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Dictators are the ones who aggrandize themselves. Congress should stop Trump from doing so at the expense of the taxpayers and our U.S. heritage and history.

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Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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President Trump is shipwrecking the U.S. Navy. Trump has caused an unfortunate focus on the Navy and particularly its ships recently. First, his Administration, without any semblance of strategy, has kept our strategic assets of Carrier Strike Groups deployed far past what the ships and their crews can reasonably withstand. Reports of crew burnout, even mental instability, supply chain problems, and materiel degradation are rampant, especially about the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN and its cohort of ships.

Fleet readiness is a combination of training, exercise, maintenance, munitions supply, and personnel support. The Trump Administration has burned through much of the Navy’s strategic readiness and munitions without achieving any strategic goals. The Administration tactically has “mowed the grass” in Iran, devastating Iran’s military, but a military which is already rebuilding with help from our enemies. The military action has emboldened Iran to exert a new power over the Strait of Hormuz. The decapitation of Iran’s leadership has only resulted in a more militant and hardened regime, one that is surely convinced that Iran does need nuclear weapons. So, for all of the expenditure of readiness, munitions and the well-being of Sailors, America has only ended up with Venezuela’s Madura, and we are no safer than we were on January 20, 2025. Indeed, we may be much, much more vulnerable.

Now President Trump wants to redesign the Navy’s aircraft carriers, the most lethal and expensive warships that have ever existed. First, he wants to revert to the steam-powered catapult systems for launching aircraft instead of the new state-of-the-art electro-magnetic systems on the newer carriers. It would cost millions, perhaps billions, to redesign these systems while foregoing all of the efficiencies they were designed to bring to the Navy. No system is perfect, but there were strong reasons to move away from steam-powered catapults of the mid-20^th century. Trump may not have noticed that our allies and adversaries are both moving to the new electro-magnetic systems for launching aircraft.

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And President Trump doesn’t like the way the new Ford-class aircraft carriers’ command structure, the island, “looks.” So, he wants to move it further forward so that it looks more like the aircraft carriers he remembers from the World War II era. Of course, the ship designers for the Ford-class carriers did not move the island towards the aft of the ship for aesthetics. The command structure was moved back for real reasons of efficiency and operational effectiveness. Moving the island forward again would cost billions of dollars and cause a ridiculous and strategically unsustainable delay in shipbuilding.

Moreover, Trump wants to turn the clock back to 1941 with a new class of battleships, the Trump-class, and he is making the Navy waste time and money on the design. Battleships, the dreadnoughts of the early part of the 20^th century, had sixteen inches of steel protecting Sailors and operations and multiple 66-foot long, 16-inch bore guns that could hurl a shell weighing about 2000 pounds approximately 20 miles. They excelled at shore bombardment, and they were formidable in their day.

The handwriting was on the wall for battleships on July 21, 1921, when Army Air Corps Brigadier General Billy Mitchell’s team sank a captured German battleship, the Ostfriesland, using airpower, much to the Navy’s chagrin. The end of the era of the battleship was certainly marked by Japanese Admiral Yamamoto’s daring attack on Pearl Harbor, damaging or sinking the battleships there. Admirals Nimitz, Fletcher, and Spruance inaugurated the era of the aircraft carrier with the Battle of Midway in June, 1942. The last battleship built by the U.S. was the USS IOWA in 1944. It was the end of U.S. battleships, except for brief revivals at great expense and with no credible adversaries for seapower.

President Trump is insatiable when it comes to vanity projects and things he thinks “look good,” and he seems determined to bring the same design genius to naval architecture as he has to the Reflecting Pool, White House East Wing, and the Rose Garden (remember, he paved over it). He has defaced, profaned, or vandalized many iconic structures in Washington, DC, and elsewhere in the Nation, but his meddling in ship design has catastrophic effects that will last for decades and damage American national security, Navy seapower, and therefore global stability.

What does the Navy say about these expensive disruptions? They say, “Aye, aye, sir.” The President’s orders are not illegal, just incredibly bad judgment. The Navy is obligated to work on these ill-fated redesigns.

But Congress can stop him, stop him from wasting the Navy’s time and money, stop him from squandering Navy readiness, stop him from decimating the greatest seapower that ever set sail. Congress should do so immediately.

Until then, splice the mainbrace.

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Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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The bar set for confirmation as an Attorney General has been pretty low ever since William Barr (the original “Low Barr”) due to his questionable ethics and politicization of the office, but the bar set by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) for Todd Blanche is so low it would be hard to trip over. The senators are depicted as “standing up to Trump” by requiring Blanche, or the White House, to put in writing the slush fund of a proposed $1.8 billion to compensate President Trump’s supporters for the last administration’s prosecution of them for serious felonies is dead and gone. The fund arose as a settlement from a lawsuit Trump lodged against the United States for revealing his tax information, and the settlement contained a highly irregular provision that the Trump family and businesses would not face prosecution for tax violations.

The senators demand written assurance that the Department of Justice that the settlement was dead and would stay dead, but Blanche, DOJ, and the President have been predictably evasive on assurances, using even more weasel words than usual. In June, Blanche refused to sign a declaration verifying the demise of the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund (an ironic name so classic it could be part of Orwellian “double-speak”).

Senators Cornyn and Tillis are right to object to the corrupt, self-dealing, abuse of power settlement, using their newly found spines after the President forced them from Republican primaries by one means or another. The settlement was so blatantly corrupt that the federal judge who blew it out of the water referred Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida Bar Association for possible disciplinary action. A larger question (and embarrassment) for the Republican Party, once known for “law and order,” is that no other Republican senator has objected to the settlement agreement even in the mealy-mouthed way Cornyn and Tillis have.

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And now, apparently, he has put it in writing to save his dubious nomination. Why? It was too low a bar. Blanche knows that individual settlements will continue with Trump’s insurrectionists and allies with nearly invisible settlements paid from the Department of Justice’s Judgment Fund, usually used to settle claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act and other legislation. Blanche’s “writing” is virtually meaningless, especially since it was not signed by President Trump, too.

But the settlement is not even the point. What if the Department of Justice did confirm in writing that the slush fund was dead? The U.S. Senate should not confirm as Attorney General, the leading law enforcement officer of the nation, the defender of the rule of law, anyone who would have supported or defended such a bald-faced corruption scheme and theft of taxpayers’ money for openly political purposes in the first place. It is disqualifying. And it is by far not the only thing.

Todd Blanche has overseen DOJ investigations and indictments of personal enemies of Donald Trump, mostly publicly encouraged by Trump, including former FBI Director James Comey, Jerome Powell, the former Fed Chair, multiple sitting Members of Congress, and various other federal and state officials Trump does not like. All have come to nothing except the case against Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who reached a deal with prosecutors. While critical Department of Justice resources are wasted on Trump’s vendettas on a scale that would have caused Richard Nixon exultation, counterterrorism and counterintelligence assets have been reduced to ashes, and real crimes are getting less and less attention.

As Acting Attorney General and as Deputy Attorney General, Blanche has presided over a devastating exodus of dedicated, talented attorneys and staff, some bilged in undiscriminating reductions in force, some fired for perceived political differences, and some who could not stand the ethical violations, malicious prosecutions, or order to file proceeding or make representations to the courts improper purpose, “such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation.” Many of them did not go silently, writing that the what Trump, Pam Bondi, and Todd Blanche were doing was creating “potentially irreversible damage” and an abandonment of ethical practice. Permanently damaging the Department of Justice is a serious disqualification for even nomination to be Attorney General.

Blanche was instrumental in whitewashing the rioters in the January 6 insurrection. Members of Congress who were in the Capitol that day, including Cornyn and Tillis, should know that Blanche’s actions toward the rioters are disqualifying to be the leading law enforcement officer in the nation.

Blanche is not the only person who is responsible for the grave, corrupt, and probably illegal mishandling of the Epstein Files, a mishandling that is ongoing, but he is certainly the most senior person still at the Department of Justice who could have responded to the victims and to the law passed by Congress in a more fulsome and ethical way. His actions are disqualifying.

The list goes on and on. The Justice Connection has compiled a mortifying indictment of all the ways that Todd Blanche should not even be a licensed attorney anymore, much less the Attorney General.

So, if Senators Cornyn and Tillis get their victory, a written statement that the slush fund is dead (and we will see if that is worth the paper it is written on), or if they get the lesser victory of delaying Blanche’s confirmation until 2027, that is victory without success, because Todd Blanche will become the most sycophantic, disqualified Attorney General for the most corrupt president in history. A low bar indeed.

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Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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Americans mostly feel the oscillation of global oil prices at the gas pump, and President Trump’s choice to go to war with Iran has certainly and immediately driven up the price of gasoline at the pump. But as the geo-political strategist Peter Zeihan informs us in his book The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, fluctuations in the global market price for a barrel of crude oil are magnified as they ripple across each industry and market that petroleum affects (check out Section IV: Energy of his book, which I highly recommend).

Petroleum, and the energy it produces, is an enabler for everything else in the global and our local economies. We may feel gasoline prices the most, but also the Marine Diesel Oil and other maritime fuels that power the ships that bring you clothes from Malaysia, shoes from Italy, washing machines from South Korea, and (very importantly to me) coffee from Africa and South America. Even when it arrives in the U.S., those products must sustain price hikes for diesel for the trucks and trains to get them to a place where we can buy them.

