Outside the Beltway

Comments

1. charontwo says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 05:34

   Here is a heartwarming story:

   “WaPo Gift”

   r
   She owed her insurer a nickel, so it canceled her coverage

   When medical bills started rolling in, a teacher’s aide wondered why her insurance suddenly wasn’t covering them.

   …

   Premium subsidies for ACA plans are automatically recalculated every time coverage is changed because of a life event, such as marriage, a change of job or a child turning 26. In June, Hill removed her mother from the family’s group plan because she turned 65 and became eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.

   The change triggered a recalculation of Hill’s monthly premium contribution, increasing it from $0 to 1 cent. She said she thought the amount was so small that she couldn’t pay it with her credit card.

   Hill acknowledged she had received some bills that noted, “You may lose your health insurance coverage because you did not pay your monthly health insurance premium.”

   But she said that her doctors collected the usual co-payments during subsequent visits and that her insurance broker told her not to worry, reassuring her that the plan was “active.” Hill figured the 1-cent monthly premium was probably a rounding error that couldn’t result in termination, she said.

   …

   Others have lost their coverage over owing small amounts, said Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University. “This woman’s situation is not so unusual with the enhanced subsidies,” she said.

   The American Rescue Plan, passed in 2021, increased the amount of government assistance available to ACA plan holders. Those enhanced subsidies, which Congress let expire at the end of last year, meant enrollees with lower incomes had to pay little or nothing toward their premiums.

   The Biden administration found that, in 2023, about 81,000 subsidized ACA insurance policies were terminated because the enrollee owed $5 or less. Nearly 103,000 more were canceled for owing less than $10.

   3
2. charontwo says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 06:13

   Here are links about the money being spent on AI/LLM investments:

   “Limk 1”

   “Link 2”

   It’s easy to think this might be a bubble.

   (You don’t need to give link 2 your email, just scroll past the box)

   1
3. Scott says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 07:36

   “Military secrets are the most fleeting of all”.

   Ukrainian drones hit all three Baltic States − did Russia redirect them?

   Three Baltic states recorded drone incursions within roughly 48 hours this week, as Ukrainian strike drones targeting Russian Baltic port infrastructure were apparently diverted into NATO territory by Russian electronic warfare.

   The most serious incident occurred at 3:43 a.m. on March 25, when a drone crossing Estonian airspace from Russia struck the chimney of the Auvere power station in the eastern Ida-Viru County − located less than 50 kilometers from the Russian port of Ust-Luga, which Ukraine was striking overnight. No one was injured and the plant’s power output was not affected, Estonian energy company Enefit Power said. But the incident was enough to trigger an emergency government session in Tallinn and a nationwide alarm alert that caused confusion when it failed to specify the affected region.
   …
   It’s not clear why these Ukrainian drones are now repeatedly falling on Western territory rather than reaching their intended Russian targets, but Russian GPS jamming and spoofing have been singled out as a likely cause by officials and analysts. Russian transmitters are known to block and falsify Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals, such as those from the GPS and European Galileo satellite constellations. This can cause drones to lose track of their location or even veer off course when the systems on board are fed falsified location information.

   2
4. Scott says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 07:44

   Asymmetrical warfare.

   Images Show E-3 Sentry Totally Destroyed From Iranian Strike (Updated)

   A loss of an E-3 is a major blow for the dwindling fleet of increasingly rickety airframes and points to other capability and defensive gaps.

   Info is slowly dripping out as to the extent of the Iranian attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia that occurred on March 27th. Multiple U.S. military aircraft are reported to have been damaged. This is beyond the toll on U.S. service members, which sits at 10 injured, some of them critically. While high-resolution commercial satellite imagery of the Middle East from U.S. companies remains delayed for weeks, foreign satellite images purport to show major damage on the base’s main apron. Now, photos from ground level appear to show one of the USAF’s prized E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft totally destroyed.

