I watched enough of the Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing to learn what I already knew: that they’re all folding their tents early, hoping that if they bow the knee deep enough, the First Felon might bestow on them some grace, and if they’re very good boys and girls, maybe Herr Trumpf’s lesser evils will be the only ones that manifest themselves.

It’s hard watching the Democrats still beat the drum of character, or weirdness, or whatever it was Tim “Not Walz, The Other One” Kaine was trying to do as he attempted to besmirch Hegseth’s qualifications faster than his running mate’s husband smeared an intern’s reputation. When one of your presidents is the reason they still don’t black light the Oval Office, you’re tossing blue dresses from a glass house, my guy.

I’m all for what Kaine tried to do, to make this about Hegseth’s character, but this is a “he who is without sin gets to throw rocks” kind of world, and when the nominee for the top job at the Defense Department wraps the offspring of infidelity as a gift from God, all the boulders are on his side of the table. No one’s more holy than the self-righteous, and as a professional bro Maj. Hegseth’s responses were only slightly less slick than whatever pomade he uses in that hair framing the face of a man who didn’t get punched nearly enough in high school.

I’m not advocating violence against a soon-to-be appointed official in the clown car that is the Trump administration. What I am saying is that the felon-elect has surrounded himself with the kind of douche-y bootlickers you used to find in direct-to-DVD knockoffs of 80s summer camp movies.

The morning after the election, I was sure this was the darkest timeline, but it’s just the dumbest. And they’re about confirm a man who didn’t know any of the ASEAN countries (Brunei Darussalam, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam).

I didn’t know any of them until this morning, either, but I’m not being considered to be the next Secretary of Defense and in my opening statements I didn’t say that “we will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific from the communist Chinese.” If you’re going to reference the Indo-Pacific, at least know who some of the allies you may need to call on in the event you need to deter aggression with something more substantial than a badly thrown axe.

It’s true that hearings, any hearings, are just the epitome of the dog and pony show, performative events meant to placate a public still calibrated to believe that its government has its best interests at heart, and so I shouldn’t be disappointed with Sen. Joni Ernst, herself a survivor of sexual assault and one of the few Republicans who appeared reluctant to confirm Hegseth given his (allegedly) reprehensible past, when she asked for Hegseth’s commitment to appointing a senior level official at the Pentagon to deal with sexual assault prevention and response, and he said he would do so.

Which sounds like a positive step, except there already is such an organization (it’s called the “Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office”) that’s already headed by a senior official, Dr. Nathan W. Galbreath, who spent 11 years in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (think NCIS but boring).

It’s possible that the SecDef nominee knew the office and the senior official already existed, because Hegseth exhibits the other trait his future boss values even more than unswerving loyalty, and that’s cunning. It looks like intelligence, but only works in the service of self, whereas intelligence is about solving problems other than one’s own. When faced with allegations that he’s a man with the propensity toward heavy drinking and violence toward women, Hegseth never denied any of the charges, instead categorizing each as an “anonymous smear”. Cunning, yes. Intelligent, no.

There are seven core Army values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. Words that Pete Hegseth probably knows, but defines very differently than someone with say, a soul. He’s got the first one down, as least so far as it means swearing fealty to someone who chooses minions based on hairline and likeability. It’s the others he is sorely lacking, as is the rest of the clan the First Convict is bringing to power in this administration.

There are no more adults, handrails, or constraints to Trump’s plans, surrounded as he is by professional bros and cunning stunts. The rest of us wait and watch, knowing that at some point the “Burning Man” will launch himself across the stage, as the last vestiges of democracy are snuffed out by oligarchs and hooligans.

🔗Linkage

Some other things I found interesting recently. This is kind of a dump since I’ve been stockpiling some of these, but these are those.

📰Headlines

How the Biden and Trump teams worked together to get the Gaza ceasefire and hostages deal done | CNN Politics

The president, who has decades of high-level foreign policy experience, described the talks that led to the ceasefire deal as “one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.” He said his team had been “speaking as one” with Trump officials.

