Secretary of Defense Nominee

Ivy22 said:
Enough votes for Bondi? I haven’t looked into her background/nomination yet.

Saw they might be considering DeSantis for SecDef if the one right now gets tanked. Yale College and HLS grad, former Navy JAG. Also currently a governor
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Bondi is more than qualified. She will sail through.

I hope DeSantis isn’t the new pick, if there is one.
 
It's the President's prerogative to nominate who they want. It's the Senate's role to advise and consent. Good ol' checks and balances.

Yes, Donald Trump was elected. But we're a representative democracy, which means the Senate has a say as well. God bless the Founding Fathers.
 
MidCakePa said:
It's the President's prerogative to nominate who they want. It's the Senate's role to advise and consent. Good ol' checks and balances.

Yes, Donald Trump was elected. But we're a representative democracy, which means the Senate has a say as well. God bless the Founding Fathers.
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^This

More checks and balances: President can also fire his Senate-confirmed cabinet officials, and the Senate can impeach Senate-confirmed cabinet officials too
 
Ivy22 said:
^This

More checks and balances: President can also fire his Senate-confirmed cabinet officials, and the Senate can impeach Senate-confirmed cabinet officials too
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*House of Representatives solely impeaches, the Senate holds the trial. Or at least it’s supposed to, they didn’t even fulfill that obligation for DHS Secretary Mayorkas this year after the House impeached him for his handling of migration.
 
Kierkegaard said:
*House of Representatives solely impeaches, the Senate holds the trial. Or at least it’s supposed to, they didn’t even fulfill that obligation for DHS Secretary Mayorkas this year after the House impeached him for his handling of migration.
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Yup House votes and Senate holds the trial. But they’re not required by the Constitution to hold the trial after the impeachment vote, it just says the Senate has the sole power to do so. I think they have separate Senate rules about when to hold trials and stuff (rules that they themselves can change/vote on)
 
GEN (ret) David Perkins is the ideal SECDEF. He is A-Political (publicly at least), he is a genius, a warrior, an inspirational leader, humble, self-effacing, and knows how DOD, Capitol Hill, and the World interact. He also doesn't seek power or public recognition. The perfect choice. Yes, you have heard of him. The Thunder Run into Baghdad in 2003 was his idea and he led it.
 
Zaphod Beeblebrox said:
GEN (ret) David Perkins is the ideal SECDEF. He is A-Political (publicly at least), he is a genius, a warrior, an inspirational leader, humble, self-effacing, and knows how DOD, Capitol Hill, and the World interact. He also doesn't seek power or public recognition. The perfect choice. Yes, you have heard of him. The Thunder Run into Baghdad in 2003 was his idea and he led it.
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I believe Trump should stay away from the retired generals but you make a good argument for Perkins.
 
I've finally caught up from grading papers and have a few observations:

He's up for the position of head of the Defense Department, which has an $849 billion budget, 3,000,000 employees, and 750 military bases worldwide. Yet, in terms of running a large organization, his only experience was running two nonprofits, both of which went into debt and he had to leave.

In terms of character, there have been whistleblower reports about drinking and sexual misconduct. He took his male and female management team to a strip club for F's sake! While there, he got so drunk that he had to be held back from trying to dance on a stage with strippers. Additionally, one woman claimed she was sexually assaulted there but the claim was ignored.

Additionally, he and the management guys (bros?) also divided the office women into two groups — the ‘party girls’ and the ‘not party girls.’

(This info was from a 7-page report authored by employees and given to senior management - here's a link from NJ.com.)

There have also been stories about excessive alcohol use, which has been discussed above. These accounts are frequent enough—and as recent as a couple of months ago from coworkers at Fox—that he has now promised not to drink while serving as Secretary

Yes, Trump won (albeit barely). But no presidential victory abdicates the Senate's responsibility to vet nominees. What kind of country or political party would we have where the president had carte blanche?

As for Maoists among cadets, where are they? I've met several current cadets and graduates through my kids' coworkers, friends of cadets we sponsor, and other connections, and none are close to being a Maoist or communist - unless you count being a Dem or supporting Palestine along with Isreal as being one of those things. I don't even think they know what the terms mean. This isn't surprising given the way the terms were used to mischaracterize the current administration.

I'll end with Hegseth having to deal with countries like China and North Korea, but his mom could always make calls to Xi and Kim to settle things down. :) I can only imagine the field day Trump supporters would have if a Dem nominee's mom called Sentaors to support her son.
 
LOVEtheUSA said:
It happens and hopefully it remains a very rare occurrence.

Do we not remember a certain USMA 2016 graduate who ultimately received an other than honorable discharge from 2nd BCT 10th Mountain for such beliefs?
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I remember him. You're right, it is rare. There was a post about the USAFA grad claiming CO, but that really isn't Maoist.
 
unkown1961 said:
I've finally caught up from grading papers and have a few observations:

He's up for the position of head of the Defense Department, which has an $849 billion budget, 3,000,000 employees, and 750 military bases worldwide. Yet, in terms of running a large organization, his only experience was running two nonprofits, both of which went into debt and he had to leave.

In terms of character, there have been whistleblower reports about drinking and sexual misconduct. He took his male and female management team to a strip club for F's sake! While there, he got so drunk that he had to be held back from trying to dance on a stage with strippers. Additionally, one woman claimed she was sexually assaulted there but the claim was ignored.