   U.S. Is Burning Through Tomahawk Cruise Missile Stockpile At An Alarming Rate: Report

   The Pentagon is alarmed by the rate at which Tomahawk cruise missile stocks have been depleted during ongoing operations against Iran, according to officials who spoke to The Washington Post. The latest development highlights a matter of growing importance for the Department of Defense, which is increasingly looking at the resilience of weapons stocks as it envisages a future high-end scenario in the Pacific, especially a conflict over Taiwan.

   5
5. charontwo says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 08:13

   I posted these links in yesterday’s forum, but late evening, here they are again.

   The Trump boys, Don Jr. and Eric, are invested in companies that build drones and drone components. Naturally, the Trump regime is sole sourcing contracts to those companies.

   “Link 1”

   “Link 2”

   THE PRESIDENT’S SONS ARE GETTING RICH OFF A WAR THEY HELPED START.

   Eric Trump invested in an Israeli drone company 11 days before the U.S. attacked Iran. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a business model.

   LET ME GIVE YOU THREE DATES

   February 17, 2026. Eric Trump quietly makes a strategic investment in Xtend — an Israeli AI drone company with an active Department of Defense contract. XtenD builds autonomous drone systems. It is bidding for more. Also on the investor sheet— Unusual Machines, a drone maker in the U.S. with ties to Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump’s brother. In November 2024, Unusual Machines announced that Donald Trump Jr., who was already one of the company’s investors, was joining its advisory board.

   February 28, 2026. The United States and Israel launch coordinated surprise airstrikes across Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed. The war begins. Both sides deploy drones not as a supporting tool but as the primary delivery mechanism of violence. The New York Times will later call drones “a defining feature” of the conflict.

   March 14, 2026. Anduril Industries — in which Donald Trump Jr.’s investment firm 1789 Capital holds a major equity stake — receives a 10-year Army enterprise contract worth up to $20 billion. The award came fourteen days into a war that made drone manufacturers the hottest sector in defense.

   Three dates. Eleven days between Eric’s (brother with him) investment and the bombs. Twenty billion dollars.

   Dean and I want you to sit with that. Not because we are claiming to know what was in Eric Trump’s head on February 17th. What we are claiming is that the pattern — family investment, then war, then contract — is not the shape of coincidence.

   I’ve spent two decades in intelligence work. I know what coincidence looks like. This isn’t it.

   I want to be precise about something. In an intelligence context, when I lay out a timeline, I’m not asserting motive. I’m asserting pattern. Patterns tell you where to look. This one tells me to look very hard.

   HOW WE GOT HERE: THE NOVEMBER 2024 PIVOT

   This didn’t start with the Iran war. It started the month Donald Trump won the presidency.

   In November 2024, Trump Jr. joined the advisory board of Unusual Machines — a drone component maker he already held an investment in. He received 200,000 shares of stock as compensation for the advisory role. Forbes later reported the company had essentially created the board position specifically to give him a role, then announced at least $15.2 million in military-linked orders shortly afterward. The company’s stock tripled.

   7
6. becca says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 11:35

   After reading that JD Vance believes that space aliens are actually demons walking among us, I was reminded of Antonin Scalia and his belief that the Devil is also in our midst. For the record, I don’t believe we have been infiltrated by spacemen or demons*.
   Peter Thiel is all up his bizarre AntiChrist theory, giving lectures on how peace, love and understanding are actually devil’s play and Greta Thunberg may be the AntiChrist.
   Seeing a pattern, I decided to search “conservatives demonology devil” and up with this…
   https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-demonology-won-the-2024-election/
   The Shadow Gospel literally exists to demonize all things liberal. Conservatives didn’t want to win over more liberal voters so they tapped into the more apolitical and naive evangelical population and hit the jackpot. What started around 1970 has metastasized into the GOP we are suffering today.
   Not a lot of Jesus in this new theology and that’s by design. Liberals are much more likely to appreciate the wisdom of words attributed to Christ than today’s GOP evangelical political arm. Jesus frowned on excessive wealth, so best ignore Him.

