Monday, June 22 — the retaliations and the gaps

0:00 Today the Department of Justice fought to keep charging a man it wrongfully deported. And in California, a city council whose voters kicked them out voted to stay in office. Let's walk through it.

0:13 First, the Abrego Garcia case. Kilmar Abrego Garcia fled gang violence, got a court order protecting him from deportation to El Salvador, and was deported there anyway in March of last year.

0:29 He was eventually returned, then charged with human smuggling. A federal judge threw out the charges — finding the government had not rebutted a legal presumption of retaliation. Today the DOJ appealed.

0:44 This is a textbook case of immigration enforcement used as a cudgel against someone who dared to challenge the government.

0:52 Meanwhile, in Avenal, California, voters did the decisive thing: they recalled four out of five city council members back in April. Three of those recalled officials then voted to stay in office anyway.

1:07 There is no state law to force them out during a legal appeal. So this city council keeps making binding decisions on budgets, police funding, water rates — democratically illegitimate.

1:21 It's a dangerous gap in California's recall law.

1:26 Across the Atlantic, Latvian intelligence warned that Russia is preparing possible military provocations along NATO's eastern flank — drone and missile incursions meant to test the alliance's resolve.

1:41 This comes as the Trump administration's approach to NATO is, in one expert's phrase, burning up the alliance. The risk is not formal withdrawal but sustained ambiguity that makes Article 5 deterrence less credible.

1:58 Then there's Operation Southern Spear — the Pentagon's campaign against drug smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific. A strike today killed two people, and the death toll has passed two hundred.

2:12 At least 163 confirmed killed as of March. There is no specific congressional authorization for this campaign. Victims are almost certainly poor fishermen or low-level crew, not cartel leaders.

2:27 It is a direct implementation of Project 2025's call for expanded military action against drug trafficking without legal constraints. Closer to home: a federal judge in Washington D.C.

2:41 blocked the Trump administration from repurposing an immigration database called SAVE into a centralized voter-roll surveillance and purge system.

2:52 The judge called the operation unlawful, citing privacy violations and accuracy risks.

3:00 This ruling directly challenges a core Project 2025 election goal — but it does not touch the separate SAVE Act legislation, which the House passed but the Senate has not yet voted on. And in Minnesota, Chief U.S.

3:14 District Judge Patrick Schiltz quashed six DOJ subpoenas against Governor Tim Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey, and other Democratic officials.

3:26 He found — in his words — 'no doubt' the subpoenas were designed to harass and retaliate against officials who opposed the administration's immigration policies.

3:38 This is exactly the weaponization of the Justice Department that Project 2025 envisioned.

3:45 The G7 summit in Évian this month endorsed the U.S.-Iran agreement — but it is a memorandum of understanding, not a treaty, meaning no Senate vote, no war-powers authorization, no independent ceasefire monitors.

4:01 The full text has not been released, and it is unclear whether it triggers a law requiring congressional review of any nuclear-related agreement with Iran.

4:12 A peer-reviewed Lancet study projects that cutting USAID programs could cause over four and a half million additional deaths of children under five by 2030.

4:25 Representative Ro Khanna, on a podcast, said Democrats 'once we take power' must investigate Elon Musk for that toll. This is a political marker, not an active probe.

4:38 But it highlights an extraordinary reality: a private actor, Musk, through his DOGE operation, has exercised effective veto power over congressionally appropriated foreign aid. Finally, two other notes.

4:54 A federal judge blocked the administration from using a revamped SAVE database for voter surveillance — we covered that, but it is worth repeating because it is one of the few judicial firewalls so far.

5:08 And the Reflecting Pool allegation: President Trump said the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was vandalized and threatened full prosecution. There is no independent evidence — no video, no arrest records.

5:23 This pattern, combined with Executive Order 14147 directing a review of the prior administration and mass pardons for January 6 participants, creates the appearance of a two-tier justice system.

5:37 This is not just today's news. We have now read, reframed, and logged 147 of Project 2025's specific actions. The full count on record is 843 distinct actions. The work is constant. We watch, we document.

5:55 We have not reversed anything — but we are keeping the receipts. Next: the Senate has not yet voted on the SAVE Act, which would impose nationwide voter ID requirements and could be taken up any day.

6:09 The Nevada governor's race is shaping up as a referendum on Medicaid cuts, with an incumbent Republican aligned with Trump-era policies.

6:19 And the DOJ's appeal in the Abrego Garcia case will head to a higher court, where the timing and legal standard remain to be tested. That is the shape of today. A steady hand on the facts, a clear eye on what they mean.

6:35 We will be back tomorrow.