I don't trust either of these guys as far as I can throw them

 

In 2016 J. D. Vance and Pete Hegseth were both conventional NeverTrumpers, and had not been particularly religious.

Hegseth was for Marco Rubio in 2015-16 originally, and then for Ted Cruz before acquiescing to Trump. Vance didn't come around to Trump until 2021, whom he needed in his run for US Senate in 2022 from Ohio.

 

Pete supposedly had a religious transformation in 2018, according to new Wikipedia information, which however contradicts itself:

 

"He has said that he underwent a religious transformation in 2018 following his marriage to his third wife" but

 

"Hegseth and Rauchet, who has three young children from her first marriage, married on August 16, 2019."

 

Oops. Sounds like it was more like 2019, but who really knows? Wikipedia only found out yesterday that Hegseth was born on June 6, 1980. How does this country approve a SECDEF without knowing until now when he was even born?

 

Meanwhile J. D. converted to Catholicism in 2019, what a coincidence, but was an atheist roughly until he was in law school at Yale during the first Obama administration. His "faith" is primarily intellectual by his own admission.

 

And now look at the two of 'em lol.

 

Phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rollas who lick their fingers, stick them in the air, and check whichaway the wind comin' from uh huh.

 

 

 

Pete Hegseth is confirmed to SECDEF 51-50, VP Vance breaks 50-50 tie

 

Republican Senators Murkowski, Collins, and McConnell voted against Pete Hegseth, necessitating the tie-breaking vote from Vice President J. D. Vance.

Hell of a hill for Vance to die on.

Sad!

Hegseth advances to a final vote with 51-49 vote to end debate, with Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voting against him

 Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon clears a key hurdle in the Senate

I find myself in small company agreeing with two of the most liberal Republicans in the US Senate, but that's what's become of the men.

OK, she's right, good for her

 Sen. Lisa Murkowski to vote against Hegseth, first Republican to oppose a Trump Cabinet pick 

... senators have remained doubtful of his experience and abilities and the alleged behavior that could lead to reprimand or firing for military personnel he would now be expected to lead. ...

Like Pete Hegseth, the early Americans were strong boozers

 

"ED: What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about American history?

"SY: I first came across W. J. Rorabaugh’s Alcoholic Republic as a graduate student, and it completely changed the way I thought about early American history. From 1790–1840, average alcohol consumption in America peaked at 7.1 gallons of distilled liquor per capita, over three times today’s consumption rate. When I share this fact with my students, it helps explain two important developments: first, the pervasiveness of violence in antebellum America. Alcohol fueled the mobs, riots, lynchings, vandalism, and duals that threatened the nation’s growing urban areas and the often lawless frontiers. Second, the appeal of the temperance movement. My students often scoff at the 18th Amendment and the failures of Prohibition, but temperance had broad popular appeal as a social cause precisely because alcohol was a pressing problem in the nineteenth century. Most Americans knew someone whose drinking had led to domestic violence, suicide, or poverty."

More.

Pete Hegseth reportedly has had episodes of drinking to the point of passing out

 

 I get the drinking too much until you barf. I mean, that's pretty much been Freshman Life 101 forever and a day. Pete was a freshman in college in 1999-2000.

But it takes a special kind of excess to drink until you pass out.

Is it true? 

Who knows.

One incident was allegedly in 2013, when he was about 32, at which time he had earned an MA from Harvard. Another was when he was about 28, in 2009, when his first marriage ended. That's a long time after graduating from Princeton University in 2003.

The precise timeline is uncertain because his birth year isn't precisely known, and the new revelations come from a former sister in law, married to Pete's brother from 2011-2019, who can't remember the dates exactly.

Anyway, I don't get why the new SECDEF absolutely, positively must be this guy, with all this sooty baggage. No one is that indispensable.

From The Wall Street Journal here:

Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, regularly abused alcohol to the point that he passed out at family gatherings, and once needed to be dragged out of a strip club while in uniform, according to an ex-relative’s account of his behavior that was given to U.S. lawmakers and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The sworn statement, submitted in response to a request from Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was signed by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth. It states that she was with Hegseth when he passed out from drunkenness in the bathroom of a bar in Minneapolis in about 2013. It also describes another night, when she said Hegseth drank so much at a restaurant in Minneapolis that the Uber driver had to pull over on Interstate 94 so he could throw up.

