LIVE COVERAGE
Fog Of Bullshit: Racist Clowns, Liars and Psycopaths
The surreal and deadly lurches on. In the last, frantic, script-flipping week, MAGA went from threatening to kill Dems who reminded troops to obey the law to scurrying to parse or ignore the news their macho, bungling Secretary of War Crimes evidently blew apart (at least) two guys in the water for no reason - an action universally deemed either murder or war crime, but def against the law. Now see Kegseth et al thrash, bluster, scapegoat the other guy. Trump doctrine: Deport, raze, blame, kill first; think (sic) later.
Most notably, a flailing presidency of "malevolence tempered by incompetence" - Cue the bonkers holiday greeting, "A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at" - is now embroiled in the detritus of a toxic, slapdash revenge tour targeting perceived, if often outlandish, enemies, both here and abroad. Last week's berserk campaign focused on six, mouthy Democratic lawmakers and veterans who had the chutzpah to post a brief video reminding the military of their oaths to follow the law and if needed disobey orders that don't - a bedrock tenet of the military so vital it's engraved on a plaque at West Point: "Should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers obey the law." Pretty radical.
The measured response from the Mob-Boss-in-Chief: Hysterically charging them with "SEDITION," "TREASON," "MILITARY TRIBUNALS," and calling them "traitorous sons of bitches" who should be "EXECUTED." Even as death threats followed, he was swiftly joined by every MAGA lickspittle, especially the lickspittlest - manly Whiskey Pete, the preening, pig-eyed, fragile creator of the War Department famed for strutting on stage to spout inane bullshit about a "warrior ethos" that demands "more lethality, less (sic) lawyers" 'cause who needs rules and laws? Shrieking the Dems' "screed" was "despicable, reckless, and false," he zeroed in on Sen. Mark Kelly - Macho Twit Goes After Actual Mensch - announcing he'd heard "serious allegations of misconduct” by Kelly, he'd "determine further action," and maybe recall Kelly to active duty so he could court-martial him.
It was a brilliant move by a National Guardsman whose drunken, inept, sexual assaulting career peaked in a Civil Affairs job and a weekend TV host gig until his absurd appointment, savaged as "an affront" to anyone who ever served, especially after he leaked war plans - a move just found to have violated Pentagon policy and put at risk military personnel. Veterans eviscerate him as "an absolute jackass," "an imposter," "a coward," "a blowhard" in makeup, "that officer, a total blue falcon" who screws his comrades. Now pols are too. Sen. and former Marine Ruben Gallego: "This is fucking insane." Kelly, in contrast, is a decades-long, much-decorated Navy pilot who saw 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, an astronaut who flew four space shuttle missions including the mission to recover the Columbia crash victims, a husband who retired to nurse his wife back to health after she was shot in the head, and a respected Senator.
Kelly, who's seen much worse, fought back: "(Hegseth) runs around on stage talking about lethality and the warrior ethos (like) a 12-year-old playing army, and it is ridiculous, embarrassing. This is not a serious person." He noted the "wild" irony of Hegseth attacking him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is what the six traitors recited: "You can't make this shit up." He also posted an image of his 20-plus medals to illustrate how he'd served and loved this country. In response, Pete sneered to "Captain" Kelly not only did he do "sedition" but his medals "are out of order," and he'd get to that. Alexander Vindman (and half of America): "Ever heard of a picture being mirrored? Good reminder: You’re out of your depth." Shut down, a pouting Pete went after our real enemy, vowing to cut support for a DEI-infected Boy Scouts who've become "genderless" and failed to "cultivate masculine values." Welcome to the Gulf of Fragile Masculinity.
This is what the "Secretary of War" is busy doing. This is who this petty macho arrogant jerk is. This is the guy who, as the Washington Post reported days later, allegedly ordered a SEAL Team on Sept. 2, in the first of nearly two dozen military strikes on fishing boats in the Caribbean that have killed 83 mostly anonymous "narco-terrorists" in extrajudicial assassinations, to "kill everybody" after the smoke from an initial strike cleared and revealed two wounded survivors in the water, clinging to wreckage of the burning boat. "Kill them all," writes JoJoFromJerz. "That was the order, plain, deliberate, and damnable, issued by the booze and bronzer-brined (Hegseth) as if American power were his personal cudgel and human life his disposable currency. The directive slithered down the chain of command like toxic runoff," and in moments the two helpless men were "blown apart in the water."
