#uss-lincoln-problems — Public Fediverse posts

Lazy Caturday Reads

Good Afternoon!!

By Sarah Fox Davies

I’m going to follow up on two important stories that Dakinikat wrote about yesterday: Trump’s order for the Navy to redesign its warships to resemble those used in WWII, and his uncaring attitude toward sailors who are serving in horrible conditions on the USS Lincoln and other warships because of Trump’s Iran war. Then I’ll move on to other news.

Here’s the latest:

Noah Robertson and Tara Copp at The Washington Post (gift link): Navy weighs major warship redesign to match Trump’s preferences.

The U.S. Navy is considering a major redesign of its new aircraft carriers to better match President Donald Trump’s preferred aesthetic for the warships, according to seven current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The service is evaluating the feasibility of moving the multistory tower that acts as the carrier’s command center farther forward, toward the middle of the ship, to resemble older vessels, the officials said. The review, which has not been previously reported, is in response to Trump’s concerns about the “look” of the new Ford-class ships, where the tower is near the rear, these people said.

The timing and extent of the Navy’s evaluation is unclear, with current and former officials cautioning that the service was concerned that such a change would require significant time and money. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

Moving that command center, known as the “island,” would be the second major design change prompted by the president, who on Thursday issued a national security memorandum directing the Navy to develop a plan to revert to older steam-powered catapults on future carriers. The systems help launch jets off the ships’ flight decks.

Trump’s preference, current and former officials said, is for the new aircraft carriers to look more like those that were in service during World War II.

The Navy also examined the issue during his first term as president, said a former senior U.S. official. A study found that moving the island could cost billions of dollars in redesign costs and significantly delay the program, this person said.

“It came back that the cost and time to do so would just be extraordinary,” the former official said.

You can read more details using the gift link above.

Cat and kittens, 19th Century American, National Gallery of Art

Trump is obsessed with appearances. These demands for changes in the warships are crazy. He spends even more time obsessing about his ballroom. It really is time for the 25th Amendment, if only we had responsible people in the cabinet.

On the problems on the USS Lincoln, former  naval officer John Ismay writes at The New York Times (gift article): Navy Carrier’s Problems Are Tied to Attacks on U.S. Base Early in War.

The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln’s supply problems began soon after the first day of the war, as Iranian missiles and attack drones fell on a Navy base in Bahrain.

The Iranian attack, retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli assault on Tehran, destroyed much of the base. And as it went up in smoke, so did a major logistics hub that the Navy has relied on for decades.

The Navy needed a Plan B to continue feeding the sailors working around the clock to keep warplanes flying strike missions, and later to maintain a blockade of Iran’s ports.

With the threat of Iranian attacks at other ports in the region, the Pentagon looked to a base under British command on the island of Diego Garcia as its supply hub, which is south of the Maldives and roughly 2,200 miles from where two aircraft carrier strike groups have been operating in the Gulf of Oman.

The loss of the hub in Bahrain has contributed to a host of reported problems on carriers supporting operations against Iran, as Democratic senators raise concerns about the Lincoln’s 5,000 sailors and their nearly nine-month deployment.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said in a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the reported problems included shortages of basic supplies and the deteriorating mental health of its crew members.

Again, you can read more with the gift link. Both Trump and Hegseth have dismissed the problems sailors are facing and the concerns of their families, but they actually have moved to relieve the USS Lincoln and replace it with the USS George Washington, recently stationed near Japan and currently near Indonesia.

ABC News: Trump says record USS Lincoln deployment ‘not nearly long enough.’

A U.S. official told ABC News on Thursday that the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is homeported in Japan, will replace the Lincoln as part of a long-planned rotation of ships and has begun heading toward the Middle East.

By Daniel Merlin (French artist)

The aircraft carrier’s movements come amid reports of mental health and supply issues aboard the USS Lincoln, whose long deployment to the Middle East in support of the Iran war includes a record-setting time at sea of more than 200 days. Navy leaders, including the Navy’s acting Secretary Hung Cao, last week held a heated town hall for families of the USS Lincoln who had raised concerns about the conditions on the ship.

