In what’s being called an “exceedingly rare” move, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is blocking the promotion of two Black and two female colonels to one-star generals.

The New York Times reported Friday that some senior US military officials are questioning whether Hegseth acted out of animus toward Black people and women after the defense secretary blocked the promotion of the four officers despite the repeated objections of Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, who touted what the Times called the colonels’ “decadeslong records of exemplary service.”

Military officials told the Times that Hegseth’s chief of staff, Lt. Col. Ricky Buria, got into a heated exchange with Driscoll last summer over the promotion of another officer, Maj. Gen. Antoinette Gant—a combat veteran of the US invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq—to command the Military District of Washington, DC.

Such a promotion would have placed Gant in charge of numerous events at which she would likely be seen publicly with President Donald Trump. According to multiple military officials, Buria told Driscoll that Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer.

For weeks, as President Donald Trump has overseen a war in Iran and standoffs on Capitol Hill, his private conversations have kept straying back to something else: a Senate primary in Texas that he hasn’t been able to make up his mind on......

Many Republican leaders have viewed Cornyn as more electable in November than Paxton, who has been dogged by scandals involving accusations of infidelity and misuse of public funds. Paxton was impeached in 2023 by the Republican majority Texas House, but acquitted by the state Senate.

But the Trump-loving grassroots conservative base in Texas has raged against the incumbent, and the president has taken notice — quietly backing off a plan in early March to endorse Cornyn and try to push Paxton, a MAGA hero, out of the race......

On his golf course in West Palm Beach on Sunday, Trump remarked that he believes his “base is with Paxton,” said a person with knowledge of the comment, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation with the president. He has peppered others with questions on the race in recent days and repeated the sentiment about his supporters largely favoring Paxton, according to three people familiar with those conversations.....

Cornyn’s supporters have argued that he would be a stronger candidate against the Democratic nominee, James Talarico. But as videos have surfaced of controversial, liberal comments by Talarico, the White House has grown increasingly confident that either Republican would win.

For weeks, as President Donald Trump has overseen a war in Iran and standoffs on Capitol Hill, his private conversations have kept straying back to something else: a Senate primary in Texas that he hasn’t been able to make up his mind on......

Many Republican leaders have viewed Cornyn as more electable in November than Paxton, who has been dogged by scandals involving accusations of infidelity and misuse of public funds. Paxton was impeached in 2023 by the Republican majority Texas House, but acquitted by the state Senate.

But the Trump-loving grassroots conservative base in Texas has raged against the incumbent, and the president has taken notice — quietly backing off a plan in early March to endorse Cornyn and try to push Paxton, a MAGA hero, out of the race......

On his golf course in West Palm Beach on Sunday, Trump remarked that he believes his “base is with Paxton,” said a person with knowledge of the comment, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation with the president. He has peppered others with questions on the race in recent days and repeated the sentiment about his supporters largely favoring Paxton, according to three people familiar with those conversations.....

Cornyn’s supporters have argued that he would be a stronger candidate against the Democratic nominee, James Talarico. But as videos have surfaced of controversial, liberal comments by Talarico, the White House has grown increasingly confident that either Republican would win.

Iran has discovered Trump's vulnerability — and it's exploiting it relentlessly. According to Slate columnist Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tehran's leadership is weaponizing the president's own playbook to keep him perpetually off-balance as he searches for an exit from the war.

The strategy is simple, ruthless, and devastatingly effective: study Trump's ghost-written "Art of the Deal," master his negotiating tactics, and turn them back on him with surgical precision.

On day 23 of the war, Iran's Revolutionary Guard spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari delivered a pointed message directly to the camera, the Iranian flag over his shoulder.

"Trump, you are fired," Zolfaghari said, recycling the president's signature catchphrase from The Apprentice. "Thank you for your attention to this matter," he added, mocking Trump's preferred closing phrase.

This wasn't random mockery. According to historian Ali Ansari of the University of St Andrews, the Persian translation of Trump's 1987 book The Art of the Deal has developed a devoted following inside the Islamic Republic. Iran's leadership has studied it carefully.

The psychological warfare extends far beyond insults. Iran has borrowed Trump's entire online playbook: Iranian embassy X accounts post cartoons mocking his negotiating position, compare him to a hapless cartoon bulldog, and reference the Epstein files. State media airs AI-generated propaganda videos depicting Iranian victory — mirroring the White House's TikTok-style hype reels cobbled together from movies and video games.

Pentagon staffers have reportedly given Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the nickname "Dumb McNamara," comparing him to Robert McNamara, who significantly expanded U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

The nickname is a jab at Hegseth's hardline military approach, drawing parallels to the Vietnam War, which is widely considered a major strategic failure in U.S. history.

Hegseth is a strong public supporter of President Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran, with Trump himself praising Hegseth as an early and enthusiastic backer of the aggressive approach.

Recently, Hegseth made controversial statements, including "We negotiate with bombs," and prayed for "overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy" at a Pentagon worship service.

Unlike Robert McNamara, who later expressed regret over his role in Vietnam, Hegseth has shown no indication of reconsidering his stance and continues to advocate for forceful military action.

The decision by the Republican congressional leadership to create and award Donald Trump the first-ever “America First Award” at a National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser left the panel on “Morning Joe” both amused and baffled on Thursday morning.

