Disgusting. The fact that this man was confirmed as Secretary of Defense says all we need to know about the Senate, and about the deranged person who nominated him to begin with. The United States will never again be a respected nation in the world. Not for hundred years, if ever.
If we look at them in their order of succession, then
Hegseth is 6,
Lutnick is 10,
RFK Jr. is 12
Noem is 18
Patel is not on the list linked below. I would like it to be all of them. Hopefully Hegseth will be tried for war crimes and be taken out that way. Hegseth, RFKJ and Noem are all killers. I pick any one of them.
Secretary of War Crimes. Let us hope that Congress does not approve any of Trump's attempts to replace anyone who he does give the heave ho. They will be more Kakistocratic quality people anyway.
These people you list, and more in this administration, have been so outrageous in their actions that they make us think of outrageous ways to punish them. I believe that Hegseth should be tied to a board, and all of the wives and children of the fishermen he has killed should be allowed one slap across that smirky face. that's it, televised then released. Let Fox hire him.
Well, I am sure that Maduro has a special place in his prison system for the man who has been ordering the murder of his citizens. It might be worse in Venezuela than in CECOT, but if Venezuela refuses him, although they could try him for war crimes. I would assume then death penalty. I don't support that, but going to CECOT is like getting the death penalty. These people are all murders.
That’s an interesting thought. I remember last year he sarcastically said he’d flee to Caracas if he lost the election. That was because it was so much safer after Venezuela supposedly shipped its criminals to the US.
A.K.A. the Department of Sociopathy. Pete Hegseth is a real piece of work, to put it mildly. He shouldn't be running a Denny's, let alone the DoD (as with Twitter, I'm rejecting the name change).
Yeah but didn't that idea of "war" on drugs begin with Nixon? The black folk in our country screamed into the wind that a war on drugs was a war on black citizens and it was. So aren't we already primed to move that war outside of our own neighborhoods and into a broader field? Meanwhile dangerous deadly "drugs" have become made at home (opioids). If Hogseth and Dump coordinated their efforts to wipe out drug dealers then Honduran president and drug cartel friend Joaquin Guzman should really be the first to get a missile in the head when he is clinging to his weight bench in the prison yard.
The vast majority of fentanyl is made in China and brought in through Mexico via cartels.
"Fentanyl is primarily brought into the U.S. from China through a supply chain where Chinese companies produce precursor chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl. These precursors are then shipped to Mexico, where they are processed into fentanyl and smuggled across the U.S. border, mainly by Mexican drug cartels."
But the Felon-In-Chief doesn't want to cut down on drug traffic, he wants the Venezuelan oil. For that, he's willing to take us to war with a (moderately) friendly country.
MAGA doesn't know this yet, and the mainstream/corporate/legacy media won't tell them.
This is worse than the ‘war on drugs’ which did not involve military or police raids that targeted “suspected” criminals and killed them. It was not a “war” except in the figurative sense. This is more like the war on drugs in the Philippines by Duterte against his own people — but the US is killing foreign nationals.
In a declared war it is a crime to target unarmed / non-combatant civilians. It is definitely a crime to deliberately kill survivors after a first strike. In fact, the Daily Kos pointed out November 30th was the anniversary of 3 executions for doing that during a declared war:
• A History of Murder on the High Seas: The Execution of Captain Heinz Eck
“… Eck’s defense was “operational necessity.” Captain Eck claimed he had to kill survivors, and destroy debris, to prevent Allied planes from spotting the wreckage and pursuing the submarine.“
This brings to mind the tortured logic used to justify torture and extreme rendition during the G W Bush presidency. This is nothing new in the US slide into militarism and empire.
Yes, nothing new. But often Congress does not find out until much further down the road if ever bc the WH doesn’t give them the actual facts. Just as the WH has ignored or refused all requests for info on the Venezuela boats bombings. As I remember the 1st briefing did not include Dems. A legislator complained that they haven’t sent anyone to brief them that could speak to the legalities. Now they are tap dancing to change the storyline.
