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Murder and Broken Health Care Rage

America continues to have a broken health care system with Americans paying far more for health care and prescription drugs than in any other advanced nation (on my recent trip a friend had to visit the emergency room in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and paid a fraction of what the cost would have been in here in the USA).  Adding to the problem, Republicans are salivating over cuts to Medicaid and Medicare that will only exacerbate the problem for millions, some of whom could lose coverage completely -  Republicans call Medicare an "entitlement," yet I have paid into the system much of my working life, continue to pay not insignificant monthly premiums (which are based on household income) and have withholding from every paycheck - it's anything but a free handout.  Worse yet, and further aggravating the already broken system is that many millions have to secure health insurance from private, for-profit companies that are run not to provide quality health care coverage but instead to maximize profits for shareholders.  Life expectancies in America are declining even as they are increasing in Europe and other nations with universal health care coverage. This is likely not a coincidence. The recent murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has brought renewed focus America's often horrific health care system and the corporate vultures that deny coverage to boost profits.  None of this justifies murder, but it is far past time that America stop treating so many of its citizens as disposable and provide universal coverage.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the problem:  

Two very ugly, uniquely American things happened yesterday: A health-care executive was shot dead, and because he was a health-care executive, people cheered.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered yesterday outside his hotel in Midtown Manhattan by an unknown assailant. The identity of the killer is unknown. His motive is not yet clear. Yet despite the cold-blooded nature of the attack, and despite the many unknowns, people all over the country have leaped to speculation—and in some cases even celebration—about a horrific act of violence.

The mood was summed up by the journalist Ken Klippenstein, who posted a chart on X showing that UnitedHealthcare refuses to pay a larger percentage of users’ health-care bills than any other major insurer.

There’s no excuse for cheering on murder. Americans’ zeal for the death of an insurance executive demonstrates both the coarsening of public discourse and the degree of rage many Americans feel over the deficiencies of the U.S. health-care system. Gallup polling shows that just 31 percent of Americans have a positive view of the health-care industry. Of the 25 industries that Gallup includes in its poll, only oil and gas, the federal government, and drug companies are more maligned.

Although the governments of most wealthy industrialized countries provide all of their citizens some level of insurance, the majority of Americans rely entirely on the whims of private health insurers.

The system is designed to keep costs down enough to turn a profit. In this way, the insurance industry’s eagerness to save money by denying people care is a feature, not a bug, of this country’s system. This aspect of the American system does cause real and preventable harm. But those cheering Thompson’s death are arguing that taking away sick Americans’ pills or denying them needed surgeries is immoral and should be punished by death. That logic is indefensible. People do have reason to be angry—but even justified anger does not justify murder.

A single denied insurance claim can force a patient into financial ruin, and health insurers have gotten more clever at finding ways to deny claims. Until Congress intervened in 2020, patients were frequently being saddled with unexpected medical bills for hospital visits all because the specific doctor on rotation, unbeknownst to them, was out of their insurance network. And even less egregious maneuvers, such as step therapy, which requires patients to try cheaper medications before insurers will pay for more expensive therapies, can delay treatment needed to stave off suffering. UnitedHealthcare is particularly infamous for its aggressive use of these tactics.

Reporters at the health publication Stat (where I worked until September) spent the past year documenting the myriad ways UnitedHealthcare has extracted profits at the cost of patients’ lives. They found, for example, that the company has used AI algorithms to justify kicking elderly patients out of nursing homes, despite evidence that some of those patients still needed round-the-clock care. Doctors who worked for United (which has also been buying doctors’ offices) told Stat that the company applied pressure to see more patients and diagnose them with additional conditions, presumably to increase the company’s profits. United has also faced lawsuits from patients and from the federal government regarding its aggressive business tactics.

But the issue is the health-insurance system, not the CEOs. As long as the majority of health insurance in America is run as a private enterprise, it will work according to this logic. UnitedHealthcare’s aggressiveness is exactly the reason its parent company is now the largest health insurer in America. It has undeniably been successful in its primary business goal to deliver profits for its shareholders. Insuring people with high-cost conditions wouldn’t comport with thinking merely in terms of profit, which is why it took the Affordable Care Act to require companies such as UnitedHealthcare to insure people with preexisting conditions.

The recourse that unsatisfied Americans are supposed to have is to either switch insurers or elect politicians who will reform the current system. The ugly reaction to Thompson’s death shows how many people clearly feel that neither of those options is serving the country’s true needs.

