Archiv: unitary executive theory / imperial presidency / exekutive Eigenverantwortung / Staatswohl


17:46 [ theHill.com ]

Senators vow oversight after report Hegseth told troops to ‘kill everybody’ in boat strike

Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued a statement Saturday vowing to conduct “vigorous oversight” on Caribbean strikes after a report surfaced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the U.S. military to “kill everybody” aboard an alleged drug vessel.

17:38 [ Washington Post ]

Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all

(November 28, 2025)

As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors.

17:27 [ Tim Kaine, United States Senator from Virginia ]

Dear Attorney General Bondi and Secretary Hegseth:

(November 24, 2025)

Dear Attorney General Bondi and Secretary Hegseth:

We are writing to request expeditious declassification and public release of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel’s written opinion, dated September 5, 2025, concerning the domestic and international legal basis for recent military strikes of certain vessels near South America and the Caribbean, with appropriate redactions necessary to protect military personnel and sensitive intelligence matters.

Significant and noteworthy precedent exists for the public release of OLC opinions related to overseas military action. After the United States carried out military strikes in Libya in 2011 and in Syria in 2018, the Department of Justice released the applicable OLC opinion justifying each operation.

Few decisions are more consequential for a democracy than the use of lethal force. We therefore believe that the declassification and public release of this important document would enhance transparency in the use of deadly force by our Nation’s military and is necessary to ensure Congress and the American people are fully informed of the legal justification supporting these strikes.

Sincerely,

Richard Blumenthal
United States Senator

Jack Reed
United States Senator

Jeanne Shaheen
United States Senator

Kirsten Gillibrand
United States Senator

Mazie K. Hirono
United States Senator

Tim Kaine
United States Senator

Angus S. King, Jr.
United States Senator

Elizabeth Warren
United States Senator

Gary C. Peters
United States Senator

Tammy Duckworth
United States Senator

Jacky Rosen
United States Senator

Mark Kelly
United States Senator

Elissa Slotkin
United States Senator

16:51 [ USA Today ]

Venezuelan boat strikes lack legal justification, Democrats say

There is no U.S. law that explicitly authorizes the U.S. Navy to attack or sink ships at sea outside of a congressionally authorized war or valid self-defense situation, legal experts and Democratic lawmakers say.

The strikes began in September, but Trump administration discussions about them began soon after Trump moved back into the White House in January

16:41 [ USA Today ]

Trump says land strikes in Venezuela will ‚start very soon‘

Amid a buildup of U.S. military forces near Venezuela and strikes on alleged drug boats, President Donald Trump told U.S. troops on Thanksgiving that the military operation will soon include strikes on land.

“In recent weeks, you’ve been working to deter Venezuelan drug traffickers,“ Trump said during a call with military service members that alluded to the boat strikes, adding: „We’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.“

16:37 [ Reuters ]

Trump says airspace above and around Venezuela should be considered closed

Venezuela‘s communications ministry, which handles all press inquiries for the government, did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Trump‘s post.
The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

28.11.2025 - 01:32 [ CNN ]

US official says shooting suspect was vetted by intel agencies and “clean on all checks”

At the time, the CIA would have done its own vetting of him through a variety of databases, including the National Counterterrorism Center database, to see if he had any known ties to terrorist groups. The CIA did its own vetting before he started working with them and kept the identities of those they worked with secret, the official said.

NCTC would have vetted him again during Operation Allies Welcome in 2021 for any ties to terrorism before he was allowed into the US. He was clean then as well and did not show any ties to terror organizations, per the senior US official.

28.11.2025 - 01:29 [ Associated Press ]

Afghan national charged in Guard ambush shooting drove across US to carry out attack, officials say

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, declined to provide a motive for Wednesday afternoon’s brazen act of violence which occurred just blocks from the White House. The presence of troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has become a political flashpoint.

28.11.2025 - 01:20 [ NPR.org ]

National Guard shooting suspect served in CIA counterterrorism unit, group says

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan man who allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, previously served in one of Afghanistan‘s elite counterterrorism units, according to AfghanEvac, a nonprofit run by U.S. veterans and others who served in Afghanistan.

The unit was operated by the CIA with direct U.S. intelligence and military support, according to AfghanEvac.

