Presumably, even Morning Joe's fierce feminist warriors wouldn't have ordered female soldiers to storm the beaches and scale the cliffs of Normandy on D-Day. But that didn't stop today's panel from hammering Pete Hegseth for his views on women in the military. Retired Admiral James Stavridis, Joe Scarborough, and "MSNBC Republican" Elise Jordan misrepresented Hegseth's position. They suggested that he opposes allowing women in the military, full stop. That's entirely false.  In his very first statements on the subject as Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Hegseth praised the important role that women play in the military.  But Hegseth draws the line at women in direct combat. As he put it in during a recent podcast: “I’m not talking about pilots. I’m talking about physical, labor-intensive type jobs. Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, MARSOC, infantry battalions, armor, artillery.” For holding those views, Jordan branded Hegseth a "retrogade throwback."  And when an agitated Joe Scarborough screamed that Hegseth would be taking us back not to the 1950s, but to "the 11th century," Jordan specified, "to the Crusades!" Opposing people using the military for woke crusades and "gender-affirming" surgeries makes you so "11th century." All the Pentagon wokeness is surely seen as the Right Side of History. Hegseth's qualifications to run the Department of Defense's enormous bureaucracy and responsibilities can be debated. But those condemning his concerns about putting women in direct, physical, combat are elevating woke ideology over the harsh realities of war. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 12/16/24 6:19 am EDT JAMES STAVRIDIS: It's the policy questions. I agree with your assessment of all that. I want to add one that didn't come out vividly there, and it's his comments about women. Women in combat, women in the Armed Forces. He's trying to kind of walk back from that. But the gist of his commentary thus far has been women are not additive to the mission of the Department of Defense. Look, I commanded thousands of women in combat starting in 1993 when I was captain of a destroyer with a crew that had both men and women.  I've commanded women in carrier strike groups under my command in Afghanistan and U.S. Southern Command. Women at the Naval Academy. We talked about the Army-Navy game, there are 22 guys on the field. There are 8,000 people in the stands from Annapolis and West Point. One-third of them are women. So, that basket of policy issues, both the ones you describe, and I want to hear from him, full-throated support for women in combat in the military, because that's the reality.  You can't man 100% of the force with 50% of the population. That's a recruiting challenge no one will overtake.  JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, and Elise Jordan, when I find it hard to believe that Jodi Ernst, who understands about women in combat, who understands about sexual abuse, who understands all the things that she understands. There's never been [bangs the table] a nominee more lined up for her to vote against. Is she really going to fold on all of her principles, on everything she has fought for on the Armed Services Committee regarding the protection of women in and out of uniform, because a couple of ads are run against her?  MIKA BRZEZINSKI: And what can he say now? What could he say that would unsay -- ELISE JORDAN: There's nothing that he can do to unsay what he has said. 16% of the US military: women. I have embedded with female Marines in Helmand [province in Afghanistan] who have been under fire. Women in combat, they handle it just fine. They handle it just as fine as the men.  The fact that we want this retrograde throwback? I don't get the balance between -- SCARBOROUGH: To the 11th century.  JORDAN: The Crusades. The Crusades! SCARBOROUGH: It used to be like, oh, they want to go back to the 1950s. [Screams] He wants to go back to the 11th century.  JORDAN: I know, I don't get it at all.  MIKA: He wrote it.  JORDAN: How do you have Elon on the one hand say that our tech is so outdated and antiquated, and then you have a Defense nominee who wants to go back to the Crusades? It makes no sense. 

