At least this week’s faux outrage promised to be tasty. Lobster! Rib eye! King crab! Millions spent lavishing such delicacies on the troops when all that money might have been spent on poor working stiffs like members of Congress. Outrageous!
No sooner was the supposed scandal aired than it was laughed out of court. There were pictures of Michelle Obama shoveling out the surf and turf for troops. There were little history lessons showing that what Pete Hegseth presented as a wasteful innovation has, in fact, been standard operating procedure for the DOD (now the DOW) for many years. But why was the scandal manufactured just now, in mid-March 2026? Here’s an interesting tidbit from a commentator who did a little digging. “It seems the two vendors who had a monopoly on DOD food supply lost their contracts: VAL-PRO, INC. (located in California) and CHICO PRODUCE, INC. (also based in California). The new vendor setup is now open to multiple vendors.” Well, well, well, and you don’t say?
Then there were unflattering charts comparing the amount of money spent on steak dinners for the troops to the amount of money lost to fake Somali daycare centers. In 2025, we spent $210 million on the former and $230 million on the latter, which is to say $16.33 per soldier and $379,537.19 per fake daycare operator. And let’s not forget former Clinton advisor Paul Begala, who went on CNN to claim that Pete Hegseth “spent $15 million in one month for ribeye steak, $6.9 million for lobster tail . . . all for himself.” Scott Jennings asked the obvious question. You don’t think he was eating all that himself, do you, Paul? Begala spluttered a bit, to which Jennings said, “Internet, do your thing.” Which it did.
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