Here’s an attention grabber — Why China Can Collapse the U.S. With One Decree. It’s by David Dayen at The American Prospect, so I’m inclined to take it seriously,

When Donald Trump reacted to China’s export restrictions on rare earth minerals—a group of 17 chemical elements used in almost all electronics—by threatening a new 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods, Wall Street investors who had yawned at most of his erratic announcements for six months finally took notice. It was the same stock-tanking pressure that led Trump to climb down from his Liberation Day tariffs; sure enough, by Sunday, the TACO (Trump always chickens out) vibes started kicking in.

“I have a great relationship with President Xi … he’s a great leader for their country, and I think we’ll get it set,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on the way to Israel. “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!” he exclaimed on Truth Social. Next thing you know he’ll be apologizing in Mandarin like John Cena.

Here’s an explanation of the John Cena reference if you’re like me and didn’t get it.

Holding the president of the United States on a tight leash is certainly a lucrative asset. But investors should probably be more wary of the situation. America has made an unusually directional economic bet that is at this moment totally dependent on Chinese rare earth exports. The circumstances that brought us here long predate Trump and are rooted in decades-long failures to retain our technological know-how and channel it into industrial production. It’s never too late for a wake-up call, but the country is in a terribly vulnerable position where China can snap its fingers and snuff out the only thing propping up our economy.

Our economy is currently being propped up by what’s looking like an AI bubble. “Close to half of the gain in gross domestic product this year will come from data center construction, and around 80 percent of stock market gains are attributable to a handful of AI-heavy tech companies,” Dayan writes. And then he goes on to describe how we got here. This is the accumulation of a lot of business and government decisions going back many decades. But now that business karma is getting ripe we’ve got a perfect moron in charge of our economy to steer us through the crisis.

Paul Krugman has a post up about technology bubbles that’s partly hidden behind a paywall. But here’s another article that explains what Krugman wrote.

In his newsletter on Monday, Krugman said that Trump’s tariff announcements six months ago were “a massive betrayal of the world’s trust,” noting that previous tariff reductions were achieved “through many rounds of international negotiations, in which the U.S. and other nations solemnly agreed not to backtrack.”

Krugman said Trump now appears surprised that other countries are retaliating, referring to China’s new export controls on rare earths, which include several vital inputs for U.S. industry.

Reacting to the administration’s hypocrisy on the matter, Krugman said, “Gosh. Aggressive unilateral trade action is a ‘moral disgrace.’ Who knew?”

Krugman said that there is “one big difference” between the trade strategies of the two countries, and it is that, unlike the U.S., “the Chinese appear to know what they’re doing.”

China has us by the boy parts, thanks to Trump.

See also Robert Reich, Beware the Oligarchs’ Two Bubbles. The two bubbles in this case are AI and crypto. Regarding AI, Reich notes that the big players all seem to be way over-leveraged. They’re tottering on the edge, so to speak.

Frankly, I don’t care which giant corporations or ultra-wealthy investors strike it big and which lose their shirts.

I worry about the economy as a whole, about working families who could lose their jobs and savings. The losses when the AI bubble bursts could ricochet across America.

Trump has put David Sacks, co-founder of an AI company and, of course, a fierce Trump loyalist, in charge of AI and cryptocurrencies. So far, Sacks has killed any restrictions and regulations that might stand in the way of either.

The Trump regime has been opening the doors for trillions of dollars in pension funds to be invested in crypto, AI, venture capital, and private equity. Even 401(k) plans have joined the flood.

There are times when being poor seems almost an advantage. But collectively we are in a terribly precarious place right now. If you have investments you might want to check for vulnerabilities. A bit later, Reich continues,

The flood of money into these two opaque industries — AI and crypto — has propped up the U.S. stock market and, indirectly, the U.S. economy.

AI and crypto have created the illusion that all is well with the economy — even as Trump has taken a wrecking ball to it: raising tariffs everywhere, threatening China with a 100 percent tariff, sending federal troops into American cities, imprisoning or deporting thousands of immigrants, firing thousands of federal workers, and presiding over the closure of the U.S. government.

When the AI and crypto bubbles burst, we’ll likely see the damage Trump’s wrecking ball has done.

I fear millions of average Americans will feel the consequences — losing their savings and jobs.

See also Jared Bernstein and Ryan Cummings in the New York Times, Warning: Our Stock Market Is Looking Like a Bubble. (Gift article.) While they throw in disclaimers about how maybe AI is not a bubble, they go on to say it has all the hallmarks of one.

