Wednesday Reads: Today’s Awful News (Is there any other kind?)
Posted: September 10, 2025 Filed under: just because | Tags: Donald Trump, Epstein birthday book, ICE, israel, Jeffrey Epstein, NATO, Poland, Qatar, Russia 9 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
I’m even more overwhelmed than usual with the news today. It’s absolutely insane.
Yesterday we got to see Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book, and it is simply disgusting, as JJ wrote yesterday. Trump can deny he wrote the note with his signature all he wants. No one is buying it. He was closse friends with this man for 10-15 years and had to know what Epstein was up to. Not only that, Trump makes other sickening appearances in the book, including one about buying a “fully depreciated” woman from Epstein.
That would be enough horrible news to deal with today, but there’s much more. Poland shot down Russian drones that entered their air space. Israel bombed a building in Qatar. The Supreme Court decision to legalize racial profiling continues to be a top story (Dakinikat covered that extensively on Monday.). ICE is continuing to terrify residents of numerous cities. Trump ventured out of the White House last night with some cabinet members and was called Hitler by citizens of Washington DC.
The Birthday Book
Charley Warzel at The Atlantic (gift link): You Really Need to See Epstein’s Birthday Book for Yourself. This time, the conspiracy theorists were right.
Looking back, I don’t know what exactly I was expecting when I opened “Request No. 1,” the PDF file containing the contents of Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th-birthday book. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and co-conspirator, created the book in 2003 by soliciting tributes from the financier’s friends and associates. Given the crimes Epstein was convicted of, I steeled myself before scrolling. Somehow, my internet-addled imagination failed me. This book is a nightmare.
The book was released yesterday by Congress after Epstein’s estate, which was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, provided a copy. It is the same book that contains the now-infamous letter and “bawdy” sketch from Donald Trump that ends: “May every day be another wonderful secret.” When The Wall Street Journal reported on the letter’s existence in July, the newspaper described it but did not republish the letter itself, so Trump vehemently denied that it was real and sued for defamation. But the now-public letter certainly looks real, and so does Trump’s signature. Many of the people who encountered it for the first time yesterday made a similar observation: Its creepy prose is framed by a markered sketch of what looks like the caricature not of a woman’s body, but of a girl’s. (The White House can no longer plausibly deny that the letter exists, but it now insists that Trump did not write or sign it.)
The Trump letter makes the birthday book inherently newsworthy. But it is far from the most disturbing or lecherous of the book’s contents. A section titled “Brooklyn” includes recollections of Epstein’s horrible sexual escapades, apparently including making a maid watch people have sex and holding a knife up while telling women to take off their swimsuits on a boat—a story told in the book under the heading “Girls on My Boat.” Given what we know about Epstein’s sex crimes, including his sex crimes against minors, the birthday book is a sickening document. Over its 238 pages, Epstein’s friends, “girlfriends,” and business acquaintances offer lurid tributes to the pedophilic multimillionaire in the form of acrostic poems, drawings, and letters extolling him as “a liver, a lover,” and, affectionately, the “Degenerate One.” Individual contributions vary but it is the sheer volume of sexual references and jokes that ends up being most shocking. So much so that I suggest you read the document yourself.
The book’s contributors apparently include former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, the billionaire retailer Leslie Wexner, and, of course, Maxwell herself, as well as a prominent fashion designer, financiers, and a media magnate. Clinton, Mitchell, and Wexner did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Clinton referred The Wall Street Journal to a previous statement that said, “The former president had cut off ties more than a decade before Epstein’s 2019 arrest and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes.” Wexner declined to comment to the Journal but previously told reporters he cut ties with Epstein in 2007.
Not all of the entries in the book allude to sexual activity, and it’s plausible that not all of the contributors knew about Epstein’s crimes. Still, the document is conspiracy jet fuel—visual and textual confirmation of the long-held suspicions that Epstein’s sex pestery was an open secret, enabled by powerful people who may have participated in it themselves or laughed it all off as a friend’s roguish quirk….
Sanitizing this document would be wrong, so I’ll be blunt: The Epstein birthday book is full of contributions from wealthy and powerful people who appear fully aware of Epstein’s attraction to “girls.” In fact, they seem to celebrate it and, in some cases, allude winkingly to Epstein’s predatory lifestyle.
Use the gift link to read the rest. I haven’t looked through the entire book yet. I suppose I should do it, but I’m not looking forward to it after what I’ve already seen and heard.
