So now it’s Pete Hegseth circling the drain, as it were. Along with being utterly unqualified to head the Department of Defense, turns out Pete has a serious and ongoing problem with alcohol that’s been confirmed — off the record — by Fox News employees. Someone also found an old video of Pete trashing Donald Trump. And while no GOP senator is on the record as being absolutely opposed to Hegseth, several are signaling as hard as they can that Hegseth doesn’t have the votes. It appears he has several interviews scheduled with senators today, which may not go well.
Even better, according to several reports, Trump is now consideirng replacing Hegseth with … Ron DeSantis? Seriously?
Mr. Trump is openly discussing other people for the job, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom he defeated in the Republican presidential primaries and with whom he has had a contentious relationship. Mr. Trump likes the story of bringing on someone he dominated publicly, and he talked about it with Mr. DeSantis on Tuesday at a service honoring three Florida sheriff’s deputies who were killed in a car crash.
According to Wikipedia, Ron was in the Navy, where he achieved the rank of Lieutenant. He appears to have mostly done legal work for the Navy. He does have executive experience as a governor, which makes him more qualified than Hegseth. But of all people. The issue, of course, is that Trump’s candidate list consists of people he can control or dominate. Ron has two more years to be governor of Florida, but then he’s term-limited from running again. So he might be tempted to take the job, if it’s offered.
Oh, and Trump announced today he’s putting a cryptocurrency guy in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Of course.
At Salon, Heather Digy Parton predicts that in this coming term Trump will get over his shyness about cutting Medicare and Social Security. Trump has a history going back to 2015 of promising to not cut Medicare and Social Security. But his proposed budgets cut the programs every year he was in office, a detail that got through to very few voters, I’m sure. Digby continues,
That last budget was put together by the man Trump is bringing back as his Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and one of the principal authors of Project 2025, Russell Vought. It’s highly questionable whether Vought will be as circumspect about the plans to cut the programs this time or whether Trump will care because all of that was predicated on Trump’s need to run for office again. Without that hanging over their heads they have no need to hold back. Republicans have wanted to do away with those programs since they were first passed. This may be their chance to finally get it done.
See also Nicole Lafond at TPM, House Republican Wants Party To Boldly Own Plans To Gut The Social Safety Net.
Predictably, as soon as it became clear that Trump had secured a right-wing trifecta, whispers of “reform” to the programs returned, the language Republicans like to use to put a positive spin on their interest in slashing programs that benefit America’s most vulnerable, perhaps in order to justify tax cuts for the wealthy or, perhaps, for no real reason at all.
It started with reports of chopping-block conversations among congressional Republicans as they looked for ways to subsidize the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which primarily benefit those making $400,000 or more a year and are set to expire in 2025. Republicans began making noise about “reforms” to Medicaid and Food Stamps programs, which, of course, serve low-income Americans who need health insurance and can’t afford basic, nutritious food.
So, yeah, they’re going to try.
To catch up on what’s been going on in South Korea over the past couple of days, see South Korean Leader Will Face Impeachment Vote Over Martial Law Declaration at the New York Times. Note also there’s something hinky going on in France. See No-confidence vote topples French government, plunges country into chaos at the Washington Post.
Heather Digy Parton at Salon finished with this paragraph. The topic was Social
Security. The finish was a reminder we are dealing with a primary sociopath. Like Ted Bundy. Jeffery Dalmer, Bob Bordello, and BT\K certain common characteristics go with the category. The fictional character Hannibal Lecter tops one list of fictional psychopaths and is a Trump obsession. The victim here is Social Security, and the end of this story is not yet written.
With all sociopaths aka psychopaths, we can only guess the end of the story until after the facts are in. We generally cannot know or get any idea but hints before then.
We can generally expect a horror story.
This would be one. And it won't be fiction.
I'm in Florida. DeSantis is more MAGA than Trump. He's all in on the 6-week abortion ban. As Maha observed, he's term-limited. It goes without saying that DeSantis is ambitious and has his eye on replacing Trump in four years. DeSantis failed to pry Maga from Trump. So DeSantis wants to inherit MAGA by being the best fascist in the Trump administration. (There won't be a lot of competition.)
