Category: [Politics]

Yeah, the guy who did a mass shooting I’d completely forgotten about is finally meeting his maker… on livestream.

Pete Hegseth has said the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, will be a public event when the sentence is carried out later this year. A defense department official later confirmed the execution will be livestreamed.
In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the Pentagon secretary said the firing squad will carry out the sentence at Fort Hood, Texas, at 1pm on Thursday, 3 December. This would be the first US military execution in more than 60 years.
“It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said.
Hasan opened fire at a medical processing center on the Texas base on 5 November 2009, killing 13 people and wounding dozens more. A military jury sentenced him to death in 2013, and he has been held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas ever since. He exhausted his appeals last year, which cleared the way for Donald Trump to approve the sentence this week on a recommendation from Hegseth.

Now, I’m not surprised they’re getting rid of this fellow; they obviously weren’t going to let him live even if it took him years to exhaust his options. No, it’s the bit about livestreaming him being, you know, judicially murdered. Making a public spectacle of someone’s death. Which, as others have noted, is something only a handful of countries do, including Iran. You know, that country may or may not be at war with at any given time. I’m fairly sure the US has been critical of Iran in the past on this subject. I can only assume it’s another one of those things that are OK When We Do Them. If they could find a way to make every American watch it, not just make it possible to do so, I’ve no doubt they would.

So why are they doing it now, though? I mean, I know why they’re doing it: the whole grotesque spectacle is obviously meant as a show of force and intimidation, but to America’s citizens more than to international terrorists. Being born in the US will not save you, if it ever did. But why now specifically (as opposed to why has it taken them so long?

Oh.

Pete Hegseth is very insistent that his soldiers be godlike beings chock full of testosterone (especially the women, if he allows them to serve) and he will tolerate no slackers in that department. Except himself, apparently. There’s been other videos of him looking like a champion fuckwit trying to compete with the rest of the joint force as his own joints give way, but some particularly damning new footage has emerged in the last day or so looking, you know, far below the level at which he insists the US military perform. Looking weak.

Do I actually think Hegseth wants this man’s death livestreamed to make himself feel big again after being made to look foolish? Well… probably not, I suspect it’s ordinary fascist cruelty at work. Would I be surprised if that actually were the reason? Well… probably not, cos these people are just… Like That. I wonder if this will finally make the US the pariah nation it must be…

To everyone’s surprise, Mitch McConnell turns out to be alive after all:

US Republican Mitch McConnell has returned to the Senate for the first time in three months, looking noticeably more frail than before he was hospitalised in June.
Mr McConnell’s lengthy absence from the Senate generated a flood of criticism and online speculation, as he initially remained quiet for weeks about his condition.
The 84-year-old senator eventually disclosed a month later that he had been “briefly unconscious” due to a fall in his home and had also been treated for mild pneumonia.
He briefly addressed reporters from a wheelchair outside the Senate chamber, smiling but speaking slowly and with some difficulty. […]
Reporters and photographers were told by Senate staff not to take video of his remarks in the second-floor hallway, even though video is often permitted in that area. Still images were allowed.

That seems like an odd stipulation, but he seems to be in enough different positions in the photos I’ve seen that he is plausibly alive and mobile in spite of everything. I just don’t understand this determination of his to finish his term, which I don’t think I realised was actually coming to an end in January and he’s not contesting it again; he’s an octogenarian in clearly terrible health, he’s obviously not fit for work, no one would begrudge him not returning to the senate and just finally taking “early” retirement. It would be better for him too. But no, his commitment to doing evil—cos he’s not there to do good, let’s admit it—is apparently just that strong… bah.