When a reporter on Friday said that family members of people aboard that ship are concerned about the conditions, Trump interjected to suggest that they are “not” actually worried.

“No, they’re not. That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship,” Trump said.

When pressed by a reporter about whether the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln has gone on for too long, Trump said not that it hasn’t gone on “nearly long enough.”

“No, no, not nearly long enough,” Trump said.

Family members can’t be happy to read those quotes. We’ve known for a long time that Trump couldn’t care less about our troops, but to see it spelled out in print is still shocking.

This is an opinion piece by Will Weissert at AP News: The buck stops somewhere else: A look at Trump’s tendency to avoid blame when things go awry.

It is among the most famous phrases in presidential history: “ The buck stops here.” Except with President Donald Trump, it almost never does.

Concerns about a weak economy and still-high inflation? His predecessor, Joe Biden, saddled him with that, he says, even though the Democrat has been out of office for 18-plus months and despite Trump once promising an immediate turnaround.

The problem-plagued revamp of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? That was marred by vandalism, the Republican president insists, even though the office of a prosecutor he put in the job has said the damage was due to shoddy workmanship.

The increasingly unpopular war in Iran that has kept oil prices high, Trump’s approval rating low and sent shock waves through the global economy? Actually, this was Trump making up for timid earlier presidents who, he argues, squandered nearly 50 years of opportunities to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Trump’s tendency to point fingers at others is increasingly in the spotlight before November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are trying to retain control of Congress. His unwillingness to accept blame sometimes leads him to deny that there are problems at all, and could leave GOP leaders in tight races with little reassurance for voters that their concerns are being addressed.

A bit more:

Accepting the 2016 presidential nomination, Trump said, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” But as president, he has often suggested that the solution and blame rest elsewhere.

“The buck stops with everybody,” Trump said in 2019, during a lengthy government shutdown. In 2020, on the same day he declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for a lack of COVID-19 testing….

The president acknowledged in a recent Punchbowl interview that voters are angry, but he said they are not mad at him but at congressional Republicans.

Trump believes his party can hold its congressional majorities after November, but he was clear that if Republicans lose, it won’t be his fault — echoing his comments before the 2018 midterms that he would not accept blame if his party lost control of the House, which it did.

There’s even more at the link. I’m glad at least one journalist is writing about this.

By Charles Van den Eycken (Belgian artist)

Along the same lines, JD Wolf writes at Meidas News: Trump Heads to Luxury Golf Club as Sailors Endure Horrific Conditions at Sea.

President Donald Trump is heading to another weekend at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club as questions mount over promises he made to Americans on energy costs and his pledge to take care of the U.S. military. Trump campaigned on cutting energy and electricity prices in half within his first year in office and repeatedly promised Americans $2 gasoline.

However, energy costs have not fallen anywhere close to those levels and gasoline prices remain well above the $2 target. Many are experiencing some of the highest electricity bills they have ever seen.

At the same time, thousands of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have reportedly endured food and water shortages, disrupted mail, long workdays, plumbing problems and deteriorating mental health after more than 250 days at sea. Against that backdrop, Trump is once again retreating to Bedminster for a weekend that is largely closed to the press.

Trump doesn’t seem to do much of anything other than sit in oval office talking to reporters and falling asleep and then playing golf at every opportunity.

In a speech last night, a delusional Trump claimed he could make the Strait of Hormuz “a territory of the United States.” Again, it’s 25th Amendment time.

The Hill: Trump says he will declare Strait of Hormuz a US territory.

President Trump claimed during remarks on Long Island, N.Y., on Friday that he will make the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory, despite the fact that Oman and Iran share jurisdiction of the waterway.

“Pretty soon, I will be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said during an address highlighting his administration’s efforts to combat crime in the U.S.

Trump did not elaborate on how he would make the critical shipping lane a U.S. territory, considering the U.S. does not have jurisdiction over the waterway….

