The Senate hearing, which featured five of the nation’s top intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe — both of whom were involved in the group chat over the Signal messaging app — was meant be a forum for the nation’s spy chiefs to offer their assessments of the top national security threats facing the nation.
Wednesday Reads: Signalgate and Social Security News
Posted: March 26, 2025 Filed under: Donald Trump, Social Security | Tags: Frank Bisignano, Houthis, Jeffrey Goldberg, John Ratcliffe, Karoline Leavitt, Kash Patel, Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth, Senator Mark Warner, Signal Ap, Signalgate, The Atlantic, Tulsi Gabbard, Yemen 6 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
Jeffrey Goldberg
This morning The Atlantic’s Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg released the full Signal text exchange that was the top news story all day yesterday. I’m sure you’re familiar with the story, but in case you missed it (unlikely), Goldberg was sent an invitation to a Signal group that included top administration officials. He accepted out of curiosity. Here is the original story published two days ago in The Atlantic (gift article): The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.
And here is today’s article (gift): Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal.
On Monday, shortly after we published a story about a massive Trump-administration security breach, a reporter asked the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, why he had shared plans about a forthcoming attack on Yemen on the Signal messaging app. He answered, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.”
At a Senate hearing yesterday, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, were both asked about the Signal chat, to which Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently invited by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz. “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group,” Gabbard told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Ratcliffe said much the same: “My communications, to be clear, in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.”
President Donald Trump, asked yesterday afternoon about the same matter, said, “It wasn’t classified information.”
These statements presented us with a dilemma. In The Atlantic’s initial story about the Signal chat—the “Houthi PC small group,” as it was named by Waltz—we withheld specific information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that we found in certain texts. As a general rule, we do not publish information about military operations if that information could possibly jeopardize the lives of U.S. personnel. That is why we chose to characterize the nature of the information being shared, not specific details about the attacks.
Pete Hegseth
The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump—combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts—have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions. There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared.
Experts have repeatedly told us that use of a Signal chat for such sensitive discussions poses a threat to national security. As a case in point, Goldberg received information on the attacks two hours before the scheduled start of the bombing of Houthi positions. If this information—particularly the exact times American aircraft were taking off for Yemen—had fallen into the wrong hands in that crucial two-hour period, American pilots and other American personnel could have been exposed to even greater danger than they ordinarily would face. The Trump administration is arguing that the military information contained in these texts was not classified—as it typically would be—although the president has not explained how he reached this conclusion.
Karoline Leavitt
The Atlantic approached multiple people in the Trump administration, asking if they had objections to the publication of the entire Signal chant. Only press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded:
“As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat. However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation. This was intended to be a an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed. So for those reason [sic] — yes, we object to the release.” (The Leavitt statement did not address which elements of the texts the White House considered sensitive, or how, more than a week after the initial air strikes, their publication could have bearing on national security.)
Here is the relevant part of the text chain:
At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, “TEAM UPDATE:”
The text beneath this began, “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” Centcom, or Central Command, is the military’s combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues:
- “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
- “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
- “1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
- “1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
- “1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
- “MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
- “We are currently clean on OPSEC”—that is, operational security.
- “Godspeed to our Warriors.”
Read the whole article at The Atlantic. It isn’t very long. Those certainly look like war plans to me. This is a great opportunity for Democrats to fight back against Trump’s rapidly advancing coup. They did an excellent job in the Senate hearing yesterday.
The Washington Post (Gift article): Democrats slam spy chiefs over Trump team’s Signal leak of war plans.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday hammered the Trump administration’s top intelligence officials on how and why the vice president, defense secretary, national security adviser and other top Cabinet members made the “reckless” decision to use a commercial messaging app to discuss secret war plans for Yemen — while also inadvertently including a journalist in the group chat.
Instead, the routine annual hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence became a staging ground to interrogate the kind of “mind-boggling” behavior that the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark R. Warner (Virginia), said would easily have gotten a lower-ranking military or intelligence officer fired.
Mike Waltz
In the Signal group chat, convened by national security adviser Michael Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others reportedly detailed the targets, the attack sequencing and the weapons they would use in a U.S. air attack on Yemen’s Houthis, before the Pentagon launched the strikes on March 15, according to a bombshell report published Monday by the Atlantic.
“If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired,” Warner said in his opening remarks at Tuesday’s hearing, noting that in addition to the targeting information, the text chain included the identity of an active CIA officer. “This is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly toward classified information,” exhibited by the Trump administration, Warner said. “This is not a one-off.”
How is it that “nobody bothered to even check? … Who are all the names?” Warner added.
Gabbard, Ratcliffe and the other government witnesses provided few answers.After Gabbard at first declined to say whether she was involved in the group chat at all, she and Ratcliffe then told senators that the information shared over Signal was not classified. At other times, they denied the details contained in the Atlantic’s reporting or said they could not recall the exact contents of the messages. They repeatedly deferred to Trump’s defense secretary and national security adviser to answer for them.
The deflections triggered an incredulous and angry backlash from the committee’s liberals.
Warner, who accused Gabbard of “bobbing and weaving and trying to filibuster,” demanded repeatedly that she reconcile her conflicting assertions that the information in the text chain was not classified, but also that she was not at liberty to talk about it. “If there are no classified materials, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways,” he said.
Well, now it has been shared with everyone, and the Trump officials look exactly as incompetent as we assumed they were. On top of everything else, one of the participants in the Signal chat, special envoy Steve Witkoff, was actually in Moscow waiting to speak to Vladimir Putin, while using his personal cell phone.
More from CBS News: Democrats call Trump intelligence officials’ use of group chat “reckless, sloppy and stunning.”
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify about global threats facing the U.S. However the annual hearing, which typically focuses on threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, largely concentrated on the lapse.
FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse also appeared, but received few questions.
Senator Mark Warner
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, addressed the controversy at the top of the hearing, calling it “mind-boggling” that none of the intelligence officials in the chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal thought to check who else was included.
“Are these government devices? Were they personal devices? Have the devices been collected to make sure there’s no malware?” Warner said in his opening remarks. “There’s plenty of declassified information that shows that our adversaries, China and Russia, are trying to break into encryption systems like Signal.”
Gabbard and Ratcliffe both denied that classified information was shared in the group chat in a feisty exchange with Warner. Confronted by Warner, Gabbard initially declined to say whether she was part of the chat….
Ratcliffe confirmed to Warner that he was a participant in the message thread, but pushed back on whether the decision to use Signal to communicate was a security lapse. Ratcliffe said Signal was on his CIA computer when he was confirmed as director earlier this year….
Ratcliffe confirmed to Warner that he was a participant in the message thread, but pushed back on whether the decision to use Signal to communicate was a security lapse. Ratcliffe said Signal was on his CIA computer when he was confirmed as director earlier this year. “As it is for most CIA officers,” he said, adding that the agency considers the commercial app “permissible” for work use.
The spy chiefs also denied that the conversation included information on weapons packages, targets or timing of the strikes, as Goldberg reported.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Ratcliffe said, with Gabbard adding “same answer.”
I guess they weren’t paying attention. There’s more at the CBS link.
John Ratcliff
Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliff are appearing before the House Intelligence Committee today. That should be interesting. CBS News: Intel chiefs testify before House committee as new Signal texts emerge.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are back on Capitol Hill to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday after new text messages came to light from a group chat in which top Trump officials discussed sensitive plans to strike targets in Yemen.
Shortly before the hearing began, The Atlantic published additional messages showing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provided detailed information to the group of senior Trump officials about the strikes, including a timeline of when fighter jets would take off and what kind of weapons would be used. The group inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic who revealed the first batch of texts earlier this week….
