Trump’s war with Iran is an illegal war. It was executed without Congressional approval. Military personnel are required to resist illegal orders and follow the constitution. Up and down the chain of command, military personnel resisted following the US Constitution. Why are you not talking about the peril military personnel are in. They have all committed a war crime and a crime against the US Constitution. This should matter in our conversation. This should be talked about. Senators (Kelly, Slotkin & others) expressly warned about resisting illegal orders, about not following orders that are forbidden in our US Cobnstitution. Military personnel were warned, yet they attacked offensively a country our US Congress had not declared war on. This needs to be talked about. We either live by the rule of law or it’s all fake. Not talking about this says it’s all fake.
I think that is overstating it. The war is most likely Unconstitutional, but I don't think the orders soldiers down the line are getting are "illegal orders" in the sense that Kelly and the rest were talking about. Even for the generals, the orders are not illegal. It is an abdication of the powers of Congress to let this happen. I don't think it is up to the troops to disobey orders because the Congress refuses to do their proper duty.
If Caine and other generals did not carry out the attack plan, they would be fired. That might be the right thing for them to do, but in this case I can understand why they might not do that.
What I am understanding from your explanation is that legality enhances down the chain of command. If a mafia don orders someone killed, that is illegal. The henchmen down the line of command who carry out the hit are not murdering someone legally because they are layers removed from the order. To my reading of the constitution, only Congress can declare war. To have a man declare war -whether he is the Commander-in-Chief or not - the legality is established by having it first and foremost approved by the Congress. If it is not, the actions carried out in that chain are illegal. The chain of command should be aware of that as a basis of their pledge to uphold the constitution. Otherwise the constitution truly is not worth the paper it was printed on.
The orders themselves are not illegal orders. The war may be illegal, but the Congress is simply not doing their job. I don't think the military should disobey orders that are otherwise legal (they are not "war crimes", or at least I am not aware of anything that meets that definition) because Congress is failing to constrain the powers of the President. This is a very fuzzy area of law, and I think you are overstating your point.
I'm not saying it isn't Unconstitutional, I just don't think that this fits under orders that are illegal such that someone down the chain is supposed to make a decision based on Constitutionality. Now, the generals may make that call and resign. That would be fine. But someone down the chain receiving an otherwise legal order I think has to follow that order.
Now if the Congress orders an end to the operation, and revokes his authority to wage this war (and he may not have any real authority), and he continues to order the war to continue, then I think it is incumbent on the general to refuse his orders as unlawful.
My point is that Congress has so far been AWOL on this, and that is the real problem, and I'm not sure it is up to the military to fix that problem.
Yet, it seem most incumbent upon the military to stand as a bulwark against what we both agree is the Congress not doing its job. (But they also were not informed about this war until afterwards) Congress may indeed order an end to the operation, but my point is that in the constitution it says explicitly that only Congress can declare war. That is pretty bold and matter of fact. And since the military take a pledge to uphold the constitution - not the president- that they of course stand in the breach here, and currently, precisely because the Congress is not doing their job. And since all military service members take the same oath, they are all equally responsible to follow the pledge. If trump ordered his generals to nuke Tehran without a declaration of war, would not the service member actually pushing the button be complicit in the illegality ? We’re not the guards at Auschwitz’s-Birkenau guilty of the murder of the people they put in the ovens? Does “Just following orders” absolve you? I read our constitution as answering that question. If the war is illegal because it was not constitutionally approved/declared - for whatever reason, do the “just following orders” service members get a pass? If no, why do we make service members take the Pledge to uphold our constitution? Patrick, thank you for engaging this conversation. I am not trying to be tedious. I’m really pissed about where we find ourselves. I understand people not wanting to “blame” service members, yet they did take an oath, and it wasn’t to trump.
We haven't declared war since WWII, but there has been an awful lot of military activity.
The Congress certainly knew this was coming even if they weren't told. Who didn't know Trump was going to do this? It isn't even close to the first completely unauthorized use of force. Venezuela was another.
As I said, I think it would be reasonable for a general, Cain for example, to refuse these orders. He would be fired. I agree the military needs to be there as a bulwark against illegal orders. But in this case, the actions themselves, as far as I can tell, do not appear to be war crimes, and the dysfunction we are living with is with Thune and Johnson and a Congress that neither approves nor forbids any of these uses of the military.
I'm pissed about it too. But I can understand why Cain and others are following these orders. I might wish they didn't, but I can understand why they are. The Congress is beyond redeemable, their lack of actions are inexcusable.
At the end of this Trump needs to be impeached. All of this is impeachable, plus many other things.
If it’s unconstitutional than it is illegal. That should be pretty clear to everyone. And who will pay the price for partipating in an illegal war? The troops who carry out the orders. Not sure if the generals that carry out these orders can be pardoned. But trump by some executive order will claim he can. He’s already preemtively threatened the ICC with sanctions if they try to prosecute him or Bibi. Why would he do that unless he knew he already planned on committing war crimes?
No troops are going to be punished because Congress did not grant authorization. Thune also said the other day that Trump has sufficient authorization to do this. So Congress is abdicating responsibility. I can’t imagine a situation where the troops are found to be following “illegal orders” because the Congress isn’t doing their job.
War crimes is a completely separate question. That is different entirely from the other question.
Patrick--Despite my comment below, I agree you are right about this, thanks, ironically, to the War Powers Resolution, which to me reads as a classic case of a compromise that ends up, to a large degree, codifying what it intended to prevent by giving the president 60 days to bomb away without any authorization at all.