Trump has said since the conflict started roughly six months ago that the U.S. has controlled the strait. He deployed a U.S. naval blockade in the strait twice, claiming U.S. supremacy over the transit of oil exports from the region.

Iran has pushed back on Trump’s claims that the U.S. controls the waterway. In a post on the social platform X on Wednesday, Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority said that whoever owns it does “not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted.”

More Trump insanity, this time about the ballroom from Graig Graziosi at The Independent: Trump rants about ‘TREASONISTS’ group that launched lawsuit to stop his ballroom.

President Donald Trump issued a long Truth Social rant, complaining that “TREASONISTS” allegedly “revealed Top Military Secrets” by suing to stop the construction of his White House ballroom.

By Julius Adam (German artist)

The “treasonists” in question are the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has opposed Trump’s ballroom — the construction of which began only after the president ordered the East Wing of the White House demolished — and has sued to halt further building at the site.

“They are very bad for our Country. They stop many projects that are worthy, and hurt many others. In this case, they are trying to stop one that is vital to our National Security, and the Safety of all Presidents of the United States, both current and future, their families, staff, and Cabinet members,” Trump wrote Friday night.

The president fought the lawsuit to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., where it ruled that the Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the power to make substantial changes to the White House. The decision upheld a previous ruling by District Judge Richard Leon, who determined that Trump is the “steward” of the White House, not “the owner!”

At The New York Times, Jamie Bouie has a more serious opinion piece about Trump’s irresponsible leadership (gift article): Trump Is in a Fantasy Land of His Own Making.

This week, I have been reading “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” the recent volume from my newsroom colleagues Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan on the first year of President Trump’s second term….

Whenever I read an inside account of a presidency, I am on the lookout for anything that tells us something about the way the president in question relates to the office itself. Is there a particular way he manages the White House or attends to challenges and crises? On what issues does he defer to his staff members and subordinates versus take his own counsel? How does he deal with the endless stream of information and intelligence from a nearly infinite number of sources?

By Wilhelm Schwar (German artist)

The growing complexity of the administrative state and the enlarged responsibilities of the office led presidents, beginning in earnest with Harry Truman, to create new, institutionalized processes designed to get the best and most accurate information available. In addition to practical considerations, this has been a way for presidents to combat one of the pathologies of executive authority: a tendency to value one’s own unique insight above all else. Even still, it is immensely difficult for presidents to avoid the trap, if you will, of getting high on their own supply.

Trump, according to Haberman and Swan, has not simply junked this process in its entirety — he has set up his White House to affirm his frequently arbitrary instincts above all other considerations. He has insulated himself from opposing views and made internal dissent verboten. At no point does Trump receive neutral information; just about everything is tailored to his whims, impulses and mercurial disposition. The result is that he is isolated from reality to the extent that he is practically living in a fairy tale.

Haberman and Swan describe a Trump who cannot see beyond the first few steps of any given action and is constantly taken aback by political obstacles and backlash. Recent controversies, from the depletion of our military’s stock of sophisticated munitions to worsening conditions on some of our naval vessels, are easier to fathom when you consider the strong odds that Trump is told precious little about the actual conditions of his war. More likely, he is told what he wants to hear: that America is winning and Iran is on the verge of surrender.

It’s an excellent analysis. Read the whole thing with the gift link.

A few more interesting stories to check out:

Christina Jewett and Julie Criswell at The New York Times (gift link): How Cyclospora Evaded the U.S. Food Safety System to Sicken Thousands.

Sophie Hurwtz at Mother Jones: The Orwellian Company Behind ICE’s New Electric Shock Gloves.

Roque Planas at The Guardian: ‘Devastating’: bulldozers plough through Big Bend national park as Trump’s border work pushes ahead.

CNN: Rivers rising in Indiana’s catastrophic flood zone as new storms threaten Midwest.

CBC: Multiple shooters at Virginia State University, with 5 people shot.

I’ll end there. Sorry this is so late.