The Dictatorship

Hegseth team’s reported travel invite to extremist sends clear message to military

Published

1 year ago

February 15, 2025

Hegseth team’s reported travel invite to extremist sends clear message to military

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s team reportedly invited a prominent right-wing extremist and conspiracy theorist to travel with him and other Pentagon officials on their trip abroad this week.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec was invited to travel with Hegseth’s team to Germany, Belgium and Poland. Hegseth’s trip has been marred by backlash he’s received from military families — and even students at a military school in Germany — protesting his assault on military diversity.

The Post reported:

Trump administration officials at the Pentagon invited a far-right activist, Jack Posobiec, to participate in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first trip overseas, according to a planning document obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the decision, triggering alarm among U.S. defense officials worried about the military being dragged into partisan warfare. …

On Thursday, he posted on the social media platform X that he was in Ukraine and shared video of Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the capital city of Kyiv. Posobiec later said in an online recording that he was traveling with Bessent and had met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the visit. Bessent traveled to Kyiv as Trump attempts to secure a deal to extract Ukrainian minerals in exchange for continued U.S. military assistance.

The Post went on to note that it was unclear if Posobiec intended to join Hegesth’s travel party. A spokesman for Hegseth did not respond to a request for comment and Posobiec could not be immediately reached for comment, the outlet reported. Neither NBC News nor BLN has independently confirmed the Post’s report.

On Friday, Posobiec posted a photo to X of what he said was Hegseth doing pushups in Poland. It’s unclear if Posobiec was with Hegseth or if he took the photo.

Hegseth has faced condemnation for having his own links to right-wing extremismand he’s complained about the military’s efforts to root out extremism from the military. His team’s reported offer to Posobiec to tag along with the Pentagon sends the message that the armed forces welcome bigoted and conspiratorial extremists to join their ranks.

Posobiec,”https://www.splcenter.org/resources/guides/splc-investigation-far-right-oann-anchor-jack-posobiecs-rise-tied-white-supremacist-movement/” target=”_blank”>who’s been known to associate with white nationalistswas key in spreading the “pizzagate” conspiracy theory falsely accusing prominent Democrats of engaging in pedophilia. But his list of extremist bonafides extends far beyond that. Posobiec promoted the phrase “white boy summer” — which had become a rallying cry for white supremacists — at a far-right event held for then-candidate Donald Trump. And at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Posobiec said his goal is to end democracy.

“We are here to overthrow it completely,” he told the audience. “We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.”

I should also note: Vice President JD Vance, then a senator from Ohio, wrote a glowing review of Posobiec ‘s 2024 bookin which the author portrayed liberals as “unhumans.”

Needless to say, the guy who pines for the end of democracy and attempts to dehumanize millions of Americans is not the kind of person who ought to be granted the privilege of traveling with the U.S. military. But the message seems clear. From banning Black History Month celebrations to abandoning the Pentagon’s traditional recruitment efforts at a top conference for Black engineersHegseth’s Defense Department appears intent on making the military dumber, whiter and more right-wing. Pentagon officials’ reported invitation to Posobiec is startling evidence of that trend.

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

The Dictatorship

Trump joins Republicans calling to punish Canada for hazardous wildfire smoke in the U.S.

Published

3 hours ago

July 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump joins Republicans calling to punish Canada for hazardous wildfire smoke in the U.S.

Christmas. 18, 2026, 11:51 AM EDT

President Donald Trump is threatening to increase tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke that has blanketed large swaths of the Midwest and Mid-Atlanticjoining several Republicans who have called for the U.S. ally to be punished for the intense air pollution.

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote on Truth Socialon Friday, adding: “This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.”

Trump did not elaborate on his tariffs threat.

Smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires has caused air quality from Detroit to Washington, D.C., to plummet to unhealthy levels in recent days.

There are dozens of active wildfires in the U.S. as well. A Canadian helicopter pilot was was killed last week in a crash while fighting a fire in Colorado.

Trump is not the only Republican who has criticized Canada over the wildfire smoke. Earlier this week, four House Republicans from Michigan wrote a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney with a warning that appeared to allude to Trump’s threat to annex Canada.

“Sovereignty comes with responsibility,” the lawmakers wrote.

“This is the third consecutive year we have had to write to Canadian officials about a crisis that Canada has the tools to prevent and has chosen not to,” they wrote, later adding: “If Canada will not manage its forests to prevent these fires, the United States will look elsewhere, and act on our own, to protect our people.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, has also said he intends to introduce a bill “to sanction Canada and the responsible Canadian government officials for this atrocity.”

In a statementMoreno’s office said: “Canada’s government failed to invest in wildfire prevention methods including forest thinning, fuel reduction, prescribed burns, and stronger enforcement against arson.”