I feel the constitutionality of this should have been challenged at the time, if it wasn't, especially given the makeup of the Court in the early 70s, and the exhaustion with war at the time. lt's clearly unconstitutional, the Constitution is supposed to be the law of the land, and everyone in the military swears ah oath to protect and support it, but maybe they couldn"t figure out who would "have standing", how to avoid judicial framing as a "political question," and/or how to ensure the case was a "clear-cut violation," though these barriers weren't put up until the '80s, when the Court was already moving rightward. And call me crazy, but I wonder if the dice for this aren't worth rolling now, given that the Court just put 'strict limits" on the ability of Congress to delegate another core power (ie the power to tax).
In any case, would you agree that if this war continues beyond 60 days, any orders for offensive action without Congressional authorization after that *would* be illegal? For all his bumbling, W at least had the foresight to realize we were likely to continue needing to take offensive action beyond 60 days, so he went to Congress and got pre-authirization, and maybe that's a pressure point we can apply now.
Iran is *much* bigger than Iraq, the fighting has now spread all over the place, there's *no way* he's going to be able to wrap this up in 60 days, and *no way* he's going to get authorization to continue beyond that, especially if the filibuster applies, and given that 70% of the American people aren't going to care whether he's achieved his war aims by then, or "who lost Iran?" They're just going to want him to get our soldiers out of there, and stop blowing money we, the people, don't have, figuratively or literally.
So if he wants an exit that doesn't make Afghanistan look like a walk in the park, ie a colossal mess even closer to the midterms than we already are, he'd best start wrapping this up and winding down our involvement NOW.
PS Tbh, as bad as *this* is, I'm a lot more concerned about the illegal orders he might give domestically, where no additional Congressional action beyond the Constitution and what's already on the books should be necessary, and making sure we've done everything we can to ensure the military refuses *those* orders, if they come.
The president is acting illegally and irresponsibly. Congress should've been consulted and approval should've been requested. The fact that neither of those two things were done means Trump should be Impeached and Removed.
Congress knew this was coming, or should have, just based on the fact that he's been doing these illegal actions over and over again. Therefore, I would conclude that the Congress, despite not being informed, should've preemptively either authorized action, or forbade action. We live in a world where we know the Congress will never act rightly.
So there we are. Congress and the president are complicit in a bewildering display of ignoring the Constitution and failing to take responsibility for their acts. The GOP in Congress and the president are acting in a way that I think completely negates any legitimacy they had.
I think the war is already illegal, but if the Congress doesn't act to stop it, then I'm not sure what it means. The Congress needs to step up and do their job and decide one way or the other. If they don't, my point was I'm not sure I expect or think it reasonable for Cain or others to not follow the orders they are given.
I don't know the legal pathway to end the war. I doubt there is a real path for that. Who's going to do that? It would seem to me that the legal test would be Congress trying to shut down a war, and the president ignores their actions. Then it would go to the Supreme Court and hopefully the right decision would be made.
I think for decades really we've not been really following the Constitution and that is the reality of it.
Couldn't agree more. Our military keeps following more and more illegal orders. It looks like that video wasn't enough, and something more direct needs to be tried. Thoughts?
This feels again like the 'frog boiling' phenomenon. What do we do if Trump decides to sic the military on the American people? Or, he decides to launch a nuclear attack on another country? Jobs in Congress or in the military are more important than following the Constitution or the rule of law? What about survival?
Well, this is why I feel we may need to do something more high-risk than the video, like compiling a Google Doc list of *everything* he's said and done *throughout* his life to *disrespect* and *undermine* the military and *everything* it stands for/believes in, then partnering with a group like VoteVets to get it widely distributed among vets and thereby active service members. "Suckers and losers" isn't even a chip on the tip of the iceberg that is the vast extent to which he has been a lifelong enemy of the military while posing as its best friend. If the military is the military hero, Othello; Trump is Iago.
Such a document would, of course, need to be very clear upfront that not only is it NOT intended to foment insurrection, but further make clear that such an action would be a disaster for the country--democratic & peaceful processes *must* be responsible for removing him, if he's to be removed at all, even if he's doing everything he can to prevent those processes from taking place in the way the Founders intended. I don't mean "we go high"--I've hated that expression since the moment I first heard it--but we turn the other cheek in the way Jesus actually meant it, as the visual representation of "is that the best you've got, ***hole?"
I know that most — if not all — subscribing Hopium members (except me) hope that Iran’s Murderous Mullahs stay in power… Nevertheless, I thought I’d pass along this update on the war… which, by the way, is not illegal, let alone unconstitutional. No constitutional issue is even raised unless Congress cuts off funding.
Here’s this from the Times of Israel report:
“US Adm. Brad Cooper… the head of Central Command, tells reporters that Iranian ballistic missile attacks have decreased by 90 percent since the first day of the US-Israel war against Iran. Drone attacks by Iran are down 83%. … He also says that US attacks on the Iranian navy have “intensified.”…. US forces have to date sunk more than 30 of Iran’s ships, including “an Iranian drone carrier ship roughly the size of a World War II aircraft carrier.”
“Additionally, Cooper says they have been tasked to “raze, or level, Iran’s ballistic missile industrial base. So we’re not just hitting what they have, we’re destroying their ability to rebuild… to “systemically dismantle Iran’s missile production capability for the future, and that’s absolutely in progress.”
Since Hopium subscribers will never get this news in Hopium, I thought I would pass along some real news from the Times of Israel—
(1) In a posting on X, Iran’s president Pezeshkian says some countries have ‘begun mediation efforts’ to end the war: “Let’s be clear: we are committed to lasting peace in the region, yet we have no hesitation in defending our nation’s dignity and sovereignty.” [Note that Iran’s president posted this “peace”message on Trump’s social media site. I’ll let everyone here speculate on what this means. Of course, Iran has never been committed to peace before now. It has been commited to “holy war— Death to the United States. Death to Israel]
(2) The IDF estimates Iran’s daily missile launches have dropped by close to 80% since Saturday. The Israeli Air Force destroys Khamenei’s underground bunker in Tehran
(3) The Israeli Air Force has launched a new wave of airstrikes against Iranian regime targets in Tehran and Isfahan, the IDF announces. It marks the 15th wave of strikes in Iran’s capital since the start of the war, according to the military.
