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There were many things wrong with Pete Hegseth’s condescending speech to the nation’s military leaders. He some about fitness and facial hair.
Hegseth wants to fire members of the military who are fat. Can he fire the Commander-in-chief?
Pete spoke about fitness but he is not a great example.
Then, Hegseth said the days of facial hair are over. But currently the military has exemptions for men whose religion requires that they have beards.
Jeff Schogol of Task & Purpose reported:
Wearing beards is a core religious tenet of some faiths, which has prompted the military to grant religious accommodations to Sikh, Muslim, Christian, and Norse Pagan service members for over a decade.
But those days may be ending.
This week’s overhaul of military grooming standards has raised fears of a coming crackdown on religious waivers for growing beards.
“Today at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Tuesday.“No more beardos. The age of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”
Shaving and beards were central topics in a speech Hegseth gave to hundreds of generals and admirals at Quantico, Virginia on Tuesday. Along with amplifying an earlier directive that troops with medical waivers for shaving could face separation, Hegseth indicated that he may be skeptical about at least some religious waivers that service members have received to wear beards.
At the Pentagon, Hegseth has permitted evangelical Christian prayer services. The first one was led by the pastor from Hegseth’s own church in Tennessee.
Military.com noted this exceptional event authorized by Hegseth.
In a move that pushes the boundaries of Constitutional prohibition against a state religion, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hosted an evangelical prayer service in the middle of the day at the Pentagon in which a pastor praised President Donald Trump as “sovereignly appointed.”
A program for the event called it the “Secretary of Defense Christian Prayer and Worship Service.” It was held at the Pentagon’s auditorium and was broadcast throughout the building on its internal cable network.
The Constitution contains several phrases prohibiting state entanglement with religion but it says nothing about facial hair in the military. U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant had a large beard, as did Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Now if only Secretary of Education would follow Hegseth’s lead and bar public funding of all religious schools.
Since almost the whole bunch of them are religious fanatics, that’s too much to hope for. Trump is an exception. He pretends to be a religious fanatic. He is merely transactional.
This is baffling. The Boston Globe reported yesterday that the Trump administration was in the process of “debarment” of Harvard University, meaning that the nation’s greatest university would be cut off from all future federal funding. The Trump team accuses Harvard of anti-Semitism. The president of Harvard University is an observant Jew. The findings of anti-Semitism are based on a report that Harvard officials conducted.
This is nuts. With federal funding, Harvard scientists have produced major breakthroughs in medicine, engineering, and science. To break Harvard, as the administration wants to do, would cripple American innovation.
The Boston Globe reported:
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights on Monday formally recommended barring Harvard University from receiving federal funding, three months after it accused the university of violating civil rights laws by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students on campus.
In a news release, the office said it would refer Harvard to the office that is responsible for “suspension and debarment decisions” and that it notified Harvard of its right to an administrative hearing. The university has 20 days to notify the office of its decision.…
The 57-page notice relied heavily upon Harvard’s own report on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias that it released earlier this year, which followed high-profile protests at Harvard and other campuses against the war in Gaza in 2023 and 2024.
Yesterday afternoon, The New York Times reported the animosity between Harvard and the Trump administration:
The Trump administration’s move this week to choke off Harvard University’s access to future federal funding came after a scathing letter from the college accusing the administration of distorting evidence to show that the school violated civil rights laws by allowing antisemitism to persist on campus.
The brewing feud represents an escalation of tensions between Harvard and the administration, which just weeks ago seemed on the verge of agreeing on a deal to keep federal funds flowing to the university.
In a strongly worded, 163-page letter with attachments on Sept. 19, which has not been previously reported, Harvard assailed the government’s findings. The university accused investigators at the Health and Human Services Department of relying on “inaccurate and incomplete facts,” failing to meet a single legal requirement to prove discrimination and drawing sweeping conclusions from a survey of one-half of 1 percent of the student body.
Harvard painted a picture of a chaotic Trump administration rushing to leverage federal power against the university. For instance, it noted that the health department had chided the college for failing to produce certain records. But Harvard’s documents showed that the records in question had been provided in response to a request from the Education Department. Harvard said the health department never asked for those records.
Harvard said the health department’s decision to refer its findings to the Justice Department was “based on a fabricated and distorted interpretation of the record.”
The stark language was a departure from months of mostly measured tones from Harvard as the university has resisted the administration’s pressure campaign to impose President Trump’s political agenda on the nation’s elite colleges.