   * I bet he doesn’t believe it, either.

   4
7. Kathy says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 11:58

   @becca:

   Peter Thiel is all up his bizarre AntiChrist theory, giving lectures on how peace, love and understanding are actually devil’s play and Greta Thunberg may be the AntiChrist.

   Wouldn’t that make Satan the rational choice?

   Jesús was way woke. He wouldn’t even stone someone to death.

   6
8. Rob1 says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 12:24

   @Kathy:
   He wouldn’t even raze an unfriendly town, rebuking his disciples for suggesting such.

   3
9. Rob1 says:
   Monday, 30 March 2026 at 12:26

   @becca: Yeah, I wonder if Vance’s conflating UFOs with his spirit world was spoon fed by sugar daddy Thiel. Guess I need to wangle tickets to Thiel’s closed lectures to find out, but the smell of sulfur makes me ill.

   3
10. Rob1 says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 12:31

    @Scott: Again, we have a defective as President who cannot read the room, learn lessons from history or current events. A robust, unfettered State Department could have provided valuable advice on the folly of this war.

    The war in Ukraine is major sea change and the US needs to rethink those billion dollar super battleships.

    3
11. Rob1 says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 13:02

    Trump, the Peace President, makes war on Iran, shoots America in the foot, head, stomach. Such genius! Has this country ever seen such genius? — healthcare, infrastructure, food production

    GOP weighs health care cuts to pay for Iran war

    Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement. Why it matters: New efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election-year attacks that they’re cutting health care to pay for an unpopular war.

    —

    Trump administration cuts turned rural towns into sitting ducks for disasters

    Earlier this month, in response to a lawsuit by 20 states, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) agreed to restart the largest federal grant program for disaster preparedness. Competition for those funds will likely be intense, because two years worth of applicants will be vying for one year’s worth of money, according to public filings released last week by FEMA. The administration will prioritize funding “major infrastructure projects” according to a FEMA press release.

    —
    From semiconductors to medical tech, Iran war puts helium users on edge<

    —

    “I hope no one needs an MRI this year,” Johnson wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. “The world’s largest producer of liquefied helium is in Qatar and is shut off. We just got a notice that our supply for the year will be at least cut in half. No one could have predicted this (unless they thought about it).”

    Helium prices had roughly doubled since the conflict began, Shelley Jang, director of corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings’ branch in Seoul, said on Thursday.

    —

    Soaring fertilizer prices could pressure a U.S. agricultural industry that supports 50 million jobs and over $10 trillion in output

    Why spring planting season makes the timing especially painful. Those swings are already painfully evident for U.S. farmers, with benchmark nitrogen costs at U.S. ports rising nearly 30% since the war began. For many producers, fertilizer can be the single largest variable cost in growing major row crops, and the new spike comes at one of the worst possible times in the sector. This is around the time most farmers finalize their fertilizer purchases ahead of their spring planting season, for crops like corn in the Midwest and cotton in the South.

    And it’s one, two, three
    What are we fighting for?
    Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn
    Next stop is IRAN
    And it’s five, six, seven
    Open up the pearly gates
    Ah, ain’t no time to wonder why
    Whoopee, we’re all gonna suffer except the billionaires.

    5
12. JohnSF says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 13:27

    A additional note on Mike Reynolds’ post in yeaterdays forum

    But it’s uranium hexafluoride. Look it up. It might as well be nerve gas.

    I came across the unpleasant habits of U-hex years ago, when looking at the history of the US WW2 atomic weapons project.

    The upside is U-hex is a solid at normal temperatures.
    Probably in powder form.

    However it has some very nasty tricks up it’s sleeve: when it gets to about 56°C (133 °F) it “sublimates”: it goes direct to gas, violently. And a gas which you do not want to be around, it being both toxic and corrosive.
    On top of that, if in contact with water (iirc including ordinary atmospheric moisture) the solid form reacts, the reaction produces heat, and you get sublimation.
    The sublimated gas also reacts with H2O.
    The reaction products are a mix of uranyl fluoride (which has its own fun reactions if temp gets to 300 C in the presence of water) and the highly corrosive gas hydrogen fluoride.

