"Did Elon Musk decide by personal fiat to cut off Ukraine's access to vital communications?"

Memeorandum organizes the links about Starlink:

 Paul Krugman:

It's Time to Take Starlink Away from Elon Musk  —  Americans did not give him the right to make national security policy  —  Did Elon Musk decide by personal fiat to cut off Ukraine's access to vital communications?  Although Musk claims that the decision was made by Trump … 

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and twitchy.com

RELATED:

 The Hill:NEW!

Rubio, Hegseth point finger at Musk in Starlink slowdown  —  Top Trump administration officials are starting to point fingers squarely at SpaceX founder Elon Musk for the decision to slow down his company's Starlink satellite internet services and its military counterpart Starshield for Ukraine … 

Discussion: CNBC, Reuters, Ars Technica, The Daily Wire, Forbes, Stars & Stripes, Breitbart, Bloomberg, NewsMax.com, Mediaite and Mercury News

 Michael A. Cohen / MS NOW:
Elon Musk is trying to make himself more powerful than the government

Discussion: Townhall, Atlantic Council and Mediaite

"Trump cancels Hegseth’s plan to live-stream Fort Hood shooter’s execution/The decision is a rebuke of the defense secretary, who has remained in the president’s good graces through numerous controversies."

The headline at WaPo.

Good!

Here's Trump's Truth Social Post:

"If Hegseth were not a musclebound intellectual void, he would know this."

"He would know that the Fort Hood killer told the mental health panel that he wanted to die. He would know his standby lawyers told the judge he was not mounting a defence because he craved the death penalty. He would know that the Greek word for 'martyr' and the Arabic 'shahid' both mean 'witness.' Abdullah Azzam, the godfather of modern jihadism, wrote that nations were built by 'the martyr’s blood and scholar’s ink.' The late al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri — who converted to jihadism after the hanging of a martyr in Egypt in 1966 — wrote that 'more than half the battle is fought in the media.' The great anthropologist Joe Henrich has persuasively argued that martyrdom, and the publicity secured by it, was key to the spread of early religions...."

Writes London Times columnist Matthew Syed in "America’s livestreamed execution is the ultimate gift to jihadists/The Trump administration must meet the Fort Hood killer and all terror with muscular indifference, not this gruesome circus."

"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it — that it's public — because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things."

Said Pete Hegseth, promising a public execution.

Holy shit…

SecWar Hegseth just confirmed the Fort Hood terrorist execution will be made public for The People to see.

Not just that, but he infers we are in times similar to WW2, and that this mindset of executing traitors is here to stay.

The noticing will continue. I am…

— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) October 8, 2026

So we are called to contemplate something that we have long believed to have been abandoned. There is some excitement — I see it in Hegseth's body language — over the return of the spectacle of imposing the death penalty.

There are serious writings to be read. I will begin with the letter Charles Dickens published in the London Times on November 13, 1849:

"No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors."

Said Pete Hegseth, quoted in "Pete Hegseth: I’ll purge army of fatties, beardos and weirdos/The war secretary is establishing an Office of Religious Affairs and seeking ‘patriotic cowboys’ as he faces pressure over his budget and the Iran war" (London Times).

Seems crazy to insult the overweight. And beards — who cares? You can require beards to be shaved on entering the service, but a person who happens to style himself with a beard isn't a type of person to be rejected. I think Hegseth is the weirdo.

"Let me be clear. I don't think the homoeroticism is the weird part...."

Says Democratic Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-VT), talking about Pete Hegseth and testosterone:

"There are so many people in this administration that have some weird, like, intense homoerotic feelings toward men while also being incredibly homophobic and not just homophobic but, like, hate mongering, fear mongering about the LGBT community. Let me be clear. I don't think the homoeroticism is the weird part. The weird part is that they pretend that that's not what it's about. And so, Pete Hegseth was, like, the example of this, like the manly-manly rugged macho man, and I don't know if you know who Tom of Finland is. Tom of Finland — this is gay male porn that was drawn by a man, and, like, Pete Hegseth is the embodiment of that. So I feel like they must be looking at that as, like, their example of what men look like...."