Mr. Trump and his administration have sought to exert control over who universities can hire, which students they should admit and what subjects should be taught by leveraging huge sums of federal research money. Those moves, which Harvard has maintained violate the college’s First Amendment rights and infringe on the nation’s long-held ideals of academic freedom, are aimed at shifting the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which the administration sees as hostile to conservatives and intent on perpetuating liberalism.
The administration’s reply to Harvard’s letter came on Monday, when the health department initiated a process to cut off Harvard from future federal research funding, which has increasingly become the lifeblood for the nation’s largest private and public colleges. In 2022, the health department accounted for nearly 81 percentof $41.6 billion in federal funding for research into agricultural science, environmental science, public health and other life sciences, according to government records.
Then, last night The New York Times reported that Trump said he was close to striking a deal with Harvard. The deal would extort $500 million from the university and an agreement to offer programs in the trades.
President Trump said Tuesday that his administration was close to reaching a multimillion-dollar agreement with Harvard University, which would end a monthslong standoff that had come to symbolize the resistance to the White House’s efforts to reshape higher education.
Harvard, which would become the latest university to strike a deal with the Trump administration, has been seeking an end to a thicket of investigations that the government opened as part of its wide-ranging efforts to bring the university in line with Mr. Trump’s agenda.
“We are in the process of getting very close,” President Trump said in an appearance from the Oval Office. He added that the details were being finalized and said, “They would be paying about $500 million.”
Mr. Trump said that the education secretary, Linda McMahon, was “finishing up the final details.” He added that the plan was for Harvard to operate trade schools.
“They are going be teaching people to do A.I. and a lot of other things — engines, lots of things,” he said. “We need people in trade schools.”
Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, summoned hundreds of generals and admirals to an in-person meeting to lecture them. Hegseth spoke to them condescendingly to remind them that he is Secretary of War, not Secretary of Defense (which is not true because only Congress can rename a Department). He spoke about raising standards for height and weight and said he didn’t want “fat generals” in command (does that crack about weight apply to the Commander-in-Chief?). He wants regular tests of physical strength for all members of the service set to male standards and if women can’t meet them, tough.
Hegseth ignored the reality that wars today are not won by brute strength but by intelligence, wisdom, experience, and training. Warriors are flying incredibly complex airplanes that require technological skills and mental sharpness. Battles are fought by soldiers operating computers, shooting down drones and missiles, and guiding weapons with precision to their target. The hand-to-hand combat that Hegseth imagines is obsolete.
The generals and admirals must have been seething to be talked down to by Hegseth, whose highest rank in the Army National Guard was major.
He lavished praise on the Trump policy of banning diversity, inclusion, and equity, ignoring the fact that the military is a prime exemplar of the success of DEI. Just recently, he abolished a program that has recruited women into the military with great success for decades.
When he finished his speech, he waited for applause but the audience didn’t put their hands together.
Trump gave a frightening speech, saying that the greatest threat was “the enemy within.” Shades of Joe McCarthy! Trump, of course, never wore his nation’s uniform, nor have his sons. He managed to get five draft deferments based on a letter from a podiatrist who rented space in one of his father’s shopping malls. In other words, he is a draft dodger.
The military is supposed to protect our nation from hostile foreign enemies but Trump believes that the worst enemies today, the worst threats to the nation, are what he calls “radical left lunatics.” He told the military brass that America’s military should use its big cities as “training grounds” for the troops.
That sounds like martial law to me.
No other President has gone before the leaders of the military to ridicule his predecessor, to rail against his political foes, and to praise himself lavishly.
What’s frightening is that Trump seems eager to use the troops to put down domestic protests. If he can manufacture domestic violence, he has telegraphed that he will not hesitate to send in the military with orders to use “full force,” that is, to gun down civilians. Shoot to kill.
Many viewers must have thought of the brave farewell speech of General Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Trump’s first term. A week before he gave this speech, Trump said he should be put to death.
Milley said:
“We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”
“Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian and Coast Guardsman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price. And we are not easily intimidated.”
A warning to people in big cities. Protest peacefully. Wave signs. Sing songs. Chant. Don’t bring weapons to protests. Do not disrespect the troops. Do not provoke them into using their weapons.
Trump wants you to fight with the troops. Don’t take the bait. He wants you to throw rocks and draw fire from them. He wants a Reichstag fire to use as a pretext to suspend elections.
Don’t play into his small hands.
There is no end to the Trump administration’s assault on academic freedom. Particularly poisonous is its withdrawal of billions of dollars for scientific research to punish universities that defy his policies. Trump is determined to obliterate any sign of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or any tolerance of anti-Semitism.
