On March 18, 1969, the U.S. military launched a secret program authorized by then-president Richard Nixon. Code named Operation Menu, the U.S. bombed targets in Cambodia until May 26, 1970.
The program was never authorized by Congress; information about the bombings were withheld from both Congress and the American public.
It was a gross abuse of executive power and the basis for drafting an Article of Impeachment against Nixon. The article did not receive adequate support in Congress because a number of members of Congress felt they had not done enough to restrain Nixon with regard to the Vietnam War, and public opinion had not yet shifted firmly against Nixon because of the Watergate scandal.
Three of six Articles of Impeachment did receive approval, however; the unauthorized bombing of Cambodia emphasized the abuses of power delineated in the approved articles.
Fortunately for Nixon, Republican members of Congress took him aside and told him they had the votes to impeach and remove him if he didn’t resign. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, avoiding hearings and heightened scrutiny of his abuses of his office.
Donald Trump authorized the bombing of Iran. His secretary of defense did not restrain him by requiring an Authorization for Use of Military Force. Neither of them made much effort to keep the mission secret as it launched Saturday as Trump posted about it to his personal Truth Social account.
Congress was not informed of the operation in order to debate an AUMF. Congress received testimony from Trump’s director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on March 25 in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in which she said,
… The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.
In the past year, we have seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus. Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons. …
There were exchanges with the media and public between the administration about Gabbard’s statement regarding the enriched uranium stockpile. If the status of that stockpile had changed with a firm move toward arming a weapon occurred, there has been no effort to communicate that with the Senate Intelligence or Armed Services Committees.
The American public was lied to by Trump who announced this past Thursday, “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”
Trump waffled publicly about U.S. military action against Iran, saying, ““You don’t know that I’m going to even do it,” Trump told one reporter. “I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do. … “ I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven’t made a final [call] … I like to make a final decision one second before it’s due, you know?”
Trump failed to request approval from Congress before making that final call some time between Thursday and Saturday.
It’s possible the call had already been made and Trump’s apparent indecision was a head fake. An analyst with Haaretz seemed to think this was a possible strategy. EDIT: The Atlantic published an article at 12:29 a.m. ET Sunday in which they reported Trump had already decided to bomb Iran on Wednesday, before his public statement about a two-week window of decision.
Head fake or no, Trump violated the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 which grants Congress the power to declare war. It is not a power granted to the executive who “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” under Article II, Section 3.
Trump has already repeatedly failed under the Take Care clause. This first strike against Iran conducted without Congressional approval should be a road too far.
The blowback from this may be enormous, beginning with global economic effects due to instability in the fossil fuels market and may include terrorist or overt military strikes against U.S. targets, perhaps by way of surrogate networks Gabbard also testified about on March 25.
Trump is without a doubt worse than Nixon. He should be impeached — again, yes — and this time removed from office.
What WSJ Said about Stephen Miller at 9PM on a Friday
WSJ published a curious profile of Stephen Miller at 9PM on Friday night.
Bylined by accomplished Trump-whisperer Josh Dawsey, first, and accomplished journalist Rebecca Balhaus, second, it runs over 1800-words — a considerable journalistic investment.
It tells us a number of things we already know. “Stephen Miller wanted to keep the planes in the air—and that is where they stayed,” the lede implies, but does not confirm, that Miller was the one who ordered DHS to defy Judge Boasberg’s order not to deport migrants to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act, a topic currently being contested in discovery in that lawsuit.
“He has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed,” it notes, without commenting on the typos and fabrications that permeate the orders. He’s the guy — again, we already knew this — who launched jihads against institutions that an extremist like him would view as liberal. “He has been responsible for the administration’s broadsides against universities, law firms and even museums.”
The article doesn’t include Miller’s native California in that particular sentence, though over 30 paragraphs later, it describes him claiming to know what is good for — what WSJ seemingly paraphrases as — California’s own “citizens,” always a loaded word when you’re discussing Stephen Miller.
Miller, who grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., said large swaths of Los Angeles were engaged in a “rebellion,” according to people present.
Los Angeles had become like Cancún, he said—it was fine to visit, but not good for its own citizens. To conclude the event, Leavitt told the crowd that Miller needed to return to his work of deportations.
WSJ’s description of his possibly unlawful role in invading his home state appears just five paragraphs after confirming he was the guy who targeted universities and law firms, linking to the WSJ story that remains the best report on Miller’s demands for more bodies, though neither of the journalists bylined on this story had a byline on the other one.
His orders to increase arrests regardless of migrants’ criminal histories set off days of protests in Los Angeles. Miller coordinated the federal government’s response, giving orders to agencies including the Pentagon, when Trump sent in the Marines and the National Guard, according to officials familiar with the matter.
And that paragraph fingering Miller for the invasion of California immediately follows a paragraph that describes that he “suggested” using the Alien Enemies Act but stops short of confirming that he’s the guy who made the declaration, even though Trump himself disclaimed doing so.
