It looks like Pete Hegseth has survived:
It's a tie, so vice president J.D. Vance gets to break it, making it 51-50. Please give a warm welcome to the most aggressively unqualified Secretary of Defense in American history.
68 thoughts on “Pete Hegseth squeaks by”
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They need to install a breathalyzer in his Pentagon office. I expect him to fuck up something within 6 months. Unqualified.
Betting 90 days or less (hopefully) Let's drink to that.....
😄😄
It’s a meritocracy!
Of the 330 million people in America, Hegseth is objectively the most qualified.
Right? Right?
Condolences to his second wife, his mom and the woman at the convention.
...And the nation.
An abusive addict with no relevant experience, in charge of the DoD. With a mad king where a president should be.
As the kids (used to) say, this is gonna be lit.
Just because the only other two (very small) organizations that he ran collapsed . . .
Ruh-roh
It’s really astonishing one more Republican couldn’t be found who thinks the country could find a more qualified Secretary of Defense.
I'm so old, I can remember when Republicans thought "Defense" was a big effin' deal and required only the best. Of course, back in those days, they also opposed Russia, rather than embracing it.
The Republican Party now exists solely to further enrich the oligarchy and troll the libs.
They don’t give a crap about America. As evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of corpses that piled up as their deranged sociopath babbled insanely about bleach and horse dewormer.
The Republican Party is a death cult. Which is why they lick the boots of Putin.
The ultimate DEI hire.
No, WEI.
White, Entitled and Ignorant
+1
I think you meant DUI. Or was it DWI?
"Pete Hegseth has survived."
Of course, he did. The rest of us are not so lucky. It's been four days that shook the world, and it's just getting started. No Hollywood endings anywhere in sight.
Idk about that. There are plenty of Hollywood movies where lots of stuff gets blown up, but some scrappy set of teenagers (“Wolverines!”) or rural folk or whatever manages to survive it all to rebuild the USA out of whatever is left. I could easily see these assclowns getting a lot of American and foreign cities blown up, either by foreign enemies or perhaps an army of brownshirts recently released from prison, and then all those Trump voting fucks get to rebuild the country in their image.
Good point. Plenty of Hollywood endings end with an apocalypse, one flavor or another. Which one's in store for us? TBD. But that's the direction we're headed.
Of course, there were 3! John Thune had to give 2 of them (Collins & Murkowski) a "hall pass" so they could show their constituents in the next election what "mavericks" they are. And then he had to decide on which 3rd one was more worried about getting primaried than upsetting "swing" voters. They all were more chicken-shit about a primary, so he decided to give it to McConnell since he's retiring and now he can feel like he has a clear conscience. No other GOP Senator would DARE be the 4th, making the nomination fail. He or she would be assassinated.
And not unrelatedly, Trump has made a big show of pulling security details from former officials these last several days.
My thoughts exactly. I'm quite certain that, had there been a fourth NAY, Susan Collins would have changed her mind and voted YEA.
How earnest is Joni Ernst?
She may not get primaried now, but Dem's definitely should make a play for her seat.
She may not get primaried now, but Dem's definitely should make a play for her seat.
I personally advocate a fifty state strategy. Compete everywhere! But Iowa really does appear to have shifted remorselessly toward the GOP. Obama won that state as recently as 2012. But Trump won it by nearly fourteen points in 2024. Even in a midterm election, that kind of red hue is going to be a very serious headwind for the Democratic nominee.
A strong, centrist Independent should challenge her for that seat. Such a candidate would stand a better chance than a Democrat at beating Ernst. I think getting a few Independents to take down the odd GOP Senator is the way forward in the short/medium term, when it comes to loosening the GOP's grip on that chamber.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2025/01/12/joni-ernst-donald-trump-nominees-challenge-from-center/77556893007/
Having already been at least a one-time winner of the Neville Chamberlain Award for Conspicuous Credulity (Kavanaugh confirmation) Collins needed this.
Absolutely. And, knowing that her vote wasn't the difference maker, she calculated her "no" on Hegseth was unlikely to trigger either threats of violence against her personally or a primary challenge.
Collins has long been one of the most shrewdly cynical operators in DC. And Maine voters are some of the most gullible on the planet.
You're being unfair to Neville Chamberlain, who was in no way credulous. He knew perfectly well that Hitler wouldn't stop with the Sudetenland. He was playing for time, as the British and the French were rearming at a much faster rate than the Germans were in the fall of 1938.