The murderous "double-tap" strike was needed, the Pentagon argued, to sink the boat and avoid a "navigation hazard” - a claim Rep. and Marine veteran Seth Moulton called "patently absurd," just like Trump's underlying "novel" claim the U.S. is in an "armed conflict" with oil-rich Venezuela' and its drug cartels. Despite American opposition, to date he's threatened ground strikes, hinted at regime change, and unilaterally declared Venezuelan airspace closed along with 83 killings so politically and legally dubious the U.K. has stopped sharing intelligence on traffic in the Caribbean to not be complicit. All this, despite a total lack of evidence the victims are drug traffickers or any accountability for their deaths, and the fact most potentially lethal fentanyl doesn't even come from the Caribbean. One pundit: "So what gave him the idea blowing up small boats in international waters was a thing?" Especially when, per Marcie Wheeler, it took four shots for these killer clowns to do the lawless dirty deed.
Inept Warrior Pete is on it anyway, damn near swooning from blood lust, with his ridiculous renaming stunt - "WAR.GOV/JOINTHEFIGHT - rabid calls for "lethality," firing of military Judge Advocate Generals who act as legal guardrails against possible future illegal commands (hmm), and queasy, chest-thumping zeal for the fight: "Trump ordered action - and the Department of War is delivering! Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR defends our Homeland!" The WaPo story of his verbal command to "kill everybody" shouldn't surprise anyone; it's part of the long, sordid, bellicose narrative arc of a laws-are-bullshit buffoon who only feels big if he makes others small, or per Trump, "like, dead," and can then brag about it. A wildly unqualified, uber-macho cartoon version of a weak man willing to do anything to prove he isn't, he fits right in with all the other flame-throwing hacks and sycophants now inexplicably handed the terrifying reins of power.
Meanwhile, the consensus of virtually every military expert or lawyer asked is that Hegseth is, by his actions, either a war criminal or a murderer. The legal bottom line: "There is no basis in law for the maritime attacks. Period. Full stop." Even if there were, international and US law render the targeting of defenseless persons - showing them "no quarter" - "patently illegal." They add, "Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both. There are no other options." And anyone who issues or follows those orders should be prosecuted. Many cite for reference a "textbook war crime," as in, "If we were at war, Hegseth committed one. If not, it's outright murder." Laurence Tribe, who taught law at Harvard for 50 years, helpfully adds that the DOD Law of War Manual, Sec. 18.3.2.1 includes the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders. Their example? "Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."
Also, in case anyone ever believed Trump's "war" was about drugs: Last week he pardoned former Honduran president and cocaine kingpin Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year in a US court to 45 years in prison for conspiring to traffic over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.; with his brother, he also helped turn Honduras into a major producing hub and transit point for cocaine heading to the US, and once said he wanted to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos." Trump's brazen flaunting of his "charade" of a drug war may be why even Newsmax (sadly) argues the strikes are war crimes, and Repubs on House and Senate Armed Services Committees say they may even do some oversight of this one crime among so many by their mad king; it remains unclear how many are willing to "fall on their swords" for the grossly incompetent, unsavory Hegseth.
South Park's latest, savage skewering of "fucking douchebag Pete Hegseth" may help them decide, or not. Trump sends him to town to free Peter Thiel; armed with his selfie stick but thrown out by the "woke" police chief, he teargasses the annual, Saudi-sponsored 5K Turkey Trot, mistaking the race for an Antifa mob; then he bickers with ICE Barbie - who shoots another dog livestreaming and yelling, "Like and subscribe, guys! The Department of War will not be intimidated!" Possibly confusing art with life, Hegseth tried Friday to sneeringly meme his way from the outrage by trashing "fake news," doubling down with, "We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists," and posting a grotesque, quickly blasted, parody of kids' icon Franklin the Turtle firing rockets at small boats. Up next: "Franklin Goes to the Hague For War Crimes" and "Franklin On Trial at the ICC."
The White House, meanwhile, feverishly tried to quiet the uproar. Press Barbie babbled the second strike was "in self-defense to protect Americans in vital United States interests" (sic) and insisted "presidentially-designated Narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting." Also, they suddenly found a scapegoat, Admiral Frank Bradley: "Bus, meet Admiral Bradley. Admiral Bradley, meet bus." Hegseth "authorized Adm Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. (He) worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated," said Barbie, a renowned scholar of maritime law. Pete's stupid, rank deceit reportedly set off "furious backlash" at the Pentagon. "He is selling out Bradley and sending chills down the spines of his chain of command," said Sen. Chris Murphy. "A case study in how not to lead."