I don’t think having DOJ blab about another potential indictment of Comey or Noem thanking DJT (in the Cabinet meeting) for stopping the hurricanes this year will be enough distraction.
I have experience participating in Caribbean Law Enforcement operations in the Navy with a Coast Guard detachment embarked, I was also a Navy Drug & Alcohol Program Advisor (DAPA). What we are witnessing in technicolor is the failure of the nominee & failed process of the full vetting the candidate. Alcoholism is not compatible with military service, so why would it EVER be acceptable for the DoD secretary? What a fine example set for the junior personnel… a complete embarrassment, not unlike the entire administration. Absolutely pathetic!!
Commensurate with your history with the Caribbean Law Enforcement in the Navy, I have experience with alcoholism and, after recovery, the dry drunk that a person becomes in sobriety (which mercifully is not forever but usually measured in the same amount of time a person spent drinking). Hegseth's entire look, his actions, his speech, the whole package is a dry drunk. I don't mean he is not drinking, he could be a wet drunk. Either way, not the person you want leading the DoD. My Lord, the last person.
This happened SEPTEMBER 2. Today is DECEMBER 2. WHERE has our leadership been for three solid months? Hegseth bragged about these strikes on social media!
With this administration, I guess I should be glad anyone is paying attention at all even 3 months and 75 dead bodies later.
It's a good question. Congress and the prostrate press waited until after Trump was weakened by intervening events, such as failure to release the Epstein files and a cratering economy, to act on these crimes.
I wouldn’t expect the current legislative branches to act quickly. The House didn’t come into session until almost mid-November. Congress has been trying to pry information out of the administration. Do you remember reports that the initial briefings did not include Democrats? It will be quite a chore to get enough GOP senators to move an investigation forward.
Hegseth is a malignant and ignorant Secretary of Defense who has no regard for the Geneva Convention and international codes of conduct during war. Such an attitude puts out own service men and women at grave danger in future conflicts.
My Belgian uncle, Adrian Buter, and his father were engineers on the Panamanian tanker, MS Penelope, carrying crude oil from Venezuela to Halifax in WWII to aid in the US war effort. On March 14th, 1942, their ship with a crew of 39 merchant marines and 10 navy gunners was torpedoed in the Caribbean, exploded into flames, and sank in 20 minutes. Two crew members died but the remaining 37 abandoned ship and made it into lifeboats. Declassified Navy documents describe that minutes after their tanker sank, the German submarine U-67 under the command of Lieutenant Gunther Muller surfaced and the .30 caliber machine guns on deck were never manned or fired upon my defenseless uncle and his crewmates. Uncle Adrian told me the commander of the U-boat offered them water and gave directions to the nearest island of Dominica knowing full well they might go on to fight another day against the Nazis. They were eventually rescued by the British ship, SS Iriquois.
My uncle Adrian went on to become a US citizen, get married and raise a loving family on the eastcoast before moving to the west coast in retirement. I have so many wonderful memories of visiting him and my aunt and cousins over the decades. None of that would have been possible if not for the rules of war and the fact that you don’t summarily execute defenseless combatants.
Thanks for the piece…..but: Mr. Hegseth works at the direction of our Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Trump.
Whatever Pete has said or done to date has been heartily approved by Donald.
It is WELL past time to point the (middle) finger at T on this lawless butchery, and it’s also time to call out (as the 6 ex-military Congressfolk (mildly) recently did), our military leaders (admirals/generals) to reject this lawless bullshit.
Those same military leaders will be needed to do the right thing, more and more, as this Administration grinds forward.
And now the “tough guy” is disclaiming responsibility for his words and actions by saying the admiral in charge of the operation made the call. And Trump said he supported Pete 100% while also saying he would not have been in favor of killing the two defenseless people. Typical cowardice from the people who love to play “tough guys” on TV but when faced with the consequences of their actions weasel out of responsibility
A disgusting piece of trash. Through and through. I’m still raging that Congress approved his nomination. The poorly written book tells you everything you need to know.
