As you will recall, the term “Avignon Papacy” refers to the period of 1309-77 during which seven popes established their court in France rather than Rome. It was the result in part of French influence over the papacy, legitimate fear of the German emperors invading Rome, and the very involved politics of the period. (Just to give a taste, the Crusades were still going on, the Hundred Years War between France and England was beginning, and Dante was writing his Divine Comedy.) St. Catherine of Sienna was influential in personally convincing the pope to return to Rome.

Probably unfairly to the seven popes, the period was also characterized as the “Babylonian Captivity” and it was assumed that the popes were the puppets of the French kings. That didn’t really happen until after the popes returned to Rome and “pretender popes” were elected in Avignon. And this doesn’t even give you a hint of how complicated it all was.

Anyway, the reference was certainly intended to suggest that the Church could be controlled by the most powerful government on the planet. Wow! And given that the Renaissance started during this period, it could be a good time for artists. (Pres. Trump’s heavy-on-the-gold renovations of the Oval Office are now looking really on point.)

Well, it didn’t happen. The Avignon Papacy did happen, but the Vatican confirmed that there was no such heated conversation and certainly no threat about moving the Pope to Florida. (Although his brother does live there and is a big supporter of the President. So don’t count it out.)

Everything smoothed over and cooler heads prevailed.

BUT NO!

You guessed it, Pres. Trump took to Truth Social.

Rather than go through it all on my own, I’ll leave it to two of my friends who are much more qualified to deal with the details.

Phil Lawler's Substack

Who started the Trump 'feud' with the Pope?

Responding to my analysis of confrontation between Pentagon officials and Cardinal Pierre, @MarkSimonHK wrote on X that “Lawler is more open than I am about the role of @Pontifex…” (This was before Trump’s personal assault on the Pope on Truth Social.) Actually I…

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4 days ago · 24 likes · Phil Lawler

and

The Sayable

Behind The Headlines

Pope Leo’s comment on the plane today, “I have no fear of the Trump administration,” stuck out at me because it is unusual for a Pope to call out a politician by name…

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4 days ago · 2 likes · Delia Buckley Gallagher

In short, Pope Leo expressed his (not surprising) position that the war in Iran is wrong and that diplomacy and discussion should have continued. Responding with the presence of mind and self-control of a honey badger that had been dropped into a nest of fire ants, Donald Trump took to Truth Social and has doubled-down in subsequent statements to the press. (The Pope’s side has also been out with an interview on 60 Minutes with three, shall we say, controversial Cardinals. And Pres. Clinton’s political advisor met with the Pope just before all this began.)

Trump’s lack of equanimity surprised everyone, everyone, that is, who has been living under a rock for the past ten years. At this point had he responded in a statesmanlike manner the world would have stopped on its axis.

Statesmanship

From the moment he descended the golden escalator to declare his intention to run for office, The Donald’s seeming indifference to the words he uses has caused nothing but confusion. Is he really that crazy? Half the country says he is, and the other half says he isn’t. (The rest of the world, by the way, is certain that he is.) He seems intent on driving people mad.

To make the contrast more clear between his words and his deeds, let’s sum up a number of events that, in hindsight, start to make sense:

1. In April 2025, the Trump administration formed a security agreement with Panama after threatening to take it over by force. This effectively removed Chinese influence from this important waterway, an influence that was growing quickly.

2. On January 3, 2026 American forces captured the Venezuelan (not recognized by most countries) president and his wife to face trial in New York. The surviving government is now working very closely with the US. This after China was getting oil from Venezuela at below market prices because the country was sanctioned and could not sell on the open market. Venezuela is estimated to have the largest oil reserves in the entire world. China was able to buy this oil in its own currency and not US dollars.

3. Subsequent pressure and blockade of Cuba has led to negotiations and the release of several thousand political prisoners by the Communists.

4. The February 28 attack on Iran and now blockade of its ports has shut down oil exports from the Gulf, which China relies on. China was also able to buy this oil at below market rates and in its own currency rather than in US dollars.

5. Both the operations in Venezuela and Iran have shown the hollowness of Chinese defense systems, resulting in the demotion, disappearance, and death of many top military officials and defense engineers in China. This significantly reduces the potential of an attack on Taiwan.

6. An agreement between the US and Indonesia was announced this week (although signed in February, interestingly) that strengthens trade and military ties between the two countries.

Here’s a map that might start to make sense of the moves above:

The Trump administration has secured for itself or rendered impassible almost all the major trading chokepoints in the world (Panama, Hormuz, Malacca, Mindoro, Makassar, and Lombok), and certainly the most important ones for China. It has undone the efforts at “de-dolarization” of the oil markets, securing the US dollar as the sole means for trading the most important commodity in the world. (There are some significant economic advantages to this that I won’t get into.)

I could just be reading into these events, but they do seem intentional. They do seem coordinated. But I’ll agree that they don’t seem compatible with posting AI generated memes of oneself as Jesus and then saying, no, I just thought it was a picture of me as a doctor working for the Red Cross. (No, really. This happened.)

Trump at Canossa?

In 1077, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV knelt in the snow at the castle of Canossa in northern Italy, begging for pardon from Pope Gregory VII. Their dispute was over who was allowed to appoint bishops. (A secret agreement with China—yes, them again—was made under Pope Francis regarding this very issue.) Gregory had excommunicated Henry, which brought him to repent.

Again, only those living under a rock could imagine Donald Trump asking forgiveness from anyone. By all measures he should, however. His words were intemperate and unbefitting a man of his position. But it won’t happen.

Perhaps this is another job for Marco Rubio.

Until last Friday everything has more or less been on the same trajectory as the last few weeks. But then the pilot and weapons office of an American F-15E were forced to eject deep in Iran. (Details of why are largely restricted because revealing how it was shot, if it was shot, would or could help other countries learn of its vulnerabilities. That’s why I’m being vague. [Not that Chinese spies are reading DNN. I don’t know what happened.])

The pilot was rescued quickly, but the other airman was not. His parachute took him further away. The process of getting him back was immense. They flew two cargo planes onto a disused Iranian airstrip. Secured the area. Unloaded helicopters from the planes. Flew them to rescue the officer. He, meanwhile, followed his training and scrambled several miles from his landing site, climbed steep terrain, and contacted help. All this while being hunted by Iranians.

So his rescue was a real achievement.

Meanwhile, Pres. Trump was on Truth Social. I wish I could stop there, but duty requires that I press on.

The President truthed (?) several threats to the Iranians using the kind of language I can’t reproduce here. It was vulgar in the extreme. He also threated to “bomb Iran back to the stone age” and destroy their civilization, promising that it would never recover. He even wrote, “Praise Allah” in one of the threats. Huh?

Our friend Phil Lawler has been writing about just war principles. You don’t need to do a deep dive into Vittoria to know that what Pres. Trump was threatening crosses the line.

While some have pointed out that these threats are the kind that Iran has thrown at the US and Israel for years, it does sound different coming from the one country in the world that could actually do it. [Apologies to the Chinese spies, but the performance of their weapons systems in Venezuela and Iran suggest they remain a few steps behind the US.]

Others suggest that this is all part of his “madman” approach to negotiations. There is a lot of evidence that because no one knows how far he will actually go, foreign leaders take his threats very seriously. So he set an 8:00pm Tuesday deadline for the Iranians, after which he would destroy every bridge and power station in the country.

We now have a two week ceasefire.

Perhaps years from now we will know if his public threats worked to broker the agreement. But we don’t know if the Iranians even have access to the internet at this point. They might not have known about the Truth Social threats. We have no idea.

Nevertheless, the ceasefire is going to allow the two sides to negotiate a more permanent solution and, very importantly, tankers will be able to sail through the Strait. There is still a lot to be worked out, but this is a very positive development.

One question in all of this is whether the Iranians doing the negotiations (brokered through Pakistan) have control of the military. Can they keep their men from firing missiles? Do they have a way to even get orders to the guys hidden in bunkers? We hope.

The other question is whether our allies agree. Not just Israel, but several of the Gulf states are now at war with Iran. I read this morning that the United Arab Emirates bombed positions in Iran. Does that break the ceasefire?

Let’s hope the ceasefire holds and a solution can be reached. The latest “truth” from the President says the Iranians have agreed to allow the US to extract all their nuclear weapons materials from the country. Big if true, as the kids say.

Let’s say a real Hail Mary for this one.

Birthright Citizenship

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today on the case of Trump v. Barbara. The Court has had written arguments from both sides and from amici curiae (literally friends of the court, legal opinions from people not directly involved in the case). Today is the one chance for both sides to present their arguments in person and for the justices to ask questions. It can (sometimes) give an indication of what the members of the court are thinking.

For the first time in history a sitting president will also be there to listen. There is, of course, no reason for him not to do so. The justices are not the kind of people to be intimidated.

We have discussed the issue of birthright citizenship before and its relation to the Fourteenth Amendment. What is interesting is just how far the argument has moved from only a year ago.

Almost no one would have thought this issue was up for debate. But now it is a tossup. The Court really could rule either way. It is an astonishing development.

DHS Funding

It looks like there is a deal to completely fund the Department of Homeland Security. Large parts of it (ICE has been funded separately) have been without funding for six weeks. Travelers needing to go through TSA at airports should be very happy.

Politicians on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, will claim victory and their party members will probably claim defeat. It is a victory insofar as something actually got done. The Democrats didn’t get ICE defunded or abolished, so large parts of their party will be upset. The Republicans didn’t get the country to blame the Democrats for the shutdown, so their party will complain that it was a missed opportunity to cause them pain.

Moon Shot

Tonight NASA launched a rocket to take American astronauts further into space than ever before. They won’t land on the moon. That will come later. But they will go around it and prepare for the next few missions that will eventually land back on the moon.

For anyone born after 1972, this will be the first time in your lives that anyone will have made this trip. The last mission was Apollo 17 on Dec. 7, 1972.

There should be some amazing pictures. Here is a visual of their ten day (10 day!) mission:

Iran

OK, so this is the big one. Everyone is wondering what is going on there. As before, more of the same.

Israel is racking up a long list of Iranian officials they have killed. We really haven’t seen anything like this before, where the military and political leadership has been eliminated in such numbers.

The only other historical analogy, and it is imperfect, is from the Anabasis of Xenophon. This tells the story of 10,000 Greek mercenaries stranded behind enemy lines after their employer, Cyrus the Younger, is killed in battle. Their generals were called to a treaty with the Persians where they were all killed. Leaderless, the 10,000 had to fight their was back to Greece.

OK, I said it was an imperfect analogy, but you have to like the fact that I get to mention Xenophon and that all this took place in the same location as the war right now.

Some ships are getting through the Strait of Homuz, which suggests there are no mines. Some ships are paying Iran $2 million for safe passage. This suggests that there are Iranians in control of the military forces stationed to shut the Strait. Someone is asking for the money. Someone is getting the money. And someone has enough control to make sure nothing happens to the ships that paid the money.

All this brings us to the reports, claims, counter-claims, and denials about talks between the US and Iran. There might, or might not, be conversations about either ending the war, opening the Strait, neither, or something else entirely.

The President is scheduled to speak to the nation at 9:00pm Eastern time tonight. I’m going to try to post this before the address so I don’t have to change everything I’ve written. Then I’ll probably post again tomorrow when we know what he said.

