Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
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... Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran, has repeatedly elevated military recruiting successes into the marquee achievement of his tenure and folded recruiting, long treated as an apolitical function of the military, into a broader culture-war proxy.

In remarks to roughly two dozen of the military's top recruiters at the Pentagon in December, Hegseth framed improved enlistment numbers as a reflection of confidence in the administration.

"You can talk about polls, you can talk about money, but men and women willing to serve and put on the uniform is a reflection of the belief they have in civilian leadership and military leadership," he told them.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell, in a statement to ABC News, shared that same sentiment, adding that, "Americans everywhere are prouder than ever to serve in our unmatched military that prioritizes lethality, merit, and protecting our nation from those who seek to harm it."

Yet the military has been selling effectively the same proposition since the U.S. abandoned the draft and fully transitioned to an all-volunteer force in 1973: job stability and benefits, with a sense of adventure to sweeten the deal. What has changed, however, is the politics surrounding that bargain.

The military's recruiting rebound is real, but the reasons behind it are far less political than Hegseth's framing suggests.

ABC News interviewed nearly 40 recruits and prospective recruits at different stages of enlistment, along with two dozen recruiters across the military and current and former defense officials, and found young Americans are still largely making the same calculation that has driven enlistment for decades: steady pay, education benefits, job training and a direct path to the middle class. ...


Alex,
Truly, I'm not a "MAGA," whatever that is and yes, I own a MAGA hat.
Before I retired, I had a life-size cardboard Trump standing against the wall in my office. I bought it during his first term as a conversation piece.
But do you honestly believe I approve of Trump's lifestyle? Do you believe he reflects my personal values, especially after everything I've posted here over the years?
All this "pedo" nonsense people posting one accusation after another is nothing more than an attempt to insult me by association.
I don't really care, but I hope it's all just part of the game. "You bought a Trump Bible ha ha."
How could anyone who knows my beliefs think I approve of the way Trump has lived?
I voted for the Republican candidate, who happened to be Trump.
Today, politically, I'm glad to see him taking on Iran. It's about d time someone did.
There is far more going on and far more at stake than what is immediately obvious or can be reduced to nuclear weapons, although I completely agree that those are a serious concern.
You have to compartmentalize politicians. Supporting someone politically does not mean embracing his character, lifestyle, or every decision he makes.
That doesn't mean I dislike everything about Trump either. I don't.
He is a smart man.
That's all I'll say.

#40 | Posted by BillJohnson

what an incredibly revealing post

From the denial of MAGA being a thing
to the lifesize poster of Piggy
to the non denial denial of supporting piggy's lifestyle
to calling the Epstein scandal "nonsense" that he doesn't care about. He doesn't care that at a minimum piggy protects pedos, objectively protects pedos
to the iran war idiocy
to THINKING PIGGY IS A SMART MAN

Now THAT is funny

A post rarely reveals so much about a person

Another view ...

The Backlash Is So Strong That People With "Pervert Glasses" Are Afraid to Use Them in Public (July 2026)
futurism.com

... Meta's camera-equipped "AI Glasses" are so divisive that some adopters are now leaving their expensive smart glasses at home, as Engadget reports.

Influencers, mostly men, have been using the glasses to inconspicuously -- and non-consensually -- capture footage of themselves approaching women and attempting to hit on them, interactions they've then posted online for content. Some wearers have even attempted to extort victims of covert recordings for cash. That's on top of serious allegations of alleged privacy breaches by Meta itself.

And then, of course, there's the simple fact that a lot of people just really don't like the idea of the world's largest and most powerful social media giant, which has a history of misusing biometric information and other data, facilitating abuse and surveillance in this way -- especially as Meta has taken highly controversial steps to infuse facial recognition capabilities into the tech. ...



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