Hegseth Is Sending Us a Warning

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 132nd Edition. Voting with their feet

For the first time in US history, more Americans are moving to Europe than the other way around.

Indeed, European immigration to the US is at historic lows.  US emigration is at historic highs.

Why?

Simple, the US has become a dumpster fire.  It's no longer really a democracy but a semi democracy presently ruled by an insane (if we don't assume worst) megalomaniac who is destroying the economy.  We look like uneducated morons, which a lot of us actually seem to be.  There are absolutely no positive indicators which the US tops the charts at.  We are the 23d happiest country on the planet.  Finland, Iceland, and Denmark are the first three.  We cling to obsolete signs of greatness, such as refusing to have a national health care system and having a tax system that grossly under taxes Americans and funds a government that benefits us little, while people like Reid Rasner campaign for even lower taxes.  We've gone from being a country that had nearly no military to having one that has a bloated military that serves an insane President.

What's not to love?

Well, there is the country, but that involves being realistic, which will get you accused of being a left winger (which should not in and of itself be regarded as an insult) by insufferable twat waffles like Chuck Gray.

We are really due for an overhaul.

Ironically, the orange buffoon destroying the White House probably helps show us the way on this.  He's shown us where we have massive institutional defects.  And he's taken us off the global map as a great power and made us a second rate one.  Part of our descent into ignorance was a legacy of what was then a noble Cold War response to things, including a big military and governments that meddled bigly.  

Now we are going to have to dance to the tune of others, but the good thing is that the others are adults.

To progress at all, which doesn't mean a return to high immigration or anything of that sort, we're really going to have to get back into education, which people like the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and other right wing zealots hate.  Better to be dumb is their default position.

Better to be smart, and educated, and face our problems honestly.

And the sooner the better.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 131st Edition. Ballroom Blitz

Labels: 2020s, 2025 White House Vandalization, 2026, Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, The Second Trump Administration, White House Correspondence Dinner Assassination Attempt 2020s, Zeitgeist

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 128th Edition. Attempted assassination at a pointless event.

The 127th edition of this was teed up to go before last night's White House Correspondence Dinner, or this would be that edition.  Having the other one ready to go, I went ahead and ran it. 

I didn't realize anything had happened right away until I went upstairs and my wife was watching a little of the news feed.  It was fairly typical with the press doing the usual "oh gosh, who could the target have been" routine.  We all know who the target was, Donald Trump.

This is a tragedy, even though nobody was hurt, thankfully, for a variety of reasons, one being that while there are now questions about how the assailant "got so close" (in a country armed to the hilt, Trump probably comes surprisingly close to armed people every single day), what this accomplishes once again will be to help rally people around Trump.  I know that's not supposed to be the first observation, but it's quite true.

Trump has been sinking like a rock in popularity but people rally around somebody who is attacked.  And in the MAGA camp, where quite a few people believe that Trump is on some sort of Devine mission, it'll be seen as proof of that.

That this occurred is not a surprise at all.  Trump is an illegitimate President who vomits hatred on a nearly daily basis.  He inspires hatred of him and is likely the most hated American President since Abraham Lincoln.  He is a horrible human being.  

None of that justifies an attempt at murder, but it's not surprising the attempt was made.  What's additionally interesting, fwiw, is the far right of this country effectively adopted the concept of tyrannicide during both Biden's and Obama's terms in office, so in a way, that set the table for something like this to occur in a way that didn't exist when there were attempts on prior Presidents.

With this attempt, depending on how you look at it, Trump holds the record for the most attempts on a Presidents life.  Having said that, if you limit that to while a figure is in office, he's tied with Ford if you regard him as being presently in office.

I probably would have skipped mentioning the dinner as its shameful that it even occurs anymore.  

Some outside commentary on it:

Inside the Ballroom: Chaos and Confusion

One wonders if the surreal events of Saturday night might make it hard to return to the familiar conception of the White House Correspondents Dinner.

That article by a reporter who was there.  

Surreal?  Maybe, but by this point in Trump's illegitimate reign I suspect a lot of people are like me.  We know that this was a horrible event but it hardly even registered on the attention meter.  Trump so dominates the news with his horrible behavior that even when its directed at him, it's hard to really get too worked up about it.