But asked as he was stepping away from the podium who deserves credit for Wednesday’s deal – himself or Trump – the president flashed his annoyance: “Is that a joke?” he said before walking away.

No, seriously, he was really asking. The man’s just one step away from wandering off into the jungle at any point, so that was very possibly a genuine question.

Frequently Asked Questions Conservation (Fire) Camp Program

Camp participants also earn time credits. Most incarcerated fire crew members receive 2-for-1 credits, meaning they receive two additional days off their sentence for every one day they serve on a fire crew. Camp volunteers who work as support staff, but not on a fire crew, receive day-for-day credits, meaning they receive one day off their sentence for every one day they serve as a firefighter.

Probably have something to say about how incarcerated firefighters (don’t really) get paid, along with a whole industry being run in correctional facilities across the United States, but the one thing that doesn’t come up often is whether those firefighters can enjoy any time off their sentences for risking their lives. 2-for-1 for such deadly, lifesaving work still feels like bullshit.

Drake Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Universal Music Group for Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”

In case we’re not sure that hip hop is different than it once was, rappers are currently taking the companies that represent other rappers to court to settle beef. It’s a different world.

🪖National Security

Opinion | Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and the Honor of the American Military

This essay from Phil Klay, himself a very thoughtful human who served his country honorably, goes into detail on how people like Hegseth, champions of war criminals, do a grave disservice to the men and women in uniform they claim to support.

Diary of a Dead North Korean Soldier Reveals Grisly Battlefield Tactics

The crude stick-figure diagram, sketched in blue ink, details how North Korean soldiers deployed to support Russia in the Ukraine war should respond to the approach of a Ukrainian drone. One soldier—referred to as “bait” in the drawing—should stand still to lure the drone so that a pair of comrades can attempt to shoot it down.

In their first weeks of combat, the North Korean soldiers have been deployed recklessly, according to Ukrainian special-forces drone footage and military experts. They cut across open fields on foot and without armored vehicles or artillery backup, their dark camouflage uniforms highly visible against the white snow. Their training and integration with Russian forces look inadequate.

The diary entries are likely motivated by North Korean military lore that celebrates the tale of a young hero from the 1950-53 Korean War. The soldier penned a letter expressing a willingness to give up his life for the motherland just moments before thrusting himself in front of an enemy machine gun.

Letters expressing your loyalty to the regime are an attempt to leave a legacy that allows you to be glorified in case you die in battle,” said Ryu Seong-hyeon, a former North Korean soldier who defected in 2019."

Just some excerpts from a heartbreaking article about what’s happening to North Korean troops in Ukraine. Soldiers on their best days are pawns for those in power, and it’s sickening to see what Putin and his cronies are willing to put people through.

Top Marine general rules out beards 'because we’re Marines and we’re different'

“The Marine Corps has a brand, and we’re making our recruiting mission. We’ve always made our recruiting mission, and what we don’t want to do is tinker with the ethos of the Marine Corps — you joined us, we didn’t join you. You knew that coming in. You signed up. We don’t have beards, and you knew that coming in.”

Having worked with Marines in a couple of places, I can attest that this is true: they live hard to make a point. They take great pride in being as primitive as possible in all things, and in maintaining some kind of inane artificial standard for whatever reason. Beards are coming for all the services, and this is just the last gasp of the past..

🏛️Politics

These lawmakers made a fortune in the stock market last year by Judd at Popular Information

Overall, both Democrats and Republicans saw gains that exceeded the return of the S&P 500 in 2024. On average, Democratic portfolios increased 31% and Republican portfolios increased 26.1%, while the S&P 500 increased 24.9%.

Of all the Substacks I “read,” Popular Information continues to impress. It’s not their original reporting, but a write up on others who have put together a pretty damning report on how elected officials do quite well for themselves while in office.

