Get happy
Monday, May 04, 2026
But I Thought He Was So Competent
A problem with insider stories about Hegseth is that, as with Kash Patel, nothing would be surprising. Yah he's a stupid racist asshole who sucks.
Since Trump returned to office in January last year, Pete Hegseth, the rumbustious defense secretary who has made it his mission to remake a military ethos he denounced as “woke”, has fired or forcibly retired 24 generals and senior commanders, with no performance-related reason given.
About 60% have been Black or female, an approach seemingly driven by the administration’s proclaimed onslaught against “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hires”.
OK this, from the self-proclaimed Alpha Male, is funny though:
Pentagon staff have been surprised to see him accompanied to official meetings by his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer who frequently sits at the back during such encounters.
Somewhere After Midnight In My Wildest Fantasy
Rudy Giuliani is in critical condition.
It will probably be illegal to say mean things about him when he dies, so now is a good moment to remember that not only was he one of the most loathsome individuals in public life at the time, but all of the details of that were fully known to every relevant American journalist then.
But after 9/11, they needed a hero, so they created the character of Rudy 9/11, something which required deliberately ignoring all of his 9/11-related unheroic deeds. Great job, everybody.
Oh No The Capital Allocation System Allocated Capital Badly Again
You can hear the sound of chanting growing:
Just put wafer thin bits of shit in with the good stuff and no one will notice.
"Distributing":
bailout Bailout BAILOUT BAILOUTBanks are hunting for new ways to offload risks tied to a glut of data centre debt as the race to build AI infrastructure stretches financing limits among the largest global lenders.
Groups including JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and SMBC are trying to find ways to distribute portions of data centre-related deals to a broader range of investors, according to people familiar with the matter.
Just put wafer thin bits of shit in with the good stuff and no one will notice.
"Distributing":
“The sizes we’re talking about . . . they’re out of scale to anything we’ve thought about, ever,” said Matthew Moniot, co-head of credit risk sharing at Man Group. “Banks very quickly start choking.” Lenders, including JPMorgan and MUFG, have spent more than six months distributing $38bn of construction debt tied to a data centre project leased to Oracle in Texas and Wisconsin, people familiar with the matter said.
Lenders, including JPMorgan and MUFG, have spent more than six months distributing $38bn of construction debt tied to a data centre project leased to Oracle in Texas and Wisconsin, people familiar with the matter said.
The First Casualty of War
No idea who is telling the truth, but we already know Hegseth's Pentagon is less trustworthy than usual.
The U.S. military on Monday rejected Iranian claims to have struck an American warship, as Tehran signaled an aggressive response to President Donald Trump's new mission to "guide" stranded vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
🚫 CLAIM: Iranian state media claims that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit a U.S. warship with two missiles.
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) May 4, 2026
✅ TRUTH: No U.S. Navy ships have been struck. U.S. forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports. pic.twitter.com/VFxovxLU6G
Though the Pentagon being not very concerned with telling the truth is not a Hegseth invention!
Sunday, May 03, 2026
America's Worst Democratic Governor
Josh Shapiro
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro secretly helped a Republican state treasurer's 2024 reelection bid after the official's Democratic opponent had criticized Shapiro as a potential VP pick, a close Shapiro ally said last week.
At Least The War Is Over
Iran's 14-point proposal reads like what conquering nation demands, not a surrendering one.
The new proposal calls for guarantees against future attacks, a withdrawal of US forces from around Iran, the release of frozen Iranian assets worth billions of dollars and the lifting of sanctions, war reparations, ending all hostilities, including in Lebanon, and “a new mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz”.
Iran, which was also attacked by the US and Israel last June, wants a guarantee against future aggression. Israel has previously targeted Iranian nuclear scientists and run campaigns to sabotage its nuclear sites.
Tehran also wants its right to uranium enrichment guaranteed as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), but Trump has made the nuclear issue a “red line”. Iran wants decades of sanctions, which have devastated its economy, to be lifted as part of any deal. The navigation through the strait and demands for war reparations are other sticking points in the talks.
Mommy He Punched Me Back
Trump just says a bit more crassly what is standard DC "foreign policy" thinking: civilian populations need to be slaughtered in order to redeem a county for not bending to our will.
Peace proposal: US President Donald Trump said he can’t imagine a new peace plan from Iran he will review “would be acceptable” adding they have not yet paid “a big enough price for what they have done.” Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the room for US decision-making “has narrowed.”
Saturday, May 02, 2026
Running On Empty
I know this just means we will increase the defense budget by another eleventy zillion dollars (some Dems will oppose, some will support with a frowny face), but that doesn't mean they can make new flying death machines especially quickly.
The Trump administration has authorized more than $8.6 billion in emergency arms sales to partners in the Middle East as negotiations to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran remained at an impasse.
It was unclear when the weapons would arrive in the region, since it takes years to build large quantities of defensive interceptors and other types of munitions. The slow pace of production has become an acute concern in Washington, and any such weapons that American arms companies make for other countries mean less for the United States. Some Pentagon officials have expressed anxiety about diminishing U.S. stockpiles.
Dead Malls
It might actually be a good indicator of Russia's economic problems, but it's still funny as "dead malls" have been a major US phenomenon since the Great Recession and before.
What a deserted mall in Moscow says about Russia’s economic woes
The piece even says other some other malls are fine!
Lucky Them
Whatever sense the various post-war arrangements made once upon a time, I do think that the advantages of having US troops stationed in your country are not exactly clear.
Pentagon officials said on Friday that they were pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and would redeploy them to the United States and other posts overseas.
Down to 2022 levels so this is hardly a major change, anyway.
It is funny that this is because of Merz, because he was the one who, on day one, told everyone not to criticize Trump over Iran. When his cunning plan didn't work so well he flipped entirely.
Earlier this week, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran had “humiliated” the United States, and he questioned how Mr. Trump planned to end the conflict.
“The Americans obviously have no strategy,” Mr. Merz said.
Merz obviously has Smartest Boy In The Room syndrome, a sign of which is people who do a 180 degree turn on their views without acknowledging any of the people who were right to begin with, or, presumably, listening to them the next time. Give this man an Atlantic column!
Friday, May 01, 2026
It's Tariff Week, Again
Trump is back to happier times, when he would announce them daily and watch his Foxy friends on TV clap.
How Is He Doing
This car-hating hippie does find rising gas prices somewhat pleasing (yes, I know they impose real additional costs on people who can't afford them, but so do so many other things people don't obsess about as much), and also a hilarious tribute to the energy and industrial and military policies of our greatest president.
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