“We barely use the Strait of Hormuz. Europe should be more active…”
Hello? Hello? Anybody home? THINK, MCFLY! THINK! No one needed to worry about the Strait of Hormuz until SecDrunk and the Coppertone Coward started fucking with shit on the insistence of Bibi that they should. Now it’s literally everyone’s problem, Pete, you pointless, pusillanimous piece of gutter trash in a bad suit.
We are all the true victims of a destructive 5 year old, his syncophants and the multiple billionaires who are ripping off America. The 5 year old's average approval rating is almost into the 35% range, a disaster for the GOP loyalists. Thankfully, retribution is on the way. November will see the casting out of many of the fascist MAGA loyalists which will mark the beginning of the years we need to reform our 250 year old federalist system and bring it into the 21st century. Be hopeful. This will happen.
That Chrisian Nationalist self description will go a long way in the current makeup of likely R primary voters - should he be ambitious enough to try it. Dreadful but true.
And yet the Iranians checkmated our very stable genius the old fashioned. Why play multi-dimensional chess when two dimensions works just fine for much cheaper.
Bombs are reigning down on the Iranians at an alarming rate and someone thinks, wait, all we have to do is wheel this Trojan horse into the fort and we’ll get this to stop. Start pushing.
In war, simplicity is invariably the best move. One of the reasons that Japan did so poorly at the operational level in WW2 is that every plan they came up with was this hideous, multi-axis, tricksy thing requiring tight coordination between widely separated units, spread over half the Pacific Ocean.
The US solution was simple, build lots and lots of stuff, train lots and lots of people, build strong logistics--to the point that losses were, at the strategic level, largely meaningless--and your firepower and tech edge was such that losses were minimal, anyway.
I found out about it reading my father's ship's log. His LSM's hull got cracked by being pounded onto the coral while unloading, and got towed to Ulithi for repair.
Correction: Although Ulithi is part of my father's story, his LSM was towed to Kerama Retto, a shipyard only about 20 miles away to the west of Okinawa.
“In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.”
Everyone is too focused on his One Man War and its effects on the price of everything, not only in the US but world-wide, to be bothered with those any more, which the government will pay back, anyway, so where is the connection (says the Felon, if he thinks about anything for more than three hours (arbitrary, short time period) these days).
I'm thinking the Strait of Hormuz is really dumb checkers, and in only one dimension. There is a tube, a strait. At either end there is a blockade. Players attempt to move pieces through the tube by feigning un-blockading.
A certain man bases all his plans, such as they are, on the proposition that he's the only real human being in the world. Who would ever guess that he'd find out he was mistaken?
Nor health care . God forbid he start looking at undoing his stagflation mess Better for us if he just denies its happening and let slightly smarter sycophants (how's THAT for alliteration ) deal with it
It’s even more mind blowing if you consider that Trump is a 7th dimensional being (3D space and 4D time)—which represents all possible universes, timelines and potential realities simultaneously! Let that sink in!…:)
“This should not be America’s fight alone,” Hegseth seethed. “We barely use the Strait of Hormuz. . . . [The Europeans] need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having fancy conferences in Europe and getting on a boat.”
It is America's war all alone because you dumb fuckers listened to Bibi and didn't due any due diligence to make sure what you were doing was the right thing. Mr. Tough Warrior must of got off on the wrong foot with the EU...or in the words of Erin Brockovich "that's all you got is two wrong feet in fuckin' ugly shoes (from what I hear oversized Florsheims). The liquor cabinet doesn't know shit. Can you imagine the embarrassment of the generals and admirals at having this cosplaying moron as their boss.
Phelan was incompetent in the way most Trump appointees are, but like Bondy and Noem, he got fired not for ordinary, garden variety incompetence but for failing to succeed in making Trump's stupid ideas work. In Phelan's case, it was the Trump-class battleship.
That is why Blondi Bondi got the axe, she could not get any of the Felons Most Hated List Convicted of anything, in some cases, not even indicted. And Noem as spending too much time with her squeeze to squeeze anything else, except weapons aimed at US citizens, or her dog.
"Another day, another Pentagon press conference in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fruitlessly demands Europe get more involved with reopening the Strait of Hormuz: “This should not be America’s fight alone,” Hegseth seethed. “We barely use the Strait of Hormuz. . . . [The Europeans] need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having fancy conferences in Europe and getting on a boat.”"
You mean the same Europeans that you insulted last year as evidenced in your Signal chat, Mr. Secretary?
**You** disrupted the shipping status quo. **You're** the one who ignored warnings that Iran would close the strait should you attack Iran. And now that you're eight weeks into a war of choice, you're blaming the same nations you insulted for not bailing your stupid ass out when said war went sideways. Aren't real mean supposed to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions?
If you were really as tough as you'd like everyone to believe, **you'd** convince the president to initiate an op to wrestle control of the strait away from Iran. C'mon, asshole. Do it. Let's see how lethal the US military is under your "leadership".
great summary I would just add two things. Let’s start focusing on the enablers, because grandpa is clearly lost and why would anyone think that the Europeans believe they can trust America. In fact the petulant pettiness of this administration has permanently removed all trust even the Iranians have higher standards of keeping promises. And I read in the British press that Our government is now reviewing our position on the falklands. I am not endorsing and view on said outpost of empire, but honestly not sure any Brits actually care.
Oh we care. The Falklands War is an extraordinarily important (possibly too much, but it is what it is) part of our post WW2 understanding of ourselves as still being able to do stuff as a middle power. Any politician that even vaguely suggested they weren’t fully committed to maintaining the Falklands as a British territory would be signing their political death warrant. Even Trump sycophant Farage has had to come out very strongly against it.
The inhabitants of the territory have no desire to become Argentinians given that the abuses that occurred during the 1982 invasion are within living memory and the minefields the Argentinians left behind were only fully cleared in 2020.
The stuff about the Trump review of the US position started coming out too late to make the papers today but I expect tomorrow’s headlines and editorials to be full of demands to cancel the King’s upcoming visit until it’s resolved. It’s a top story on most UK TV and radio news today.