One more on the birthday book from Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, and Steve Eder at The New York Times: A Phony Trump Check and a ‘Depreciated’ Woman in Epstein’s Birthday Book.
The splashy focus of Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book released by lawmakers on Monday was a lewd drawing apparently signed by Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Trump’s cameo in another part of the book also provided fodder for Democrats and other critics of the president.
An entry in Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book, contributed by the Florida real estate developer Joel Pashcow.
The entry, included in a bound volume in 2003, was made by Joel Pashcow, the former chairman of a real estate company in New York and a member of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Fla. It shows a photograph of Mr. Pashcow at the resort with Mr. Epstein, another man and a woman whose face is redacted. Mr. Pashcow is holding an oversize check that appears to have been doctored, with a seemingly phony “DJ TRUMP” signature.
A handwritten note under the photo, which was taken in the 1990s, joked that Mr. Epstein showed “early talents with money + women,” and had sold a “fully depreciated” woman to Mr. Trump for $22,500.
The woman, whose name is also redacted in the files released by the House Oversight Committee, was a European socialite then in her 20s, according to two people familiar with the original photo. She had briefly dated both Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump around that time, according to court transcripts and a person close to Mr. Epstein. The birthday book entry appears to be a reference to the competition between the two men for the woman’s affections.
The nature of the woman’s relationship with Mr. Epstein is murky. The New York Times is not naming her because she may have been one of his victims.
A lawyer for the woman said she knew Mr. Epstein in “a professional capacity” when she was a student but severed ties with him in 1997. She did not know anything about the letter or its “derogatory content,” the lawyer added.
A bit more information:
Mr. Pashcow appears to have contributed several consecutive pages to the book. On the page before the mock check is a vulgar cartoon depicting Mr. Epstein’s grooming of young girls: On one side, marked 1983, Mr. Epstein is handing out balloons to a group of girls; on the other, labeled 2003, he is receiving a naked massage from four topless young women. “What a great country!” it reads at the bottom.
The photograph with the giant check offers fresh insight on the social circles shared by Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein. It is no secret that the two were friendly in the 1990s and early 2000s, before Mr. Epstein was convicted of sex crimes in 2008.
A visual analysis by The Times found that the photo was taken at Mar-a-Lago after the resort opened as a club in 1996 and was landscaped with palm trees and other features.
Use the gift link to read more details if you so desire.
NATO Shoots Down Russian Drones in Poland
CNN: NATO shoots down Russian drones in Polish airspace, accusing Moscow of being ‘absolutely reckless.’
NATO fighter jets shot down multiple Russian drones that violated Polish airspace during an attack on neighboring Ukraine early on Wednesday, as the military alliance denounced Moscow for “absolutely dangerous” behavior that ratcheted up tensions to a new level.
The operation marked the first time that shots were fired by NATO since the start of the war in Ukraine. Polish and Dutch jets intercepted the drones, with assistance from Italian, German and NATO’s multinational forces, officials said.
People watch as a house is damaged after a drone or similar object struck a residential building according to local authorities, following violations of Polish airspace during a Russian attack on Ukraine.
Addressing the Polish parliament, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that while there was no reason to say that Poland was in a state of war, it was closer to a conflict than any time since World War II. He said the country was facing an “enemy that does not hide its hostile intentions.”
Tusk also announced that Poland has invoked Article 4 of NATO, meaning the alliance’s main political decision-making body will now meet to discuss the situation and its next steps.
Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement that it had carried out a strike against Ukraine overnight. It said that “no targets on the territory of Poland were planned for destruction,” and that the drones it used in Ukraine have a flight range that of no more than 700 kilometers (435 miles).
The Russian foreign ministry then said that these “specific facts completely debunk the myths repeatedly spread by Poland in order to escalate the Ukrainian crisis further.”
NATO chief Mark Rutte said, however, that the violation of Poland’s airspace was not an “isolated incident.”
Jenny Gross at The New York Times: Poland Has Invoked NATO’s Article 4. What Comes Next?
Poland invoked Article 4 of NATO’s treaty on Wednesday after the alliance’s fighter jets shot down Russian drones that entered its airspace in the early hours of the morning. Russian drones have crossed into Poland before, including twice last week, but this was the first time that Russian drones had been shot down over the territory of a NATO country.
“What is clear is that the violation last night is not an isolated incident,” said Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general. “We will closely monitor the situation along our eastern flank, our air defenses continually at the ready.”
Here’s what to know about NATO’s Article 4….