The morning after the Sept. 3 attack, Hegseth told Fox News he tracked the strike in real time: "I watched it live." At Tuesday's Cabinet circle jerk, Trump dozed from his night's hypomanic episode of rage-posting160 times, and Pete's story slimily shifted. As the big boy leader, he said, of course "you want to own that responsibility." So he saw the first strike, but "at the Dept.of War we got alotta things to do," and he had, umm, a thing, so he didn’t stay for "the hour and two hours or whatever where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs" yada yada. Huh. Hours later, he learned "the commander had made the - which he had the complete authority to do" whoosh under the bus and "we have his back." Asked if he saw survivors, he lost it: "The thing was on fire. This is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices, plant fake stories, nit pick, kill everybody, not based on anything, American heroes, I wrote a book, yada yada, go war fighters!
Wait. "The fog of war"? You mean the fog of bullshit? You mean the cloud of smoke you see in your own air-conditioned office far away as drones on a screen incinerate small boats and the poor souls in them, also the rare survivor who desperately hangs on in the flames and water until you flick a blithe switch to kill him too? That fog of "war"? Fuck you, you gutless vapid self-serving ghoul, whining and snarling you're all doing "what is necessary, dark and difficult things (on) behalf of the American people." Right. On Tuesday, the Columbian family of one victim filed the first court petition charging their husband and father, Alejandro Carranza Medina, 42, was illegally killed in a 2nd US strike on Sept. 15. They said he was a fisher who often set out for marlin and tuna; they named Trump and Hegseth as his killers. Trump had bragged that day of "a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and terrorists." He said they were "from Venezuela."
Update: Good news from The Borowitz Report for the Manchild King: The Hague has invited him to receive an award. "They said it was in response to things I've done as president," he boasted, before nodding off.
Washington Homeowners Sue Big Oil Over Soaring Insurance Costs
Efforts to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the climate emergency continued in Washington state this week as homeowners sued oil giants and a trade association over their decades of lies and rising insurance premium rates.
"As natural disasters become more costly, homeowners foot the bill," explains the complaint, filed on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington against the American Petroleum Institute, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell and its subsidiary Equilon Enterprises.
"In 2023, a significant number of natural catastrophes... impacted the United States, at an estimated cost of $114 billion, of which approximately $80 billion was insured," the filing notes. "In the state of Washington alone, homeowners' rates have increased by a total of 51% over the past six years. But climate change has driven insurance premium increases throughout the country because insurance generally operates by pooling risks."
There are two named plaintiffs in the proposed class action suit. Margaret Hazard lives in Carson, an "area that is very dry and prone to forest fires." Since she began paying for home insurance in 2017, her premiums have doubled, and she recently had to switch to a policy with less coverage. Richard Kennedy of Normandy Park has also paid for homeowner's insurance since then; his premiums have gone from $1,012.10 to $2,149.18, an increase of nearly 113%.
"This case is about holding the fossil fuel defendants accountable for the increased homeowners' insurance premiums that their coordinated and deliberate scheme to hide the truth about climate change and the effects of burning fossil fuels has brought about and for their conduct contributing to climate change; a cost the highly profitable trillion-dollar industry can easily afford, and one that it should not be permitted to simply pass along to the everyday people who are presently bearing the burden of these increased premiums," the complaint states.
The document highlights that "defendants have known since at least the 1960s, based on their own internal scientific research, that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollution caused by the unchecked sales of its highly profitable petroleum products would inevitably lead to 'catastrophic' weather-related consequences with 'considerable significance to civilization' and that only a narrow window of time existed in which to act before severe consequences would result."
Big Oil "took this internal calculus seriously," the filing details, but "rather than inform the public, or... undertake meaningful remedial steps, defendants chose instead to protect their profits by engaging in a massive, deliberate, decadeslong misinformation campaign intended to sow doubt in the minds of the media [and] business leaders, and deceive the public and consumers about the conclusions they themselves had reached about the substantial consequences that the sale of their products would have."
As journalists and academic researchers have revealed what fossil fuel companies knew, and when, over the past decade—while extreme weather, from rapidly intensifying hurricanes to historic wildfires, ravaged US communities—various climate liability lawsuits have been filed across the country by states, municipalities, tribes, and individuals.
According to the Center for Climate Integrity's national tracker, in Washington state alone, there are at least three other cases: two brought by tribes in December 2023 and a wrongful death suit filed in May by the daughter of Juliana Leon, who died during the extreme heatwave that plagued the Pacific Northwest in 2021.
The cases have often drawn comparisons to the tobacco industry's deception, and the one filed this week is no exception. In fact, the plaintiffs for the new federal suit in Washington are represented by the law firm Hagens Berman, whose managing partner and cofounder, Steve Berman, served as special assistant attorney general for 13 states against Big Tobacco.