Gabbard and Ratcliffe are appearing Wednesday alongside FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse at a hearing ostensibly focused on the global security threats facing the U.S. But the Signal leak and its fallout dominated the early portions of questioning.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the committee, chastised the intelligence leaders at the start of the hearing, saying they put the lives of troops at risk.
“Everyone here knows that the Russians or the Chinese could have gotten all of that information, and they could have passed it on to the Houthis, who easily could have repositioned weapons and altered their plans to knock down planes or sink ships,” Himes said.
Gabbard acknowledged that the conversation was “sensitive” but again denied that classified information was shared in the chat.”There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared,” she told lawmakers, echoing the defense from the White House that “war plans” were not discussed, despite the detailed guidance for an impending attack.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s texts to a Signal group chat about military operations against the Houthis almost certainly contained classified information, according to current and former Pentagon officials.
The Atlantic on Wednesday released excerpts of a conversation among top national security leaders to which a journalist had accidentally been invited. Hegseth and the White House have denied sharing classified information or war plans.
“This information was clearly taken from the real time order of battle sequence of an ongoing operation,” said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant Defense secretary under the first Trump administration. “It is highly classified and protected.
Hegseth identified the aircraft used and the precise timing of the attacks, according to texts from the group chat, which was started by national security adviser Mike Waltz. That information, if obtained by adversaries, could put U.S. troops in danger.
Kash Patel
A current defense official and former Air Force official both said that any forecasting of future operations and planned weapons are almost always classified information. The former and current officials were granted anonymity to speak about a sensitive issue.
Details about future airstrikes and the timing of launches is tightly controlled and usually provided only through classified documents, conversations and in secure email traffic. Few outside of top leadership and those involved usually know about the plans.
“The information that you have fighter aircraft launching off of an aircraft carrier, flying over enemy territory and impending combat operation is the most sensitive information we have at the federal government,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy pilot, who added it was likely classified.
“Mike Waltz did a boneheaded thing. It was careless. I think what Pete Hegseth did was reckless and dangerous.”
Hegseth should be fired, but Waltz is more likely to be the scapegoat.
President Donald Trump was upset when he found out that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally included a journalist in a group chat discussing plans for a military strike. But it wasn’t just because Waltz had potentially exposed national security secrets.
Trump was mad — and suspicious — that Waltz had Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s number saved in his phone in the first place, according to three people familiar with the situation, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. A fourth person said the president was also particularly perturbed by the embarrassing nature of the episode.
“The president was pissed that Waltz could be so stupid,” the person said. (A “Mike Waltz” invited Goldberg to the chat, according to The Atlantic).
But by Tuesday afternoon, the two men had made a show of smoothing things over and the White House was closing ranks around Waltz. Trump conducted brief interviews with both NBC News and Fox News pledging to stand behind his national security adviser. Two top Trump spokespeople suggested in posts on X that national security hawks were colluding with the media to make the issue bigger than it actually was. And Waltz attended a meeting of Trump’s ambassadors Tuesday afternoon.
Tulsi Gabbard
“There’s a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies … This one in particular I’ve never met, don’t know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room,” Waltz said during the meeting.
Trump followed up by calling Waltz “a very good man” and suggested he had been unfairly attacked. Yet the president also said he would look into government officials’ use of Signal, the app used in the chat with Goldberg that could have resulted in a security breach as top U.S. officials discussed plans to launch strikes in Yemen.
Still, several Trump allies cautioned this may not be the end of Waltz’s troubles. One of them, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said the incident has strained Waltz’s relationship with Trump’s inner circle.
Brandi Buchman at HuffPost: Pete Hegseth Sued Over Signal Text Debacle.
A public watchdog group sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a slew of other Trump administration officials Tuesday after a journalist revealed he was inadvertently added to a text chain discussing U.S. war plans.
The lawsuit, brought by the watchdog group American Oversight and first reported by HuffPost, requests that a federal judge formally declare that Hegseth and other officials on the chat violated their duty to uphold laws around the preservation of official communications. Those laws are outlined in the Federal Records Act and, according to lawyers for American Oversight, if agency heads refuse to recover or protect their communications, the national archivist should ask the attorney general to step in.
On Monday, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that national security adviser Michael Waltz inadvertently added him to a Signal group chat with more than a dozen Trump administration officials and aides including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, homeland security adviser Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. CIA Director John Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that he was also in the Signal chat. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would not admit whether she was a participant, though Goldberg reported she was; instead, she said the matter was “still under review.”
As American Oversight lawyers pointed out in their lawsuit Tuesday, Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States and, as such, “is aware of the violations” that allegedly occurred.
He is also “responsible for initiating an investigation through the Attorney General for the recovery of records or other redress,” the lawsuit said.
Axios reports that Trump nemesis Judge James Boasberg will preside of the Signalgate lawsuit: Judge who ruled against Trump deportation flights will oversee Signal lawsuit.
Social Security News:
Teresa Ghilarducci at Forbes: Social Security Is Breaking Down— Millions Will Feel It First.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently offered a chilling glimpse into the Trump administration’s indifference to Social Security’s importance. “Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month,” Lutnick said, according to Axios. “My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”
Perhaps the commerce secretary’s mother-in-law wouldn’t call. But millions of other Americans would—and not just to complain. They would call because they couldn’t pay rent, buy food, or refill essential medications. Lutnick’s casual comment downplayed the gravity of a missed Social Security check.
The comment also exposed the distance between elites and others. Elites may not care if they miss a Social Security check, but for a typical Americans a missing check is a gut punch. Calls to the Social Security office would be pouring in. But no one may answer.
Howard Lutnick
Lutnick’s remarks come during a time when the Social Security system faces record demand and historic strain. And the remarks come during a month of extreme alarm and confusion about the system. Elon Musk demeaned the system publicly, calling it “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” the New York Post reported. Field offices are overrun, wait times are spiking, and staffing levels have been slashed by 12% since 2020, notes The Washington Post. The very system that ensures timely payments to 73 million Americans is being stomped on, and senior citizens and families are feeling anxious and worse.
To be clear, Trump and DOGE have not cut or delayed Social Security checks—yet. The Social Security Administration does not miss checks. In 80 years, it never missed payment….
While Lutnick and others suggest that delays wouldn’t matter, the data tell another story. Social Security is the foundation of retirement security for most American seniors.
According to the Social Security Administration, nearly 90% of Americans over age 65 receive benefits, and those benefits make up an average of 31% of their income. But for many, the reliance is much deeper: 39% of older men and 44% of older women count on Social Security for more than half their income. Even more sobering, 12% of older men and 15% of older women rely on it for at least 90% of their income.
Older women, in particular, are at risk. They tend to earn less over their lifetimes, outlive their spouses, and have less saved for retirement. For them, Social Security is often not just the main source of income—it’s the only source.
The Washington Post (Gift link): Long waits, waves of calls, website crashes: Social Security is breaking down.
Wednesday Reads
Posted: December 4, 2024 Filed under: abortion rights, American Fascists, just because | Tags: Abortion bans killing women, Kash Patel, martial-law, news, Pete Hegseth, politics, Portia Ngumezi, Ron De Santis, South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol 7 CommentsGood Morning!!
Brian Thompson, CEO of United Health Care
There’s some breaking news from NYC. The CEO of United Health Care was shot and killed on the street, and it is believed to be a “targeted attack.” The New York Times has live updates.
The executive, Brian Thompson, was shot in the chest in what people briefed on the investigations said appeared to be a targeted attack.
The chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, was fatally shot outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday morning, the police said.
The executive, Brian Thompson, 50, was shot just after 6:45 a.m. at the New York Hilton Midtown on Avenue of the Americas near 54th Street, according to a police report. Mr. Thompson was taken to Mount Sinai West, where he was pronounced dead….
Officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs New York City’s transit system, said that the shooting did not impact subway or bus service during the morning commute….