The question even among serious euro conservative military thinkers is "Except for the F-35, do we really NEED the US anymore?" Ukraine at this point is bringing a LOT more to the table in actual fighting experience, why on earth should we go with Patriots and THAADs at millions a piece? Especially since we have no interest in attacking anyone? Iran and Ukraine has showed that defence at the moment is trumping offense hard.
Don't forget that PATRIOT and THAAD is more than just the missiles. They're the radars as well, and if memory the PATRIOT radar is capable of detecting hypersonic threats.
There are a couple of options that are not technically quite as good but still adequate, the SAAB Gripen of Sweden and the Mirage from France. The F-35 is definetly a better fighter jet, but: given the new doctrine as seen in Ukraine of drone defensive layers we really dont see that much need of dogfighting jets anymore, its a bit like the hangarships wich are fast turning into old tech. Resillience and volume-to-cost now wins over supertech if you can survive the first wave.
Am I remembering correctly that some of the allies offered assistance very early in this fiasco, but the Coppertone Coward claimed that we didn’t need them because we’d already won? Maybe I’m just remembering one of my nightmares.
he's such a dip, just backtrack in place of trying to put them in the corner, he just cannot resist, big mouth. I have predicted he will box in the U K in some way.
While Trump is flushing America down the toilet, our attention should be on the Republican members of Congress. Let's get the ads out there:
"My opponent, Mr. [generic Republican dingus], is watching Trump ruin the country, and he is doing NOTHING! Trump starts an illegal war in Iran, and Dingus does NOTHING! Trump's tariffs are ruining the economy, and Dingus does NOTHING! Trump sends ICE goons to roam the streets of America, and Dingus does NOTHING! Dingus stands around and says nothing and does nothing and lets Trump do WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS! Dingus is ruining America!"
Less attention on Trump, and much more on Mr. Dingus.
This should be the way. I am seeing a lot more MAGA traffic on X that are getting pissed at Congress for letting Trump and his cabinet do what he's doing
After, I don’t know, five or so of these asinine pentagon “briefings” Hegsbreath does not convey any different persona than that of a Fox News personality sitting on a couch bloviating opinions which will have no effect on the situation in the Middle East. He sits above the largest organization in the world, with the largest budget of any organization in the world and offers nothing of substance. He’s irrelevant. That’s a crime of enormous magnitude. And nothing will be done about it.
Trump was on a posting bender last night, it was insanity...
To keep him from stroking out, the staff is keeping him calm with pictures of the "new battleship" that Trump wants (we haven't built a battleship since 1944, so don't hold your breath), the cleaning of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and of course the ballroom.
Watching his pressers, its amazing how animated he gets talking about the silly BS like the ballroom, but instantly switches to anger when Iran comes up.
Yeah, let's build a multibillion dollar battleship while other countries are building drones for tens of thousands of dollars. It only goes to show that Trump's brain is stuck in the 20th century.
Right? No one in the entire upper crust of the Navy could tell him that battleships are great targets for the enemy, that the last ships we built (the Littoral class ships) are complete disasters?
When my mom was just out of high school, she worked in the payroll department of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. Amazingly, she supervised about a half dozen people, including one sailor in uniform. On the site now is the Eagles' training facility.
That hospital was a big deal (and employer)! My grandfather went there for medical treatment (WWI Navy vet). Friends whose fathers served in WWII and Korea, along with siblings who served in Vietnam also went there. My grandfather was a Sailor, my father was a Sailor, but I was the black sheep of the family, I became an Airman, LOL.
I grew up there too. I remember as a kid seeing some mothballed ships but also many ships being built, repaired, or refitted. Not today, as you said just the mothball fleet is there. Philly used to be a big Navy region. Seagoing Navy and the Naval hospital in South Philly and Naval Aviation at NAS Willow Grove and NAWC Warminster. I lived in Buffalo for 4 years. They have a waterfront military park where the USS Little Rock and USS The Sullivans are now museum ships. The USS Little Rock was built in Philadelphia.
My dad was in the Naval Reserve. When we were kids he arranged for us to go to the Navy Yard and ride along in a submarine as submariners were taken out and submerged to periscope depth, to keep their dolphins. Odd ritual, but fun for kids. Got to look through the periscope.
My uncle was a Navy pilot, so we were always going up to Willow Grove to watch the air shows or if some neat plane was going to land. Dad was an officer on a destroyer, and would take us down to the Yards and point out the old ships that were in service when he served.
From the WSJ: “Hegseth and his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, made the argument to Trump that Phelan wasn’t moving quickly enough on Trump’s shipbuilding priorities, especially the “Golden Fleet” and increasing reliance on the use of steam.”
Yes. I was commenting on how long it usually takes to get through a PDR and CDR. Trump's "design" has, to be charitable, a lot of non-recurring engineering, and more NRE means higher risk of cost overruns and schedule overruns.
To claim such a design would only take two years to build assumes that people are stupid enough to believe it. I'm not one of those people. **No one comment here is**.
Yes. What we should be building is small, fast, very stealthy ships that can serve as launch platforms for drones, not hue, lumbering battleships (which have been obsolete since WW1).
With the understanding that those vessels have to operate without degradation in hostile environments (high sea states, salt, fog, electromagnetic radiation, etc.).
Just say stuck. Doesn’t matter what century we are talking about. Too bad he doesn’t like jigsaw puzzles. He could spend days on some of them, leaving everyone alone to try to do their jobs.
This is such a common aspect of dementia. Memories from the past pop up as if they’re current and real. His mentioning People Express as the airline that might merge with Spirit; it existed only in the 1980s. Few weeks back when talking about energy prices he said - twice - his policy is “dig we must,” a 1960s slogan of ConEd in NYC, instead of the slogan he’s used for years, drill baby drill. Most media don’t even notice. These are not slips of the tongue. Aracept won’t fix it. His tangles keep advancing
Dunno if you've experienced losing loved ones & acquaintances down that long side, and not everyone exhibits the same signs. As they say: if you know, you know. Fascinates me that memories aren't so much lost as being retrieval problems. Sometimes what pops up comes from so far back, a trace not mentioned or used for decades but in this moment is real again. Our brains are awesome
I think he's on the good stuff (Kinsula) and they keep doing MRIs to r/o bleeds or even specialized PET scans to measure how much amyloid hoping to hell ts at least not advancing and the treatment isn't causing too much cerebral edema .