The MS NOW segment began with a clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) telling attendees, “We're going to honor him with a new award that we will present annually from this point forward. But he is the suitable and fitting recipient of the first-ever America First award. We can think of no better title for what that is. That's this beautiful golden statue here, appropriate for the new golden era in America.”

That led a wide-eyed co-host Mika Brzezinski to blurt “Stop!” as Joe Scarborough laughed and offered, “You know, it's because the FIFA Peace Prize award has gone so well......

“And they're kind of, you know, forgive me, they're infantilizing him a little bit, but here's a trophy. Here's an iPad to watch bombs exploding in Iran to color your view of how the war is going.

“They treat him like a child,” he added. “If I were him, I would be offended by it. But of course, I don't think he is.”

Three weeks of intensive US and Israeli strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure have destroyed radar systems, collapsed tunnel entrances, and cratered ventilation shafts across dozens of sites. Iran keeps firing. The reason, according to satellite analysis by CNN and assessments by Israeli security research centre Alma Research, lies not above the ground but hundreds of metres beneath it; inside a network of underground missile cities connected by internal railways, carved into mountains that no bomb in the current American or Israeli arsenal can fully reach.

Iran’s underground missile programme is not a recent improvisation. Reports that emerged as far back as 2020 claimed an automated railway system running through cavernous tunnels, transporting ballistic missiles between assembly halls, storage vaults, and blast-door exits. What is becoming clearer now, as Operation Epic Fury enters its fourth week, is the scale of what was built and the limits of what air power alone can do against it.....

The central constraint is geological, and it has now been publicly stated by Iran itself. Former IRGC Aerospace Force commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran built its missile bases across provinces and cities at a depth of 500 metres.

The most powerful weapon the United States has for destroying hardened underground targets is the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator – a 30,000-pound bomb built specifically for this purpose. It can penetrate “approximately 60 metres of reinforced concrete or roughly 40 metres of moderate rock. Granite is harder than moderate rock. Five hundred metres is more than twelve times the weapon’s maximum penetration depth. The gap between the bomb and the tunnel is not a margin of error.”....

“IRGC did not prepare for this war by building rockets. It prepared by building railways inside mountains. The rockets are replaceable. The railways are permanent. And the granite that protects them was formed before mammals existed. The strait is 21 miles wide. The mountain is 500 metres deep. And the railway inside it is still delivering missiles to the surface,” he added.
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2035868952870662627
Iran has continued to fire ballistic missiles throughout Operation Epic Fury, including the attempted strike on the joint US-UK base at Diego Garcia. Trump has said the operation is running weeks ahead of schedule and that Iran’s military is finished. The satellite imagery and the institutional assessments tell a more complicated story: one in which the visible war, fought above ground, has made genuine progress, and the invisible war, fought half a kilometre underground, has barely begun.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crusade to scale back Americans’ reliance on vaccines has collided with political and legal realities that have endangered the Senate confirmation of one top health official, delayed the nomination of another and diminished his clout in Washington.

A string of developments over the past several weeks have put Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda at risk. The confirmation of Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, is stalled on Capitol Hill, where three Republicans on the Senate Health Committee, including its chairman, have expressed concern about her views on vaccines.....

Last week, a federal judge blocked Mr. Kennedy’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. And on Wednesday, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is running the C.D.C. even though his time as acting director has expired, made the new normal clear.....

But Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda — his insistence that vaccines are somehow linked to autism, despite a lack of evidence — has always been a bit of an Achilles’ heel.....

Polls now show that Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda is a dud, unpopular even with Republicans. And that has created discomfort inside the White House, which has made clear its desire for Mr. Kennedy to downplay talk of vaccines while emphasizing his more popular healthy-eating agenda.....

Six medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, sued. Judge Brian Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, ruled last week that Mr. Kennedy and his appointees had made “arbitrary and capricious” changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

Judge Murphy also deemed the majority of the new A.C.I.P members unqualified. The best-known of them, Dr. Robert Malone, abruptly quit earlier this week, saying that the judge had “slandered me” and that he had better things to do. In a text message, Dr. Malone said he was not pushed out.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crusade to scale back Americans’ reliance on vaccines has collided with political and legal realities that have endangered the Senate confirmation of one top health official, delayed the nomination of another and diminished his clout in Washington.

A string of developments over the past several weeks have put Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda at risk. The confirmation of Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, is stalled on Capitol Hill, where three Republicans on the Senate Health Committee, including its chairman, have expressed concern about her views on vaccines.....

Last week, a federal judge blocked Mr. Kennedy’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. And on Wednesday, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is running the C.D.C. even though his time as acting director has expired, made the new normal clear.....

But Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda — his insistence that vaccines are somehow linked to autism, despite a lack of evidence — has always been a bit of an Achilles’ heel.....

Polls now show that Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda is a dud, unpopular even with Republicans. And that has created discomfort inside the White House, which has made clear its desire for Mr. Kennedy to downplay talk of vaccines while emphasizing his more popular healthy-eating agenda.....

Six medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, sued. Judge Brian Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, ruled last week that Mr. Kennedy and his appointees had made “arbitrary and capricious” changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

Judge Murphy also deemed the majority of the new A.C.I.P members unqualified. The best-known of them, Dr. Robert Malone, abruptly quit earlier this week, saying that the judge had “slandered me” and that he had better things to do. In a text message, Dr. Malone said he was not pushed out.