UPI News: Senior U.S. Navy officer at NATO fired

King Donald and his fellow bigots have fired another female flag officer:

U.S. Navy Adm. Shoshana Chatfield has been fired as the U.S. military representative at the NATO Military Committee, making her the latest high-ranking military official to be dismissed by the Trump administration.

Chatfield’s firing was reported Monday by PoliticoStripes and The Washington Post, which each cited unnamed individuals familiar with the situation. No cause for the dismissal was given.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/senior-u-s-navy-officer-at-nato-fired/ar-AA1CuKJ5

New York Post: Marco Rubio’s bodyguard arrested in Brussels after ‘behaving erratically’ and brawling with cops at hotel bar

A bodyguard in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s security detail was arrested after “behaving erratically” at a hotel in Brussels and fighting with police officers in the Belgian capital, according to reports.

The experienced agent in the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) was cuffed last Monday after becoming irate when staff at the iconic Hotel Amigo refused to reopen the bar after hours, the Washington Examiner reported.

The bodyguard then became physically aggressive when staff, including the hotel night manager, tried to persuade him to return to his room, sources told the outlet.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/08/world-news/marco-rubios-bodyguard-arrested-in-brussels-after-hotel-cop-brawl

The Trump administration upholds its image as a bunch of ill-disciplined, mishbehaving thugs. This bozo should request a lateral transfer to ICE — he’ll fit right in.

As America’s reputation slips deeper into the sewer …

New York Times: The Message Pete Hegseth Sends the Troops

Last week’s shocking report that Mr. Hegseth shared sensitive information about a yet-to-be-launched air attack in Yemen on an unclassified messaging app is now straining the limits of his credibility as an everyman — and his fitness to lead the American military’s 2.1 million service members.

Americans stationed across the globe know if they violate similar security protocols, they can expect swift reprimand, the loss of security clearance and perhaps a court-martial. In his first departmentwide message on Jan. 25, Mr. Hegseth told troops he was a firm believer in holding everyone to account. “Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear,” he wrote. Now those same operational security standards don’t appear to apply to him. What message is sent to American troops if that imbalance continues?

For now, the affair raises profound questions about whether Mr. Hegseth can handle an actual national security crisis, after he’s managed to blunder into such a major unforced error.

It’s difficult to imagine that two of his recent predecessors, Jim Mattis and Lloyd J. Austin III, who retired six ranks above Mr. Hegseth as four-star generals, would have copy and pasted such details onto a publicly available app. It’s not that either man flawlessly executed the role of defense secretary, but at least they were accountable…. Mr. Hegseth, so far, hasn’t shown that he is willing to admit any fault. Instead, he has taken a defiant tone, attacking Mr. Goldberg’s credibility and arguing that “nobody was texting war plans.”

Opinion | The Message Pete Hegseth Sends the Troops – The New York Times

Wall Street Journal: Hegseth Brought His Wife to Sensitive Meetings With Foreign Military Officials

Defense secretary’s handling of sensitive information is under fire after he shared details about a strike on Houthi militants in a group chat on a widely used app

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing scrutiny over his handling of details of a military strike, brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions.

One of the meetings, a high-level discussion at the Pentagon on March 6 between Hegseth and U.K. Secretary of Defense John Healey, took place at a sensitive moment for the trans-Atlantic alliance, one day after the U.S. said it had cut off military intelligence sharing with Ukraine. The group that met at the Pentagon, which included Adm. Tony Radakin, the head of the U.K.’s armed forces, discussed the U.S. rationale behind that decision, as well as future military collaboration between the two allies, according to people familiar with the meeting. 

Jennifer Hegseth also attended a meeting last month at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels where allied defense officials discussed their support for Ukraine, according to two people who attended the meeting. Hegseth’s brother Philip Hegseth has also been traveling with him on official visits, the Pentagon said.

Too stupid to learn?

Exclusive | Hegseth Brought His Wife to Sensitive Meetings With Foreign Military Officials – WSJ

Meeting between King Donald and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

A report on a recent meeting between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, by a WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, someone who was present in the room quoted below…

From a WH Reporter,

“ I’ve covered a lot of Donald Trump press conferences over the years. I’ve seen him lie, deflect, and embarrass himself in countless ways. But what I just witnessed in the Oval Office may have been the most off-the-rails, unhinged display yet.

Trump sat down with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte — a serious figure there to talk about security and alliance unity — but Trump wasn’t interested in that. No, Trump used the opportunity to fantasize about annexing Canada. He actually said, “Canada only works as a state,” and gushed about how the U.S. would look on a map if we just erased the border and took Canada as our own. This wasn’t satire. This wasn’t a joke. This was the president rambling about absorbing another sovereign nation — while the NATO secretary general sat there watching this clown show unfold.

And it didn’t stop there. Trump started pushing the idea of conquering Greenland too, saying NATO might need to get involved in helping the U.S. take it over — as if it’s a game of Risk. He literally said we “need it for international security” and tried to rope NATO into his imperial fever dream. The look on Rutte’s face said it all.

Then, Trump pivoted to his usual bigotry. Instead of talking about defense cooperation or global security, Trump bragged about how he uses transgender people as political pawns to rile up his base before elections — saying Republicans should “bring it up a week before the election” to win votes. In other words, he openly admitted he sees cruelty and manufactured culture war nonsense as a campaign strategy. Despicable.

When asked about American small businesses hurting from tariffs, Trump did what he always does: lie and bluster. “You’re going to be so much richer,” he said. Meanwhile, Medicaid is being gutted, Social Security is under threat, and Trump’s billionaire cronies are cheering as the safety net burns.

Oh, and then Trump suggested we start sending drug dealers to the Netherlands — yes, you read that right — in a bizarre attempt at humor that landed more like a diplomatic insult, especially considering the NATO secretary general used to be the prime minister of the Netherlands.

He kept rambling about how the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada, said the European Union is “very nasty,” claimed we can’t sell cars in Europe (not true), and then told an utterly deranged story about how he “invaded Los Angeles” to turn on the water — another lie pulled from his fantasyland. What actually happened was that he diverted water from Northern California, destroying farmland and hurting his own voters in the process.

To top it off, he said our allies shouldn’t worry about Putin, brushing off any concerns about Russian aggression with a shrug.

Let me be blunt: This is not normal. This is not politics-as-usual. This is a dangerous, unstable person with authoritarian fantasies, spewing nonsense in front of our closest allies while the world watches.”

Keep speaking up. Don’t accept any of this as normal.

Ben Meiselas

https://www.facebook.com/claudia.scholand/posts/10165155546228345

New York Times: Inside Pete Hegseth’s Rocky First Months at the Pentagon

The disclosure of battle plans on a chat app created a new predicament for the defense secretary.

There’s nothing that can’t be cured by few stiff drinks:

Even before he disclosed secret battle plans for Yemen in a group chat, information that could have endangered American fighter pilots, it had been a rocky two months for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Mr. Hegseth, a former National Guard infantryman and Fox News weekend host, started his job at the Pentagon determined to out-Trump President Trump, Defense Department officials and aides said.

The president is skeptical about the value of NATO and European alliances, so the Pentagon under Mr. Hegseth considered plans in which the United States would give up its command role overseeing NATO troops. After Mr. Trump issued executive orders targeting transgender people, Mr. Hegseth ordered a ban on transgender troops.

Mr. Trump has embraced Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla. The Pentagon planned a sensitive briefing to give Mr. Musk a firsthand look at how the military would fight a war with China, a potentially valuable step for any businessman with interests there.

Inside Pete Hegseth’s Rocky First Months at the Pentagon – The New York Times