Finally Friday Reads: Chaos Touch

“We all know why Todd Blanche was sworn in as the U.S. Attorney General behind closed doors in the Oval Office.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

As we continue Joint Operation Chaos with Israel in the Middle East, it’s becoming apparent that more money and thought are going into Project Glitz up the White House than into taking care of our all-volunteer army. The headlines this week and today have been disgraceful. The latest weird decision by the peerless leader, which put others’ lives in danger as he escaped in a food cart to a different plane, is to spend billions of dollars on the US Navy to restore old technology.

It’s also becoming apparent that almost all the ships at sea have deplorable living conditions. Trump has never had respect for those serving in the military, but this is over the top. It goes beyond calling them all “suckers”.  It endangers their lives. Senator Mark Kelly has a lot to say about this today.  This report is at The Hill and covered by Finya Swai. “Mark Kelly on aircraft carrier catapult order: ‘Donald Trump knows nothing about this stuff’.”  I hate to think that the U.S. Military is one of the things Trump touches that dies.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) blasted President Trump on Thursday for ordering the U.S. Navy to revert to older catapult systems on its aircraft carriers, arguing the change would be costly while questioning Trump’s qualifications to make such a call.

“He’s a marginally failed real estate developer with multiple bankruptcies,” Kelly said in an interview with MS NOW. “He shouldn’t be weighing in on systems, on aircraft carriers.”

Trump earlier Thursday directed the Navy to return to steam-powered catapults and hydraulic systems on its Ford-class aircraft carriers, ditching the newer electromagnetic technology.

The order would require changes to future carriers, including the USS Doris Miller, which is currently under construction and already slated to use the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS).

Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot and NASA astronaut who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned the move would force the Navy to redesign ships that are well into development and are “probably going to cost billions of dollars.”

The Arizona Democrat has said that despite his own experience in hundreds of career takeoffs and landings, his degree in aeronautical and marine engineering and his work as a test pilot, he still would not tell Navy engineers how to design a carrier.

“Donald Trump knows nothing about this stuff,” the senator continued in the interview. “Not in any world would I suggest to the Navy to change the design of some system on a ship at this point.”

He added, “I mean, does the guy know nothing about the way our government is supposed to work and how it’s supposed to be managed?”

As usual, Orange Caligula is always thinking like it’s still the late 20th Century. This is from the AP. “Trump orders the Navy to return to an older system of launching jets off aircraft carriers.” It’s reported by Konstantin Toropin.

President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.

The new mandate would likely cost billions of dollars and revert the Navy’s most advanced ships to a system that takes more sailors to operate and is more difficult to maintain.

The memo directs the Pentagon and the Navy to present Trump with plans to remove the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, also known as EMALS, within two months. It also says the Ford-class carrier’s electromagnetic weapons elevators should be replaced.

The move comes after years of Trump railing against the new, magnetically powered catapult system that shoots fighter jets off the deck of the carriers. It also comes at a time when the U.S. military is trying to find funding from Congress for all its desired equipment and as the Navy is struggling to fill its ships with enough sailors.

Evidently, France and China beg to differ.

While Trump is looking to roll back the latest technology, the newest Chinese aircraft carriers employ electromagnetic catapults and France said it plans to use the system on its new carrier.

Trump’s memo directs the fourth Ford-class carrier, the USS Doris Miller, to be the first ship to include the new changes. That will leave the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as the forthcoming USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise, untouched.

However, redesigning an already finalized ship for such a major system change will not be an easy task.

MS NOW interviewed the wife of the sailor who recently jumped ship. “‘The boat is finally getting to me’: Wife of USS Abraham Lincoln sailor who jumped overboard shares texts. The sailor’s wife told MS NOW her husband expressed his mental health concerns to leadership during his long deployment on the aircraft carrier in the Iran war, but was brushed off.”  Lindsey Pipia and Priya Sridhar share the lede.

The wife, who was granted anonymity to describe sensitive mental health issues, said she was not contacted by Navy officials about the incident until four days after her husband jumped off the ship on Aug. 3.

“I think that it was handled very poorly because they didn’t inform me and they didn’t want me to know, and they’re just trying to cover this up,” she told MS NOW as she awaits her husband’s arrival back to San Diego after he was medically evacuated off the ship.

She learned about what she described as a suicide attempt after one of her husband’s friends on the ship messaged her that someone from his squadron went overboard, she said. Later, that friend told her it was her husband, according to messages reviewed by MS NOW. Unable to reach him, she reached out to the ship’s ombudsman in hopes of receiving more information.

Her account contradicts what Navy leadership told family members of the sailors and Marines serving on the Lincoln during tense in-person and virtual town hall meetings last week. Navy officials said they could not comment on the medical records of individual service members, to protect patient privacy.

Many family members are concerned about potential exhaustion, low morale and the mental health of those on board, as the aircraft carrier’s deployment at sea appears to have been extended twice during the ongoing Iran war, with no clear end in sight.

MeidasTouch continues to investigate the conditions on the USS Lincoln and has expanded its research to other ships. This is the report by Aaron Parnas. “Not Just the Lincoln: Families Describe Human Waste, No Food, No End in Sight Across Multiple Ships.” Well, that certainly isn’t a good approach to maintaining morale.

One parent whose son recently returned from eleven months aboard the Lincoln, after finishing five years with an F/A-18 fire squadron known as the “Top Hatters,” described conditions that had deteriorated badly by the time he got off the ship.

 

Early in the deployment, the ship’s water system went down entirely, leaving sailors unable to shower or wash their clothes. When the system was eventually restored, showers had to be tightly rationed. Supplies ran low repeatedly, made worse when resupply ships were unable to bring materials back to the carrier. By the time this sailor left the ship, the parent said, toilets had backed up and overflowed, leaving roughly half a foot of human waste across restroom floors used by around 200 sailors at any given time.

There are many more stories included in the lengthy piece. It’s basically horrifying. Meanwhile, Cadet Bonespurs is threatening Iran again. This is from Reuters. “Hormuz traffic slows further after US threatens more economic pressure on Iran.” The lede is shared by Jonathan Saul, Phil Stewart, and Idrees Ali.

Transit through the Strait of Hormuz appeared to grind to a near standstill on Friday after two more ships were ​attacked there and the United States said it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely.

A senior Iranian source said on Wednesday that there had been no progress in talks to ‌build on a June agreement to end the war. Since the ceasefire renewed in the June deal broke down, Iran has resumed attacks on ships it accuses of trying to transit the strait without its permission.

The United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said two of its vessels were attacked transiting the strait on Thursday evening. The UAE government blamed Iran, which made no immediate comment.

Two vessels passed through the narrow waterway on Friday, according to analysis from ship tracking firm ​Kpler: a grain ship entering Iranian waters and an empty dry bulk ship going in the other direction.

A separate empty liquefied petroleum products tanker was sailing into the Gulf via the ​strait, the data showed. There were no crude oil shipments visible on Friday.

Nine vessels passed through the strait on Thursday, up from five on Wednesday but ⁠below the average of 12 for August.

I’d say there’s no Nobel Peace Prize for Cadet Bonespurs this year. So, what exactly are Trump’s priorities? Lawrence Hurley at NBC News has this report. “Trump asks Supreme Court to allow White House ballroom construction to continue’. The president wants the justices to act before a court ruling that would block construction goes into effect.”