He ACTS like frontotemporal dementia with personality changes - but his personality was always a personality disorder made flesh., so maybe not ,\He clearly has lots and lots of memory loss so probably actually has Alzheimers and is a jerk who cant remember how to act .
that does not really matter, when men & women want to get down to business, I don't consider the creature , ( trumpy ) a man at this point, just a thief. I was making light. I'm pretty irked by it all again today,
I meant jigsaw puzzles. I've had a thing about them since about 1956 -- when I was also a complete flop with chicks (pls pardon my use of that term and believe me that I intended no disparagement of my fellow¹ human beings who happen to be of the female persuasion).
¹Is there is a gender-neutral of this word in English, or in any Indo -European language any mere guy from the Kentucky backwoods with a mere three university degrees (math and stats) might be reasonably expected to know?
I love puzzles too, a little less now. so I could by maybe with callin' you a guy, some women are offended by gal, but they won't admit, they lie about it, then it comes out later. human, person man woman. resident. . adjectives can really be complimentary, some women, not me, feed off of that. and need it. some men too. believe a lot of females have poor judgement about what male to dance with. they reject all the perfect and good ones, part of that is hormones, and super hormones, some is stupidity, I had this big oval tabletop, with no legs, I got some bricks and I could do puzzles w/two lamp, cripe I was 26, sort of pretty, had a great job. think I was doing some me time. puzzles are soothing, challenging, and enjoyable. no ladies here were picking on you, we were trying to diagnose the odd brain of our embarrassing , non leader. get's tiresome, so Katherine B , I think was prob not even serious, rain here tomorrow, we've been waiting for it.
Doesn't one of his kids own part of a drone company ?I read that it's merging with gold=f course company so I may have lost my mind . If Don and Eric own Powerus , and Don jr is an advisor to Universal Machines they could bid against each other and then build drone for 100s of thousands rather than 10s of thousands and sell them to DoD.
The meaning of "battleship" now is different to its meaning in 1944. Battleships of the sort we stopped building in the mid-1940s were clearly obsolete after Pearl Harbor and the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales (which was commissioned earlier in 1941) and HMS Repulse by air attack a few days after Pearl Harbor.
The sheer size of the "Defiance"-class *warships* is the only feature they share with "battleships" as the term was understood from 1906 (HMS Dreadnought) until the late 1940s.
(Yes, I'm kind of a battleship nut; for me, USS Maryland, BB-46 iirc, is the paradigm for ships described by the term.)
Seriously Cao is whining about drag queens recruiting for the Navy? Has the man been to a Trump rally where Village people oldies were hits — how many times has ‘In the Navy’ been played to adoring audiences. And what coastal community doesn’t have a lover’s point: that’s been a staples going back to the sirens. I just can’t with these people anymore. None of this is remotely serious.
I can't get Colin Jost's line -- as Hegseth -- when he parodied that speech in front of all the Admirals and Generals out of my head. Something along the lines of "Y'know what's the problem with our military? It's too gay! And I'm not just talking about the Navy!"
Yes, it is and apparently a wiccan paradise — who knew. A lot of those hippy and crystal types Cao is clutching his pearls about ironically have become Trump voters.
Yes, lots of Chinese in SE Asia. Worked w excellent coder from Thailand who was of Chinese origin, and he alluded to the Chinese emigration into SE Asia bcuz of their dominance.
Perhaps we should be ignoring Trumpelstein almost entirely and hammering on the Senate relentlessly. Every minute of the day. The House too, except they seem to be drowning on their own. As well as each and every Cabinet Secretary. Give these people no place to hide. No down time. Make sure that when Trumpelstein is dead and gone that the names of all the others who aided and abetted him are imprinted forever in our minds. We cannot let them escape the consequences of what they have done and continue to do.
Re: "...might want to start doing less talking and having fancy conferences in Europe and getting on a boat.”
Good Lord, this man is awful.
Okay, so lets say some Europeans get on a boat. They row it or paddle it or whatever to the Strait of Hormuz. Then what?
These Europeans, brave men and women all, paddle through the strait. Maybe they make it. Maybe they don't.
Then what happens?
This is what Hegseth doesn't seem to get. You can't "hold" water like you can a land position. You can't just sit there and be reinforced. You can't be besieged and hold out. When you "hold" water, you die. A ship "holding" a strait is a target. Moving through it is good, but not enough. Freedom of Navigation -- which is what the world had before Trump decided to do this -- means you can freely move through the strait, in both directions, whenever you want, at whatever speed, with naval escort or not.
I know it's a tough question to answer, but how dumb is this guy, really? Having some Europeans and some "boats" isn't going to fix this mess.
He's pretty dumb. he should know by now, from what he's subjecting other smaller boats to, in international waters, how dangerous it is to be in someone's crosshairs. Will the Iranians give any European or American boats due process? Maybe a warning, which is more than what keggers gives small boats before murdering them.
he's shuckin' and jivin' as fast as he can because if he loses this gig, he may never work again. If the orange idiot takes another scalp I hope it's his. I know the next SecDef of his choosing will be equally bad, but get rid of Secretary Hairdo and his badly tailored, ugly suits
Yeah Mr Butch with the makeup and the too small suits so his pecs and ass stick out seems pretty drag queenish to me , but what do I know . Ru Paul is funny and smart . Pete - not so much
If I've learned anything from decades of right-wing media, every problem can be solved if we just get tough. You mean to tell me that isn't the answer for Iran?
I love it when Bill does snark. Granted Hegseth and Trump lend themselves to lots of snark since lots of unforced stupidity comes out of their mouths, but Bill's snark gives them an elegance they don't merit.
I wonder just how bad things are in the Pentagon. Morale has to be in the gutter and frequently, bad morale morphs into righteous anger. Hegseth maybe in FAFO territory when it comes to his Department of Pointless War.
