Donald Trump has just said he is nominating Pete Hesgeth as Secretary of Defense. My guess is that at least 48 Democrats will vote against him. It will be an extraordinary nomination.

What? You don’t know Hesgeth? You can’t even say his name five times quickly without wondering why you are even trying?

If you don’t know him, it means either (1) your memory is not what it used to be, or (2) you don’t watch Fox and Friends on the weekends. Which is it? I understand. If it’s (1), it might really be (2) as well.

Hesgeth has of course never run an operation as large as the Pentagon. The only people who have done that are former Defense Secretaries and Elon Musk’s personal assistant.

And this brings up an interesting point. As Musk will be a co-chair of the new “department” of government efficiency, his goal will be to cut, baby, cut the government deficit. But the task of Hesgeth Hesgeth Hesgeth Hesgeth Hesgeth will be to build up the military, which, under VP Harris, is now weaker than that of, say, Monaco. Who will win this battle?

Speaking of potential battles, I see one coming up at DOGE (Venetian for the Department of Government Efficiency) between the two play-well-together co-chiefs, Musk and Ramaswamy. (When you say his name, by the way, the emphasis is on “swam”, but if you want to say it five times quickly, and you can if you try, put the emphasis on “ram”.)

At any rate, can you imagine Musk saying to himself, “I know what I would like to do, but I want to make sure Vivek agrees before I say anything.”? And can you imagine Ramaswamy even stopping talking long enough to listen to Elon, even if Elon bothered to say anything? My prediction that the marriage of this Odd Couple will be given an annulment soon.

Back to Hesgeth. I have read a little about him and he does seem at least as qualified to handle our defense as the man in the street (or, to put it another way, as the typical Trump voter). And I read two other things about him. First, he doesn’t like NATO. Second, he thinks that Ukraine shoukd defend itself if it wants, but that the US should stay out of European affairs,  and certainly not be provoking Gaspadin (or Tovarich, if you prefer) Putin.

This was not to be my topic this morning. I actually had not been overly upset at some of Trump’s appointees. I am happy to get Stefanik out of the House, and think the UN, meaningless as it is in its most important task of keeping the peace, is a great place for her to spew her venom. And I think Rubio is actually not a bad choice for state.

Noem at Homeland Security gives me  qualms, to be sure, and it certainly scares those would-be asylum seekers who want to bring their pets with them. I think this task will quickly show Noem’s limitations. After all, doesn’t Homeland Security have more employees than South Dakota  has people? I don’t expect her to be long at this job. And, by the way, this is another Department which, to fulfill Trump’s goals, will require more, not fewer, resources. Take that, Elon!

I will stop here (Zeldin is too far down the alphabet to deal with today), but did you read about, or see videos of, the UFO over Michigan? What do you think? Me? I think it’s our only hope.