I just hope the bubbles burst sooner rather than later. At least it could destroy most of what is left of Trump’s support.

All this technology data-center building is also putting huge demands on our water and power resources that I doubt we can afford. Reich says that crypto is basically a Ponzi scheme, and I am inclined to believe him. AI may very well have useful business and other applications, but large parts of it currently are just being used to generate slop turning up on social media. At the very least it’s going to have to be tightly regulated at some point.

On another note, last night Letitia James spoke at a rally for Zohran Mamdani. In any match between James and Trump, I’d put money on James.

Update:

Trump says he’s being called “the greatest president of them all. Does that include Washington and Lincoln? Yes it does.”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM

Of course.

Trump, 79, appears to have forgotten that he was president on Jan 6, 2021

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— J. Emory Parker ???? (@jaspar.bsky.social) October 12, 2025 at 10:35 AM

Trump seems to be struggling with linear time. It’s dementia, I tell you.

A lot has happened the last couple of days. They indicted Letitia James, as expected. See The Justice Department’s Dangerously Weak Case Against Letitia James by Molly Roberts at Lawfare. This is the most detailed explanation of what’s going on with the DoJ and James I’ve seen. The indictment alleges that James violated a mortgage rider on a property she purchased in Virginia. But per Molly Roberts the rider doesn’t appear to apply to her actual mortgage.

See also Kilmar Abrego’s court victory could end Trump’s reign of retaliation by Nick Akerman at The Hill. A Memphis federal district court judge has decided that — in response to Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution — he is entitled to discovery and an evidentiary court hearing. And this could have an impact on Trump’s vindictive cases against Comey, James, and everyone else on his list he hasn’t gotten to yet.

Then after days of threatening the wholesale firing of federal employees in response to the shutdown — which never made any sense, but whatever — the Regime really truly started laying people off. No fooling this time. There was a mass firing of CDC employees. And then this morning the headlines are telling us that a lot of the people just fired have been re-hired already. Just like like last spring, when Elon Musk and his Lost Boys were merrily decimating government agencies they knew nothing about. Oh, you mean those people we fired actually did essential things? Who knew?

A few days ago the White House was saying that federal workers wouldn’t get back pay for days they didn’t work during the shutdown. That went over so badly even Republicans in Congress spoke out against it. So if they do fire people and claim “Democrats are making us do this,” will that work any better? Especially when it looks just like what they did very openly last spring, when there was no shutdown? The Regime is now saying a lot of workers got the “you’re fired” email by mistake, because of a “coding error.” It still looks like incompetence.

And I take it that Trump realized not paying the troops was not working for them, and Trump called for paying the troops. But Mike Johnson still isn’t calling the House back, to protect Trump from release of the Epstein files.

On to the military occupation of Portland and Chicago. Here’s the latest from war-ravaged Portland:

Oh, the humanity.

In Chicago, about three days ago a federal judge put a temporary restraining order on bringing troops into Illinois. Then yesterday a federal appeals court said the Trump administration cannot deploy the National Guard in Illinois. The administration can federalize the Guard, and the Guard already in Illinois don’t have to go home. But they cannot be deployed. So what did those Texas Guard troops do in Chicago today? AI tells me the U.S. Northern Command confirmed they are “conducting planning and training” but not operations. Your tax dollars not at work.

In repones to all this, Trump says he is “considering” invoking the Insurrection Act.” Courts could block that also, I understand.

Remember this famous photo of George W. Bush being told about the September 11 attacks? And let us not forget that Bush spent most of the rest of that day flying in circles in Air Force One while arguing on the phone with a bunkered Dick Cheney about coming back to D.C.

So get this image of Trump being told there was agreement to part of his cease-fire deal in Gaza. This was taken during some Oval Office event where there were press with cameras present. Was this staged, or what?

I understand the Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2025 is supposed to be announced tomorrow. Let’s hope the committee has better judgment than to give it to Trump.

As ever, when trying to understand anything regarding Israel and the region thereabouts, I turn to Juan Cole. He’s hopeful that at least there may be a cease fire and aid can reach the people of Gaza. But beyond that he doesn’t appear to expect much.

The Trump peace plan has resulted in an agreement between Hamas and Israel to pause fighting and exchange prisoners. Other points in the plan, including an Israeli troop withdrawal and the laying down of arms by Hamas, appear still to be being negotiated, which is to say that we are hardly out of the woods. The Israeli government agreed to a phased withdrawal from the entire West Bank in 1993, and over 30 years later Israeli cabinet members are talking about simply annexing the entire territory and expelling its indigenous Palestinians.

