“The Answer Is Zero:” When Fragile White Supremacists Discover … They Aren’t
There’s a line in Kerry Howley’s entertaining profile of Whiskey Pete Hegseth’s incompetence that, along with the URL title — “Could these be Pete Hegseth’s last days in the Pentagon?” — made me wonder whether she and her editors rushed to publish it in fear that it was about to be Overtaken By Events.
To illustrate her best quote, describing that Whiskey Pete is only playing at Defense Secretary, Howley used the (apparently paraphrased) hypothetical crisis, Israel bombing Iran, to explain what nearly led a longtime Pentagon employee to cry when contemplating how poorly Whiskey Pete’s Pentagon would function.
“Pete is playing secretary,” a source says. “He’s not being secretary.” In crisis — an unplanned evacuation, Israel bombing Iran, China moving on Taiwan — there will be no one with experience to lead. “For any sustained operations, we’re screwed. There’s nobody in the SecDef’s office at this point that has any … they’re not heavyweights. They don’t have the sophistication. They don’t have the experience.” One source described a longtime Pentagon employee discussing the lack of readiness in the office, “close to tears,” saying “the department is so fucked.”
Having spent months crafting a great story about Trump’s woefully incompetent Defense Secretary (though before she had gotten the full story; for example, she didn’t describe the suspected role of DOGE implant Justin Fulcher in fabricating a claim about NSA intercepts), she published it before it became irrelevant.
And here we are, Israel is bombing Iran and Iran is returning fire, and there are probably people crying at the Pentagon and they’re not alone.
Israel’s attack on Iran is not even the biggest risk of having someone as unhinged as Whiskey Pete in charge: the Los Angeles invasion is.
Indeed, over the course of a long week of disastrous Congressional appearances for Whiskey Pete, it became fairly clear he knows fuckall about the invasion of California he has personally authorized. And that is dangerous — inconceivably dangerous — not least because Whiskey Pete also spent the week facing his own inadequacy.
As things (and not just Whiskey Pete’s things) begin to spiral out of control, it’s time we talk about the problems created when people who believe they — a Christian white man with an addiction problem — are supreme, face the kind of public humiliation that destroys the core of their identity.
Whiskey Pete knows fuckall about the Los Angeles deployment
Let’s start with the risk.
Friday, Reuters reported on the first known temporary detention carried out by Marines deployed to Los Angeles. As the shocking video portrays, there were at one point at least five heavily-armed men engaged in detaining Army veteran Marcus Leao.
Leao, who is brown-skinned, was a veteran on his way to the VA office.
Speaking to reporters after he was released, the civilian identified himself as Marcos Leao, 27. Leao said he was an Army veteran on his way to an office of the Department of Veterans Affairs when he crossed a yellow tape boundary and was asked to stop.
Leao, who gained his U.S. citizenship through military service, said he was treated “very fairly.”
“They’re just doing their job,” said Leao, who is of Angolan and Portuguese descent.
[snip]
The troops are authorized to detain people who pose a threat to federal personnel or property, but only until police can arrest them. Military officials are not allowed to carry out arrests themselves.
There’s no hint of what probable cause they had to detain him, at all.
He was going to the VA office.
Imagine what’s going to happen when the target is actually doing something that an itchy trigger might view as a real threat?
Meanwhile, the Secretary of Defense has repeatedly confessed he doesn’t know what is going on with the deployment.
On June 9, for example, the Secretary of Defense claimed the deployed Marines were coming from Camp Pendleton.
There was, to be fair, some as yet unexplained uncertainty whence DOD was deploying 700 Marines, from Pendleton or Twentynine Palms. But within hours of this tweet, the Marines were deploying from the latter base, not the former (where protests against the deployment had already been staged, which is on the edge of San Diego’s suburbs). The Secretary of Defense’s tweet, posted hours before the deployment, ended up being inexplicably wrong.
The next day, Whiskey Pete appeared before the first of three appropriations hearings this week. Pete Aguilar asked some basic questions: Why were the Guard sent without housing or food? How much will it cost? Where is the money coming from?
Each time, Whiskey Pete answered with bluster rather than facts (the Acting Comptroller, Bryn MacDonnell, did an exceptional job all week, and in in this case revealed the deployment would cost $134 million, mostly TDY costs, which would be paid out of contingency funds).
Then Aguilar asked Hegseth what the legal justification was. Hegseth again blustered.
Aguilar pointed to the statute: 10 USC 12406 — the statute cited in Trump’s Executive Order mandating the deployment, and asked which of the three justifications was triggered.
The Secretary of Defense said he didn’t know.
I don’t know. You just read it yourself. And people can listen themselves. But it sounds like all three to me. If you’ve got millions of illegals and you don’t know where they’re coming from, they’re waving flags from foreign countries and assaulting police officers, that’s a problem. The government of California is unable to execute the laws of the United States. The Governor of the [sic] California has failed to protect his people along with the Mayor of Los Angeles and so President Trump has said he will protect our agents and our Guard and Marines are proud to do it.
This was the statute Hegseth had already relied on in the two memos he issued to deploy the Guard — the first dated June 7, the second dated June 9.
And yet days after deploying the Guard, Hegseth confessed that he had no fucking idea which of those three clauses justified the deployment.
Fully 15 pages of Judge Charles Breyer’s opinion enjoining the use of the National Guard addresses this issue and Breyer even scolds DOJ for attempting to retcon their justification, precisely what Hegesth himself tried to do in the hearing.
