Jim

Recovering Mediator, Husband of Red & Fan of Green Bay Packers and Ridin with Biden. Fully vaxxed & Masked. Veteran of USN. Blue Wave forever.

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: A Stars & Stripes reporter DEFIES Pete Hegseth by announcing that she works for her newspaper, not him or Trump — and ends up paying for it with her job.

This is what journalistic courage looks like...

"Today, I was informed that the Department of Defense is firing me for insubordination after I told a CBS reporter that I work for Stars and Stripes – not the Pentagon, not any administration, and not any policy maker," Lara Korte wrote on X.

"I consider it a great privilege to live alongside members of the military and share their stories. It’s a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press."

"I’m proud of the work my colleagues and I do at Stars and Stripes, especially the last six months covering the protracted conflict in Iran. Military families and service members have trusted us to share their experience with the world and I don’t take that lightly."

"In the meantime, please read my latest story about the struggles that military families are going through right now. Hundreds have been stuck in limbo after evacuating Bahrain and are facing emotional and financial hardships," she concluded, linking to a story about the 1,300 U.S. Navy family members who were evacuated from Bahrain at the start of Trump's illegal war and who are now being told they cannot return for the "foreseeable future" and need to find new homes elsewhere.

That story is worth a read in full, but this post is specifically about Korte's unceremonious termination. Her firing is part of a move by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to force out several top staffers at Stars & Stripes, including editor-in-chief Erik Slavin.

Slavin, like Korte, was dismissed today for supposed "insubordination." Of course, under this regime, penning anything less than nonstop, fawning coverage of our pedophile President and his illegal Iran War is seen as "insubordination." Slavin recently condemned "hypothetical censorship" that could soon hit the paper.

Publisher Max Lederer announced earlier this week that he would retire September 30 over fundamental differences with Pentagon leadership, only to receive a termination notice himself today. It comes after Hegseth installed MAGA apparatchik William Urban — who is an active-duty Navy captain and public affairs officer — as Lederer's deputy. Hegseth's tentacles have now snaked deeply inside the outlet.

Stars & Stripes, an official military publication, has long enjoyed editorial independence from the whims of the political appointees running the Pentagon, but this White House doesn't believe in independence of any sort. One need look no further than the political prosecutions coming out of the Justice Department for evidence of that. They believe in making everything partisan, as all fascist movements do.

The administration was particularly incensed by Stars & Stripes' coverage of the disgusting, inhumane conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, a state of affairs that has turned into a major scandal for the White House. The American people are outraged that our brave sailors are being abused by this administration in service of a failed, child-murdering war launched on behalf of Israel.

"In firing the editor of Stars and Stripes, Pentagon leadership is making clear their view that the newsroom should exist not as an independent outlet whose reporting serves to benefit U.S. troops, but as a mouthpiece to parrot Pentagon talking points," said National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr., calling the firings "another brazen attempt by the Pentagon to dictate coverage of the military."

Do you stand with these reporters?

Please ❤️ and share to demand that Congress investigate the terminations!

[Mykhailo Rohoza @MykhailoRohoza]

🇺🇸🧐Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Secretary of Defense, commented on the shortage of Tomahawk missiles in the U.S., claiming that “weapon stockpiles were depleted back under Biden due to shipments to Ukraine.”
In reality, the U.S. has never supplied Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine — Hegseth is simply lying.
They started a war without having the cards, and now they’re blaming Ukraine.

[RSM #NAFO fellas @Rod_dk]

So there is that

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

Michael Cohen Deserves What's Coming https://t.co/ervkLQKAwY

[Dittie @DittiePE]

Doris Miller had no gunnery training. He was a mess attendant — that’s all the Navy let Black sailors be in 1941. When the bombs hit Pearl Harbor, he ran toward the guns anyway, dragged wounded men to safety, and fought back until he ran out of ammo.

He was the first Black American ever awarded the Navy Cross.

Donald Trump got four draft deferments and a “bone spurs” diagnosis nobody can find a doctor’s name attributed to. He has never worn the uniform, never taken fire, never done a single thing that required courage. Ever.

The Navy named a future carrier after Miller in 2020 — first ever named for an enlisted sailor, first for a Black American. Now they’re reportedly considering stripping his name off it to put Trump’s on instead.

A coward’s name, on a hero’s ship. That should make everyone sick.

[Dylan Ratigan @DylanRatigan]

https://t.co/5pjQ3MCWZP

[VoteVets @votevets]

Nancy Lacore rose from helicopter pilot to three-star admiral commanding 60,000 sailors. Then Pete Hegseth fired her without cause or explanation.
Lacore’s military career may have been cut short, but she’s not done serving. That’s why she's running to flip South Carolina's 1st Congressional District, and she's doing it the same way she treated every mission in uniform: tune out the noise and get it done.

