Only someone who avoided the draft would want to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
— Captain Mark Kelly (@captmarkkelly.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 7:25 PM
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because nothing says 'I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize' more than renaming your Department of Defense to the Department of War
— Jeff Tiedrich (@jefftiedrich.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 8:13 PM
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It is impossible to overstate the inanity of the vapid and stupid stunt of renaming the Defense Department, and Congress should step in and put a stop to it immediately.
Gift link:
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…— Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Curmudgeon Tom Nichols, at the Atlantic, dismisses “Pete Hegseth’s Department of Cringe”:
…Last month, when the plan was still just a hypothetical, the president was asked why he favored it. He said that Department of War “just sounded better” and that it would be a callback to the name under which U.S forces fought in the two world wars. But the change is also a reflection of how much Trump and Secretary of Defense (his title for now) Pete Hegseth think of themselves as tough guys, real fighters who will no longer trifle with silly names about “defending” things. Hegseth in particular is obsessed with “warfighters”—a clunky Pentagon term that’s been around for far too long—who will engage in “warfighting” with great “lethality.”…
It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history. Harry Truman and the American leaders who destroyed the Axis, and who now were facing the Soviet empire, realized that national security had become a larger undertaking than the previous American tradition of moving, as needed, between discrete conditions of “war” and “peace.”
These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.
In 1949, after two years that included a massive reorganization of the U.S. military (and the establishment of an air force), Truman christened the new United States Department of Defense, which consolidated elements of the previous War and Navy Departments. That name was good enough for Truman, who served in combat in World War I and dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. And it was good enough for President Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme allied commander, who oversaw the largest military operations ever undertaken in all of human history…
And about that paperwork: The cost of renaming the DOD will run into tens of millions of dollars, maybe much more. Isn’t this an administration that only months ago unleashed an ignorant bazillionaire on the federal workforce in the name of efficiency and cost reductions? Everything from official seals to uniform patches and medals might have to be replaced—and for what? Because a president who never served a day in uniform and a macho-obsessed former Army major think that using words like war will provide the sense of purpose and gravity they both lack?
I have a better idea. Let’s skip the “War” name and go right to the “Department of Cringe.” It may not strike fear into the hearts of evildoers overseas, but it will resonate with Americans who take national defense seriously, because it is the emotion many of them already feel every time the former Major Hegseth says “lethality” and “warfighter.” If the leaders of the United States are going to make fools of themselves and of the dedicated men and women who serve in uniform simply to own the libs and put on a show for the party faithful, any name will do. They might as well choose one that’s accurate.
Okay this is dumber than expected
— Doc Revan (@docrevan.bsky.social) September 4, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Deputinize America
Can we spit on soldiers in uniform now?
Kind of sick of saying “I thank you for your service”, and would prefer to vilify them for mooching so as to make being in uniform in public feel embarrassing…..
Jeffro
Why doesn’t trump just rename himself Odin, or something? Or Zeus? And Hegseth can be Thor or Ares or whatever.
And then go plaster more fake gold all around the Oval Office, as befits a modern-day Olympus
MattF
The whole ‘warfighter’ thing is deeply into the Valley of Cringe. And, as ever, War is Peace.
trollhattan
5 September 2025 AP–Norway considers creating Nobel War Prize to issue one time only and shut up “a certain individual.”
trollhattan
@MattF:
My dream of transitioning it to kungfufighter seems unlikely to ever happen.
Those cats were fast as lightning.
prostratedragon
It’s the wearing camo all the time.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Yeah. Amazed they have not renamed it Department of Warfighting.
Department of Justice can be Department of Catch Criminals. (No, not THAT one.)
This whole thing is to own the libs. Sad!
ETA: Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Why is Trump in the Epstein files, and what was he doing?
Omnes Omnibus
Lethality? Do you know who the most lethal person on the modern battlefield is? It’s not the Special Ops people or the infantry. It is the field artillery lieutenant who is calling for fire. An ordinary line officer who could actually be a woman these days.
Teresa
🙄 Republicans are so embarrassingly weak, immature and disgusting.
Betty
So this idea of a secondary name with accompanying changes to titles, etc. is somehow legal?
prostratedragon
@Omnes Omnibus: Force recon type I once knew observed that if anyone other than an assigned sniper ever fires a weapon it means things have really gone sideways.
Professor Bigfoot
@Deputinize America: I never went in for that nonsense.
When some gap-toothed goober piously intones “thank yew fer yore service,” the shades of the founders roll their eyes.
What I HAVE said, during the wars, “good to see you home and well; hope you brought as many of your friends home safe as possible.”
My eldest, the Navy retiree told me long ago, “everyone who joins does so for their own reasons.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Deputinize America: There’s no fucking need to say thank you for your service. Most soldiers and veterans don’t want to hear it. As far as spitting on soldiers, if you want to be an asshole which it seems you do, go ahead. Just don’t be surprised if some take very strong exception to it.