It is concerning, to say the least, to imagine that the federal executive could unilaterally exercise military force in a domestic context and then be allowed to backfill justifications for doing so, especially considering how wary courts are of after-the-fact justifications even where the stakes are lower.
Hegseth had relied on the law, without any sense of how or why (he claimed) it applied, just as Breyer found DOJ itself had done.
Hegseth had another Appropriations hearing on Wednesday, this time before the Senate. In response to a question from Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed whether the troops would use drones and detain Americans, Hegseth refused to answer.
Since then, the military has indeed deployed drones and (as noted) detained at least one American citizen. Reed was correct: The answer Hegseth refused to give was, yes.
Hegseth also stated that both the Guard and the Marines were on the streets.
Only, the Marines weren’t, yet. They hadn’t finished the scant training they were being given.
Some of these gaffes — announcing the wrong base whence Marines would deploy, claiming they were deployed when they weren’t, yet — may represent confusion or DOD changing its mind, which is interesting enough, given the artificial claim of an emergency. But Hegseth disclaimed even knowing the legal basis on which he had deployed 4,700 service members.
Whiskey Pete’s humiliation snowballs
Meanwhile, even as Hegseth is presiding over an invasion of a blue city, even as Howley’s profile was in the works, even as DOD’s Inspector General finalizes a report expected to rebut Hegseth’s claim that he didn’t share classified information on a Signal chat, on the third day of testimony (the Appropriations hearing with Aguilar was Tuesday, the Senate Appropriations hearing with Reed was Wednesday, he had a hearing before the full House Armed Services Committee on Thursday), things got worse.
Here, Democrats, and several Republicans, were far less interested in appropriations; they were teeing up on Hegseth’s manifest incompetence.
Three key exchanges went straight to Hegseth’s incompetence.
Early in the hearing, as many others did and would, Seth Moulton hammered Hegseth on his Signal scandal. As many others did and would, Moulton asked Hegseth to take some accountability for his actions.
But when Hegseth answered (as he did elsewhere) that it didn’t matter if he shared classified information in a Signal chat, that it didn’t matter because the operation itself was successful, Moulton mocked that claim.
Moulton: You talked about the success of the Houthi operation. About how much did it cost? How much money did you spend on missiles, shooting at the Houthis?
Hegseth: Well, you’d have to compare that with what it cost —
Moulton: I’m just asking how much did it cost?
Hegseth: — to divert our shipping lanes.
Moulton: I’m told it’s several hundred million dollars, maybe close to a billion dollars. How many US-flagged commercial ships have transitted the Red Sea since your so-called successful operation?
Hegseth: Well, thankfully, unlike the previous Admin —
Moulton: The answer is zero.
Hegseth: Military vessels transitt–
Moulton: No I didn’t ask you about military vessels.
Hegseth: Which would be the precursor for —
Moulton: How many commercial vessels? It has been several weeks. How many commercial vessels, US-flagged, have transitted —
Hegseth: Well, would you, Mr. Congressman, put civilian ships–
Moulton: The questions are not to me, Mr. Secretary, they’re to you. The answer is zero.
“The answer is zero.” Hegseth tried to cover up the utter pointlessness of the failed operation kicked off on that Signal chat with boasts that two military vessels had sailed through the Red Sea unscathed. But zero US commercial vehicles have, the very opportunity cost Hegseth had tried to use to dismiss the cost of the operation. That’s what success looks like for a guy like Pete Hegseth.
About halfway through the hearing, it was Mikie Sherrill’s turn, fresh off her win in the NJ gubernatorial primary. She started by observing how Hegseth had been using Fox News tactics to try to cover up his incompetence.
Mr. Secretary, your testimony over the last several days before Congress — I’ve heard you speak about all your supposed accomplishments from your time at the Pentagon. I have to say, your training at Fox News has let you spin months of dangerous dysfunction and incompetence into catchy phrases, like “restoring the warrior ethos” and “increasing lethality,” but the truth is it’s really been chaos at the Pentagon under your leadership. You’ve clearly shown you’re unable to manage the Department of Defense but what I’m most concerned about are three specific areas: Your operational incompetence, your managerial incompetence, and your budgetary incompetence.
She then walked through individual incidents substantiating those three kinds of incompetence:
- Operational: How Hegseth mistakenly believed Trump wanted to cut off all aid to Ukraine. Hegseth said it was a fake news headline, a Fox News tactic.
- Managerial: Why Hegseth fired CJCS CQ Brown and the Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti without cause — Sherrill said it seemed like it was because Brown is Black and Franchetti is a woman — and when Hegseth would get around to replacing Franchetti. Sherrill asked if qualified Admirals keep turning offers down. Hegseth again claimed it was fake news, but had no answer for why he hadn’t yet replaced Franchetti.
- Budgetary: Why Hegseth is blowing money on vanity projects for President Trump — Sherill listed the Qatari plane, the parade, the Houthi campaign, and the Los Angeles invasion — and what priorities he has cut funding for to pay for them. Again, no asnwer.
Each time, Hegseth dodged Sherrill’s questions, and she restated the question — the last time, in a sing-song voice like she was speaking to a surly toddler.
On top of the substantive issues, the exchange proved that, yes, Hegseth is treating oversight questions like they’re Fox News games.
