Good lord, amateur hour. Again.

As Ben Taub writes in an astounding new piece from this week’s issue, during his first term Trump shared his desire to buy Greenland with his national-security adviser, John Bolton. And Bolton quickly got to work figuring out how to distract the President from pursuing it. A group of advisers, including Fiona Hill, on the National Security Council, worked on a memo, explaining that a treaty with Denmark from 1951 already gave the U.S. military access to Greenland whenever it wanted. “All it had to do was ask,” Taub notes. As for taking it over, the process would be more complicated. “In terms of buying it, one thing that became apparent was that, you know, this is not the nineteenth century anymore,” Bolton told Taub. “There are fifty-seven thousand people in Greenland. They have this feeling that they ought to have a say in their future.”

But there were others in the Administration working to satisfy Trump’s goal—and that work resumed when he returned to office. Taub, who has been reporting extensively in Greenland during the past few years, tells the story of four men, working inside and outside the U.S. government, who have been at the center of a secret, long-running plan to take the territory. Their C.V.s read like the stuff of pure Trumpian central casting.

There’s Chris Cox, the founder of the group Bikers for Trump, who has visited Greenland as an unofficial ambassador for the President, trying to win the hearts and minds of the locals. “We are not looking at you like a tiger looks at a gazelle,” he told one Inuit man, during a visit last year. Two other Americans have been running “influence operations” in the country as well: a former venture capitalist and a pecan farmer named Tom Dans, and a retired Army Special Forces commander named Drew Horn. And then there is Jørgen Boassen, a rare Greenlander who loudly supports Trump, who has spent the past year travelling the world, bankrolled by private benefactors.

Together, these men represent the vanguard of a ludicrous—and deadly serious—plan that has threatened foundational transatlantic agreements, escalated into military maneuvers among allies, and provided further evidence at home and abroad that American foreign policy depends entirely on the whims of the President. “As American primacy fades, the U.S. government has embraced the predatory world view of its traditional opponents,” Taub writes. “Firepower matters more than values or alliances, and everything is in play.”

Allies on Ice
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/22/inside-the-ludicrous-deadly-serious-plan-to-take-over-greenland

rando adbook post - Michael Brown

Just twelve days after trump blew $14.2 million of your tax dollars painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool a patriotic "American flag blue," workers were on their hands and knees this morning pouring what looked like Walmart pharmacy bottles of hydrogen peroxide into what is now a very green, very algae-covered swampy national embarrassment that looks like something RFK Jr. would take his kids swimming in. 

Pool renovation expert Steve Goodale had literally predicted this exact outcome, warning that darker paint absorbs more sunlight, raises water temperature, and makes algae blooms inevitable. It was, in his words, "a foregone conclusion." And here is the kicker: to actually treat 6.5 million gallons of water properly, you would need a minimum of 8,000 liters of 12% hydrogen peroxide injected directly into the filtration intake so it disperses evenly throughout the entire pool, not guys kneeling at the edge dumping gallon jugs in one spot like they are cleaning a bathroom. As one doctor put it on social media, "is this what happens when you have zero scientists in your administration?"

The whole spectacle would be funny if it were not so expensive and so completely on brand. The actual fix here is embarrassingly simple: repaint the pool the original light grey, which does not absorb heat, does not supercharge algae growth, and did not cost $14 million dollars. Instead, this administration would rather send workers out daily with bottles from the medicine cabinet than admit the dark blue paint was a vanity mistake that any pool professional could have told them not to make, and in fact did tell them not to make, loudly and publicly, before they did it anyway.

This is what the trump administration does. It does not solve problems, it performs solving them. The reflecting pool is green, so they pour something in it and hope you stop looking. The underlying issue stays broken, the band aid goes on top, and everyone moves on until the next embarrassing photo goes viral. From the Kennedy Center tarp hiding where they removed his name, to the Epstein files they have fought to keep buried, the whole operation runs on the same logic: if you can cover it up fast enough, maybe nobody will notice. But we notice, donald. We always notice.

ALTNATPARKSERVICE adbook post 

The Trump administration is moving forward with a plan that would significantly reduce the CDC’s role in international health programs. On paper, this may look like bureaucratic reshuffling. The new plan, proposed by the State Department, aims to overhaul the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work on a landmark global H.I.V. program. 

In reality, these programs do far more than combat HIV. They help countries detect new diseases, maintain laboratory networks, monitor outbreaks, and support childhood vaccination efforts that prevent health crises from spiraling out of control.

Beginning October 1, much of that authority and funding could shift from the CDC to the State Department. That means decisions traditionally guided by public health experts may instead be handled through diplomatic channels.

Disease surveillance is one of those things people rarely think about until it fails. The systems that identify outbreaks overseas are often what prevent them from becoming emergencies at home. As Ebola spreads in central Africa, reducing the role of the very agency built to track and contain infectious diseases is a decision that could have consequences far beyond any one country.