Firings
Well, top of the news as I write this Pete Hegseth has asked the Army Chief of Staff, GEN Randy George, to step down.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that George “will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately. The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement.”
A senior Defense Department official told CBS News, “We are grateful for his service, but it was time for a leadership change in the Army.”
This is one of those “it was only a mater of time” situations.
George previously served as the senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin from 2021 to 2022, during the Biden administration, after decades of service. CBS News
Think any top person anointed by the Biden administration is probably looking over their shoulder at this point. If they aren’t – well, they need to. This is not an administration that forgives any past associations.
The current vice chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who was formerly Hegseth’s military aide, will be acting Army chief of staff.
And in bigger news, another top Trump appointee, Attorney General Pam Bondi, has been pointed to the exit and told to hit the bricks.
The departure followed months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation and failed efforts to meet Trump’s unwavering demands for criminal cases against his adversaries.AP
Yeah, when you say “the file is on my desk” and later say “what file?” your credibility takes a hit. One of those statements has to be a lie, and a good chunk of the country took the inconsistency as evidence of Trump’s guilt – and we all know he does not like to be embarrassed.
She was also castigated for being too slow to prosecute James Comey, Letitia James, and others who were perceived to be on Trump’s “enemies list” (to steal a term from the late Richard Nixon.) Too, many of the DOJ prosecutions came to a halt when judges found reasons to reject their validity, and true Trump supporters feel she should have made the prosecutions bullet-proof.
Me, I differ from some of you – I thought she was a lying weasel when she was selected and said so. We all know one of my hot buttons is the 2nd Amendment, and she ‘lied straight-faced while I cried’ about her views on that. (Credit to Rod Stewart for that line.) Like a true politician, she swore she was on our side but when push came to shove, her DOJ has been no more supportive than Biden’s. Lip service, such as when the Big Beautiful Bill zeroed the tax on NFA items, and people sued to have the NFA tax bill nullified (what good is a $0 tax?) her f0lks defended the NFA, leaving us vulnerable to the next load of Democrats restoring or even raising the tax. Good riddance, Pam. Hopefully her successor will understand basic, simple English phrases. Let’s start with “shall not be infringed.”
Good on both…
I briefed GEN George once before I retired. He seemed common sense, and realistic about where the army needed to go and how to get there. His “Transformation in Contact” efforts have been driving very necessary modernization efforts for 2.5 years. On the other hand, I recently heard him brief and he excluded the multinational force and the joint force, and the remarks themselves were blah and a missed opportunity.
Impressed with his efforts at modernization, relatively unimpressed with one briefing. I don’t care that he worked under Austin or Biden, although I can’t say that about others who did, and were fired for it. Seems to me there is more to it than clearing the path for GEN LaNeve. On my third hand (yes, I have one), my few experiences with GEN LaNeve were all good.
Shall not be infringed!
Just in… More personal weapons allowed on military allowed on military installations:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/hegseth-says-allow-troops-personal-235216850.html
Talking about that, when did military bases became gun free zones? It was that way already when I signed up in 2005.
Never mind.
It was George H.W. Bush.
Why am I not surprised?!
Like all gun bans it never worked anyway.
I like a fully built Straw Man argument before coffee. It wakes you up in the morning.
““Our military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, ..”
Such duck billed platitudes are a sub zero cold comfort to the 2009 Ft Hood victims and their families.
F**k TS and her BS, with a pineapple, extra large, 1 ea, fronds first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Fort_Hood_shooting
Good for SoW Hegseth for wanting to allow personal CC on military bases.
A couple of armed soldiers on the scene could have changed that entire event. You can stop a bad guy before he does something bad but he sure isn’t going to chance to reload.
There’s a reason mass school shootings don’t happen in nasty urban environments– crazies don’t like return fire.
Mass shootings occur all the time in the hood. Just in the last year I can think of a few; Stockton CA, Leland MS, Montgomery AL and that is just off the top of my head. I’m sure there were more.
Nobody cares. They don’t even have any suspects in the Stockton shooting and the shooters have probably hopped right back over the border.
You are correct though, in that it often turns into a two way firing range when it cooks off in the hood.
Wasn’t Pamdi behind the prosecution of the guy that shot Obama’s son in self defense?
I’m happy Trump and AOC found some common ground if only on who they wanted to get rid of (Bondi). See, this is what bipartisanship looks like.
Hopefully one of these people fired was the one who suggested it was good idea to attack Iran again and also the plan for how they went about it, although I kind of doubt it.
Whoever that person was also needs to go.
Are you one of those that wanted to give more time to Iran so they could prepare better and complete their nuke program?
Disappointed.
That can’t be right, Trump said their nuke program was completely destroyed during the twelve day war. Wait a minute…..did Trump LIE TO US?!??!?
I am thinking if they didn’t get it in 47 years and had most of their capability destroyed last summer then it wasn’t going to happen at all. Certainly no time soon.
I guess you think the current situation is better somehow?
Allowing an apocalyptic death cult regime that believes their god wants them to usher in the end of the world to have nuclear weapons is not a good idea.
In that case, looking forward to us attacking North Korea later this year.
You know I shouldn’t say “we can’t” but Trump’s argument at some point was that the nukes would provide Iran a shield to hide behind to launch attacks.
If he believes that then he won’t attack NORK land. If he does attack NORK land, well we all better hope and pray that dumb movie A House of Dynamite, wasn’t prescient.