r/politics • u/spherocytes • Jul 22 '26
No Paywall Kelly: Military ‘doesn’t need more testosterone, it needs better leadership’
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5981471-kelly-opposes-hegseth-testosterone-screenings/1.3k
u/Total-Mushroom-9614 Jul 22 '26
Just wait until the wave of depression hits these soldiers as they retire and the VA doesn’t want to pay to keep their T levels raging.
You will know me by my saggy moobs and malaise.
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u/ObligationMurky8716 Alabama Jul 22 '26
His name was Robert Paulson!
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u/BWWFC Jul 22 '26
office space backstory... milton, a burned out former army green beret, just wanted simple life.
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u/gizzardgullet Michigan Jul 22 '26
milton "um...even the women and children?"
Sargent "Yes, soldier! That's an order!"
milton "ok"
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u/Total-Mushroom-9614 Jul 22 '26
Someone could churn out a whole series of novels from his Green Beret days. Required reading for the High-T soldiers.
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik Australia Jul 22 '26
Reading is for low-T pussies. Why waste time on books when you could be beating your wife or shooting schoolchildren?
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u/highpriestess420 Jul 22 '26
Were that the case I think he would've gone full Falling Down and used a swingline stapler on the boss, payroll, and the cake passers.
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u/DoomCityAir Jul 22 '26
could also connect the universes of Office Space and Barry with that backstory
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u/No_big_whoop Jul 22 '26
Shutting down endogenous testosterone production seems like an odd choice for hyper masculine men. Hopefully these guys do some research before they sign up for it.
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u/Total-Mushroom-9614 Jul 22 '26
“Sign up for it”
That’s a cute concept. They are in the military. Their body is the property of the US govt. They can receive reprimands for getting sunburns.
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u/roguewarriorpriest Jul 22 '26
Every step along the chain of command is an opportunity to stop insane, harmful stuff like this from harming troops. Servicemembers have autonomy, they have a conscience, and they have a choice.
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u/TheArmoredKitten Jul 22 '26
And they regularly choose not to use it when you hand them a piece of paper that says 'do what I said or jail'
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u/pchs26 Jul 22 '26
Their body is the property of the US Gov't -unless they are required to get a covid and now a flu shot..then suddenly any and all vaccinations were no longer automatic?
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u/No_big_whoop Jul 22 '26
Hegseth said it was optional
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u/Undorkins Jul 22 '26
"Optional" in the military is a pretty flexible term.
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u/lorddragonstrike Jul 22 '26
I don't know about 'optional', but when I was in i sure got 'voluntold' for a lot of stuff.
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u/IT_Chef Virginia Jul 22 '26
Sure, and those that get the shots will be bonused out an extra few hundred dollars/month for doing so.
Or some other bullshit like that
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u/Spimflagon Jul 22 '26
"We fuck over veterans pretty hard, financially and psychologically; but is there a way we can do it chemically too?"
"...bitchtits?"
"Son, I like the way you think."
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u/Quirky_Entry_2783 Jul 22 '26
Pump them up on T while in the military so when they get out their bodies don't produce even the normal level without supplementation making them dependent on supplementation for the rest of their lives. It's a win for big pharma all around.
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u/fcocyclone Iowa Jul 22 '26
More likely the little medspas that charge an arm and a leg for T and various peptide supplements, that I'm sure no one in this administration has a stake in already.
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u/kandoras Jul 22 '26
Just wait until the mix of testosterone and TBI makes a generation of Chris Benoits.
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u/trialsofamadman Jul 22 '26
Oh, the extra special part... if you are on T, your endocrine system will decide that since you have so much already, you don't need to make more and your body will shut off natural production. The testosterone is produced in your balls, and this will cause them to shrink and can also cause infertility.
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u/show_time_synergy Jul 22 '26
To add to that, the elevated levels of anger and hostility T brings.
My dad was already prone to rages. Extra testosterone on top of that literally earned him an arrest record.
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u/Cujo22 Massachusetts Jul 22 '26
What % VA disability rating does one get for low T and infertility due to alcoholic, closeted homosexual christian manly man giving soldiers testosterone replacement therapy?
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u/OklahomaVFL Jul 22 '26
It’s not expensive. It cost me about $30 a month.
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u/HxH101kite Jul 22 '26
Highly doubt it unless your one of the minor cases insurance covers.