(4) A couple dozen people gathered in Manchester, England on Wednesday night to attend a candlelit vigil for Iran’s ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting a significantly larger counter-protest celebrating his death to take place nearby. Knamenei’s 36-year rule was marked by his hatred of the West — particularly the United States and Israel — and his regime’s brutal treatment of the Iranian public.
Here I am watching my investments tank in value while members of our military and innocent civilians are being killed in an immoral and illegal war. I am livid over my congressional representatives being loyal to Trump over protecting the people they were elected to serve. I called and gave them an earful. Why haven't we heard a peep from Congress? They ought to be throwing out this entire corrupt and inept administration.
Not a peep. I look on my stupid rep’s website frequently and she never, ever says anything in response to actual events. She is all bout photo ops with Girl Scouts or ribbon cuttings for local businesses (which I assume are owned by donors or she wouldn’t care). It’s intolerable.
This is what happens when they DO comment: "For far too long, Iran has held the world hostage with its nuclear threats and state-sponsored terrorism. As today’s strikes have exemplified, all diplomatic endeavors to secure peace with the Iranian dictatorship have been exhausted..." - Rep. Chris Smith (Traitor-NJ04). UGH.
Yes, but at least we can engage with that. We can ask:
Didn’t T**** just utterly destroy their nuclear capabilities a few weeks ago?
Why do they keep changing the justification for this attack?
Why weren’t the Iranians given the means to rise up? What exactly was the plan?
Isn’t this attack exactly what T**** said in 2016 creates a power vacuum and leads to more terrorists?
Will we be assassinating other leaders if T**** doesn’t like how they talk to him on the phone or whatever?
Iran is a sovereign nation as is Venezuela - however bad a leader is, do we really want a precedent of countries assassinating foreign leaders they dislike?
With silence, it is just maddening. If they respond at all, it is with unresponsive canned statements with no content. I asked my rep last week, “Do you believe in the Germ Theory of Disease?” I said I wanted a response, but haven’t received one. And if I do it will be a bunch of nonsense that is too stupid to even argue with.
Trump and his traveling salesmen Kushner and Witkoff are developing some really great leisure properties and resorts in the Middle East that our troops need to defend! What if the Saudi sovereign wealth fund cuts off Kushner?
I suspect animals, with senses that go beyond those of humans, intuitively know that he is dangerous and worthless. They probably give him a very hard time and that could be why he never warmed to them.
Thanks, Simon! So much to think about and your conversation with Stuart was really inspirational.
I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen about ICE and the need to regularly discuss Trump's mental decline. His insane rantings yesterday about his curtains and his ballroom (along with complimenting children in the audience on their "good genes") was completely off the rails, crazy, inappropriate, and nuts. I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters about redistricting.
Trump's dad was a Nazi sympathizer. Trump grew up thinking that was okay. Why do people have a hard time believing Trump is a Nazi? Remember, Nazis didn't just go after the Jews; they went after everybody they didn't like or who didn't agree with them. Not only do we have to be clear-eyed about this, but we have to call it by name: EVIL. And we have to fight it with everything we've got.
My family on my father's side is German and lived under the Nazis. Just for fun, in 2021 we made a list of all the similarities between Trump and Hitler. We stopped somewhere between 70 and 80. The list would be much longer now.
PS And the few differences we thought of actually mostly favored Hitler (eg infrastructure week vs the autobahn, war hero vs draft dodger, burnt steaks vs vegetables, loved dogs vs hates all animals, etc), with one huge, obvious exception Trump seems increasingly determined to erase.
My neighbor grew up in NAZI Germany. She was just a little girl and her dad was a Lutheran minister. She remembers hearing sound in the night. Her dad was helping Jews escape across the border. We heat a lot about the people who remained silent and not enough about those who didn’t. Let’s all make sure we speak out and act up together. Let’s all become Minneapolis.
Wow. Small world. One of my grandfathers was a Lutheran minister too, in Boenhoffer's Confessing Church (I'm guessing your neighbor's dad was, too). My grandfather got thrown into a political camp for preaching against Hitler during the war, but he was lucky--his congregation loved him and it included some influential people who were eventually able to get him back out again.
I don't think he helped get Jews out of Germany, but my *other* grandfather, who was a German immigrant and professor in the Gov School here in the US, did, albeit only Jewish academics (he and David Riesman worked together as part of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars to get Jewish scholars placements in US universities so our government would let them in).
WOW is right! That's an amazing story. I was born and raised in Berkeley, CA and attended St. Michale's Lutheran Church in the 50's/60's. As a child. I still remember being deeply moved by a sermon about Bonhoffer and his bravery. During Trump I, I read a biography of Bonhoffer and later lent it to my German born neighbor up the street, she being one of the few people I ever met here in the Bay Area that had heard of him. I believe we are in one of those "Here I stand. I can do no other" moments. Bonhoffer could have stayed in the US, but he chose to return to Germany and take action. Navalny did the same in Russia and laughed at Putin even unto death just to piss him off.
When it posts later, everyone should watch today’s Simon and Stuart session. Makes it abundantly clear that our corrupt, impulsive President has chosen to use the tremendous resources of our nation- its remarkable soldiers and commanders, its extraordinary intelligence infrastructure, its enormous array of military equipment on the sea and in the air- to fight the wrong war. We should be supporting the brilliant and brave Ukrainians to crush Putin’s imperial dreams and restore peace to Europe. Instead, Trump is using our military to achieve the Saudi’s dream of crushing Iran and unleashed death, destruction and chaos in the Middle East.