The identity and motivation of Thompson’s killer are still unknown. His death could have nothing to do with the U.S. health-care system. . . . Even if the killer targeted Thompson for a reason unrelated to his job, the act has provoked a wave of Americans to erupt in anger about their health care. That they would publicly celebrate a man’s death suggests something much greater is broken in American society. Cheering on a vigilante may feel cathartic for those who are fed up with America’s current health-care system, but it won’t fix a thing.

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The Mainstream Media: The Sound of Fear on Air

As noted in previous posts, one of the ways Hitler and his Nazi regime rose to and then maintained power was to silence critics in the news media of the day.  Newspapers and other news outlets critical of the regime were either silenced or forced to parrot the Nazi narrative.   Fast forward to today and one sees the beginnings of a similar cowing of the news media by Donald Trump and his henchmen who have threatened retribution against media critics and offending news outlets.  Both the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post declined to endorse Kamala Harris for president after their billionaire owners decided to withhold endorsements out of fear of Trump.  Both gave mealy mouthed excuses for their non-endorsements, but fear of Trump was the real motivating factor (I canceled my Post subscription).  Then post-election, the anchors of Morning Joe - which I had heretofore listened to on my morning commute but no longer - made a pilgrimage to Mar-a,-Lago to kiss Donald Trump's ring and seemingly try to mend fences with Der Trumpenfuhrer.  A piece in The Atlantic by a former Republican who appeared on Morning Joe this week looks at the fear in the air in the broadcast media.   Here are excerpts: 

This morning, I had an unsettling experience.

I was invited onto MSNBC’s Morning Joe to talk from a studio in Washington, D.C., about an article I’d written on Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Before getting to the article, I was asked about the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense—specifically about an NBC News report that his heavy drinking worried colleagues at Fox News and at the veterans organizations he’d headed. (A spokesman for the Trump transition told NBC, “These disgusting allegations are completely unfounded and false, and anyone peddling these defamatory lies to score political cheap shots is sickening.”)

I answered by reminding viewers of some history:

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated John Tower, senator from Texas, for secretary of defense. Tower was a very considerable person, a real defense intellectual, someone who deeply understood defense, unlike the current nominee. It emerged that Tower had a drinking problem, and when he was drinking too much he would make himself a nuisance or worse to women around him. And for that reason, his nomination collapsed in 1989. You don’t want to think that our moral standards have declined so much that you can say: Let’s take all the drinking, all the sex-pesting, subtract any knowledge of defense, subtract any leadership, and there is your next secretary of defense for the 21st century.

I told this story in pungent terms. It’s cable TV, after all. And I introduced the discussion with a joke: “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”

At the next ad break, a producer spoke into my ear. He objected to my comments about Fox and warned me not to repeat them. I said something noncommittal and got another round of warning. After the break, I was asked a follow-up question on a different topic, about President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son. I did not revert to the earlier discussion, not because I had been warned, but because I had said my piece. I was then told that I was excused from the studio chair. Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski read an apology for my remarks.

There are good people at Fox News. But if NBC’s reporting—based on interviews with 10 current or former Fox employees—about Hegseth’s alcohol abuse is accurate, many of those same good people have failed to report publicly that their former colleague, appointed to lead the armed forces of the United States, was notorious in their own building for his drinking. That would be a startling and shameful shirking of responsibility on a matter of grave national importance. What’s the appropriate language to call it out?

I am a big admirer of the Morning Joe show and the commitment of all involved to bring well-informed political discussion to a national audience.

I recognize, too, that the prominence of the program has exposed the hosts and producers to extraordinary pressures and threats in the Trump era. Trump has spoken again and again of his determination to retaliate against unfriendly media. Shortly before leaving office, Trump amplified a conspiracy theory that Brzezinski’s co-host, Joe Scarborough, was a murderer. Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, has compiled an enemies list to target with investigations. Trump’s candidate to chair the FCC has speculated about stripping licenses from platforms that displease the new incoming administration. Interference with mergers and acquisitions to punish critics was a feature of Trump’s first administration. Now MSNBC may be spun off by Comcast, leaving the future of the liberal network very much in question. The hosts of Morning Joe visited Mar-a-Lago in November to mend fences with Trump. They genuinely have a lot to worry about.

It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.

I write these words very aware that I’m probably saying goodbye forever to a television platform that I enjoy and from which I have benefited as both viewer and guest. I have been the recipient of personal kindnesses from the hosts that I have not forgotten.

