Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, December 2, 2025
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36 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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BlueSky.
Ok, this might be a stupid set of questions, but the media doesn’t seem to be doing a good job of providing context.
So, as far as I understand things, someone “convinces”* Trump to blow up small boats in the Caribbean. He orders Hegseth to handle the dirty work. Ok, that part makes as much sense as it can.
So, then in some point in Sept/Oct Adm. Alivin Holsey takes a demotion to retire early. Likely because of this (am I remembering this correctly). Then around this time Adm. Mitch Bradley maybe or maybe not orders a double tap war crime/murder strike.
Then not too much later a bunch of mil/nat sec related Dems record that video. Seems like I’m missing and not understanding a lot of this. Any Military related people care to help fill in the holes?
Also, for your amusement, my son (12) is obsessed with military stuff. He told my partner that he wants to try MREs. So, for Christmas he’s getting the full military dining experience: discount surplus MREs. May our toilet take mercy on him.
@Beth: I’m not sure exactly what your question is, but regarding this:
Several of those who recorded the video are members of the standing Intelligence Committee, and would have access to the recording of the strike(s). I am guessing that it was so clear a violation that they were appalled (as we ALL should be), and decided that things were going down a very dark path and that it was time to remind service members that they are duty-bound to decline illegal orders. And, that the scramble at the WH to punish Kelly (the only one within arm’s reach for the administration, given his retirement status) was because they didn’t want this to get out from under them.
All supposition on my part, and I am not a current or former military member, so salt grains and .02 and all of that.
@Beth:
Not sure what you are missing or don’t understand.
I don ‘t think there is any question any more that the double strike was specifically ordered as the Administration has now stated/acknowledged it was.
Best case for the Admiral and Hegseth is that it is a war crime but my understanding is that it almost certainly isn’t a war crime as we weren’t in active armed combat in that area. It is just murder.
Costco is suing Fatso for a full refund on the illegal tariffs they have been forced to pay!!!
I promise that Costco members (145M cardholders, 76M paid-up members) love saving money more than they love Piggy-boi.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/02/business/costco-sues-us-tariff-refunds-intl
@Jen:
@SKI:
Yeah, sorry about the confusion. I’m confused by how all these pieces fit together, if they actually do. Like, I think the ultimate reporting is clear, the U.S. Military is committing war crimes and murder with wild abandon in the Caribbean. I guess what I’m having trouble understanding is the sub-Hegseth level. Some break out pieces I guess:
1. How does US Southern Command (Adm. Holsey) fit together with US Special Operations Command (Adm. Bradley).
2. As between Adm. Holsey and Adm. Bradley, who has ranking command and does one of them have direct command over the other.
3. I’m assuming that under either of them is a layer of commissioned (and maybe non-commissioned) officers these orders get relayed through. Some of them probably very intelligent, competent and dedicated professionals.
4. What’s the likely rank of the enlisteds that are actually pulling the triggers on this.
5. Assuming we actually get to an accountability phase of all this (either in 27 or 29), a whole huge chunk of the military is either going to have to spend the rest of their lives turning big rocks in to small rocks with small hammers or dishonorably discharged. Right?
6. It seems to me that there is either more to this story or another huge story being hidden by the byzantine nature of US military command.
Does this make any sense?
@Beth:
We were once asked to enter a project to provide MRE entrees. We declined after examination of what was required. We met the hygiene standards, but were not equipped for the preservation techniques for the shelf life requirement.
We also make cold packaged meals for several agencies. These have a 7 day shelf life without refrigeration*. One particularly hellish day in a very bad week of Hell Week, we got to try them due to an unlikely confluence of events. The burger I ate was cold (duh), but otherwise ok.
In one of his books, Tom Clancy termed MREs “three lies for the price of one.”
*For the main dish or entree. If the package contains jello or yogurt, it needs to be refrigerated.
BTW, if Hetshegh did not order a war crime or murder, then the special forces Admiral did, or some drone operator(s) did so on their own. In any case, once the pretend secretary of “war” finds out, shouldn’t he relieve the admiral of their duties and have an investigation?