28.11.2025 - 01:15 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Attentat auf Nationalgarde: Wie Trump den Angriff instrumentalisiert

Washingtons Bürgermeisterin und auch die örtliche Polizei haben sich immer wieder gegen den Einsatz der Nationalgarde in ihrer Stadt ausgesprochen. Der Bundesdistrikt Washington D.C. hatte sogar eine Klage gegen die Trump-Regierung eingereicht – und recht bekommen. Eine Bundesrichterin entschied vor etwa einer Woche, dass der immer wieder verlängerte Einsatz der Nationalgarde in der Stadt illegal sei.

Von dieser Entscheidung zeigt sich der US-Präsident aber unbeeindruckt. Nach den Schüssen auf die beiden Nationalgardisten fühlt er sich im Recht. Seinen Pentagon-Chef hat er jetzt sogar angewiesen, noch weitere 500 Nationalgardisten in die Hauptstadt zu schicken.

26.11.2025 - 18:46 [ theHill.com ]

Senate Democrats ask Hegseth, Bondi to declassify DOJ memo on drug boat strikes

(November 24, 2025)

Senate Democrats are asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi to declassify and publicly release the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel’s classified, written opinion outlining the legal basis for the Trump administration’s strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

Thirteen Senate Democrats, all members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, are demanding an “expeditious declassification and public release” of the classified opinion, which was drafted over the summer and argued that U.S. troops who participate in boat strikes, which have taken place on both sides of South America, cannot be prosecuted.

26.11.2025 - 17:57 [ Elissa Slotkin, U.S. Senator for Michigan ]

Slotkin Demands Declassification and Public Release of Information on the Trump Administration’s Lethal Airstrikes

Nov 24, 2025 | Press Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in writing to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting the declassification and public release of the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) written opinion on the Trump Administration’s lethal airstrikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

“Few decisions are more consequential for a democracy than the use of lethal force. We therefore believe that the declassification and public release of this important document would enhance transparency in the use of deadly force by our Nation’s military and is necessary to ensure Congress and the American people are fully informed of the legal justification supporting these strikes,” the Senators wrote.

21.11.2025 - 10:12 [ Tagesschau.de ]

Entscheidung von US-Richterin: Einsatz der Nationalgarde in Washington ist illegal

Die Regierung von US-Präsident Donald Trump habe die Einheit der Hauptstadt nicht ohne ausdrückliche Anforderung der lokalen Behörden aktivieren dürfen. Zudem hätte sie Nationalgardisten aus anderen Bundesstaaten zu polizeilichen Zwecken nicht nach Washington beordern dürfen, hieß es in der Verfügung weiter.

Cobb ordnete an, den Einsatz der Nationalgarde zu beenden, setzte ihre Entscheidung jedoch für drei Wochen aus, damit die Trump-Regierung in Berufung gehen kann. Die Anordnung bleibt damit bis zum 11. Dezember außer Kraft.

21.11.2025 - 09:56 [ Washington Post ]

Trump administration ordered to halt ‘unlawful’ Guard deployment in D.C.

U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb wrote in her opinion that the deployment was “unlawful,” has caused D.C. “irreparable harm to its sovereign powers under the Home Rule Act” — the 1973 law that gave D.C. residents their own elected government — and has “infringed upon the District’s right to govern itself.”

20.11.2025 - 17:20 [ Nicolas J.S. Davies / Mintpress.com ]

Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen: Calculating the Millions-High Death Toll of America’s Post-9/11 Wars

(26.4.2018)

As Barbara Lee presciently warned her colleagues before she cast her lone dissenting vote in 2001, we have “become the evil we deplore.” But these wars have not been accompanied by fearsome military parades (not yet) or speeches about conquering the world. Instead they have been politically justified by “information warfare” to demonize enemies and fabricate crises, and then waged in a “disguised, quiet, media free” way, to hide their cost in human blood from the American public and the world.

After 16 years of war, about 6 million violent deaths, 6 countries utterly destroyed and many more destabilized, it is urgent that the American public come to terms with the true human cost of our country’s wars and how we have been manipulated and misled into turning a blind eye to them – before they go on even longer, destroy more countries, further undermine the rule of international law and kill millions more of our fellow human beings.