I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all.

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Can Martial Law Happen In America?

On Tuesday the president of South Korea, a key American ally and heretofore one of the world's most advanced democracies declared martial law and sought to suspend political activity and put the media under government control.  The motivation for the move was disagreement with the opposition party that he sought to silence. He seemingly over played his hand and the declaration has been voided and Korea's president now faces impeachment, but in the process he created chaos in that important country.  Here at home in America with Trump posed to return to the White House next month, many immediately pondered whether such a move could happen here in America once Trump regains the presidency.  A long column in the New York Times looks at this question and suggests that the "short answer" is no, but the longer answer is yes, it could happen here.  For generations the sweeping powers of the presidency have been restrained by the good will and circumspection of America's presidents. With Donald Trump, we have an unscrupulous president set on grifting while in office and someone who would love to arrest and prosecute his political adversaries and critics.  The take away from the piece is to be very afraid, particularly in view of the extremists with whom Trump is surrounding himself.  Political norms and circumspection are disdained by Trump and his entourage of misfits and extremists.  Here are column highlights:

On Tuesday, the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, suddenly declared martial law. He suspended political activity in one of the world’s most advanced and prosperous democracies and attempted to place the media under government control.

Seemingly confused and surprised troops struggled to contain a rebellious National Assembly, which voted immediately to end military rule, but not before a series of chaotic scenes that shocked the nation. The president backed down, mere hours after triggering a political crisis that threatened democratic rule.

As the drama played out in South Korea, my phone lit up with a question from friends and media colleagues — including from some of the most sober-minded people I know. Can this happen here? Can an American president — or any other American leader — create a similar political emergency?

The short answer is no. The longer answer is yes — if a president (or a governor) exploits ambiguities in American law.

Let’s deal with the short answer first. Unlike South Korea, the United States has no clear constitutional mechanism for a president to simply declare military rule. State governors do have the ability to declare martial law in the event of an emergency, but governors can’t abrogate the federal Constitution, and any declaration of state military control is subject to judicial review.

There have been a number of limited declarations of martial law in American history. Gen. Andrew Jackson declared martial law in New Orleans for three months during the War of 1812, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared martial law in Hawaii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, to give two examples.

But there is no American constitutional authority for military rule comparable to the one in the South Korean Constitution.

The longer answer, however, is far less reassuring. While there is no constitutional mechanism for military control, history demonstrates that American leaders will sometimes press their war powers beyond the constitutional breaking point (while Roosevelt’s declaration of martial law in Hawaii was defensible, his internment of Japanese Americans was not).

Even worse, there is a statutory basis for military intervention in domestic affairs, and the statute — called the Insurrection Act — is so poorly drafted that I have come to call it America’s most dangerous law. . . . . The law dates to 1792, and it permits the president to deploy American troops on American streets to impose order and maintain government control.

There is nothing inherently wrong with granting a president such power, so long as it is properly circumscribed. . . . . But the statute itself is terribly written. The first section isn’t problematic — it permits the president to deploy the military upon the request of a state legislature or governor, if the legislature can’t convene. That makes sense. If a governor has lost control, he should be able to appeal to federal forces for help.

The next two sections of the statute, however, are much worse. Section 252 of the act gives the president the authority to deploy troops domestically “whenever the president considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any state by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.”

Section 253 has similar language, granting the president the power to “take such measures as he considers necessary” to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.” . . . .  Note the extreme trust placed in the president. He can call out troops when he considers it necessary. There is no congressional oversight. If he believes he needs troops in the streets, he can order troops in the streets.

And in fact, Trump almost invoked the Insurrection Act during his first term. In the summer of 2020, he considered ordering federal troops to suppress the urban unrest that exploded after the murder of George Floyd, but he ultimately backed down after his secretary of defense, Mark Esper, publicly stated his opposition to Trump’s plan.

Since he left office, however, Trump has openly regretted not deploying troops in 2020, and his allies have urged him to use the Insurrection Act during his second term, to control the border or to suppress demonstrations. Or both.

Presidents aren’t the only American leaders who can cause chaos, and a number of Republican governors are seeking to expand their own authority to use force.

Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution denies states the power to engage in war unless they are “actually invaded.” . . . Yet a number of red-state governors — including, most notably, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas — have deemed the surge of migrants at the border an “invasion.” Texas used this purported invasion to justify placing barriers in the Rio Grande, although those barriers would otherwise violate federal law.

