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One you might find surprising. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt & members of her team have been extremely helpful in responding to questions I raise. Regardless of public facing commentary, privately they are willing to engage and address questions. And I have appreciated that. Thank you

— Eric Lipton NYT (@ericlipton.nytimes.com) August 13, 2026 at 6:40 AM

Allies

Some additional bits from the article about Israeli intelligence sending Trump to the food container:

Israel views Iran as by far its most urgent near-term threat. But it views Turkey as a medium- to long-term threat and is anxious about warming ties between Washington and Ankara, bolstered by the personal rapport between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current official said.

It “fit a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision-making as to inform it,” the former official familiar with the matter said.

Turkey is a NATO country. Israel is not. We all know what Trump thinks of NATO and all DEALS, but the real question is what most of the rest of the NATO countries do. Do they choose Turkey or Israel?

Also a funny bit from a source who is certainly Rarco Mubio:

This person said he understood that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was briefed on the Israeli threat intelligence, as well as the subterfuge planned by the Secret Service, and nonetheless opted to board the legacy Air Force One, which presumably would have been a target for Iran.

 

Critical Workers

Trump keeps the ones he loves most with him.

BREAKING on MS NOW: Pete Hegseth was the lone Cabinet secretary on Trump's secret flight out of Turkey. Remaining on the 'decoy' plane: Marco Rubio, Scott Bessett, Stephen Miller, Steven Cheung, and other Trump officials.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 8:20 PM

It is very funny that this bullshit from Israeli intelligence has made it very clear to everybody just who matters and who doesn't.

Israeli Slop

Nobody could have predicted.

U.S. intelligence officials were skeptical of an Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump that was relayed by Israel and prompted an extraordinary clandestine maneuver that saw him secretly fly out of Turkey in an alternate military aircraft, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence said.

Morning

Theatrical Thursday.

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The Most Important Problem We Face

All the political journalists and columnists will rediscover the deficit - the greatest threat to civilization ever known - as soon as President Democrat seems likely.

Aug 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. federal budget deficit for July jumped to $432 billion, a record for the month, as higher outlays and more ​negative tariff revenues also brought the 2026 fiscal-year-to date ‌budget gap to $1.799 trillion, topping the full fiscal 2025 deficit with two months left in the fiscal year, the U.S. Treasury said on ​Wednesday.

They all just forgot about it. Impressive. 

Notable

The entire political press has just agreed that they shouldn't talk about this, so I suppose it's notable that the NYT has a piece by Dick Cheney's cardiologist:

Despite reassurances from the White House to the contrary, at times over the past year, the president has not looked well. I am not Mr. Trump’s doctor, and have only reviewed his records that have been made public. But Mr. Trump is probably the most photographed president in American history, and a variety of physical ailments are easy to see. He’s had large bruises on both hands, swelling in his legs and episodes when it appears that he is struggling to stay awake. He’s also had advanced imaging performed for unclear reasons. The public is again left to wonder whether the nation’s leader is OK.

I'm sure journalists justify their quiet by saying they shouldn't speculate, but when has that ever stopped them. 

I also bet they have all been told "off the record" making it difficult for them to talk about it. One quick trick!

Control

As I said, Trump can assert that he has control much in the same way that Iran can: they can prevent traffic, but not facilitate it.

United States President Donald Trump has doubled down on claims the United States maintains “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz, even as transit through the arterial waterway fell to a one-week low amid the US-Israel war with Iran.

Destroying is easier than creating. 

"Cutting-Edge"

You can't criticize our patriotic defense contractors, because that's no different than criticizing the troops, really.

It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week.

Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”

Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair. Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell. “We really didn’t have any standardized practice,” said Quantel White, a former employee. “It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night.” To workers, even the factory buildings themselves came to feel doomed, with acrid smoke hanging in 100-degree heat over foundations seemingly sinking into the earth.

I recently saw a mention of a new plant that never produced any shells. Now I know why!

