Hegseth

You’re A Pirate!


POST 1239

Yes You!

On September 2, 2025 the Secretary of Defense (he prefers “Secretary of War – it’s more chest poundingly tough guy sounding) Six Gun Pete Hegseth had a special day. It started with spotters finding a non-military open boat, apparently from Venezuela, in international waters. It was powered by engines commonly used for water skiing and was carrying 11 people. Six Gun Pete ordered the boat to be blown up, same as he had done to others over the prior weeks, killing nearly 90 people.

Without so much as a whiff of evidence he claimed that the boat had been  carrying illegal drugs. But even if there had been drugs:

  1. The boat hadn’t been headed for the United States, 1,200 miles away and traveling in a different direction, so the U.S. had no authority to intervene.
  2. The standard protocol for handling a situation where contraband is suspected is interdiction by the Coast Guard, not murder.

Nine of the 11 people aboard that small boat were killed by a U.S. missile. That left a vexing problem for the head of our “Department of War.” There were two survivors of that U.S. missile attack. They were clinging to floating parts of the destroyed boat and were, by any notion of reality, shipwrecked survivors. They were non-combatants completely unable to be a danger to anyone. Had there been illegal drugs on board their boat, they couldn’t have delivered them anywhere because they had no boat; just flotsam. They were harmless corks in the ocean, leaving Hegseth the task of deciding what to do with them. Maritime law said that they must be rescued.

Instead, our valiant War Czar made the brave call: “Kill them all!” he announced with manly vigor about people who had done no harm to the U.S. or to any Americans.

So, on Hegseth’s order, Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley issued the order to kill those two men bobbing in the ocean. Another missile was fired and they immediately stopped being survivors.

There was no longer a legal threat to Hegseth that would have arisen had they instead been rescued and brought to the United States for a pesky habeas corpus thing. That was good for Hegseth, because in a trial he would have had to produce evidence of drugs aboard that boat. He would have had to demonstrate that the drugs were bound for the veins of Americans. But Hegseth had no such evidence. His tough guy deception and lies could go unchallenged just by killing those 2 helpless guys bobbing like corks in the ocean. So, that’s what he did.

We were not and are not at war – at least we are not in a declared war or a war authorized by Congress. Clearly, then, the killing of those 11 people could not be acts of war. It was instead cold blooded murder, ordered by Six Gun Pete Hegseth.

We don’t know if the president ordered Hegseth to do that, but it seems more than likely that he did, since he always needs to appear to be the Tough-Guy-in-Chief. Wanton murder is one of the things that pirates do, but this story has become more blatantly criminal and more obviously a foul tale of piracy since September 2.

On December 10 your president ordered that an unarmed merchant oil tanker sailing from Venezuela be boarded and commandeered by U.S. forces. The ship was not bound for the U.S. and no evidence of materials that could be used to harm the U.S. has been presented as justification for the assault. Here’s where Trump’s official policy to pick a fight with Venezuela crosses from stupid into total piracy,

The president has announced that the ship will be sailed to a U.S. port and its cargo of 1.8 million barrels of oil with a market value of roughly $95 million will be taken. Stolen. Pirated. And Trump is threatening to steal yet more Venezuelan tankers.

That’s piracy by anyone’s definition, including that of hundreds of years of maritime law, the laws of the World Court and the laws of the United States. And because this is being done in your name,

You are now a pirate
and your Jolly Roger waves over the seas,
malevolently declaring American piracy and murder.
.

Wouldn’t piracy and murder fall under the definition of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors“?*

It was bad enough when V.P. Dick Cheney (or was it Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld?) announced in 2003 that we would steal Iraqi oil and that it would pay for our invasion of Iraq and reconstruction of that country. But the Chinese have controlled Iraqi oil since 2003 and it’s claimed that $150 billion has been stolen. It seems that we weren’t as good at piracy then as our genius leaders led us to believe. But we were quite adept at murder. We’re still good at that.

Now we have Trump’s larceny and murder going on. What could possibly go wrong?

Shiver me timbers, matey. And wag the dog.

UPDATE!

The federal judge’s order regarding the seizure warrant for the ship carrying Venezuelan oil was unsealed yesterday. It gives permission to Trump and his grifters to keep the spoils of their piracy. But it’s hard to know anything substantive about that, because the unsealed document is nearly completely redacted. Everything but the title page is blacked out. There’s no way to check any of the claims, nor the reasoning for the judicial decision. There’s nothing left that could benefit the American people.

From The Mercury:

A US court released a heavily redacted warrant on Friday that had authorized the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a move Caracas decried as an act of “international piracy” and “blatant theft”.

______________________________________________

* See Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
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  6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

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JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Civilian Leadership of Our Military


POST 1218

Yesterday we were given the full screen picture of our newly renamed War Department. Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War, set the stage with absolutist war drum pounding and attacks on everything not MAGA. Fie on DEI and Woke! They are the core of our problems, he’ll have us know.That plus facial hair, overweight generals and admirals and pressure to prosecute rapists.

This gathering was toxic masculine posturing from the stage at its most toxic, complete with triumphal arrangements of patriotic music and a way too large American flag. The only thing missing was goose stepping. This meeting could have been held on the field at Nuremberg, with torches burning.

President Donald Trump then spoke in his dementia poisoned way, claiming to have settled 7 wars (actually zero), bragging about renaming the Gulf of Mexico and so much more puffery that it would be a comedy act, were it not so dangerous for real people. Indeed, he suggested using our cities as training grounds for our military “whose job is to “kill people and break things” to attack our imaginary “enemy from within,” which means anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to the great one, especially Democrats, protesters, citizens who live in our cities and anyone who has spoken less than flatteringly of Trump.