In the words of James Madison, the term [invasion] refers to “an operation of war,” and “to protect against invasion is an exercise of the power of war.” . . . . the word invariably refers to a hostile armed incursion into or against the territory of the states or the nation, an incursion that must be met with a military response.”

Judge James Ho — who is reportedly on Trump’s short list to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy — wrote that it’s not for courts to decide whether an invasion occurred. That’s a political question, to be decided by the elected branches of government. Under this reasoning, if the president says there’s an invasion, then there’s an invasion. Similarly, if a governor says there’s an invasion, then there’s an invasion.

If Ho’s reasoning was adopted by the Supreme Court, then unscrupulous presidents and governors would enjoy immense new authority over war, peace and due process. Economic migrants and asylum seekers could be treated as enemy combatants. Presidents could order large-scale detentions, without granting detainees access to federal courts.

Before the Trump era, not that many Americans perceived how much our democracy’s very survival depended on the honor and decency of American presidents.

Trump can still use the Insurrection Act to call out the troops when he wants to call out the troops. He can declare an invasion and dare the courts to disagree. Neither power is as broad as a South Korean president’s power to declare martial law, but they are dangerous to American democracy.

We have long trusted presidents not to abuse their power, and most presidents have proven worthy of that trust. Trump is not. While we can hope that the courts and Congress will restrain him in his second term, American law gives him more power than he should rightfully possess.

Be very afraid for the future. 

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Misogyny Comes Roaring Back

When all else is stripped away, the 2024 election was a choice between morality and immorality and between misogyny and respecting women and other non-white heterosexual citizens.  Now, many who voted for Trump are being confronted by family and friends who now see them in a different, negative light because they had a choice and selected the immoral conman and sexual predator. They can try to dress up their motivations for voting for Trump, but when the BS and disingenuousness is stripped away, what they chose is clear and, in my view, they need to drop the pretense that they are decent and moral individuals. With two daughters and three granddaughters I am particularly disturbed by the misogyny and anti-woman mindset Trump and those among the political right are ushering back into the White House and the halls of government.  Under this mindset, women are subordinate, are for use at the whims of men, ideally never voice opinions and are barefoot and pregnant in the home. It is the antithesis of what I want for my daughters and granddaughters and sadly many younger men have jumped on the misogyny bandwagon.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at what is being ushered in:

Throughout American political history, two capable, qualified, experienced women have run for president on a major-party ticket. Both have lost to Donald Trump, perhaps the most famous misogynist ever to reach the highest office. But in 2024, what was even more alarming than in 2016 was how Trump’s campaign seemed to be promoting a version of the country in which men dominate public life, while women are mostly confined to the home, deprived of a voice, and neutralized as a threat to men’s status and ambitions.

This time around, I wasn’t hopeful. . . . . I simply wished for voters to reject the idea, pushed so fervently by those on Trump’s side, that women should be subservient incubators, passively raising the next generation of men who disdain them. This wish did not pan out. “Your body, my choice. Forever,” the white-supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes, who has dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, posted on X on Election Night.

For Trump, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion was apparently only the beginning. Bolstered by that definitive Supreme Court win and flanked by a hateful entourage intent on imposing its archaic vision of gender politics on the nation, the Trump-Vance ticket seemed to outright reject ideas of women’s autonomy and equality.

The vice president–elect, J. D. Vance, was revealed to have personal disgust for child-free women, whom he had described as “cat ladies” and “sociopathic.” He’d also, on one podcast, affirmed that the entire function “of the postmenopausal female” was caring for grandchildren. . . . . on X, Musk himself reposted a theory that “a Republic of high status males is best for decision making.” The former Fox News host Tucker Carlson excitedly compared Trump’s return to office to a strict father coming home to give his wayward daughter “a vigorous spanking.”

None of this is new, necessarily. But as of this writing, men ages 18 to 29 have swung a staggering 15 points to the right since 2020, according to an Associated Press survey of registered voters. A few years ago, researchers at Penn State found that people’s alignment with the ideals of “hegemonic masculinity”—the celebration of male dominance in society and of stereotypically masculine traits—predicted their support for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

But the philosophy of the people soon to be in power isn’t informed just by emotionally stunted Twitch streamers and playground bullies. Peter Thiel, the entrepreneur and conservative power broker who did more than anyone to further Vance’s post-law career and helped fund his bid for Senate, wrote in a 2009 essay that women getting the vote had doomed “capitalist democracy.” Trump’s ally and former aide John McEntee posted on X in October: “Sorry we want MALE only voting. The 19th might have to go.” For all the attention-getting antics of Trump’s extremely online contingent, his brain trust consists mainly of very wealthy, very powerful men who think women’s rights have simply gone too far. . . . . What is going to happen to women now?