I have an anti-Trump neighbor who works for NAVSEA (Naval Systems Command) and I asked him recently about his co-workers (usually ex-Navy guys) and if they were supporting Trump's Iran antics. Surprisingly he said that these pro-Trump folks were shaking their heads in not completely supporting or understanding what Trump's doing with this.
He also mentioned that he had flown out to Bahrain in early 2025 to review the decommissioning and removal of the mine ships from the Persian Gulf.
I’m hearing the term “narcissistic collapse” a lot lately. Perhaps John Thune and his colleagues can persuade Trump to resign in pursuit of other responsibilities, like emissary to the Canadian Shield.
This from Dr. Richardson's Letters from an American this morning via the WSJ:
"Feinberg is pushing Congress to pass the $1.5 trillion military budget Trump wants while at the same time overseeing the newly created Economic Defense Unit (EDU) in the Defense Department. The EDU is directing government investment in private sector defense contractors and has cut deals for the government to start taking equity stakes in those businesses."
I mention this for Mr. Kristol's benefit, and remind him of his opinions and those of his contemporaries when Obama did the Auto industry bailout. I seem to recall dire warnings of socialism. Where exactly are those voices today? I know Mr. Kristol has chosen to fight for democracy but still I cannot help but be bitter at the flaming hypocrisy of the right wing republican conservatives.
“We barely use the Strait of Hormuz. Europe should be more active…”
Hello? Hello? Anybody home? THINK, MCFLY! THINK! No one needed to worry about the Strait of Hormuz until SecDrunk and the Coppertone Coward started fucking with shit on the insistence of Bibi that they should. Now it’s literally everyone’s problem, Pete, you pointless, pusillanimous piece of gutter trash in a bad suit.
You win for Invective. Almost Shakespearean, it is.
Gotta agree on the bad suit! Pete thinks a bad fit makes him look super-fit.
I know. It is hilarious.
WRONG! He gets them in the little boy's department for half price. /s/
We are all the true victims of a destructive 5 year old, his syncophants and the multiple billionaires who are ripping off America. The 5 year old's average approval rating is almost into the 35% range, a disaster for the GOP loyalists. Thankfully, retribution is on the way. November will see the casting out of many of the fascist MAGA loyalists which will mark the beginning of the years we need to reform our 250 year old federalist system and bring it into the 21st century. Be hopeful. This will happen.
Your words in the voters ears.
Pray that Trump doesn't cancel elections due to an international "emergency".
Bing bing bing bing bing! All the indicators point to happy midterms for democrats, Democrats
Love pusillanimous. Loved that word for years.
What a nattering nabob!
of negativism
“Speechwriter” is a forgotten occupation in the Trump era.
Yes. I was very young but I remember that. Flash from the past.
We know what then happened to Agnew
Yes. Spiro spiraled down.
Actually, pussillanimous is too dignified a word for G I Jerk.
That was inspired place to duplicate an "s".
I thought it was William Safire. Buchanan is a Neanderthal.
Hey! I have some Neanderthal DNA, and I resent that!
I definitely like his new appellation...Coppertone Coward indeed!
Run little copper tone girl run ! Don't take the job at pervert a lago !
No need to put a candy coating on it, Dred... .
Could Push-Ups Pete become the 2028 MAGA fave? Wierder things have happened.
No way Dear Leader lets power shift away from The Family.
Totally agree it's gonna be orange junior .
Also, oh god no.
Yeah, that's been the "joke" with the Trump 2028 hats all along. Hilarious.
Oh god, no.
That Chrisian Nationalist self description will go a long way in the current makeup of likely R primary voters - should he be ambitious enough to try it. Dreadful but true.
And he can pass Bronze Age Pervert's physical fitness test.
Why are you being so nice to Pete, the Cowardly Lyin (sic) of the Felon's Storm Troopers (tats anyone) without Bert Lahrs redeeming qualities?
Felon's Storm Troopers? ICE goons are the USA's version of the Tonton Macoutes.
Please tell us how you really feel…:)
Like puking at the mention of his name, let alone seeing his sycophant grin.
Touché!…:)
do love this
SecDrunk and Coppertone Coward, I will have to borrow these. Well done!
I borrowed them myself from Pissed Off Bartender and someone from The Bulwark, though I can’t remember who.
Barely use it, except for pesky in-region bases and naval supplies.
Coppertone Coward - Imma gonna use that one!
LOLOLOLOL
Thank you!
"nineteen-dimensional international chess"
How to gauge the fantasy life of the American right? The number of dimensions of the chess and the number of wars Trump has settled.
I love the witty line I saw this week. Do you know what happens when you play chess while everyone else plays checkers? You lose at checkers.
And yet the Iranians checkmated our very stable genius the old fashioned. Why play multi-dimensional chess when two dimensions works just fine for much cheaper.
Right!
"We have three Carrier Battle Groups ready to pummel you! Surrender now or face our wrath! We can spend $2 billion/day and not even notice!"
"We have a Soviet era mine that Russia just sent us for the price of the shipping. It's in the strait now. Any questions?"
Dropped into the strait off a Boston Whaler, ironic?
Some of the model names of Boston Whalers: Conquest, Outrage, Dauntless, (Ad)Vantage.
Pooty sent us a Soviet era mine for the price of the shipping and a Boston whaler dropped it into the strait of hormuz . This has to be a joke.
Bombs are reigning down on the Iranians at an alarming rate and someone thinks, wait, all we have to do is wheel this Trojan horse into the fort and we’ll get this to stop. Start pushing.
Now why is it we keep bombing an enemy who isn't fighting back?
"raining"
In fact, simplicity is often the best move.
In war, simplicity is invariably the best move. One of the reasons that Japan did so poorly at the operational level in WW2 is that every plan they came up with was this hideous, multi-axis, tricksy thing requiring tight coordination between widely separated units, spread over half the Pacific Ocean.
The US solution was simple, build lots and lots of stuff, train lots and lots of people, build strong logistics--to the point that losses were, at the strategic level, largely meaningless--and your firepower and tech edge was such that losses were minimal, anyway.
I was surprised to learn that during the epic battle of Okinawa, the US actually set up a shipyard for repairs, etc. at a nearby island.