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: oh lord, if only that were true… x^D
BC in Illinois
Truth in Labeling:
Ruviana
@trollhattan: I want so much to give you an upvote for this!
Betty
Since this is an open thread, here’s a strange tidbit from the NFL game last night. Governor Shapiro is going to bat for Jalen Carter by announcing Dak spit first. Jalen was thrown out of the game right after the kick-off for spitting at Dak.
DanF
Offense sells tickets; Defense wins games.
JoyceH
Every time this particular iteration if the GOP names something, I can’t help remembering the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Don’t Read Good And Who Wanna Learn How To Do Other Stuff Good Too.
Leto
Just to swing it back around to massive stupidity, I found this retrospective on US public health from 1900 to 1999 done by the CDC. You know, back when they were an actual scientific institute. It’s an amazing 28 page read, but there’s two sections that specifically stood out in light of yesterday’s desiccated ballsack’s warbly tone performance on Capital Hill. The first two paragraphs, and the paragraph on vaccines. (bold italics are mine)
And this on vaccines:
This is what they’re rolling back. This is what they’re taking us back to: our children dead by 5 because some dipshit told them to drink raw milk and lick rusty nails. An unrelenting war on science by the stupidest people imaginable.
Scout211
@JoyceH: LOL! Gotta love a Derek Zoolander reference.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: Wouldn’t that be the field artillery lieutenant who is being called for fire? ;^)
BC in Illinois
@Professor Bigfoot:
USN HM2, 1969-1973* here.
Why did I join?
Because I had been in school for 14 1/3 years and I was sick and tired of going to school.
+ + +
*When Trump was dealing with the spurs of his bones.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: No, the FSO is really the one directing the show.
Deputinize America
@BC in Illinois:
Ishiyama
Oh, for f-cks sake! Abraham Lincoln won the Civil War with the Department of War. What part of “Defense Department” made the War in Vietnam, the Iraq invasion (twice!) and the War in Afghanistan less violent? “Defense Department” was the post-WWII rebrand of U.S. power projection. I prefer honesty. Euphemisms grate on my sense of fitness, anyway.
Martin
No coverage of the story that Trump sent Seal Team Six into North Korea during his first term to bug Kim’s communications (not sure how that would work), killed a bunch of civilians and left before achieving any of their goals.
That seems like a big deal. Apparently they never told Congress about the effort.
prostratedragon
Elsewhere in Men of Genius:
ruemara
@Martin: I read that and it sounds like the fail of the Venezuela operation they just did but worse Murdering civilians and hiding the evidence.
ruemara
@Martin: I read that and it sounds like the fail of the Venezuela operation they just did but worse Murdering civilians and hiding the evidence.
trollhattan
@JoyceH: @Scout211:
So here for this.
Donny’s Blue Steel:
static01.nyt.com/images/2023/08/25/multimedia/24trump-georgia-mugshot/24trump-georgia-mugshot-facebo…
MattF
@Martin: Yeah, a rather big story. These missions are extraordinarily complex, and it’s amazing that they ever work. Open rumor is that a Venezuela invasion is coming up next.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Yeah, that was talked about in an earlier thread but definitely not front-paged yet.
WaterGirl
@prostratedragon: All I can think of are the swear words we were taught we could never say in Catholic grade school. Two refer to the son of god, and the middle one is for BJ After Dark.
Deputinize America
@Martin:
MattF
@WaterGirl: But ICE can tell if you look illegal.
Leto
@prostratedragon: singing the Budweiser commercial, “Real Men of Genius…”. To extrapolate out, what does this mean for any foreign investment here? Real Men of Genius….
Old Man Shadow
MAGA is big on image and marketing and flash and very short on deeds.
They do things to weaken the military, like kicking out perfectly good and honorable soldiers and firing top officers for not being “yes” men, but they rename the DoD to WAR!!! and talk about WAR!!!!fighters!
A bunch of immature five year-old boys and psychopaths running this country.
Jeffro
I wish I could remember the name of the comedian who did a bit on this…an entire ‘platoon’ of red-state NRA gun nuts vs a sergeant at a desk in charge of a few drones…
…never mind, Google coughed it up. Hysterical! Mr. Neil Brennan. =)
Booger
@Betty: I think we should only call it what it says on the birth certificate.
Harrison Wesley
@Leto: Florida is leading the way. Our surgeon general is getting rid of mandatory vaccinations for kids. Is this really what he was taught at Harvard?
Martin
@MattF: The timing of this seems designed to get public attention focused on DOD/Trump secret behavior, so maybe there are folks trying to slow that down.
