Why Details Matter
Attention to detail. Basically, an obsession drilled into anyone connected to the military – every little thing matters, and an error here can cause someone to get killed there. So we all had the religion of ATD drilled into us, right? Cause if you don’t…at minimum it gets embarassing.
You may remember when, last year our current SECDEF was introduced to the American public who hadn’t known of him previously. Part of his bio included that he had been accepted to the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, although he actually attended Princeton. Not a big deal, but West Point said he had NOT been accepted, or had even applied.
On the morning of December 11, Hegseth wrote on X that the investigative news website ProPublica was about to run a “knowingly false” story saying that he hadn’t been admitted to the US Military Academy, where many of America’s Army officers are trained.
ProPublica denied Hegseth’s claim, saying it had simply asked Hegseth to respond to a statement by a West Point public affairs official who told the news outlet that Hegseth hadn’t even applied, much less been admitted.
Hegseth’s staff released an acceptance letter (which was received skeptically) as proof, but by December 11th West Point had to admit that they failed to check an older database which indeed had Mr. Hegseth’s name in it.
“Hes in there,” an employee whose name was redacted wrote in an email. “Its in an old archived table,” the person said, typing out a line of search query language to demonstrate how the admissions record could be found.
“The record shows that he declined the offer,” the employee wrote. Business Insider
Another example of that this week. Before flying off the Scotland, Mr. Trump had a meet and tour with the Fed:
President Donald Trump had a tense exchange with Federal Reserve Board of Governors chair Jerome Powell over the cost of a long-running renovation as he toured the central bank’s Washington headquarters.
Trump said the cost of the years-long project was now “about $3.1 billion” rather than the $2.7 billion previously stated by Powell.
Powell asked to see the source of Mr. Trump’s info (probably the same releases as mine when I wrote about this a couple of weeks back!)
He then told the president that the higher number he was claiming included a separate project that wasn’t part of the renovation at issue.
“You just added in a third building,” he said.
Seems that the President’s info threw in costs on the William Martin, Jr. building – which was built and finished 5 years ago (in Trump’s first term if my math is right.)
Trump and his allies have said the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed headquarters and a neighboring building reflects an institution run amok — a belief they had hoped to verify in an afternoon tour of the construction site.
But Trump, a former real estate developer, appeared to soften his criticisms of the project after viewing it himself.
A short time later, he told reporters that he’d had a “very good tour” and declined to repeat his earlier criticisms of the project. The Independent
I suspect that whoever fed the President that info may have had a rough day. Even so, mis-adding the costs of the Martin building doesn’t account for some of the costs the media has reported.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Donald Trump, West Point
When I was younger, I would argue my point to the death. That’s very embarrassing when you are proven wrong. I started to second guess myself, saying to myself “what if you’re wrong?”. To this day, I don’t argue my point much, but it sweet when I’m right.
Disclaimer: that never happens with Blaster-6. She’s never wrong,,,or,,,,I’m never right..not really sure how that one works.
Never argue with a fool.
After 10 seconds, a person walking by will not be able to tell who the fool is….
But…somehow…the obama birth certificate is gospel truth never to be questioned.
Nor Biden’s 81 million votes, or why, when tallying the votes, the folks counting had to go home and rest so they could take up the counting again tomorrow.
Well, he is the “anointed one”!
C’mon Man!
If Hegseth hadn’t kept his letter he would have been hounded forever about it by the legacy media. This bullshit about “another” data base that only seems to work when someone shows proof that the other party is lying is just that.
I don’t care what Trump thinks he knows about real estate. Whether it cost ($2.5B) $6212 a square foot or even slightly less than that to renovate the Federal Reserve matters little. The amounts are insanely high. For comparison the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest and most luxurious building built in the history of mankind cost $420/ foot to build from scratch and it is 163 stories. They could have built 14 of them for the what they spent on the Federal Reserve per square foot.
Even the most expensive commercial real estate tops out at around $900/ft for a five star high rise hotel these days. They are saying it cost seven times that? I was born at night, it wasn’t last night.
It was worth the price of admission when Powell asked where Trump got his info and he produced the receipt with the feds letterhead at the top. Powell was thrown off his game even if briefly.
When Trump patted him on the back, he (Powell) looked like he was about to barf a lung.
Cost overruns to renovate the Fed facility should be deducted from its future funding.
I’m a little confused, If a third building is part of the “Federal Reserve” and it was renovated recently (in the last five years), why would it not be considered in the cost to renovate the “Federal Reserve”?
As far as what it costs to renovate a building vs build new, everyone should know that the ground floor and basements are the most expensive to renovate! Especially if you are replacing piping or wiring! They weren’t just knocking down a non-structural wall to “open up the floor plan”, or repaint the lobby… though $6k/ft is pretty high!
Kitchens and baths would give renovating a basement a good run for the money. We did a kitchen remodel without replacing cabinets, minor plumbing and electrical, granite countertops, refinished floor and the price would choke a horse. We could have probably done it ourself less countertops, but we both worked and didn’t want to live in a mess for days/weeks on end. We did do the tile backsplash after the job was done because for that stupid easy project they wanted stupid money. We saved where we could and felt comfortable doing so.
Congratulations! We’ve been there.
I went through West Point in the back of a 1959 Chevy
Parkwood station wagon. The vivid memories of those
cadets marching between classes remains traumatic for me.
Been to the West Point Mint next to the ski lifts when we made a pickup or delivery there. Can’t remember which. Attended the weekend Flammable liquids course at the West point Fire Station given by Fl. Fire Capt Gore owner of If I remember was Safety Systems. Museaum was great and even had Op Powere Pack, Dominican Republic 1965 in the glass case and I saw Herman Goerrings uniform and baton mounted on a dummy. exibit also Covered every West Point uniform worn by the cadets from the start of the Point.
Some great points Jeff…
I may have to add a trip there to see that museum. Believe it or not, one the best “Army” museums (and it used to better than it is now, but still great) is the museum at Camp Shelby MS.
The Patton Museum at FT Knox is a good one too. I think it was also better before it was renovated, but it is still good. I always that Patton was an awesome general. My grandfather was part of the 7th Army under Patton in N. Africa and Sicily. But reading some of the stories about him there- he was kinda a dick!
The 45th ID museum in Oklahoma is probably the best one that I have ever visited.
NOTE: I have not been (yet) to the WWII museum in NOLA, the Smithsonian, nor the Infantry Museum at Benning/Moore.
The horse cavalry museum at Ft. Riley, KS has some good exhibits, plus Col. Custer’s quarters.
My cousin taught mathematics there in the 60s.
When all else fails…
I think dat be a woman thing! Just watch and c.