Is it just me? This morning, I was on the live feed here with Sarah and Will and wanted to listen along for some commentary, but became frustrated because Will actually had too much to say. Sarah’s comments were short and didn’t interfere with “hearing the hearing.” I finally gave up and left the Bulwark feed and went over to C-Span.
I hope in the future, Will will interject without lecturing during the live feed.
PS Love you, Will...and love what you offer at other times and in other formats! Just a bit less intrusive commentary under these circumstances, please.
So, I see Hegseth is getting the Kavanaugh treatment. No real FBI investigation and softball treatment by the GOP. Honestly, they figured out they could get away with this before, so I'm not surprised they're doing it with Hegseth and undoubtedly others to come.
I listened and found that I wanted more digging in on how Hegseth will deal with illegal orders. Hirono and Slotkin did well with bring these up, with the short period of time they had, but I think his caviling is instructive. He will obey Trump's illegal orders and ignore the Geneva Convention, since apparently it is no longer relevant.
I listened to the entire 4 hours. If anyone bowed out early (put off by the Lord and Savior stuff), then you may have missed Pete thanking “Jesus and Jenny” for saving him and putting him on the path to righteousness. You also missed various Republican Senators testifying to their own faith in Jesus and thanking their Savior for letting Trump win the election so that he can save the country from the forces of evil…and other religious crap. I mean it just went on and on and on. Hegseth’s testimony was 50% on topic and 50% praising Jesus and Donald Trump. If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now, that the Trump GOP wants the United States to be a Christian theocracy. This hearing was scary way beyond just the nomination of Pete Hegseth.
Side note: this is only the second time that I watched and listened to an entire Senate confirmation hearing. The other one was Bret Kavanaugh. If memory serves, which is always doubtful, I don’t remember Kavanaugh talking about Jesus, or mentioning Christ, or using the words Lord and Savior, or in fact, any religious references. Nor do I remember Kavanaugh mentioning the name of Donald Trump, or President Trump, or claiming as Hegseth did that he was qualified for the position because Trump nominated him. Hegseth literally said at one point that the proof that he was qualified to manage the DOD was that Trump nominated him to manage the DOD. Hegseth said Trump was the greatest CEO that ever was, so the committee should accept the fact that Trump thought Hegseth was qualified as sufficient and quit asking questions. Say what you will about Kavanaugh, that was a serious hearing, seriously conducted. What I watched this morning was a joke. And not a funny one.
I hope you will discuss these items in your wrap-up:
1. The gross use of meritocracy. We do not have a meritocracy in this country and will not until everyone has access to what is now only accessible by the upper class.
2. The protection of other this and other GOP nominees or even congressional people who have fallen by the wayside. It doesn't happen on the Dem side.
3. Hegseth's clear and total incompetence.
4. The failure of the committee to hold a full hearing or require full and honest vetting.
Chairman Wicker wasn’t wrong that they followed “precedent” — Biden SecDef nominee Lloyd Austin’s hearing was the same length as this one to within five minutes. But Lloyd Austin was also the former CENTCOM commander and was very well-known by almost all the committee members.
And there was almost zero controversy to Austin’s nomination — only his being separated from the military for just five years, requiring a special waiver, was unusual.
The reason for a longer hearing is obvious: because Hegseth’s controversial and his vetting was incomplete. But Republican senators can’t admit either fact since Trump denies it.
So it’s a small example already, a week before Trump takes office, of how being beholden to the strongman’s lies impact policy in Kafkaesque (or Orwellian) ways. Clearly he needed more questioning — but it’s only clear if one accepts reality.
My suggestion for getting commentary without muting and missing some good lines would be a live Bulwarker text chat (a feed of an internal Bulwark Slack channel would work) displayed beside the C-SPAN feed, with live discussion during any breaks¹ and after the hearing.
Also the idea brought up elsewhere in this thread by Bob Kanefsky of commentary breaks pausing the feed and then resuming at 1.25✗ speed is a novel one that seems worth trying. Viewers wouldn’t miss anything from either The Bulwark or the hearings, and you would know by the feed switching back to live before interrupting that you were budgeting your commentary time well. But I could see this being unwieldy.
But putting the muting aside, Will, Sam and Andrew were all great — well done to your reporters! Sarah didn’t get enough time (though it seems like perhaps the stream was started elsewhere before getting switched to the right YouTube post? It just went live in the middle of a comment from Sarah).
Tim’s wincing at the end was perfectly relatable — and props on his final rant!