In her sworn statement, Danielle Hegseth said she personally observed erratic and aggressive behavior by Hegseth, witnessing him abusing alcohol multiple times over the years. One Christmas in 2008 or 2009, he drank so much that he threw up and passed out, she said. ...

Senate panel advances Defense secretary nominee Hegseth on party-line vote 14-13

 The Hill reported here yesterday at 5:37pm.

Degeneracy is a spectrum

 

.

.

FBI failed to investigate Pete Hegseth, GOP Senators afraid of being primaried just fine with it

 A gross dereliction of duty on the part of the Republican-controlled Senate and the Trump-directed FBI. That is a harsh but unavoidable assessment of the confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth to serve as Donald Trump’s defense secretary. ...

Only [Senators] Wicker and Reed were permitted to review an FBI report that Reed described as “insufficient.” The FBI failed to question Hegseth’s second wife, despite her expressed interest in being interviewed. It didn’t speak to the woman who accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her — and was paid by him in exchange for executing a nondisclosure agreement. It didn’t obtain the forensic audit of a veteran’s organization Hegseth ran that found “evidence of gross financial mismanagement.”

Mayer reported that “the F.B.I.’s background investigation also failed to interview Fox News personnel who had described Hegseth to NBC News as smelling of alcohol on the job as recently as last fall. Instead, sources say that the Bureau settled for an interview with a public-relations official at Fox.”

The FBI’s role here is troubling, because the bureau is supposed to serve as the Senate’s chief source of reported and reliable information about the individuals whose nominations it is considering. ...

The bureau has argued that the scope of its inquiries is limited by the directions it is given, in this case by the Trump transition team. But the Trump team’s goal is to win confirmation, not to get to the truth of the matter — which makes a Trump-directed FBI investigation worse than meaningless; it makes it effectively a coverup.

More.

Senator Tim Kaine v Pete Hegseth

 

I don't care what you think of Senator Tim Kaine, D-VA, he nailed Pete Hegseth's unrepentant ass to the canvass

 

 Pete Hegseth is no repentant Christian. He's a phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rolla.

This man represents a new low for the GOP.

From the story here:

“I want to return to the incident that you referenced a minute ago that occurred in Monterey, California, in October 2017,” Kaine opened. “At that time, you were still married to your second wife, correct?” 

After Hegseth agreed that he believed so, Kaine followed with “And you had just fathered a child by a woman who would later become your third wife, correct?”

“Senator, I was falsely charged and I fully. investigated and completely cleared,” Hegseth said of the sexual assault allegation, but Kaine pressed.

“So you think you are completely cleared because you committed no crime? That’s your definition of cleared?” Kaine pressed. “You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you are completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child who had been born two months before? And you tell us you are completely cleared. So how is that completely cleared?”

“Senator, her child’s name is Gwendolyn Hope Hegseth, and she’s a child of God, and she’s seven years old,” Hegseth replied.

“I mean, you cheated on the mother of that child less than two months after that daughter was born, didn’t you?” Kaine pressed. 

 “Those were false charges. Well, no, totally investigated. And I was completely cleared. And I’m so grateful for the marriage I have to this day,” Hegseth answered.

“So you’ve admitted that you had sex at that hotel in October 2017. You said it was consensual. Isn’t that correct?” Kaine continued. “You’ve admitted that it was consensual, and you were still married, and you just had a child by another woman again. How do you explain yourself?”

“Completely false charges against me,” Hegseth insisted, even though he agreed to a non-disclosure agreement and financial settlement with his accuser.

A jag off is someone who pulls out just in time, like Pete

Although there were at least seven times that he didn't, that we know of anyway.

 

Senator Jack Reed, D-RI, West Point graduate, US Army Ranger, paratrooper 82nd Airborne, drops the hammer on Pete Hegseth in the opening, speaks for the America we once knew and loved

 

But the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, bluntly told Hegseth, “I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job.”

