Hegseth Gets Woman's Consent for Something
Sen. Joni Ernst says she is agreeing to do what Trump's Pentagon nominee wants her to do because reasons
Jan. 15: Hegseth successfully defends self against Democrats … GOPer praises Hegseth for putting Jesus ahead of Constitution … House Dem dares to call out nominee’s Christian nationalism … Trump to create External Revenue Service to collect internal revenues …
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There’s this thing after hearings where self-styled pundits Monday-morning quarterback the members of Congress, critiquing what they said and arguing — with no possible way to prove it — what members should have said. It’s lazy and unfair and if TV’s overpaid on-air people can do it, so can TFN!
The Senate Armed Forces Committee yesterday questioned former and future Fox co-host Pete Hegseth regarding his nomination by President-elect Donald Trump to run the entire United States military. The upshot was Hegseth is in.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), a military veteran who has experienced sexual violence and MAGA bullying, said yesterday she’ll vote to confirm Hegseth. The committee could have blocked Hegseth with just one Republican vote of No means No.
But Ernst explained that Hegseth “pointed out the woke issues at the Pentagon and I think we’re at a point where now we can start moving forward.” That was Ernst’s criteria. And Democrats could have Gorilla Glued it to her forever by underscoring it.
Hell, Democrats could’ve asked Hegseth whether he agrees that pointing out woke issues at the Pentagon should be a requisite for the job and if so what directives would he give to Undersecretary Jesse Watters? Ask for a single example of wokeness endangering the troops or whatever.
Democrats could use these hearings to direct attention to how Republicans are giving a pass to insanely unqualified nominees. And it’s not just Democrats. The media — in this case including TFN! — largely give Republicans a pass for this kind of thing.
Because no one has any expectation anymore of competence or integrity from Republicans so it’s not “interesting” when they fail to demonstrate any. Ernst only got a lot of attention because she had been wavering.
Republicans who were on board with Hegseth from day one, however, have gotten virtually no attention even though they are clearly the worst. (And Politico reports that craven — TFN’s word, not Politico’s — Republicans have been hoping that Democrats (Satan) and the media (Satan’s handmaiden) will dig up enough dirt on the worst of Trump’s nominees to help them avoid Yes votes:
“...this GOP show of support [for Hegseth] has not prompted Senate Democrats to pivot toward confronting [Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi] Gabbard. That has surprised, and even disappointed, their Republican counterparts, some of whom told me that they would be more willing to make common cause to stop [Gabbard]...”
Democratic allies were disappointed, too. Paul Rieckhoff, a military veteran leader and vocal Independent™ who I once worked with and like, called out “A weak [Democratic] line up … that (outside of [Tim] Kaine and [Kirsten] Gillibrand) failed to nail Hegseth down.”
Former Rep. and current Dem fave Trump martyr Adam Kinzinger wrote, “Honestly, the Dems questions today for Hegseth seemed weak, and they let him get away with too much. They need to do better.”
This is all, of course, super unfair to Democrats. Sorry/not sorry.
But the reality is that humans focus on the folks who are undecided (the Ernsts) and the folks charged with blocking it (Democrats). TFN would like to figure out a way to change that journalism dynamic — and the TFN Labs™ are working on it — but in the meantime, let’s start with the Dems — because they’re the firewall! — and then we’ll have a turn at the GOP.
Committee Democrats spent considerable time litigating Hegseth’s personal life and the unprofessional parts of his professional life, as chronicled in the documentary “Porky’s 2.” There are lots of things you can use a confirmation hearing for, but it seems to me that the top priorities in Hegseth’s confirmation process ought to be, in order, stopping him and slapping a political price on the GOP for supporting him.
Raising his tawdry past was clearly intended to achieve these goals. But all of this stuff was already out there. It was already baked in to GOP support for Hegseth and had proved incapable of moving the public needle enough to move the Trump needle that tells Republicans where to go.
The drinking and the raping were known and had failed. They failed again yesterday.
The Hill: “Democrats fail to land decisive blow against Hegseth.”
So, I would argue — with no possible way to prove it — that the Democratic gambit ought to have been to put new stuff in the mix.
