quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
....and your statement oozes your disdain for them. Shame on you.

I served in the Montana Guard and in the regular Army. I can speak to what it's like. I have no disdain whatsoever, and you can save your shame for someone else.

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.

Tulsi is out because she's not been out of the military long enough. So, who's "the right one for the job"? Some Christian who was "active" duty and has one wife? His personal life is a disaster because he has three different wives and seven kids? Do you know any details about him other than what you read on the internet to make such a claim? Last I checked, Trump is also a Christian who had three wives. That poor judgment should be a disqualifier for becoming POTUS.

I don't know who's the right one, just not him. And frankly I don't care if he's a Christian or not. I pointed it out to show that not only does he have piss poor judgement, but that he's also a hypocrite. Preaching about faith and family while cheating on your wife...and kids. That is not a good man.

Watch the full interview of Hegseth before making a judgement. It is 2 hours long and see what kind of man he is. He will do well in that position.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoN5ovwB8s4

Do you think Kari Lake will find a spot in Trump's administration?

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I pointed it out to show that not only does he have piss poor judgement, but that he's also a hypocrite. Preaching about faith and family while cheating on your wife...and kids. That is not a good man.

You're basically describing every great leader in history.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer: Preaching about faith and family while cheating on your wife...and kids. That is not a good man.

He is fallen man capable of overcoming his mistakes. Mistakes do not make him a bad man.

I have more faith in President Trump and his vetting team in picking the right team this time around than anyone on the internet passing judgment on his nominees. Enough of this. Time to move on to the next pick and pass judgment.

As a veteran, I will take Pete over a 4 star whose main interest was prolonging conflicts so that his previous employer could make money over multiple years selling their weapons systems at taxpayer expense.

I could watch Scott Jennings clips all day.

https://x.com/WesternLensman/s.../1856541229120401877



HOLY SMOKES:
@ScottJenningsKY
just went scorched earth on Carl Bernstein and CNN panel defending Pete Hegseth —

— while excoriating current Pentagon leadership over their disastrous record.

“Does anyone have confidence in the current leadership of the Pentagon? And the way the defense situation has been operating for the last several years? I mean, from the Afghanistan pullout, which was an extreme debacle for which no one was held accountable. We've had spy balloons flying over the United States. We built a $300 million pier as a public relations stunt, which wound up killing an American service member.

"I hear all the criticism of him is that he's not the expected Washington pick. And I'm just saying to you that the American people just voted against the expected Washington pick."

"He's got 20 years in service. Afghanistan, Iraq. Two bronze stars. Princeton, Harvard. Yeah, he's on TV, but so are the rest of us."

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.

A quick read of his bio shows multiple active duty periods during his service as well as dedication to veterans issues. I know folks who did 20 years active duty and never left CONUS. The dates and amount of time are less important then the what and where of his service as far as I am concerned.

Your facts are way off regarding his children. He has fathered four children with two women. First marriage had no children. He had three children with his second wife (1st of which was before they were married). As noted, he was involved in extramarital behavior that created another child. After the second divorce, he married the mother of that child and they have been together for over 5 years now.

While he happily accepts the father role for seven children, three of them are step-children that his third wife had before they got together. They are a blended family and profess to not make any use of the “step” moniker.

Everything I’ve heard shows him to be a devoted father. Seems to be actively involved with all four of his biological children, possibly even having custody. He has also stepped into the role of father for his wife’s children and one of his concerns is the lack of father figure so many children face in this country. It takes one hell of a man or woman to accept the children of another as their own as far as I am concerned.


Making a few bad decisions doesn’t necessarily mean one has poor judgement. Learning from and not repeating mistakes is more important than the mistake in most cases.


Lots of devout Christians fall short of the mark, we are human and we are all sinners. Jesus himself hung out with the miscreants. I’m no biblical scholar, but if memory serves that had a lot to do with the Jewish leaders taking such issue with his teachings. The leaders saw the sinners as lessor people to be avoided, Jesus saw the sinners as people in need.

I for one will not judge the man and think he is a fantastic choice for the job.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1856526948781998090




There are probably 100,000+ people in the greater DC area in the government sphere - govt employees, lawyers, lobbyists, think tanks, and NGO grifters - who are now worried about losing their jobs.

They’ve got fat mortgages, Mercedes payments, club memberships, and school fees to worry about.

And as they admired the diplomas on their walls and sneered at the problems of everyday Americans, they thought the grift would never end.

Good riddance.

And since I know some of these people, I can say that the best part of what’s coming is that these pseudo-intellectual, wannabe elites shape and build their entire identities as human beings around what their job title is, what airport lounge access they have, and what cocktail parties they get invited to.

Their entire world is about to get turned upside down. And it couldn’t happen to a more odious and vapid group of people.

Question...

If Elon Musk is appointed to a cabinet position under the Trump Administration, does he have to divest himself from any of his companies that do business with the US Government due to conflict of interest?

He & Vivek will be advisors only, not cabinet members.

I'm on board with all of Trump's picks so far except for Pete Hedgseth. Not because of his personal qualities, combat experience, etc.; but because I think those are irrelevant to the job of SecDef, which is running the biggest and most diverse "company" in the country.
Trump has a number of business leaders who have run multibillion dollar companies successfully; in my opinion he should have picked one of them--someone like Howard Lutnick--to run DoD.

I'm actually surprised that Trump, a hugely successful entrepreneur at heart, would not choose someone who has that kind of mindset and experience for this job.

I'm not sure how being a successful billionaire businessman translates to a good Defense Sec, doc. Especially at this time, when military reform, by dismantling all the DEI woke shit that has plagued it the past 4 years, is sorely needed. Hegseth is on record saying that needs to be done.

DoD has hundreds of thousands of civilian personnel plus the military. Decisions made at that level are not like just deciding what you want to have happen and it happens.
Our best SecDefs have probably been people like Harold Brown and Bill Perry.
I'll grant you, there was McNamara....
One suggestion I read was Erik Prince, who would seem to have the qualifications I'd like; but I don't know that much about him.

quote:

Our best SecDefs have probably been people like Harold Brown and Bill Perry.

Brown was a nuclear physicist. Perry was a mathematician who worked in the defense industry. Neither was a billionaire businessman.