Well, yes, but it's a secret ballot, and no public commitments were made, so at this point, the new tradition of the senate simply never taking a recess is likely to continue.
"He doesn't have the necessary strategic skills and interservice experience" said numerous people on X, making me wonder if they've observed what people with the "necessary strategic skills and interservice experience" have accomplished since 1992?
To best understand The Powers That Be, you only have to remember my First Law of Sociology - “No one thinks of themselves as the bad guy”. That phrase is a generalization of “I bought a Ford. Everyone should buy a Ford,” or “I just *know* the stock I bought will pan out. How low could it possibly go?” To avoid total cognitive dissonance, The Powers That Be have to keep chanting their mantra, while keeping their eyes tightly shut and their finger in their ears.
Those people with "the necessary strategic skills and interservice experience" accomplished exactly what they were put in place to do: serve their immediate masters and NOT the defense needs of the nation. Previously there was no risk in doing so, as there there was no accountability for all but the most openly egregious corrupt / incompetent acts. Can we change? Perhaps the last chance to course correct...the world wonders.
You have been battling far longer than I have to right the ship and using your Kung-Fu to fight off the hands trying to take the wheel to the rocks and shoals.
Those short sighted leaders are trying to fly the ball-ball-ball day shape flags as they run us aground.
He will be greatly assisted in reining in the DOD bureaucracy--his greatest challenge--by the committee proposed by 47 to winnow Flags--the “Byng-Go” Boys👍🇺🇸
Its not just Flags who are problematic. Its also, the folks who bounce around as career GSs to SESs to political appointee Assistant Undersecretaries for strategic and operational Under Water basket weaving and back again.
The people who were whoafully unqualified to do the jobs before hand and clearly lacked academic and professional chops to do the job, but somehow managed to get appointed. And have since parlayed the fact they sat in a Chair for a time and now have 'experience', as the basis for the continuation of a career in the DoD/ Fed gov machinations. But not because they are smarter or have developed better judgement. Only because they got a taste for the deference subordinates showed to them and stay in the arena to simply have their egos fed.
A wise man once said: "“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.” Milton Friedman
There is an opportunity here. Having elected the "right" people, we must establish a climate of political opinion that serves the nation, and not line the pockets of senior people and those who serve them.
"establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing"
Exactly. S/he may be the most egregious example, but Lyndsay Graham is not the only "windsock" up there. They will go whichever way the winds of political influence blow.
Ds looked to Mao for his success in using re-education camps and found them readily available all across America in what once were known as “universe-cities” but are now best known for their expansion of and close adherence to the narrow worldview of The Frankfurt School.
Ds had but to freely fund a widely colored and gendered cohort of un-educated products of compulsory GOVCO high schools to create an assembly line of credentialed Ds old enough to have the franchise.
The plan was not only brilliant—it performed exactly as planned. Until the parents across a wide swath of Middle America realized just who was paying for all these re-education camps.
The loud “WTF” was heard everywhere on Nov 5th. Especially along the coasts and on the Potomac.
We can start by putting up a poster of the new SecDef after he climbed out of the Hudson River swimming with the SEALS. (fans self....goodness gracious!) THIS IS WHAT WE WANT! SIGN UP!
Hoist the Jolly Roger! The guilty are quickly cleaning their hard drives/emails/and X accounts but backups live forever! Love to be on the E Ring the day Pete walks in and starts clearing the decks. Tears will flow.
Great choice by 47 and I personally believe (tho no facts to back it up) that Pete has been reading DivThu for the past decade plus.
And recalling Milley just to cashier him in disgrace...any value in that "pour encourager les autres"? Hegseth has identified the infection at both the top and bottom, with the great middle ranks largely recoverable and thus the core for rebuilding. Agree?
That is his theory. He made a point that by targeting recruiting “to San Francisco lesbians, the military lost the boys from Tennessee, Kentucky and Oklahoma.”
Pete has the bandwidth to be the guy we need.