Oil affects each stage in the supply chain, beginning with the collection of raw materials, storage, manufacturing, production, packaging, distribution, and delivery. Petroleum seems like it is in everything, and with the amount of microplastics in our brains and bloodstreams, it is everywhere and in everything. Oil is in the shingles on your roof, most of the floors you walk on, the packages your food comes in, the containers you store leftovers in, the liners of the cans your food comes in, your medical supplies, your spatula and other kitchen tools, and a lot of our pharmaceuticals. Petrochemicals are used extensively in farming and other industries.

So, beyond the gas pump, the broad use of petroleum is the reason that a 10% change in the demand for oil can result in a 75% increase in price, according to Peter Zeihan. The estimated cost of the war with Iran for America is almost $900 Million per day, but this does not include cost to each American as the cost of all products affected by the price of oil increases. The global oil markets will get back to normal, sooner but probably later, but Americans will not get that money back for daily living expenses at a time when we were already concerned about the cost of living.

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According to Global Security, the Persian Gulf Region contains 68% of the world’s known oil and natural gas reserves, and 25% of the world’s oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, only 34 miles wide at its narrowest point, but really only 2-mile wide channels for inbound and outbound shipping. Shipping is very vulnerable to Iranian interference. But those are lonely channels right now as nothing, repeat, nothing is moving oil through the Strait right now. Oil tankers are bottled inside the Persian Gulf and anchored outside, at a huge cost per day. Twenty-five percent is significant, but 75% of Japan’s oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz and a great bit of Persian Gulf oil goes to Western Europe, especially after Russia invaded Ukraine.

How high will oil prices go? It depends on how long the Trump Administration keeps the war going. Complete annihilation of the Iranian economy won’t be good for getting world oil prices stabilized. Getting to a diplomatic solution and peace will help. While the Administration’s objectives for the war with Iran are not clear and seem to shift, adding the normalization of shipping in the Gulf and the stabilization of oil prices globally as objectives are essential. The strength of the American economy is a pillar of our national security.

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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Donald Trump started his second term in office on a cold day one year ago. He had promised that many things would occur on “Day One,” but most notably, he promised at least 53 times in public that he would end the Russian war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, maybe even before. Now, a full 365-days later, the hubris of his misguided reliance on his personal charisma, relationship with Putin, and supposed superpower of deal-making is nakedly apparent.

With U.S. and Ukrainian officials meeting in Miami for one-sided discussions, the adults in the Administration, and in Congress to the degree that they have any influence, need to assess the real reasons the war in Ukraine continues and why no peace deal has been reached. One reason is that the war in Ukraine is not like negotiating for an apartment building in Manhattan, which is the résumé for President Trump’s lead negotiator, Steve Witkoff. His inexperience and mistakes with Russia have been embarrassing to the U.S. and the Administration, and his incompetence has confirmed to Putin that the Americans are fools who can be played. Witkoff has been called the “Master of Disaster” for his mishandling of negotiations with Russia on Ukraine.

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But it is the Trump Administration that bears responsibility for its naiveté, the misperception of Putin’s intent, and the egregious amount of time that America has bumbled along, trying to cajole Putin into some sort of agreement, even a temporary ceasefire.

And the central reason is this. Putin does not want a peace deal or even peace. He wants Ukraine. All of it. He does not care that Russia has hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have been killed and many more who have been disabled or maimed. He does not care much that global sanctions have hurt the Russian populace, but not enough to threaten his vise-like grip on the Russian security state. As long as Putin can string along President Trump, talking on the phone about meeting, jawboning on what is not acceptable, the more Putin can wear out the Ukrainian public, freeze them this winter.

Even as peace talks have, on and off again, proceeded, Putin has attacked population centers, apartment buildings, schools, kindergartens, and essential infrastructure. According to the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph, since Oct 2025, Russia had targeted 11 hydro-electric energy plants, 45 heat/power plants, 49 thermal power plants, 151 electrical substations. UK has pledged £20 million for energy infrastructure as Russia steps up its attacks on heating, water and electricity. A peace deal, even a cease-fire, would mean he could not keep up that assault on the Ukrainian people.

And in a classic rube move, President Trump tipped his hand to Putin on what Trump really wants, which is not peace in Ukraine. President Trump does care about peace in Ukraine; he wants a Nobel Prize. Putin has played President Trump ever since this has been known.

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So, finally President Trump’s administration is catching on to Putin’s “Art of the No Deal,” that Putin is not going to deal with the U.S. and its allies on stopping the war in Ukraine unless and until the pain and risk of not doing so is too great. After the embarrassing meeting in Alaska in August of 2025, it was painfully obvious that the President’s charm offensive was not charming enough for Putin to even throw the Administration a bone. The meeting itself was a win for Putin. It got him back on the world stage, and it caused a delay in any meaningful incentives for peace.

President Trump has wavered back and forth on providing support for Ukraine, but he finally reversed course on one of the most effective tools against Russian military aggression: crippling sanctions against Russia’s oil companies, the backbone of its lagging economy. President Trump also cancelled a second meeting with Putin, finally figuring out that you do not come to the bargaining table if you do not have anything that the other side wants.

A clear indication of the effectiveness of the sanctions is the fact that Putin immediately complained that it was an “unfriendly act,” which is rich coming from an indicted war criminal who has sanctioned murder and rape of Ukrainians and the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. The sanctions will have a huge impact on the Russian economy.

Late in time comes the epiphany. After thousands of more deaths, even more maiming of Ukrainians and their children, after so much destruction, the Administration finally realizes that Putin has been playing the West while he destroys Ukraine and makes minimal territorial gains. He has been winning a war of attrition, and President Biden’s slow incrementalist support and President Trump’s narcissistic miscalculation has provided Putin with a precious commodity: time. Putin knows that democracies get tired of war and lose focus. He is winning a war of attrition.

America and its ruffled European allies are now continuing to tighten the screws. In its efforts against Venezuela, the Administration seized Venezuelan oil in tankers recently reflagged as Russian. The United Kingdom and the European nations are ready to help shut down the Russian “shadow fleet” that has been instrumental in Putin’s evasion of global sanctions. A Congressional bill called the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 has been kicking around for months with bipartisan support led by Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). It could have been passed last summer, but now President Trump has given it the “greenlight.”

The implications of the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 are potentially enormous. Tariffs up to 500% could be levied against India, China, and Brazil for their goods imported to the U.S. if those countries continue to purchase Russian oil, petroleum products, or uranium.

But economic sanctions do not always work, or do not work as well or as fast as we might imagine. They would at least be one bargaining chip if the U.S. ever finds itself at an arms-length, serious bargaining table with Russia.

The other essential bargaining chip that the Administration must have to get Moscow’s attention is significant, sustained commitment to providing Ukraine with the weapons and equipment it needs to defend itself. The U.S. needs to stop wheedling that Ukraine needs to cede territory for a very uneasy, unsure peace. President Zelenskyy has a shopping list; the U.S. needs to supply him. Our failure to do so is already an embarrassment and is antithetical to U.S. interests and those of our allies.

Major General Vladyslav Klochkov of the Ukrainian Armed Forces provided a very telling graphic on the lack of seriousness of Putin in discussions of a peace deal. Here it is:

If President Putin is not interested in a deal and is only jawboning to gain more time to destroy Ukraine and Western resolve, then President Trump needs to put some real bargaining chips on the table: enforced sanctions and the weapons Ukraine needs to win.

I would hope that the peace proposals under development will be successful, but I would bet on “nyet.” Nyet is the major factor in the “Art of the No Deal.”

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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In June 1953, a CIA operative, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt) arrived in Tehran with the specific mission of Operation Ajax: to overthrow the legitimately elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, by spreading lies and propaganda, and by paying protesters, fomenting deadly violence that ultimately resulted in a confrontation of Mossadegh by the Iranian military. Mossadegh was arrested and died in a military jail years later. The Shah, though, achieved nearly dictatorial powers.

Why did the CIA do it? To help out Britain’s BP oil company which was miffed at the threat of nationalization by Mossadegh of the oil company after years of British exploitation. Whatever short term kudos the U.S. got from Britain, the U.S. has paid for with an egregious amount of money, blood, ill-will, and retribution as the extremist regime lashed out against America and its allies. What might we have avoided if we had negotiated a settlement with Iran on the BP oil crisis?

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When the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, the Islamic Republic was fueled with a religious hatred of the U.S. The regime has spawned a plethora of deadly, violent, and even suicidal extremists and terrorist groups across the Middle East and the world. It is the same toxic brew into which the Administration seems to want to insert itself now. While wanting to aid anti-extremist groups in Iran is laudable, it is not the same as supporting pro-democracy, pro-American groups in Iran, and it is far from clear that dropping munitions on Iran will help in any way. Bombs may actually assist the Islamic regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran with a “rally-round-the-flag” effect with loyalists.

The U.S. has experienced some success in “civil” war interventions. The economic miracle of South Korea would not have been possible without American intervention. Taiwan would be a little discussed province of the People’s Republic of China if the U.S. had not supported the misgoverned regime of Chiang Kai-shek (though the fate of Taiwan is still not assured).