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¹ But, if the Senate GOP wouldn’t give even the *SecDef* two rounds of questions, who *will* they have a long hearing for?!? During the hearing, both Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. Jack Reed and Sen. Mark Kelly seemed to imply that the single round was something of a surprise to Democrats, with Wicker responding that it conformed to the “precedent” of prior SecDef testimony — true as far as it goes, but Lloyd Austin’s hearing was quick because he was so recently out of his CENTCOM post that almost all the senators on Armed Services knew him well.
I always get a lot out of Bulwark commentary that I don't get elsewhere. I did get frustrated with the muting of the question/answer to have more discussion than brief comments. Doing live commentary is challenging I'm sure. During the debates and election there was longer down periods to not interrupt the actual event. During these hearings, there is not much down time. I would recommend that instead of muting the hearing, the sound stay at full volume and then brief commentary be made by Bulwark folks in more of a hushed tone so listeners can decide what to focus attention on. I admit I did have to switch to CBS live stream a couple of times because of the muting being too long/disruptive. Thanks for all you do...these next 4 years are going to be a challenge for us and having you there to help break it down and keep us informed is so appreciated.
Appreciated this. I thought some of the Bulwark commentary, especially early/mid-process was disruptive to my viewing process but overall this was stellar. Please consider a watch for the Noem hearing. Doing so would make a great comedy hour+ for you and all of us.
My earlier suggestion of pause for 1 minute and play at 1.25x for 5 minutes would allow commentary without missing anything but might be disruptive. How about carefully muting during the unanimous consent requests and putting up a graphic saying either "R request to enter material into the record supporting the nominee" or "D request to enter material into the record damaging to the nominee". Then maybe post a summary of those at the end, or not; by definition we can all look them up when the record is published.
Unfortunately it’s impossible to predict those things and they’re generally too short for someone to meaningfully extemporize some commentary.
…Well, usually impossible to predict. Wicker’s tactic of entering something into the record following every Democrat’s questioning was a bit bizarre (and came off to someone who watches an unhealthy number of hearings as defensive).
I think the pause-and-resume-with-speedup idea is definitely worth trying — I’ve never seen it done before, but I just tried re-watching a bit of the hearing at 1.25 speed and it doesn’t seem to hurt. Figuring out what a protestor is screaming or getting the timing of jokes is likely to suffer, but those are pretty ancillary.
Technical suggestion for future live commentary to have their cake and eat it too:
Is there a way, instead of muting, to pause, and then after a minute of commentary, resume playing at 1.25x speed until it catches up to the live moment and continues at 1x?
I'd like Dem senator to ask this question: if a navy vessel is deployed to a part of the world that is prone to infectious disease, and there is a vaccine that protects against that disease, would you require all sailors on that ship to be vaccinated? If not, how would you contain the shipwide spread of that disease, and how does that contribute to readiness?
Great idea. He’d probably just say that he and Trump will always make sure that the enlisted people are safe and protected from disease in such a way as to never negatively impact combat readiness because he and Trump are committed to ensuring the readiness of all of our troops both here and abroad. In other words, politispeak for 5 minutes without actually answering the question.
I listened to the entire 4 hours on the Senate committee website. Sorry Bulwark crew, but color commentary gets in the way of understanding. If you bowed out you missed Pete thanking “Jesus and Jenny” for saving him and putting him on the path to righteousness. You also missed various Republican Senators testifying to their own faith in Jesus and thanking their Savior for letting Trump win the election so that he can save the country from the forces of evil…and other religious crap. Hegseth’s testimony was 50% on topic and 50% praising Jesus and Donald Trump. If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now, that the Trump GOP wants the United States to be a Christian theocracy. This hearing was scary way beyond just the nomination of Pete Hegseth.
I grew up in rural Kentucky......I've been dragged to snake handling, faith healers, watched people collapse on the floor as they were "Possessed by the Spirit". I know this type of "Christianity" inside and out. It scares the hell out of me.
I did love Elissa Slotkin's calling him out on his filibustering. He did this repeatedly, and skillfully enough to preemptively curtail at least 50% of any unfriendly questioning. He did well enough to give R's the CYA cover to vote him in. Unfortunately. And a stage-managed pretense of a hearing. He refused to meet with any dems pre-hearing, and dems also made note of some important deficiencies in the FBI report on him. Shades of Brett Kavanaugh? This was a full on MAGA style BS love fest for a real Trumpian manly man. Three cheers for Pete!!