You read Hegseth's book? I sometimes start books by awful people and I don't get past the pages of their childhood without saying: Oh, that's why. Read any of the Trump bios: it was both his father's disdain for people and his mother's dislike of him that molded Trump.
Hegseth needs to be removed from office and prosecuted for war crimes or murder. But he will not be removed from office and he will never be prosecuted. Republicans will never allow it, and Democrats don't have the spine to force it.
Trump also pardons real convicted drug kingpins, such as the former president of Honduras, who walks free from an American prison today, and murders people who may or may not be trafficking small amounts of drugs. It's Trump's MO. Always punch down.
Disgusting. The fact that this man was confirmed as Secretary of Defense says all we need to know about the Senate, and about the deranged person who nominated him to begin with. The United States will never again be a respected nation in the world. Not for hundred years, if ever.
celeste, I now call Hegseth "Secretary of the War Crimes" after this comic by Ann Telnaes.
https://open.substack.com/pub/anntelnaes/p/shoot-first-ask-questions-later?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Zeteo makes light of it too, by offering this survey in his post of who will be fired first, Hegseth, RFK Jr., Lutnick, Noem or Patel.
https://zeteo.com/p/which-trump-official-will-be-fired?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
If we look at them in their order of succession, then
Hegseth is 6,
Lutnick is 10,
RFK Jr. is 12
Noem is 18
Patel is not on the list linked below. I would like it to be all of them. Hopefully Hegseth will be tried for war crimes and be taken out that way. Hegseth, RFKJ and Noem are all killers. I pick any one of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_line_of_succession
Secretary of War Crimes. Let us hope that Congress does not approve any of Trump's attempts to replace anyone who he does give the heave ho. They will be more Kakistocratic quality people anyway.
Steve Miller should be gotten rid of too.
These people you list, and more in this administration, have been so outrageous in their actions that they make us think of outrageous ways to punish them. I believe that Hegseth should be tied to a board, and all of the wives and children of the fishermen he has killed should be allowed one slap across that smirky face. that's it, televised then released. Let Fox hire him.
I would like to send him to a Venezuelan prison, or he has to support all the people who lost family members with any monies he has now and forever.
CECOT. Noem, too.
Well, I am sure that Maduro has a special place in his prison system for the man who has been ordering the murder of his citizens. It might be worse in Venezuela than in CECOT, but if Venezuela refuses him, although they could try him for war crimes. I would assume then death penalty. I don't support that, but going to CECOT is like getting the death penalty. These people are all murders.
That’s an interesting thought. I remember last year he sarcastically said he’d flee to Caracas if he lost the election. That was because it was so much safer after Venezuela supposedly shipped its criminals to the US.
https://kmph.com/news/nation-world/trump-suggests-hell-flee-to-venezuela-if-he-loses-election-far-safer-place-donald-trump-elon-musk-x-interview-politics-2024-election-nicolas-maduro-crime
I just wrote a post saying exactly what you said, but with different words. You said it more succinctly!!
Please stop insulting the mentally ill.
deranged definition...'wildly irrational, uncontrolled'.
We try to remember that every time we point one finger at another person or group, there are three fingers pointing back at us.
A.K.A. the Department of Sociopathy. Pete Hegseth is a real piece of work, to put it mildly. He shouldn't be running a Denny's, let alone the DoD (as with Twitter, I'm rejecting the name change).
And the Gulf of Mexico.
It's still the Department of Defense (new signage and stationery notwithstanding.) Only an act of Congress can change the name, which hasn't happened.
We are not at war. This is murder.
Crimes against humanity.
Yeah but didn't that idea of "war" on drugs begin with Nixon? The black folk in our country screamed into the wind that a war on drugs was a war on black citizens and it was. So aren't we already primed to move that war outside of our own neighborhoods and into a broader field? Meanwhile dangerous deadly "drugs" have become made at home (opioids). If Hogseth and Dump coordinated their efforts to wipe out drug dealers then Honduran president and drug cartel friend Joaquin Guzman should really be the first to get a missile in the head when he is clinging to his weight bench in the prison yard.