Iran Implications

Since I can’t report on what the President is going to say, I may as well bring you up to speed on the implications of the Iran bombing. And all we’ve done so far is drop bombs, fire missiles, and use drones. That is significant.

Here at home the President’s approval has been dropping like a stone. There has not been a “rally ‘round the flag” effect. MAGA still loves him. Democrats are tearing their (pink) hair out. And lots of people in the middle are frustrated with rising gas prices.

Countries in Asia are desperate for oil. None of the major countries in Asia have oil or natural gas, so almost every bit is imported from the Middle East. Australia does have both but has stopped all extraction for environmental reasons. They even shut their one refinery, which means they have to import even more expensive refined oil. They have enough left in the country for only a few weeks, if that.

Europe is in a similar situation. France has a lot of nuclear power, so it can at least produce electricity. This is not true of much of the rest of the continent. There are calls for people to reduce their driving, stay home, and even work from home. Rationing and enforced closure of businesses is likely if things continue.

Europe is not happy, and they are not keeping that a secret. Spain has refused to allow American military planes to use its airspace. Italy has refused to allow them to use bases there.

In response, Pres. Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which has bound the nations of the West together since the beginning of the Cold War. Its purpose has been described as keeping the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. It doesn’t seem to be doing any of those things at the moment. But the President can’t do anything about this. Congress passed a law expressly forbidding presidents from removing the country from NATO.

With all this going on the speech tonight is going to be interesting. If there is some sort of quick resolution the economy could get back on track quickly. If, on the other hand, the President will announce further escalation and maybe the landing of ground troops on Iranian soil, it is hard to think of many people who will be happy with that. But if it works…

Everyone loves a winner. And depending on the way it is resolved, if it is resolved, one of the largest oil producers in the world and most strategic sites on the planet (between China and the Mediterranean) will be taken out of the Chinese and Russian orbit and placed firmly in the American.

High risk. High reward. And let’s not forget that this is all in the context of a midterm election this year.

But in plain shock and even play of battle,
Was ever known so great and little loss
On one part and on th’ other? (Henry V, IV.8 113-15)

But this is not over and terrible things can still happen.

What We Know

As I’ve already said, the military campaign is very lopsided. Iran seems to be running our of missiles while American and Israeli planes and drones can do whatever they want.

The tactic of decapitation, that is to say, killing the entire Iranian leadership in targeted strikes, is unprecedented. Usually, the top political and military ranks are not in direct danger. This is reflected in the concluding lesson of John McCutcheon’s song about the Christmas Truce in WWI, “Christmas in the Trenches”: “That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame/ And on each end of the rifle we’re the same.”

Pres. Trump has even pointed out one of the ironies of this policy, namely, that there is no one left to negotiate with. Each time someone is appointed to a leadership role, he dies in an Israeli attack. What does this mean? We really don’t know because we haven’t seen anything like this in military history. [This point probably shouldn’t be in the “What We Know” section, obviously.]

A Wall Street Journal piece this week revealed another feature of Israeli penetration into the Iranian regime. The paper reproduced a transcript from a telephone call where Mossad (the Israeli military intelligence agency) called the personal cell phone of a mid to low level Iranian soldier and spoke to him in Farsi. Apparently, they have the numbers (literally and figuratively) of almost everyone in the country. They are also getting targeting information from Iranian civilians. This is also unprecedented.

That’s the good news. There’s also bad news about what we now know.

Iran fired two missiles at the American base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Remember this island? It is part of the Chagos Islands that Prime Minister Starmer of the United Kingdom was going to pay Mauritius to take off his hands. Everything is connected!

The thing about the missiles targeting Diego Garcia (one of which crashed into the ocean on its own and the other destroyed by the US Navy) is that Iran wasn’t supposed to have missiles that could reach a target that is 2,631 miles from Tehran. Everyone thought that they didn’t have the capacity for that.

A missile that can go that far is known as an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). If it can reach Diego Garcia, it could reach Berlin (2,200 miles or 3,540KM away), Paris (2,610 miles or 4,200KM) and almost London (2,750 miles or 4,400KM). And Tehran isn’t the closest part of Iran to Europe. European countries do not have anti missile systems that can protect them from IRBMs which can reach descent speeds of up to Mach 10 (that’s ten times the speed of sound!).

Knowing that Iran has missiles of this capacity puts the decision to attack them three weeks ago in a new light, but doesn’t resolve the issue. Some might say that it justifies the operation because they were certainly trying to develop missiles that could threaten Europe. Others might say the operation is even more reckless because they have those capabilities already and might, therefore, have other things we thought they didn’t have, such as nuclear weapons.

New light tends to make opposing interpretations only more clear to the beholder. It comes down to how one feels about being held hostage by apocalyptic fanatics with a death wish, by which I mean the Islamic Republic not, in this case, European environmentalists.

What We Don’t Know

The big unknown is when the Strait of Hormuz will open to tanker traffic and get the oil flowing. A lot depends on this, and not just the price we pay to fill our cars.

The Americas are pretty shielded from the blockage of Hormuz, at least directly. Canada, Venezuela and the US have more oil than they use and other byproducts, such as fertilizer, are sourced from within the hemisphere, too. (California, however, does get gas from across the Pacific because shipping it from the Middle East is somehow more environmentally friendly than producing it locally, which they could and did do.)

Europe and Asia are in trouble, but what can they do? Japan, for instance, has no sources of oil within its territory. This lack of oil was, I’m afraid to point out, one of the reasons it expanded into its “Co-prosperity Zone” prior to WWII. Not really days of blessed memory. Japan and South Korea apparently have several months of reserved oil, but others like India certainly do not.

Most European countries have shut down their domestic supplies of oil and gas for environmental reasons. Much like California, they’d prefer to ship it half way around the world and through some very tricky bottlenecks than pull it out of the ground beneath their feet. (What was I saying about fanatics?) A closed Strait of Hormuz makes them even more dependent on Russian sources. And this is especially true for fertilizer, which they will need very soon as planting season begins.

Oil isn’t just for cars, although that’s were we see most of it. Somehow it is also involved in the production of helium, which is used in the making of computer chips. Don’t ask me how. And the Middle East provided most of Taiwan’s helium. Taiwan is where most of the chips are made for the whole world.

Other News

The Department of Homeland Security remains unfunded. Some airports are seeing five hour waiting times to get through security because TSA officers are not showing up to work if they aren’t getting paid.

Two solutions have been suggested (apart from the obvious one of enough Democrats voting to release the funds). First, Elon Musk has offered to pay the employees, himself. While he has he money, he couldn’t actually do this. He could give as much to the Treasury as he wants, but Congress would still have to pass a bill or continuing resolution to allow DHS to draw money to pay its employees.

The other suggestion, which Pres. Trump seems likely to do, is help staff TSA with ICE officers, who are getting paid. Whether or not that solves the problem, it might be enough to get the Democrats to concede and do what is necessary to fund the rest of DHS. The question is how the part of the party that is fanatically opposed to deporting illegals will respond to this suggestion. Is funding DHS worse than ICE agents in airports?

In other news, the Trump Administration has submitted its petition in the birthright citizenship case. Their argument is that “under the jurisdiction” does not apply to aliens, whether legal or illegal.

Remember that this all hinges on an interpretation of one clause in the 14th Amendment. So there is a lot of work going on to build arguments around how “under the jurisdiction” would have been understood at the time of passing the 14th Amendment. But because no one really wrote down what they thought it meant, probably because they assumed everyone understood, we are trying to trace the history of the concept.

As if the news is conspiring to let me tie everything back to Henry V, one of the arguments used in this case goes all the way back to the Salic Law.

The New Digest

The Salic Law of Our Republic

“In surveying the general structure of the constitution of the United States, we are naturally led to an examination of the fundamental principles, on which it is organized, for the purpose of carrying into effect the objects disclosed in the preamble…

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a month ago · 24 likes · 12 comments · Adrian Vermeule

You will remember that Henry’s claim to the throne of France rested on the Salic Law’s understanding of who is eligible to inherit sovereignty. Well, in a republic, citizens inherit sovereignty. So we have a well-developed history on this very issue. Of course, the fact that the last time we had to turn to the Salic Law was the middle of the Hundred Years War isn’t a great source of comfort.

We can use stasis in both meanings to describe the world around us. The military action in Iran is continuing, but we are seeing very few changes. The US and Israel continue to bomb various sites and, last I heard, five Americans were injured and one died [in the last 24 hours — ed.] . Things are changing and yet nothing is changing since last I wrote. Is this “stasis” or “stasis”?

Here at home the meaning is less ambiguous, unfortunately. On the same day, two different acts of Islamic terrorism occurred in the country. In one, a Lebanese man drove a car filled with explosives into a synagogue and Jewish school in Michigan. He was shot and killed by the armed guards that are, alas, all too necessary at Jewish centers around the world. The second involved a Muslim man from Sierra Leone, a naturalized American citizen, who was previously convicted for aiding ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a terrorist group that has killed Americans and other around the world). He attacked an ROTC class at Old Dominion University in Virginia where he shot and killed Lt. Col. Brandon Shah. Students fought back, unarmed, and killed the terrorist.

All of this comes just days after two Muslim Americans threw bombs into a demonstration in New York City. A small group was demonstrating against Muslim influence in the city in front of Gracie Mansion, the official home of the mayor of NYC who is a Muslim. A larger group formed to protest the demonstrators, calling them fascists and white supremacists. As one of the (white, liberal) demonstrators was chanting on his bullhorn, a young Muslim man climbed over his back and threw an improvised explosive device (a small bomb filled with nails) into the demonstration. Fortunately, it and another similar bomb did not detonate.

There was also an attack on a bar in Austin, TX on March 1 where four people were killed and fifteen wounded. The terrorist was, again, Muslim. And, like all the above cases, was a US citizen. The two young men from New Jersey who had their pleasant trip to the City disrupted (see below) were born here to immigrant parents. The others were all immigrants who became citizens. Is there a part of the government that should be looking into this?

You might remember that the Department of Homeland Security is currently going unfunded by the government. DHS is a counter terrorism office as well as the home of TSA, the airport security division. There is pressure on Democrats to resume funding it during this time of increased terrorism, but bills to do so have failed in the Senate as recently as yesterday. This means that everyone checking your bags at the airport is not getting paid, nor are those looking for terrorist networks. Some are quitting so they can find jobs that will pay their rent.

We can hope that those charged with oversight do not overlook this.

Suicidal Empathy

The term “suicidal empathy” is gaining traction and is popping up in discussions throughout the English speaking world. It was coined by Gad Saad, a Canadian evolutionary psychologist who has moved to the United States because, being Jewish, he is no longer safe in Montreal.

The term captures the idea that some people feel so empathetic that they are driven to actions that will bring about their own demise. The photo above of a liberal American demonstrating in support of increased immigration of Muslims, only to be used as a launch pad by a Muslim terrorist is almost too perfect an example of suicidal empathy. Had the bomb detonated, there is a good chance Mr. Launchpad would have been injured or died. Since the incident, he has publicly stated that he still supports mass immigration and does not think that Muslim terrorism is a real danger. You can’t make this up.

Speaking of making things up, CNN’s initial story (since deleted) cast the softest light on the NYC terrorists:

“Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather. But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.”