Hotter temperatures and drier conditions as a result of the climate crisis have been major drivers of recent wildfires in North America. The Trump administration has cut funding for climate science, withdrawn the U.S. from global bodies and agreements aimed at tackling climate change and promoted the fossil fuel industry while rolling back renewable energy initiatives.

In response to the GOP complaints, some Canadian officials have noted that their country has helped with firefighting support in the U.S. during recent wildfires.

“If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Friday, “because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends.”

Doug Ford on American complaints over wildfire smoke: “If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well, maybe what you should do rather than complain is send support, send help. Because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends.” pic.twitter.com/9e2TCVbqxC

— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson_)”https://x.com/sarobertson_/status/2078166329811460324?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 17, 2026

Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.

The Dictatorship

The ICE shooting in Maine upended Susan Collins’ re-election race

Published

3 hours ago

July 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Christmas. 18, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

Nothing has absorbed Maine politics like the candidacy of Graham Platner. Almost from the moment he announced his run for the U.S. Senate in mid-August 2025, he drew big crowds and lots of attention. His strongest backers stuck with him through controversy after controversy until Jenny Racicot publicly accused him of sexual assault. Platner denied the allegation, but his support collapsed.

Yet even after Platner officially withdrew as the nominee on July 10 and the Maine Democratic Party began the process of replacing himit seemed like Mainers were going to keep talking about him for a while. Many of his committed voters were deeply disappointed about what they learned; others were very angry that the news had been revealed. Some suggested they might write in Platner’s name or not vote at all in the fall.

Then came an awful event that starkly shifted Mainers’ attention, and moved the focus of the Maine Senate race from Platner to Sen. Susan Collins.

The killing of 26-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday was a real shock in the state. Maine often has the lowest rate of violent crime nationally and homicides are rare, with only 21 in 2025.

Maine, like Minnesota, is a highly participatory state, and both places responded similarly to ICE incursions this past winter.

Of course, it wasn’t just Guerrero’s death that was the story, but also who shot him — an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer — and the circumstances of his killing. For one, unlike other shootings by ICE officers, the Department of Homeland Security did not even claim that Guerrero posed any sort of imminent threat or that the shooter feared for their life. Rather, DHS said that Guerrero’s “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

Moreover, Guerrero was legally in the country, according to local immigrant rights groups. And Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said Guerrero wasn’t even the person ICE was seeking.

Witnesses were shaken by what they saw. One bystander, Daniel Boucher, “choked up” recounting his experience, reported The Associated Press. “His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said of the victim. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.’” In Akerleyanother neighbor who heard the shots and looked out the window to see some of what happened, told a local news station, “You know, it shatters the illusion that Maine is safe … I don’t know what he did, but he didn’t deserve to be executed in the street.”

Mainers quickly mobilized, with demonstrations in Biddeford Portland Bangor and Scarborough. “This is a land for people who want to be here,” said one rallygoer. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, what color your skin is. That’s what America is about.”

Both Senate candidates and members of the public criticized Collins. Protesters in Biddeford crowded the doorway at the senator’s local officeshouting, “Vote her out!” Senate candidate Shenna Bellows argued that she had already acted when, as secretary of state, she blocked ICE from getting undercover license plates and proclaimed, “There should be no secret police in our state.” Another contender, Troy Jackson, referred to “ICE’s rogue actions” and blasted Collins for voting “to send $70 billion dollars to ICE with no reforms.” A third potential Democratic nominee, Nirav Shahcontended, “There is a straight line from Sen. Collins to the lawlessness we saw yesterday.”

While, as I’ve noted, some Platner supporters were deeply unhappy that he wasn’t going to be the Democratic nominee, his absence in the aftermath of the shooting didn’t seem to matter in the least.

And why should it have? Maine, like Minnesota, is a highly participatory state, and both places responded similarly to ICE incursions this past winter.

Collins tried to claim credit for ending the winter surge. But Democrats and immigrant rights leaders were skeptical and pointed to her support for increased ICE funding without any reforms.

In both places, ICE showed up with face masks and randomly detained people, including those in the country legally. Agents smashed in the car windows of a University of Maine-trained civil engineer, Juan Sebastián Carvajal-Muñozand took him away with the car still running. He had a valid permit to work, an engineering job and no criminal record. A man training to be a corrections officer in southern Maine suffered the same fate, and as did others, including asylum seekers.

Then, as now, Mainers came togethersometimes via social media and sometimes through various groups, to try to counteract ICE.

As in Minnesota, ICE was heavy-handed and showed disrespect for civil rights. Two Maine women observing ICE were told they would be put on a domestic terrorist watch list and sued. “Only 11 of the nearly 200 people detained in Maine during a massive January immigration enforcement surge were recorded as having a criminal record,” the Bangor Daily News reportedmaking ICE look even more abusive.