And let us not forget that Hamas and Israel agreed to a hostage exchange and cease fire deal nine bleeping months ago, while Joe Biden was still president. In brief, Israel broke the deal.

According to PBS, the event in which the staged photo was taken was a roundtable on Antifa. Seriously. See Holly Baxter at the Independent (UK), Trump just hosted an ‘Antifa roundtable’ at the White House … it was so much worse than you’re imagining.

Around noon, a press release appeared on the official White House website, quoting numerous anonymous Portland residents, including a “man,” a “woman,” and a “business owner,” all of whom absolutely want the National Guard to storm their city. “I kind of support it 110%” is an actual quote.

But that was just the appetizer. At 3 p.m., the televised meeting began. And boy, was there a lot of meat.

Held at the table of “independent journalists” (far-right activists) and moderated by Donald Trump, it opened with a statement by the president that “paid anarchists” want to “destroy our country,” followed by bizarre, conspiracy-laden claims that anti-Trump protesters have signs made of expensive paper “with beautiful wooden handles” that therefore must have been printed in the basements of secretive organizations, and that “we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises, a lot of bad surprises” in store for the people who align themselves with anti-fascism.

And by the way, he noted, “we got rid of free speech” because flag-burning is bad.

Do read the whole thing. It’s hysterical. They’re seriously pretending that Antifa is a real organization. Note:

Not to be outdone, in came Jack Posobiec, one of the right’s weirdest hangers-on, who is perhaps most famous for the time he spread the “Pizzagate” theory and then got removed from the pizzeria in question by police for filming a child’s birthday party. Running with the major theme of the hour — that Antifa is definitely, certainly, really real despite all evidence to the contrary, and that everybody needs to stop saying it’s not real — Posobiec made a startling claim: Antifa is so clearly real that it “has been going on for almost 100 years … going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany.”

Um, people protesting the rise of the Nazis were the bad guys? But yeah, some time in this mess with the right-wing media goons all around, Marco Rubio trotted in and fake informed Trump that part of his cease fire plan had been accepted.

Yes, the Trump Administration is best understood as the biggest and most badass reality teevee show ever! Because it ain’t a government in any normal sense of the word.

Speaking of not governing, check out some of these headline news stories about the ongoing shutdown:

Axios: Mike Johnson faces growing internal revolt over shutdown

CNN: ‘Everyone’s just getting destroyed’: MTG calls on Johnson to bring House back to DC and rails on GOP handling of health care If you read this one, you’ll see that MTG’s own message is pretty inconsistent also. She hates the ACA and thinks the subsidies are just driving up the deficit but wants the subsidies to be restored because otherwise everybody’s health care costs are going to go up.

And at The Hill, see my rep Mike Lawler get into a screaming match with Hakeem Jeffries. Great television, as Trump might say.

And speaking of overreach, here’s a bit of overreach that’s been underreported (TPM).

A grand jury Tuesday night declined to indict two protesters in the Chicago area accused of assaulting law enforcement, the latest in a shocking string of failures by the Trump Department of Justice. 

Securing grand jury indictments is usually nearly automatic; only the prosecutors get to present evidence, and the bar is much lower for indicting someone than proving their guilt. But the Trump administration, in its eagerness to crack down on protesters resistant to its brutality, has now been rebuffed by grand juries in Illinois, Washington D.C. and California. 

The official ICE account had crowed about the Chicago-area protesters’ arrests online, promising that they’d be “held accountable” and that “we will not be deterred.” 

You can read more about it at Bloomberg Law.

At the Bulwark, Jonathan Last referred to the situation in Chicago as the “Chicago Rubicon.”

I don’t like sending out “emergency” newsletters, but I’ve had my eye on the situation in Chicago all day and tonight Texas National Guard troops arrived on Illinois soil, in defiance of the wishes of the Illinois governor and the Illinois National Guard’s adjutant general.

This moment has elevated the crisis so that it is no longer just a conflict between the federal government and a state, but between two states. We now have armed soldiers from the state of Texas eagerly volunteered by their governor to impose the president’s will on the citizens of Illinois.

I don’t want to be alarmist, but this is an emergency. It is incumbent on us to name the thing we are seeing and be unflinching as we describe it.