"Big Oil took its playbook directly from the minds of Big Tobacco and think they can get away with the same deliberate disinformation campaign, coercing the public to pay for the very harms they suffer," Berman said in a statement. "We see a direct correlation between Big Oil's lies and the alarming increase of homeowners insurance due to the rising threat of natural disasters."
Farmers Say Trump Tariffs Crushing Operations, Forcing Higher Prices Ahead of Holiday Season
US farmers warned on Tuesday that they are under increasing strain thanks to President Donald Trump's tariffs, and they predicted more price increases were coming for American consumers during the holiday season.
As reported by The Packer, representatives from the Kansas Farmers Union, supermarket chain supplier Royal Food, and North Carolina-based Red Scout Farm detailed during a conference call how Trump's tariffs on nearly all imported goods were raising prices on vegetables, fruits, grains, and meats.
Mary Carol Dodd, owner of Red Scout Farm, said during the call that her farm depends on products imported from other countries, including greenhouse materials, insect netting, and produce bags. With no low-cost domestic substitutes for these products available, said Dodd, she will have no choice but to raise prices.
"When the price of everything it takes to grow vegetables goes up, from soil to tools to fertilizer, packaging, transportation, then the vegetables on the holiday table go up as well,” Dodd explained. “For a small, diversified farm like us, those costs add up quickly. Our profit margins are already very thin, so every increase means tough choices."
For Dodd, those tough choices have taken the form of a 50% price hike on collard greens and kale, and a 50-cent price increase on mixed-lettuce bags.
Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, said during the call that price increases were inevitable given that most farms already operate on razor-thin profit margins.
"Every added cost in the supply chain eventually shows up at the checkout line," he said. "Tariffs stack up on top of already high input costs, and families end up paying more for the same ingredients they bought last year."
Colin Tuthill, president of Royal Food, expressed bewilderment that the president would enact policies that raised Americans' food prices, especially after he won an election last year on the promise to reduce grocery prices starting on his first day in office.
"Placing a tariff or a tax on any kind of food item makes absolutely no sense to me," he said. "We're raising the price of food for the most in need."
The American Federation of Teachers, Century Foundation, and Groundwork Collaborative last week issued a report estimating that Thanksgiving costs for US consumers have gone up by roughly 10% over the last year, with staples such as onions, spiral hams, and cranberry sauce all recording increases of 22% or higher.
The groups also found that Trump's policies were squarely to blame for the price increases, and not just the tariffs. Specifically, they pointed to chaos at agencies such as the US Department of Agriculture that have weakened efforts to contain bird flu on US farms, which has in turn hurt the supply of poultry heading into the holiday season.
Although Trump has walked back some of his tariffs on staples such as coffee, bananas, and chocolate, the groups noted that this rollback likely came too late to offer relief to US families this year.
"Trump campaigned on bringing down the price of groceries on day one," they wrote. "Yet in the biggest grocery week of the year, families across the country aren’t seeing any savings. Instead, their budgets are being carved up alongside the Thanksgiving turkey."
After Trump's Latest Racist Rant, Ilhan Omar Hopes 'He Gets the Help He Desperately Needs'
Rep. Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American ever elected to the US Congress, said Tuesday that she hopes President Donald Trump "gets the help he needs" after he ended a Cabinet meeting with a bigoted tirade against Somali immigrants.
Trump specifically attacked Minnesota's Somali community—falsely claiming that "they contribute nothing"—and singled out Omar (D-Minn) by name, calling her "garbage" and a "terrible person."
Omar hit back in a brief social media post, characterizing the president's remarks as clear evidence that he's unwell.
"His obsession with me is creepy," Omar wrote.
His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs. https://t.co/pxOpAChHse
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 2, 2025
Trump's comments came as his administration prepared to target Somali immigrants with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region. Around 80,000 Somalis live in Minnesota.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the directive for ICE raids in Minnesota "came immediately after" Trump used his social media platform to launch an appalling attack on Somalis and others in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard members. The man charged with the shooting is an Afghan national who worked as a member of a CIA-backed "Zero Unit" during the war in Afghanistan before resettling in the US.
Kristi Noem, head of the US Department of Homeland Security, has exploited the shooting to ramp up the administration's anti-immigrant agenda, proposing what she called "a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies," echoing Trump's white nationalist rhetoric.
Following Trump's latest attack on Somalis, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement that the president's "disgraceful attacks on Minnesota’s Somali community are injecting more of his poisonous racism into our beloved home state."