One thing I didn’t understand is why the Democrats on the committee didn’t force Hegseth to say WHY he didn’t meet with them. Although he said at one point that his team contacted someone’s office and there was a “scheduling conflict”. But the Democrat countered immediately with “I talked to your team to schedule an alternative time and they never responded”. EACH of the Democrats said they tried to schedule a meeting and it never happened. There couldn’t have been “conflicts” with ALL of them. Why wasn’t he put on the spot? Just repeat the question over and over, “Why didn’t you meet with me?” Force the little creep to answer the question. Nobody did that. Maybe Tim can give me a reason from the POV of a political operative.
The fact that Trump and the GOP slow walked the FBI background checks also has created issues....not that I think they would change any minds in the GOP
No argument from me, but the Christian Nationalism has been front and centre for a long time.......I just can't listen to people claim to be Christians and then behave in a manner that flies in the face of their alleged beliefs.
I loved Mark Kelly. He took it to this impudent ass. But honorable mentions must go Tammy Duckworth and Elissa Slotkin. They were also taking no prisoners. Pardon the wartime reference for a DOD hearing. 😉
I find this whole thing upsetting. Clearly nobody gives a damn about caring properly for the men and women in our armed services, ensuring ongoing military readiness (already a huge problem) and protecting our country, but they are all down for a good bit of theatre. Fuck them all.
Sorry but there are some things that are far too important to do this way. Everything needs to be fixed and nobody knows what to do to fix it. Or if they do, they're too busy doing political stunts to take care of the country. This hearing is a really good example of why many of us have lost faith in so many institutions.
I take it back only thus far for Tim Kaine who seems to understand the importance of some things. If only we hadn't had to wait hours for that few minutes.
A quick aside before we get started: a close friend of mine has to renew her Top Secret Clearance every few years, one of the questions is literally have you participated in an insurrection. So there’s that.
As I look at and listen to this guy, I keep thinking of Liz Phair's song "Flower" as sung by Pansy Division:
"Your face reminds me of a flower
Kind of like you're underwater
Hair's too long and in your eyes
Your lips are perfect s***-me size"
Warrior culture indeed!
Is it just me? This morning, I was on the live feed here with Sarah and Will and wanted to listen along for some commentary, but became frustrated because Will actually had too much to say. Sarah’s comments were short and didn’t interfere with “hearing the hearing.” I finally gave up and left the Bulwark feed and went over to C-Span.
I hope in the future, Will will interject without lecturing during the live feed.
PS Love you, Will...and love what you offer at other times and in other formats! Just a bit less intrusive commentary under these circumstances, please.
So, I see Hegseth is getting the Kavanaugh treatment. No real FBI investigation and softball treatment by the GOP. Honestly, they figured out they could get away with this before, so I'm not surprised they're doing it with Hegseth and undoubtedly others to come.
Will it be saved on Stack or YT? I have an appointment tonight, sorry!
I listened and found that I wanted more digging in on how Hegseth will deal with illegal orders. Hirono and Slotkin did well with bring these up, with the short period of time they had, but I think his caviling is instructive. He will obey Trump's illegal orders and ignore the Geneva Convention, since apparently it is no longer relevant.
I listened to the entire 4 hours. If anyone bowed out early (put off by the Lord and Savior stuff), then you may have missed Pete thanking “Jesus and Jenny” for saving him and putting him on the path to righteousness. You also missed various Republican Senators testifying to their own faith in Jesus and thanking their Savior for letting Trump win the election so that he can save the country from the forces of evil…and other religious crap. I mean it just went on and on and on. Hegseth’s testimony was 50% on topic and 50% praising Jesus and Donald Trump. If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now, that the Trump GOP wants the United States to be a Christian theocracy. This hearing was scary way beyond just the nomination of Pete Hegseth.
Side note: this is only the second time that I watched and listened to an entire Senate confirmation hearing. The other one was Bret Kavanaugh. If memory serves, which is always doubtful, I don’t remember Kavanaugh talking about Jesus, or mentioning Christ, or using the words Lord and Savior, or in fact, any religious references. Nor do I remember Kavanaugh mentioning the name of Donald Trump, or President Trump, or claiming as Hegseth did that he was qualified for the position because Trump nominated him. Hegseth literally said at one point that the proof that he was qualified to manage the DOD was that Trump nominated him to manage the DOD. Hegseth said Trump was the greatest CEO that ever was, so the committee should accept the fact that Trump thought Hegseth was qualified as sufficient and quit asking questions. Say what you will about Kavanaugh, that was a serious hearing, seriously conducted. What I watched this morning was a joke. And not a funny one.
