I just read a someone's comment on the DM that the reason Gabbard was not picked for Defense Sec is this,

quote:

The Secretary of Defense is a civilian appointment and a service member must be retired for 10 years from active service or they’ll need a waiver from Congress. This keeps Gabbard from taking the role unfortunately.

Any truth to this, to those in the knows?

Never mind. According to wiki,

quote:

To ensure civilian control of the military, U.S. law provides that the secretary of defense cannot have served as an active-duty commissioned officer in the military in the preceding seven years except for generals and admirals, who cannot have served on active duty within ten years. Congress can grant waivers in such cases.

So, that ruled Tulsi out. So, the idiot who wrote the article called Trump's pick a "snub" on Gabbard.

So that leaves us with Tulsi and JFK Jr.

I was thinking Defense Secretary for Tulsi but now that that is taken. Where are we with her place at the table?

What about JFK Jr?

Thoughts ?

A little surprised that BOTH Elon and Vivek are at DOGE. it’s a big job to be sure but you can only have one chief.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
I just read a someone's comment on the DM that the reason Gabbard was not picked for Defense Sec is this,

quote:

The Secretary of Defense is a civilian appointment and a service member must be retired for 10 years from active service or they’ll need a waiver from Congress. This keeps Gabbard from taking the role unfortunately.

Any truth to this, to those in the knows?

Yes, without double checking, I believe that is indeed correct.

Austin was only out for 4 years, so he must have had a waiver and I do believe that is the case.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:
I just read a someone's comment on the DM that the reason Gabbard was not picked for Defense Sec is this,

quote:

The Secretary of Defense is a civilian appointment and a service member must be retired for 10 years from active service or they’ll need a waiver from Congress. This keeps Gabbard from taking the role unfortunately.

Any truth to this, to those in the knows?

Yes, without double checking, I believe that is indeed correct.

Concur on both accounts (need a congressional (?) waiver to deviate I think).

retired military must also be noted when hiring into a senior position with a defense contractor or advancing into one.

quote:

Originally posted by x0225095:

A little surprised that BOTH Elon and Vivek are at DOGE. it’s a big job to be sure but you can only have one chief.

Let's face it, Elon is a busy man. This won't be his full time job.

Trump ain't fucking around. This is a reckoning, a retribution.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by x0225095:

A little surprised that BOTH Elon and Vivek are at DOGE. it’s a big job to be sure but you can only have one chief.

Let's face it, Elon is a busy man. This won't be his full time job.

….And that’s why BOTH could make sense. I could also imagine some COI and, because of those, Vivek is the lead on paper.

I can see it now, 250th July 4th, Elon launches for Mars.

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
Trump ain't fucking around. This is a reckoning, a retribution.

It is the modern day showdown at the OK corral. .

Backstabbing RINO McCononell. There is a Vietnamese phase about, "raising a snake in your house." F'ing snake. Upsetting this hard won election for their own selfish preservation.

Breitbart Article

Senate Republicans are set to gather behind closed doors on Wednesday to select a new party leader after securing the majority — and as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) serves his final days as Senate minority leader.

But Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) hopes his colleagues will vote to delay the decision in favor of taking more time to vet Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who are all vying for Senate majority leader, he said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily.

“I’m hoping it gets delayed. I mean…again — this is a McConnell move. It’s grotesque,” said Johnson, who supports Sen. Scott’s leadership bid. “We’re not even going to be back in for 24 hours. We [GOP senators] spoke about this. We were going to break this up. We all agreed we wanted to elect a leader before Thanksgiving — we didn’t have to do it within less than 24 hours when we return. That’s sick.”

Host Mike Slater asked Johnson why holding the vote so soon after the election presents a problem, to which Johnson pointed out that he and his colleagues will not get the opportunity to fully question candidates before casting a vote.

“Because we haven’t even had a candidate forum, where we have all three candidates up there — we can pepper them with questions, we can see how they react,” he said. “There have been some one-on-one meetings. But again, we should have this in…a debate forum. Let’s get up there, let’s spend hours peppering these guys with, ‘How are you going to handle this situation? What are you going to do with this? What are your top priorities?’ We need to hear that.”

“He [McConnell] engineered it [the early vote], and our conference chair called the meeting. So we’ll have it. Again, I’m hoping we vote to delay the vote,” he added.

Reports emerged as early as September, before Republicans won the Senate majority, that McConnell would work behind the scenes to have influence over who replaces him. Among Republicans who stand by the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Sen. Rick Scott is seen as a the top contender, and has been endorsed by Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sens. Thune and Cornyn are seen as establishment-backed candidates.

“What the hell is going on in the US Senate? Hours after Donald Trump wins the most conclusive mandate in 40 years, Mitch McConnell engineers a coup against his agenda by calling early leadership elections in the senate,” Tucker Carlson wrote in a post to X on Sunday.

“Two of the three candidates hate Trump and what he ran on. One of them, John Cornyn, is an angry liberal whose politics are indistinguishable from Liz Cheney’s,” he added. “The election is Wednesday, it’s by secret ballot, and it will determine whether or not the new administration succeeds. Rick Scott of Florida is the only candidate who agrees with Donald Trump. Call your senator and demand a public endorsement of Rick Scott. Don’t let McConnell get away with it again.”
“Without Rick Scott, the entire Trump reform agenda [is] wobbly,” RFK Jr. replied.