"Hearing him single out our people based solely on their race and country of origin is downright disgusting," Ellison said. "Minnesotans stand up for our neighbors when they're under attack. And as Minnesota's attorney general, I will use every tool I have to protect all our neighbors, including our vibrant Somali community, from these dangerous, racist threats. Our neighbors deserve no less."
Over 150 Religious Orgs Endorse Salvadoran Mining Ban Reversed by Bukele
More than 150 faith-based organizations from 25 countries launched an open letter on Monday supporting an El Salvadoran ban on metals mining that was overturned by right-wing President Nayib Bukele in 2024.
The original ban was passed by the country’s legislature in 2017 following years of study and the advocacy of El Salvador’s religious communities. The letter signatories, which include 153 global and regional groups from a wide range of traditions, stood with faith groups in El Salvador in calling both for no new mining and for an end to the political persecution of land and water defenders.
"We, the undersigned, from a diversity of church structures (representing local, regional, and national expressions of churches and related agencies), express our steadfast support for the people of El Salvador and their religious institutions and leaders who are struggling to maintain their country’s historic ban on metal mining—in place from 2017 to 2024—so all Salvadorans can enjoy their God-given right to clean water," the letter begins. "We stand in solidarity with civic and religious leaders who are being persecuted and imprisoned for working against injustices, including the devastation that metals mining would cause their communities."
The faith leaders also released a video reading sections of the letter aloud.
“This letter is a hope-filled expression of solidarity and humanism."
“Through this declaration, faith communities from around the world have affirmed their solidarity with faith leaders in El Salvador as they carry out their duty to protect water as a sacred inherited trust, a human right meant to be shared by all,” Rev. Dr. Japhet Ndhlovu, executive minister for the Church in the Mission Unit of The United Church of Canada, said in a statement.
El Salvadorans already struggle to gain access to clean and plentiful water. The water of 90% of Salvadorans is contaminated, half of all Salvadorans have "intermittent access to water,” and one-half of those with water access report it is poor quality, said Gordon Whitman, managing director for international organizing at letter-signatory Faith in Action, at a Monday press briefing anouncing the letter.
"Restarting mining would be catastrophic," Whitman said.
The mining ban was already hard won.
A 2012 study commissioned by the government affirmed that mining would endanger the nation’s rivers and watersheds with cyanide, arsenic, and other toxins and found widespread public opposition to mining. Before the ban was passed in March of 2017, the archbishop of San Salvador mobilized support for it by leading a march to deliver a draft of the ban to the National Assembly. After it passed unanimously, he called it a "miracle," according to John Cavanagh, a senior adviser at the Institute for Policy Studies.
The law made El Salvador "the first nation on Earth to ban mining to save its rivers," Cavanagh said at the press briefing.
“The Salvadoran precautionary approach banning metal mining is essential to protect drinking water and aquatic ecosystems, given the irreparable damage that has been done by irresponsible mining around the world,” Willamette University professor emeritus Susan Lea Smith of the Ecumenical Water Network of the World Council of Churches said in a statement. “El Salvador had made a difficult but wise choice in banning metal mining. Clean water is a gift from God, and so, for the sake of clean water and the rest of Creation, we work together for the common good."
"It is a sin to render water undrinkable.”
However, in December 2024, Bukele's government passed a new law that allows mining once again without environmental oversight or community consultation.
“It’s a law that has become one of the main threats for the Salvadorans' right to clean water," Pedro Cabezas of International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador said in the press conference.
Cabezas also said the new law was a "symptom of what El Salvador has been going through over the last five years” as Bukele concentrates all power within the executive and his own party.
While the Salvadoran public and civil society groups remain opposed to mining—a December 2024 poll found that 3 in 5 are against the practice in the country—the Bukele government has ramped up its criminalization of dissent.
In this context, the Catholic, protestant, and evangelical churches in El Salvador are among the remaining institutions "with space to speak out" against mining, Christie Neufeldt of the United Church of Canada explained at the briefing.
For example, in March, Mons. José Luis Escobar Alas, the archbishop of San Salvador, presented an anti-mining petition signed by 150,000 people.
International faith groups wanted to stand in solidarity with their Salvadoran counterparts.
“This letter is a hope-filled expression of solidarity and humanism in the face of forces that would degrade” the Earth, human rights, and democracy, Neufeldt said.
Salvadoran faith groups "remind us that access to water is a fundamental human right and that clean water is not a commodity, but a shared inheritance entrusted to all people by God. And they remind us that ending the mining ban is fueling egregious rights violations against those organizing to protect their water and land from destruction," the letter says.
Whitman spoke about the importance of water to several religious traditions.