Again, I don't condone this, and the effect will aid Trump, who needs to be removed via the 25th Amendment.  

About the dinner itself, a lot of people, myself included, flatly feel that it should have been cancelled, or at least Trump should not have been invited.  He treats the Press horribly, and yet there they are, worshipping him.

Aid and Comfort to the Enemy

The recklessness of the White House Correspondents’ Association’s self-own

A cartoon:

The WH Correspondents' Dinner

Unethical and tone deaf

Apparently J.D. Vance and sycophantic today Mike "Toady" Johnson were at the event.  Of interest, the Secret Service rushed Vance off first.

That's interesting.

If that comes up again, I'm sure there will be some solid explanation, but I wonder if its just not a combination of fatigue on the part of security as well.  Vance and Trump probably have separate security details and Trump's is probably numb from having to be around such a horrible person constantly.

On clearing the room, the excessive number of iPhone cameras anymore means everything is photographed to the hilt and then over analyzed.  That's already happening, but as horrible as something like this is, it can lead to some semi assuming photographs, none of which would be the slightest bit amusing if you were there.

One is that Kennedy Jr. appeared to leave his wife behind as he was escorted out to safety. His wife, actress Cheryl Hines, later explained that her formal dress hindered her ability to get out and she had to be carried.

Stephen Miller basically shoved his wife out, which is understandable, but photographically unfortunate too, as he was leading her while behind her and his hand was unfortunately placed for control on her upper torso, um, well anyhow.

On the post scene photographs, one security figure is clearly carrying a SIG M17 in the same photograph as a female security officer carrying a Glock 19.  The M17 is way larger.  It had the conventional iron sights.

The man carrying it was way larger than the female officers as well.  I know that in 2025 a person isn't supposed to feel these things but in at least two of the Trump attempts a female secret service officer has been present and just the photographs don't inspire confident in me.  That's probably just me.  Anyhow, well. . . 

Well, a slight addition.

Since the decline in sartorial standards, Secret Service officers are absurdly easy to pick out. They're always wearing dark suits.  I have a photograph of Theodore Roosevelt from 1903 or so in which a Secret Service officer is wearing tweed and a newsboy cap.  Much harder to pick out.  The women are even easier to pick out as women don't normally wear dark business suits.

Glocks leave me unimpressed as well.  M'eh.

Trump promised to reschedule the event, which of course, wasn't his to schedule in the first place.

Trump offered some comments from the White House.  Included in those were that the military is demanding the ballroom.

The military probably doesn't normally provide any sort of security to the President at all, although the man with the M17 is interesting as he was clearly in some security role, and was not in the Secret Service, and probably in the military.  That aside, the military probably doesn't give a rats ass about the ballroom in this context.  Trump just makes crap up.

What does seem to be the case is that there's a giant bunker being built under where the ballroom is supposed to go, but won't.  We only know the details of that which we know as Trump can't stop his verbal diarrhea. 

It is an interesting aspect of this however is how much of the White House destruction was motivated by a military request, and then taken advantage of by the White House, if it was.

I'll add that building giant bunkers leads to an inflated sense of self worth on the part of everyone involved.  That part of this project ought to be halted as well.

One final note.  Most people who attempt to assassinate Presidents are nuts.  This is notable as by an large, their efforts are incredibly poorly done.  This is true of nearly every historical assassination attempt.  Of all of them, Lee Harvey Oswald's was by far the most competent attempt, which is probably why people insist it must have been a conspiracy.

Not that this isn't already happening here.  I've already read claims that this attempt, and all the prior ones, on Trump's life were staged.  They weren't, but something remarkable here is that Trump, Vance and Johnson were all present, which is stupid.  The argument would be that you know they were staged, as the government would never be so dim as to put the first three people in line for power in the same public room.

Oh yes it would.

Rubio was there too.

Given the line of succession, if a competent attacker was president, Chuck Grassley might now be President.  That would assume a lot of skill that most attempted assassins really lack, which is a good thing for everyone.  Indeed, even well trained assassins tend not to pull regime change off, as the repeated German Army failures on Hitler demonstrate.

