Politicians frequently “change their minds.” In principle, willingness to change one’s mind is a laudable trait, whether you’re a politician or any other type of person.
Thanks, this is very useful info I haven't seen elsewhere. If only the Times took one-tenth the interest in this highly relevant subject as it took in his mom's private emails about his girlfriends.
Imagine MAGA conservatives being more upset about him being a 'lady's man' than a neocon cheerleader for endless wars. I swear we moved to a new, worse, timeline with Trump election, which I was cheering for. Trump's over-the-top Israel pandering in the second half of the campaign was always a red flag. Guess I was hoping for... well, not this. I was trying to explain this away. You know, donors.
AFAICT, yo, MAGA is mostly a cult of personality. Policy positions don't matter, and the cult shifts when the policy shifts.
To be fair, this is by no means limited to MAGA. The election of Obama did more to neuter the antiwar movement than anything Dick Cheney could have done, as now those wars were Obama's wars, and opposing those wars was to question St. Barack.
MAGA is not a cult of personality. It's a populist movement. Anyway, my point is American people obsess on sex stuff. I am in Canada. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about and trying to cover up an affair. I mean... stuff like that just does not happen in other countries. We don't care what consenting adults / politicians do. While Americans focus on that, they completely ignore the policies.
I dunno, in 2016, Trump claimed to be for ending the stupid wars and reducing the influence of Saudi Arabia and Israel on US policy. MAGA cheered.
Then he attacked Syria and MAGA went all "U-S-A!" and cheered when Trump decided to outsource Middle Easter policy to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
That's the first example to come to mind. Or The Great Wall Of Idiocy. Trump yammered on about it, then forgot it, then sort of half-assed, but it never got funded, and seems to be fogotten again. MAGA doesn't seem to care.
Hegseth is clearly going to say whatever he or his consultants/script writers think most effective, similarly, MAGA is whatever the people riding that tiger need it to be this week.
I'm not disappointed because I never expected anything beyond what Trump has always been and done.
Why do you assume they are all consenting? USA is ran by pedophilic rapists, like Joe Biden who showered naked with his young daughter, licks and sniffs others' children in public, and was caught on C-Span whispering to a little girl "You wouldn't believe how horny I am to be standing next to a 12-year-old girl."
You think someone like that is fit to rule you and can do a fine job somehow in spite of it?
Further, we know these perverts are extremely well-organised and that intelligence purposely recruits them and uses them for blackmail, as the Epstein case shows and has been documented thoroughly by countless journalists, Whitney Webb being among the best of them. They also are extensively tied to the corporate state and NGO powers as his case also provides irrefutable proof of.
This is not to mention all the other degeneracy in government, such as Marco Rubio's gleeful celebration of Gaddafi being sodomised to death with a knife. It is a sexual sadism that reigns in today's governments, "doing wrong for the pleasure of doing it" as Nietzsche put it in Genealogy of Morals.
If you think it's just affairs, puritanism, the rot runs a lot deeper than that. Sexual predators are never alone, they always organise; where there is one, there is potentially a hundred. They are powerful and protected.
You need to be deemed of good moral turpitude to even register as a PI in some states, yet you think those who rule us can do their jobs justly if they are sick?
You mean Linda Tripp who was the “last person” to see Vince Foster alive before his “suicide”? How convenient. And Seth Rich was being robbed when he was murdered. And Russiagate was really run by Russians.
MEowrrr Meowrrrrr Hissss hissss pisssss. There is no more time, and there is no more lines.
Instagram is now Sonogram. We are doing HHATW4R which is Hold Hands Around The World 4 Real on 4-20-25 we meet at the coast, any coast... no old 90s grudges there. Any Coast with rising tides at sea level. We will simply hold hands for 20 minutes top with the 2 people we most agree with on the issues of the day? Wait how we will know what the issues of the day are then? We all know Trump is Circus Clown here to trick us into a Circus Tent that is not America, then that's when he will strike. Wool over our eyes and our hands unable to hold another human hand.
Can someone inform these Christian Zionist evangelicals that according to Hippolytus of Rome's "Treatise on Christ and Antichrist," that bringing together a people scattered abroad and reestablishing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem are actually the expected acts of the Antichrists?