But such successes may have led to excesses and mistakes. The U.S. has a century of regrettable, imperialistic interventions in Latin America (check out the book The Banana Wars, 1898-1934). Few Americans know that the U.S. actually occupied Cuba from 1898 to 1902, then from 1906 to 1909, again in 1912, and from 1917 to 1922. Despite our strong disagreement with the Marxist government of Cuba and its alliance with the USSR since 1959, it gives some color to Cuban mistrust of the U.S. and perhaps why the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion was a colossal failure.

The worst failure of our civilian leadership was the decision to go to war in Vietnam. We can be proud of the bravery of our individual service members, but deception of our leaders in hiding the true lack of progress and ultimate futility of the war (see the Pentagon Papers), the brutality with which the war was prosecuted, and the lack of judgment by senior military leaders at the time about escalation led to dangerous erosion of public support for the U.S. military and a vociferous internal debate in the U.S. that lasted for at least a decade. Vietnam was an expensive, bloody, heartbreaking quagmire, and many people on both sides of the aisle came out of it saying, “Never again.”

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One of those people was a respected Republican Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger (though he was indicted for lying to Congress and obstructing a Congressional investigation into the Iran-Contra affair). He served as SECDEF for nearly all of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, which means he had to deal with damage that Vietnam did to the reputation and esprit de corps of the military.

Following the disastrous U.S. involvement in Beirut, Lebanon, where hundreds of Americans were killed in a suicide attack, Weinberger developed a set of criteria for determining whether or not the U.S. should get involved or deploy troops in a foreign conflict, which came to be known as the Weinberger Doctrine. Others had a hand in it, and there are many iterations of it, including General Colin Powell’s articulation of it prior to the 1990-91 Gulf War.

The Weinberger Doctrine must be applied objectively and wisely, or it could become a “recipe for inaction.” There are clearly instances where U.S. forces, especially Navy and Marine Corps forces, can be used to aid or bolster diplomatic objectives. But it remains a yardstick and a set of questions that should be answered. Here is a formulation of that doctrine:

• The United States should not commit forces to combat unless the vital national interests of the United States or its allies are involved.

• U.S. troops should only be committed wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. Otherwise, troops should not be committed.

• U.S. combat troops should be committed only with clearly defined political and military objectives and with the capacity to accomplish those objectives.

• The relationship between the objectives and the size and composition of the forces committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.

• U.S. troops should not be committed to battle without a “reasonable assurance” of the support of U.S. public opinion and Congress.

• The commitment of U.S. troops should be considered only as a last resort.

The last war with Iraq certainly should be a cautionary tale that regime change just because the U.S. does not “like” the guy is foolish and counterproductive. We also know that it is impossible, or nearly so, to win a decisive victory with just aerial bombardment.

While bombing Iran’s nuclear facility seems to have set back their nuclear weapons program, it also does not seem to have stopped it, and perhaps it has filled this extremist regime with a terrible resolve to obtain nuclear weapons. But before the U.S. takes additional steps that constitute “acts of war,” we would do well to faithfully answer each and every facet of the Weinberger Doctrine.

If the ghost of Caspar Weinberger bumps into Pete Hegseth in the Pentagon, I hope he mentions that the criteria do not appear to be met.

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Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

The extraordinary rendition of dictator Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela is not and has not been an American priority.

No one in America doubts that the world would be better off without Nicolas Maduro, just like no one in America in 2003 would argue that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein running Iraq. But in both cases, scarce, precious strategic assets were devoted to issues that were not strategic priorities for the U.S. and, therefore, were misused, or worse, wasted. For the blood and treasure (approximately $1.79 trillion for the U.S. alone) expended in Iraq, the U.S. did not find weapons of mass destruction, failed to achieve its goals, and was not perceivably more secure. The 2003 invasion of Iraq diluted and delayed getting Bin Laden in the war against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, our real priority.

While President Trump has kvetched against Maduro for years, his national security strategies in this term and his last term, as well as his Director of National Intelligence’s Annual Threat Assessments, do not mention Maduro or Venezuela. His National Security Strategy issued in November 2025 touts an increased focus on the Western Hemisphere and a desire for Latin American governments to cooperate with the U.S. against narco-terrorists, cartels, and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), but it also promotes a principle of “Non-Interventionism.” The operation to capture of Maduro did not cooperate with other nations and, indeed, has alienated many nations in Latin America and around the world.

Likewise, Trump’s ODNI Annual Threat Assessment issued in March 2025 shows that U.S. priorities are elsewhere. In order of presentation, the 2025 threat assessment lists the section on “Foreign Illicit Drug Actors” first, flipping the order with “Major State Actors” from previous annual assessments, even ones from his first term. But the 2025 still does not mention Maduro or Venezuela, but it does specify Mexican-based and Colombian-based TCOs and that China and India are the primary sources for fentanyl precursor chemicals.

The section on “Major State Actors” in the Trump’s 2025 ODNI Annual Threat Assessment names China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as huge threats, covering 20 pages of the 30-page document. The priority of countering China and North Korea are reflected in President Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy as well. Since 2008, there has been broad consensus among policymakers, military leaders, academicians, and presidents as reflected in their national strategies and threat assessments that American national security priorities should be focused on China and Russia. For instance, the National Security Strategy of October 2022 listed China as the “pacing threat” and warned that the U.S. is back in a high competition between major powers not unlike the Cold War.

China and Russia are our true threat priorities.

Despite these enduring priorities, approximately 25% of the U.S. Navy’s deployed combatant warships were devoted to Operation Southern Spear to extract one man and his wife. Moreover, over 15,000 soldiers, sailors, and other service members were dedicated to something that has never been listed as a security threat to the U.S., including not being named by this Administration in its strategic assessments. The application of the enormous amount of U.S. readiness to something that has not been assessed as a priority is such bad judgment that some analysts wonder if it is a distraction, a “wag the dog,” from this Administration’s other blunders, failures, and embarrassments.

And while the military operation was magnificently planned and executed, if the strategic goal was to stop or impede narco-terrorists or the Venezuelan regime that may aid them, it was fantastically ineffective. The regime is still intact. The cartels were not impacted at all (except for scores of low-level boat operators and we are not even sure of that since no evidence has been presented).

At the completion of this extraction of Maduro, the U.S. is less ready against its actual, prioritized threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea; we’ve expended a significant amount of “readiness.” U.S. Armed Forces are still the mightiest on earth, but readiness is a complicated array of acquisition of parts and supplies, training and exercising of personnel on complex platforms, sensors, and weapons, maintenance of ships, aircraft, and vehicles, and money, and time, lots and lots of time focused on Operation Southern Spear that was not spent on our real security priorities. This is time away from family and routine for our personnel. We can fill the readiness bucket back up, but it will take time and money.

So much of what the Pentagon and our Intelligence Community does is assess threats, prioritize them, and figure out what capabilities are needed and how to get them to address those threats. Those functions all require good judgment, maybe even great judgment.

All of those preparations can go to waste if bad judgment is used to apply them. U.S. national security demands the good judgment of doing first things first.

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Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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In July of this year, I wrote a piece on Pete Hegseth asking how many strikes does he get—with the implication that he should have been called “out!” for all of the mistakes he had been making. He has made many more since then, but now the question of how many strikes does Pete Hegseth get has a different and dark answer.

How many strikes does Pete Hegseth get? As many as he needs to “kill them all.”

The large majority of what we know about the strikes against Venezuelan boats that were defenseless against the sophisticated weaponry and sensors that targeted them (and apparently any survivors) has come from the Administration, but it is enough to create a prima facie case of a crime under U.S. and/or international law. As a former Naval Officer, I have always been proud that the U.S. adheres to the Geneva Conventions and other laws that protect U.S. service members as well as non-combatant civilians of other nations. That seems to have come to bloody, explosive end on the waves of the Caribbean Sea where the Administration has attacked approximately (we don’t know for sure) 22 boats and killed approximately 83 people.

Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with his Ranking Member, Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), has called for “rigorous oversight” of any strike against survivors, though he does not seem to mean that the rigor will include investigations into the legality and morality of the deadly strikes in the first place. But for Senator Wicker, and for all of his Senate colleagues who rubber stamped Hegeth’s nomination without seriously addressing all of the reasons not to confirm him as Secretary of Defense—uh, War, this appalling departure from U.S. values, laws, and morality was entirely predictable. For years, Hegseth has been denigrating the U.S. for having and enforcing rules of engagement and for upholding the international law of armed conflict. He even wrote a book and bragged about not following the law. And during intensive questioning from Senator Angus King (I-ME) at Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, Hegseth was equivocal and unable to testify that he would abide by the international laws of warfare. So, Senator Wicker and other national security-minded Republicans can act shocked (like Claude Rains, playing the French police captain in the movie Casablanca), but it is not shocking. It was completely foreseeable and, tragically, preventable. He should never have been confirmed.

As the scrutiny and investigations proceed, Hegseth will display some of his superpowers: prevaricating and shifting blame to anyone but himself. Sadly, that will be blame shifted to uniformed officers and service members he purports to honor and defend. And more sadly still, some of those officers may have gotten caught up in the momentum of completing a mission without an in-depth analysis of whether each aspect of the mission was lawful.

This is pure speculation, but a reasoned guess: Admiral Alvin Holsey, formerly the Commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) until he resigned suddenly in October, well before the end of his tour, almost certainly resigned rather than obey an unlawful order. He has properly remained silent since then, but history may speak loudly about his moral courage and ethical compass.