@Beth:
There was a podcast yesterday at the Bulwark with retired Lt. Gen. Hertling explaining some of this.
The TLDL goes something like: SOUTHCOM has jurisdiction over the Caribbean and controls everything that goes on in that area. It coordinates with and gives permission for Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to operate in that area, but SOCOM controls their own force. They are both 4-star commands. On Sep 2, Adm. Holsey was the 4-star SOUTHCOM Commander, Gen. Bryan Fenton was the 4-star SOCOM commander, and Adm. Bradley was the 3-star commander of JSOC (does the kinetic operations under SOCOM, per Hertling).
On Oct 3, Adm. Bradley became 4-star SOCOM commander when Gen. Fenton retired (after more than 3 years at position, so normal). On Oct 16, Hegseth announced retirement of SOUTHCOM Adm. Holsey (after 1 year, so not normal; his retirement will be Dec 12).
So, three four-star generals and a lot of people on their staffs could be involved in a congressional inquiry. A criminal hearing would “take a look at” not only the leaders, but those who knew about the order being transmitted, who fired the weapon, who observed in aircraft or drone overhead, etc.
@Kathy:
Once the secretary finds out, what he should not do is have the Pentagon lie to Congress by saying the follow-on strikes were for the purpose of clearing debris hazards.
Many years ago–15, if the calendar is to be believed–I worked for a startup nonprofit that went really FUBAR. I left on disagreeable terms, and two months later the whole thing imploded. During those two months between leaving and imploding, I got a call from the ED–who was also funding the whole thing–telling me they had accidentally just paid me an extra paycheck and that tomorrow they’ll just claw that back out of my checking.
So I did what seemed reasonable to me at the time: I immediately emptied that account of every penny and closed it. Good luck clawing that back. Illegal? Well, yes. Legally actionable? If they so desired they could have gone after me, but they didn’t. And that’s on them. Unethical? Not if you knew the events leading up to me grabbing the money and running.
So, fast forward 15 years. I log into chase.com to pay off a credit card balance, and I see that I have a brand new checking account that I hadn’t opened, and which had a $485 balance. What the hell? I had forgotten that, 15 years ago, I had opened a chase account when I moved to Houston and then opened a different checking account when a bank offered a large cash deposit after so many automatic pay deposits. So that nonprofit–which to my knowledge has been closed for 14 years–had two accounts of mine on file for payroll. One of which I definitely closed, and one which I only thought I had closed.
Here’s where it gets really weird: that chase account in November received a $500 payroll deposit from the nonprofit that closed 14 years go. That $500 wasn’t enough to sustain the account, so they started charging me $15 a month. I called the one person I still know who worked there and she hasn’t received anything. The former ED and funder is 6 feet in the ground.
It served me well 15 years ago, so I just emptied the account and closed it. Maybe in another 15 years I’ll get another gift.
ETA: no idea how I report this on taxes.
How is the first shot legal, never mind the double tap. The cops don’t have a right to just blast you.
At the same time some people get pardons. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvdr8k7xjro
It’s insanity; it is just insanity.
@Beth: I might not have all of this entirely correct, but my understanding is that Special Operations Command (SOC) (Bradley) and Southern Command (Holsey) are administratively co-equal in that they both report directly to SecDef. Operational control is different, however. Whenever units/personnel are operating in the theater controlled by a theater commander (south com in this case), the theater commander has operational control of the unit/personnel in terms of operational tasking and tactical control. Normally SOC delegates its operational authority over those units to South com when operating in South com’s theater for the purposes of supporting South com tasking. This is normally formalized in an official order. Note that this operational control (opcon) only extends to the units actually engaged in the tasking, so Bradley and Holsey would never be in each other’s chain of command-they are co-equal in the chain (I suppose unless all of SOC was committed to Southcom but that wouldn’t happen)
BUT it wouldn’t have to work that way. If the SOC unit was not opcon to southcom then Bradley would retain operational command authority over it and could give orders such as occurred in this case. Likely there would be some liaison with southcom so southcom would know about (and perhaps be tasked by secdef to support) SOC’s actions to deconflict units operating independently in the same area of operations, but southcom might not be able to tell SOC units what to do. Southcom units could even be placed under SOC opcon allowing SOC (Bradley) to give operational orders to those units.
