There is literally an article in Politico this week about how Pentagon officials are practicing how to respond to Republican nutcases who just babble the word “woke” at them and act like that is reasonable, adult oversight of the military.
Today, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are going before the House Defense Appropriations panel, and they will get to try out their answers. We’ve been here before. But with the modern Republican Party we can always guarantee that this time will be stupider than the last.
Come, let us liveblog together:
10:15: Oh we guess it’s already gotten started, but the cameras only just now came on. GOP Rep. Kay Granger is speaking, nothing real stupid has been said yet (that we’ve heard).
10:19: Austin says two of his priorities at the Pentagon are taking care of their people and teamwork. We hope you know that means WOKE PRONOUN PARTIES.
10:25: Austin is just giving his opening statement, do you need us to liveblog that? You do not. Just FYI. You probably also don’t need us to liveblog Milley’s opener. Stronger allies, support NATO, stick with Ukraine until the end, “Russia’s cruel war of choice,” and so forth.
10:28: Milley says we are not going to war with Russia or China anytime soon, thank yew very much, shut up to all idiots who say we are.
10:35: Now we start with GOP Rep. Ken Calvert, who would like Austin to tell us why we are getting rid of a bunch of Navy ships if we want to fight CHIIIIIINA. Austin is like man how many boats can a guy have, we just wanna have the right number of boats, why you wanna have too many boats?
“Ship count matters,” says Calvert. Sounds like a woke slogan.
10:44: Republican Kay Granger says our enemies are getting much cuddlier with countries in South America and wants to know what we are doing to deal with that. Does not even say CARAVAN!!1! or anything weird, it’s like these Republicans do not even want to be on “Hannity” tonight.
10:54: Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, wants to make sure Congress gets credit for giving more money to the Pentagon than even Trump or Biden has asked for. Remember who your real dad is, Pentagon!
11:05: We almost feel like it is newsworthy that a hearing in a Republican-controlled Congress is fairly normal and people are being respectful, even Republicans to the Democrats from the Democrat administration. Maybe somebody promised the Republicans that if they could be semi-normal for a whole hour they would get a pizza party.
11:19: This hearing has not had the word “woke” one time yet.
11:27: Mike Garcia, a Republican from California, is talking about a bill he sponsored, now a law, to make it easier for military spouses to take their professional licenses across state lines when they have to move. Also has serious concerns with how little money lower level enlisted people are making, many of them far below 32K per year.
All of this sounds suspiciously like governing and we don’t like it.
11:31: Garcia seemed to kind of want Milley to either blame the way Afghanistan ended on Trump or Biden, and Milley was like nah, that was a 20-year war, we have only begun to grapple with how fucked up that all was and why. And Garcia was like “Well said” and again he is a Republican and we are just going to keep asking what is happening and wonder when James Comer is going to invade this committee he is not on to declare that he’s found Hunter Biden’s penis in the backyard and let’s go get it.
11:41: MARIO DIAZ-BALART, A REPUBLICAN; No more blank checks in Ukraine! What is the end-state for Ukraine?
MILLEY: Uhhhh, Ukraine is a sovereign nation and stays that way and wins and Joe Biden has been clear on that?
We guess the chair of the committee, Ken Calvert, said something idiot at the beginning before the cameras came on about “no more blank checks for Ukraine.”
You know, because of how we’ve been giving Zelenskyy blank checks and saying “GO WILD, BABY! DEFEND YOURSELF FROM RUSSIA, LIKE A WILD CHILD!”
These people are garbage.
11:54: There was just a mild-mannered discussion about the issue of extremism in the ranks, but there was nobody that yelled at the military was attacking conservatives. Now Marcy Kaptur from Ohio is talking. She is giving out a book recommendation!
12:01: Hal Rogers, Republican from Kentucky, said he wanted to talk about the elephant in the room, and we figured he meant how under Joe Biden troops do Drag Queen Story Hour instead of Basic Training, but instead he wanted Milley and Austin to assess Xi Jinping’s recent trip to Moscow to play with Putin.
12:08: Oh good, it is Chris Stewart from Utah. He’s kinda very stupid.
He’s “concerned” about where things are going in Ukraine and wants to know if Ukraine winning means they get Crimea back. He is “concerned” about that. (This is Russian propaganda, the idea that Crimea should stay Russian.)
12:13: Chris Stewart wants to know about the “culture” of the military and what’s “broken” between fathers and sons to make them not hit their recruitment goals anymore.
Milley says we’re actually at a 50-year high on retention, so … that’s a thing. Says recruiting is definitely difficult. Says COVID plays a role. Recruiters can’t go to high schools and trick kids into convince kids to join the military when they’re home because of COVID.
We feel like Chris Stewart really wanted to yank the “woke” chain, but he’s kinda dumb, as we said, and we feel like in our experience of watching him, he kinda follows the other congressmen’s leads when it comes to how nutcase he acts.
11:18: And now they are finished and nobody said woke!
WEIRD. Tip your bartenders if you like liveblogs!
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