He wasn't helped by a pair mutually reinforcing intelligence failures. Anglo-French military intelligence significantly overestimated German military strength, leading them to be more cautious than they needed to be. And the Abwehr significantly underestimated Allied military strength, leading to Hitler being more reckless than they should have been.
At least the Allied intelligence agencies got a lot better as the war went on. The Germans remained miserable failures at it.
Chamberlain presented the sell-out of the Czechs as "Peace in our time" not as "Buying ourselves time" so no, I do not think I am being unfair.
Gosh, a politician fibbed to cover his agenda? Unheard of.
Murkowski doesn’t need to show voters that she’s a maverick. She opposes Trump at her own risk, and she lost a Republican primary earlier in her career to a right-wing kook (She won reelection in the general as a write-in candidate.)
She actually believes that Hegspeth is unqualified and voted accordingly.
His chaos is going to be amazing!
Capriciously cancelling future weapons systems to stop the cost overruns while making stupid strategic investments? Love it! Blocking the career advancement of people he dislikes and turn the Pentagon into a hostile workplace? Excellent! Either he's drunk at work or not at work -- maybe at a stripper bar? Oh hell yeah.
Just one year at the helm and he might hasten the closing of the gap between us and China.
Are you kidding me? This is going to be a spectacular crash!
The paralysis of the elites is stunning.
What were they thinking?
Ah there's the rub. They don't know how to think.
Here's hoping for a soft landing. Somehow.
Total government paralysis is precisely what the elites want. Then they get away with more shit.
They are tax cut blind.
When I lived in Arlington VA there was a stripper bar on South 23rd Street in Crystal City which was frequented by (uniformed) military personnel. Good times!
(It's probably gone now)
You think he’ll last a year? I guess it will be longer than a Scaramucci, but I expect he’ll do something so far over the line while shit-faced (hit on Melania?) that he’ll be gone within a few months.
It probably depends on whether or not he can turn on a dime and change his lifestyle or at what point he realizes that he's way in over his head.
America just got pwned.
Ah folks, this is just the start. Tie down your children, plug your nose, and ears. It is only going to get worse.
Behold, the consequences of the downvote.
Grr, meant that to be down-ballot...
Sen. Dan Sullivan says, "Mr. Hegseth also assured me that he understands the important role that women play in our military, including in combat."
HE WROTE A BOOK ABOUT HOW WOMEN DON'T BELONG IN COMBAT! Does he not understand his own book??
It's pretty clear that at least half the electorate, or a bit more in non-midterm years, doesn't follow the news and is largely ignorant wrt to serious questions of policy and politics. IOW many American politicians can say whatever the fuck they want and get away with it. They crazier the claim the better. And they know it.
This is an entirely accurate a picture of politics in America.
What I can't stop thinking about is how we got this way? There are a number of possibilities. Here's some of my list.
1. Social media. There have always been idiots, but now they can reach out to each other and realize that they are far from alone.This generates a powerful idiot form of groupthink.
2. The entertainment industry, There are like a few billion streaming channels to choose from, and instead of paying attention to what is happening, they relieve their boredom by constantly being entertained. Remember, Trump got his start from being a celebrity on his TV show.
3. The constant need for more money. The blizzard of advertising whets appetites, and people are constantly competing among themselves to come out on top of the rat race. "Enough" is not an option. Even though the level of prosperity we enjoy is unprecedented in human history.
4. Because of the precariousness of one's economic situation (and automation makes and will make this worse), people have more to lose if they should fall off their historically lofty perch. They fear the less fortunate might just push them off. Hence, they follow those who promise to suppress noises from "below".
5..........?
What I can't stop thinking about is how we got this way?
The public has always been this way. Seriously, do some digging. People if anything are more intelligent than 60 or 70 years ago (look at the Flynn effect, look at the rise in education attainment). I suspect we've gone from something like 80% of voters are largely unknowledgeable to 50% of voters are largely unknowledgeable. But the bulk of the latter form the MAGA base.
The key difference between then and now is back then we we had two guardrails in terms of our political parties. Now we only have one. We used to be assured of a reasonably high floor in terms of the basic competence or fitness for office of our elected officials (Nixon was a crook, but he was an intelligent, cosmopolitan, Duke-educated lawyer who cared about how history would judge him).
Now we have no such assurances, because the GOP is fucked—basically a party of cranks, crooks, charlatans, grifters and traitors—and they win half of our elections.