It does demonstrated a lot of hubris, however.  We are presently at war with a country whose entire leadership was assassinated early on.  Murdering the leadership of opposing combatants is generally regarded as beyond the Pale in war.  We did not do it in World War Two, and our opponents didn't attempt it either.  The targeting of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in Operation Vengeance during World War Two is still controversial.  It was well known that Trump would be at this event and it was likely known that members of his cabinet would be too.  That Iran did not regard the event as a target of opportunity says a lot about their restraint, and frankly, their intelligence.   They could literally have decapitated the administration and left a person so old in charge that he would have had to resign.  I don't know how many members of Trump's cabinet were in fact there.  Maybe all of them.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 127th Edition. The Dipshit Edition. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus decides the a General officer of the U.S. Army is too "woke" to be the President of UW.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Army, Education, Ignorance, Stupidity, United States Military Academy, University of Wyoming, Woke, Wyoming Freedom Caucus, Zeitgeist

At last, the Trump's have a chance to erase the stain of no service.

Reporter: How long are you willing to wait for a response from Iran?

Trump: Don’t rush me. We were in Vietnam for 18 years.

From a press conference yesterday.

I must ask who is "we"?  Trump wasn't in Vietnam for 18 years. . 18 months, or shoot,. 18 hours.  

No Trump has served in any U.S. war. . . ever.  While there are reasons that explain it, Trump's grandfather was regarded as a draft evader in his native Germany and had to leave as a result, upon returning home after having made his initial fortune in lodging and prostitution.

Well, at last, it appears this historical stain can be addressed.

The White House posted this as a pin for "no pannicans".  People who really trust in Trump.

And who could trust more in the demented octogenarian than members of the Trump family itself.  This must be the Designated Insignia for a 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, a la Spanish American War, unit for Trump's new forever wars.

Oh, just imagine the glory.  Don Jr. and Barron can be the first off the Blackhawk in Iran, or Cuba, and finally be under fire.  Sure, some of them may get blown away, just like Quentin Roosevelt in World War One, but they will have given their lives for the thing that matters most to Donald Trump, that being Donald Trump.  

Not that an entire unit can be filled up with just Trumps.  There's a lot of them, but not that many.  Just like the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, recruiting can occur quickly and the unit can be filled up with rich swells and MAGAs.  Elon Musk missed his mandatory military service in his native South Africa. . .well here's his chance.  Name appear on the Epstein lists. . .well here's the chance to blot that out.  Maybe even the prince formerly known as Andrew can join.

And Bebos. . . there's a spot for you!  

And of course all the smaller MAGAs can go.  No reason single men like Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner can't show their undying love of the leader.  And some with military experience can finally prove their mettle in the new Trumpian world.  After all, Theodore Roosevelt left his position in the Department of the Navy to fight in Cuba. . . there's no reason that J.D. Vance can't resume his military career. And Marco Rubio might get his chance to lead a charge up San Juan Hill.

And triumphal arch will at last serve a purpose.  The dead bodies of the Trump Riders can be dumped into the hollow core of the monstrosity.  A fitting purpose for it.

Did America Just Create a Secret New Military Branch?

This stuff has really got to stop.

 

I have an upcoming post related to this, but I'll start here on the topic with this excellent essay from Angry Staff Officer.

Citizen-Soldiers – not “Warriors”

Why did World War Two Chocolate Bars Taste Horrible?

 

The Administration Is Leaking Like a Sieve | Explainer

 

As a nearly random observation, any time anyone tags a private enterprise project to National Defense, it's a complete money loser.

An email from Rep. Hageman is doing that with "clean coal".  Secretary of Defense Hegseth just said the same thing.

Horse hockey.  Coal quit being relevant to national defense the moment the Royal Navy switched to oil.

Highways, I'd note, were the same way.  We built the Interstate Highway system as states couldn't afford to do it and nobody could compete with rail  "Needed for defense".  Oh bull. The military still ships by rail.

This is always just a way to prop something up with Federal money or a Federal program.  Some claim that's why the  Air Force bought Studebaker trucks just before Studebaker went belly up, or why the service bought Dodge trucks for so many years, and mind you I like Studebaker and Dodge trucks.