This CNN article was written after it was already known that the suspects told authorities that they wanted to cause more damage than the Boston Marathon bombers and wrote out statements pledging their loyalty to ISIS (yes, the same organization as the Old Dominion terrorist joined). If this isn’t suicidal empathy, I don’t know what is.

The House and Senate introduced bills earlier this week to order the President to remove all forces from unauthorized hostilities in Iran. (Notice they avoid the word “war.”) It failed in both houses along mostly party lines, 47-53 in the Senate and 212-219 in the House. Even if it had passed the President could have vetoed it and neither vote was anywhere near the 2/3 majority required to override a veto.

What this means is the use of military force in Iran is legally ambiguous. It could be authorized under the Authorized Use of Military Force act from 2001. It might be compliant with the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (passed by 2/3rd majority over Pres. Nixon’s veto, by the way). But now that both houses of Congress have refused to stop the military activity when given the chance to vote on the issue, there really isn’t much of a legal or Constitutional issue against it.

This isn’t really the way the Article I branch (the legislative) and the Article II branch (the executive) are supposed to operate, but we’ve been doing it this way for decades.

What’s Been Happening?

The good news is that the American military has been demonstrating an astounding level of proficiency, as has the Israeli. On the attack side, they have had amazing success taking out all defensive systems in Iran and degrading the offensive systems. They are also systematically eliminating the leadership of the Islamic Republic. On the defense side, the interceptors have shot down an astounding number of missiles and drones.

The bad news is that the Islamic Republic is even crazier than we thought. The whole reason for the war military operation was that the Iranian apocalyptic fanatics would not be restrained by the principles of self-preservation and rational calculation. They’ve proven that theory correct.

At last count, the Iranians have attacked 14 different countries with combinations of ballistic missiles and drones. They are attacking their erstwhile allies, such as Qatar, and all other Arab nations. Normally, these countries will at least publicly object to anything Israel does against any Muslim country. Now they are joining the US and Israel. Saudi Arabia may even use its air force to bomb Iran. One ballistic missile was shot down over Turkey. We don’t know if it went astray or was intentional, but technically it would draw all of NATO into the war because Turkey is a member. It is also on Iran’s border so a land invasion would be possible from there if Turkey got involved.

Not only is Iran alienating every surrounding country, it is not able to rely on allies further away. China has supplied Iran with a significant part of its military technology including, in the last thing I read, supersonic anti-ship missiles. Iran fired them off and not one of them hit their target. Oops. Now China has signaled that it will provide only “moral support” for Iran, but nothing more.

What Are Some of the Consequences?

We can’t say what is going to happen, but we can see what is happening. Here are some things we can say:

1. American Military: American military dominance is clear. Chinese and Russian weapons systems are no match for what the US has. They supplied Venezuela, too, and that didn’t work out well for them. Who will want to be their allies now?

2. Allied Militaries: Israel is at the top of its game. Don’t mess with Israel. We are also learning that Europe is hollow (except for France). The UK can barely set forth a few ships. The navy that once ruled the seas is stuck in port. Meanwhile, countries like the United Arab Emirates have larger and more sophisticated air forces than once world-leading forces like Canada. Power is shifting.

3. Economic Impact: Everyone is looking at the price of oil and natural gas. A huge amount of the oil and gas that comes out of the Middle East passes through the narrow Strait of Hormuz. Iran is trying to close that waterway; the US is trying to keep it open. (There are some fascinating but complicated things going on with maritime insurance, but I won’t get into that here.) With the war in Ukraine most of Europe has shifted its imports from Russia to the Middle East. Now that is being strangled. (Europe actually has lots of oil and gas in the ground. They just won’t extract it for political reasons.) But the longer this goes on the higher prices will go, and that’s not good for anyone’s economy.

   

4. China: China is in a bind. It needs oil and gas and something like 80% of it comes from the Middle East and through the Strait of Hormuz. Their erstwhile ally is trying to strangle that passage. Hmm. Maybe that accounts for the lukewarm support. Reports are coming in that Chinese military planes are not currently harassing Taiwan, something they’ve been doing for years. Are they trying to save gas? Maybe. It does give us an indication of just how sensitive China is to interruptions in their energy supply.

What To Watch For

The sooner this comes to an end the better for everyone. No one is going to benefit from a long, protracted war operation. Human casualties are the first concern, of course. Then comes the infrastructure in the Middle East and economic consequences elsewhere.

The Strait of Hormuz will continue to be the main thing to watch. Currently it is closed because Lloyd’s of London will not insure any ships, not because Iran has physically closed the strait. The US has stepped in to act as an alternative insurance company. One theory is that the US cut out the UK’s intelligence community on the attack on Iran because Prime Minister Starmer could not be trusted. It has long been suspected that Lloyd’s got secret information from MI6 about foreign affairs which allowed them to maintain their place at the center of insurance. (OK, I couldn’t help talking about insurance.) If a US version replaces Lloyd’s the world insurance markets would change dramatically and the UK would lose a massive economic mainstay.

The midterm elections are coming soon and gas prices are rising. More Americans are going to vote according to their economic interests rather than a war halfway around the world. If the economy sours, look for a very bad result for Pres. Trump. A Democrat majority in the House will start impeachment proceedings immediately and a Democrat majority in the Senate would schedule a trail in the most painful way possible for the President. On the other hand, a quick victory would be something to celebrate in the same year as the 250 anniversary of the country. Oil and gas prices would drop, patriotism would be up, and Democratic complaints that Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing would land like a lead balloon. Not much middle ground between those two options.

The US is an oil and gas exporter now, which means we use less than we produce. And now that Venezuela is working with us rather than against us, its oil reserves (calculated to be the largest in the world) could help keep prices reasonable. The rest of the world is not so lucky. Europe is stuck with limited imports, but Japan has only something like 9 months of reserves, China has 4-5 months, and India apparently has only one month worth of oil and gas in the country. These countries are going to be desperate for anything that trickles out of the Gulf of Arabia or via some other route. Short supply and high demand will drive prices through the roof.

The United States and Israel bombed various military and government installations early this morning. The division of labor seems to have the American forces destroy military assets and the Israelis target the political and military leaders. We already have credible reports that the Ayatollah Khamenei, the religious leader and real power in the country, has been killed. Everything is provisional at this point, but wow!

It is too early to make any grand assessments, but this could be one of the most positive events in the quarter century since 9/11. The terrorist attack on New York City and the Pentagon was the logical conclusion of Islamic attacks on the West, starting not so much with the Munich Olympics, but the taking of hostage the American Embassy during the Iranian Revolution. If this is successful in overturning the Islamic Republic, we could see a reversal of the trajectory of politics in the region.

Fascinatingly, Saudi Arabia has declared that it will join the US and Israel in their attacks on Iran. This is because Iran’s response to the assault this morning was to send missiles to seven countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia. The Saudis do not have diplomatic relations with Israel but they will engage in joint military actions? Strange days, indeed.

The Decision

The decision to go to war is not to be taken lightly. That’s why the Constitution puts the power to do so in the hands of the Senate. Oh. What were they doing this week? They held a “Bipawtisan Doggi Gras Pawrade” for their pets. I guess everyone’s lucky Trump isn’t a horse guy. (Caligula reference there for those in the know.)

Was what Trump did (is doing) illegal? That’s tricky. First, we’ve been “at war” several times in the last eighty years without a declaration of war from the Senate. For those of us who would like to see the Constitution followed closely by elected representatives, this is troubling. But in this case it might be less so.

The Senate issued an “Authorized Use of Military Force” AUMF on Sept. 18, 2001. It has not been repealed. There was a separate one issued specifically in regards to Iraq which has been repealed. Does the AUMF apply to the events today? Maybe. Probably.

The Constitution also gives the President broad powers in regards to international relations in Article II. Although it does not use the phrase, the strong implication is that salus populi, suprema lex (the safety of the people is the highest law). Presidents have used this implied meaning of their powers from the beginning. Given that there was almost no pushback in Congress to the massive movement of military assets into the Middle East in preparation for this morning’s attacks, one might see tacit agreement there among legislators.

The Outcome

No one knows what will come of today’s attack. There are three broad possibilities:

1. The regime leaders are all killed and the Revolutionary Guard is crushed. People rise up and are supported by the non-radicalized military. As a result Raza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shaw, can step in to set up some sort of constitutional monarchy.

2. Remnants of the regime survive and a civil war ensues. Israel does not have the ground forces to intervene and the Americans are still wary of a war of this sort since the Iraq War (many of the problems and casualties in which were caused by Iranian soldiers). Other countries (see below) could be drawn in.

3. Airstrikes alone cannot take out the leaders or new leaders emerge. The Islamic Republic essentially survives, inflicts further reprisals on its people, and not much is different from yesterday.

The three possibilities depend on the efficacy of the military operation and whether the emerging coalition of what seems at this point to be the entire Middle East can actually hold. This all depends, in turn, on the intelligence operations in Iran. Are the Americans hitting the right military sites and are the Israelis hitting the actual leaders of the regime? Large scale civilian casualties and ineffective decapitation of the regime would point towards the less favorable outcomes.

Concurrent Events

Pakistan and Afghanistan are now at war. Just to put this in context, Pakistan has nuclear weapons (developed to counter India) and both countries border Iran. This could get messy. A civil war in Iran could easily pull in one or both countries. Even a very weakened Iran would open up the use of its territory for military purposes for either of these countries. Better to fight on Iranian soil than your own. That would not help.

Prior to this morning’s attacks, the United Kingdom refused to allow the US to use any of its military bases for any actions against Iran. The Labour Party of the UK, currently in power with Kier Starmer as Prime Minister, is beholden to Muslim voters and cannot support any action against Islamic countries, no matter what. There are demonstrations by Iranians throughout the world currently in support of the actions by the US and Israel. These will be important to follow.

However, Starmer and his Labour Party rely on a coalition of Muslims and leftist. Well, they did. There was a bi-election in a safe Labour seat just the other day which was won by a member of the Green Party, which is a real coalition of Islamic/Environmental radicals. If Labour loses the Muslims they lose power. This is why he is doing everything he can to appease them, even to the extent of proposing blasphemy laws that would protect only Islam. There is a good deal of speculation that the UK was not informed of today’s plans because they could not be trusted for this very reason.

Russia and China have been silent so far. Both have been allies of Iran. Russia gets drones from them for the war in Ukraine and China gets a lot of its oil from Iran. But Russia is overextended at the moment and cannot help anyone. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping has removed (from office and/or from life) most of the top Chinese military in the wake of the successful Venezuela operation. This should send a signal to the world that they are not reliable allies. Collapse of the Islamic Republic would also have profound effects on the Ukraine War and on the Chinese economy.

I’ll try to keep you updated. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to go and listen to that O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.

The Case

The dispute centers around the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) from 1977. This gives a president wide ranging authority to “regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” (50 U.S.C. § 1702(a)(1)). There are a few other details, but this gives you the idea.

The Court did not rule on the question of whether there is, in fact, an emergency taking place. They seem to have left that decision to the president to decide, as the IEEPA suggests.

The question is over whether or not the list above—which does not use the word “tariff”—could also include the imposition of tariffs. The decision written by Chief Justice Roberts rules that because tariffs are not mentioned, tariffs cannot be used under this law. He thinks it is pretty straightforward.

