Pentagon Moves to Punish Democratic Senator Over 'seditious Video'
Key topics
The Pentagon's move to punish a Democratic senator over a 'seditious video' has sparked a heated debate about the state of American politics and the viability of moderate candidates. Some commenters, like dzink, worry that the move will backfire and galvanize support for the senator, potentially even propelling them to the presidency. Others, such as pepperball, argue that the real issue lies in an economy that rewards narcissism and attention-seeking behavior, making it difficult to find "sane, intelligent politicians." The discussion reveals a deep divide over the prospects of moderate candidates and the direction of the country.
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- 01Story posted
Jan 5, 2026 at 3:11 PM EST
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Jan 8, 2026 at 7:51 PM EST
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And let's be clear: maybe NYC needs that, but pretending that he represents anything in the US liberal mainstream is a joke.
*To expand, Mamdani is moderate left. Extreme left, at least here in the states, would be actual communists and anarchists.
It's not communism to support public-owned public services, even public-owned competitive services where no commercial competition exists. Capitalism in tight spaces, creates monopolies and market quirks that harm consumers, harm renters, harms tourists. These harms are toxic to NYC. He's right to address them.
Or Kamala Harris, who doubled down on support for Israel's genocide, said she wanted the most lethal military in the world, and courted Bush era neocons?
What does a "sane" Democrat look like and why do I suspect it resembles a Republican in all but name?
60% of Americans think gun laws should be more strict. Only 12% think they should be less strict. Source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
Yes, I understand that the system is designed for YC to let certain people flag posts (it's not exactly transparent) and to let YC later unflag posts at their privilege.
Go figure.
No, certain people are freaking out because those people are grifters with no motivating beliefs whatsoever other than to enrich themselves, and who will do and say literally anything from one day to the next as long as it benefits them at someone else's expense.
The issue is that service members already know this very well, so when you tell them what they already know, it does seem like they are being encouraged.
Sure, it's encouraging them to obey the law. Encouraging someone to follow the law cannot be sedition.
> Be honest with yourself.
So far you're the one pushing into dishonesty here, or at least disingenuity. The video did not amount to sedition, even though you suggest it did. You can't point out any actual sedition, only hint at the possibility of it and throw out some whataboutism bullshit. Your comments don't speak well of your character.
Congress can't even agree if murdering civilians on boats is legal or not.
But seriously. Should soldiers be refusing to murder civilians on boats? What does basic training have to say about that? If the law is clear and they should be refusing why aren't they?
If an order is legal, yes. Not if an order is illegal. If a superior officer orders a private to shoot unarmed civilians or commit some other war crime, the private is supposed to refuse the order. They are not protected by a "just following orders" defense.
"And doesn't their pay and their family's healthcare depend on them remaining employed?"
Sure. But that does not excuse committing war crimes or otherwise knowingly following illegal orders.
Most of the time, the presumption is that illegal orders will be issued infrequently and by rogue elements in the armed forces -- so disobeying may have unpleasant immediate consequences (say, get thrown in the brig) but long-term they should prevail.
Right now? Well... that's the problem. But if significant numbers of the armed forces refused illegal orders, there's little that the administration can do. Which is why they've been cleaning house to kick out anybody at the top who might push back.
> Your reflex to question its relevance
That's a lot of projecting.
There is only really one thing to be said here: the Pentagon and the current administration continues its campaign of blatant corruption, scorning its enemies with absurd doublespeak and blatant abuse of the court system, enabled by a Congress which has fully abdicated its duty as part of its loyalty to the current President King.
What is there to talk about? How we wish that was different? How the media being captured by oligarchs is a main enabler of the current oligarchy? How what Mark Kelly said was clearly not sedition and that use of this term is yet another example of "flooding the zone" and other disinformation tactics by the administration, to deflect from their own crime and rile up their base?
Great talk, haven't heard any of that before!
This site is to foster curiosity and learning. Sure, [the action discussed in the article]* is a bonafide master class in fascism, and we could all learn about the futility of checks and balances when sufficiently corrupted by money and propaganda and outside influence.
But none of that will happen on an article merely describing an instance of fascism. Instead, some people will say "wow, this doesn't make sense", others will say "it is nakedly corrupt", and maybe a few from the cult will pop by to start a flame war.
Can you really disagree? The discussion is incredibly uninspired. Not a single interesting link or new mode of thought is posted in 59 comments.
You saw a thing, it made you feel feelings, you decided you wish it wasn't presented to you, and you interpreted that scenario as a call to action to urinate in the swimming pool because you didn't like the temperature of the water.
Factual reporting from a reputable news source.
That's "the kind of content" you're talking about.
I hope that it does belong on this website, because otherwise, it'd be little more than trashy blogspam.
Cheers.
Clear to whom? You are clearly referring to the BBC article (that's the content); characterizing it as "pervaded with doublespeak" is a hot new take; particularly given that BBC isn't an American entity to begin with.
Please point out what exactly in the article you consider to be an instance of "doublespeak".
> And what is there to say about it? The comment section seems to pretty clearly align on "there is both no legal authority for this move and the action being punished is clearly not illegal"
Well that's exactly the thing you say. You said it.