A recent development in the story of women in combat roles in the U.S. military:

Pentagon orders review on ‘effectiveness’ of women in combat arms jobs

I think it's pretty clear that the leadership in the DoD feels that women should not be in combat roles.  I have some old threads on this, and I don't think they should be either, but the interesting thing here is how the DoD has crept up on this.

They must be uncomfortable with just issuing a decision, as over the past year they've taken incremental steps, which the administration really hasn't done on anything else.  It would sort of suggest that they think this is the bridge too far.

It might also suggest a bit of a realization that things can be reversed and therefore the goal is to build a basis to avoid a reversal.

Monday, December 31, 1945. The end of a historical episode and the dawn of a new one, additional labels.

Friday, December 14, 1945. Tragedy and ethnic Germans, the LDS and conscription.

As its copyrighted and I don't have permission to post it, I'll merely note it, it was of German women in their children, formerly of Lodz, waiting for a train in Berlin with hopes of going to the west.  One of the children is sick, and died during the photo session.

The First President of the LDS issued a postwar statement on the draft to Utah's Congressional delegation.

Press reports have for some months indicated that a determined effort is in the making to establish in this country a compulsory universal military training designed to draw into military training and service the entire youth of the nation. We had hoped that mature reflection might lead the proponents of such a policy to abandon it. We have felt and still feel that such a policy would carry with it the gravest dangers to our Republic.

It now appears that the proponents of the policy have persuaded the Administration to adopt it, in what on its face is a modified form. We deeply regret this, because we dislike to find ourselves under the necessity of opposing any policy so sponsored. However, we are so persuaded of the rightfulness of our position, and we regard the policy so threatening to the true purposes for which this Government was set up, as set forth in the great Preamble to the Constitution, that we are constrained respectfully to invite your attention to the following considerations:

1. By taking our sons at the most impressionable age of their adolescence and putting them into army camps under rigorous military discipline, we shall seriously endanger their initiative thereby impairing one of the essential elements of American citizenship. While on its face the suggested plan might not seem to visualize the army camp training, yet there seems little doubt that our military leaders contemplate such a period, with similar recurring periods after the boys are placed in the reserves.

2. By taking our boys from their homes, we shall deprive them of parental guidance and control at this important period of their youth, and there is no substitute for the care and love of a mother for a young son.

3. We shall take them out of school and suffer their minds to be directed in other channels, so that very many of them after leaving the army, will never return to finish their schooling, thus over a few years materially reducing the literacy of the whole nation.

4. We shall give opportunity to teach our sons not only the way to kill but also, in too many cases, the desire to kill, thereby increasing lawlessness and disorder to the consequent upsetting of the stability of our national society. God said at Sinai, “Thou shalt not kill.”

5. We shall take them from the refining, ennobling, character-building atmosphere of the home, and place them under a drastic discipline in an environment that is hostile to most of the finer and nobler things of home and of life.

6. We shall make our sons the victims of systematized allurements to gamble, to drink, to smoke, to swear, to associate with lewd women, to be selfish, idle, irresponsible save under restraint of force, to be common, coarse, and vulgar, all contrary to and destructive of the American home.

7. We shall deprive our sons of any adequate religious training and activity during their training years, for the religious element of army life is both inadequate and ineffective.

8. We shall put them where they may be indoctrinated with a wholly un-American view of the aims and purposes of their individual lives, and of the life of the whole people and nation, which are founded on the ways of peace, whereas they will be taught to believe in the ways of war.

9. We shall take them away from all participation in the means and measures of production to the economic loss of the whole nation.

10. We shall lay them open to wholly erroneous ideas of their duties to themselves, to their family, and to society in the matter of independence, self-sufficiency, individual initiative, and what we have come to call American manhood.

11. We shall subject them to encouragement in a belief that they can always live off the labors of others through the government or otherwise.

12. We shall make possible their building into a military caste which from all human experience bodes ill for that equality and unity which must always characterize the citizenry of a republic.

13. By creating an immense standing army, we shall create to our liberties and free institutions a threat foreseen and condemned by the founders of the Republic, and by the people of this country from that time till now. Great standing armies have always been the tools of ambitious dictators to the destruction of freedom.

