Yesterday was a tumultuous day for our Republic. I listened to the Secretary of Defense call himself the Secretary of War and then give a very disturbing speech to about 800 of our nations finest commanders and senior enlisted advisors. That was followed by an embarrassing ramble by the President.
At the end of the day, the unwillingness of the Republican-controlled Senate to compromise on the terms of the continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government for the good of the American people demonstrated contempt for "We the People." The effects of the Big Ugly Bill are beginning to be felt and that was an opportunity to correct some of the problems.
Let me begin with Hegseth.
During his speech me made the following statement:
We just have to be honest. We have to say with our mouths what we see with our eyes, to just tell it like it is in plain English, to point out the obvious things right in front of us. That’s what leaders must do. We cannot go another day without directly addressing the plank in our own eye, without addressing the problems in our own commands and in our own formations. (Hegseth speech)
But he doesn't even believe what he said. He does not tolerate those who tell it like it is when disagreeing with his short-sighted policies.
Mr. Hegseth has already fired more than a dozen military leaders, many of them people of color and women. He fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who is Black; the first woman to command the Navy, Adm. Lisa Franchetti; and the U.S. military’s representative to the NATO military committee, Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield. He also pushed out Gen. David W. Allvin, the Air Force chief of staff, and Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Kruse, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. (NYTimes)
And then there was the President as the follow-on act of the two-ring circus.
Nearly every "fact" presented by the President was wrong. I fact checked the speech at CNN. There are just some things he brings up continuously which are just plain wrong--but no one can correct him. I was even beginning to believe that 25 million immigrants illegally entered the U.S., during Biden's term. The real number much less, but unknown. I leave it to you, my readers, to click on the CNN link and discover for yourself the fictitious reality in which our President lives. Remember, he has his finger on the nuclear trigger!
What really caused me a huge moment of pause was the President's discussion of his signature. Wow, really? The following statement came at the end of a meaningless discussion about paper and gold ink used to sign the commissions of Generals.
And I sign it -- actually, I love my signature, I really do. Everyone loves my signature. (Roll Call)
Who says that?
And at the beginning of his presentation he showed his true colors about disagreement when he spoke:
And if you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future, but you just feel nice and loose, OK, because we're all on the same team. (Roll Call). [Highlighting mine]
The day ended with a partial government shutdown. Instead of the president negotiating to keep the government open, the Republicans got exactly what they wanted from the beginning--a shutdown. Why do I maintain it was what they wanted? Well, unless the Senate passed the CR exactly as the House sent it to them, there was no way to ratify the bill because the Speaker of the House sent his caucus home. Most were not even in Washington. That is governing in abstentia.
The President and the congressional leaders should have been working to keep America running, but instead they presented a flawed proposal and said take-it-or-leave-it!
Thankfully, they left it. It is now up to "We the People" to inform them of the error of their ways!
And this was not even the topic I was going to write about today. I did a lot of research yesterday about how the military has been used to engineer change through social engineering--which is what I saw Secretary Hegseth implementing (in a very negative way) yesterday.
-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL
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