I blogged about Tom of Finland back in 2014 in a post titled, "Finland issues stamps honoring an artist whose 'sleek sado-masochistic drawings with abundant amounts of beefy male nudity' portrayed 'a sensual life force and being proud of oneself'" ("The first quote in this post title is the way the NYT described the work of Touko Laaksonen, AKA Tom of Finland, and the second quote is from someone in Finland who chose the particular images for the stamps, who added: 'There is never too much [sensual life force and being proud of oneself] in this northern country'")(the only image at my post is of one of the stamps issued by Finland).

Balint gets pretty excited about her ideas in that clip, and that made me want to look up what she studied in college.

"Trump seemed very low-T in his East Room address."

Taunts Maureen Dowd, in "Low-T, High Chair" (NYT).

I’m surprised that Pete Hegseth, who says his “High-T Department of War” will start screening testosterone levels of “war fighters” age 30 and older, didn’t rush over to shoot up the flaccid 80-year-old commander in chief with the elixir of manhood needed, as he put it, to give America “the leading edge of lethality.”.... 

There was barely a peep from Republicans on Capitol Hill about the speech.... You could almost hear the fervent wish of Republican lawmakers watching the president: Please, Donald, move on! But he can’t. His father’s admonition that there are only "killers" and "losers" plays in a loop in his head, reducing him to jelly.... 

[H]e seemed impotent, raving about nonsense....

Tearing Trump down like that, Dowd adds to the mythology of male sexuality as the center of strength, courage, and reason. That's not feminism. 

"Pete Hegseth wants a manly military. And he really, really wants you to know how badly he wants a manly military."

"In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, Hegseth worried that the military risked becoming 'effeminate, and apologetic'; he insisted that what liberals really want is 'soft men, and a weak military,' and he scolded 'Pentagon pussies' who refuse to stand up for soldiers on the battlefield. As secretary of defense, Hegseth has blocked the promotion of female military officers, removed the first woman to lead the Navy, and ordered a review of women’s 'effectiveness' in ground-combat roles. He has also used the Defense Department’s social-media channels to post a steady stream of tougher-than-thou videos...."

So begins the Atlantic article, "Pete Hegseth Wants YOU to Test Your Testosterone/The secretary of defense has a questionable plan to monitor the hormone levels of every service member over 30" (gift link).

"If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs. And we’re very good at it. Nobody better in the world."

Said Pete Hegseth, quoted in "Iran War Live Updates: U.S. Will Strike Iran Again Tonight, Hegseth Says/The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, said a new American attack would be launched on Wednesday night. Earlier, President Trump said more attacks were coming, a day after he predicted peace" (NYT).

"Mr. Hegseth has said repeatedly that he is determined to change a culture corrupted by 'foolish,' 'reckless' and 'woke' leaders from previous administrations."

"But his heavy scrutiny, especially of female and minority officers, is eroding confidence in a promotion system that is supposed to be apolitical and merit based, his critics have said.... In his 2024 book, 'The War on Warriors,' Mr. Hegseth disparaged many of the senior officers who rose up under Mr. Austin’s tenure as 'cowards hiding under stars' and 'whores to wokesters.' 'The Left captured the military quickly, and we must reclaim it at a faster pace,' he wrote. 'We must wage a frontal assault. A swift counterattack, in broad daylight.'..."

From "Hegseth Strikes Two Black and Two Female Officers From Promotion List/Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s highly unusual decision to remove officers from a one-star promotion list has spurred allegations of racial and gender bias" (NYT). The sources for this article are anonymous current and former military and administration officials.

Note that the language purports to know why one person was targeted:

"It is unclear whether one particular photo — or the sum total of the day’s shots — led to consternation among Hegseth’s staff."

From "Pentagon bars press photographers over ‘unflattering’ Hegseth photos/Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s staff took issue with images taken in a rare briefing last week and decided to shut out photographers from two subsequent news conferences" (WaPo).

Pete Hegseth on "60 Minutes."

CBS News chief Washington correspondent @MajorCBS sat down with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Washington, D.C. They spoke on Friday, March 6th about the state of the war with Iran, potential American casualties, what an Iranian surrender could look like, and more.