At the time, Collins tried to claim credit for ending the winter surge. But Democrats and immigrant rights leaders were skeptical and pointed to her support for increased ICE funding without any reforms.

Now, Collins is again responding in her classic both-sides way. On the one hand, the incumbent urged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops” and tepidly acknowledged that the lack of a recording device on the shooter was “extremely unfortunate.” On the other hand, Collins blamed Democrats for a delay in body cameras and contended that eliminating ICE “would make our country less safe.”

Platner’s fall upended the state’s biggest race for a time. But there are plenty of ICE critics, both political leaders and not, who are taking charge of the response to Collins and the agency.

And, though the Democratic Senate nominee is unknown again, Mainers are rising up, speaking out and moving on.

Amy Fried is professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine. She also has a Substack, Political Sightlines.

The Dictatorship

‘The Odyssey’ is majestic – and makes its conservative critics look foolish

Published

3 hours ago

July 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Christmas. 18, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT

ByBrian Lowry

Before “The Odyssey” embarked on its theatrical journey, writer-director Christopher Nolan suffered slings and arrows from conservative social media warriors. In their quest to gin up culture war controversy over casting choices in a movie they hadn’t seen, they have succeeded only in helping promote a film that hardly needed extra publicity, while making themselves look stupid.

Because those launching ill-informed broadsides against the film included Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. — railing on social media against the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy because she’s Black, and Elliot Page as a Greek warrior because he’s trans — the attacks became difficult for the media to ignore. Plus, anti-“woke” crusading against a familiar target like “liberal Hollywood” remains one of those gifts (or grifts) that keeps on giving.

Despite the advance obsession over Nyong’o and Page’s characters, the two actors each occupy no more than a few minutes of screen time.

Yet Nolan’s film merely makes those conservative provocateurs sound foolish. At a run time of almost three hours, “The Odyssey” continues the “Oppenheimer” director’s personal war on moviegoers’ bladders. But despite the advance obsession over Nyong’o’s and Page’s characters, the two actors each occupy no more than a few minutes of screen time in a film that stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway. The beauty of being Nolan, at this point, is that his reputation and track record enable him to attract identifiable talent — a la Zendaya, rapper Travis Scott and horror queen Mia Goth — for even smallish roles, a clever means of broadening the film’s appeal.

Musk and others sought to transform that into something nefarious, bizarrely arguing that the diverse casting represented some kind of cynical ploy for awards attention, as well as anti-white bigotry. Never mind that “The Odyssey” is, after all, a mythological tale, so it’s not like the producers cast Nyong’o to play J. Edgar Hoover.

Nolan himself has diplomatically dismissed the right-wing naysaying when asked about it, even as he basks in a torrent of critical praise for the film. Imbued with a visual grandeur that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible, “The Odyssey” arguably isn’t one of the British filmmaker’s best — movies like “Inception” and “The Prestige” set a very high bar — but it certainly possesses the majesty to qualify as a worthy follow-up to the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer.”

Without giving too much away, if one can even spoil a 3,000-year-old tale, Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey” also not-so-subtly incorporates modern and timeless themes, including questions about humanity and the toll of eroding a society’s standards of honor and decency. As Jon Stewart told the director earlier this weekthat makes it a fitting companion to “Oppenheimer,” while delivering a perhaps unintended rejoinder to Musk and his army of social media trolls.

In an interview with The TelegraphNolan politely said such criticism “comes with the territory,” calling it “irrelevant” because those griping months ago, when the anti-“Odyssey” campaign began, hadn’t seen the film. He also cited his experience with the “Batman” trilogy, a fan base with very strong opinions about what will best serve the franchise.

Nolan and Universal, happily and deservedly, appear destined to win this latest battle without stooping to engage their loudest critics.

The people grousing when director Zack Snyder cast Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight, however, mostly operated in good faith, which can’t be said for those attempting to use insufficient fidelity to Homer’s original story to tap into an inexhaustible reservoir of outrage.

The saving grace for them is that those parroting their “go woke, go broke” talking points generally don’t devour box-office reporting by the Hollywood trade papers or necessarily grasp that movies are a global product, which is the metric by which the film looks destined to shine. Although the summer box office has proved unpredictable — with horror movies like “Obsession” raking in record totals and “Moana” and “Supergirl” failing to exhibit much girl power — projections are that “The Odyssey,” tailor-made to premium large-screen formats, will earn roughly $200 million worldwide its opening weekend. That voyage began with nearly $18 million in Thursday previewsthe highest domestic total this year.

Whatever the final tally, it should go a long way toward erasing the prospect of a “go broke” scenario for Universal Pictures, the studio releasing the film. Nolan and Universal, happily and deservedly, appear destined to win this latest battle without stooping to engage their loudest critics. But with such relentless foes, consider that one modest victory in what has become a seemingly endless culture war.