Article 4 allows a member state to start a formal discussion among the alliance about threats to its security. While invoking Article 4 does not commit NATO to any military action, it is a required step toward a NATO decision to invoke Article 5. (An invocation of Article 5 is often assumed to have military implications, but the NATO treaty says only that its members will “assist” the party that has been attacked. This can also mean economic or political action.)
Article 4 states that the alliance’s members “will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.”
Since NATO’s founding in 1949, Article 4 has been invoked eight times. Before Wednesday, the last was on Feb. 24, 2022, the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now what?
The joint NATO response early Wednesday showed how quickly the war in Ukraine could escalate into a military confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Mr. Rutte said that the alliance’s air defenses were activated to ensure Poland’s protection. The response included fighter jets and air-defense systems from the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, he said.
“The security situation of our airspace has been stabilized, and ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems have returned to standard operational activities,” the Polish military said on social media.
So, we’ll see what happens.
Israeli Strike Inside Qatar
CNN: Israel targets Hamas leadership in Qatar strike.
• Israel carried out an unprecedented attack against Hamas leadership in the capital of Qatar, which has been a key mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks — putting hostage negotiations at risk.
• Hamas said the strike killed five members but failed to assassinate the negotiating delegation. A Qatari security official also died in the strike.
• US President Donald Trump expressed displeasure about the attack. “I’m not thrilled about the whole situation. It’s not a good situation,” he said, adding he would issue a full statement on Wednesday. Qatar’s prime minister was visibly angry as he described the strike as “state terrorism.”
This is a developing story.
The Independent: Qatar says it has a right to respond to Israeli attack that killed six in Doha: Latest.
Qatar said it has the right to respond to Israel’s strike in Doha that targeted Hamas political leaders, which it decried as a “blatant attack”.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, described Tuesday’s attack as “state terrorism” that targeted the security and stability of the region.
Aftermath of Israeli strike inside Qatar.
“Qatar… reserves the right to respond to this blatant attack,” he told a late night press conference.
“We believe that today we have reached a pivotal moment. There must be a response from the entire region to such barbaric actions.”
US president Donald Trump said he was “very unhappy” about Israel’s airstrike that killed six people, saying it advances neither Israel nor America’s goals.
Trump called the strike on Hamas’s political wing “unfortunate” and said he had directed US envoy Steve Witkoff to warn Qatar but it was too late to stop the strike.
Hamas said five of its lower-ranking members and a Qatari security official were killed in the airstrike, but that all its leaders survived the attack.
ICE Commentary
Garrett Graff at Doomsday Scenario: ICE is Eating the Soul of America.
A big change happened yesterday, when the Supreme Court said it was okay for ICE and the Border Patrol to racially profile individuals walking freely on America’s streets. If you’re brown, speak Spanish, and work in a blue-collar job, you officially belong to a different class of citizen and according to Chief Justice John Roberts, it’s okay to racially profile you.
We have never in US history seen a federal law enforcement agency operate the way ICE has operated this summer — it marks the arrival of a new style of domestic policing, more in line with the infamous “brown shirts” of authoritarian regimes the world over than any regular policing tradition in the nation’s interior. Yes, we’ve seen similar abuses of civil liberties and due process stem from corrupt and racist state police and country sheriffs in the Jim Crow south, and plenty of local police departments even today suffer from localized corruption scandals, but never we seen what is happening with ICE right now take place the whole country over.
All of the nation’s law enforcement are blending together into an “ICE auxiliary.” — Garrett Graff
The day-to-day behavior and aggression of ICE is corrupting the soul of America. I encourage you to watch this video of federal agents policing the start of an elementary school in DC — there not to secure the school and children, but specifically to intimidate and punish schoolgoers. Tell me that isn’t the picture of authoritarianism? You know how you’re going to be the bad guy in the eyes of history? If school children and mothers have to push their way through your armed, masked gang while you’re carrying assault weapons in order to attend school. I can’t help but think how the Trump administration has turned the proud tradition of the US Marshals at the University of Mississippi or the 82nd Airborne at Little Rock Central High on its head. Similarly, this video of a masked officer detaining a father outside immigration court in New York City — the masked officers are indistinguishable from Wild West bank robbers.
There are four things that have really struck me about ICE’s operations over the last month, all of them worrisome about the trajectory of that agency and the presence and role of federal law enforcement in American life. (Separately, I’m going to write about the warning signs already visible in ICE’s dramatic hiring surge.) Taken together, they paint a picture of an already rogue agency that feels it operates outside of the Constitution and owes nothing to the Americans it’s supposed to serve.
