Originally published at: Kelly Says He’ll Fight Hegseth Retribution As Show Of Force For Free Speech
Thank you for your patience over the last few weeks while I, and other TPMers who help me put this together each day, took a break for the holidays. We’re back, with an appropriately brutal series of events to wade through to mark our return … 
In a long-winded social media post this morning, Secretary…
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Sen. Mark Kelly, senior Senator here in Arizona has my total support. He quoted military law and I see no reason at all that Hegseth would be upset about that except that trump wants the military to follow his illegal murderous actions on boats and invading and kidnapping of Maduro. Meanwhile the republicans in Congress lick trump’s balls to show their abdication of power.
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Trump’s White House has been looking for reasons to withhold federal funding from states with populations that did not vote for him.
“They won’t forget to vote for us NEXT time!”
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Welcome back, Evening Update! Did we ever miss ya!
Apparently, Secretary Heggie the Kegger was unable to fulfill Trump’s bidding and actually execute Senator Astronaut Mark Kelly. So placing a nastygram in his record (to be expunged by a future Democratic administration) and docking his retirement pay would have to serve.
That, and making the former astronaut have to spend the big bucks defending himself against baseless charges in court. Over and over.
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Well, we know Hegseth and company have already found their toadies to implement illegal orders. They have been doing so for at least a month.
I said over the weekend: those who said the military would never act on an illegal order now have to deal with the fact that they were dead wrong and 80 or more civilians are dead from those actions.
We are waiting for the House to come across with an act against the kidnapping and bombing by our
military over the weekend.
Why has it not already been signed, sealed and delivered? Minutes should not have passed before the resolution was read into the Congressional record, voted on and sent to the Senate for their immediate action.
Folks, we are on our own here. We are on our own.
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We can only hope there will be some sort of televised hearing where real American hero Captain Kelly and his Tom Cruise-like attorney get to face off against toy soldier Hans Gruber Hegseth.
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I hope Kegger is not expecting a Military or Federal pension. Turnabout can be a bitch.
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If people like Pete existed in the military, there are others today. We know that. I am truly curious as to who is involved, have they been hand picked and detractors derailed. Pete can spin the general military into a variety of roles to support things such as this weekend that will likely not get much blow back. But it makes it look like all the troops are complicit. The hard core choose or step down moments, he has true believers chosen or in place willing to go the next step. And they did.
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Big Mike is enjoying his big Nancy Pelosi office too much. And keeping the House on another long vay-cay. Seriously … Republicans with ethics (they exist!!) could join with Democrats and overthrow that little twit, and maybe get a House that would take actions, rather than lying supine.
For that matter, if Republicans could get together, they could put down this demented baby-king via 25th or impeachment and conviction. What self-serving greed-based arguments can we come up with to try and convince them?
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Step 2 probably involves a pardon. It would be a real scream if some state jurisdiction indicted Maduro and cut fat donnie out of the equation.
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Citation needed.
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Hegseth is a tiny-brained wiper of other peoples’ bottoms; that’s all he’s got, other than the hair of the dog each morning.
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Trump has no more ideas of what stage 2 is than the underwear gnomes did.
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I recommend an all-expenses-paid vacation to Leavenworth, KS. Room and board included.
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Random Rant: What has happened to journalism?
The mainstream press, or really any newspaper, cable network, or news division for a television studio, is completely owned by the oligarchs. We cannot trust what they put out. Even the news organizations which are meant to speak to the opposition like the so-called MS now, frequently take action that shows that they are complicit with the state, keeping the opposition within an overton window that they have created.
Meanwhile, on all sides of the political debate, the podcasters have come. Some of them are doing good reporting, digging through the Epstein files for example. Most of them convert every single news story to clickbait.
I can’t take it anymore. Talking points memo has a staff that is too small to be a full news diet, but what else is there?
Everything lies, exaggerates, or fails to appreciate the full scope of what is going on.
I have never in my life, which started about week after the bicentennial of this country, dreamed that the entire concept of America woukd be gone in my lifetime, but it is.
What hope is there for America? What hope is there for the truth?
(This rant started with me seeing a headline to a podcaster video on YouTube titled “General drops bomb on Hegseth.” I thought the headline was so unprofessional, so confusing using a war metaphor when referring to warriors, that I realized the point was not to convey information, or to update me as the story above does, but to make me mad.)
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In my fantasy world, all of the someday-to-be-former administration are classfied as dangerous flight risks at their bail hearings. (Albeit many of them would likely not think it was a good idea to leave the US.)
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In my fantasy world, the United States has opened its doors to the world and asked for help rebuilding. We have sent all of our political criminals to the International Criminal Court, hoping that there they can get a fair trial where in America they could not, and have begged for their help in rebuilding America.
America is like an addict. We need friends and outside help if we are going to overcome our addiction. No amount of self-flagellation or cries to a higher power will be enough. We will need help, and we have to be able to ask for it and receive it.
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Electoral-Vote.com has a great summary of all the grift, corruption and dereliction of duty Trump has gotten away with just in 2025. It is really eye-watering. We have REAL problem on our hands.
IF we get our government back, and IF the people who still believe in democracy want our government to survive the next “Trump”, they need to rethink the Executive Branch’s Organization and split power up among a number of individuals with separate lanes of authority and responsibility. For instance, the Department of Justice CANNOT report to the POTUS. It makes no sense to put the sole power for law enforcement under the sole individual who can run the whole ship of state into the ditch. The current DoJ, as constituted, is a colossal waste of tax money if it can’t address what Trump and his criminal accomplices are doing TODAY.
What we have now is not working because ANY adverse consequences for bad actors like Trump and his cronies for abusing the powers of the Presidency and the Executive Branch no longer exist - even though such actions, pose an existential threat to the Republic itself, and to the rest of the free world.
All great power must bring with it great responsibility in a civil society. Such responsibility necessitates unavoidable accountability for illegal acts performed with corrupt intent. I don’t know how we can realistically balance the equities in a democracy unless we have such accountability for bad actors at the highest levels of our government. We clearly don’t have it, today, for the worst actor, BY FAR, in our society.
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Please remember Trump has never done a manly thing because he is, and has been, backed up by body guards.
For what ever reason they who have done manly things cave to his wishes and turn their backs on our Country.
Those who have kept their manhood by not backing down are now cowards.
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