President-elect Donald Trump commented Monday on the controversy over mysterious drones sighted over New Jersey and other locations. Trump said that he believes the government knows what the drones actually are and claimed the public is not being told the truth. He was taking questions from reporters from Palm Beach, Florida, when he made the comments. 'Something strange is going on, and for some reason they don't want to tell the people, and they should.' “The government knows what is happening," said Trump. "Our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is," he added. "Our military knows and our president knows," Trump continued. "And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy, because if it was the enemy, they'd blast it out.”He noted that the drones were sighted over Bedminster, where he owns a private residence. "I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster!" he joked. "I've decided to cancel my trip!" When asked if he had received an intelligence briefing on the drones, he said he didn't want to comment on that. "Something strange is going on, and for some reason they don't want to tell the people, and they should," he said. Apart from extraterrestrial theories, some have wondered if foreign actors are using the drones to spy on military bases. A Chinese citizen was arrested recently in California for flying a drone over a base and taking photos. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Senate Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee issued a report concern-mongering about President-elect Donald Trump's proposed mass deportations, suggesting that by depriving American businesses of cheap, illegally-imported labor, citizens will pay dearly and suffer "severe economic fallout." Citing estimates from the Peterson Institute for International Economics — which investor Steven Rattner dubbed "the locker room of the Team Globalization and Free Trade cheering squad" in the New York Times — the Democratic report released last week by JEC Chairman Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) claimed that the deportation of 8.3 million illegal aliens would leave the GDP 7.4% lower and employment 7.0% lower by 2028. The Peterson Institute suggested earlier this year that businesses unable to draw from the illegal alien labor pool would invest less in new business formation and invest their capital in industries that rely less upon low-skilled labor. In addition to reducing capital tax revenue to the government, the think tank suggested that fewer illegal aliens would also mean less demand at grocery stores, leasing offices, and other services. Extra to relying on speculation from the globalist outfit, Heinrich and his fellow travelers also leaned on an October report from the American Immigration Council — an activist group committed to expanding immigration to the United States that frequently parrots Southern Poverty Law Center talking points. The AIC concern-mongered that deportations might cause "significant labor shocks across multiple key industries." Having apparently internalized the Peterson Institute and AIC's assumptions, and insisting that "immigrants do not take jobs from U.S.-born workers or bring down wages for similarly-skilled workers," the Senate Democrats stated in their report, "Mass deportations would reduce economic growth, shrink the labor force, cost U.S.-born workers their jobs, raise costs for nearly all Americans, and risk igniting inflation." The report neglected to mention the financial burden of illegal aliens on the American taxpayer and citizen services. 'In terms of gross expenditures due to illegal immigration, we estimate that Americans pay $182 billion.' Blaze News previously reported that the estimated annual cost to house known gotaways and illegal aliens released into the country under Biden's watch was $451 billion. The House Committee on Homeland Security indicated in a November 2023 report that "for every one million parolees released into the United States on [Department of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas' watch, the cost in federal welfare benefits that will be incurred could total $3 billion annually, with those costs starting to kick in January 2026." The Center for Immigration Studies concluded in a December 2023 report that an estimated 59.4% of households headed by illegal aliens drew on at least one major taxpayer-funded welfare support. Illegal aliens reportedly use every welfare program at "statistically significant higher rates than the U.S.-born, except for [Supplemental Security Income], [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families], and housing." The Federation for American Immigration Reform reported last year that at the start of 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration for the U.S. was at least $150.7 billion — $1,156 per year for every American taxpayer or $957 after factoring in taxes paid of illegal aliens. Julie Kirchner, the executive director of FAIR, testified to Congress in May that the $150.7 billion figure was a "conservative one" representing a net cost. "In terms of gross expenditures due to illegal immigration, we estimate that Americans pay $182 billion. Approximately $31 billion is received from illegal aliens in taxes, only 17 percent of the costs they create," said Kirchner. "The fiscal burden of illegal immigration is due to several factors. First, because illegal aliens usually have low incomes, those who do pay taxes pay little, if anything. Second, illegal aliens incur significant costs to the taxpayer on a daily basis, because public services such as policing, K-12 education, emergency services, etc., are provided universally. Further, due to loose eligibility criteria — intentional or otherwise — many illegal aliens receive benefits from federal, state, and local jurisdictions, despite the fact that they have no legal status." The AIC report cited by Senate Democrats claimed that "it would take over ten years, and the building of hundreds to thousands of new detention facilities, to arrest, detain, process, and remove all 13.3 million targeted immigrants — even assuming that 20 percent of that population would depart voluntarily during any multi-year mass deportation effort. The total cost over 10.6 years (assuming an annual inflation rate of 2.5 percent) would be $967.9 billion." FAIR's estimate of the net annual cost of illegal immigration projected, unchanged, over the same period, would amount to $1.59 trillion dollars. Apparently happy to gloss over the cost of illegal aliens and illegal immigration, JEC Democrats claimed in X, "Trump's mass deportations plans would cause irreparable harm to the economy." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