14. By the creation of a great war machine, we shall invite and tempt the waging of war against foreign countries, upon little or no provocation; for the possession of great military power always breeds thirst for domination, for empire, and for a rule by might not right.

15. By building a huge armed establishment, we shall belie our protestations of peace and peaceful intent and force other nations to a like course of militarism, so placing upon the peoples of the earth crushing burdens of taxation that with their present tax load will hardly be bearable, and that will gravely threaten our social, economic, and governmental systems.

16. We shall make of the whole earth one great military camp whose separate armies, headed by war-minded officers, will never rest till they are at one another’s throats in what will be the most terrible contest the world has ever seen.

17. All the advantages for the protection of the country offered by a standing army may be obtained by the National Guard system which has proved so effective in the past and which is unattended by the evils of entire mobilization.

Responsive to the ancient wisdom, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,’ obedient to the divine message that heralded the birth of Jesus the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, ‘. . . on earth peace, good will toward men,’ and knowing that our Constitution and the Government set up under it were inspired of God and should be preserved to the blessing not only of our own citizenry but, as an example, to the blessing of all the world, we have the honor respectfully to urge that you do your utmost to defeat any plan designed to bring about the compulsory military service of our citizenry. Should it be urged that our complete armament is necessary for our safety, it may be confidently replied that a proper foreign policy, implemented by an effective diplomacy, can avert the dangers that are feared. What this country needs and what the world needs, is a will for peace, not war. God will help our efforts to bring this about.

Respectfully submitted, GEO. ALBERT SMITH, J. REUBEN CLARK, JR., DAVID O. MCKAY, First Presidency.

I actually ran across this on Reddit, where it has been posted by an unhappy former Mormon.  It might be noted, of course, that at that age a large number of Mormons go on missions, which is an effort to consolidate them in their faith, so there was no doubt some reason for Mormon's to be concerned.   While I've heard it claimed that there's no pressure for them to do so, as a demographic, by my observation, they tend to marry young as well, which relates to one of the things noted in the letter, maybe more than one.

Still, the points made are interesting, and not necessarily invalid.  Indeed, almost every point raised in this letter is correct.

There is actually a lot to unpack here, and my own views on this have changed back and forth over the years.  In 1945, when this letter was written, there had only been a single instance of conscription into the Federal Army during peacetime in U.S. history, and that came right before World War Two. There was a history of mandatory militia service, but that had fallen by the wayside after the Civil War.  

Also of note, the National Guard, in peacetime, still did not receive Federal basic training in 1945.  Entry level soldiers were trained by their units by older NCO's delegated that task.  Given this, the nature of the training was always local, but it obviously varied in other ways depending upon who was delivering it.  In the case of this letter, the author could be assured that enlisting young men would have been trained by older soldiers of a like mind, with therefore much of the societal dangers noted avoided.  I'm not sure when the training system actually changed, but I suspect it was by the very late 1940s or certainly by the 1950s.  By the time I was in the Guard the Guard was incredibly integrated into the Regular Army, which is even more the case today.  Enlisting men received regular Army basic and advanced training, and were in the Army when they received it.

When I was younger, I held the view that conscription was a bad thing, save in times of war, as it forced a person to serve against their will.  That's a less developed point than the set of points noted above, but there is a point to it.  Having said that, what I don't think I appreciated earlier is the dangers of a large standing Army, which is why the US had a militia system for defense in the first place. We're seeing a lot of those dangers come into fruition now.  That's not directly related to conscription, it might be noted, but it somewhat is as we have a large, all volunteer, armed forces, which inevitably leads to a sort of military class.  Armed forces with conscripts are much less likely do to that, and therefore they make a much more democratic force that's much less likely to act as praetorian guards for a would be dictator.  

Additionally, as I've grown older I've noted that there's a distinct difference between people who served when asked, and those who avoided it.  Our narcissist in chief in Washington D.C., who avoided serving due to shin splits, is a good example. Donald Trump would have benefited enormously from two years as an enlisted man in the military.  But it's not just him, I've noted this in a lot of men who found a way not to serve.  Their characters would have been better off if they had.