Eugene Vindman (Alexander’s brother, and like him ousted after blowing the whistle on Trump), almost the last questioner, chose a different approach to demonstrate Hegseth’s manifest incompetence.
He quizzed him.
He set it up by explaining that,
Many believe you are unqualified — underqualified — for this role. You’ve been Secretary of Defense for four and a half months now, for the sake of the American people and our service members, I hope you’ve done your homework since.
Then, like the questions Tammy Duckworth posed at his confirmation hearing, Vindman asked about topics that demonstrate several American vulnerabilities: China’s growing naval superiority, a key bottleneck that could cut the Baltics off from land reinforcements, and the rise of sight-directed small drones.
- What year can the US fight a war with China?
- How many ships does China have?
- How many ships does the US have?
- How many ships will China field by 2030?
- What is the name of a corridor central to NATO reinforcements of the Baltic?
- What heavily militarized Russian territory, connected to the Suwalki gap, containing nuclear capable missiles, it threatens all of NATO — it’s right there in the middle of Eastern Europe?
- What percentage of frontline Ukrainian casualties are caused by FPV drones?
- Which US service has written doctrine or standardized procurement of FPV drones?
Hegseth’s attempt to cover up his ignorance about the specifics of these vulnerabilities adopted similar tactics — those Fox News tactics Sherrill had raised — each time.
First, give a pat answer.
Then, falsely claim the answer is classified.
Then, use a political talking point answering a different question.
Then give up.
The one answer he thought he knew — that the Army had a written doctrine on FPVs — was wrong (to be fair, it was a trick question).
That’s when Vindman shifted to the same topic that Moulton had raised: Hegseth’s refusal to take accountability for placing attack information on a Signal chat. Only Vindman had a twist: He conveyed the opinion and request of the mother of one of the men who had piloted that first attack.
She believes that you need to resign. She also had several questions but one thing: she said she would appreciate an apology, an apology for putting classified information — her son couldn’t even tell her where the Truman was going — into the Houthi PC Small Group Signal chat that risked her son’s life and the mission. Mr. Secretary, yes or no, do you think you owe her an apology?
Hours after Moulton demonstrated that the mission accomplished nothing, Hegseth still resorted to the same ploy that failed with Moulton, claiming “it was an incredibly successful mission, and her son did great work, and thankfully the Houthi campaign was successful. … I don’t apologize for success.”
He doesn’t have to exercise any personal accountability because a mission that failed to achieve its stated objective was a great success.
Perhaps because the House Armed Services Committee is so big — the full hearing went on over seven hours, perhaps because a chunk of Republicans didn’t bother to show up to defend Hegseth (as noted, several joined the fun in thwacking the Secretary), perhaps it was because Whiskey Pete had no answer for his own actions, for DOD’s budget, and still, for how to keep the US safe. But the very process of the hearing showed that there’s no there there, under Hegseth’s non-stop politicization and Fox News answers.
We always knew he was an empty suit. This hearing exposed that.
Turns out you’re not supreme at all!
And that’s what has me worried.
Kerry Howley seems to think Whiskey Pete may be finished, and she’s not alone. The NBC story on the White House difficulties finding Hegseth babysitters — which is, substantively, far more damning than the Howley profile — ends with a prediction that the Inspector General will issue findings adverse to Hegseth. Two days after WSJ dedicated an entire story to that topic, it published a story describing what a failure the Houthi campaign was.
It’s not just Democrats and some Republicans in Congress who have lost patience with Hegseth. It appears most of the Pentagon has, which is why (as both Sherrill and the NBC story point out) people aren’t applying for key jobs. (Some people speculate it’s why some of the soldiers marching in yesterday’s parade couldn’t be fucked to march in lockstep.)
I’m not so sure. Politically, Trump should fire Hegseth, to minimize the surface area of easy attacks on himself, including from Republicans. Operationally, there’s no question that Hegseth’s continued tenure makes the US far less safe (and just as importantly, mucks up the finely tuned bureaucracy of the Pentagon).
Trump could even use the dud of yesterday’s military parade as an excuse. His Fox News hire couldn’t even make Trump’s long-sought military parade into rousing propaganda.
But Trump just invaded California relying on the authority of a guy who couldn’t be bothered to figure out why he was invading.
To carry out his (or Stephen Miller’s) attempt to pursue a reverse Reconstruction, he needs cabinet members like Kristi Noem and Hegseth who don’t care about the legal niceties but are happy to parrot lines about liberating the largest state, and the world’s fourth largest economy, from its elected leaders.
Without that, Trump himself, the entire project, becomes vulnerable.
If I were Hegseth I might resign on my own, to avoid any further public humiliation like I experienced this week. You had Democrats, women, Latinos (Salud Carbajal’s contempt for Hegseth was particularly scathing), Black people, and LGBT people, all looking smarter than Hegseth, hour after hour, a tremendous advertisement for the proposition that diversity is our strength, which Whiskey Pete loathes so much.
Over the course of seven hours, the contrast between the prepared members and Hegseth’s evasions dismantled Hegseth’s claims to Christian white male superiority. And that’s before he had no answer to Jason Crow’s question about what distinguishes the US from al Qaeda or ISIS.
All Hegseth had to fall back on were Fox News evasions.
It will never get better for Pete Hegseth.
Whiskey Pete will never catch up on mastery of these facts. Worse still, a masterful Howley euphemism suggests the stress of trying to do so has allowed his demons to take hold again.
