“While shocking, it actually comes as little surprise that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the department will live-stream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan,” says, Paul Blementhal of HuffPost. “Since taking office, Hegseth has been preoccupied with death. To be more precise, he has been preoccupied with the aesthetics of killing.” Since the announcement of the December 3 execution of Army Medical Corps psychiatrist Hasan, it has received an eruption of critical commentary, although it is far from the only public celebration of state violence, whether real or imagined, from the Trump administration. We can quickly look back at the highly publicized ‘drug smuggling’ Caribbean boat annihilations, the A.I. (S.I.?) depictions of Trump’s personal attacks on protestors and political ‘enemies’ or other countries (even former allies), and glossy videos of detained immigrants subjected to ICE brutality.

Should it go forward, the execution will be the first public execution in this country in 90 years, a first for live-streaming; but the violent display emphasizes that an essential part of Hegseth’s political vision has also become an ever more intimidating image of power and state-sanctioned violence for Trump’s drive to change the country. Active duty troops and veterans are wary of the plan, asserting that it could cause lasting psychological harm to the specific unit selected to carry out the order by targeting a paralyzed and immobile sixty-something-years-old man confined to a wheelchair while being videoed. Pete Hegseth, on the other hand, as a “slobbering, incompetent boob is thrilled,” writes Mike Nellis on Endless Urgency. Nellis is convinced very few Americans actually want this, outside a handful of incels who worship guys like Hegseth and the Tate brothers. “So, why are we pandering to those losers in tolerating this?,” he asks.

Even Vice President JD Vance is casting doubt on the livestream cruelty, and announces he won’t be a part of the audience. William Kristol wrote on The Bulwark, “It’s all political bluster. But it’s a particular kind of political bluster. It’s Neo-fascist bluster,” citing Hegseth’s celebration of irrationalism and machismo, which Umberto Eco calls “Ur-Fascism.” “Fascism wants to reduce active citizens to passive observers, indeed into voyeurs — especially voyeurs of cruelty and death. Such degradation of a democratic public is key to fascism’s project and to its success,” he asserts. Kristol questions whether or not Americans would fail to understand that the death penalty has been carried out even if the execution weren’t live-streamed. An official in Revolutionary France justified public executions, saying, “It takes a terrifying spectacle to hold the people in check.” Which, perhaps, is so, but it’s also about degrading the populace, desensitizing the public, and normalizing cruelty as the voyeurs view a snuff film.

There is the possibility that Hasan could choose resistance to his fate and file a habeas petition — a legal request to review the legality of a detention — in civilian court, bringing about a significant delay that could outlast the Trump administration, according to Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law. According to Brenner Fissell, a professor at Villanova Law and vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice, says firing squads are coming to be seen as a less inhumane alternative, based on the recent failed executions in Arizona and Tennessee, which have raised questions about the manner by which criminal defendants are put to death for their crimes. “Firing squads can be quicker, cleaner, a more precise way to execute a prisoner, but I don’t think that’s what’s motivating this. There’s a perceived masculinity and military-ness to firing squads that is part of the aura Hegseth is trying to emphasize — the ‘lethality culture’,” Fissell judges. Army rules allow for at least two media outlets to be present for an execution, but none has ever been broadcast live in the USA.

Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, says Hegseth’s announcement raises a host of questions, but, “This is a president who’s about spectacles and that’s precisely the message that he intends to deliver.” The White House referred questions about the plans for the live-streaming to the Pentagon. When Hegseth was asked if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration, he replied, “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.” One logistical detail remains conspicuously missing: nobody has said where this would stream — a broadcast with no broadcaster, seven weeks out?! A couple of verses from Bob Dylan’s ‘Highway 61‘ might offer them some interesting guidance:

Oh, God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
Abe said, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
God said, “No” Abe say, “What?”
God say, “You can do what you want, Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’, you better run”
Well, Abe said, “Where d’you want this killin’ done?”
God said, “Out on Highway 61”
Now, the roving gambler he was very bored
Trying to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said, “I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes, I think it can be very easily done
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61”

