With the outcome preordained, yesterday’s confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary was largely political theater. But the Democrats’ points remain important.
“As President Trump also told me, we’ve repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly the right credentials, whether they’re retired generals, academics or defense contractor executives. And where has it gotten us?”
It’s gotten us to a pretty good place if you’re not a drunken Christian nationalist rapist like Peter Hegseth or a broke Russia-worshipping game show host rapist like Donald Trump.
This reflexive “everything just self-evidently sucks and LOL do I even need to explain it” sounds more like the moaning of a high-drama Goth preteen, but then again that’s basically what Republicans are. At best.
I’m sure some of this is Idiocracy come to life, but most of these people (and their supporters) know what they’re doing. It’s like an 8-year-old holding a finger an inch from their sibling’s eye and saying “I’m not TOUCHING you!” And the fact that facts and logic don’t persuade them is part of the point.
And Mike Johnson just tossed Representative Turner off the House Intelligence Committee--Turner was an old fashioned Republican, the type who supported Ukraine.
My biggest fear is Hegseth's implicit willingness to use the military against US Citizens. If ever there was a softball question it should have been "would you refuse an unconstitutional order?" That he wouldn't answer that makes me wonder why anyone should believe him when he promises to defend the constitution if he's sworn in.
Very telling that he never answered it. Instead tried to act like Tritler is a "by the book" kind of person. Also that he finally turned it around on immigrants that have been "flooding our country while this administration has done nothing". He's a douchy POS
Wouldn’t the Chinese love to see that, given they already have our IT systems infected with viruses & or malware that they can trigger at will-& we can’t stop them.
I just remember the first time she ran, she told a poor little match girl story about being "so poor" that she and her sibs put Wonder bread wrappers on their shoes when they went to catch the school bus in foul weather because they were too poor to have new ones. Small problem, her parents were healthy recipients of federal farm subsidies as were other members of the family - but no one was to know that. Also, it was so common in that part of Iowa, it was more of a style than a necessity.
Joni fits right in. Integrity until it conflicts with ambition. Unlike Sen Duckworth, she never saw combat or received a Purple Heart or ever faced real danger. No comparison.
Keep your eyes on Sen. Duckworth. She may be the one to blast apart the final glass ceiling. I’ve been watching her the last four years or so. I think she’s got it folks. Unless Kamala decides to run again. I’ll take either lady, thank you very much!🙏
They might vote her out, but they'll probably just put someone worse in her place. Someone who would never have said one peep about Hegseth's qualifications or background.
Please call her [202 224 3254] and remind her that (1) she took an oath that includes protecting the American people but that Defense under Hegseth won't do so, and that (2) putting her personal ambition ahead of the safety of 330 million Americans is a *terrible* legacy to leave, esp. considering that she has options: If she's primaried for opposing him, then she'll find some other prestigious job that actually pays *better* than the Senate does.
Please also call Sen. Susan "I'm so concerned!" Collins [202 224 2523] and say the same, and also remind her that she owes the country BIG TIME for her failure to protect us from the three lying SC nominees who solemnly promised to respect the settled precedent of Roe but then did the opposite.
Compared to whom? Threats? Dr Fauci has to have round the clock protection - still. Dr Christine Blasey Ford still has to have protection. No comparison. Sorry, not buying it. Blues don't participate in that kind of violence. That's a MAGA tactic, Paul Pelosi is probably the victim most remembered for how MAGA deals with political opponents.
I’m sure she’s being threatened because that’s what trump and his ilk do. But I’d follow Liz Cheney (never thought I’d say that) and go down fighting. She’s going down anyway. I’m sure there’s some real scum out there dreaming up AI horrors to subject her to, but that’s the job she wants.
And amazingly, the right wingers, and Libertarians on the Substack so-called “Free Press “are saying that this sad specimen of Americanism did extremely well. We are really living on a different planet or dimension or something.
Should we be surprised that commenters on Bari Weiss’s highly problematic rightwing rag, whose reporting has been shown to be factually sloppy and Incorrect, would see Hegseth’s hearing with any sort of accuracy?