Then things gets complicated.

Concurring

A tradition in the Court that developed early in its history is that all other justices can write their reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the decision. In this case, of the 6 justices that agreed that tariffs are not a part of the law, 5 wrote their own opinions: Roberts, Barrett, Brown, Gorsuch, and Kagan. So we have five different explanations for why they agree.

Justice Gorsuch wrote a concurrence of 48 pages in which he not only argued his case, he took aim at the other concurrences! He is especially hard on the liberal justices (Brown, Kagan, and Sotomayor) who thought President Biden had this kind of wide-ranging authority to forgive student loans, but don’t think so now that a Republican is in the White House. The other three were much shorter and didn’t get into the fight quite so much, but there is clearly a lot of disagreement about their agreement.

Their disagreement arises from the “major questions doctrine,” an idea in the law that only Congress can resolve issues of vast economic and political importance. For example, if Congress passes a law that says we need to reduce the number of traffic accidents, the President can’t decide that the best way to do so is to ban people from driving at night. So in regards to the case at issue, the President can’t just decide that tariffs are the best way to do what IEEPA wanted, even though they are never mentioned. The major questions doctrine arises because a lot of legislation is ambiguous and a lot of presidents (and their administrative agencies) have used those ambiguities to take on a lot of power to themselves.

Dissenting

There are two dissenting opinions, one from all three of the dissenters (written by Kavanaugh and agreed to by Alito and Thomas) and one from Thomas. Kavanaugh argues that regulations of the sort listed above in IEEPA have always included tariffs and he offers (over 68 pages) a list of times when this has occurred. Like Roberts, but drawing the opposite conclusion, Kavanaugh thinks this is pretty obvious. He argues that the Roberts decision would allow the President to impose an embargo or cut off all trade, just not regulate through tariffs (under IEEPA).

Thomas, like the concurrences, argues that this is really about the major questions doctrine and argues that the President can make a lot of these decisions, especially when it comes to questions about how to relate to foreign governments. In keeping with his long history on the bench, he maintains a clear distinction between domestic and foreign powers.

Implications

As a court of law not of fact, the Supreme Court decides only if something is constitutional or not. So the question of what to do with the tariff money received by the government is still open. That has been sent down to a lower court to work out.

In the meantime, President Trump has (after a vituperative rant about the traitorous actions of the justices) simply used other statutes to impose the same or higher tariffs. The only problem with these other laws, from his point of view, is that they require Congressional approval within a set period of time. Given how deadlocked Congress is, that seems unlikely.

Deadlocked Congress

Update on that: yes, DHS is still unfunded. This might get a little more attention in light of recent events south of us. The Mexican military (with assistance from the United States) tried to capture one of the leading drug cartel leaders. He died in the attempt. His cartel has now gone on a spree of violence. Some American tourists in popular tourist areas like Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta have been taken hostage, according to the State Department. Shelter in place orders have been issued in much of the country.

The Department of Homeland Security is supposed to monitor and arrest cartel members in the US. Many entered the country while it was so easy to get in under President Biden. An unfunded DHS could be severely impeded in its abilities at a time of cartel reprisals.

No doubt the President will mention this tomorrow evening (Tuesday) at the State of the Union Address. We have talked about the politics of immigration and border enforcement in past posts. The Democrats have been very vocal in their support of any and all illegals, including even MS13 gang members. We pray that nothing horrible happens, but a few incidents could completely change public attitudes going into the midterm elections.

When Congress kicked the can down the road with yet another continuing resolution, they carved out funding the Department of Homeland Security as a separate item. This was long before the surge of ICE agents to Minneapolis and the death of two American civilians as they tried to impede deportation efforts. The politics surrounding DHS have changed significantly.

The country is still split on the deportation of illegal immigrants. A majority still reports support for deportations. But the scenes of protest coming out of Minneapolis and the deaths of two protestors have hardened the position of those who object to the Trump Administration’s mass deportation efforts. The Democrats are being pressured by their base to make changes to ICE procedures and are using the DHS funding issue to do so.

The Democrats are proposing a list of 10 changes and have refused to approve continued DHS funding until they are met. Ironically, ICE is fully funded throughout this period despite being a part of DHS. It was funded in a separate line of the Big Beautiful Bill last year. Other elements of DHS, such as the Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), are suspended. Most of the members of those agencies will keep working with the hope that they will receive back pay later.

One demand from the Democrats is the use of body cameras for ICE officers. The Administration has already accepted and has started to implement this policy. Body cams were a demand of the Black Lives Matter movement based on the idea that they would prove that police often act unjustly. The opposite happened. Footage has overwhelmingly exonerated police officers in cases where they have shot suspects. This is so much the case that anti-police advocates now protest body cams because they think they are too advantageous to the police. So this was an easy concession for the Administration.

Other demands, such as prohibiting ICE agents from wearing masks, are more contentious. The “masks” agents wear are usually cloths around their necks that they can pull up over the lower half of their faces. With the ubiquitous sunglasses they wear, the agents become unidentifiable.

Masked police is not a good look and it is certainly disturbing to think that there are agents of the Federal government going around carrying out armed engagements while intentionally hiding their identities. Why do they do this? They hide their faces because there is a very well organized and well funded group of protestors who use photos of these agents to track them down, identify their home addresses, and threaten them and their families. They post this information on the internet with the express purpose of encouraging people to harass them. This is known as “doxing” because it is the posting of identifying documents on the internet. It is very dangerous.

In order to keep agents and their families safe, ICE and the DHS have refused to ban masking. This has proven to be an impasse on DHS funding.

Another issue is the type of warrant used to apprehend illegals. ICE currently relies on “Administrative Warrants.” (A warrant provides officials the right to enter a property and detail the individual in question.) These are issued within the department as a result of finding that the person in question is eligible for deportation because of illegal entry or overstaying a visa. This has been the process for decades.

Democrats object that administrative warrants are a denial of due process (our old friend the 14th Amendment again). They want a judicial warrant, that is, a warrant issued by a judge in a new process for each individual with the idea that due process requires that each person have “their day in court.”

Republicans object to the judicial warrants for two reasons. First, due process has already been served because the condition of being in the country on a visa includes being removed by administrative warrant, as do the laws regarding illegal entry. The second objection is that the judicial warrants will grind the process to a halt because there are not enough judges in the system to process all these warrants. The real reason Democrats insist on judicial warrants has nothing to do with procedure, they argue. Democrats just want to stop the whole process and this would do it.

There has certainly been a pattern of liberal organizations suing the Trump administration and succeeding in lower courts (especially in DC) and then having the decision overturned in higher courts, including the Supreme Court. But each one of these cases slows down the process and delays the implementation of Trump’s policy.

These are the main issues preventing the funding of DHS. The Senate is also not in session this week, so not much can be done. But the politics of this goes beyond the specific issues.

While a majority of Americans remain pretty consistent in wanting illegal aliens deported, including non-violent illegals, they have turned against the current practice of doing so. Seeing two Americans die can do that. It has also led to a change in policy at ICE.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Krisi Noem, has had a policy of maximum visibility. She likes ICE to be very visible and she likes to have lots of video to put on social media showing people detained and deported. She likes a spectacle. She also likes to be in front of the cameras, herself, usually with a lot of military gear and a tight shirt. She’s become known as “ICE Barbie” for a reason.

Tom Homan has taken over operations in Minnesota and toned down the rhetoric a lot. The numbers of deportations has not diminished, but the publicity over them has. He has become the public face of immigration enforcement and Noem has more or less disappeared. (A very negative NYT article on her hasn’t helped.)

So the question is whether nor not a more subtle approach will swing the American people back to supporting Trump’s immigration policies. Immigration was the issue that got him elected the first time and the second. With enough support it could keep his party in control of the House of Representatives in the midterm election this year. He will need that if he wants to get anything at all passed in the Legislature and, more importantly, keep from getting impeached (again) every other week.

The next few weeks will tell us what the two parties see in their internal polls. Which side thinks its current policies are a political liability? The Coast Guard and FEMA, as well as TSA, can’t go unfunded indefinitely. One side is going to have to give.

It is interesting to note that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both recently made comments about the dangers of mass immigration and the importance of enforcement. This could be a sign that their party is nervous. We’ll see.

Government Shutdown

We have another government shutdown, ladies and gentlemen. This one is partial, not complete, so no need to get excited. But it is a little exciting in that it brings together a lot of regular stories.

When the shutdown was resolved in November of last year the solution was to kick the can down the road on several issues. This is now the end of the road. Some of those issues involve funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of War (or Defense, if you prefer). So we get to combine anxieties over immigration enforcement and a possible attack on Iran all in one post.

(I won’t get into the Iran issue other than to say the US has directed A LOT of firepower into the Middle East. Pres. Trump’s credibility is on the line here. He said he would help the protesters and told them to keep protesting. Since doing so somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 Iranians have been killed by the government.)

The House of Representatives passed a bill to continue funding these agencies (again, as a stopgap) last month and the Senate was supposed to approve it last week. However, a few things happened in Minnesota in the meantime. Funding DHS wasn’t such a big controversy before the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. So now Democratic senators are trying to hold up the process of funding the government so that they can get changes inserted into bill. They want restrictions on ICE enforcement procedures, among other things. The irony is that ICE funding was not one of the things punted to this bill, so it’s funding isn’t delayed by the shutdown.

When the Senate changes the content of a bill it has to return to the House for another debate and vote, greatly slowing down the process and further holding up funding. But as in October the Democrats think they have support to do this.

SAVE Act

Adding to the complexity, several Republicans are willing to keep the government (partially) shut down until the Senate passes the SAVE Act. The “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility” Act would, among other things, require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and photo ID when one votes. The House passed an earlier version so the Senate has to decide what to do.

Democrats have long opposed voter ID laws, even though it is an issue the public tends to support at over 80%. Almost all the provisions in the bill are standard fare in other democracies, so people often wonder why the Democrats oppose these measures.

The easiest answer, if somewhat cynical, is that Democrats benefit from voter fraud. Investigations into the daycare fraud by Somalians in Minnesota (yes, the eternal return of Minneapolis) are certainly going to connect that fraud to voting “irregularities.” But a more generous interpretation would acknowledge that a lot of voting laws in the South were instituted to restrict blacks from voting after the Civil War. Provisions that required proof of a father or grandfather voting, for instance, were clearly designed for one purpose only. However, black Americans tend to support voter ID laws at the same levels as everyone else.

Pillows and Ballots

Drawing all things together in a tight bow, we have an ongoing investigation into the 2020 election and the alleged abuse of ballots in Georgia. Things seem to be coming out supporting the idea that there was some shady business, especially having to do with the voting machines.

The United States is one of the only countries that needs a complicated machine to count votes. I explain that here: “High Capacity Ballots.”

One of the main advocates for the idea that the Dominion voting machines were used to steal the election from Donald Trump was the owner and founder of “My Pillow,” Mike Lindell. He is now running in the Republican primary to be a candidate for governor of Minnesota. Yes, Minnesota, again.

As if things couldn’t get more confusing, one of the theories propounded about the voting machines was that they used software developed by a company that helped Nicholas Maduro steal the election in Venezuela. As soon as Maduro was seized by American agents, these theories resurfaced.