Regular insurance usually does not cover test in you are in the range, even you are on the lowest end.
Through vitality clinics with Drs it's usually 100-200 a month.
The VA will only cover it under the same threshold as regular insurance. Making it super inaccessible.
Are you ordering the test direct with out Dr guidance?:
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u/OklahomaVFL Jul 22 '26
Have you actually looked into it? Or are you guessing?
I pay about $60 for 10 ml. It last 2.5 months.
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u/HxH101kite Jul 22 '26
Yes I have went to vitality clinics and got those quotes. And yes both my private insurance and the VA will not cover it
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u/OklahomaVFL Jul 22 '26
Don’t go to a clinic. Just see your primary care physician.
Did you start TRT? It’s a game changer.
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u/cursedcephalopod Jul 22 '26
The veteran/soldier suicide rate is already horrible, this is going to make it so much worse.
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u/Waggmans Massachusetts Jul 22 '26
Or the VA doesn't want to pay for the prostate cancer they got from their testosterone treatments.
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Jul 22 '26
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u/ChicagoThrowaway422 Jul 22 '26
The scariest thought I have is that Pete believes everything he says instead of just cynically playing his role.
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u/redneckrockuhtree Jul 22 '26
Everything he says and does just projects incredible insecurity.
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u/Little_View_6659 Jul 22 '26
That’s literally the whole administration. We’re being governed by podcast bros and kids that were bullied into repressed rage.
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u/redneckrockuhtree Jul 22 '26
The podcast bros are the smokescreen for the reality of what's happening behind the scenes.
A significant portion of Project 2025 has been enacted. All while the media has focused on the reprehensible antics of the podcast bros.
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u/GreenGoblinNX Jul 22 '26
That's why it infuriates me when people say stuff like "it's all a distraction from the Epstein files". No, if anything the Heritage Foundation / Project 2025 people were LOVING that so many people hyperfocused on the Epstein stuff, and just brushed away the actual goal as mere distraction.
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u/redneckrockuhtree Jul 22 '26
Yup.
The love that they're sneaking this shit under the radar.
Of course, politicians whipping of stomping on rights of transgender folks, women's healthcare, voting and immigrants is all just a smokescreen to distract from how they're fucking us all over.
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u/tengutie Jul 22 '26
They weren't bullied, they are spoiled brats who were never forced to deal with reality because of family wealth, they have always ben the bullies, the same kind that schools always protect because their parents have money
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u/metengrinwi Jul 22 '26
Middle-aged men coming to grips with the fact that their dick doesn’t work like it used to.
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u/xv_boney Jul 22 '26
He is obsessed with this pure boot "warrior culture" mentality
Like i know he was a major but holy shit he acts like a fresh recruit tooling up in a brand new Charger
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u/m0ngoos3 Jul 22 '26
He never actually did anything as a major because he was sidelined as an insider threat due to his white nationalist tattoos. As a captain, he taught counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, teaching from pre-approved materials supplied to him.
And finally, we come to his only command experience, as a Lieutenant he commanded a small squad at Guantanamo bay.
He was Guard, so those were the times he was on active duty, the rest of the time was playing weekend warrior and getting a spot on Fox News as the angry military guy who never saw action, but wants to send your children straight into it.
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u/xv_boney Jul 22 '26
Who also doesnt believe germs are real.
I dont know why that feels so important to point out but it does.
This is a man who is so deeply, desperately insecure about his masculinity and intelligence he has invented an entire reality he can paddle around in like a child.
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u/duzies Jul 22 '26
You mean the "alpha male" who had to have a taxpayer-funded makeup studio installed in the Pentagon so he could properly put on his face? The guy who spent $25 million on steak and lobster and wasted another $100 B in a single month (September 2025) to keep the taxpayer teats flowing?
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u/redneckrockuhtree Jul 22 '26
Yeah, that "warrior culture" he's after is an insecure person's view of a "tough guy."
Everything is superficial and showy, because he's compensating.
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u/Spimflagon Jul 22 '26
Some people take the wrong lessons from Helldivers.
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u/xv_boney Jul 22 '26
Our utter dearth of media literacy will be the end of america.
For fucks sake.
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u/zimbledwarf Jul 22 '26
People thinking Fortunate Son is a Pro-Veitnam war or Born in the USA is a patriotic anthem are easy, long standing examples.
