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THE CONFIRMATION HEARING of Pete Hegseth, who is vying to become President-elect Donald Trump’s new defence secretary, took place in Washington today.
Hegseth, one of the most controversial among Trump’s picks, is a former Army National Guard officer and ex-Fox News host. Hegseth can only afford three Republican rejections and still be confirmed, should every Democrat and independent vote against him.
Confirmation hearings see senators – both Republican and Democrat – question nominees about their records and intentions for their prospective offices.
In his opening remarks, Chairman and Senator Roger Wicker described Hegseth as an “unconventional” nominee for the role, but said he is well-placed to “slim down bureaucracy” in the defence department and have it able to “sustain technological supremecy”.
Hegseth has told the hearing he wants to “restore the warrior ethos” to the US military, but he was interrupted three times early on in his contribution by protesters who were quickly removed.
He also touted his military service and said people who he’s worked with are aware that “I know what I don’t know”.
Hegseth has faced allegations of sexual assault, financial misconduct and excessive drinking, and lingering questions over his views on women in the military. He also has no comparable management experience.
Senator Jack Reed of the Democrats said he wanted the record to show that information that came from an FBI probe of Hegseth had been “insufficient”.
“Mr Hegseth, I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job,” Senator Reed, the top Democrat on the committee, said in his opening statement. He also said accusations against Hegseth were “alarming.”
Asked about the sexual assault allegations, Hegseth referred to them as “a coordinated smear campaign”, which he said had also been targeted against Donald Trump by the “left-wing media”.
“False attacks, anonymous attacks,” is how he described the reports.
“God forged me in ways I’m prepared for,” he said while admitting, “I’m not a perfect person but redemption is real”.
Later in the hearing, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine refuted Hegseth’s claim that the accusations were anonymous.
“You claim that this was all anonymous? We have seen records with names attached to all of these, including the name of your own mother,” Kaine said, adding: “So don’t make this into some anonymous press thing.”
Wicker asked if Hegseth agreed with his proposals regarding defence spending, which are focused on awarding more contracts to smaller companies outside of the dominant contractors like Boeing, Haliburton and Lockheed Martin.
Hegseth agreed with the Chairman and has also said he wants the Pentagon to pass an audit (for the first time).
Hegseth said that “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies” in the military are “a distraction”, while praising the racial integration of the 1940s and 50s.
He also said troops would “rejoice” if the Pentagon got rid of the “woke” agenda.
Asked by Senator Reed about his support for efforts to get war criminals pardoned, Hegseth was not advocating for breaches of the rules of war, but that current rules of engagement are too restrictive.
He said he wants to ensure that “our warriors are looked out for”.
Reed put it to him that he has “already disparaged the Geneva Convention and the laws of war”.
Hegseth has in the past come out against women holding combat roles in the US military.
Asked about those comments and if women make up a “critical” role in the US military by Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Hegseth said they do.
“When I’m talking about that issue, I’m not talking about men and women, I’m talking about standards,” he said.
Shaheen said she was confused by that comment based on his previous remarks in a chapter of his book, The War on Warriors, entitled “The Deadly Obsession with Women Warriors”.
“You will have to change how you see women to do this job well,” Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told Hegseth.
Commenting on Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip in Palestine, Hegseth said: “I’m a Christian and I will robustly support the state of Israel and its existential war in Gaza.”
Hegseth also said he supports “Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.”
Ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas are nearing a resolution, according to media reports and briefings from US officials.
With reporting from AFP
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Interestingly there does not be any formal requirement to be a leader of a nation or be in charge of departments like defence, finance and justice. No better in most of rhe world. Starting with our own Simon Harris, Micheál Martin or Helen McEntee.
All have multiple advisors who take no responsibility for the consequences of their advice, and leaders blaming fiasco’s on advice given to them.
@George Vladisavljevic: Yeah you can still be POTUS even convicted of a crime.
@Bomber: And still be one, even though involved in the deaths and maiming of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
@George Vladisavljevic: much like here
@George Vladisavljevic: That’s by design. You can go for it. Or you take the peasants role and complain.
Watched a couple of his interviews. He’s a spanner. Classic Trump pick. Did you know Trump had a turnover rate of 92% with his initial administration picks, which dropped to a more measured 45% with the plan Bs last time? More than any other US president in history.
@Chutes Idiot: Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full. Move along now…
@Chutes Idiot: ha ha!
@Chutes Idiot: “Doesn’t tolerate questions” you mean.
@Chutes Idiot: It’s ok. It wasn’t for you.
@Chutes Idiot: trump doesn’t tolerate people that don’t kiss his ring, and the second you stop, you are out. He doesn’t give a bolox about anyone or anything else.
@Chutes Idiot: he just appoints average so?
@Tired Jim: Talking to your other accounts again. Take the L and delete all the dud accounts you use.
Hegseth is a clown. The most important quality all of these picks have for Trump is that they won’t obstruct him. If you read any of the books about Trump’s first term; the overriding theme is that he couldn’t implement his craziest ideas because his administration blocked him at every turn.
