Dwain Northey (Gen X)

At this point, the American news cycle resembles a garage sale of scandals: you think you’ve seen the last dusty box of horrors, but wait—someone drags out another one from under a tarp. So now, right alongside the freshly-unearthed Epstein files, we have Pete Hegseth’s Mediterranean naval cosplay, where boats mysteriously keep sinking and yet somehow nobody in charge is responsible. Amazing how gravity works in politics—blame always rolls downhill, right onto the commanders in the field who didn’t ask for any of this.

Because of course, in this administration, accountability is like a rare species: rumored to exist, often spoken of, but never actually observed in the wild.

Naturally, the official line is that Secretary-of-War-In-His-Own-Mind Pete Hegseth didn’t authorize anything. No, no, don’t be silly—those Mediterranean commanders must’ve woken up one morning and thought, “You know what would look great on my performance eval? A casual maritime war crime.” Totally organic. Absolutely spontaneous. Nothing to do with orders from the cosplay admiral in DC who thinks geopolitical strategy is just the adult expansion pack for Battleship.

And looming above all this is King-in-Waiting Donald, waving the Supreme Court’s “official act” ruling around like an enchanted immunity shield from a bad video game. He could sign an EO demanding that all press conferences begin with a personal standing ovation, and the lawyers would stroke their chins and say, “Hmm, yes, that is technically an executive function.”

So while Donald floats safely in the legal bubble-wrap of presidential immunity, poor Pete is out here exposed—apparently close enough to power to break things, but not close enough to be protected when those things sink in international waters. The Court says Donald can’t be charged for the orders because they’re “official acts.” But cosplay-Captain-Hegseth? Oh, he can absolutely be charged. War crimes, murder—pick a square on the indictment bingo card.

Yet the administration’s PR machine is trying to spin this like it’s the commanders’ fault, as if they were out there running rogue pirate operations for the fun of it. Right. Sure. Because when have we ever seen commanders punished to protect the powerful? That never happens. Ever. In any country. At any time. In the history of Earth.

So here we are again: another scandal, another round of “It wasn’t us,” and another attempt to treat the public like we can’t connect dots drawn with neon Sharpie.

But don’t worry—give it a week and they’ll insist the whole thing is just fake news. And by “fake news,” they mean “news we wish would go away.” Which, unfortunately for them, it absolutely will not.

Not with this crew. Not with these headlines. And honestly—not with this level of comedy.