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Well, we have a new Secretary of Defense.
He calls the political left, America’s domestic enemies and America-wreckers.
His writing is contemptuous of the policies, laws and treaties that constrain warfighters on the battlefield, from restrictive rules of engagement to the Geneva Conventions. (If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read The Atlantic article: The US Needs Soldiers, Not Warriors).
He has little patience for the moral questions surrounding war. Of the Americans who dropped nuclear bombs on Japan to end World War II, he writes, “They won. Who cares.”
He calls to rename Defense Department back to its original name: the War Department.
A video of him went viral and he was later sued after he struck a U.S. Army master sergeant in the arm with an errant ax throw during a 2015 Fox & Friends segment.
Like Trump, he is sharply critical of NATO allies.
Also like Trump, he espouses a traditional view of masculinity, writing that men are innately drawn to fight, compete and prove their strength.
source: AP News
And these are just his qualifications for the job. I’m sure you’ve heard all about his personal behavior and character.
Swell. I can only wonder what my beloved Grandfather (a retired General) would think of having this bombastic, arrogant, incompetent, TV personality and narcissist leading our military. I think of how much my parents’ generation sacrificed to bring unprecedented peace and prosperity to this country. Sadly, Trump is working to dismantle it all and take us back to the 19th century, when nations behaved like they were playing a game of Risk. (I also encourage you to read today’s Letters from an American - see below.)
I’m not surprised that this is happening. After all, it’s what Trump promised during his campaign. But, I continue to watch in disbelief that the GOP led House and Senate are just rolling over like puppy dogs, as their powers are being stripped of them. There Is No Resistance
Why is it, when it comes to Trump, that it’s the women that seem to have the courage of putting their careers (and sadly, even their lives) on the line by speaking truth to power? It’s Liz Cheney, or Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, or Washington Post Cartoonist Ann Telnaes, or my personal favorite, Lisa Murkowski, who are actually willing to stand up for the truth. Did you see Senator Murkowski’s complete statement about Pete Hegseth? These are the words that jump out for me:
“Managing the Department of Defense requires vast experience and expertise as the department is one of the most complex and powerful organizations in the world, and Mr. Hegseth’s prior roles in his career do not demonstrate to me that he is prepared for such immense responsibility. His leadership of two veteran organizations was marked with accusations of financial mismanagement and problems with the workplace culture he fostered.”
Ya think? She states the obvious and yet so few others (including my two gutless senators, Thom Tillis and Ted Budd) seem to care about our military or our national security. Beyond disgusted.
It’s utterly dystopian.
Thought for the day in honor of her birthday….
“The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
~ Virginia Woolf
What I’m reading today….
Is Trump’s ‘mob-boss’ rule of relying on snitches a productive way to run the country?
Within hours of being returned to the White House on Monday, Donald Trump set his America first agenda roaring into motion, predicated on a network of snitches to rout out the enemies from within. “It is a huge time sync once you encourage employees to start complaining about each other, “ Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School of Business and director for the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania, said.
The brave few who stood up to the magnates of the Gilded Age came to mind this month, when Ann Telnaes, a Washington Post cartoonist, resigned over the paper’s refusal to publish a cartoon in which she skewered today’s titans of industry—Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, among them…. “When a newspaper decides to turn its head away from holding government and powerful people accountable, it threatens a free press and, by extension, democracy,” she said.
Heather Cox Richardson - Letters from an American - January 24
Trump has undertaken to dismantle the postwar democratic government at home, too. He has stopped the funding for repairing roads, bridges, airports, and ports that passed Congress in a bipartisan vote in 2022, as well as taken away funding for new solar manufacturing plants and other new systems to address climate change.
The irony is hard to miss: The movement that for the past half century was loudest in warning about the dangers of cultural decadence is most responsible for electing a president who personifies cultural decadence. (Trump won more than 80 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2024.) Not a single area of Trump’s life is untouched by corruption… Trump has a cultlike hold on great swaths of the evangelical movement. They will stick with him regardless of what he does.
