General Disarray Heading Into October

My paranoia about this next stunt by trump and his lackeys is getting the worst of me this week (via Steve Inskeep and Tom Bowman at NPR):

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called top military officials from around the world to a meeting in Virginia (this Tuesday). The reason for this unusual gathering isn't known.

INSKEEP: How much do you know?

BOWMAN: Well, again, not too much. We're talking hundreds of generals and admirals who will meet on Tuesday at Marine Base Quantico just outside Washington. The Washington Post was the first to report on this meeting. In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, quote, "the secretary of war will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week." And he was using the term secretary of war, which both President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth prefer, instead of defense secretary.

INSKEEP: Have you heard of a meeting like this ever in your decades covering the Pentagon?

BOWMAN: No, absolutely not. This is - on this scale, never. At times, you know, they'll bring in combatant commanders - those who oversee military operations around the world - bring them to the Pentagon for annual meetings. But this is far different in the numbers. Now, Secretary Hegseth has talked about reducing the number of admirals and generals - who stand at more than 800 - reducing that number by 20%. And he talked about that during his confirmation hearing and also put out a video statement back in May once again referring to this...

The rumor mill right after that notification spun in a number of directions, especially at the possibility Hegseth was going to stage a public purge among the flag officers to put the Fear of trump in those remaining. Military analysts believe it's tied into the projected National Defense Strategy where trump's administration will reportedly shift the military focus to "homeland security" meaning "arresting immigrants and civilians - maybe even killing them - on Stephen Miller's whims." 

It later got out that Hegseth plans to give a "motivational speech" about the "warrior ethos" he wants to see in our armed forces: He wants to see more rah-rah blood knight enthusiasm towards committing war crimes "being warriors" wherever the battlefield is set.

Throw into this the last-minute announcement that trump himself is going to attend this "lecture" and a clearer understanding emerges: This is going to be a goddamn staged spectacle of the crassest kind.

As a lot of observers are noting, this whole thing could have been an email. Tom Nichols over at the Atlantic is noticeably vexed:

...I was not, however, a senior officer in charge of a major command, with responsibility for thousands of people and millions of dollars of weaponry. Those folks are busy, which is why the DOD has very advanced—and very expensive—teleconferencing equipment designed to obviate the need to move people around the world for a chat.

But Secretary of Defense/War/Lethality Pete Hegseth isn’t going to use that technology. Instead, he recently decided that some 800 generals and admirals needed to come, in person, from every corner of the planet to a Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, reportedly to listen to their boss, a former TV host, lecture them on the “warrior ethos”—and, for some reason, personal grooming. The Tuesday meeting will feature not only Hegseth but also a last-minute addition: the commander in chief himself.

Hegseth has had a lot of bad ideas, but this one is disruptive and even somewhat dangerous. All of these men and women have real jobs they should be doing. Even if Hegseth is calling this meeting to discuss serious issues of national defense—and so far, the Pentagon has given no such indications—few things are important enough to justify the security risk of putting the entire top U.S. military command, the secretary of defense, and the president all in the same room.

It is possible, of course, that Hegseth is convening this jamboree because something genuinely terrible is afoot. Perhaps he wants all of America’s top officers in the same room when he tells them, for example, that the United States is on the brink of going to war, or that the Pentagon has been deeply compromised by spies and all of our military secrets are now in Moscow or Beijing. But if America is heading into a crisis, then Hegseth’s call for a meeting is even more irresponsible, because in a time of danger all these people should be at their posts, not in an auditorium in Virginia.

The other rumors spinning out there cover some of the fears Nichols points to, especially the part about going to war to serve trump's growing rage towards the rest of the world that won't give him a Peace Prize. There's been a lot of saber-rattling towards Venezuela, especially the unjustified attacks on various boats in international waters that trump's administration keeps claiming were smuggling drugs (but which they also refuse to present evidence to back those claims). trump has been public in his demands to go to literal war against drug cartels, refusing to recognize how that would violate other nations' integrity, and arguably dragging the United States into yet another quagmire that would waste lives and money and end up changing nothing.

No matter what this speech will bring, it's also happening on the eve of yet another Republican-backed government shutdown that's scheduled to implode once October 1st clocks in. Just the logistics of bringing in every general and admiral to one location is a headache: Just imagine what those officers are going to go through if the money isn't there for their transportation back to their command posts? This is another reason why people fear this meeting is going to be a purge, with the shutdown as an excuse to gut the military of its leadership.

Every foreign power aligned against us - not only China and Iran but also Russia (so eager to watch a rival superpower collapse into civil war) - have got to be laughing at the United States tonight, and drawing up a number of plans to cause chaos while our military leaders are stuck in an auditorium listening to maniacs scream at them and demand utter obedience. 

No matter what, this is not going to be a fun week.

Quick Observation About That Disastrous trump Speech to the UN

Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for including this blog in the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Roundup! P.S. So far the AI traffic has reduced but I need to take the next step in blocking the scavengers. Alas, this is what corporate obsession with technological shortcuts brought us to...