Speaking for myself, I wholeheartedly support diversity, equity, and inclusion. Speaking as a Jew, I resent Trump’s hypocritical, duplicitous use of anti-Semitism, an issue he has never cared about and that he cynically exploits.
Until now, research grants were awarded based on scientific merit and peer review. In the proposed changes, the universities that adhere to Trump policies and values would have a competitive advantage.
The Trump cabal is prepared to withhold funding from the nation’s top researchers if they are suspected of including nonwhite, non-male researchers in order to increase D or E or I. They assume that “merit” is found only in white males.
They are willing to deny research grants to Harvard and UCLA and give them to No-Name State Agricultural University, just to make a point.
They are willing to sacrifice research into pediatric cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and other afflictions just because they include researchers who are not white men.
What a disgrace this administration is.
Laura Meckler and Susan Svrluga of The Washington Post wrote:
The White House is developing a plan that could change how universities are awarded research grants, giving a competitive advantage to schools that pledge to adhere to the values and policies of the Trump administration on admissions, hiring and other matters.
The new system, described by two White House officials, would represent a shift away from the unprecedented wave of investigations and punishments being delivered to individual schools and toward an effort to bring large swaths of colleges into compliance with Trump priorities all at once.
Universities could be asked to affirm that admissions and hiring decisions are based on merit rather than racial or ethnic background or other factors, that specific factors are taken into account when considering foreign student applications, and that college costs are not out of line with the value students receive.
“Now it’s time to effect change nationwide, not on a one-off basis,” said a senior White House official, who like the other official described the plan on the condition of anonymity because it is still being developed.
Under the current system, the federal government’s vast research funding operation awards billions of dollars’ worth of grants based on peer reviews and scientific merit.
The administration says it is working to enforce civil rights laws, which it contends many universities have violated by embracing diversity, equity and inclusion programs or failing to adequately protect Jewish students or staff from antisemitism. But the effort is almost certain to add to criticism from outside experts who say the administration is already overstepping its authority to try to impose its values on higher education.
Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said the outlines of the proposal amounted to an “assault … on institutional autonomy, on ideological diversity, on freedom of expression and academic freedom.”
“Suddenly, to get a grant, you need to not demonstrate merit, but ideological fealty to a particular set of political viewpoints. That’s not merit,” he said. “I can’t imagine a university in America that would be supportive of this…”
Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January, his administration has launched investigations of and pulled research funding from universities including Columbia, Harvard and UCLA, and then worked to extract concessions in exchange for restoring the money. Officials say the punishments are an effort to enforce federal laws that bar funding for schools that discriminate on the basis of sex, race or national origin.
The White House has faced setbacks in court — including a big loss this month in its high-profile fight with Harvard and another setback this week in California — and has not reached as many settlement agreements as Trump officials had hoped for.
The senior White House official described the new system as an opportunity for schools to show they are in compliance, as interpreted by the administration. Those that do so, the official said, would be rewarded with a “competitive advantage” in applying for federal grants…
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley’s law school, said “no one will object” if the White House simply requires universities to pledge compliance with existing law.
But Chemerinsky, one of the attorneys representing UC researchers in a lawsuit challenging terminated federal research funding, also said the administration’s view of what the law requires could be at odds with other interpretations: “It all depends on what the conditions are, and whether those conditions are constitutional.”
Chemerinsky said it would be a First Amendment violation to put schools at a disadvantage in competing for funding if they profess a belief in diversity, for example, because government is not allowed to discriminate based on viewpoint. He said it “would be very troubling” if the White House proposal deviates from the standards that have been used in awarding grants based on the quality and importance of the science, peer review and merit, and uses ideology as the judgment standard instead.
A reader who uses the name Quickwrit parses the Constitutionnand finds that Trump is doing today exactly what King George did to the colonists.
Quickwrit writes:
WHAT TRUMP IS DOING TODAY is the very same thing that our Declaration of Independence lists as the violations of liberty that triggered our Declaration of Independence. Take a look:
The King used armed forces to control American cities and towns, without first asking permission from the legislatures; quoting the Declaration, it says: “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” Just like King Trump sending armed National Guard units into our cities today.
The King replaced local police with his armed forces. The Declaration says: “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
The King’s armed forces were protected from killing civilians: “For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.” People die today in ICE custody, and nothing happens.
The King ignores civil courts: “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.”
“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices.”
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people.”