Perhaps he could lend his compass to Pete Hegseth.

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Perhaps a lot of President Trump’s policies and appointments will not affect you or me directly. Maybe our beef, cars, or cellphones will be more expensive. Somebody’s business may be less profitable or have supply chain problems. Your telephone call to a government agency may result in hours on hold.

But what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFKJr), Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, has done in just six months, with the approval of the President and to the snores of the Congress, will sicken, disable, or kill someone you know. Or you. And thousands of others, too.

RFKJr has dismissed the entire eminently qualified panel of experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine safety and policy. Kennedy’s reasons for the removal were patently false, and the real reasons became starkly clear when he appointed vaccine skeptics and people with ties to RFKJr, all with questionable qualifications, to be generous.

Kennedy has expressed unsupported doubts about mRNA technology, which has been around for years and was instrumental in developing the COVID-19 vaccine. The Trump Administration, at the instance of RFKJr, is cancelling almost $500 million in 22 contracts to develop mRNA vaccines against future viral epidemics. Members of RFKJr’s anti-vax group want mRNA vaccines taken off the market, and RFKJr now has the power to make that happen. Infectious disease experts have called the move the “most dangerous public health judgment” in decades.

The Administration previously cancelled hundreds of millions of dollars to develop vaccines against potentially pandemic producing flu strains. He has promoted unproven treatments for measles. He has weakened programs to address heart disease and cancer.

Measles, a disease previously eradicated in the U.S., is still on an epidemic rise. Whooping cough cases had a six-fold increase last year, partly due to fewer vaccinations. In America and worldwide, vaccine skepticism and hesitancy are increasing without a rational basis.

RFKJr’s unreasoned, ignorant assault on vaccines was revealed as a larger attack on science in general in his firing of Susan Monarez, Trump’s Senate-confirmed choice to lead the CDC. The real reason was that she would not alter her judgment to approve “unscientific, reckless directives” about vaccines. Her departure prompted four other resignations, in protest. CDC Deputy Director (and Chief Medical Officer) resigned, as well as the head of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, the head of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and the Director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.

The result is that the most effective, prestigious public health organization in the world has been blinded and then decapitated. The replacements for the scientific and medical experts who work and research for the CDC or advise must pass the litmus test of rejecting any scientific study that does not comport with RFKJr’s prejudiced, unscientific world view.

RFKJr’s actions have been publicly condemned in a joint essay in the New York Times by nine former directors of the CDC who served in Republican or Democratic administrations.

To speak plainly about this, the savage destruction of the CDC and America’s previously high rate of confidence in vaccines will result in deaths and disabilities, a shocking number of whom will be children. The U.S. will be starkly unprepared for the next pandemic, which may be even deadlier than COVID-19. We have reduced our ability to see it coming, and therefore we will be unprepared.

The U.S. learned no lesson from Trump’s performance on COVID-19 during his first term. Independent assessments judge that Trump’s hostility to vaccines and medical recommendations resulted in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths. Some place that number in the hundreds of thousands. Some forty percent of American COVID-19 deaths were avoidable, and the blame is laid at the feet of the first Trump Administration.

Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin falsely accused what became Obamacare as establishing “Death Panels,” who would decide who would receive health care and who would be allowed to die. In the 17 years since Palin ran, and during all of the time of Obamacare, there have been no death panels.

But look to the CDC’s new vaccine panels now. These boards, panels, and newly appointed “experts” will result in disabilities and death. Maybe it will only be a few thousand unnecessary deaths, or maybe hundreds of thousands, or a million. You cannot so completely abandon successful treatments, preventive therapies, and medical science without horrendous results.

The current Administration is not adept at accepting responsibility, expressing sympathy, or issuing apologies, so when you, your child, your parent or your loved one starts to cough, sicken, and feel the fear that this death was unnecessary, I give you my sympathy.

It could have been prevented.

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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When I reported for a new duty assignment in September 2001, the Pentagon was still smoking, attacked by ruthless terrorists dedicated to the destruction of America. The Pentagon is under attack again, less deadly, but nearly as sinister and with very long-lasting detrimental effects. Not all of that damage can be seen, and some will not be noticeable until really bad things happen in the future.

Your safety and security are being chipped away almost daily, and the leadership of the American-led rules-based world order is being undermined in a way that cannot be repaired for years, or decades. Or maybe ever.

With all of the overlapping dramas of Epstein files, pursuit of Nobel prizes, militarizing major cities, and myriad other major news distractions, it is hard to keep up with the unprecedented, dangerous, and astonishingly misguided firings and dismissals of the experienced, dedicated expert leaders and staff that have heretofore kept our Nation strong and safe.

President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth keep firing highly qualified, vetted, and experienced warriors and intelligence officers with little pretext and with no real justification. Yes, there were pre-textual reasons, but all of these officers were loyal and true to the Nation and their oath of office. Selection to be a three or four-star flag officer is merit-based and an arduous competition. Then, selection for a particular job at that rank is only after meticulous scrutiny, a record of accomplishment, and a hard-nosed assessment of the ability to perform that job. Any reasons given for the dismissals were like firing a four-star general for not having his shoes shined or a proper haircut. The loss is incalculable, and the disruption is significant and deadly.

Here is the list of firings and forced retirements in just the first few months of this Administration:

1. General C.Q. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2 years early)

2. Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations

3. Admiral Linda Fagan, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard

4. General Timothy Haugh, Director of the National Security Agency and Commander, USCYBERCOM

5. General James Slife, Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force

6. General David Allvin, Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force (early retirement after only 2 years)

7. Vice Admiral S. Chatfield, U.S. Military Representative to NATO

8. Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, Commander, U.S. Navy Reserve

9. Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency

10. Lieutenant General Joseph Berger, Judge Advocate General of the Army

11. Lieutenant General Charles Plummer, Judge Advocate General of the Air Force

12. Lieutenant General Jennifer Short, Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense

13. Rear Admiral Milton “Jamie” Sands, III, Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command

These exits flushed hundreds of years of experience down the drain, expertise that was absolutely necessary for national security now and for planning for security and peace for the near future. Yes, there were replacements for each, but those replacements were without the normal preparation and scrutiny.

And these firings are not all of the damage by a long-shot. Approximately 20,000 Department of Defense employees have been pushed out. These firings and dismissals were not enacted after a deliberate, careful study of where the Nation could afford to cut back. No, these expert employees were cut without much, if any, consideration of what capabilities were being lost, like performing internal surgery with a rusty machete. Some of the damage was so immediately severe that some employees were asked to come back. But not many.

Allow me to give some credit for the damage we cannot yet see to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. She summarily dismissed 37 expert, experienced intelligence officers by jerking the security clearances, a move that is almost immune from appeal and review and immediately renders them unemployable in the jobs they were chosen and qualified for. Are their replacements as experienced in those fields as those who were dismissed? We don’t know, so that is more damage we cannot see.

Other Defense and Intelligence experts and leaders have simply opted for retirement or taken another job. Douglas Beck, head of the Defense Innovation Unit, resigned. I have a friend who is a senior intelligence service executive who took early retirement from frustration.

If you are not a regular reader and observer of defense and intelligence news, it is very hard to keep up with it. If you are a regular, it is very hard to watch. Even those who observe the defense and intelligence communities, or are practitioners, cannot see all of the damage these actions are wreaking, and what disasters will occur in the future because of them.

But one thing is certain: there is no benign, undamaging outcome to this wreckage. And there may be no way to cure it easily.

It leaves me with a question. When will those Republicans who are charged with oversight of our military readiness and intelligence expertise speak up and speak out. If you think that your work behind the scenes, in private, is effective, clearly it is not. National security qualifications cannot be based on whims and loyalty tests.

It causes damage that we cannot yet see.

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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In 1938 in Munich, British Prime Minister negotiated away part of Czechoslavakia without representatives of the country there and triumphantly declared to a cheering crowd that he had achieved “peace for our time.” He was negotiating with a ruthless, murderous dictator, and Chamberlain's obvious position was he wanted peace at any price. The phrase attributed to Winston Churchill in reaction to Chamberlain's deplorable deal, “you wanted peace with honor, but you got neither,” may apply here.

Trump wants the war to stop so that he can claim a peace prize. Putin wants the whole of Ukraine, and the longer the war and negotiations go on, the more the attrition and destruction, the more it favors Putin.

I hope for progress and for peace with honor and security for Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S. But history whispers caution.

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The news about Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s cheeky plan to gerrymander five more Republican Congressional seats halfway through the decennial reapportionment cycle, and the flight of the Democratic Texas legislators, is hard to escape right now. The drama and the vitriol are masking what is not happening in Texas.

Texas has a long and regrettable history in gerrymandering and malapportionment, and the current events seem like déjà vu. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) led a similar effort in 2003 after the Texas Republicans took over both the Texas State House and Senate. About 62 Democratic legislators left the state to deny the majority a quorum. The effort did not succeed, just as it is unlikely to succeed in 2025. The Gerrymandering Project has already given Texas Congressional Districts the grade of “F” before Abbott’s current redistricting push.

Democrats have gerrymandered, too, of course, including in Texas, and the current debate easily devolves into a middle school “you started it!” argument. And you could argue that gerrymandering is a time-honored American tradition, since the term dates all the way back to 1812, when the Salem Gazette compared districts engineered by then Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry to a stringy, distended salamander-like monster.