You know, that speech where trump goes up to the podium and basically insults every nation, lies about the United States' financial status, demands he be awarded the Peace Prize for wars and border clashes that haven't ended or were calmed by their own people, while threatening more tariffs and mocking climate change renewable energy agendas as a "con job". 

My observation is this: How the hell didn't every other nation at that UN assembly just pack up and recall every ambassador to end diplomatic relations with the United States, as well as ending every trade talk with us, and also issuing travel boycotts and financial sanctions on banks and corporations still trying to do business with us?

I know stuff like that would cause global economic chaos. But... I mean, goddamn, how bad does it have to get before whatever's left of our allies and enemies admit in public that trump is a goddamned self-serving idiot who needs to get publicly humiliated every hour of the day?

This is classic trump behavior acting like a bully. Do you know what you do with bullies? You punch him in the nose and get all your friends together to point out he's outnumbered and outclassed.

trump's entire game plan is to get others to cave before he gets exposed as the bankrupted racist sexist asshole he is. You fight back, he and his rolls over. Yes, he'll come back a few months later pushing the same stunt, but you punch him again and make him retreat again.

To the AI Bots Raiding My Blog

In the past few weeks, I've noticed an insane uptick in traffic to this blog. Normally I'd be thrilled that more people are finding my ramblings to be coherent and plausible (yes I'm an influencer at last) except that I have no idea where the traffic is coming from. 

At least until I saw one source was ChatGPT. 

Crap.

The onslaught by our tech overlords to insert their Artificial Intelligence bots into every crevice of the Internet - Gemini on Google, Copilot on Microsoft products, whatever the hell they call it on Apple devices - is creating an environment where anything posted on the Internet can get vacuumed up by these AI bots as use in someone else's work. Without citing sources or providing links to the original work, and in the case of artists and musicians (and even professional writers) failing to pay them for their work. Violating copyright laws left and right.

So let me state here, loud and clear.

I did not give consent, I DO NOT give consent, I WILL NOT GIVE CONSENT TO HAVE MY WRITINGS USED WITHOUT CREDIT TO MY EFFORTS.

I'm not making any money off this blog, so I can't claim loss of revenue. But I do claim my rights as the person who wrote this junk to get cited by others referencing what I've written. These are my thoughts and opinions and I'm damn well entitled to defend them.

What bothers me is how these AI systems could well go after my published writings, the stuff I have as ebooks. THAT is a source of revenue, I should get paid for what's on the market, and if anybody steals "Road Trip to Vegas" or "The Brides of WiFi" I will be very vexed indeed.

I'm reading up now on how to block AI scavengers from this blog. I've gotten as far as "robots.txt" but I have no idea how to apply to a Blogger site. If anyone's got pointers, please help.

And to the Silicon Valley thieves who think they can take everything and leave us with nothing: Please die in a fire. It's the least YOU can do to save the world from your greed.

My Thoughts and Prayers This September 11 2025

I'm going to accept that all of the US flags will be at half-mast this day in memory of the thousands of victims killed by the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, and NOT for that racist misogynist wingnut that died yesterday. 

A Tale of Two Shootings

There were two major shootings today. This one you most likely saw on the news (via Juliana Kim at NPR):

Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist and an ally of President Trump, died after a shooting at an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, according to Kirk's organization Turning Point USA and Trump.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox called Kirk's death a "political assassination."

"This is a dark day for our state. It's a tragic day for our nation," he said.

He added that a "person of interest" was being interviewed and it was not the same person who had been detained, then released earlier in the day. Law enforcement do not believe a second person was involved in the shooting, according to Cox.

Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, said a single shot was fired around 12:20 p.m. local time at the campus event featuring Kirk. Mason added that Kirk was quickly taken to a hospital, where he later died.

The suspected shooter was dressed in "all dark clothing" and fired from a long distance, potentially on a roof, according to Mason. He added that investigators are reviewing closed circuit TV footage.

I may have mentioned Kirk at this blog once or twice, noting primarily how he was an agitator calling for violence towards other Americans who leaned Left-Liberal on the political spectrum. Kirk was often defending the spread - like a plague - of guns across America as "our" price "we" have to pay for the Far Right's power to shoot anybody they want uphold a twisted understanding of the Second Amendment.

Speaking of the Far Right, they're using Kirk's assassination to paint the entire Democratic party as "the party of murder" even though far too many Republican wingnuts are killing Democrats and threatening more violence towards their objects of fear/hate on a near-daily basis.

In the meantime, here's the other major shooting you're likely not seeing on the major networks (via  Yesenia Robles and Alejandro A. Alonso Galva with Colorado Public Radio):

A shooting at Evergreen High School this afternoon hospitalized four students — three with gunshot wounds, including the suspected shooter.

The students with gunshot wounds were treated at CommonSpirit St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. After treatment, two of the three — one being the suspect — are still in critical condition.

The third victim has non-life-threatening injuries.

The sheriff's office confirmed in an evening update that the suspected shooter sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

We as a nation are now numb to the near-constant gun violence happening at our schools, in our public places, across our communities. In any other sane nation, we'd have done something to stop the easy access of firearms, to reduce the daily count of the dying and wounded. But we're not sane, are we?