Brian Thompson’s sister, Elena Reveiz, told The Times she is still processing the news of her brother’s death. “He was a good person and I am so sad,” Reveiz said when reached by phone. She said Thompson was a good father to his two children. She said she was on her way to see her sister, and to be with their family….
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota called the killing “horrifying news and a terrible loss for the business and health care community in Minnesota.” [….]
New York’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, and Jeffrey Maddrey, chief of department, will hold a news conference at 1 Police Plaza at 11:30 a.m., the police said.
Another huge story broke yesterday from South Korea. Right wing President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and attempted a coup. Fortunately he failed.
Haeryun Kang at The Guardian: Martial law came to South Korea – and my friends and I doomscrolled through the night.
At 10.23pm on 3 December in Seoul, I was already in bed, alternating between reading a book and watching YouTube cooking reels. That was when Yoon Suk Yeol, the president, declared emergency martial law in South Korea for the first time since 1979.
In an unannounced televised address, Yoon said the imposition of martial law was “aimed at eradicating pro-North Korean forces and protecting the constitutional order of freedom”.
Immediately, my text messages and online chat forums flared up. What the hell is going on? Is this a joke? Can I keep drinking at the bar tonight? Can my children go to school tomorrow? What exactly is the emergency? Utter confusion ensued for the next six hours, until a dramatic sequence of events led to the end of martial law at 4.30am.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol
This was my first experience of martial law – if this short-lived circus can even be called that – something that, until now, I had only read about in history books. But even in that short time, I was terrified. The experience woke me up, once again, to the severe, unavoidable reality of Korean division. And I remembered how it can be exploited by our leaders to justify repression and control.
Thankfully, this time, Yoon’s antics were curbed. But the martial law fiasco is a testament to both the instability and resilience of South Korean democracy. It is a chilling reminder that the collective trauma of the 20th century dictatorship is not simply history.
It’s still unclear why Yoon took such an extreme measure. Martial law is defined as the temporary rule by military authorities in a time of emergency, when civil authorities are deemed unable to function. In the past, dictators have declared martial law at times of widespread national unrest and turmoil, including the Korean war. This time, it was a business-as-usual Tuesday; earlier that evening I had been for a swim at a government-run public pool.
Yoon’s measure came at a time of personal and political turmoil for him. Corruption scandals have rocked him and his family; the opposition Democratic Party has just insisted on big cuts to the budget bill despite the ruling party’s protests; Yoon’s approval ratings are hovering in the 20s – all unpleasant, sure, but stories that don’t seem all that surprising in a relatively functional democracy.
In his speech declaring martial law, Yoon expressed clear vitriol for his political opposition, for its “anti-state activities plotting rebellion”. Most South Koreans are familiar with this insidious sort of rhetoric. I grew up with this language, and still live with it, through my very conservative family in Busan. It’s a regular reminder that there is a clear political and generational divide related to the Korean division.
If you want more first-hand reporting, check out this post by Sarah Jeong at The Verge: Six hours under martial law in Seoul.
Timothy Snyder at his Substack Thinking about…: Dictators for a Day, South Korea and America.
South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, invoked martial law, tried to install a military dictatorship — and failed completely. In his actions there are some likely similarities with the coming Trump regime, and some clear lessons for Americans to learn right now.
Yoon won a very narrow election, as did Trump. Like Trump, he refers constantly to “fake news” and calls his political opponents enemies of the state (as Trump says, “the enemy within.”) Yoon used this language to justify the imposition of martial law, as will Trump if he decides to invoke the Insurrection Act in the United States.
Like Trump, Yoon telegraphed his move in advance, and not only with such language. He surrounded himself with military men and intelligence officers who were characterized by personal loyalty. Trump is trying to do the same, now, with his proposals for Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Kash Patel as director of the FBI, and Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. He also wants to purge the top ranks of the armed forces.
Yoon’s main political opponent, Lee Jae-myung, had correctly predicted that Yoon would try to implement martial law. Trump makes this prediction rather easy. Trump has spoken openly of being “dictator for a day,” and of invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the military inside the United States.
The Insurrection Act is not quite the same thing as martial law. Under martial law, the military assumes the basic responsibilities associated with a civilian government. The Insurrection Act, in principle, only allows the American president to use the armed forces to assist civilian authorities to enforce some law in the presence of an insurrection. But the language of the law is quite vague. Trump makes it clear that he has in mind invoking the Insurrection Act to very broad purposes, essentially to change the regime.
In both South Korea and the United States, the legal basis for asserting greater presidential authority is antiquated. Martial law was declared in South Korea for the last time in 1979. Since the late 1980s, South Korea has moved quite decisively in the direction of meaningful elections and civil rights, thanks to the forceful activity of civil society, especially trade unions. In the United States, the Insurrection Act is an assemblage of laws passed between 1792 and 1871. It was last invoked during racial violence in Los Angeles in 1992.
Yoon’s actions, although rooted of course in his own personality and South Korean career, and enabled by South Korean law, were very trumpy. Indeed, it seems likely to me that the very presence of Trump on the international scene will make such attempts more likely, among America’s democratic allies (such as South Korea) and generally.
But Yoon failed, and very badly. His dictatorship for a day lasted only about six hours. What can Americans learn from his less-than-a-day dictatorship?
Read the rest at the Substack link.
Pete Hegseth
Back in the USA, It looks like Pete Hegseth will not be the Secretary of Defense. Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the devastating New Yorker article by Jane Mayer. Mayer reported in great detail Hegseth’s out-of-control drinking, his abuse of women, and his incompetence when trusted with leadership roles in small organizations.
Yesterday, NBC News reported: Pete Hegseth’s drinking worried colleagues at Fox News, sources tell NBC News.
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees who spoke with NBC News.
Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him before he went on air. Those same two people, plus another, said that during his time there he appeared on television after they’d heard him talk about being hungover as he was getting ready or on set.
One of the sources said they smelled alcohol on him as recently as last month and heard him complain about being hungover this fall.
None of the sources with whom NBC News has spoken could recall an instance when Hegseth missed a scheduled appearance because he’d been drinking.
“Everyone would be talking about it behind the scenes before he went on the air,” one of the former Fox employees said….
Three current employees said his drinking remained a concern up until Trump announced him as his choice to run the Pentagon, at which point Hegseth left Fox.
“He’s such a charming guy, but he just acted like the rules didn’t apply to him,” one of the former employees said.
Trump is considering withdrawing the Hegseth nomination and appointing Ron De Santis instead. Marc Caputo at The Bulwark: Trump Talks to DeSantis About Replacing Hegseth.
DONALD TRUMP AND RON DESANTIS have personally discussed the possibility of the Florida governor becoming the next secretary of defense amid concerns that sexual assault allegations could engulf the president-elect’s current nominee for the post, Pete Hegseth.
The talks, relayed by four sources briefed on them, are in their advanced stages. They underscore the fears within Trump world about Hegseth’s ability to survive a Senate confirmation process—despite public posturing from Hegseth and allies that he remains committed to ending up at DoD.
“These discussions are real. It’s serious. I can’t say it’s definitely going to happen, but the governor is receptive and Trump is serious, too,” a top Republican source familiar with the conversations told The Bulwark on condition of anonymity.
The discussions around DeSantis involve untangling several different political threads. The governor is currently handling the fallout of a separate Trump cabinet pick: Marco Rubio’s nomination to be secretary of state. DeSantis is weighing whether to appoint Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to fill Rubio’s Senate seat. The possibility that the governor himself could end up at the Pentagon may factor into that decision.
Today Hegseth is again meeting with Republican Senators in a last ditch effort to convince them to support his nomination. Politico: Hegseth back on the Hill as Pentagon bid teeters.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s embattled pick to run the Pentagon, is back on Capitol Hill today as his nomination faces even more hurdles.
