This is about racism and misogyny. It follows the Russian all white male jacked up soldiers who are getting their asses handed to them in Ukraine. This clown “Kegseth” is clueless what a modern military is and can be. Remember he was picked because he was a weekend host on Fox opinion net work. Hugs
Hegseth doing pushups with sailors aboard the USS Dewey | Department of Defense
Pete Hegseth loves to have his picture taken doing jumping jacks, jogging with the troops, and hanging with buff special ops commandos. In fact, the Secretary of Defense is all about appearances, making a constant show of being more virile than anyone who’s ever preceded him.
In the name of warfighting and military readiness, Hegseth is self-appointed commanding general of the war on wrinkles.
His obsession has provoked a slew of new rules and regulations about “standards” of grooming and appearance, a deadly serious effort encompassing everything from banning eyelash extensions to offering government-funded laser hair removal procedures. With an emphasis on rules that most impact women and minorities, Hegseth wants to establish his own wokeness, a campaign that stresses looks over actual excellence.
Looks like DOGE missed a spot
The new grooming standards, one Army directive says, are “in support of Army readiness” — military speak for the ability to act swiftly and effectively. Far from some obscure policy, Hegseth believes that disciplined hair care will lead to a disciplined military, restoring the “warrior ethos” he often laments the armed forces have lost.
“We’re looking at overall fitness standards, overall grooming standards, overall basic standards across our formations that we believe have slipped certainly under the previous administration, but over decades,” Hegseth told Congress last month.
“It’s almost like the broken windows theory of policing: when you ignore the small stuff from criminals … it creates a culture where big stuff you’re not held accountable for,” he pontificated at a town hall meeting in February.
Army briefing on “Male Grooming Standard” | Defense Department
Here are three new grooming standards that particularly caught my eye:
Shaving, particularly for soldiers who seek waivers to standard policies due to health complications that daily shaving can cause. This is most common for black and brown folks who have curly hair; so common in fact that the directive makes explicit mention of “pseudofolliculitis Barbae,” or razor bumps, which can become infected.
The directive enumerates three phased treatment plans corresponding to mild, moderate and severe cases. A fourth phase provides the option of laser hair removal to soldiers unresponsive to the previous treatments or with chronic issues.
Eyelash extensions are now banned. No real justification is given but I’m sure it’s a coincidence that this also impacts black and brown people the most. Similarly, nail polish must now be “clear or French or American Manicure only,” a sacrifice to the gods of uniformity which feels more arbitrary than purposeful.
Petty changes to uniforms are being directed, from a ban on duty identifier patches, to shorter boots (“8-12 inches”), to important contingency plans on how to wear one’s sleeves (“the cuffs will remain visible, and the sleeve will rest at, or within 1-inch of, the forearm when the arm is bent at a 90-degree angle”; though “Commanders may prohibit rolling of sleeves and folding of cuffs.”)
It is a hodgepodge of “new” directives that are mostly costly annoyances but overall leave enlisted soldiers I’ve talked to feeling like the Pentagon and “leadership” are just playing a sadistic game of Simon Says.
Clean-shaven soldiers, however, aren’t going to bring the U.S. military closer to an end to the war in Ukraine or create greater security in the Middle East. More creases aren’t going to help tackle the challenges of drones and artificial intelligence, or fight the new Cold War with China.
In fact, Hegseth seems to be taking a page out of the Russian military playbook, which upon suffering over one million casualties in Ukraine, is also trying to stress appearances over serious failures of policy and humaneness.
Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has launched his own campaign to improve troop discipline by clamping down on non-standard haircuts, according to British intelligence, which assessed that this caused him to be “focused on presentation over substance.” In Russia’s case, a laughably undisciplined and corrupt force indeed needs to reform. But emulating Gerasimov is more of an insult to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces.
But this is more about Hegseth, for whom “presentation over substance” seems like his entire worldview. Here he is posing on the Pentagon lawn while signing an order on drone production, a piece of paper that was delivered by drone. The contents of the order didn’t get much attention but the image of the smartly dressed Secretary plucking the paper from the drone instantly became a meme.
Since his first appearance at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in February, when Hegseth mistakenly got ahead of President Trump’s negotiations by declaring Ukraine’s intent to regain its territory as “unrealistic” — prompting criticism from his own party’s Chair of the Armed Services Committee Sen. Roger Wicker, who called it “amateur” — Trump’s secretary has not had a hair out of place.