Hegseth was different after Signalgate, according to six people in a position to know. He was more prone to anger and less likely to be clean-shaven in the morning.
This is a man who is failing because he came in without qualifications, quickly proved an easy mark for political infighting, and as a result keeps making decisions that threaten greater and greater catastrophe.
Whiskey Pete Hegseth has become a perfect advertisement for the lie of white supremacy. Couching your decisions in some claimed inherent superiority, over and over, doesn’t work in a bureaucracy like the Pentagon.
More importantly, for the same reasons he can’t accept accountability for Signalgate, I don’t know how Hegseth could, emotionally, quit. He can’t do so because Trump would turn on him (which Trump will eventually do anyway). He can’t do so because it would cause permanent psychic damage.
If he admits Mikie Sherrill is right, it will destroy him, because his assumed superiority is the core of his identity.
Escalation is no off-ramp
It turns out, freed from the guidance of adults counseling his decisions, that Trump is discovering he was wrong, over and over. In the weeks before Israel started what could be a catastrophic escalation, Trump was pitching what was basically the JPCOA he had overturned eight years earlier. In light of Israel’s attack, Voice of America ordered all its Farsi workers to return to work, just months after Trump ordered the entire service disbanded.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media told employees placed on administrative leave to immediately return to their roles providing counter-programming to Iranian state media as the conflict between the two nations escalated Friday, according to an email seen by POLITICO and three people familiar with the situation.
“Effective immediately, you are recalled from administrative leave,” said the email from USAGM’s human resources department. “You are expected to report to your duty station immediately.”
There are 75 full time employees within VOA’s Persian wing — the language predominantly spoken in Iran — and it’s believed most, if not all, have now been brought back after being put on administrative leave for three months.
In recent days, Trump discovered that Stephen Miller’s immigration jihad is too costly for powerful lobbying interests, so he is reversing course on part of that, too.
In another immigration gulag failure, Kristi Noem thought a smart way to deal with Newark’s concerns about Delaney Hall’s use as an immigration facility was to arrest Newark’s Mayor. Then they changed their mind and charged Congressman LaMonica McIver, instead. In the very same week they indicted McIver, four people (two accused of burglary, the other two accused of more violent crimes) in Delaney Hall escaped through a “drywall with a mesh interior” wall leading into a parking lot after days of unrest because GEO had repurposed the cafeteria to manage detainee movements and so not fed detainees sufficiently. Admittedly, DHS has not yet admitted that they can’t use this facility, but they certainly substantiated Newark’s concerns about its fitness to hold detainees, some of them dangerous.
The problem is, even as Trump is — with his actions — proving that the experts, Barack Obama, and Kamala Harris were right after all, he cannot admit they were right, because his entire political identity is based on a claim that they’re wrong or (in the case of Black politicians) inferior.
At least in Whiskey Pete Hegseth’s case, being confronted with his incompetence only caused him to double down.
The only sign of this disastrous seven-hour hearing on Whiskey Pete’s Xitter timeline, below his pinned “Never back down” tweet, and now sandwiched among the inaccurate claim he was deploying Marines from Pendleton, an RT of a DOD Rapid Response attack showing his refusal to respond to Pete Aguilar, both a DOD Rapid Response and a Rapid Response 47 celebration of his contempt in response to questions from Ranking Appropriations member Betty McCollum about the LA deployment, eight [!!!] posts from the politicized rally at Fort Bragg (about which, Hegseth would claim in the HASC hearing, not to know DOD had imposed political litmus tests on the attendees), various false claims about Los Angeles, various false claims about US involvement in Iran, and various claims to a recruiting bonanza partly debunked in this WaPo article, the only sign of the seven hours of Whiskey Pete’s life when he was publicly and repeatedly exposed as an incompetent hack was this DOD Rapid Response attack on Sara Jacobs’ questioning of him, edited to focus on Hegseth’s response.
The full exchange is rather instructive.
Jacobs starts by noting that she represents the largest military community in the country and noting it was National Women’s Veterans Day. She sandbagged him, getting him to first reiterate his prior statements hailing the service of women. “With your focus on and emphasis on merit, standards, I wanted to tell you about three incredible women.” She then described the most recent performance evaluation of three women described as exceptional. (She didn’t name them, but they might be Erica Vandal, Emily Shilling, and Kate Cole.)
Jacobs: Given their stellar qualifications and accomplishments, and their record of surpassing standards, I assume that you agree that the Pentagon and the Services should do everything they can to retain women like these, correct?
Hegseth: I would commend the Major, the Aviator, and the Instructor for their service.
Jacobs: Great. I’m glad you agree because I also believe we should be recruiting and retaining the very best and brightest to serve in the military. And yet, you’re actually kicking out these three highly qualified solely because of their identity. These are trans women. And you are using the very same arguments used against desegregating the military or allowing women to serve or allowing gay people to serve. And in all those cases, those arguments were wrong. So I think it’s clear that this is actually not about standards or — I’m quoting you again — “an equal, unwavering, gender-neutral merit-based system,” because if it were you would be keeping these women in. Instead, you’re the one injecting culture wars into the military. And it’s at the detriment of our readiness and national security.
What DOD’s Rapid Response thought made Whiskey Pete look good was where he interrupted Jacobs’ next question, to label these women as, “Men who think they’re women.” Hegseth’s own propagandists had to censor the part where Jacobs described the excellence of trans women that Hegseth has ejected from the military, claiming they pose a threat to national security.
