Coffee Talk with Tiff

February 11, 2026 1:35 pm EST Tiff Coffee Talk with Tiff 0
Coffee. Photo by Jonathan Thursfield.

It’s Wednesday…

President Shitshow’s public schedule for…

02/11/2026:

The morning starts behind closed doors with a private Oval Office sit-down with Benjamin Netanyahu. No cameras, no press, just one of those “trust us, it was very productive” meetings where the readout will somehow say everything and nothing at the same time.

CNN live update thread:

Then our favorite Participation Trophy is scheduled to receive a brand-new, completely made-up award from the Washington Coal Club. Because nothing says Stable Genius like getting handed a trophy for showing up to a fossil-fuel pep rally. Not policy. Not progress. Just a shiny plaque and some applause like it’s youth soccer night in 1998.

Wall Street Journal (Gift link–02/09/2026): Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback

The reversal targets the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which concluded that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The finding provided the legal underpinning for the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rules, which limited emissions from power plants and tightened fuel-economy standards for vehicles under the Clean Air Act.

“This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an interview. 

The final rule, set to be made public later this week, removes the regulatory requirements to measure, report, certify and comply with federal greenhouse-gas emission standards for motor vehicles, and repeals associated compliance programs, credit provisions and reporting obligations for industries, according to administration officials.

It wouldn’t apply to rules governing emissions from power plants and other stationary sources such as oil-and-gas facilities, the officials said. But repealing the finding could open up the door to rolling back regulations that affect those facilities.

[snip]

Trump will be awarded the inaugural “Undisputed Champion of Coal” award by the Washington Coal Club, a pro-coal group with ties to the fossil fuel industry, administration officials said.

Wall Street Journal (Gift link–02/09/2026): Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback.

And then there’s a listed meeting with the “Special Envoy to the United Kingdom,” which would be impressive if we actually had one. The last guy reportedly left the job months ago and no replacement has been named, so either the schedule’s running on outdated copy-paste or we’re hosting a diplomatic ghost. Government efficiency at its finest.

Typically I wouldn’t gripe here, but between the ongoing hearing circus, an administration that feels like it’s being run by the Federal Government’s junior-high student council, and Google’s shiny new AI confidently feeding me nonsense, the struggle today is real. In 2026 it should not take an hour just to confirm who actually holds a basic diplomatic post. Finding out what’s happening in our own government shouldn’t feel like a scavenger hunt. Just sayin’.


The Not-So-New News (But Important Nonetheless)

The transportation department via the F.A.A., announced closure of airspace around the El Paso airport. This wild announcement said the closure would last 10-days for “national security reasons”, without any further details.

Spongebob GIFfrom Spongebob GIFs

It was Mexican Cartel Drones.

I saw this tweet.

From the Department of Defense (03/14/2024): NORAD Commander: Incursions by Unmanned Aircraft Systems on Southern Border Likely Exceed 1,000 a Month

There are likely more than 1,000 incursions by unmanned aircraft systems along the U.S.-Mexico border each month, said the U.S. Northern Command’s top general during testimony today at a Senate Armed Services Committee posture hearing.

“I don’t know the actual number — I don’t think anybody does — but it’s in the thousands,” said Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot in response to one senator’s query.

When asked about the period of time that it takes to reach that number of incursions, Guillot responded, “I would say in probably over a month. We… probably have over 1,000 a month.” 

Though the exact number of UAS incursions along the border remains unknown, Guillot, who took over as commander of Northcom and the North American Aerospace Defense Command on Feb. 5, said he learned the approximate number recently while talking to officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Justice. 

“The number of incursions was something that was alarming to me as I took command last month,” Guillot said. 

When asked if such incursions present a defense threat to the homeland, Guillot said he hasn’t seen any of the incursions “manifest in a threat to the level of national defense,” but he said he does “see the potential only growing.” 

In recent years, members of Congress have shown a growing, bipartisan concern about dangerous UAS activity, including activity linked to drug and human traffickers who have used UAS technology to facilitate their illegal operations.

As a command being primarily tasked with continuously providing “worldwide detection, validation and warning of a ballistic missile attack on North America,” NORAD is also charged with providing “continental detection, validation, warning and aerospace control” of airborne threats to North America, including unmanned aircraft systems, according to the NORAD website. 

Committee members also asked Guillot if DOD has a system in place for base commanders to deal with UAS incursions over U.S. military installations.  

“The services do have authorities, but work remains to be done to ensure that … we have standardized operating procedures to address those threats,” he said. 

Guillot added that he will recommend to the Defense Department, the joint force, and Congress ways NORAD and Northcom can play a role in standardizing procedures once he has completed the 90-day assessment of NORAD and Northcom, which he began last month. 

Guillot assured the committee he was able to get a grasp of the size and scope of the UAS issue early on. 

“Shortly after taking command and beginning my 90-day assessment, I realized that the challenge of the large increase in the number of incursions by UASs was something that was going to drive and change probably the direction of my first year in command because of that acute number.” 

Beyond conventional, human-operated unmanned aircraft systems, Guillot also addressed what lessons NORAD learned from the high-altitude, Chinese balloon incursion over North American airspace in early 2023.  

Guillot said that NORAD has since adjusted the sensitivity of its radars. “And that has allowed us to have better domain awareness in that regime,” he said. 

Today’s hearing took place as part of Congress’ review of DOD’s authorization request for fiscal year 2025.

From the Department of Defense (03/14/2024): NORAD Commander: Incursions by Unmanned Aircraft Systems on Southern Border Likely Exceed 1,000 a Month.

I tried to find similar examples of an administration shutting down airspace around major airports like this. You know, precedent. Context. Something that says, “this has happened before, here’s why.”

All I found were the usual temporary weather delays and routine security closures. Nothing remotely like what the F.A.A. announced early this morning, which mostly just left travelers stranded and the people living near the airport wondering what the hell was going on.

In theory, this stuff should be easy to explain. In practice, it feels like we’re all just refreshing our browsers and hoping someone in charge remembers to tell the public what they’re doing.

Update:

Fox News (02/11/2026):

A U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the U.S. military earlier this week shot down what was later determined to be a party balloon near El Paso, Texas, after initially assessing it as a possible foreign drone.

The misidentification eventually led to a total shutdown of airspace around the El Paso airport. 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government has no information indicating drone activity along the U.S.-Mexico border following a temporary airspace restriction in Texas that U.S. officials linked to counter-drone measures.

Fox News (02/11/2026).

The BLS released January jobs report.

This report included benchmark data, that I will let Ben Casselman explain with charts. Charts are my favorite.

Puddle took his victory lap over the better than expected job numbers for January.

He really has no idea how Federal Reserve Interest Rates are set.

Speaking of Puddle.

He spoke with his former economic advisor Larry Kudlow for Fox Business and made up some story about talking to the Prime Minister of Switzerland (there is no PM of Switzerland) and because of “her” aggressive behavior he decided to raise the tariffs. Doesn’t really sound like an emergency to me.

As to how government works in Switzerland.

The Swiss government comprises the seven members of the Federal Council. The president is elected for a one-year term of office and is regarded during that time as ‘Primus inter pares’, or first among equals.

The current President: President 2026 Guy Parmelin

To sum up: Puddle created an imaginary foe, made her a woman, and raised tariffs because he didn’t like her tone. This is what passes for trade strategy.


I’m gonna end with this.

I posted a thread for AG Bondi testifying before the House Judiciary Committee as I suspected it’s been a real shitshow.

They went on break and have returned to with this.

Show more =’s NEGUSE: And you expect hard-working police officers to believe you take law enforcement seriously?

I really hate it here.

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About Tiff 3485 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.