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. ...

Land of the sooty, home of the knave

 In those countries that pretend to freedom, princes are subject to those laws which their people have chosen.

-- Jonathan Swift

Democrats are still light years away from recognizing Hillary lost because no one wanted to vote for a lying crook

Democrats here blame a litany of things . . .

• Bernie's challenge
• Comey's investigation
• The Russkies
• Clinton's centrism
• Clinton's campaign
• Clinton's failure to defend herself
• Clinton's messaging
• Democrats' inability to connect with the millions they failed

. . . but never the freight train of sooty baggage which defined Hillary Clinton.

Ya think? WaPo: "It's possible that Clinton supporters did not show up on Election Day"

The latest tally shows Hillary not getting 8.361 million votes in 2016 which Obama got in 2008. No matter what Trump's coalition was in 2016, its size shows little variation from 2008 and 2012. There was no sea change of support for his candidacy.

The answer for Clinton's loss is in the disarray among Democrats because their candidate was so horrible, which is why the media have portrayed Trump that way. It's liberal projection syndrome all over again. Hillary Clinton was the worst candidate for president in at least a generation. "More sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train" was how Camille Paglia put it 3 years ago. Democrats should have listened to her.

WaPo, recognizing that the proper comparison is with 2008, not 2012:

Absent final turnout numbers, it is still too early to assess whether these shifting vote patterns are the result of differential turnout among Clinton and Trump supporters or the result of genuine voter conversion. It’s possible that a sizable chunk of Latino Clinton supporters, in addition to white women, African Americans, and Asian Americans, did not show up on Election Day. It’s also possible that a significant portion of these voters were willing to overlook Trump’s incendiary remarks and vote for him based on other factors, like the need to shake up “politics as usual.”

The bad news for graduates: if you follow your passions you'll likely go off the rails

USA Today mediocrity Laura Vanderkam sells the snake oil here:

"[T]he good news is that the economy is evolving in ways that make [following your passion] more practical than your graduation speaker realizes. The key is recognizing two things. First, work and life aren't separate; a career is ideally a way to profitably live out your interests. And second, you don't just want to follow your passion; you also want to rally other people to follow your passion. Doing so is how you will get to do what you love for the rest of your life. Fortunately, building a following is more possible than ever, even for young people, if you play your cards right."

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America didn't become the greatest economic powerhouse in the history of the world because its people followed their passions. Ask the millions who slaved away their lives tilling the soil, mining the coal and driving the trucks. Rather it was relentless commitment to hard work, delaying gratification and saving which formed the basis for the success. As for rallying other people to follow your passion, that is a complete waste of your time. And since time is one of your only advantages relative to everyone else, you ought to concentrate on using it more wisely. It's the greatest leverage you have, next to your energy.

Work. Save. Invest.

Hillary Has More Sooty Baggage Than A 90-Car Freight Train

So says Camille Paglia, here:

'It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts. I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi.'In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was. Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders. It’s even a key motif in “King Lear.” As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood.'