News & Articles

The cruel and unsual sack of shit known as Pete Hegseth.

“...where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.” Lord Acton (1834-1902)

Lord Acton was a British historian, author and politician. He is most famous for writing “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But his less famous quote above perfectly fits our country’s situation today.

One wonders why the news media doesn’t more forcefully challenge the obvious false statements, misinformation, hateful rhetoric and illegal actions spewing from the current  gangsters in charge of our country.

One wonders what happened to journalistic ethics – or basic journalistic standards of quality –  once common with the major news networks. There has always been “fake news” tabloids, yellow journalism and purveyors of partisan propaganda. But the major sources of news had a modicum of integrity and provided factual reporting.

News reports are supposed to contain the facts – the “what, who, when, where, why and how. These fundamental journalistic standards ensured accuracy, clarity and completeness. Today we have “click bait” headlines, emotional personal stories, celebrity gossip, he-said-she-said, false equivalency and outright lies with no factual background.

The job of the news media should be to inform the public. This, along with being an investigative watch dog, is essential to a well functioning democracy. Given today’s “infotainment” circus it is not surprising that half the population is totally ignorant on almost any subject or issue.

I got cranked up on this topic because of an article in the Duluth Reader last week (“Trump and his team of nitwits now focusing on Minnesota,” MinnPost, Ana Radelat). The article quoted Secretary pf Homeland Security Kristi Noem as saying, “You told me to look into Minnesota and their fraud on visas...50% of them are fraudulent...”

This statement is obviously false because states do not issue (or have any role in issuing) visas. This simple piece of factual information is what the public needed to know but was not mentioned in the article.

I point this out not to criticize the author but to illustrate how easy it could be for the media to do a better job countering misinformation and informing the public on important topics.

Here is another quote from the past that describes today’s situation. “War is a thug’s game. The thug strikes first and harder. He doesn’t go by the rules and he isn’t afraid of hurting people.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh in The War Within and Without: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh 1939-1944. This is especially relevant when juxtaposed with recent statements by Pete Hegseth, the current thug in charge of the Department of Defense.

Speaking to 800 officers in an unprecedented assemblage of Pentagon top brass Hegseth said, “We [will] untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just...maximum  lethality.” He promised the “liberation of America’s warriors” who “kill people and break things for a living.”

Much of the news media blandly accepted this egregious reversal of Pentagon policy (and long excepted American military ethics) without criticism. The media has repeatedly “normalized” this administration’s actions – like changing the DOD to the Department of War, creating a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) or spending money not authorized by Congress – for which the executive has no authority to do.

The media’s lack of factual reporting and failure to challenge government statements and illegal actions just encourages more illegal acts from the current thugs.

Historically the mainstream press has uncritically accepted and promoted the many bipartisan acts of war and military aggression committed by our government. Now the U.S. Navy is openly committing murder and piracy in the Caribbean, ICE is acting like the  Gestapo, and the administration is continuing to support blatant genocide in Palestine. The media are simply repeating the administration’s lies and lame justifications.

Press Watch is an independent non-profit organization that, according to their website, is “devoted to encouraging political journalists to fulfill their essential mission of creating an informed electorate and holding the powerful accountable.” (presswatchers.org ). Founded by journalist Dan Froomkin, the website says, “The Trump era, like never before, has exposed the weakness of the elite media’s refusal to be seen as ‘taking sides’ in matters of public interest – even when it comes to verification of facts.”

Froomkin is critical of the mainstream media for being “too shallow, too attached to spectacle...too quick to normalize abnormal behavior. “ The media “spreads, rather than refutes, disinformation.”
Author and political critic Jim Hightower talks about how the media divides us in a recent article in The Progressive magazine (“Uniting People of the United States” December 2025-January 2026 issue). He says, “It is true that our daily media feed relentlessly pushes political negativity and discord...but that is them, not the greater us...’We the people’ fundamentally agree on more than supposedly separates us.”

To end on a positive note, there is a news story that support Hightower’s optimism. It is about a recent victory for democracy in Indiana. There are Republicans who still believe in democracy and are willing to work with the “other side” to protect fair elections.

Indiana is a “red” state and the Republican Party currently controls the governorship and both  branches of the legislature. Last summer, Trump began pressuring Republican controlled states to introduce unusual, mid-decade redistricting legislation. The clear intent was to rig congressional maps to eliminate any districts with Democratic representatives and to maintain Republican control of the House of Representatives.

But Republican Senators in Indiana had enough integrity to reject this blatantly undemocratic tactic. The Indiana House had passed the bill 57 to 41 with 12 Republicans voting against it  with the Democrats.
The Indiana Senate had 21 Republicans join 10 Democrats to defeat the redistricting bill 31 to 19.  According the Indiana Capital Chronicle, Republican senators voting against cited “overwhelming public opposition. Others said they didn’t believe it was proper to overhaul the Republican-drawn maps, approved in 2021, for such blatant political purposes...”

People need to be discriminating about what they read, see or believe online or in the media. There are reputable sources of news and many sources of accurate information on issues available online. People just need to use these sources and educate themselves.