Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
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(I predict the Military will be ordered to either swear allegiance to Trump or resign.)
Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals
The Pentagon has summoned military officials from around the world for a gathering in Virginia. Even top generals and their staffs don’t know the reason for the meeting.
September 25, 2025 at 10:07 a.m. EDT
By Tara Copp, Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton, Ellen Nakashima and Noah Robertson
https://archive.ph/BGIoN#selection-239.0-268.0
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals to gather on short notice — and without a stated reason — at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, sowing confusion and alarm after the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year.
The highly unusual directive was sent to virtually all of the military’s top commanders worldwide, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter. The directive was issued earlier this week, as a government shutdown looms, and months after Hegseth’s team at the Pentagon announced plans to undertake a sweeping consolidation of top military commands.
In a statement Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell affirmed that Hegseth “will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” but he offered no additional details. Parnell, a senior adviser to the defense secretary, voiced no concerns about The Washington Post reporting on the meeting, scheduled for Tuesday in Quantico, Virginia.
There are about 800 generals and admirals spread across the United States and dozens of other countries and time zones. Hegseth’s order, people familiar with the matter said, applies to all senior officers with the rank of brigadier general or above, or their Navy equivalent, serving in command positions and their top enlisted advisers. Typically, these officers each oversee hundreds or thousands of rank-and-file troops.
Top commanders in conflict zones and senior military leaders stationed throughout Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region are among those expected to attend Hegseth’s meeting, said people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to publicly discuss the issue. The order does not apply to top military officers who hold staff positions.
None of the people who spoke with The Post could recall a defense secretary ever ordering so many of the military’s generals and admirals to assemble like this. Several said it raised security concerns.
“People are very concerned. They have no idea what it means,” one person said.
Two others expressed frustration that even many commanders stationed overseas will be required to attend. One said, this is “not how this is done.”
“You don’t call GOFOs leading their people and the global force into an auditorium outside D.C. and not tell them why/what the topic or agenda is,” this person said, using an abbreviation for general officer or flag officer.
“Are we taking every general and flag officer out of the Pacific right now?” one U.S. official said. “All of it is weird.”
The orders come as Hegseth has unilaterally directed massive recent changes at the Pentagon — including directing that the number of general officers be reduced by 20 percent, firing senior leaders without cause and a high-profile new order to rebrand the Defense Department as the Department of War.
Top administration officials also have preparing a new national defense strategy that is expected to make homeland defense the nation’s top concern, after several years of China being identified as the top national security risk to the United States. Some officials familiar with the order to travel said they thought that may come up.
Hegseth’s directive in May to slash about 100 generals and admirals also has generated concern among top military leaders. He called then for a “minimum” 20 percent cut to the number of four-star officers —
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Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration has been speed-running an attack on the “radical left.” And the tactics it has been using are darkly reminiscent of the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s. So what can that period teach us about the current moment and what the Trump administration might do next? How far could this go?
Corey Robin is a political theorist at Brooklyn College. He’s an expert on McCarthyism and the author of the book “The Reactionary Mind,” one of the most insightful books you can read on the Trumpist right. In this conversation, he walks through what happened in the first and second Red Scares and what made him start worrying about the Trump administration.
Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-corey-ro
bin.html
Download Corey Robin’s “The Reactionary Mind” for FREE from https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Corey+Robin
Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin's decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what's truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites them?
In The Reactionary Mind, Robin traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution. He argues that the right was inspired, and is still united, by its hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market; others oppose it. Some criticize the state; others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality — while simultaneously making populist appeals to the masses. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society — one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention have been critical to their success.
