Leaving Pete's Pentagon
The hubris has been lethal. So have the friendly fire firings, departures, leaks, and generalized anxiety among generals that have ricocheted throughout Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon. (Actually, it might be renamed the Quadrilateral because Hegseth thinks one of the Pentagon’s sides is too woke.) After repeatedly clashing with Hegseth, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is the latest top official to get his brass out of the administration, but not before issuing a parting shot. “Trump was surprised when Driscoll told him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out, or passed over for promotion under Hegseth, one of the people said. Driscoll argued that the Army could not transform itself the way it needs to, because of the departure of so many leaders…Hegseth’s purge of the military has been so dramatic that with Driscoll gone, the military’s largest service is left without a top civilian leader, a Senate-confirmed top general, a confirmed Army general in charge of operations, or a confirmed commander of Army troops in Europe.”
+ The loyalty- and anti-woke-based departures and firings are notable. But the constant drumbeat of leaks from those who still have their jobs is even more troubling. The latest “leaked document reveals that the three four-star commanders in charge of U.S. military operations in Europe, the Pacific, and South America, as well as the Navy’s top admiral, all informed Hegseth that because so many of their planes, ships, and other weapons systems have been diverted to the war in Iran, they could no longer perform their tasks if a war broke out in their part of the world.” Fred Kaplan in Slate: The Generals Are Worried. “It is unusual for so many commanders to file such notes all at once in the middle of a combat operation. And it is still more unusual, perhaps unprecedented, for such reports to be filed by these commanders, who have been chosen—or allowed to remain in their top slots—for their loyalty to Donald Trump and Hegseth.”
+ “Many lower-level officers I have spoken with are privately appalled but afraid to challenge what they are seeing. The collective hope seems to be that if they can all just go on as if nothing unusual is occurring, that this time will pass and nothing bad will happen to them — no loss of position, no demotion or forced retirement, no loss of reputation, no removal from a promotion list by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.” Frank Kendall, secretary of the Air Force in the Biden administration, in the NYT (Gift Article): Military Officers Can’t Look Away From This Any Longer.
+ Leaks on one side. Influencers on the other? WaPo (Gift Article): Pentagon secretly installs military influencers in civilian roles.
+ “Even in less dangerous times, Hegseth’s irresponsible behavior would be a hazard to American national security. The Defense Department is a huge bureaucracy; it requires a leader who understands more than the mechanics of teaching trainees how to do push-ups or how to handle a weapon. Secretaries of defense must grasp the economics of the defense industry, the nature of alliances, congressional politics, the policy process, and dozens of other issues for which Hegseth seems to care little and about which he knows even less. In a time of war, however, Hegseth’s shortcomings may prove deadly.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hegseth’s Pentagon Lurches off the Rails. “Hegseth was reportedly virtually alone among senior officials in supporting Trump’s decision to attack Iran—when he should have been the one person in the room who knew better.”
+ Meanwhile… Pete Hegseth is talking about a possible run for president in 2028, sources say. (This dude must have gotten a batch of some seriously laced testosterone.)
Mail Pattern Boldness
“The U.S. Postal Service is poised to launch a hastily built, error-riddled computer system that could jeopardize the process of mail voting relied upon by one-third of all voters, according to a whistleblower statement released Tuesday by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal. The effort is part of the implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting and has been temporarily halted by a federal judge. The ruling is being appealed by the administration and the directive may ultimately end up back before the U.S. Supreme Court.” However the Court rules, doubt and chaos will have already been inserted into the process, which is precisely the point. Ketanji Brown Jackson described it as a Kafkaesque nightmare. (I’m actually considering that as NextDraft’s new tagline…)
Priming the Pump
“Isn’t it a little odd, when you think about it, that so many people have to be hopped up on chemical stimulants just to make it through their working day?” In Current Affairs, Alex Skopic argues that A Society That Runs on Stimulants is Badly Broken. “Around the world, people are pumping themselves full of caffeine, amphetamines, and other performance-enhancing drugs just to survive their working hours. This isn’t sustainable.” Ironically, the people delivering your stimulants might need them even more than you do. “For the drivers going to and from America’s warehouses, there’s trucker meth. From Amazon to the neighborhood bodega, every business in the country depends on truck drivers to deliver its merchandise, and the work is never-ending, day and night … Drivers can be on the job ’14 hours straight, comprising up to 11 hours driving and the remaining time doing other work, such as unloading cargo.’ So they, too, load their bodies up with stimulants while they load the boxes into the truck.”
Cheating Death
“When people have strong moral identities, they view unethical behavior as a violation — not just of the rules but also of their own values. They anticipate more guilt at the thought of wrongdoing and more pride at the prospect of doing the right thing. They believe their choices reflect their character. It’s powerful. And the best way to instill it is to get students to consistently think about the ethical consequences of their actions. The younger they start, the better.” Adam Grant argues that developing better moral identity is really the only way to stop students from using AI to cheat. “A.I. hasn’t just made cheating harder to catch. It’s made cheating so effortless, enticing and available that many students no longer believe it’s wrong.” (I’m not sure that many of today’s students view the use of A.I. as cheating at all. With the constant warnings about what the technology will do to the job market and the future of work, many students believe that using A.I. is now a prerequisite for success.)
Extra, Extra
You Cannot Be Serious: “Days before Canada is due to retaliate against Trump’s sweeping tariffs with its own duties on US goods, the Canadian prime minister criticized US officials for insulting his country. ‘It is beneath their office,’ he said. ‘When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions [on trade].'” (Wait, no memes, no shade, no faux toughness? What does that leave us with other than lake names, orange concealer, and YMCA playing on repeat?)
+ Bonds Have More Fun? “The effects will extend to mortgages, business loans and other types of credit.” Bonds can be boring. But when they’re not, it’s time to worry. Bond Sell-Off Threatens to Squeeze Borrowers Around the World.
+ Murder, He Wrote: “A jury found Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis guilty of orchestrating the 1996 killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur, finally bringing a measure of resolution to a case that had gripped hip-hop fans and lingered in the public imagination for decades.” (Davis was basically convicted on the basis of his own words, including those in his 2019 memoir.)
+ If You Build It, They Will Come Around: “The legal challenge to the construction, brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, argued that Trump did not have the authority to build the ballroom without congressional approval. The Supreme Court ruled on procedural grounds that the trust likely does not have legal standing to sue. The court did not rule on the legality of the construction.” Supreme Court Allows Trump’s $400 Million White House Ballroom to Proceed.
+ MacBook Heir: “CEO John Ternus will have a tall order to fill when he enters the same chief executive class as outgoing CEO Tim Cook.” Consider this: “Apple’s market cap has grown at a rate of roughly $32 million per hour, every hour, for nearly 15 years, for a total of $4.5 trillion under Cook.”
+ Home Out of Range: AI wealth is creating a ‘mansion shortage‘ and upending San Francisco’s housing market. (Maybe we can rent some space in a data center…)
Bottom of the News
“A man has won a legal battle against his wife by using footage from a robot vacuum to prove she was having an affair, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Because he secretly filmed her, he was fined around 30% of the roughly $16,000 he won and sentenced to five months in prison.” (At least he left a clean house behind…)