(NOTE from BB: You’ll need to go to the link to read the entire explication under the four headings)
1) Everything is now ICE.
The most worrisome aspect of the quick militarization and turbo-charging of ICE is how American law enforcement across the board — and much of the government beyond — is being subsumed by ICE’s mission and lowering themselves, from hiring to behavior to tactics, down to ICE’s standards.
We have different federal law enforcement agencies for a reason — and moreover, as citizens, we as a country need and want federal law enforcement. The FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret Service, and the US Marshals all have their own lanes, authorities, and responsibilities, but right now we’ve watching the Trump administration turn all of federal law enforcement across both the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security into an faceless quasi-ICE auxiliary, blending all these agencies and agent into some amorphous anonymous blob of masked, brown tactical-vest-wearing federal law enforcement. I wrote recently about how this precisely is what authoritarian regime looks like — armed, masked, anonymous agents of the state jumping from unmarked vehicles and whisking people away….
2) Collapse of Moral Legitimacy.
I wrote earlier in the summer about how in a democracy policing requires moral legitimacy and the permission of the policed. That’s been one of the hallmarks of policing ever since Sir Robert Peel built the first modern police force in London’s Metropolitan Police. One of his core principles of policing was: “To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.”
The DC police department was literally created originally in Peel’s image, which is why it too is known awkwardly as the “Metropolitan Police.” Now, in a historical irony, it is ground zero for the erosion of the moral legitimacy of federal law enforcement writ large….
3) Operating without due regard for civil liberties and due process.
In my essay at the end of August about how America has tipped in fascism, I wrote, “America has become a country where armed officers of the state shout ‘papers please’ on the street at men and women heading home from work, where masked men wrestle to the ground and abduct people without due process into unmarked vehicles, disappearing them into an opaque system where their family members beg for information.”
Few of the videos that have surfaced since have indicated otherwise; normal ICE procedures barrel right past normal due process and civil liberties; here, after wrestling someone to the ground, officers lose interest the moment he makes clear he’s a US citizen. Here masked officers start pushing a man before he can even provide proof of citizenship. Is this what America has come to?
4) Avoiding transparency and accountability.
Add up all of the above and you have a portrait of a rogue agency, which is what leads me to my final dangerous warning sign: This agency clearly knows that it can do no wrong in the eyes of the White House and administration — there is no level of violence, brutality, or abuse of civil liberties that would get any of these agents or officers in trouble with their bosses. Earlier this summer, I wrote about how ICE is acting as if it will never face accountability again. We’ve seen ICE flaunt federal law that requires congressional oversight — and, instead, it has tried to arrest and charge federal lawmakers, a bright line if there ever was one.
At every turn, though, the agency is going out of its way to make it harder to hold officers accountable. ICE officers don’t routinely wear name tags or easily visible badge numbers (in this video, check out how you have to zoom in on his badge on his belt to even begin to identify his badge number.) Moreover, though, despite the fact that we’re weeks and months into this national ICE takeover, the agency has made no effort to make its masked officers on the streets identifiable to either the public — or even to itself.
Tom Nichols at The Atlantic (gift link): The Government Wants to See Your Papers.
You there. Stop what you’re doing. Take off that tool belt and hard hat—let’s see some ID. Why? Because we don’t think you’re a citizen. Now show us your papers.
This kind of behavior by government officials is now legal in the United States.
Masked ICE agents in Los Angeles
Yesterday, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court allowed ICE officials to conduct roving patrols and use racial profiling to stop and detain people for no other reason than their skin color, the language they’re speaking, suspicions about their national origin—or, really, if immigration officials just feel like it.
But wait, you might object. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Did the Court explain why that protection apparently no longer applies to you if you’re a day laborer or running a fruit stand? Good luck with that: This Court’s majority doesn’t explain itself to anyone. It merely lets stand or overturns the decisions of lower courts—lately, almost always in favor of expanding the power of, and corroding any checks on, President Donald Trump.
Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo is a case from Los Angeles about whether ICE can stop people because of a suspicion of their being in the United States illegally, based solely, as SCOTUSblog summarized it, on any combination of four factors: a person’s “‘apparent race or ethnicity,’ speaking in Spanish or accented English, being present at a location where undocumented immigrants ‘are known to gather’ (such as pickup spots for day laborers), and working at specific jobs, such as landscaping or construction.”