I watched Sen. Kaine’s questioning and even though Hegseth’s non-answers were angering, the smirk on his face was even worse. And I was very happy when Kaine pointed out that the only reason his accusers weren’t there to call out his lies were the NDAs that Hegseth’s lawyers put in place.
Well, Hegseth will get his cushy job, an army of interns and young female officers to "service" his needs, a superb liquor cabinet, good contracts for the Military-Industrial complex, exclusives for Fox, and Laura Ingraham as his PR chief.
However, when we have to fight a war...we're beat.
We ARE fighting many wars, every day, and there is no end in sight. Most wars today are not fought with guns and tanks. They are a persistent effort to infiltrate our critical infrastructure, disinform our citizens to cause fear and chaos, hack our computers... He will need to be ready to command that battle on day 1. Since his only skill is to identify and remove non-loyalists, that war will no longer have a commander, and will begin losing those on the job who could have made up for his lacking.
Not only that, but paired with Gabbard with whom our allies will likely not share the most sensitive intel, and what’s going to happen? I desperately hope there will be the development of a quiet resistance from the sane and experienced.
Nixon started the “War on Drugs,” which is really to fling African-American men in prison and/or demonize them.
Bush the Younger started the “War on Terror,” which is really to make the Middle East safe for ExxonMobil and Halliburton.
Now we’ll get the “War on Woke,” I suppose. The “War on DEI.” The war on “Weaponized DOJ.”
I miss the “good wars,” like World War II, which saw humanity defeat several tyrants: Adolf, Benito, Tojo, Antonescu, Horthy, Tiso, and Boris, and Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” which was an attempt to do some real good in America, that was defeated by the idiotic and illegal bad war in Vietnam.
And we are already seeing a war on women. Criminalizing abortion was just step one. Now we’ll have an executive office and cabinet filled with rapists and sexual predators. And there is already talk of taking away birth control — so women will stay home and produce babies, leaving the jobs and the wars to the menfolk.
Well, from the point of view of a dictatorship that is eager to launch wars of aggression and invasion, you MUST have a large conscription pool.
You can’t send the sons of rich and powerful men into combat. (“A rich man’s war, a poor man’s fight.”)
Once the plane loads of coffins start arriving at Dover Air Force Base, the generals will start screaming for replacements (reinforcements in the British term), and they will have to come from somewhere. We won’t be able to recruit men with the slogan of “Join the Army and kill residents of Chicago and Montreal,” so we’ll have to draft them. Women will not only NOT be drafted, they’ll be scratched from 90 percent of military jobs by Hegseth et al.
Let’s also remember that vast numbers of potential recruits will be “resettled” under the elimination of “illegal aliens.” That further cuts down on the draft pool.
Even if the Bloated Yam stands there and tells us that his war with Canada, Greenland, Panama, Iran, or Moldova will be a quick one, and the troops “will be home before the leaves fall,” we know that’s nonsense, and like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, it will just go on without end, draining our treasury and costing us a generation.
So they have to eliminate abortion and birth control.
The Nazis encouraged their teenage Bund Deutscher and Hitler Jugend boys to run into the fields at their camporees, where the girls would hike their dirndl skirts and the boys would pull down their shorts, and make new Aryans for Der Fuehrer. The SS had “Lebensborn” hospitals where wives and girlfriends could give birth in a suitably Nazi environment. It all led to a form of pornography popular with neo-Nazis 80 years later.
He’ll just fire anyone who argues with him, and keep going down the chain of command until the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a Marine Lance Corporal, who was busy cleaning the head when one of the Bloated Yam’s aides found him doing so, and said, “You’re a Four-Star General now!”
We have a political party in the majority position in all 3 branches of government who are determined to move as a tribe. Competence, expertise, honorable behavior are all out the window. All that matters is fealty to Dear Leader.
They are all cowards.And when the DRUNKEN idiot finds out the WORK he will be expected to do,he won't last long enough for the ice in his drink to finish melting!And just wait until a true crisis emerges, he'll resign so fast heads will spin,because he just wants to POSE,not work!
Remember how many, many people he burned through the last time?Nothing will change!