Pete Hegseth’s tatoos
Concerns over Hegseth’s personal controversies are driving Trump allies to think the Defense secretary designate may not survive further scrutiny. And his fight has been complicated even more by the news that the president-elect is weighing a rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to replace Hegseth, The Wall Street Journal was first to report. DeSantis, a former opponent in the 2024 GOP presidential primaries, offers a conservative military record and alignment with Trump’s views on “woke” military policies.
Hegseth — who has faced allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse — is expected to meet today with Republicans including incoming Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and the next majority leader, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).
Hegseth’s most crucial meeting, though, is expected to be with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a Senate Armed Services member who has been noncommittal about Hegseth’s nomination and is seen as a potential swing vote.
Ernst was previously floated as a potential pick for defense secretary before Trump opted for Hegseth, though she was seen as a dark horse candidate. The Iowa Republican is a traditional defense hawk, clashing somewhat with the Trump team’s views. There may also be a political divide to bridge for Ernst — who took until March to endorse Trump’s 2024 White House bid after the former president nearly swept the Republican primaries and was on a path to clinch the GOP nomination.
Ernst, the first woman combat veteran in the Senate, has a long track record of legislation aimed at addressing sexual assault and harassment in the military. That would seem to put her at odds with Hegseth, who is not only the subject of sexual assault allegations but opposes women serving in combat roles.
Ernst has also been outspoken about her own experiences with sexual assault and domestic violence. Asked about the sexual assault accusations against Hegseth, she’s said: “Any time there are allegations, you want to make sure they are properly vetted, so we’ll have that discussion.”
Another problematic candidate, Kash Patel for FBI director is facing headwinds. I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about him, but here are a couple of articles about him.
Zach Beauchamp at Vox: I listened to hours of Trump’s FBI pick on Steve Bannon’s podcast. Oh boy.
Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to direct the Federal Bureau of Intelligence, has never served in the FBI. But he has hosted Steve Bannon’s podcast.
Patel is a contributor at Real America’s Voice, the right-wing news network that produces Bannon’s show War Room, and has long appeared as a guest on the show. After top Trump adviser Bannon was imprisoned for four months earlier this year — on charges of contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with a January 6 Committee subpoena — Patel stepped up to serve as an occasional guest host.
Crazy Eyes Kash Patel
To try and understand Patel better, I listened to every episode and clip tagged with “Kash Patel” on the War Room website — and a few others that Bannon’s team missed. The overwhelming impression is that Patel is a man whose entire worldview revolves around paranoid conspiracy theories — specifically, conspiracies against both America and Trump, which for him are one and the same. It’s a specific kind of obsession that reminds me of the FBI’s first director: J. Edgar Hoover, a man who infamously abused his power to persecute political enemies.
During his various appearances on Bannon’s show, Patel and/or his interviewees declared that:
- China is funding the Democratic Party and sending “military-aged males” across the Mexican and Canadian borders to prepare for a preemptive strike.
- Barack Obama directs a “shadow network” that is quietly directing the intelligence community and Big Tech to persecute Trump.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland wants to throw “all of us” — which is to say, Trump allies — in prison.
And Patel is willing to go to extreme measures in response to these alleged threats.
In one episode, he called on the Republican majority in Congress to unilaterally arrest Garland — invoking an obscure legal doctrine called “inherent contempt” that has never been used in this fashion in the entirety of American history. In another, he outlined a plan for a MAGA blitz of American institutions focused on getting loyalists into high office.
Read more at Vox.
David Corn at Mother Jones: Here Are the Republicans Kash Patel Wants to Target.
For years, Kash Patel, the MAGA provocateur, conspiracy theory monger, and seller of pills he claims reverse the effects of Covid vaccines, who Donald Trump has announced as his pick to replace FBI Director Chris Wray, has made his mission plain: He wants to crush the supposed Deep State that has conspired against Trump. Last year, while appearing on Steve Bannon’s podcast, he vowed, “We will go and find the conspirators—not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens to help Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly.” This was not an empty threat, for Patel has a list of specific targets for his score-settling. And that line-up includes not only Democrats but also prominent Republicans.
Patel laid out his plans in a 2023 book titled Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for our Democracy. In this work, he breathlessly described the Deep State as a “coordinated, ideologically rigid force independent from the people that manipulates the levers of politics and justice for its own gain and self-preservation.” It is run “by a significant number of high-level cultural leaders and officials who, acting through networks of networks, disregard objectivity, weaponize the law, spread disinformation, spurn fairness, or even violate their oaths of office for political and personal gain, all at the expense of equal justice and American national security.” He added, “They are thugs in suits, nothing more than government gangsters.” And he inveighed that this is “a cabal of unelected tyrants.”
In his book, Patel, a supporter of QAnon and a promoter of assorted MAGA conspiracy theories (the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, the Trump-Russia investigation was a hoax, and the January 6 riot was sparked by “strange agitators” and federal agents), called for mounting “investigations” to “take on the Deep State.” Though he doesn’t specify what the cause for these inquiries would be, he has plenty of people in mind. In an appendix to the book, Patel presented a list of 60 supposed members of the Deep State who are current or former executive branch officials and who presumably would be the prey. He noted this roster did not include “other corrupt actors,” such as California Democrats Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, “the entire fake news mafia press corps,” and former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan. (When Patel worked for the GOP-controlled House intelligence committee, he had run-ins with Ryan over the issuance of subpoenas and Patel leaking information to a Fox News reporter—which must mean that Ryan was a Deep State operative.)
Read the rest at Mother Jones.
Just one more story, this time on women dying because of anti-abortion laws. Amanda Marcotte at Salon: Republicans don’t care if women die from abortion bans — but they don’t want you to know about it.
After the Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights in 2022, there was a robust debate between pro- and anti-choice activists over whether or not banning abortion would kill women. Pro-choicers pointed to evidence, from both history and other countries, showing that abortion bans kill women. Anti-choice activists dismissed the record and pointed to toothless “exceptions” in abortion ban laws as “proof” that women could get abortions to save their lives.
Portia Ngumezi
The latter argument was frustrating not just because it was wrong but was generally offered in bad faith. Anti-abortion leaders know that abortion bans kill women. They don’t care. Or worse, many view dying from pregnancy as a good thing. In some cases, it’s viewed as just punishment for “sinful” behavior. Other times, it’s romanticized as a noble sacrifice on the altar of maternal duty. But conservatives are aware that this death fetish cuts against their “pro-life” brand. So there was a lot of empty denials and hand-waving about the inevitable — and expected — outcome of women dying.
We now have another proof point that abortion bans are about misogyny, not “life,” as the first deaths from red state abortion bans are being reported. Instead of admitting they were wrong and changing course, Republicans are behaving like guilty liars do everywhere, and destroying the evidence. In the process, they are also erasing data needed to save the lives of pregnant women across the board, whether they give birth or not.
ProPublica has published a series of articles detailing the deaths of women in Georgia and Texas under the two states’ draconian abortion bans. They most recently reported the death of Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two from Texas. Ngumezi suffered a miscarriage at 11 weeks but was left to bleed to death at the hospital, instead of having the failing pregnancy surgically removed. Multiple doctors in Texas confirmed that hospital staff are often afraid to perform this surgery, however, because it’s the same one used in elective abortions. Rather than risk criminal charges, doctors frequently stand by and let women suffer — or die.
Ngumezi’s youngest son doesn’t fully understand that his mother is dead. ProPublica reported that he chases down women he sees in public who have similar hairstyles, calling for his mother.
A day after this story was published, the Washington Post reported that the Texas maternal mortality board would skip reviewing the deaths of pregnant women in 2022 and 2023 — conveniently, the first two years after the abortion ban went into place. The leadership claims it’s about speeding up the review process, but of course, many members pointed out the main effect is that “they would not be reviewing deaths that may have resulted from delays in care caused by Texas’s abortion bans.”