As drones have made headlines across the country, two Massachusetts males are accused of operating a drone "dangerously close" to Logan Airport in Boston.At approximately 10:22 p.m. Saturday, officers from the Boston Police Harbor Patrol Unit arrested 42-year-old Robert Duffy of Charlestown and 32-year-old Jeremy Folcik of Bridgewater.'Even small drones pose significant risks, including the potential for catastrophic damage to airplanes and helicopters.'The Boston Police Department said in a statement that the two males were arrested for conducting a "hazardous drone operation near Logan Airport’s airspace." Police said an officer "detected an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operating dangerously close" to Logan International Airport around 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Police determined that the males were operating the drone from nearby Long Island, which is part of the Boston Harbor Islands. Police coordinated with Homeland Security, Massachusetts State Police, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Federal Communications Commission, and Logan Airport Air Traffic Control to address the situation. Officers with the Boston Police Harbor Patrol Unit were dispatched to Long Island, where they located three individuals inside the decommissioned Long Island Health Campus. Once officers confronted the three males, they reportedly fled on foot. Officers detained Duffy and Folcik.Police said they discovered a drone inside a backpack Duffy was carrying.The third suspect likely fled the island in a small vessel, according to police. Duffy and Folcik were hit with trespassing charges. Police said they may file additional charges or fines pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation.Duffy and Folcik were scheduled for arraignment in Dorchester District Court on Monday. Officials at Logan Airport said no flights were affected by the drone.According to the Federal Aviation Administration website, there are airspace restrictions for drones over people or near airports, stadiums, sporting events, security-sensitive airspace, special-use airspace, and Washington, D.C. "Drone operators should avoid flying near airports because it is difficult for manned aircraft to see and avoid a drone while flying," the FAA stated. "Remember that drone operators must avoid manned aircraft and are responsible for any safety hazard their drone creates in an airport environment."The Boston Police Department said, "Even small drones pose significant risks, including the potential for catastrophic damage to airplanes and helicopters. Near-collisions can cause pilots to veer off course, putting lives and property at risk."In August, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed $341,413 in fines against 27 suspects who allegedly violated federal drone regulations between October 2022 and June 2024.FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said at the time, "Violating the drone regulations puts lives at risk in the air and on the ground. Flying a small drone means you are flying an aircraft, and unsafe behavior will cost you."The drone incident comes in the wake of a tidal wave of suspicious drone sightings in the Northeastern U.S., especially in New Jersey. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

CNN host Jim Acosta defended the mainstream media after ABC decided to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Donald Trump over reporting about his case with E. Jean Carroll.Trump filed the defamation case against ABC News host George Stephanopoulos after Stephanopoulos stated during an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) that Trump was found "liable for rape" in the E. Jean Carroll civil case. After Stephanopoulos and Trump were ordered by the judge to sit for depositions, ABC filed the $15 million settlement, which will be put toward Trump's eventual presidential museum.'Well, if some bend the knee, others have to stand up straighter.'Talking about the case with Brian Stelter, CNN's chief media correspondent, Acosta said this was bad news for the media because "we have a very important job" to do because Trump will still be Trump when he goes back to the White House next year."To me, at least, this is a time for our industry to stand firm, and we're going to have a very important job to do. And that's not putting us on a pedestal or anything like that. But we're going to have a very important job to do, because Trump is not going to change his ways. He's going to continue to say things that need to be fact-checked," Acosta asserted."You can't have the news industry worrying about this sort of stuff when they're just simply doing their jobs," he added."Well, if some bend the knee, others have to stand up straighter," Stelter said, noting that Trump has threatened to sue publications in the past before he was president, with the goal of intimidating news outlets to self-censor."He did win in this case with a big payment, but that broader concern about self-censorship is one that many viewers and readers are worried about. And ultimately, Jim, we work for them. We work for the viewers, not anybody else," Stelter concluded.On Monday, Trump announced a lawsuit against pollster Ann Selzer for her botched poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris winning Iowa by four points right before the election. Trump went on to win the state by over 10 points.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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