Outside the Beltway

Comments

1. Daryl says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 07:59

   Fatso is literally begging other country’s for help in the Stait of Hormuz.
   Plus he is threatening NATO if no one helps him in his war of whimsy.

   “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,”

   Last week Pomade Pete said it was nothing to worry about.
   Maybe a second rate reality TV guy and a weekend cable TV host weren’t our best choices.

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2. Daryl says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 08:13

   @Daryl:
   And Fatso thinks China is going to bail him out!!!
   https://apnews.com/article/trump-china-iran-strait-hormuz-7ce3b6cd9ca6bd222dfe3236e10f8266?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

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3. Scott says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 08:17

   I considered Texas Monthly one of the best long form article magazines currently published in the US. Here is one article about a local Texas cattle rancher and his interactions with fanatical, religious Zionists in Israel. You know, the zealots, who think they are right and have God’s provenance to do anything they believe is their commandment.

   It is a long article but worth reading.

   One Man’s Quest for the End of the World Started on a Ranch in Texas

   It was nearly Christmas, and Jerome Urbanosky was expecting unusual company. The easygoing 72-year-old rancher stood outside his redbrick home, watching as a dozen or so vehicles crunched along the gravel road that winds through the grassy plain of his 1,500-acre ranch northwest of Houston. The delegation that piled out into his driveway included high-ranking rabbis who’d flown straight from Israel, a U.S. documentary crew toting multiple cameras, and a Texas businessman named Byron Stinson.

   Urbanosky was taken aback by the size of the crew—but that wasn’t the thing that startled him the most. Four men dressed in black tactical gear and carrying military rifles approached and told him they needed to sweep the property to make sure no “foreign agents” were present. “They were armed to the teeth,” Urbanosky remembered. He wasn’t inclined to stand in their way. His wife, Jane, who was in the kitchen preparing the weekly Sunday meal, stared saucer-eyed as the armed men entered her home.

   Once the security team cleared the property, Urbanosky led the rabbis to a red barn, where two calves awaited. Urbanosky Ranch is home to a herd of more than 450 Santa Gertrudis cattle, a hardy breed that’s known to produce good beef and whose origins trace back to the King Ranch, in South Texas. But as Urbanosky knew, this delegation wasn’t here for a steak.

   Santa Gertrudis cattle also have striking coats of deep rusty red, which is what had initially attracted Stinson’s attention. A seventy-year-old Glen Rose business owner who’s described himself as a “Jesus zealot,” Stinson had visited Urbanosky at his ranch once before and explained that he was in search of an unblemished, completely red heifer—a scratch or a single white hair, and it wouldn’t do. Such a heifer hadn’t been identified in two thousand years, but it was key to unlocking an ancient Jewish ritual described in the book of Numbers, a necessary precursor to constructing the Third Temple in Jerusalem and, ultimately, bringing about the Second Coming of Christ. It’s a fringe but nonetheless influential belief, and Stinson’s Israeli associate, Yitshak Mamo, had convinced Urbanosky that he, too, was essential to this journey.

   That is just the start. Story involves the Jewish fanaticism, American Christian zionism, the settler movement, international movement of live cattle (not that easy), the Temple Mount, American money and more.

   You may think that one man’s or one group’s minor religious obsessions would have little consequence but no, not when it comes to the Middle East.

   Enjoy.

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4. Scott says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 08:44

   We didn’t watch the Oscars last night because we’re streamers and even though we have Disney+, they limited it to broadcast on ABC which we don’t have. That’s all right because for some reason we haven’t seen the big movies this year.

   Tried watching Del Toro’s Frankenstein. And while there was much to admire (acting, sets, etc) we were just bored. Fell asleep in the middle of it and there was no huge desire to finish it.

   Like most of America, we are fans of The Pitt. Just well done and engrossing. I also finished the 1st season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. I really enjoyed it. It is best if you are not a purist about canon.

   Also started watching Young Sherlock on Prime. Fun, fast, thoroughly modern in style except the period clothes. Guy Richie is involved if that tells you anything. Like all shows these days the plot is stretched to 8 episodes which creates some sags.