Trump wants to use the military to round up illegal aliens, but that's the first part of the problem. He has to confine them someplace. To pass muster with the courts, Trump may have to provide medical, at least enough to handle emergencies. There's nothing in the budget for it and no talk that I've heard to add a few hundred million to detain 20 million. IMO, Trump is serious about turning the Army and Marines lose as domestic police. It will go to the courts.
But to return to DeSantis, he'd love to do it. (He sent a planeload of "illegal aliens from Texas to Martha's Vinyard, which wasn't legal.) Trump also plans to use the military against blue cities and/or any demonstrations against Trump. With lethal force. Again, it will go to court. But I think DeSntis would love it and he'll try to get as much of the spotlight as he can. How much will he grovel at Trump's feet?
Something I have not seen in discussions is how Central America will respond to thousands upon thousands of desperate people just dumped on the tarmac of some major airport. They will deny the planes clearance to land. If they do land, they will refuse to fuel them. If they have enough fuel to make the round-trip, they will impound the plane for landing without clearance. The one-time stunt to Marha's vineyard was cute – try it with a half-million people.
Obvioudly, I'm speculating that Trump gets the authority and/or finances to do the roundup. But if foreign nations shut it down, they will back up in the camps,, not get moved out to Central America. This can easily blow up in Trump's face, assuming he can act on the plan. If the USSC denies Trump authority to use the military within US borders, he's got to get Congress to pass legislation that can't get through the Senate. Trump sill start misappropriating other funds, which the courts have decided is not legal. Congress appropriates money for designated uses. But Trump will try. Even if he gets a pot of money, if the military can't do it, Trump can't hire enough people from MAGA to find and detain ten to twenty million people. The idiot in charge seems to think he can forcibly deputize local cops. The private sector isn't known for acting quickly on a major project that they had no time to plan for. Put these people up in tent cities in FL or TX, the summer heat will create a crisis.
Medicare and SS can't be slashed without Congress. Unless the GOP will take the Senate to a simple majority to pass laws, they can't do it. Even then, I'm not sure all Senators want to put their names on something that could be VERY unpopular. Shrubbie tried to sell voters on it and failed miserably. The "reforms" are exactly what Bush tried to sell. I agree with Maha – they will try. I'm not sure how much political capital Trump will spend on the issue when it might go over poorly with MAGA. It's not something Trump can make money from, unlike crypto.
I worry about the VA. Privatizing the VA is a lousy idea unless you bump up the appropriations accordingly. The VA runs patients through each visit FAST. But they are efficient. Comes from decades of trying to do everything you can without enough resources. Let the private sector have all those patients with the same budget and only half as many patients can be seen.
Who knows what is on topic or not, but the eighth largest Fortune 500 Company had to change plans yesterday when their CEO got gunned down on the streets of New York City. It was murder. A probable professional level murder done with a silencer. The shooter is still at large, and so are the people that hired him. We have much news but little information about any of it.
The company is big in the health care insurance industry and associated with a huge organization of retired people. It has a base in Minnesota.
The company has been on a consolidation path and playing the big dog from what little I hear from business news.
This is not business as usual in America or at least business at its traditional level of operation. This is business gangland style, business from the days of Elliot Ness. This is also business Russian style, where your plane might just explode in the sky. They are calling it a targeted killing. Defend, Deny, and Depose was written on the shell casings it is reported.
It was to someone's plan done by hired help with a serious motive. A motive known only by the dark side at this point.
Hadn't heard about the shell casing script before. Tips my 'prime computation' to someone who lost a lot of money when the stock crashed after the DoJ announced a coding fraud investigation of UHC. An announcement preceded by the deceased dumping a large amount of stock before the crash. After all, the hit was a bit professional for just another disgruntled victim of claim denial.
The wrath towards UHC continues to erupt. Rolling Stone covers it and link gives an ad and a taste. Yahoo home page gets you past the pay wall.
The murder gets called an assassination. Quite a twist.
Internet Thirsts Over Pics of Suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting
The Hegseth saga is almost comical, with mom coming in to whine she never wanted that e-mail to enter the public record, but then those "EVIL newspapers DEMANDED a reaction and THREATENED to just publish the e-mail VERBATIM!!!!!!!1!"
Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for mom, who only wanted sonny boy to look at his *personal* life, and didn't want anything to affect his *professional* life. It's just, geez, if you write those words, and mean those words, you'd have to be an idiot to think it doesn't affect his professional life profoundly.