It's Sunday

 

Countdown to "Razin" Caine being fired

 This is an unverified story, but making the rounds...

US President Donald Trump was blocked access to his country's nuclear codes by a senior US military chief, according to bombshell reports.

Retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson said on popular YouTube show Judging Freedom that during an emergency meeting on Saturday, Trump tried to access the nuclear codes.

[...]

"One report coming out of that meeting at the White House is that Trump wanted to... use the nuclear codes and General Dan Caine stood up and said 'No'."

"He invoked his privileged as the head of the military, so to speak. It was apparently quite a blow-up... There's some very bizarre things going on in DC."

[...]

[I]t comes following reports that Donald Trump was barred from the Situation Room by military advisors during a critical Iran rescue operation.

The US President was reportedly shut out of discussions amid concerns about his furious temperament.

Top administration officials believed his volatility could compromise the operation.

  MSN

If Caine gets fired, you'll know the story is true.

And, if you didn't think Trump was absolutely batshit crazy, check out this crazy shit:

And, speaking of firing military leaders...

First, it’s worth emphasizing that Phelan was a curious choice for Navy secretary in the first place. He never served in the Navy and had no connection to the Navy or the U.S. Armed Forces before the president tapped him for the role. The gig appears to have been a reward for being Trump’s pal who helped raise a lot of money for the Republican’s 2024 campaign.

[...]

As viewers of “The Rachel Maddow Show” might recall, Phelan was listed in Epstein’s flight logs and appeared to have traveled on at least two transatlantic flights with Epstein. These revelations reached the public two months ago, though Team Trump quickly shrugged them off.

[...]

A related report in The Wall Street Journal described what sounded like a classic behind-the-scenes power struggle, with the Pentagon chief having grown frustrated by Phelan’s “close relationship” with Donald Trump: “Phelan regularly chats with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club, just down the street from his own Florida home, and told lawmakers last year that he exchanges texts with the president about shipbuilding in the middle of the night.”

The same article, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that Hegseth “worked to undermine Phelan” after he “pitched the idea for a modern battleship directly to Trump, bypassing Hegseth.”

[...]

Just three weeks before Phelan’s ouster, Hegseth also fired his Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, the Army’s top officer, even as the war in Iran raged on. MS NOW confirmed that two other Army generals were fired alongside George: Gen. David Hodne, the head of Army Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the 26th chief of chaplains.

Those developments came on the heels of Hegseth forcing out Col. Dave Butler, who worked closely with George, which came after the defense secretary parted ways with three-star Lt. Gen. Joe McGee, which came just two weeks after the public learned about Adm. Alvin Holsey resigning as head of the U.S. Southern Command, reportedly at Hegseth’s request.

[...]

Just days before Holsey stepped down at Southern Command, the Pentagon chief fired Navy chief of staff Jon Harrison. (His ouster roughly coincided with two high-profile military retirements — Gen. Bryan Fenton, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, and Gen. Thomas Bussiere, a top Air Force commander — though it’s unclear whether their departures had anything to do with Hegseth.)

There was no ambiguity, however, when in late August the defense secretary fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversaw the Naval Special Warfare Command.

Four days earlier, Gen. David Allvin, the chief of staff of the Air Force, was also shown the door.

The broader purge also includes Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency; Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. James Slife, former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short; Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, the Army’s top military lawyer; Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer, the Air Force’s top military lawyer; and Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATO’s military committee.

Political scientist Caitlin Talmadge, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who specializes in foreign policy and military operations, recently noted via social media, “Firing senior officers for cause is one thing. Firing them repeatedly on this scale and with no explanation is unprecedented in our nation’s history.”

  MSNow

Running a smooth operation there at Defense.

Stalin-level purges.

Unintimidated by Pentagon Pete and Trump

 

Next level religious bias

 

There is no bottom.

Total chaos

 

Have our service members been incurring danger and harm on our military installations?

Hegseth was stupid for thinking that, and Trump was stupid for believing him.

The president's war

Hegseth could not make it clearer that this is a war of choice.  Highly illegal.

Good God.  

