity ends.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Back in February, the thinking public scratched its collective head as Elon Musk and DOGE took a chainsaw to agencies that serve the public. Federal agencies created to protect public health, serve veterans, advance education, maintain infrastructure, keep the public informed, and protect the safety of air and water were largely dismantled. Even before the government shutdown, those agencies were either closed or not functioning, operating with skeleton crews.

This month, the reason for the mass destruction crystallized: Trump and Russell Vought, architect of authoritarian cookbook Project 2025, stripped federal service budgets in order to move those dollars to another ledger, the one that funds federal agencies that control, police and punish the public. Those budgets have exploded, none more than that of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Analysis of government procurement data first reported by Popular Information shows a 700 percent increase in weapons spending by ICE this year. From January to October 2024, ICE spent under $10 million on weapons. For the same period ending this month, that amount jumped to more than $71 million.

Even more alarming than the amount is what ICE spent it on. Public data from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) show that ICE procured chemical weapons, “guided missile warheads” and other explosive components. (Note: Wired reports some confusion over how the purchase was categorized and concludes that ICE “probably” didn’t purchase guided missile components, but the entry on the procurement system says they did.)

WTF does ICE want with such weapons?

Americans who watch something other than Fox News’ curated reality show have already seen videos of masked ICE agents engaging in wildly disproportionate violence against members of the media and public. Over the past few weeks, federal officers shot a woman five times in Chicago, killed a man during an arrest attempt in the suburbs, and shot a priest in the head with a pepper ball, knocking him to the ground, even as he was holding his arms up in prayer.

If shooting, body slamming, and menacing members of the public at close range wasn’t enough, now ICE will have access to even more chemical weapons. ICE has already lobbed chemical irritants like tear gas, pepper spray, HC smoke grenades, and pepper balls at peaceful protesters just to create the appearance of chaos for right-wing consumption; it is unclear what an unhinged and vengeful president might order them to do with nerve agent-adjacent chemicals.

Purchasing guided missile components for ICE would be equally astounding. A “guided missile” is any missile that uses a guidance system to steer toward a target. Such missiles can destroy a target with conventional, chemical, or biological warheads. “Guided” just means the missile can navigate and adjust its flight path to a chosen target along the way, using technologies like GPS and terrain mapping.

Since Kristi Noem keeps repeating false claims that ICE only engages in brutality when agents feel threatened, query what legitimate need those agents could possibly have to strike a person, car or building that’s miles away.

A toddler with the nuclear codes

Trump, who openly fantasizes about s------ on and destroying half the county, even as he literally destroys the White House like he owns it, probably thinks he could nuke California and get away with it. Never mind that California has the world’s fourth-largest economy, contributing $81 billion more to the federal government than it receives — long-term, mid-term and even immediate consequences are not accessible to Trump’s pre-frontal cortex.

ICE is also building a public surveillance system that would make Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping salivate. The “crowd control” surveillance system features iris scanners that photograph and record facial measurements. The system includes phone hacking and tracking, and facial recognition tools loading data into AI.

ICE has partnered with Palantir Technologies, a software company co-founded by JD Vance’s BFF and anti-democracy mentor, Peter Thiel. Palantir plans to use artificial intelligence and data mining to identify, track, and deport suspected noncitizens, collecting data on US citizens along the way. According to Business Insider, ICE is paying Palantir $30 million for the platform; Palantir was slated to deliver a prototype of the ImmigrationOS platform in September.

Keep in mind that Trump has increased spending on deadly weapons for ICE by over 700 percent, yet ICE continues to claim it can’t afford bodycams for its masked agents.

Judd Legum at Popular Information sums it up: “If the immigration enforcement apparatus of the United States were its own national military, it would be the 13th-most heavily funded in the world. This puts it higher than the national militaries of Poland, Italy, Australia, Canada, Turkey, and Spain — and just below Israel.”

Trump is building a police state to keep himself in power

Stephen Miller recently told assembled law enforcement officers in Memphis, Tennessee, that they should now consider themselves “unleashed.” Addressing a “crime task force” comprised of ICE, local police, the FBI, U.S. Marshals, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Miller encouraged them to go forward and “police aggressively,” concluding his talk with praise for their anticipated ruthlessness.

