When the clock drawing hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
When the deputy secretary of defense began assuming some of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s responsibilities on January 2, not even she knew that it was because Austin was hospitalized, two defense officials told CNN.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, the Pentagon’s number two leader, was among the senior leaders kept in the dark about Austin’s true whereabouts until Thursday, three days after the secretary checked into Walter Reed medical center following complications from an elective surgery. Not even the president was aware of Austin’s hospitalization until three days into his stay there, CNN previously reported.
The revelation that not even Hicks knew that Austin was hospitalized is sure to add to questions swirling within the administration about why his status was kept secret, not only from the public but from senior national security officials and the White House.
Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told CNN on Sunday that Austin transferred “certain operational responsibilities that require constant secure communications capabilities” to Hicks on January 2, the day after he was admitted to Walter Reed. Throughout last week, Hicks made “some routine operational and management decisions” for the Pentagon and was authorized to support the president.
But Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time, was not informed of Austin’s hospitalization until the afternoon of January 4…
I’m fairly certain that Xi was informed.
Apparently, above a certain level of government, there is no longer a mandatory attendance policy. In private industry, if you vacate your position for three days without informing your superiors…well, get that resume up to date.
Of course, if your boss spends 40% of his supposed work time on vacation or handling private matters I can see where Austin gets his lack of urgency or responsibility. The word “detestable” comes to mind.
Perhaps the real people in charge were notified?
“Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, the Pentagon’s number two leader”.
Not sure I’d want that title. Leader of the number two.
“But Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time”.
We stand on guard for thee…
I thought Joe Biden was the number two leader.
Nothing wrong happened. O’Butthole was in the know, and ready to step up if necessary.
Talking of Decline & Fall – 48 minutes of Bill Whittle……well worth the watch IMHO:
https://rumble.com/v44gca6-things-to-come-an-early-overview.html
That’s an interesting speech. Using his concept of “80 year cyclical history” on England, you’d have to use WW2 as a turning point (Just like Bill does to the US)….only it would be about 2 to 3 years earlier than the US since Britain was involved earlier. So, instead of 1860, you could perceivably use 1858, which was the year that England did something rather drastic. They instituted the Small Governing Act which created a multitude of municipal government authority centers across the country. That changed the cultural and the political landscape significantly and was a direct result of pandemics and cholera outbreaks.
I’ve listened to Bill Whittle for more than a decade and always found him super interesting …
and this talk you’ve linked to especially.
Here’s hoping Sec. Def. Austin’s gender reassignment surgery was successful.
Given the quality of Biden’s cabinet choices, we were arguably better off during that period.
We have no border, and nobody’s in charge of anything. Our Federal bureaucracy is still working remote (read: getting paid for doing nothing at home).
Goodbye sweet America … goodbye. It won’t be long now.
all our enemies knew, but it wasn’t important for the people to know…
Milley, Coats, Mattis and Thirty Pence, called China to let them know!
After President Trump’s inauguration next January 2025, I pray and hope that the first thing he does is free all the Jan. 6 political prisoners. The second thing should be the firing of everyone in the DoD, FBI, IRS, CIA, etc. that is fireable. None of them served him or us in the first term; a clean slate is a must.
wellllllll first he gots to gets on the ballot.
except the stuffed ones. those got only 1 name the ‘winnah’.
the ONLY hope l hold
God help me (pun intended) for a believer like me is a veritable miracle.
otherwise its like its all a stage play and the script came from the Book of Revelation.
Empire?
We may be declining but precisely when did we act as an empire? At the height of our power:
1) France asked us to leave in the early 1960’s after saving their asses from the Nazis after they gave up after a few days of skirmishing with the Germans. We left immediately.
2) The Philippines asked us to leave after we saved their country from the Japanese. We left.
3) If South Korea or Japan asked us to leave they would be stupid but we would leave.
Have any idea what and Empire would do? The Romans would immediately execute 100,000 people in situations like that and burn their capital to the ground. The occupied power would roll over like a dog.
Hint: Empires don’t do what America did and we are better for it.
If you like Nazis, Fascists and Communists then go drop dead.
I imagine Austin was in for bariatric surgery (weight loss) in order to reduce his co-morbidity index. Older, black, and overweight are definitely factors for Covid patients and he is probably vaccinated to the max.
I also imagine he is getting his medical information from the good Admiral Rachel Levine so he is in the best of hands.
I had a good friend that got a bariatric lap band. It was really starting to help him lose his morbid obesity.
Then unknown to him, the lap band shifted and the blood was cut off to a section of his stomach and intestines. The infections from the dead organs put him in the ICU for months.
He received last rites twice. His kids were almost orphaned. He definitely lost all his excess weight from the ordeal , and almost his life too.
I’m going to put together a group of obese musicians and call it the “Bariatric Lap Band”.
as a high functioning autistic, my style was to question things not so much to dispute but merely get a handle on the how why and who stuff to UNDERSTAND better seeing as l am bereft of the instinctive and much more common knack of reading moods, between the lines, ‘getting’ the unwritten social norms etc.
instead l gravitate
crikey. lm SOOOOOOO glad l dont have to live my whole life thru whats coming.
societal madness. rules tossed. rules that stood for 1,000s years in some cases.
its all getting tossed, reminiscent of mao’s cultural revolution.
and what a leftist coincidence THAT is eh?
. . . . . . gravitate towards systems involving machines, numbers, tools, proven processes, innovation free of ‘the way its always been done’. it really did me well being wired very differently. the trick is to be born when the thing you’re good at is the norm, common and accepted. same thing age of exploration or the space race or classical music.
for me it was the 1s and 0s pathway to successful career, security and my own place where l sit in bemusement collecting my pension.
current reading selection: Thomas Sowell’s treatise on SJWs.
(the dog barked and l got distracted!)
A “high functioning autistic”? Do you have to get high before you can function?
Austin was re-admitted to the hospital after something went wrong with his first surgery several days before, and IMMEDIATELY put in the ICU. He was definitely not fit for duty.
What duty? One of his biggest, most important duties is to confirm the order if the US President ever orders a Nuclear Attack or Response to a Nuclear Attack. The President (God Forbid) orders the Nuclear Attack, then Austin is supposed to confirm that yes the President is ordering the attack, and the person ordering it is the President.
Were Austin’s underlings ready to perform that duty? Who else could have confirmed the President’s order to attack in the few minutes available? Were the alternates and their communication equipment ready and available?
Obviously the President had no clue that DOD Secretary Austin was not available!
Was the Military aware that the President’s orders were going to be confirmed by someone not DOD Secretary Austin?
Or would we fail to quickly respond to a nuclear attack by an enemy? I think Biden Administration general Incompetence would answer that question.
Maybe Austin has been lobotomized.
I think he was lobotomized before he was given the position in the first place.
The U.S. is a laughing stock under the Biden/Obama “administration”. An absolute clown show.
This was after vaxination shot… 6? 8? 12?
I guess he wasn’t important enough to get the saline.
So the Secretary of Defense for the most powerful military in the world is hospitalized, and neither the White House nor the deputy SoD are aware of it for days.
Keep in mind that the U.S. military must sometimes react instantly to world events. Global security depends on it.
This is a staggering piece of ineptitude that endangers everyone.
Oh, they got away with it fine. “No farm, no howl”, as the urban werewolf said.
They chose diversity when they appointed them both, they got diversity results.
Stuff like this would be noticed when the POTUS has a cabinet meeting.
If he nor anyone else at that level knows then what else are they not aware of?
Well it does explain the southern border invasion.
If there was an invasion the president would have been told during the latest senior cabinet meeting…..oh wait.