“He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained.” Today, not only do governors of Red States do nothing without Trump’s approval, neither does Congress.
The Declaration also says that we also declare our independence from the King for his:
“cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world’ (just like Trump’s tariffs);
“depriving us in many cases of the benefit of Trial by Jury” and “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences” (just like Trump deporting people without trial to be imprisoned in foreign nations).
The Declaration says Americans are breaking away because the King has opposed immigration that is vital to America’s economic growth, by “obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.” Already in 1740, laws had been passed to grant “natural born” citizenship status to immigrants who lived there for seven consecutive years.
The King has also been “redistricting” Americans out of their right to representation: “He has refused to pass Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.” Just like the redistricting going on today.
Americans today truly need to read the history of our Revolution and what went into and is actually in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Read the ACTUAL WRITINGS of our Founding Fathers, not just listen to or read the “analyses” of political talking heads on today’s TV and social media.
That kind of reading takes time, and too few Americans today are willing to spend the time.
Trump announced on Saturday that he intends to send the military to Portland to restore safety and to protect ICE agents.
The Mayor of Portland says the city is safe. He doesn’t want troops. The Governor of Oregon agrees. But Trump has a fixation with that city. He hates Portland because there was a protest and riot there against him a few days after Trump won the election of 2016. The riot went on for days; stores were vandalized, windows smashed. Over 100 people were arrested. Almost nine years later, Trump still wants to punish Portland, and no one can stop him.
The Washington Post made clear that Trump has not yet decided whether to mobilize the Oregon National Guard or to send in active-duty military personnel.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that he will send troops to Portland, Oregon, and to immigration detention facilities around the country, authorizing “Full Force, if necessary” and escalating a campaign to use the U.S. military against Americans that has little modern precedent.
Trump said in a social media post that he was directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide troops to what he dubbed “War ravaged Portland” as well as “any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”
Saturday’s announcement appeared likely to set up a first test for a White House effort targeting left-wing protest groups. It came just days after Trump signed an executive order directing the nation’s full counterterrorism apparatus against domestic political opponents despite long precedent restricting such a move.
Right-wing politicians have long criticized Portland for the way it has handled racial-justice protests as well as its homeless population, tolerating encampments in the central part of the city. But Trump will again encounter the dynamic he faced when he deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles — a military activation in a state run by a Democratic governor who objects to the decision and could have grounds to fight it in court.
Trump’s announcement, which was posted on Truth Social while the president was at his private golf club in Northern Virginia, appeared to have come as a surprise to the Pentagon, with several officials saying they know little more than what the president included in his post.
One official familiar with the discussion Saturday said defense officials were seeking clarity on what Trump desires. The official, like others in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about private planning.
The Pentagon released a statement a few hours later, saying defense officials “stand ready to mobilize U.S. military personnel in support of DHS operations in Portland at the President’s direction.”
The statement, by spokesman Sean Parnell, said the “Department will provide information and updates as they become available.”
Another person familiar with ongoing discussions said midday Saturday that some Pentagon officials had discussed troops being sent to Portland at some point but were scrambling to make sense of what’s next.
“You know what I know,” that person said, alluding to the president’s announcement on social media.
Among the uncertainties, it was not immediately clear whether Trump plans to deploy active-duty troops or National Guard members, or both, to Portland. As is the case in similar discussions with other cities, there are legal limits to how he can do so.
There was also no clarity about the timing of any potential deployment.
Asked for more details about the potential deployment, the White House did not answer questions but responded with a list of incidents that had recently taken place outside Portland’s ICE field office, including federal charges of arson, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
“Despite the crime and neighborhood pushback caused by the months-long protest, Oregon Democrats still refuse to do anything about it,” the White House said in a statement.
Protesters have been demonstrating for weeks at an ICE processing center in the city in objection to Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts. The Department of Homeland Security on Friday said that “rioters in Portland, Oregon have repeatedly attacked and laid siege” to the facility.
Protests outside the facility reignited this June, with the Portland Police Bureau declaring a riot after demonstrators blocked the driveway and threw objects like rocks and bricks at the facility and federal agents, according to local news media accounts and social media videos. Portland police arrested more than 20 people connected to the protests after multiple federal officers were injured.
But on Saturday, the streets outside the Portland ICE facility remained largely empty in the hours after Trump made his announcement. Two homeless men slept on the sidewalk. A handful of passersby took photographs of the building, and a few talked to each other about how their experiences felt nothing like the “war-ravaged” city described….