Additionally, he and the management guys (bros?) also divided the office women into two groups — the ‘party girls’ and the ‘not party girls.’

(This info was from a 7-page report authored by employees and given to senior management - here's a link from NJ.com.)

There have also been stories about excessive alcohol use, which has been discussed above. These accounts are frequent enough—and as recent as a couple of months ago from coworkers at Fox—that he has now promised not to drink while serving as Secretary

Yes, Trump won (albeit barely). But no presidential victory abdicates the Senate's responsibility to vet nominees. What kind of country or political party would we have where the president had carte blanche?

As for Maoists among cadets, where are they? I've met several current cadets and graduates through my kids' coworkers, friends of cadets we sponsor, and other connections, and none are close to being a Maoist or communist - unless you count being a Dem or supporting Palestine along with Isreal as being one of those things. I don't even think they know what the terms mean. This isn't surprising given the way the terms were used to mischaracterize the current administration.

I'll end with Hegseth having to deal with countries like China and North Korea, but his mom could always make calls to Xi and Kim to settle things down. :) I can only imagine the field day Trump supporters would have if a Dem nominee's mom called Sentaors to support her son.
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"(albeit barely)"

That's a joke, right?

Current events, from the Trump-hating NPR.

 
LOVEtheUSA said:
It happens and hopefully it remains a very rare occurrence.

Do we not remember a certain USMA 2016 graduate who ultimately received an other than honorable discharge from 2nd BCT 10th Mountain for such beliefs?
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He was a Leninist, not a Maoist.
 
LOVEtheUSA said:
It happens and hopefully it remains a very rare occurrence.

Do we not remember a certain USMA 2016 graduate who ultimately received an other than honorable discharge from 2nd BCT 10th Mountain for such beliefs?
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Spenser Rapone

People need to be a little more careful with their snarky queries - current events come back to bite them.
 
unkown1961 said:
...Yes, Trump won (albeit barely)...
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77,170,633 votes for Trump + 74,754,061 votes for Harris = 151,924,694 votes.
Trump had 1,416,572 (just under 1%) more votes than Harris.

The Electoral College number (270 to win) was 312 to 226.
It wasn't a landslide like Obama and McCain, but it certainly was a far cry from "barely".

If you're going to say he won barely, you need to go back to the first time around in which Clinton had 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump but he still pulled down 309 Electoral votes to Clinton's 229. That popular vote thing is what people are still mad about apparently, eight years later. The pearl-clutching about "how could she lose?" was only out-shadowed by the intense clamoring to abolish the Electoral College back then. :p

I haven't kept up on this. Is anyone suggesting we abolish the Electoral College anymore? How about votes? Should we not count the votes? Surely those unwashed masses of pesky voters can't be trusted with all this power, can they? ;)
 
When I used the term Maoist, I had in mind a specific, exact posting on this website (not this thread) of a current cadet at USAFA admonishing the graduates to sit down and stay quite, because a cultural revolution was in place, of which he is a part, that is replacing the older, corrupted values with new, enlightened ones.

Wasn't it Mao that used the children against the older generations to affect his revolution? I hope I'm not getting my communists confused, and thanks for splitting hairs on that.
 

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THParent said:
77,170,633 votes for Trump + 74,754,061 votes for Harris = 151,924,694 votes.
Trump had 1,416,572 (just under 1%) more votes than Harris.

The Electoral College number (270 to win) was 312 to 226.
It wasn't a landslide like Obama and McCain, but it certainly was a far cry from "barely".

If you're going to say he won barely, you need to go back to the first time around in which Clinton had 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump but he still pulled down 309 Electoral votes to Clinton's 229. That popular vote thing is what people are still mad about apparently, eight years later. The pearl-clutching about "how could she lose?" was only out-shadowed by the intense clamoring to abolish the Electoral College back then. :p

I haven't kept up on this. Is anyone suggesting we abolish the Electoral College anymore? How about votes? Should we not count the votes? Surely those unwashed masses of pesky voters can't be trusted with all this power, can they? ;)
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The term is subjective, but to me it's barely. Even with the electoral votes, a swing of @235,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would have elected Harris. Maybe call it a small margin? But it's certainly not a mandate (although all winning candidates call their victory a mandate).
As for abolishing the EC, I'm 63 and can remember this being a topic since the 80s. So it's not a recent issue resulting from HC's loss. There are good arguments for and against, but that's a topic for a different thread.
 
usafa1993 said:
When I used the term Maoist, I had in mind a specific, exact posting on this website (not this thread) of a current cadet at USAFA admonishing the graduates to sit down and stay quite, because a cultural revolution was in place, of which he is a part, that is replacing the older, corrupted values with new, enlightened ones.

Wasn't it Mao that used the children against the older generations to affect his revolution? I hope I'm not getting my communists confused, and thanks for splitting hairs on that.
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A serious misrepresentation of the actual thread. In fact, this conclusion seems to echo exactly the suppression of the Maoism you are so worried about. I am a floater, now on my DS's account and this made my jaw drop.
 
THParent said:
77,170,633 votes for Trump + 74,754,061 votes for Harris = 151,924,694 votes.
Trump had 1,416,572 (just under 1%) more votes than Harris.
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I think you mean 2,416,572

President Trump's count, according to API, is 49.9% of the total of all candidates.
 
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