Hegseth Cleans House: Fires All Pentagon Advisory Committees, Including Seat Held by Obama Crony Susan Rice

[Swordsmyth]

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has formally terminated the service of every member sitting on the Department of Defense’s advisory committees.


Based on the information available on the website as of Thursday, the now-defunct panels included several well-known Democrats and Bush-era Republicans.

• Janine Davidson (Chair) – Former Under Secretary of the Navy under Obama. A staunch Democrat and longtime proponent of Obama-era military reforms, now steering Pentagon policy advice.
• Michèle Flournoy – Held major Pentagon roles under Clinton and Obama; often discussed as a potential Secretary of Defense under Hillary Clinton or Biden.
• Colin Kahl – National Security Advisor to then-VP Biden, later Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under Biden. Key Biden ally and architect of many failed Middle East strategies during the Obama years.
• Susan Rice – National Security Advisor under Obama; Domestic Policy Advisor under Biden. Central to Obama’s foreign policy blunders and later helped craft Biden’s radical domestic agenda.
• Dana Shell Smith – Career diplomat; served as U.S. Ambassador to Qatar under Obama.
• Eric Edelman – Undersecretary of Defense for Policy under George W. Bush; strong neoconservative background.
• Jon Huntsman Jr. – Served under George W. Bush (Ambassador to Singapore) and Obama (Ambassador to China); briefly served under Trump (Ambassador to Russia).
• Kori Schake – Held roles under Bush; associated with AEI and other think tanks; known for hawkish, internationalist views.

More at:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/defense-secretary-pete-hegseth-cleans-house-fires-all/

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Cleans House: Fires All Pentagon Advisory Committees, Including Seat Held by Obama Crony Susan Rice | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft

In a bold move, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has disbanded all Pentagon advisory committees, including the controversial seat held by Susan Rice, signaling a significant shift in the Department of Defense's strategic priorities.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

 

[wizardwatson]

Administrations hiring their political allies and firing their political enemies, is mundane.

But somehow with Trump, he's saving the world by doing normal partisan crap every administration does every four years.

Congrats, they're out of a job until the guard changes again. So thread-worthy.

 

[Toomer Deplorable]

Administrations hiring their political allies and firing their political enemies, is mundane.

But somehow with Trump, he's saving the world by doing normal partisan crap every administration does every four years.

Congrats, they're out of a job until the guard changes again. So thread-worthy.

True.

Any vote in this UniParty® charade is ultimately a vote for the left or right wing of the Deep State. The very best outcome we can expect in this wholly corrupted political environment is some measure of populist pushback.

It is what it is. With that said, seeing neoliberals and neocons like Rice and Edelman facing such political recrimination is a cause for celebration.

 

[PAF]

True.

Any vote in this UniParty® charade is ultimately a vote for the left or right wing of the Deep State. The very best outcome we can expect in this wholly corrupted political environment is some measure of populist pushback.

I agree.

Somebody on this forum said something to the effect: Trump is making the deep-state deeper. Very true, btw.

I personally don't see a way out of this mess. The majority of voters are still going to vote for either party. Many, though not all, of those voters will toe the party line, and once the voting is over, they resume back to their normal lives and don't give it another thought.

A subset of those voters are the political junkies. Among those are a mere fraction who actually embrace liberty. The majority of the subset who are involved in "the process" typically have stake in the game, such as, for example, keeping the MIC firmly rooted because "jobs" count on it - both D and R.

Populist pushback is typically what it takes. It doesn't require voting or supporting any/either party. But the information and message must be delivered and received in a way to appeal to just enough people that it will effect the change that we seek.

I was reading through The New Dictionary Project? thread and I do think that it is a good idea.

An idea that I had [which proved completely useless] was a simplified On the Record sheet, so that 1. voters would see the policies that they support by voting, with hopes that representatives could/would be replaced, and/or 2. For the most part, representatives don't represent every individual and the only way out of this mess is by "Populist Pushback" ie: Disobedience is the True Foundation of Liberty. Throw the "Overton Window" into the mix and now look where we are.