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) was one of 19 Democratic governors who signed a letter to Trump last month opposing his deployment of the National Guard over governors’ objections.
At a Saturday afternoon news conference, Kotek said she learned of Trump’s plan to deploy troops from social media and spoke to the president afterward.
“Portland’s doing just fine, and I made that very clear to the president this morning,” Kotek said. “Our city is a far cry from the war-ravaged community that he has posted about on social media, and I conveyed that directly to him.”
Kotek said she doesn’t believe Trump has the authority to deploy federal troops on state soil: “I’m coordinating with Attorney General Dan Rayfield to see if any response is necessary, and we will be prepared to respond if we have to.”
Both local and state-elected Oregon officials rejected Trump’s plan.
“The number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city. Our nation has a long memory for acts of oppression, and the president will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson (D) said in a statement. Wilson was elected last year on a platform of moving homeless Portland residents into a temporary shelter.
Wilson said at a news conference Friday evening that the city had seen a “sudden influx” of federal agents in recent hours, including armored vehicles, which Wilson called a “big show.” Wilson was flanked by other city and state officials, who said it wasn’t clear which agency the federal authorities were from but urged the public stay calm and refuse to “take the bait.”
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), who has criticized Trump’s domestic military deployments, said Saturday on X that the president “wants to stoke fear and chaos and trigger violent interactions and riots to justify expanded authoritarian control. Let’s not take the bait! Portland is peaceful and strong and we will take care of each other.”
In a move unprecedented in American history, Trump is ordering troops to Portland, Oregon.
Trump believes that Portland is overrun by Antifa and radical terrorists. He posted on “Truth Social”:
“At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists. I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
Neither the Oregon Governor nor the Portland Mayor requested troops. This another step in Trump’s retribution tour of people and places he hates.
Will Republicans in Congress find a spine? No.
This is fascism.
The U.S. Department of Education just canceled $36 million in magnet school grants to small high schools in New York City because these schools allow transgender students to use the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity and they allow them to participate in sports.
New York City education officials say they are complying with state and city laws.
The Trump administration says the schools must follow the President’s executive order, not state and local laws.
Isn’t this a classic case of federal control vs. local control?
Didn’t Republicans used to be great defenders of local control?
It’s daunting to try to keep track of the Trump family’s conflicts of interest. They have moved the Overton Window so far that future presidents might accept large cash gifts from corporations and foreign heads of state without anyone caring.
What’s the Overton Window? Here is the Wikipedia definition.
In normal times, the media and the public used to become outraged when an elected official accepted large gifts or had blatant conflicts of interest. Under Trump, no one cared that a foreign state gave Trump a $400 superluxury jet to use as Air Force 1 and to keep after he leaves the Presidency.
Here is another such story that reeks of conflict of interest.
The New York Times reported that Tiffany Trump and her husband were enjoying a vacation on a super-yacht owned by an oil company executive even as Tiffany’s father-in-law was negotiating with the owner of the yacht. (And no one cared when Trump appointed his son-in-law’s father as his envoy to Africa on the mistaken belief that the gentleman was a billionaire).
The Times reported:
Massad Boulos traveled to Libya in July as the State Department’s senior Africa adviser. But as he talked to energy executives and government leaders, his other position was no less important. He was also the father-in-law of President Trump’s daughter Tiffany.
That family connection was so significant that some Libyan officials had privately taken to calling him “Abu Tiffany,” Arabic for “Tiffany’s father.”
While Mr. Boulos posed for photographs and announced deals to ramp up Libyan oil and gas production, Tiffany Trump and her husband, Michael Boulos, were cruising the French Riviera aboard one of the world’s largest superyachts — owned by a major broker of Libyan oil.
The yacht, the Phoenix 2, is a floating palace with two helipads, a swimming pool and an 18-foot bronze figurehead of a flaming phoenix rising from its bow. It is not available to charter. But when it last was, it rented for over $1.4 million per week, with the listing highlighting an Art Deco interior and custom Steinway piano.
The vessel is owned by the billionaire oil traders Ercument Bayegan and his wife, Ruya Bayegan. Ms. Bayegan’s energy company, BGN International, stands to benefit from any increase in Libyan oil production.
Massad Boulos is the face of the Trump administration’s diplomacy in Africa, a strategy that prioritizes cutting business deals over international comity and the promotion of democracy. The presence of his son and Ms. Trump on a luxury yacht owned by international billionaire executives is a measure of how hard it is to tell where the interests of government end and the Trump family begins.