Omnes Omnibus
As far as the North Korea story, it could have start as a legitimate-ish mission to gather communications from a hostile country. It went vastly wrong when the SEALs did not simply abort the mission when they were seen. I blame SEAL culture as much as anything. But they also had POTUS who was pardoning their comrades who had committed war crimes. They felt they could get away with it but apparently never thought about what they should do. As I said, SEAL culture.
Chetan Murthy
@prostratedragon: Even setting aside the obvious inhumanity, doing this to citizens of one of our closest -allies- is just insane malpractice.
Peke Daddy
Given we are already involved in WWIII on several fronts around the globe, this is preparing the people for what’s coming.
scav
It’s those evil mitochondria that are a dead giveaway.
Harrison Wesley
Is the DOD renaming announcement going to have an Edwin Starr accompaniment?
Chief Oshkosh
@Leto: I wonder what the rubes will say when their kids get polio. They’ll probably say “it’s God’s will,” never comprehending that, if there is a God, they also created Dr. Salk and gave him the intelligence and drive to develop a polio vaccine, and then the temperament to give it to the world for free.
trollhattan
@Harrison Wesley:
Am recalling that when California was legislatively eliminating our religious exemption for vaccines to attend school, RFK Jr hauled his leathery worm-ridden ass out to Sacramento to screen an antivax film and in on-the-record comments, called vaccines a holocaust.
He had to apologize and that made RFK Jr really mad.
Our AG could not invalidate the law if he wanted to, which he does not. Besides, too busy suing Trump. My state senator sponsored the bill and had to have security after this merde pie hit the fan.
rikyrah
“Voluntary therapy camp” for autistic children?
I think the phuck not 😡😡😡 https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8BEkVuW/
Dave
@Professor Bigfoot: That is vastly preferable.
“Thank you for your service” always made my skin crawl even if I never took it out on the person saying it.
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: it’s not just SEAL culture, but pervasive through most of the special ops communities. Agreed on the potus pardons emboldening them even further.
Dave
@Leto: Agreed SPEC OPs needs to be reined in hard.
I’m particularly less than impressed with SEALs as a result of some personal experience combined with their annoying yet effective PR.
Leto
@Chief Oshkosh: I’ve thought about that as well, and I simply don’t know. I don’t know how you square that: God sent this disease to ravage mankind, but then he also let Dr. Saulk discover a cure for it so we wouldn’t be afflicted by it anymore. I think of all the programs I’ve watched, all the things I’ve read, on how people just absolutely feared all these diseases, but then how eternally happy they were that we developed vaccines for them. It’s absolutely mind boggling the sheer ignorance/stupidity of it all. Can we hold them criminally responsible for these preventable deaths? Personally I feel that we should.
Edit: on page 8 of that report, at the end there’s a “Challenges in the 21st Century.” Nowhere does it state, “one of the challenges is our government has been captured by anti-science zealots/Christofascists who will systematically dismantle the most effective institution created to combat global diseases.” Lack of imagination, imo.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
Jesus, that’s not mimicking the Nazis, that’s stealing from them.
trollhattan
@Leto:
Right up there with the devil scattered dinosaur fossils around the planet to confuse people into thinking it’s more than a few thousand years old.
Deputinize America
@Leto:
Routine pardons for avoidable fuckups lead to more fuckups through recklessness.
trollhattan
For
Fucks
Sake
Make
It
Stop
And I say it was because the mother breathed oxygen during pregnancy. Prove I’m wrong.
Deputinize America
@Harrison Wesley:
How long until Trump designs himself a snappy uniform with all sorts of bling and flair, and names himself as a 7 star general?
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: The king of battle!
trollhattan
@Deputinize America:
Needs some of this action.
telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03206/Valentin-Gavrilov_3206914b.jpg
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: One of the mini subs was parked the wrong way!
Deputinize America
@trollhattan:
Shit, I don’t think Zhukov or Konev wore that much bling.
prostratedragon
@Chief Oshkosh:
You know the one about the man who relied on God when the flood rose.
As the clouds gathered, his neighbors offered him a ride to high ground. When the waters began to rise, a passerby with a boat offered to get him to safety. As he sat on his roof, a rezcue helicopter hovered iver, but like the others, he was rebuffed by the man, who said, “I’m counting on the Lord.” When he arrived in heaven after being swept away, he asked God whether his prayers were heard. God told him, “I sent you good neighbors, a boat, and a helicopter. What more did you want?”
Citizen Alan
@trollhattan: I am seriously expecting a push to ban epidurals. I’ve seen footage of Evangelical preachers pushing that line. God commanded that women should bring forth children in pain as part of Eve’s punishment, and anything that alleviates that pain is satanic.
IMO, the entire “pro-life” movement is driven 100% by the sadistic belief that God literally invented pregnancy primarily as a way to torture women.
gvg
@Deputinize America: Fuck you.