Instead, he’s pardoned the Honduran ex-president. Yeah yeah Trump really cares about drugs.
Not the first drug trafficker he pardoned either.
Geez, you’d think Maduro would wise up and grease some palms. Not sure why he hasn’t.
The vast majority of fentanyl is made in China and brought in through Mexico via cartels.
"Fentanyl is primarily brought into the U.S. from China through a supply chain where Chinese companies produce precursor chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl. These precursors are then shipped to Mexico, where they are processed into fentanyl and smuggled across the U.S. border, mainly by Mexican drug cartels."
Wikipedia en.unav.edu
But the Felon-In-Chief doesn't want to cut down on drug traffic, he wants the Venezuelan oil. For that, he's willing to take us to war with a (moderately) friendly country.
MAGA doesn't know this yet, and the mainstream/corporate/legacy media won't tell them.
This is worse than the ‘war on drugs’ which did not involve military or police raids that targeted “suspected” criminals and killed them. It was not a “war” except in the figurative sense. This is more like the war on drugs in the Philippines by Duterte against his own people — but the US is killing foreign nationals.
In a declared war it is a crime to target unarmed / non-combatant civilians. It is definitely a crime to deliberately kill survivors after a first strike. In fact, the Daily Kos pointed out November 30th was the anniversary of 3 executions for doing that during a declared war:
• A History of Murder on the High Seas: The Execution of Captain Heinz Eck
“… Eck’s defense was “operational necessity.” Captain Eck claimed he had to kill survivors, and destroy debris, to prevent Allied planes from spotting the wreckage and pursuing the submarine.“
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/11/30/2356144/-A-History-of-Murder-on-the-High-Seas-The-Execution-of-Captain-Heinz-Eck
This brings to mind the tortured logic used to justify torture and extreme rendition during the G W Bush presidency. This is nothing new in the US slide into militarism and empire.
Yes, nothing new. But often Congress does not find out until much further down the road if ever bc the WH doesn’t give them the actual facts. Just as the WH has ignored or refused all requests for info on the Venezuela boats bombings. As I remember the 1st briefing did not include Dems. A legislator complained that they haven’t sent anyone to brief them that could speak to the legalities. Now they are tap dancing to change the storyline.
I don’t think having DOJ blab about another potential indictment of Comey or Noem thanking DJT (in the Cabinet meeting) for stopping the hurricanes this year will be enough distraction.
I have experience participating in Caribbean Law Enforcement operations in the Navy with a Coast Guard detachment embarked, I was also a Navy Drug & Alcohol Program Advisor (DAPA). What we are witnessing in technicolor is the failure of the nominee & failed process of the full vetting the candidate. Alcoholism is not compatible with military service, so why would it EVER be acceptable for the DoD secretary? What a fine example set for the junior personnel… a complete embarrassment, not unlike the entire administration. Absolutely pathetic!!
Commensurate with your history with the Caribbean Law Enforcement in the Navy, I have experience with alcoholism and, after recovery, the dry drunk that a person becomes in sobriety (which mercifully is not forever but usually measured in the same amount of time a person spent drinking). Hegseth's entire look, his actions, his speech, the whole package is a dry drunk. I don't mean he is not drinking, he could be a wet drunk. Either way, not the person you want leading the DoD. My Lord, the last person.
It's good to have a legal analysis in case Congress would decide to hold Hegseth accountable. But I believe this whole Venezuela campaign is murder.
Well, murder is a legal term, ergo, call the jags. Oh wait, they were fired on day one.
This happened SEPTEMBER 2. Today is DECEMBER 2. WHERE has our leadership been for three solid months? Hegseth bragged about these strikes on social media!
With this administration, I guess I should be glad anyone is paying attention at all even 3 months and 75 dead bodies later.
It's a good question. Congress and the prostrate press waited until after Trump was weakened by intervening events, such as failure to release the Epstein files and a cratering economy, to act on these crimes.
I wouldn’t expect the current legislative branches to act quickly. The House didn’t come into session until almost mid-November. Congress has been trying to pry information out of the administration. Do you remember reports that the initial briefings did not include Democrats? It will be quite a chore to get enough GOP senators to move an investigation forward.