So yes, it is confusing. (Warning: sportsball analogy coming) Think of it as two coaches who manage different teams playing for the same club. The club President can tell coach A to lend a player, Pat, to coach B. While Pat is playing for coach B’s team Pat does as coach B says, but ultimately Pat will return to team A and all of their permanent personnel files and whatnot will be managed by team A throughout.
With regard to how far down it goes, that probably depends on if the trigger puller/button pusher was a special operator or not. If a special operator, at least an E4 but more likely an E5 or 6. If not, then probably an E3, or even an E2.
The level of punishment will probably (hopefully) reflect the level of autonomy expected of the button pusher. There is no way in hell that an E3 is going to refuse an order that has been vetted down through their commanding officer, division officer, and senior enlisted. It’s the job of those people to make sure what they are ordering junior enlisted to do is appropriate, and if they say the order has been signed off by JAG then the junior enlisted (and most junior officers) will assume that they don’t understand how it is legal but aren’t in a position to question it, so they won’t. More experienced people, enlisted and officer, are expected to think more and actually do that vetting. Especially SOC personnel who often operate with less oversight.
ETA: I see @Eusebio: beat me to it, and is probably a bit more clear to boot
@Erik:
All good information, just from different sources/experiences. The one clarification I’d make is that Adm. Bradley was the 3-star commander of JSOC, under 4-star SOC commander Gen. Fenton at the time of the strike.
@Eusebio: yup. That’s especially important and I’d forgotten that
I see that we are being told that the second tap was ordered by some admiral. If the coup de grace on the Venezuelan boat had been righteous, Trump would be crowing about it. If the shot were dubious but tactically good, they’d be letting Hegseth claim it. Pushing the responsibility to a second tier in the chain of command, tells me all I need. If I were Adm. Bradley, I’d prepare myself to be made the fall guy. The Admiral can take the hit for His Trumpistic Majesty or get some brilliant legal counsel, hire a PR firm, and start giving deep background interviews to reporters that don’t like Trump. We’ll see.
My sense is that at some point Trump will issue pardons down the line for everyone involved. Though he probably doesn’t want to just yet.
And of course, our wisest heads at the Supreme Court of the United States have decided that Trump cannot himself be prosecuted for this.
I mean, this is getting pretty close to the nightmare scenario presented to the Court.
The only way through this is political.
Good news: Trump’s approval is at 36%. It quite possibly could get lower.
Maybe this is a good time to review one of the DoD secretary’s first screw-ups, which happened less than a week into his tenure: During the SoCal wildfires in late January, trump insisted that California was not releasing enough water to fight the fires, so he ordered Hegseth to have the Army Corps of Engineers release water from their reservoirs. This resulted in the Corps releasing at least two billions of gallons from two central CA dams with virtually no notice. The predictable result was that the water flowed into a dry central CA lake bed, where it evaporated and soaked into the ground. Some of the problems with this were: the water could not have made it to the SoCal basin anyway; the wasted water was no longer available for irrigation during the upcoming growing season; and the lack of proper notice created a public hazard as no one expected the river level to rise rapidly — local officials had to scramble to remove equipment from the channel and to notify people who could be recreating or camping on ground that would’ve been expected to be safely above the river level.
Six months later, trump was still insisting that the administration had helped by releasing water, although his facts were a bit convoluted… “GOVERNOR NEWSCUM REFUSED TO RELEASE BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF WATER FROM NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT WOULD HAVE MADE! I HAVE SINCE OVERRULED HIM, AND IT IS NOW RELEASED.”