This is especially noteworthy because it’s become standard after one of these reports for anti-abortion activists to blame the victims and/or the doctors, and not the bans. Christian right activist Ingrid Skop, for instance, responded to Nguzemi’s death by insisting “physicians can intervene to save women’s lives in pregnancy emergencies” under the Texas law. If she really believed that, however, she would desperately want the state maternal mortality board to review this, and other cases like it, so they could come up with recommendations for hospital staff to treat women without running afoul of the law. Strop, however, is on the Texas maternal mortality board. She was likely part of the decision to refuse to look into whether women like Nguzemi might be saved.
So the likeliest explanation is the simple, if brutal one: Anti-abortion activists do not want doctors to save women’s lives. The current situation, where doctors are afraid to treat women and have no guidance on how to do so safely, is a status quo they are fighting to preserve. We also know this because, as Jessica Valenti reported at Abortion Every Day last week, these same activists are lobbying to rewrite current abortion bans to remove the paltry “exceptions” that do exist. Instead of allowing doctors to abort pregnancies that are failing, they want to force them to induce labor instead. That is not just cruel but will kill women. We know this because that’s exactly how Nguzemi died; her doctor gave her a drug in hopes it would push the pregnancy out, rather than surgically remove it, as is the standard of care.
Read the whole thing at Salon.
That’s all I have for you today. Please take care of yourselves. We live at a very dangerous time.
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: November 30, 2024 Filed under: abortion rights, Abusive Relationships, cat art, caturday, misogyny, Rape Culture, U.S. Military | Tags: Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, politics, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, war, Women in combat 7 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
Moonflower, by Katrina Pallon
I have been fascinated by politics ever since I was 12 years old in 1960. John Kennedy’s run for president was so inspiring to me that I just caught the fever. I became a politics junkie. There have been times when I tried to pay less attention–especially during the Reagan years and later when George W. Bush was pushing his wars. But I always kept in touch enough to know basically what was happening. Since Trump was elected again, I really wish I could ignore politics completely. I just want to get in bed, pull the covers over my head and deny the reality of what’s happening. Of course, I can’t do it.
This weekend, though, I have allowed myself to ignore current events. There usually isn’t a lot of breaking news on a long holiday weekend. So right now, I’m kind of catching up. Here’s what I’m seeing out there in the real world today.
There are big developments in Syria. The New York Times: Rebels Seize Control Over Most of Syria’s Largest City.
Rebels had seized most of Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, as of Saturday, according to a war monitoring group and to fighters who were combing the streets in search of any remaining pockets of government forces.
The antigovernment rebels said they had faced little resistance on the ground in Aleppo. But Syrian government warplanes responded with airstrikes on the city for the first time since 2016, according to the war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Aleppo came to a near standstill on Saturday, with many residents staying indoors for fear of what the sudden flip in control might mean, witnesses said. Others did venture out into the streets, welcoming the fighters and hugging them. Some rebels tried to reassure city residents and sent out at least one van to distribute bread.
The rapid advance on Aleppo came just days into a surprise rebel offensive launched on Wednesday against the autocratic regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The developments are both the most serious challenge to Mr. al-Assad’s rule and the most intense escalation in years in a civil war that had been mostly dormant.
The timing of the assault suggested that the rebels could be exploiting weaknesses across an alliance linking Iran to the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the Assad regime in Syria and others….
Within hours from Friday into Saturday, Syrian government soldiers, security forces and police officers fled the city, according to the war monitoring group. They were replaced by the Islamist and Turkish-backed rebels sweeping through on foot, motorbikes or on trucks mounted with machine guns.
More from the AP: Syrian insurgents are inside Aleppo in a major setback for Assad as government forces regroup.
Thousands of Syrian insurgents fanned out inside Aleppo in vehicles with improvised armor and pickups, deploying to landmarks such as the old citadel on Saturday, a day after they entered Syria’s largest city facing little resistance from government troops, according to residents and fighters.
Witnesses said two airstrikes on the city’s edge late Friday targeted insurgent reinforcements and hit near residential areas. A war monitor said 20 fighters were killed.
Syria’s armed forces said in a statement Saturday that to absorb the large attack on Aleppo and save lives, it has redeployed and is preparing for a counterattack. The statement acknowledged that insurgents entered large parts of the city but said they have not established bases or checkpoints.
Insurgents were filmed outside police headquarters, in the city center, and outside the Aleppo Citadel. They tore down posters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, stepping on some and burning others.
The surprise takeover is a huge embarrassment for Assad, who managed to regain total control of the city in 2016, after expelling insurgents and thousands of civilians from its eastern neighborhoods following a grueling military campaign in which his forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.
Read more at the link.
For more background on The Syrian civil war see this piece by Lauren Kent at CNN: What’s happening in Syria? A simple guide.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is making adjustments based on the results of the U.S. election. Sky News: Zelenskyy suggests ‘hot phase’ of Ukraine war could end in return for NATO membership if offered – even if seized land isn’t returned immediately.
The Ukrainian president told Sky News’s chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay NATO membership would have to be offered to unoccupied parts of the country in order to end the “hot phase of the war”, as long as the NATO invitation itself recognises Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested a ceasefire deal could be struck if Ukrainian territory he controls could be taken “under the NATO umbrella” – allowing him to negotiate the return of the rest later “in a diplomatic way”.
By Bettina Baldassari
In an interview with Sky News’s chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay, the Ukrainian president was asked to respond to media reports saying one of US president-elect Donald Trump’s plans to end the war might be for Kyiv to cede the land Moscow has taken to Russia in exchange for Ukraine joining NATO.
Mr Zelenskyy said NATO membership would have to be offered to unoccupied parts of the country in order to end the “hot phase of the war”, as long as the NATO invitation itself recognises Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.
He appeared to accept occupied eastern parts of the country would fall outside of such a deal for the time being.
“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” he said.
“We need to do it fast. And then on the [occupied] territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way.”
Mr Zelenskyy said a ceasefire was needed to “guarantee that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not come back” to take more Ukrainian territory.
One more story on Ukraine from Politico: Zelenskyy’s diplomatic play for Trump.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser and decorated retired U.S. general, to be his special envoy to Ukraine and Russia has reassured a nervous Kyiv up to a point.
Ukrainian officials are familiar with Kellogg, a peace-through-strength advocate who’s argued publicly that any deal to end the nearly three-year-long war of attrition would have to include solid security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure there’s lasting peace and to preclude another Russian invasion. Kellogg is no supporter of just throwing in the towel and letting Russia’s Vladimir Putin get everything he wants.
“We tell the Ukrainians, ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up’,” Kellogg told Reuters in June. “And you tell Putin, ‘He’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field’,” he added.
And unlike others in Trump’s MAGA circle, Kellogg welcomed President Joe Biden’s decision to approve Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia, saying it has given Trump “more leverage” and adding that “it gives President Trump more ability to pivot from that.”
Contrast that with the howls of protest over the missile approval from Donald Trump Jr., Mike Waltz, the president-elect’s choice to be national security adviser, and Richard Grenell, who was acting director of National Intelligence during Trump’s first term. “No one anticipated that Joe Biden would ESCALATE the war in Ukraine during the transition period. This is as if he is launching a whole new war,” Grenell posted on X. Trump’s son accused Biden of trying to spark World War III “before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.”
In short, Kellogg is someone Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his circle can work with, and Ukraine’s leader already is nimbly adapting to the changed politics in Washington — and to shifting political dynamics in Europe — by displaying a willingness to come to the table. That’s something his American advisers have urged him to do, leaving it to Putin to be Mr. Nyet, risking Trump’s wrath.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a president elect getting so involved in foreign affairs before. Trump is behaving as if he’s already POTUS. Last night, he met with Justin Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago.