[Antifascist @GoodN67788]

#VoteBlueOrWeAreScrewed #voteblue #TRUMP_is_Devil_axis

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

There's no kind of hate like Christian love.

[Ben Crump @AttorneyCrump]

An 18-year-old was accused of pointing a gun at an officer and faced an attempted murder charge. But body camera footage reportedly showed him cooperating and had his hands raised the entire time! Prosecutors dropped the charges. Imagine if that footage didn’t exist. The proper use of body cameras should be NON-NEGOTIABLE.

[LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @LongTimeHistory]

ICE deport both parents—leave 2 U.S. citizen children behind.

Mom repeatedly told agent wanted to take kids with her—was told no.

Agent said family would be locked up in detention if stayed together—not taken back to country.

50 U.S. citizen minors separated from parents a day—every day—under the Trump administration's new "ICE guideline on detained parents."

Incident occurred in Fort Worth, Texas.

Posting first full length and credited video on this platform to help raise awareness.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨CAUGHT ON TAPE:

Ryan Elijah, the Republican who defeated scandal-plagued Cory Mills in the GOP primary was just BUSTED.

He wants to play moderate in FL-07, where Trump won by less than 6%. They DELETED this clip showing his extremist answer.

Let’s share it everywhere.👇

MODERATOR: “Question to all the candidates: Do you feel that the 2020 presidential election was compromised and subsequently stolen away from Donald Trump?”

ELIJAH: “I’m with Cory. I do not believe President Biden got more votes than Donald Trump in that race.”

Bale Dalton, a Navy pilot and former NASA chief of staff, is the Democrat who will crush MAGA election denier Ryan Elijah in November.

The harder they try to wipe this off the internet, the louder we need to play it.

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Pete Hegseth forces the editor of military newspaper Stars and Stripes to resign and replaces him with a loyal minion for breaking the story of sailors throwing themselves off the USS Abraham Lincoln!

The publisher of Stars and Stripes is walking away after more than 30 years at the storied military newspaper as Pete Hegseth's Pentagon moves to exert more control over a publication generations of American service members have trusted for independent news.

Max Lederer, who has served as publisher for nearly two decades, announced his retirement after the Pentagon installed an active-duty Navy public affairs officer as his deputy without even consulting him.

Lederer made clear this was no ordinary retirement. “It has become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction the leadership of the Department of Defense has for the organization,” he wrote to staff.

That “direction” has been increasingly obvious since Hegseth took over the Pentagon. His Defense Department has derided Stars and Stripes as “woke,” announced plans to overhaul the publication, and fired its independent ombudsman (who is now suing the Pentagon and alleges she was retaliated against for criticizing its attempts to control the paper's editorial content).

Now active-duty Capt. William Urban has been placed directly in the newspaper's senior leadership, which members of the Stars and Stripes advisory board say threatens the separation that has allowed the government-funded newspaper to report independently on the Pentagon for decades.

“How does someone with zero experience in a global news organization walk into a senior-level role at Stars and Stripes?” asked advisory board member and newspaper editor Bill Church. “We should all worry about the future of Stripes.”

Three Democratic senators are worried enough that they've demanded Hegseth explain Urban's role and whether he will have any influence over editorial operations.

And here's why this matters right now: Stars and Stripes has continued doing exactly the kind of journalism an independent military newspaper is supposed to do.
It has reported critically on the mental health crisis and risk of self-harm among sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, even as Hegseth has attacked reporting about conditions aboard the carrier as misrepresenting what's happening.

There are plenty of traditions that survive long after their usefulness has disappeared, but the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes isn't one of them. Through it, the three million people who serve in and work for the Defense Department have a trusted source of news that isn't controlled by the same people who command them.

Hegseth has shown little interest in leading the Pentagon through the institutional restraints, professional expertise and hard-won consensus that traditionally govern an organization of nearly three million people.

He wants to impose his will on it, and an independent newspaper capable of telling those people things their boss doesn't want them to hear plainly doesn't fit that model.

Some traditions are there for a reason. This is one worth fighting for.

[Dr. Simon @goddek]

🚨 DEVELOPING – Rabbi Shmuley calls for Israel to kill Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Incitement to murder is a crime. He’s surely going to get arrested, right, @FBIDirectorKash? RIGHT?

[Paulie Albano @PaulAlbano10]

No question about it!

[A @bluhue123]

Ty Cobb is correct

[Mrs. Butters 🥧 @MrsButters]

Pete Kegsbreath’s Pentagon fired the person tasked with protecting the editorial independence of Stars and Stripes.

Now its longtime publisher of 30 years is leaving because he says he fundamentally disagrees with the Pentagon’s direction for the paper.

But please, tell me more about the party of free speech and government staying out of the press.