Seems like a waste. Why not just have our sailors do more push-ups? 😀
The US Pacific War was a masterpiece of logistics (especially considering the real-world dificulties).
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/hidden-ulithi-naval-base.html
I found out about it reading my father's ship's log. His LSM's hull got cracked by being pounded onto the coral while unloading, and got towed to Ulithi for repair.
thank you R Mercer
Correction: Although Ulithi is part of my father's story, his LSM was towed to Kerama Retto, a shipyard only about 20 miles away to the west of Okinawa.
“In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.”
— Carl von Clausewitz
And the size of his crowds.
Or in Trump's mind, the crowds bcuz of his size.
He has cleverly managed to get everybody to stop blaming high prices on his tariffs. No one even mentions them anymore.
Everyone is too focused on his One Man War and its effects on the price of everything, not only in the US but world-wide, to be bothered with those any more, which the government will pay back, anyway, so where is the connection (says the Felon, if he thinks about anything for more than three hours (arbitrary, short time period) these days).
At least I have not heard that he is claiming to be up to 19 wars he has settled, not even if he counts his divorces and bankruptcies.
They DID invent the game.
I'm thinking the Strait of Hormuz is really dumb checkers, and in only one dimension. There is a tube, a strait. At either end there is a blockade. Players attempt to move pieces through the tube by feigning un-blockading.
Trump didn't even understand there was going to be a game.
A certain man bases all his plans, such as they are, on the proposition that he's the only real human being in the world. Who would ever guess that he'd find out he was mistaken?
Nobody knew that war could be so complicated.
Nor health care . God forbid he start looking at undoing his stagflation mess Better for us if he just denies its happening and let slightly smarter sycophants (how's THAT for alliteration ) deal with it
It’s even more mind blowing if you consider that Trump is a 7th dimensional being (3D space and 4D time)—which represents all possible universes, timelines and potential realities simultaneously! Let that sink in!…:)
n squared
One dimenional chess. He's either up or the other thing.
"We've completely obliterated them."
"We didn't need anyone's help."
"We've won, this is over."
"We're going to destroy the entire civilization."
"We've paused the destruction."
"The straight is open."
"We should split the 'tolls'".
"We've closed the straight."
"Why is no one helping us?"
"It's really their problem, not ours."
Tell me all your sweet, sweet little lies.
"...tell me lies..."
I just sang this.
Battle lines, indeed.
Its just bullshit.
“This should not be America’s fight alone,” Hegseth seethed. “We barely use the Strait of Hormuz. . . . [The Europeans] need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having fancy conferences in Europe and getting on a boat.”
It is America's war all alone because you dumb fuckers listened to Bibi and didn't due any due diligence to make sure what you were doing was the right thing. Mr. Tough Warrior must of got off on the wrong foot with the EU...or in the words of Erin Brockovich "that's all you got is two wrong feet in fuckin' ugly shoes (from what I hear oversized Florsheims). The liquor cabinet doesn't know shit. Can you imagine the embarrassment of the generals and admirals at having this cosplaying moron as their boss.
Phelan was incompetent in the way most Trump appointees are, but like Bondy and Noem, he got fired not for ordinary, garden variety incompetence but for failing to succeed in making Trump's stupid ideas work. In Phelan's case, it was the Trump-class battleship.
That is why Blondi Bondi got the axe, she could not get any of the Felons Most Hated List Convicted of anything, in some cases, not even indicted. And Noem as spending too much time with her squeeze to squeeze anything else, except weapons aimed at US citizens, or her dog.
My take on Noem is that she failed to make mass deportation a successful reality tv show.
YES! She failed on making it the next "COPS" show. All the footage showed ICE in a thuggish and accurate light.
Yes. Say what you want about Bondi and her politics, she did succeed at being AG of Florida.
She succeeded in making it "Florida"! LOL!
No, all the credit goes to those Florida men... .
Also known as the anti-ship missile magnet.
Floating pinata.
+1.
Correct math, Tim.
Not an overestimate, for sure.
"Another day, another Pentagon press conference in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fruitlessly demands Europe get more involved with reopening the Strait of Hormuz: “This should not be America’s fight alone,” Hegseth seethed. “We barely use the Strait of Hormuz. . . . [The Europeans] need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having fancy conferences in Europe and getting on a boat.”"
You mean the same Europeans that you insulted last year as evidenced in your Signal chat, Mr. Secretary?
**You** disrupted the shipping status quo. **You're** the one who ignored warnings that Iran would close the strait should you attack Iran. And now that you're eight weeks into a war of choice, you're blaming the same nations you insulted for not bailing your stupid ass out when said war went sideways. Aren't real mean supposed to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions?
If you were really as tough as you'd like everyone to believe, **you'd** convince the president to initiate an op to wrestle control of the strait away from Iran. C'mon, asshole. Do it. Let's see how lethal the US military is under your "leadership".
great summary I would just add two things. Let’s start focusing on the enablers, because grandpa is clearly lost and why would anyone think that the Europeans believe they can trust America. In fact the petulant pettiness of this administration has permanently removed all trust even the Iranians have higher standards of keeping promises. And I read in the British press that Our government is now reviewing our position on the falklands. I am not endorsing and view on said outpost of empire, but honestly not sure any Brits actually care.
Oh we care. The Falklands War is an extraordinarily important (possibly too much, but it is what it is) part of our post WW2 understanding of ourselves as still being able to do stuff as a middle power. Any politician that even vaguely suggested they weren’t fully committed to maintaining the Falklands as a British territory would be signing their political death warrant. Even Trump sycophant Farage has had to come out very strongly against it.
The inhabitants of the territory have no desire to become Argentinians given that the abuses that occurred during the 1982 invasion are within living memory and the minefields the Argentinians left behind were only fully cleared in 2020.
The stuff about the Trump review of the US position started coming out too late to make the papers today but I expect tomorrow’s headlines and editorials to be full of demands to cancel the King’s upcoming visit until it’s resolved. It’s a top story on most UK TV and radio news today.
