I Didn't Want You To Come To My Party Anyway

Notable

You don't have to hand it to him (really, don't), but Joe Kent was (is) a full hardcore MAGA extremist.

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.

I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this… pic.twitter.com/prtu86DpEr

— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) March 17, 2026

Jan. 6 "denier," racist, an Infowars guy, thought BLM and antifa were terrorists, etc... Even the 2025 era ADL objected!

Excellent Plan, Sir

Leaving aside the deliberate Stephen Miller ethnic cleansing aspect to this policy (which matters, of course!), creating driver shortages can raise the price of everything!

About 200,000 immigrant truck drivers - virtually all of them in the U.S. legally - will begin losing their commercial driver's licenses under a Trump administration rule taking effect Monday.

The rule, which will bar many noncitizens from getting new commercial licenses or renewing existing ones, creates challenges for the trucking industry, already struggling with high fuel costs and high driver turnover, according to The Washington Post. Existing licenses will continue to be valid until they expire.

Maybe with licenses just rolling off, the fantasy of good white American truckers from 1970s TV shows replacing all of these people will happen smoothly enough to prevent shortages. Or not!

I imagine rising diesel fuel costs will have some impact on the perceived attractiveness of these careers!

Sin Eater

I am mildly curious about how much they thought Bovino's constant theatricality - not just the extreme tactics, but the performance of them - would be supercool and popular.

Border Patrol's Gregory Bovino to retire, sources say

I don't think they're very good at distinguishing between what is popular with the MAGA Chuds and the bots on Mechahitler, the everything app (Real Americans, according to the NYT, probably), and what plays well more broadly.

Morning

TACO Tuesday.

Monday Evening

enjoy

Clown Stuff

I am still laughing at what a loser Merz is.

Only last week German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was "on the same page" as U.S. President Donald Trump over the goals of the Iran war.

He is no longer sounding so enthusiastic.

Most European leaders initially fucked this one up badly.

Some have been blunt about disregarding international law. Meloni, while admitting to the Italian parliament that the war violates international law, declared that she neither condemned nor condoned the action. Merz claimed that international law was not a useful framework and that this was not the time to preach to friends and allies. Von der Leyen added the cherry on the cake when she stated that debating whether the war is one of choice – that is, illegal – or of necessity – legal – “partly misses the point” and that Europe must accept the world as it is. Her speech to EU ambassadors was such an explicit repudiation of the EU’s longstanding principles that the European Council president António Costa felt compelled to contradict her the following day, reaffirming the belief that multipolarity and multilateralism must go hand in hand.

It took them awhile, but it seems they are now all rejecting Donald's demand that they feed their ships to explosions in the Strait of Hormuz. Progress.

Sure Why Not

Trump: "I knew the Strait would be a weapon. I predicted it a long time ago. I predicted all of this stuff. I predicted Osama bin Laden would knock out the World Trade Center. I wrote it in a book."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 16, 2026 at 4:28 PM

For Example

Funsies:

Trump also told NBC News in an interview published Saturday that U.S. strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island “totally demolished” most of the island but that “we may hit it a few more times just for fun.”

Norms

I think most of us understand that things like "don't assassinate political leaders" and "don't bomb civilians/civilian targets" and "don't kill prisoners of war" and "don't blow up boats" are basic norms that we embrace, in part, because they protect "us." 

Neither the US nor Israel even bother to fake concern about these things. Donald and Whiskey Pete regularly boast about their love of what we normally think of as war crimes. Why should Iran show any restraint?

At a meeting in the Oval Office last week, a frustrated Mr. Trump pressed Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about why the United States could not immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The answer was straightforward: Even one Iranian soldier or militia member zipping across the narrow neck of the strait in a speedboat could fire a mobile missile right into a slow-moving supertanker, or plant a limpet mine on its hull.

And it's pretty easy to see that the "rules of war" rig the game in favor of strong state militaries. We are an army, you are terrorists. They were to our benefit!

Who Gets The Blame

One of the few small pleasures we get these days is when Trump puts the boot into someone we all hate. Trump's never at fault, so someone else has to be. Some fun possibilities:

Chief Lickspittle Lindsey Graham

Genocide enthusiast Benjamin Netanyahu

Fox News Chief Warfighter Pete Hegseth

anyone else?

Morning

Maudlin Monday.

Oscar Thread

Only 4 away from my EGOT!

Dynastic Wealth

Just a random good-enough-for-a-Sunday-blogpost thought.

When I was young, the area rich kid was the guy whose Dad was an anesthesiologist or, maybe, the guy whose Dad was into, um, waste disposal.

Rich but not filthy rich. And mostly not multigenerational inherited wealth.

Sure those people existed,  but not everywhere.

We are becoming a society with increasing numbers of people with nontrivial dynastic wealth.

And most of them think being born on 3rd means they hit a triple.

Heartwarming

Oscar Night

I saw Sinners and One Battle After Another. 

Both were good. Probably all the ones I didn't see were trash (joke).

Lunch

Eat

President Deals

I do enjoy reports that Spain's Pedro Sánchez been snubbing Germany's hideous Merz, who was too stupid to realize fast enough that this was all a terrible idea, even aside from the obvious immorality.

Spain is currently doing great by bucking a lot of trends embraced by the Sensible Moderates of Europe.

Morning

Sunday funday.

The Power Of Positive Thinking