Rhetorical question, I know, since almost no religious people have ever read or will ever read any sort of scripture on their own religion, and when they do, only do so selectively to back up whatever they already believe rather than to ask the more important question of "What is truth?" that as Nietzsche noted was more in the domain of Christ's executor Pontius Pilatus to ask.
“only American power, reinvigorated with good citizens and economic vitality, has the realistic ability to defend a free world besieged by threats from within and without.”
----------
Apparently Hegseth feels a need for the ability to defend the free world vs. threats from within. We all have heard that the best defense is a strong offense so preemptive strikes may be in order?
Who, exactly, might Hegseth deem a "threat from within"? Might subjects who vocally criticized military actions taken by "the free world"® be deemed (not) good citizens by Sec. Def. Hegseth?
All in all, I trust Hegseth as far as I could throw him and he looks kinda heavy.
The main point which is overlooked is that Hegseth is a warrior not a desk soldier. He will not decide on whether to go to war or not. Trump will. His job will be to turn the military into a warrior machine. Something badly needed. You hire the right person for the job. Everything else is political noise.
Not that even the non-officers would see see real combat, anyway, being Americans, since the world hadn't really seen a real war for a century since the start of the Ukraine war, and the American idea of war is bribing the entire enemy army's leadership into submission like in Iraq, and then pretending to be victorious and revel in the glory of steamrolling a nonexistent army without any real combat before one ultimately gets one's ass kicked by camel herders with AKs out of that country (the foremost tradition of the US war machine).
If Trump wanted a real 'warrior' with actual combat experience in an actual war to take the job, he's SOL as America has none. Maybe get in touch with Javier Milei's medium to try to find one, though I think they only can get political advice from dead dogs and not warriors.
… and such a mindset typically can be followed up with matching tattoos. Those are more difficult to recover from, unless one can find an artful removal artist. Just saying.
And an addendum: am I not correct that the principal reason Hegseth was chosen was not his enthusiasm for war but rather his devotion to our soldiers and veterans?
Well, I think it's wise to question whether people have really changed their past views. Something our media failed to do with Harris. Whose agenda would have been the prevailing one. I DO think many people have totally changed their views regarding Iraq and other wars (and intelligenc) including Tucker Carlson (and me--I have been very influenced by Glenn Greenwald and others). But I think it's also too simple to think that these people won't represent Trump's agenda regardless of their past stances. I think they will. How they appear which could be part of Trump's strategy and how they behave in his agenda can be totally different. I think that is the most important thing is to hear them say they plan to support Trump's agenda on these things, and not their own. Like Vance did on abortion for instance. But they should address the differences and why they see it differently, plus promise to support the agenda of the guy we elected. Trump can always fire them if they don't. And I'm sure he will. So I always think these things are more nuanced than this. But nothing wrong with expecting him to address this. Same with DeSantis if it ends up being him.
You say, "Trump can always fire them if they don't. And I'm sure he will." What is your source for such certainty? As to Don's agenda, he was elected in Nov. 2016 in part for promising reduced military aggression abroad. Yet in July 2017, he went on tv and said he changed his mind about endless Mideast wars, now thinks they're necessary. In April 2017 he publicly stated he was relinquishing his Commander in Chief role and giving "his generals" total autonomy to make decisions. Don realized the Pentagon totally ignored him so he decided to make it look like it was his idea. The Pentagon had recently--without his knowledge or approval--dropped a huge bomb on Afghanistan, the biggest bomb US had dropped since WWII. So Don said, see, that's great! Also in April 2017 he bombed Syria for no reason except a few whispers from US-backed jihadists in Idlib. For this he was patted on the head by WaPo and told 'it's a good start.' In August 2017 congress removed all Russia matters from Don and gave them to the Senate. This virtually nullified Don's 2016 election. Medvedev commented at the time that Trump had been totally humiliated and that obviously there would be no relationship with Russia during his administration. If a person can't keep promises he made to get a job--for whatever reason, he simply resigns and moves on. That's what Don should've done. If as a 2016 candidate Don had said, "I promise on Day 1 to ask congress for permission and money to build a wall," he would've been laughed off the stage and never heard from again. Everyone knows congress is 100% open borders. He actually did say those words in Nov. 2016 after he'd been elected and 2 months prior to his inauguration. I knew then that it was all over.