The Guardian: Justin Trudeau makes surprise trip to Mar-a-Lago for Trump meeting.
Justin Trudeau made a surprise visit to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to have what he called an “excellent conversation”, making Canada’s prime minister the first G7 leader to meet with the US president-elect before his second term.
The meeting came amid widespread fears in Canada and many other parts of the world that Trump’s promised trade policy of imposing tariffs will cause widespread economic chaos.
By Marcella Cooper
Trudeau and a handful of top advisers flew to Florida amid expectations that Trump will impose a 25% surcharge on Canadian products that could have a devastating impact on Canadian energy, auto and manufacturing exports.
The meeting over dinner between Trudeau and Trump, their wives, US cabinet nominees and Canadian officials, lasted over three hours and was described by a senior Canadian official to the Toronto Star as a positive, wide-ranging discussion.
Leaving a Florida hotel in West Palm Beach on Saturday, Trudeau said: “It was an excellent conversation.”
The face-to-face meeting came at Trudeau’s suggestion, according to the Canadian official, and had not been disclosed to the Ottawa press corps, which only found out about Trudeau’s trip when flight-tracking software detected the prime minister’s plane was in the air.
The two leaders discussed trade; border security; fentanyl; defense matters, including Nato; and Ukraine, along with China, energy issues and pipelines, including those that feed Canadian oil and gas into the US.
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the threatening atmosphere for women that Trump’s election has ushered in. Rapist and sexual abuser Pete is still Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, and he’s in the news again today.
The New York Times: Pete Hegseth’s Mother Accused Her Son of Mistreating Women for Years.
The mother of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, wrote him an email in 2018 saying he had routinely mistreated women for years and displayed a lack of character.
“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.
She also wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”
Sadly, his mom apologized later.
Mrs. Hegseth, in a phone interview with The New York Times on Friday, said that she had sent her son an immediate follow-up email at the time apologizing for what she had written. She said she had fired off the original email “in anger, with emotion” at a time when he and his wife were going through a very difficult divorce.
In the interview, she defended her son and disavowed the sentiments she had expressed in the initial email about his character and treatment of women. “It is not true. It has never been true,” she said. She added: “I know my son. He is a good father, husband.” She said that publishing the contents of the first email was “disgusting.”
Nevertheless, she wrote the email, and she probably meant it. Here’s more:
Mrs. Hegseth emailed her son on April 30, 2018, during a turbulent period in his life. He was in the middle of a contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, the mother of three of his children. Samantha Hegseth filed for divorce after her husband impregnated a co-worker, part of a pattern of adultery that dated back to his first marriage.
By Bettina Baldassari
Mr. Hegseth’s mother wrote in the email that she was upset about his treatment of Samantha, writing: “For you to try to label her as ‘unstable’ for your own advantage is despicable and abusive. Is there any sense of decency left in you?”
“She did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand,” she said. “Neither did Meredith,” Mrs. Hegseth added, referring to his first wife.
Mrs. Hegseth forwarded a copy of her email to Samantha the same night she sent it to her son, according to documents reviewed by The Times. The Times obtained a copy of the email from another person with ties to the Hegseth family. The email does not describe in detail the circumstances that prompted Mrs. Hegseth to write it.
Here is the complete text of the email, via The New York Times.
Son,
I have tried to keep quiet about your character and behavior, but after listening to the way you made Samantha feel today, I cannot stay silent. And as a woman and your mother I feel I must speak out..
You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.
I am not a saint, far from it.. so don’t throw that in my face,. but your abuse over the years to women (dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling) needs to be called out.
Sam is a good mother and a good person (under the circumstances that you created) and I know deep down you know that. For you to try to label her as “unstable” for your own advantage is despicable and abusive. Is there any sense of decency left in you? She did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand. Neither did Meredith.
I know you think this is one big competition and that we have taken her side… bunk… we are on the side of good and that is not you. (Go ahead and call me self-righteous, I dont’ care)
Don’t you dare run to her and cry foul that we shared with us… that’s what babies do. It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women
We still love you, but we are broken by your behavior and lack of character. I don’t want to write emails like this and never thought I would. If it damages our relationship further, then so be it, but at least I have said my piece. [Redacted]
And yes, we are praying for you (and you don’t deserve to know how we are praying, so skip the snarky reply)
I don’t want an answer to this… I don’t want to debate with you. You twist and abuse everything I say anyway. But… On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say… get some help and take an honest look at yourself…
Mom
A decent man would have withdrawn his name from nomination by now, but not rapist and sexual abuse Pete Hegseth.
More on Hegseth at The Washington Post: What women veterans think of Pete Hegseth’s views about combat roles.
The Army veteran and Fox News Channel host who could be the country’s next defense secretary has strong views on a decade of women serving in combat positions in the U.S. military — strong and negative.
Wednesday Reads: Send In The Clowns
Posted: November 20, 2024 Filed under: American Fascists, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Donald Trump, Kash Patel, Matt Gaetz, news, Pete Hegseth, politics, Trump, Tulsi Gabbard 9 CommentsGood Morning!!
Evil clown Trump
I had another sleepless night last night. It seems as if I have insomnia every 2-3 days; then I end up feeling exhausted for a couple of days and having to take naps to make up for the lost sleep. Of course it’s Trump’s fault. I didn’t sleep well during his first term, and now that I know what to expect–chaos, drama, and malevolence–I’m pretty sure my sleep will continue to be disturbed. Anyway, I don’t have much energy today. I just hope I don’t fall asleep on my computer keyboard.
Here’s the latest on Trump’s nightmarish Cabinet picks.
Josh Gerstein at Politico: Vance says Trump is interviewing FBI director replacements.
President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to end business-as-usual at the Justice Department apparently include replacing FBI Director Christopher Wray, Vice President-elect JD Vance indicated in a social media post on Tuesday.
Vance revealed he and the president-elect were conducting interviews for the crucial FBI position in a since-deleted post on X. The post was responding to criticism the vice president-elect received for missing a Monday Senate vote that confirmed one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director,” Vance wrote. “I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45. But that’s just me.”
Trump nominated former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official Christopher Wray as FBI director in 2017 after abruptly firing his predecessor, James Comey.
However, in recent years, Trump and many in his orbit have soured on Wray, alleging that he hasn’t done enough to root out alleged corruption and political bias at the law enforcement agency. They also fault Wray for allowing his agents to participate in the court-ordered search at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 that led to Trump’s prosecution on charges of hoarding classified documents and obstruction of justice.
It’s looking like Trump will nominate Kash Patel as FBI director. Patel is the guy who defended Trump in the stolen documents scandal, claiming that Trump could declassify any document by just thinking about it.
Hugo Lowell at The Guardian: Trump loyalist Kash Patel in contention to be named FBI director.
Donald Trump is keeping his controversial adviser Kash Patel in the running to be the next FBI director, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the transition team conducted interviews for the role on Monday night at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club.
The existence of the interviews, made public in a since-deleted post by the vice president-elect JD Vance, underscored the intent to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, years before his current term is up….
Trump has a special interest in the FBI, having fired James Comey as director in 2017 over his refusal to close the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and then complaining about perceived disloyalty from Wray.
Clown Torture by Bruce Nauman
Patel’s continued position as a top candidate for the role makes clear Trump’s determination to install loyalists in key national security and law enforcement positions, as well as the support Patel has built up among key Trump allies.
The push for Patel – who has frequently railed against the “deep state” – has come from some of the longest-serving Trump advisers, notably those close to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, a faction that got Trump’s personal lawyers picked for top justice department roles.
That faction has also suggested to Trump in recent days that if Patel gets passed over for the director role, he should be given the deputy FBI director position, one of the people said – a powerful job that helps run the bureau day to day and is crucially not subject to Senate confirmation.
Click the link to read more about Patel. Basically, he’s a whack job and utterly loyal to Trump.
