Demanding they abandon ethics and commit war crimes

Yesterday I mentioned that the nasty guy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth required generals and admirals come from around the world to Virginia to be lectured by these two guys. Emily Singer of Daily Kos had excerpts of Hegseth’s speech. My summary of some of the things he said: The military is to use “punishing violence on the enemy.” No more “politically correct” rules of engagement. No more inspector general process. Those that complain about abusive colleagues and superiors will have nowhere to turn. Basic-training drill sergeants may beat up recruits. No “toxic ideological garbage” as in nothing remotely related to DEI or anything Hegseth might consider “woke.” I read through that and thought again he’s acting like a supremacist and wants to turn his military into supremacists. Yeah, that he is a supremacist was apparent as soon as he appeared on the scene. One major part of supremacy is that it is maintained by violence. Put another way, all violence is in support of supremacy and the social hierarchy. And Hegseth is demanding his military be as violent as possible. Not just the usual military violence to subdue the opponent, but violence to crush and eliminate the opponent. As part of that he is demanding the hierarchy of the military be maintained not just by rank, but also by violence. Singer said that the way Hegseth is demanding his military fight is demanding they abandon ethics and commit war crimes. Singer also reported on the nasty guy’s speech, which came after Hegseth’s. He wasn’t going to let an underling get all the glory. I hear he talked for more than an hour and other observers said his dementia was showing. What Singer reported is the nasty guy wants to use the military against American citizens. Not a surprise the generals were silent. About ten days ago the nasty guy, with Robert Kennedy Jr. as backdrop, attacked the use of Tylenol, claiming its use during pregnancy caused autism. Yeah, that has long been debunked. As part of his rant the nasty guy said “There’s no downside” to avoiding Tylenol while pregnant. Madison Czopek of PolitiFact, in an article for KFF Health News posted on Kos, wrote yes there is a downside, a big one. Tylenol is the only available treatment for fever when pregnant and untreated fever can cause significant damage to both parent and child. An Associated Press article posted on Kos a week ago reports on the indictment of James Comey for making false statements to the Senate and obstruction. This appears to have happened because the nasty guy demanded his Attorney General file charges against Comey even though Department of Justice lawyers said the case was flimsy. The nasty guy hates Comey because he is connected to the investigation of Russia interfering in the 2016 election, which the nasty guy declares didn’t happen and lots of evidence shows that it did. The nasty guy had demanded chief prosecutor Erik Siebert of the Eastern District of Virginia file the charges. He refused and was fired. So the nasty guy said he would nominate Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide, to take Siebert’s job, though she has no prosecution experience. She rushed a basic case so that it would be filed before the statue of limitations expired on September 30. Since the accusation is lying to the Senate Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke to Sen. Tim Kaine. Kaine said he doesn’t think Comey lied to him during that testimony. This is a distraction from all the things the nasty guy said he would do and has done the opposite. Inskeep noted this indictment includes no evidence. Kaine expanded that:

Pam Bondi put out a press statement that was highly unusual when this indictment was announced. And the last line in the press statement was, we will follow the facts in this case. You follow the facts before you indict somebody. You understand the facts before you indict them. You don't indict them on a two-page lack of details and then say you're going to follow the facts. This is a political hatchet job. I think the concerns about selective prosecution are significant. I think Lindsey Halligan, she's not a prosecutor. She's never had any experience in Virginia. I think even the circumstances of her appointment raise legal questions.

The discussion turned to Bondi’s confirmation hearing in which she said of her decisions as AG, “Politics will not play a part.” Kaine says he feels misled by that and knew at the time she wasn’t sincere. He thought everyone knew that. Inskeep then brought in a recording of an interview with Peter Navarro, who said the investigation into Comey needed to finish before the 2026 election because if Democrats regain the House they will open investigations into himself. Kaine responded by saying that shows the Comey case is political prosecution. I add this sounds like another case of a Republican accusation that is really a confession. Navarro is only afraid of Democrats holding political investigations of himself because he and other Republicans are currently doing that to Democrats and he’s afraid of payback. In last Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Kyle Cheney:

Trump’s inability to stop live commentary on Comey’s case could actually doom it. This isn’t just a broad “no one is above the law,” he’s doing legal analysis that Comey’s team will plug right into their selective prosecution motion to dismiss the indictment.

S.V. Date of HuffPost:

“No one from the White House should be saying anything about Comey or the indictment,” said Ty Cobb, a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s office during Trump’s first term and once a federal prosecutor. “But there are no guardrails there in this administration, no adults.” Prosecutors, who represent the state, are supposed to refrain from commenting publicly about criminal cases and present their accusations and evidence in court. In this case, Trump’s numerous previous attacks on Comey, his many campaign vows to seek retribution against those who investigated or prosecuted him and his social media post demanding that Attorney General Pam Bondi charge Comey and others already laid the foundation that Comey was charged only because of pressure from Trump.

