Let’s talk about the Trump administration’s latest contribution to Christianity: a public execution of a killer, livestreamed for your viewing pleasure; brought to you killers with a much higher body count, who view Jesus as their own sacred mascot.

Former FOX News weekend personality and celebrity Christian nationalist spokesmodel Pete Hegseth has decided Christian America needs to rediscover the spiritual pleasures of the firing squad.

According to Hegseth, the first official killing of a prisoner by the US military in 65 years isn’t enough. A show must be produced, and streamed to a live audience because “people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

An austere warning for all those out there who might have thought shooting up a US military base would be consequence-free.

And Donald Trump, who criticized Iran for staging public executions; and claimed, in his State of the Union address, that he helped prevent Iranian public executions, now approves of America staging public executions.

Christian right-wing fundamentalist lunatics;
murdering their prisoners, on camera;
like Islamic right-wing fundamentalist lunatics.

Make America more like Iran, The Taliban & ISIS

So here’s Petulant Pete, announcing something obnoxious to briefly distract from his public colonoscopy of incompetence that is the Iran War.

The Secretary of Jaegermeister is programing a halftime show of righteous vengeance: December 3, 2026; the First Military Execution By Firing Squad in 81 years.

Except this time, they’re going to shoot the military while they’re shooting this guy, and your family gets to watch. They’ve thought of everything.

Except, apparently, that Jesus that Pete Hegseth keeps talking about, boasting about, and praying to on camera, that he might be seen. But more on that in a moment.

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Now let’s be clear: Major Nidal Hasan committed a horrific and deranged mass murder. He walked into a medical building where troops were lined up for vaccinations and deployment clearance, then opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun.

He killed 13 people, wounded dozens, and sentenced families to lifetimes of grief. He was convicted after a military trial, during which he fired his lawyers and defended himself. And criticizing Trump and Hegseth’s grotesque livestream spectacle in no way diminishes Hasan atrocious evil.

But here’s the nagging question, friends: what exactly is our government trying to accomplish by turning their killing of this man into public entertainment?

Is it Justice? Revenge? Is it deterrence? A made-for-tik-tok demonstration of our awesome state power, bro?

Major Hasan being Muslim, is this historic livestream of death somehow a middle finger to the Islamic world? Are these fallacious twits actually trying to inspire a whole new wave of ISIS retaliation, leading to more war and violence they could exploit to keep power?

Again, here are the nations that hold public executions:

Iran,

Taliban-led Afghanistan,

And now, friends, the United States

And that’s it. Now, some North Korean defectors say public executions are common; and some might include the Islamic State, or IS, or ISIS. I’m sure Hegseth would love to film himself decapitate a prisoner with a sword; if he didn’t drop it.

Saudi Arabia murdered 347 prisoners in 2025, but they stopped doing it in public back in 2019. Are you ready for our leaders to be more primitive than Prince Bone-Saw?

The reason public executions have been abandoned by the majority of first-world 21st Century justice systems is because turning death into a spectacle is primitive, barbaric, and not, historically, what the good guys do.

Again, Hegseth says people need to understand the consequences. Really? People don’t know mass-shooting a bunch of soldiers is bad? And the way to teach that killing human beings is wrong is to broadcast the government killing a human being?

Best of all, Nidal Hasan is now a paraplegic. Pete Hegseth is going to roll out a guy in a wheelchair, to be murdered by the state, while people watch.

Nothing says “Jesus” like state murder the whole family can enjoy.

You already know these guys can’t get through a press conference without invoking Jesus, God, “Christian civilization,” “spiritual warfare” and the Sacred blah blah blah of America.

Oh, how they demand more Jesus; in the classroom, in the military, in the White House. Did you folks in the back hear us talking about the glory of Christ’s majesty?

But when Jesus actually has something to say in those red letters about vengeance, punishment and the treatment of human beings; when Jesus says the way you treat the prisoner is how you treat him; suddenly America’s Loudest Christians develop a collective theological hearing loss.

Now I’m not asking any of you fine atheist friends to believe in the Bible as literal fact; I’m reminding atheists and believers that Christian nationalists always, always, always reject the teachings of Jesus.

*Remember the Sermon on the Mount? Jesus sets up his New Covenant by telling you what he’s phasing out:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”

Of course, that’s just Jesus being metaphorical, right? It’s not literal, like a talking snake.