20.11.2025 - 17:15 [ Middle East Eye ]

Dick Cheney may be gone, but the wars he waged are forever

(November 8, 2025)

As Bush‘s vice president, Cheney became a key architect of the US „war on terror“, which included the 2002 invasion of Afghanistan, the 2003 war on Iraq, and sweeping intelligence, surveillance and torture programmes.

Most notoriously, Cheney helped the Bush administration construct an elaborate double lie as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq.

(…)

Cheney‘s true legacy, then, lies not only in the „war on terror“ he helped engineer, but in the political and moral infrastructure he left behind.

More than two decades later, his post-9/11 world order – defined by endless wars, government overreach and impunity – endures, and today‘s war criminals, following in his path, roam free.

20.11.2025 - 16:52 [ ABC News ]

Dick Cheney funeral: Guests begin to arrive, Trump and Vance not invited

A polarizing and powerful figure, Cheney worked for four decades in Washington. He served in Congress, was secretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush and then vice president under President George W. Bush.

He played a leading role in the response to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, including the war on terror and invasion of Iraq.

20.11.2025 - 16:49 [ USA Today ]

A funeral for Dick Cheney, and the ‚adults-in-the-room‘ GOP establishment

Cheney and Bush took office under a cloud of controversy after the Supreme Court ended Florida‘s recount during the 2000 presidential election. They left the White House eight years later with the economy collapsing into the Great Recession and two unpopular wars raging.

It was that political landscape that Trump found so amendable to his own outsider campaign in 2016 that helped catapult him from New York real estate and reality TV star into the White House. Along the way, Trump would accuse Bush and Cheney of leading the U.S. into „endless wars.“

18.11.2025 - 22:46 [ CNN ]

Here’s the Epstein bill’s possible path in the Senate

A Senate-passed bill without changes would go to President Donald Trump’s desk for his approval.

If the Senate were to amend it, the bill would moves to Trump’s desk after the Senate version was again passed by the House.

Trump has said he will sign the bill into law. But he could also change his mind and choose to veto the bill, which would then require a two-thirds vote to override the president’s veto. He could also decide not to act on the bill, allowing it to become law without his signature.

15.11.2025 - 06:52 [ Daniell Neun / Radio Utopie ]

Als das Bundesverfassungsgericht Deutschland zur elektronischen Kolonie erklärte

(Juni 15, 2017)

Mit seinen Beschlüssen 2 BvE 5/15 (verkündet am 14.10.2016, aber schon vom 20.09.2016) und 2 BvE 2/15 (verkündet am 15.11.2016, aber schon vom 13.10.2016) gab das Bundesverfassungsgericht das unauffällige Startsignal für den Beschluss des neuen B.N.D.-Gesetzes am 21.10.2016 im Bundestag.

Die Absegnung des B.N.D.-Gesetzes durch ihre Über-Dreiviertel-Mehrheit im Parlament, gegen die es laut Karlsruhe nun keine Opposition mehr im Sinne von Artikel 44 des Grundgesetzes gab, hatte die Regierung bis zu den Freifahrtscheinen der Verfassungsrichter taktisch verzögert.

Am 12. Dezember 1970 hatte das „Abhörteil“ (BVerfGE 30, 1) vom Verfassungsgericht Westdeutschlands die Aufhebung der Gewaltenteilung beim Brief-, Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnis durch die Verfassungsänderungen der „Notstandsgesetze“ als verfassungsgemäß beurteilt. Das damalige Urteil war gegen schwerste Bedenken und vorausschauende Warnungen der Verfassungsrichter Geller, Dr. v.Schlabrendorff und Dr. Rupp mit 5 zu 3 Stimmen entschieden worden.

Im Jahre 2016 nun übertrugen Andreas Voßkuhle, Peter M. Huber, Monika Hermanns, Sibylle Kessal-Wulf, Peter Müller, Doris König und Ulrich Maidowski die Machtfülle der in 1968 unter Besatzungsrecht geschaffenen „Notstandsgesetze“ der damaligen „großen Koalition“ auf deren heutige Nachfolger.

Und in Deutschland, wie es heute ist, eskalierten die Verfassungsrichter selbst die damalige antidemokratische und antiparlamentarische Auslegung des Grundgesetzes ein weiteres Mal.