Do read the whole Bulwark post, because it describes how the people of Chicago have been assaulted and terrorized by ICE and Customs and Border agents.  And I say “terrorized” is the correct word. At this point these federal agents are nothing but state-sponsored terrorists pursing a political agenda. DHS has released a statement “debunking” what they call “Governor Pritzker’s Lies” — i.e., events widely reported by many eyewitnesses and news media. But DHS is just making claims with no proof. All those terrified children who were zip tied and taken from their parents were Tren de Aragua, apparently. And something blatantly unconstitutional doesn’t become okay on Kristi Gnome’s say so.

We also might ask that if all this federalization of Guard is about some “migrant crisis,” how much sense does it make to send Texas Guard to Illinois? I thought the border was in Texas?

And Trump called for Governor Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Johnson to be jailed. For what? Presidents aren’t supposed to say things like that, you know. Trump just can’t tolerate disagreement. The closest thing I could find to a previous president actually prosecuting political enemies was when the Wilson Administration prosecuted Eugene Debs for making an anti-war speech in 1918. Debs had been a candidate for president on the Socialist Party of America ticket, although not in 2016.

But then there’s the shutdown. The most positive thing I’ve read today is The Shutdown, Zombie Politics and How Trump Stumbled Into Not Being All-Powerful by Josh Marshall. He says the Democrats are “winning” the shutdown, as much as one can say a shutdown is “won.”

But the clearest sign is on the core issue on which Democrats are making their fight: health care. As Jon Cohn notes, Democrats are winning this part of the fight hands down. The most eye-popping sign of that is that even Marjorie Taylor Greene has now endorsed their position on Obamacare subsidies. And it’s not just that. Republicans seem to have essentially no position on the merits of the health care question other than yelling about the shutdown itself. The extension of Obamacare subsidies extension is so popular that Trump himself has now twice gone off the handle and said he wants to cut a deal extending them or providing more health care coverage only to be reined in by White House staff or congressional Republicans.

The Trump Administration has been threatening for days to just fire a lot of federal employees. But they haven’t. And then there were headlines about how the White House had decided that furloughed employees weren’t entitled to back pay. And I’m thinking, does the White House believe this helps their side of the argument? On what planet?

At MSNBC, Hayes Brown points out that the terrible things the White House is blaming on Democrats are terrible things that Republicans have long wanted to do. Like shrink the workforce or let food aid run out. See also Paul Waldman, Trump Is Not Very Good at This.

I assume you say some of the video clips of Pam Bondi testifying to the Senate yesterday. Clearly, Bondi is sunk in lies and corruption up to her mascara. See Steve Benen for some highlights. See also this video for a review of all the questions Bondi refused to answer.

“This is supposed to be an oversight hearing” — Schiff helpfully ticks through all of the incriminating questions — and there are many of them — that Bondi refused to answer during today’s hearing

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 7, 2025 at 1:29 PM

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the current legal restrictions on federalizing National Guard. It’s confusing. Beginning with the first Militia Acts in 1792, presidents required permission of a state governor or legislature to federalize the state militias “in times of invasion.” Also,

…  in case of an insurrection in any state, against the government thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such state, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) to call forth such number of the militia of any other state or states, as may be applied for, or as he may judge sufficient to suppress such insurrection.

The first actual federalizing of state militias was to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, in 1794.  The militias were officially organized into the National Guard in 1916, but there have been a lot of additions to federal code about the Guard since then.

Fortunately I found a handy-dandy guide that cleared a lot of things up for me. Clip and save this for future reference.

Presidents can use Guard without a governor’s consent in cases of insurrection or if federal law enforcement is being obstructed. This requires applying the Insurrection Act Presidents can also use 10 U.S. Code § 12406. But that code says

… the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws. Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States or, in the case of the District of Columbia, through the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia.

So the President can’t cut governors out of the loop with the 10 U.S Code thing. Governors can use Guard without being limited by Posse Comitatus, so if a governor is the one issuing the orders it’s kind of a work-around to Posse Comitatus under limited circumstances,

But it’s pretty clear that under current federal code, a President can’t just federalize Guard and send them anywhere to enforce laws or put down a domestic disturbance without the permissions of governors and/or applying the Insurrection Act. There’s no question Trump has not been following the law.

As I wrote yesterday, Trump was blocked by a federal judge from ordering Oregon Guard into Portland to put down imaginary riots. So yesterday Trump ordered California and Texas Guard to Portland to put down the imaginary riots. And the governors of Oregon and California were not consulted and do not approve. (I haven’t heard from Texas.) Last night the same judge blocked Trump from deploying anybody’s Guard in Oregon, period.