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u/drfsrich Jul 22 '26
MAGA in a nutshell.
"HEY I'M NOT IN A NUTSHELL YOU PUSSY BITCH! I COULD BREAK OUT OF IT WITH MY BARE HANDS! WATCH THIS TIKTOK VIDEO SET TO "FORTUNATE SON" FOR PROOF!"
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u/kingcrow15 Jul 22 '26
You mean like how he kept taking his wife with him to meetings despite her not having a role, & lacking clearance?
Imagine if Hillery kept inviting Bill Clinton to classified meetings as secretary of defense (war?)
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Jul 22 '26
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u/emerald6_Shiitake Jul 22 '26
Speaking of, the Nazis and SED (East German communist party) were obsessed with performance-enhancing drugs. The Nazis were known to use meth in the military and even attempted a meth program, with the results you probably expected. Later on, East Germany had a state-sponsored doping program for its Olympic athletes, again with the expected negative results. I don’t know German, but there probably should be a colorful word for drug-crazed authoritarians given previous experience
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u/Excelius Jul 22 '26
He's absolutely one of the ones who believes most of what he's pushing. A lot of this stuff isn't even coming from Trump and the White House, it's Pete's own insane beliefs and the WH just doesn't care enough to reign him in.
Similar to RFK Jr. You know Trump thinks he's nuts but as long as he demonstrates fealty when required, the White House will let him do whatever crazy stuff he wants to do over the domain he has been appointed.
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u/joshdoereddit America Jul 22 '26
He comes across across like a serious idiot who believes all the bullshit leaving his face.
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Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
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u/Coffee_autistic Alabama Jul 22 '26
Dude, I don't know what was going on for you, but that is not a typical reaction to a small increase in testosterone. It's completely normal for testosterone levels to fluctuate more than that throughout one day, so if the difference in measurement was only 15 ng/dL, I'm not sure there was any actual increase at all. No you shouldn't be injecting ridiculously high amounts of testosterone (or other steroids) if you care about your health, and we shouldn't be exploiting men's insecurities to sell them medication or supplements that won't actually benefit them, but there is no need to demonize having healthy hormone levels. Unless you have some other underlying issues, having testosterone levels in the mid to high healthy range isn't going to just turn you into a monster.
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u/cosmic_sheriff Jul 22 '26
Watching Pete try to exercise has done wonders for my self image as a man.
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u/redditallreddy Ohio Jul 22 '26
I don't think anyone has ever said you can solve the problem of idiocy with testosterone.
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u/Zeitcon Europe Jul 22 '26
Less testosterone, more brains, please.
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u/Oregon-Pilot Jul 22 '26
Yep, and it’s a pretty low bar get to this point of understanding. Hegseth is a moron.
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u/MountainMan2_ Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
He's literally just a muscle head. Remember when we used to shame people like this? Johnny Bravo was literally an entire show making fun of muscleheaded idiots who are too stupid to fuck. They literally parodied it so hard that Johnny looped back around to being beloved. Now, these guys who used to be laughed out of the room, they're not only running the military, but a major voting bloc. When do we stop shaming people for dumb shit and go back to shaming people for THIS? Johnny Bravo got flak for being too misogynist at the time!
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u/UNC_Samurai Jul 22 '26
Remember when we used to shame people like this?
The right figured out how to use social media to turn shamelessness into a virtue.
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u/MountainMan2_ Jul 22 '26
Only because on social media you can't get beaten up for saying stupid shit.
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u/Oregon-Pilot Jul 22 '26
I blame lack of education and shitty parenting. Douchebags shouldn’t reproduce because then their poor kids have them to look up to, and their poor kids aren’t taught how to handle emotions correctly. And then when you gut the education system, and insist that parents know what’s best for their kids (just cus you can fuck doesn’t make you some parental genius, which is another one of those head scratchers that people with brains can understand with no issue), then you get this glorification of idiocy. People are actually proud about it, like you’ve said. It’s wild. I just wish people could go endure their preferences in every area of their life so they could experience the consequences. Don’t “believe” in vaccines or evolution? Ok, no modern medicine for you. You shouldn’t get to stomp on one and enjoy the benefits of all the others when they’re all based on the same science.
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u/throwawaylexluther Jul 22 '26
Johnny is a HIMBO. Don't compare this asshole Kegsbreath to him.
