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Kesha Rogers Stated On March 19, 2014 in statements on her campaign website:

President Barack Obama Was Responsible For "The Assassination Of At Least Four 
American Citizens" In Drone Strikes.


Four U.S. citizens killed in Obama drone strikes, but 3 were not intended 
targets

As LaRouche Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate Kesha Rogers of Texas calls for 
the impeachment of Democratic President Barack Obama, she lists among her 
reasons the "assassination" of U.S. citizens.

Rogers says on her campaign website that OBAMA VIOLATED THE FIFTH AMENDMENT 
"with the avowed assassination of at least four American citizens, Anwar Al-
Awlaki, his 16-year-old son, Samir Khan, and Jude Mohammed, WITHOUT BENEFIT OF 
DUE PROCESS OF LAW. Indeed, the death warrants against these individuals were 
effectively signed in secret, in a committee which is overseen directly by the 
president."

PolitiFact has dipped before into the debate around the Obama administration's 
use of pilotless drones armed with missiles to target terrorism suspects, 
exploring whether the president can legally authorize the killing of a U.S. 
citizen fighting for a foreign terrorist group, whether the program could be 
used on U.S. soil, if it complies with international law and if Obama has kept 
Congress fully informed.

Were the individuals named by Rogers all U.S. citizens "assassinated" at 
Obama's direction?

Rogers' views and alignment with conspiracy theorist and former presidential 
candidate Lyndon LaRouche led the Texas Democratic Party to urge voters not to 
cast ballots for her in the March 4,2014, primary. Rogers still won enough 
votes to trigger a May 27 runoff that will determine whether she or Dallas 
investor David Alameel, who led the field, will challenge the Republican 
nominee, second-term U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, in November.

In support of Rogers' assassination claim, her campaign manager, Ian Overton, 
emailed us news stories from The New York Times and the New Yorker magazine, 
and we found more news coverage using Google and the Nexis news database.

The citizens

On May 22,2013, the Obama administration "formally acknowledged for the first 
time that it had killed four American citizens in drone strikes outside the 
battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq" since 2009, The New York Times said in a 
news story posted online that day.

The acknowledgment came in a letter signed by U.S. Attorney General Eric 
Holder sent that day to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman:

Since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of U.S. counter-terrorism 
operations against al-Qa'ida and its associated forces outside of areas of 
active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen, 
Anwar al-Aulaqi. The United States is further aware of three other U.S. 
citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counter-terrorism operations over 
that same time period: Samir Khan, 'Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Aulaqi, and Jude 
Kenan Mohammed. These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United 
States.

Anwar al-Awlaki and Khan were killed in Yemen on Sept. 30,2011. A March 
9,2013, Times news story about the strike said al-Awlaki, a cleric born in New 
Mexico, incited and plotted terrorist incidents involving U.S. targets, 
including lending support via email to Nidal Hasan in 2009 before Hasan killed 
13 and wounded more than 30 people at Fort Hood in Texas. Khan, who the story 
said came from North Carolina, edited the online al-Qaeda propaganda magazine 
Inspire.

The Times wrote of al-Awlaki's death, "For what was apparently the first time 
since the Civil War, the United States government had carried out the 
deliberate killing of an American citizen as a wartime enemy and without a 
trial."

Al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, a U.S. citizen born in Denver, Colo., died Oct. 
14,2011, in Yemen when, the Times wrote, "a missile apparently intended for an 
Egyptian Qaeda operative, Ibrahim al-Banna, hit a modest outdoor eating place 
in Shabwa. ... Banna was not there, and among about a dozen men killed was the 
young Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who had no connection to terrorism."

U.S. citizen Jude Kenan Mohammad was believed by his family to have been 
killed in a November 2011 strike in Pakistan, according to a May 24,2013, Los 
Angeles Times news story that said, "Former U.S. officials said that even if 
Mohammad wasn't the target of the strike, he was of interest to American 
intelligence because he was believed to have communicated with Muslims in the 
United States and encouraged them to travel to Pakistan or carry out attacks 
at home."

The New York Times said another U.S. citizen, Kamal Derwish, had been killed 
by a drone strike in Yemen on Nov. 3,2002, when George W. Bush was president. 
Derwish was a recruiter who put together an al-Qaeda sleeper cell in 
Lackawanna, N.Y., according to an Oct. 12,2003, New York Times news story. The 
U.S. said he was not the intended target and did not acknowledge killing him, 
but a Yemeni official identified him as one of six men who died in the attack, 
the story said.

Another U.S. citizen could be facing death by drone, according to news 
reports. A Feb. 28,2014, New York Times news story said Abdullah al-Shami, "a 
militant who American officials say is living in the barren mountains of 
northwestern Pakistan" and who was possibly born in Texas, "is at the center 
of a debate inside the government over whether President Obama should once 
again take the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of an American 
citizen overseas."

Obama's role

Of the 2011 deaths, Rogers spokesman Overton said, "The Obama White House 
claims that only Anwar al-Awlaki was specifically targeted. However, there is 
no way to verify that, since the deliberations are secret. Either they were 
targeted or they were collateral damage of a kill policy. In either case, the 
program is run by Obama, who personally makes the final decision to kill a 
target. If the three were not specifically targeted, their deaths remain the 
responsibility of Obama."

We looked to Obama's public comments as well as news reports, including those 
Overton sent, for details.

In a May 23,2013, speech at the National Defense University, Obama said he had 
authorized the attack on Anwar al-Awlaki: "I would have detained and 
prosecuted Awlaki if we captured him before he carried out a plot, but we 
couldn't. And as president, I would have been derelict in my duty had I not 
authorized the strike that took him out."

