Summary
Female veterans and service members are condemning Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s comments opposing women in combat roles, calling them outdated and harmful.
Hegseth claimed women in combat complicate military effectiveness, despite decades of evidence proving their competence, including service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where over 300,000 women served, with 179 killed and over 1,000 wounded.
Critics, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Purple Heart recipient, argue Hegseth’s views ignore the realities of modern warfare.
His nomination has sparked backlash, further amplified by past allegations of sexual misconduct.
Trump is throwing out rapid fire unqualified pics to force votes against him in the Senate. This isn’t usual politics. He’s just throwing grenades because he can.
I feel this argument has merit:
That Trump is rewarding loyalty with little consequence to himself and at the same time testing senators to see who will fall in line. That also has the effect of making many fall in line (see Dictatoring for Dummies, P. 14). At the same time he gets to soften up the senate for candidates who are almost as outrageous but will seem reasonable in comparison.
Do we really expect votes against him? They’re always bemoaning how bad he is, followed with falling in line to vote as dictated to them.
That’s exactly what this is. It’s easier to loot the country when everything is burning and your corruption isn’t the biggest problem.
No, he’s throwing out horrible picks so that the slightly less horrible picks that come after them seem reasonable.
That is my theory too. I don’t think people understand how much the Republicans controlling Trump have been planning for this.
Nah, he isn’t playing chess, he’s just the pigeon shitting all over the board.
He isn’t playing chess because he’s not the one doing the chess playing. He’s a puppet. Do you think he came up with any of Project 2025?
I saw some bonkers rumor about Trump adjourning cogress allowing him to make recess appointments.
So he throws out shit nominees to force the Senate to not approve someone, looking at you RFK, Trump says he cant work with this Senate and adjourns them. Makes even worse appointmemts and bingo bango we have an american despot.
What does he gain from Senate voting against him?
Targets.
Chaos? A distraction from whatever else he’s up to that night be worse? Idk.
Maybe, or open revolt from them to block anything he tries to do after. I’m hoping the gop splits at this point and nothing gets done for 4 years.