Cynical Publius Tho Anderson
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yahoo [cda] actually nexstar BS ok
A Utah software engineer, who runs a massive pro-President Trump social media account that has drawn attention from the likes of Elon Musk, made a sinister declaration in a post on Aug. 21.
The "Deep State" was setting her up to "commit a crime."
"I have never been more angry in my life," Jennica Pounds, who is behind the DataRepublican account that has nearly 1 million followers on social platform X, wrote in a recent thread.
Over the past week, the resulting saga around Pounds's allegations has become an obsession of right-wing social media circles, exposed the blurred lines in Pentagon public relations and raised questions about other MAGA-friendly influencers in the military space.
It all started with an offer from a senior State Department official to Pounds. Did she want to publish documents about allegations of censorship under the Biden administration?
"I wanted to give you the option of 'breaking' the story as sort of a gift," Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers wrote to Pounds.
Pounds initially seemed up for cooperating but later decided the markings on the documents "would have gotten me in big big trouble."
In a post to her X account, Pounds wrote Friday that "they tried to entrap me" while sharing a screenshot of the text exchange.
Rogers replied to Pounds's thread that Friday, revealing herself as the official involved.
"lol, these are my text messages and documents. The 'markings' are FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] redactions required even for voluntary disclosure. To prove this isn't a 'trap,' I will happily disclose the documents myself," she wrote, posting the documents in an ensuing thread.
Pounds had earlier concluded the documents "were nothingburgers that did not benefit them at all to release in public."
Once the exchange went public, the aggregators got to work. Right-wing news aggregator AF Post summarized the back-and-forth between the two women, adding further intrigue by writing that Pounds was an active employee at the Pentagon.
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A Pentagon official has since confirmed to The Hill and other news outlets that Pounds is a special government employee at the Defense Department, a work status she did not publicly disclose to her massive online following. It's unclear if Rogers knew about the job when she offered Pounds the internal documents.
The Hill has reached out to the State Department for comment.
After the revelation, Pounds said her Pentagon press credentials had expired in June, that she did not seek renewal and the next month she began working at the department to "serve the country in a more hands-on way." She said she would defer questions to Joel Valdez, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary.
The Defense Department declined to comment when asked about Pounds's role at the department.
Lauren Harper, the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, told The Hill that Pounds should have disclosed her special government employee status to her followers because otherwise it "blurs the line between journalism and government PR."
Pounds, too, has championed transparency around potential conflicts of interest.
Late last month, Pounds questioned the alleged friendship between the director of military-leadership blog From the Green Notebook, retired Army Lt. Col. Joe Byerly, and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, with whom Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has clashed since the start of the Trump administration.
The DataRepublican revelations have raised questions around other prominent accounts that often back the Defense secretary.
Adam D'Ortona, an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel, has openly criticized congressional Democrats, backed Hegseth's push to root out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts at the Pentagon and highlighted the Defense secretary's message of going to war against the department's bureaucracy.
D'Ortona, who has more than 100,000 followers on X, defended Pounds after it was revealed that she works for the Pentagon, arguing those concerned about the ethics of the incident are like a "burglar lecturing the homeowner about property rights."
Following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, USA Today reported in September that D'Ortona works in Hegseth's office. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told the outlet at the time that D'Ortona is not an adviser or spokesperson for the Pentagon.
On Monday, D'Ortona wrote in a response to an X user that "ZERO people are paid" by the Pentagon to "post stories."
The Army referred questions about D'Ortona to the Pentagon. Hegseth's office did not respond to The Hill's request for comment.
Retired Col. Thomas Anderson, who writes under the pseudonym Cynical Publius, has backed Hegseth's anti-DEI crusade and has weighed in on a host of political issues, offering his view to more than 320,000 followers on X.
Anderson defended Pounds's employment at the department in an exchange with journalist Glenn Greenwald.
"I repeat: you do not understand the parameters of being an SGE [special government employee]," Anderson wrote Monday. "It has a specified legal status that she has stayed well within. I'm not your research assistant, I told you what to look up. Go look it up. The truth is never a 'cliché tactic.'"
When asked Tuesday by The Washington Post Pentagon reporter Dan Lamothe if he also has an SGE status, Anderson did not respond.
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DONNY EVANS
THE PENTAGON gave undisclosed government assignments to several conservative military veterans who used large social media platforms to promote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s agenda and target critics of the Trump administration, *The Washington Post* reported.
Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, had active government email addresses assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, according to Pentagon records reviewed by the Post. Their addresses carried a “.civ” suffix identifying them as civilian employees.
Thomas Anderson, another retired Army colonel, appeared in Pentagon records earlier this year with a civilian email address and an assignment to Tata’s office. Anderson, an attorney who writes under the name Cynical Publius, was no longer listed late last week.
The three men command a combined audience of more than 1 million followers on X. Their government status remained absent from public commentary promoting Hegseth’s positions on Pentagon personnel, military education and other policy matters. The department has not said what responsibilities they received, when their assignments began or whether taxpayers funded their work.
Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez declined to answer the Post’s questions about their duties, compensation and expected length of service. Tata did not respond. Maness and Schlichter did not respond to requests for comment. Anderson declined to comment by phone.
The men served as special government employees or highly qualified experts, according to people familiar with the assignments. Schlichter carried an “HQE” designation in a government database reviewed by the Post.
Federal law limits special government employees to 130 working days during any consecutive 365-day period and permits compensated or uncompensated service. Pentagon employment rules for experts and consultants allow full-time, part-time or intermittent appointments, with compensation decided individually. The financial arrangements involving Maness, Schlichter and Anderson remain unknown.
Their work included a visit to the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in May on behalf of the Pentagon’s Senior Service College Task Force. Hegseth established the task force in March to examine military colleges for ideology he characterized as “toxic” or “woke” and concentrate their curricula on developing warfighters.
Maness, Schlichter and Anderson met with students and faculty members over several days, according to two people familiar with the visit. They asked participants to assess Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some students questioned how candidly they could respond and whether unfavorable answers could bring consequences. Task force members also raised concerns about a course covering communication between military officers and Congress.
The task force has completed its research and prepared a report that has not been released, according to one person familiar with the visit.
Maness continued publishing commentary on issues within Hegseth’s portfolio. In a July 30 column for the right-wing *Daily Caller, he urged the administration to remove *“disloyal” Pentagon employees and condemned “careerists who treat the Pentagon as their permanent fiefdom.” The author biography identified him as a retired Air Force colonel and omitted a current Pentagon role.
PIX]
Rob Maness as a colonel in the Air Force. He retired in 2011. (U.S. Air Force)
Maness later wrote in an Aug. 26 article that “Secretary Hegseth’s outrage is justified” over the Army’s retreat from tougher academic requirements for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps students. His government assignment was not disclosed.
A July letter defending Hegseth’s military-education policies described Maness as a retired officer. A Post spokesperson said Maness had not disclosed a Pentagon connection before publication.
Schlichter continued writing and posting about politics and military affairs without identifying a Pentagon role. Anderson defended Hegseth’s military overhaul and wrote in an April commentary for *The Federalist* that there is “a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late.”
Scrutiny of the Pentagon’s influencer relationships intensified after the department and conservative commentator Jennica Pounds disclosed that she had become a special government employee in July. Pounds, known online as DataRepublican, had held a journalist credential in Hegseth’s revamped Pentagon press corps through June after receiving the pass in April.
Former Republican congressman and Air Force veteran Adam Kinzinger said on X that the Pentagon appeared to be using taxpayer money “to hire influencers on X to put out partisan talking points.”
The Pentagon has disclosed some outside appointments. In May, the department publicly named journalist Jerry Dunleavy to a panel reviewing the 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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nation jet her 8 26
the uneasy stalemate between Iran and the United States flared into violence on Sunday after America launched an attack on Iranian rocket launchers. Iran retaliated by launching missiles against Jordan, a US ally. The new round of fighting proves that the Trump administration remains committed to the fantasy that that more violence will force the Iranian government to surrender. In reality, although both sides in the conflict have endured losses, the ability of the US to impose its will with force has steadily diminished. On August 22, retired general Barry R. McCaffrey offered the sober assessment that “the US Armed Forces have probably permanently lost access to 15 Persian Gulf bases. Iran now poised to control access the Gulf States. US will have to negotiate new access in western Saudi Arabia, Israel, southern Europe.”
McCaffrey is an eminently establishment figure, but his pessimistic conclusion aligns with the judgement of thinkers who are more typically seen as critics of the foreign-policy consensus. John Mearsheimer, for example, an international-relations professor at the University of Chicago, describes the Iran War as a humiliating defeat.