Actions today: I made calls to my elected officials, both national and local offices, about the war. I will make a donation to the audacious expansion fund. I'm writing postcards to NC voters. (I already voted so don't have to vote in today's NC primary elections.) And I'm preparing for the working group on homelessness class for my church that I lead on Wednesday nights.
Thanks for the fascinating conversation with Stuart Stevens this morning. My beloved grandfather was also from Ukraine. He was born in the shtetl of Fastov (now spelled Fastiv) in Kyiv oblast. What a journey he had.
I'm still gearing up. I have a lot of irons in the fire. I continue to call my members of Congress. I gave a donation today to the Winning the House campaign. I continue to liaison for Indivisible with WAWU-UAW, which is the local that represents Western Washington University students. We're trying to get a bill through the State legislature that would enable the union to bargain a contract for operational workers. My work on the Welcome Committee for Indivisible Bellingham has slowed, as I thought it would. If the past is any guide, we'll be gearing up again after No Kings on March 28. I have several other projects in the works, and I'll report on those if I get anywhere with them.
I haven't caught up with the videos yet, but I hope to over the coming days.
One final note. I recently found myself trying to explain our country to some Irish friends. One friend just could not understand how Republicans could stand up for Trump and applaud at the SOTU when they know he's implicated in the Epstein files. To others, I keep having to explain that the situation in the U.S. is both worse and better than they realize. It's worse in that the people in the White House are more dark, malevolent, and fanatical than they realize. But the opposition is stronger than they realize, and it's growing stronger every day.
My internet went wacko, so I missed much of your talk with Stuart Stevens. I'm sick today so I'm going to spend it watching Neuremberg in his honor. I posted this earlier, but there is a beautiful and poignant film about Ukraine called "Porcelain War." It was featured at Sundance, and I rented it on YouTube for $5. Donald Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu are evil men. Evil knows no boundaries nor is it limited to one ethnicity, gender, race, or religion. But confront it we must. What a stupid, and avoidable mess we have gotten ourselves into.
Malcom Nance was saying our troops can shoot down the Shaheed drones with machine guns but that they weren’t prepared and didn’t try. I know the Ukrainians were using multiple machine guns mounted on a frame and that works.
From your typing fingers to God's ear. Let's hope so. The people running our government are monsters AND imbeciles - rank amateurs who should never have power.
Hey peeps. Great talk between our good Heather C.R and Senator Andy Kim from NJ. THis is from yesterday morning. It's really good. Sobering but clear description of what is NOT happening (and should be) at a congressional level re: Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIk8up0RjSg&t=61s.
Also Tom Friedman in the NY Times yesterday. Sane and overarching. But I don't think he's saying everything he thinks. He usually is very reticent to tell us he's worried. Both brilliant.
We all need to be ready: Trump began the war with Iran to use against our November elections. He will try to cancel them claiming a national emergency as his excuse.
ILLEGAL WAR, ICE, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, AND EPSTEIN FILES. Absolute insanity. Not sleeping well. Thanks everyone. Let's keep going!! Looking forward to listening to Stuart and Simon.
If that's a wound it would have to be from a fall. Trump looked pretty wobbly leaving the lectern after that semi-coherent speech you alluded to. If that were in the right position it could be shingles, but I have forgotten my anatomy so don't know.
Without any context or other views, my first thought was shingles. That area would be cranial nerve 11 - the Spinal Accessory nerve. But we'll never know because they are covering for him in all areas including his health.
Re: wound. There is a healed puncture behind the ear with surrounding ecchymosis. Except for the location, this could resemble the insertion of a catheter by a physician to give fluids or medications. Any Docs out there?
Yes, it looked to me relatively similar to to the one he keeps having on his wrist, but with (much) less bruising. The one on his wrist looked identical to IV-bruising my dad has experienced. My beloved *is* a doctor, so I sent her the pic. So far no response. She's a psychiatrist, so she may be more focused on other parts of the anatomy visible in the photo.
They're blaming JD? Of *course* they are. And the Israelis: "They were going in whether we joined them or not. We just agreed to participate because we knew we were going to get shot at, no matter what." We all know Donald Trump has never made a mistake in his entire life. Quite the shift from bragging about killing all those leaders (which Israel actually did, of course, albeit with intelligence from us), regime change, Iranians of the world, rise up, immunity or death for the IRGC. Must be going really, really badly.
PS re: that Trump clip. Good God, Biden sounded a lot more coherent and looked a lot better in SC the other day..
Oops, now Trump is saying he actually forced Israel to join *us.* It appears trial balloons are getting shot down, faster and faster, in this conflagration, too. He's also justifying the attack and its aftermath on the grounds that the regime just killed 35,000 of its own people. Hmm, ok, so what should be done about a leader who kills more than a million of his own people, plus many millions more worldwide? And how credible is someone like that when he says he risked all this blood and treasure over 35K?
When rationales keep shifting like a spinning top, is there anything this resembles (or dissembles) more than a spouse caught in the act of cheating, trying to explain himself?
In such scenarios, I think it pays to ask what's the one rationale that's *not* being used, the "it's not what you think," "it's not what it looks like" explanation?
Trump’s war with Iran is an illegal war. It was executed without Congressional approval. Military personnel are required to resist illegal orders and follow the constitution. Up and down the chain of command, military personnel resisted following the US Constitution. Why are you not talking about the peril military personnel are in. They have all committed a war crime and a crime against the US Constitution. This should matter in our conversation. This should be talked about. Senators (Kelly, Slotkin & others) expressly warned about resisting illegal orders, about not following orders that are forbidden in our US Cobnstitution. Military personnel were warned, yet they attacked offensively a country our US Congress had not declared war on. This needs to be talked about. We either live by the rule of law or it’s all fake. Not talking about this says it’s all fake.