He also intimated he would hold the woke guys accountable by boards and court martial.
He lost too many friends and like so many of those who spent their younger days in the desert and mountains and paid a steep price, he has to have been sickened watching the "experts" at DoD give it all back to the "enemy." Giftwrapped.
I admit, it’s a surprising choice, but his statements on DEI are good.
I’m of the long held belief that in most cases, the President’s cabinet picks should be sustained. In this case, given Mr. Trump’s other designation yesterday, it should get through.
CDR, you've been a candle in the darkness for many of us for some time, so PLEASE take a well deserved WIN: you've earned it! The new administration was spawned in the election of 2020. RW Emerson said (paraphrasing) "If you strike at the king, you must kill him." The establishment must now be purchasing mirrors, garlic and crucifixes in mass quantities, as their efforts to destroy the new President Re-Elect have thus far failed as he keeps "rising from the dead". The names and personalities now being put forward to staff the important positions in the new administration reflect the 8 years of brutal lessons learned enduring that attempted destruction. In "normal" times, I'd expect the first Trump admin to be a "best case" for results (some wins with no "real" change). These times are most definitely NOT normal. I'm cautiously optimistic, but also concerned that as bad as the efforts of the establishment have been to derail / destroy the president re-elect have been, the worst is yet to come. Long winded way of saying we are here, in no small part, due to people like yourself who have put it on the line. BZ sir, and OBTW, please carry on!
Agree with your premise but think you have the metaphor backwards. It is 47 and his henchmen storming the walls with crucifixes, garlic, silver bullets and holy water to kill the Swamp Thing that wouldn't die. Hegseth actually was removed by DoD from the Biden Ceremonies because he was identified as problematic by his chest tattoo, which was a cross, BTW. His Deus Vult and WE THE PEOPLE tattoos probably also left him a literal marked man. Let the good times roll!
I bow to the accuracy of your metaphoric analysis. I fell victim to the use of vampiric descriptors; you made the point much more clearly than I. Usually not a fan of tatoos, but 100% concur with the courage shown by their display by Mr. Hegseth in this instance. I salute him, and you for your correcting my sight picture. James Woods in John Carpenter's "Vampires" comes to mind!
I too had no idea who this Pete Hegseth fellow was, but a Navy veteran of my acquaintance mentioned yesterday that Hegseth's appointment "would make Gen. Milley smear his lipstick in rage" which seems a good recommendation to me.
One does not require a PhD in "jointness" to readily grasp prevailing, would argue glaring even, trends that any competent SECDEF should be able to grasp from a table top view that says... oh crap. May the 'loss of confidence' flow mightily from on high until the diversity cult is fully expunged.
I was a bit astonished when I heard of his nomination. I decided to look at him with sober eyes and a willing mind. His actions the last 10 years in public are warrior centric. His latest book nailed the issues. His interview with Sean Ryan was before he knew Trump would win and before he was nominated. Yet his truth shines through the interview. He is precisely what the front porch has clamored for, New, willing to pipehit the flag and general officers, willing to go for reform in the service academies. Willing to root out corruption and wokeism in the service and willing to source the military for what it is designed for; in his own words “breaking shit and killing our enemies”.
He has his priorities in order:
- Fire the woke flags and SES
- remove DEI day one
- get out of Ukraine
- harden the US grid from China
- kill the green initiatives
- destroy the woke culture
- examine HOW the military gave up it system of meritocracy
- reform the service academies
- return the fighting warrior spirit
- eliminate transgender bullshit
- pivot to China and fix the fleet
He won me over. (He also sent his Harvard diploma back as a protest when their reverend came out and said he was an atheist..lol)
In his own word: “”diversity is our strength” is the stupidest sentence I’ve ever heard”…
One good article on the epic meltdown of the swamp
Hegseth has also taken aim at Milley's successor, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, asking whether he would have gotten the job if he were not Black.
"Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We'll never know, but always doubt - which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn't really much matter," he wrote.