“All of our faith traditions teach that water is a sacred gift of God,” Whitman said, adding, "It is a sin to render water undrinkable.”
In the press briefing, speakers acknowledged the link between rising authoritarianism and environmental deregulation, in El Salvador and beyond.
Cavanagh noted that, as the energy transition increases demand for rare earth minerals and global instability makes gold more attractive, "oligarchs linked to extractivism" have begun "pumping money into elections” to boost candidates who will allow them to exploit resources.
“It’s not at all surprising that the opposition to mining comes from the people, and so it’s absolutely natural that the oligarchs, that the transnational corporations are going to want to crack down on public dissent," Smith said, adding there was an "intimate connection between authoritarianism and any extractive industry, including mining."
In the end, however, the letter signatories expressed faith for a greener, freer future.
"We pray for the Salvadoran people and their government, that they protect the sacred gift of creation, uphold human rights, and ensure every family clean water—now and for generations to come," they concluded.
As Critics Condemn 'Murder, Plain and Simple,' Hegseth Backs Admiral Order to Kill Boat Attack Survivors
As journalists on Tuesday continued to demand answers about the "double-tap" strike that started an illegal US bombing campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth kept pointing the finger at Adm. Frank M. "Mitch" Bradley while still claiming to support the Navy leader who the Trump administration says ordered the military to take out two survivors of the initial attack.
Sitting beside President Donald Trump during a Cabinet meeting, Hegseth—who has denied the Washington Post and CNN's reporting that he gave a spoken directive to kill everybody on the boat before the September 2 bombing—told reporters that he left the room after the first strike, and Bradley ordered the second strike.
"I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do, so I didn't stick around for the hour, and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs," Hegseth said, using Trump's preferred term for his department.
"So I moved on to my next meeting," the Fox News host-turned-Pentagon chief said. "Couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the—which he had the complete authority to do, and by the way—Adm. Bradley made the correct decision, to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat... And it was the right call. We have his back."
Asked whether he saw the survivors after that first strike, Hegseth said: "I did not personally see survivors... The thing was on fire."
"This is called the fog of war," he added. "This is what you in the press don't understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill, and you nitpick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about 'kill everybody' phases on anonymous sources not based in anything, not based in any truth at all, and then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes."
On Sunday, US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said during an ABC News appearance that the second strike on September 2 was either "plain murder," or a war crime—if you accept the Trump administration's contested argument that the United States is "in armed conflict, at war... with the drug gangs," which many lawmakers and experts reject.
Responding to Hegseth's Tuesday remarks on the social media platform X, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee member said that "Secretary Talk Show Host may have been experiencing the 'fog of war,' but that doesn't change the fact that this was an extrajudicial killing amounting to murder or a war crime. One thing is clear: Pete Hegseth is unfit to serve. He must resign."
Calls for Hegseth's resignation or firing have mounted since Friday's reporting, exacerbated by his Monday X post in which the defense secretary said Bradley "has my 100% support" and "I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made—on the September 2 mission and all others since."
Replying to that post, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that "making Adm. Bradley the fall guy in the administration's 'Protect Pete' campaign is disgraceful and destructive. It signals to military professionals down the ranks they'll be thrown under the bus for lawbreaking by Hegseth and other political leaders."
Despite recent bipartisan vows of "vigorous oversight" for the September 2 attack, Blumenthal said that "Republicans have shown no clear sign they'll buck the administration's blame gaming and begin a prompt investigation with subpoenas, witness depositions, hearings, and more. One immediate imperative: Demand that evidence be preserved—like all videos, emails, correspondence."
"Hegseth must go—resign or be fired," the senator added. "No question that murders or war crimes were committed on his watch. His criminal culpability may be contested, but no question that he's ultimately accountable. He directed the strikes be lethal and total. The buck stops with him."
Blumenthal is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which, alongside the relevant House panel, is set to hold a classified briefing on Thursday with testimony from Bradley. Critics in Congress, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), have also called on Hegseth to testify under oath about the 22 boat bombings in the Caribbean and Pacific—which have killed at least 83 people—and potential US attacks within Venezuela, which the defense secretary and Trump teased again on Tuesday.
Ryan Goodman, a former Pentagon special counsel who’s now a New York University law professor and Just Security coeditor-in-chief, offered some potential questions lawmakers could ask based on Hegseth and Trump's Cabinet meeting comments.
The first: "Mr. Secretary, do you hereby testify—under penalty of perjury—that all your public statements about your involvement in the September 2 strike are true? We provided you a copy of all your statements before this hearing."