No, he’ll go have a drink or two (or five) and blame it on Democrats. There’s plenty of opportunity to collect kickbacks and bribes in the awarding of government contracts. He won’t leave.
The biggest disappointment regarding Hegseth's "confirmation" is that Ernst (and keeping in mind her experience with sexual assault) buckled, putting petty political bullying, and her political career, over the welfare of the American public.
She could have been putting her family’s safety over the welfare of the American people. At some point these Senators need to just bite the bullet and do what’s right.
For these Senators to "do what's right" would require them to have some sort of moral foundation underneath all the layers of filth that have accumulated in their time in office. If they ever had that moral foundation to begin with, it likely disappeared right around the time they aligned themselves with/pledged loyalty to Trump and MAGA, and quite possibly well before that.
As to Hegseth's flippant comment about previous SecDefs "And where has it gotten us?", that should have underscored the difficulty of the job rather than any lack of qualification on the part of those previous officeholders.
I would be interested in the reactions of GOP senators if they were board members and significant shareholders of a corporation and Hegseth was proposed as CEO. These same arguments would fall on utterly deaf ears if their own personal finances were at risk. Instead, it is only the country that they are selling down the river.
Who thinks we'll be safer under trump? Not me. When I heard this pick I felt sure he would have to remove his name, that we've gotten to this process is disturbing enough but I currently have no doubt he will be confirmed. Republicans have lost their f'ing minds. We live in a country where half the citizens are complete gd idiots.
One thing that occurred to me when senator MarkWayne Mullin was questioning senators about their supposed adultery and drunkenness and why that wasn’t disqualifying is that at least senators have to stand for election or reelection by their constituents if such allegations come to light. In light of the recent election I realize there seems to be no bad behavior or criminality that is a bar to reelection but at least people get a choice.
Hegseth is an invitation to our enemies. At this point, our allies have very little reason to come to ur support, between Trump’s threats against NATO, stolen documents sold to the highest bidder and constant bowing down to people like Putin.
Hegseth’s hedges-liar’s tap dance. For Elump, no qualifications? No problem and by the way, when will hesitant legislators(Ernst)ever learn to keep their damned mouths shut? Don’t blab ahead of time. Just do the right thing when the time comes, take the hit and move on. Jeez!
This makes me sick to my stomach. Especially the "You committed sexual assault, drunkenness, adultery and covered it with NDA's? - " The Lord Jesus Christ is my saviour, and I have been saved!"
I'm sure Christ was a very good tempered man - but this would have made even him blow a gasket. Christ obviously decided not to attend that hearing - because if he had, Hegseth tie would have curled up on its own and choked him . . . how I wish it had.
“As President Trump also told me, we’ve repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly the right credentials, whether they’re retired generals, academics or defense contractor executives. And where has it gotten us?”
It’s gotten us to a pretty good place if you’re not a drunken Christian nationalist rapist like Peter Hegseth or a broke Russia-worshipping game show host rapist like Donald Trump.
This reflexive “everything just self-evidently sucks and LOL do I even need to explain it” sounds more like the moaning of a high-drama Goth preteen, but then again that’s basically what Republicans are. At best.
It's really the idiocracy for real now. That movie was as prescient as it gets. That, and "Don't Look Up."
I watched that film three times!
Prep work!
I’m sure some of this is Idiocracy come to life, but most of these people (and their supporters) know what they’re doing. It’s like an 8-year-old holding a finger an inch from their sibling’s eye and saying “I’m not TOUCHING you!” And the fact that facts and logic don’t persuade them is part of the point.
Good metaphor
Love the "Idiocracy" reference. Another unfortunately precient movie is "Network"
"a drunken Christian nationalist rapist" -- excellent description of the man now in power to utterly destroy our nation militarily.
Hey, don't insult high-drama Goth preteens by associating them with Republicans like that.
Hahaha
And Mike Johnson just tossed Representative Turner off the House Intelligence Committee--Turner was an old fashioned Republican, the type who supported Ukraine.
A favor for Putin by Trump.