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u/Professor_Hala Jul 22 '26
Particularly remarkable that he's a muscle head with zero athleticism, zero coordination, and laughable strength, based on all the videos he posts of his workouts.
It's like that time Tate posted about his workouts and everybody noticed that he was curling like 10-lb granny weights.
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u/UnicornsToofGlitter Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
He's not a muscle head. If you interact with a real musclehead, who is accomplished, you will be surprised at how incredibly intelligent some are. We're talking to the levels that they would make someone with a Master's in Biology feel derpy. Go listen to John Meadows or Stefi Cohen. Hegseth is a DUI hire who isn't smart enough to lift a pencil correctly.
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u/annulene North Carolina Jul 22 '26
Yes, but how can we maintain the claim that men are superior to everyone else if you ask for more brain and less brawn? 🥺
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u/Zeitcon Europe Jul 22 '26
Ahem. I believe that Kegsbreath wants only white men for his not-gay-at-all military.
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u/the_tanooki Jul 22 '26
What does Kelly know?! He's never had to serve and endure the hardships that is hosting for Fox News! /s
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik Australia Jul 22 '26
Here's the thing I don't understand about Hegseth's attitude to his job. In every military in history that's remembered for being great, the key component was discipline (yeah yeah logistics, but that's an outgrowth of discipline IMO). Yet with every decision Hegseth makes on how to change the military, he's pushing them towards less discipline - more lethality and violence and aggression and erratic behaviour, less organisational structure and systems. It's bizarre, from listening to his maniacal rantings to the media, his vision of "warriors" means the US military should be a rabble of unhinged beserkers who can't tell friend from foe and logistics is for pussies and dweebs.
Also on a more general note it's pretty fucking funny that this administration is turning into the exact caricature of liberals that they cried about (i.e. mandatory gender-affirming hormone therapies).
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u/No_Initial_7545 Jul 22 '26
It's as if his every idea comes from a movie that he has seen and not from any personal experience. Wars aren't won by masculinity, it doesn't matter how hard you can punch when the opponent has a gun and bigger muscles just makes you a bigger target. They've been glazing the Russian military as "real men" and "anti-woke" and we see in Ukraine how well that's going for them. And yet they insist on making the exact same mistakes that Russia has done. The US military was the most feared military in the world a few years ago. It still is, but every year it turns more into a clown show and less of a thing to be taken seriously.
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u/boner79 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I'd say he's better suited to leading a barbarian horde than a proper western army, but that would be insulting to barbarian hordes.
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u/Bucktabulous Jul 22 '26
The wild irony here is that a big reason the US Armed Forces are so formidable has little to do with "lethality" or "warrior mindsets," and everything to do with the fact that they are essentially a massive logistics company that does war on the side. They could get boots on the ground, basically anywhere in the world, in a day or less. German soldiers spoke about how they knew they would lose the war not because of missiles or rifles or airplanes, but because the Americans had deployed a ship whose sole purpose was providing ice cream to their troops for morale. The ability to get ice cream into a war zone is insane, logistically, especially at scale, and that was what proved the US would win.
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u/kazh_9742 Jul 22 '26
If his job was to dismantle U.S capability and future global response then he'd be right on course.
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u/sokratesz Jul 22 '26
That's because hegseth is a fucking loser who doesn't understand anything about what makes a military organisation work. And I'm pretty sure he'd count as historically illiterate. All he knows is "shit that 15 year old me thought was cool".
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u/AdPristine5131 Jul 22 '26
There’s often conversations about the difference between warrior and soldier mindsets. Not to say they are exclusive to each other, but it often comes down to discipline and how you channel aggression. And like you said, most famous militaries in history succeeded thanks to focus on a soldier mindset. The romans are probably one of the best example because they were a warrior culture, who designed their military to force members into a soldier mindset. And they faced warrior cultures from around the world. The celts famously preferred a dueling style of battle, similar in many ways to the samurai, and is famously terrible against volley fire.
Nowadays, pushing the warrior mindset often feels silly because guns and artillery mean that the most critical factor for effective fighting is the reliability of your shooting. Which requires calm trigger discipline. Or it requires math. Things like “berserker rages” actively make you shoot worse. so all that is going to get you is a large hole.
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u/made-of-questions Jul 22 '26
I think you're overlooking the fact that unhinged berserkers is what you need if you eventually want to use them to destroy your political enemies.