“I can do whatever I want, if I want,” said Donald Trump last week, before dozing off, telling reporters he “could’ve done very bad things” to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, but only held back out of “respect for the office.” No mention that his administration has already gone after his political opponents — “enemies” — as he openly braces for a Democratic House takeover and the oversight that is expected, beginning with articles of impeachment. Part of his ‘bracing’ has been to send ICE agents to investigate hundreds of voter registration groups, as he considers sending undercover agents to infiltrate. Nearly 1,000 armed private guards from Prosegur Security have been deployed to at least 55 post offices across the country ahead of Election Day, already having gutted the government offices meant to protect our elections from foreign interference, and prompting a Republican election official in Utah to comment that the biggest threats are “mostly from our own government.” The Daily Dose of Democracy blog commented, “Every single day we are forced to confront the fact that our aging, pedophile-protecting president is sundowning before our very eyes, and it is a borderline act of treason that the Republican Party continues to enable his every psychotic whim. 25th Amendment now, please!”

Before a footrace between Donald Trump and Barack Obama, Trump boasted how amazingly well he would perform, and how poorly Obama would do. Of course, Obama wins the race handily, with Trump posting to Truth Social: “As predicted, I did amazingly in the race and Obama turned in a shameful performance. I won second place, and Obama finished next to last.”

For the second year in a row, President Trump is licking his Nobel-snub wounds and is lashing out, not only at the winner, South African jurist and former UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, but the country of Norway. Jimmy Kimmel said he would have liked to see Peace Prize finalist, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney the winner, “just to see Trump go nuts and eat his golf clubs this weekend,” adding, “I know also [if Carney had won] he’d bomb every Tim Hortons from coast to coast.” Attorney David Schoen, who defended Trump during his impeachment trial after the January 6 attack, posted on Truth Social after the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, “Today the Nobel Committee shamed itself beyond repair and demeaned the once great prize by giving it to the UN’s Navi Pillay, an unabashed hater of America and Israel…She has no credibility in any normal sphere and has never done a thing to foster peace.” The 85-year-old Pillay took a shot at the president when she arrived to applause  at a legal conference at the Nuremberg courthouse, telling the gathering, “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”

Trump had spent the week prior to the award announcement making a case for himself, telling reporters that he’d “done stuff nobody else has done before,” while claiming that “no president has probably ever settled any wars,” as he boasted that he has eight to his credit. Tell it to Number 26, Teddy Roosevelt, whose Nobel is on display in the West Wing for his settling the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Donny-boy! Trump reposted Schoen’s rant without as much whining as last year, when winner María Corina Machado of Venezuela presented her medal to Trump for “recognition for commitment with our freedom.” Don’t expect Pillay to do likewise! Christiane Amanpour recalled asking Pillay in 2014 what apartheid taught her, answering that she learned “to be persistent and be totally positive that you will win one day.”

Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch posted, “What?? You’re telling me the guy who massacred dozens of little girls at a school in Minab and has threatened just about all our allies didn’t win? Cue my shocked face!” You can bet that Republicans are cringing that this is Trump’s biggest concern just weeks before the midterms, as he spent at least ten minutes just ranting about his loss at the Syracuse rally. Kyle Kulinski posted on Daily Dose of Democracy that he sees “Trump’s dementia clearly taking over in the midst of his narcissistic collapse.” He says Trump demanded the Nobel despite: murdering 238 fishermen in boats in international waters; abducting a world leader and stealing the country’s gold and oil; bombing Somalia over 80 times in this term; bombing a girl’s school and their volleyball practice; attacking Yemen, Nigeria, Ecuador; arming and funding Israeli genocide; threatening Greenland, Canada and Mexico; building ICE concentration camps; and green-lighting torture. That’s only nine, so hold up the correct finger to add your own number ten!

