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It’s a day that ends in “-y,” which means that America’s propaganda media have further discredited themselves by perpetuating yet another bogus hoax about Republicans.

Throughout the past week, these so-called “defenders of democracy” and their Democrat allies have been salivating at an anonymously sourced Washington Post hit piece against War Secretary Pete Hegseth. As The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman summarized, the gist of this little hatchet job is that Hegseth supposedly “’gave a spoken directive’ to ‘kill everybody’ after a Sept. 2 strike left two smugglers ‘clinging to the smoldering wreck’” in the Caribbean.

The implication, of course, is that Hegseth is guilty of wrongdoing and alleged “war crimes” — a term Democrats quickly latched onto to (once again) call for the war secretary’s resignation. (The Post’s article conveniently came days after several Democrat lawmakers fomented fears about the Pentagon giving “illegal orders” to U.S. service members.)

But as Americans have come to learn in the days since the Post’s “bombshell” dropped, all signs point to the hit piece being — wait for it — complete garbage.

In a surprise move, The New York Times — yes that hoax-peddling New York Times — published a story contradicting the Post’s central reported claim that Hegseth ordered military officials to “kill everybody” aboard the suspected drug-smuggling vessel. According to five U.S. officials who spoke with the outlet, while Hegseth ordered the strike on the boat, his “directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things” and “was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.”

The Post’s shoddy “reporting” took yet another hit when ABC News’ Martha “Do You Hear Yourself?” Raddatz dropped this pretty significant nugget of information on Wednesday evening:

And tonight, new information: According to a source familiar with the incident, the two survivors climbed back on to the boat after the initial strike. They were believed to be potentially in communication with others, and salvaging some of the drugs. Because of that, it was determined they were still in the fight and valid targets. A JAG officer was also giving legal advice.