Asshole of the Month: Pete Hegseth

Among the unqualified carnival clowns and bootlickers named by Trump as of this writing, one stands out as the most deranged and dangerous: the candidate for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, a Christian holy warrior who has declared jihad against two foes—Islam and the American Left. As reported in The Washington Post, he has demonized Islam and has said elsewhere that he will launch a “frontal assault” to reform the DOD by purging “woke” generals who supported diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. If confirmed, he will have authority over the almost 3 million troops in the Pentagon to push his fascist agenda.

Hegseth whines that he’s “been an underdog my whole life,” but in actuality, he graduated from Princeton in 2003 before joining the elite bankster fraternity at Bear Stearns as a markets analyst. Oh, the poor oppressed little munchkin! How did he ever survive such a gauntlet?

Also in 2003 he joined the Minnesota National Guard as an infantry officer. One of his first heroic assignments was guarding the hapless prisoners at our Guantanamo Bay gulag. Even a former Bush Administration official admitted that most of these men were innocent, either framed by their Afghan or Iraqi tribal rivals to eliminate competition in affairs of business or love or not properly vetted to determine their connection to terrorist groups. Yet Hegseth gripes about giving any of them due process and a trial to prove their innocence. In fact, while writing about his time at Gitmo, he describes calls for due process a stab in the back of soldiers like him.

Hegseth did eventually serve overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan and, in between tours, served as executive director of Vets for Freedom, where he didn’t advocate for saving more of our troops from the hopeless meat grinders in Iraq and Afghanistan. No, instead, he pushed to keep the profits flowing for defense contractors. Later, he worked as executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, a lobby group funded by the Koch Brothers that advocated for privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs. Oh, yes, veterans, this fake Sergeant York really has your back.