I think that is overstating it. The war is most likely Unconstitutional, but I don't think the orders soldiers down the line are getting are "illegal orders" in the sense that Kelly and the rest were talking about. Even for the generals, the orders are not illegal. It is an abdication of the powers of Congress to let this happen. I don't think it is up to the troops to disobey orders because the Congress refuses to do their proper duty.
If Caine and other generals did not carry out the attack plan, they would be fired. That might be the right thing for them to do, but in this case I can understand why they might not do that.
What I am understanding from your explanation is that legality enhances down the chain of command. If a mafia don orders someone killed, that is illegal. The henchmen down the line of command who carry out the hit are not murdering someone legally because they are layers removed from the order. To my reading of the constitution, only Congress can declare war. To have a man declare war -whether he is the Commander-in-Chief or not - the legality is established by having it first and foremost approved by the Congress. If it is not, the actions carried out in that chain are illegal. The chain of command should be aware of that as a basis of their pledge to uphold the constitution. Otherwise the constitution truly is not worth the paper it was printed on.
The orders themselves are not illegal orders. The war may be illegal, but the Congress is simply not doing their job. I don't think the military should disobey orders that are otherwise legal (they are not "war crimes", or at least I am not aware of anything that meets that definition) because Congress is failing to constrain the powers of the President. This is a very fuzzy area of law, and I think you are overstating your point.
I'm not saying it isn't Unconstitutional, I just don't think that this fits under orders that are illegal such that someone down the chain is supposed to make a decision based on Constitutionality. Now, the generals may make that call and resign. That would be fine. But someone down the chain receiving an otherwise legal order I think has to follow that order.
Now if the Congress orders an end to the operation, and revokes his authority to wage this war (and he may not have any real authority), and he continues to order the war to continue, then I think it is incumbent on the general to refuse his orders as unlawful.
My point is that Congress has so far been AWOL on this, and that is the real problem, and I'm not sure it is up to the military to fix that problem.
Yet, it seem most incumbent upon the military to stand as a bulwark against what we both agree is the Congress not doing its job. (But they also were not informed about this war until afterwards) Congress may indeed order an end to the operation, but my point is that in the constitution it says explicitly that only Congress can declare war. That is pretty bold and matter of fact. And since the military take a pledge to uphold the constitution - not the president- that they of course stand in the breach here, and currently, precisely because the Congress is not doing their job. And since all military service members take the same oath, they are all equally responsible to follow the pledge. If trump ordered his generals to nuke Tehran without a declaration of war, would not the service member actually pushing the button be complicit in the illegality ? We’re not the guards at Auschwitz’s-Birkenau guilty of the murder of the people they put in the ovens? Does “Just following orders” absolve you? I read our constitution as answering that question. If the war is illegal because it was not constitutionally approved/declared - for whatever reason, do the “just following orders” service members get a pass? If no, why do we make service members take the Pledge to uphold our constitution? Patrick, thank you for engaging this conversation. I am not trying to be tedious. I’m really pissed about where we find ourselves. I understand people not wanting to “blame” service members, yet they did take an oath, and it wasn’t to trump.
We haven't declared war since WWII, but there has been an awful lot of military activity.
The Congress certainly knew this was coming even if they weren't told. Who didn't know Trump was going to do this? It isn't even close to the first completely unauthorized use of force. Venezuela was another.
As I said, I think it would be reasonable for a general, Cain for example, to refuse these orders. He would be fired. I agree the military needs to be there as a bulwark against illegal orders. But in this case, the actions themselves, as far as I can tell, do not appear to be war crimes, and the dysfunction we are living with is with Thune and Johnson and a Congress that neither approves nor forbids any of these uses of the military.
I'm pissed about it too. But I can understand why Cain and others are following these orders. I might wish they didn't, but I can understand why they are. The Congress is beyond redeemable, their lack of actions are inexcusable.
At the end of this Trump needs to be impeached. All of this is impeachable, plus many other things.
Agree especially to “plus many other things” Thank you for the conversation, Patrick.
If it’s unconstitutional than it is illegal. That should be pretty clear to everyone. And who will pay the price for partipating in an illegal war? The troops who carry out the orders. Not sure if the generals that carry out these orders can be pardoned. But trump by some executive order will claim he can. He’s already preemtively threatened the ICC with sanctions if they try to prosecute him or Bibi. Why would he do that unless he knew he already planned on committing war crimes?
No troops are going to be punished because Congress did not grant authorization. Thune also said the other day that Trump has sufficient authorization to do this. So Congress is abdicating responsibility. I can’t imagine a situation where the troops are found to be following “illegal orders” because the Congress isn’t doing their job.
War crimes is a completely separate question. That is different entirely from the other question.
Patrick--Despite my comment below, I agree you are right about this, thanks, ironically, to the War Powers Resolution, which to me reads as a classic case of a compromise that ends up, to a large degree, codifying what it intended to prevent by giving the president 60 days to bomb away without any authorization at all.
I feel the constitutionality of this should have been challenged at the time, if it wasn't, especially given the makeup of the Court in the early 70s, and the exhaustion with war at the time. lt's clearly unconstitutional, the Constitution is supposed to be the law of the land, and everyone in the military swears ah oath to protect and support it, but maybe they couldn"t figure out who would "have standing", how to avoid judicial framing as a "political question," and/or how to ensure the case was a "clear-cut violation," though these barriers weren't put up until the '80s, when the Court was already moving rightward. And call me crazy, but I wonder if the dice for this aren't worth rolling now, given that the Court just put 'strict limits" on the ability of Congress to delegate another core power (ie the power to tax).
In any case, would you agree that if this war continues beyond 60 days, any orders for offensive action without Congressional authorization after that *would* be illegal? For all his bumbling, W at least had the foresight to realize we were likely to continue needing to take offensive action beyond 60 days, so he went to Congress and got pre-authirization, and maybe that's a pressure point we can apply now.