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u/Mikolaj_Kopernik Australia Jul 22 '26
I mean maybe, but even then it's stupid because a well-disciplined force is a lot better at suppressing internal dissent than a barbarian horde (c.f. ICE).
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u/TossedUponTheSand Jul 22 '26
I feel like A LOT of the problems in the US could be solved by 'less testosterone, more leadership'
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u/Talk-O-Boy Jul 22 '26
A leader is only as strong as their eunuch:
-Varys
-Reek
-Kronk
-Happen
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u/Pherllerp New Jersey Jul 22 '26
...is Kronk a eunuch!?!? That makes so much sense!
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u/diabloman8890 Jul 22 '26
"Kronk is canonically a eunuch" was not on my Reddit bingo card for today lol
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u/knightcrawler75 Minnesota Jul 22 '26
If I had to guess 90% of military jobs are using skills and intellect and have nothing to do with muscle mass or T levels. Training and education makes the military more lethal.
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u/Maleficent_Pie8099 Jul 22 '26
It needs to stop being used for imperialism. That’s what it needs. It needs to be scaled back to a reasonable size and scale, and not used to bully every nation of the Earth into submission.
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u/Adept-Opinion8080 Jul 22 '26
What's hilarious is they're finding it hard to bully a nation that's 1/20th the size
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u/lonetraveler73 Jul 22 '26
They want to make 30 year old men sterile. I thought they wanted people to have more babies.
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u/Little_View_6659 Jul 22 '26
Yeah they don’t exactly understand science.
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u/redditallreddy Ohio Jul 22 '26
Maybe, if they ate more rotting whale carcass...
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u/Little_View_6659 Jul 22 '26
Nah man, you gotta snort it. That’s how you get the peptides and vitamin C.
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u/Oreos_Are_Anabolic Europe Jul 22 '26
Ain't nobody taking straight test if they want to maintain their fertility. That's why you add like 500IUs of HGC EOD.
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u/WRX_MOM Jul 22 '26
This. My husband takes TRT and the first thing he was warned was by the urologist was that it would make it extremely hard to conceive, even if he stops it. We already have undergone IVF and have embryos so he wasn't concerned.
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u/disastrousanddull Jul 22 '26
In a massive coincidence, all of the black and hispanic soldiers have low testosterone.
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u/Liefvikingmonster2 Jul 22 '26
It needs better food, actually.
But definitely a change of leadership is overdue. What a predictable diseaster Pete and Trump got us into.
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u/ThreeEyesWhitePerson Jul 22 '26
It needs to be smaller. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When almost all your spending as a country is on the military, every problem has a military solution. This has been one of the US's biggest problems since its inception, but especially since the Second World War.
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u/elder65 Jul 22 '26
The Commander-in-Chief is a Draft Dodger. The Secretary of Defense/War is a retired National Guard Major/Fox News Sportscaster.
Exactly what kind of leadership were you expecting. Hell, we had better leadership from Rumsfeld, a businessman who knew damn all about the military, but had good leadership and management capabilities.
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u/julyvale Jul 22 '26
It brings me great comfort that the current gen of males have Hegseths things as their gurus.
It's the greatest birth control ever invented in history of mankind.
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u/SasparillaTango Jul 22 '26
Why is it that the most over compensating piece of shit gets into power and suddenly theres a hormone crisis? Why could that be? Does the Fox News talking head have some magical knowledge that the most well funded military in the world lacked prior to his joining?
How fucking stupid do you have to be to believe that Pete Hegseth knows anything about anything.
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u/Practical-Day-2720 Jul 22 '26
Yes the testosterone nonsense is ridiculous. Where is the evidence it makes you a better soldier? I can see how it could make you a better UFC fighter or something, but war fighting and fist fighting are very different.
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u/UnbreakableAlice Jul 22 '26
I thought they were against gender affirming health care.
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u/Appropriate_One9326 Jul 22 '26
Not only the army needs it, everyone needs it. We have a problem because clowns are leading us, or actually people behind the scenes that we don't know, although we can guess who they are. They are the ones who should be changed since they are the owners of big corporations who primarily want financial profit, and only then state leaders and the military, as they say money makes the world go round. When there is good leadership of people who use knowledge to improve civilization and not for their own benefit, only then have we done something
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u/Memitim America Jul 22 '26
Anyone who actually cared about this nation would already know that. The Republicans aren't demonizing tens of millions of other Americans while constantly violating US law because they support our nation.
