From an anonymous defense lobbyist on Donald Trump's choice of Fox News talker Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense:
“Who the fuck is this guy?”
I guess this lobbyist doesn't watch Fox & Friends on weekends?
More to the point, I wonder if Sen. Roger Wicker watches Fox & Friends on weekends? He's in line to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, so he'll be in charge of Hegseth's confirmation hearings. Apparently the answer is yes:
“No, I don't have concerns. I'm delighted at the prospect of working with.”
Yeesh. I thought the Senate might bring a tiny bit of adult supervision to Trump's more bizarre appointments, but I guess not.
Perhaps this is the first hint of the international wave of stupid we could all learn to surf?
If all people are all dumb, what's the issue? They will never know anything that happens, not really, they, physiologically, cannot know what we are saying.
Can you ever speak to someone who will not ever know what mean, by anything?
Wondering if the point here is to have a Sec Def who will be on board with using the military to target immigrants, protesters, journalists, and other undesirables. I would guess yes.
He wants yes men everywhere. There will be little to no pushback to Trumps worst instincts and impulses. The disgusting thing is how quickly the Republicans have adapted to playing second fiddle to a moron.
Yes the common denominator among all the appointees so far is that they are all sycophants.
It's amazing how none of them are qualified at all. Shockingly so. I don't get it. Has the GOP lost their minds? This is getting to be beyond ridiculous.
"Has the GOP lost their minds?"
Have you been vacationing on another planet for the last 15 years?
I mean as completely as it appears now.
I saw this when Newt and hi Southern Boys rose to power. It's really amazing how many folks thought these people were good and principled
It is what :Putin wants.
I see that!
It's a mastery flex. Like Caligula making his horse a consul, same idea-- showing he can make the party eat any shit he can dish up and rubbing their noses in the fact. It's also, and not incidentally, a complete mockery of what's notionally the exercise of a trust granted by the collective people.
Instead, he's giving us Animal House.
Hegseth? Tulsi Gabbard? Matt Gaetz? I just can't wait to hear what cabinet slot or embassy he'll give Marjorie Taylor Greene and Hulk Hogan.
Ted Nugent for Secretary of Defense. Or in his case, Secretary of Shitting his pants.
Except that Caligula never made his horse consul.
True, but the reference is so widely known that it's useful anyway.
Eureka! It came to me! Hegseth was the first guy who said yeah, sure we'll have a big military parade in DC on July 4th.
Of course! That was the big trick interview question and the reason so many SecDefs were canned the first time around . . .
Also agreed to create lots of medals for Trump to wear. Curious what the design of ‘STD Avoidance/PersonalVietnam’ will look like.
Big, beautiful, like nobody's ever seen before, people will stop and say "sir, I've never seen anything like it," tears in their eyes, big strapping guys who never cried in their lives, even better than Man of the Year in Michigan (yada yada . . . yada)
This is exactly what trump wants because he knows Governors in Blue States and perhaps some Republican Governors who still have some ethics will refuse to use their NG and State Police to do Trump's bidding
Yes.
The senate will be a rubber stamp for all of Trumps ridiculousness. They've given up their independence in service to their emperor. Fealty to dear leader has replaced patriotism.
That's if they had any patriotism that wasn't self serving or phoney.
[Ron Howard narrator voice] They did not.
Two points to highlight:
1) This is Trump doing his stuff, rather than anybody else using him.
2) This is not graft. This is a power grab towards becoming a dictator.
It can't be any more obvious. Well it could if he declared himself president for life at his inauguration. At which time I look forward to seeing how the GOP react. I'm guessing a standing ovation worthy of a Nuremberg rally.
Tulsi for DNI
Well, this is a fun week so far...
Well this is terrifying. She will be reporting directly to Vladimir Putin.
The list keeps getting more and more absurd by the day. A Putin propagandist as DNI. What could possibly go wrong?
" I thought the Senate might bring a tiny bit of adult supervision to Trump's more bizarre appointments"
Why on earth would you come anywhere close to thinking this? For the next four years your Executive Branch is going to be a careening dumpster fire of evil and insanity.
I wrote elsewhere, but this is actually staright answer to your question:
Senators get their power from being elected, so they are top of the losers when democracy is destroyed. They may realize that if they don't stop Trump that what will happen, and they will lose their privileges.
A thin straw, but that what th US has now.
How are the (Republican) senators going to lose their positions? The states they represent are guaranteed 2 seats each, no matter how shitty they become or how many people flee them. If democracy is destroyed, they no longer face the wrath of their constituents. As long as they keep sucking Trump's dick and perhaps give handies to the governors and state legislators back home who presumably would pick their replacements if Trump turned on them, why would they ever be turfed out of their jobs?
If Trump becomes a dictator, he will select who sucks, and most of the senators are not to his taste.
Also senators make money because they have power, and when Trump becomes a dictator they lose that power.
Their ability to have power will now depend on how well they please Donald Trump. They will learn to be to his taste.
What makes you think it will last (only) four years?
+1
Matt effing Gaetz for Attorney General??????????????????
Donald Trump is not even a serious psychotic.
That's one way to avoid any more of those pesky child sex trafficking issues.
His Senate confirmation hearings will be the perfect venue to have the trial he seems not to having despite the allegations against him
Just hold up a series of pictures of females from oldest to youngest and see when he stops saying too old.
That's only if trump doesn't get his way, since he has demanded that his nominees not be subject to hearings & Senate approval, but be allowed as recess appointments.
So much for the "advise and consent" duties of the Senate.
It's like something from The Onion. I would say that I hope that at least some of these buffoons have able deputies who can give them a clue about things, but who am I kidding.
Deputy says "You can't do that." Trump appointee responce: "Watch me!"
