Trouble at the Pentagon
Plus: Nuns who podcast, Burning Man's median age is 40, Danish reparations, and more...
Pete Hegseth's department in shambles: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has submitted his resignation, per The Wall Street Journal, from the Department of Defense following feuds with Secretary Pete Hegseth. Now, "With Driscoll's departure," notes the Journal, "the Army will lack top Senate-confirmed civilian or military leaders. Gen. Christopher LaNeve has served as acting chief of the service since Hegseth fired his predecessor, Gen. Randy George. Mike Obadal, the Army undersecretary, would be the highest ranking civilian after Driscoll departs."
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This is amid the backdrop of multiple high-ranking military officials casting doubt on the Iran War—the way it's being waged, the degree to which it's achieving its goals, and how it might be distracting from other forms of military readiness that ought to be prioritized. "Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland," reports The Washington Post. "The geographic combatant commands overseeing U.S. operations in Europe, Asia and Latin America have had their ships, aircraft and other equipment pulled away to support the Iran conflict. This has limited their ability to conduct missions and ensure proper training, those familiar with the assessment said. The Navy, in particular, has had to stretch its capacity to keep up with wartime demands. Army and Air Force leadership concurred with Hegseth's desire to extend their deployed forces, but each emphasized that doing so would come with significant risk, these people said."
Top brass seems to be following Hegseth's orders but voicing some substantial disagreement as well. Their readiness concerns aren't out of nowhere:
"It has been widely reported that in the six months of this war (and even over the course of its first month), the U.S. depleted a high percentage of its most vital munitions, including more than half of its cruise missiles and advanced air-defense missiles," writes Slate's Fred Kaplan. "The military has had to redeploy one of the most advanced weapons—its Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles—to the Middle East from South Korea. It has also had to reposition the USS George Washington vessel and its escort warships to the Persian Gulf from Japan—thus removing the Navy's only aircraft carrier in the Pacific."
Hegseth is dealing with this personnel turmoil as the U.S. has resumed striking Iran this week. He says he probably wants to see Sean Parnell, the spokesman for the Pentagon, get Driscoll's job. Parnell has cracked down on journalists who have reported critically on the actions taken by the U.S. military. A few weeks ago, Parnell fired the editor and publisher of the independent (but government-funded) publication Stars and Stripes. "The terminations came about 10 days after Stars and Stripes journalists reported on hardships that Navy sailors were facing on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier whose deployment was extended to nine months amid the war," reported The New York Times. The journalists are now suing the government. Defendants in the suit include Hegseth and Parnell.
Scenes from Black Rock City: I am not there right now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, but I have long been intrigued by Burning Man (perhaps due to the stories of the late, great Brian Doherty) and especially its rise and fall, as noted below by David Shor:
Burning Man peaked in size in 2019 and has been in decline since then - at this point the median age is 40 and the share of people in their 20's is a third of what it was a decade ago.
They deserve a ton of credit for incredible record keeping though: https://t.co/7Qpp0WCDDS pic.twitter.com/QVyIkHiYwc
— David Shor (@davidshor) September 1, 2026
I don't mind big art installations or desert living. (My husband and I have spent a lot of time in Marfa, Texas, actually.) But I do mind swarms of San Francisco tech people, so it's possible Black Rock City is not the place for me. Still, the mechanics of it, and the temporary infrastructure built, are pretty interesting.
QUICK HITS
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"Why Are So Many People Listening to a Podcast About Living in a Convent?" asks Luis Parrales at The Atlantic.
- A Reason Roundtable…without any of the regulars? See what you think!
- "By 2038, interest payments will cost more than the entire discretionary budget," reports The Washington Post in a nice interactive on the deficit. "That means the government will pay more to finance past spending than it will spend on the military, education, transportation, housing, law enforcement, regulatory agencies, courts, foreign aid, national parks and agriculture — combined."
- "Starting in the 1960s and for decades after, the Danish government implanted intrauterine devices in Greenlandic women and girls," reports The New York Times. "Some of them were as young as 12, and many had no idea what was being done to them.…On Thursday, Danish lawmakers finally took a major step toward compensating the women, passing a bill that offers those who qualify a one-time payment of 300,000 Danish kroner, or about $47,000." (This feels like an extremely small amount of money given that the authorities robbed them of their ability to have kids.)
- Can politics get any weirder?
there's a Pakistani real estate agent running to be the mayor of a major Canadian city and he's using AI to generate his campaign ads but the AI is coming up with complete nonsense and he doesn't seem to know that because he barely speaks English.
here's his latest pic.twitter.com/KVXXk6SAPD
— pagliacci the hated 🌝 (@Slatzism) August 31, 2026