Die durch die Verfassungsänderungen der „Notstandsgesetze“ und das nachfolgende erste Artikel 10-Gesetz vom 13. August 1968 geschaffene G 10-Kommission, als einziges parlamentarisches Gremium bevollmächtigt Inlandsspionage der Behörden zu verbieten, hatte dies siebenundvierzig Jahre effektiv nicht getan und lediglich als Feigenblatt der Regierungsmacht gedient.

Als die G 10-Kommission schließlich Mitte 2015 zum ersten Mal in ihrer Geschichte gegen die Regierung revoltierte und Einblick in die sogenannte „N.S.A.-Selektorenliste“ verlangte – eine Liste mit Spionagezielen, die der Bundesnachrichtendienst abgelehnt hatte, nicht etwa einer Liste mit tatsächlich anvisierten Zielen – verweigerte die Regierung selbst diesem Gremium die Einsichtnahme. Als die G 10-Kommission dann im Dezember 2015 endlich Verfassungsklage einreichte, stellte sie keinen Eilantrag.

Am 14. Oktober 2016 weigerte sich dann das Bundesverfassungsgericht im (wie erwähnt bereits am 20. September 2016 getroffenen) Beschluss 2 BvE 5/15, die Verfassungsklage der G 10-Kommission auch nur anzunehmen.

Begründung der Karlsruher Richter: Ihrer Interpretation des Grundgesetzes nach, sei die vom Parlamentarischen Kontrollgremium des Bundestages gewählte G 10-Kommission kein „Hilfsorgan“ (Wortlaut Artikel 10 Grundgesetz) des Bundestages, weil sie in dessen Geschäftsordnung (!) nicht „mit eigenen Rechten ausgestattet“ sei.

Abseits dieser bizarr anmutenden Begründung hatte das Urteil einen verheerenden, tatsächlichen Kern: eben den Bezug auf die Legitimierung der „Notstandsgesetze“ Westdeutschlands durch das „Abhörurteil“ BVerfGE 30, 1, von 1970. In einem in der Tat historischen Schritt bestätigten die Verfassungsrichter nicht nur die seitdem als verfassungsgemäß geltende selektive Außerkraftsetzung der Gewaltenteilung, sondern vollzogen in deren letzter Konsequenz selbst die Erniedrigung der parlamentarischen G 10-Kommission und entblößten diese als Placebo, als jahrzehntelanges, lediglich im Falle von Folgsamkeit geduldetes Feigenblatt exekutiver Willkürmacht.

08.11.2025 - 20:36 [ Northeastern.edu ]

What is the Posse Comitatus Act, and how does it apply to Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in California and Washington, D.C.?

(September 9, 2025)

Dan Urman, director of the law and public policy minor at Northeastern University, who teaches courses on the Supreme Court, says the National Guard is often caught between state and federal authority. The guard generally reports to their respective state governors, “but if they get called into federal service, then the Posse Comitatus Act applies to them.”

“To work around this, presidents can ask governors to deploy their state’s National Guard members,” Urman says.

08.11.2025 - 20:00 [ ABC News ]

Judge permanently blocks deployment of National Guard to Portland, saying Trump exceeded his authority

In a 106-decision, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut made permanent an order she issued last month blocking the deployment into the city.

„The evidence demonstrates that these deployments, which were objected to by Oregon‘s governor and not requested by the federal officials in charge of protection of the ICE building, exceeded the president‘s authority,“ the judge wrote.

07.11.2025 - 23:25 [ Trinidad Express ]

US Senate blocks bid to limit Trump’s war powers on Venezuela

A vote was held to discharge Resolution S.J.Res.90, the Venezuela Hostilities Removal Resolution, a resolution sponsored by Democrats Tim Kaine and Adam Schiff and Republican senator Rand Paul on October 16.

It aimed to invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution which asserts that US military action should be approved by US Congress.

The motion was not agreed to, 49 US senators voting in favour, but 51 voting against.

03.11.2025 - 19:13 [ New York Times ]

Supreme Court Confronts Trump and His Tariffs in Test of Presidential Power

The Supreme Court’s six conservative justices have so far been receptive to Mr. Trump’s claims of presidential authority. Among other things, they have allowed the administration to withhold funds appropriated by Congress, kick transgender troops out of the military and pursue aggressive immigration-related policies — but all on a temporary, emergency basis.

