Coffee Talk with Tiff

March 19, 2026 1:22 pm EDT Tiff Coffee Talk with Tiff 0
Image credit: AI-generated illustration created with ChatGPT

It’s Thursday…

Shitshow’s public schedule for…

03/19/2026:

NPR (03/19/2026):

Japan Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will be the first U.S. ally to visit the White House since President Trump asked for help in sending ships to patrol the Strait of Hormuz.

[snip]

Takaichi has said Japan has no plans to dispatch warships to the Middle East, but she also hasn’t explicitly turned down Trump’s request.

NPR (03/19/2026).

AP News reported that on Wednesday before her departure she told parliament that they have no plans to send warships right now.

“We have no plans to send warships right now,” Takaichi told the parliamentary session Wednesday. A dispatch for survey and intelligence missions are possible but only after a ceasefire, she said. Some Japanese experts have commented that minesweeping would be a mission that the country could carry out when hostilities end.

“I will clearly explain what we can do and cannot do based on the Japanese law,” Takaichi said. “I’m sure (Trump) is fully aware of the Japanese law.”

AP News. 03/18/2026.

Like always he’s holding court in the Oval Office.

“Tippy top”.

We could end this in seconds.

He’s such an embarrassment.

I’m skipping the rest (for now).


Thursday Thoughts

Hegshit called the press together this morning to play Rambo. Or at least the guy who thinks he’s in charge of Rambo.

It takes money to kill bad guys.

We should thank Potato for getting us into a war nobody wanted and wasn’t needed.

Today is another day that we will send the largest strike package yet to Iran, just like we did yesterday.

To wrap up he invoked the “almighty” god (the lower case is my choice, as my God, is not his god).

Speaking of wartime communications…

“We use every tool in our toolbox to ensure there’s proper messaging to correct the record, but also give our allies the ability to help sell our message,” the official said. “Like what is ‘war communications’? What the former Bush people say? Well, if you want to talk about war communication under the Bush era — not great. ‘Mission accomplished’? It’s just a different time. It’s a different audience.”

A second senior White House official who is also closely involved in the video-making effort described it as a collegial, creative endeavor. “We’re over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude,” said the person, also granted anonymity to speak candidly. “There’s an entertainment factor to what we do. But ultimately, it boils down to the fact that no one has ever attempted to communicate with the American public this way before.”

The approach does have parallels to Trump’s political operation during the 2024 campaign. “Their entire strategy is rage bait and getting as many views as they can,” said Lauren Kapp, a Democratic digital strategist and the founder of Luminary Strategies. “They don’t care if the engagement is bad or good. They want these videos to be seen by as many young, impressionable young people as possible.”

Pentagon officials have also taken a bombastic tone, attempting to dunk on MAGA critics, journalists and the Iranian regime in a seeming extension of the White House’s viral communications strategy. Hegseth has said the U.S. would give “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” an indication that troops should not spare the lives of their enemies, a potential war crime. Hegseth also referred to rules of engagement as “stupid” and to Iranian leaders as “rats” who are “cowering” underground.

“The Trump administration’s approach to discussing the war against Iran is both unusual and unprecedented,” said Tom Ricks, a longtime military correspondent who is now a military historian and author. “With Hegseth at the helm, they are mixing incompetence and hubris. They don’t seem to care what the American public thinks, which is a dangerous approach.”

Politico. 03/18/2026.

Speaking of cringe Potato admin members…

Bessent:

We had a break-the-glass plan across the administration and Treasury. We unsanctioned Russian oil. We knew that there were about 130 million barrels on the water, and we created supply that is beyond the Straits of Hormuz.

So, we anticipated this. We knew that there could be a temporary, and I want to emphasize temporary, choke point there. And there was 130 million barrels of floating storage in the coming days. We may unsanction the Iranian oil that’s on the water. It’s about 140 million barrels, so depending on how you count it, that’s 10 days to two weeks of supply that the Iranians had been pushing out. That would have all gone to China.

In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days as we continue this campaign.

It’s the tweet. 03/19/2026.

Speaking of Russia…

I’m not allowed to copy text from the FT article:

The article was not paywalled for me.

Speaking of energy…

Qatar reportedly lost about $20 billion in annual revenue after Iranian strikes crippled the country’s liquefied natural gas export capacity, as billionaire and former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani warned Iran’s attacks only served Israel’s interests and risked dragging the whole region into a “mad war.”

Forbes. 03/19/2026.
  • Saad al-Kaabi, QatarEnergy’s chief executive, told Reuters on Thursday about 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity was knocked out by Iranian strikes, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue.
  • Repairs to Qatar’s facilities—providing resources to ExxonMobile, Shell and other global energy firms—will cut about 12.8 million tons per year of LNG for up to five years, al-Kaabi said.
  • Hours after Iran struck Qatari natural gas sites on Wednesday in response to Israel attacking South Pars, the Iranian gas field shared with Qatar, Al Thani wrote on X: “We have never been your enemies, but what you are doing today is a rejected and unjustified act.”
  • Al Thani said Iran’s attack on Qatari sites “serves” and “achieves” Israel’s goals and threatens to push the “region toward the abyss of a mad war.”

This is an Open Thread

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About Tiff 3535 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.