A California district-court judge had earlier enjoined ICE from making such stops, perhaps appalled by this example:
Plaintiff Jason Brian Gavidia is a U.S. citizen who was born and raised in East Los Angeles and identifies as Latino. On the afternoon of June 12, he stepped onto the sidewalk outside of a tow yard in Montebello, California, where he saw agents carrying handguns and military-style rifles. One agent ordered him to “Stop right there” while another “ran towards [him].” The agents repeatedly asked Gavidia whether he is American—and they repeatedly ignored his answer: “I am an American.” The agents asked Gavidia what hospital he was born in—and he explained that he did not know which hospital. “The agents forcefully pushed [Gavidia] up against the metal gated fence, put [his] hands behind [his] back, and twisted [his] arm.” An agent asked again, “What hospital were you born in?” Gavidia again explained that he did not know which hospital and said “East L.A.” He then told the agents he could show them his Real ID. The agents took Gavidia’s ID and his phone and kept his phone for 20 minutes. They never returned his ID.
In overturning the lower court’s decision, five of the Court’s six right-wing justices—there is no other reasonable way to describe them at this point—took advantage of their right to remain silent, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh gamely tried to speak up in a concurrence. If his goal was to be reassuring, he did not help matters: Such stops are usually “brief,” he explained. Again, I am not a scholar of the Constitution, but I had no idea that I could be deprived of my rights under the Fourth (or any other) Amendment as long as my getting roughed up takes only a few moments out of my busy day.
Use the gift link to read the rest.
Trump Dines in DC
The Independent: Trump labeled ‘Hitler of our time’ as hecklers crash his DC dinner plans.
President Donald Trump stepped out for dinner in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday only to find himself immediately confronted by protesters calling him “the Hitler of our time,” forcing him and his entourage of cabinet officials to stand awkwardly listening to their taunts before they could sit down to eat.
Activists took advantage of Trump’s rare public outing to to Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, a short walk from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to heckle and berate the president with cries of “Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!”
“You are not welcome here!” one woman can be seen telling him in a video shared on social media. “Yes he is,” another diner countered.
Trump initially looked unfazed by the provocation but then gestured to his security team and said impatiently: “Come on. Let’s go. Get them out of here.”
The activist in question was escorted out of the dining area but continued to yell, despite some boos: “He’s terrorizing communities all over the world! From Puerto Rico… to Palestine to Venezuela! He’s not welcome to D.C.! He’s not welcome to Palestine! Palestine is not for sale!”
Only after she had been removed could Trump and his guests take their places at their table.
Joining the president for dinner were Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior White House officials.
Those are my offerings for today. What’s on your mind?
Tuesday Cartoons: Overwhelmed
Posted: September 9, 2025 Filed under: just because 12 Comments
There is just too much shit going on with Trump these days…
Cartoons via Cagle:
Take a look at some pictures of the blood moon from Sunday:
More shit:
So South Carolina wants to ban birth control?
That and Trump says more shit:
Take it easy, and be safe. This is an open thread.
Sunday Cartoons: War War War
Posted: September 7, 2025 Filed under: just because 6 Comments
What a crazy few days!
Cartoons via Cagle:
Try and relax today, this is an open thread.
Lazy Caturday Reads: Donald Trump, Chicken Hawk
Posted: September 6, 2025 Filed under: just because | Tags: cat art, caturday, Department of War, Donald Trump, Kazuaki Horitomo Kitamura, North Korea, Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, Seal Team 6, Venezuela 5 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
NOTE: The images in this post are examples of Monmon cats by contemporary Japanese artist Kazuaki Horitomo Kitamura. You can read about him at The Great Cat.
On to today’s reads.
Trump at War
By Kazuaki Horitomo Kitamura
Trump is demanding that he receive the Nobel Peace Prize, while at the same time trying to rebrand the U.S. Department of Defense as the Department of War. He doesn’t have the power to change the name of the DOD or any other Department without the approval of Congress, but he’s doing it anyway.
Jason Breslow at NPR: President Trump signs order to rename the Defense Department as the Department of War.
President Trump signed an executive order on Friday to give the Department of Defense a new name: the Department of War.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump said the rebranding reflected a new tone for the country and its military.
A White House fact sheet explains that under the executive order, the name “Department of War” will serve as a “secondary title” for the Department of Defense.
According to the fact sheet, the order will also authorize Defense Department officials to substitute the word “war” into their titles. For example, the Secretary of Defense could use the title Secretary of War.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge the change in a post on social media on Thursday, writing simply, “DEPARTMENT OF WAR.”