I am in no position to pass judgment on voting fraud theories or anything to do with software. I would just recommend not getting out over your skis on any of these issues, but also remember that over the past decade the main difference between conspiracy theories and the news is about six months.

Again, most of the facts of the case are not in dispute, but the interpretations vary. They certainly did shortly after the moment. (More on that below.)

What We Know

Alex Pretti was part of a group of people making noise and filming Border Patrol agents as they they detained a targeted individual in Minneapolis. “Targeted” means BP knew who he was, where he was, and what he had done. So officers went to a very specific location to arrest a specific person. His name has since been released and he is a very bad man.

How did Mr. Pretti get involved?

There is a coordinated group of people in Minneapolis who track ICE and BP (yes there are two different agencies operating in the same city with largely the same task; it’s the government). They send people to locations where officers are attempting to arrest someone and usually blow whistles, put their cars in the way of official vehicles, and generally try to make the task more difficult for the officers. They also film the entire interaction.

Mr. Pretti seems to have been a member of one of these groups, although no one knew that at the time. We now also know he received an injury during an altercation with ICE or BP just weeks ago. While filming officers he stepped between an officer and a protestor who had been shoved by the officer. The officer then tried to detain him.

Several other officers assisted the original officer. A gun was spotted on Mr. Pretti. One officer cried “Gun!” as is standard procedure. He then grabbed Mr. Pretti’s gun. At this point it seems the gun discharged by itself, which is apparently not uncommon with this model (Sig Sauer P320 AXG Combat). At the sound of gunfire, other officers shot Mr. Pretti.

Reactions

As seems inevitable now, both of the usual sides took opposite positions. Gov. Walz and Mayor Frey claimed that Mr. Pretti was assassinated, which would require a level of intention on the part of the officers that is completely unlikely. Not to be outdone, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem described Mr. Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and that the was “brandishing a gun.” Sigh. At the time there was not the slightest evidence of the former and, from every camera angle, absolutely no evidence of the latter.

In Minneapolis the riots got worse. Hotels where ICE and BP agents were thought to be staying were attacked Saturday night. According to city policy, the police did not respond to an ICE-related incident. Some people have set up an “autonomous zone” in the location where Mr. Pretti died. On the model of the George Floyd riots, these are areas protestors take over and control, allowing only approved people to enter. The irony that they set up a border and then patrol it seems to be lost on these people.

The most significant reaction came from President Trump. He seems to be very displeased with Sec. Noem and her handling of the situation. He has sent his “Border Czar,” Tom Homan, to Minneapolis to sort things out.

The Czar position is a very strange post. First, “Czar” is Russian for “Caesar,” so having someone in a republican form of government referred to as a Caesar is a little unsettling. As with so many unsettling features of the American government, this one started under President Woodrow Wilson with the appointment of Bernard Baruch as industry czar during WWI. It is an informal position that does not require Senate confirmation, so it really means “a guy I want to have on staff in the White House and I’ll give him a lot of responsibility but no power.” Czars don’t actually run any agencies or direct any departments.

Tom Homan

Tom Homan has worked for decades in immigration enforcement. Pres. Obama awarded him the 2015 Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service. Homan worked at the time as Obama’s Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations at ICE.

Homan is also a favorite of Trump’s, both in this administration and his first four years in office. How many people have been respected by these two presidents? There can’t be many. But his intervention may actually signal continuity rather than change.

One thing we do know is that Homan’s priority has always been to remove any illegal alien with a record of crime. Sen. Noem, however, has been focused on absolute numbers of deportations. This has been a tension inside the Trump administration. But because Noem is a Senate-confirmed cabinet secretary, she has had significantly more direct authority and power than Homan. If this has changed it can only be informally unless Homan is given her job and confirmed by the Senate. Again, the czar role is really only advisory.

Changes

Tom Homan has already arrived in Minneapolis and spoken with both the Governor and Mayor and things are changing.

On Monday night another hotel was attacked but Minneapolis police responded immediately and arrested several people. This is a big change. And it seems that police are now working with ICE and BP throughout the city, reducing a lot of the conflict that was almost unique to Minneapolis. ICE and BP are deporting illegals all over the country, but riots are ensuing only in one city. (This happened briefly in Chicago over the summer but stopped as soon as the Chicago police department stepped in to assist the federal agents.)

Did Homan work some magic on Walz and Frey? Probably not. More likely they both got spooked by the work of a few online sleuths. Remember the organized protestors I mentioned at the beginning of this post? Someone got into their Signal account (which now seems completely useless as an encrypted communication service) and not only got a list of all the people working to disrupt ICE agents, they also found all the funding sources.

Not only are several government officials involved in impeding arrests (an illegal offense), the money coming in to support their efforts in doing so is now attached to names. Some of these names are aligned with China. The information has been posted on the internet and it does not look good. The protests look a lot more like a coordinated foreign operation than most would have suspected.

Just a few weeks ago, although it feels like a year, the Somali daycare fraud scandal forced Tim Walz to drop out of the race for governor. The ICE raids and deaths seemed to wash all that away and he again became the Democrat’s standard bearer for masculinity. Although some people pointed out that his encouraging people to put their bodies on the line against ICE (while he stood behind the locked gate of the governor’s mansion) looked a bit like Lord Farquaad from Shrek, he was riding a wave.

Now he’s humbly sitting on a beach blanket and working with the czar. Unfortunately, he already whipped people up into a frenzy. Today his offices were overrun by protestors protesting that he is working with the Trump administration. Poor Tim can’t win.

Where this goes next is impossible to tell. Polls continue to show very high support for deporting illegal aliens, regardless of their criminal status. But a lot of people find the scenes recorded by protestors to be just too much to watch and would like things to be toned down. The nation has the same internal tensions as the Trump administration.

Some people have compared the deaths in Minneapolis to the shootings at Kent State in 1970 where four students protesting the Vietnam War were killed by National Guardsmen. That might be a good analogy. But don’t forget that two years after that event Richard Nixon won 250 electoral college votes to George McGovern’s seventeen. Distance can sometimes exaggerate the importance of an event. Sometimes distance can also obscure. It’s hard to tell.

With the midterms in November the President is going to need every vote he can get. But as news comes at us so fast, will voters remember the headlines from January when they vote in November? As I write this we are all waiting to hear about a strike on Iran and the collapse of the Islamic Republic. What else could happen?

Pres. Trump, just after I posted my suppositions on Greenland decided to render them pointless by announcing that he has come to an agreement in principle with the Secretary General of NATO. Details to come, but everyone is standing down.

I hope to have more to say about this once the dust settles. It will be interesting to see what his threats might have accomplished, if anything. Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General, said only Trump could get Europe to take its own defense seriously, so that’s something.

My friend and colleague on this site suggested that the whole thing about Greenland was some sort of ongoing fight with the late Rob Reiner (of Princess Bride fame).

Iran

In the opposite direction, everyone is standing at attention and watching what could happen in Iran. The US has moved massive amounts of military equipment into all the bases that could launch attacks on Iran. (We talked about Diego Garcia in relation to Greenland and Chagos.)

Pres. Trump said he was going to help the protesters, and it looks like he is just about to do so. Lots of questions still stand. What will the military do? Is it just bombing and missiles? What are the targets? Will there be “boots on the ground”? And why now? Did Trump wait so as to get all these forces into place?

Lots to consider. Also, if the Iranian Islamic regime is overthrown, this would be an historic event. It might not get him the Peace Prize he wants, but it would secure Trump’s place in history.

The arguments against invading Greenland, bullying Denmark into selling it to the US, or bribing the residents of Greenland to hand it over to the US are so obvious that they hardly need to be made. Invasion, bullying, and bribing are acts of high statesmanship. But what is the case for acquiring this isolated island in the Arctic?

The strategic value of Greenland has been acknowledged by all parties. It is a massive island sitting between Europe, Russia, and the United States. A lot of people have commented on the trade routes that might open up through the Arctic if ice melts, but the more important issue is missile defense. All Russian missiles aimed at the Eastern half of the US would pass over Greenland. For the West of the country the missiles would pass over Alaska. A missile defense system on Greenland would be perfect. [Map from

Why doesn’t the US build its defensive system on Greenland now? Good question. The treaty between the US and Denmark (the governing body over Greenland) allows practically unlimited access for the US. During the Cold War there were as many as seventeen US bases on the island, almost all of which have been abandoned. What advantage would the US have in acquiring the island that it does not have now?

To answer that question we need to look to a strange political event going on in the United Kingdom. The current UK government is trying to transfer the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. While this can be seen as a continuation of decolonization begun after WWII, it has significant geopolitical implications.

The Chagos Islands are a series of small islands in the Indian Ocean. One of them is the atoll of Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia is the site of a large and strategically important American military base. It was from here that much of the bombing of Iran in the summer was coordinated and launched. The strategic location is highly significant for any American military activity in East Africa, the Middle East (including Iran), India, Pakistan, and even parts of China.

At first the American government supported the handover of Chagos to Mauritius, but that changed. The Trump administration is now asking PM Starmer to change his mind. The Chagos people do not want to leave the UK and a lot of British people are upset because the deal includes paying Mauritius to take the islands. But let’s return to the strategic issue.

China has been engaging in what it calls the Belt and Road Initiative. Based on the ancient Silk Road, the idea is to develop land and sea-based shipping routes. Communist China being Communist China, these routes come with strings attached. Many of the ports in the belt are built by China and, more significantly, owned by China. Local governments do not have any oversight of them, meaning that they are effectively Chinese military bases if they want them to be.

If you look at the map immediately above, you will notice that a line from Columbo to Lamu passes pretty close to the Chagos Islands, which of course include Diego Garcia. Now consider that Mauritius has close ties to China. Wouldn’t it be convenient for China to set up a “commercial port” close to one of the most strategic American military outposts? Hmm.

One more item out of Britain. The Starmer government has just approved a massive building project to expand the Chinese embassy in London. The plans (below) show several buildings without any stated purpose. Knowing that China operates prisons in all major cities in the world should make one suspicious. The building plans also have the basement extend up to a major route of telecommunications cables. If you don’t imagine that they could tap into sensitive information you haven’t read enough spy novels.

From the above, I can only assume that the Trump administration is concerned that the Danish government cannot be trusted to give and maintain access to Greenland. The British government seems to be giving China everything it wants, despite having even closer military and intelligence ties than the US and Denmark. That concern seems to be the only reason why the current lease agreement over Greenland is insufficient. This also accords with the recent National Security Strategy, released in November, that identifies weakness among European allies as one of the greatest dangers. This criticism is consistent across all the Cabinet secretaries regardless of their differences.

What I’m trying to do is understand the vehemence with which the Trump administration is pursuing an object that they already seem to hold. As is clear from the reaction of many Europeans, this dogged pursuit of Greenland is alienating even their allies. Trump’s actions could undermine populist political movements in Europe the same way his antagonistic comments about taking over Canada did. The Conservative Party in Canada was almost sure to win the last election until Trump started making crazy comments about turning it into the 51st state. Now the Liberal Prime Minister, Marc Carney, is cozying up to China.

If Trump is concerned that the Europeans are unreliable allies, he seems to be doing everything possible to make sure that is true.

As of today, the people of Iran have been demonstrating in the streets for 17 days. The leaders have turned off the internet, so we do not have any video evidence for the last two or three days. Reports suggest they IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) have killed between 12,000 to 20,000 people.