In the comments there was link to a meme, now broken, that said if the case goes ahead Comey and his team can demand the nasty guy give depositions under oath. The nasty guy clearly hasn’t thought this through. In last Sunday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Amanda Marcotte of Salon:

This dynamic, where a talented female leader inherits a collapsing situation, is so common in the business world that experts have a name for it: The glass cliff. The phrase is a play on the “glass ceiling,” an older metaphor that describes how structural sexism keeps women from reaching the highest levels of leadership. In glass cliff scenarios, however, women do get to the top — but only after male leaders have screwed things up so badly that the situation may be unsalvageable. As Jordyn Holman of the New York Times described it in 2024, it’s “a phenomenon in which a company in crisis appoints a woman to turn things around, often setting them up for failure.” ... Williams laid out a number of reasons institutions turn to female leaders in times of crisis. The ugliest is plain old scapegoating. If the male leadership messed things up beyond all repair, they often find it’s easier to pass it off to a woman right before the final collapse, so they can blame her instead of themselves. Biden did this aggressively to Harris, even going on TV after her loss and insisting, preposterously, that he would have won. There’s also an expectation, Williams explained, that women have more soft skills, like empathy and morale-building, which people hope will save them in a crisis. We saw this play out with the “Momala” meme, when pundits and influencers openly hoped that Harris was maternal enough to unite a party that had been torn apart by Biden’s mismanagement.

Marcotte included several examples. One of them is Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors. She’s been there 11 years and some in the automotive press think she’s doing an outstanding job. Barra may have been given the job so leaders could blame the failure of GM on her, but GM didn’t fail. In the comments is a tweet by Acyn with a quote from Rep. Crow discussing the government shutdown.

There’s no consistency to any of it because there’s actually no ideology. Donald Trump doesn’t believe in fiscal conservatism. He doesn’t believe in conservative philosophy. He actually doesn’t believe in anything other than his own personal grievances—who he likes or dislikes on any given day—and his power. That’s what he believes in.

In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman writing for his The Cross-Section Substack. I’m leaving out the nasty guy’s quote and going straight to Waldman’s analysis.

In other words, Democrats say that they’re trying to keep Trump from cutting medical benefits, to which Trump basically responded: Yep, I’m going to cut medical benefits. When other politicians hand their opponents such a perfect talking point on a silver platter that way, it’s usually the occasion for a vigorous round of mockery and contempt, as both enemies and allies marvel at how only a spectacular idiot with no political skills would say such a thing.

NBC News reported that when the shutdown began Education Department employees set up their emails with out-of-office messages. Five of them told NBC News that their messages were changed without their permission to blame Democrats for the shutdown.

One person reported changing the out-of-office message back to the nonpartisan version, only to have it revert to the partisan wording later. “None of us consented to this. And it’s written in the first person, as if I’m the one conveying this message, and I’m not. I don’t agree with it. I don’t think it’s ethical or legal. I think it violates the Hatch Act,” this person said, referring to the law that limit federal employees’ political activity. “I took the statement that they sent us earlier in the week to use. And I pasted it on top of that — basically has a standard out-of-office,” another one of the Education Department employees said. “They went in and manipulated my out-of-office reply. I guess they’re now making us all guilty of violating the Hatch Act.”

Dworkin also had an excerpt from a post and I thought to share the whole thing. The nasty guy has said he needs to send troops to “war ravaged” Portland, Oregon. So Cliff Schecter of BlueAmp created a letter supposedly from a man caught in the war of Portland to his wife back at home. Do be wary of the video at the top showing a Portland street scene that seems to insist it must play with the sound on. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary. A sampling.

"Republicans would like you to believe that Democrats shut the government down. But the bill they wanted Democrats to sign would knock out about 15 million Americans from health insurance. It's like going out to dinner and the waiter says, 'You must order lasagna. The chef made it today, and a bunch of you are going to get food poisoning from it. But if you don’t eat it, you've ruined the meal.' That's the Garfield version of what's going on right now." —Jimmy Kimmel "President Trump on Saturday ordered the Defense Department to deploy troops to Portland, Oregon to 'secure the city.' From what? Farmer's markets? The only crime in Portland is the price of locally-sourced honey." —Seth Meyers "Portland??? Did I miss Vancouver attacking Portland in a fierce battle of mellow artisans? 'Don't shoot until you see the whites of their cold-foam, half-caf latte art!' " —Jon Stewart