Then let the president pay for it from his own pocket and with his own children.

Also:  He couldn't be more wrong.  It will be the unknown outcome of a war spun out of control.

It's Sunday

 

What's the over/under for them faking Trump's death and then having him "rise from the dead" three days later?  Easter's coming up, and Trump's getting pretty decrepit.  They should hurry if they're going to do it this year.

No plan, no prep

 

It's just more and more likely their only plan is Armageddon, egged on by Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, and all the other Christian nationalist nutjobs.

They're getting obscene amounts of money

Enough they can blow billions on non-military, non-defense items.

 

Pete Hegseth: Super Patriot

 His pocket scarf and belt buckle are both American flags.  

He needs to leave that suit jacket unbuttoned, though.  Either he's wearing a bullet-proof vest (super paranoid patriot) or he's gained a lot of weight and needs a new suit.

Indeed, but the flag code treating usage hasn't been enforced for decades, and it has been violated ubiquitously and often.

Jesus Christ

 

We're being run by 12-year-old Nazis.

UPDATE 03/06/2026:

UPDATE 03/07/2026:

Christian nationalists, eager for the end of the world, are running this show

“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be “afraid” as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” — MRFF active duty NCO client, writing on behalf of themself and 15 other unit members [including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew].

MRFF has received over 200 calls from more than 50 military installations across all the services since Saturday reporting similar disturbing pronouncements from their Christian zealot commanders.

[...]

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations.

[...]

MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times” as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.

[...]

[T]he Iran war has been sanctioned by the fundamentalist Christian nationalist version of our Lord and Savior and the New Testament in specific order to bring about the end of the world and usher in the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ.

[...]

Any military members seeking to take advantage of their subordinates by advancing their blood-soaked, Christian nationalist wet dreams upon the flames of this latest non-Congressionally sanctioned attack against Iran, should be swiftly, aggressively and visibly prosecuted for numerous violations of the military criminal code known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

  Military Religious Freedom

But they won't be.

The new American ethos: punch 'em while they're down. 

"Death and destruction from the sky" sounds very Armageddon-like.  I don't think that's a coincidence.

War on Americans

 It's coming from inside the house.

Who gets to decide when the government AI-bots are ready to start killing people without direct human oversight—the Pentagon or the AI companies?

This remarkable—some might say insane—question is at the center of a major standoff between the Defense Department and Anthropic, creator of the AI platform known as Claude. While the Pentagon has contracts with all the leading AI labs, Anthropic until this month was the only one contracted for AI use in classified settings: Claude was, for instance, reportedly involved in the operation to capture Nicolas Maduro.

[...]

But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has grown unhappy with two elements of the DoD’s contract with Anthropic. One, Anthropic won’t let its AI be used to conduct mass surveillance of Americans. Two, it won’t let the DoD use it to operate autonomous weapons systems that can identify, track, and kill targets without direct human involvement.

  The Bulwark

Can't wait for that one to go tits up and track Pete Hegseth. Like those cartoons where the heat-seeking missile turns around and follows Wile-E-Coyote unstead of the Roadrunner.

To the Defense Department, the idea that a contractor would be able to tie the military’s hands like this is outlandish; they should be permitted, they argue, to use AI they contract for “for all lawful purposes.”

Doesn't the Defense Department have its own AI platform? In the alternative, can't they use Elon's AI?

Hegseth could simply drop Anthropic’s contract over this, pivoting instead to any of the AI labs—OpenAI, Google Gemini, Elon Musk’s xAI—that aren’t insisting on these contractual sticking points. But he doesn’t really want to. After all, Claude is supposed to be the best, and at any rate it’s already integrated into lots of DoD systems. It’d be a hassle.

Hold fast, Claude.

Hegseth has issued Anthropic an ultimatum: Change your policy, or we’re going to start getting nasty.

Start?

The Defense Department is threatening to use the Defense Production Act to compel Anthropic to drop its usage requirements. Or it could go the exact opposite direction, declaring Anthropic a “supply chain risk”—which would not only eliminate DoD’s Anthropic contract, but also forbid any business that contracts with DoD from working with Anthropic in any way.