“It always comes back to Putin with you.” Say what you want about Nancy Pelosi, but she’s the only person to look Trump in the eye and say it.
Exactly. Well said.
My biggest fear is Hegseth's implicit willingness to use the military against US Citizens. If ever there was a softball question it should have been "would you refuse an unconstitutional order?" That he wouldn't answer that makes me wonder why anyone should believe him when he promises to defend the constitution if he's sworn in.
And, he probably wouldn't know an unconstitutional order if it bit him. If he doesn't know what ASEAN is he can't have read the Constitution.
Very telling that he never answered it. Instead tried to act like Tritler is a "by the book" kind of person. Also that he finally turned it around on immigrants that have been "flooding our country while this administration has done nothing". He's a douchy POS
Wouldn’t the Chinese love to see that, given they already have our IT systems infected with viruses & or malware that they can trigger at will-& we can’t stop them.
Joni Ernst put her job over country. I hope the people in her state remember and vote her out. So much for bravery!
I just remember the first time she ran, she told a poor little match girl story about being "so poor" that she and her sibs put Wonder bread wrappers on their shoes when they went to catch the school bus in foul weather because they were too poor to have new ones. Small problem, her parents were healthy recipients of federal farm subsidies as were other members of the family - but no one was to know that. Also, it was so common in that part of Iowa, it was more of a style than a necessity.
Joni fits right in. Integrity until it conflicts with ambition. Unlike Sen Duckworth, she never saw combat or received a Purple Heart or ever faced real danger. No comparison.
Keep your eyes on Sen. Duckworth. She may be the one to blast apart the final glass ceiling. I’ve been watching her the last four years or so. I think she’s got it folks. Unless Kamala decides to run again. I’ll take either lady, thank you very much!🙏
They might vote her out, but they'll probably just put someone worse in her place. Someone who would never have said one peep about Hegseth's qualifications or background.
But for now Hegsteth would be stopped. Stand up and be counted!
The same people vote for Grassley too!
One is just unprincipled, the other is unprincipled and gaga - but if you are a MAGA, that is to be celebrated - like the Convict-in-Chief.
Granny Grassley who really is a dotard.
Please call her [202 224 3254] and remind her that (1) she took an oath that includes protecting the American people but that Defense under Hegseth won't do so, and that (2) putting her personal ambition ahead of the safety of 330 million Americans is a *terrible* legacy to leave, esp. considering that she has options: If she's primaried for opposing him, then she'll find some other prestigious job that actually pays *better* than the Senate does.
Please also call Sen. Susan "I'm so concerned!" Collins [202 224 2523] and say the same, and also remind her that she owes the country BIG TIME for her failure to protect us from the three lying SC nominees who solemnly promised to respect the settled precedent of Roe but then did the opposite.
Wow. How surprising that Collins and Ernst rolled over yet again. It always feels worse when women participate and actively promote misogyny too.
I read Ernst was getting threats. I bet it wasn’t just threats to unseat her. Just saying.
That’s no excuse. She served. She said she was assaulted.
SHE is throwing the women currently serving under the bus.
Sorry ladies, I need to keep my senate seat to enrich myself.
Compared to whom? Threats? Dr Fauci has to have round the clock protection - still. Dr Christine Blasey Ford still has to have protection. No comparison. Sorry, not buying it. Blues don't participate in that kind of violence. That's a MAGA tactic, Paul Pelosi is probably the victim most remembered for how MAGA deals with political opponents.
I’m sure she’s being threatened because that’s what trump and his ilk do. But I’d follow Liz Cheney (never thought I’d say that) and go down fighting. She’s going down anyway. I’m sure there’s some real scum out there dreaming up AI horrors to subject her to, but that’s the job she wants.
Yeah she got death threats, to her and her family, that's the way MAGAts roll.
And amazingly, the right wingers, and Libertarians on the Substack so-called “Free Press “are saying that this sad specimen of Americanism did extremely well. We are really living on a different planet or dimension or something.
Should we be surprised that commenters on Bari Weiss’s highly problematic rightwing rag, whose reporting has been shown to be factually sloppy and Incorrect, would see Hegseth’s hearing with any sort of accuracy?