What stuff? Christian extremism, for one, which I’ll get to. But also, putting the focus on GOP senators for putting a grossly inexperienced — and just gross — manager in charge of nuclear bombs and three million humans.
Why didn’t Democrats do more of that? Our toxic news media are one reason — even though no one’s watching non-insane TV news anymore, Hill Democrats are. And they take their cues from it, to some extent.
There is some evidence that trying something new would have worked. Because a teeny example of it slipped through and did, in fact, make a big splash. A splash big enough that we can imagine if the entire Democratic questioning had taken the same tack, the critical mass could have changed the dynamic. I’ll explain.
Everyone gets that when it comes to the wokeness and the bullying trans people and the sexism, Hegseth is going to do what Trump tells him to do.
Hegseth’s weakness lies in the stuff Trump won’t tell him what or how to do. Namely, the day-to-day of managing a global organization with trillions of dollars in shit to manage and nearly a trillion dollars to spend annually.
Managing well takes skill! There are known and understood techniques and practices for doing it. Democrats could’ve asked Hegseth about any of that and slapped the issue into a silo that rich Republican donors would’ve understood: The basics of shit that (some of) they have had to learn in order to manage much smaller operations.
This, by the way, is a tactic Democrats can still use on any of these clowninees!1 Just ask basic interview questions about management.
What are the basic categories of management functions?
What’s the longest-term project you’ve ever planned?
Do you subscribe to the Six Sigma management philosophy, and why or why not?
Why are you a clown?How did you get in here?
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), to her credit, gave us a taste of what a relentless barrage of this kind of substantive shit might have looked like:
Duckworth: “Can you name the importance of at least one of the nations in ASEAN [Association of Southeast Nations], and what type of agreement we have with at least one of those nations? And how many nations are in ASEAN, by the way?”
Hegseth: “I couldn’t tell you the exact amount of nations in that, but I know we have allies in South Korea, and Japan, and in AUKUS with Australia…”
Duckworth: “Mr. Hegseth none of those countries are in ASEAN. None of those three countries that you’ve mentioned are in ASEAN.”
Bro, they’re not even in southeast Asia, let alone the association of nations therein!
In fact, Australia’s not even in any Asia. You dumb-ass motherfucker, it’s southeast of southeast Asia. But here, have some nukes.
And Democrats didn’t even touch the other tack they could/should have taken. As TFN predicted, they didn’t even hint at the single most terrifying prospect of Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth: His religious zealotry.
Even though he — and Republican senators! — brought it up.
Here’s Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND):
“First I want to say thank you for your strong proclamation, unapologetic proclamation, of faith in Jesus Christ. I listened to your opening statement and thought [sic], ‘Wow, this is a guy who is willing to stand up in today’s culture and say the first thing is first: Faith in Jesus Christ.’ I was reminded of what Christ said in Matthew: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…”
Catch that, Newsfuckers? A Republican senator praised the Defense secretary nominee for subordinating his constitutional and professional duties as secondary to the prerogatives of a dead wizard who lives in his head.
Was there coverage of this? Newsfuckers, there was not. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) actually endorsed Hegseth’s religious beliefs: “I share that devotion to Christianity.”
Here’s Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder, president, chief cook and bottle washer Mikey Weinstein:
“Unfortunately, Hegseth's Christian nationalist extremism took a backseat to his misogyny, adultery, and drunkenness, with his religion only being brought up a handful of times, not by the Democrats on the committee but by Hegseth's fellow Christian nationalists who applaud his Christian nationalism.”
MORE GOP STUFF Sens. Ernst and Susan Collins (R-ME) reportedly turned down meetings with Hegseth’s accuser. Well, one of them. The one he allegedly raped.
In a particularly enraging example of Collins’s absolute disingenuousness, fecklessness, and other contemptible nesses, Collins denied turning down a meeting. And then admitted she de facto turned it down.
“I never turned down a meeting with Mr. Hegseth’s accuser. I was never contacted by her or her attorney … I was approached by a third party about a meeting, and I said that I would think about it. I never heard back from anyone after that.”
When you say you’ll think about it, then it’s on you to get back to them and if you don’t then goddamnit you slimy mealy-mouthed fucking doody-face of the ages, then you fucking turned down the meeting with the woman who says the guy you’re voting for raped her.