Leto
@Dave: they do; this is a byproduct of our eternal war combined with the rise of social media. Part of the old school special ops creed was… shut the fuck up. You didn’t talk about this shit. Yeah, some of the exploits of a few might become known, though those people wouldn’t specially talk about it. Now? Go on YouTube and there’s just a plethora of former dudes just yappin’ their traps about missions, former teammates, this shit and that. And don’t even mention all the book deals for their exclusive take on missions and shit. For me it shows a serious lack of professionalism and just degradation of the entire culture. Again, that’s my take on it having spent a number of years assigned to those units and 1 on 1 discussions with them about things like this.
@trollhattan: the mental gymnastics they go through… and this current generation (I say current but lets say last 40-50 years) that will absolutely deny that God might have had anything to do with scientists/doctors helping to prevent all this suffering. Again, going back to old clips of people thanking God for helping people like Salk discover a cure to eradicate these afflictions. Just insane.
trollhattan
More of this.
Harrison Wesley
@trollhattan: Tomorrow in Axios: “Is Autism The New ‘Woke’?”
Leto
I feel like this has been discussed in comments, but here’s the video straight from the horse’s ass.
REPORT: Joseph Schnitt, acting deputy chief within United States DOJ says they’ll “redact every Republican”, leave every Democrat name on the Epstein list – also says Maxwell was moved to “keep her quiet”.
This is my surprised face…
NotMax
@trollhattan
See also too.
;)
Miss Bianca
@Betty: “Dak spit first”? I mean, I don’t even follow sportsball. All I’m hearing is echoes of Star Wars fanboi-ing.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Unseen: the counterweight keeping him from pitching faceforward into the turf.
VeniceRiley
In Gilead, they don’t even say “Thank you for your cervix.” to the handmaids.
trollhattan
@VeniceRiley:
{rimshot} Hey-ohh!
Betty
@Miss Bianca: I was surprised to see this as a Philadelphia Inquirer headline and that the Governor thought it warranted his intervention. It is unusual for a player kicked out so soon.
Paul in KY
@Betty: Still stupid as shit.
Timill
@Miss Bianca:
I’m very tempted by this t-shirt.
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: That was hella funny! and completely true, also. Too!
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: If you really really really want to be a SEAL. You can’t be one.
p.a
I recall seeing criticism of the DoW>DoD change from, IIRC, people I would consider all along the political spectrum as another case of “spreading euphamism syndrome.”
Paul in KY
@Deputinize America: 7 months, tops. If he’s still alive. Stalin was a Generalissimo. TACO would be SuperDuperGeneralissimo ™
p.a
@Paul in KY: I imagine TACO in a uni like the Captain Obvious in the tv commercials, but even more gold-ish.
Paul in KY
@p.a: Ick! Captain Obvious unitard would be a crime-against-nature with TACO defiling it. I’m thinking of a ill-fitting uniform with more gold and bling and fake medals than Napoleon III on angel dust.
divF
@Leto: One of the truly great publications of the CDC is the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), which until the advent of web publication, was a pamphlet containing updates on various disease outbreaks of note. Madame divF subscribed to it from the time she was a medical student in the 1980s, and we were both close readers. In 2002, they published a special edition one week in honor of the 50th anniversary of MMWR, which was a collection of their “greatest hits”. These included the first report on the outbreak of AIDS in 1981, and of legionnaires’ disease in 1976.
One of my favorite features was the regular publication of information on diseases for which outbreaks were so rare that they listed every individual case (with relevant epidemiological information) over the course of a year e.g. all 12 cases of bubonic plague, hantavirus, etc. in the US.
NotMax
@PaulinKY
Ultralissimo.
//
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
He’d be thoroughly camouflaged in the Oval Office.
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: IMO SEALs are the worst offenders.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Deputinize America:
No. That’s a terrible idea.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Duplicate.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@trollhattan: Trump and Kennedy will do anything to blame autism on every possible cause except sperm from old men with younger wives.
JaneE
Is it really necessary to make their bloodlust even more obvious? Or just letting us know they plan to wage war on civilians rather than defend them?
Kayla Rudbek
@MattF: I hate the term “war fighter.” Y’all are military or soldiers/sailors/Marines/airmen respectively (and get out of here with that guardians/Space Force nonsense).
And quit wearing camouflage if you’re not actually out in the field. If you’re sitting in an office, you can wear class A’s like a professional instead of running around looking like a deer hunter wearing pajamas. Sloppy dress is a symptom of a sloppy mind (just look at the dudebros running Silicon Valley)
Paul in KY
@NotMax: That sounds about right…
Paul in KY
@SiubhanDuinne: Ha! They’d think he was some kind of very ugly cherub.