I watched Sen. Kaine’s questioning and even though Hegseth’s non-answers were angering, the smirk on his face was even worse. And I was very happy when Kaine pointed out that the only reason his accusers weren’t there to call out his lies were the NDAs that Hegseth’s lawyers put in place.
What an absolute clusterf**k!
AND why the FBI didn’t question those women AND why no one was allowed to see the report but Republicans?
Same as with Frat-bro Kavanaugh, they were told not to.
But JEEZUS saved him! He said so himself!
So he can't be wrong, can he?
Say something often enough and people will believe it. That's how they operate. I can hear George Orwell rolling in his grave.
“a different planet”? Oh how I wish
Well, Hegseth will get his cushy job, an army of interns and young female officers to "service" his needs, a superb liquor cabinet, good contracts for the Military-Industrial complex, exclusives for Fox, and Laura Ingraham as his PR chief.
However, when we have to fight a war...we're beat.
We ARE fighting many wars, every day, and there is no end in sight. Most wars today are not fought with guns and tanks. They are a persistent effort to infiltrate our critical infrastructure, disinform our citizens to cause fear and chaos, hack our computers... He will need to be ready to command that battle on day 1. Since his only skill is to identify and remove non-loyalists, that war will no longer have a commander, and will begin losing those on the job who could have made up for his lacking.
Not only that, but paired with Gabbard with whom our allies will likely not share the most sensitive intel, and what’s going to happen? I desperately hope there will be the development of a quiet resistance from the sane and experienced.
This is true.
Nixon started the “War on Drugs,” which is really to fling African-American men in prison and/or demonize them.
Bush the Younger started the “War on Terror,” which is really to make the Middle East safe for ExxonMobil and Halliburton.
Now we’ll get the “War on Woke,” I suppose. The “War on DEI.” The war on “Weaponized DOJ.”
I miss the “good wars,” like World War II, which saw humanity defeat several tyrants: Adolf, Benito, Tojo, Antonescu, Horthy, Tiso, and Boris, and Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” which was an attempt to do some real good in America, that was defeated by the idiotic and illegal bad war in Vietnam.
And we are already seeing a war on women. Criminalizing abortion was just step one. Now we’ll have an executive office and cabinet filled with rapists and sexual predators. And there is already talk of taking away birth control — so women will stay home and produce babies, leaving the jobs and the wars to the menfolk.
Well, from the point of view of a dictatorship that is eager to launch wars of aggression and invasion, you MUST have a large conscription pool.
You can’t send the sons of rich and powerful men into combat. (“A rich man’s war, a poor man’s fight.”)
Once the plane loads of coffins start arriving at Dover Air Force Base, the generals will start screaming for replacements (reinforcements in the British term), and they will have to come from somewhere. We won’t be able to recruit men with the slogan of “Join the Army and kill residents of Chicago and Montreal,” so we’ll have to draft them. Women will not only NOT be drafted, they’ll be scratched from 90 percent of military jobs by Hegseth et al.
Let’s also remember that vast numbers of potential recruits will be “resettled” under the elimination of “illegal aliens.” That further cuts down on the draft pool.
Even if the Bloated Yam stands there and tells us that his war with Canada, Greenland, Panama, Iran, or Moldova will be a quick one, and the troops “will be home before the leaves fall,” we know that’s nonsense, and like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam, it will just go on without end, draining our treasury and costing us a generation.
So they have to eliminate abortion and birth control.
The Nazis encouraged their teenage Bund Deutscher and Hitler Jugend boys to run into the fields at their camporees, where the girls would hike their dirndl skirts and the boys would pull down their shorts, and make new Aryans for Der Fuehrer. The SS had “Lebensborn” hospitals where wives and girlfriends could give birth in a suitably Nazi environment. It all led to a form of pornography popular with neo-Nazis 80 years later.
I have a lot of confidence in experienced DOD staff to neutralize him. Since he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, it shouldn’t be too hard.