In Texas, and in every state where extreme gerrymandering is proposed, what is happening is politicians and parties choosing their voters instead of the other way around. What is NOT happening in Texas and these other states are politicians and parties adopting policies and positions that are more broadly appealing and effective and then persuading potential voters of the efficacy of those policies and positions. That would be a small “d” democratic effort. The extreme gerrymandering that is happening before our eyes is profoundly undemocratic. It does not lend itself to a democratic consensus. It generates undemocratic gerrymandering responses in places such as New York or California.

The result is both parties pulling away from the center, from the ability to reach reasonable common ground and compromises. It creates a no-mans-land in the middle that ultimately becomes a crack, or chasm, in democracy.

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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In this era of misinformation, disinformation, and blatant propaganda, independent fact-checking organizations, such as PolitiFact, the Washington Post Fact Checker, Snopes, and others, have enjoyed meteoric growth. Until this year, that is.

Facebook, Instagram and Meta in general discontinued the use of independent fact-checking organizations to police or moderate their social media platforms. Google has stopped its ClaimReview system. X-Twitter shifted from fact-checking to allowing a crowd-sourced Community Notes (originally called “Birdwatch”) to moderate incorrect, misleading, or offensive posts. Except now X-Twitter is also allowing Artificial Intelligence chatbots to fact-check posts on the platform. Perfect. What could go wrong? The utility and effectiveness of the “community notes” approach are still far from determined, but it may have potential. But the system that X-Twitter has used apparently is an abject failure at moderating hate speech, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ speech in both volume and intensity. It is a fact; you can check it.

The major fact-checking organizations are fearless, amazingly accurate, and adhere to an international standard, a code of principles for fact-checking.

Glenn Kessler, long time Chief Writer for the Washington Post Fact-Checker, who announced he is leaving his position due to a buy-out, has stated that the atmosphere at the annual world fact-checking conference in Rio De Janeiro in June was filled with anxiety; this industry in under attack, and the retreat by social media platforms are undermining the business model for fact-checking. Kessler believes that fact-checking is losing now and that falsehoods are winning.

If facts no longer matter, shouldn’t fact-checking be ascendant? That would make sense, but according to Renee DiResta, author of the book Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality, society (that is you, me, and all of those “other” people) dwell partially or totally in what DiResta calls “bespoke realities,” microcosms of only those facts or bits of falsehoods that are most comfortable or energizing to each of us. Those “bespoke realities” actually generate money for various influencers, platforms, and commercial interests. If facts cannot break into that reality, then fact-checking, which increasingly does not have a strong business model, certainly cannot.

So, back to The Global Fact conference in Rio. While Glenn Kessler said the mood was tense, I talked to Professor Bill Adair, Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University and founder of PolitiFact. He told me that the conference was a sold-out event with more than 350 global fact-checkers, students, and academics.

Adair said, “With Meta reducing its commitment to fact-checking and with truth-challenged politicians such as Donald Trump getting elected in many countries, you might expect the mood at the conference would be pretty glum. But the fact-checkers were upbeat and determined to keep calling out the liars. They believe their work is more important than ever.” It is, more than ever.

As I have written previously, facts and truth matter. As Dr. Ira Hyman, a psychologist, has said, ”We may make decisions based on things we want to be true rather than the real state of the world. When truth is buried under a mountain of misrepresentations, we cannot make wise decisions.” That is why an aversion to facts and to fact-checking is dangerous to a free society.

Facts and fact-checking must matter to each of us personally. When someone tells you something that is incorrect, biased, or just insane, politely ask for the source of their information. Use a fact-checker such as the ones listed above and go back to the person and tell them, as politely as you can, “this is what I found out.”

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For a related post, see

Jamie's OpinionAided (Opinion Aided by Facts)

Bearing False Witness

I grew up under the belt buckle of the Bible Belt, but I am not a theologian, even though I was subjected to church twice on Sundays and on Wednesday nights for a while. So with that disclaimer, I have been pondering the King James Version’s lyrical prohibition by the Ninth Commandment …

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2 years ago · 9 likes · 11 comments · Jamie Barnett

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

Pete Hegseth’s blunders as Secretary of Defense were completely predictable, since he was widely tagged by experts as one of the least qualified SECDEF nominees in history. Qualifications aside, he also had racked up a resume of failed leadership and bad behavior. So, it should come to no surprise to anyone, other than the Commander-in-Chief and the Senate Republican Majority, that Pete Hegseth’s tenure in the Pentagon is a hot mess.

What are the qualifications that got Hegseth appointed way above his own personal Peter Principle? Fox News? Check. Good hair? Okay, looks sorta like Robert McNamara. Misogynistic? Check. Vituperative language? Check. Yep, that’s about it.

How many times does the SECDEF have to screw up for the slow learner in the White House to realize what has been plainly apparent all along? Let’s count just a few of the SECDEF’s snafus and gaffes in just his first six months.

1. Hegseth’s Role in Signal-gate. Hegseth did not create the Signal group chat on which classified information about military operations against Yemen were shared, but he participated and allowed it to continue. Messaging apps such as Signal are not authorized to share non-public Department of Defense information. The SECDEF should know and enforce that prohibition. The National Security Agency had warned that Signal was vulnerable to foreign surveillance just a month before these group chats.

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2. Oops, I did it again. Confirming that Hegseth really does not understand Operational Security, Communications Security, and classified information, the SECDEF created his own group chat on the same vulnerable platform, Signal, and shared attack plans with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. The first time, the platform was unsecure. The second time, Hegseth was knowingly sharing classified information with people he knew did not have security clearances.

3. He fired loyal senior staffers and smeared them for allegedly leaking information (but that was not true). In April, John Ullyot, a loyal Trumpist, resigned as the chief Pentagon spokesperson, accusing Hegseth of unleashing “a month of total chaos at the Pentagon.” Hegseth accused three of his most loyal staffers of leaking official information and summarily fired them. Hypocrisy? None of the accusations were true.

4. Hegseth Gives Away Ukraine Bargaining Chips to Putin. In February, Hegseth publicly stated that Ukraine should not have NATO membership and should not expect a return to pre-war borders even before negotiations began. European leaders were immediately livid at Hegseth giving away bargaining points, and Hegseth had to back away from his comments the next day. Senator Wicker (R-MS) called it a “rookie mistake.” Hegseth should have been redshirted.

5. Hegseth Cut the DoD Office of Net Assessment. Hegseth disestablished the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA), designed to provide strategic analysis on the most dangerous challenges to U.S. national security. This comes as the U.S. enters a new era of major power competition and Russian militarism.

6. Hegseth Fires Senior Military Officers for Being Black, or Women, or Both. In a day and age where the military is experiencing significant, even disastrous recruiting problems, the U.S. can ill-afford to alienate major classes of potential recruits, including women and African-Americans. Indeed, women helped the Army meet its recruiting goal in 2024. But Hegseth’s peremptory firing of women and African American senior officers, dismissal of programs that incentivize and assist in getting and keeping women and blacks in the military is making the military a less accepting, attractive place for African Americans and women.

7. Hegseth Stopped Vital Weapons for Ukraine. As Russia unleashes the most deadly and vicious attacks on Ukraine since the invasion started, Hegseth stopped previously approved weapons shipments to Ukraine which are essential to thwarting those Russian attacks. He did so without the permission of President Trump and without informing the White House or consulting with the Secretary of State or the Special Envoy to Ukraine, former Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg. While it is completely within the purview of the SECDEF to request a review of stockpiles, these weapons were already approved for shipment. They included Patriot interceptor missiles, so the late delivery of those missiles can be attributed to near-term civilian casualties in Ukraine. Was the pause in shipment a mistake? Yes, Trump reversed Hegseth’s embargo after the Fourth of July weekend.

The Republican Party has lots of people who could perform the office of Secretary of Defense. Some of these people are loyal to Trump. Maybe a few look good on Fox News.

But Pete Hegseth has way too many strikes against him, and it is time for the President to call him “out.”

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Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

This opinion was given, in part, as a speech at a No Kings Rally on the Square in Oxford, Mississippi, at 11:00 am on Saturday, June 14, 2025. Parts of it are remarkably like parts of a speech given by Congressman Jamie Raskin at the rally in Philadelphia later that day, and I am proud to have had similar thoughts! Watch his speech on Youtube.

The purpose of the Declaration of Independence was not to overthrow the rule of a king; it was to overthrow the rule of a tyrant. John Locke, well-studied by our founding generation, defined “tyrant” as a ruler who exceeds the bounds of the law, usurping rights, and misusing power for the tyrant’s own advantage. The Declaration justified rebelling against a tyrant who was transgressing against the natural rights of citizens.

We are all familiar with the poetic, lyrical, inspiring words of the Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson, an owner of enslaved people who nevertheless had thought deeply about freedom and the relationship between a people and their government. We are all very familiar with the “unalienable rights” of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We know his Enlightenment reasoning that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Usually then, we skip to the end of the Declaration, where those Founders pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor in support of that Declaration. But it is the middle part of the Declaration where Jefferson did the hard work of justifying how a people could legitimately rebel against their government. This is where Jefferson lists all of the instances where the king has taken away, usurped, the rights of the people, transforming a legitimate king into a tyrant, a dictator, a despot. In America, we do not tolerate tyrants.