*In John 8 Jesus stops an legal execution, as a religious mob seeks to kill a sexually shamed woman. And Jesus famously says, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Note how he doesn’t program a firing squad, or ask the Romans if they could arrange a livestream.

So who’s the sinless one who gets to pull the trigger, Hegseth? You?

*And, of course, Jesus Christ was himself subjected to state execution. The central symbol of Roman Christianity is their own instrument of killing their prisoners.

And somehow, these miscreants have taken a religion built around the nonviolent teachings of a victim of state violence, and turned it into a promo campaign for their own state violence.

Pete Hegseth Has Killed Far, Far More Humans Than Major Nidal Hasan

Remember way back in 2025 when Pete Hegseth was telling us it was important that America drone-bombed fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela, because these small craft were actually smuggling large amounts of Fentanyl into the US?

Then remember when Hegseth was reminded that Venezuela doesn’t actually produce Fentanyl, so the threat shifted to cocaine?

And then the US invaded Venezuela, seized control of its oil, and Hegseth just stopped giving reasons?

AP reports that the Trump administration’s kill-spree against alleged drug-smuggling boats has resulted in at least 235 deaths across 70 strikes since September 2025.

The military has never publicly produced any evidence confirming that any drugs were aboard any of the targeted boats. In at least one documented incident, two desperate survivors of an attack were subsequently and illegally killed in a follow-up strike.

And on February 28, 2026, the first day of the pre-emptive U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, was hit. At least 157 people killed, including approximately 123 children.

The UN’s fact-finding mission reported concluded that U.S. forces were responsible for the strike, that it was indiscriminate, and amounted to a war crime. The mission also identified a U.S. strike on a sports facility and residential area in Lamerd that killed 22 civilians.

The guys who killed all those people want you to know they’re killing this other guy, because he killed people.

Pro-Lifers For Death

Beyond matters of taste and decency; and whether or not you agree with Jesus, or even believe in the death penalty due to moral reasons, live-streaming the execution of Nidal Hasan is a dumb idea because you’re giving the killer his moment of public martyrdom.

This will not deter anybody; it will not make Americans safer. And nobody watching it will come away with a renewed appreciation for the Sermon on the Mount.

Friends, this is what happens when Christianity stops following a guy that challenges power and becomes a branding exercise for people obsessed with power. Jesus becomes a logo; and the teachings about mercy, humility, forgiveness and loving your enemies become inconvenient fine print.

None of this is Christianity serving as a check on power. This is power dressed up in Christianity camouflage.

This is not about whether Major Hasan should escape responsibility for his crimes. He was convicted of horrific murders, and the victims’ suffering must never be minimized. He deserves prison for as long as his victims remain dead.

The question is whether the American government should murder a prisoner as public performance, and promote that video as a lesson in national strength.

A Nation Isn’t More Civilized Because It Can Livestream Its Barbarism

So here’s a modest proposal for the Christian nationalists at the Pentagon:

Before you put a prisoner to death in the name of “justice,” consider whether turning his killing into state propaganda is actually necessary.

Before you invoke Christianity to sanctify state violence, acknowledge that the Jesus of the Gospels never told his followers to demonstrate their righteousness by finding innovative ways to kill their enemies.

If the trye objective here is to demonstrate that America respects human life, equal justice and the rule of law, then the government should explain the legitimate purpose of this unprecedented spectacle.

If the objective is simply to wag their diseased junk at the world, boasting that America can kill a guy in front of an audience, then congratulations. Every authoritarian dictator already knows that particular trick.

Military-law experts are already saying Hasan could file a habeas petition in civilian court, potentially significantly delaying his death until after Trump leaves office. Or at least for a few months, until Hegseth is inevitably fired for doing what Trump told him to do.

And Fake Christians will continue to use Hasan as an excuse to scapegoat and despise all Muslims. But the actions of one killer aren’t grounds for turning his execution into a civilizational message against an entire religion. If you want to blame all Muslims for the terrorists, you’ve got to blame all Christians for the Holocaust.

That cross was supposed to remind Christians what happens when political power decides that killing a human being is the answer.

Apparently, someone at the Pentagon was too busy reading those other parts about wrath.

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