Last edition:

Thursday, December 13, 1945. Crimes against humanity.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Crimes against humanity, Nazi Germany, War Crimes

Vox populi. Trump booed at a Commanders game.

He deserved it, for a lot of reasons.

I don't think Trump realizes how widely detested he really is.  He was booed down at CSU as well when Sen. John Barrasso piped him in during a game.

 End, while on the topic of weapons, what on Earth?

FN DELIVERS WEAPON SYSTEM TEST SAMPLES TO DOD’S IRREGULAR WARFARE TECHNICAL SUPPORT DIRECTORATE

The Army just finished adopting the M7 and the M250 in 6.8x51 and now its buying stocks of the same design in 6.5x43

Apparently these are being considered for Special Forces, which may be special, but are conceived of as needing a lighter weapon.

This is somewhat silly.  The service really doesn't need two cartridges  The 6.8 was chosen, the SF can live with it.

Blog Mirror: Airman found dead at F.E. Warren was under investigation for M18 incident Airman 1st Class Marcus White Allen was previously arrested following the death of Airman Brayden Lovan

 

Airman found dead at F.E. Warren was under investigation for M18 incident

Airman 1st Class Marcus White Allen was previously arrested following the death of Airman Brayden Lovan

Another twist in this story, but no doubt the M18's detractors have already made up their minds.

Tuesday, October 23, 1945. Signing Robinson.

It was announced that Jackie Robinson had signed with the Kansas City Royals, although he was not to play under the arrangement for a full season, going to the Montreal Royals for the 1946 season.

Robinson in 1946 as a Montreal Royal.

Robinson was a great man, and is justly celebrated, but there's a fair number of myths regarding his pioneering role in integrated baseball.  He was not, for one thing, the first black player in the major leagues.  That honor would inaccurately go to Moses Fleetwood Walker, although he had played in the 19th Century, and is inaccurate itself as William Edward White had played a single major league game prior to that.  White didn't reveal  his race, and therefore is often not credited, but Walker's brother Weldy Walker did, and he also played major league baseball

Moses Fleetwood Walker.

So, in reality, Robinson was the fourth African American ball player known to have played in the majors and the third to acknowledge his racial identify.

Weldy Walker.

1883 letter to editor by Weldy Walker.

Additionally Robinson was not the only black player in the majors in 1947, Larry Doby appeared in the American League two months later, something that has also been planned as far back as 1945.  His appearance, however, had not been accompanied by advance press, as Branch Rickey had done with Robinson.  It just happened.

A surprising part of the story is that Robinson being picked upset a fair number of players in the Negro Leagues who well knew that their talents were superior to Robinson's.  It was Robinson's character, of course, that had lead Ricky to pick him.

If the entire story is pieced together, it makes for an interesting focus on racism in the United States following the Civil War and before the Civil Rights Era.  Racism was intense the entire time, but it can be argued it actually got worse towards the end of the 19th Century.  The Navy had been integrated going into the Spanish American War but forces were at work to end that, and soon did.  Breaking the color barrier was hard for athletes in team sports, but was possible in the 19th Century up until the late 1880s when it became much harder, with it being harder in baseball, where the color barrier was absolute, as opposed to football, where a few men crossed it here and there before the 1946 groundbreaking season.  

World War Two had a lot to do with the color barrier fracturing.

Considerations were being made about the post war military, including a proposal to have a single service (something the Canadians in fact did).  Also proposed was something akin to the pre war German system, a small professional army with a large conscript reserve.

Neither proposal found favor at the time.

Of course, in just a couple of years conscription would in fact be revived, and would remain a feature of American life until 1973.  Watching current events, however, a good argument can be made for just what Truman had proposed here, a very small professional Army with a conscript reserve.  Conscripts are a lot less likely to fire on their friends and neighbors than professionals or volunteers are.

Last edition:

Monday, October 22, 1945. The Handan Campaign (邯郸战役) launched.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Chinese Civil War, Egypt, It was because of World War Two, Nationalist Chinese Army, People's Liberation Army, The Handan Campaign (邯郸战役), United Nations, Winston Churchill, World War Two

Trump’s Plan To invoke the Insurrection Act

 

Trump’s Plan

To invoke the Insurrection Act

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

James Madison, June 27, 1787. 