I hope you will discuss these items in your wrap-up:
1. The gross use of meritocracy. We do not have a meritocracy in this country and will not until everyone has access to what is now only accessible by the upper class.
2. The protection of other this and other GOP nominees or even congressional people who have fallen by the wayside. It doesn't happen on the Dem side.
3. Hegseth's clear and total incompetence.
4. The failure of the committee to hold a full hearing or require full and honest vetting.
Chairman Wicker wasn’t wrong that they followed “precedent” — Biden SecDef nominee Lloyd Austin’s hearing was the same length as this one to within five minutes. But Lloyd Austin was also the former CENTCOM commander and was very well-known by almost all the committee members.
And there was almost zero controversy to Austin’s nomination — only his being separated from the military for just five years, requiring a special waiver, was unusual.
The reason for a longer hearing is obvious: because Hegseth’s controversial and his vetting was incomplete. But Republican senators can’t admit either fact since Trump denies it.
So it’s a small example already, a week before Trump takes office, of how being beholden to the strongman’s lies impact policy in Kafkaesque (or Orwellian) ways. Clearly he needed more questioning — but it’s only clear if one accepts reality.
All true. I accept reality, but I still have trouble realizing how much worse it will get.
My suggestion for getting commentary without muting and missing some good lines would be a live Bulwarker text chat (a feed of an internal Bulwark Slack channel would work) displayed beside the C-SPAN feed, with live discussion during any breaks¹ and after the hearing.
Also the idea brought up elsewhere in this thread by Bob Kanefsky of commentary breaks pausing the feed and then resuming at 1.25✗ speed is a novel one that seems worth trying. Viewers wouldn’t miss anything from either The Bulwark or the hearings, and you would know by the feed switching back to live before interrupting that you were budgeting your commentary time well. But I could see this being unwieldy.
But putting the muting aside, Will, Sam and Andrew were all great — well done to your reporters! Sarah didn’t get enough time (though it seems like perhaps the stream was started elsewhere before getting switched to the right YouTube post? It just went live in the middle of a comment from Sarah).
Tim’s wincing at the end was perfectly relatable — and props on his final rant!
—
¹ But, if the Senate GOP wouldn’t give even the *SecDef* two rounds of questions, who *will* they have a long hearing for?!? During the hearing, both Armed Services Committee ranking member Sen. Jack Reed and Sen. Mark Kelly seemed to imply that the single round was something of a surprise to Democrats, with Wicker responding that it conformed to the “precedent” of prior SecDef testimony — true as far as it goes, but Lloyd Austin’s hearing was quick because he was so recently out of his CENTCOM post that almost all the senators on Armed Services knew him well.
I always get a lot out of Bulwark commentary that I don't get elsewhere. I did get frustrated with the muting of the question/answer to have more discussion than brief comments. Doing live commentary is challenging I'm sure. During the debates and election there was longer down periods to not interrupt the actual event. During these hearings, there is not much down time. I would recommend that instead of muting the hearing, the sound stay at full volume and then brief commentary be made by Bulwark folks in more of a hushed tone so listeners can decide what to focus attention on. I admit I did have to switch to CBS live stream a couple of times because of the muting being too long/disruptive. Thanks for all you do...these next 4 years are going to be a challenge for us and having you there to help break it down and keep us informed is so appreciated.
Appreciated this. I thought some of the Bulwark commentary, especially early/mid-process was disruptive to my viewing process but overall this was stellar. Please consider a watch for the Noem hearing. Doing so would make a great comedy hour+ for you and all of us.
My earlier suggestion of pause for 1 minute and play at 1.25x for 5 minutes would allow commentary without missing anything but might be disruptive. How about carefully muting during the unanimous consent requests and putting up a graphic saying either "R request to enter material into the record supporting the nominee" or "D request to enter material into the record damaging to the nominee". Then maybe post a summary of those at the end, or not; by definition we can all look them up when the record is published.
Unfortunately it’s impossible to predict those things and they’re generally too short for someone to meaningfully extemporize some commentary.
…Well, usually impossible to predict. Wicker’s tactic of entering something into the record following every Democrat’s questioning was a bit bizarre (and came off to someone who watches an unhealthy number of hearings as defensive).
I think the pause-and-resume-with-speedup idea is definitely worth trying — I’ve never seen it done before, but I just tried re-watching a bit of the hearing at 1.25 speed and it doesn’t seem to hurt. Figuring out what a protestor is screaming or getting the timing of jokes is likely to suffer, but those are pretty ancillary.