Everyone held Harris to account to her former views, what are you referring to? All she got was relentless criticism, very rightfully so, and you even name two popular journalists yourself who gave her it. Unless by "our media" you mean you are still watching CNN or some other irrelevant formerly mainstream publication.
Who is "everyone?" Very few people held her to account and mostly about Bidenomics and her trans stuff. There was lots more. You are just someone who wants to be miserable no matter what. I assume you don't like either one of them. Well, Trump is a much better deal for freedom. Why don't you just keep working toward more improvement. He is trying to do a lot of good things and nobody has given him a chance. He's been attacked full time, justice dept. weaponized against him, charges made up out of whole cloth. So why don't you just wait and see or be happy it's not Harris. And I don't watch CNN much, just to see what idiot things they are saying. We had no wars when he was in there and he's not into spending big money on things that don't directly concern us. So let's see.
In March 2020 Trump quickly diverted $2 trillion taxpayer dollars for alleged "Covid bailouts." Rep. Thomas Massie kindly asked for a day to read the bill and Trump raged that Massie should be thrown out of the Republican Party for the request. Of course, even then US was just copying everything UK "experts" had called for. Dr. Birx (not Fauci) was in charge of entire US rhetoric which meant following what UK said. Jared chaired 3x weekly "Covid Huddle' meetings to enforce Birx narrative. No one mentioned that the #1 UK "expert" Neil Ferguson had in March 2020 posted publicly that he had no computer models about Covid, all the models he used were from prior influenza research.
Yes, I think he knows he made some Covid mistakes. However, we didn't know what we were dealing with. He also realized fairly quickly he couldn't shut down the country and planned to open it. It's pretty clear he knows he made some mistakes, but he would have adjusted and Biden didn't.
Just get OFF that project 2025. Just because he has one guy who is for it does not mean he plans to outlaw birth control. He isn't signing an abortion ban? This is ludicrous. There are a lot people who see things slightly differently in EVERY party and administration. They are going to do TRUMP'S agenda. And he is NOT for 2025. I'm sure he likes some of it as do I--but not all. You just want to be miserable. So go ahead.
I think this is another example of Trump choosing someone based on perceived loyalty over other factors. Hard to blame him for wanting loyal cabinet members considering his previous administration but also this is not so hard to understand given previous analysis from MT concerning the discrepancy between Trump's perception as a peace loving president and the reality. Considering that, maybe Hegseth fits in with the new administration perfectly well.
I too was also for the Iraq war, until things were pointed out very clearly in the Michael Moore Fahrenheit 9/11, one of the most important films, doc or otherwise, of the 21st century. Then I was against the war. And I am against the ongoing war in Ukraine and in Gaza from the beginning of these wars. Tucker Carlson, can tell a similar story, though I doubt he would lend too much credence to Fahrenheit 9/11. He has been consistent. He got fired from Fox News, because as Glenn Greenwald pointed out on his show at the time of Tucker's firing that when Tucker said the state has to "wait for the all-clear bell" before a war is denounced, then formerly pro-advocate "neo-cons" become rebranded.
Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Sergei Lavrov, I just listened to, and is very well worth the hour plus to listen/watch.
Music I listened to while reading this article: Philip Glass Soundtrack to The Hours on Spotify.
Thanks, this is very useful info I haven't seen elsewhere. If only the Times took one-tenth the interest in this highly relevant subject as it took in his mom's private emails about his girlfriends.
It's always some stupid personal crime that gets someone dropped, not their actual crimes and sociopathic actions.
Imagine MAGA conservatives being more upset about him being a 'lady's man' than a neocon cheerleader for endless wars. I swear we moved to a new, worse, timeline with Trump election, which I was cheering for. Trump's over-the-top Israel pandering in the second half of the campaign was always a red flag. Guess I was hoping for... well, not this. I was trying to explain this away. You know, donors.
AFAICT, yo, MAGA is mostly a cult of personality. Policy positions don't matter, and the cult shifts when the policy shifts.