Written by a highly-regarded, keen observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia and Donald Trump, and from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all right-wing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back. When its first edition appeared in 2011, The Reactionary Mind set off a fierce debate. It has since been acclaimed as "the book that predicted Trump" ( New Yorker ) and "one of the more influential political works of the last decade" ( Washington Monthly ). Now updated to include Trump's election and his first one hundred days in office, The Reactionary Mind is more relevant than ever.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Hegseth orders hundreds of military leaders to attend unprecedented meeting in Quantico, Virginia
https://theintercept.com/2025/09/25/hegseth-military-generals-admirals
-washington-dc/
The Intercept reports:
Hundreds of generals and admirals have been ordered to Virginia in the coming days, according to four defense officials who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity. The conclave of general and flag officers is unprecedented and alarming, the sources said.
The officials said that the military’s top brass were, on Wednesday, instructed to report to a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, on or around September 30 to meet with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Two sources believed that the timing was pegged to the potential government shutdown.
The officials were unsure of the exact reasons behind the extraordinary order. They speculated about the purpose, wondering if it might foretell:
a culling of general officers;
a significant reorganization of the military command structure;
a threat to eschew contact with the press; or
a loyalty oath about putting Trump administration priorities above all else.
One source, somewhat in jest, evoked the phrase “coup d’état,” later clarifying they meant a gutting of leaders who might question Trump’s policies.
“It is beyond highly irregular to have all the operational and command GOFOs tasked to fly to DC and also not tell any of them why,” said one of the officials, using military shorthand for general and flag officers. “To say the military leadership is anxious would be an understatement.”
“The Secretary of War will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told The Intercept when asked about the fears expressed by the officials.
Most of the military’s top officers — those with the rank of brigadier general or above, or their naval equivalent — are required to attend, the officials said. They said that even top brass in conflict zones and forward areas are among those ordered to the meeting. One official told The Intercept that the order was “madness” and unlike any order in living memory “or probably ever.” Another said that calling home generals and admirals from front-line stations was “reckless” but in keeping with the Trump administration’s efforts to keep the top echelons of the officer corps on a tight leash.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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(Trump has a plan to burn down the government)
White House mass firing memo signals Trump would accelerate priorities in a shutdown. Democrats aren’t backing down
By Phil Mattingly, Adam Cancryn, Sarah Ferris
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/26/politics/government-shutdown-trump-firi
ng-memo-democrats
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
(I predict the Military will be ordered to either swear allegiance to Trump or resign.)
Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals
The Pentagon has summoned military officials from around the world for a gathering in Virginia. Even top generals and their staffs don’t know the reason for the meeting.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
I posted in my Trump is destroying everything thread; I was concerned he's bringing them home to fire them. Both you and I are talking about this but none of the morning shows are. It's like because it would be so outrageous the talk show hosts aren't even thinking about that as a possibility.
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Why don't you two dipshits wait and see what happens so you don't look like assholes with your incorrect opinions again like you always do.
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For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
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Quote:Why wait? There are only four possibilities. None of them should be allowed to happen, but one will because Trump wants it:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Why don't you two dipshits wait and see what happens so you don't look like assholes with your incorrect opinions again like you always do.
--------------------------------------------------
For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
Hegseth puts us all at risk
Why put all the American commanders in one room?
By Timothy Snyder | Sep 26, 2025
https://snyder.substack.com/p/hegseth-puts-us-all-at-risk
My historian colleagues might correct me, but I do not think anyone at least in recent history has done what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is about to do: put all of the American generals and admirals from around the world into a single room (next week, in Virginia) just to say something to them.
There is no practical reason to do this: he has easier and more secure ways to communicate with the commanders. And there are obvious risks: the entire armed forces of the United States, spread around the world, will be without its leaders. Given that the government could well shut down the next day, the separation of commanders from their command might be indefinite.
And if Hegseth has his way, those generals and admirals will all be in one site, announced in advance, which means that the entirety of the American command structure will be more vulnerable, physically, than in any conceivable military scenario, including nuclear war. There is no scenario other than this one in which they would all be in the same place at the same time.
So why might Secretary Hegseth do such an extraordinary thing? Only four solutions to the puzzle come to mind.