Not all Trump voters embrace misogyny. And preliminary exit polling shows that a sizable minority of American women voted for him this time; in an economy that’s getting more precarious for every successive generation, both men and women may have been swayed by the promise of prosperity. Still, the teased enforcement of outdated gender roles has clearly connected with young men in particular.

The Trump-Vance administration can’t obligate women to go back to the 1960s, though. It can’t force women out of the workforce. And it can’t mandate that women be subservient to men, sexually, romantically, or professionally. One has to wonder, then, what will become of the men who have been reared on Andrew Tate TikToks and violent gonzo porn devoted to women’s sexual degradation. The gender divide is about to grow into a chasm.

For all Vance and Musk  purport to worry about birth rates, I’d argue that they have done more to dissuade women from having children than almost anyone else, by enabling the radicalization and isolation of Gen Z men. For thousands of years, marriage was a necessity for women—a means of financial security and social acceptance. This isn’t true anymore. Many women simply aren’t willing or remotely motivated to attach themselves to men who denigrate them, or to stay in abusive marriages for the sake of their children, as Vance once seemed to suggest that they should.

In my own circle of friends, I see women living contentedly alone rather than settling for men who don’t respect them. I see intelligent, kind, high-achieving friends thriving in their community, spending their own money, appreciating culture, taking care of their own needs and taking care of one another.

The gender dynamics of this moment cannot be a surprise to anyone. Since his arrival in politics, in 2015, Trump has made his thoughts on women abundantly clear. He’s propagated the idea that those of us who don’t flatter or agree with him are not just difficult but “nasty,” using the language of disgust to make women seem contaminated and morally reprehensible. He has shamed women for the way they look, for aging, for having opinions.

The old analytical terms we use to describe sexism in politics aren’t sufficient to deal with this onslaught of repugnant hatred. Michelle Obama was right, in her closing argument of the 2024 campaign, to note that Harris had faced an astonishing double standard: Both the media and Americans more broadly had picked apart her arguments, bearing, and policy details while skating over Trump’s “erratic behavior; his obvious mental decline; his history as a convicted felon, a known slumlord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse.” She also captured the stakes of the election when she said that voters were fundamentally making a choice in 2024 about “our value as women in this world.”

All his life, Trump has ruined people who get close to him. He won’t ruin women, but he will absolutely destroy a generation of men who take his vile messaging to heart. And, to some extent, the damage has already been done.

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Pete Hegseth - Yet Another Unfit Trump Nominee

To date, most of Donald Trump's nominees for cabinet positions and other high level positions have been noticeably unfit and/or unqualified.  The two principal traits these individuals have shown are that they are either extreme ideologues and/or appear willing to do whatever Trump wants.  Some of the nominees even suggest that accusations of past sexual improprieties and assault may  enhance one's appeal to Trump.  It is little surprise that the Trump transition team is seeking to avoid having such nominees subjected to an FBI background check since one can only imagine the unseemly and/or totally disqualifying information that such background checks would reveal.  A case in point is Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth who has a history of drunkenness and sexual and financial improprieties, including cheating on wives and fathering children out of wedlock and misusing organizational funds.  A lengthy piece in the New Yorker looks at Hegseth dirty laundry, drinking problems and trouble keeping his pants zipped up - all of which shows a damning lack of vetting by Trump and his transition staff.  Here are article highlights (read the entire piece): 

After the recent revelation that Pete Hegseth had secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who had accused him of raping her in 2017, President-elect Donald Trump stood by his choice of Hegseth to become the next Secretary of Defense. Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, issued a statement noting that Hegseth, who has denied wrongdoing, has not been charged with any crime.

But Hegseth’s record before becoming a full-time Fox News TV host, in 2017, raises additional questions about his suitability to run the world’s largest and most lethal military force. A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.