Pres. Trump has repeatedly stated that he would support the protestors and “punish” the regime officials. He even told protestors to record the names of anyone involved in massacres because they would pay for their crimes. But no one yet knows what he and American forces will do. (Anything could change between when I write this and when you read this.)

The son of the former Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, has been speaking with American officials and has been sending word to protestors in Iran to continue and to the Iranian military and police to side with the people and turn on the Islamic regime.

No one knows where this will end. The best case scenario is seeing Pahlavi return as at least a transitional leader until something more permanent can be established. If that were to happen, the largest sponsor of terrorism would be eliminated and China’s major source of oil would become an American ally. Iran also produces the drones for the Russian war in Ukraine, which would be shut off immediately. Half the parties in the China-Russia-Venezuela-Iran axis would be taken out.

The downside is that a nation of 90 million people in the crossroads of Europe and Asia could be thrown into chaos. Our interventions have not always turned out well, so this is a real possibility.

But if you hear people sound excited about the events in Iran it is because this is an historic opportunity for releasing millions from oppression and rearranging the geostrategic map of the world. More later.

Minnesota

The death of Renee Good in the incident with ICE officials continues to divide the country and the state. More video has come out without changing minds. People who initially thought she was murdered still do. Those who thought the officer defended himself still do.

It is very unlikely that the ICE agent will face criminal charges. There are strong protections for law enforcement officers who believe their lives are in danger. Any reasonable assessment at the time (not in hindsight, which is what anyone watching the videos are doing) that the officer was in danger exculpates the individual. Minnesota and federal laws are all in agreement, as is Supreme Court precedent. And in case you were wondering, cars count as deadly force in these cases.

One of the reasons Minnesota is the center of this case is that the state and Minneapolis are both “sanctuary” jurisdictions. Neither will cooperate with federal officials enforcing immigration laws. Where in other states the police will accompany and protect ICE officers and hand over to them anyone they happen to arrest who has a deportation order, sanctuary jurisdictions will not accompany police nor hand over offenders. If ICE is going to deport anyone, its officers will have to track them down without the assistance of local police. There are many cases of police releasing people they have arrested so that ICE can’t get them. Indeed, a Wisconsin judge named Hannah Dugan took a man who appeared before her court for battery charges through her chambers and helped him escape. She has since been convicted of felony obstruction.

Why surge ICE to Minnesota? There are several reasons. Recent revelations of fraud by the Somali community put it in the news; Tim Walz was the Democratic nominee for VP and so was in the spotlight; it is smaller and easier to make an example of the state than, say, California or New York. These might seem unfair, but they are real reasons.

Supreme Court

The Court is expected to release decisions on major topics today or later this week. One is on the powers of the President to impose tariffs. Others involve voting rights, specifically whether the apportionment of “majority minority” districts (Congressional districts that are gerrymandered to produce a population that is greater than 50% minority, which in practice means African American) is mandated by the Voting Rights Act or is unconstitutional.

Yesterday, the Court heard oral arguments in the case of two states, Idaho and West Virginia, that are being sued for their laws that do not permit men to play in women’s sports, even if those men say they are women. These two cases were consolidated into one because they involve the same issues, even though one is about a university and the other about a high school. The Supreme Court will often do this.

The question is whether banning these men from women’s sports violates Title IX and/or the 14th Amendment. Title IX guarantees that no one can be denied benefits or opportunities based on their sex in educational settings. The largest impact has been on the expansion of women’s sports since its enactment in 1972. It has been interpreted to mean that schools have to spend the exact same amount of money on women’s sports as on men’s.

The 14th Amendment is a Reconstruction amendment to the Constitution passed in the wake of the Civil War. I wrote about this amendment in relation to birthright citizenship and the question of “jurisdiction.” The same section continues:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

So the question before the Court is whether women only sports leagues either violate Title IX’s protection from discrimination based on sex or on the 14th Amendment’s “privileges or immunities” clause or its “equal protection” clause. But the real question, of course, is whether a man who says he is a woman can legally be a woman. Yes, the world has come to this point.

There are three possible outcomes, as I can see:

1. The Court punts as it did in the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and says this is a state issue and they can do what they like, allowing Idaho and West Virginia to ban men but allowing California, for instance, to include them in women’s sports. This is unlikely because the cases hinge on a part of the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment.

2. The Court could say that men who claim to be women are legally women. The liberals on the Court would like to do so, but the legal reasoning for this would make a bowl of spaghetti look like a straight line. But Roe stood for almost 50 years, so stranger things have happened.

3. The Court could rule that men are men and women are women. This, of course, is the most straightforward and logical position to take. It conforms with law, biology, and is attested to by both birds and bees. This is complicated, however, because of the 2020 Bostock decision. In that case the Court ruled 6-3, with Justice Gorsuch writing the opinion, that “An individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” Will this same reasoning apply to the question of “transwomen” (or is it “transmen”? I can never remember whether the trans refers to the destination or the origin.)

Sic transit gloria mundi, although I don’t think any of the parties involved are named Gloria. (There’s a joke for Jane. Let’s see if she reads all the way to the end and finds it.) [That’s not much of a joke, ed.]

The woman stopped her SUV in the road, trying to impede the ICE agents. Several agents exited their vehicles and one went to her window and spoke with her. He asked her to step out of her car. She refused and put the vehicle in reverse then in forward. Once in drive the tires spun and then the vehicle jumped forward. A second officer had moved to the front of the car as all this was happening. As he jumped out of the way, he drew his weapon and shot her through the front window, killing her. The vehicle raced down the road and smashed into a parked car.

The interpretations are almost completely partisan. Democrats are saying the woman was murdered. Republicans are saying the agent acted in self defense. It has got to such a pitch that the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, has said he may call up the National Guard to protect his citizens from ICE agents. Meanwhile, Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, has called the deceased woman a domestic terrorist.

Almost no public official seems to be acting responsibly. Aristotle would recognize all of this as a tragedy.

Aristotle

By calling this event a tragedy I do not mean it is merely unfortunate. It certainly is that, but it is more. It was inevitable, and yet turned on a moment.

Almost no one watching Sophocles’ Oedipus, whether at its first production or now, would be surprised by the ending. The drama arises from watching the inevitable happen. Yes, each character could do or say something to change events. But the logic of their role—who each one is—drives them on to a conclusion that all of the audience can see coming. This is how Aristotle described tragedy. He was describing the process of watching a play on stage.

We, because of the ubiquity of video recordings, are able to watch tragedy in real life, from several different angles. Tragedy for us is real life.

So much of what happened in Minnesota was inevitable. With all the protests against ICE throughout the country, and ICE agents on edge after several attempts on their lives, someone was going to die. And the two people involved were playing out roles in such a way that they could not help themselves. Well, they could have, but not really.

The agent involved was actually struck by a car and dragged over 100 yards earlier this year. On Monday two ICE agents were struck by a car, bitten by a Cuban illegal migrant, and sent to hospital. A Hilton hotel refused to allow ICE agents to book rooms. Both these last two episodes happened in Minnesota in the past few weeks. Everyone at ICE is on edge, fearing for their lives and the safety of their colleagues.

While information about the woman is still emerging, we do know that she fits every demographic for opposing Donald Trump and his deportation of illegal aliens. We know that she was widowed and is now living with a woman as her “wife,” who was there filming from outside the vehicle. She traveled from out of state as part of a group that tracks ICE agents and tries to disrupt their activities. She was primed for the confrontation. Moreover, she was in an SUV on an icy road being confronted by men with guns, men she was probably sure are trying to subvert the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis have denounced ICE as a modern Gestapo, the brutal enforcers of Hitler’s NAZI regime. People on the left are convinced that ICE is randomly “disappearing” people off the streets. (To “disappear” someone was common under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, where hundreds of his political opponents were apprehended by his agents and never seen again.) I don’t agree with this assessment, but many people sincerely do.

We can and should have sympathy for both people in this tragedy, just as we have sympathy for Oedipus, despite the many terrible things he did. In many ways their fates were sealed the moment they woke up that day. They might both have been wrong about how much of a threat each was, he to her and her to him. But none of that mattered in the heat of the moment. And now a woman is dead and a man will forever be condemned by half the country, and possibly by himself. Police are regularly put on suicide watch after being involved in a fatal event.

St. Augustine

St. Augustine wrote his The City of God against the Pagans to explain how Christians can and do live in the political world. It was initiated in response to a friend who said he would like to become a Christian, but was afraid Christianity was incompatible with Roman political life. His concerns arose from the Sack of Rome in 410, which had just occurred.

The City of God goes well beyond responding to St. Augustine’s friend, but it does address this problem squarely in Book 19. He there considers the dilemma that we cannot do without civil law while we must also admit that it is imperfect. Innocent people will be condemned and even executed and the guilty will go free. But to abandon law and the legal system would result in even more injustice than an imperfect legal system. Judges must be honest with themselves about this. They can never be certain.

What do we do? We must adopt a tragic sensibility. We can look on these two unfortunate people who, each making what he or she thought was a good and just decision, raced down a path to tragedy. It is naïve (today we tend toward the political term “partisan”) to think that one was wholly in the right and the other wholly in the wrong. Even if he is legally innocent, the agent will regret his actions for the rest of his life. The woman will have no chance to do so.

It is our task, those of us not directly involved, the spectators of the tragedy in Minnesota, to learn from this. Both sides are gearing up for confrontation. And, yes, decisions must be made about policy. It would be irresponsible to abandon our stations in life. But we must also look upon the world with two eyes: one looking in hope to the city of God and one looking with pity on the earthly cities, of which we are also citizens. This is a good time to take as a special study the Sinai Pantocrator, reproduced below (from Wikipedia).

The arrest was made possible by an astounding military operation that eliminated Venezuelan air defenses which allowed US special forces to accompany and protect the legal team that arrested him. (The wording here is important, as I’ll get to below.)

Background

Venezuela used to be one of the most, if not the most prosperous country in South America. It has more oil than Saudi Arabia and was a major steel producer. But in 1998 Hugo Chavez was elected president and changed the constitution of the country.

Chavez was the leader of the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement (a Communist group) that was founded in 1982. In 1992 he tried to overthrow the government by means of a military coup. He failed, was imprisoned, and after his release from jail in 1998 was elected president. (Some might say half a dozen years in prison for trying to overthrow the government with the assistance of the military is a little short.)

Once elected, Chavez changed the constitution so as to make permanent his “Bolivarian Revolution.” The changes gave the president many more powers and allowed him to nationalize (take out of private ownership) any business in the country. He was famous for walking through the city with a crowd of followers pointing at buildings or shops that he would announce were now “the property of the people.” Needless to say, this did not prove to be a successful economic policy. Millions of people fled the country and Venezuela collapsed into the predictable socialist paradise that has to be maintained by secret police, drug sales, and providing evil regimes (China, Iran, Russia, etc.) a foothold in the Western hemisphere.

Chavez was briefly deposed in 2002, only to be quickly returned to power. He died in 2013 and was succeeded by his hand-picked replacement, Nicolas Maduro. In 2018 Maduro “won” an election that was denounced throughout the world. The US did not recognize the results, nor did the European Union. Even Canada’s Justin Trudeau declared Maduro an illegitimate dictator. The Nobel Peace Prize winner from this year who dedicated her prize to Donald Trump won it precisely because of her opposition to Maduro.