Noting Trump's claim that "Pete didn't know about [the] second attack having to do with two people," Goodman suggested that lawmakers inquire: "Oh. Well then, when did Pete know about it, and what did he do about it? When he found out about it, did he know the second attack was in order to kill the shipwrecked?"
Goodman and other experts argued in a Monday analysis for Just Security that "the United States is not in an armed conflict with any drug trafficking cartel or criminal gang anywhere in the Western Hemisphere," so "the individuals involved have not committed war crimes," but "the alleged Hegseth order and special forces' lethal operation amounted to unlawful 'extrajudicial killing' under human rights law," and "the federal murder statute would also apply."
Genocide Backer and Narcissist Donald J. Trump Puts His Name on 'US Institute of Peace'
"This is pathetic, like a little boy running around putting 'Property of Donald' stickers on everything in the house," said one critic.
The signs on the building of the United States Institute of Peace were changed overnight to include "Donald J. Trump," adding the name of the sitting US president who, among other examples of warmongering and war-making, has openly supported the Israeli genocide in Gaza, bombed Iran, sent an aircraft carrier strike group to threaten Venezuela, and ordered the extrajudicial killings of over 80 people aboard boats in the Caribbean and Pacific in recent months.
The building’s name change preceded a meeting on Thursday between leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a proposed peace deal between the two warring nations is set to be signed. It also came amid an ongoing clamoring by the president to be recognized as a great maker of peace despite his record of violence, thuggery, racism, and human rights violations.
Critics of the move were swift in their condemnation of Trump, known more for being possibly the most famous narcissist in the history of humanity than for waging anything that remotely looks like a just and lasting peace.
"This is pathetic, like a little boy running around putting 'Property of Donald' stickers on everything in the house," said Tom Nichols, a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine. "It's not the Trump institute of peace, it's the US Institute of Peace."
Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his desire to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has a long history of supporting and conducting overseas military operations and backing the worst actors on the world stage when it comes to war crimes and human rights abuses, counting as his close allies Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, implicated by Trump's own CIA as the person who ordered the murder and dismembering of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
As foreign policy analyst John Feffer recently wrote in a column that appeared in Common Dreams, Trump "deserves" not a prize for peace, but "the opposite: a Nobel prize for war." According to Feffer:
Trump often tries to change the fabric of reality by asserting the truth of absolute falsehoods—that former President Barack Obama was born in Africa, that the 2020 elections were stolen, that he’s the smartest person in every room.
So, too, with the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump boasts that he has ended “seven or eight” wars. It’s a questionable claim given that he was barely involved in negotiating ceasefires in several of those conflicts (Kashmir, Thailand vs. Cambodia) while some of the “successes,” like Gaza, remain largely unresolved. In the case of Egypt and Ethiopia, there wasn’t even a war to end.
Adding further irony to the new facade, Trump is the target of an active lawsuit brought by USIP staffers who were ousted from their posts following a raid on their offices by members of Trump's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, formerly led by mega-billionaire libertarian Elon Musk.
In a statement on the building's new signage, George Foote, the lawyer representing the former USIP leadership and staff, said, "Renaming the USIP building adds insult to injury" for those impacted by Trump's assault on the agency.
"A federal judge has already ruled that the government’s armed takeover was illegal," added Foote. "That judgment is stayed while the government appeals, which is the only reason the government continues to control the building. The rightful owners will ultimately prevail and will restore the US Institute of Peace and the building to their statutory purposes."
'Pro-White Collar Crime': Trump Pardons Former Executive Indicted by His Own DOJ
"This president serves the ultra-wealthy—not working people," said one watchdog group.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted a full, unconditional pardon to former entertainment venue executive Tim Leiweke, who was indicted just months ago by Trump's own Justice Department for "orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university."
Leiweke, who expressed "profound gratitude" for the pardon, stepped down as CEO of Oak View Group in July, on the same day that the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division announced the indictment.
The longtime sports executive was accused of conspiring with the CEO of a competitor to rig bidding for the development of the $375 million, 15,000-seat Moody Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said the scheme "deprived a public university and taxpayers of the benefits of competitive bidding."
Leiweke pleaded not guilty to the charge, which carried a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
Bloomberg observed that the pardon comes "just before Leiweke is scheduled to be deposed by lawyers for the Justice Department and Live Nation Entertainment Inc. on Thursday in the DOJ’s separate civil antitrust case against the company and its subsidiary Ticketmaster."
"Leiweke earlier unsuccessfully tried to avoid the deposition, citing liability from then pending criminal charges, according to court records," Bloomberg added.
Federal investigators have accused Oak View Group, Leiweke's former company, of quietly receiving kickbacks for promoting Ticketmaster services at Oak View Group venues.