1. He has some trivial thing to say and does not understand the risks.
2. He wishes to endanger the lives of the generals and admirals.
3. He will stage a purge, perhaps involving a loyalty oath or something similar that requires personal presence.
4. He will tell the commanders that henceforth their assignment will be to oppress American citizens (“homeland defense”). This could be combined with the third scenario: those who refuse will be fired.
Perhaps others can think of other possibilities, but I am afraid that I cannot.
One might wonder why no effort was made to keep this secret. Perhaps Hegseth wants the senior officers to worry. Perhaps the news was shared because reasonable people in the Pentagon fear that the meeting is part of a plan to remake the American military as a domestic political police force. This would be in conjunction with other efforts, such as yesterday’s terror memo https://snyder.substack.com/p/trumps-terror-memo-audio to pursue regime change in the United States. Making known that there will be such a meeting is the one way to begin a conversation that might prevent its taking place, or at least alter its purpose.
PS News outlets: please do not publish heroic portraits of Hegseth or of others in connections with articles about this and related subjects. Doing so undermines reporting and naturalizes the transition to authoritarianism.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Why wait?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Why don't you two dipshits wait and see what happens so you don't look like assholes with your incorrect opinions again like you always do.
--------------------------------------------------
For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
I just told you why. Because you always look like an asshole in retrospect.
Always.
--------------------------------------------------
For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
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Behind the Curtain: The most unprecedented presidency in 250 years
By Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen | Sept 23, 2025
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/23/trump-unprecedented-presidency-behind
-the-curtain
Not since America's founding 250 years ago has a U.S. president expanded power — and punished critics — in more unprecedented ways than Donald J. Trump.
1. Executive power: Trump has declared nine national emergencies in his first eight months in office, stretching the definition of "emergency" in creative and aggressive ways.
• Historical analogy: Since 1980, presidents have declared an average of seven in a four-year term. Trump's 200+ executive orders fall far short of the thousands issued by FDR (a wartime president elected to four terms), but Trump's pace—142 in his first 100 days—is the highest on record.
• New precedent: Future presidents can use loosely defined "emergencies" as a routine tool to bypass Congress and unlock extraordinary powers governing trade, immigration, mineral extraction and foreign disputes.
2. Free-press crackdown: Trump has waged the most aggressive government campaign against mainstream media in modern U.S. history —stripping funding from public outlets, pushing the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses over negative coverage, and personally suing CBS/ Paramount, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times while in office.
• Historical analogy: No modern president has deployed such a mix of lawsuits and regulatory muscle. Even Richard Nixon, who targeted the Washington Post and CBS through the IRS and FCC, never sued multiple networks directly.
• New precedent: Future presidents can use lawsuits, regulatory threats, and funding pressure to bring independent media to heel.
3. Seizing congressional purse strings: Trump has tried to freeze or redirect billions in congressionally appropriated funds, from public health to foreign aid to university research.
• Historical analogy: The closest precedent is Nixon, who tried to "impound" funds in the early 1970s. Congress responded by passing the Impoundment Control Act of 1974—which the Trump White House claims is unconstitutional—to stop presidents from unilaterally withholding money. No president since has attempted impoundments at this scale, or with such open defiance of Congress and the courts.
• New precedent: Future presidents can treat Congress's "power of the purse" as optional, withholding or redirecting funds to pressure states, institutions or foreign governments.
4. Tariffs: Trump has effectively seized the authority over tariffs that the Constitution gives to Congress, wielding tariffs to reshape global trade and punish countries for political or economic disputes.
• Historical analogy: The last sweeping tariff shock was Smoot–Hawley, which President Hoover signed in 1930 and wound up worsening the Great Depression. Since then, presidents have used delegated powers narrowly — including President Reagan's selective tariffs on Japanese motorcycles and semiconductors in the 1980s to try to protect American manufacturing. Trump is the first to use emergency authorities to impose broad tariffs without new congressional legislation.
• New precedent: Future presidents can bypass Congress to unilaterally set tariff policy, erasing one of the legislature's core constitutional powers.
