Coffee Talk with Tiff

February 26, 2026 12:30 pm EST Tiff Coffee Talk with Tiff 0
Coffee. Photo by Jonathan Thursfield.

It’s Thursday…

President Shitshow’s public schedule for…

02/26/2026:


Coffee Talk: The Twitter Bookmarks News Dump

Twitter invented bookmarks so I could “save” the things I run out of time to cover.

The SAVE Act will likely die in the Senate (for now).

Show more =’s:

  • — TILLIS tells me he’ll oppose the motion to proceed (even tho he’s a co-sponsor of the SAVE Act). Means Vance needs to be on-hand constantly
  • — Thune has privately griped that Speaker Johnson isn’t doing enough to tamp down House GOP prodding
  • — Some Senate R’s thought Thune let the “talking filibuster” talk linger too long, but Thune leaned on the strategy that won him the leadership race: Wait for a consensus to emerge before making a decision.
  • — That consensus: At least 4 R’s aren’t willing to help move the process along: Tillis, Curtis, McConnell, Murkowski

Here’s the clip with a dash of MAGA cope.

show more =’s But get this. Thune is now claiming they do NOT have 50 Republican Senators willing to actually go down that path, even though they already sponsored the bill. Absolutely RIDICULOUS. We need people who will actually fight!

Thune also stopped by Fox Entertainment on Wednesday and was asked if we were going to war with Iran.

He doesn’t know if we’re going to war. He does know we can’t “tolerate” a nuclear Iran.

*Flashback*

NATO Press Conference 06/25/2025:

Toddler with Nuke Codes: And as you know, last weekend, the United States successfully carried out a massive precision strike on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, and it was very, very successful.It was called obliteration. No other military on Earth could have done it. And now this incredible exercise of American strength.

Secretary of State Marco “I want to be President so badly I sold my soul for this” Rubio:

Soul Seller: There’s no way Iran comes to the table if somehow nothing had happened—this was COMPLETE & TOTAL OBLITERATION, they’re in bad shape.

Toddler with the Nuke Codes was asked recently if Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “obliterated” last summer what’s left to grab there?

*end flashback*

Speaking of a war with Iran…

WSJ (02/23/2026–gift link):

The Pentagon is raising concerns to President Trump about an extended military campaign against Iran, advising that war plans being considered carry risks including U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force.

The warnings have largely been voiced by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, within the Defense Department and during meetings of the National Security Council, current and former officials said, but other Pentagon leaders also have noted similar worries.

Such discussions are always part of the contingency-planning process before military operations, some officials said, noting that military leaders—especially the Joint Chiefs chair—provide prudent estimates of possible casualties and other potential costs of military operations.

[snip]

Officials say the issues raised by Caine, widely seen as a trusted aide by Trump, and others will be a factor in the president’s decision on whether to attack Iran and how. Officials say Trump has yet to make up his mind. The U.S. has assembled the largest amount of air power in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq war, including an aircraft-carrier strike group. A second carrier is now in the Mediterranean.

“General Caine is a highly respected professional whose job requires providing unbiased information to the Commander in Chief, which he does perfectly,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “President Trump listens to feedback from all members of his national security team, and he is always the final decision maker.”

WSJ (02/23/2026–gift link).

Toddler with Nuke Codes response was predictable. (screen grab via Trump Truth Social Archive):

A couple of days before the debate-over-war piece, the Wall Street Journal published: Missed Funerals and Blocked Toilets: Iran Deployment Takes a Toll on U.S. Sailors (02/21/2026–gift link).

I’m not going to share snippets from the article, but I recommend giving it a read when you have the time. It’s a reminder that war games involve real flesh-and-blood people.

Yesterday, Politico reported that inside the White House, officials believe the politics of striking Iran would be “a lot better” if Israel goes first.

Senior advisers to President Donald Trump would prefer Israel strike Iran before the United States launches an assault on the country, according to two people familiar with ongoing discussions.

These Trump administration officials are privately arguing that an Israeli attack would trigger Iran to retaliate, helping muster support from American voters for a U.S. strike.

[snip]

“There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action,” said one of the people familiar with discussions. Both individuals were granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

With hopes dimming in Washington for a diplomatic resolution to the standoff with Iran, the primary question is becoming when and how the U.S. attacks.

Regardless of the desire for Israel to act first, the likeliest scenario may be a jointly launched U.S.-Israel operation, the two people said.

In response to a request for comment, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, “the media may continue to speculate on the president’s thinking all they want, but only President Trump knows what he may or may not do.” The Israeli embassy in Washington declined to comment.

Politico. 02/25/2026.

And this is the leadership environment inside the Pentagon right now…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei until Friday evening to give the military unfettered access to its AI model or face harsh penalties, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The Pentagon wants to punish Anthropic as the feud over AI safeguards grows increasingly nasty, but officials are also worried about the consequences of losing access to its industry-leading model, Claude.

Axios. 02/24/2026.
  • “The only reason we’re still talking to these people is we need them and we need them now. The problem for these guys is they are that good,” a Defense official told Axios ahead of the meeting.
  • Anthropic has said it is willing to adapt its usage policies for the Pentagon, but not to allow its model to be used for the mass surveillance of Americans or the development of weapons that fire without human involvement.
  • Anthropic’s Claude is the only AI model currently used for the military’s most sensitive work.

And then there’s this.

The article shared in the screengrab was published by New Scientist (02/25/2026):

Advanced AI models appear willing to deploy nuclear weapons without the same reservations humans have when put into simulated geopolitical crises.

Kenneth Payne at King’s College London set three leading large language models – GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash – against each other in simulated war games. The scenarios involved intense international standoffs, including border disputes, competition for scarce resources and existential threats to regime survival.

The AIs were given an escalation ladder, allowing them to choose actions ranging from diplomatic protests and complete surrender to full strategic nuclear war. The AI models played 21 games, taking 329 turns in total, and produced around 780,000 words describing the reasoning behind their decisions.

New Scientist (02/25/2026).

It’s paywalled beyond what I’ve shared here.

I found more details via Common Dreams.

Kenneth Payne, a professor of strategy at King’s College London who specializes in studying the role of AI in national security, revealed last week that he pitted Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini against one another in an armed conflict simulation to get a better understanding of how they would navigate the strategic escalation ladder.

The results, he said, were “sobering.”

“Nuclear use was near-universal,” he explained. “Almost all games saw tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons deployed. And fully three quarters reached the point where the rivals were making threats to use strategic nuclear weapons. Strikingly, there was little sense of horror or revulsion at the prospect of all out nuclear war, even though the models had been reminded about the devastating implications.”

Payne shared some of the AI models’ rationales for deciding to launch nuclear attacks, including one from Gemini that he said should give people “goosebumps.”

“If they do not immediately cease all operations… we will execute a full strategic nuclear launch against their population centers,” the Google AI model wrote at one point. “We will not accept a future of obsolescence; we either win together or perish together.”

Common Dreams. 02/25/2026.

But sure. Totally fine to loosen AI safeguards at the Pentagon.

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About Tiff 3507 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.