In keeping with its Communist ideology, Venezuela had close ties to China and Cuba. A Chinese delegation was vising on Friday and most of Maduro’s security forces were Cuban. As Russia moved further away from Western countries and, with its invasions of Ukraine since 2013 and the sanctions that incurred, needed to move its own oil around the world surreptitiously, it also worked closer to Venezuela. Finally, Iran reportedly has military drone factories in Venezuela, drones that it sends to Russia for the Ukraine War.

The Arrest

Does the US have the authority to arrest a foreign leader in his own country? In short, yes.

Maduro was indicted by American courts and the American government does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela. (Notice that I’ve referred to him as “leader.”) Article II of the Constitution gives wide latitude to the Executive in international affairs and sole authority to execute the laws of the land, meaning enforce the law. Arresting criminals is part of that.

Are there international laws that would prevent the US from arresting a leader in his own country? In short, no.

International law does not have the force of law as we normally understand it. Law within a nation is made by the legislative authority, judged by the judicial authority, and enforced by the executive. This is true regardless of whether or how these powers are distinct in the particular country. Parliamentary systems, for instance, combine the legislative and executive powers but they are distinct.

International law does not fit into the account above. In that sense, it is not “law.” There is no legislature, judiciary, or executive. These laws are really rules agreed to by representatives of sovereign nations and enforced voluntarily. In essence, they are promises not to do X or to do Y, but there is no one who can force them to do so.

The United Nations is not a law-making body. It is a forum to air grievances and try to prevent the public displays of strength (i.e., war). The Security Council is the closest thing in most peoples’ minds an international police force. But they have no force. They can only issue statements. Added to that, the five permanent members (US, UK, France, Russia, and China) can veto any decision. (Adding to the fun, the new chairman of the Security Council is a representative from Somalia, who owned a daycare center in Ohio. You can’t make this up.)

There really is no law preventing the US from arresting Maduro. Also, and here I’m getting back to the wording of the second paragraph, this was an executive enforcement of a judicial warrant. The military did not invade Venezuela. The military defended and protected the officials that arrested Maduro. This might be splitting hairs, but it is important.

Finally, there are precedents for this. In 1989, the US captured Manuel Noriega who was the leader of Panama. He was tried in the US and imprisoned. His arrest and trial were contested in court and upheld. The Maduro case is at least as legal as that. It is hard to imagine a court objecting to the events on Saturday or the subsequent trial.

What about Congressional permission? Each of the presidents in the last fifty years has acted internationally without Congressional approval. Countries have been invaded, sites bombed, people killed. We might not like the expansion of presidential powers, but this is a fact of the modern presidency.

Implications

It is hard to predict all that might or might not happen as a result of this remarkable military executive action. I’ll list a few:

1. The drugs entering the US from Venezuela will be significantly curtailed. Maduro’s arrest might also slow down drugs from other countries and cartels. Certainly other countries in Latin America will be concerned.

2. Some 8 million Venezuelans were displaced by the Bolivarian Revolution. Their return would have an effect on immigrant numbers here and elsewhere.

3. Foreign adversaries must be impressed by the success of this mission. Russia tried to capture President Zelenskyy in the Ukraine. Several years into its “Special Military Operation,” Russia sees the US takes only three hours to capture a leader surrounded by Russian air defenses. Scary.

4. The Venezuelan-Cuban-Chinese oil transfers are now disrupted. Cuba’s economy will be crushed without the money from Venezuela and China will need to find new sources. Iran might not be there for them.

5. The Russia-Iran military assistance in Venezuela is disrupted at the very moment Iran is in chaos. If the Islamic Republic falls, the drones they build for Russia in Venezuela won’t be coming. Amazing how an event in South America might change the course of the war in Europe.

6. The Monroe Doctrine is now the “Donroe” Doctrine. That’s actually what Pres. Donald Trump called it. The Monroe Doctrine was the policy issued in 1823 by Pres. Monroe that declared European powers would not be allowed to operate in North or South America. They would be excluded from meddling in the affairs of any countries in the Western hemisphere. Trump pumped this up with this operation.

7. Leave this space blank for anything I can’t even imagine.

The big question is what will happen next in Venezuela. Anti-Maduro political parties exist, although they have suffered greatly over the years. There are people who could win free and fair elections and govern the country. Even Maduro’s vice-president said she is happy to work with American officials. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of dissatisfaction with Maduro’s arrest. Well, outside of left-wing politicians in this country and Europe.

Maduro has already been transferred to New York City where one of his biggest fans has been sworn in as mayor. This will be very interesting.

What is now known as the Twelve Day War between Israel and Iran, ending with the bombing of the Iranian nuclear program by the United States, seems to be bearing fruit.

There are massive protests in many, maybe even most, cities in Iran against the theocratic regime. There are even calls for a return of the Shah (the son of the one deposed in 1979), which he has certainly encouraged.

Before people get their hopes up, something similar happened in 2009. The Iranian elections that year were disputed because the candidate most Iranians seemed to support lost to the one the clerics supported. Huge protests ensued. Barack Obama, president at the time, did not support the protestors. In his defense, there might not have been much he could do. But he gave far less support than was given to the people of Eastern Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin wall twenty years earlier.

The fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran would be a major event. The Iranian Revolution largely started the worldwide Islamic terrorist movement. Terrorism was there since at least the Palestinian attack at the Berlin Olympics in 1972 that killed two Israelis and took nine others hostage, but Iran became an example of what could be possible.

Defeat of Hamas in Gaza, the expansion of the Abraham Accords (a peace agreement between Israel and many Muslim countries), and fall of the Islamic Republic would be all moving in the right direction. The only advance of Islamic violence would be in Western Europe and maybe Minnesota.

Minnesota Fraud

The (surprisingly large) Somali community in Minnesota is under scrutiny for what seems to be a system of fraud on an epic scale. So far the focus has been on daycare centers that, allegedly, don’t enroll any students. One has gone viral for the sign over the door calling itself a “learing [sic] center.”

The scam seems to be the following: someone sets up a center, rusted friends enroll their children but don’t send them there (they might enroll the same children at several of these centers), the center gets federal and state money for the students and the parents get a kickback. The initial numbers in Minnesota alone are approaching $9 billion. That’s almost the entire GDP of Somalia.

There are several reasons this has become a feature of the Somali community and why they are specifically under the microscope. First, you need a close social network to set up something like this at scale. There has to be a large number of people willing to engage in the fraud whom the fraudsters can trust not to report the fraud to authorities. How many people do you know who would give you an immediate thumbs up for criminal activity? Do you know thousands?

Second, initial investigations from 2018 and earlier were denounced as examples of racism. A lot of people really didn’t want to hear about or agree to investigate anything like this because it seemed too much like singling out a specific group of people, and a group that has two victim categories going for them: they are black and Muslim. Liberal Minnesotans were not about to take on that group. Once the George Floyd riots started, these accusations were quickly buried. Then, with the massive money thrown around during Covid and the Biden administration, you had a perfect storm.

Third, it is hard to deny at this point that the Democrats in Minnesota were reaping electoral advantages from supporting the Somalian community. All that money had to go somewhere and all those voters had to vote for someone. In Minnesota, it turns out, one registered voter can sign a form and vouch for up to eight people he brings to the polls. He doesn’t need ID, just his name on the voter list. They don’t need anything, just his word. You draw your own conclusions about this.

As a story this event has legs, as they say. The Trump administration has already halted several forms of payment to Minnesota pending investigation and are starting to look into other states. Online sleuths are looking through public records around the country and finding similar signs to what we see now in Minnesota. Certainly for people on the right this pushes all their buttons: mass immigration, waste of money taken from them in taxes, strong suggestions of voter fraud.

In response, the left has gone on autopilot. Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and erstwhile vice-presidential candidate, has denounced these reports as evidence of white supremacy. At the time of writing this post, no major news source apart from Fox has mentioned the alleged fraud, only the Democratic politicians accusations of racism. A legislator in Washington State has already filed legislation that would remove from public view all payments to daycare centers, essentially hiding where all the money is going.

Too Good to be True

While the events in Iran are encouraging, they may be too good to be true. Certainly people are protesting and taking their lives in their hands to do so, but there is a long way to go to take down such a ruthless and fanatical group as the mullahs of Iran.

As for Minnesota, even if not every accusation is true, I’m sure there is fraud going on in regards to daycare, medical care, and all sorts of other government programs. Do you remember what DOGE discovered about just USAID? To think it isn’t happening in every other program is naïve.

But fixing any of these issues will clash with some of the most titanic forces in American politics. First, because Trump is on one side, fully half of all Americans will be on the other. The next problem is race. We’ve already seen how Gov. Walz is responding. Finally is the question of numbers.

Underlying the world view of a lot of Americans, and really the principles of the left as it currently stands, is that almost anything can be justified if only it helps one person. If even one Somali-run daycare center can be found that is entirely legitimate and does good work, a large part of the population will say that any amount of fraud is worth it as the cost of doing business. This is the attitude of those who oppose immigration enforcement because some illegal immigrants are nice people.

Politics is a numbers game. It isn’t only how many people you can get on your side. It is also about how much people are willing to put up with. How many arrests in Iran? How many fraudsters in Minnesota? People have very different tolerances, and those tolerances can change over time and over different issues. How many people need to come out in support of the protestors in Iran? What kind of violence from the regime are they willing to tolerate? How many instances of fraud will be enough to bring about real reform? How effective will the usual blocking tactics be?

These last few questions will apply to a lot of issues we’ll discuss in the year that begins tomorrow.

President Trump wants to end this practice because it encourages illegal immigration and can be abused. It encourages illegal immigration because an American child cannot be deported, even if the parents can be. As a result, authorities have been reluctant to deport parents if the American child would be all alone. Thus having a child here is a potential way to stay.

There are also many ways to abuse the system. “Birth tourism” is the practice of visiting the US just before having a baby so that the child will be American. An American passport is the golden ticket for unstable countries. If something goes wrong at home, show up at an American embassy and the Marines will protect you.

In keeping with Trump’s more general policy of immigration enforcement, he issued an executive order on the day of his second inauguration to the effect that the government will no longer issue citizenship papers to children born in the United States of parents here illegally or temporarily (visiting, studying, or on work visas). It was immediately challenged and has not yet been put into effect.

Both the order and Supreme Court decision, if it finds for the President, cannot have any power retroactively. No one who is a citizen already will be in jeopardy because of anything that happens now. This is a principle of the common law, which also happens to be at the heart of the question over birthright citizenship.

The Common Law

The United States is a “common law country,” like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries all take the principles of their legal systems from English common law. The simplest way to understand the common law is to think of the term “common usage,” or the law is whatever people have always done.

“We have always done it this way” isn’t a profound legal principle, but it does have profound effects. The idea is that the rules shouldn’t change except for a really good reason. The common law comes from court cases where initially there were no statues (laws made by king or parliament) to decide the issue or where the statutes needed to be interpreted. Murder is illegal, but what about accidental death? The common law was able to develop precise rules about the gray areas over hundreds of years by looking at how cases were decided previously. This is the basis of the legal doctrine of stare decisis (the earlier decision stands). Only rarely and (one hopes) with very good reason would a judge overturn a precedent. In that way everyone knows the rules and there is stability to the law.