Editor's… pic.twitter.com/JRnKcYs5IY

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) March 9, 2026

That's the "extended version" of what aired on the show last night. And it's helpful to see the transcript (which I generated using ChatGPT)(the boldface is mine):

Part of your propaganda.

Hey White House, please remove the Tropic Thunder clip. We never gave you permission and have no interest in being a part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie. https://t.co/dMQqRxxVCa

— Ben Stiller (@BenStiller) March 6, 2026

"We can sustain this fight — easily — for as long as we need to..."

"Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo.... We know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend. That difference gets wider and wider every day.... When we say the throttle's going up, the throttle's going up and it's going to stay on high...."

"We are not defenders anymore. We are warriors.... We will finish this on 'America First' conditions of Trump's choosing..."

Hegseth succeeds in pressuring Scouting America — AKA the Boy Scouts of America — to rid itself of DEI.

"No more DEI. Zero."

The Department of War has officially put Scouting America on notice.

It’s time to get back to basics — and DoW is leading the charge. pic.twitter.com/EnY9mvaFLX

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) February 27, 2026

 

From the Department of War:

"Six weeks ago, Senator Mark Kelly — and five other members of Congress — released a reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline...."

"[T]he Department of War... has initiated retirement grade determination proceedings under 10 U.S.C. § 1370(f), with reduction in his retired grade resulting in a corresponding reduction in retired pay."

Six weeks ago, Senator Mark Kelly — and five other members of Congress — released a reckless and seditious video that was clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline. As a retired Navy Captain who is still receiving a military pension, Captain Kelly knows he…

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) January 5, 2026

Why withhold video of death?

I'm reading "Trump says Hegseth will decide whether to release boat strike video/The comments come after the president previously said his administration would release video of a controversial military operation, 'no problem'" (WaPo).

If there's something people want to see, why not let them see? I don't want to see it, because I was taught as a child not to look, and I've always regarded this a moral requirement. If I know it is video of a real person dying, I will read about it if it is newsworthy but I don't watch. I read about the death of George Floyd, but I did not watch. 

Do people gain better understanding by watching video of human beings dying? In the case of the boat strike, there are fact questions, and it is evidence – inflammatory evidence, but evidence. And some people want to stare at it and make up their own mind — stare at human beings, desperate and then blown up. How much can be seen?

"To comply with a spoken order from Hegseth to kill everyone, the Special Operations commander overseeing the mission ordered a second strike..."

"... that killed the two survivors, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. Those people, along with five others in the original report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. Trump said he would look into the issue. 'I wouldn’t have wanted that. Not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine,' the president told reporters."

From "Trump says Hegseth denied issuing order to kill boat crew/The president also said he would not have wanted a second strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs, which occurred after U.S. forces realized the initial attack left two survivors, as The Post reported" (WaPo)(gift link, so you can read the whole thing).

UPDATE: "Hegseth Ordered a Lethal Attack but Not the Killing of Survivors, Officials Say" (NYT): "According to five U.S. officials, who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter that is under investigation, Mr. Hegseth, ahead of the Sept. 2 attack, ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs. But, each official said, Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things. And, the officials said, his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast. Admiral Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow-up strikes that killed the initial survivors and sank the disabled boat. As that operation unfolded, they said, Mr. Hegseth did not give any further orders to him."

"At the heart of Mr. Hegseth’s vision is an insistence that waging war is fundamentally different from other vocations in society because it is deadly and is meant to be."

"'This is life or death,' he said. 'As we all know, this is you versus an enemy hellbent on killing you.'... [T]he government’s duties to citizens who find themselves in harm’s way, fighting for their country, are not like its duties to citizens in other circumstances.... In a life-or-death occupational setting, there is no room for preferential treatment like affirmative action. No soldier should ever be led or covered by someone who has been promoted for reasons other than military effectiveness. That criterion is not bigoted. It arises from a reasonable philosophy of the limited mission of the military...."

Writes Christopher Caldwell, in "That Hegseth Speech Was Actually Pretty Good" (NYT).