What about the strikes that Holder said killed U.S. citizens unintentionally?

News accounts indicate Obama likely approved those attacks as well. The New 
York Times reported in a May 29,2012, news story that cited current and former 
presidential advisers, "Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top-secret 
'nominations' process to designate terrorists for kill or capture."

The story, which quoted sources including William M. Daley, chief of staff in 
2011, and Thomas E. Donilon, White House national security adviser from late 
2010 to mid-2013, said that "the nominations go to the White House, where by 
his own insistence and guided by (then-White House counter-terrorism adviser 
John) Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name. He signs off on every strike 
in Yemen and Somalia and also on the more complex and risky strikes in 
Pakistan - about a third of the total."

Brennan, who became director of the CIA in 2013, said in an April 30,2012, 
speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars that proposals 
for a lethal strike are "evaluated by the very most senior officials in our 
government for a decision."

CNN's Jessica Yellin asked Obama in a Sept. 5,2012, interview if he decides 
who will be targeted in drone attacks. The president said, "As president, 
ultimately I'm responsible for decisions that are made by the 
administration," and said an "extensive process" is behind such decisions. He 
described criteria: the target must be "authorized by our laws"; there must be 
a serious, not speculative, threat; there must be no option to capture the 
targeted individual instead of using deadly force; and civilian casualties 
must be avoided.

Yellin pressed: "Do you personally approve the targets?" Obama said, "I can't 
get too deeply into how these things work," but again said, "Ultimately I'm 
responsible for the process that we set up."

An Oct. 23,2012, news story in the Washington Post said, "Obama approves the 
criteria for lists and signs off on drone strikes outside Pakistan, where 
decisions on when to fire are made by the director of the CIA."

'Assassination'

Were the cited deaths assassinations?

Dictionaries define assassination as killing a person, particularly a 
prominent political figure. Left open is the question of whether the person's 
death was intentional or collateral.

A 1976 presidential executive order banned government employees from 
involvement in political assassinations; the word "political" was dropped from 
later orders, "assassination" is not defined and the federal government has 
argued the restriction doesn't apply to wartime or terrorists. A Nov. 4,2002, 
CNN news story on the ban notes that in 1986, President Ronald Reagan ordered 
the bombing of the home of leader Moammar Gadhafi of Libya and in 1998, 
President Bill Clinton ordered missile strikes on suspected terrorist 
compounds in Afghanistan.

After the Sept. 11,2001, terrorist attacks, Bush signed an "intelligence 
finding" that enabled the CIA to pursue and kill terrorists around the world.

Anthony Clark Arend, a Georgetown University expert on international law, told 
us by phone that the 1976 order was meant to prohibit attacks on political 
opponents such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, "where those individuals were not 
combatants in an armed conflict against the United States."

In a March 5,2012 speech at the Northwestern University School of Law, Holder 
said, "Some have called such operations 'assassinations.' They are not, and 
the use of that loaded term is misplaced. Assassinations are unlawful 
killings. ... the U.S. government's use of lethal force in self defense 
against a leader of al Qaeda or an associated force who presents an imminent 
threat of violent attack would not be unlawful - and therefore would not 
violate the executive order banning assassination or criminal statutes."

Arend said that wasn't how he'd state it, but agreed the deaths were not 
assassinations. That term, he said, applies to political opponents rather than 
foes at war with the U.S.

In his view, Arend said, the use of military force authorized by the president 
"against a combatant in an ongoing armed conflict - which I would argue and 
one could argue actions against terrorists are - that wouldn't constitute an 
assassination," whether the combatant was American or not.

Our ruling

Rogers said Obama was responsible for "the assassination of at least four 
American citizens" in drone strikes.

U.S. drone strikes reportedly carried out on Obama's authority killed the 
citizens listed by Rogers. But three deaths were evidently not intended, while 
it's debated - and unsettled at best - whether the killing of al-Awlaki, 
targeted for his al-Qaeda role, was an assassination.

We rate this claim, which presents these deaths out of context, as Half True.




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"Trump Derangement Syndrome" Is a Real Mental Condition

All you need to know about "Trump Derangement Syndrome," or TDS.

"Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a mental condition in which a person has 
been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the 
point at which they will abandon all logic and reason."

Justin Raimondo, the editorial director of Antiwar.com, wrote a piece in the 
Los Angeles Times in 2016 that broke TDS down into three distinct phases or 
stages:

"In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The 
president-elect's every tweet provokes a firestorm, as if 140 characters were 
all it took to change the world."

"The mid-level stages of TDS have a profound effect on the victim's 
vocabulary: Sufferers speak a distinctive language consisting solely of 
hyperbole."

"As TDS progresses, the afflicted lose the ability to distinguish fantasy from 
reality."

The Point here is simple: TDS is, in the eyes of its adherents, the knee-jerk 
opposition from liberals to anything and everything Trump does. If Trump 
announced he was donating every dollar he's ever made, TDS sufferers would 
suggest he was up to something nefarious, according to the logic of TDS. 
There's nothing - not. one. thing. - that Trump could do or say that would be 
received positively by TDSers.

The history of Trump Derangement Syndrome actually goes back to the early 
2000s - a time when the idea of Trump as president was a punch line for late-
night comics and nothing more.

Wikipedia traces its roots to "Bush Derangement Syndrome" - a term first 
coined by the late conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer back in 2003. 
The condition, as Krauthammer defined it, was "the acute onset of paranoia in 
otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency - nay - 
the very existence of George W. Bush."