We expect general officers to testify to Congress when called, and to do so truthfully, but it did not go so well in this case. During a House Appropriations Committee hearing in late February, Rep. Mike Levin had some questions about the water release for the US Army Corps of Engineers Commander, Lt. Gen. Graham. The first 42 seconds of the video clip are enough. Levin asked, “Is it true that the two billion gallons of water never reached LA?” The general replied, “I don’t know what happens to the water once we release it from the dams.” That’s a 3-star general stonewalling and refusing to contradict what trump and hegseth had been saying. Of course he knew that water flowed to a dry lakebed in central CA and not to LA — everyone knew that, and he was clearly lying.
I know there will be more pressure on military leaders to be forthcoming when they testify to Congress on the boat strikes, but we should also be aware of the pressure on them to stonewall and show some loyalty to the administration.
This popped into the Memeorandum feed this afternoon.
Infrequently Asked Questions About Jeffrey Epstein, Part One: The Money Thing
This is long, 6500 words and interesting, but I’d recommend a jaundiced eye when reviewing it as it’s gossipy, thinly sourced and wallows in conjecture.
@Erik: @Eusebio: Much appreciate the good info.
I had had a question:
What was Seal Team Six doing running missile strikes at sea as part of drug interdiction?
Now my questions are:
Was it really Six? Maybe elements of their intelligence and logistics support were involved? Or just the press misunderstanding, conflating SOC with its constituent Seal Team Six?
What was SOC doing running missile strikes at sea as part of drug interdiction?
@Sleeping Dog:
Since the Epstein tendrils seem to have extended throughout the halls of power and money in the early 2000s, I’ll throw out one more connection… Ken Starr helped Jeffrey Epstein with ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, book claims (2021).
I haven’t seen Ken Starr’s name pop up that much wrt Epstein, but per the article,
So it was the Republican machine that got Epstein virtually off the hook in the last two years of the W administration.
@Beth:
Beats the heck out of C-rations that we would get as kids.
@SKI:
As with My Lai and Abu Ghraib its hard to get real justice in a kangaroo court — the military presiding over its own crimes.
Dick Cheney and GW Bush should have been tried for blowing up the Middle East and upending the lives of millions, that subsequently cascaded into the rise of fascism in Europe. (Good job, Brownie!)
Bozo picks up economic weapon, points it at his own head.
Trump dealt major blow as Europe threatens ‘nuclear option’ if Ukraine deal goes left
Great. Trump’s own pariah status being painted broad brush across the face of the United States. Long term EU partners unwilling to release impounded Russian funds for Ukraine’s survival, but may consider tanking the US economy because of Trump’s repugnant side deals with Putin. Would the MAGA rank and file even understand what hit them and their pocketbooks?
Great. The malignancy in the White House forcing conscientious citizens to seek strategic hedges outside their own economic sphere. How many, how few, are equipped for this?
Once again, America is left to ponder the staggering amount of damage one individual can do, placed in an unchecked position of unitary power. Will we take heed?
Special ops may or may not be subordinate to the area command, it depends on how the SOD(W these days) structures it. However, it’s extremely unlikely Special ops weren’t supposed to keep the area command informed of their actions, but being informed doesn’t equate to permission.
I wouldn’t stress out over it. The investigation, if it ever happens, will easily sort this it out. Not a chance in hell the two admirals didn’t sort it out before Special ops went to work. I expect investigation will be effectively stonewalled for about three years though. I think it highly likely Heggie and Trump will give the admirals direct orders to clam up, if they haven’t already.
Many years ago the company I was working for relocated me under their gold-plated package for executives (the result of a bizarre mapping of ranks across subsidiaries). For the next several months I received checks out of the blue, completely unmarked as to why I was getting them. I eventually found the right person, who told me that company policy was to simply issue checks for all of the assorted odd moving expenses companies were allowed to reimburse, in the maximum amount. She told me that paying the max w/o records was less expensive for the company than keeping records, and that if I wanted to claim some part of those was deductible, it was up to me to keep records. We decided to just declare it all as unearned income because that was so much easier than sorting all of the receipts.