Miller, who isn’t a lawyer, is the official who first suggested using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, which the Justice Department pursued. He also privately, then publicly, floated suspending habeas corpus, or the right for prisoners to challenge their detention in court, which the administration hasn’t tried. That prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials.
WSJ includes the observation that Miller’s call to suspend habeas corpus “prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials” and that “the administration hasn’t tried” that legal move in a different paragraph than one that claims, “There are some limits to his influence.” The paragraph that purports to describe the limits to his influence includes just one thing he didn’t get (an effort to kill the Meta antitrust case) but also includes one thing he did, at least so far (a reversal of the decision to limit deportations).
There are some limits to his influence. He was supportive of Meta’s push to settle its antitrust case, which fell flat. Trump last week signaled concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive, calling for a pause in some deportations that he has since rolled back. Trump, asked how Miller’s directives on deportations squared with his own, declined to put distance between the two of them. “We have a great understanding,” Trump said.
There are few hints as to how Miller wields power. His office is steps from the Oval Office — again, we knew that — and “some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries,” that must include Homeland Security, which would be pertinent to mention given that one of the dishiest tidbits in the whole article is that in Trump’s first term, Trump refused to give Miller a leadership role at Homeland Security. “Trump declined, according to a former administration official, telling aides he thought Miller wasn’t leader material.”
The article describes Miller’s success pushing for a travel ban in the first Administration and notes he expanded the list to twelve this time around. But it doesn’t mention that a leaked cable disclosing that Trump is considering expanding that list to 36 countries, including most of Africa, a leak that has been broadly replicated in a way that indicates real pushback.
The article alludes to “Several White House staffers” who observe that Miller always adopts the most extreme legal posture and, in the same sentence, describes that that extreme posture has led even SCOTUS to rebuke the Administration. But the only person described — quoted even! — as drawing the obvious conclusion, that Miller fucked up, is a Trump opponent. “‘I think the administration has miscalculated and overstepped,’ said Skye Perryman, who leads Democracy Forward, an organization that has repeatedly sued Trump.”
That’s one of just a few direct quotes in the 1800-word piece (the others are from Trump, from Karoline Leavitt, and from Miller himself). Indeed, everything about this article couches where it comes from. It chooses not to list how many Republicans contributed to the story. In some cases, passive constructions like, “have been described by administration officials,” obscures whether WSJ learned what it reports directly from those administration officials, or heard them second-hand.
A different article might have noted that if Miller really is issuing some of these orders, such as to deploy Marines to invade Los Angeles, it means entire operations are wildly unconstitutional. He’s not the President. Only the President can invoke the Alien Enemies Act or usurp California’s National Guard, even if Miller typed up the error-riddled Executive Orders that effected the commands. Amid Trump’s squawks about a Joe Biden autopen scandal, even Trump has confessed he doesn’t understand what he has signed.
A different article might have described how Miller used Trump’s vulnerability in the wake of being shot at to make racism the central plank of the campaign and now the Administration (though it does describe how Miller overrode Tony Fabrizio’s advice to do so).
A different article might have called Miller something besides an “immigration hawk.”
This is not that article, however.
This is an article published by a Murdoch rag at 9PM on a Friday night — the sweet spot where you publish news someone wants to bury — recording some uncertain number of Republicans who, in the face of declining poll numbers on immigration (but even in an article that described “concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive,” saying nothing about the damage Miller’s jihad is doing to the economy, much less that entire states are on the verge of losing their harvests) have ever so delicately started to blame Miller: for the court losses, for the backlash, for the unsolicited calls likened to, “a grandmother who wouldn’t stop talking and said his calls were akin to listening to a podcast.”
The first real break in the cowered omertà about Stephen Miller’s role and plans was that Washington Examiner piece fleshing out Axios’ scoop about Miller’s demands for 3,000 bodies a day, which was followed by NBC, then the aforementioned superb WSJ story. Right wingers want to talk about Stephen Miller’s responsibility for the chaos (and economic destruction) in California and elsewhere. And while there have been far more useful profiles explaining how he accrued power and where his pathologies come from, this profile of hushed complaints seems like something else. A test to see whether opposition to Miller can succeed.
It may even be something more. NYT reports that, even as it scored several court victories, Harvard sought a meeting to negotiate detente with the Trump White House, one about which both Linda McMahon and Trump have been more optimistic than Harvard. NYT doesn’t mention that Trump needs a deal with higher ed, in part, because Trump needs a deal with China, and protection for Chinese students would be part of any deal.
Meanwhile, we’re 11 days short of DOJ’s deadline to appeal the first order reversing Miller’s attack on law firms, and there’s no sign yet they will appeal. That effort only succeeded in driving key lawyers away from firms that buckled to Trump.
And yesterday, again, Trump hinted that he’s struggling to find some way out of the damage Miller’s immigration jihad has done.
Miller’s jihads have, increasingly, created problems to solve. Which may explain why wary sources are happy to unpack old stories about how Trump once recognized Miller is not leader material.
I’m not complaining that WSJ dedicated 1800-words to describing the centrality of Stephen Miller to the biggest abuses of the Trump second term (and many of the first). It is of acute import to understand how the man’s pathologies endanger the country and the world.
