Tag Archives: Pete Hegseth

military news

Partisan divide over a war crime

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Should anyone be surprised that Democrats and Republicans can look at the same video evidence that seeks to explain whether a war crime took place and come to radically divergent views on whether a crime exists?

Not me. Nope. I guess I could have predicted that congressional Democrats would be aghast at what they saw while Republicans accept it as a proper response.

At issue is what they call a “double tap” on a speedboat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela to somewhere in the United States. Naval jets blasted the boat to smithereens in September and then returned to finish the job by killing two survivors who were clinging to the shattered remains of the boat. Critics accuse Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of committing a war crime, as the rules of war state specifically that the survivors should have been captured and taken into custody. Republican lawmakers see it differently, contending that the survivors were trying to flip the boat back and I guess start it up to continue its mission … whatever the hell it is.

I haven’t seen the video so I cannot comment on its content. However, I saw video of the initial strike and it looked for all the world that the first missile delivered a serious kill shot on the watercraft.

Here’s the deal. The craft was spotted just off the Venezuelan coast. about 1,200 miles from Florida. For the speed boat to make it all the way to U.S. territory, it would need to refuel dozens of times along the way. Was this boat really a legitimate target for the U.S. Navy and was it actually packing the drugs that Donald Trump says?

Once again, we see a Defense Department acting on a shoot first-ask questions later policy.

I want to see proof that these craft are, in fact, carrying drugs and that they indeed are headed to our shores to inflict pain and suffering — and worse — on Americans. We are getting nothing close to evidence to back up the Trump administration’s assertions about what is going on.

Dude just wants to go to war. Oh, wait … he’d better ask Congress for permission first. That’s in the Constitution, the document that Trump likely has never read.

Donald Trump, medical news, military news, national security

Why surround yourself with morons?

It’s a fair question, so I am going to ask it: Why does Donald J. Trump insist on surrounding himself with imbeciles and then put them in charge of vital organizations designed to protect our health and everyone from foreign and domestic enemies?

Two examples stand out. You know who they are, but I’ll spell it out anyway: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pete Hegseth.

RFK Jr., scion of one of the nation’s great political families — and namesake of my first political hero! — continues to astound me with his lack of knowledge of vaccines, of the value in investing in scientific research and his insistence that vaccinations do as much harm as good.

RFK Jr. needs to be shown the door. Rapidly. Without hesitation. Before more people die on his watch as secretary of health and human services. It won’t happen because RFK Jr. embodies the one thing that Trump demands: total loyalty to the notions that fly out of his mouth.

What about Hegseth, the former “Fox and Friends Sunday” co-host whom Trump plucked to become defense secretary? Spoiler alert: I categorically refuse to call him “war secretary” and head of the “war department,” per his and Trump’s name-change effort.

Hegseth summoned every flag officer in uniform to the nation’s capital, where they gathered in a room to listen to Hegseth and Trump talk to them about the need to eliminate “fat generals and admirals,” how women should have to meet the same physical training standards as men and how Trump’s deployment of troops to our nation’s cities should serve as practice for when they go into actual combat.

What is unintentionally hilarious is how Hegseth’s applause lines were greeted with stone-cold silence by the command staff … many of whom have served multiple combat deployments. These men and women are seasoned, highly skilled and effective warriors who need no lecture from a tinhorn soldier such as Hegseth about physical fitness.

And yet … Hegseth continues to disgrace our military — the most lethal and skilled organization of its kind in human history — simply by serving in a capacity for which he has earned zero qualification.

God help us!

military news

Hegseth: a disgrace to the military

Pete Hegseth’s smirking responses to serious questions from members of Congress only serve to remind many millions of us what a horrifying choice Donald Trump made in selecting him as our secretary of defense.

Trump plucked Hegseth from the weekend TV talk show ranks to put him in charge of managing the most lethal military force in human history. Hegseth entered his new job with myriad issues: questions over how he treats women; alleged drug and alcohol abuse on the job; his blatant politicization of every issue that comes across his radar; his lack of experience running an agency of any size, let alone one as massive as the Department of Defense.

Yet there he is. He lectures members of Congress on how they should conduct themselves while questioning his policy decisions. Hegseth actually has smirked and snarked his way through answers from the likes of U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who lost both legs while flying for the U.S. Army in combat in the Middle East.

I get that Hegseth earned his spurs as a weekend co-host on “Fox and Friends,” where he made a handsome living poking fun at politicians’ policies. As I watch him answer questions from House members and senators, I am struck by the perception that he still sees himself in that former role.

The dude needs to take his new gig far more seriously than he does at the moment. He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the chief of Naval Operations. He has yet to hire a new top sailor. When asked if an appointment is coming, all he can offer is a bland “I’ll make that decision due course.” What the hell … ?

We are in the midst of a potentially deadly crisis in the Middle East and Trump’s version of the “best people” in the Pentagon doesn’t have a clue as to what he must do to keep us all safe.

Trump keeps vowing to surround himself with “the best people.” He wants us to believe Pete Hegseth is the best person he could find to run the Pentagon?

national news, national security

Waltz is out … what about Hegseth?

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National security adviser Mike Waltz has been shown the door by Donald J. Trump for his role in the leak of sensitive material via a social media platform.