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5. Rick DeMent says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 08:57

   This going hat in hand and trying to get help in the strait of Hormuz is reminiscent of the time Trump massively overpaid Doug Flutie to play for his USFL team. After ha made a big deal over the size of the contract he sent a letter to all there other owners asking them to chip in and help him out with Flutie’s salary. Trump said it was because Flutie had enhanced the reputation of the league so much (I guess in ways Steve Young didn’t) that paying him to offset the cost was a “steal”.

   That was right before Trump went to Pete Rozelle and tried to sell out the USFL if Rozelle would take the New Jersey Generals into the the NFL. Rozelle wisely turned him down. Trump didn’t know that it wasn’t exactly Rozelle’s call to make. The rest of the league would have to vote on it and they already took a hard pass at letting Trump into he club. Trump was never a great deal makers, how he got that reputation is a mystery.

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6. Kathy says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 09:09

   I don’t see what NATO can do. They can’t either destroy Israel’s offensive capacity, nor take out the US carriers and other assets in the region and in Europe.

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7. Charley in Cleveland says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 09:22

   @Rick DeMent: Around 2013 Trump tried to buy the Buffalo Bills, and his purchase offer was rejected after he submitted his financials. A few years later, Michael Cohen noted that was one of the times that Trump used accounting sleight of hand to get Deutsche Bank to issue a letter vastly overstating his net worth. Unlike Republican voters, the NFL owners weren’t buying Trump’s bullsheet and acted accordingly.

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8. Rick DeMent says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 09:59

   @Charley in Cleveland:

   Right. The NFL has it’s share of asshole owners, but it does say something that they wanted nothing to do with Trump 🙂

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9. charontwo says:
   Monday, 16 March 2026 at 10:52

   What sort of people staff ICE? Why do they join?

   This analysis will surprise you, it’s not who we all think:

   “Don Moynihan”

   So how does the world’s role model of professional law enforcement come to be accused of building a rapidly-growing secret police?

   That answer is not primarily about ideology—or the particular nature of a single leader. The machinery of building a secret police operates with disturbing predictability, relying on a recognizable organizational structure, and set of career incentives.

   We have spent the last decade studying how authoritarian security organizations are built, staffed, and sustained. We asked, who does the dirty work of these regimes – and why?

   Our new book Making a Career in Dictatorship traces the career trajectories of more than 4,000 officers in Argentina’s dictatorship-era security apparatus and pairs that evidence with case studies from Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and The Gambia. What we found contradicts what most people assume about how violent secret police organizations emerge.

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10. Pete S says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 12:23

    @Rick DeMent:
    I was going to mention this today. Some things never change.

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11. CSK says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 13:52

    According to The Daily Beast, Trump demanded on Truth Social last night that reporters who report the Iran war in ways not to his liking should be accused of, tried for, and convicted of treason. A conviction for treason entails the death penalty.

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12. Gustopher says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 14:02

    @Scott:

    Tried watching Del Toro’s Frankenstein. And while there was much to admire (acting, sets, etc) we were just bored. Fell asleep in the middle of it and there was no huge desire to finish it.

    Same. It felt like it was made to be watched while doing something else.

    I also finished the 1st season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. I really enjoyed it. It is best if you are not a purist about canon.

    Did it violate canon? I saw online chatter about things from professional haters that claimed it did, but always focusing on things that just annoy them because they wanted to hate to pump up their views. Woman half-Klingon/half-jem’hadar… well sometimes when a Jem’Hadar loves a Klingon…

    I thought the premise of the show was tedious. Star Fleet Cadets! Wacky Hijinks! Saving the Federation because they’re smarter than all of Starfleet! Oh, they get drunk!

    I did really like the one thread they were weaving through, that during the Burn (for those who don’t pay attention, this was a massive crisis, created huge humanitarian disasters), Starfleet had to pick and choose what refugees to help. That they would use deadly force to protect aid convoys from other starving people (who were, presumably, not starving enough), and that even with the best intentions, Starfleet had to do some things that were medium awful. Imperialism, collective guilt, limited resources… lots of interesting stuff. And then the show completely whiffs it. Due to technobabble, the desperate people of Desperate Planet hurt themselves, and Starfleet never did anything bad or got anything wrong. It’s the least interesting possible ending and means every issue can be sidestepped.

    If you bring up issues, you should have something to say about them. This show didn’t.