I’m simply observing that this profile, published at 9PM on a Friday night, says as much in how it is told as in anything that it tells.
We’re still in the end-of-term desk clearing zone at the Supreme Court. SCOTUS released a whopping six decisions today.
Decisions released:
FDA v. R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.
Justice Barrett lead the 7-2 decision.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1187_olp1.pdf
Esteras v. United States
Justice Barrett also lead this 7-2 decision with Justice Alito and Gorsuch dissenting.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-7483_6k4c.pdf
GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, KAGAN, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which ALITO, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which BARRETT, J., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. JACKSON, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined as to Parts III and IV, except for n. 12.
See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-997_6579.pdf — you might want to read this one closely as it pertains to disability rights and nearly all of us at some point in our lives has been employed and been/will be disabled.
Of these six decisions I note that Justice Kagan wrote one dissent joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson in the matter of McLaughlin Chiropractic. She’s otherwise joined the conservatives. Hmm.
In my opinion, the big decision we are waiting for with the end of the term is Trump v. CASA Inc. regarding nationwide injunctions blocking executive orders, in this particular case related to birthright citizenship.
That this decision has not already been released disturbs me; it feels like Roberts is holding it off until SCOTUS can make a clean getaway at the very end of the term next week. But is Roberts preparing to flee the wrath of Trump and his Wormtongue Miller, or the wrath of the people?
National Park Visitors Are Not Impressed With Trump’s Revisionism
Donald Trump’s EO entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” was issued on March 27th, taking aim at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service for daring to try to tell the whole story of American History, and not just the parts that validate the White America version that Trump believes.
Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light. Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.
Fast forward a couple of months, and we can see how the Department of the Interior is looking to implement Trump’s EO. From NPR, June 9, 2025:
The Department of the Interior is requiring the National Park Service (NPS) to post signage at all sites across the country by June 13, asking visitors to offer feedback on any information that they feel portrays American history and landscapes in a negative light.
The June 9 memo sent to regional directors by National Park Service comptroller Jessica Bowron and leaked to NPR states the instructions come in response to President Trump’s March “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s follow-up order last month requesting its implementation. Trump’s original order included a clause ordering Burgum to remove content from sites that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living and instead focuses on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
I can just see Burgum rubbing his hands together with glee. “MAGA’s gonna love this. It’s DIY DOGE-ing the liberals while they visit the parks!” Similarly, I can hear Stephen Miller’s reply of “Excellent” in his best Mr. Burns voice.
Well fellas, you asked, and National Park visitors answered. Spoiler alert: Burgum and Miller will not be happy. From Government Executive yesterday:
In the responses submitted by visitors to National Park Service sites, however, which were obtained by Government Executive, no single submission pointed to any such examples [of inappropriate signage and language]. Instead, in the nearly 200 submissions NPS received in the first days since the solicitations were posted, visitors implored the administration not to erase U.S. history and praised agency staff for improving their experiences.
[snip]
So far, NPS is not getting the help it was hoping for from those scanning the QR codes now posted around park sites soliciting assistance in identifying language in violation of Trump and Burgum’s orders. Instead, visitors accused the Trump administration of seeking to erase the nation’s history.
What? Unpossible! What did those pesky park visitors say? GovExec goes on:
“There shouldn’t be signs about history that whitewash and erase the centuries of discrimination against the people who have cared for this land for generations,” a visitor to Indian Dunes National Park said.
A visitor to Independence Hall in Philadelphia called the new signs “censorship dressed up as customer service.”
“What upset me the most about the museum—more than anything in the actual exhibits—were the signs telling people to report anything they thought was negative about Americans,” the visitor said. “That isn’t just frustrating, it’s outrageous. It felt like an open invitation to police and attack historians for simply doing their jobs: telling the truth.”
Several visitors to the Stonewall National Monument in New York lamented changes there the park’s website that removed mention of transgender individuals in the Stonewall Uprising.
“Put them back,” the visitor said. “Honor them. There would be no Stonewall without trans people.”
More truth-telling at the link.
Some protesters wave signs as they march in the streets. Others scan QR codes and write comments.
These aren’t comments on lefty websites. These are official public comments to government requests for input from the public – input some poor soul has to read and summarize for Burgum and Miller. Can you picture the cold sweat breaking out on that civil servant’s brow, realizing he or she might be facing their own firing as the bearer of bad news? Sure you can.
Meanwhile, lots of folks are planning their next visit to a national park. By all means, go check them out, and don’t forget to click that QR code. Especially if you visit the Stonewall National Monument.
Last weekend, it was millions of loud voices shouting “No Kings!” This weekend, let it be millions of quiet thumbs and fingers tapping their phones.
Let the Good Trouble Making go on!
