May 14, 2025
The "plane" truth is starting to be apparent even to Trump supporters . . .
“. . . no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” - Constitution of the United States, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8.
The news that Trump was going to accept a $400 million Boeing jet from the government of Qatar seems to have struck a nerve on both sides of the aisle - and across the country. In spite of Trump’s post on his Truth Social platform, in which he said, “Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done. . . Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our Country.” But he seems to have underestimated what the so-called “FREE” jet will cost the U.S., as it would need massive re-building and security upgrades before it would be usable by the president. The leader of the Senate Armed Services committee has come out publicly against it, as have a number of other prominent Republicans. Even major MAGA influencers, such as podcaster Ben Shapiro, have taken note.
(In case you’d forgotten, he’s referring to the allegations that the Bidens accepted a $5 million bribe from Ukraine - a charge that was later discovered to be entirely fabricated, but which Republicans spent years pursuing.)
However, at the same time that he’s complaining about “delays” in Boeing’s delivery of new jets to the government, Trump also announced a massive deal with the Qatari government to purchase 210 Boeing aircraft. And he just signed a $142 billion arms package with Qatar - part of what even some conservative news sources have described as the Qatari “purchase” of America. It’s hard not to think that the “gift” of a jet described as “a flying palace” didn’t somehow play a role in the deal.
Immigration, ICE, and Habeas Corpus
I think it’s important to give some voice to the people most affected by the recent actions of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. This piece was written by a New York Times opinion editor based on a series of calls he had with Kseniia Petrova, a Russian scientist who works in a lab at Harvard Medical School. Another voice to listen to is Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University graduate student who was snatched by masked ICE agents off the street in Vermont in March and only released last Friday:
After being unlawfully detained for six weeks, for what even the judge in her habeas corpus hearing agreed was nothing more than an op-ed she co-authored, she still says, “America is the greatest democracy in the world, and I believe in the values that we share. I have faith in the American system of justice.” Wow.
The only reason she is now free is because she was entitled to a hearing on a “writ of habeas corpus,” which was also the grounds for Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil’s release. The idea that the administration might be considering suspending habeas corpus was supported this week by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. But suspending habeas corpus is mentioned in the original Constitution only in Article 1, which applies to Congressional authority (it’s in the same section as the “emoluments clause” listed at the top of this article) and the common interpretation is that only Congress has the authority to suspend it. (If you follow that last link, you’ll be interested to note that one of the authors of the article is now on the Supreme Court - Justice Amy Coney Barrett.)
And as law professor Steven Vladeck points out:
The Suspension Clause does not say habeas can be suspended during any invasion; it says “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” This last part, with my emphasis, is not just window-dressing; again, the whole point is that the default is for judicial review except when there is a specific national security emergency in which judicial review could itself exacerbate the emergency. The emergency itself isn’t enough.
So this is going to be a very, very important constitutional battle to pay attention to over the coming months - probably right up there with the arguments around birthright citizenship.
Misc. Short Takes:
The fight over Medicaid cuts and the budget is getting more intense. Republicans are trying to say they’re not “cutting” the program, Democrats are calling them out for things like work requirements - which are widely seen as not working, and are likely to force millions of people off Medicaid. KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation) has a tracker that I recommend you bookmark to follow proposed changes.
Michigan Democrat Rep. Shri Thanedar sponsored a resolution calling for the impeachment of Trump on grounds relating to numerous offenses, including accepting the jet from Qatar. Earlier today, it looked like he might force the resolution to come to the floor for a vote within two days, but as of right now he has backed off based on the recommendation of Democratic party leaders that it would distract from efforts to fight the funding bill. And while Thanedar acted alone, he’s not the only Democrat who’s talking about impeachment.
Resistance Actions
This is more of a notification than a specific action - but I just got a notification that a new publication will be dropping over on The American Pamphleteer: “How to Gum Up the Works: OSS Sabotage Manual for Everyday Citizens.” It will be out on Friday this week for annual subscribers to the Pamphleteer, and available for everyone (subscribers or not) on May 23 for download. You can read more about it here:
OK, that’s it for tonight. I really want to dig more into what’s been going on with Ukraine and Russia, but that will have to wait for a separate post - it’s complicated, and I want to do it justice.