And...

The Trump administration on Friday ordered all U.S. agencies to stop using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology and imposed other major penalties, escalating an unusually public clash between the government and the company over AI safety [...] accusing it of endangering national security after CEO Dario Amodei refused to back down over concerns the company’s products could be used in ways that would violate its safeguards.

“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said on social media.

Hegseth also deemed the company a “supply chain risk,” a designation typically stamped on foreign adversaries that could derail the company’s critical partnerships with other businesses.

  AP News

Vengeful, despicable assholes.

I hear you, man.

In a statement issued Friday evening, Anthropic said it would challenge what it called an unprecedented and legally unsound action “never before publicly applied to an American company.”

Anthropic had said it sought narrow assurances from the Pentagon that its AI chatbot Claude would not be used for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon said it was not interested in such uses and would only deploy the technology in legal ways, but it also insisted on access without any limitations.

Kudos to Anthropic for not taking the figleaf "assurance".

“No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons,” the company said. “We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.”

Too bad major institutions in this country did not take the same principled stance against Trump's attempted domination.

Anthropic can afford to lose the contract. But the government’s actions posed broader risks at the peak of the company’s meteoric rise from a little-known computer science research lab in San Francisco to one of the world’s most valuable startups.

[...]

Hours after its competitor was punished, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on Friday night that his company struck a deal with the Pentagon to supply its AI to classified military networks, potentially filling a gap created by Anthropic’s ouster.

But Altman said that the same red lines that were the sticking point in Anthropic’s dispute with the Pentagon are now enshrined in OpenAI’s new partnership.

“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote, adding that the Defense Department “agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”

  AP News

Let me guess. Altman was perfectly satisfied with DOD's "assurances".

Trump said Anthropic made a mistake trying to strong-arm the Pentagon. He wrote on Truth Social that most agencies must immediately stop using Anthropic’s AI but gave the Pentagon a six-month period to phase out the technology that is already embedded in military platforms.

“The United States of America will never allow a radical left, woke company to dictate how our great military fights and wins wars!” he wrote in all caps.

[...]

rump’s social media post said the company “better get their act together, and be helpful” during the phase-out period or there would be “major civil and criminal consequences to follow.”

So fucking sick of this asshole's ignorant rhetoric and petulant tantrums. And that's the least of our problems with him.

The president’s decision was preceded by hours of top Trump appointees from the Pentagon and the State Department taking to social media to criticize Anthropic, but their complaints posed contradictions.

Top Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Anthropic’s unwillingness to go along with the military’s demands was “jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk.” Hegseth said the Pentagon “must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.”

Yes, we've seen how this administration treats the law.

Hegseth’s choice to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk uses an administrative tool that has been designed for companies owned by U.S. adversaries to prevent them from selling products that are harmful to American interests.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted that this dynamic, “combined with inflammatory rhetoric attacking that company, raises serious concerns about whether national security decisions are being driven by careful analysis or political considerations.”

Gee, how could we possibly know?

The moves could benefit OpenAI’s ChatGPT as well as Elon Musk’s competing chatbot, Grok, which the Pentagon also plans to give access to classified military networks. It could serve as a warning to Google, which has a still-evolving contract to supply its AI tools to the military.

Grok has been so untainted by errors and horrors, so, good plans.

Musk sided with Trump’s administration, saying on his social media platform X that “Anthropic hates Western Civilization.”

JFC. MAGA mentality is killing us.

Retired Air Force Gen. Jack Shanahan, a former leader of the Pentagon’s AI initiatives, wrote on social media this week that the government “painting a bullseye on Anthropic garners spicy headlines, but everyone loses in the end.”

Shanahan said Claude is already being widely used across the government, including in classified settings, and Anthropic’s red lines were “reasonable.” He said the AI large language models that power chatbots like Claude, Grok and ChatGPT are also “not ready for prime time in national security settings,” particularly not for fully autonomous weapons.

What could possibly go wrong?

UPDATE 03/07/2026:

UPDATE 03/11/2026:

Jesus Christ, these people are running the country

 And this cretin is in charge of the military.