It’s the same unhinged directive for “unrestrained lethality” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered to military generals at Quantico last month.

It’s all of a piece: deploying the military against US citizens, pitting red states against blue, and arming masked ICE agents with sophisticated tools of war signal that Trump is building his own domestic paramilitary force to try to remain in power past 2028.

We have to admit this reality before we can prepare to meet it.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

This week, blind to constitutional law and US history, Trump Border Czar Tom Homan said that protesting ICE “could lead to bloodshed and people dying.”

By suggesting that masked ICE agents could kill protestors for simply shouting hateful things at them, Homan was building the permission structure for federal agents to use “full force” violence against non-violent protestors.

More than that, his statement was meant to groom the public. The Trump administration is trying to get US citizens used to the idea that federal agents could use lethal force — to the point of killing people — against anyone who exercises their constitutional right to peacefully protest government actions they don’t like.

On too many videos circulating on social media to count, masked ICE agents have been recorded getting more and more aggressive with members of the public, deliberately escalating non-violent exchanges into violent ones.

Federal agents have been caught on video body slamming people to the ground, kneeling on people’s necks, and pointing armed weapons at close range. More than 20 people have died at ICE’s hands, including US citizens, but this tally is artificially low because the Trump administration tightly controls media access to ICE detention facilities.

Team Trump has no idea what the First Amendment means

Homan, like Trump, seems oblivious to what the First Amendment says.

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…”

This protection was extended from Congress, or the federal government, to the states in 1868 through the passage of the 14th Amendment.

It was the very first amendment to the Constitution, and was the key to getting states to go along with the Constitution at all. Many states refused to sign or support the Constitution after it was drafted in 1787 because they were fearful of a strong federal government with no constraints to protect people from overreach. It was the sticking point that refused to yield, as the objecting states would not support the Constitution without a guarantee of individual liberties, including freedom of religion and, most importantly, the freedom to speak openly, to gather, and to criticize the government.

James Madison rose to the challenge and drafted the First Amendment, the language of which remains to this day, and has never been changed.

The world is envious of our freedom of speech

Freedom of speech beyond the reach or control of the government stands as a beacon of freedom throughout the world, a marker of man’s evolution from the Dark Ages when rulers often punished and tortured people for their beliefs.

That’s why Trump’s Executive Order declaring that the federal government would now punish dissenters, whom he labelled “domestic terrorists,” sends chills down the spine of anyone who has the slightest concept of world history.

People in MAGA who support Trump’s centralized thought control have no concept of what it’s like to live under authoritarian rule. In China, Xi Jinping has installed facial recognition software into China's public security apparatus, where it records everyone at cross lights, bus stops, transport hubs and in public spaces. Xi uses it for mass surveillance, to record, identify, track and persecute anyone who criticizes the government.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin is just as bad. Aside from famously having critics poisoned, or pushed out of helicopters and windows, Putin has imposed severe prison sentences of up to 15 years for spreading "deliberately false information" about the Russian military.

Last week, Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth tried something similar. Hegseth announced new rules threatening journalists’ access to the Pentagon if they did not agree to publish only information that he wants released, and was shocked when most of the press refused to go along with it.

The faction of MAGA clamoring to relax the division between church and state today have no idea what they are asking for either. Trump’s Christo Nationalists claim the U.S. was founded by and for Christians, and that its laws and government should therefore impose Christian values over all of society. They have no understanding of world or human history, or that freedom of religion grew out of the Inquisition, when torture was common.

James Madison would be proud of No Kings Day

Yesterday, huge crowds marched in major cities, as smaller gatherings sprung up across small town USA for “No Kings” protests against the Trump administration.

There were more than 2,500 events in all 50 states, predicted to be one of the largest demonstrations in US history.

Demonstrators spoke out against Trump’s policies, including perceived threats to democracy, ICE raids and Trump deploying military troops in US cities. The signs speak for themselves.

As I marched inside my bear inflatable, I’ve never been more proud to be an American.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Last month, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order formally designating “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization.