The question even among serious euro conservative military thinkers is "Except for the F-35, do we really NEED the US anymore?" Ukraine at this point is bringing a LOT more to the table in actual fighting experience, why on earth should we go with Patriots and THAADs at millions a piece? Especially since we have no interest in attacking anyone? Iran and Ukraine has showed that defence at the moment is trumping offense hard.
Don't forget that PATRIOT and THAAD is more than just the missiles. They're the radars as well, and if memory the PATRIOT radar is capable of detecting hypersonic threats.
What about replacing the F-35 think I saw something about a Korean model?
There are a couple of options that are not technically quite as good but still adequate, the SAAB Gripen of Sweden and the Mirage from France. The F-35 is definetly a better fighter jet, but: given the new doctrine as seen in Ukraine of drone defensive layers we really dont see that much need of dogfighting jets anymore, its a bit like the hangarships wich are fast turning into old tech. Resillience and volume-to-cost now wins over supertech if you can survive the first wave.
Sometimes technically superior is less useful. The Gripen is apparently much simpler to service.
Am I remembering correctly that some of the allies offered assistance very early in this fiasco, but the Coppertone Coward claimed that we didn’t need them because we’d already won? Maybe I’m just remembering one of my nightmares.
I think the UK offered to send minesweepers to the area, and Trump declined the offer. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
he's such a dip, just backtrack in place of trying to put them in the corner, he just cannot resist, big mouth. I have predicted he will box in the U K in some way.
Trump's a punk. As soon as someone lands a blow on him, he'll back off. That's what we've learned in Trump 2.0.
he's yellow. IF he has to beg for minesweepers he will beg, but will post, I forced them, just nothing but lies.
And no one will call him out on in on his own side.
I think that’s correct. Didn’t he decline the offer in a rather rude and insulting manner?
"Rude and insulting" is the only manner the iDJiT is capable of using.
While Trump is flushing America down the toilet, our attention should be on the Republican members of Congress. Let's get the ads out there:
"My opponent, Mr. [generic Republican dingus], is watching Trump ruin the country, and he is doing NOTHING! Trump starts an illegal war in Iran, and Dingus does NOTHING! Trump's tariffs are ruining the economy, and Dingus does NOTHING! Trump sends ICE goons to roam the streets of America, and Dingus does NOTHING! Dingus stands around and says nothing and does nothing and lets Trump do WHATEVER THE HELL HE WANTS! Dingus is ruining America!"
Less attention on Trump, and much more on Mr. Dingus.
There are ads just like that right now for Blake Bozeman in NY and they are glorious.
This should be the way. I am seeing a lot more MAGA traffic on X that are getting pissed at Congress for letting Trump and his cabinet do what he's doing
Ads should also make the point that Congressional Republicans keep voting against reining in this drunk-tanker war. FIVE separate votes in the Senate!
https://youtu.be/Fs72G3fIlog?si=be6g2NbTtyOhAUnp
After, I don’t know, five or so of these asinine pentagon “briefings” Hegsbreath does not convey any different persona than that of a Fox News personality sitting on a couch bloviating opinions which will have no effect on the situation in the Middle East. He sits above the largest organization in the world, with the largest budget of any organization in the world and offers nothing of substance. He’s irrelevant. That’s a crime of enormous magnitude. And nothing will be done about it.
I agree with everything in your post except that Hegseth is not irrelevant. I wish he was.
Trump was on a posting bender last night, it was insanity...
To keep him from stroking out, the staff is keeping him calm with pictures of the "new battleship" that Trump wants (we haven't built a battleship since 1944, so don't hold your breath), the cleaning of the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, and of course the ballroom.
Watching his pressers, its amazing how animated he gets talking about the silly BS like the ballroom, but instantly switches to anger when Iran comes up.
Yeah, let's build a multibillion dollar battleship while other countries are building drones for tens of thousands of dollars. It only goes to show that Trump's brain is stuck in the 20th century.
Right? No one in the entire upper crust of the Navy could tell him that battleships are great targets for the enemy, that the last ships we built (the Littoral class ships) are complete disasters?
Not to mention we don't have the shipyards to build such a warship.
I grew up in Philly, so we drove past the Naval Yards down by the river all my life. Now, it's all mothballed ships. :(
When my mom was just out of high school, she worked in the payroll department of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital. Amazingly, she supervised about a half dozen people, including one sailor in uniform. On the site now is the Eagles' training facility.
That hospital was a big deal (and employer)! My grandfather went there for medical treatment (WWI Navy vet). Friends whose fathers served in WWII and Korea, along with siblings who served in Vietnam also went there. My grandfather was a Sailor, my father was a Sailor, but I was the black sheep of the family, I became an Airman, LOL.
Isn't USS New Jersey or USS Wisconsin docked there?
The New Jersey is across the river in Camden. Off the top of my head, I think the Wisconsin is in Norfolk.
I think it's the New Jersey. Makes sense. Jersey is right across the Delaware.
I grew up there too. I remember as a kid seeing some mothballed ships but also many ships being built, repaired, or refitted. Not today, as you said just the mothball fleet is there. Philly used to be a big Navy region. Seagoing Navy and the Naval hospital in South Philly and Naval Aviation at NAS Willow Grove and NAWC Warminster. I lived in Buffalo for 4 years. They have a waterfront military park where the USS Little Rock and USS The Sullivans are now museum ships. The USS Little Rock was built in Philadelphia.
My dad was in the Naval Reserve. When we were kids he arranged for us to go to the Navy Yard and ride along in a submarine as submariners were taken out and submerged to periscope depth, to keep their dolphins. Odd ritual, but fun for kids. Got to look through the periscope.
My uncle was a Navy pilot, so we were always going up to Willow Grove to watch the air shows or if some neat plane was going to land. Dad was an officer on a destroyer, and would take us down to the Yards and point out the old ships that were in service when he served.
And of course, every Army/Navy game.
Details, details!
It's as if someone had the idea to replace DoD super-computers with a giant abacus.
And a slide rule.
The slide rule so big it needs steam powered levers to move it , and the abacus would have hydraulic lifts
Or, possibly, his mind is fixated in the 19th century. And probably before the slaves were free.