“Hegseth backs banning women from combat roles
Hegseth said women should be banned from serving in combat roles during an appearance this month on the “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoN5ovwB8s4).
“I’m straight-up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated,” he said.”
One of the combat roles that Pete explicitly said could be done by women are pilots. Tammy Duckworth seems to neglect that when she goes on her rants about not allowing women in combat, or combat units.
These are the type of "interesting times" that our country needs. Better to have the vigorous debate internally today before it is imposed on us externally in defeat in the future. Sounds like he is agreeing with Jim Webb before he became DC swamp squish.
"It is good to see women doctors and lawyers and executives. I can visualize a woman President. If I were British, I would have supported Margaret Thatcher. But no benefit to anyone can come from women serving in combat.
The function of combat is not merely to perpetrate violence, but to perpetrate violence on command, instantaneously and reflexively.The function of the service academies is to prepare men for leadership positions where they may someday exercise that command. All of the other accomplishments that Naval Academy or West Point or Air Force Academy graduates may claim in government or business or diplomacy are incidental to that clearly defined combat mission."
“Again, yes, he still has to get through confirmation hearings.”
i’ve read that “recess appointments” were one of the key issues involved in the senate majority leader haggling and voting.
Well, yes, but it's a secret ballot, and no public commitments were made, so at this point, the new tradition of the senate simply never taking a recess is likely to continue.
"He doesn't have the necessary strategic skills and interservice experience" said numerous people on X, making me wonder if they've observed what people with the "necessary strategic skills and interservice experience" have accomplished since 1992?
To best understand The Powers That Be, you only have to remember my First Law of Sociology - “No one thinks of themselves as the bad guy”. That phrase is a generalization of “I bought a Ford. Everyone should buy a Ford,” or “I just *know* the stock I bought will pan out. How low could it possibly go?” To avoid total cognitive dissonance, The Powers That Be have to keep chanting their mantra, while keeping their eyes tightly shut and their finger in their ears.
Those people with "the necessary strategic skills and interservice experience" accomplished exactly what they were put in place to do: serve their immediate masters and NOT the defense needs of the nation. Previously there was no risk in doing so, as there there was no accountability for all but the most openly egregious corrupt / incompetent acts. Can we change? Perhaps the last chance to course correct...the world wonders.
Take the “W” Sir.
You have been battling far longer than I have to right the ship and using your Kung-Fu to fight off the hands trying to take the wheel to the rocks and shoals.
Those short sighted leaders are trying to fly the ball-ball-ball day shape flags as they run us aground.
Take the win.
I do hope our new SecDef makes use of Phib and his expertise in some way.
Phib?
THE AMPHIBIAN! Our very own salamander.
He must be a noob.
Yea. Many of us old timers call him Phib.
He will be greatly assisted in reining in the DOD bureaucracy--his greatest challenge--by the committee proposed by 47 to winnow Flags--the “Byng-Go” Boys👍🇺🇸
Its not just Flags who are problematic. Its also, the folks who bounce around as career GSs to SESs to political appointee Assistant Undersecretaries for strategic and operational Under Water basket weaving and back again.
The people who were whoafully unqualified to do the jobs before hand and clearly lacked academic and professional chops to do the job, but somehow managed to get appointed. And have since parlayed the fact they sat in a Chair for a time and now have 'experience', as the basis for the continuation of a career in the DoD/ Fed gov machinations. But not because they are smarter or have developed better judgement. Only because they got a taste for the deference subordinates showed to them and stay in the arena to simply have their egos fed.
and their underling staffs
I call them "The Cubicle People"
The SES cabal is the true Deep State..
Pres Trump says he is reinstating Schedule F on day one.
All I gotta say is...
https://youtu.be/PVrEwCa8nSA?si=gZE6IY4xQyaE0IrD
A wise man once said: "“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.” Milton Friedman
There is an opportunity here. Having elected the "right" people, we must establish a climate of political opinion that serves the nation, and not line the pockets of senior people and those who serve them.
"establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing"
Exactly. S/he may be the most egregious example, but Lyndsay Graham is not the only "windsock" up there. They will go whichever way the winds of political influence blow.
Pete mentioned them as a particularly important cohort to remove.
Yep! Them too!
Ds looked to Mao for his success in using re-education camps and found them readily available all across America in what once were known as “universe-cities” but are now best known for their expansion of and close adherence to the narrow worldview of The Frankfurt School.
Ds had but to freely fund a widely colored and gendered cohort of un-educated products of compulsory GOVCO high schools to create an assembly line of credentialed Ds old enough to have the franchise.
The plan was not only brilliant—it performed exactly as planned. Until the parents across a wide swath of Middle America realized just who was paying for all these re-education camps.
The loud “WTF” was heard everywhere on Nov 5th. Especially along the coasts and on the Potomac.
Scene in the E Ring this morning....
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Hysteria.jpg
Fixing the recruiting problem is a clear priority for Trump. That's my takeaway from the appointment. https://www.polemology.net/p/can-trump-fix-the-recruiting-crisis
We can start by putting up a poster of the new SecDef after he climbed out of the Hudson River swimming with the SEALS. (fans self....goodness gracious!) THIS IS WHAT WE WANT! SIGN UP!
Hoist the Jolly Roger! The guilty are quickly cleaning their hard drives/emails/and X accounts but backups live forever! Love to be on the E Ring the day Pete walks in and starts clearing the decks. Tears will flow.
Great choice by 47 and I personally believe (tho no facts to back it up) that Pete has been reading DivThu for the past decade plus.
I hope so too and I again say I hope he plucks Phib for some advisory capacity function. Too much SME chops to leave on the side of the road here.
And recalling Milley just to cashier him in disgrace...any value in that "pour encourager les autres"? Hegseth has identified the infection at both the top and bottom, with the great middle ranks largely recoverable and thus the core for rebuilding. Agree?
That is his theory. He made a point that by targeting recruiting “to San Francisco lesbians, the military lost the boys from Tennessee, Kentucky and Oklahoma.”
Pete has the bandwidth to be the guy we need.
He also intimated he would hold the woke guys accountable by boards and court martial.
He lost too many friends and like so many of those who spent their younger days in the desert and mountains and paid a steep price, he has to have been sickened watching the "experts" at DoD give it all back to the "enemy." Giftwrapped.
Amen
I admit, it’s a surprising choice, but his statements on DEI are good.
I’m of the long held belief that in most cases, the President’s cabinet picks should be sustained. In this case, given Mr. Trump’s other designation yesterday, it should get through.
If he attends the confirmation hearings in drag, he's a sure bet.
Sadly, yes…
with stolen luggage?
CDR, you've been a candle in the darkness for many of us for some time, so PLEASE take a well deserved WIN: you've earned it! The new administration was spawned in the election of 2020. RW Emerson said (paraphrasing) "If you strike at the king, you must kill him." The establishment must now be purchasing mirrors, garlic and crucifixes in mass quantities, as their efforts to destroy the new President Re-Elect have thus far failed as he keeps "rising from the dead". The names and personalities now being put forward to staff the important positions in the new administration reflect the 8 years of brutal lessons learned enduring that attempted destruction. In "normal" times, I'd expect the first Trump admin to be a "best case" for results (some wins with no "real" change). These times are most definitely NOT normal. I'm cautiously optimistic, but also concerned that as bad as the efforts of the establishment have been to derail / destroy the president re-elect have been, the worst is yet to come. Long winded way of saying we are here, in no small part, due to people like yourself who have put it on the line. BZ sir, and OBTW, please carry on!
Agree with your premise but think you have the metaphor backwards. It is 47 and his henchmen storming the walls with crucifixes, garlic, silver bullets and holy water to kill the Swamp Thing that wouldn't die. Hegseth actually was removed by DoD from the Biden Ceremonies because he was identified as problematic by his chest tattoo, which was a cross, BTW. His Deus Vult and WE THE PEOPLE tattoos probably also left him a literal marked man. Let the good times roll!