The pardon was announced on the same day that Trump granted clemency to US Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who faced bribery and money laundering charges. Days earlier, the president commuted the prison sentence of a former private equity executive convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors.
"Private equity CEO David Gentile was sentenced to seven years for defrauding investors of 1.6 BILLION," the watchdog group Public Citizen wrote Wednesday. "But Trump commuted his sentence. This isn't the first time Trump has helped the corporate class evade accountability. This president serves the ultra-wealthy—not working people."
Antitrust advocate Matt Stoller accused Trump of advancing a "straightforward pro-white collar crime agenda" by using his pardon power to rescue fraudsters from prison time.
"Trump's pro-white collar crime agenda seems pretty open at this point," Stoller wrote in response to the Cuellar pardon.
As the New York Times reported earlier this year, Trump has employed "the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs—using pardons to inoculate criminals he happens to like, downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes, and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals."
"An offshoot of this strategy is relegating white-collar offenses to a rank of secondary importance behind violent and property crimes," the Times noted. "He has even tried to create a new red-alert category—what he calls 'immigrant crime,' even though studies have shown that immigrants are not more likely to commit violent offenses than people born in the country."
Trump Regulators Ripped for 'Rushed' Approval of Bill Gates' Nuclear Reactor in Wyoming
"Make no mistake, this type of reactor has major safety flaws compared to conventional nuclear reactors that comprise the operating fleet," said one expert.
A leading nuclear safety expert sounded the alarm Tuesday over the Trump administration's expedited safety review of an experimental nuclear reactor in Wyoming designed by a company co-founded by tech billionaire Bill Gates and derided as a "Cowboy Chernobyl."
On Monday, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced that it has "completed its final safety evaluation" for Power Station Unit 1 of TerraPower's Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, adding that it found "no safety aspects that would preclude issuing the construction permit."
Co-founded by Microsoft's Gates, TerraPower received a 50-50 cost-share grant for up to $2 billion from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. The 345-megawatt sodium-cooled small modular reactor (SMR) relies upon so-called passive safety features that experts argue could potentially make nuclear accidents worse.
However, federal regulators "are loosening safety and security requirements for SMRs in ways which could cancel out any safety benefits from passive features," according to Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear power safety director Edwin Lyman.
"The only way they could pull this off is by sweeping difficult safety issues under the rug."
The reactor’s construction permit application—which was submitted in March 2024—was originally scheduled for August 2026 completion but was expedited amid political pressure from the Trump administration and Congress in order to comply with an 18-month timeline established in President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14300.
“The NRC’s rush to complete the Kemmerer plant’s safety evaluation to meet the recklessly abbreviated schedule dictated by President Trump represents a complete abandonment of its obligation to protect public health, safety, and the environment from catastrophic nuclear power plant accidents or terrorist attacks," Lyman said in a statement Tuesday.
Lyman continued:
The only way the staff could finish its review on such a short timeline is by sweeping serious unresolved safety issues under the rug or deferring consideration of them until TerraPower applies for an operating license, at which point it may be too late to correct any problems. Make no mistake, this type of reactor has major safety flaws compared to conventional nuclear reactors that comprise the operating fleet. Its liquid sodium coolant can catch fire, and the reactor has inherent instabilities that could lead to a rapid and uncontrolled increase in power, causing damage to the reactor’s hot and highly radioactive nuclear fuel.
Of particular concern, NRC staff has assented to a design that lacks a physical containment structure to reduce the release of radioactive materials into the environment if a core melt occurs. TerraPower argues that the reactor has a so-called "functional" containment that eliminates the need for a real containment structure. But the NRC staff plainly states that it "did not come to a final determination of the adequacy and acceptability of functional containment performance due to the preliminary nature of the design and analysis."
"Even if the NRC determines later that the functional containment is inadequate, it would be utterly impractical to retrofit the design and build a physical containment after construction has begun," Lyman added. "The potential for rapid power excursions and the lack of a real containment make the Kemmerer plant a true ‘Cowboy Chernobyl.’”
The proposed reactor still faces additional hurdles before construction can begin, including a final environmental impact assessment. However, given the Trump administration's dramatic regulatory rollback, approval and construction are highly likely.
Former NRC officials have voiced alarm over the Trump administration's tightened control over the agency, which include compelling it to send proposed reactor safety rules to the White House for review and possible editing.
Allison Macfarlane, who was nominated to head the NRC during the Obama administration, said earlier this year that Trump's approach marks “the end of independence of the agency.”
“If you aren’t independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident,” she warned.