Gavin Newsom’s Troll Wars as a Check against “Usurpation or Wanton Tyranny”
The Ninth Circuit — a panel of two Trump judges, Mark Bennett and Eric Miller, and one Biden one, Jennifer Sung — has unanimously overturned Judge Charles Breyer’s order enjoining Trump from using the National Guard to protect Federal personnel and property from anti-ICE protests. The decision affirms the court’s jurisdiction to review Trump’s decision (and holds out the possibility that things may change — for example, in how Trump is using the military or the urgency with which California needs its firefighting Guardsmen — that could change the outcome). But for now, Trump continues his invasion of California with the blessing of the Circuit Court.
The judges had all, including Sung, telegraphed at the hearing earlier this week that they would do so . Moreover, the decision itself is unsurprising; a number of legal commentators warned that Governor Newsom was likely to lose this case.
That’s partly because of an 1827 case, Martin v. Mott, that said even if the President abused such decision, the remedy was political. Here’s how the Ninth invoked it for to hold that it must give Trump deference on this decision.
[W]e are not writing on a blank slate. The history of Congress’s statutory delegations of its calling forth power, and a line of cases beginning with Martin v. Mott, 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 19 (1827), interpreting those delegations,strongly suggest that our review of the President’s determinations in this context is especially deferential.
[snip]
The Court further explained that although the power delegated to the President under the Milita Act is “susceptible of abuse,” the “remedy for this” is political: “in addition to the high qualities which the Executive must be presumed to possess, of public virtue, and honest devotion to the public interests,” it is “the frequency of elections, and the watchfulness of the representatives of the nation” that “carry with them all the checks which can be useful to guard against usurpation or wanton tyranny.”
Jack Goldsmith has been pointing to the import of that passage all week.
This won’t be the end of things. In its assessment of the harm, the court noted that violations of the Posse Comitatus Act were not before it (the state is now arguing it in their motion for a preliminary injunction), nor was an emergency (like a wildfire) for which California could claim it had immediate need of the Guardsmen. Having affirmed its authority to rule, Newsom might fare better at such a time. And in any case the state has added a slew of new facts below in its motion for a preliminary injunction.
But in the meantime, we would do well to take that lesson from Martin to heart: Politics remains a remedy. Not just a remedy, a necessary part of winning on this issue and on defeating fascism more generally.
And, increasingly, it’s a winning issue. Polls show — even a Fox News poll that has Trump screaming — that Trump is losing the battle to make this dragnet popular.
Certainly Newsom has been focused on that.
There’s been so much else going on, I’ve seen no focused commentary on the media campaign Newsom has been pursuing, even as he attempted to block the invasion in courts. Newsom has been conducting the kind of media campaign that the most realistic assessments of last year’s election loss say Democrats need to learn to do (admittedly, Newsom already took steps in this direction when he started a podcast).
Newsom’s prime time speech last week — widely applauded by those whining about so much else — has drawn a lot of attention.
Newsom repeated much of that same content in a column published at Fox, taking his argument to Trump’s base.
Over the past two weeks, federal agents conducted large-scale workplace raids around Southern California. They jumped out of unmarked vans, indiscriminately grabbing people off the street, chasing people in agricultural fields. A woman, 9 months pregnant, was arrested in LA; she had to be hospitalized after being released. A family with three children, including a three-year-old, was held for two days in an office basement without sufficient food or water.
Several people taken in the raids were deported the same day they were arrested, raising serious due process concerns. U.S. citizens have been harassed and detained. And we know that ICE is increasingly detaining thousands of people with no other criminal charges or convictions: Those arrested with no other criminal charges or convictions rose from about 860 in January to 7,800 this month – a more than 800% increase. Meanwhile, those arrested and detained with criminal charges or convictions rose at the much lower rate of 91%. Trump is lying about focusing on “the worst of the worst.”
While California is no stranger to immigration enforcement, what we’re seeing is a dangerous ploy for headlines by an administration that believes in cruelty and intimidation. Instead of focusing on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records and border security – a strategy both parties have long supported – the Trump administration is pushing mass deportations, targeting hardworking immigrant families, regardless of their roots or risk, in order to meet quotas.
He started a Substack the other day, describing it as an effort to “flood the zone and continue to cut through the right wing disinformation machine.”
He has done interviews with (best as I can tall, all male) influencers in his emergency response room over and over.
But the response by which I’ve been most fascinated is his trolling on Xitter — the import of which I discussed with LOLGOP earlier this week.
Between his personal account and a press account, Newsom has been supplementing more serious messaging with both important political points and trolling.
The former focuses on the stature of California’s economy, the role migrants play in it, and the likely risk of Trump stealing California’s full-time Guard firefighters. In the likely event something will go catastrophically wrong — whether via economic collapse or natural disaster — thanks to Trump’s jihad against migrants, Newsom has made the case that Trump is responsible, in advance.
Some of that includes building pressure against Republicans applauding Trump’s invasion.
The trolling mocks Trump’s aides, including Kristi Noem, Pete Hegeseth, Steven Cheung, and Karoline Leavitt, as when he contrasted how the Guard were left without a place to stay when while Whiskey Pete boasted about going to a ballgame.
But Newsom has focused his closest attention Stephen Miller.