Technical suggestion for future live commentary to have their cake and eat it too:
Is there a way, instead of muting, to pause, and then after a minute of commentary, resume playing at 1.25x speed until it catches up to the live moment and continues at 1x?
I'd like Dem senator to ask this question: if a navy vessel is deployed to a part of the world that is prone to infectious disease, and there is a vaccine that protects against that disease, would you require all sailors on that ship to be vaccinated? If not, how would you contain the shipwide spread of that disease, and how does that contribute to readiness?
Great idea. He’d probably just say that he and Trump will always make sure that the enlisted people are safe and protected from disease in such a way as to never negatively impact combat readiness because he and Trump are committed to ensuring the readiness of all of our troops both here and abroad. In other words, politispeak for 5 minutes without actually answering the question.
Yeah.....I tried, but I can't do it. Once Hegseth started in with the "His Lord and Savior" stuff, I had to bow out.
I listened to the entire 4 hours on the Senate committee website. Sorry Bulwark crew, but color commentary gets in the way of understanding. If you bowed out you missed Pete thanking “Jesus and Jenny” for saving him and putting him on the path to righteousness. You also missed various Republican Senators testifying to their own faith in Jesus and thanking their Savior for letting Trump win the election so that he can save the country from the forces of evil…and other religious crap. Hegseth’s testimony was 50% on topic and 50% praising Jesus and Donald Trump. If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now, that the Trump GOP wants the United States to be a Christian theocracy. This hearing was scary way beyond just the nomination of Pete Hegseth.
I grew up in rural Kentucky......I've been dragged to snake handling, faith healers, watched people collapse on the floor as they were "Possessed by the Spirit". I know this type of "Christianity" inside and out. It scares the hell out of me.
I did love Elissa Slotkin's calling him out on his filibustering. He did this repeatedly, and skillfully enough to preemptively curtail at least 50% of any unfriendly questioning. He did well enough to give R's the CYA cover to vote him in. Unfortunately. And a stage-managed pretense of a hearing. He refused to meet with any dems pre-hearing, and dems also made note of some important deficiencies in the FBI report on him. Shades of Brett Kavanaugh? This was a full on MAGA style BS love fest for a real Trumpian manly man. Three cheers for Pete!!
One thing I didn’t understand is why the Democrats on the committee didn’t force Hegseth to say WHY he didn’t meet with them. Although he said at one point that his team contacted someone’s office and there was a “scheduling conflict”. But the Democrat countered immediately with “I talked to your team to schedule an alternative time and they never responded”. EACH of the Democrats said they tried to schedule a meeting and it never happened. There couldn’t have been “conflicts” with ALL of them. Why wasn’t he put on the spot? Just repeat the question over and over, “Why didn’t you meet with me?” Force the little creep to answer the question. Nobody did that. Maybe Tim can give me a reason from the POV of a political operative.
The fact that Trump and the GOP slow walked the FBI background checks also has created issues....not that I think they would change any minds in the GOP
No argument from me, but the Christian Nationalism has been front and centre for a long time.......I just can't listen to people claim to be Christians and then behave in a manner that flies in the face of their alleged beliefs.
Sen Tim Kaine was on fire--really smart questions. I was blown away impressed.
I loved Mark Kelly. He took it to this impudent ass. But honorable mentions must go Tammy Duckworth and Elissa Slotkin. They were also taking no prisoners. Pardon the wartime reference for a DOD hearing. 😉
I find this whole thing upsetting. Clearly nobody gives a damn about caring properly for the men and women in our armed services, ensuring ongoing military readiness (already a huge problem) and protecting our country, but they are all down for a good bit of theatre. Fuck them all.
Sorry but there are some things that are far too important to do this way. Everything needs to be fixed and nobody knows what to do to fix it. Or if they do, they're too busy doing political stunts to take care of the country. This hearing is a really good example of why many of us have lost faith in so many institutions.
I take it back only thus far for Tim Kaine who seems to understand the importance of some things. If only we hadn't had to wait hours for that few minutes.
SNL's recent "What's That Name? Election Edition" skit must have really gotten to Tim Kaine.
Tim Kaine was glorious to watch, firing away at him, I wish they had all used their time in such a way. Maize Hirono as well.
A quick aside before we get started: a close friend of mine has to renew her Top Secret Clearance every few years, one of the questions is literally have you participated in an insurrection. So there’s that.
It's on my Secret check as well. A civilian contractor (and very low level really) has to pass that test.