Steve Benen has a good run-down of the mess, here. Some of the California Guard are in Portland, and they’ve surely heard that a judge said they aren’t supposed to be there. Needless to say, this isn’t fair to the Guard, or to Portland. The Guard should just hang out in coffeeshops until they get a ride home.

The other issue is whether Trump really believes that Portland is under siege and burning down, or if he’s just claiming it is because he wants to start trouble. If it’s the former, it’s a serious sign of dementia. If it’s the latter, that’s not good either, of course.

In other news — the Supreme Court refused to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Now Trump will have to do it.

Update: Robert Reich, The Mad King’s Television

This was yesterday:

On Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut in Portland temporarily blocked the Pentagon from sending 200 Oregon National Guard members to protect an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland from protests.

She rejected the Pentagon’s claims that Portland faced a “danger of rebellion,” and said “the president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” a week after Trump told military leaders that he planned to punish “dangerous” cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York by using them as military training grounds to combat “a war within.”

Note that Judge Immergut is a Trump appointee. The DoJ went through some maneuvers to get her to hear the Pentagon’s suit. So Trump didn’t deploy the Oregon Guard. He deployed the California Guard. Without Governor Newsom’s permission.

President Donald Trump sent 300 California National Guard troops to Oregon on Sunday, defying a court order blocking him from deploying Oregon’s own National Guard to patrol Portland in an ongoing White House campaign targeting Democratic cities.

Governor Newsom isn’t happy. He issued this statement:

In response to a federal court order that blocked his attempt to federalize the Oregon National Guard, President Trump is deploying 300 California National Guard personnel into Oregon. They are on their way there now. This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power. The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.

This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.

Needless to say, this is nuts. If Trump genuinely believes that “Antifa” has Portland under siege, that’s nuts. If he knows better and just to exercise power over a Blue city, that’s also nuts, and reckless, and illegal.

More tomorrow. See also Welcome to Portland, Where Trump’s Fever Dream Is America’s New Nightmare by Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone.

I’m skeptical, and from Juan Cole’s description even if it goes through it’s unlikely to be a permanent solution.

On 29 September, President Donald Trump advanced a peace proposal that essentially preserves Israeli pre-eminence regarding the fate of Palestinians, though it entails a cessation of hostilities, an affirmation that Gazans would not be expelled (those leaving would have the right to return), and an injunction against Israeli annexation of the Strip.  But Hamas, militarily and politically, would have to surrender all claims, with the Palestinian Authority shepherded and supervised by foreign powers.

Right-wing extremists in Israel are furious, Cole says. And there have been headlines that make it sound as if Hamas has agreed to the proposal, but it really hasn’t. David M. Halbfinger writes for the New York Times,

This did not go the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted.

On Monday, the Israeli leader won a peace plan from President Trump that promised him total victory, in the form of a take-it-or-leave-it message to Hamas. The militant group would have to release all the Israeli hostages remaining in Gaza within 72 hours, lay down its arms and surrender any role in the territory’s future — or Israel would be given a free hand to pursue the group’s destruction.

On Friday, responding to a new ultimatum from Mr. Trump, Hamas announced that it was ready to release all the hostages. But it said nothing about how soon it would do so, demurred on laying down its arms, and said it wanted to “discuss the details” of Mr. Trump’s plan.

To Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Mr. Netanyahu’s, this was “in essence, a rejection by Hamas” of the president’s proposal, he wrote on social media.

To Michael Herzog, Mr. Netanyahu’s former ambassador to the United States, it was “a ‘no’ cloaked as a ‘yes,’” he said in an interview.

There are 20 points in the proposed plan, and nobody’s yet agreed to most of them.

Back t5o Juan Cole:

On the issue of governance, a temporary technocratic “apolitical Palestinian committee” of qualified Palestinians and “international experts” would form a temporary transitional body, subject to a “Board of Peace” personally chaired by Trump. 

So that’s doomed.

Most unfortunately, it is likely to include such figures as Sir Tony Blair, the Middle East’s typhoid Mary when it comes to peace.  The transitional authority would hold the reins till reforms by the Palestinian Authority had been completed.  With immediacy, however, the US would work with Arab and international partners to deploy an “International Stabilisation Force” to Gaza.  The ISF will be responsible for training Palestinian police forces and provide support in terms of vetting recruits, with assistance from Jordan and Egypt.

We don’t know who will be in this “International ‘Stabilisation’ Force,” but I’m betting a lot of them will be U.S. troops.