    It would be the equivalent of ending the beloved TNG episode “Measure of a Man”* by not addressing whether treating Data as property would be bad, but ruling that a form was filed improperly because of time zones and technobabble involving subspace and everyone learning an important lesson about remembering to fill in the date field correctly.

    So, it respects canon, has a cringeworthy premise, and brings up some pretty weighty ideas it’s not prepared to deal with.

    Holly Hunter was great though. And Tig Notaro stole every scene she was in. Each episode had at least something that worked. So, maybe better than Picard? More competently executed at least.

    ——
    *: I don’t understand why the episode is beloved, as the message is basically “no, you can’t dissect and kill a beloved character to learn how to create a slave race” and at no point does that other argument have any appealing qualities. But other people love this episode, so I’m sticking with it as my example.

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13. DK says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 15:30

    N.Y. congressman pushes back with election legislation as Trump zeroes in on reform (Spectrum News)

    New York Democratic Rep. George Latimer has introduced legislation to ban the president and other members of the Executive Branch from interfering with elections

    The POINT Act would create a legal review process for states that feel executive officials infringed on their power to oversee elections. It would also bar presidents from using military or federal law enforcement to influence elections.

    …Latimer’s legislation, known as the Protecting our Integrity and Nation from Tyranny or POINT Act, would create a thorough legal definition for election interference. It would also make the offense punishable by up to five years in prison.

    Some politicians are still more serious about legislation than about trolling for clicks and attention.

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14. dazedandconfused says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 15:37

    @Kathy: It’s a fair bet Hegseth can’t guarantee 100% immunity to swarms of UAVs, and going deep into the Gulf to protect tankers against drones requires naval vessels to deep within the gulf, IOW, in range. We are currently keeping our ships out of effective range, for the most part.

    Their navies can take the hits that would otherwise have hit US Navy vessels, which would be bad for the mid-terms and Trump’s popularity. Why those Euros can’t the see the absolute necessity of their participation is a complete mystery.

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15. Jen says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 15:38

    It is not comforting at all that this man has access to our nation’s secrets:

    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mh6zjoifm62z

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16. DK says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 15:44

    Sen. Alsobrooks Calls Conditions at Baltimore ICE Facility Inhumane: ‘This Facility is Unfit Even to House Animals’ (ShineMyCrown.com)

    “This is the second time I’ve had an opportunity to come to this particular facility, and each time it makes the hair stand up on your arms,” Alsobrooks said in a video statement after the visit. “This facility is unfit even to house animals.”

    The senator’s remarks come shortly after a ruling by Julie Rubin, who ordered changes to the facility’s operations following litigation over detention conditions.

    Rubin ruled that the facility’s five holding rooms could hold no more than 55 detainees at one time—far fewer than previous capacity levels that lawmakers say allowed more than 220 people to be detained in the space.

    Alsobrooks praised the court order but said the prior level of crowding was “unimaginable.”

    …Lawmakers who toured the site described rooms containing concrete benches and limited sanitation facilities, raising concerns about detainees’ access to medical care and basic hygiene.

    In 2026, the US is a county that elects unhinged, warmongering pedophiles but tries to kill poor asylum seekers. Misplaced morals.

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17. Kathy says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 16:08

    @dazedandconfused:

    Europe should respond with: poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part.

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18. Michael Reynolds says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 16:38

    @Gustopher:
    I found the show unwatchable. I got through the pilot thinking, well, it’s first episode jitters. Dragged through the second episode, knowing it was a lost cause. And about 5 minutes of episode three before I couldn’t take any more. You’re wondering why the writers didn’t tackle the one genuinely interesting plot thread? They’re not good writers, which is what I sensed in episode 1 and had confirmed in episode 2. TV is still a writers medium, so when shows fail, it’s the writers. They don’t have the chops for science fiction. They’re romance writers.
19. JohnSF says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 17:08

    @Kathy:
    Europe to US: “We’ll be sitting this particuar war out. You go ahead and be daft by yourself, this time.”

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20. Gregory Lawrence Brown says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 17:43

    Unleaded Regular in ZIP 62901
    $4.299/gal 1 station
    $3.799/gal 6 stations
    $3.659/gal 1 station
    $3.599/gal 1 station

    The government chumps that tell us that it is “short term pain” for a good cause (like killing Iranian schoolchildren) all get around in Limos provided by and fueled by the United States taxpayers.

