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Why the Secretary of Defense’s Mysterious Disappearance Means He Needs to Go
Slate ^ | 1/8/24 | Fred Kaplan

Posted on 01/09/2024 5:14:27 PM PST by DallasBiff

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin might well be gone from the Pentagon by the end of the week. A good case can be made that he should be.

In the new year’s strangest bureaucratic mystery (and one of the strangest in any year), Austin, who is 70, was hospitalized on Jan. 1, but nobody in the White House—not even President Joe Biden—knew of the fact until Jan. 4. The deputy secretary of defense, Kathleen Hicks, who would stand in for him in an emergency, didn’t know until Jan. 3, and even then, she didn’t know he was in the hospital.

This is no minor lapse. U.S. military forces are on high alert in the Middle East; two aircraft carriers were moved into the Mediterranean, as a deterrent to Iranian intervention in the Israel-Hamas war, and those carriers and other vessels have come under fire. If Biden wanted any of those forces to take offensive action, his orders to the regional combatant commander would go through the secretary of defense. If Biden or his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, called a “Principals Meeting,” Austin would represent the Defense Department.

Certainly Austin, like any other Cabinet secretary, even like the president himself, is entitled to take time off for a medical emergency, but he needs to tell the commander in chief, as well as his stand-ins and everyone else around him, what’s going on.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: coverup; lloydaustin; secdef
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Isn't Slate a leftist site?

For Them to call for his resignation, is a big thing.

Yeah, he lost his prostate, but there are many brave women who lost their breasts, such as Christina Applegate, who went public, and she was not in a very important public government position.

1 posted on 01/09/2024 5:14:27 PM PST by DallasBiff
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To: DallasBiff

This story should be constant breaking news.
Incredible incompetency.
Biden should be impeached for this alone.


2 posted on 01/09/2024 5:16:27 PM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Have you seen Joe Biden's picture on a milk carton?)
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To: DallasBiff
but he needs to tell the commander in chief

Perhaps he did - he just didn't tell Biden.

3 posted on 01/09/2024 5:17:15 PM PST by Jim Noble (The future belongs to those who show up)
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To: DallasBiff

How do things happen at Walter Reed without transparency?


4 posted on 01/09/2024 5:17:58 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Jim Noble

OUCH!

Good observation!


5 posted on 01/09/2024 5:21:47 PM PST by Maine Mariner
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To: DallasBiff

Prostate I heard.


6 posted on 01/09/2024 5:25:02 PM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
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To: DallasBiff

Never heard of her .

..


7 posted on 01/09/2024 5:28:11 PM PST by Mears
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To: DallasBiff

I’m actually seeing quite a number of Democrats calling for this guy’s replacement over how this was mishandled.


8 posted on 01/09/2024 5:35:03 PM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: DallasBiff

I was wondering where Austin’s protector and defender was during this situation, then I remembered General Milleybhad retired last year, shortly after Labor Day.


9 posted on 01/09/2024 5:35:40 PM PST by lee martell
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To: FreedomPoster

The problem is that at least for the time being Kathleen Hicks becomes the Acting Secretary of Defense. We don’t want that.


10 posted on 01/09/2024 5:39:23 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: rktman

Yep. Had prostate surgically removed and went home the next day and then came back to hospital ICU with an infection... probably was septic since he stayed in ICU for a while. Wonder if they will put him on Lupron injections. Great, we would have a Sec. of Defense with no balls or would that what we already had.


11 posted on 01/09/2024 5:40:24 PM PST by DOC44 ( )
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To: DallasBiff

Whatever health problems he has is one thing. Violating national defense protocol in that fashion is another thing entirely. He needs to go. Incredibly incompetent, in the simplest terms, but that still does not make sense. More a thing of defiance.


12 posted on 01/09/2024 5:45:21 PM PST by odawg
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To: DallasBiff

Disclosing that he was in for prostate cancer operation or treatment, should not have been a secret or embarrassing.

Methinks that it was very embarrassing, only because he was in for a sex-change operation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, not in today’s world of wokeness, and the woke general should have been open about it. ;)


13 posted on 01/09/2024 5:46:52 PM PST by adorno (CCH)
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To: DallasBiff

“Incredible incompetency.”

Name one competent person in the FJB’s administration.


14 posted on 01/09/2024 5:54:47 PM PST by Brooklyn Attitude (I went to bed on November 3rd 2020 and woke up in 1984.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

I am not familiar with her, but I do not doubt you. In general, this is *NOT* a job for a female.


15 posted on 01/09/2024 5:59:21 PM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: DOC44

Well the spinectomy was done long ago.


16 posted on 01/09/2024 5:59:24 PM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
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To: FreedomPoster

I don’t think it’ll matter that much. The Generals at the Pentagon will just tell her what to do. But still, it’s a bad look.


17 posted on 01/09/2024 6:01:26 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
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To: DallasBiff

Lloyd Austin is a black privileged person filling an affirmative action slot in a position that was far above his competency level just like Lt. Michael Byrd of the Capital Police. Since the Obama administration the US has overfilled our government positions with these incompetent people. This has become quite obvious.


18 posted on 01/09/2024 6:05:22 PM PST by vetvetdoug
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To: Jim Noble

Or perhaps he told Biden, and Joe forgot or didn’t understand. You know, the thing.


19 posted on 01/09/2024 6:10:39 PM PST by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
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To: Alas Babylon!

If Newsom is going to be beaten in November it is essential for red partisans to de-emphasize Biden as quickly as possible.

Listening to the NH primary ads from the clown car, it’s constant “Biden did this, Biden did that” like Haley and Christie and RDS are too stupid to know Biden does nothing at all.


20 posted on 01/09/2024 6:13:48 PM PST by Jim Noble (The future belongs to those who show up)
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