As recently as the 80s—arguably even the 90s—both parties mostly sent serious-minded people to Washington, DC. So, even if the electorate chose badly from the perspective of a liberal like me, it wasn't catastrophic, because even the shirt party (GOP) in those days generally vetted candidates so as to weed out clownishly ignorant lunatics.
This is no longer true.
I don't disagree with any of this. But, for me, it doesn't get to the reasons that have caused it to get this way.
Take my #1 for example. Because of social media, the 50% that is ignorant can now communicate with each other and in their eyes, normalize their beliefs. And this gives them an outsize effect on politics.
Which they didn't have before.
5150 seems like the correct way of describing a vote of conformation of Hegseth to anything.
I see what you did there, and like it. 😊😊
This means just about everyone gets confirmed. He should have been the easiest one to vote against and only three did so. With the possible exception of RFK Jr. the rest will all get 52+ votes.
Just a reminder: The purpose of nominating Hegseth, as far as Trump is concerned, is to push out generals with integrity and respect to the constitution, and to have more "Kind of Generals That Hitler Had":
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/
Why more people don't see Trump as the threat he is is beyond me. This goes so beyond norm breaking. He's out to break the system. The fact that the the Republicans are ok with this only proves just how corrupt and power hungry they are.
"Why more people don't see Trump as the threat..."
At least in some cases it is because they think he is a moron.
They still think they can controll him. They did a piss poor job of it last time when he had slighlty responsible people in his administration. This time he is completely off the leash. Vance said he wouldn't pardon every January 6th ass hat, yet he did. The GOP now is like the Weimar Republic.
More like the Russian Duma, rubber-stamping every proposal of the President-for-Life.
"At least in some cases it is because they think he is a moron."
Both things can be (and in this instance, sadly, are) true.
What Trump is is not the point. The point is what other people think about him.
People that he bamboozles to think he is a moron underestimate how danagerous he is. He has been using this trick for decades.
Why more people don't see Trump as the threat he is is beyond me.
Democrats do see him as a threat but they don't have the votes to stop him.
The GOP base is largely illiterate. They don't know what's going on.
Many GOP elites do see him as a threat, but they're afraid of their own shadows.
And a few smugly stupid GOP elites think they can ride the tiger to lower tax rates and labor/environmental/financial deregulation. Just like their counterparts in 1933 Germany.
And so here were are.
Well, so what? Heggie will only be in the Cabinet for a few months. Then he'll annoy the Sovereign, or just get boring, and be replaced. Recess appointment! It's more fun that way, like King Donnie said during his last occupation of the Oval.
I predict the Congress will have a lot of "recesses" over the next four years. And this round of "confirmed" appointees will be the only ones who ever get a confirmation vote.
If he made it, the rest of Trumps shitty picks are more likely to as well. Three cheers for immorality, corruption and grift.
Don’t forget lunacy! (RFK, Jr.)
Of all the crazies I imagine him doing the most damage. If only if it's just our own country.
Trump embraces Christian supporters but doesn't attend church, and never has
Yet the ministers make one excuse after another to support Trump
Hegseth the same
Joni Ernst the same
Tom Tilllis R-NC the same
Good grief - the hypocrisy shown by the republican party is absolutely stunning.
BTW - Trump isn't looking too good and has refused to release medical information about his health. So, why not fire the WH physician?
DJT will not be around long enough to complete his term or enjoy the benefits of the deals he's striking with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
Vance might prove even worse than Trump. He'll pick up right where Trump left off.
He doesn't have hordes of supporters that Trump has, so will not be able to do even 1% of the damage that Trump does.
Anyone want to bet on Hegseth giving Trump what he really wants? A military parade down Pennsylvania Ave with tanks, APCs, missile carriers, jackbooted thugs etc.
And a flyover by dozens of jets, natch.
"Anyone want to bet on Hegseth giving Trump what he really wants? "
What Trump wants is to remove generals with integrity and promote generals that will obey him even when it is clearly illegal and non-constitutional order.
Really? Was there ever a doubt? Like all confirmation hearings, GOP holdouts almost always come around. A ph call reminding them what their state will NOT get, campaign reelection contributions they will NOT get, and now the trifecta - going on Ts bad boy list.
A recent exception was McCain and he wasn't exactly worried about reelection.
Short Version- “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line”
Authoritarians come in two flavors, dominant and submissive. “Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused…”
+1 for the Eurythmics reference!
Aren't there three independents in the Senate: Sanders, King and now Murkowski as well? Just wondering...