Vowing to unleash the full might of unrestrained federal firepower against its members, organizers and funders, the president declared: “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”

In follow up, last week Trump held an “antifa roundtable” at the White House to “brainstorm” for Fox News cameras about how Trump could use armed forces to bring “antifa” down. Trump invited right-wing media influencers to the meeting, including Andy Ngo, Jack Posobiec, Nick Sortor, and Brandi Kruse, to infuse them with manufactured outrage, knowing they would dutifully spread “antifa” panic among their millions of online followers.

The session’s rollcall readout reflects trademark sycophancy. After Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem thanked Trump for “focusing on Antifa and the terrorists that they are,” she told the influencers: “These individuals do not just want to threaten our law enforcement officers, threaten our journalists and the citizens of this country, they want to kill them.” FBI Director Kash Patel, not to be outdone, vowed “to bring down this network of organized criminal thugs, gangbangers and, yes, domestic terrorists because that's what they are.” Multiple members of Trump’s Dear Leader cabinet amplified these claims in turn, each upping the fear and drama from the speaker before.

A construct, not an organization

The problem with Trump’s EO and roundtable is that none of it was true. It’s time for someone to let Trump in on a little secret: most Americans know that Trump knows that we know there’s no such thing as “antifa,” and that what Trump is really trying to do is outlaw his political opposition.

Experts and security analysts from PBS, the Associated Press, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Anti-Defamation League have all confirmed that “antifa” is not an organization. It is, instead, a decentralized ideology based on anti-fascist principles.

There is no organization called “antifa.” There are no headquarters, membership rosters, dues, press releases, or rules. There is no leader, unless you count Aunt Tifa, who, in fairness to Trump, could be intimidating in her “Passion for knitting, cats, and taking down the patriarchy.” Aunt Tifa has 162 followers on Facebook, and admittedly, 162 pairs of knitting needles — or 162 cats for that matter — could intimidate ICE goons when they aren’t busy body slamming peaceful protesters.

“Antifa” is a concept, an idea, a decentralized belief that fascism is wrong.

Hitler was a fascist. Benito Mussolini was a fascist. The murderous sycophants surrounding them, enabling their blood lust, were fascists. In 1945, the world reeled from unspeakable horrors they orchestrated. Millions upon millions of people perished in WWII — 15 million soldiers were smeared across battlefields; 45 million civilians were killed, including 11 million Jews, gay people and other minorities who drew their last breath in Hitler’s death camps. Together, Hitler and Mussolini devised the most sinister means of slaughtering humans the world has ever seen.

In World War II, every soldier, sailor and pilot who fought on the side of the Allies — and every woman who stayed behind to work in the munitions factories — fought to defeat Hitler’s fascist machine. That means my grandfather, your grandfather, and everyone who fought against Axis powers in WWII was aligned with “antifa.”

Every man, woman and child who emerged from the carnage committed to a collective global defense to avoid Hitlers of the future was “antifa.” The North Atlantic Treaty that established NATO and gave teeth to a free world order against fascism and governed by the rule of law? “Antifa.” Prized for its armed deterrence, NATO delivered the somber recognition that although Hitler was gone, the power-lust, brutality and villainy that drives evil men like him would remain.

To Trump, ‘Antifa’ means opposition

For world leaders who pushed the NATO alliance, the question wasn’t if Hitler-caliber evil would reappear on the world stage, but when. Small wonder Trump is antagonistic toward NATO. Small wonder groups fighting fascism today scare Trump so much he needed a label to vilify them.

It should be clear by now that “antifa,” to Trump, means anyone who opposes him politically. Trump’s chief henchman Stephen Miller said as much on Fox when he said the Democratic Party is “an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gang-bangers, and illegal, alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”

Miller called “Democrats” a domestic terrorist organization back in August, before the White House hatched the “antifa” plan in September.

Trump and Noem, aided by Fox News, are spreading panic and fear about “antifa” preparing to “kill” as a political strategy. If the public truly believes “antifa” threatens them, they will support Trump’s unwarranted aggression in rounding people up. If they truly believe “antifa” wants to kill them, they will be supportive when ICE and the National Guard start killing protestors.

Noem hit it home at the roundtable, telling the influencers: “This network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA, as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them. They are just as dangerous. They have an agenda to destroy us just like the other terrorists.”

“Antifa” is Trump’s rallying cry. When he calls Democrat-run cities a “war zone” before he invades them with occupying forces, understand that he is planning to turn them into one.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.