Iran is *much* bigger than Iraq, the fighting has now spread all over the place, there's *no way* he's going to be able to wrap this up in 60 days, and *no way* he's going to get authorization to continue beyond that, especially if the filibuster applies, and given that 70% of the American people aren't going to care whether he's achieved his war aims by then, or "who lost Iran?" They're just going to want him to get our soldiers out of there, and stop blowing money we, the people, don't have, figuratively or literally.
So if he wants an exit that doesn't make Afghanistan look like a walk in the park, ie a colossal mess even closer to the midterms than we already are, he'd best start wrapping this up and winding down our involvement NOW.
PS Tbh, as bad as *this* is, I'm a lot more concerned about the illegal orders he might give domestically, where no additional Congressional action beyond the Constitution and what's already on the books should be necessary, and making sure we've done everything we can to ensure the military refuses *those* orders, if they come.
The president is acting illegally and irresponsibly. Congress should've been consulted and approval should've been requested. The fact that neither of those two things were done means Trump should be Impeached and Removed.
Congress knew this was coming, or should have, just based on the fact that he's been doing these illegal actions over and over again. Therefore, I would conclude that the Congress, despite not being informed, should've preemptively either authorized action, or forbade action. We live in a world where we know the Congress will never act rightly.
So there we are. Congress and the president are complicit in a bewildering display of ignoring the Constitution and failing to take responsibility for their acts. The GOP in Congress and the president are acting in a way that I think completely negates any legitimacy they had.
I think the war is already illegal, but if the Congress doesn't act to stop it, then I'm not sure what it means. The Congress needs to step up and do their job and decide one way or the other. If they don't, my point was I'm not sure I expect or think it reasonable for Cain or others to not follow the orders they are given.
I don't know the legal pathway to end the war. I doubt there is a real path for that. Who's going to do that? It would seem to me that the legal test would be Congress trying to shut down a war, and the president ignores their actions. Then it would go to the Supreme Court and hopefully the right decision would be made.
I think for decades really we've not been really following the Constitution and that is the reality of it.
Couldn't agree more. Our military keeps following more and more illegal orders. It looks like that video wasn't enough, and something more direct needs to be tried. Thoughts?
This feels again like the 'frog boiling' phenomenon. What do we do if Trump decides to sic the military on the American people? Or, he decides to launch a nuclear attack on another country? Jobs in Congress or in the military are more important than following the Constitution or the rule of law? What about survival?
I find this f'd up and damn scary.
Well, this is why I feel we may need to do something more high-risk than the video, like compiling a Google Doc list of *everything* he's said and done *throughout* his life to *disrespect* and *undermine* the military and *everything* it stands for/believes in, then partnering with a group like VoteVets to get it widely distributed among vets and thereby active service members. "Suckers and losers" isn't even a chip on the tip of the iceberg that is the vast extent to which he has been a lifelong enemy of the military while posing as its best friend. If the military is the military hero, Othello; Trump is Iago.
Such a document would, of course, need to be very clear upfront that not only is it NOT intended to foment insurrection, but further make clear that such an action would be a disaster for the country--democratic & peaceful processes *must* be responsible for removing him, if he's to be removed at all, even if he's doing everything he can to prevent those processes from taking place in the way the Founders intended. I don't mean "we go high"--I've hated that expression since the moment I first heard it--but we turn the other cheek in the way Jesus actually meant it, as the visual representation of "is that the best you've got, ***hole?"
This is from the Times of Israel.
I know that most — if not all — subscribing Hopium members (except me) hope that Iran’s Murderous Mullahs stay in power… Nevertheless, I thought I’d pass along this update on the war… which, by the way, is not illegal, let alone unconstitutional. No constitutional issue is even raised unless Congress cuts off funding.
Here’s this from the Times of Israel report:
“US Adm. Brad Cooper… the head of Central Command, tells reporters that Iranian ballistic missile attacks have decreased by 90 percent since the first day of the US-Israel war against Iran. Drone attacks by Iran are down 83%. … He also says that US attacks on the Iranian navy have “intensified.”…. US forces have to date sunk more than 30 of Iran’s ships, including “an Iranian drone carrier ship roughly the size of a World War II aircraft carrier.”
“Additionally, Cooper says they have been tasked to “raze, or level, Iran’s ballistic missile industrial base. So we’re not just hitting what they have, we’re destroying their ability to rebuild… to “systemically dismantle Iran’s missile production capability for the future, and that’s absolutely in progress.”
Since Hopium subscribers will never get this news in Hopium, I thought I would pass along some real news from the Times of Israel—
(1) In a posting on X, Iran’s president Pezeshkian says some countries have ‘begun mediation efforts’ to end the war: “Let’s be clear: we are committed to lasting peace in the region, yet we have no hesitation in defending our nation’s dignity and sovereignty.” [Note that Iran’s president posted this “peace”message on Trump’s social media site. I’ll let everyone here speculate on what this means. Of course, Iran has never been committed to peace before now. It has been commited to “holy war— Death to the United States. Death to Israel]
(2) The IDF estimates Iran’s daily missile launches have dropped by close to 80% since Saturday. The Israeli Air Force destroys Khamenei’s underground bunker in Tehran
(3) The Israeli Air Force has launched a new wave of airstrikes against Iranian regime targets in Tehran and Isfahan, the IDF announces. It marks the 15th wave of strikes in Iran’s capital since the start of the war, according to the military.
(4) A couple dozen people gathered in Manchester, England on Wednesday night to attend a candlelit vigil for Iran’s ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting a significantly larger counter-protest celebrating his death to take place nearby. Knamenei’s 36-year rule was marked by his hatred of the West — particularly the United States and Israel — and his regime’s brutal treatment of the Iranian public.