In every photo I can find, Hegseth’s hair seems painstakingly coiffed, right down to the occasional, ostensible cowlick. He looks like Christian Bale’s depiction of Bruce Wayne but with a MOAB-sized helping of hairgel.
The irony is that, amid all the chaos — of his alleged sexual misconduct, to the mass firing of his staff, to Signalgate and on and on — the man is always perfectly manicured. One has a sense that Hegseth will be more pleased in being named best-dressed of 2025 than anything else.
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I have long liked this young YouTuber. I started following him when he was more into debunking stuff while also producing atheist content. I felt he understood what a lot of people were going through in that he was trying hard to hide being an atheist from his parents and family which gave him an idea what many in the LGBTQ+ community were going through with their families. He himself noted that similarity. One of the things I like about him is his calm quiet fact filled delivery. If others have not noticed I don’t like aggressive angry yelling videos, they are too close to what I grew up with and suffered in my childhood. Drew is not a fervent anti-Christian like so many atheists are. Instead he simply is against the bad stuff some people do in the name of religion / Christianity. I like that. At the end of this video he again says if you are getting something good from your faith, don’t leave it, just change it to make it better. I agree. He explains how Christianity was abused by corporations and wealthy people to get people to do things against their own interest they otherwise wouldn’t do. In the name of god work more at a lower cost to make money for your employer type stuff. Hugs
Anti-abortion and abortion rights protesters confront each other outside a Planned Parenthood office in Missouri in 2022.Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch vía AP
One might have thought that last November, when Missourians voted to enshrine “reproductive freedom,” including abortion, in the state constitution, that would be the end of the conversation. In overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the US Supreme Court professed that the question of whether abortion should be legal was now up to states. And the people of Missouri made it very clear: They wanted abortion rights (at least until fetal viability).
Alas, the Missouri Supreme Court doesn’t seem to be inclined to listen.
Thanks to the passage of Amendment 3, Missouri’s criminal abortion ban is gone. But local Planned Parenthood affiliates are still fighting in court to overturn the web of restrictions, known as TRAP laws, that made providing abortions virtually impossible in the state even when Roe was the law of the land. These include a 72-hour waiting period, hallway width requirements for abortion clinics, and a rule that providers must have admitting privileges at a hospital 15 minutes away, to name just a few. In a pair of decisions in December and February, Jackson County Judge Jerri Zhang agreed to temporarily suspend enough of those old laws to allow abortions to resume in Missouri while the court case heads to a January 2026 trial.
But on Tuesday, the state supreme court overturned Zhang’s rulings, ordering her to reconsider the temporary block on the TRAP laws using a different legal standard. As a result, abortion providers have once again been forced to halt their work, rendering the constitutional right to abortion effectively moot, for now. For the second time since 2022, abortion clinics had to call pregnant people this week to let them know their scheduled abortions had been canceled, the Associated Pressreported.
“This decision puts our state back under a de facto abortion ban and is devastating for Missourians and the providers they trust with their personal health care decisions,” Emily Wales and Margot Riphagen, leaders of the two Planned Parenthood affiliates that operate in Missouri, said in a joint statement. “We will continue to fight for their freedom to the constitutionally protected health care they voted for.”
Planned Parenthood lawyers have already filed a brief asking Zhang to re-issue her preliminary injunction under the new standard and block the TRAP laws again. But even if Zhang agrees, and abortions do resume again in Missouri in a few weeks—or after a January 2026 trial—abortion rights in the state will remain far from settled.
That’s because, two weeks ago, Missouri lawmakers voted to put yet another constitutional amendment on the ballot—this one repealing the reproductive freedom amendment and banning virtually all abortions. Voters will see that question on their November 2026 ballots—or sooner, if Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe decides to call a special election.
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Photo: Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, who also serves as Kennedy Space Center director, a post she assumed in 2021. Trump elevated Petro to lead NASA after he ousted former Sen. Bill Nelson for believing in climate change.
Newly-released data shows that Oklahoma ranks 46th in per-pupil spending, but Walters, who is eyeing a run for governor, has called for cuts to his state’s “wasteful” education spending, including $250,000 to provide school districts with emergency inhalers.
