Trump today fired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q Brown Jr. and had him replaced with John D Caine, a retired 3-star Lt. General. Brown is an incredibly decorated and experienced member of the United States Air Force. Caine is a not-so-decorated former member of the CIA whose only Air Force commands were the Special Access Programs Central Office, and the 113th Maintenance Group.
By all accounts, Caine was chosen for donning a red MAGA hat at a rally, and for “making the claim “eradicating” ISIS in 4 weeks during Trump’s first term. I don’t know if they can count or use maps, but ISIS is still getting bombed and shot across Africa. Even with the most charitable reading of “eradicated” possible, Operation Inherent Resolve had been ongoing since before Trump’s inauguration in 2017, and lasted at least until 2019. Which is a hell of a lot more than 4 weeks.
Secretary Hegseth also removed Chief of the Navy Lisa Franchetti, calling her a “DEI hire”, and Vice Chair of the Air Force, James Slife. He also unveiled plans to fire all JAG officers across the armed forces, and was soliciting suggestions for their replacements.
In a 48-45 vote in the Senate, Kash Patel has been confirmed as Director of the FBI. Only Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins defected from Republican ranks to vote against his confirmation.
Kash Patel is, to put it mildly, a wildly bad choice for director, and is also a conspiracy theorist. He has openly threatened independent journalists with prosecutions for doing their job, regularly appears on far right conspiracy podcasts and talk shows (often talking about how January 6th was an inside job by the FBI), and supported QAnon madness.
On the subject of his enemies list: “I have no interest, no desire, and will not, if confirmed, go backwards,” Patel said. “There will be no politicization at the FBI. There will be no retributive actions taken… should I be confirmed as the FBI director.” He later said, “It’s not an enemies list – that is a total mischaracterization.”
My man, you called it an enemies list yourself – or near enough as it makes no difference. You referred to your list of 60 people as “government gangsters” and claimed they were the most immoral, unethical people in government.
Hope y’all are ready for some politically motivated bullshit arrests and prosecutions, because buckle up, here they come.
RFK Jr. has been confirmed as the head of Health and Human Services. You know, Mr. Drinks Raw Milk, Mr. Vaccines Cause Autism, Mr. Exercise Will Cure Your COVID and probably some other diseases. While he says he’s got no plans to roll back vaccine authorizations or stifle their development, I trust that statement about as much as a rattlesnake on mescaline. One thing that’s been proven time and again with the people in this administration is that they’ll say whatever it takes to get confirmed, and then just do… whatever they intended to do before.
That’s just the truth of what has been proven, time and again, with the people Trump surrounds himself with. It’s not some clairvoyant skill on my part, just past evidence informing me. Also, as one quip put it, RFK Jr. is just as crazy as the rest of them, and is “Alex Jones in a nice suit” when it comes to health and medical decisions. Hope y’all enjoyed not having preventable diseases, because I’m expecting a big spike in them in coming months and years.
President Musk’s Press Conference
I don’t think I’ve seen many federal spectacles as pathetic and telling as the press conference in the Oval Office the other day, run by Elon Musk, talking about DOGE. Musk, standing, giving a press conference while Trump sat at the Resolute Desk, occasionally throwing in a comment here and there. All the while, Musk’s 4 year old son picked his nose (wiping it on the desk), climbed Musk, and told Trump “You’re not the President, you need to go away.” I’m not 100% sold that he said that, because I hear “Mr. President, you need to go away.” Either way the message is “Daddy is talking and you’re not important enough to be here.” He also told Trump “I want you to shush your mouth” at another point in the briefing.
Talk about a goddamn embarrassment.
Let’s be clear about a few things:
The Oval Office is for the office of the President, not somebody he hired, to give briefings in. At worst, it’s for the VP if the President is incapacitated.
Four year old children should not be in national briefings, even if the President is giving them.
The President was not giving this briefing. Musk was.
The contents of the briefing isn’t really important – it was Musk touting DOGE’s successes and how much fraud they’ve uncovered, with absolutely no proof other than “trust me, bro”, and repeating absolute bullshit about shit he doesn’t understand. Mike Masnick of TechDirt had some pretty good thoughts on it. But the presence of Musk’s son, as well as Musk’s level of formality in his clothing, suggests two things. One is that Musk is devoted to trying to humanize his image and make himself seem like a relatable family man. This seems to have worked somewhat, as today there are headlines from CNN and other outlets suggesting exactly that.
The second message is: “I can do whatever I want, and nobody can stop me.”
Armored Cybertrucks
The State Department is set to spend $400 million dollars on “armored Tesla Cybertrucks”, in a move that should surprise no one that understands the adage one hand washes the other. Or, more commonly, tit-for-tat. They walked this back to $400 million for ‘armored electric vehicles’, but we all know they’ll be Teslas. Nobody has pushed back on why there’s a need for this, or why Cybertrucks (in the initial procurement order) rather than just about any, more practical electric vehicle.
It’s worth noting that time and again, it’s been proven that despite Tesla’s claims to the contrary, they do store and collate all of the camera and audio data from Tesla vehicles. Meaning Musk will have a direct line to review footage and audio from all of these State Department vehicles, without oversight. So essentially all of them are bugged, and answerable to a non-governmental individual.
Edit: The State Department put out a press release today noting that they have not, in fact, awarded Tesla a contract for $400 million for armored vehicles. In this context, awarded is doing some very heavy lifting. Yes, of course they haven’t awarded it. It doesn’t change the fact that their own released budgetary info was soliciting a desire for these vehicles yesterday.