Here I am watching my investments tank in value while members of our military and innocent civilians are being killed in an immoral and illegal war. I am livid over my congressional representatives being loyal to Trump over protecting the people they were elected to serve. I called and gave them an earful. Why haven't we heard a peep from Congress? They ought to be throwing out this entire corrupt and inept administration.
Not a peep. I look on my stupid rep’s website frequently and she never, ever says anything in response to actual events. She is all bout photo ops with Girl Scouts or ribbon cuttings for local businesses (which I assume are owned by donors or she wouldn’t care). It’s intolerable.
This is what happens when they DO comment: "For far too long, Iran has held the world hostage with its nuclear threats and state-sponsored terrorism. As today’s strikes have exemplified, all diplomatic endeavors to secure peace with the Iranian dictatorship have been exhausted..." - Rep. Chris Smith (Traitor-NJ04). UGH.
Yes, but at least we can engage with that. We can ask:
Didn’t T**** just utterly destroy their nuclear capabilities a few weeks ago?
Why do they keep changing the justification for this attack?
Why weren’t the Iranians given the means to rise up? What exactly was the plan?
Isn’t this attack exactly what T**** said in 2016 creates a power vacuum and leads to more terrorists?
Will we be assassinating other leaders if T**** doesn’t like how they talk to him on the phone or whatever?
Iran is a sovereign nation as is Venezuela - however bad a leader is, do we really want a precedent of countries assassinating foreign leaders they dislike?
With silence, it is just maddening. If they respond at all, it is with unresponsive canned statements with no content. I asked my rep last week, “Do you believe in the Germ Theory of Disease?” I said I wanted a response, but haven’t received one. And if I do it will be a bunch of nonsense that is too stupid to even argue with.
Jenny, I feel the same frustrations.
Trump and his traveling salesmen Kushner and Witkoff are developing some really great leisure properties and resorts in the Middle East that our troops need to defend! What if the Saudi sovereign wealth fund cuts off Kushner?
Noem is an abomination of a human specimen.
If she is ever incarcerated, once the chemicals leach from her face, she will be unrecognizable.
I would love to see her brought up on murder charges.
I'm sorry but she is unfit to walk among humanity.
Well she confessed to puppy murder.
As I've written before, she can get a job with her local animal kill shelter. They'd be happy to have her since few people want such employment.
She can build an entirely new fiefdom.
But, please, God, remove her from our public life.
I’ve seen lots of studies showing that how you treat animals translates to how you treat humans.
Hmm. Well Trump *hates* animals, ergo...yup, that works.
I suspect animals, with senses that go beyond those of humans, intuitively know that he is dangerous and worthless. They probably give him a very hard time and that could be why he never warmed to them.
Thanks, Simon! So much to think about and your conversation with Stuart was really inspirational.
I called Congressman Raskin and Senators Alsobrooks and Van Hollen about ICE and the need to regularly discuss Trump's mental decline. His insane rantings yesterday about his curtains and his ballroom (along with complimenting children in the audience on their "good genes") was completely off the rails, crazy, inappropriate, and nuts. I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters about redistricting.
Trump's dad was a Nazi sympathizer. Trump grew up thinking that was okay. Why do people have a hard time believing Trump is a Nazi? Remember, Nazis didn't just go after the Jews; they went after everybody they didn't like or who didn't agree with them. Not only do we have to be clear-eyed about this, but we have to call it by name: EVIL. And we have to fight it with everything we've got.
My family on my father's side is German and lived under the Nazis. Just for fun, in 2021 we made a list of all the similarities between Trump and Hitler. We stopped somewhere between 70 and 80. The list would be much longer now.
PS And the few differences we thought of actually mostly favored Hitler (eg infrastructure week vs the autobahn, war hero vs draft dodger, burnt steaks vs vegetables, loved dogs vs hates all animals, etc), with one huge, obvious exception Trump seems increasingly determined to erase.
My neighbor grew up in NAZI Germany. She was just a little girl and her dad was a Lutheran minister. She remembers hearing sound in the night. Her dad was helping Jews escape across the border. We heat a lot about the people who remained silent and not enough about those who didn’t. Let’s all make sure we speak out and act up together. Let’s all become Minneapolis.
Wow. Small world. One of my grandfathers was a Lutheran minister too, in Boenhoffer's Confessing Church (I'm guessing your neighbor's dad was, too). My grandfather got thrown into a political camp for preaching against Hitler during the war, but he was lucky--his congregation loved him and it included some influential people who were eventually able to get him back out again.
I don't think he helped get Jews out of Germany, but my *other* grandfather, who was a German immigrant and professor in the Gov School here in the US, did, albeit only Jewish academics (he and David Riesman worked together as part of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars to get Jewish scholars placements in US universities so our government would let them in).
WOW is right! That's an amazing story. I was born and raised in Berkeley, CA and attended St. Michale's Lutheran Church in the 50's/60's. As a child. I still remember being deeply moved by a sermon about Bonhoffer and his bravery. During Trump I, I read a biography of Bonhoffer and later lent it to my German born neighbor up the street, she being one of the few people I ever met here in the Bay Area that had heard of him. I believe we are in one of those "Here I stand. I can do no other" moments. Bonhoffer could have stayed in the US, but he chose to return to Germany and take action. Navalny did the same in Russia and laughed at Putin even unto death just to piss him off.
When it posts later, everyone should watch today’s Simon and Stuart session. Makes it abundantly clear that our corrupt, impulsive President has chosen to use the tremendous resources of our nation- its remarkable soldiers and commanders, its extraordinary intelligence infrastructure, its enormous array of military equipment on the sea and in the air- to fight the wrong war. We should be supporting the brilliant and brave Ukrainians to crush Putin’s imperial dreams and restore peace to Europe. Instead, Trump is using our military to achieve the Saudi’s dream of crushing Iran and unleashed death, destruction and chaos in the Middle East.