Christian naionalism is not Christian.  

We have a bunch of Nazis in charge.  

Is Trump University coming back?

 

Some good news

In a critical loss for the Justice Department, a federal grand jury on Tuesday refused to indict Democratic lawmakers who made a video reminding members of the military and intelligence community that they can refuse to carry out illegal orders.

  Mother Jones

Doesn't mean they'll drop it, but it's a good start.

The six Democrats featured in the 90-second clip are Sens. Elissa Slotkin (Mich.) and Mark Kelly (Ariz.), and Reps. Jason Crow (Colo.), Chris Deluzio (Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (N.H.), and Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.)—and they all served in the military or intelligence agencies. The indictment was sought by DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who is a longtime ally of President Donald Trump and a former Fox News host.

Judge Box of Wine is what I hear her called sometimes.

The video, which was posted back in November, was met with an avalanche of threats and attempted retaliation from President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and—now—Pirro and the DOJ.

[...]

In early January, Hegseth censured Kelly, alleging that the retired Navy combat pilot and astronaut had engaged in “seditious” conduct. Kelly quickly sued Hegseth for violating his constitutional rights.

And, yesterday, a judge ruled in that case.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon (a George W Bush nominee) ruled that Pentagon officials not only violated Kelly’s First Amendment free speech rights, but they also “threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees.” The judge invoked an old-fashioned rebuke -- “Horsefeathers!” -- in response to the government’s claim that Kelly is trying to exempt himself from the rules of military justice.

[...]

Leon’s order prohibits the Pentagon from implementing or enforcing Kelly’s punishment while his lawsuit is pending. The judge instructed the parties to provide him with an update in 30 days.

[...]

[A] Washington grand jury declined to indict the lawmakers over the video.

[...]

Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin has said she has been told the Justice Department could seek a new indictment as soon as Friday. Kelly and Slotkin said at a news conference Wednesday that they are keeping all legal options on the table regarding potentially suing the administration.

[...]

[DOD chief Pete] Hegseth said Kelly’s censure was “a necessary process step” to proceedings that could result in a demotion from the senator’s retired rank of captain and subsequent reduction in retirement pay.

[...]

Hegseth said the government will appeal Leon’s decision. “Sedition is sedition, ‘Captain,’” he posted on his X account, referring to Kelly by his rank at retirement.

  AP News

What a dunce.

The Pentagon began investigating Kelly in late November, citing a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court-martial or other punishment. Hegseth has said Kelly was the only one of the six lawmakers to be investigated because he is the only one who formally retired from the military and still falls under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction.

[...]

[Judge] Leon said that Kelly “is likely to succeed on the merits” of his free speech claim. “He has also shown irreparable harm, and the balance of the equities fall decidedly in his favor.”

UPDATE 02/24/2026:

 

Ten days - "Special security"

Ten days is a very long time for a major airport to be closed.  WTF is going on?

UPDATE 08:36 am:

WTF?  Was it a typo meant to read 10 hours?  Was somebody being blackmailed or extorted by Trump and they caved?

From the AP:

I still think blackmail or extortion makes more sense.

UPDATE 09:03 am:  From an El Paso City Council Representative...

The FAA is said to have been worried about DOD (DOW?) counter-drone testing.  A high energy laser that could be used against drones was to be tested at a military base (Fort Bliss) near the airport.  I'm vaguely recalling an incident where some government agency was testing some weaponry near a parade??? So, yeah, I can see why the FAA would be concerned about high energy lasers being tested in the airspace over an airport.  JFC.  Pete Hegseth at his best.

UPDATE 09:19 am: Speaking of lack of communication...

LOL.  Bullshit.  These people are great with the off-the-cuff bullshit.

When you've lost Newsmax

There's chatter that Trump is thinking about canning Kash Patel.  Although that would be a very welcome turn of events, I think he's going to remove Hegseth.  Too many embarrassing stories.  Although this one does take Jeffrey Epstein out of the headlines.  

Looks like they're trying to pin it on Admiral Bradley, who, granted, followed illegal orders.

Joke's on Pete now.