President Trump had previously signaled that a change was in the works. During an appearance in the Oval Office last month, Trump said that War Department “just sounded to me better.”
Trump does not have the authority to change the department’s name without congressional action. The legal name was established by Congress in 1949, when it renamed the newly unified military service branches under a new “Department of Defense” following World War II.
In a statement to NPR, constitutional scholar Steve Vladeck confirmed that, while the president is free to refer to the Pentagon by whatever name he chooses, its “legal name can’t change without Congress.” After signing the order on Friday, Trump indicated that the administration would ask Congress to codify the change into law but also said, “I’m not sure they have to.”
I hate him so much. Why do we have to have a “president” who speaks and behaves like an 8-year-old child?
Erica L. Green at The New York Times: Trump Says U.S. Military Has ‘Never Fought to Win’ Since World War II.
President Trump signed an executive order on Friday that ceremonially recognized the Defense Department as the “Department of War,” a name that was dropped after World War II and that the president claimed had caused the country to enter wars it “never fought to win.”
“We won World War II. We won everything before, and as I said, we won everything in between,” Mr. Trump said at an event in the Oval Office, where he signed the order. “And we were very strong, but we never fought to win. We just didn’t fight to win.”
Mr. Trump argued that the name, which was changed by President Harry S. Truman to combine all of branches of the military, had been changed because the country “decided to go woke.”
“I think the Department of War sends a signal,” Mr. Trump said. The change, he argued, was a “much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now.”
He added: “We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct, or wokey, and we just fight forever.” [….]
Mr. Trump said that he anticipated pushing to codify the name change into law. He added that in the meantime, “we’re going with it, and we’re going with it very strongly.” The Defense Department, he said, would be moving ahead with the name as a “secondary title,” including by using it on stationery.
This is the same guy who dodged the draft during the Vietnam War by claiming to have bone spurs.
This change is going to be annoying and expensive for the military. Politico: Pentagon officials fume over Trump’s Department of War rebrand.
Pentagon officials grappled Friday with the Herculean task of fulfilling President Donald Trump’s executive order to remold the enormous, global agency into the Department of War.
Many expressed frustration, anger and downright confusion at the effort, which could cost billions of dollars for a cosmetic change that would do little to tackle the military’s most pressing challenges — such as countering a more aggressive alliance of authoritarian nations.
The details of the order Trump signed Friday are still vague, but officials may need to change Defense Department seals on more than 700,000 facilities in 40 countries and all 50 states. This includes everything from letterhead for six military branches and dozens more agencies down to embossed napkins in chow halls, embroidered jackets for Senate-confirmed officials and the keychains and tchotchkes in the Pentagon store.
“This is purely for domestic political audiences,” said a former defense official. “Not only will this cost millions of dollars, it will have absolutely zero impact on Chinese or Russian calculations. Worse, it will be used by our enemies to portray the United States as warmongering and a threat to international stability.” [….]
More on the internal response:
…[T]he seemingly ad hoc rollout of the name change has caused confusion within the building. One Pentagon official, who independently decided to squat on the Department of War LinkedIn page to prevent a foreign adversary or Trump administration critic from taking it over, openly asked on the social network to whom he should hand the page.
The Pentagon rebranded its X account as the “Department of War,” replete with a different seal for the avatar, but the page’s banner still had the old DOD logo. The Pentagon on Friday afternoon redirected users from defense.gov to war.gov, which was temporarily down.
It took the Defense Department weeks to scrub agency websites that contained references to diversity, equity and inclusion after the Trump administration demanded it be removed, said another defense official. Officials are imagining a longer-term headache this time around.
“That was just taking down photos,” the person said. “The seal will have to change and thus anything with it.”
The change is bound to flummox the many universities, nonprofits and contractors that rely on the Defense Department for funding — and potentially pose a huge messaging challenge.
“On a tactical level, it would mean having to rebrand a mountain of contracting, marketing, business development materials, you name it, both digital and otherwise, that specifically cite the Department of Defense or DOD,” said a defense industry consultant.
“More strategically, even philosophically, it could raise new questions about what it means to be supporting the Department of War, which likely sends a more belligerent message to our allies and adversaries alike.”
The whole thing is o childish. But so are Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth.
Meanwhile Trump is acting pretty warlike toward Venezuela. First he blew up a speedboat with a drone strike and killed everyone onboard, while offering no evidence the boat was carrying either drugs or gang members. Now he’s talking about target people inside Venezuela. CNN: Trump weighs strikes targeting cartels inside Venezuela, part of wider pressure campaign on Maduro, sources say.
