The US military is in the middle of a top-level political purge; both honesty and competence as an institution will be below normal levels for the forseeable future, and honesty about sensitive operations during wartime is never much even as a baseline.
What’s the buzz like amongst military right now? Is moral low? High?
It’s been fascinating to see my Father (Marine and Army veteran) and my brother (soon be a commissioned Air Force officer) who usually are very aligned politically start develop the first rift I’ve ever seen regarding this war.
> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement, sources familiar with the decision told CBS News...
> Two other Army officers were removed from their roles, according to three sources familiar with the matter: Gen. David Hodne, who led the Army's Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green, who headed the Army's Chaplain Corps...
> Hegseth has fired more than a dozen senior military officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.
Why this guy? Makes me speculate that it is entirely a political purge where they are trying to groom the military leadership to be entirely filled with loyalists rather than professional soldiers. As a veteran I find this very disheartening.
And of course the first thing the next administration will be obliged to do is fire this cadre and build another, which will fuel the grievances and set up the following cycle. Sigh.
I am not from the US, so I don't really care about how it does its things.
I definitely don't expect political purges on bureaucracy in my country of residence after elections, and I would consider it an extremely bad sign.
Typically the new party replaces the top levels; this is expected. Director of something, secretary of this and that, minister of something else, etc.
The actual bureacrats doing day to day work typically are not political agents. Getting rid of them for political reasons indicate loss of know-how, tacit knowledge, and competence, in the name of blind loyalty.
This was also true of the US. It’s expected to replace the Secretary of Defense and a variety of subordinate secretaries and undersecretaries like the Secretary of the Army with political leaders affiliated with the President’s party. Military officers at the highest level, such as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the Chiefs of Staff of the respective branches, are somewhat political, but they are expected to be professionals chosen for merit. And below that level, it has historically been very frowned upon for political leadership to directly involve itself in the selection and promotion of flag officers beyond setting criteria and expectations.
Because almost all of the people inside Iran have been disconnected for the past 35 days [1]. And believe it or not, they are texting these news live to all mobile phones on a daily basis as well. Some regime supporters believe it, because the want to believe it, they need to believe it. Just in the past 24 hours I have received 5 different messages from different organizations claiming victory and damage to US / Israel assets.
Just for a quick laugh, look at the official (Iranian) president's letter to the American people published yesterday [2]. The font changes between the paragraphs!
> Iran tweets about taking down an American jet basically daily.
Sure. We have two sets of demonstrable liars here. See, for example, the E-3 Sentry that got blown up; it took leaked photos for that to be admitted.
And don't get me started on the several times in the last few months we've "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capacity and missiles and whatnot only to be told it's time to do it again.
The claim being addressed is a shootdown over Qeshm island, which is the biggest island just west of the strait of Hormuz. The current CSAR operations are happening somewhere in the Khuzestan province. Probably somewhere within the 150 km radius of [1] based on online footage of the C-130 flying over.
Hate to say it and sound so "conspiracy-like", but I no longer can trust what the current US administration is saying. Ever since the path of a hurricane was redrawn with a sharpie, it's been... unusual.
I think the problem is that in previous administrations at least they had some skill in lying in ways that were not so constantly contradicting one another.
Regardless of whether it's a "perfect setup" or not, the facts speak for themselves.
Most competent governments don't say things that are outright wrong. They may use double speak, or not comment on a topic. But this government (and unfortunately it's this specific adminstration/president) has acted time and again in a way that both of us know very well.
Not really. Just that trust ain't binary and the govt is made of people. I don't like this admin but this too shall pass. Cultivate your garden. Electing bad people has consequences.
None of what's happening today could have happened without everything that came before it.
The blue team carries plenty of blame for not fielding better candidates. If nobody is buying your bullshit, it's a little weak to blame the customer.
And all of the us electorate carries plenty of blame for letting our government get so massive and out of control over time. We've let this beast metastasize and grow, and now were stuck with it.
The American people are ultimately to blame for it, they've got the government they deserve, which is actively dismantling the US empire day by day. The American people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, and that is rather damning of the state of the American people, far more so than however damning it may also be for the Democratic party.
As we all know, in this day and age, you need to REALLY sell your story, and have the media behind you. Competence is tertiary.
> Approval of Trump among Republicans has slipped to a second-term low of 84%, down from 92% last March. At the same time, an all-time high 16% of Republicans disapprove. This shift can be attributed, at least in part, to declining support among non-MAGA Republicans, as approval dropped 11 points in the last year among this group (70% in March 2025 to 59% today). Virtually all MAGA Republicans continue to approve of Trump, with 98% approving a year ago and 97% now.
Or the bootlicker olympics for those who want everyone else to ignore the constant lies because they think bigger, more powerful government is utopian.
I wouldn't be so pleased with myself over such "You will get wet in a rainstorm." style predictions.
truths from different angles that are at odds with one another produce mistrust and thoughts of conspiracy. We have more of that now than we have ever had, ever. It doesn't take Nostradamus to point to the trend.
tl;dr : Gee, where did this mistrust in the current government come from? I'd point but I don't have that many hands.
Even if our politicians are so corrupt that every one has skeletons in their closet, I don't think releasing factual evidence of malfeasance is a type of election interference that should be condemned.
Zuck has become a very rich man avoiding all the obvious and expected outcomes. When Facebook stock hit its low a few years ago, HN was explaining why it was doomed. The man has founder mentality at the helm of a trillion-dollar company. It is no wonder he is what he is.
The stock lows was a market overreaction, and it corrected itself soon after. It’s not like Zuck got the company out of the hole by making some genius moves. Quite the opposite. Meta would be in an equally good or better position today had Zuck just done nothing for the last decade.
They just used their war chest to buy a bunch of companies to diversify their revenue stream. It's not like Meta made some massively profitable innovations or new services.
Isn't this just a solution in search of a problem though? Multiple investigations have discovered absolutely minuscule amount of non-citizen voting in US elections. It's something that seems reasonable on its face but lacks any purpose and comes with an ulterior motive that it is part of the made up GOP talking points of a "stolen election" and "illegals voting".
The targets for the AI are still set by humans, the data the AI was trained on is still created by humans. Involving a computer in the system doesn't magically make it less biased.
That's just what we need, an AI that was trained on biased data and then empowered to do whatever it wants autonomously. It's a pity we can't look to any examples of human intelligences that have been trained on biased data and then empowered to do whatever they want autonomously.
Unfortunately, I think it's hardwired in our brain to anthropomorphize something with this level of NLP. We have to constantly remind ourselves, this is a machine.
I always felt like Congressional debates should begin with each side trying to explain the opposing position, with debate only beginning when each side agrees with the opposition's framing of their PoV. I also recognize how naive and idealistic this sounds.
The public Congressional debates are performative, intended to curry favor with key voters, campaign donors, and media personalities. The substantive debates happen in private using completely different rhetoric. This is mostly fine in that it allows for policy decisions to move forward with compromises. The problem is that some members of Congress are unable to shut off their deranged public personas even in private back room negotiations.
> The public Congressional debates are performative, > The substantive debates happen in private using completely different rhetoric.
If we can't hear the substantive debates, voting becomes meaningless and performative too. Are we supposed to believe that we vote better when we don't know the truth?
While I accept that this is how it is done in practice, I think the unintended consequence is it raises the partisan temperature and further ruins the already abysmal trust of Congress.
There was always a performative aspect to the public debates but it really escalated after C-SPAN started televising everything. In principle citizens should be able to watch their legislature in operation but the effects haven't been entirely positive.
reply