The Fourteenth Amendment

The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) was adopted after the Civil War to correct for several problems relating to slavery. For one, it eliminated the 3/5 compromise by counting all humans equally for the purpose of the census and determination of the number of seats in the House of Representatives. (Slaveowners wanted to count the slaves, by the way, because counting people who couldn’t vote would give them more seats in the House.) It barred any Confederates who had previously taken an oath to protect the Constitution from ever serving in the federal government or the military. But it also overturned the decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) that claimed no one of African descent could ever be an American citizen and the attendant position that even if a state did confer citizenship on such a person, that did not grant American citizenship, only state citizenship. (It contains other important ideas that will probably come up in future posts.)

The common law digression above is important because the whole issue over birthright citizenship has to do with common law interpretations of the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” What does “subject to the jurisdiction” mean? It has never been defined in statute, so all the Supreme Court has to go on is how the term has been used over the course of legal history. (Medieval English law will be used in the court case, which is kind of exciting for some of us.)

United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)

One of the few cases involving the citizenship clause in the Fourteenth Amendment is United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). Mr. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco and at the age of 21 visited China. He was denied reentry to the United States because officials said he was not a citizen. (Chinese were very poorly treated in this country at the end of the 19th century, so anti-Chinese racism was probably as much of an issue as proper documentation.) He sued, it went all the way to the Supreme Court, and he won in a 6-2 decision.

Just as today, the 1898 case revolved around what “subject to the jurisdiction” means. The majority on the Court decided that, since his parents were not on a diplomatic mission for the Emperor of China when he was born, they were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the Emperor. They must have been subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. Therefore, he was born as an American citizen.

Much like critics of the current understanding, the dissent pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to guarantee the citizenship of the formerly enslaved people who had been living here for generations. The freed slaves were not also citizens of some other country. “Jurisdiction,” it was argued, means more than simply a geographical location where laws are enforced.

Diplomats have to obey laws, too, when visiting a country but the common law has never viewed their children as citizens. (Note that the Fourteenth Amendment says nothing about diplomats. This is one of those “common usage” things that makes up the common law.) Visitors also can’t be drafted into the military or be called to jury duty, for instance. The “jurisdiction” the government has over them is clearly limited. Non-citizens can be deported, too, further complicating the whole definition of “subject to the jurisdiction.” Deportation implies that some other country has jurisdiction over them. But the point is that none of this is laid out in the text of the law. There are good arguments on both sides of the issue.

The Politics of It All

The stakes today are much higher than when Wong Kim Ark tried to reenter the United States. Although birthright citizenship has been recognized for more than a century, the country has tens of millions of illegal immigrants, millions of visa holders, and millions of visitors each year. Birthright citizenship plays into the politics of immigration, which is becoming more fraught each day in all but the most restrictive countries in the West (I’m thinking of Hungary and Poland).

While a decision one way or the other will impact the lives of millions, the political effects will probably be more significant in the long run. If the Court rules in favor of the President and his executive order, the cause of immigration restriction will have a big win. If, on the other hand, they rule his order unconstitutional and reaffirm birthright citizenship, a lot of pregnant women will breathe easier. Whatever may happen, mass migration around the world, coupled with catastrophically low birthrates in the West, will make the movement of peoples a recurring topic for us.

The US has been in conflict with Venezuela since at least 1999 when Hugo Chavez was elected to implement his “Bolivarian Revolution.” This was a socialist experiment that continued in 2013 when Chavez died and Maduro took over. The most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, María Corina Machado, is part of a resistance movement in Venezuela against Maduro. (She dedicated her prize to Trump, by the way.)

Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, and Trump again have been pretty consistent in opposing the Venezuelan government. Trump is raising the stakes.

He moved a significant number of naval vessels into the Caribbean, including an aircraft carrier group. Many of his moves look like he is planning an invasion of the country.

So far, the most significant actions have been the destruction of “drug boats.” These are open boats (no closed cabin) with several outboard motors and are very fast. The US Navy uses a variety of means to blow them up.

A controversy has arisen because of a recent incident where a boat was struck and then hit again. Anonymous sources in the Washington Post accused the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, of ordering the second strike, a “double tap,” to kill two men holding on to the wreckage.

A number of issues arise.

1. What is he legality of sinking boats in international waters?

2. What is the morality of killing shipwrecked men?

These questions are complicated by the fact that these are, indeed, international waters. Military action in the middle of the seas does not violate anyone’s geographical integrity, so there really isn’t any standing to complain.

From the American side, although Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, American presidents for the last fifty years, at least, have proceeded in military adventures abroad without congressional approval. The Constitution gives a great deal of discretion to the Executive branch when it comes matters outside of the country.

There is also what is known as the prerogative power, that is, the power to decide when the laws need to be suspended. Consider this passage from John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government:

Many things there are, which the law can by no means provide for; and those must necessarily be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power in his hands, to be ordered by him as the public good and advantage shall require: nay, it is fit that the laws themselves should in some cases give way to the executive power, or rather to this fundamental law of nature and government, viz. That as much as may be, all the members of the society are to be preserved: for since many accidents may happen, wherein a strict and rigid observation of the laws may do harm (chapter XIV, sec. 159).

Although it may not be a policy one would choose, it is unlikely that anyone can sustain an argument that a president does not have the power to engage in these kinds of actions, especially given the last half-century of precedent.

So this issue really came to a head only after the accusation that stranded men were killed. No one really made a fuss until this happened. Let’s consider this.

As always, some facts are in dispute while others are not.

Note in dispute:

1. A boat allegedly carrying drugs was struck by the US Navy. (I don’t know the means and haven’t looked it up because it doesn’t matter to the debate.)

2. Two men were not killed by the initial strike.

3. A second strike was ordered and these men were killed.

In dispute:

1. Some say the Secretary of War personally ordered the second strike, some say Admiral Frank M. Bradley.

2. Some say the two men were the targets of the attack and some say the boat was the target.

The reason the first dispute is important is because, to the extent this is a political matter, opponents of the President and his policies would prefer to criticize the already polarizing figure of Pete Hegseth than a highly respected, very senior member of the military.

As for the target, this is actually very important. Killing defenseless men is a war crime. German U-boat captains were tried and executed for this after WWII. But if the target was the boat and the men died as a result, then this is different. This is what is called “double effect.” If your primary object in performing an act is legitimate but it may have a secondary effect that is not, it may still be permissible.

For example, pushing old ladies is bad, but pushing one out of the way of a bus is good. Obviously, this does not give anyone permission to go around pushing old ladies.

In the case of the drug boat, it is alleged that (a) the boat was not disabled and since it was legitimate to destroy it in the first place, taking a second shot is also legitimate; and (b) there are reports that the two men were trying to salvage the boat and secure the cargo, meaning the initial intention of destroying the boat was not achieved and a second strike would be legitimate.

Unique in the history of warfare, we now have video recordings of most incidents. The recording of the attack is classified and will likely remain so. But some Senators have been shown the video and, predictably, their responses are mixed. Some say the second strike was justified and others that it was not.

I hope this brief account helps you understand how complicated the issue is. Neither “never harm anyone” nor “kill them all” are sufficient positions in this world. But that leaves a lot of room in between for debate, discernment, and the trembling of souls.

There is a 28 point plan circulating that could bring an end to the war in Ukraine. I say it is “circulating” because it seems to have been leaked to the press rather than released by official channels. There is some ambiguity, last I saw, about whether it is an actual plan or simply the first round of negotiations. Nevertheless, it is as close as we’ve come to an end to what has almost been four years of war (eleven years if you count from 2014 when Russia conquered Crimea).

Rather than going over all 28 points, I want to talk about it in general terms and point out some of the promising and troubling features.

One of the most peculiar things about the proposal is that it is the result of negotiations between American and Russian representatives. Notice that no Ukrainians were in the room, neither were there any representatives of the European Union or the major European states, such as Germany, France, or the United Kingdom. There are several ways to understand this omission.

One way to read it is that the US and Russia are simply playing with other people’s lives. They are the superpowers—or one superpower and a half—and they do what they want. As Thucydides records from the Melian dialogue, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Another way to understand it, but not incompatible with the previous, is to observe that the European powers are not powers at all. Germany, for instance, has systematically destroyed its nuclear power plants, making its electricity prices among the highest in the world and dependent on American imports of natural gas. (Germany depended on Russian gas until the war, a pipeline explosion, and sanctions ended the supply.) All three are also dealing with mass Muslim immigration and restlessness that, although they won’t say it, prevents them from even considering sending soldiers abroad.

The most generous reading of why only the Americans and Russians were in the negotiation room is that the Europeans, but especially the Ukrainians have backed themselves into an impossible position. All of them think that any negotiation is capitulation and entirely illegitimate. Would you negotiate with Hitler?

Consider it from the Ukrainian perspective. Civilian deaths are estimated at around 15,000. Estimates of how many soldiers have died vary wildly, largely because a lower number gives hope for victory and a larger number the opposite. The Ukrainian government estimates somewhere around 30,000 soldier fatalities whereas some intelligence sources put it as high as 100,000. The physical destruction of the land and cities is hard to imagine. Could anyone having suffered through this negotiate with the one man responsible for it all? Putin wasn’t pushed into doing this. It was all his fault.

One other problem with the current peace plan is that it admits that Putin was pushed into this war. In other words, it wasn’t all his fault.

One of the 28 points is an agreement that Ukraine will not join NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which was formed during the Cold War to hold back Soviet Communism). This provision is an admission that the Ukrainian interest in joining was a cause for the war and was (because preventing this is part of the peace plan) a legitimate reason for Russia’s invasion. Those who believe there was not one, single, possible reason for invading will have a hard time accepting this.

The provision not to join NATO is even more complicated. The Ukrainian constitution has this goal as one of its own provisions. Accepting this deal would require a constitutional amendment. Would you let Hitler amend your constitution?

The Hitler analogy is both instructive and not. Should Churchill have negotiated to let him keep, say, half of France and all of Belgium? What about Poland? The world is a better place for having not negotiated with him, but his defeat required a full scale war and the defeat and capitulation of Germany. Is anyone willing to go that far in a war against Russia in 2025?

For all of Vladimir Putin’s crimes, he isn’t Hitler. We might not like what he has done, but Americans and Europeans show no stomach for starting a total war with Russian and fighting for complete surrender. No doubt the prospects of nuclear war hold back our hands. But it is also because Putin is more like a traditional pre-modern potentate who has no care for the suffering of his people or others than he is an apocalyptic ideologue.

The advantage of Putin not being an apocalyptic ideologue is that he is inclined to cut a deal. The disadvantage of cutting a deal is it will mean Ukraine will have to give up some of its land and any hopes of joining NATA. Some isn’t all, but even giving him something means he will have won as a result of his invasion. But that is how the world has always worked.

The strongest and most powerful objection to any negotiations with Putin is that he is not a premodern potentate but a maniac bent on world domination. This is the image put forth by many. They fear any concession to him will help further his plans to invade and conquer all of Europe, even including an invasion of England.

Everything hinges on who and what Vladimir Putin is. Is negotiation possible or impossible? Does he really intend on conquering Europe or does he just want to secure his position in Russia? Everything hinges on the answer to these questions.