Newsom has been mocking Stephen Miller’s total control over the Administration.
That builds on a number of personal spats with Miller directly, as when Newsom raised Trump’s pardon of Jan6ers to debunk claims anyone but him supports insurrectionists.
And when he called out how Miller is undermining efforts to disrupt fentanyl trafficking.
The personal focus on Miller extends to Newsom’s Press Office account, which has been calling out Miller’s bullshit.
Correcting Miller on the legal posture of sanctuary cities.
Pushing back on Miller’s complaints about Sanctuary cities.
As I discussed with LOLGOP, this trolling is structured in a productive way. Not only does it play on Trump’s own weakness (in recent days, rebranding Trump’s MAGA with that weakness), but it sets Miller up as the easy fall guy when shit starts hitting the fan. It does a lot of fact-checking, but frames this battle as much about ego and dick-wagging — the currency of the far right — as rational persuasion.
Stephen Miller’s gulag is not even backed by everyone in the Trump Administration. And that’s before the full effects of it — in higher housing costs, empty produce sections, and restaurant closures — are being felt. And Newsom has been making this about him, an easy target in the same way Musk is.
There are two ways to get the Guard restored to California: A legal win. Or making it a big enough political liability that Trump relents. Newsom is actually pursuing both.
There are problems with Newsom’s efforts. As mentioned, his outreach has been a veritable sausage fest, with a focus almost exclusively on outreach to male influencers. Sure. Trump won with the young male vote and young men are the ones pushing the disinformation. But there has to be a role for outreach to women.
I really wish Newsom had picked some other platform than Substack, which platforms Nazis.
And obviously, Newsom needs to replicate some of this on Bluesky, which Newsom has ignored since he got a personal account; his official account is staid. Newsom just got a Bluesky Press account, which replicates some of the trolling from Xitter, but thus far the trolling of Miller — which would be most important to go viral — has not shown up there.
But everyone needs to approach these battles using all three tools we have: legal, legislative, and political.
You don’t have to like Newsom to recognize that this trolling attempts the kind of messaging Democrats need to do more of. Indeed, his dickish personality and the long-standing bad blood with Trump may make this more effective.
The Golden Teapot Dome: Mark Kelly Warns “This Is a Very Hard Physics Problem”
Elon Musk’s SpaceX had an even more spectacular failure than his last spectacular failure last night.
Whoa!! Not only did his latest Starship blow up, but fuel tanks nearby caught fire as well.
I was already going to point to this exchange from yesterday, in which astronaut and Senator Mark Kelly quizzed Whiskey Pete Hegeseth about plans for a Golden Dome. But Elon’s continued spectacular failures raise the stakes of it, because SpaceX and Elon’s other fascist buddies are poised to win a lot of the contract to build a Golden Dome.
Elon can’t do what he’s already being paid to do. But Republicans are poised to provide billions more, probably to him, to take on a far more complex problem.
And Mark Kelly, a guy who (even Whiskey Pete recognizes) would know, seems to suspect that Hegseth just fired the people who would tell him that this boondoggle is physically impossible to pull off.
The exchange starts with Senator Kelly trying to understand the goals of Golden Dome. He then tries to get Whiskey Pete to understand the difficulty of the physics behind it.
Kelly: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I want to talk about the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system. There’s a request to spend $25 billion in this year alone. First of all, is this system designed to intercept a full salvo attack?
Hegseth: Senator, it’s a multi-layer system, that would include different types of salvos–
Kelly: So it’s not just rogue nation. Okay.
Hegseth: Yeah, it’s not meant to be just one nation. It could be utilized —
Kelly: Against Russia, China. Full salvo. So what kind of reliability are you aiming to build into this system? Are we looking for something like four-9s on intercept success?
[Hegseth pauses.]
Kelly explains: 99.99% reliability.
[Hegseth makes hand gesture, seemingly assuring Kelly he’s not that dumb.]
Hegseth: Obviously you seek the highest possible. You begin with what you have in integrating those C-2 networks and sensors. Building up capabilities that are existing with a eye toward future capabilities that can come online as quickly as possible. Not just ground-based but space-based.
Kelly: So against future capability too. So do you believe that we can build a system that can intercept all incoming threats? Do you think we could build that system? This is a very hard physics problem.
Hegseth: You are [points emphatically] You would know as well as anybody, Sir, how difficult this problem is and that’s why we put our best people on it. We think the American people deserve it.
Kelly: So let me tell you what I think we’re facing here.
[Hegseth continues to babble.]
Kelly: You’re talking about hundreds of ICBMs running simultaneously, varying trajectories, MIRVs, so multiple re-entry vehicles. Thousands of decoys. Hypersonic glide vehicles, all at once. And considering what the future threat might be, might even be more complicated than that. And you’re proposing spending not just $25 billion, but upwards of — I think CBO estimated this at at least half a trillion. Other estimates, a trillion dollars. I am all for having a system that would work. I am not sure that the physics can get there on this. It’s incredibly complicated.
This video explains some of the difficulties. [Link fixed.]