    In short, this is not a material to be treated lighly, especially if the containers are possibly damaged. And definitely not recommended for handling under enemy fire.

    2
13. Kathy says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 14:16

    the Taco so-called administration, through the White House press secretary, is now claiming Operation Epstein Fury is “moving ahead successfully and according to plan”.

    So, the plan was to close off transit through Hormuz, and create a shortage of, and higher prices for, oil, fertilizer, and helium?

    It must be. You heard it from the ass’s mouth.

    5
14. Jay L. Gischer says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 16:12

    I am a Boy Scout. I spent a long time in Scouting, and it was good to me. So I am very happy to read this:

    Secretary Hegseth announced that Scouting America had agreed to base membership on “biological sex at birth and not gender identity.” Scouting America says that claim is false. Roger Krone, the organization’s president and CEO, was blunt: “We have transgender people in our program, and we’ll have transgender people in our program going forward.” Scouting also refused two demands that would have been existential: reverting its name to Boy Scouts and removing its girl members. It did neither.

    Here is what actually happened: Hegseth declared victory over a policy Scouting says it never agreed to.

    I am so happy and proud of Scouting America at this moment, even though I regret the difficulties that James Dale, the author of the linked piece, went through.

    This is how we beat these authoritarians – by refusing to “go along”. Just by walking away, and demonstrating publicly that they do not control us. Trump is cowardly and weak. TACO is a meme for a reason. Hegseth is so damaged he doesn’t know what strength is, or that the spiritual sort – the far more important sort – isn’t gendered.

    5
15. Kathy says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 16:49

    @JohnSF:

    Come now. given the absolute secrecy for this operation, it’s far more likely US troops will walk out with large cylinders of high explosives and shrapnel, all neatly labelled “IRAN NUKE MATERIALS”.
16. Gregory Lawrence Brown says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 17:37

    @Jay L. Gischer:..

    Before I was a Boy Scout I was a Cub Scout. I remember where my family was living at the time (West Webster NY) so I joined the Cub Scouts 1956-’57. There were women in the organization then. They were called Den Mothers and supervised our weekly Den meetings. All the Cub Scout Dens were part of a Pack if I recall correctly and would meet once a month. I believe all the Cub Scout Dens in our Pack (113) were supervised by Den Mothers. This was 70 years ago. Hegseth has no idea what he is talking about.

    2
17. Kathy says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 17:51

    @Gregory Lawrence Brown:

    Hegseth has no idea what he is talking about.

    But that only happens in days that end in “y.”

    BTW, Artemis II will launch this week.

    Limited, pointless, expensive, wasteful rocket and all, I should be excited about it, or at least interested. All I can work up is mild interest.

    Maybe because it all seems pointless, maybe because there’s no real plan, and maybe because it feels like it’s the bad guys undertaking the lunar mission this time.

    3
18. charontwo says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 19:42

    “Mick Ryan”

    Regarding land war in Iran.
19. dazedandconfused says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 20:16

    @Rob1:

    Some things hurt so bad the only thing one can do is laugh.

    2
20. Kathy says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 20:49

    @dazedandconfused:

    I’ve seen maybe a dozen subtitle iterations on that clip.

    Alas, I don’t think El Taco is half as self-aware as the dialogues shows him to be. For instance, he’d have said “Why did you make me do this?” rather than “Why did you let me do this?”

    1
21. Michael Reynolds says:
    Monday, 30 March 2026 at 20:56

    @JohnSF:
    Carrying a canister of hex when bullets are flying is reminiscent of WW2 flame-throwers. They had a 92% casualty rate, not all deadly of course. Among my least favorite ways to die. I suppose if I had to die in a war my favorite way to die would be from a random shell as a staffer in a general’s HQ. That way you get a mention in the press and you die in the happy knowledge that a bunch of your superiors are going with you.