It was just another feeble Fox talking point, one that affirmatively buried the actual facts.
The problem with exposing the inadequacy of someone like Hegseth is the logical response — his suppression of the proof of excellence in favor of his forceful Fox redefinition of what excellence among trans servicemembers really is.
The same thing is happening with his Los Angeles invasion. Not only did Hegseth himself tweet false claims about the extent of the violence in Los Angeles, but as Gavin Newsom’s press team exposed, his Rapid Response account has started posting disinformation — old riot footage — as part of its campaign to support the Los Angeles invasion.
Pete Hegseth’s DOD is disseminating Russian-style disinformation to justify their invasion of Los Angeles (as Newsom’s staff noted, DHS has started doing the same).
Whiskey Pete’s response to being exposed as incompetent, DOD’s response to launching an invasion with no basis, has been the same: To double down on the lies, to double down on the dehumanization.
Sure, Whiskey Pete may soon be gone. Blaming him for the failed birthday party would be the easy way to do it.
But he remains particularly dangerous unless and until then, not least because he has ordered the military to be something they are not, and to do so based on his transparently false claims about what America is.
Because Pete Hegseth cannot admit who he is — and more importantly, what he is not — he is demanding that the men and women who serve under him be something they are not.
The world, enemies and allies alike, is watching the Whiskey Pete Incompetence Show. I fear it will take something catastrophic to get the message across to a majority of Americans exactly how dangerous and less safe America and American interests have become.
One would think it would be clear after these few months that you shouldn’t put an incompetent, boozehound talking head in charge of the world’s most powerful military.
Whiskey Pete was chosen for two reasons: First, he’s a sycophant who will not hesitate to use American troops on American citizens. Secondly, the former Faux Newz commentator “looks the part”, which in Drumpf’s drug-addled mind matters more than competence.
The third reason is his white supremacist ideology in which he believes so strongly he had it tattooed on his body. No need to ask if he’s white supremacist, he’s wearing it on his flesh sleeve.
While simultaneously men with the *wrong* tattoos (in addition to the wrong skin color, last name, and other factors the government might feel constrained about enlisting publicly as evidence) are getting their due process rights aborted, as the cackling ghouls in charge of “border security” send them to quasi-deathcamp in Salvador.
It’s never the symbol itself. It’s always the interpreters who hold the power. I’m a Bulls fan too. I wish one of my own tats had been inspired by that, but as it is I’ll just have to express my solidarity with those punished for our shared affinity…well, here. In words.
If you look at the detention video, you can see that the Marines have magazines loaded in their rifles. Those magazines may or may not be loaded with ammunition.
Someone should ask Secretary Hegseth if he has deployed Marines to the streets of Los Angeles with loaded weapons.
Some of use remember “four dead in Ohio.”
In that day when he claimed the Marines had deployed and when they did there was a report they’d be armed only with batons. THAT’s a bad idea–but so is this.
I wonder whether someone saw that report and escalated.
It’s hard to tell from the video (and there may be others here who know better) but those look like now standard issue M27 automatic rifles that hold 30 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition.
they are basically light machine guns. The amount of possible carnage is those weapons are loaded is breathtaking.
Yeesh . “from those weapons”
Every modern AR-15 style military- and civilian-grade rifle can hold a magazine holding 30 rounds of 5.56 mm or .223 caliber ammunition. Premium versions are available from Sig Sauer, Hechler & Koch, Wilson Combat, Nighthawk Custom, and a host of others.
Yes, the characteristics of that round do enormous damage to the human body.
@Amicus12 … if those weapons are loaded? (not from)
(I understood what you were meaning. Just found the correction ironic)
– and a question: How can I register an account? The ‘Register’ link at the bottom works the same as ‘Login’: The username you specified is not known.
At least for now, those magazines (if loaded) have “non-lethal” ammunition. This was specified in their Operations Orders. Marines hew close to orders. If ordered by anyone on-scene to use live ammunition, that would be an unlawful order. Obeying an unlawful order gets a lot of people in a world of shit… much more shit if a civilian is harmed or killed.
I think your assertion regarding less-than-lethal rounds being loaded in some or all rifle magazines carried by the Marines needs clarification. You mention an Operations Order — a citation/URL of that document would be useful. Carrying both lethal and less-than-lethal magazines simultaneously is (1) just asking for disaster and (2) reduces the ability to use lethal force as a defensive measure when there is a truly legitimate life-threatening situation (self-protection or protection of others). Civilian less-than-lethal ammunition is typically large diameter and used in different weapons than lethal ammunition.
Only one military service in the U.S. operates with full time with federal law enforcement authority using federal use of deadly force procedures. Personnel don’t have to decide which ammunition to use – they are trained on how do deal with escalation of force and maintain focus on one thought/action line. Military rules of engagement (ROE) are only applied when engaged in military operations under a military commander.
Back to Kent State (and many other episodes): No one was punished for the killing of four unarmed students and no one will be held responsible if the Marines or any other government agents kill anyone this time around. Authority protects itself first.
To be fair to the troops, who can march to “Fortunate Son?” (Well, maybe a drag queen unit.) Yes, I almost choked when heard that one on the video.
