DL Open Thread: Thursday, March 12, 2026

Hope You Recently Filled Up Your Tank:

Iraq and Oman closed oil terminals on Thursday after two tankers were attacked and left burning off Iraq’s coast, as the International Energy Agency warned that the war in the Middle East had caused “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”

Oil prices initially surged despite a coordinated effort by the United States and other major economies to calm markets by pledging on Wednesday to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves.

Global oil supplies are set to plunge by 8 million barrels a day, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday in its monthly report, with traffic through the Strait plummeting to a trickle because of attacks on shipping and energy infrastructure.

Trump caused this.  There’s no escaping that fact, not even for Trump.

Pentagon Bans Unflattering Photos Of Hegseth.  And the photographers who took them.  Raising the question: Are there any flattering photos of Hegseth?:

You’d think that with a war going on and all that, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would not have time to worry about serving lewks—but Hegseth is a man of many talents.

The former Fox News talking head-turned-Pentagon chief has barred press photographers from attending war briefings because their agencies published photos his staff thought were “unflattering.”

It’s definitely not worrisome at all that during a war, press access to the Pentagon is diminishing even more, and definitely not worrisome that Hegseth’s focus seems to be on making sure he looks good for the ‘gram while President Donald Trump’s war on Iran spins out of control.

Not that there have been many opportunities to snap some pics of Hegseth behind the Pentagon podium. The briefing that resulted in suboptimal photos occurred on March 2—the first time Hegseth deigned to provide a briefing since his boss started an unnecessary war against Iran on Feb. 28. Before that, Hegseth hadn’t shown up at the briefing room podium since June 2025.

At the March 2 briefing, photographers from three large news agencies—the Associated Press, Reuters, and Getty Images—that license their photos worldwide took the offending pictures. After Hegseth’s staff decided they didn’t like how he looked, the solution, of course, was just to bar press photographers from future briefings and limit all photographs to those taken by the Defense Department.

This man is every bit as insane as Trump.  And every bit as vain. ‘Vainglorious’ is the term that defines him.  Oh, the ‘unflattering’ photos?  Here they are.

Kristi Noem’s Corruption Features Not One, But Two, Delaware Connections:

Kristi Noem is out as Homeland Security Secretary, but a luxury 737 she has traveled on remains in government hands. That plane, reportedly dubbed the “Big, Beautiful Jet” by DHS staffers, has been quietly leased to the department by a company linked to William Walters, a former State Department official who donated thousands of dollars to a pro-Noem political action committee. Walters owns a constellation of businesses that—despite a dearth of prior experience working for the government—won lucrative contracts with Noem’s DHS over the past year.

One Walters company is selling half a dozen planes to DHS, in a deal that has raised questions within the department and on Capitol Hill about the cost of the aircraft. Another firm owned by Walters landed a contract worth up to $915 million last year, through a procurement process that one DHS official said was flawed and “created an appearance of favoritism,” according to previously unreported court documents.

Oh, the Delaware connections?:

Walters—the former head of a State Department unit called the Bureau of Medical Services that helped to evacuate personnel in emergencies—left government service in 2021 and later emerged as a vocal Trump supporter. In the fall of 2024, he spoke out in support of Trump’s immigration agenda and received an award from the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank.

After leaving the State Department, Walters launched a series of businesses. Following Trump’s election, his firms began seeking federal contracts to help implement the president’s plan to deport millions of people.

Those contractors all seem to be headquartered in a few suites alongside a cluster of other related firms in a nondescript office building in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington. We found over two dozen companies there that list either Walters or two of his former State Department colleagues—with whom he now works—as registered agents.

One company in that building is Valkyrie Aviation Holdings Group, which owns the luxury 737 being leased to DHS. That firm, incorporated last August in Delaware, does not list its ownership or the people who run it. But the FAA’s website shows that the company shares an office suite with Soterex Financial Services, a Walters-run company. Journalist Gillian Brockell previously reported that Valkyrie Aviation is in the same building as the Walters-linked companies, among other ties.

Just an idle reminder that Delaware depends on incorporations of shady enterprises to balance its budget.  Group shrug.

DHS agreed to pay one of the firms in the building, Daedalus Aviation, $140 million for six 737s, the Washington Post reported in December. Though legally separate from Valkyrie, Daedalus, according to its website, is hiring pilots and a mechanic to work on a 737 MAX 8—specifically one designated “BBJ,” for Boeing Business Jet. In other words, a luxury plane that matches the description of the one owned by Valkyrie. The solicitation contains no suggestion the plane will be used for deportations. Instead, Daedalus states that the pilots will be “executing global flight operations on behalf of a senior executive or government official.” 

Federal Aviation Administration records show Daedalus acquiring five 737s to date, none of which is a Max 8 Boeing Business Jet, like the one owned by Valkyrie. Tricia McLaughlin, a former DHS spokeswoman, has claimed that the planes being acquired via Daedalus will save the government money, in part by allowing “more efficient flight patterns.”

But DHS has not provided details to bolster that claim, which has drawn broad skepticism.

You remember Daedalus, right?  Delaware River & Bay could hardly wait to do business with them until the disinfectant of a free press intervened.

Now They Tell Us.  Turns out Israel had no clue about how to effect regime change either:

Israel did not have a realistic plan for regime change when it attacked Iran, multiple Israeli security sources have said, with expectations that airstrikes could lead to a popular uprising having been driven by “wishful thinking” rather than hard intelligence.

Iran has survived nearly two weeks of bombing raids and the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Trump is publicly contemplating ending the increasingly costly war.

If Iran’s new leadership keeps its grip on power, the long-term measure of the success of the conflict may hang on the fate of 440kg of enriched uranium which was buried under a mountain by US strikes last June, former and serving Israeli defence and intelligence sources said. Enough for more than 10 nuclear warheads, Iran could use it to hasten the construction of a weapon if the material remains in the country.

GOP State Chair Claims Party Is Moving In The Right Direction.  Karl Baker reports, you decide:

2026 is going to be a good year for us,” Truono said. “Money is coming in. We’re able to hire people. We’re meeting our payroll.”

Truono further stated that his party’s previous campaign finance reports, which showed that a federal bank account was thousands of dollars in the red, were inaccurate. He said those reported negative cash balances were the result of accounting errors involving duplicate checks existing on the party’s books.

In his interviews with Spotlight Delaware, Truono spoke at length about the GOP’s plan to launch a broad campaign to boost the party presence in the state in advance of this year’s consequential elections.

Specifically, party officials will focus on convincing more voters to register as Republicans, and on better communicating the party platform.

Truono said his party has a particularly ripe opportunity to take advantage of Democrats recent actions in the state that he said have been unpopular. He cited the state legislature’s decoupling last fall of the state’s tax code from that of the IRS.

Truono also said President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in February has prompted some Democrats to call into his party office to announce that there were inspired to change their party registration.  

Oh, really?  Cue Tom Waits:

What do you want to talk about?