To be fair, this is by no means limited to MAGA. The election of Obama did more to neuter the antiwar movement than anything Dick Cheney could have done, as now those wars were Obama's wars, and opposing those wars was to question St. Barack.
MAGA is not a cult of personality. It's a populist movement. Anyway, my point is American people obsess on sex stuff. I am in Canada. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about and trying to cover up an affair. I mean... stuff like that just does not happen in other countries. We don't care what consenting adults / politicians do. While Americans focus on that, they completely ignore the policies.
I dunno, in 2016, Trump claimed to be for ending the stupid wars and reducing the influence of Saudi Arabia and Israel on US policy. MAGA cheered.
Then he attacked Syria and MAGA went all "U-S-A!" and cheered when Trump decided to outsource Middle Easter policy to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
That's the first example to come to mind. Or The Great Wall Of Idiocy. Trump yammered on about it, then forgot it, then sort of half-assed, but it never got funded, and seems to be fogotten again. MAGA doesn't seem to care.
@Woman in tech
Hegseth is clearly going to say whatever he or his consultants/script writers think most effective, similarly, MAGA is whatever the people riding that tiger need it to be this week.
I'm not disappointed because I never expected anything beyond what Trump has always been and done.
Why do you assume they are all consenting? USA is ran by pedophilic rapists, like Joe Biden who showered naked with his young daughter, licks and sniffs others' children in public, and was caught on C-Span whispering to a little girl "You wouldn't believe how horny I am to be standing next to a 12-year-old girl."
You think someone like that is fit to rule you and can do a fine job somehow in spite of it?
Further, we know these perverts are extremely well-organised and that intelligence purposely recruits them and uses them for blackmail, as the Epstein case shows and has been documented thoroughly by countless journalists, Whitney Webb being among the best of them. They also are extensively tied to the corporate state and NGO powers as his case also provides irrefutable proof of.
This is not to mention all the other degeneracy in government, such as Marco Rubio's gleeful celebration of Gaddafi being sodomised to death with a knife. It is a sexual sadism that reigns in today's governments, "doing wrong for the pleasure of doing it" as Nietzsche put it in Genealogy of Morals.
If you think it's just affairs, puritanism, the rot runs a lot deeper than that. Sexual predators are never alone, they always organise; where there is one, there is potentially a hundred. They are powerful and protected.
You need to be deemed of good moral turpitude to even register as a PI in some states, yet you think those who rule us can do their jobs justly if they are sick?
On the surface that is what Clinton was impeached for. It was really because Monica was a Mossad agent.
You mean Linda Tripp who was the “last person” to see Vince Foster alive before his “suicide”? How convenient. And Seth Rich was being robbed when he was murdered. And Russiagate was really run by Russians.
https://nypost.com/1999/03/03/israel-blackmailed-bill-with-monica-tapes-spy-hunt-ended-after-mossad-bugged-prez-sex-chats-book-exclusive/
True
@Feral Finster
As usual, we have managed to elect not the lesser of two evils but the more EFFECTIVE of two evils.
"I am Frank's cynical lack of surprise".
Occupy Wall Street was in 2011. Do you recall who was president then? OWS was “occupied “.
Obama actively neutered the antiwar movement
The movement up and disappeared long before the War On Libya, which passed with barely a peep.
MEowrrr Meowrrrrr Hissss hissss pisssss. There is no more time, and there is no more lines.
Instagram is now Sonogram. We are doing HHATW4R which is Hold Hands Around The World 4 Real on 4-20-25 we meet at the coast, any coast... no old 90s grudges there. Any Coast with rising tides at sea level. We will simply hold hands for 20 minutes top with the 2 people we most agree with on the issues of the day? Wait how we will know what the issues of the day are then? We all know Trump is Circus Clown here to trick us into a Circus Tent that is not America, then that's when he will strike. Wool over our eyes and our hands unable to hold another human hand.
Can someone inform these Christian Zionist evangelicals that according to Hippolytus of Rome's "Treatise on Christ and Antichrist," that bringing together a people scattered abroad and reestablishing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem are actually the expected acts of the Antichrists?