President Donald Trump is weighing a multitude of options for carrying out military strikes against drug cartels operating in Venezuela, including potentially hitting targets inside the country as part of a broader strategy aimed at weakening leader Nicolas Maduro, according to multiple sources briefed on the administration’s plans.
Tuesday’s deadly strike on an alleged drug boat departing Venezuela was a direct reflection of those options, sources said, and marked a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against drug cartels, many of which it’s designated as terrorist groups. Multiple sources told CNN Tuesday’s strike was just the beginning of a much larger effort to rid the region of narcotics trafficking and potentially dislodge Maduro from power.
Asked by a reporter on Friday if he would like to see regime change in Venezuela, Trump said, “We’re not talking about that.”
“But we are talking about the fact that [Venezuela] had an election, which was a very strange election, to put it mildly,” Trump said, referring to last year’s presidential race in Venezuela marred by accusations of electoral fraud.
The US has moved substantial military firepower into the Caribbean in recent weeks, a move meant in part to be a signal to Maduro, according to multiple White House officials.
Eric Schmitt at The New York Times (gift article): What to Know About a Rapid U.S. Military Buildup in the Caribbean.
The rapid U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean Sea culminated this week with a deadly strike against a drug vessel that the Trump administration said had departed from Venezuela.
U.S. officials said the attack on a speedboat on Tuesday killed 11 drug traffickers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both said the military would carry out more strikes in the coming weeks as part of a counternarcotics and counterterrorism campaign.
But on Thursday, two armed Venezuelan F-16 fighter jets buzzed a Navy guided-missile destroyer in the region in a show of force, dialing up tensions between Washington and the government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
In response, the Pentagon dispatched 10 F-35 stealth fighters to Puerto Rico on Friday to deter more Venezuelan flyovers and to be positioned should Mr. Trump order airstrikes against targets in Venezuela itself.
President Trump signed a still-secret directive in July ordering the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels that his administration has labeled “terrorist” organizations.
Around the same time, the administration declared that a Venezuelan criminal group was a terrorist organization and that Mr. Maduro was its leader.
Soon after, the Pentagon began amassing a small armada of ships and planes to monitor the supposed drug traffickers and to pick targets to attack.
The U.S. Navy has long intercepted and boarded ships suspected of smuggling drugs in international waters, typically assigning a Coast Guard officer temporarily in charge to invoke law enforcement authority. Tuesday’s direct attack in the Caribbean was a marked departure from that decades-long approach.
No kidding. It very likely was a war crime. Use the gift link to read the whole article.
More warlike talk from Trump, according to Danai Nesta Kupemba at BBC News: Trump says Venezuelan jets will be shot down if they endanger US ships.
Donald Trump has warned that, if Venezuelan jets fly over US naval ships and “put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down”.
The president’s warning comes after Venezuela flew military aircraft near a US vessel off South America for the second time in two days, US officials told the BBC’s US partner CBS News….
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has said that the US allegations about his country are not true, and that differences between the nations do not justify a “military conflict”.
“Venezuela has always been willing to talk, to engage in dialogue, but we demand respect,” he added.
When asked by reporters in the Oval Office on Friday what would happen if Venezuelan jets flew over US vessels again, Trump said Venezuela would be in “trouble”.
Trump told his general, standing beside him, that he could do anything he wanted if the situation escalated.
Since his return to office in January, Trump has steadily intensified his anti-drug-trafficking efforts in Latin America.
Maduro has accused the US of seeking “regime change through military threat”.
We also learned yesterday that Trump authorized a dangerous failed mission in North Korea during his first term and didn’t notify Congress. Dave Philipps and How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart.
A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right.
The objective was to plant an electronic device that would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.
The mission had the potential to provide the United States with a stream of valuable intelligence. But it meant putting American commandos on North Korean soil — a move that, if detected, not only could sink negotiations but also could lead to a hostage crisis or an escalating conflict with a nuclear-armed foe.
It was so risky that it required the president’s direct approval.
For the operation, the military chose SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron — the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden. The SEALs rehearsed for months, aware that every move needed to be perfect. But when they reached what they thought was a deserted shore that night, wearing black wet suits and night-vision goggles, the mission swiftly unraveled.
A North Korean boat appeared out of the dark. Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead.
The SEALs retreated into the sea without planting the listening device.
The 2019 operation has never been publicly acknowledged, or even hinted at, by the United States or North Korea. The details remain classified and are being reported here for the first time. The Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission. The lack of notification may have violated the law.
