Impeachement

 My name is Jason Watson. I’m an active-duty Major in the United States Air Force. However, who I am is immaterial. In the grand scheme of things, I’m just a nobody. What matters far more than who I am is what I have to say and the price I’m willing to pay to say it.

“I, Jason Paul Watson, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

I first swore this oath over 20 years ago upon entering basic cadet training at the United States Air Force Academy in late June of 2005. I’ve repeated it many times since then.

The oath of office means everything to me. It is foundational to our system of government in the United States. The oath ensures that officials of our government owe allegiance not to any individual or political party, but to our Constitution and the democratic republic it represents.

Our Constitution binds us all together as Americans.

Like countless veterans before me and military members serving now, I have devoted my life to serving our democratic republic, always doing my best to honor my oath and protect America against foreign threats.

But the greatest threat to our democratic republic is not a foreign one. It is us.

We the people—not just the left, not just the right, not just the center. All of us together define who we are as Americans.

And, like it or not, we have all played a part, myself included, in getting ourselves into this mess. The burden of that culpability is much heavier for some than others, undeniably. And for those with the lion’s share of guilt—such as those currently running the executive branch of the federal government—the bill must come due. But all of us have a share.

For the past 18 months, we the people have allowed the highest levels of the executive branch of the federal government to violate our Constitution and their oath to it with impunity.

When the President of the United States orders military action against foreign countries absent an emergency scenario where American interests are under imminent, dire threat—as was done with Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran—that is an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s authority and a violation of the War Powers Clause.

These violations resulted in the deaths of 13 service members and injuries to hundreds more.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

When the President of the United States grants an unelected mega-donor sweeping authority to shut down large swaths of our federal government, along with unrestricted access to our government databases, that is an unconstitutional circumvention of Congress’s advice-and-consent authority under the Appointments Clause and Congress’s power of the purse under the Appropriations Clause.

These violations exposed every American’s sensitive personal data to leaks and exploitation, illegally terminated tens of thousands of federal civil servants, crippled support for Americans needing medical care and disaster preparedness, and—most tragically—resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of the world’s most impoverished people through the inhumane, abrupt cessation of U.S. aid.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

When the President of the United States directs the Department of Homeland Security to deny hundreds of people due process before illegally detaining them and sending them to a foreign prison notorious for human rights abuses, that is a violation of our Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights.

Most people sent to CECOT never committed any violent crimes in their lives, but are being defamed as violent criminals as a pretext for the torture they suffered in El Salvador, paid for with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

When the President of the United States sponsors violence against the American people engaged in their constitutional right to peacefully assemble and protest, that is a violation of our First Amendment rights.

Pastors praying for DHS agents were violently attacked without provocation. A legal observer lost an eye after being struck by a so-called non-lethal round fired by an ICE agent. A woman attempting to follow chaotic and contradictory DHS instructions was fatally shot. A subdued man who posed no threat was fatally shot after having his firearm removed, while statements by high-ranking cabinet members also violated our Second Amendment rights.

For this, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

There are innumerable more impeachable offenses that I could cover: denying congressional oversight of immigrant detention centers that look increasingly like CECOT; suing media organizations, colleges, and law firms for billions of dollars while abusing executive branch agencies to extort settlements; allowing a mega-donor to advertise products on the White House lawn; trading pardons for donations; levying illegal tariffs; weaponizing the Department of Justice against political adversaries while ignoring crimes committed by supporters and enablers; and attempting to reverse birthright citizenship through executive order.

For all of these high crimes and misdemeanors, the President and Vice President must be impeached, convicted, and removed.

The constitutional impeachment process is our best pathway to restore fidelity to our Constitution.

This is why I am here standing in solidarity with Representative Green.

I am not here because I am a Democrat or because I share his policy positions. I’m not a Democrat and know next to nothing about his policies. I am here with him because Representative Green is the only member of Congress who has demonstrated the courage and conviction to invoke Rule IX and force a vote on articles of impeachment.

If Congress followed his example, we could remove the entire Trump administration.

But Congress remains unconvinced of the urgency and necessity of honoring its oath.

So we must persuade them with our unrelenting, uncompromising civil resistance.

I am calling on average Americans everywhere to peacefully exercise your First Amendment rights every day until this administration is removed and our democratic republic is restored.

I believe in America.

I believe in us.

If just a nobody like me can take a stand for our Constitution and our democratic republic, then you can too.

I hope you will join me in the defense of our republic.

Thank you.

Watson was arrested for making this speech. 

His attorney said his client has not been criminally charged but was under investigation for several violations of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. Major Watson is currently at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington and is not allowed to leave the base, his lawyer said.

 

 

May Day and A Day Without Immigrants

 

May Day and No Kings 2026 A Day Without Immigrants  by Harry Targ  This year May Day will continue the historic mass mobilizations for social and economic justice of recent historic No Kings rallies. The original May Day was designed to remember the May 1, 1886 rally in Chicago for the 8-hour day. At that rally more than 300,000 workers from 13,000 businesses walked off their jobs to demand justice for workers.  At a subsequent rally two days later at another rally an unknown person threw a bomb, violence broke out, police and others were killed. Anarchist leaders of the rallies, the Haymarket Martyrs, were charged with the violence, which they had nothing to do with. Subsequently eight martyrs were convicted, four of whom were executed for crimes they did not commit. Three years later, a federation of socialists workers, the Second International, declared May 1 an International Workers Day to remember the Haymarket Martyrs and at the same time to continue to rally for worker rights, from social and economic justice to ending war. Almost 70 countries around the world honor May Day as an official holiday today, and workers in many more countries celebrate the day and workers’ rights even though it is not an “official” holiday. Today working people, most of the population of the United States, still need social and economic rights, labor rights, and would benefit from dramatic cuts in military spending and increases in social spending. As a result, millions of people in the United States have marched and rallied for social and economic justice, defending democratic institutions, and against wars in recent No Kings rallies, the most recent being March 28. Given the threats of fascism at home and world war overseas, activists are asking “What do we do now?’ One answer is to step up the militancy while honoring May Day, the International Workers Day. ​“Coming off the heels of the massive energy from the No Kings mobilizations, people are ready to take action and keep fighting for a democracy of, by, and for the people,” says Indivisible Co-Founder Leah Greenberg, whose organization started the No Kings protest.  On May 1, Indivisibles will be joining people across the country with a clear message: we demand a government that invests in our communities, not one that enriches billionaires, fuels endless war, or deploys masked agents to intimidate our neighbors.”  https://paydayreport.com/no-kings-organizers-pivot-to-may-day-general-strike/ As Ralph Chapin. the lyricist of the industrial Workers of the World wrote in 1915 in the workers' anthem, “Solidarity Forever”: “In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold. We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old. For the union makes us strong”