A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity. . . . states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the “party girls” and the “not party girls.” In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. . . . . described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, described the report of Hegseth’s drinking as alarming and disqualifying. In a phone interview, Blumenthal, who currently leads the Senate committee that will review Hegseth’s nomination, told me, “Much as we might be sympathetic to people with continuing alcohol problems, they shouldn’t be at the top of our national-security structure.” . . . . Literally life-and-death issues are in the hands of the Secretary of Defense, and entrusting these kinds of issues to someone who might be incapacitated for any reason is a risk we cannot take.”

Blumenthal noted that an earlier nominee for Secretary of Defense, Senator John Tower, a Republican from Texas, was voted down by his Senate colleagues in 1989 because of concerns about his drinking and womanizing. . . . “John Tower went down for these same kinds of issues,” Blumenthal said. “I don’t think it’s a partisan issue.”

In January, 2016, Hegseth resigned from Concerned Veterans for America, under pressure. An account in the Military Times said that Hegseth had “quietly resigned,” in a decision that was “mutual” with the organization, amid “rumors of a rift between the former C.E.O. and the group’s financial backers.” . . . according to three knowledgeable sources, one of whom contributed to the whistle-blower report, Hegseth was forced to step down from the organization in part because of concerns about his mismanagement and abuse of alcohol on the job.

The e-mail also stated that Hegseth had “a history of alcohol abuse” and had “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account—for partying, drinking, and using CVA events as little more than opportunities to ‘hook up’ with women on the road.”

I spoke at length with two people who identified themselves as having contributed to the whistle-blower report. One of them said of Hegseth, “I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary,” adding, “When those of us who worked at C.V.A. heard he was being considered for SecDef, it wasn’t ‘No,’ it was ‘Hell No!’ ” According to the complaint, at one such C.V.A. event in Virginia Beach, on Memorial Day weekend in 2014, Hegseth was “totally sloshed” and needed to be carried to his room because “he was so intoxicated.”

According to the report, a volunteer for the organization during this period was so concerned about the rampant promiscuity and sexism that she sent an e-mail to C.V.A.’s headquarters complaining about a lack of professionalism, an unhealthy workplace, and an atmosphere in which women were unfairly treated.

In fact, under his leadership, V.F.F. soon ran up enormous debt, and financial records indicate that, by the end of 2008, it was unable to pay its creditors. The group’s primary donors became concerned that their money was being wasted on inappropriate expenses; there were rumors of parties that “could politely be called trysts,” as the former associate of the group put it. The early sympathizer said, “I was not the first to hear that there was money sloshing around and sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace.”

Margaret Hoover, a Republican political commentator and political strategist who worked as an adviser to V.F.F. between 2008 and 2010, recently told CNN that she had grave concerns about Hegseth’s ability to run the Pentagon, the largest department in the federal government, given his mismanagement at V.F.F. “I watched him run an organization very poorly, lose the confidence of donors. The organization ultimately folded and was forced to merge with another organization who individuals felt could run and manage funds on behalf of donors more responsibly than he could. That was my experience with him.”

In 2014, Hegseth joined Fox News, as a contributor. By then, he also was the C.E.O. of the Kochs’ Concerned Veterans for America group. But by 2016 Hegseth had been forced to step aside from the organization. “There’s a long pattern, over more than a decade, of malfeasance, financial mismanagement, and sexual impropriety,” Hegseth’s former associate told me. “There’s a fair dose of bullying and misinformation, too.”

As he and Deering wrangled their way through a difficult divorce, as the Times first reported, his mother, Penelope Hegseth, sent him an e-mail excoriating him as “an abuser of women” who “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.” She admonished him, “Get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s transition team was blindsided by the sexual-assault story because Hegseth had failed to disclose anything about it, including the fact that he had paid off his accuser. He also failed to disclose that he had received a copy of the police report in 2021, long before the Monterey police’s recent release of it. The series of damning revelations has reportedly infuriated the transition team.

In 2016, Justin Higgins, a former Republican opposition researcher, vetted Hegseth for under-secretary roles in the first Trump Administration, on behalf of the Republican National Committee. In a commentary for MSNBC, Higgins wrote that, although he believes that Hegseth is “perhaps one of the least qualified picks for Secretary of Defense that we’ve seen,” he thinks that Hegseth “was likely chosen because he seems willing to say and do anything Trump wants.” It hadn’t hurt, Higgins added, that Hegseth belittled some war crimes, and that “Trump thinks he looks and sounds good on TV.” Hegseth has also been a strident opponent of gender equality in the military, proclaiming women unfit for combat, and calling the claim that diversity is a strength “garbage.”