He coulda been a Robber Baron. Although on second thought, he kind of is...
Kinda? It is his main thing.
"The name is Barron... John Barron" 😉
From the WSJ: “Hegseth and his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, made the argument to Trump that Phelan wasn’t moving quickly enough on Trump’s shipbuilding priorities, especially the “Golden Fleet” and increasing reliance on the use of steam.”
Steam? WTAF?
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/us-navy-secretary-john-phelan-what-happened-83bbc61a
I think it means steam catapults on the aircraft carriers. Trump doesn't like them.
Yes, someone at the WSJ explained what it meant. I wonder why he doesn’t like them?
While having spent $1 Billion per day in Iran. And we’ll have the money to develop a new class of warship by 2028. Total fantasy.
While building it in two years. It'll take that long to get through preliminary and critical design reviews.
HAHAHAHA, this is the Pentagon we're talking about, it would take ten years to settle on a design and a cost and a contractor.
Yes. I was commenting on how long it usually takes to get through a PDR and CDR. Trump's "design" has, to be charitable, a lot of non-recurring engineering, and more NRE means higher risk of cost overruns and schedule overruns.
To claim such a design would only take two years to build assumes that people are stupid enough to believe it. I'm not one of those people. **No one comment here is**.
Yes. What we should be building is small, fast, very stealthy ships that can serve as launch platforms for drones, not hue, lumbering battleships (which have been obsolete since WW1).
Yes, carriers did battleships in.
Aircraft and submarines did battleships in.
With the understanding that those vessels have to operate without degradation in hostile environments (high sea states, salt, fog, electromagnetic radiation, etc.).
Yes, and that's going to be a challenge - but one with more rewarding results than investing in huge, already-obsolete battleships.
Just say stuck. Doesn’t matter what century we are talking about. Too bad he doesn’t like jigsaw puzzles. He could spend days on some of them, leaving everyone alone to try to do their jobs.
This is such a common aspect of dementia. Memories from the past pop up as if they’re current and real. His mentioning People Express as the airline that might merge with Spirit; it existed only in the 1980s. Few weeks back when talking about energy prices he said - twice - his policy is “dig we must,” a 1960s slogan of ConEd in NYC, instead of the slogan he’s used for years, drill baby drill. Most media don’t even notice. These are not slips of the tongue. Aracept won’t fix it. His tangles keep advancing
Good observation, I hadn't noticed those references. The press should do better.
Dunno if you've experienced losing loved ones & acquaintances down that long side, and not everyone exhibits the same signs. As they say: if you know, you know. Fascinates me that memories aren't so much lost as being retrieval problems. Sometimes what pops up comes from so far back, a trace not mentioned or used for decades but in this moment is real again. Our brains are awesome
It seems to be accelerating the last few months.
I think he's on the good stuff (Kinsula) and they keep doing MRIs to r/o bleeds or even specialized PET scans to measure how much amyloid hoping to hell ts at least not advancing and the treatment isn't causing too much cerebral edema .
He ACTS like frontotemporal dementia with personality changes - but his personality was always a personality disorder made flesh., so maybe not ,\He clearly has lots and lots of memory loss so probably actually has Alzheimers and is a jerk who cant remember how to act .
Lynn - appreciate your insights. My observations aren’t clinically informed; just anecdotes from losses in my world 😔
I am of course JUST GUESSING but it seems to fit pretty well .
He'd say he is more talented fitting bustles on women.
Or taking them off, without their consent.
that does not really matter, when men & women want to get down to business, I don't consider the creature , ( trumpy ) a man at this point, just a thief. I was making light. I'm pretty irked by it all again today,
Good one. If that works and Melania doesn’t mind.
Hm. I'll get my small collection organized and ship it off to him.
Bustles or puzzles?
Joe, some puzzles ? us ladies want to know ?
I meant jigsaw puzzles. I've had a thing about them since about 1956 -- when I was also a complete flop with chicks (pls pardon my use of that term and believe me that I intended no disparagement of my fellow¹ human beings who happen to be of the female persuasion).
¹Is there is a gender-neutral of this word in English, or in any Indo -European language any mere guy from the Kentucky backwoods with a mere three university degrees (math and stats) might be reasonably expected to know?
I love puzzles too, a little less now. so I could by maybe with callin' you a guy, some women are offended by gal, but they won't admit, they lie about it, then it comes out later. human, person man woman. resident. . adjectives can really be complimentary, some women, not me, feed off of that. and need it. some men too. believe a lot of females have poor judgement about what male to dance with. they reject all the perfect and good ones, part of that is hormones, and super hormones, some is stupidity, I had this big oval tabletop, with no legs, I got some bricks and I could do puzzles w/two lamp, cripe I was 26, sort of pretty, had a great job. think I was doing some me time. puzzles are soothing, challenging, and enjoyable. no ladies here were picking on you, we were trying to diagnose the odd brain of our embarrassing , non leader. get's tiresome, so Katherine B , I think was prob not even serious, rain here tomorrow, we've been waiting for it.
Doesn't one of his kids own part of a drone company ?I read that it's merging with gold=f course company so I may have lost my mind . If Don and Eric own Powerus , and Don jr is an advisor to Universal Machines they could bid against each other and then build drone for 100s of thousands rather than 10s of thousands and sell them to DoD.
The meaning of "battleship" now is different to its meaning in 1944. Battleships of the sort we stopped building in the mid-1940s were clearly obsolete after Pearl Harbor and the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales (which was commissioned earlier in 1941) and HMS Repulse by air attack a few days after Pearl Harbor.
The sheer size of the "Defiance"-class *warships* is the only feature they share with "battleships" as the term was understood from 1906 (HMS Dreadnought) until the late 1940s.
(Yes, I'm kind of a battleship nut; for me, USS Maryland, BB-46 iirc, is the paradigm for ships described by the term.)
I defer to your superior knowledge! My Dad was a destroyer guy.
I just remember how massive they were. And the size of those guns, yikes.