And while I’m on the topic, Democrats also failed by letting stand Hegseth’s claim that he was “completely cleared” of rape.
The closest to something effective on that was Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), who said, “I don’t think ‘completely cleared’ is accurate.” Hello? It’s not only a lie. It’s impossible.
Police don’t issue statements of innocence. Even juries only declare you not guilty. Verdicts of “innocence” don’t exist.
Democrats could have nailed Hegseth for this, too, because he’s been saying it for months and its falseness was clear back in November as Democrats would know if they read TFN and long-time Newsfuckers did know because it was pointed out by newsfucking me.
So Democrats could have said, Who cleared you? What’s their name? Do you have a document attesting to this? When exactly did police departments get in the business of declaring innocence?
When’s a good time for your perjury trial once we get the Senate back?
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE Republicans seem to think that there is a discernible category of woke generals at the Pentagon and that removing them will make the Pentagon more like Top Gun or A Few Good Men or Full Metal Jacket or Catch-22 or Dr. Strangelove.
As one might say about modern Republican approaches to many all things, it’s not that simple. You can’t rid the Pentagon of every military leader who subscribes to any of the variety of allegedly woke policies without excising most of the people there who do war good. Some Republicans, though, don’t seem to care.
Here’s Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), best known as Trump’s former “doctor,” sounding like a fucking hippie and/or a Yippie:
“They [Democrats] fear him [Hegseth] because he is going to go in there and burn that place [the Pentagon] down.”
I mean, that’s what Commie Pinkos want, right? And, remember, if Hegseth does burn the place down, they won’t even get disaster aid from Speaker Mike Johnson.
(Some, Okay One) Democrat Actually Calling Out Christian Nationalism
In a press release last night, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) put Senate Democrats on notice (even though he was too diplomatic to say he was doing that) to challenge yet another Christian nationalist in his confirmation hearing today.
Russell Vought is appearing before the Senate Homeland [sic] Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. President-elect Donald Trump nominated Vought to return as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. The position will, um, position Vought to influence every executive agency. Here’s Huffman, co-chair of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, on Vought:
“He is a self-avowed Christian Nationalist who plans to dismantle the civil service — replacing thousands of qualified, nonpartisan federal employees such as scientists and engineers with political lackeys who will be selected to follow partisan orders above the law or the Constitution. … His aggressive plan to gut checks and balances clears the way for Trump to enact his entire Project 2025 agenda to sell out the middle class, threaten personal rights and freedoms, and impose biblical morality codes on all of us.”
Let us pause to acknowledge the bad-assery of not capitalizing “Biblical.”
Aaahhhhh.
Now, will Democrats use today’s hearing to challenge or highlight Vought’s theocratic bent? Spoiler: No.
The committee members include radical Christian extremists and, even on the Democratic side, members willing to work with theocratic organizations like the Fellowship Foundation, creator of national prayer breakfasts and sponsor of Christian shadow diplomacy around the world.
As I revealed last week — because she’s keeping it secret from the mainstream media by not issuing a press release — Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) is co-chairing next month’s National Prayer Breakfast … ignoring my request for comment on all the ways her role will help radical far-right Christian extremists.
So, no, after spending four years telling us Project 2025 and religious zealotry posed an existential threat to democracy, DEMOCRATs now have nothing to say.
Trump to Expand Government with New External Revenue Service to Collect Internal Revenue
The U.S. government already has an arm to collect tariff revenues. It’s Customs and Border Protection.
But President-elect Donald Trump is all about the branding, so he actually wrote, on purpose, and hasn’t taken back yet, this:
“For far too long, we have relied on taxing our Great People using the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Through soft and pathetically weak Trade agreements, the American Economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the World, while taxing ourselves. It is time for that to change. I am today announcing that I will create the EXTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE to collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources. We will begin charging those that make money off of us with Trade, and they will start paying, FINALLY, their fair share.”
As Newsfuckers know, tariffs do not come from foreign sources. They come from our Great People. China doesn’t just magically push its products onto Walmart shelves. When shipments get to the U.S, someone has to sign for them. And whichever company imported that product or piece of a product, they pay the tariff. Internally.
And they can afford to pay that tariff because they raise the price that’s paid by our Great People.
