Afternoon

Enjoy

Meritocracy

Great stuff.

A correction will appear in tomorrow's print edition: "A headline with an article on Friday about President Trump’s threats to leave NATO misstated the full name of the body. It is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, not the North American Treaty Organization."

— NYTimes Communications (@nytimespr.bsky.social) April 3, 2026 at 8:08 PM

I gotta admit the man occasionally has a point.

 

If I Fire Everybody Competent That Will Make Me Look Better

Cunning plan.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s “paranoia” about Army Secretary Dan Driscoll taking his job fueled the firing of the Army’s top general, current and former administration officials tell The Post — as a top contender emerges to replace Driscoll if he’s canned next.

Hegseth on Thursday demanded the resignation of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George — Driscoll’s top aide — in the middle of the Iran war for reasons that were not publicly stated.

“This is all driven by the insecurity and paranoia that Pete has developed since Signalgate. Unfortunately, it is stoked by some of his closest aides who should be trying to calm the waters,” an official said, referring to Hegseth’s March 2025 group chat with national security officials that inadvertently included a reporter.

It's all a bit funny, but a cornered drunk rabid raccoon having the controls of the boom boom machines isn't entirely funny.

Morning

Slacker Saturday

Happy Hour

 get happ

Sensing A Pattern

Don't weep for any of these people, but...

But with the dismissal of Ms. Noem and now Ms. Bondi, that might be changing. His calculus appears to have shifted after the quick confirmation of Markwayne Mullin as Ms. Noem’s replacement. Now, Mr. Trump’s allies see Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the embattled labor secretary, as a potential contender for the next cabinet secretary to be dismissed.

Mr. Trump, We Are Eager To Implement Your Plan If You Tell Us What It Is

Estonia (and NATO) has to come up with its own bed unshitting procedure.

TALLINN — Estonia is willing to help the United States secure the Strait of Hormuz but is unsure what the Trump administration actually wants its NATO allies to do, a top Estonian minister said Wednesday.

They Got What They Wanted

Don't let anyone who made any noises about "DEI" or "critical race theory" or "affirmative action" or whatever the trendy phrase happened to be at the time feign shock at what Hegseth is doing. This is they world the wanted.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken steps to block or delay promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military, some of whom are seen as having been targeted because of their race, gender or perceived affiliation with Biden administration policies or officials, according to nine U.S. officials familiar with the process.

Hegseth is just correcting the wrongs that you all said were there. Oh no we meant all those other unqualified black people in key positions, not THOSE ones.

Friends In High Places

What struck me is that this was the closest I have ever heard Donald express genuine sympathy for the struggle of someone else.

In the minutes after his vehicle overturned on a narrow Jupiter Island, Florida, road, Tiger Woods said he was on the phone with President Donald Trump, according to newly released body camera video.

...

“I feel so badly He's got some difficulty. There was an accident, and that's all I know,” Trump said shortly after Woods’ incident. “A very close friend of mine, he's an amazing person, an amazing man. But some difficulty.”

I am not saying that this means Donald is human, akshually, but I didn't think he was capable of it at all.

Just A Little More Time

We don't have it? Ominous.

Morning

Foolish Friday

Thursday Night

Rock on

Happy Hour

get happy

T(r)olled

The world economy won't collapse if the Strait is tolled, and it is certainly a funny consequence of Trump's actions.

This is new information to Iran. The country had not been monetizing its geographic good fortune of having 20 percent of the world’s oil, 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas, and one-third of the world’s nitrogen-based fertilizer pass near its shoreline. Closing the strait was always an implied threat that would result from aggressive action against the nation or its leadership, something known to everyone in the world except Donald Trump, it appears. But the threat was typically closure, and what’s emerging is something quite different. Iran has slowly realized that, unbelievably, it can actually get away with throwing a tollgate across the strait. Thanks to Trump and Israel, Iran has gained immense economic and diplomatic leverage.

What's Happening

I am not alleging grand conspiracy here, but my impression is that US domestic news outlets are not exactly emphasizing Iran's attacks on various international targets. You see a bit more coverage in the business press and of course international outlets.

Bye Pam

Bondi is confirmed out.

We Won, Or We Think We Did

Reading pieces on Trump and Iran and even the more realistic and skeptical ones still pretend that Trump has "goals" or "objectives" other than "look like a cool character on TV and get praise from people for it."

This is from a NYT email:

President Trump said in a speech that the “core strategic objectives in Iran are nearing completion.” In a 19-minute address, he offered no timeline for ending the conflict, but said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”

What are those strategic objectives, anyway? Over the course of the war, Trump’s statements about America’s goals have been wildly inconsistent.

His speech didn’t contain much new, but it seemed to set the stage for Trump to declare an end to the war. Today’s newsletter is about what the U.S. would leave behind in Iran and the Middle East if that happens.

I get that reporters aren't going to write like shitposters, but political journalists have a lot of freedom, generally, in how they cover things.  It is a choice not to paint an accurate portrait of the man.

They will argue various things about why critics like me just want them to do Resistance Journalism, but take this from David Sanger:

For more than a decade President Trump has been intently focused on making sure Iran never had the nuclear fuel in hand to build a nuclear weapon. Until this morning, when he told Reuters in an interview, that he didn’t really care because it is “so far underground.”

Is that first sentence even remotely true? You could at least qualify it with a "President Trump has claimed...".  We know he ripped up the agreement in his first term because the black president made the agreement, and that doing so made it more likely, not less, that Iran would make more potential fuel. 

 That's even before we get to the hilarious notion that Trump could possibly be intently focused on much of anything aside from his personal wealth and his TV watching.

If journalistic NORMS let you write that first sentence, which attributes motives to Trump's actions that are at best barely in evidence, you can write a much truer version of it, which would be more like "Trump started a war in Iran so the Trump character gets praised by Fox News hosts."
 

Whoopsie Doodle

Don't know who specifically is to blame here, but from the DOGE boys to Trump himself, no one in this administration gives any thought to security.

The FBI last week deemed a recent China-linked cyber intrusion into a sensitive agency surveillance system a “major incident,” meaning it poses significant risks to U.S. national security, according to one congressional aide and two U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

There is a nontrivial chance someone just flips a switch on the whole Treasury at some point, maybe because some DOGE kid dropped a thumb drive while scoring some ketamine. 

Small Pleasures

It's always a reasonable bet that the replacement will be worse - or more competent at doing evil - but it is still fun watching Trump turn on his lickspittles one by one.

President Donald Trump has privately mused about firing his Attorney General Pam Bondi and replacing her with EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Morning

Thoughtful Thursday