As has been pointed out, there have been folk life events on the Mall that were more crowded and lively. I do wonder if Trump will dump Hegseth though – he so well fits Trump’s preferences. I guess if he is disappointed by his expensive birthday celebration, then blame must fall on someone.
They were marching to “Fortunate Son”? Maybe the band should’ve struck up Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”.
Seriously? Have they ever listened to the lyrics of “Fortunate Son?” Talk about a self-own…
Absolutely. I just looked up the lyrics.
Marching to “Fortunate Son” to stroke the ego of a Fortunate Son. Priceless.
Ugh. Make them stop. I’m having flashbacks to 1954 and Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour:
Round and round he goes, and where he stops nobody knows.
To vote for your favorite amateur, call JUdson 6-7000, or write to:
Box 191
Radio City Station
New York, New York
I keep reading it as “Whiskey Pete’s incontinence.”
Possibly a bit niche but, to borrow from a Canadian (Dave Sim):
‘First you whiskey. Then you piskey. Then you … Oh crap, not this again.’
A nice pic to go with the quote: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cerebusfangirl/4022832149
If you haven’t read Cerebus, I heartily recommend it :-)
I dispute that this is about White Supremacy. Trump is an old school New York bigot who thinks people are color-coded so he knows what jobs to hire them for. Yes, he puts white people at the top for management jobs, but in his organizations that means him and his family. He has always hired women and non-white people for important roles under him…as long as they know their place and make him look good.
The real issue is authoritarianism. These people think all decisions are made at the top and obeyed without question. Hegseth doesn’t think his job is to make decisions or know things. His job is to pass down Trump’s orders and make him look good. And that describes everyone Trump picked including women, the Asian American who writes his long tweets, and Kash Patel, who is as far from the white supremacist ideal as possible for a job that was all traditional white guys before him.
There are plenty of white military guys Trump could have appointed to run the DOD but those people would put the military ahead of obeying Trump. And as much as Hegseth is enforcing the White Supremacist ideal on to the military, that’s our true president Stephen Miller; not Trump. It’s increasingly obvious that Trump doesn’t know what’s going on and is in a total news bubble.
And that also applies to deportations. In Trump’s speeches last year written by Stephen Miller he only talked about deporting insane violent criminals. Now he’s saying we shouldn’t deport workers. That’s not him changing his mind. That’s him finally hearing who Miller is deporting and reversing it without realizing that Miller has been tricking him the whole time. Trump’s not just a purveyor of lies, he’s also a customer.
In Hegseth’s case it is. He has a white nationalist tattoo and, as noted by Sherrill, he appears to have fired CQ Brown bc he’s Black.
I dispute your disputation. Racism and sexism are fundamental to both Trump’s personality and the Republican Party. Trump and Miller are, in a sense, bookends because they are both supremely racist and sexist. Neither would be effective without the other, which means I also dispute your characterization that Miller is the “true president.”
Dr. Biobrain: Even if we grant that the “real issue” IS authoritarianism, this country has never produced an authoritarian movement not chiefly fueled by racism. (McCarthyism demonized Jews and Blacks and those who associated with them; it was derailed when McCarthy–with Roy Cohn–went after the then-predominantly white Army.) Authoritarians succeed by dividing their populace against itself, by defining and scapegoating an easily recognizable Other.
I’ve seen people debate whether Trump is really “personally racist,” with those who know him arguing both sides. To me it should not matter; he has made his political career by exploiting racism, inflaming it in voters and demanding it in Republican allies, who must go along with his agenda–or else.
Stephen Miller was a public, virulent, unapologetic racist more than a decade before Trump brought him on board his first campaign. That Trump has only brought Miller closer since, allowing him to shape domestic policy for the country, speaks to the president’s willingness to use the professionalized hatred of an advisor as a means to achieving his own corrupt and authoritarian ends. The racist Miller serves as both sword and shield for an administration hellbent on the violation of not just norms but laws.
Was Donald Trump ever generous to Omarosa? She says he was; I believe her. Should that matter when we judge his politics? No.
Not to mention the Jim Crow South.
Maybe Whiskey Pete shouldn’t have fired the top lawyers for each service and either left their posts vacant or put in place individuals, who, at best, probably had to start from scratch. They might have been able to fill him in on what he needed to know, to prepare for a grilling on Capitol Hill. That there would be one or more was a certainty.
But that’s how Trump, Miller & Co., have approached installing each new Cabinet member. They assumed existing staff would be loyal to the Constitution and their work, and that removing top staff was essential to getting control and bringing decision back to the White House. Actually doing the work was an afterthought, as Hegseth’s performance demonstrates.
When I first heard of Hegseth purging JAGs it was sickeningly obvious what was happening: We saw someone who had maybe been a company commander or battalion staff officer and who didn’t like some JAG officer telling him he wasn’t supposed to commit war crimes. Clearly a man not troubled by the burdens of critical or strategic thinking.
It appears that Hegseth thinks he knows what Trump wants, but my guess is that he is unable to get clarity. It could be Hegseth’s ego, hesitancy, or inability to get past Trump’s close advisors. But regardless, since this deals with purely civil manners, we (the Nation) should expect some serious face time with DoD lawyers/JAG staff as well as some conference calls with NORTHCOM for both operational and legal decision-making and planning.