Farmers Brace for a New Round of Trade Wars
The threat of renewed trade wars is generating concerns among many agricultural interest groups. A December 2024 survey of farmers showed that 48 percent of respondents said US agriculture is either “likely” or “very likely” at risk of a trade war that would significantly decrease US agricultural exports.
More than 15,000 doctors sign letter urging Senate to reject RFK Jr.
“As physicians who care deeply about the health and safety of our patients and communities, we are appalled by Donald Trump's reckless decision to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). The health and well-being of 336 million Americans depend on leadership at HHS that prioritizes science, evidence-based medicine, and strengthening the integrity of our public health system. RFK Jr. is not only unqualified to lead this essential agency–he is actively dangerous.” Trump 2.0's health care vision remains vague.
What a US Exit From the WHO Means for Global Health
“It’s just stupid. Withdrawing from the WHO leaves a gap in global health leadership that will be filled by China, which is clearly not in America’s best interests.”
We already can guess how this will end. During his first administration, despite making populist promises on the campaign trail, Trump eventually sided with the wealthy.
The Paranoid Thriller That Foretold Trump’s Foreign Policy
Trump, however, has always talked like this. He is regularly caught up in narcissistic and childlike flights of grandeur; he routinely lapses into fits of self-pitying grievance; he thinks himself besieged by enemies; and he talks about international affairs as if he is playing a giant game of Risk...Whatever one thinks of the 47th president, he is today who he has always been.
The new politics of natural disasters
The attack on his predecessor, the trafficking in internet rumors to score partisan points, the suggestion that federal disaster assistance is contingent on political concessions — all of it exemplifies how the president is reengineering the politics of disaster aid on the fly. He’s changing how Americans understand the government’s role in responding to extreme weather events and rewriting the rules on how politicians must manage them. Trump proposes ‘getting rid of FEMA’ while touring disaster areas.
(By the way, did you know that the top three states receiving FEMA money are red states: Florida, Louisiana, Texas.)
WSJ Turns on Trump Over Yanked Security for Aides
While The Wall Street Journal’s editorial division has famously leaned right for years, the outlet seems to be growing critical of President Donald Trump, with a new opinion piece condemning his decision to remove security protection for John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Brian Hook. (And another article: Trump’s risky gambit to strip security from Fauci, Bolton and Pompeo)
Share your stories of Helene with Buncombe County Special Collections’ community archiving project
After weeks of planning, Friends of Buncombe County Special Collections is launching “Come Hell or High Water,” a crowdsourcing memory project allowing residents to share their personal stories, photos, videos, audio recordings, and other digital materials to document the impact of Helene in our community.
In few hours the $TRUMP meme coin would be all over Fox & Friends—at which point a million slow-witted cultists would be alerted to this fabulous new investment vehicle...So let me recommend the subreddit r/OfficialTrumpCoin, where you can find Trump fans who’ve lost thousands of dollars alternately commiserating with one another about how hosed they are and then and deluding each other about how rich they’ll be. Someday.
Quote of the week:
“President Trump’s legal reprieves for members of the violent mob that ransacked the Capitol and tore through its marble hallways on the hunt for lawmakers are first and foremost an affront to common decency and a betrayal of bedrock democratic principles. But they also present a cautionary example of how quickly and how far we now travel — or can be tugged — from truth. Of how assiduously and successfully someone can degrade it…We’ve gone beyond any usual rewrite of history when the Capitol marauders become martyrs, deserving of rescue on the first day of Trump’s presidency. When what he and his minions did on Jan. 6 pales beside D.E.I. initiatives run amok. When the response to an attempted coup becomes ‘meh.’ We’ve entered an epoch of anti-history. The man inaugurated on Monday is its author.” ~Frank Bruni
#TruthMatters
Worth Watching:
Loved watching this… thinking about my precious dad…