Jefferson called them usurpations, but they are violations of the people’s rights, and what the founding generation of Americans objected to is happening now. Here are some examples from the Declaration that seem very applicable in 1776 and again in the Era of Trump. As proof of tyrannical acts, “…let Facts be submitted to a candid world”:

The King has:

1. Obstructed laws for the naturalization of foreigners. And so has Trump. (and so is one hyperlink; has Trump is another hyperlink)

2. Obstructed the administration of justice. And so has Trump.

3. Made judges dependent on his will alone. And so has Trump.

4. Erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people. And so has Trump.

5. [Sent] among us, in times of peace, standing armies without consent. And so has Trump.

6. Affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil power. And so has Trump.

7. Cut off our Trade with all parts of the world. And so has Trump.

8. Imposed taxes on us without our consent. And so has Trump.

9. He has excited domestic insurrections among us. And so has Trump.

And so, the Declaration continues: “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Those founders who signed the Declaration of Independence, who pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, call out to us from 250 years ago to say what Donald Trump is doing are acts of a tyrant.

And as a former military officer, I can tell you that one of the most alarming acts Donald Trump has taken is the uncalled for, unnecessary deployment of National Guard and Marine Corps troops to Los Angeles. Every dictator, every autocrat, now and in history, has used the military against his own people.

My wife is a retired teacher who used to teach her 8^th graders the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. It’s a dark satire of Stalinist Russia, where the farm animals overthrow the oppressive Farmer Jones and establish an animal republic where all the animals are equal. But the pigs run the farm with increasing oppression. My wife would ask her students “at what point did the animals irreversibly lose control of the farm to the pigs?” And the answer is when the tyrannical pigs grow the puppies into attack dogs to use against the farm animals. When leaders use the military against their own people, those leaders become tyrants.

In 1775, King George used British troops in America to brutally suppress protests and acts of civil disobedience which were fomented by the list of “injuries and usurpations” in the Declaration. Fortunately, the U.S. still has a democracy and our Constitution, though battered, is still holding on. Barely. The point is tyrannical acts must be answered effectively if a free people wish to remain free. Otherwise, that society descends into democratic autocracy and then just plain autocracy.

A free people must always exercise those freedoms to preserve them against autocrats.

What can be done? Here are some suggestions.

1. Don’t give up and don’t give in. Timothy Snyder in his 2017 book On Tyranny advises us not to obey in advance (by the way, if you really want to be in this fight, you should read his book).

2. Subscribe to reliable local, regional, and national news organizations. Your local and regional newspapers. Respected news outlets. The Atlantic. Then write letters to them. If you are only watching Fox News or MSNBC, expand your news sources for a more balanced outlook.

3. When people tell you something that is not true, politely tell them “that is not true”. Ask for their reference and for their sources. Check your own sources.

4. The only guard rails holding now are the courts. Congress is AWOL. Contribute to organizations that are confronting Trump’s dictates and usurpations in court: Public Citizen, the ACLU, the American Public Health Organization, CASA and the American Immigration Association. Contribute $5, or $50, or $500, or $5000, whatever you can afford. And whatever you can afford now is more than what you can afford if Trump is able to institute the vision of Project 2025.

5. If you are a Republican, take back your party. Add your voice to the increasingly brave Republicans who are voicing major concerns about Trump’s unprincipled actions and graft.

6. If you are Democrat, stop whining. It doesn’t help. Get involved in campaigns and voice your concerns, but the Democrats will not take power back by ignoring the moderates or the left. It still must have a big, tolerant tent.

7. If you are an independent or you got upset with the process and stayed home from voting, thanks for contributing to the problem. Please resolve next time to get involved in an effort that promises positive change. This is not a time for the sidelines.

8. Resist anger. Resist violence. Resist name-calling. Resist rudeness. But resist.

One last quote, this one from Winston Churchill: “When you are going through hell, keep on going. Never, never, never give up.”

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated.

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A broad majority of Americans can agree on a couple of aspects of the conflict with Iran. First, the U.S. Armed Forces executed its complex mission in Operation Midnight Hammer magnificently and with precision. No one should underestimate the might and lethality of American joint forces.

Next, I think that most people will generally agree that the strike on Iranian nuclear facilities has set back Iran’s ability to refine fissionable materials, perhaps for years (though it was not completely destroyed).

Third, we can agree that Iran should never have nuclear weapons. Iran is a pariah theocracy that promotes terrorist networks worldwide and has dedicated itself to the destruction of Israel and America. Most of the entire world agrees that Iran should not have nuclear weapons.

As a matter of fact, most of the world did agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons. That agreement came after the UN Security Council and President George W. Bush imposed initial sanctions against Iran for violating the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Those sanctions were not effective enough, so President Obama followed up with crippling secondary sanctions that required foreign companies and banks to leave Iran. Any customers of Iranian oil were threatened with being cut-off from access to the U.S. if petroleum purchases continued. Additionally, the U.S. had frozen billions of dollars of Iranian money for violating international treaties.

These enhanced sanctions cratered the Iranian economy, dependent as it is on oil revenues, with a decline in nearly one and half million barrels per day in exports. The recalcitrant Iranian regime came to the negotiating table and, after two years of negotiations, the result was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation evaluated the 159-page agreement as one in which “Iran significantly reduced its nuclear program and accepted strict monitoring and verification safeguards to ensure its program is solely for peaceful purposes.”

One remarkable aspect of the effectiveness of the JCPOA was the concord among bitter enemies: Russia, China, and the U.S. Additional signatories included France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and twenty-seven other nations acting through the European Union. Signed on July 14, 2015, the JCPOA went into effect only after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran had completed its required measures.

What did Iran have to do? The IAEA verified that Iran sent 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium out of the country. That reduced Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium by 98%. Iran had to agree to keep any and all uranium enrichment to only 3.67%, the level used in civilian reactors. It disassembled and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges. Iran agreed to intrusive, continuous monitoring and surprise inspections.

Before the JCPOA in 2015, U.S. intelligence services estimated that Iran already had enough uranium and equipment to create 8-10 nuclear weapons, and it would only take a couple of months to do it. JCPOA pushed the amount of time for Iran to develop nuclear weapons to at least a year and that status would stay in place for at least 10 years. For the 28 months that the JCPOA was in effect, the IAEA found that Iran did not violate the agreement, except for some minor “infractions” that were corrected.

In other words, diplomacy worked. The coalition to sanction Iran worked. The JCPOA worked to vastly reduce Iran’s capability to produce nuclear weapons. Unlike some other nations’ leaders who claimed Iran was in violation, the IAEA had no axe to grind in thoroughly inspecting Iran and reporting on its nuclear program compliance.

So, why did President Trump unilaterally pull the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018 and re-impose sanctions? One reason.

Bad judgment. Bad judgment we are still living with.

Iran perceived that the U.S. had lied to them, backing out of a deal with which Iran was compliant and reimposing sanctions. Western nations felt betrayed and astonished. Iran began refining uranium again far above the purity needed for nuclear energy, much closer to weapons-grade. Acting alone, U.S. sanctions did not have the same effect on Iran.

Opponents of JCPOA criticized it for not addressing Iranian-sponsored terrorism and for not reducing Iran’s missile program adequately. Trump’s re-imposition of economic sanctions did nothing to stop or improve either of those issues. The first Trump Administration also had disagreements with the “sunset” of certain restrictions after ten or more years, but in effect, Trump caused the sun to set on them instantly. The U.S. got nothing for withdrawal from the JCPOA.

Trump proposed negotiations with Iran coupled with threats of military action and demands for capitulation, which only reminded Iranian leaders of their distrust of his previous actions.

Given a broad consensus by Western nations, Israel, and Sunni Arab nations that Iran should never have nuclear weapons, Trump’s dismissal of the JCPOA made a war to take out its nuclear capabilities inevitable.

In 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy, viewing U.S. economic sanctions as destroying its military capability and ambitions, carried out its attack on Pearl Harbor to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet. It failed, but Japan expected that the attack would demoralize the U.S. and cause inaction in response. Perhaps they even expected negotiations. Japan made a stupendous miscalculation. Bad judgment.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who helped plan the attack on Pearl Harbor, famously said,” I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” President Trump called on Iran to return to the negotiations table, but it is much more likely that these attacks have filled Iran with a terrible resolve to achieve, by whatever means, nuclear weapons. A bill is pending in the Iranian Parliament to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Iranian Parliament is moving forward with a plan to suspend any cooperation with the IAEA and its inspectors. Soon, we will know far less about Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

We are at war with Iran, despite the Vice President’s nonsensical claim that we are only at war with Iran’s nuclear program. This is Trump’s War, and though we executed a surgical strike, the war that Trump got the U.S. into has yet not concluded. Already, Iran has retaliated by attacks on U.S. forces in Qatar. We should not expect regime change; in fact, the U.S. attacks are more likely to generate a “rally-round-the-flag” effect, strengthening the hardliners in Tehran. The Iranian Parliament has voted to close the Straits of Hormuz, which will have a significant effect on oil prices and global economies. Will Iranian-backed terrorists detonate a nuclear dirty bomb somewhere? Where will other attacks happen?