Johnson accused McConnell of running a “one-man dictatorship” as leader.

“We had no idea what his strategy was,” he said, using the border bill as one of the latest examples.

“All we were asking for is an enforcement mechanism to force Biden to use the authority he had to secure the border. We would have been happy to strengthen that authority. Nobody asked for an immigration bill, certainly not that awful one that he ended up negotiating as a total breach of leadership responsibility, but he just dropped that on the conference, and all of our jaws dropped,” he said, contrasting McConnell’s leadership style with that of Scott.

“So one-man dictatorship versus Rick Scott,” he said, praising Scott’s business sense.

“When you run an organization, you can’t be a dictator. You have to be collaborative. Your organization has to know: Here’s our mission, here are our goals, here’s your role in fulfilling those goals. So it’d be a far more collaborative process. Listen, we have smart people in the Senate. I mean, people may not agree with that, but we do. We’ve got accomplished people that can contribute, and the role of the leaders is to find those you know, those competencies in those individuals and use them fully. But again, bring everybody on board,” he said, explaining that Scott has done this “repeatedly in business, and then as governor of a state, as being an executive.”

“We need that type of leadership — that kind of functioning organization in the United States Senate. So we haven’t had it. We haven’t had … [it] in the 14 years I’ve been here,” Johnson said.

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

quote:

Originally posted by x0225095:

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by x0225095:

A little surprised that BOTH Elon and Vivek are at DOGE. it’s a big job to be sure but you can only have one chief.

Let's face it, Elon is a busy man. This won't be his full time job.

….And that’s why BOTH could make sense. I could also imagine some COI and, because of those, Vivek is the lead on paper.

To clarify…Fox News reports…

“The president-elect said that Musk and Ramaswamy will provide "advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before."

quote:

Originally posted by TRIO:
My coworkers are astonished at how fast he is moving. Also, how his win is having an international impact only a week after the election..

He's now been involved in three election campaigns. While his first campaign resulted in a surprising win, his administration was beset with delays in appointments and Senate confirmations, not to mention a openly hostile campaign by traitorous-Republicans (Never Trump'ers) who would've made the transition and the running of the administration much smoother within the bureaucracy of the many cabinet and appointed positions.
Today, this time around, DJT knows who can implement the policies he's looking to set while not having to deal with a subversive action behind his back.


While I applaud Hegseth to the SECDEF, the reality is this position will require a massive change in DoD operations and some hard decisions, principally getting the Navy straightened out and re-capitolized, while shrinking the Army's budget. The lack of investment in our nation's shipyards has resulted in a near non-existent maritime policy, a shortage of tradesman principally welders which has trickled down to a struggling shipyard industry, unable to meet the maintenance and building needs that the Navy requires if its to face-down and challenge China. Numerous defense and Navy pundits have written endless articles about this and the clock is rapidly ticking toward 2027 (date Xi has instructed his forces to be prepared to invade Taiwan). I certainly hope Hegseth has this concern at the top of his list of priorities...along with cleaning out openly hostile and obfuscating FOGO's dragging their feet towards the necessary changes.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
https://x.com/bonchieredstate/.../1856496299077505450

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To be fair regarding the "20 years in military service", most of it was in the Guard. Not taking anything away from that service, but it's not really the same as 20 active. At all.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of Hegseth. He strikes me as being quite immature, and his personal life is a disaster with seven kids from three different wives (the last one he knocked up while married to wife #2)...and he claims to be a devout Christian. Clearly he has poor judgement which, IMO, would be a disqualifier for that position.

He has done good on vets, so there's that. I hope he's up for this job, I just don't think he's the right one for it.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

To be fair regarding the "20 years in military service", most of it was in the Guard. Not taking anything away from that service, but it's not really the same as 20 active. At all.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of Hegseth. He strikes me as being quite immature, and his personal life is a disaster with seven kids from three different wives (the last one he knocked up while married to wife #2)...and he claims to be a devout Christian. Clearly he has poor judgement which, IMO, would be a disqualifier for that position.

He has done good on vets, so there's that. I hope he's up for this job, I just don't think he's the right one for it.

He's a combat veteran and a two time recipient of the bronze star. He's also a graduate from both Harvard and Princeton. He's a Washington outsider. He's exactly the person we need in that position.

quote:

To be fair regarding the "20 years in military service", most of it was in the Guard. Not taking anything away from that service, but it's not really the same as 20 active. At all

There are active duty guys who serve in the NG. My good friend was full time in the NCNG, there have to be people who keep things running during the month before the members come in on their drill. So yeah it can be exactly like the same as 20 active.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
There are active duty guys who serve in the NG. My good friend was full time in the NCNG, there have to be people who keep things running during the month before the members come in on their drill. So yeah it can be exactly like the same as 20 active.

All true, but not in his case.

No it’s not the same, not only did he serve, he also went to school and received several degrees and maintained another job. And somehow managed to be promoted to Major.

Serving in the guard or in my case the CG reserves (which is the equivalent of the guard) is sometimes more difficult than just showing up for work while you are on AD. I’ve done both. Reservists and Guardsman are constantly denigrated,and your statement oozes your disdain for them. Shame on you.