Staffers

I was focused on the journalists, but we shouldn't overlook the fact that Trump was gonna let his staffers die, also, too.

Now, attention has shifted to reporters and staffers unknowingly flying on a decoy plane — and the nature of the threat that prompted such dramatic security measures. A US official said at least two Cabinet secretaries – Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – stayed behind on the older presidential aircraft that departed Turkey without Trump aboard.

I was thinking more about the junior staffers, but I guess Marco and Scott are disposable, too!

And the more junior staffers are not!

As President Donald Trump secretly left an Air Force One jet on a catering truck last month in response to a potential Iranian assassination threat in Turkey, he was accompanied by some of his most loyal and longest-serving aides, but no Cabinet officials.

Other passengers on the truck included Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations, according to a U.S. official familiar with the operation and corroborating material reviewed by The Washington Post.

Harp's job - should be Cabinet level, really - is to feed him social media slop for him to look at and post.

Sure, Jan

But the headlines hit the algos that boost the stock market, so...

President Donald Trump claimed the US had “total control over the Hormuz Strait,” as Washington and Tehran hardened their stances in deadlocked negotiations over the waterway.

“We own it,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington late Tuesday. “And at some point, maybe they’ll do something, and then they get blown away.”

I'm sure the US can block most/all traffic through the strait by threatening to blow things up, AS CAN IRAN. What they can't do is ensure that anything goes through.

Morning

Respect Trump's authoritah!

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Never Gonna Stop

Related to the last post, the people around him are obviously good at redirecting his rage towards "nobodies."

WASHINGTON—White House officials have asked the Justice Department to consider a new prosecution of a man accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to people familiar with the discussions, as President Trump fumes over U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to drop the case.

At least fire Pirro!

Blame Pete

We don't have nearly enough humiliating forced resignations (firings) in Trump II. He even has good reasons to fault the people around him! You can divide them pretty easily between incompetent evil and competent evil (the Fox News Cabinet versus the rest, mostly), but Trump has a lot of affection for the ones from Fox!

Miserable Failure

I don't actually know the answer to this: do we think Trump is covered as an "unpopular president" the way Biden was once his poll numbers dropped?

NEW Economist/YouGov Aug 7-10 3-week average net Trump job approval [now | at the start of Trump's 2nd term] among: U.S. adult citizens: -27 | +2 Whites: -16 | +14 Non-college whites: -8 | +27 College whites: -30 | -6 Hispanics: -36 | -14 Blacks: -62 | -39

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— YouGov America (@today.yougov.com) August 11, 2026 at 2:43 PM

This is a very general question covering the collection of mainstream media sources: cable and network news, the New York Times, NPR. Obviously I don't have all of those things fully jacked into my head.

Alternate Timeline

I'd bet the security scare was just nonsense presented by Israeli intelligence, but imagine if Iran had blown up a plane filled with our most brilliant journalists as Trump escaped with the food?

Sitting Ducks

Letting the press corps be targets, after that nice party they had for you!!!

Mr. Trump boarded the older plane from the left-side door in view of cameras, and news organizations, including The New York Times, reported that he had traveled on it to Britain, where he switched back to the newer plane. The Times reported at the time that the decision was driven in part by concern about the security of the new plane donated by Qatar, which had not been equipped with all of the defensive capabilities of older versions.

But instead of flying out aboard that older, powder blue, modified 747, Mr. Trump was whisked off that plane via a catering container that had been lifted to the opposite side of the plane from where the journalists traveling with him boarded, one of the U.S. officials said. The president was then taken to a third plane, which he flew in secret to Britain, the official with knowledge of the matter said.

Reporters on the older plane were not told that Mr. Trump had not flown with them from Turkey to an air base in Britain, making them unwitting participants in the ruse and leaving them, along with some White House staff members, to serve as unknowing decoys.

Can't wait for the movie! Daring escape in a catering container!

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