Trump wrote on Truth Social in a 600-word tantrum, that his so-called “ending any one of the eight wars would be far more than necessary to win the Nobel Prize. In actuality, I should have won 8 Nobel [or Noble as he actually posted] Peace Prizes, not just 1.” We can all likely agree on the award of at least one prize — the one for lying! John Stoehr, who writes on The Editorial Board says that Trump really does believe “there has never been anybody” more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than him, and that he stopped “the total obliteration of the world” by going to war with Iran — and anyone who doesn’t share this belief will be punished. So, within hours, the administration placed economic sanctions on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, preventing US businesses from providing services. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the ICC “a rogue court“, with sanctions in effect until “allies, many of whom are part of the ICC and that rely on American service members for their defense, rein in the court.”

Perhaps Rubio hasn’t noticed, but since Iran has dealt so effectively with the US in the war, US allies have not relied on this country as in the past, seeing a superpower brought to its knees. “More importantly,” says Stoehr, “Trump’s sanctions are an obvious attempt to compel belief in his fantasies. The Washington press corps has ‘normalized having an insane president’ says Aaron Rupar; but allies must see it clearly — they don’t have the luxury. As the economic fallout from the Iran war continues, reporters seem to be getting increasingly blunt with voters as well as administration officials, not necessarily becoming adversarial, but becoming less inclined to play along with the White House line.” The transcript of a recent Times magazine interview with Trump revealed a broken brain to some readers, raising questions as to whether the president can actually tell the difference between fact and fiction.

The New York Times’ Katie Rogers sees strong evidence that the dementia taboo is fading, seeing Trump’s recent rallies with a “feel of the first stops of a farewell tour” with fewer in attendance, swaths of empty seats, which means less press coverage. Rogers reports, “The events are a ritual. He will attack Democrats. His words will probably stop making actual, logical sense for a moment, or for many moments [the “weave”]. He will accuse the Democrats of rigging the 2020 election, he will attack the news media. Then he will dance to a Village People song.” The notorious Mar-a-Lardo moves. Stoehr says critics are pushing harder, with MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell going farther than anyone so far, telling his audience, “If the president of the United States is insane, that is the biggest news of the day or any day. That is what will live in history. That is what historians will devote their attention to if the president of the United States is insane. If the president of the United States’ mind is crumbling before our very eyes, that is the most important story of the day because everything else follows from that, everything!” Stoehr concludes with, “The times, they are a-changing. Normalized insanity won’t last much longer.”

Trump was scheduled to host a celebration of Christopher Columbus at the White House this week where a 13-foot Columbus statue was to be unveiled, and ICE celebrated Columbus Day, sort of like Columbus would have done, by walking into someone’s house, announcing, “We live here now!”

No word on whether or not Homeland Security’s search of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s home on Monday was part of their Columbus Day activity, but the escalation in a criminal investigation emphasizes Trump’s renewed scrutiny of her in the final weeks of her reelection campaign — more of an early Election Day activity, perhaps? The Justice Department provided no other details, other than that a judicially authorized search warrant was executed in the Washington, DC area in an ongoing federal criminal investigation, the nature and scope of which were not clear. Omar is a Somali-born Democrat whose immigrant status and left-leanings have been constantly attacked by the GOP and the Trump administration, with Omar responding to Markwayne Mullin’s statement that “something’s going to happen” as simply an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.” She claims, “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”

The Associated Press reported last week that Trump mentioned Omar at one of his rallies, attacking her up upbringing, saying that VP Vance “and our people” were investigating her. Omar has been a target of Vance in the past, indicating that he and “a top White House official were trying to figure out how to investigate her.” Welp, it looks like he and Markwayne, and/or Stephen Miller, figured it out, as agents blocked off the street near her home to carry out their search! Omar’s office dismissed any of Vance’s claims as fabricated and defamatory, with chief of staff Connor McNutt stating, “This is rich coming from someone who literally said they were trying to ‘create stories’ to redirect the media. This is a ridiculous lie and desperate attempt to distract from the pedophile protection party’s unpopular war of choice, increasing gas prices, and rapidly dropping polling numbers.” Omar added, “The point is to waste everyone’s time and resources, and generate negative headlines for his opponents, further proof that he is willing to use the power of the federal government to intimidate and silence anyone who stands up to him.”

Novelist Ocean Vuong wrote, “Freedom is nothing but the distance between the hunter and the prey.” Let’s not be the prey — VOTE!