[FoxNews] Defense Secretary declares, 'We are taking the politics out of ship naming' as Pelosi condemns change
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a Navy oil tanker named after gay rights leader Harvey Milk will be renamed after Medal of Honor recipient Oscar V. Peterson.
"We are taking the politics out of ship naming," he wrote on X along with a video announcing the move.
Milk was California’s first openly gay politician, who was shot and killed inside San Francisco city hall by former San Francisco supervisor Dan White. The ship, a fleet replenishment oiler, was originally named after him in 2016 under President Barack Obama.
He served four years in the Navy in the Korean War but left due to his sexuality.
Peterson was awarded the Medal of Honor after his death, having died of his wounds during battle in World War II in an act of self-sacrifice that saved lives.
"People want to be proud of the ship they’re sailing in," Hegseth said of the change. "We're not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration."
Peterson, who spent 20 years in the Navy, was in charge of running the steam engine in the U.S.S. Neosho when it came under Japanese fire in the Philippines in 1942.
On May 7, 1942, the Neosho was severely damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Peterson and other members of his repair party were badly injured, but Peterson managed to close four bulkhead steam valves. He sustained third-degree burns in the process, but the move kept the ship afloat. On May 11, the U.S.S. Henley rescued 123 survivors from the Neosho, and Peterson died two days later from his wounds.
The renaming comes amid a push from Hegseth to remove DEI and "woke" policies from the Department of Defense.
When the move was first reported earlier this month, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the move a "shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream."
Of course she did.
"As the rest of us are celebrating the joy of Pride Month, it is my hope that the Navy will reconsider this egregious decision," Pelosi said in a statement.
[Conservative Treehouse] Mexican President Sheinbaum Apoplectic at U.S. Sanctions Against Mexican Money Launderers
Things are getting very interesting as the clock ticks toward the end of the USMCA trade agreement.
Almost no one is watching the USMCA element because it quietly exists only in the background of events. However, pay close attention to the ancillary stories because they will eventually merge with the end of the USMCA and two bilateral trade agreements between the U.S-Canada and the U.S. and Mexico later this year.
NATO funding and Canadian economic independence, and by extension the EU and China, comes into the northern agreement. Border security and Mexican economic independence, and by extension immigration and China, comes into the southern agreement. The strength of MAGAnomic policy flows directly through both.
In the quiet sphere, a few days ago Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a key player in the trade program, announced sanctions against three Mexican financial organizations that underline the influence of the Mexican cartels and the Mexican government. [Treasury Announcement Here]
“The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued orders identifying three Mexico-based financial institutions—CIBanco S.A., Institution de Banca Multiple (CIBanco) [ORDER HERE], Intercam Banco S.A., Institución de Banca Multiple (Intercam) [ORDER HERE], and Vector Casa de Bolsa, S.A. de C.V. (Vector) [ORDER HERE]—as being of primary money laundering concern in connection with illicit opioid trafficking, and prohibit, respectively, certain transmittals of funds involving CIBanco, Intercam, and Vector. These orders are the first actions by FinCEN pursuant to the Fentanyl Sanctions Act and the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which provide Treasury with additional authorities to target money laundering associated with the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, including by cartels”. (more)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is furious. “The Treasury Department hasn’t provided a single piece of evidence to show that any money laundering was taking place,” she said. “We aren’t going to cover for anyone, there isn’t impunity here. They have to be able to demonstrate that there was actually money laundering, not with words, but with strong evidence.”
Secretary Scott Bessent has provided all of the evidence above in the three orders. However, this U.S. Treasury action is going to cause a massive disruption to the financial system used by Mexican officials to remain in power. This is the key point.
Remember, the Customs and Border Patrol enforcement action in Los Angeles was not about deporting illegal aliens. The origination of the chaos in Los Angeles centered around the ‘customs” aspect of the CBP as they targeted local businesses that were operating as money laundering outfits for drug and human trafficking into the USA.
[NPR] The Trump administration on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against all 15 federal judges in Maryland over an order blocking the immediate deportation of migrants challenging their removals, ratcheting up a fight with the federal judiciary over President Donald Trump's executive powers.
The remarkable action lays bare the administration's determination to exert its will over immigration enforcement as well as a growing exasperation with federal judges who have time and again turned aside executive branch actions they see as lawless and without legal merit.
"It's extraordinary," Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School, said of the Justice Department's lawsuit. "And it's escalating DOJ's effort to challenge federal judges."
#1
"And it's escalating DOJ's effort to challenge federal judges."
Good. These rogue judges have been an issue for too long and been little more than black robed tyrants. If this step doesn't work, hanging them is the next.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