Unfortunately, acknowledging defeat doesn’t come easily to either Donald Trump or the ridiculous martinet he nominated to run the military, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Both Trump and Hegseth are cultural warriors first and foremost, interested in winning battles on social issues by purging trans soldiers from the military, blocking the advancement of women and Blacks in the upper ranks, and overturning anything they consider DEI (a broad category that includes even acknowledging that Black soldiers have served with distinction).
With his focus on culture wars, Hegseth isn’t likely to listen to the criticism of figures like McCaffrey and Mearsheimer. In fact, evidence suggests that he isn’t even willing to listen to his own four-star generals who are offering dire warning that the military is dangerously overextended. As The Washington Post reported on Sunday, “Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland.” Even before the Iran War started, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the White House “that the U.S. lacked sufficient munitions—and support from allies—to conduct an extended large-scale campaign.” The Trump administration ignored this caution, and the US is now in a worse position, lacking the military bases to resupply navy vessels in the region (which has led to crisis conditions on ships such as the USS Liberty) and suffering a shortage of Patriot interceptors.
The Post report noted that “certain generals and admirals were more expansive and frank than is usual in telling Hegseth they disagreed with orders to keep providing equipment and personnel when the operation’s trajectory remains uncertain.”
If Hegseth is disregarding the advice of his top generals, it’s because the culture war is more important to him than the real war. Hegseth has White House ambitions and is gearing up for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination. Losing a war with Iran would tarnish Hegseth politically, but he has developed a simple solution: using the resources of the Pentagon to create a troll army of social-media influencers who could create an alternate reality where all his actions were brilliant victories.
On August 27, Will Sommer of The Bulwark, an astute observer of the right, reported that one of Hegseth’s most vocal online fans was also covertly a civilian employee of the Pentagon. The person in question was Jennica Pounds, who posts under the name DataRepublican. As Sommer noted:
Hegseth has gone to great lengths to limit and muzzle many members of the traditional Pentagon press corps. But secretly employing a shadowy, rabidly online personality for the apparent purpose of going after your enemies is a remarkable illustration of the kind of steps Hegseth appears willing to take to fight internecine political wars. Here’s the thing, though:
Pounds appears to be just one of several people enlisted in such a task.
At least three other prominent pro-Trump social media figures who have either worked for Hegseth or almost gotten jobs at the Pentagon have also come to serve as reliable online allies for Hegseth. Funnily enough, they’ve also all rushed to defend Pounds in the face of the criticism that she’s an undercover federal operative.
On Sunday, the Post published an extensive article that built on Sommer’s journalism, both confirming it and providing additional details. According to the newspaper, “The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration.”
One of Hegseth’s troll soldiers, Thomas Anderson (who posts under the name Cynical Publius), repeatedly attacked anti-war Republican Representative Thomas Massie during a primary race that Massie ended up losing. It’s hard not to avoid the conclusion that taxpayer money allocated to the Pentagon was used by the executive branch to influence a congressional election, a direct attack on the principle of keeping the military out of domestic politics.
Shamefully, the Post’s excellent reporting was attacked by the paper’s hawkish columnist Marc Thiessen, a frequently unhinged apologist for Trump’s imperialism, who responded to the report about senior generals dissenting from Hegseth by fuming, “Whoever leaked this is a traitor and ought to be prosecuted.”
In point of fact, the leaker was committing an act of high patriotism, not treason. In a constitutional republic, the military is not the political instrument of either the president or the defense secretary. Rather, the military must always be nonpartisan. If top generals think the military is being pushed to the limits of its fighting capacity, the public deserves to know.
Hegseth is remaking the military into the image of MAGA: an army of white cis-male reactionaries who nurse fantasies of their macho prowess and love the catatonic self-satisfaction of living in a social-media echo chamber.
A perhaps more sympathetic interpretation might be that Hegseth is as much to be pitied as held in contempt. After all, he’s clearly incapable of winning a real war, so has to settle for the illusory victories of his troll army.
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ref wapo 3x grab fail
Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles
Conservative veterans with large social media followings have been hired by the Defense Department and are amplifying Pete Hegseth’s culture-war fights.
8 30
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon on Wednesday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
By Dan Lamothe
and
Tara Copp
The Pentagon has secretly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings in government roles, declining to disclose their assignments as they amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material....$
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x ref
🚨 Before Massie’s primary, @CynicalPublius ran a relentless anti-Massie campaign, called him a ‘toxic narcissist,’ his supporters ‘dimwits,’ even linked Massie fans to antisemitism. Turns out he’s Thomas R. Anderson, listed in Pentagon, assigned to a DoD office, the entire time
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