Lex Anteinternet: The Military Address of September 30, 2025. The Trump Speech.

Lex Anteinternet: The Military Address of September 30, 2025: September 30, 2025.  08:30.  Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 104th edition. Buy t... : Buy the Big Ugly or we'll shoot t...

The Military Address of September 30, 2025

September 30, 2025.  08:30.  . 

Wow, Trump's speech was something else.

Trump is obviously heavily senile.  His supporters can claim anything they want, but yesterday's speech was pegging out on the weird meter.  

Indeed, Trump is getting weirder and weirder by the day.  No amount of medication, direction, and cover up can arrest what is obviously a rocketing decline into complete incompetence.  Even physically it shows.  He sounded and looked tired and disheveled.

We're going to start with the really disturbing comments in his speech. Trump outright threatened to use the Armed Forces domestically and labeled some Americans the "enemy within".  

Trump's regime is already fascistic.  The present question is whether its fascistic with a remnant of those who have some adherence to democracy, or whether the National Democrats within it conceive of everyone left of center as an enemy who needs to be quashed while they can be, or an enemy that needs to be extinguished in order that they can create a new, illiberal, democracy.  

They're well on their way to doing that right now.

Some examples of Trump's senility:

There's been no fight. Like when I called the Gulf of America, the Gulf of America, because to me, it was always the Gulf of America. I could never understand. We have 92 percent of the frontage. And for years, actually 350 years, they were there before us, it was called the Gulf of Mexico. I just had this idea. I'm looking at a map. I'm saying, we have most of the frontage, why is it Gulf of Mexico? Why isn't it the Gulf of America? And I made the change and it went smoothly. I mean, we had a couple of fake news outlets that refused to make the change and then one of them, AP took us to court and we won. And the judge, who was a somewhat liberal judge said, the name is the Gulf of America, because AP refused to call it the Gulf of America. They wrote -- they're not a good outfit by the way. They call it the Gulf of Mexico. I said, no, the Gulf of America is the name. And the judge actually said that, in fact, you can't even go into the room because what you're doing is not appropriate. The name is the Gulf of America. Google Maps changed the name. Everybody did, but AP wouldn't. And then we won in court. How about that? Isn't that so cool. As Secretary Hegseth beautifully described, the name change reflects far more than the shift in branding. It's really a historic reassertion of our purpose and our identity and our pride. That's when we go with the word war.

And:

President Trump saved millions and millions of lives. That was a bad war. And I was very honored. I loved the way he said it. Susie Wiles was there. She said, that was the most beautiful thing. But we saved a lot of them, saved a lot of them. Even in Africa, we saved the Congo with Rwanda. They'd been fighting for 31 years, 10 million people dead. I got that one done and I'm very proud of it. So if this works out, we'll have eight, eight in eight months. That's pretty good. Nobody's ever done that. Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They'll give it -- they'll give it to some guy that didn't do a damn thing. They'll give it to a guy that wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump and what it took to solve the wars.

And he'll get -- the Nobel Prize will go to a writer. No, but we'll see what happens. But it'll be a big insult to our country, I will tell you that. I don't want it. I want the country to get it. It should get it because there's never been anything like it. Think of it. So if this happens, I think it will. I don't say that lightly because I know more about deals than anybody. That's what my whole life was based on. And they can change and this can certainly change. But we have just about everybody. We have one signature that we need and that signature will pay in hell if they don't sign. I hope they sign for their own good and we create something really great. But to have done eight of them is just such an honor. And then we have Putin and Zelenskyy, the easiest one of them all. I said, that one I'll get done. I thought that was going to be first. The others were much harder, some of them. Azerbaijan was -- this was going on for 36 years. They said, it's not solvable, sir. You can't -- don't do it. I said, I will do it. I will do it. And I got on the phone with the two countries. They were great. They were great. I knew immediately. I knew as soon as I started talking to them, we were going to solve that war. We did. Now they're so happy. Mow they're friends. One said he's been president for 32 years, 22 years.

