04-06-2025
The 1600: Now Boarding the USS Idiocracy
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The Insider's Track
Good morning,
So Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to review the names of ships honoring civil rights icons like Harvey Milk and Medgar Evars, according to multiple reports. Hegseth's people obviously leaked this news to coincide with the beginning of Pride Month (because they're based, get it?!)
First of all, I cannot believe I once wrote here that I was cautiously optimistic about Hegseth as someone who could shake up the Pentagon. Was I on drugs? Can someone go find that column, print it out, and light it on fire? This guy is such an embarrassment to be leading our military it's astounding he actually still has the job. Secondly, having our warships named after civil rights (as opposed to political or military) leaders is badass and cool. You don't see China naming an aircraft carrier after the Tiananmen Square Tank Man, but damn right we'll send a cruise missile up your butt from the deck of the USNS Harriet Tubman. Thirdly, this is what the Defense Department is sitting around worrying about right now?
The DoD, in concert with the FAA, should be gaming out our defensive drone strategy. If I were Hegseth, I'd be up all night thinking about how to ensure what happened deep inside Russia on Sunday could not happen here. There are Chinese-flagged container ships in New York harbor right now. From our office high up in the WTC, I watched one operated by COSCO Shipping (a Chinese company controlled by the CCP) sail into port yesterday, and all I could think about was how screwed we'd be if those containers opened up and thousands of cheap, battery-powered drones swarmed Lower Manhattan in some kind of WWIII first strike. Do we have any plan for such an (unlikely but increasingly plausible) event, or is the Trump administration too busy with its culture war bullshit to pay attention?
It's actually worse than just being asleep at the wheel. Trump is actively harming our ability to make the batteries and other tech that are needed to mass produce drones like the ones Ukraine unleashed on Russia. The tax bill repeals clean energy subsidies that were in Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. The tariffs on steel and aluminum will raise the cost of lithium-ion batteries. US factory construction, which we desperately need to increase in order to reshore our supply chains for things like drone and battery manufacturing—and one of the few things Joe actually did right—is now declining from its 2024 highs, due in part to the combination of the tariff threats and Trump repealing parts of the IRA and CHIPS acts. God forbid we get into a hot conflict with China in the near to medium future, we're beyond screwed.
The worst part about Trump and MAGA, in my opinion, is their allergy to tech innovation. It's like, unless it's figuring out how to scam people with crypto, they find the concept of technological progress to be anathema. Trump had Elon Musk, probably the modern-day genius of clean-tech manufacturing, sitting around the West Wing for months and didn't even put him to work on this. I'm just so tired of being ruled by people who are either incompetent, senile, cartoonishly corrupt, or some combination of all three.
We are in a race to own the future, and we're spending our time debating if the ships are too woke.
The Rundown
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order doubling tariffs on imported steel and aluminum to 50 percent, effective June 4. The move aims to protect U.S. national security by curbing what the administration describes as a threat from excessively low-priced metal imports that undermine domestic industries. Read more.
Also happening:
Musk slams Trump's tax bill: Elon Musk has warned if the massive deficit spending continues there will be no money for social security, health care or defense, as he continues opposition to President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill." Read more.
Featured story: When JD Vance stood before European leaders in Munich this past February, warning that free speech was "in retreat" across the West, his remarks were met with audible discomfort in the room. The gravest threat to democracy in Europe, he argued, wasn't external—it was the internal erosion of liberal principles like free expression. Months later, however, his warnings seem less abstract. Read more.
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