At this point just about anything that would get Israel to back off and allow food and other aid into Gaza would be welcome. But back to the New York Times:

The turn of events on Friday night was also likely to threaten Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition. His right-wing partners had already been informed, through Mr. Trump’s Monday proposal, that they would have to abandon their dreams of forcing Palestinians to leave Gaza for good, allowing Israelis to settle and annex the coastal enclave. Now, they were effectively being told that Hamas would not be going away after all, and might not even agree to disarm.

“I don’t see how his coalition partners can live with that,” said Shira Efron, an analyst on Israeli policy at RAND Corporation, a think tank.

So this is way far away from a done deal.

Welcome to Day 1 of the shutdown. We’ll see how it works out. It’s telling, perhaps, that Chuck Schumer went ahead with it. Last March when he supported a continuing resolution he got slammed by other Democrats. Perhaps he re-thought his strategy since. My biggest worry is that most voters won’t hear why Dems are refusing to vote for the budget. If they can get it into people’s heads that Dems are trying to help citizens keep their health care, warning them that insurance costs will go up next year because of Republicans., this is useful. But it’s really hard to get a message across to people any more. The Right has its own info-bubble, cultivated over many decades, but the Left has no equivalent.

I’m still worried about yesterday’s military meeting. First, Hegseth — Pete Hegseth spent five months as an infantry platoon leader in Iraq, which seems to be most of his combat experience. At other times he was involved with guarding prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and teaching counterinsurgency tactics. In 2014 he was promoted to Major. That’s also when he began to work for Fox News as a contributor. Then he enrolled in the reserves. For a time he served in the Washington DC National Guard. In 2021 he was excluded from being on duty at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. ostensibly because he’d had “Deus Vult” tattooed to a bicep. “Deus Vult” — God wills it — historically is a phrase associated with the First Crusade that has been picked up lately by Neo-Nazi and anti-Islamic groups. Hegseth resigned from the military shortly after that, apparently pissed off.

Hegseth has a lot more military experience than I have. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he has a better understanding of war. I take it he’s not a “big picture” guy.  If his entire focus is winning by any means, it’s possible he needs to review von Clausewitz — “war is politics by other means.” In other words, war is an instrument of political will to achieve political objectives. And the way war is waged has to be in service to the objective.

If your political objective is just to take over some other country and subjugate its population that’s one thing. But most modern nations (Russia an obvious exception) don’t do that sort of thing any more. It’s more often the case that when first-world democracies send troops abroad, it’s to put down some faction that threatens wider regional war,  And the desired end result is that the liberated population will be your friends and allies and not likely to throw support to radicals who will cause more trouble. And that’s where Rules of Engagement come in. Hegseth obviously doesn’t get that.

And, as I’ve said before, talk of “winning” and “victories” ignores the reality of military actions since the end of World War II. We don’t fight declared wars with other nations any more. Most of the time the “enemy” is a stateless faction or movement that will not surrender. Most of the time the best outcome you can hope for is that the malignant faction will be unable to continue whatever trouble they’ve been causing and will leave. And maybe they’re so decimated that they can’t regroup. It may take a while before you can say there’s anything approximating a “victory.” So no parades or celebrations.

BTW, the international laws of war most nations abide by are a legacy of Abraham Lincoln and our own Civil War. See “Lincoln’s Laws of War.”

Vietnam was a mess for a couple of reasons. The objective, we were told, was to stop South Vietnam from being taken over by North Vietnam. Waging total war on North Vietnam — like, say, by bombing it into oblivion — risked war with China, which would have been a bigger disaster. But defending — and propping up– the corrupt and unpopular Ngo Dinh Diem regime turned into a no-win situation of its own. President Kennedy figured that out and signed off on Diem’s assassination in 1963. If Diem had been replaced by a stronger and more popular leader it might have made a world of difference, but he wasn’t. And then LBJ made the worse decision of his life and sent in U.S. ground troops. But whenever people complain that in Vietnam “we weren’t trying to win,” this tells me they never thought about what we would have won. The only “winning” of the primary objective — keeping the Communist government of North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam — really just meant an endless occupation and propping up of South Vietnam, unless you were willing to risk war with China. There was never going to be a victory.

Anyway —  what you don’t want to do is wage war in such a way that you make more enemies out of the population you’re supposed to be helping. Hegseth’s approach is a recipe for making more enemies. This is a point Trump, who knows way less about war than Hegseth, misses also, and is way too stupid to understand.

I read a commentary this morning that Hegseth wants our military to be more like Russia’s — basically, dumb, violent thugs. In Ukraine the Russians have demonstrated that being violent and brutal and killing everyone in sight doesn’t assure victory, either. The Ukrainians have held them off mostly by being smarter and more innovative. I’m sorry I can’t find the link now., but I’ll post it if I find it again.