Rhetorical question, I know, since almost no religious people have ever read or will ever read any sort of scripture on their own religion, and when they do, only do so selectively to back up whatever they already believe rather than to ask the more important question of "What is truth?" that as Nietzsche noted was more in the domain of Christ's executor Pontius Pilatus to ask.
Hegseth:
“only American power, reinvigorated with good citizens and economic vitality, has the realistic ability to defend a free world besieged by threats from within and without.”
----------
Apparently Hegseth feels a need for the ability to defend the free world vs. threats from within. We all have heard that the best defense is a strong offense so preemptive strikes may be in order?
Who, exactly, might Hegseth deem a "threat from within"? Might subjects who vocally criticized military actions taken by "the free world"® be deemed (not) good citizens by Sec. Def. Hegseth?
All in all, I trust Hegseth as far as I could throw him and he looks kinda heavy.
The main point which is overlooked is that Hegseth is a warrior not a desk soldier. He will not decide on whether to go to war or not. Trump will. His job will be to turn the military into a warrior machine. Something badly needed. You hire the right person for the job. Everything else is political noise.
An armchair warrior—he was an officer!
Not that even the non-officers would see see real combat, anyway, being Americans, since the world hadn't really seen a real war for a century since the start of the Ukraine war, and the American idea of war is bribing the entire enemy army's leadership into submission like in Iraq, and then pretending to be victorious and revel in the glory of steamrolling a nonexistent army without any real combat before one ultimately gets one's ass kicked by camel herders with AKs out of that country (the foremost tradition of the US war machine).
If Trump wanted a real 'warrior' with actual combat experience in an actual war to take the job, he's SOL as America has none. Maybe get in touch with Javier Milei's medium to try to find one, though I think they only can get political advice from dead dogs and not warriors.
Correct
Michael. Perfect summation.
… and such a mindset typically can be followed up with matching tattoos. Those are more difficult to recover from, unless one can find an artful removal artist. Just saying.
Great work
Thanks for elevating journalism by focusing on issues, ideas, and policies that matters....rather than the sordid stuff....which doesn't.
If it gets to the Senate, wouldn't it be wonderful if they did the same
And an addendum: am I not correct that the principal reason Hegseth was chosen was not his enthusiasm for war but rather his devotion to our soldiers and veterans?
Anyone that supported the Iraq war doesn't care about soldiers. They didn't need to go there in the first place.
You mean his devotion to creating more veterans?
I so agree. Thank you for that.
Well, I think it's wise to question whether people have really changed their past views. Something our media failed to do with Harris. Whose agenda would have been the prevailing one. I DO think many people have totally changed their views regarding Iraq and other wars (and intelligenc) including Tucker Carlson (and me--I have been very influenced by Glenn Greenwald and others). But I think it's also too simple to think that these people won't represent Trump's agenda regardless of their past stances. I think they will. How they appear which could be part of Trump's strategy and how they behave in his agenda can be totally different. I think that is the most important thing is to hear them say they plan to support Trump's agenda on these things, and not their own. Like Vance did on abortion for instance. But they should address the differences and why they see it differently, plus promise to support the agenda of the guy we elected. Trump can always fire them if they don't. And I'm sure he will. So I always think these things are more nuanced than this. But nothing wrong with expecting him to address this. Same with DeSantis if it ends up being him.
You say, "Trump can always fire them if they don't. And I'm sure he will." What is your source for such certainty? As to Don's agenda, he was elected in Nov. 2016 in part for promising reduced military aggression abroad. Yet in July 2017, he went on tv and said he changed his mind about endless Mideast wars, now thinks they're necessary. In April 2017 he publicly stated he was relinquishing his Commander in Chief role and giving "his generals" total autonomy to make decisions. Don realized the Pentagon totally ignored him so he decided to make it look like it was his idea. The Pentagon had recently--without his knowledge or approval--dropped a huge bomb on Afghanistan, the biggest bomb US had dropped since WWII. So Don said, see, that's great! Also in April 2017 he bombed Syria for no reason except a few whispers from US-backed jihadists in Idlib. For this he was patted on the head by WaPo and told 'it's a good start.' In August 2017 congress removed all Russia matters from Don and gave them to the Senate. This virtually nullified Don's 2016 election. Medvedev commented at the time that Trump had been totally humiliated and that obviously there would be no relationship with Russia during his administration. If a person can't keep promises he made to get a job--for whatever reason, he simply resigns and moves on. That's what Don should've done. If as a 2016 candidate Don had said, "I promise on Day 1 to ask congress for permission and money to build a wall," he would've been laughed off the stage and never heard from again. Everyone knows congress is 100% open borders. He actually did say those words in Nov. 2016 after he'd been elected and 2 months prior to his inauguration. I knew then that it was all over.