Then Senator Kelly shifts to concerns about whether the impossibility of the Golden Dome project was behind Whiskey Pete’s recent decision to eliminate most of the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, the office that validates weapons and platforms for DOD.
Kelly: So I want to get to another issue that is — that you’re facing here. How much of the staff of the Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation did you cut?
Hegesth: After collaboration, Sir, with the Service — Department of Joint Staff and others, we identified that as a place where there were redundancies and multiple additional layers —
Kelly: I’ll tell you what you cut. You cut 74%
Hegseth: Most of it.
Kelly: Most of it.
Kelly: And was your decision to cut more than half of the Pentagon’s testing and evaluation oval office staff driven in part by concerns about the Office’s plan to oversee testing of Golden Dome?
Hegseth: Uh, the concerns were not specific to Golden Dome, Sir. It was years and years of delays, unnecessarily, based on redundancies in the decision-making process that the Services, COCOMs, and the Joint Staff, together with OSD, identified a logjam that was not–
So Kelly sums up the problem. Trump is demanding $25 billion to pay off the guy who got him elected, and as he’s doing that, Hegseth fired the people who can test whether the whole boondoggle would work.
Kelly: Mr. Secretary, to get the reliability we would need, you need something that’s at four-9s, 99. 99% reliability, with all these challenges. And you cut the staff of the people who are going to make sure this thing works before we make it operational, before we give it to the war fighters. You got to go back and take look at this but I also strongly encourage you to put together some — before we spend $25 billion or $175 billion or $563 billion or a trillion dollars, put together a group of people to figure out if the physics will work. You could go down a road here and spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars with the taxpayer money, get to the end and we have a system that is not functional. That very well could happen. And you’re doing this just because the President — I understand your role is the Secretary of Defense. You got to execute what the president says. But this idea, you know, might not be fully baked. And you could get in front of it now and figure out and, and find out if you put the right physicist on this and I’m not saying go to the big defense contractors. Going to scientists and I know there’s a questionable relationship with this administration and scientists but go to some scientist. Figure out what we would have to do to build a system. And then make smart decisions before we spend hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Hegseth: Senator, we are doing that. Leveraging existing technologies and not premising the project on aspirational technologies, what we can actually do.
Kelly: Well, $25 billion in the first year is a lot of money. That’s more than just finding out if we have the ability if we can build a system that can handle a full salvo threat, hypersonic glide vehicles, MIRVs, thousands of decoys. Thank you.
There’s some important background here.
A constant theme between the four appropriations hearings Whiskey Pete survived in the last week is the way Trump has bifurcated DOD’s budget next year.
Much of it is in the budget itself — the budget that Whiskey Pete has not yet filled out and is weeks behind deadline on.
But this part of it — the Golden Dome that spends $25 billion with Elon’s company on a physics problem that Senator Kelly says is very difficult to solve — is in reconciliation, the bill that needs only Republicans to pass.
The same bill in which Republicans will raise the debt ceiling by five trillion dollars.
Donald Trump is trying to push a $25 billion slush fund to his fascist tech bro backers on a promise that Mark Kelly thinks won’t work.
And yesterday, Elon just reminded us of how those billions could go — are likely to go — up in flames.
Update: Corrected MIRVs.
Open Thread: SCOTUS Decisions
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
It’s desk clearing time at the Supreme Court with the end of its annual term looming ahead. SCOTUS will dump a bunch of decisions in a short time frame beginning today.
Decisions released today:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas
Justice Brett Kavanaugh has 6-3 decision. See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1300_b97c.pdf
With this decision SCOTUS overturned the Fifth Circuit which had vacated a license granted to a private waste handler that wanted to build a nuclear waste facility in Texas, permitted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This decision is contrary to Texas state law but hinged on challenge by a nonparty.
United States v. Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter for Tennessee, et al.
Chief Justice John Roberts has the decision. See: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-477_2cp3.pdf
This is revolting, allowing Tennessee to continue to undermine bodily autonomy of a small group of persons because they weren’t born into a false binary. The decision upholds the state of Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors because of wretched twistiness regarding “sex” versus “gender” identity.
Updates will follow as summaries are completed and additional information becomes available.
Remember when Brad Lander Caught Kristi Noem Stealing $80 Million?
It’s perhaps a timely moment to recall that Brad Lander has tangled with Kristi Noem before.
Back when DOGE and DHS clawed back $80 million awarded to New York City to house migrants, Lander was the guy who called them out — and insisted on suing.
New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander said the abrupt decision was an illegal diversion by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency of money used to house asylum-seekers admitted to the U.S. under President Joe Biden.
“President Trump and his crony Elon Musk illegally executed a revocation of $80 million in congressionally-appropriated FEMA funding from New York City’s bank accounts,” Lander said in a statement. “This highway robbery of our funds directly out of our bank account is a betrayal of everyone who calls New York City home.”
Lander’s statement came after the Trump administration claimed the city had received disaster relief funds to house migrants in luxury hotels. Musk posted that his DOGE “discovered” the funding on Monday, calling it “a gross insubordination to the President’s executive order.”