We're held hostage by an extremist ideology of the Far Right obsessing over their right - no one else's - to own enough firepower to overthrow any agency, execute any political opponent, to doom an entire nation to suffer to their hates and fears. And with this gun violence now claiming one of their own, they're bound to get worse.

The cycle of violence and stochastic terrorism being inflicted on America - and this isn't new, we've been drowning in this bloodshed since the 1850s - will spiral deeper into the pit until we are in open warfare against each other.

Gods help us. Seriously.

Brief Thoughts About Hegseth's Craven Urge to Rename the Department of Defense

Update: Thanks again to Steve In Manhattan for including my blog on the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. 

P.S. I am noticing an insane uptick in visits to my blog even though I can't see where the traffic is coming from. I'm worried the new traffic is coming from AI vacuuming up all Internet content. Anyone got suggestions on how to block that AI? Please comment below or skeet me at Bluesky @paulwartenberg.bsky.social

Hegseth and trump - and other chickenhawk Republicans - want to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War mostly because the Ministry of Peace (MiniPax) was already copyrighted.

As Tom Nichols at the Altantic notes, this is all ego-stroking and a waste of time (paywalled):

Last month, when the plan was still just a hypothetical, the president was asked why he favored it. He said that Department of War “just sounded better” and that it would be a callback to the name under which U.S. forces fought in the two world wars. But the change is also a reflection of how much Trump and Secretary of Defense (his title for now) Pete Hegseth think of themselves as tough guys, real fighters who will no longer trifle with silly names about “defending” things. Hegseth in particular is obsessed with “warfighters”—a clunky Pentagon term that’s been around for far too long—who will engage in “warfighting” with great “lethality.”

Both men seem to think that wimps cower and defend, but real men go on the offensive and whack the bad guys...

It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history...

These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.

Defense is a serious job for a nation to uphold, and these clowns can't accept it. Gods help us.

Update: Ron Filipkowski knows exactly why Hegseth is so giddy about being a warmonger.

And there it is …

[image or embed]

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) September 5, 2025 at 6:09 PM

We are being led by five-year-olds eager to throw punches at the world and making us take the body blows. Considering the recent violation of international waters and the ongoing harassment of nations over tariffs and bullying Denmark over Greenland, we're going to be in a shooting war sooner rather than later. And the US military is going to get mismanaged into disaster after disaster.

I keep saying this: We are royally fucking screwed. 

State of Plague

Just when you think things can't get any dumber in the Sunshine State, the crazed Republican leadership that's been pretty much in charge since 1999 prove they can dumb down even further.

The GOP Morans are playing to their conspiracy-driven anti-vax MAGA base by deciding to end vaccine mandates for public schools (via Greg Allen at NPR): 

Florida's governor said he'll be asking the state Legislature to repeal a statute that requires children to receive vaccines for polio, diphtheria, measles and mumps before entering school. If it passes, Florida will be the first in the nation to eliminate all vaccine mandates for children and adults.

Other vaccines, including those for chickenpox, hepatitis B and strep infections, are mandated by the state health department, as opposed to Florida's Legislature. The state's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said his department will soon issue rules repealing those requirements too.

"People have a right to make their own decisions," said Ladapo, who joined Gov. Ron DeSantis for the announcement on Wednesday. "If you don't want to put whatever vaccines in your body, God bless you. And I hope you make an informed decision. And that's how it should be."

These are, by the by, the same assholes whose anti-abortion stance is to take away all health care choices by women period, so where the "make their own decisions" defense then you bastards.

Public health and child health professionals condemned the move. Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert at Florida International University, said, "This will cause havoc."

"It will cause problems for funding free vaccines for the impoverished and issues with vaccines to the rest of us due to insurance-related issues," Marty said. "It is clearly against empirical evidence of what is safest for individual children."

It's more than just the children at risk. It will be the teachers, the parents, the communities at large. Schools can be super-spreaders, which we saw happen during the beginnings of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

And here's the thing: COVID is not over. It's still out there, and not just in Florida.

And it's not just COVID, or "regular" influenza.

We're seeing the re-emergence of measles as an infectious threat after decades of thinking our nation had finally seen an end to it. But after all those decades of our medical and scientific leaders successfully promoting and encouraging vaccinations to reduce the risks, we're now in an age when medical frauds are in charge of our nation's health care and are actively shutting down every agency and means to combat infectious diseases.

It is factual to declare that Robert Kennedy Jr., that sonofabitch, is on the side of the viruses making us sick or dead.

And Florida's elected leaders like DeSantis are happy to assist RFK Jr and the other anti-vax frauds to wage war on our children and families all because their anti-science ideology convinces them their ignorance is superior to decades if not centuries of proven medical practice.

Republicans would rather have thousands of Floridians die than admit their anti-vax stances was poor pandering to their conspiracy-driven MAGA base. We're all going to pay for inept, insane leadership by a party that won't lead towards honest-to-God better health and safety for our communities.