I’d love to know who talked to the NYT about this. The author claims to have have 2 dozen sources:
This account is based on interviews with two dozen people, including civilian government officials, members of the first Trump administration and current and former military personnel with knowledge of the mission. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the mission’s classified status.
Several of those people said they were discussing details about the mission because they were concerned that Special Operations failures are often hidden by government secrecy. If the public and policymakers become aware only of high-profile successes, such as the raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan, they may underestimate the extreme risks that American forces undertake.
The military operation on North Korean soil, close to American military bases in South Korea and the Pacific region, also risked setting off a broader conflict with a hostile, nuclear-armed and highly militarized adversary.
Use the gift link to read the whole thing.
According to ABC News, Trump claims he knows nothing about the Seal Team 6 debacle: Trump says he doesn’t know ‘anything’ about reported violent, failed SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea.
President Donald Trump said Friday he didn’t know “anything” about what the New York Times reported was a classified 2019 SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea in which unarmed North Korean civilians were killed during an aborted operation.
The Pentagon and U.S. Special Operations Command declined to comment to ABC News about The New York Times report.
Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump was asked by a reporter: “Can you confirm that it happened?”
“I don’t know anything about it. I’m hearing it now for the first time,” he responded.
The account, citing “two dozen people, including civilian government officials, members of the first Trump administration and current and former military personnel with knowledge of the mission” who spoke to the Times anonymously, said Trump had approved the mission.
Either Trump is lying or the memory is lost to dementia.
This story by Paul McCleary and Daniel Lippman suggests that Trump is more focused on attacking Americans and nearby allies than foreign enemies: Pentagon plan prioritizes homeland over China threat.
Pentagon officials are proposing the department prioritize protecting the homeland and Western Hemisphere, a striking reversal from the military’s yearslong mandate to focus on the threat from China.
A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy, which landed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk last week, places domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow, according to three people briefed on early versions of the report.
The move would mark a major shift from recent Democrat and Republican administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first term in office, when he referred to Beijing as America’s greatest rival. And it would likely inflame China hawks in both parties who view the country’s leadership as a danger to U.S. security.
“This is going to be a major shift for the U.S. and its allies on multiple continents,” said one of the people briefed on the draft document. “The old, trusted U.S. promises are being questioned.”
The report usually comes out at the start of each administration, and Hegseth could still make changes to the plan. But in many ways, the shift is already occurring. The Pentagon has activated thousands of National Guard troops to support law enforcement in Los Angeles and Washington, and dispatched multiple warships and F-35 fighter planes to the Caribbean to interdict the flow of drugs to the U.S.
A U.S. military strike this week allegedly killed 11 suspected members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang in international waters, a major step in using the military to kill noncombatants.
The Pentagon also has established a militarized zone across the southern border with Mexico that allows troops to detain civilians, a job normally reserved for law enforcement.
The authors note that this doesn’t seem to reflect Trump’s rhetoric.
The shift “doesn’t seem aligned with President Trump’s hawkish views on China at all,” said a Republican foreign policy expert briefed on the report, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
The president has continued to express tough rhetoric toward China, including imposing staggering tariffs on Beijing and accusing Chinese President Xi Jinping of “conspiring against” the U.S. after he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a military parade in the country’s capital.
Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, is leading the strategy. He played a key role in writing the 2018 version during Trump’s first term and has been a staunch supporter of a more isolationist American policy. Despite his long track record as a China hawk, Colby aligns with Vice President JD Vance on the desire to disentangle the U.S. from foreign commitments.
That’s interesting. I wonder if this is coming more from the Project 2025 group than Trump himself.
A few more stories to check out:
Politico: Trump seeking ways to take over 9/11 memorial in NYC.
The Guardian: Kennedy Center ticket sales take a nosedive after Trump takeover.
Ann Applebaum at The Atlantic (gift link): America Surrenders in the Global Information Wars.
Jonathan J. Cooper at AP: How Donald Trump is weaponizing the government in his second term to settle personal scores.
Ariana Baio at The Independent: ‘Chipocalypse Now’: Trump threatens Chicago with ‘Department of War’ and suggests ICE raids imminent.
Those are my offerings for today. What’s on your mind?
Thursday Cartoons: Eshittification
Posted: September 4, 2025 Filed under: just because 16 Comments
Anyone living in Florida should get the hell out…now!
Fuck Trump:
Cartoons via Cagle:
Stay safe and be careful. This is an open thread.
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