The funds were administered by FEMA, a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security. A 2024 report from Lander’s office found that the city paid an average rate of $156 a night for hotel rooms booked through an agreement with the Hotel Association of New York City.
The seizure of funds could result in cuts to city services.
“We can’t recover money we already spent on shelter and services for asylum seekers, so it would require cutting $80 million of some other city expenses,” Lander said.
This happened the very week that Eric Adams was cozying up to Tom Homan — which Dale Ho judged was evidence of a quid pro quo.
Lander took a shot at Mayor Eric Adams for not standing up to Trump, saying that “If instead Mayor Adams continues to be President Trump’s pawn, my Office will request to work in partnership with the New York City Law Department to pursue aggressive legal action.”
Adams said Wednesday that he is in talks with the White House about recovering the money, and that he’s requested an emergency meeting with FEMA to resolve the matter. “The Corporation Counsel is already exploring various litigation options,” he added, in a statement on X.
Adams is scheduled to meet Thursday with Trump border czar Tom Homan, who demanded cooperation from the Democrat during a radio interview Tuesday, saying, “Either he comes to the table or we go around him.”
Adams didn’t insist on getting the money back. On the contrary, Trump’s Administration has continued to steal from New York City.
In fact, the day before Kristi Noem’s goons detained Brad Lander on his third visit accompanying migrants, New York’s lawyers amended their complaint about the theft — to update the Acting FEMA Administrator, to capitalize the words, “Money Grab” (to distinguish it from several other newly alleged harms), to describe the further arbitrary attempts to justify stealing the funds, first by terminating the program six weeks after DOGE took the money, then by launching an onerous investigation.
20. Then, with the purported compliance review apparently uncompleted, FEMA announced on April 1, 2025, that it was terminating SSP entirely. FEMA stated that it was terminating the City’s SSP award for the entirely different reason that the grants “no longer effectuate [] the program goals or agency priorities” (quoting 2 C.F.R. § 200.340(a)(2) (2020)). But the regulation FEMA cited does not permit a federal agency to cancel a grant program funded by Congressional appropriation simply because it has changed its mind and now opposes the program.
21. Not only that. While FEMA’s termination letter provides for a closeout process at the end of which FEMA will determine whether any additional SSP grant funds are owed the City, all SSP funds that were awarded the City and that would have remained available to make any such payment were apparently zeroed out on USASpending.gov more than six weeks earlier.
22. Collectively, these events make plain that Defendants determined to overturn the Congressional appropriation, deny the City SSP funds, and re-take any funds they could find a way to lay their hands on.
125, Despite Defendants’ representations — to the District Court in Rhode Island on February 11 and, as set forth more fully below, a week later in the Remedy for Noncompliance Letter — that the SSP funds were merely being “paused” or “temporarily” withheld pending a further review, Defendants had elsewhere already recorded the funds as no longer available at all.
The amended suit also describes that — as Trump did with Harvard — FEMA has also launched an onerous investigation into the city, and asks questions similar to the ones demanded of Harvard.
221. Joseph N. Mazzara, Acting General Counsel for defendant DHS, sent City OMB a letter dated June 4, 2025 announcing a “Notice of Investigation and Demand for Records: Shelter and Services Program Grant Awards” (“Notice of Investigation”). Under the guise of investigating the City’s expenditure of SSP funds, the Notice of Investigation sets forth a series of document demands and “interrogatories” that reach far beyond the scope of anything related to the City’s expenditures of federal SSP funds
[snip]
222. The scope of the demand far exceeds anything related to the administration of SSP. For example, the demand seeks, without apparent limitation or connection to immigrants served under SSP:
“All documents related to Your compliance with 8 U.S.C. g 1324.”
“All documents related to any instructions, guidance, suggestions, or recommendations for aliens to consider” in completing immigration or other government forms or interacting with any federal or state government officials.”
“All documents related to Your cooperation with law enforcement (including immigration officials) concerning aliens whom You have encountered’”
“All documents related to instructions, guidance, or recommendations, made available to aliens, regarding how to interact with law enforcement.”
A list of al “categories of information You have collected about any aliens.”
223. Despite the exceedingly broad scope of the demands, the Notice of Investigation provides just 30 days within which OMB “must produce” the records and information sought.
Admittedly, the lawyers are the ones now driving this fight, not Lander.
But the fight is about money Lander caught Kristi Noem stealing.
Lander’s detention thus bears a third similarity with that of Ras Baraka: both men had sued DHS, both arrests constituted — per Emil Bove’s representations to Dale Ho — election interference, and in both cases, Noem’s goons premeditated the arrest.
This is beginning to look like a pattern.
Why Kristi Noem’s Kidnapping of Brad Lander Failed … Thus Far
In my opinion, three things thwarted Kristi Noem’s attempt to interfere in Brad Lander’s campaign to be NYC’s Mayor by detaining him yesterday:
Independent media
Solidarity
The law
Independent media
I’m increasingly perplexed that when people make lists of prominent Democrats that Noem’s goons have targeted, they leave off David Huerta, the CA SEIU President arrested on a public sidewalk in front of a garment factory where ICE was conducting a search.