 

[Swordsmyth]

Administrations hiring their political allies and firing their political enemies, is mundane.

But somehow with Trump, he's saving the world by doing normal partisan crap every administration does every four years.

Congrats, they're out of a job until the guard changes again. So thread-worthy.

Absolute nonsense.
The RINO administrations have ALWAYS left the Demoncrat deepstate in place.

Trump is giving the bureaucracy its first diaper change in a very long time.

 

[wizardwatson]

Absolute nonsense.
The RINO administrations have ALWAYS left the Demoncrat deepstate in place.

Trump is giving the bureaucracy its first diaper change in a very long time.

Dotard Trump is a RINO. His first admin was RINO his 2nd admin is RINO. You are a la la land,

 

[Toomer Deplorable]

Populist pushback is typically what it takes. It doesn't require voting or supporting any/either party. But the information and message must be delivered and received in a way to appeal to just enough people that it will effect the change that we seek.

And even here, it will be a decidedly mixed bag: when Trump named neocon Mike Pence as the underticket in 2016, I knew much of Trump’s stated MAGA agenda — at least as it pertains to foreign policy— was going to be DOA. Yet Trump himself is a pragmatist instead of an ideologue.

Of course, a pragmatic approach to governance is itself rooted in the Wilsonian idea that we need only elect the correct slate of dispassionate “experts” and we can create a utopia on earth. Yet the pragmatist in Trump is thus willing to consider “solutions” untenable to much of the permanent bipartisan reigning political establishment in the Potomac Beltway.

So for every John Bolton that Trump allows into his inner circle, we might also get a Tulsi Gabbard. Though Tulsi is a doctrinaire leftist on most social issues, Tulsi’s positions on foreign policy are a vast improvement over that of your average Republican swamp-thing.

 

[Toomer Deplorable]

Dotard Trump is a RINO. His first admin was RINO his 2nd admin is RINO.

Compared to what preceded him, DT is indeed a RINO. Yet that is not a bad thing. I’ve always joked that Trump’s most enduring appeal is he makes enemies in all the right places!

 

[wizardwatson]

Compared to what preceded him, DT is indeed a RINO. Yet that is not a bad thing. I’ve always joked that Trump’s most enduring appeal is he makes enemies in all the right places!

You don't think this is a plausible scenario:

RNC: "Hey, Mitt, we need you to publicly endorse Kamala. Polls are showing Trump's getting a bump when he distances himself with Bush-era Republicans."

MITT: "That'll cost ya."

...hate to burst the bubble, but I'm pretty sure that the P.R. folks have outlined the MAGA archetype. It is not a great mystery:

1. "They took muh jobs!" is core mantra.
2. No trannies.
3. America and Christian are the same thing.
4. U.S. troops are angels.

 

[acptulsa]

You don't think this is a plausible scenario:

No they don't.

The deep state is a lying, evil cabal at the very least capable of playing 2D chess. But it can't possibly hear Republican voters say they're sick of business as usual and have the last losing GOP nominee say he hates the heir apparent. They're incapable of having Democrats impeach or indict him on bogus charges that couldn't possibly stick. It isn't possible for them to shoot somebody behind him and squirt a ketchup pack on his face.

Why not? Because don't be silly, that's why not. And GOP voters are right. You shouldn't be silly. That's their job.

 

[unknown]

Importantly, they're getting rid of guys like Caldwell, one of the few voices in the DOD opposed to the US going to war for Izrael.

 

[unknown]

Administrations hiring their political allies and firing their political enemies, is mundane.

But somehow with Trump, he's saving the world by doing normal partisan crap every administration does every four years.

Congrats, they're out of a job until the guard changes again. So thread-worthy.

In comparison to Trump's first term, when all he did was appoint industry insiders and lobbyists to Cabinet positions.

And maybe something regarding lifelong bureaucrats who remain in power despite a change of administration, Victoria Nuland for example.