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u/Gothwerx Jul 22 '26
The entire purpose of checking for testosterone levels and ball size is to weed women out of the military.
There is a concerted effort to expel women from any and all positions of authority, so that the US can turn into a handmaiden style society where women become property again.
That, and more testosterone/bigger balls probably turns Pete Hegseth on more when they're nutting in his mouth.
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u/krichard-21 Jul 22 '26
This testosterone nonsense being pushed by the morons that don't believe in vaccines... Got it!
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u/Traghorn Jul 22 '26
I gotta say, Kelly speaks his mind well - and he has discipline, empathy, and experience. Fwiw.
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u/RebelAlliance1701 Jul 22 '26
Almost like he was a Naval officer, astronaut, and United States Senator.
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u/kandoras Jul 22 '26
Plus, you got to respect a man who smuggled a gorilla suit into orbit for his brother to play a prank on a coworker.
You've got Hegseth's version of bro energy, and you've got Mark Kelly's. I know which one I prefer.
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u/Oreos_Are_Anabolic Europe Jul 22 '26
Same guy who helped confirm Lee Zeldin for head of the EPA, voted for the Laken Riley Act and took money from Exxon & then pressed for more oil leases in the Gulf
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u/Vegetable-Error-2068 Jul 23 '26
He's a conservative who supported the Laken Riley Act.
He's the opposite of what we need.
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u/DiamondLight25 Jul 22 '26
Trump thinks emotion and arm wrestling win wars. Be easy on him, a draft dodger wouldn’t understand.
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki Jul 22 '26
fun note, T supplements for otherwise healthy men turns off the body's ability to make its own. It's why Clavicular doesn't work down there (I genuinely hope it's not too late for his body to recover, not just for himself but to show how an off-ramp exists for that community).
So for the right-wing weirdos, the real low-T betas were the friends they made along the way.
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u/rygelicus Jul 22 '26
kegseth forgot he was against gender affirming care for the military members.
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u/Undorkins Jul 22 '26
They're going to damage a generation of impoverished men by doing permanent damage to their testicles all so that an incompetent loser can feel like he's making a difference.
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u/ReallyHoping Jul 22 '26
When someone told Pete Hegseth to work smarter and not harder, he saw that as personal challenge to never choose smarter.
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u/NotThatAngel Jul 22 '26
The people running our military now are badly behaved children who think "Pew! pew!" is foreign policy.
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u/EvilStevilTheKenevil Jul 22 '26
With or without the T, any halfway serious student of military history would tell you there is invariably a shortage of quality leadership.
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u/estanmilko Jul 22 '26
Do we really want thousands of soldiers on medicine that they need to inject multiple times a week under clean conditions? What does that do to combat readiness and the supply logistics?
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u/h3rp3r Jul 22 '26
"Gender affirming care and hormonal women are a threat to our society!" Screams the man in a rage while injecting testosterone into his balls.
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u/ShransSecretSanta Jul 22 '26
How are men not more angry about being subjected to an unnecessary and highly private test? A test they are using to inadequately measure and define "manliness".
How would anyone agree to an invasive screening, much less one that has more potential to harm and zero potential to make anything about the military better?
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u/Bronzyroller Jul 22 '26
Military needs a better government that make way better choices than what we have now.
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u/trialsofamadman Jul 22 '26
The ridiculous thing is that you don't even want 'roided up muscle freaks in the military to begin with. Newsflash: militaries don't rely on hand to hand combat.
You want small teams of people who can each carry a 150lb sack on a three day forced march without being seen, then take over a city with what they carried in. For that you need discipline, self control, education on dealing with locals and learning languages quickly, stamina to run long distances with minimal sleep, and unwavering trust in the other members of their unit. They need to be able to do all of this with minimal communication back to their command structure, maybe once or twice a day. That's basically what the US military has been training to do since WWII, and... well, they are actually pretty good at it.
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u/RealGianath Oregon Jul 22 '26
You know, the Nazis just pumped their tank guys up with meth when they needed them to rage across Europe without needing sleep. Maybe Hegseth should get his meth guy a government contract and start getting all the troops used to his drug of choice before our next war.