We are at war with Iran, and it is not over. Trump’s bad judgment in 2018 made this war inevitable. Let us fervently hope that better judgment will prevail going forward, but this day and night, my thoughts and hopes are with the members of our Armed Forces, deployed abroad, at sea, and here at home. We are at war.

Jamie Barnett is a native Mississippian and a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated

Whatever national problem that keeps you up at night—Terrorism? Immigration? Inflation? Tariffs? Crime? Loss of health insurance? Massive corruption? — probably pales compared to the depth, duration, and proximity of misery that will occur to you, your family, your children, and grandchildren if the U.S. cannot get a handle on its exploding national debt which is almost $37,000,000,000,000 – yes, $37 trillion. The ratio of federal debt to the Gross Domestic Product is 122.92%; in the year 2000, that ratio was only 57% after 8 years of a Democratic president and significant bi-partisan work to balance the budget, erase deficits, and actually come up with a budget surplus.

What could go wrong with this? Not addressing the national debt could make borrowing for the federal government vastly more expensive. The U.S. already will pay $1 trillion in interest payments alone this year. Trust in the U.S. government’s facility and ability to raise its debt ceiling and pay the debts it has already incurred has plummeted in the last few years, and as that trust goes down, interest rates for U.S. borrowing go up.

And if the U.S. suffered some additional economic crisis (such as another pandemic, a war, or simply a breakdown in the government’s process for paying bills) that resulted in default, experts predict a worldwide recession or depression, a financial crisis, stock market crash, a bond market impact that would make borrowing and mortgages nearly impossible, adverse effects on retirement accounts and college funds, to name a few.

The economic catastrophes of other nations should be a cautionary tale. Greece’s profligate spending and debt levels above 100% of GDP crashed into the “global banking crisis and credit crunch” that the U.S. subprime market collapse sparked. Bad economic policies and poor judgment by Greek politicians resulted misery, austerity, political turmoil, and multiple bailouts that have affected a generation. And Greece’s experience is far from an isolated case.

With the stakes this high and the potential for deep and lasting ruination so clear, surely U.S. political parties and leaders have some proposed solutions, right? Nope. Nothing. Nada. In fact, the Republican Party has a bill that will ADD $2,400,000,000,000 ($2.4 Trillion) to the budget deficit—and just to be clear, every deficit adds to the national debt. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” has passed the Republican-led House of Representatives and faces turbulence (but no solutions) in the Senate. The 2024 Republican Party Platform does not even mention the federal debt. The 2024 Democratic Party Platform only mentions the national debt in relation to opposing the extension of the Trump tax cuts adding $5 trillion to the national debt.

Why is that? Because addressing the debt means swallowing a nasty combination of bad tasting medicine: raising taxes and cutting expenses. Republican economic policies have devolved from fiscal responsibility to the Grover Norquistian “all taxes are bad,” even though supply side economics and tax cuts have demonstrably been disproven. Republicans want to use the debt as a cudgel against the Democrats for budget cuts to social safety net programs and to protect tax cuts. (I am still waiting for the Republicans to realize what European and other advanced, industrialized nations have discovered, that education, healthcare, and a social safety net for its citizens are actually good for the economy and growth).

Democrats viscerally want to protect the social safety net and believe that if they open to door to budget cuts, the Republicans will eviscerate these programs (and with good evidence for that). Democrats see the tax cut extensions as favoring the rich while taking away hunger relief programs, healthcare, and community support for kids, mothers, and the most vulnerable people in society. Between these two poles, there only exists a no-man’s-land of insults and invective.

But it is not impossible to find solutions, and it has been done before in the face of tense partisan rancor. In the late 1990’s, President Bill Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott worked out a balanced budget deal. It was not easy, and it was not quick– it took a few years to work it all out. Some taxes went up, some taxes went down, billions of dollars were “saved” from the Medicare program. The bill even included an increase in defense spending and a small budget surplus over time, though the surplus budgets did not last long.

The budget surpluses were forecast by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) using hard-nosed analysis and real math, but the CBO could not foresee that Republicans would pass President George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit, estimated to cost about $400 billion without any tax increase or budget cut to pay for it. The program actually cost 20% more than that, all going to the national debt. CBO also could not foresee two wars that lasted almost two decades, one that we should not have started and the other one in which we stayed too long without a clear goal. Those wars cost the U.S. $8 trillion without any noticeable improvement in national security and no war tax to pay for them. Indeed, several trillion of those dollars could have been used to improve our national defense posture now. Our adversaries watch the U.S. debt grow with malicious anticipation. They know our debt constrains our capacity to exercise global leadership.

If the hyper-partisan U.S. House and Senate cannot agree on how to address the national debt, then perhaps they can agree that the national debt is something that must be addressed. The Congress can establish by resolution a National Debt Commission with the mandate to propose reasonable revenue increases and spending decreases to put the U.S. on a 5–7-year glide path to debt reduction and a manageable national debt.

The National Debt Commission should not be dominated by White House, Senate, or Congressional people, though they should have some minimal representation. The membership should be a balanced group of highly respected experts from reasonable think tanks, academicians, and perhaps former politicians who have done this before. Obviously, such a commission would not be binding on the Congress or the White House, but it would identify options and courses of action while we still have those options. The commission could be a place to float ideas and even find those rare, mythical beasts in Washington—compromises. Perhaps a commission can break our economic hubris and help focus a new constituency on solving a massive, dangerous problem.

If we wait on the current political process, there won’t be any options. In the last 20 years, the U.S. political system has not come up with any solutions. So, it stopped trying. We, the people, need to ask for good judgment and good government.

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated

Just a short note that what is happening now may be worse in six months.

Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution provides that the President shall take care to that the “Laws be faithfully executed.” President is executing the laws, execution style. The breadth and depth, and sheer criminal genius, of the assault on the rule of law is so rapid and rapacious, it is hard to keep up with all that is being done.

Judge J. Michael Luttig has given us a tremendous score sheet of Trump’s abuses of office and illegal acts. Judge Luttig, now retired, has superb conservative credentials, clerked for Judge Antonin Scalia (when he was on the DC Circuit Court), served in the Reagan White House, and was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuity by President George H.W. Bush, serving for 15 years. He and I probably do not agree on a lot of policies issues, but one place we are in perfect agreement: the criticality of the rule of law to America.

I usually don’t “review” another person’s column, and I encourage you to read his article dated May 14, 2025 in The Atlantic titled “The End of the Rule of Law in America,” but the article is comprehensive and long. Not a word is wasted, but my purpose here is to summarize his indictment of all of the outrages the Trump Administration has committed against rule of law, definitely against American mores, but many patently unauthorized by law or even illegal. All of them are destructive.

Here is my summary of his list:

1. President Trump pardoned 1,200 January 6 rioters, all of whom have massive amounts of evidence against them; were arrested and indicted; some pled guilty; some were convicted; some were violent criminals. Trump exercised a presidential prerogative, but it was unprecedented and was an affront to the law enforcement officers, grand juries, petit juries, prosecutors and judges who worked so hard holding these people accountable.

2. President Trump has used his office and authority to harass and persecute people whom he perceives as his enemies, including federal prosecutors who led cases to hold him accountable for crimes, all of which were approved by grand juries.

3. President Trump has authorized a rogue FBI to arrest a state court judge because of the door she allowed an undocumented immigrant to exit her courtroom. The arrest was based on an “administrative warrant” not one issued by judicial review of evidence. Even though there is scant evidence, the Administration is pushing forward on the prosecution to intimidate all judges who the Administration sees as not cooperating with deportations, even if it violates the person’s rights. Judge Luttig wrote, “The independent judiciary is the only constraint of law on a president. It is the last obstacle to a president with designs on tyrannical rule.”

4. Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has threatened judges with prosecution if they do not turn their courtrooms from a place of due process to a Trumpian processing center for immigrants—without due process.

5. The Trump Administration deported a 2-year-old citizen, the child’s mother and sister to Honduras “with no meaningful process.” Judge Terry Doughty, appointed by Trump, ruled that it was illegal and unconstitutional to deport a U.S. citizen.

6. The Trump Administration is launching harassing investigations against his perceived enemies, even ones that were just doing their jobs. One example is Chris Krebs, who was Chief of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and refused to back up President Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was rigged. He is also going after Miles Taylor, a former DHS chief of staff Note that you have to go back to the Nixon Administration to find a president who so baldly uses DOJ and the FBI to punish enemies, but Trump does it openly.

7. Trump does not have the legal authority to levy the tariffs that have thrown the global economy for a loop. A federal judge appointed by Trump disagrees with Luttig on technical grounds, stating that the smuggling of fentanyl drugs and the trade imbalance are an “emergency” under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, but the judge kicked the can to the Court of International Trade in New York, which may have a very different view. Luttig notes that the Constitution grants Congress the “sole authority to regulate foreign commerce and levy taxes.” That includes tariffs.

8. Trump is expending valuable judicial resources, knowingly overwhelming the courts, with all of the challenges to his illegal executive orders and actions. Judge Luttig notes that more than 200 legal suits have been filed against Trump’s administration and most of those challenges have been successful.

9. Trump’s executive order against the law firms of his opponents and enemies is an abuse of office, but it is a chilling attack on the “officers of the court.” The Nazis starved German lawyers into submission. When I got to visit Cuba in 2015, I asked if I could visit a Cuban law firm or two. Silly me. There are no private lawyers in Cuba. They all work for the state.