I don't think this is accurate, but I'd have to do some research to get the specifics.
Everyone held Harris to account to her former views, what are you referring to? All she got was relentless criticism, very rightfully so, and you even name two popular journalists yourself who gave her it. Unless by "our media" you mean you are still watching CNN or some other irrelevant formerly mainstream publication.
Who is "everyone?" Very few people held her to account and mostly about Bidenomics and her trans stuff. There was lots more. You are just someone who wants to be miserable no matter what. I assume you don't like either one of them. Well, Trump is a much better deal for freedom. Why don't you just keep working toward more improvement. He is trying to do a lot of good things and nobody has given him a chance. He's been attacked full time, justice dept. weaponized against him, charges made up out of whole cloth. So why don't you just wait and see or be happy it's not Harris. And I don't watch CNN much, just to see what idiot things they are saying. We had no wars when he was in there and he's not into spending big money on things that don't directly concern us. So let's see.
In March 2020 Trump quickly diverted $2 trillion taxpayer dollars for alleged "Covid bailouts." Rep. Thomas Massie kindly asked for a day to read the bill and Trump raged that Massie should be thrown out of the Republican Party for the request. Of course, even then US was just copying everything UK "experts" had called for. Dr. Birx (not Fauci) was in charge of entire US rhetoric which meant following what UK said. Jared chaired 3x weekly "Covid Huddle' meetings to enforce Birx narrative. No one mentioned that the #1 UK "expert" Neil Ferguson had in March 2020 posted publicly that he had no computer models about Covid, all the models he used were from prior influenza research.
Yes, I think he knows he made some Covid mistakes. However, we didn't know what we were dealing with. He also realized fairly quickly he couldn't shut down the country and planned to open it. It's pretty clear he knows he made some mistakes, but he would have adjusted and Biden didn't.
Just get OFF that project 2025. Just because he has one guy who is for it does not mean he plans to outlaw birth control. He isn't signing an abortion ban? This is ludicrous. There are a lot people who see things slightly differently in EVERY party and administration. They are going to do TRUMP'S agenda. And he is NOT for 2025. I'm sure he likes some of it as do I--but not all. You just want to be miserable. So go ahead.
You are great
I think this is another example of Trump choosing someone based on perceived loyalty over other factors. Hard to blame him for wanting loyal cabinet members considering his previous administration but also this is not so hard to understand given previous analysis from MT concerning the discrepancy between Trump's perception as a peace loving president and the reality. Considering that, maybe Hegseth fits in with the new administration perfectly well.
Thanks Man!
I too was also for the Iraq war, until things were pointed out very clearly in the Michael Moore Fahrenheit 9/11, one of the most important films, doc or otherwise, of the 21st century. Then I was against the war. And I am against the ongoing war in Ukraine and in Gaza from the beginning of these wars. Tucker Carlson, can tell a similar story, though I doubt he would lend too much credence to Fahrenheit 9/11. He has been consistent. He got fired from Fox News, because as Glenn Greenwald pointed out on his show at the time of Tucker's firing that when Tucker said the state has to "wait for the all-clear bell" before a war is denounced, then formerly pro-advocate "neo-cons" become rebranded.
Tucker Carlson's recent interview with Sergei Lavrov, I just listened to, and is very well worth the hour plus to listen/watch.
Music I listened to while reading this article: Philip Glass Soundtrack to The Hours on Spotify.
Stick a fork in Hegseth, he’s done!
https://planetfubar.substack.com/p/breaking-news-christine-blasey-ford
Thank you Tracey. I have been following you on X platform from past two months. I love your journalism . Thank you