The tariffs case is the first time the justices have weighed the underlying legal merits of a key administration priority in Mr. Trump’s second term.

03.11.2025 - 19:04 [ Politico.com ]

Trump reverses course on attending Supreme Court arguments this week

The justices are set to weigh a pair of legal challenges to Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on several countries by invoking a nearly 50-year-old law. No president before Trump has used the law, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose tariffs, which have brought in tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. government.

Trump’s decision came after at least one prominent Trump ally indicated it would be unwise for the president to attend.

02.11.2025 - 15:38 [ CNN ]

Trump says he’s ordered Pentagon to ‘prepare for possible action’ in Nigeria

In a social media post criticizing what he called the “mass slaughter” of Christians in the country, Trump wrote the United States would “immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria” and warned the government there to “move fast.”

In the lengthy message, Trump said the US “may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

01.11.2025 - 14:48 [ Fox News ]

Food stamp benefits for 42 million Americans in jeopardy today amid shutdown

Democrats are suing the Trump administration in part over its refusal to use the SNAP emergency fund, which they contend has about $5 billion, to fund the program. But a recent memo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) argued there was no legal standing to use the fund and that federal SNAP funds would run dry by Nov. 1 if Democrats did not vote to end the shutdown.

A pair of federal judges ruled on Friday that the administration would have to pay out the food stamp benefits for November, either in full or partially.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins affirmed the memo during a Friday press conference,

28.10.2025 - 19:35 [ theHill.com ]

Graham says lawmakers to be briefed on potential Venezuela land attack

(October 26, 2025)

“There will be a congressional briefing about a potential expanding from the sea to the land. I support that idea, but I think [Trump] has all the authority he needs,” Graham added.

Starting in early September, the president authorized a series of strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing at least 43 people.

28.10.2025 - 19:29 [ CBS News ]

Sen. Lindsey Graham says land strikes in Venezuela are a „real possibility“ amid rising tensions

(October 26, 2025)

„I think President Trump‘s made a decision that [Nicolas] Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, is an indicted drug, drug trafficker, that it‘s time for him to go, that Venezuela and Colombia have been safe havens for narco-terrorists for too long, and President Trump told me yesterday that he plans to brief members of Congress when he gets back from Asia about future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia,“ Graham said Sunday on „Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.“

21.10.2025 - 11:49 [ Katu.com ]

Court permits Trump‘s troop deployment in Portland, pending further appeal

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued two temporary restraining orders early this month — one that prohibited Trump from calling up the troops so he could send them to Portland, and another that prohibited him from sending any National Guard members to Oregon at all, after the president tried to evade the first order by deploying California troops instead.

The Justice Department appealed the first order, and in a 2-1 ruling Monday, a panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the administration.

Immergut’s second order remains in effect, so no troops may immediately be deployed.

19.10.2025 - 11:16 [ ABC News ]

Trump says 2 survivors of US strike on submarine being sent to Ecuador, Colombia in move that avoids legal fight

In a legal defense provided to Congress, Trump told lawmakers that the U.S. is in an „armed conflict“ with the cartels and that drug smugglers are „unarmed combatants.“

Some legal experts have said such an argument is unlikely to hold up in court. However, it was unclear who would challenge Trump’s rationale in defense of the drug cartels, with few lawmakers speaking out against it and Trump continuing to expand military operations in the region in recent weeks.

18.10.2025 - 13:58 [ NPR.org ]

No Kings protests: What to expect at Saturday‘s marches around the country

No Kings organizers estimated that more than 5 million people turned out for the June protests. They speculate that Saturday‘s event could be even bigger.

16.10.2025 - 14:52 [ Seymour Hersh / Substack ]

WHY ARE US TROOPS OCCUPYING AMERICAN CITIES?

The Trump administration is playing another long game, or trying to, in the streets of US cities under Democratic Party governance, using existing presidential emergency powers to send National Guard, Army troops and ICE agents to hunt down and arrest suspected undocumented immigrants and detain and deport them, without the due process demanded by the Constitution. What’s happening now may be a trial run for the use of those forces to interfere on the behalf of the president and the Republican Party in states where the Democratic Party has a chance to win crucial seats in next fall’s Congressional elections. I’ve been told by someone with inside knowledge that planning for such action is now under way in the White House.