He announced how great is the paper used for military commissions and that he loves his signature and, actually, everyone loves his signatures. Plus, he made clear that his attacks on the Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities had “obliterated” them. He even said that the Atomic Energy people said those facilities were obliterated.

Except of course, they weren’t and they didn’t. That only matters if you actually want to ensure that Iran doesn’t have the capacity to make atomic bombs, in which case you wouldn’t resort to lies. You would instead be a steely eyed realist. A dementia compromised brain is a terrible thing when it commands a finger near the nuclear button or commands the dropping of 20,000 pound MOABs (“Mother Of All Bombs”). Now there’s another “mine is bigger than yours” Trumpian proof.

Trump began winding up his galactically inappropriate speech by saying that it’s good that Congress cannot agree on a spending bill. He said that would shut down the government and then he could do anything he wants to do.

He may actually believe that he somehow has absolute power if Congress shuts down the government, since he is incapable of reading the Constitution.

According to law and the Constitution, the limits on what the President is allowed to do remain essentially unchanged regardless of a government shut down. However, Trump’s standard move is to do his illegal thing, knowing that it will take months to stop him, at which time his damage will be done. Just ask the former workers at the USDA, the CDC, Voice of America, USAID, soon the FAA and more.

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this—you haven’t.” – Thomas Edison

They brought 800 top generals and admirals from their posts protecting American interests around the world to hear a toxic alcoholic Fox News “personality” strut his poison and an addled brain old man brag that his is bigger than yours, that Joe Biden is a loser, that gold decorating in the White House is the new red, white and blue and yet more idiocy. This is what passes for civilian leadership of our military today.

We have a great deal of work to do to begin to set things right in our country. Sometimes it feels like we’ve tried everything, but Thomas Edison reminds us that we have not. There’s so much more we can do.

  • Mid-Term Election
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    .

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Little Friday Comment


POST 1187

As of this writing President Trump has said that he will make up his TACO mind about whether to go to war against Iran within the next two weeks.* Why he would make such a strategic announcement to our adversaries like a circus barker saying “You ain’t seen nuthin yet?” This comes from somewhere beyond sanity or national security.

This is not a commentary about what Trump’s decision should be. Rather, it’s about his decision making methodology and the limitations of this president of greatly limited capability.

Our news folk are telling us that he is conferring with:

The civilian leader of our national defense. I find no comfort in hearing that he is giving serious consideration to what SecDef Pete Hegseth has to say. He’s the guy who had to overtly declare that he’d stop his drunken ways if he were confirmed for the post he now holds and we don’t know if he’s honored his pledge. He’s the same fool responsible for failing to protect what should have been top secret plans to bomb the Houthis in order to protect our shipping through the Gulf of Hormuz. He instead sent his plans over an unsecured service with at least one participant on the string having no security clearance at all. Are we supposed to trust his advice to the President regarding our military services and security in war?

Our military defense people. Trump dumped all the top people – the generals – who he knew were primarily loyal to the Constitution. He replaced them with people primarily loyal to Trump. Who cares about some pesky solemn oath, anyway?

Can we be confident these replacements will refuse to obey an illegal order?

Our intelligence people. Lots of agencies there, but they all funnel to the Director of National Intelligence, who right now is Tulsi Gabbard. That’s “Putin Talker” Gabbard. That’s “no experience in intelligence work” Gabbard or even at keeping a secret. Not hard to imagine that she might give advice to the President based upon what Vladimir Putin wants us to do, rather than what is in the best interests of our country. Worse, it’s not hard to imagine Trump preferring to hear about Putin’s preferences.

Our Secretary of State. Marco Rubio is a smooth talking, pleasant looking pol who has shown us repeatedly that he is not much more than a political weather vane. He will say and do only what Trump wants him to say and do, leaving decisions and policy without a check or expanded options.

Then there is Trump’s learning disability and gnat-like attention span. This president doesn’t read. They’ve had to put the President’s Daily Brief  (“PDB”) into comic book format. They’ve tried creating videos for this reality show freak of a man to advise him of international threats.

He can’t stay with any train of thought for more than a few minutes. That isn’t sufficient when the topic is anything more complex than how many Big Macs this infant tyrant wants for dinner, much less for the brutal and perilous questions of war.

Fortunately, the power to declare war rests solely with the Congress, not the president. Unfortunately, we have no assurance that the Congress will put on its big boy and big girl pants and stop this president from acting from his dementia addled brain to get a lot of people killed with no thought to the day after.

Our last two forays into war lasted 20 years, got over 7,000 American troops killed, hundreds of thousands of locals killed, millions displaced and upheaval in the region that continues even today. All that was started by a similarly un-serious, incompetent president who listened to the wrong people and whose primary concerns were his popularity and his legacy. He lied us into wars against two nations that had done us no harm and were not a threat to us.

Trump craves grossly narcissistic things, including money, power and adulation. He gets none of those from Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving the possibility of a chip on Trump’s shoulder that may influence his decision about war against Iran. But it shouldn’t.

Now, in this appallingly dangerous world, un-serious incompetence is more lethal than ever and we are once again saddled with it.

__________________________________________

* That “two weeks” business is nothing but a stall to make Trump seem in control, seem assertive and to give him time to do a dozen other outrageous things to distract you so that you stop thinking about whatever he was supposed to make happen in two weeks. Think: Infrastructure Week.

Stop listening to talking heads who grind on about what will happen in two weeks. That grind isn’t worth your time or attention.

Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election
Countdown Timer
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Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get this job done.

And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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