Category Archives: Election 2024

Pete Hegseth The Crusader Reveals the Two Truly-Madly-Deeply Lethal Loves of His Life

In official statements, Pete Hegseth calls the first one, “Lethality.”

Usually it’s a dry, abstract word. A term that’s launched a thousand PowerPoint slide shows. It’s ideal for air-conditioned classrooms, lit by rows of long tubular fluorescent bulbs. Under the lights, as it is repeated, rows of men in uniform listen, many taking notes, or (if it’s shortly after lunch, struggleto keep their eyes open).

Or at a crowded congressional hearing. “If you’re confirmed as Secretary of Defense,” asked a U. S. Senator, “what would be your mission, Mr. Hegseth?”

It’s the first  significant noun he emits (after, of course, the name Trump), in a crisply-memorized litany:

“He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on lethality, meritocracy, war-fighting, accountability and readiness.”

Continue reading Pete Hegseth The Crusader Reveals the Two Truly-Madly-Deeply Lethal Loves of His Life

Pete Hegseth Wants to “Bleach the Barracks,” Starting By Firing the Top Black General

Just wrote a blog post on the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.

It’s posted on the blog of my former employer, Quaker House of Fayetteville NC, near Fort Liberty (neé Fort Bragg).

Hegseth, taking aim

The post deals with aspects of Hegseth’s program that were hardly mentioned in his Senate hearing on January 14: his public targeting of the one top-level Black officer, Air Force General C. Q. Brown, to be fired, based on a four-minute video he made after the George Floyd murder.

 

Brown has had an honorable & successful 40-

General C. Q. Brown, Jr. Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Target #1

year military career. It’s clear Hegseth can’t tolerate that. He wants to make Brown the first, highest-ranking scapegoat in a projected anti-woke, military-wide “crusade” to eradicate anything he considers “woke” (it’s a very long list), first from the military, and then from American society at large.

Why this crusade plan was not taken up seriously in Hegseth’s Senate hearing is not clear. Voices can still be raised about it.

More details about Brown and Hegseth’s scheme are in the full post (the views in which are personal & unofficial), are here:

How Pizza, Porn & Public Executions Made Good Politics in North Carolina

Every Democrat who won a state-level race in North Carolina this week ought to be tossing  at least a fiver into a common hat.

Then that wad of bills should be plunked down at Greensboro’s greasiest pizza parlor, to have at several dozen steamy pies delivered to the front porch of Chez Mark Robinson, topped by an oversize “Thank You” card. On it will be a PS hinting broadly that Robinson should consider making a second run at the state house in 2028.

That’s a helluva lot of pepperoni, but the social media posts unearthed in the campaign indicate that Robinson could handle it, especially if he resumes his particularly spicy diversions to fill his impending surplus of free time. Continue reading How Pizza, Porn & Public Executions Made Good Politics in North Carolina

My Secret Post-Election Plan: Celebration?? Or Consolation??

I’m still not making predictions about the election’s outcome. And I’m so over searching for the hidden meanings in polls.  My record of not answering the non-Hurricane flood of robocalls remains unbroken. Not least, I voted two weeks — seems like two months — ago.

So now there’s only one big question hanging over the official end of this endless campaign season, namely:

What am I gonna do when we have a winner?

I think I’ve found my answer. It’s in a compact box in the cupboard, that turned up at a nearby market: the key ingredient for a forbidden feast.

It’s something I’ve been waiting for a long time. So if the post- voting wrangling lasts til January 19, 2025, I think I can hold out that much longer. (After that, we’ll have to see.) Or if I get trapped in a hundred-hour traffic backup between Niagara Falls and the Canadian border, all bets are off.

But enough of such catastrophizing: time for a bit of untrammeled fantasy: Continue reading My Secret Post-Election Plan: Celebration?? Or Consolation??

Quote of the Month: “It’s the First Amendment, stupid”

Walker was named by Barack Obama in 2018.

[NOTE: the CNN Business report cited below deals with an abortion rights vote coming in Florida. But this blog post, while not discounting the importance of that issue, is focused on a judge in a related lawsuit. More specifically, on a ruling he issued last week. Even more, on a five-word summary of the basis for the decision, which echoes like a thunderclap. The rest is needful context, but the aphorism will, I believe, be what is remembered long after the details have receded into the mists.]

. . . “It’s the First Amendment, stupid.”

That’s what a federal judge wrote Thursday (October 17) as he sided with local TV stations in an extraordinary dispute over a pro-abortion rights television ad. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker of the Northern District of Florida granted a temporary restraining order against Florida’s surgeon general after the state health department threatened to bring criminal charges against broadcasters airing the ad.[/caption]

Continue reading Quote of the Month: “It’s the First Amendment, stupid”