A few days ago, I filed a public-records request with the Monterey County District Attorney’s office, asking for any information supporting the claim made by Hegseth’s lawyer that his accuser had levied sexual-assault claims against others. The answer came back promptly and definitively. The claim is spurious. The office had no such evidence.

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Be Ready for When Trump Overplays His Hand

Like many I continue to feel both sick and worried over the 2024 election results. It's easy to be despondent and/or find one's self looking at sites about emigration to somewhere potentially safer from the extremist Trump will appoint to positions of power.  That said, a piece at Politico Magazine by a Turkish journalist argues that rather than withdraw, pro-democracy Americans need to ready themselves for when Donald Trump - who keeps claiming to have a "mandate" even though he did not win a majority of all votes - overplays his hand and opens a pathway to reenergize Democrats and those who oppose him.  This will most likely happen on the economic front when Trump imposes tariffs and starts deportations and prices soar while food rots in the fields and the construction industry takes a major hit.  The cultists and low information voters who stupidly believed that the Biden economy was bad (it never was) and that Trump will lower consumer prices will soon be screaming when prices rise by 10 to 25% thanks to tariffs and foreign retaliation.  Wear MAGA hats, carrying Trump flags and "owning the libs" will have far less appeal as prices increase and it becomes that "dear leader" sold them a false bill of goods. Similarly, as Trump crashes the economy, spineless Congressional Republicans will likely put their own political survival over fealty to Der Trumpenfuhrer.  Here are highlights on how Trump opponents need to prepare:

American democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test. I know how it feels, in part because I lived through the slow and steady march of state capture as a journalist working in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary.

Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and Trump critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.

1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power is unnerving but, as I have argued previously, America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight — or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, Donald Trump really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbanization of America is not an imminent threat.

2. Don’t Disengage — Stay Connected

After a stunning electoral loss like this, there’s a natural impulse to shut off the news, log off social media and withdraw from public life. I’ve seen this with friends in Turkey and Hungary, with opposition supporters retreating in disillusionment after Erdoğan’s or Orban’s victories. Understandably, people want to turn inwards.

Nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democracy. That’s why millions of Turks turned out to the polls and gave the opposition a historic victory in local governments across Turkey earlier this year. That’s how the Poles organized a winning coalition to vote out the conservative Law and Justice Party last year. It can happen here, too.

The answer to political defeat is not to disconnect, but to organize.

3. Don’t Fear the Infighting

Donald Trump’s victory has understandably triggered infighting inside the Democratic Party and it looks ugly. But fear not. These recriminations and finger-pointing are necessary to move forward. In Turkey, Hungary and Poland, it was only after the opposition parties faced their strategic and ideological misalignment with society that they were able to begin to effectively fight back.

For the Democratic Party to redefine itself as a force for change, and not just as the custodian of the status quo, it needs fundamental shifts in how it relates to working people in the U.S. There is time to do so before the midterms of 2026.

4. Charismatic Leadership Is a Non-Negotiable

One lesson from Turkey and Hungary is clear: You will lose if you don’t find a captivating leader, as was the case in 2023 general elections in Turkey and in 2022 in Hungary. Coalition-building or economic messaging is necessary and good. But it is not enough. You need charisma to mobilize social dissent.

Trump was beatable in this election, but only with a more captivating candidate . . . . Future success for the party will hinge on identifying a candidate who can better connect with voters and channel their aspirations. It should not be too hard in a country of 350 million.

5. Skip the Protests and Identity Politics

Soon, Trump opponents will shake off the doldrums and start organizing an opposition campaign. But how they do it matters. For the longest time in Turkey, the opposition made the mistake of relying too much on holding street demonstrations and promoting secularism, Turkey’s version of identity politics, which speaks to the urban professional and middle class but not beyond. When Erdoğan finally lost his absolute predominance in Turkish politics in 2024, it was largely because of his mismanagement of the economy and the opposition’s growing competence in that area.

Any grassroots action must be coupled with a clear, relatable economic message and showcase the leadership potential of Democratic mayors and governors. Identity politics alone won’t do it.

6. Have Hope

Nothing lasts forever and the U.S. is not the only part of the world that faces threats to democracy — and Americans are no different than the French, the Turks or Hungarians when it comes to the appeal of the far right. But in a country with a strong, decentralized system of government and with a long-standing tradition of free speech, the rule of law should be far more resilient than anywhere in the world.

Trump’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.