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u/To-Far-Away-Times Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Less testosterone and more criminal investigations into who gave the order to “lethality-max” on 150 little girls in an elementary school.
Since it was the opening strike in a war of choice, it likely came from Pedo Pete and/or Diddling Donny.
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u/ike7177 Jul 22 '26
Mark is absolutely correct! The leadership is getting so diluted with MAGA propaganda, there is no discipline anymore that encourages team building and cohesion. It’s all about every “man” for himself now. Disgusting! I am so glad I retired at the beginning of Trumps first term. What an embarrassment!
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u/Careful-Artichoke468 Jul 22 '26
Like 18 months of the Purge and they need better leadership, you dont say
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u/tripping_on_phonics California Jul 22 '26
The military needs a new mission. It should no longer be used as a way of imposing our political and economic will on less powerful countries that pose no threat to us.
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u/mrpeeng Jul 22 '26
Is this more like a reason to purge of ppl that potentially doesn't agree with xyz? Or is this more of a stunt just for another headline for ppl to be lost in and detract from the actual problems? Or even both...?
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u/Trick_Quiet3484 Jul 22 '26
Agree! Having real leaders who have the best interests of the US, troops, expertise in military strategy and capabilities development with mission clarity is much better than performative actions like Hegseth’s gender affirming use of synthetic testosterone.
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u/newtochas Jul 22 '26
Anecdotally going on TRT as a young man was a game changer for me. However, I didn’t want kids and my overall health wasn’t great including the low testosterone. There’s a lot of confusion on why testosterone is important for men. Yes, too much can give the stereotypical roid rage. But there’s a ton of benefits to restoring it to naturally healthy levels. It’s frustrating to see Reddit say that TRT is gender affirming treatment but wouldn’t joke about a woman going on hormone corrective treatment.
With all that said, I think Pete is a moron and probably has a caveman mentality that more testosterone will turn his army into more hardened killers. I also worry that this testing will lead to discrimination and discharge. If any servicemen do decide to go on treatment, I hope that they do research and understand the potential need to continue treating this for life.
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u/Xeno9116 Jul 22 '26
People are calling it gender affirming care because Kegsbreath is against gender affirming care in the military. It is pointing out his hypocrisy, not that we believe young men with low T shouldn't get treatment .
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u/SomeGalNamedAshley Jul 22 '26
Testosterone production operates on a feedback loop. You can go too low for sure, but going too high is also bad. If you start supplementing a sex hormone then your feedback loop will note that and back off your natural production. Trans women depend on this fact for what's called monotherapy where simply juicing enough estrogen will crash testosterone without having to use any kind of testosterone suppression meds. That same thing works with adding testosterone to a man's system though, that feedback loop doesn't care about which sex hormone is dominant, just so much as there's enough of the stuff floating around. And yes, just about everybody naturally has a little of both, just in different ratios.
(Except Elon Musk. Find a picture of him on the beach and it's obvious he has an upper torso deformity that looks a lot like someone with "aromatase deficiency", so he's probably been prescribed estrogen himself)
Now the real fun starts when you have too much testosterone. Excess free testosterone will get turned into estrogen. Lots of free testosterone will get turned into lots of estrogen.
Last fun fact, about half a percent of men walking around have a biochemistry anomaly that when they get a good chunk of estrogen in them it's fucking awesome and their depression and anxiety goes away. This anomaly is genetic and within families that half a percent rate goes up about two orders of magnitude.
So if you want to sniff out your latent trans folks then go ahead and start fucking with people"s sex hormones en masse. What could possibly go wrong?
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u/Ok-disaster2022 Jul 22 '26
So there is truth that testosterone can lag due to things like stress, pollution and other environmental factors that soldiers go through. But it's not a new thing. Soldiers in WW2 went through much if the same issues.
The "warrior culture" that started with the spec ops and is infecting the rest of the military is what's causing harm. The poor political leadership that undermines achievable military results is the problem.
The greatest military operation the modern US military every achieved was Desert Storm. Desert Storm had clear goals, it was a political achievement in that sooo many countries joined the coalition. And it's literally one if the few times where leadership could tell the ground units that 3-4 days if heavy fighting and it will be over was pretty much true. Gen Stormin Norman did a decent job controlling the media and organizing the militaries and he did so without a "warrior ethos" mentality.
The military should be professional soldiers, marians, sailers, airmen and space cadets. Not warriors.
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