Hegseth is a malignant and ignorant Secretary of Defense who has no regard for the Geneva Convention and international codes of conduct during war. Such an attitude puts out own service men and women at grave danger in future conflicts.
My Belgian uncle, Adrian Buter, and his father were engineers on the Panamanian tanker, MS Penelope, carrying crude oil from Venezuela to Halifax in WWII to aid in the US war effort. On March 14th, 1942, their ship with a crew of 39 merchant marines and 10 navy gunners was torpedoed in the Caribbean, exploded into flames, and sank in 20 minutes. Two crew members died but the remaining 37 abandoned ship and made it into lifeboats. Declassified Navy documents describe that minutes after their tanker sank, the German submarine U-67 under the command of Lieutenant Gunther Muller surfaced and the .30 caliber machine guns on deck were never manned or fired upon my defenseless uncle and his crewmates. Uncle Adrian told me the commander of the U-boat offered them water and gave directions to the nearest island of Dominica knowing full well they might go on to fight another day against the Nazis. They were eventually rescued by the British ship, SS Iriquois.
My uncle Adrian went on to become a US citizen, get married and raise a loving family on the eastcoast before moving to the west coast in retirement. I have so many wonderful memories of visiting him and my aunt and cousins over the decades. None of that would have been possible if not for the rules of war and the fact that you don’t summarily execute defenseless combatants.
“Who cares what other countries think?” Kind of hard to be proud to be an American in 2025.
Thanks for the piece…..but: Mr. Hegseth works at the direction of our Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Trump.
Whatever Pete has said or done to date has been heartily approved by Donald.
It is WELL past time to point the (middle) finger at T on this lawless butchery, and it’s also time to call out (as the 6 ex-military Congressfolk (mildly) recently did), our military leaders (admirals/generals) to reject this lawless bullshit.
Those same military leaders will be needed to do the right thing, more and more, as this Administration grinds forward.
Do not give T a free pass on this!!
And now the “tough guy” is disclaiming responsibility for his words and actions by saying the admiral in charge of the operation made the call. And Trump said he supported Pete 100% while also saying he would not have been in favor of killing the two defenseless people. Typical cowardice from the people who love to play “tough guys” on TV but when faced with the consequences of their actions weasel out of responsibility
Malcolm Nance said Hegseth should start calling himself HAGUEseth
A disgusting piece of trash. Through and through. I’m still raging that Congress approved his nomination. The poorly written book tells you everything you need to know.
You read Hegseth's book? I sometimes start books by awful people and I don't get past the pages of their childhood without saying: Oh, that's why. Read any of the Trump bios: it was both his father's disdain for people and his mother's dislike of him that molded Trump.
no I didn't read that book. I'm saying that the excerpts tell you everything you need to know
Why is the Catholic Church, or any Religion, for that matter, not calling this out?
Pope Leo has been vocal about all of the killings and corruption, but he hasn't called out any one thing that I'm aware of.
They've provided a tepid response
https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/pope-leo-calls-dialogue-us-builds-military-presence-venezuelan-coast
"Even if every person killed by the drone strikes was in fact a drug trafficker, it is unclear what authority the DOD has to kill them."
I would think that the 'Rule of Law' should apply to America universally, no matter where America is, or has influence.
Hegseth needs to be removed from office and prosecuted for war crimes or murder. But he will not be removed from office and he will never be prosecuted. Republicans will never allow it, and Democrats don't have the spine to force it.
Trump calls for hanging decorated vets for stating the law while his secretary of "war", Kegseth, orders the murder of the defenseless.
Voters & the courts are starting to see Trump for the fraudster, conartist & extorionist he is. https://newrepublic.com/article/203574/trump-lies-media-voters-economy?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_daily
Resist the authoritarians. #VoteBlue
Trump also pardons real convicted drug kingpins, such as the former president of Honduras, who walks free from an American prison today, and murders people who may or may not be trafficking small amounts of drugs. It's Trump's MO. Always punch down.