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21. Gustopher says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 18:01

    @Michael Reynolds: There’s a YouTube -um- Tuber(?) Jessie Gender who has been posting reviews of each episode, and she sees all sorts of things from a different perspective than I do, and I’ve found that a lot more interesting than the show itself.

    (You would find her insufferable, I expect)

    She’s much more positive about the show than I am. I’ve mostly viewed watching the show as homework for watching her reviews.

    Nothing she has said has made me actually like the show as a whole, but I never would have picked up on the differences in how a biracial identity is depicted there as compared to previous shows, for instance.

    The episode where this was done with so much more nuance does still end with a very predictable resolution suggested by children who are clearly smarter and better than all of Starfleet’s adults, so this doesn’t save the episode at all for me, but it’s fun to follow through a well reasoned critique of something when I don’t agree with the majority of it.

    It probably does not reflect well on a show if I like the reviews better than the show. Holly Hunter is great though, especially given what she’s working with. I half assume she got cast after losing a bet.

    —-

    And, while on the subject of the show, the professional haters hate that there’s a gay Klingon. Klingons love opera and theater — they’re theater kids with a performative warrior culture. If we take science fiction as a reflection of humanity, I’m surprised there are straight Klingons. (Actually, other than Worf… do we know any are straight? And even Worf might be bi or pan or something, we just know he is attracted to women, not that he isn’t attracted to men or other fancy genders)

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22. dazedandconfused says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 18:57

    @Kathy: That unfortunately doesn’t apply with critical resources. A massive screwing of the oil supply is an emergency on their part, definitely.

    Reminds of an old joke. Punchline only: “Well, are you gonna sit there flapping your yap or are you gonna fish?!!”

    The decades of building oil connections with Russia weren’t about naively helping Russia, it was to reduce dependence on ME oil. Worse comes to worst they’ll pitch in. No choice, but not before they screw the guy who caused it to the greatest degree possible.

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23. Kathy says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 20:36

    @dazedandconfused:

    European countries can do as India did, and negotiate safe passage with Iran.

    What’s El Taco going to do? Sink tankers carrying Saudi and Emirati oil to Europe?

    Well, he might. He’s not exactly compos mentis. But trying to defend every tanker and container ship and navy ship from drones, strikes me as more of a fool’s errand.

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24. dazedandconfused says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 21:01

    @Kathy:

    Yes, it has been reported France and Italy are already trying to strike some sort of deal, but I imagine the Iranians will only be interested in selling their own oil and will be reluctant to allow the passage of emirate oil, and Iran does not have the capacity to supply all of the EU, or much of it, really.

    That might explain Trump’s apparent obsession with Karg. The French and Italians (et al -maybe) would probably send tankers with their flags. Stopping ships so-flagged would be fraught, to say the least, so he thinks “Take the island”.

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25. Michael Reynolds says:
    Monday, 16 March 2026 at 22:42

    @Gustopher:
    Lady Klingons certainly do come off as a wee bit butch.
26. charontwo says:
    Tuesday, 17 March 2026 at 06:45

    @Kathy:

    From WSJ:

    Iran appears to be allowing select ships through the Strait of Hormuz, freeing a trickle of oil and gas that has helped to keep a lid on global energy prices.

    Karachi, a crude-oil tanker flying under the Pakistan flag, sailed through the strait on Sunday while broadcasting its location, becoming the first non-Iranian vessel to have done so, according to ship-tracker MarineTraffic.

    The vessel, a midsize tanker carrying Abu Dhabi crude, departed from Das Island, a major hub for offshore oil-and-gas processing and exports in the Persian Gulf 100 miles northwest of the United Arab Emirates mainland.

    Karachi’s passage might indicate that Iran is waving through some non-Iranian oil cargoes in negotiated safe voyages, maritime analysts say.

    “It transited along Iranian waters rather than in international waters signaling that it could have received approval to transit from the Iranian regime. This is a pattern to look out for going forward,” said Jemima Shelley, a senior research analyst at United Against Nuclear Iran.

    So far, most of the ships that have passed have primarily been Iran’s dark fleet, said Shelley. However, it does look like the regime is beginning to let other tankers pass, but it isn’t yet clear what ships could receive approval to transit, she said.