But Hegseth mostly reminds me of every bad manager I’ve ever had. He doesn’t really understand what he’s supposed to be managing, so he makes up for it by cracking down hard on the small bits he does understand — grooming, weight control — and by generally being a belligerent prick so that nobody messes with him.

And many people who understand warfare note that most of today’s military is about technology and intelligence. The combat troops may be the tip of the spear, but the rest of the spear is made of of people working more with their heads than with weapons. Hegseth does seem to struggle with the technology part, doesn’t he?

This made me laugh:

And what can you say about Trump that hasn’t been said? He once again made a total ass of himself in front of the generals. But he’s too big an ass to see himself as an ass. One of the best things I’ve read about Trump’s remarks to the brass is Trump Gave the Military’s Brass a Rehashed Speech. Until Minute 44. by Shawn McCreesh at the New York Times. See also The Commander in Chief Is Not Okay by Tom Nichols at The Atlantic.

I imagine the top brass of the United States military is scared out of its collective wits right now. They’ve seen that their Commander in Chief is a pubescent boy locked in an old man’s body. He’s also a narcissistic simpleton who is not prepared to lead the nation out of a wet paper bag. Likewise the Secretary of Defense/War/Whatever. Pete Hegseth  may be in better physical shape than Trump but clearly never quite navigated his way out of adolescence and has unresolved Mommy issues. Hegseth’s “warrior ethos” seems to mostly involve grooming, lots of pushups, misogyny, and sociopathy.

This meeting, which could have been done over Zoom, cost taxpayers several million dollars.

Retired Marine Col. Mark F. Cancian, senior adviser for the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, calculated that it would cost a minimum of $6 million.

“The DOD has not released any cost information. One calculation put the cost at $3.4 million, but that may be low,” wrote Cancian. “My rough estimate would be higher, $6 million, calculated as follows: If there are 1,000 visitors (400 senior officers and 600 support personnel), and each costs $4,000 for air travel, ground transportation, and lodging, then the total travel cost would be $4 million. Extra base costs for overtime, food, and security might be another $2 million, bringing the total to $6 million. That does not include opportunity costs for diverting DOD assets from other activities. There might be lost training at Quantico for the hundreds of military personnel at the base’s schools, military aircraft might be diverted to ferrying VIPs, and events might be canceled because of the senior officers’ absence.”

From the same link above, citing The View:

“I don’t get it. There’s an estimated $6 million that taxpayers paid for their travel, lodging, and security when we all learned a few years ago, you can do it all on Zoom,” said co-host Sara Haines. “So, I don’t know because some of the messages, as Joy mentioned — don’t be fat, shave your beard, go back to hazing people.”

I take it this meeting was entirely Pete Hegseth’s idea, and that Trump invited himself when he found out about it. There are a number of reports out today that Hegseth is crumbling. This is from the Daily Beast via Drezner’s World.

Pete Hegseth is crumbling under the pressure of leading the Pentagon.

The defense secretary—who prefers the moniker “Secretary of War”—is being described by staffers as “manic,” erupting into fits of rage and tumultuous tirades, the Daily Mailreported on Monday.

While he has reportedly always been temperamental, two staffers claim the former Fox News star’s mental state has reached new, frenzied heights after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month.

They said Hegseth is becoming increasingly “obsessed” with his own security and exhibits frantic behavior, such as fidgeting and pacing during meetings.

“There’s a manic quality about him. Or let me rephrase, an even more manic quality, which is really saying something,” an insider told the outlet.

“Dude is crawling out of his skin,” another source said….

Also under scrutiny are Hegseth’s extensive personal security demands, which, according to the paper, are now straining the Army agency responsible for protecting him. The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) has reportedly pulled agents away from criminal probes in order to safeguard Hegseth’s residences in Minnesota, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.

Trump seems to have been taken aback by the silence of the brass. They sat silent when he appeared. It’s reported Trump told them more than once it was okay to applaud. They did not. They were probably fighting off nausea. News stories say there was mute applause when Trump finished his speech, but otherwise the brass sat on its hands. Trump’s speech was full of his usual airing of grievances combined with bragging about how great he is. Trump wants to use U.S. cities as “training grounds” for the military. Trump thinks the Navy isn’t building battleships properly. Yes, he said battleships. Trump has no idea what he’s talking about. And if the brass weren’t collectively terrified of what he might order them to do before the meeting, they are are now.