I bow to the accuracy of your metaphoric analysis. I fell victim to the use of vampiric descriptors; you made the point much more clearly than I. Usually not a fan of tatoos, but 100% concur with the courage shown by their display by Mr. Hegseth in this instance. I salute him, and you for your correcting my sight picture. James Woods in John Carpenter's "Vampires" comes to mind!
His back book binder says “I was called to fight against the extremists and then my government labeled me as one”
Paraphrasing
That NG commander who sidelined him needs to resign. Or be forced out.
I too had no idea who this Pete Hegseth fellow was, but a Navy veteran of my acquaintance mentioned yesterday that Hegseth's appointment "would make Gen. Milley smear his lipstick in rage" which seems a good recommendation to me.
One does not require a PhD in "jointness" to readily grasp prevailing, would argue glaring even, trends that any competent SECDEF should be able to grasp from a table top view that says... oh crap. May the 'loss of confidence' flow mightily from on high until the diversity cult is fully expunged.
I was a bit astonished when I heard of his nomination. I decided to look at him with sober eyes and a willing mind. His actions the last 10 years in public are warrior centric. His latest book nailed the issues. His interview with Sean Ryan was before he knew Trump would win and before he was nominated. Yet his truth shines through the interview. He is precisely what the front porch has clamored for, New, willing to pipehit the flag and general officers, willing to go for reform in the service academies. Willing to root out corruption and wokeism in the service and willing to source the military for what it is designed for; in his own words “breaking shit and killing our enemies”.
He has his priorities in order:
- Fire the woke flags and SES
- remove DEI day one
- get out of Ukraine
- harden the US grid from China
- kill the green initiatives
- destroy the woke culture
- examine HOW the military gave up it system of meritocracy
- reform the service academies
- return the fighting warrior spirit
- eliminate transgender bullshit
- pivot to China and fix the fleet
He won me over. (He also sent his Harvard diploma back as a protest when their reverend came out and said he was an atheist..lol)
In his own word: “”diversity is our strength” is the stupidest sentence I’ve ever heard”…
One good article on the epic meltdown of the swamp
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/11/13/the-defense-world-freaks-out-over-peter-hegseth-is-epic-and-it-tells-us-everything-we-need-to-know-n2181931
Hegseth has also taken aim at Milley's successor, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, asking whether he would have gotten the job if he were not Black.
"Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We'll never know, but always doubt - which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn't really much matter," he wrote.
“Hegseth backs banning women from combat roles
Hegseth said women should be banned from serving in combat roles during an appearance this month on the “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoN5ovwB8s4).
“I’m straight-up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated,” he said.”
It will definitely be interesting.
One of the combat roles that Pete explicitly said could be done by women are pilots. Tammy Duckworth seems to neglect that when she goes on her rants about not allowing women in combat, or combat units.
"Tammy Duckworth seems to neglect" is the opening gambit on a number of accurate statements
These are the type of "interesting times" that our country needs. Better to have the vigorous debate internally today before it is imposed on us externally in defeat in the future. Sounds like he is agreeing with Jim Webb before he became DC swamp squish.
"It is good to see women doctors and lawyers and executives. I can visualize a woman President. If I were British, I would have supported Margaret Thatcher. But no benefit to anyone can come from women serving in combat.
The function of combat is not merely to perpetrate violence, but to perpetrate violence on command, instantaneously and reflexively.The function of the service academies is to prepare men for leadership positions where they may someday exercise that command. All of the other accomplishments that Naval Academy or West Point or Air Force Academy graduates may claim in government or business or diplomacy are incidental to that clearly defined combat mission."
I'd say the function of effective combat is to end violence, overwhelmingly, locally at least.
Let's add:
Two choices for those with 1650 (PAO) or 120X (HR) designators: RIF or lateral xfer to URL.
An effective PAO can be useful (thinking Glen Ford types) but likely way overstaffed