10. Trump’s ongoing battle against academia is unlawful, even though it is permanently damaging. The Trump Administration has even found a criminally genius method of oppressing colleges and immigrants at the same time by banning Harvard’s ability to enroll international students. A federal judge almost immediately stopped it. The adverse impact on colleges, research and America’s reputation is incalculable.

11. Trump’s attempt to take over the regulation of elections is patently illegal and unauthorized. The federal government has some regulations, but the states have always overseen voting.

12. Trump’s attack on the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright-citizenship is clearly wrong and not within the clear meaning of the amendment. However, there are some frightening questions that came out during the Supreme Court argument.

13. Trump does not have the authority to summarily dismiss thousands of federal employees without the barest nod at federal civil service protections and process. The Administration is being forced to rehire many departments, but critical government functions have been broken.

14. Trump is not empowered to fire Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell, after business leaders and economic advisors counselled against such talk, since it tanked the stock market. But standby. Powell’s term expires in May 2026. It is unlikely that Trump will re-appoint him or appoint anyone who is as judicious and competent as Powell. And the Supreme Court has allowed Trump to fire the members of independent agencies in a move that will obliterate the meaning of “independent agency” and will re-teach America why we need some agencies to be independent of the political vicissitudes of presidential politics. Again, this is a move away from the rule of law and towards the rule of one person.

15. Trump is illegally defying and flaunting court orders to return undocumented immigrants he has shipped overseas. He has invoked the Alien and Sedition act of 1789, a problematic law since its inception that allows deportation of foreigners when the U.S. is at war or has been invaded. Trump has used it to justify deportations without any semblance of due process. But even a Trump-appointed judge ruled the Administration’s action “exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, unlawful.” The invocation of “invasion” is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms.

16. Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, is suing Chief Justice John Roberts through Miller’s America First Legal Foundation to take control of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the Judicial Conference of the U.S., claiming that these are executive branch functions that should be overseen by the President. Luttig notes that these are the policy-making function of the federal courts, running the system. They have nothing to do with the executive branch. It is an assault on the federal judiciary. Imagine the president being able to choose which judges hear his cases.

17. Trump is freezing federal funds in violation of the Impoundment Control Act. The courts have already acknowledged that the president’s freezing of duly appropriated funds is a violation of the separation of powers, a usurpation of power.

18. Trump, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and his Administration routinely, daily, assault the First Amendment’s freedom of the press which indeed is a right of the people to know the truth about what their government is doing.

Frankly, Judge Luttig could have continued his indictment of Trump’s lawlessness by analyzing the utter disregard for ethics laws and the mores observed by every other president over our history. His acceptance of personal gifts or “purchases” is thoroughly corrupt, but with Trump’s grip on the Department of Justice and Congressional Republicans supinely abdicating their oversight role, this graft is accelerating unchecked.

And now, with the passage of the Big, Beautiful Bill, we see another insidious attempt to destroy the rule of law. A little-noticed passage provided:

"No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued,"

This provision would, if passed into law, effectively make injunctions against the President and his agencies unenforceable. Even if it is not passed, it shows the Administration’s intent and the complicity of, at the very least, House Republicans.

It is, in fact, most disappointing that other Republican leaders are silent in the face of Trump’s onslaught against the rule of law. Hypocrisy is not against the law, so wait until a Democrat is in the White House (if that is ever allowed) and see what they say if that Democrat tried to do even one of those items listed above. Unitary presidents must be either Trump or Republican.

I encourage you to subscribe to and read The Atlantic during what may be the last days of the rule of law in America. And thank you, Judge Luttig, for speaking hard, cold truth. Trump is executing the law.

Jamie Barnett is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, having served 32 years. He served as Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Bureau. He is currently an adjunct professor of national security in the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi. The opinions expressed in this article are the authors alone and are not expressions of the views of any of the organizations with which he is associated

I have previously written about the negative impact of Schedule F on the federal workforce (see, Schedule F is for Failure). The new proposed rule by the Office of Personnel Management will change about 50,000 federal employees to the same status as political appointees, stripping them of the federal civil service protections developed over the last century. Today, I filed comments to the proposed rule with the Office of Personnel Management in opposition to the rule. You can, too, until May 23 (next Friday) by writing them here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/23/2025-06904/improving-performance-accountability-and-responsiveness-in-the-civil-service. Your comments do not have to be formal, and they can be anonymous. My comments are below.

Docket ID: OPM-2025-0004

RIN 3206-AO80

Public Comments to Office of Personnel Management Proposed Rule on Improving Performance, Accountability, and Responsiveness in the Civil Service

Comments submitted in opposition to the proposed rule by James Arden Barnett, Jr.

The proposed rule is unnecessary and violates the protection of the federal workforce in a system that has grown, evolved, and matured over the last century. There is no rational basis for the rule since it does not achieve the ends that the proposed rule would implement.

The proposed rule will place a large portion of the federal workforce, the people who work for the people of America and for their benefit, at the whim of political leaders. Moreover, the tenuous nature of the employees placed under this rule, persons who did not seek political appointment, will discourage employees with years of dedicated service whose expertise and corporate knowledge are greatly needed by the government and American people, leading them to leave government service.

Likewise, the proposed rule places a pall over government service jobs, destroying the “seed corn” of the next generation of public servants. Immediately, younger workers will see that they do not have a reliable career path in the federal government. This will greatly impede recruitment into jobs for which monetary remuneration is already not an incentive.

The purported goals of the proposed rule are to improve “performance, accountability, and responsiveness,” but the rule is not crafted logically or rationally to achieve those ends. It is not necessary since there is already an elaborate and tested system in place for evaluation of performance and accountability, penalties for poor performance and misconduct, including unresponsiveness and insubordination.

I served for 35 years in federal service, 32 years of which were in the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserve, and 3 years in a Schedule C position of leadership at the Federal Communications Commission. At the FCC, I hired highly skilled professionals who are needed for the complex structure of U.S. telecommunications, including emergency communications, public safety communications, and infrastructure reliability. I was able to move people into positions to make them more responsive. I formally reprimanded when performance was poor (which was rare), and in one instance, I set up an improvement plan for a long-time employee and ultimately got rid of that employee when performance did not improve. It did not take long. My bureau was highly productive. This took leadership and dedication, but it did not take a rule change such as is proposed.

The pretext offered to justify the rule is bald-faced. It does not improve performance, accountability, or responsiveness. It strips federal public servants of basic employment rights and protections in order to make them fear for their livelihoods. Under this rule, employees who are highly performing, highly responsive and very accountable could nevertheless be fired without the due process and consideration afforded under the current rules. Employees who are making assessments about national security, the safety of water, monitoring government acquisitions, analyzing budgets, performing statutory duties, or any of a myriad of other regular, picayune functions that happen every day in federal service could be cowed, intimidated, for just doing their jobs if it did not meet the political ends of their leaders. The political leaders may decide to reject the work of these employees, but the honesty and forthrightness of those employees should not be denied to the American people.

It should be noted that the proposed rule takes away these federal public servants’ voices in more than one way. After the rule strips them of these minimal due process protections, it also affords the political leadership the ability to fire personnel and claim it was fraud, waste, abuse, disloyalty, or misconduct without an opportunity for the employee to answer or defend themselves. We have already seen this in action in other cases. In essence, this proposed rule does not make federal employees more accountable, and it makes the political class less accountable. In both instances, the American people suffer the harm.

The danger of the rule can be seen when the employment positions bear directly or even indirectly on elements of national security. The Office of Personnel Management, and any administration, should be held to a high standard when personnel rules impact the ability of the government to execute the programs approved by the Congress to secure national defense and homeland security. These include roles in the Intelligence Community.

Nothing in these comments should be construed as opposition to an administration’s prerogative to reduce the size of the federal workforce. With the danger in international affairs, it is unwise to reduce the size of defense and intelligence now, but if the administration deems that to be wise, then there are ways to do so. The U.S. reduced its force posture, military budget, and military bases in the 1990’s, and the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) efforts continued into the 21^st Century. These reductions were painful, but also were painstakingly pursued, with careful study and mature decisions of where cuts could be made without destroying capabilities.

However, it is abundantly apparent that is not the environment into which this proposed rule is launched. The proposed rule must be seen as an extension of the summary dismissals of probationary employees in recent weeks, some of whom had to be recalled because the administration did not rationally consider the effects, and in fact acted arbitrarily and capriciously. No assessment of the effect on the governmental function was made by the dismissal of these probationary employees, many of whom were in a probationary status because of a merit-based promotion. By definition, this is not improving performance; it is punishing good performance.

The reason why probationary employees were targeted was that it is easier under the federal personnel system to dismiss probationary employees. The proposed rule is stained with the same purpose: it makes it easier to dismiss employees regardless of their performance, responsiveness, or accountability.

The rule is a foil for arbitrary and capricious abuse of a vital American asset: our federal workforce.

I have no illusions that these comments will sway the Office of Personnel Management, but to the other arms of government, the pretextual reasons for the proposed rule must be assessed as insufficient support for an unnecessary rule, whose means are not rationally related to its stated ends, which promotes arbitrary and capricious action, and which in fact is violative of the spirit and letter of American law and tradition.

It should not be adopted; it should not be sustained.

Respectfully submitted,

James Arden Barnett, Jr.

Rear Admiral, USN (Retired)