He’s surrounded by self-interested yes- men now. Unless a significant group of Republicans in Congress decide to grow a pair, we are going to get the whole thing.
He is going to make an all merciful mess of the place.
A previous article, titled ‘Truce Talks’ forgot to mention the real reason these Hamas peace talks will succeed. Because butcher Biden is on his last legs, that’s the main reason Zionists must comply.
@Denis Harkin: Trump is a Zionist stooge so he’ll be the one complying with them
@Darth O’Leary: Hon the Zionists! Confounding Islamists, antisemites, and non-voting lecturers forever.
@Darth O’Leary: and you think Harris would have been anything different? At least trump
Is unpredictable, also large pockets of the right have turned on Israel, there is extremely loud voices condemning Israel, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owen’s the list goes on things are changing
@SirMr: No I don’t think that. Harris would have been the same as Biden(slavishly devoted to the Zionist cause) imo
@honey bad actor: Stop with conflating Anti-Zionism with antisemitism. They’re not the same thing. There are many Jewish people opposed to Zionism(Gus Finkelstein should be your first port of call, the man obliterates the notion that Zionists care about Jews) Do you call them antisemities?
@Darth O’Leary: Gus Finklestein? Never heard of him! I like the way you always misdirect. I said Zionists confound islamists and antisemites. You can have your own side argument with yourself, old sport! Hon the Zionists!
@honey badger: apologies, correction. That should read *Norman Finkelstein
@honey badger: Do you accuse Anti-Zionist Jewish people of being antisemities? Can you see now where your flimsy rhetoric falls on it’s face?
@Darth O’Leary: Darth, like your counterpart Vader, you seem to have a very twisted mindset when it comes to morality. Of course anti-Zionism is antisemitic, by definition it believes that the Jewish people should be denied a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Image if I said to you, Darth I’m not anti-Irish, I just don’t believe that the Irish people should have a right to self-determination and instead the British should have continued to rule over them. Of course that would make me anti-Irish because I’m deliberately singling out the Irish people and no one else. Anti-Zionism also involves the use of antisemitic tropes and rhetoric. They engage in conspiratorial language, such as accusing Jewish people of controlling global politics and media. It’s clear as day.
@Denis Harkin: Actually, I doubt that they will. Hamas wants 3,000 of its men released in return for the first 35 hostages still being held in Gaza. Naturally, Israel has rejected this folly of a deal. Defense Minister Israel Katz has made it clear that January 20th is the final deadline for Hamas to make a more reasonable ceasefire deal. If they don’t, it will be war until they surrender unconditionally and incoming President Trump has clearly stated that when he enters office, if Hamas hasn’t released the hostages, “all hell will break loose” and the US will get directly involved in the war for the first time. Israel only receives about $3.2 billion of direct military funding from America out of their total budget of around $30.5 billion. I don’t think that’s how it works chump.
@Darth O’Leary: TDS
@Darth O’Leary: I can see that you’re arguing a point I didn’t make for the benefit of yourself. Again. I said Zionists have been confounding Islamists and antisemites forever. Finklestein is an absolute outlier within the Jewish community. Waving one Jewish man’s opinion over the heads of the overwhelming majority is a bit silly. Would you be kind enough to outline what other people you have no issue with, but who have no right to their own nation state?
@William Jennings: Please explain to me how large swathes of the worldwide Jewish community, who are Anti-Zionist, could be called antisemitic?! Attempting to smear decent people is low. Here is just one of many examples of a Jewish person who is Anti-Zionist…
Avrum Burg, former speaker of the Knesset, in 2018 declared that settlement growth in the West Bank had rendered the two-state solution impossible. Thus, he argued, Israelis must “depart from the Zionist paradigm, and move into a more inclusive paradigm. Israel must belong to all of its residents, including Arabs, not to the Jews alone”
Are you going to attempt to call Burg an antisemite?
@Ulick: reality resistance syndrome is abound and you’re probably over the deep end. I care not two jots about either Republican or Democratic simps who are so similar as to be indistinguishable at this stage
@Darth O’Leary: Being Jewish doesn’t shield you from the fact that you can be antisemitic too. Daniel Burros was Jewish and he was a high-ranking officer in both the American Nazi Party and the KKK. Patrol 36 was an infamous Neo-Nazi group active in the early 2000s who were exclusively Jewish. I’ll absolutely call Abraham Burg an antisemite. He’s a member of the far-left Hadash Party, of which some members have minimised the Holocaust. The leader Ayman Odeh stated that it should be legal for Arabs to throw rocks at Israeli police officers. Burg, like many antisemites, attempts to deny the Jewish ancestral connection to Judea and Samaria and believes that no Jews should be able to live there, exactly what the Jordanian believed when they ethnically cleansed every Jewish person in 1948.
@William Jennings: Total nonsense. All anyone need do is Google the dictionary definition of antisemitism and they’ll see it’s “hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people” How in any universe could practicing Jews be accused of that?