And:

That's the most important word, other than the word tariff. I love tariffs, most beautiful word, but I'm not allowed to say that anymore. I said, tariff is my favorite word. I love the word tariff. You know, we're becoming rich as hell. We have a big case in front of the Supreme Court, but I can't imagine -- because this is what other nations have done to us and we have, you know, great legal grounds, but you still have a case of being very bad if something happened. But I said, my favorite word in the English dictionary is the word tariff and people thought that was strange. And the fake news came over and they really hit me hard on it. They said, what about love? What about religion? What about God? What about wife, family? I got killed when I said tariff is my favorite word, so I changed. It's now my fifth favorite word and I'm OK with that. I'm OK with that, but they hit me hard. But it is. I mean, when you look at -- we've taken in trillions of dollars. We're rich -- rich again and they'll never be -- when we finish this out, they'll never be any wealth like what we have. Other countries were taking advantage of us for years and years.

And:

And I look at those ships, they came with the destroyers alongside of them and man, nothing was going to stop. There were 20 deep and they were in a straight line and there was nothing going to stop them. And we actually talk about, you know, those ships. Some people would say, no, that's old technology. I don't know. I don't think it's old technology when you look at those guns, but it's something we're actually considering, the concept of battleship, nice six-inch size, solid steel, not aluminum, aluminum that melts if it looks at a missile coming at it. It starts melting as the missile is about two miles away. Now those ships, they don't make them that way anymore.But you look at it, and -- your secretary likes it and I'm sort of open to it. And bullets are a lot less expensive than missiles, a lot of -- a lot of reasons. I should take a vote, but I'm afraid to take that vote because I may get voted out on that one. But I tell you, it's something we're seriously considering. They were powers. They were big powers. They were just about as mean and scary as you could be, and so we're looking at that. One of the biggest cases that we won was the decision of the United States Supreme Court to allow us to proceed on the word merit, merit. So those two words are right up there. So this is, I would say, the opposite if you ask for a definition, the opposite of political correctness.

That one apparently references battleships.

And

I don't like some of the ships you're doing esthetically. They say, oh, it's stealth. I say that's not stealth. An ugly ship is not necessary in order to say you're stealth. By the way, the B-2 Bombers were incredible. That is stealth. They went into that -- I was with General Caine and every -- and Pete were in the -- we call it the war room, but we're watching them go in and they were totally untouched.

Trump is clearly stuck in the distant past on ships.  Battleships?  Ugly modern warships?

It was the Army that brought Joe McCarthy down.  We may be at that point with the Armed Forces and Donald Trump.

Lex Anteinternet: The Military Address of September 30, 2025. The Hegseth speech.

Lex Anteinternet: The Military Address of September 30, 2025: September 30, 2025.  08:30.  Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 104th edition. Buy t... : Buy the Big Ugly or we'll shoot t...

The Military Address of September 30, 2025

September 30, 2025.  08:30. 

So what can we really take away from Hegseth's speech yesterday.

Well, on a superficial level, he's a blowhard.  

Based on the flag officer's reactions, he's not popular with the Service and we may be starting to see the beginning of a type of green revolt.  I don't think they can be counted on to support Trump's war on cities.

Hegseth has a real "kill people and break things" view of the service, which isn't completely unwarranted.  Many of the criticism he has of how things have developed in recent decades have merit.  Using the Armed Forces as a social laboratory is risky.  The transgendered in the Service thing was stupid and did need to go.

Hegseth clearly wants women out of combat roles, but it's not clear at all how far that extends.  He's approaching it based on PT requirements, which makes some sense, but which is really a pretty lightweight way to approach the topic    And what are combat roles in the current era?  What about, for example, radar stations ships?  Given the approach, the administration obviously fears really pissing women off.

Hegseth also seems to think that the Service was in the condition it was in 1977 or something.  He keeps referencing 1990, but in terms of overall physical condition, these troops are in better shape today than any time in the nation's history.

Part of this is his weird obsession with beards.  Military facial hair regulations evolve over time.  The no beards in the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force policy is only a little over a century old, and has to do with gas masks.  Combat troops have beards by default all the time.

All in all, the entire show could have been accomplished by an email.  But he was attempting to rally the troops to his side, at which he utterly failed.