The Pentagon, led by serial up-in-our-Signal-chats Pete Hegseth, has demanded news organizations sign a pledge with the Pentagon regarding their reporting.

As Daniel Arkin writes for NBC News, “The new policy says reporters could have their press passes revoked if they publish information that has not been authorized for release by the Pentagon, even if the information is unclassified.”

Apparently, journalists obtaining the truth really offends Hegseth. He can’t stand when people under his command leak info to the press in group Signal chats — not that he’d know anything about that personally.

Because he definitely doesn’t. So stop asking. Stop it. Please stop.

Instead, he’d prefer a “free” press that copy/pastes whatever press release he cobbles together.

Many major news networks are refusing to sign the pledge, such as NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, and even a spokesperson for Fox News was quoted as saying, “Nah, that ain’t it.”

The are others as well. So the pledge is about as popular as Hegseth himself. Which is to say that it isn’t. Because it’s not and he’s not.

OAN has signed the pledge, though, because if it’s one thing they’re known for it is integrity.

We were asked to sign the pledge, and I thought about it. I thought about it like my estranged child who isn’t speaking to me. My number is still the same, Stacey, just saying.

In the end, the obvious answer to pissing away our journalistic freedom and ethics was simple. But I wanted to say it in a way that Hegseth could understand.

Picture me standing in front of a podium, adorned in bare-chested manliness. Every muscle cleanly shaven and shining like God’s white ass. Head shaved, sporting a salt and pepper goatee.

I pound my chiseled chest and begin to rage against the machine, saying the following with my full chest:

Hey Peter,

You seem like a man. So I’m gonna talk to you like a man. Yesterday, I took your pledge with me out on my private lake after eating cornbread and chili my stay-at-home wife made for me and our thirteen children. One’s on the way! 

As I was saying, I went out on the lake, and re-read your policy while fishing for some bass and drinking Jack Daniels. I didn’t catch any fish, they weren’t biting bullshit, I guess.

I prayed and clutched my guns in my boat. I didn’t cry though, please don’t publish in the newspaper that I cried. Because I didn’t. I don’t. Won’t?

And this was the answer: Fuck you, Peter.

The Constitution is more important than whatever conservative midlife crisis you’re having. And part of the Constitution intentionally carves out ways to hold the government accountable.

You are the government, Peter. And you should be held accountable by the press. You should be serving the people of whatever we’re doing here, and when you don’t, you should get called out by a free press.

Instead of complaining about a free press, and trying to control it, you should try doing your damn job. Like, for real, not some weird version of it that exists in your head. If you’re not sure what that is, try asking some of the transgender soldiers you discriminated against if they have some pointers, because I’m pretty sure they know your job better than you do.

So, I crumpled up your pledge and used it as bait. But you know what, Peter? The fish weren’t buying it. They thought it was bullshit, too.

In closing, please stop accidentally adding our journalists to your group chats on Signal. Especially the ones where you share topless photos of your tattoos. God, you’re so weird.

Signed,

Pat Cleaver, editor-in-person.