Recap of this week in the revolution: ADM Holsey retires early amid tension over Caribbean strikes and Costco sues Trump regime for tariff refund. Reports of DOGE's death exaggerated. Double-tap on Venezuelan drug boat is a war crime.
The good...
Admiral Alvin Holsey, Commander of United States Southern Command, 2024
On December 12, Admiral Alvin Holsey will become the latest top-ranking military official to step down or be replaced since the Trump regime took power. His retirement, which was announced in October, coincides with the growing recognition that U.S. attacks on Venezuela are most likely war crimes. Holsey is currently the commander of Southern Command, and has held the post for just over a year, though the typical duration of such an assignment would be three years.
Holsey did not publicly state a reason for his early retirement, but his offer to retire came during a heated meeting about the legality of Caribbean strikes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others at the Pentagon on October 6.
Image by Curlyrnd from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Costco is suing the Trump regime to recover the money the company has paid in tariffs this year. Other companies are also suing the administration over the tariffs, which are likely to be ruled as illegal.
The Supreme court is reviewing the regime's claim that it has the authority to levy tariffs without approval from Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The IEEPA allows the president to regulate imports during a national emergency, but it is unlikely that imposing tariffs qualifies as regulating imports.
The bad...
DOGE's army of unqualified techno-saboteurs didn't go away when Elon Musk stepped down from DOGE to secure his trillion-dollar benefits package from TESLA. Instead, they "burrowed into the agencies like ticks."
The embedded DOGE operatives have slowed down their initial blitz-style assault on the institutions of democracy, but they haven't fundamentally changed their tactics. Mass firings, dissolving contracts, insecure data-sharing, and replacing a public-service mindset with private sector greed are dead giveaways that DOGE is still fully operational, and is employing the same tactics Musk used when he butchered Twitter.
The ugly...
On September 2, the U.S. Navy destroyed a boat in international waters. The boat was alleged to be a Venezuelan drug boat, though no evidence of this claim has been provided. This was the first in a string of attacks on civilian vessels in international waters.
It has recently come to light that the first boat was struck a second time under the direct order of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, killing the survivors of the first attack. According to the United States' own law of war, attacking "wounded, sick, or shipwrecked" sailors is prohibited, as these no longer pose a threat to U.S. forces. Hegseth is denying ordering the second strike, and is letting Vice Admiral Frank "Mitch" Bradley, who was in charge of the operation, take the blame.
The Trump regime, never daunted by such pesky things as laws, claims that the second strike was necessary to prevent narcotics from being brought into the United States. There are three major flaws with this claim: There is no evidence that these vessels were smuggling drugs or posed any threat to the United States; there is no way these vessels could possibly carry enough fuel to reach the United States, over 1,000 miles away; and once the vessel was struck in the first attack, it was no longer able to reach the United States.
Since this first attack, the United States has struck more than 20 boats, killing more than 80 people. To date, no evidence has been provided to the American public that any of these boats were carrying narcotics or bound for the United States.
Sounds of the revolution...
Earth To Eve [Link]
Mr. Newberger's AI Funnies [Link]
On the lighter side...