Donald Trump on interaction with Barack Obama: ‘I don’t know, we just got along’

“We have little different philosophies, right? I don’t know, we just got along. But I got along with everybody on that. You know, we met backstage before we went on, and I thought it was a beautiful service, but we all got along very well.”

In case you think the First Felon has forgotten his TV days, this is Trump talking about meeting with President Obama. At Carter’s funeral. I repeat: he referred to a meeting before a funeral as something that happened “backstage” because this whole thing is just one terrible no good community theater production after all.

Montana elected a firefighter to the Senate. He’s already pushing for solutions

The private sector always has and always will produce new innovations and better results faster and cheaper than the government. The same holds true in wildfire response. We must embrace this truth. Fostering stronger public-private partnerships with the wildland fire industry is essential.

Guy elected to public office has a firefighting company and has some great ideas on how to privatize firefighting. Wonder what Sheehy’s portfolio looks like?

🤖Tech

Meta's New Translation AI Is Nearly a Babel Fish

To reduce the chances that SeamlessM4T might add profanity and other toxic language to its translations, the researchers employed two strategies to remove toxicity during its training and operation. When they compared SeamlessM4T models to the state of the art, they found these approaches reduced toxicity in translations by up to 20 percent.

First off, amazing headline (RIP Douglas Adams). Second, no way am I ever putting anything from Meta in my ear. And finally, this is like working with interpreters in Afghanistan who learned English from hanging out with the 82nd Airborne and every other word was “fuck”.

More Speech and Fewer Mistakes | Meta

We’ve seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see.

That’s Mark “Manly Man” Zuckerberg on why they’re getting rid of fact checking at Meta, and why we’re about to see a resurgence of Fox News dads spewing their knowledge of WWII on Facebook after mainlining too much History Channel. It’s true that fact checking at Meta kind of sucked, but also true that if Twitter/X is the gold standard, you’re OK with Nazis.

Silicon Valley’s ‘Broken Deal’ is a Myth

The situation exploded when Chachra pointed out this sounded like justification for Internet colonialism, prompting Andreessen to fire back that "anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades." Unable to handle the backlash from essentially defending colonialism, Andreessen deleted all his tweets in a petulant rage.

Joan Westenberg is on my list of tech voices worth listening to, and they do some solid work here on how dumb it is for tech to think they should get a pass just because they make stuff..

🏢Business

‘Maybe we cried too much’: Walgreens hints it exaggerated shoplifting surge

While shoplifting might not have hurt Walgreens’ bottom line as much as it once thought, the company said it suffered a $3.7bn loss in its first quarter, partly relating to litigation over the US opioid epidemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the last decade. Walgreens reached an opioid-related settlement with state and local governments last quarter to pay $5.7bn over 15 years.

Fucking KNEW it. The surge in organized shoplifting reporting from retailers like Walgreens and others was just a little too convenient. Better for the share price to blame store closures and layoffs on theft than on mismanagement and market changes.

Is corporate America going Maga?

Wherein we learn that their idea of a “new dawn” is being able to say the “r” word or the “p” word which I won’t repeat because I don’t have aspirations for high office unlike First Felon Trump.

🍭 Brain Candy

Why gossip is just so irresistible

Full disclosure: I thought the birds were a little dumb at first. But it’s not the most awful explainer of gossip and how that works.

Here’s Every State Where You Can Drive Your Jeep Without Doors

We all know what it’s like to get a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see a police cruiser pull up behind you in traffic even if you aren’t doing anything wrong. Nobody wants that when you’re trying to enjoy door-off motoring.

Just in case you don’t what what White Automotive Journalism looks like. Also, “driving with the doors off” feels like all of 2025 at this point.

A 9-year-old girl who wanted a Trump tattoo was talked into a flag instead. Now, the artist is defending his work

In his defense? It’s a family visiting from Turkey, if I read the other reports correctly. And nope, that is NOT a defense. But please, tell me how the transgender community is harming little kids, MAGAts.