Or you could follow the rule from one of the old Travis McGee novels: always declare something that’s recorded in someone else’s books.
@Daryl:
All upside for Costco. Their refusal to bend the knee on D.E.I./wokeness has been a sales bonanza. And the Epstein-bestie pedo is much weaker now, with the MAGA train headed towards rapid derailment. Costco was ahead of the curve, to stick with the demographics that actually run our economy.
Makes the capitulation of Target and others all the more embarrassing. Vibe shift, they said. Pfft!
This is the main reason El Taco pardoned a Honduran drug dealer.
Krugman mentioned this on his substack yesterday
TL;DR:
Figures
I’m getting really tired of the hype and baseless prediction. Now it’s when to let LLMs train themselves, which will lead to super intelligence and make humans obsolete…. yawn.
In the second place, let LLMs train with slop, they’ll only refine the slop.
But in the first place, decisions will be made by tech bros based on what they think is best for their stock valuation in a given quarter.
If we made an analogy between LLMs and self-drving cars (another overhyped technology jusssssssst about to happen*), it would be like this: it’s a car that crashes every few meters, but drives so elegantly in between crashes.
*In all the hupe of late, including Waymo and the Swastikar robo taxis, I recall not one mention about how safer self driving cars are over human drivers, or how un-safer for that matter.
That was the big selling point in the early 2010s when the self driving hype started. Self driving cars would reduce crashes, accidents, and above all fatalities. So why the silence now?
@Beth:
I forgot to mention in my previous post that I was partially replying to your question about Admiral Holsey. He might have resigned whether or not the Special ops conducted in his area was subordinate to his SOCOM. Having knowledge of an illegal operation, under his command or not, makes him complicit. Can’t hide behind chain-of-command stuff when it comes to a crime.
@Rob1: The usual analogy is that it’s not legal for cops to just shoot perps. It’s probably an unintentionally good analogy, do we really think that no cop has ever just shot a perp, or if they did they were all prosecuted? On the other hand, I haven’t seen that Admiral Bradley or anyone else thought to do anything analogous to putting a gun in the dead perp’s hand.
Piggy-boi and Pomade Petey have a new story about their war crimes. It was the “fog of war!!!”
https://apnews.com/article/hegseth-trump-venezuela-540ae279827e02105e089f1bd5af37a6
“The fog of war” does not refer to smoke or even actual fog. For fuck’s sake. What Petey is talking about is called the fog of incompetence. “Fog of war” refers to the confusion soldiers and leaders experience during battle due to a lack of information. The term can also describe the uncertainty in any competitive or complex situation. These people are such complete morons.
The funniest/most interesting aspect of this issue with Hegseth is that he and Trump have SIGNIFICANTLY raised Sen. Kelly’s profile.
I am thinking a Kelly/Whitmer ticket would be pretty solid.
@Daryl: The correct term for what Petey was trying to do there is “flood the zone” -with brown fog.
@Kathy:
One theory… in the early 2010s, most cars on the road did not have safety packages with accident warning and avoidance features. Much of the comparison was simply old automotive safety tech to new automotive safety tech. Now, a fair comparison would be a new full self-driving versus a new model with driver assist, collision avoidance, etc.
@Daryl:
At this same Cabinet of Dunces meeting Piggy-boi repeated his claim of getting rid of income taxes thanks to the tariffs. Estimates of tariff income, on the high side, are $400B. Our yearly deficit is about $1,800B ($1.8T). So can anyone explain the math that $400B wipes out the taxes that fund our $6T+/- annual budget? Especially when Piggy-boi keeps taking bribes to lower tariffs??? (For example refer to Switzerland/Novartis/Rolex Clocks and Gold Bars) Do the people running our govt really not understand basic math?
@Eusebio:
My dream self driving car is one that is 100% absolutely safe and dependable, and needs no more from the user than to be told where to go. That way I could nap on the way to work, for instance, and better yet on the way back on days when we leave late.
You know, like a taxi 😛
I don’t think we’ll get there in my lifetime. Not that I’d entrust with my life.