As everyone knows Trump has nominated Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Here’s the current drama over the pick.
NOTUS: Trump Is Calling Senators on Behalf of Matt Gaetz. It’s Not Going Well.
As Republicans circle the wagons around Matt Gaetz and his nomination to be attorney general, Donald Trump and his surrogates have started calling GOP senators to feel them out on the confirmation battle.
The calls are not going well.
According to three sources familiar with the conversations, Trump and his team are receiving an overwhelmingly negative reaction with regard to Gaetz. One of the sources told NOTUS that multiple senators have even told Trump and his team they won’t be voting to confirm.
There has been a healthy amount of skepticism about Gaetz becoming attorney general since the moment Trump announced his nomination. But the recent controversy over an Ethics Committee report that Gaetz dodged by resigning from Congress has only compounded the problems.
“This fake news will age poorly when Matt Gaetz is sworn in as the Attorney General,” said Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump transition spokesperson.
Given the conversations, there’s growing doubt that Gaetz can actually be confirmed — either by the Senate or through a recess appointment.
“Matt Gaetz is toxic among House Republicans. Among Senate Republicans, he is radioactive,” one of the sources told NOTUS.
GOP senators themselves have intimated that Gaetz will have to go through the normal confirmation process and they have expressed that to Trump.
Will Steakin at ABC News: Gaetz sent over $10K in Venmo payments to 2 women who testified in House probe, records suggest.
The House Ethics Committee obtained records, including a check and records of Venmo payments, that appear to show that then-Rep. Matt Gaetz paid more than $10,000 to two women who were later witnesses in sexual misconduct probes conducted by both the House and the Justice Department, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
The Venmo records show that between July 2017 and late January 2019, Gaetz — who was first elected in 2016 — allegedly made 27 Venmo payments totaling $10,224.02 to the two witnesses, who were over the age of 18 at the time.
Scary Clown, by Jennifer Anthony
The payments, which sources said were displayed during closed-door testimony, ranged from $100 to more than $700 each….
ABC News previously reported that House investigators had subpoenaed Venmo for Gaetz’s records and had been showing them to witnesses, asking if they were for sex or drugs. The Venmo records totaling over $10,000 in payments were shown to the witnesses, who testified that some of the payments were from Gaetz and were for sex, a source familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
Gaetz, who was tapped last Wednesday by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as attorney general in the incoming administration, resigned from the House immediately following Trump’s announcement, just days before the House Ethics Committee was to set to consider releasing a report on its investigation into the Florida congressman, according to sources.
Michael Kaplan at CBS News: “Unknown and unauthorized third party” has gained access to Matt Gaetz depositions, source says.
An “unknown and unauthorized third party” has gained access to two dozen depositions of witnesses tied to the various investigations into former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, CBS News has learned.
The leaked materials are part of a civil defamation case filed by Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist who is close to Gaetz. These materials include the sworn deposition of the minor with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex.
According to a source familiar with the matter and an email viewed by CBS News, the person who gained access went by the name “Altam Beezley.” [….]
Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and Justice Department, though federal prosecutors declined to bring charges against him last year. The Ethics panel was looking into allegations the former congressman engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other accusations….
An “unknown and unauthorized third party” has gained access to two dozen depositions of witnesses tied to the various investigations into former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, CBS News has learned.
The leaked materials are part of a civil defamation case filed by Chris Dorworth, a lobbyist who is close to Gaetz. These materials include the sworn deposition of the minor with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex.
According to a source familiar with the matter and an email viewed by CBS News, the person who gained access went by the name “Altam Beezley.” [….]
Gaetz was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and Justice Department, though federal prosecutors declined to bring charges against him last year. The Ethics panel was looking into allegations the former congressman engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other accusations. But Gaetz resigned his seat in the House last week after President-elect Donald Trump announced he had selected the Florida Republican to serve as his attorney general….
Because Gaetz is no longer a House member, the Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction over him has ended.
At The New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have a theory about why Trump is offering so many insane candidates: Gaetz May Not Be Confirmed, Trump Admits. He’s Pushing Him and Others Anyway.
In his private conversations over the past few days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has admitted that his besieged choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has less than even odds of being confirmed by the Senate.
But Mr. Trump has shown no sign of withdrawing the nomination, which speaks volumes about his mind-set as he staffs his second administration. He is making calls on Mr. Gaetz’s behalf, and he remains confident that even if Mr. Gaetz does not make it, the standard for an acceptable candidate will have shifted so much that the Senate may simply approve his other nominees who have appalled much of Washington.
Clown, by Rosy Fernandez-Diaz
Mr. Trump’s choice to lead health and human services has made baseless claims about vaccines. His selection for defense secretary is a former Fox News host whose leadership experience has been questioned. His nominee for the director of national intelligence is a favorite of Russian state media.
Presidents do not normally approach cabinet selections this way. Historically, they work with their teams to figure out in advance what the system will tolerate, eliminating the possibility that skeletons in the closet of a nominee might emerge during Senate hearings.
Mr. Trump largely followed this risk-averse approach at the start of his first term. He appointed people like the four-star general Jim Mattis, who was confirmed with a 98-to-1 bipartisan vote to be Mr. Trump’s first defense secretary.
But this time, emboldened by victory and the submission of the Republican Party, Mr. Trump is innovating. He is using an approach that has been discussed in the past for judicial nominees, which is nominating so many extreme choices that they cannot all be blocked. The strategy has never been used for cabinet picks.
It is possible that enough Republican senators are willing to risk their careers to oppose Mr. Gaetz, although it is unclear what the backup plan would be should Mr. Gaetz falter. Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and pick for deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, is seen as a possibility.
For a deep dive on Trump’s plans for the DOJ, check out this post by Liz Dye at Public Notice: Trump’s corruption of the DOJ goes much deeper than Gaetz.
Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general is a giant middle finger to anyone who believes in the rule of law. But his nominees for other key Justice Department positions may be both more consequential and potentially more dangerous for democracy.
That’s partly because Gaetz is a lazy fool who never tried a federal criminal case and is functionally a “liberal tears” meme made flesh. It’s not that he’s too stupid to be dangerous — he’s clearly going to do his damnedest to prosecute Trump’s enemies. It’s that he’s exactly the kind of venal wastrel who publicly Venmos women for sex. He’s not the type who is going to hunker down and do the hard work of overturning democracy.
Gaetz is the polar opposite of Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, Trump’s first-term AGs, both of whom felt at least some fealty to civic institutions and the rule of law. Sessions had been a US attorney in Alabama, the Alabama AG, and and US senator. Barr was attorney general in the first Bush administration and a consummate DC insider. They were stalwart Republicans willing to do terrible things, but each man reached a point when their own personal ethics prevented them giving Trump what he demanded — for Sessions it was refusing to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, for Barr it was overturning the 2020 election — and both eventually found themselves exiled from the garden.
Perhaps Gaetz’s fecklessness may protect us in the same way that the institutionalism of Sessions and Barr protected us the last time. It’s hard to imagine someone so internet-pilled having the deftness to bury a special counsel report. But this will certainly not be the case with Trump’s personal lawyers, three of whom have already been named as high-ranking Justice Department officials….
These are men (of course they’re all white men) who have some prosecutorial experience, but not a long career of public service. They understand how institutions work, but lack any interest in ensuring that they continue to do so.
Like Gaetz, their loyalty is to Trump. But unlike Gaetz, these guys are smart enough not to make stupid mistakes.
Read the rest at Public Notice.
Clown Group, 1975, by S.J. Mulak
Trump’s outrageous nominee for Secretary of Defense may be a bridge too far for the Trump gang, after he turned out to have a sordid history with women, including sexual assault.
Nia Prater at New York Magazine’s The Intelligencer: What We Know About the Sexual-Assault Allegation Against Pete Hegseth.
