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Thursday’s Forum
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19 responses to “Thursday’s Forum”
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The “Secretary of War” gets slapped down by a soldier.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier issued a verbal reprimand to a group of advisers and staffers with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
Video shows Hegseth taking photos on the empty steps in front of the tomb with his wife, Jennifer, chief of staff Ricky Buria, deputy chief of staff Patrick Weaver and senior adviser Tami Radabaugh.
As the group broke from taking photos, a loud laugh could be heard, and the soldier guarding the tomb shouted that “all visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times.”
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The Hegseth incident at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier really irritated me. Sure, Hegseth is a narcissistic, classless pig like his President, but the incident triggered a long standing beef, not for me but for a lot of folks.
The local elementary school where my grandchildren attend put on a wonderful Veterans Day celebration. There was art, music, a light breakfast. They went all out. We all felt honored. However, they included a short piece honoring those who died.
So, I’m feeling it is churlish to complain about something that happens nationwide: the conflation of Veterans Day and Memorial Day. Veterans day is to celebrate those who served their country in the Armed Forces. Memorial Day is to honor those who died while in service to their country.
I, of course, kept my mouth shut and hugged my grandchildren and thanked them for their hard work.
Whining over.
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@Scott I’ve been to Veterans Day events put on by veterans’ organizations like the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and they do the same thing. I guess it’s understandable; we celebrate veterans precisely because they risked death.
A related pet peeve is that those still on active duty are not veterans. We set aside the third Saturday in May as Armed Forces Day to celebrate them. Alas, it’s not a federal holiday, so it gets comparatively little attention.
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When I was 11 I went with my middle school class on a trip to Washington. One of the itinerary items were the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Well we got there and there was this little ceremony that we all participated in and then we could just explore. As middle schoolers are apt to do, we got bored and we started playing tag. And then the honor guard looked right at me shouted out those words, the same ones, by the way. Really loud. Thought I was gonna piss my pants.
To say that I was embarrassed would be a massive understatement. But I will never forget the feeling that I had that day when the guard called me out for being an asshole. Then again I was an 11-year-old and Hegseth the Secretary of Defense.
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So, more coming out about the Hegseth impeachment vote. As I suspected, Republican shenanigans in play. House Republicans were notified the vote was happening, after 5 p.m., Democrats were not notified. Should they have been around? Yes. But also, these &ssholes.
This type of thing is bound to happen while they are still in charge of the calendar.
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Mid-cycle redistricting was an enormous effort on the part of Republicans. It took time away from governing, and cost a ton of money in lawsuits. Republicans re-drew districts in an attempt to gain 16 seats across seven states.
People in those states should be FURIOUS. Add up the taxpayer dollars used to defend this outrageous mid-cycle effort.
Waste, fraud, abuse.
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My take on it is that most states were as effectively gerrymandered as they could be, and further packing and/or cracking relied on retaining swing voters who proceeded to swing the other way. Plus some reliable voters may have been moved from safe districts to ones made less safe by dummymandering.
Or it may be the basic of the morality myth: try to get too much and you lose what you already had.
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More corruption on the horizon. How many scandals will come out of this move?
Trump Plans to Sell Public Land, Reducing Size of Federal Estate
The Interior Department’s four-year strategic plan released on Wednesday didn’t specify how much land it plans to sell or how the land would be priced. The department, which manages some 480 million acres, didn’t immediately respond to a request for more details.
“The Department will work to decrease the size of the federal estate by offering to states, localities and Tribes the opportunity to purchase federal lands,” the agency said in the document. “Through these sales, the Department will be able to focus its resources on primary federal responsibilities and nationally significant federal lands.”
The Interior Department alongside the Department of Housing and Urban Development has previously called for building housing on “underutilized” federal land. But the inclusion of the land sales marks the first time the agency has officially confirmed it wants to sell federal land, said Jayson O’Neill, a spokesman for Save Our Parks, a watchdog group. He pointed out Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has previously said selling public land wasn’t part of the Trump administration’s agenda.
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In the Russia-US talks over Ukraine, Putin is being his usual conciliatory self.
Russia is demanding not only the capitulation of Ukraine, but that NATO withdraws its joint forces from the eastern tier.This puts new light on Trump’s statement:
“It’s going to be very big. It’s going to involve more than Ukraine, and I could even say it might involve all of Europe. It’s going to be a big, beautiful agreement, and everyone’s going to be thrilled,”
Yeah, Donald, we’ll be fucking ecstatic.
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Incidentally, in the UK, the Poundland chain is under threat of closure.
“So what?” you may not unreasonably think.
Well, because it’s a indicator of a frequent issue in the UK and the US: a private equity firm has bought up a company at a minimal cost, loaded on debt, and has been, it seems, taking out returns as the debt holder and manager rather than as a shareholder re profits, and is in line to get the lions share of close-and-break-up returns as a preferred creditor.
The business is actually running an operating profit; it’s nominal losses appear to be due to the extortionate interest and fees charged to the company by its owners as the debt holders.
(And possibly as intermediary leaseholders on the stores? Unclear, but if so not unusual.)
If it goes into administration, they get paid first, before the staff re wages, redundancy and pensions.
Vampire capitalism at work.
And far from the first time.Sometimes I think it’s really up to us “leftists” to save free-market capitalism from the more idiotically short-sighted capitalists.
(See also monopolies in the US)
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