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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   25527 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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The Trump cabinet shakeup continues

After Pam Bondi’s ouster today, which followed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s firing last month, Cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials were anxiously eyeing their phones, wondering whether they’d be next. One top official didn’t have to wait long: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed the chief of staff of the Army, General Randy George. Several people familiar with the White House’s plans told us there are active discussions about others leaving the administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters, said that the timing was uncertain and that President Trump had not yet made up his mind. But what was once an unofficial motto of the second Trump term—“no scalps”—no longer applies.

Trump had been reluctant to get rid of any of his top lieutenants, viewing firings as a concession to the Democrats and the media. Even in the past few months, there had been an edict that no Cabinet officials would be removed prior to the midterms, though a series of dismissals were planned for after Election Day. But the president’s declining support since he launched the Iran war has changed the political calculus. The odds of confirming replacements, advisers know, are only growing longer. One person close to the White House told us that Trump was buoyed by the reaction to his decision to oust Noem, and that made him more likely to move ahead with Bondi. (Still, an administration official cautioned that after pushing out Noem, optics were a concern; officials worried that getting rid of Bondi would be viewed as jettisoning only the most “attractive” women, while keeping the men).

Some Trump allies (and many of his critics) believe that he had asked Bondi for the nearly impossible—to win convictions for seemingly unwinnable cases. But other members of the Cabinet and administration have expressed frustration that Bondi’s apparent lack of involvement in the details of managing the Justice Department resulted in basic mistakes. “They are sending in idiots” to defend the Trump administration in court without sufficient experience, one official from another agency told us. The president’s demand for absolute loyalty among the department’s rank and file resulted in a profound loss of institutional expertise and a sharply reduced talent pool. Multiple prominent Republican attorneys told us that they considered joining the second Trump DOJ. But the requirement to take what they viewed as an oath of loyalty to the president—not the Constitution—was a step too far.

Officials in other departments said they regarded the Justice Department’s errors as harmful to the administration’s credibility with judges, blowing up what should have been easy wins for the president. “This has been festering across the administration for a while,” said a second person close to the administration. “It’s the Epstein stuff, partly. It’s also the critiques of the indictments, like Comey. It’s a general sense of WTF—she’s not logging a lot of wins, not clocking a lot of good media.”

In Trump I, many of the early firings were because of insufficient loyalty. Trump adapted and overcame by ensuring personal loyalty at the apparent cost of competence. A junior law student could have told you his vengeance lawsuits would be laughed out of court. And it seems like the Iran SMO will snatch a few more scalps that would have delayed until after the midterms - poor Kash, he just wanted to party with the hockey chads. It's already claimed the Army Chief of Staff's, although it's not clear what exactly was wrong with Randy George's performance (the Army isn't even particularly involved in this op), or that of the Transformation and Training Command leader and the head of the Chaplain Corps.

Habbenings intensify.

F-15 confirmed shot down, large rescue op underway, according to latest news one of pilots found.

For comparison, here is full list of lost US aircraft during Desert Storm in 1991.

Not looking good for Iran. Chinese patriots are trying to brainstorm some ways of shooting American top tier wonder weapons. We will see if Iran will listen.

The list of American aircraft damaged or destroyed in the past 24 hours is now up to 5, with:

  • F-15
  • F-16
  • A-10 (possibly 2)
  • 1 or 2 Blackhawks damaged during rescue efforts.

Then you have the Ghost of Kuwait who shot down 3 F-15s, and the stratotanker shot down over Iraq.

Then you have the aerial assets damaged or destroyed on the ground by Iranian bombardment. Add to that the USS Gerald Ford supercarrier out of commission for 2 years due to a "laundry fire."

It's looking bad for the US military, which is probably why multiple generals have been fired in the past 48 hours...

Add to that the USS Gerald Ford supercarrier out of commission for 2 years due to a "laundry fire."

Ignoring that fires do, in fact, "just happen" sometimes on aircraft carriers, where the hell are you getting "2 years" from?