He’ll just fire anyone who argues with him, and keep going down the chain of command until the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a Marine Lance Corporal, who was busy cleaning the head when one of the Bloated Yam’s aides found him doing so, and said, “You’re a Four-Star General now!”
We have a political party in the majority position in all 3 branches of government who are determined to move as a tribe. Competence, expertise, honorable behavior are all out the window. All that matters is fealty to Dear Leader.
Party before country.
They are all cowards.And when the DRUNKEN idiot finds out the WORK he will be expected to do,he won't last long enough for the ice in his drink to finish melting!And just wait until a true crisis emerges, he'll resign so fast heads will spin,because he just wants to POSE,not work!
Remember how many, many people he burned through the last time?Nothing will change!
He (Trump) also is incapable of getting along with anyone. So yes, this won't last long.
No, he’ll go have a drink or two (or five) and blame it on Democrats. There’s plenty of opportunity to collect kickbacks and bribes in the awarding of government contracts. He won’t leave.
Agree. 💯
Even as an outsider, I hope so, but then, will his replacement be better morally and ethically?
The biggest disappointment regarding Hegseth's "confirmation" is that Ernst (and keeping in mind her experience with sexual assault) buckled, putting petty political bullying, and her political career, over the welfare of the American public.
She could have been putting her family’s safety over the welfare of the American people. At some point these Senators need to just bite the bullet and do what’s right.
For these Senators to "do what's right" would require them to have some sort of moral foundation underneath all the layers of filth that have accumulated in their time in office. If they ever had that moral foundation to begin with, it likely disappeared right around the time they aligned themselves with/pledged loyalty to Trump and MAGA, and quite possibly well before that.
Democrats face this every, single, day. Ask Nancy Pelosi. Sorry, not buying it.
Thank you for covering this distressing event.
As to Hegseth's flippant comment about previous SecDefs "And where has it gotten us?", that should have underscored the difficulty of the job rather than any lack of qualification on the part of those previous officeholders.
I would be interested in the reactions of GOP senators if they were board members and significant shareholders of a corporation and Hegseth was proposed as CEO. These same arguments would fall on utterly deaf ears if their own personal finances were at risk. Instead, it is only the country that they are selling down the river.
My god, yes. What a pathetic farce.
Who thinks we'll be safer under trump? Not me. When I heard this pick I felt sure he would have to remove his name, that we've gotten to this process is disturbing enough but I currently have no doubt he will be confirmed. Republicans have lost their f'ing minds. We live in a country where half the citizens are complete gd idiots.
Guided by a handful of people who want to burn your freedoms right down to the ground.
You used "your", you should have used "our" because it's not just my freedom at stake.
I'm across the pond. Maybe not far behind, but still "your" for now.
One thing that occurred to me when senator MarkWayne Mullin was questioning senators about their supposed adultery and drunkenness and why that wasn’t disqualifying is that at least senators have to stand for election or reelection by their constituents if such allegations come to light. In light of the recent election I realize there seems to be no bad behavior or criminality that is a bar to reelection but at least people get a choice.
Hegseth is an invitation to our enemies. At this point, our allies have very little reason to come to ur support, between Trump’s threats against NATO, stolen documents sold to the highest bidder and constant bowing down to people like Putin.
His lack of experience a breath of fresh air. HUM
They also said that about x45/7.
They never learn to the detriment of the rest of the nation.
Hegseth’s hedges-liar’s tap dance. For Elump, no qualifications? No problem and by the way, when will hesitant legislators(Ernst)ever learn to keep their damned mouths shut? Don’t blab ahead of time. Just do the right thing when the time comes, take the hit and move on. Jeez!
Elump. I love it. Hadn't heard that one before.
This makes me sick to my stomach. Especially the "You committed sexual assault, drunkenness, adultery and covered it with NDA's? - " The Lord Jesus Christ is my saviour, and I have been saved!"
I'm sure Christ was a very good tempered man - but this would have made even him blow a gasket. Christ obviously decided not to attend that hearing - because if he had, Hegseth tie would have curled up on its own and choked him . . . how I wish it had.
A Christian Nationalist who wants to increase the “warrior/killer” ethic for killing purposes. Different from a real Christian.