Update: Trump admin made up of ‘sniveling losers’ and ‘crybabies’ putting on ‘tough guy act’: analyst

In an article for The Nation published Monday, Katherine Krueger, a contributing editor for Current Affairs, argued that the Trump administration is governed by men who imagine themselves as Nietzschean Übermenschen, but in reality are insecure, performative, and deeply flawed.

She claimed that these figures, especially those at the heart of the administration, project strength and dominance while signaling anxiety, neediness, and a compulsion to overcompensate.

“They effectively control our fates, but deep down, they know they’re sniveling, pathetic, and inadequate, and it eats them up, the article said.

Krueger contended that these so?called winners are “huge losers and crybabies,” despite controlling levers of power. She argued that their contradictory behavior — insisting on total authority while revealing inner fragility — undermines their claim to superiority.

She noted that the Trump era is marked by governing elites who posture as dominators but expose themselves as desperate for validation and unable to withstand dissent or embarrassment.

Yeah, pretty much. And it seems to be most of them. Not just Trump.

Everybody’s required reading today is Paul Krugman’s substack column, Understanding the Coming Premium Apocalypse: Why health insurance is about to become unaffordable. It might also be subtitled “Why Republicans really ought to listen to Democrats and restore Medicaid and ACA subsidies.” This relates to the looming government shutdown and to our stupid  mess of a health care system.

As you know, the Big Ugly Bill is slashing Medicaid spending. There’s a timeline at the Center for American Progress that explains exactly what happens when. Some changes to benefit programs have gone into effect already. The big stuff starts to happen in January 2026. It’s not all waiting until after the Midterms. There will be a lot of pain before the Midterms, and it could drive up the cost of premiums for everybody.

One big factor is that enhanced subsidies enacted by the Biden Administration for people buying insurance through the ACA exchanges will expire at the end of this year (blame Joe Manchin for the temporary subsidies). Krugman explains,

Now the enhanced subsidies are about to expire, and the financial hit to many Americans will be apocalyptic. Gaba estimates what will happen to the insurance premiums net of subsidy for different groups in different states. …

… Many people will face huge increases in their insurance costs. And these increases will be magnified by the effects on the risk pool: some healthy people will be dropping out, raising premiums for those who remain.

In other words, millions of Americans will soon be screaming about unaffordable health care.

Which takes me to my perpetual gripe, which is that if our so-called for-profit free market capitalist (Blessed Be It) health care system can’t survive without massive government subsidies, who are we kidding, exactly? Eliminate the for-profit insurance companies that do nothing but suck profit out of the system and just subsidize the whole thing.

Also, per the Center for American Progress, a possible sequestration of Medicare funds could happen in January 2026. If it does, I believe voters will notice. and blame Republicans.

The Democrats are threatening a shutdown to get Republicans to back off the Medicaid and other cuts to the health care system. This is the right fight to pick, I believe. The question is, will most voters know what the Dems are doing here? Or will they just hear the Republicans’ side of the story?

In other news — you may have heard that Trump is inexplicably giving $20 billion to Argentina to bail out its economy.  And you may have thought, WTF? Judd Legum at Popular Information explains,

Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a $20 billion package to rescue the Argentinian economy. The risky taxpayer-financed deal, which involves trading U.S. dollars for Argentine pesos, has little upside for ordinary Americans. Argentina is not a significant U.S. trading partner, and its economy, long in turmoil, has little impact on the United States.

However, Bessent’s announcement had massive economic benefits for one American: billionaire hedge fund manager Rob Citrone, who has placed large bets on the future of the Argentine economy. Citrone, the co-founder of Discovery Capital Management, is also a friend and former colleague of Bessent—a fact that has not been previously reported in American media outlets. Citrone, by his own account, helped make Bessent very wealthy.

There’s more. It’s worth reading all of it. The $20 billion bailout will not benefit U.S. taxpayers in any way. This is about Bessent using taxpayer dollars as his personal slush fund.

In more other news, there were five mass shootings in the U.S. this weekend, according to this mass shooting tracker. It’s so hard to keep up. A lot of them don’t even make the news any more. Note that the now-deceased individual suspected of attacking a Mormon church in Michigan was by all appearances a big Trump supporter. 

Also, too, I’m a big Jesse Welles fan now.

Update: It appears Trump has no clue about what he’s doing to health insurance costs.

bro we are so cooked

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— April Glick Pulito (@aprilglick.bsky.social) September 29, 2025 at 4:54 PM