Ignoring that fires do, in fact, "just happen" sometimes on aircraft carriers

Indeed. I realize that technically it was an "amphibious assault ship" but the fire that wrecked the Bonhomme Richard was only a few years ago! According to the wiki, pretty much all of the usual suspects were to blame for the fire. New and improved Naval safety protocols weren't being followed, "leadership failures" in the chain of command, poor communication between sailors and officers, the various firefighters and civilians, etc. etc. etc.

I am not a military bird, and I know this is my own nature and bias speaking, but whenever I see those sorts of "after action" reports I can't help but read between the lines and suspect that over-emphasis on $LATEST_SHINY_THINGS as the underlying culprit to these sorts of things, which is to say that when there are too many priorities, then nothing is a priority. The Dilbert Principle is universal. Update: Looks like it was sabotage after all, see Bleep's response below. Friends don't let friends trust Wikipedia, and I can't even blame Gell-Mann amnesia because I knew better.

That's not a good example for this argument. In the USS Bonhomme Richard case, it was likely sabotage likely committed by a Black Lives Matter sailor (EM). The Navy decided they weren't going to push that case during the Summer of Race Riots for reasons we're left to speculate about, so they went after leadership, who attempted to blame and frame (and succeeded) some white kid (Mays) and used as motive the white kid's frustration with the Navy's incompetence, record of attempting to get leadership to address the issues which eventually lead to the ships destruction, and didn't care the white kid had acted competently and heroically fighting that fire attempting to save the ship.

And the Navy went along with that. Sure, let's destroy the life of the one sailor in the entire story who acted competently and responsibly and then heroically attempted to save the ship because otherwise it would inflame racial tensions. So they created evidence, coerced witnesses, and destroyed evidence, threw that sailor in jail for at least months, and then put him on trial which could land him in jail for life.

That sailor, luckily, won his case and only his life/career was destroyed and he'll only be permanently tarnished for the rest of his life.

NYT article with a bunch of the facts. CBS article talking about the evidence against the BLM sailor. EM = Elijah McGovern, a name which is pretty shockingly difficult to find given the scenario while Mays's name is plastered everywhere.

Honestly, it's a great story which could be a top-level post about how the US Military works, its current state, and what they're willing to do.

Wow. Appreciate the context, fellow Mottizen, and after that I'd agree that it'd be a great top-level post. I was divorced enough from the Culture Wars at that time of the fire to only be aware that there were allegations of sabotage and that the prosecution of Mays was total bullshit, and this is the first time I've seen any of that detail. I am guilty in this case of cross-referencing Wikipedia, despite being well aware of their general biases, again because I wasn't aware of a connection to the culture wars. As you say, Mays' name is on the wiki 5 times, while McGovern's name is completely absent from the page. If even the NYT and CBS are covering that angle then I know it's bad! And I wish I could say that the Navy's behavior surprised me, but honestly, that sounds way too much like SOP these days.

The Navy's investigation and prosecution should end many careers, including permanently tarnishing the head of the Navy who apparently signed off on it. But it won't. The Navy's initial suspicions were almost certainly correct and all available evidence pointed to the BLM sailor who was interviewed 4 times with contradictions and lies piling up and so that sailor, Elijah McGovern, tried to kill himself. He failed and was administratively separated from the Navy only a few days after the suicide attempt which is, uh, about 10x faster than normal even in very straight-forward typical cases.

Then the Navy, laughably, quickly claimed it therefore had no jurisdiction to hold him which is completely ridiculous because the Navy has repeatedly and routinely throughout the last few decades at least court martialed retirees from the Navy not to mention civilian contractors, terrorists, and everything in-between. It's just a complete lie to claim the Navy couldn't continue the investigation, bring charges, imprison the "retired" sailor, and convict him because he was administratively separated in what appears to be an obvious cover-up.

And even then, they couldn't just cover it up and give slaps-on-the-wrist to the shoddy leadership directly implicated in the disaster, they had to frame and destroy the life of seemingly the only sailor in the entire story who acted commendably before and especially during the crisis.

And that's the US Military for you.

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