He promised revenge; this is DOJ's turn. I expect the Republican-controlled Senate will confirm, mass resignations of senior Department staff will ensue. Nobody with any self-respect would serve under that POS.
The next four years are going to be one enormous cluster fuck and circle jerk all wrapped up in one.
His entire administration will be populated with nothing more than cluless and opportunistic sychophants. I shudder to think what 2025 will bring.
Jack Smith plans on stepping down before Trumps inauguration. I seriously suggest he moves to a country with no extradition treaties with us. The kangaroo courts and drum head trials will start rather quickly. It'll be the lawfare they accused the Democrats of conducting but actually real.
There are a lot of people I think that we've seen in the media that strongly opposed Trump and tried to stop his criminality that are going to suddenly announce they found a new home in a foreign country in 2025.
I worry more about the anonymous NY jurors. I'm sure somebody knows their names out there and will gladly hand them over to President Trump if he asks. And nobody is going to pay for those jurors to flee to countries without extradition to the US.
The more time goes by the more I fear what this country is turning into. But his cult got their wish. He's running this country like a business... a corrupt, unethical and immoral business.
And Drum thought Hegseth was bad? (And he is bad, very bad, but not a surprise.) Has he watched the news this morning? With Russian stooges in the Oval Office and as DNI, all western nations should end intelligence sharing with the US immediately. Except Israel, of course, they have to tell us who to bomb to the Stone Age.
It looks to me like by now these appointments are not intended to be real, but a way to get "compromise" with the senate that gives Trump the ones he really wants, while the senate can "save face" by blocking some appointments.
I don't believe he actually wants Gabbard at DNI or Gaetz at AG.
Why not? He doesn't pick people based on qualifications. His picks so far proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. I think he does want them. His only concern is getting people who won't hold him back. If Hegseth is deemed appropriate anyone is. That's why he's so obsessed with recess appointments. He's not at the point where he trusts that the GOP is completely subservient to his desires.
Gaetz has his own career to think about, so will be problematic. Some lawyer or judge without a political career will fit Trump better.
Gabbard is clueless, and Trump needs a good control of the DNI, so needs somebody more knowledgable.
Hegseth role is to damage the army (mainly the careers of any "dysloyal" general), rather than do anything useful, so he doesn't need to know anything except how to judge "loyalty".
You assume he will behave or act rationally. This is Trump we are
talking about here. He isn't rational in the least. I don't think he cares whether or not his picks will be effective or not. They will be loyal and that's the only thing that matters to him.
I am not assuming rationality, I am assuming he will continue to behave the same as he did until now.
Once he could appoint his own people, he didn't appoint ambitious politicians to positions that he feels are important, and he did appoint effective people to positions he felt are essential for him.
He wouldn't be a president (twice) otherwise.
You think his first term choices were his own? Hell even his v.p.was chosen for him.
"He doesn't pick people based on qualifications."
I disagree. He only picks people with none.
Editing "The Apprentice.":
"A grand editorial struggle on the show was to make the star’s decisions about which contestant was fired each episode look legitimate. The editors reported that when the boardroom was shot, the producers would offer their observations about who did well in the challenges and deserved to stay, and who was not pulling his or her weight and deserved to go. But invariably, Trump would ignore factual information and instead go with his gut.
“Trump would often make arbitrary decisions which had nothing to do with people’s merit,” confirmed another Season One editor who requested anonymity. “He’d make decisions based on whom he liked or disliked personally, whether it be for looks or lifestyle, or he’d keep someone that ‘would make good TV’ [according to Trump].” . . .
“We’d often be shocked at whomever Trump chose to fire,” Braun explained. “Our first priority on every episode like that was to reverse-engineer the show to make it look like his judgment had some basis in reality. Sometimes it would be very hard to do, because the person he chose did nothing. We had to figure out how to edit the show to make it work, to show the people he chose to fire as looking bad — even if they had done a great job.”
From 2016, but . . . . "her emails!"
https://cinemontage.org/editing-trump-reality-tv-star-who-would-be-president/
No, no 5 dimensional chess here. Why assume anything other than he wants a today? He knows nothing. He really doesn't want to do the job of President. He just wants more "Sir!" stories. "Sir! I never thought of that Sir! That's brilliant Sir!" That's what these folks will give him.
Constant adoration. His administrations fawning will make a communist party rally look like a roast.
Is it possible he is going to try to recess appointment his entire cabinet as a big FU to the establishment Senate Republicans who possibly would not confirm these choices?
He will if he thinks he can get a way with it. You can bet that his transition team is working furiously to find a way to do just that.
Why else would he be so preoccupied with recess appointments? Does the senate majority leader go along with it is the question. I honestly have no clue what the new majority leader will do. But I think it's a safe bet he'll give in to whatever Trump demands.
He never read his intelligence briefings in his first term; he has even fewer shits to give this time, so DNI is a don’t-care. Why wouldn’t he want Gaetz, who I’m confident will prosecute whomever Trump wants prosecuted?
Gaetz has resigned from House ….. 2 days before ethics panel might release report. The resignation ends the investigation.
Many of Trump's cabinet picks should alleviate the most severe cases of TDS. Kleptocrats are not effective bureaucrats.
Somehow I find that of little comfort. Besides fearing what Trump is going to do isn't being deranged, ignoring the threat he poses is.
Saving Treasury Secretary for Don Jr.
"Cool! I can print my own money. Who needs loans!"
Wicker is a lickspittle coward who represents the poorest state in the union, of course he's going to gargle Trump's balls.
"Senate Republicans Alarmed by Gaetz Pick as Attorney General Nominee." as per the NYT. You reap what you sow you fucking assholes. What did they expect. Normalcy from an abhorrent piece of shit like Trump?
You think that after the way they treated Merrick Garland?
Idiocracy wasn't intended to be a documentary.