B-Man

Smearing Pete Hegseth Sohrab Ahmari An essay published by The New Yorker on Monday claims that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, “was forced to step down” as president of the advocacy group Concerned Veterans for America amid “serious allegations” of misconduct. We’re talking manhandling strippers, public drunkenness, lewd and obnoxious behavior—the kind of thing that would raise questions about someone slated to lead the Pentagon. Except: In interviews with me, two former senior leaders of CVA have denied the “whistleblower” allegations against Hegseth. They insisted that he left the organization voluntarily, without any pressure bearing down on him from its funders. And unlike The New Yorker’s sources, one of Hegseth’s CVA defenders spoke on the record. “I was there for most of those alleged incidents, and this stuff is just complete fabrications,” said Sean Parnell, a former US Army airborne ranger who retired as a captain with a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars and served as a senior adviser at CVA during Hegseth’s tenure. Parnell asserted that the “whistleblower” claims had come from “people who were let go as the organization was growing, who weren’t fulfilling their duties. They just weren’t.” “All false,” said a veteran of the Global War on Terror who served alongside Hegseth in a senior role at CVA. “These were false allegations made by a group of disgruntled employees fired by Pete.” In some cases, the CVA veteran said, the complainants attributed their own carousing to Hegseth. Parnell and the second CVA veteran also rejected The New Yorker’s claim that Hegseth was forced out of his position at the organization owing to personal misconduct. “That couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Parnell. “This was right before President Trump began his first term. Pete and I were on the media all the time, talking about national security and foreign policy. And he and I became big believers in Trump’s vision of foreign policy. The funders of that organization [CVA] didn’t necessarily believe that. And because of that policy difference, over what America’s foreign and national-security policy should be, Pete parted ways. It was 100 percent professional, political differences.” The New Yorker also suggested that Hegseth’s departure from CVA was abrupt, leaving him with no immediate job options. This also wasn’t true, Parnell told me. “He was a Fox News contributor,” he noted, and in negotiations to become a full-time anchor at the cable network. “ABC was interested in him, as well, if memory serves. So it wasn’t just Fox.” The second CVA veteran echoed this characterization: “He left because his role on Fox was growing and he had a book deal. ‘Pete didn’t have another job lined up,’ the piece says, but very shortly after he left, he became a full-time Fox & Friends host.” https://www.compactmag.com/article/smearing-pete-hegseth/

BIDEN’S TWO-TIERED JUSTICE:

Simpleton: But Trump won, that proves there's no election fraud. .

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Back to the thread. . . . . . . "President Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized." Thanks to the NYT for stating the obvious point obviously. The article, by Peter Baker, is "In Pardoning His Son, Biden Echoes Some of Trump’s Complaints/President Biden complained about selective prosecution and political pressure in a system he has spent his public life defending." https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/us/politics/biden-hunter-pardon-politics.html?smid=url-share .

Democrats need to figure out if they ought to trash Biden for pardoning Hunter and build the strongest foundation for attacking Trump over the pardoning spree he's about to launch. Yes, yes, of course, you Democrats can pose fussily and piously making distinctions between all the crimes Hunter may have done in the last 10 years and anything attributable to Trump's pardonees. Go ahead. Try. I see your efforts. They're so self-serving they underscore the essential problem: political favoritism. Fine distinctions are confusing and hypocritical. You're going to say violating gun laws doesn't really matter? Then how are you going to pull off the call for more gun laws, which you know you're going to need for your usual political theater on the occasion of the next massacre? You're going to say a rich man's tax evasion is a measly offense and still hope to see us to respond to your cries for severe taxing of the rich? No, no, your best move is to trash Biden. You already kicked him to the curb last July. No one remembers the show of honoring his statesmanship you staged at the Democratic National Convention. You've already lost the election and suffered a complete breakdown of confidence in your party. You need to rebuild the foundation. There's nothing to keep. Your party is a teardown. Trump is about to take over and make a show out of throwing light on the deep state. Don't condemn yourself to defending every awful thing that may come out — which may include corrupt dealings with Ukraine and China that were blithely swept into Biden's pardon of Hunter. Trash Joe Biden now to position yourself to seem to welcome all this forthcoming bad news and to offer yourself as the staunch new party of reform. Posted by Ann Althouse https://althouse.blogspot.com/2024/12/democrats-need-to-figure-out-if-they.html

Biden Pardons Hunter on All Charges and Anything Else He Might Have Committed Since 2014 by Mary Chastain President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter despite the White House saying over and over he would not do it. The pardon includes charges Hunter faced or might have faced from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024. Yes, ten years. Absolute insanity. That means anything else that pops up in that time period doesn’t count. Hunter cannot face any charges. Hunter pleaded guilty to tax evasion. He was going to face sentencing on December 16 for lying on a federal form by saying he was not using drugs or addicted to drugs when trying to buy a gun. https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/12/biden-pardons-hunter-biden/

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June 2024

I agree that pardons have been used this way in the past, but I want to be better than the "politicians" of old. Those demonstrators who did commit violent acts should receive (reasonable) sentences. (which they did not) The rest should be pardoned ASAP. . .

FEMA seems to be very confused why the people of #WNC are choosing to NOT use the hotel vouchers they are handing out... Let me explain: a) You're living in Swannanoa NC when the river rises 22 feet and sweeps away your home and 2 vehicles. b) You have a family of 4 depending on you to make ends meet and work starts back in a few days. c) FEMA hands you a hotel voucher an hour's drive from your now-destroyed home. d) You tell the FEMA rep, "Look, I don't have a car and I can't live in a hotel 40 miles away from work and the home I need to start fixing" e) FEMA says, "Ok, well your temporary home is 3 months away, sorry, so go live in the hotel." f) You say, "If I go live in that hotel, I'll lose my job, I won't be able to repair my home, and everything we've worked so hard for will be gone." g) FEMA says, "We still don't understand why you won't go live in a free hotel." h) You decide to it's actually LESS RISKY to live in a makeshift tent outside of your home and pray a volunteer will deliver you an RV than go live in a hotel an hour away and lose everything. This is what FEMA cannot seem to understand. People are generally very logical, they don't WANT to sleep in tents. Government policies tend to be broadly applied to all situations and the hotel vouchers are just not gonna cut it for a lot of people in #WNC, for the reason I mentioned above.

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