In other words, Trump is about to create an ExteRnal Revenue Service (ERRS) to collect internal revenue from Domestic sources by taxing ourselves.
It’s worth noting that this is horrifically regressive. Shifting the government revenue stream from income — where we can claw back at least some of the ill-gotten gains that our oligarchs have oligarched with higher tax rates on the richest of them — to sales of goods means that the poor and middle class will pay dramatically disproportionate shares of their “wealth” to the government while the oligarchs get to keep more of our money.
Let the record show that our government-shrinking president-elect has now proposed two (2) new government agencies, the ERRS and the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Rubio Tied to Latin American Lobbyists
EXCLUSIVE Y’know that big story I was working on? The one that made yesterday’s TFN and today’s TFN so late? I posted it last night.
The gist is that Marco Rubio’s Florida and religious networks of lobbyists are now in very good position to push him for bad things in Latin America. Like, nation-fucking things. Immigration-spurring things.
I connected a lot of dots that have gone unconnected and it will have zero impact on today’s hearing on Rubio’s nomination to serve as secretary of state.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) certainly won’t bring it up — he’s a big part of the same Fellowship Foundation secret Jesus club that Rubio’s in. So why did I spend so much time on this, gathering information for weeks months years, and blowing whatever revenue TFN might have made with new posts last weekend by focusing on this instead, racing to get it out in a less-than-ideal form before today’s hearing?
Primarily, as I’ve said, I have a problem. But, also, one peril of our new journalism ecosystem is that reporting with long-term implications doesn’t fire up the donations and paid subscriptions the way short-term gotcha bullshit and punditry (valid or not) do.
And in my own self-martyring way, I guess I’m committed to fighting for long-term journalism, the kind that has zero benefit now but pays off in years. That’s how The Fellowship’s National Prayer Breakfast ended up splitting in two — my reporting percolated for years.
Bottom line, there’s not much point in reading my new story. It’s byzantine and hard to digest. But if Rubio and Co. start getting cute in the months and years ahead … it’ll be there. Waiting.
Four Quickies
Pres. Joe Biden announced that victims of the Los Angeles wildfires will get checks for $770 to cover immediate costs related to finding somewhere to sleep. The announcement came after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said House Republicans might not help the wildfire victims if Republicans don’t like the policies of California Democrats. Biden still has five days to write California a check for eight squillion dollars.
Justice Democrats, the folks who helped fuel the rise of The Squad, reportedly just announced a new campaign to recruit candidates to primary incumbent Democrats. Which is democracy, so don’t tell me primarying Democrats is a threat to democracy.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced yesterday that it’s suing X CEO Elon Musk for (some of) his crimes. Musk allegedly bought up shares of Twitter without properly disclosing the purchase, keeping the share price down as he scooped up more. Musk allegedly cheated Twitter investors out of about $150 million in the process. Luckily for them, he then paid $44 billion for the company, juicing the share price again. Unluckily for them unless they sold, Musk then started actually running the company so now it’s in the toilet which is where billionaire things go.
Sure, Los Angeles is experiencing the worst fire of its known civilized history. But at least they’re not dealing with the calamity that just hit New York City. Bad enough we had 9/11, now a new mayoral poll shows that the frontrunner is former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY). Can we get disaster funding for that, Mike Johnson?
TCB
LOST IN TRANSLATION Any Newsfuckers out there read Romanian? Or Korean? HMU!
REPORTING The race to get new reporting out continues. I’m now working on a big exclusive (with a sidebar or two) that people will get pissed at me about because it’s about a Democrat. Sorry/not sorry. It’ll be up on the Jonathan Larsen Substack if you wanna subscribe there, but I’ll also flag it here so no one will miss it!
CONNECTING We’re on some of the 36 social medias! Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon and Spoutible.
Go get ‘em, kids!
Worst portmanteau ever. Worstmanteau, even.
1. Geneva Conventions = treaty, not an organization
2. Article VI, US Constitution = violating adopted treaties is treason
Is it okay to pronounce DOGE as "Dodgy"? Can't stomach all the bros getting off on pronouncing it the same way as they pronounce that cryptocurrency shit coin. Let's start a trend ....