Last week, Donald Trump announced that he had nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and Army National Guard officer, to serve as secretary of Defense in his incoming administration. Hegseth’s selection was immediately met with skepticism with critics pointing to his lack of traditional military-leadership experience as well as his public push for pardoning servicemembers accused of war crimes and against women serving in combat roles.
But in the days since his nomination, it’s emerged that the conservative TV host was accused of sexual assault many years prior. Though Trump appears to be standing by his nomination, the news added another bump to Hegseth’s already rocky path to confirmation. Here’s what we know so far….
Vanity Fair reported last week that the Trump transition team had received word that Hegseth had been accused of sexual misconduct back in 2017. A source told the outlet that Trump attorneys and his newly appointed chief of staff, Susie Wiles, asked Hegseth about the incident, which he characterized as a “he-said, she-said.”
The incident allegedly took place during the 2017 California Federation of Republican Women conference in Monterey, where Hegseth was in attendance. Per the Washington Post, the transition team received a four-page memo detailing an alleged assault by Hegseth of a 30-year-old female staffer for a conservative organization at the hotel, written by a friend of the victim in question. The friend claimed that the woman, whom she only identified as “Jane Doe,” attended the conference with her husband and children, and the woman has since signed a nondisclosure agreement with Hegseth. Adds the Post:
One of [the woman’s] responsibilities at the conference was to make sure Hegseth made it back to his room and left in time the next morning for the 90-minute drive to the airport, the memo said. At some point in the evening, the complaint alleged, Jane Doe received a text from two women at the bar who told her that “Hegseth was getting pushy about his interest in taking them upstairs to his room.” Jane Doe, who was nearby, came over and talked to those two women, and after they left, she “remembered sensing that Hegseth was irritated,” the memo said.
The woman allegedly couldn’t remember everything that happened after that:
According to the memo, Jane Doe “didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbling to find her hotel room.” The memo said that her memory of six to nine hours “was very hazy,” and that her husband was searching for her and was relieved when she finally showed up. The following day, the woman returned home and “had a moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before, and had a panic attack,” the memo said. The woman then went to the emergency room, where she received a rape-kit examination that “was positive for semen,” the memo said. The woman gave county authorities a statement about what happened, according to the memo sent to the transition team.
In a statement, the City of Monterey confirmed that the local police department investigated an “alleged sexual assault” that occurred in 2017 between 11:59 p.m. on October 7 and 7:00 a.m. on October 8 at 1 Old Golf Course Road, the location of the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel.
There’s more at the link, if you can get past the paywall.
And then there is Hegseth’s “Christian Nationalism.”
Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch: Pete Hegseth’s Plan To Create A Christian Nationalist ‘Educational Insurgency.’
When Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense, concerns were raised immediately about Hegseth’s undisguised Christian nationalism.
Hegseth, who has admitted that his multiple crusader tattoos got him “deemed an extremist” by his own National Guard unit, has deep ties to misogynistic Christian nationalist pastor Douglas Wilson.
Clown, by Bernard Buffet
On Monday, Hegseth appeared on the “CrossPolitic” podcast, which is hosted by Toby Sumpter and Gabe Rench, both of whom are closely tied to Wilson and his church.
During the discussion about Hegseth’s book “Battle For The American Mind,” Hegseth said that he is working to create a system of “classical Christian schools” to provide the recruits for an underground army that will eventually launch an “educational insurgency” to take over the nation.
“I think we need to be thinking in terms of these classical Christian schools are boot camps for winning back America,” said Sumpter.
“That’s what the crop of these classical Christian schools are gonna do in a generation,” Hegseth agreed. “Policy answers like school choice, while they’re great, that’s phase two stuff later on once the foothold has been taken, once the recruits have graduated boot camp.”
“We call it a tactical retreat,” Hegseth continued. “We draw out in the last part of the book what an educational insurgency would look like, because I was a counterinsurgency instructor in Afghanistan and kind of the phases that Mao [Zedong] wrote about. We’re in middle phase one right now, which is effectively a tactical retreat where you regroup, consolidate, and reorganize. And as you do so, you build your army underground with the opportunity later on of taking offensive operations in an overt way.”
Rhian Lubin and Katie Hawkinson at The Independent: Trump transition team ‘quietly’ looking at alternatives to Pete Hegseth after he ‘wasn’t honest’ about past.
Donald Trump’s transition team is said to be “upset” with Pete Hegseth because he “hasn’t been honest” about the sexual misconduct allegation from his past – prompting insiders to consider other options to lead the Pentagon.
Hegseth was tapped last week to become Trump’s defense secretary but now those in the president-elect’s inner circle are “quietly preparing a list of alternative” candidates, Vanity Fair reported.
“It’s becoming a real possibility,” a source told the outlet’s special correspondent Gabriel Sherman.
The source said that the Trump team was taken by surprise after a serious sexual assault allegation against Hegseth came to light, which led Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles to question the former Fox News host on a call last week. Hegseth was never charged with a crime and denies the allegations.
“People are upset about the distraction. The general feeling is Pete hasn’t been honest,” a second source told Vanity Fair.
Maybe he can give the job to Kash Patel if he doesn’t get the FBI directorship.
Perhaps the scariest nominee so far is Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi is a flat out Russian asset, and she’s also close to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk.
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Representative Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after 9/11 to remedy what American policy makers believed was a lack of coordination among the various national-intelligence agencies, and the DNI sits atop all of America’s intelligence services, including the CIA.
Gabbard is stunningly unqualified for almost any Cabinet post (as are some of Trump’s other picks), but especially for ODNI. She has no qualifications as an intelligence professional—literally none. (She is a reserve lieutenant colonel who previously served in the Hawaii Army National Guard, with assignments in medical, police, and civil-affairs-support positions. She has won some local elections and also represented Hawaii in Congress.) She has no significant experience directing or managing much of anything.
Scary Clown, Tony Rubino
But leave aside for the moment that she is manifestly unprepared to run any kind of agency. Americans usually accept that presidents reward loyalists with jobs, and Trump has the right to stash Gabbard at some make-work office in the bureaucracy if he feels he owes her. It’s not a pretty tradition, but it’s not unprecedented, either.
To make Tulsi Gabbard the DNI, however, is not merely handing a bouquet to a political gadfly. Her appointment would be a threat to the security of the United States.
Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood. Hawaii voters have long been perplexed by the way she’s positioned herself politically. But Gabbard is a classic case of “horseshoe” politics: Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is probably why people such as Tucker Carlson—a conservative who has turned into … whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now—have taken a liking to the former Democrat (who was previously a Republican and is now again a member of the GOP).
On the Putin connection:
Gabbard’s shilling for Assad is a mystery, but she’s even more dedicated to carrying Putin’s water. Tom Rogan, a conservative writer and hardly a liberal handwringer, summed up her record succinctly in the Washington Examiner today:
She has blamed NATO and the U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (again, to the celebration of both Russian and Chinese state media), has repeated Russian propaganda claims that the U.S. has set up secret bioweapons labs in that country, and has argued that the U.S. not Russia is wholly responsible for Putin’s nuclear brinkmanship.
When she appeared on Sean Hannity’s show in 2022, even Hannity blanched at Gabbard floating off in a haze of Kremlin talking points and cheerleading for Russia. When Hannity is trying to shepherd you back toward the air lock before your oxygen runs out, you’ve gone pretty far out there.
A person with Gabbard’s views should not be allowed anywhere near the crown jewels of American intelligence. I have no idea why Trump nominated Gabbard; she’s been a supporter, but she hasn’t been central to his campaign, and he owes her very little. For someone as grubbily transactional as Trump, it’s not an appointment that makes much sense. It’s possible that Trump hates the intelligence community—which he blames for many of his first-term troubles—so much that Gabbard is his revenge. Or maybe he just likes the way she handles herself on television.
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