In my service headquarters staff officer days, I was grateful for the assistance I got from our assigned JAG officer. Trying to manage evolving policy that harmonized civil law enforcement authority with military responsibilities was a challenge. I had some long conversations with our guy, and we always got to the point where he asked “So what are you trying to do?” I’d summarize my key points, but the real purpose for that question was to get us both to an end-state that was effective and legal. There is nothing that I’ve heard from Hegseth that indicates he has any end-state in mind. He’s still operating at the squad level (and a badly led squad at that) while sitting at a desk that requires hyper-strategic thinking.
Marcy,
Yes. Whisky Pete, does not have the knowledge to answer multiple congressional hearing questioner’s queries truthfully with facts. Yes Whisky Pete, is a sycophant, willing to order/deploy DOD resources for any whim Trump/Miller figuratively fingers. Whisky Pete’s deployments are walking, in all of our collective neighborhoods. We are in this together. Peace.
Mrs, Spark and I joined the multi-thousand attendees at the No Kings protest in Ann Arbor, MI yesterday on the steps of the federal building. Shockingly, the sun was shining and the temp was in the mid 70s. In Ann Arbor!
My sign read
“Whisky” Pete Hegseth thinks due process is his hairstyle.
And we took advantage of the proximity of Jerusalem Garden for shawarma and falafel.
An all around great day in A squared.
Sunshine in A2? Jerusalem Garden? You’re overwhelming me with envy, SZS! Spouse and I did New Haven’s No Kings at the Green in cold rain with NO falafel, not even any coffee, just my sprained ankle encased in ancient hiking boots so as not to worsen things.
Lots of nice people, lovely dogs, funny–and sharp–signs. Wish the organizers had done more with us: chants? march? We all just milled around wetly and took pictures of each other.
But we went. And we’ll be back. Love to A2!
Damnit.
We have a great Lebanese restaurant here. But not Jerusalem Garden.
Laughable that Whiskey Pete claimed not to know about the DoD’s efforts to politicize Trump’s speech at Ft. Bragg. Given how anathema such conduct would be to uniformed personnel, a directive to vet attendees for their political views about Trump could only have come from the Pentagon’s top echelon. If it didn’t come from Hegseth, it came from one of his direct reports. So, he’s lying, dangerously out of touch, or both.
Any thoughts on who Trump might select to replace Hegseth? If Trump admin can’t find candidates willing to replace the people Hegseth fired, maybe they are also challenged in finding someone who would be willing to take his position and also be able to pass Senate confirmation.
Joni Ernst? She was said to be “on the list” back in olden times. Nominating her would be a sop to folks Trump’s been alienating, a lot, lately. Maybe I’m delusional…and maybe I’m forgetting the “We’re all gonna die” brouhaha too soon.
Of course, there’s always Matt Gaetz.
Alcohol seems to work…until it doesn’t. And then, if you are lucky, you might get to learn the life lesson it never did work and move on without it. It will probably be the hardest thing he ever does or tries to do.
I hear that most tattoos can be removed as well. Painful perhaps.
This does not apply to everyone, but then Whiskey Pete is Whiskey Pete and not anyone else.
“couldn’t be fucked to march in lockstep”, I’m guessing is a typo.
I’m guessing it’s not. Context is everything.
I expect that Hegseth will not resign. His hubris and addiction won’t let him. As the pressure mounts, he will will become more erratic, subconsciously doing things to sabotage his position while blaming others. He will continue to isolate himself against others in the Pentagon, especially senior military leaders. As former military officer, he feels ashamed and inadequate but his egoist certitude currently compensates for it. If the IG confirms that he posted classified information (and it damn well should) he will feel more ashamed and inadequate. He will do something really stupid, probably in public, and will be fired.
“I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”
Yes. I expect a full-blown meltdown, complete with discussions of how our essence must remain pure.
I still suspect the Insurrection Act to be involved and for that the ultimate yes nan Whiskey Pete is needed, so I don’t see him getting fired or resigning.
Trump has to invoke it. He hasn’t, so it’s not in play yet.
Yes, but I would bet Miller is lobbying for it.
Just need to create the casus belli. A remake of the Gleiwitz incident would probably do the trick.
replying to OldTulsaDude:
Miller is openly lobbying for an invocation of the Insurrection Act, by using the word “insurrectionists” to describe peaceful (or mostly peaceful) protestors, not just in LA but generally. It has seemed to me that both he and Trump are slavering for it.
I’d like to learn more about flag officers turning down appointments. Anybody got good reporting?
You first — where did you hear there were flag officers turning down appointments?
Because in early May it looked like there were flag officers getting cut.
See: https://news.usni.org/2025/05/05/secdef-hegseth-less-generals-more-g-i-s-memo-calls-for-20-reduction-of-four-star-officers
Here:
‘Managerial: Why Hegseth fired CJCS CQ Brown and the Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti without cause — Sherrill said it seemed like it was because Brown is Black and Franchetti is a woman — and when Hegseth would get around to replacing Franchetti. Sherrill asked if qualified Admirals keep turning offers down’
And here:
‘It’s not just Democrats and some Republicans in Congress who have lost patience with Hegseth. It appears most of the Pentagon has, which is why (as both Sherrill and the NBC story point out) people aren’t applying for key jobs.’
Am I misreading Professor Wheeler? I have been wondering about some such reaction ever since the deliberate humiliation of Adm. Fagan, but this is the first place I have seen anyone suggest it is happening.
Have you considered the percentage of non-white and woman flag officers (versus white male flag officers) may be roughly 20%? White men are already overrepresented as officers.