Hey, I’m good with it. Trump needed to get him the hell out of there.

But … wait a second. What about the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, the clown Trump appointed to run the Pentagon and who also, by the way, is involved up to his armpits in the same matter that befell Waltz?

Trump has surrounded himself with ignorant boobs, buffoons and misfits. Chief among must be Hegseth, the former Fox talk show host who got elevated to run the world’s most lethal military operation. Watch him today, and you get the impression he still is pandering to a right-wing TV audience while discussing military policy matters … of which he knows not a damn thing.

Waltz got caught sending material out via a social media platform. It was highly classified material. The same kind of material that Hegseth blabbed about to his wife and other family members.

Trump once boasted in 2016 while forming the executive branch of government that he would hire “the best people.” It didn’t happen then and it hasn’t happened this time around. He hired an education secretery, Linda McMahon, who recently confused AI, shorthand for artificial intelligence, with “A-1,” a brand of steak sauce.

Robert Kennedy Jr., a premier conspiracy theorist and vaccine denier, now runs the Health and Human Services Department, and is threatening to endanger the lives of children and teenagers throughout the world.

Now, Trump has declared he “runs the government and the world.” Huh? Yeah. He said that. Except that he runs only one third of the federal government, the one lined out in the Constitution as the excutive branch.

I’m glad Mike Waltz is no longer providing national security advice to the Numbskull in Chief. He’s only one of many who need to go.

military news, national security

Hegseth: an unqualified disaster!

Manning a post that puts someone in charge of the finest miliatary organization in world history requires an individual with immense talent and knowledge of the intricacies of geopolitics.

What did Donald Trump get when he selected Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense? He got a buffoon who has spilled the beans hither and yon about deeply classified military intelligence. Now we hear that Hegseth, the former Fox talking head, has let his phone number be known around the world.

This clown is a threat to the 1.5 million men and women who wear the uniform of this great country.

Hegseth’s top staff is bailing on him. The Pentagon has turned into a clown show. Think about that for a moment: the Pentagon has become a laughingstock!

And why? Because the president of the United States needed a blind loyalist to lead the world’s most lethal military force. He didin’t look for anyone with any smarts, any organizational skill, any sense of the gravity of the information he possessed.

Instead, he hired a dipshit.

And a dangerous one, too!

I guess we can set aside all the crap about his alleged mistreatment of women, or his alleged heavy drinking on the job. Now we need to worry that this moron is blabbing to anyone who will listen about top-secret military matters.

Get him the hell out of there!

national security

Yep, it’s Trump’s party

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If you harbored any doubt that Donald J. Trump has hjiacked a once-great political party and molded it into his plaything, look no further than the reaction to the hideous security breach involving the national security adviser and the secretary of defense.

Republicans have been, shall we say, tame in their response to reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz leaked classified battle plans to a reporter for Atlantic Monthly magazine.

Imagine, too, if a Democratic leadership team had done such a thing. What would be the outcry among Republicans? We know what it would be. Republicans would be bellowing “lock ’em up!” just as they did in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was caught using her personal email server while working as U.S. secretary of state.

This time, the relative silence among GOP operatives is deafening and so very telling about the selective outrage among those who now call Donald Trump their master.

military news

DoD head appears cleared for job

Pete Hegseth should never be allowed to take the job he appears set to assume … secretary of defense of the world’s greatest military power.

But he will because I keep hearing how Senate Republicans, with a couple of notable exceptions, are standing with him. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska likely will vote against Hegseth. Two more GOP defections and the dude is toast.

Who might abandon this guy remains an open question. What we’ve all seen in the second coming of Donald Trump to the White House is that the GOP caucus is as scared of him as it was when he left office in 2021, having been defeated by Joe Biden.

To be honest, it makes me so angry I want to spit.

Let’s just set aside all the sexual abuse stuff, the womanizing, the marital infidelity for just a moment. Hegseth is a combat veteran. He served in the Army. Hey, so did I, so I’ll thank him for his service.

That’s it! He didn’t command large groups of men and women. He held no administrative job. He gravitated from the military to a gig on the Fox Propaganda Channel, serving as a weekend host on “Fox and Friends.”

This does not constitute any sort of experience that qualifies this guy to lead the nation’s — and the world’s — most powerful and lethan military organization.

Toss in the stuff about his alleged sexual misconduct — which comes from women who have identified themselves — and you have a recipe for unmiitigated disaster.

The dude has waffled, flipped and flopped on many of his more controversial views, such as whether women should serve in combat. He said “no,” now he’s backing away.

Donald Trump continues to boast about finding the “best people” to work with him as POTUS. Pete Hegseth isn’t possibly one of them.

military news

Chinks in MAGA armor?

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There appears to be some chinks appearing in the armor shield that has surrounded Donald J. Trump.

A second key Cabinet selection now appears headed for the crapper with more revelations about sexual misconduct involving Defense secretary designate Pete Hegseth.

Dude is not qualified to lead the world’s most powerful military establishment, given his lack of administrative experience. Now we hear from credible sources that Hegseth drinks too much and accosts women too readily.

The always reliable Wall Street Journal reports that Trump is considering some candidates to replace Hegseth, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

What does this mean in the MAGA world of blindly loyal Trumpkins? It suggests to me that the MAGA shield is showing faults and cracks.