@Darth O’Leary: Let me explain this to you as simply as possible. Racism is not restricted just because you are part of a certain group or ethnicity. White people can be racist to other White people, Black people can be racist to other Black people, Jewish people can be antisemitic to other Jewish people etc. and you need to read the defining you quoted again. Nowhere does it say that Jewish people are exempt from the definition. Therefore, Abraham Burg and whatever other few self-hating Jews that you want to throw out can very easily be antisemitic towards Jewish people. They know right well what rhetoric is antisemitic yet they choose to continue using it anyway.
@honey badger: I don’t know any antisemites. I know plenty who are against racism, apartheid, and genocide.
@William Jennings: Stop murdering children. Can you understand that?
@William Jennings: ” Hamas wants 3,000 of its men released in return for the first 35 hostages still being held in Gaza.” Israel holds many innocent people as hostages. It is similar to internment in the six counties. They are not convicted of any crime, they are hostages, just like the ones Hamas took.
@A Well Known Comical Stereotype: Your name is quite fitting considering the comical incoherence that you are trying to push. Using the word “murder” implies that Israel is killing them in a deliberate manner, which you know is not true. Hamas deliberately builds their missile launching sites and command centres beside civilian infrastructure like schools and hospitals. If you want civilians like children to stop dying, tell your buddies in Hamas to stop behaving in such a cowardly manner. Why hasn’t Hamas built a single bomb shelter in Gaza in the entirety of the 18 years that they have been in charge? Why aren’t civilians allowed to enter the underground tunnel system that Hamas built for its militants?
@A Well Known Comical Stereotype: Your second point is equally as laughable as the first. It’s pretty disgusting to see someone try to make a moral equivalence between unarmed civilians being beaten and dragged off by gunpoint while at a music festival to people who have been either charged or convicted of offences such as murder, attempted murder, assaulting police officers, rock-throwing, hurling firebombs, arson, and possession of firearms or explosives. These people were arrested for criminal activities or security-related offences are in prison due to their actions and not as bargaining chips. You are so slow, you don’t even understand the definition of the word hostage. The majority of them have already been convicted of serious crimes, contrary to what the pro-Hamas propaganda says.
Typical trump cowboy another possible felon usa politcs is rotten to the core the muppet show god help the real people in the country they are doomed the world is in hysterics laughing at trump and his gangsters
Goodbye to the Woke US military. Make the Military Great Again.
He’s extremely unqualified for the job and there are serious allegations against him for alcohol abuse and visiting very seedy nightclubs. He also cheated on his wife five times by his own admission and paid off a woman because he allegedly raped her in a hotel room. He wants to leave NATO, pull foreign aid for our heroic ally Ukraine and wants to raise tariffs even though it’s proven time and time again that they do not work as a foreign policy bargaining chip and always lose more jobs than they save. I’m a bit more reassured with Trump’s pick of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State that we are going to see a stable enough foreign policy, but Trump really should have picked someone like General Jack Keane or kept on General HR McMaster as they are much more smart and competent than Hegseth.
@William Jennings: Rubio is a complete hawk and McMasters made the mistake if questioning Trump’s judgement in theast administration.
There are no significant picks this time. There are only minions who will do Trumps bidding. When he’s finished with The US, he’ll walk away with a trillion or more, and the country will be beyond rescue.
@William Jennings: LOL.
@Louis Jacob: I personally think that Rubio being a hawk is a good thing. It’s important to have common sense foreign policy experts in high ranking positions like Secretary of State to push back against Trump’s backwards Isolationism. McMaster really got screwed over in Trump’s first term. General Michael Flynn basically turned into a sore loser after being convicted of perjury and got Steve Bannon to spread false lies against McMaster which Trump believed.
@Ulick: Which so funny about pick someone who is extremely unqualified to be Secretary of Defence? Does the harsh truth about Hegseth offend you?
Media creating fake narrative that Hamas is transforming into a reasonable army UNDER BIDEN and when it comes to nothing it will be AFTER Trump takes office. Sad.
@thomas molloy: If only the IDF were. Reasonable army. Instead of targeting civilians
@Ger Whelan: Hamas are targeting their own women and children with Martyrs for God view of conflict. Calculating that publicising the tragic death of children will protect Hamas commanders indicates how depraved terror thinking can get. The same logic is applied in hostage taking and killing. The war must stop. RIP.
@thomas molloy: whatever helps you sleep at night pal. Israel can stop the war quite easily. Stop invading lands that do not belong to them and leave all their illegal settlements, and release all the hostages they have. War over.
@thomas molloy: Victim blaming.
Trumps banana republic
A raypyst in the oval office, now another one on the pentagon. Who’s that skkkumbag going to appoint next? Conor McGregor as attorney general? That’s Amurikkka, F… yeah!
His boss Trump is a criminal
what is his background in military ?
@Dominic Leleu: He served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and threw an axe at a majorette in New York.
Just what the world doesn’t need … a nation , drunk with hubris , and a desire for perpetual war , at the behest of the military industrial complex, and gung ho clowns like this .. a messy road ahead of us . This guy Hegseth , research him … enough said .
Even his mother dislikes him. Check out her public letter calling him out as a drunk womaniser.
I think that he wants to model the armed forces on MCU!
Pinky and the Brain and under side kicks gonna kill us all.
have your say