And Hegseth’s planned 20% reduction of flag officers might represent the excision of non-white and woman flag officers? Given the environment, why would non-white and woman flag officers bother to apply for higher roles under white supremacist Hegseth?
ADDER: I forgot trans persons who are officers — they’ve been banned now and will have to fight to keep their jobs. Why would they apply for higher level roles knowing they’ve been banned?
I read ‘most of the Pentagon’ to mean ‘most of the Pentagon,’ so, no, I did not consider race or sex.
Furthermore, the consideration that, I hope, will motivate the 4-stars concerns the Constitution and should motivate anyone.
Much of the administration’s claims about current events reminds me not of 1984, but H.G.Wells’ War of the Worlds, or the book Bitter Fruit about the CIA’s overthrow of Guatemala. It is about creating an alternative reality in real time that is complete fiction.
One of the most chilling Hegseth moments in the video clips was when he asserted that since the operation was a success, there was no need to worry about the classification of any if the information passed on the Signal chat…Ignoring that National Defense Information (NDI) under the Espionage Act does not require formal classification markings or other indications at the time it is disclosed.
Again, we’re back to his poorly formed squad-level perspective finding a safe haven in the National Command Authority.
In this case, Hegseth doesn’t understand or, more likely, wants us to ignore that any information about our plans, the planning process, communications, vessel and unit movements, etc., all have great value to adversaries even after the operations are over – even the successful operations.
Sophisticated adversaries have the collection, storage, analytical, and personnel resources to study and build a more complete picture than you or I will ever see. These are training tools for their own personnel, and also allow adversaries to “game” simulations to better anticipate what we might do in different scenarios. Since no nation has unlimited intelligence resources, any information they can collect for free or low cost is welcomed, and also allows them to allocate collection and analytical resources efficiently. Hegseth is a source that just keeps on giving.
All I can figure is that this is the first job Hegseth has ever had where “secret” is a low level.
This is Political Theater. Who looks good on camera, who gets more clicks, not if the individual is qualified. Hegseth has a makeup room playing the “warrior.” Noem is head of costuming, hair and makeup playing “G.I. Jane” with a gun killing a puppy and a goat. RFK Jr. playing “a doctor” with a brainworm, who is not a doctor. It’s all for show at the expense of the American people.
Approximately, 30 people who worked for Fox News are in the Trump administration. Fox News ended up paying 787.5 million dollars for lying to the American people. Fox is Trump’s propaganda network praising a dictator who is an extortionist and an exploiter of humanity.
NBC “The Apprentice” was a fake billionaire firing people, as President can’t hire competent and qualified people. Incited an insurrection and threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. A bone spurs draft dodger demanding a military parade for his birthday. A felon with 34 counts and liable for sexual abuse and defamation demanding law and order. Claimed knew nothing about Project 2025 during the campaign and used the playbook from day one. A cabinet filled with 13 billionaires who want to rip off the American people in order to enrich himself and his donors. Oh, the irony.
Trump has marinated in UFC and WWE, where this phenomenon is known as “kayfabe.” It’s a poor pig Latin rendering of “be fake.”
Put bone spurs in quotes. I heard the doctor called it as a favor for his landlord, Fred Trump.
Democratic back-benchers always seem well-prepared and incisive. Compare them to the robotic stupidity of the R back-benchers who always sound like they get their material from Fox, Q, and ignorant staffers.
Ed, I am reading Hatemonger, Jean Guerrero’s 2020 book about Stephen Miller. Guerrero did her homework and more; she seems to have tracked down and interviewed every one of Miller’s childhood friends (yes, he had friends) and precocious connections with ideological provocateurs such as Larry Elder and David Horowitz.
In fact, it is these latter influences your comment made me think about. Stephen Miller has long displayed an extraordinary ability to ingest and recall reams of content, but in the end he seems like the apotheosis of the phenomenon you describe: a supernaturally sophisticated parrot, stuffed with cant–none of it original or transmuted by his own reflection, all of it just a post-graduate level display of what those GOP back-benchers try to pull off.
Talking points are the only points he has. And he’s the best they have to offer.
It’s not just Trump, Miller and Hegseth. There are many enablers and fellow travelers in the current administration. I miss Nuremburg, though we haven’t the rope or lumber needed and it would still leave us needing a internal Marshall plan to rebuild democratic America over many years to come. Maybe Europe and Asia could help us recover.
Whiskey Pete, that is a fun name but not for some one in his position. As time goes by and more “situations’ arise I have wondered what will happen if there is an accident and the military opens fire on civilians who are doing their thing of protesting. I remember Kent State, haven’t ever forgotten it. Living in Canada, we have a different set of rules for a lot of things. Roughing up politicians in Opposition simply is not done. There is simply no need for it unless of course you’re trying to intimedate people. Given the number of guns in the U.S.A. my concern is the armed forces may shoot civilians and they will shoot back. There isn’t any need for any of it. The U.S.A. has built a country which is a good place to live. what miller and trump would get out of a civil war or dictatorship is beyond me. Trump is 79. He isn’t going to live forever. I just don’t think its in his nature to be a decent human being and that goes for a number of others in Trump’s team. Trump and his gang may think they are being smart and they’re going to win but they obviously haven’t had a good look at history. I know the various levels of government in the U.S.A. have recall provisions. Too bad they didn’t have one for president.