In his KFOR interview, Walters did boast about getting new teachers a signing bonus, but as was widely reported the time, $290,000 of that money had to be clawed back because it had gone to teachers who did not qualify. Some of those teachers had already spent the money.
New: CBP seized a shipment of t-shirts from @cola.baby featuring a swarm of bees attacking a cop. The company also sells "ELIMINATE ICE" t-shirt and previously was threatened by LAPD for "FUCK THE LAPD" shirts and hats. Shirts to be "destroyed under CBP supervision"www.404media.co/cbp-seizes-s…
Rep. Beth Lear first appeared here in January 2024 when she defended her anti-trans bathroom bill by citing the “millstones” bible verse which calls for drowning anyone who hurts children.
She later blamed “depraved monster” Alfred Kinsey, liberals, and the ACLU for transgender people even existing.
Rep. Josh Williams first appeared here in July 2024 for his bill that would criminalize drag shows in the presence of children. Williams reintroduced his bill last week.
“They were shouting at me, threatening to rape me, chanting ‘death to Arabs’. I thought the police would protect me from the mob, but they did nothing to intervene,” she said.
At one point, she and the police officer were nearly cornered against a building, the video shows. “I felt sheer terror,” the woman recalled. “I realized at that point that I couldn’t lead this mob of men to my home. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I was just terrified.”
After several blocks, the officer hustled the woman into a police vehicle, prompting one man to yell, “Get her!” The crowd erupted in cheers as she was driven away.
Committee calls figure a ‘conservative estimate’ and warns Musk may seek to use his influence to avoid legal liability
“While the $2.37 billion figure represents a credible, conservative estimate, it drastically understates the true benefit Mr Musk may gain from legal risk avoidance alone as a result of his position in government,” the report states.
UPDATED: Super Hornet Assigned to USS Harry S. Truman Lost at Sea
The single-seat Super Hornet assigned to the “Knighthawks” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 136, “was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft and tow tractor were lost overboard,” reads the statement.
“Sailors towing the aircraft took immediate action to move clear of the aircraft before it fell overboard. An investigation is underway.”
DOGE employees gain accounts on classified networks holding nuclear secrets
Two members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency were given accounts on classified networks that hold highly guarded details about America’s nuclear weapons, two sources tell NPR.
Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern, and Adam Ramada, a Miami-based venture capitalist, have had accounts on the computer systems for at least two weeks, according to the sources who also have access to the networks. Prior to their work at DOGE, neither Farritor nor Ramada appear to have had experience with either nuclear weapons or handling classified information.
Karoline Leavitt Boasts Trump Wouldn’t Hesitate to Arrest SCOTUS Justices
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested the Trump administration would consider arresting high-ranking judges—including Supreme Court justices—at a press briefing Monday.
“As you guys look at other judges, would you ever arrest somebody higher up on the judicial food chain, like a federal judge or even a Supreme Court justice?” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked.
Leavitt said no judge is safe from the administration’s crackdown on the judiciary.
“The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” Trump said in the interview published Monday. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”
Johnson says it’s ‘game time’ as House committees draft first piece of Trump agenda
The $150 billion in defense programs includes $25 billion for Trump’s “Golden Dome” for missile defense, $34 billion in ship building and more than $20 billion in munitions purchases. The House Armed Services Committee plans to begin voting on Tuesday on this aspect of the bill.
On border security, the House Homeland Security Committee proposes $46.5 billion for new border barriers, $5 billion for new Customs and Border Protection facilities and $4 billion for new Customs officials and border personnel.
The committee proposes several billion dollars more in new technology to tighten security measures at the border and also includes $1 billion for security and planning for the 2028 Olympics, as well as $625 million for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Rev. William Barber arrested in Capitol Rotunda after praying against Republican-led budget
Reached for comment, a Capitol police spokesperson said Barber and two others were charged with “crowding, obstructing and incommoding,” explaining demonstrations in congressional buildings are “not allowed in any form, to include but not limited to sitting, kneeling, group praying, singing, chanting, etc.”
Some quickly argued that Barber’s arrest appeared incongruous with President Donald Trump’s efforts to eliminate “anti-Christian bias” in federal agencies.
“Arresting Rev. Barber and others at the Capitol after announcing a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias in government is an absolute travesty,” Anthea Butler, a professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a text message. “Seems like this administration only wants Christians who are supporters of Trump to have access to pray in the Capitol and express their faith.”
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