Seriously Cao is whining about drag queens recruiting for the Navy? Has the man been to a Trump rally where Village people oldies were hits — how many times has ‘In the Navy’ been played to adoring audiences. And what coastal community doesn’t have a lover’s point: that’s been a staples going back to the sirens. I just can’t with these people anymore. None of this is remotely serious.
I can't get Colin Jost's line -- as Hegseth -- when he parodied that speech in front of all the Admirals and Generals out of my head. Something along the lines of "Y'know what's the problem with our military? It's too gay! And I'm not just talking about the Navy!"
Monterey is a lovely little town on the coast, surrounded by farms that give us much of America’s finest fruits and vegetables.
My fav place when I lived in CA. Sooo beautiful. Plus I'm a fan of Steinbeck - "Cannery Row" etc. Was back a few yrs ago.
Yes, it is and apparently a wiccan paradise — who knew. A lot of those hippy and crystal types Cao is clutching his pearls about ironically have become Trump voters.
Monterey is beautiful.
I disagree, it's gorgeous! LOL!
Doesn't CPAC have the same drag performer appear every year?
yes , Kristi Noem and her hubby
Yeah, his name is gender inconsistent.
Good question, my Vietnamese is nonexistent.
Is that Vietnamese or Chinese? There were (are?) a lot of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam.
True, spelling is Vietnamese, but could Chinese from Vietnam.
Yes, lots of Chinese in SE Asia. Worked w excellent coder from Thailand who was of Chinese origin, and he alluded to the Chinese emigration into SE Asia bcuz of their dominance.
yeah, long history of Chinese being a prestige culture across much of Asia and then complex trading ties and opportunities as well.
Hung cow?
Perhaps we should be ignoring Trumpelstein almost entirely and hammering on the Senate relentlessly. Every minute of the day. The House too, except they seem to be drowning on their own. As well as each and every Cabinet Secretary. Give these people no place to hide. No down time. Make sure that when Trumpelstein is dead and gone that the names of all the others who aided and abetted him are imprinted forever in our minds. We cannot let them escape the consequences of what they have done and continue to do.
Absolutely, positively spot on!!!
Re: "...might want to start doing less talking and having fancy conferences in Europe and getting on a boat.”
Good Lord, this man is awful.
Okay, so lets say some Europeans get on a boat. They row it or paddle it or whatever to the Strait of Hormuz. Then what?
These Europeans, brave men and women all, paddle through the strait. Maybe they make it. Maybe they don't.
Then what happens?
This is what Hegseth doesn't seem to get. You can't "hold" water like you can a land position. You can't just sit there and be reinforced. You can't be besieged and hold out. When you "hold" water, you die. A ship "holding" a strait is a target. Moving through it is good, but not enough. Freedom of Navigation -- which is what the world had before Trump decided to do this -- means you can freely move through the strait, in both directions, whenever you want, at whatever speed, with naval escort or not.
I know it's a tough question to answer, but how dumb is this guy, really? Having some Europeans and some "boats" isn't going to fix this mess.
He's pretty dumb. he should know by now, from what he's subjecting other smaller boats to, in international waters, how dangerous it is to be in someone's crosshairs. Will the Iranians give any European or American boats due process? Maybe a warning, which is more than what keggers gives small boats before murdering them.
he's shuckin' and jivin' as fast as he can because if he loses this gig, he may never work again. If the orange idiot takes another scalp I hope it's his. I know the next SecDef of his choosing will be equally bad, but get rid of Secretary Hairdo and his badly tailored, ugly suits
he's nothing but an empty-headed popinjay.
Yeah Mr Butch with the makeup and the too small suits so his pecs and ass stick out seems pretty drag queenish to me , but what do I know . Ru Paul is funny and smart . Pete - not so much
If I've learned anything from decades of right-wing media, every problem can be solved if we just get tough. You mean to tell me that isn't the answer for Iran?
Maybe if we not only get tough, but also cut taxes, that'll solve the Iran problem!!
I can't think of a single problem that isn't helped by the wealthy paying less taxes. 😀
To: our Glorious, Very Very High IQ, Supreme Leader.
From: We The People.
1. Get stuffed!
2. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
https://youtu.be/kOAtwQ6AWRg?si=Mw4guZLkvvVJcVJ-
I love it when Bill does snark. Granted Hegseth and Trump lend themselves to lots of snark since lots of unforced stupidity comes out of their mouths, but Bill's snark gives them an elegance they don't merit.
I wonder just how bad things are in the Pentagon. Morale has to be in the gutter and frequently, bad morale morphs into righteous anger. Hegseth maybe in FAFO territory when it comes to his Department of Pointless War.
I subscribe to military.com. They strive to be straight-arrow, but reading between the lines they are not very happy.
I have an anti-Trump neighbor who works for NAVSEA (Naval Systems Command) and I asked him recently about his co-workers (usually ex-Navy guys) and if they were supporting Trump's Iran antics. Surprisingly he said that these pro-Trump folks were shaking their heads in not completely supporting or understanding what Trump's doing with this.
He also mentioned that he had flown out to Bahrain in early 2025 to review the decommissioning and removal of the mine ships from the Persian Gulf.
Small world, huh?
No kidding. Are these the same ships Trump claims are now sweeping mines in the Straight? Rolls eyes.
I’m hearing the term “narcissistic collapse” a lot lately. Perhaps John Thune and his colleagues can persuade Trump to resign in pursuit of other responsibilities, like emissary to the Canadian Shield.
This from Dr. Richardson's Letters from an American this morning via the WSJ:
"Feinberg is pushing Congress to pass the $1.5 trillion military budget Trump wants while at the same time overseeing the newly created Economic Defense Unit (EDU) in the Defense Department. The EDU is directing government investment in private sector defense contractors and has cut deals for the government to start taking equity stakes in those businesses."
I mention this for Mr. Kristol's benefit, and remind him of his opinions and those of his contemporaries when Obama did the Auto industry bailout. I seem to recall dire warnings of socialism. Where exactly are those voices today? I know Mr. Kristol has chosen to fight for democracy but still I cannot help but be bitter at the flaming hypocrisy of the right wing republican conservatives.
The WSJ editorial board frequently brings this up.
Well said, E.A., well said!