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Monday evenings are my catch-up-with-current-events night. Right after a zoom meeting, at 8 pm, I fire up the television to hear what Rachel Maddow has to say. And if I’m able to, I stay up to watch most of Lawrence O’Donnell, who follows her. I consider these two people to be reasonable and knowledgeable about the state of our politics. 

Rachel often features pictures and short videos of people around the country protesting in the streets. In New York City over the weekend people gathered spontaneously to protest ICE’s presence in their city. As she said, people all over this country are gathering to make their displeasure known, even in some republican strongholds. It appears that we are amenable to waking up and seeing the truth of this administration. 47’s approval rating is down to 36%.

She also interviewed a Russian artist who is traveling the country making exhibitions of her experience in a Russian prison simply for speaking her mind against Putin and his minions. Her name is Nadya Tolokonnikova. Her message was stark and very clear – if we don’t want to become an oppressed society like Russia, we must pay attention to what is happening here and take measures to fight against oligarchy and dictatorship and outright unlawful behavior.

Speaking of which, part of what both Rachel and Lawrence had to say was about the absolutely shameless military actions happening in the Caribbean. The latest unlawful order to be issued contains the words, “Kill everyone!”. Apparently an admiral in the navy followed Pete Hegseth’s order to murder two survivors of one of our attacks on a small fishing boat. The boat was completely destroyed, but there were two men in the water still alive. They were shot to pieces based on an unlawful order. 

As Lawrence O’Donnell said, we’re not at war with Venezuela at this time, so the crime cannot be called a “war crime”. Nope. It’s pure and simple murder of two individuals who posed no threat to the ship that decimated them. That action goes against our very own military code of action. The order came from Pete Hegseth, according to people who were witnesses. Now Hegseth, a DUI hire, is claiming to support the officer who gave the order, but denying that it came from him. When 47 was asked about this he claimed to have no knowledge of the “incident”. 

I felt sick to my stomach as this story unfolded. I feel this way because I really believe the lunatics in charge are making our country into an insane asylum. Hegseth is such a disordered individual that he released a cartoon of “Franklin the turtle”, a children’s book character, dressed in military garb holding a rocket launcher. The weapon was pointed at boats. The caption was “For your Christmas wish list”. What? What? Is he really calling for a celebration of the deaths of over 80 people in recent months? 

This fight against “narco-terrorists” is in direct opposition to 47’s plan to pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras. He is in prison for being an integral part of sending tons of cocaine to the United States, and profiting hugely from this deadly endeavor. Hernandez was sentenced last year to 45 years in prison after raking in millions of dollars in drug money. 47 claims that this individual was mistreated by Biden’s Justice Department and deserves to be freed. My opinion is that 47 is acting on his worship of dictators who are bad guys. 

Apparently, a few republicans in congress are finally reacting to the unlawful actions of the Department of Defense and are calling for a full investigation. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is attempting to schedule interviews with the 6 congressional democratic members of congress who issued a video against obeying unlawful orders. Elissa Slotkin, a democratic Senator and former member of the intelligence community, says, “This isn’t just about a video. This is not the America I know, and I’m not going to let this next step from the FBI stop me from speaking up for my country and our Constitution.”

Bravo, Senator Slotkin. I’ll try to follow your lead.