It's not a controversial thing for reasonable people, so we're all in agreement. It's a good thing.
Now, if you are arguing against the "kind of content" on which "the comment section seems to clearly align", that's a point on which I disagree with you.
Since we're not in alignment on this, this validates the belonging of this content here by your own metric.
Are we good now?
> yet we will all get to watch this slowly unravel however Trump wants, will we not?
Oh, great point! We could talk about how that outcome could be avoided, or what could be done in general.
We could, for example, wonder out loud whether it's worth mentioning such acts of administration at all. I think it'd be a very counterproductive response.
What do you think?
How about the part where the Pentagon, staffed by a Fox News anchor, fresh off firing the top legal heads, are now accusing a decorated American of sedition for reciting the law?
> Since we're not in alignment on this
We seem perfectly aligned.
> We could talk about how that outcome could be avoided, or what could be done in general
We could also run on a hamster wheel. Both would be equally impactful.
So, there's no doublespeak in the article. There's doublespeak in what the article is reporting on.
I agree that the event the article is discussing is not what any of us wants to see. It is very unpleasant.
The article isn't; do you have a difficulty distinguishing the two?
> We could also run on a hamster wheel. Both would be equally impactful.
If nothing is worth doing, then that surely applies to your comment that started this thread.
> We seem perfectly aligned.
Do we, now?
Right, so the interesting thing that can be discussed and inspire our curiosity that is contained in the article is supposed to be what exactly?
> The article isn't; do you have a difficulty distinguishing the two?
You are leaning on this single observation so overtly it makes me wonder if you understand what the point of an article is - are you here to discuss the author's prose or the subject the writing describes?
> > We seem perfectly aligned.
> Do we, now?
I suppose I have to agree with you now. You seem to think this type of article will foster interesting discussion; I think it's only likely to flair emotions and surface a few people who have fallen for the propaganda. Certainly, I don't think anyone will have a new and interesting observation on the topic or any adjacent ones. The content of the thread would support my stance, and the fact your only participation in it is posting meta-defense of the article staying up rather than discussing the article perfectly aligns with my point: clown politics where might makes right are inherently boring to discuss, displeasing to think about, and when they are as insignificant and absurd as this action they will bring no insights to either the reader or the commenter.
My understanding is that they consider this part nihilistic, though it sounds more like apathy, jadedness, and learned helplessness with a dash of catastrophizing (and a hefty amount of privilege) to me.
For the record, I was born in the USSR, and grew up in Ukraine in the 1990s. I can assure you that the US is neither a failed nor an impotent state by a long shot.
Not yet, at least.
And as a Ukrainian, I can also assure you that giving up this easily, and this early is straight up silly.
I should resist more by saying, wow guys, this fascist action described in this BBC article sure shows how immoral Hegseth is! I should believe in the power of someone arresting the Secretary of War for his crimes, and I should list all the notable examples of party members being ostracized for loyalty from the current administration to emphasize how silly any viewpoint saying otherwise is! It would be grossly apathetic to comment that loyalty is clearly the most valued “virtue” any member of the current US leadership can exhibit, and I am just so privileged to say how it seems bad the most powerful military of all time is doing nothing to stop itself from being utilized however that glorious leadership desires!
Thanks so much for educating me!
Unless you assume strength and victimhood are somehow on a supply/demand type of curve, which would be logically bonkers.
This is a logically self-contradictory statement or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation, ergo, paradoxical.
There is a large contingent within HN who never want any political discussion.
This appears to be an ongoing dynamic tension. The flagging might not be from the right. Just same old same old HN foosball.
What some folk want to squash is very particular politics which they don’t want to confront. It violates everything it means to be a hacker in the true sense of the word but I have realized a long time ago that these types of people wear the badge of hacker for their ego only
Flagged stories are some of the most active stories on HN. If the goal is to act as a filter on the kinds of acceptable topics to discuss or the kinds of people to attract to HN, it's a failed one, because the "wrong crowd" is still being attracted and commenting on those stories.
If anything, I see far and away the most amount of bad faith flagging/downvoting and throwaways on those threads. Are people getting their flagging privileges taken away? Are the throwaway's main accounts being banned? Who knows...
At least the flagging keeps the noise off the front page and discourages an excessive number of general political/news posts.
You actually can. I have political discussions with people who disagree with me in many social spaces.
What you can't do is have there be zero friction to join the conversation and be overly reliant on user moderation tools to do the hard work of moderation for you.
Since when is government censorship of social media posts[1] not "directly tech-adjacent"?
I adore the mental gymnastics here.
[1] The post with Mark Kelly being discussed: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DRMxZAnlUF9/
Thanks for adding context. No thanks for the “mental gymnastics” snark.
There is a large contingent within HN who are bots, and/or are 100% in-line with Thiel and Yarvin
It's exceedingly unlikely that this survives any administrative or legal scrutiny (and if it does, there's a whole lot of former active-status Trump allies, including GOFOs, who are more than vulnerable under these same standards); the main result, I think, is to elevate Kelly's political profile while turning most of the Pentagon even more against Hegseth and Phelan (the former being an over-promoted PAO, and the latter not even having that experience, having spent his career managing Michael Dell's money).