For the Trump administration, it's amateur hour - Milbank WaPo
I love it when MAGA bros speak Yiddish.
“The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon,” John Ullyot, who just quit as a top aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wrote in a takedown of his former boss in Politico this week. Ullyot, who had been the department’s chief spokesman, described “a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,” a “near collapse inside the Pentagon’s top ranks” and a “full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon,” and he alleged that “the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama.”
Let me offer Ullyot a heartfelt mazel tov, both for his courage and for his use of the term “mishegoss” — which is on point, if not entirely precise. It means, literally, “insanity,” though as Leo Rosten noted in “The Joys of Yiddish,” mishegoss “is nearly always used in an amused, indulgent way” to connote tomfoolery. But there is nothing amusing about what these shmegegges are doing at the Pentagon. Their insanity is putting the lives of our troops and the security of our nation at risk.
We now know the woefully unqualified Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, shared details of a military operation in a second Signal chat; this one, the New York Times reported, included his wife, brother and lawyer. He also had the app put on his Defense Department computer. Hegseth has purged his top staff — people he just hired — and blames them for a series of damaging leaks. He set up a top secret briefing on China for Elon Musk, ignoring an outrageous conflict of interest that even the Trump White House couldn’t stomach. He brought his wife to sensitive meetings. He had a makeup studio set up for TV appearances, CBS News reported.
Under Hegseth, the whole place has devolved into paranoia and vulgar recriminations. Hegseth’s ousted chief of staff, two of his former colleagues told Politico, “graphically described his bowel movements to colleagues in one high-level meeting.”
Oy gevalt.
(snip)
There’s mishegoss at the IRS, which is now on its fifth commissioner in three months; the last one presided for only three days before being replaced last week, the victim of a power struggle between Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that exploded into a shouting match in the West Wing. There’s mishegoss at the Department of Homeland Security, where Secretary Kristi Noem had her Gucci bag containing $3,000 in cash stolen from under her seat at the Capital Burger restaurant in D.C. on Sunday. This follows her recent visit to El Salvador, where she posed in front of imprisoned deportees while wearing a $50,000 Rolex.
(snip)
Trump’s corruption has become even more brazen. A website promoting Trump’s cryptocurrency “meme coin,” $TRUMP, announced that the top 220 investors in the meme coin — proceeds of which go directly to Trump and his family — would be invited to an “Intimate Private Dinner” with the president and a “Special VIP tour.” The Justice Department has stepped in to help Trump in his appeal of the $83 million jury award against him for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, which would amount to a gift by the taxpayers to Trump of millions of dollars in legal fees.
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https://wapo.st/4itLEDb
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