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| Harvey Milk |
Ukraine’s audacious drone attack on Russia’s bomber fleet deep inside the country should have sounded the alarm in the Pentagon.
Instead, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is more concerned with waging his war on wokeness.
He has ordered the Navy to rename the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk. It was named in 2016 after the gay activist and San Francisco board supervisor who was assassinated in 1978.
The renaming of a Navy ship is a rare step, according to military.com. The last time was in 2023 with renaming of the cruiser USS Chancellorsville, and research vessel USNS Maury for their ties to the Confederacy.
Hegseth chose Pride Month to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, a vindictive slap at the gay community.
Milk came from a family with a history of naval service. He was commissioned in 1951 and served as a diving officer on a submarine during the Korean War. He left the Navy in 1955 as a lieutenant junior grade officer with a less than honorable discharge after being questioned about his sexual orientation.
Seventy years later, Hegseth wants to discharge the name Milk from a ship because of the Presidential Medal of Freedom winner’s sexual orientation.
The country is a lot better than that, or at least it should be.
Boston Consulting Group takes a PR hit for its role in setting up and running the business operations of the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The firm has now severed ties with the organization, and withdrew its team that was operating from Tel Aviv.
It fired two partners for "unauthorizd work" related to GHF because the pair "failed to discluse the full nature of the work during the client acceptance process" and did work that was "in violation of BCG's policies and protocols."
Critics had charged GHF with weaponizing food aid to the starving people in Gaza by confining distribution centers to sites where access is controlled by the Israel Defense Forces. The US and Israel claimed that set-up was to protect against looting by Hamas.
The distribution scheme has only compounded the misery of the Gazans. The IDF has killed Palestinians near distribution sites at least three separate times, including 27 people on June 3. It claims the roads leading to the sites are “war zones.”
A field hospital near the GHF zone received 184 injured Gazans after the June 3 attack, including 19 people dead on arrival, and eight others who later died of their wounds.
The GHF released a statement, noting that while the aid distribution was conducted safely, the IDF is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone. “This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area,” it noted. That's a cop-out.
Jake Wood, a US Marine Corps veteran resigned as executive director of the GHF last month. He said “it is not possible to implement the distribution plan “while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”
Wood has been replaced by American evangelical interfaith leader Johnnie Moore, who serves as a liaison to born-agains and Donald Trump. Moore has claimed that reports of Palestinian deaths at GHF sites are lies spread by terrorists.
Does he count the BBC among those terrorists?
The GHF suspended its operations on June 4 for "update, organization, and efficiency improvement work," according to its statement. It is working to address security concerns.
Off to a rough start… Paramount Global has given the heave-ho to WPP Media, which was introduced by CEO Mark Read last month with great fanfare.
The successor to GroupM was established to reflect the power of AI, data and technology and simpler, more integrated solutions, said Read.
Paramount Advertising president John Halley apparently didn’t buy that pitch.
He traded Group M, which worked for Paramount for more than than two decades for Publicis Groupe without an agency review in a cost-cutting move.
That win is especially sweet for the French firm, which in March picked up GroupM’s Coca-Cola USA account.
Read better get WPP Media rolling before the French strike again.
Andrew Cuomo's political career is not dead yet... Steve Bannon says Republicans should learn from Zohran Mamdani and his Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists of America, instead of mocking them... Internet advertising model is on the way out, says Tim Berners-Lee... Gannet rebrands as USA Today Inc. What about its other 200 papers?
Thomas Jefferson warned about the dangers of an imperial president who would deny an election loss in a bid to cling to power. Sound familiar?... Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says reporters don't need his permisson to take a photo of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial, as long as they are not on the job... Kirkland and Ellison lawyers need some negotiating tips. 
Shareholder activitism is poised to hit an all-time high for 2025... Kamala Harris’ “107 Days” reads like an autospsy of her failed presidential run. Democrats need to look forward, not backward... The Reagan Foundation dishonored The Gipper by providing PR cover to tariff-loving Trump.
Donald Trump wraps up his most-eventful week and readies to meet China's leader. What could go wrong?... Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth bestows blessing on Pillow Guy Mike Lindell's LindellTV... How does Trump's "America First" mesh with $20B "Argentina First" bailout?
Trump-connected Ballard Partners, Continental Strategy and Checkmate Government Relations shine in federal lobbying rankings... More Americans view Trump as a "dangerous dictator" than a "strong leader."... Rep. Gregory Meeks wants to give Marco Rubio a chance to refute his outrageous claim that nobody has died due to the dismantling of the Agency of International Development... Three cheers for Robert Dechert who saves his Dallas Morning News from the clutches of Alden Global Capital. 