Reed said he finds the allegations against Hegseth “extremely alarming.”

“I vote in favor of all your predecessors, including those in the first Trump administration. Unfortunately, you lack the character and composure and competence to hold the position of Secretary of Defense,” Reed said.

More. 

Jack is a patriotic liberal, ticking almost every box, in the mold of George McGovern, a B-24 Liberator pilot during WWII who won the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Who ya gonna believe, The Hill 952AM Jan 5 or CBS News 205PM Jan 5?

 Thune says it’s unclear whether all Trump Cabinet picks will be confirmed 

Thune has privately told Trump that Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed as Defense Secretary, sources say

 

Spineless jellyfish Pete Hegseth does 180 on women and gays in the military lol

 

 Hegseth does a 180 on women and gays in combat

Hegseth has called policies allowing gays and transgender troops to serve in the military part of a “Marxist agenda.” But on Thursday, when he met with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), reporters asked him whether he thought gays should serve in the military, and he replied, “Yes.”

And once an unapologetic critic of women serving in combat roles, Hegseth called women “some of our greatest warriors” during a recent Fox News appearance. ...

Hegseth has been working to explain himself behind closed doors. [Senator] Collins, after meeting with him for nearly 90 minutes, told reporters that he had backpedaled on women in combat. ... 

 “He was asked in our post-meeting gaggle [with reporters] whether he was supportive of women in combat and his answer was he was supportive of that,” [Senator] Hawley said. ...

 “I heard he was changing his tune a little bit on women in combat,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a Trump ally. “Sometimes you make comments that you don’t really want to stand by, sometimes, you know, when you’re not up for confirmation.”

Senatrix Joni Ernst reportedly caving on opposition to Pete Hegseth

Many, many women have caved to Pete Hegseth.

Here.

In March 2016 Pete Hegseth was no different from NeverTrumpers like Erick Erickson, Mark Levin, Charlie Kirk, and Ben Shapiro who all now bend the knee

 

 CNN video here from Dec 3rd, in which Hegseth criticizes Trump for being an arm chair warrior who had the temerity to criticize John McCain while avoiding the draft.

Which is rich coming from Hegseth who was never regular military.

It's Megyn Kelly interviewing him, too, lol, who has been defending Pete The Warrior and his PTSD for his bad behavior with the women.

I keep waiting for someone to ask Hegseth how many firefights he was in in the field in Afghanistan. We'd all like to know in this age of stolen valor. We know that's a fact about his time in Iraq, but everyone keeps talking as if that's what he did in Afghanistan when the only evidence I find is that he taught a course there and that his stay was very brief.

More at Mediaite here.

Bunch of phony, baloney, plastic banana, good time rock 'n rollas.

Pete Hegseth promises to quit drinking if confirmed as SECDEF lol

 

Why wait, Pete? Why not stop now?

Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that his relationship with alcohol is a matter of serious concern to GOP senators by pledging Wednesday in meetings on Capitol Hill that he would stop drinking if confirmed to serve as Defense secretary.

The Hill, here.

The bargaining is classic drunk.

OMG, the NY Post/Karol Markowicz comparison of Pete Hegseth to Brett Kavanaugh is completely wrong, and now Pete Hegseth goes there to defend himself

 Where else? but in The Wall Street Journal here:

Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced. But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect.

 

DeSantis is far and away better for DOD than Pete Hegseth, but it would be a step down for the governor, and a minefield which could blow up his chances for 2028, if he still has any

 Trump Mulls Replacing Pete Hegseth With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Beside all that, Trump is just poaching again. 

Florida still needs Ron DeSantis, especially to appoint the replacement for the already poached Senator Marco Rubio. One bad decision leads to another.

Can't Trump find anyone else? Isn't this just more evidence of how few quality people find serving in this lame duck presidency an attractive prospect?

Ron DeSantis should also think long and hard about having to defend everything Trump for four years, quite apart from defending the United States, if he's still serious about a 2028 run. He ran against Trump in the primaries, after all, for reasons.

I think this story is more of a trial balloon, an advertisement: "Hey out there! Anyone interested in the job? Help! I gotta get rid of Pete! Please step up!"