Actions today: I made calls to my elected officials, both national and local offices, about the war. I will make a donation to the audacious expansion fund. I'm writing postcards to NC voters. (I already voted so don't have to vote in today's NC primary elections.) And I'm preparing for the working group on homelessness class for my church that I lead on Wednesday nights.
Thanks for the fascinating conversation with Stuart Stevens this morning. My beloved grandfather was also from Ukraine. He was born in the shtetl of Fastov (now spelled Fastiv) in Kyiv oblast. What a journey he had.
I'm still gearing up. I have a lot of irons in the fire. I continue to call my members of Congress. I gave a donation today to the Winning the House campaign. I continue to liaison for Indivisible with WAWU-UAW, which is the local that represents Western Washington University students. We're trying to get a bill through the State legislature that would enable the union to bargain a contract for operational workers. My work on the Welcome Committee for Indivisible Bellingham has slowed, as I thought it would. If the past is any guide, we'll be gearing up again after No Kings on March 28. I have several other projects in the works, and I'll report on those if I get anywhere with them.
I haven't caught up with the videos yet, but I hope to over the coming days.
One final note. I recently found myself trying to explain our country to some Irish friends. One friend just could not understand how Republicans could stand up for Trump and applaud at the SOTU when they know he's implicated in the Epstein files. To others, I keep having to explain that the situation in the U.S. is both worse and better than they realize. It's worse in that the people in the White House are more dark, malevolent, and fanatical than they realize. But the opposition is stronger than they realize, and it's growing stronger every day.
My internet went wacko, so I missed much of your talk with Stuart Stevens. I'm sick today so I'm going to spend it watching Neuremberg in his honor. I posted this earlier, but there is a beautiful and poignant film about Ukraine called "Porcelain War." It was featured at Sundance, and I rented it on YouTube for $5. Donald Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu are evil men. Evil knows no boundaries nor is it limited to one ethnicity, gender, race, or religion. But confront it we must. What a stupid, and avoidable mess we have gotten ourselves into.
I hope you recover quickly.
Thanks, Jenny. Much appreciated 😊
Mailing a few postcards today.
Malcom Nance was saying our troops can shoot down the Shaheed drones with machine guns but that they weren’t prepared and didn’t try. I know the Ukrainians were using multiple machine guns mounted on a frame and that works.
Hallelujah! The stock market just crashed. The f*ckwit will now be motivated to end the killing! We should be out within days.
From your typing fingers to God's ear. Let's hope so. The people running our government are monsters AND imbeciles - rank amateurs who should never have power.
Hey peeps. Great talk between our good Heather C.R and Senator Andy Kim from NJ. THis is from yesterday morning. It's really good. Sobering but clear description of what is NOT happening (and should be) at a congressional level re: Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIk8up0RjSg&t=61s.
Also Tom Friedman in the NY Times yesterday. Sane and overarching. But I don't think he's saying everything he thinks. He usually is very reticent to tell us he's worried. Both brilliant.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/opinion/trump-iran-war-future.html
yes, SO good!
We all need to be ready: Trump began the war with Iran to use against our November elections. He will try to cancel them claiming a national emergency as his excuse.
He will try. We won't let him.
Calling senators AND writing.
ILLEGAL WAR, ICE, CONCENTRATION CAMPS, AND EPSTEIN FILES. Absolute insanity. Not sleeping well. Thanks everyone. Let's keep going!! Looking forward to listening to Stuart and Simon.
If that's a wound it would have to be from a fall. Trump looked pretty wobbly leaving the lectern after that semi-coherent speech you alluded to. If that were in the right position it could be shingles, but I have forgotten my anatomy so don't know.
Looks like skin cancer cream treatment
Without any context or other views, my first thought was shingles. That area would be cranial nerve 11 - the Spinal Accessory nerve. But we'll never know because they are covering for him in all areas including his health.
Re: wound. There is a healed puncture behind the ear with surrounding ecchymosis. Except for the location, this could resemble the insertion of a catheter by a physician to give fluids or medications. Any Docs out there?
Yes, it looked to me relatively similar to to the one he keeps having on his wrist, but with (much) less bruising. The one on his wrist looked identical to IV-bruising my dad has experienced. My beloved *is* a doctor, so I sent her the pic. So far no response. She's a psychiatrist, so she may be more focused on other parts of the anatomy visible in the photo.
My first thought was a stab wound. Melania?
They're blaming JD? Of *course* they are. And the Israelis: "They were going in whether we joined them or not. We just agreed to participate because we knew we were going to get shot at, no matter what." We all know Donald Trump has never made a mistake in his entire life. Quite the shift from bragging about killing all those leaders (which Israel actually did, of course, albeit with intelligence from us), regime change, Iranians of the world, rise up, immunity or death for the IRGC. Must be going really, really badly.
PS re: that Trump clip. Good God, Biden sounded a lot more coherent and looked a lot better in SC the other day..
Oops, now Trump is saying he actually forced Israel to join *us.* It appears trial balloons are getting shot down, faster and faster, in this conflagration, too. He's also justifying the attack and its aftermath on the grounds that the regime just killed 35,000 of its own people. Hmm, ok, so what should be done about a leader who kills more than a million of his own people, plus many millions more worldwide? And how credible is someone like that when he says he risked all this blood and treasure over 35K?
When rationales keep shifting like a spinning top, is there anything this resembles (or dissembles) more than a spouse caught in the act of cheating, trying to explain himself?
In such scenarios, I think it pays to ask what's the one rationale that's *not* being used, the "it's not what you think," "it's not what it looks like" explanation?
Epstein. Epstein. Epstein. It's the Epstein War.
DHS has been shooting down party balloons while the White House shoots down its own trial balloons.
J.D. Vance shouldn’t be surprised that he will be thrown under the bus by Trump. Most of us remember chants of “hang Mike Pence.”