I increasingly think the omission may stem from the dearth of video coverage of his arrest — which basically consisted of two ICE guys picking him up and then pushing him down, leading to him knocking his head on the curb (for which he got hospital treatment).
Brad Lander’s detention, by contrast, was quickly covered by independent media present or close by.
I first learned about the detention when The City’s Gwynne Hogan reported it (and posted a shorter version of the above video) in real time. Here’s their story on the detention.
Hell Gate provided updates, including about the protest outside and Lander’s past visits to the courthouse to accompany migrants to court hearings.
AMNY’s Dean Moses posted this picture, which contrasted the fully masked man conducting the arrest with the violence the ICE goons were using in their detention of Lander.
Mainstream media (with exceptions like Wired) may not save us. But the diligence of independent outlets could.
NYT has the ability to sustain all that independent journalism. But if you can — especially if you live in New York — you might consider supporting them (recall that The City did a lot of the reporting on Eric Adams’ corruption before bigger outlets picked up the story).
That reporting allowed a group (including Zohran Mamdani and four other Mayoral candidates) to peacefully assemble in front of the courthouse. Eventually, even Kathy Hochul came to the courthouse and accompanied Lander as he was released, calling his arrest “bullshit.”
Hochul announced she’ll provide some state funding for the migrants who’re being targeted as they attend court hearings, the problem that Lander was trying to address.
Lander, after he was released, emphasized that he gets to go home but the man he attempted to accompany today, a man named Edgardo, was in ICE detention.
One important point of all this is the underlying solidarity. This was not Lander’s first visit accompanying people; among the folks respond to his detention were one who had been inspired by his actions to engage as well, and another who had provided an Arabic translator some weeks ago. Contrary to what silly pundits have started to argue, the point is not to get arrested. The point is to create friction for Stephen Miller’s dragnet. The point is to bring visibility and opposition to inhumane treatment.
It’s not only the courtroom treatment of defendants that’s egregious. So are the living conditions at 26 Federal Plaza. In an interview with the Prospect, Daniel Coates, director of public affairs at Make the Road New York, said that ICE is using the building to hold people for multiple days before transferring them elsewhere, packing them in so tightly that some have no room to sleep except for on the bathroom floor. The rooms are hot because the air-conditioning is inadequate, detainees have “no opportunities to get a change of clothes or clean themselves,” have no access to medical treatment, and cannot maintain their dietary restrictions, said Coates, who spoke at the press conference held after Lander’s detention.
“The space is exploding,” Coates said, “and it’s sort of a black hole there because ICE is refusing entry to members of Congress,” who are supposed to be allowed to oversee such buildings. It’s an open question of “what actually 26 Federal Plaza is being used for,” he said.
The point is not the arrest. The point is to expand solidarity.
The law
I think there were a number of reasons SDNY couldn’t charge Lander, at least not yet:
According to one of the journalists there, one of the ICE goons said to another before Lander did anything “do you want to arrest the Comptroller?” Like the Ras Baraka arrest, it was premeditated and had little to do with his own actions.
Because media was there, because Moses took that really damning photo, it ensured that there was plenty of footage that would make it viable to rebut a prosecutor’s hypothetical claim that Lander was resisting or (even more outlandish) assaulting them. It’s true that cops can convict on 18 USC 111 charges where someone wrestles with the cop, but here Lander would have a viable argument that this was all about assaulting him.
At one point, Lander asked for one of the ICE officers’ badge number but didn’t get it, and both the goons who arrested him were in plain clothes and one was entirely masked. He repeatedly asked to see a judicial warrant (only an administrative warrant is required); but the ICE officer merely waved a paper at him. To sustain an 18 USC 111 case, the government would have to show that these were officers conducting their duty, both they refused to prove that to Lander before they detained him.
While Lander did get the law wrong on at least one count (that ICE couldn’t arrest US citizens at all), the law does say that they can only arrest without a warrant in case of a flight risk. There is not a chance in hell that NYC’s current Comptroller and aspiring Mayor would flee, so he could make a good case that the arrest itself was illegal.
The problem I laid out yesterday; Emil Bove already told an SDNY judge that Eric Adams merely being prosecuted was election interference. Lander was going to have a very good case that DHS was attempting to help Adams and hurt Lander.
But for both the last two reasons, this may not be over. The NYT quoted a SDNY spox suggesting the government could still charge this, perhaps after the Mayoral race.
A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement that the office was investigating Mr. Lander’s actions, but said nothing about criminal charges. The spokesman, Nicholas Biase, noted that federal law prohibited assaults on law enforcement and other public officials and obstruction of official proceedings.
That doesn’t mean those charges would succeed. It means they might try to avoid the obvious hypocrisy of dismissing charges against one NYC mayoral candidate by waiting to charge another.
Update: I asked SDNY if they had opened an election interference investigation into the people who arrested Lander. Spox Nicholas Biase declined to comment.