5. Overriding the Constitution: Trump issued an executive order seeking to eliminate birthright citizenship — a right guaranteed in the 14th Amendment — for the children of unauthorized immigrants.
• Historical analogy: Past constitutional showdowns have come during war or insurrection: Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the Civil War. FDR interned Japanese Americans during World War II. In each case, presidents acted under extraordinary wartime claims of necessity. No president has ever tried to nullify a core constitutional guarantee by executive order in peacetime
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Fentanyl Doesn’t Come Through the Caribbean
The White House is using the opioid epidemic to justify lethal strikes and other policies.
By Nick Miroff | September 26, 2025
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/archive/2025/09/fentanyl
-trump-venezuela-caribbean-boats/684373/
“Please be warned that we will blow you out of existence,” President Donald Trump said during his speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, issuing a politely phrased mortal threat to would-be drug traffickers. Already, the administration has killed 17 people—“narco-terrorists,” Trump calls them—in air strikes on three boats allegedly from Venezuela and loaded with what the president has described as “big bags of cocaine and fentanyl.”
Trump and his aides have justified the extrajudicial killings as a decisive measure to protect Americans from dangerous drugs, especially fentanyl, the synthetic opioid behind the worst overdose epidemic in U.S. history, which accelerated during his first term in office.
“We have no choice,” Trump told the United Nations General Assembly. “Each boat that we sink carries drugs that would kill more than 25,000 Americans.”
But here’s the thing: Although the United States Coast Guard interdicts staggering quantities of illegal drugs in the Caribbean each year, it does not encounter fentanyl on the high seas. South American cocaine and marijuana account for the overwhelming majority of maritime seizures, according to Coast Guard data, and there isn’t a single instance of a fentanyl seizure—let alone “bags” of the drug—in the agency’s press releases.
Last month, the U.S. cutter Hamilton returned to Florida with what the agency called “the largest quantity of drugs offloaded in Coast Guard history”: 61,740 pounds of cocaine and 14,400 pounds of marijuana (that’s the weight of about three city buses). The haul, gathered by multiple federal agencies during 19 seizure incidents in the Caribbean as well as the Pacific, had an estimated street value of $473 million. But there wasn’t any fentanyl on the boat.
Steve Roth, a Coast Guard lieutenant commander and spokesperson for the agency, wrote to me that Coast Guard crews confiscated a “historic amount of cocaine” during the 2025 fiscal year that ends this month, but no fentanyl. He offered a bank-shot rationale for Trump’s claims, arguing that other illegal drugs, such as cocaine, generate profits that “fuel and enable Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Transnational Criminal Organizations to produce and traffic illegal fentanyl threatening the U.S.”
Trump has spoken in personal terms about the devastating toll of the fentanyl crisis, and has long tied it to his efforts to fortify the southern border and crack down on immigration. Anne Fundner, the mother of a 15-year-old who overdosed from a fentanyl-laced pill, gave an emotional speech at the Republican National Convention last year, blaming her son’s death on the Biden administration’s border policies. Trump pledged to make ending the fentanyl crisis a top priority for his administration, and has cast the drug as an insidious foreign tool devised to undermine American greatness. He now invokes it as a fact-free way to justify policies with little or minimal nexus to the drug trade.
The president cited fentanyl production when he imposed tariffs on Canada, even though fewer than 0.2 percent of fentanyl seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection occurred along the northern border. Trump has cited fentanyl trafficking to push for hundreds of additional miles of barriers across deserts and mountains along the Mexico border, in spite of CBP data that show that more than 90 percent of U.S. seizures of the drug occur at the official crossings, or ports of entry, where couriers hide the drug in body cavities or inside vehicles.
In his second term, Trump has taken what was once a right-wing talking point—treating smuggling organizations as terrorist groups rather than criminal syndicates—to create an emergency justification for the use of lethal force. If the U.S. military can kill terror s
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