Color me unimpressed.

🚨 Hakeem Jeffries just called for Pete Hegseth to resign and he didn’t mince words:

“When you limit Ukraine’s ability to be successful in the war of aggression that Russia has launched against a sovereign country, you undermine America’s national security interests. And that’s… pic.twitter.com/7PyFoqXObA

— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) July 9, 2025

As Jeffries suggests, Pete Hegseth is completely unqualified to be Defense Secretary, Ukraine is our ally (or should be), and Russia is our enemy (or should be).  However, we remember when after an incident at a federal detention center in Newark, NJ in mid-May, the House Minority Leader

hammered the Trump administration for threatening to arrest Democratic members of Congress, saying such a move would constitute a clear case of executive overreach.

“It’s a red line,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “They know better than to go down that road.”

Four weeks later, a federal grand jury

indicted Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., on three criminal counts, after the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey alleged that she broke the law when Congress members' visit to an immigration detention facility ended in a physical altercation….

The indictment lists three counts of "assaulting, resisting, impeding and interfering" with federal officers, with a potential prison sentence if McIver is convicted.

Evidently, the Administration, undeterred by Jeffries' threat, did not "know better than to go down that road."

And as with Jeffries, Representative Don Bacon (R-NE) also recognizes that Hegseth should resign or be fired.

BREAKING: In a stunning moment, Republican Don Bacon just came out and said that Pete Hegseth should resign. This is huge. pic.twitter.com/e3FiMM34X1

— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) July 10, 2025

But stunning? It was not stunning, nor is it any more significant that Hakeem Jeffries' threat turned out to be.  Don "the pig"* Bacon, the US Representative from Nebraska's C.D. 2 was re-elected in November as Kamala Harris became the 4th (she, Biden, Obama twice) Democrat to win the district in a state which awards one electoral vote to the winner of each of its two congressional districts, as well as two for victory statewide.

This is not a conservative district. Yet

In a trend, Nebraska’s Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District Rep. Don Bacon vocally pushed back, expressing concerns about the Senate version of the bill’s proposed cuts to Medicaid, emphasizing that he had received reassurances the bill would not degrade the quality of healthcare for people covered by Medicaid.

He even said he won’t support the Senate’s reconciliation bill if it cut the Medicaid provider tax rate.

But in the end, he voted for it. Bacon defended his vote, like the rest of the delegation, by emphasizing the preservation of the Trump tax cuts.

“I wish they had done the house … version,” Bacon told CNN, “But I have an opportunity to protect taxpayers … from a 20% tax increase.”

And then Don Bacon announced his retirement. Some Republicans are assumed to be concerned about the working and middle classes, yet voted for the President's megabill because they were intimidated by the prospect of Trump supporting an individual to challenge them in a primary (or "to primary" them, as the grammar-challenged would have it).

Yet, the moderate Don Bacon, from a blue-ish district, called it quits. Three days before passage of Trump's megabill, the Nebraskan 

announced his retirement from the House to a group of local reporters Monday, confirming leaks that emerged late last week in Washington, D.C., and Omaha, that his fifth term representing the Omaha area in the U.S. House would be his last.

“I hope to be remembered for … I’m a Christian, first … American, second … somewhere down here being a Republican,” Bacon told reporters. “It’s about doing the right thing … I’m a traditional conservative at heart.”

Bacon was right about one thing- the bill, expected to increase the national deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next decade, is a traditionally conservative one because Republicans have eagerly exploded the debt, hence multiplying the debt, since at least the days of President Reagan. Also conservative:

Wealthy Americans would benefit far more from the tax package than those lower on the income scale, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis of the Senate bill.

While all households would see their taxes reduced, some 60% of the benefits would go to those making $217,000 or more (the top 20%). These folks would receive an average tax cut of $12,500, or 3.4% of their after-tax income, in 2026, the analysis found.

But the lowest-income households, who earn about $35,000 or less, would receive an average tax cut of only $150, less than 1% of their after-tax income. Middle-income households would see their taxes reduced by about $1,800, or 2.3% of their after-tax income, on average.

This analysis does not take into account the historic cuts to the nation’s safety-net program, which would hurt lower-income Americans. They would see their income reduced after factoring in the changes to Medicaid and food stamps, according to a report from the Budget Lab at Yale.

In another Ronald Reagan special, the bill does shovel wealth upward, because that has been the guiding principle of the GOP for the last half-century.

So, perhaps I'm being unfair to Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries merely threatens what he cannot deliver. Republican members of Congress range from the truly repugnant to the those who make The Wizard of Oz's cowardly lion look like a pillar of bravery, and without the lion's compassion. Pete Hegseth, nominated by Donald Trump because he looks good on television, should not be anywhere in the federal government. It has been a hostile takeover of the federal government- and perhaps others to follow- which will provide tremendous fodder for future historians of authoritarianism.

* not really a pig; but hey, "bacon"

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National Security Threat

Calling all blackmailers.

With proper credit given to the source of the report, The Guardian on Saturday noted

The wife of the US defense secretary Pete Hegseth attended two meetings with foreign defense officials during which sensitive information was discussed, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal’s report on Hegseth arrived late on Friday as he faced scrutiny for detailing plans of a military strike in a group chat on Signal, made public by a journalist at the Atlantic who had been added to the chat. Multiple Democrats have called for his resignation while a bipartisan group of senators sent a letter to the defense department calling for an inquiry into the group chat.

Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Hegseth, has been present at two meetings where sensitive information was discussed, according to the Journal, citing multiple people who were present at the meetings or have knowledge of her presence at them.

The first meeting reportedly was a high-level discussion at the Pentagon with top UK military officials, including the UK secretary of defense, John Healey, that took place in early March, a day after the US announced it would stop sharing military intelligence with Ukraine.

The second reportedly took place in Brussels in mid-February at Nato headquarters during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a forum of about 50 nations meant to help coordinate military support for Ukraine as it tries to fight off the invasion Russia launched in 2022.

A defense secretary has the discretion to invite anyone to meetings with foreign counterparts, but officials cited by the Journal said that those attending these types of meetings usually have high-level security clearances. While the spouses of defense officials sometimes receive low-level security clearances, it is unclear whether Hegseth’s wife has any clearance.

Advice to Hegseth: stay on your wife's good side. She now has plenty to blackmail you- and the country- with.  If she gets angry with you or decides to brag to a friend about the information she has, it might get to Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin faster than you can say "Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein- Perfect Together." Also, Mrs. Hegseth's mere presence makes our nation out to be a laughingstock among our allies..... even more than President Trump has already done.

Earlier in the week, we learned of the national security breach in which Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in a Signal group text chat of timing and weapons details for an impending American attack upon Houthis in Yemen. Fox News' Laura Ingraham interviewed the National Security Advisor, central to the scandal, and asked (at 1:19 of the 5/26 Comedy Channel video below) how someone unknown could have gotten into the conversation. 

Mike Waltz replied "I mean, I'm sure everybody out there has had a contact where you- it said one person and then a different phone number." Daily Show host Ronny Chieng comments "no one's ever had- no one's ever had that, all right? People don't have a contact with a phone number for, like, a different person- unless they're having an affair."

 

An affair? Well, that's intriguing, especially because now there comes an interesting, prurient, though unreliable report from something called "WIOZ." Wikipedia says World Is One News

is an Indian-English language news channel headquartered in Noida, India. As of March 2025, Media Bias Fact Check rated WION "Mixed" for factual reporting due to a lack of sourcing "in most articles and the promotion of misinformation regarding Covid-19." It has faced scrutiny from multiple foreign countries over its coverage and in 2022 was blocked from YouTube before being reinstated.

So, I don't know. However, WION maintains

On X, Dan Cohen, the founder of Uncaptured News, claimed that Waltz follows what he describes as a "gay pornographic account".

Posting a series of screenshots, Cohen alleged that Waltz "married to @JuliaNesheiwat since 2021 – follows a gay pornography account."

Also read | Who is Jeffrey Goldberg? The journalist accidentally sent classified Yemen war plan

The screenshots show Mike Waltz's official X account @michaelgwaltz among the followers of account 'Big D**k Bottom'.

Cohen in his post stated that while "Waltz and Nusheiwat’s personal lives are their own," it is "well-known that secret sexual improprieties can be used to compromise political figures, and Waltz is in one of the most powerful and sensitive positions in the US government."

"The question must be asked: Does Waltz’s apparent secret lust for black male make him susceptible to blackmail?," he added.

 It very much would, if true. Perhaps it is a hoax.

Apparently, in the meeting there were nineteen individuals, including the J.G., Goldberg. Yet, for some bizarre reason, no one (as far as I can tell) in politics or the media writ large has inquired as to why no one of the 18 (all except Goldberg himself) asked who this unknown "J.G." was.

Perhaps everyone was intimidated, finding it awkward to ask about the identity of the mystery man or woman, believing they were expected to know, and were loathe to reveal their ignorance. Or (less likely) there was a widespread suspicion that Waltz knew who it was, whether it was a professional or personal contact of his.

After the news broke, Fox News' Laura Ingraham can be seen asking Waltz at 1:20 of the 5/26 Comedy Channel video below how someone unknown could have gotten onto the group chat. Waltz replied "I mean, I'm sure everybody out there has had a contact where you- it said one person and then a different phone number." In response, Daily Show host Ronny Chieng commented "no one's ever had- no one's ever had that, all right? People don't have a contact with a phone number for, like, a different person- unless they're having an affair."

An affair? Well, that's interesting. A little funny, and possibly not a joke. No one evinced any curiosity about this unknown individual and Waltz certainly did not know that it was a journalist. Conceivably, though, Waltz feared it may have been someone he personally knew, in which case he would not want to say who it was and would be understandably confident that the individual wouldn't reveal anything publicly. 

If it is for real, we probably won't find out about it. The media is unlikely to touch it unless one of the two political parties brings it up. The Republican Party won't mention it, for obvious reasons. The Democratic Party won't bring it up because it wouldn't want to be seen casting aspersions on something gay and black.

In the unlikely event that Mike Waltz knew who it was, it presented a national security risk. If he (and everyone else) did not know who it was, it presented a national security risk. In either case, the National Security Advisor screwed up. 

So did the Defense Secretary, he who welcomes his wife in on national security secrets, and who should have not presented plans without being certain the venue was completely secure. Also participating was President Trump's untouchable Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, who has overall responsibility for staff operations. Somewhere, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and who knows who else are having a good laugh at our expense.

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