Speaker 1: So let's be crystal clear. The Pentagon it's having a
pretty shitty week. I mean, the double tap boat strike
scandal has literally grown to epic proportions, and a new
lawsuit just landed on Pete Hegseth's desk this morning. Welcome
back to The Michael Cone Show on our continued journey
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Please keep sending me your comments and share with family
and friends, because this level of stupidity, it's got to
come to an end. So look, as we've spoken about
all week long, the truth is coming out regarding the
September second lethal boat attack where our military, our American military,
attack the boat not once, but twice in order to
kill everyone on board. And today Admiral Bradley spoke with
lawmakers to explain his side of the story. As he
is being thrown under the bus, let me show you
what the AP reported in it. They turn around and
they write. Admiral tells lawmakers that there was no kill
them all order in the attack that killed drug boat's survivors.
Here's what it says. A Navy admiral told lawmakers Thursday
that there was no kill them all order from Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth as Congress scrutinizes an attack that killed
two survivors of an initial strike on an alleged drug
boat in international waters near Venezuela. Admiral Frank Mitch Bradley,
and this is the quote, was very clear that he
was given no such order to give no quarter or
to kill them all. He was given an order that,
of course was written down in great detail, said Senator
Tom Cotton, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, as he
exited the classified briefing. Further, it says Cotton defended the attack,
but a Democrat who also was brief said that while
there was no kill them all order from Hegseth, he
was still deeply concerned by video of the second strike.
It goes on to additionally say what I saw in
that room was one of the most troubling things I've
seen in my time in public service, and that came
from Connecticut Representative Jim Hines, the top Democrat on the
House Intelligence Committee, who told that to reporters you have
two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion,
where the destroyed vessel were killed by the United States. Additionally,
Congress is seeking answers to questions such as what orders
Hegseth gave regarding the operations and what reasoning was there
for the second strike? And finally it says the investigation
is going to be done by the numbers, and that
was set by Senator You're Wicker of Mississippi, who leads
the Senate Armed Services Committee. We'll find out the ground truth. Now,
I want to be clear in my sub stack of today,
which I called dead Fishermen ruin the narrative, I turn
around and I kind of go on for I don't know,
let's just say something slightly different here. As I write,
there is a level of stupidity in this administration so
audacious it almost demands applause. Almost. I mean, this is
the kind of stupidity where the leadership believes that if
they just tell you to ignore your lying eyes and
your ears, you'll nod politely and move along. Trust us.
I wasn't there. I left the room to take a leak.
Whatever their lies, lies and more lies, and unlike cheap cologne.
These lies don't just fade, They stink up the room
for years, especially when those lies revolve around murder. And
I'm talking about now. Look to make matters worse. This week,
the family of Colombian fishermen filed the complaint after he
was killed in a deadly US boat strike. Let me
show you the reporting in it, it turns around and
it says Colombian family files first known formal complaint over
deadly US strike in Caribbean. Second, the family of a
Colombian man believed to have been killed in a US
strike in the Caribbean has filed what's believed to be
the first complaint against such attacks with the Inter American
Commission on Human Rights. The petition, filed Tuesday by US
human rights attorney Dan kvalk alleges that Colombian fisherman Alejandro
Caranza was killed when the US struck his boat off
the coast of Colombia on September fifteenth. Further, it says
it claims that the United States carried out an extra
judici scual killing in violation of Caranza's human rights. Cavalik
told CNN that they are seeking compensation for his family
and an end to such killings, but did not elaborate
on how those demands would be met. It then goes
on to say, these killings are against international law, they
are against US law. We want this to stop, and
we think this is at least a first step to
having that happen, he said. The complaint named US Secretary
of Defense Pete Hegseth as the perpetrator, saying he was
responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of
Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on
such boats. It also claims that Hegset's conduct was ratified
by US President Donald J. Trump. Now, finally, the Pentagon
referred questions to White House, and CNN has reached out
to the White House obviously for comment. Now, let me
be very clear, as I say in my substack, take
the case of Alejandro Caranza. It's exactly what I wrote
about this morning. The Colombian fisherman September fifteenth of this year,
September Carnza is going about his day fishing in the Caribbean.
US military strike hits his boat. He dies, not in battle,
not defending the United States, not in war, not in
a declared war. He dies because the Secretary of Defense. Oh,
I'm sorry, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave an order
to bomb a boat without knowing who was even on it.
So yeah, all right, as I write in my substack,
you read that correctly. Hegcept admitted he issued these orders
despite having zero knowledge of the people that he was targeting. Now,
the Pentagon may be referring questions to the White House because,
let's say they're currently being sued by the New York
Times over First Amendment rights. Let me show you the
reporting straight from the New York Times. In it, it
turns on, says New York Times suits Pentagon over First
Amendment rights. The lawsuit said the Defense Department's new set
of rules for journalists violates the Constitution's guarantees of due process,
freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. It goes
on to say in the article, The New York Times
accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday, of infringing
on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set
of new restrictions on reporting about the military. In the suit,
filed in the U. S. District Court in Washington, the
Times argued that the Defense Department's new policy violated the
First Amendment and seeks to restrict journalists' ability to do
what journalists have always done, ask questions of government employees
and gather information to report stories that take the public
beyond official pronouncements. Finally, it turns around, says the suit
said that reporting any information not approved by Department officials
could lead to punishment, regardless of whether such news gathering
occurs on or off Pentagon grounds, and regardless of whether
the information at issue is classified or unclassified. I mean,
you want to talk about state sponsored media. We don't
like what you're going to write. Therefore you're not permitted
to and if you do, there's going to be a punishment.
So look, how I finish in my sub stack applies
not just to these boat stripes, to the killing of
mister Carranza, to the filing of this human rights lawsuit.
I want to tell you what the takeaway is here.
The current administration's reliance on lies and in competence. It's
not just embarrassing, you know what we know it is
right now, it's murderous. Real people with real lives. They're
paying the price while the men in charge posture for
TV cameras, Alejandro Caranza, his family, and countless others. They
are proof that in this Trump Hegseeth Department of War era,
audacity and ignorance have true, legitimate, deadly consequences. And you know,
until someone demands accountability, the line between political theater and
murder will keep shrinking. You know what's crazy. As I
was talking to a buddy of mine, it's kind of
tempting to laugh at the absurdity of this. All right,
you shake your head and you say, is this really happening?
Could this really be happening here in the United States
of America? This is absolutely absurd because this, my friends,
is not a comedy. This isn't a Saturday Night Live skit.
This is murder, first degree murder, and the worst part,
it's happening right in plain sight, right under our eyes.
It's why I constantly say, this Cabinet of buffumes. They
are doing so much damage, not just to the presidency,
but to America, to our reputation, to our standing in
the world. How do we respond as Americans? How do
we tell our allies or our adversaries that if you
do things like this to our soldiers, to our navy members,
to our military, there will be hell to pay. But
how do we tell them that when we're doing it
to others? Mister Carranza was nothing shy of a fisherman,
going out to do what he does every day. Fish
was the food for his family, Was it for market?
We don't know. But here's the crazy thing. They also
don't care. He is part of a story, which again
is why I say that when you are not part
of the narrative, like a dead fisherman, it's easier just
to tell lies, to spin it, ignore you lying eyes,
forget what you're hearing. But you know what, it's not
gonna happen because not only is America watching right now,
the whole world is watching, and sadly, we're embarrassing ourselves.
And as always, thanks for listening. Hey everyone, First of all,
thanks for watching. I mean, we're gonna be posting daily
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