Monday Morning Male Beauty

 

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MAGA's Blueprint for a Modern-Day Jim Crow 2.0.

When I came out before the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, same sex relationships in Virginia carried the possibility of a felony conviction.  Even if not frequently enforced, the sodomy laws carried an ever present threat. Now, I have been married to my husband for over 10 years and until the results of November 5th became clear, fears of the past were in the past. Now, with Project 2025 the unofficial agenda for  the second Trump regime, those fears are back with same sex marriage and non-discrimination protections targeted by the extremists behind Project 2025 and likely at least a few of the "Christian" extremists on the U.S. Supreme Court.   However scary things may be for LGBT citizens currently, for racial minorities things could be even worse as the Project 2025 authors seek to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the work place, educational institutions and probably eventually in public accommodations and businesses catering to the public.  All of this will be done under the ostensible ruse of being "colorblind" and "gender neutral."  A piece at Salon looks at this insidious agenda to bolster white privilege and right wing "Christian" orthodoxy.  Here are highlights: 

Donald Trump’s vow to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in workplaces and educational institutions on day one of his administration is not about fairness—it’s about erasing decades of progress and reinstating systemic racial barriers under the guise of equality. This is not a neutral policy proposal but the blueprint for a modern-day colorblind Jim Crow 2.0.

Calling DEI “Didn’t Earn It,” as critics derisively refer to it, is not just insulting but echoes the rhetoric and practices of the Jim Crow era, which were designed to delegitimize the achievements and contributions of Black Americans by framing them as unqualified or undeserving. The poll taxes and literacy tests of that era operated under the idea that Black people were fundamentally unqualified to participate in democracy. The Supreme Court justified “Jim Crow” aka separate but “equal” by arguing in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial separation did not impose inequality and that any perception of inferiority among Black Americans was a result of their own faulty thinking. Ironically the Roberts Court, in its decision to strike down affirmative action in college admission also accused Black people of a similar type of “faulty thinking.”  Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority: “They have wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin

A key figure in Trump’s anti-DEI agenda is Stephen Miller, who according to reports is set to become Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Miller has proposed transforming the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) into an entity focused on addressing what he calls “anti-white discrimination.” Thus, Trump’s presidency appears poised to roll back workplace protections for Black Americans to a degree not seen since the end of Reconstruction, which ushered in Jim Crow.  For Black professionals, who already navigate systemic barriers and entrenched inequities, this represents a direct assault on their workplace opportunities and dignity.

U.S. institutions—from housing to education—have systematically excluded Black Americans and other people of color for generations, creating barriers that persist today. Programs like the GI Bill, celebrated as America’s first “color-blind” policy, ostensibly extended benefits to all veterans. Yet in practice, Black veterans were excluded from the housing loan benefits that white veterans used to build generational wealth. This exclusion laid the foundation for the racial wealth gap that still endures: Black Americans, on average, hold a fraction of the wealth of white Americans.

Today, DEI initiatives aim to address these inequities, but Trump and his allies, including Christopher Rufo, the architect of the “critical race theory” panic, frame these programs as preferential treatment. They claim DEI promotes “unqualified” Black professionals and other people of color, while advocating for a so-called “color blind” meritocracy.

Miller has gone from theory to action in his role with America First Legal, amplifying the myth of reverse discrimination. He has targeted institutions like Northwestern University and NASCAR with lawsuits and complaints, alleging that DEI initiatives marginalize white men. But the data tells a starkly different story. According to an article in USA Today, about the EEOC complaint Miller brought against NASCAR, Miller alleged that NASCAR, one of the least diverse sports, was discriminating against white men because it had a program to increase the diversity of the pit crew.  According to the article, NASCAR has just one Black driver in its premier Cup Series and five Black pit crew members out of more than 300. So, would fairness be zero? Miller’s narrative is a deliberate attempt to weaponize “colorblindness” and allegations of reverse discrimination to dismantle programs fostering equity.

Trump’s agenda doesn’t just aim to dismantle DEI—it seeks to, like the Plessy Court and the Roberts Court,  delegitimize the very idea that systemic racism exists. This tactic is part of a long historical pattern. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act, arguing it unfairly advantaged Black Americans over whites and articulated what could be called the first reverse discrimination argument. Trump’s strategy follows the same playbook, updated for today’s political landscape.

Trump’s attack on DEI is not just a rollback of policy, it is a test of our national commitment to equity and justice. The stakes could not be higher.

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