Jan Maarten Slagter

CEO @IBFD_on_Tax. Columnist DFT. 'Crisislogboek':

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

@mrchibinho @BBCSport Easily? Boris Becker (Wimbledon at 17, Pelé (World Cup at 17) and Muhammad Ali (Olympic champion at 18) would like a word.

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

We are nearing the moment Ukraine is going to pose conditions to join the EU.

[Yoeri Albrecht @YoeriAlbrecht]

We need #Ukraine in the #EU to protect Europe from Russia. It is a matter of our safety.

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

This is how the green revolution takes place. Via market forces, driven by common sense. Hopeful.

[Romina @allefuerallee]

🆘 DON’T LOOK AWAY 🆘

The Islamic regime is going to hang Diana Taherabadi because she participated in the January protests.

She’s only 16.
This is pure barbarism.
Share this before they kill her.

#IranMassacre
#StopExecutionsInIran

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Actions, consequences.

[Tim Hirschel-Burns @TimH_B]

Jesus

[Stef Vrijman @StefVrijman]

Tijd om een hardnekkige fabel de kop in te drukken.

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

The return of Simon! Komt allen naar de Schouwburg!

[Simon Kuper @KuperSimon]

Terug naar Leiden! Op 31 mei bezoek ik mijn oude hometown met een theatercollege over het WK en de geopolitiek (én het voetbal), alles van Mussolini tot Dick Nanninga https://t.co/La2OEqr2n3
Link hier naar kaartjes voor Leiden en 5 andere steden: https://t.co/Ht3Zvp70gF

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Ja, wie had ooit gedacht dat we naar de maan konden vliegen!

[Department of State @StateDept]

Artemis II has shown the world what is possible.

Welcome home! 🇺🇸

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

JUST IN: You do not fire your Army Chief of Staff in the middle of a war for no reason. You fire him because of what comes next.

Pete Hegseth called General Randy George on April 2 and told him to retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed it within hours. No reason was given. Not publicly. Not privately. A senior Army official told Fox News that Hegseth offered George nothing: no misconduct, no operational failure, no policy disagreement on the record. Just a phone call and a career ending in the middle of the most significant American combat operation in two decades.

George is the 24th general or admiral Hegseth has removed. But he is not the 24th. He is the one that matters. The Army Chief of Staff. The man whose signature sits between a president’s intent and the order that sends soldiers across a beach or into a tunnel complex. The 82nd Airborne is deploying right now. Marines from the 31st MEU are staged on the USS Tripoli. JSOC operators are at forward bases in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Kharg Island, 90 percent of Iranian oil exports, sits 16 kilometres off a coast that someone will have to decide whether to approach. And the four-star general whose job it was to advise whether that approach should happen was removed 48 hours after Trump told the nation the war would continue for two to three more weeks.

The replacement is Vice Chief General Christopher LaNeve. He was Hegseth’s senior military aide before this appointment. The man who carried the Secretary’s briefcase now commands the Army the Secretary is reshaping. The chain of command did not break. It shortened. The distance between a television studio and a combat order just collapsed to zero intermediaries who were not personally selected by the man giving the order.

No reason was given. That is the tell. When someone is removed without explanation during a crisis, the explanation is the crisis itself. George either objected to something or was about to. The ground option. The power plant strikes. The Kharg raid. The escalation that turned a highway bridge in Karaj into rubble on the same day he was told to leave. Something in the next two weeks requires a chief who will not push back, and the Pentagon solved that problem by installing one trained as Hegseth’s aide.

A former Fox News weekend host just fired a four-star general with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, replaced him with his own former assistant, and did it during a live war in which the next decision could put American soldiers on Iranian soil for the first time in history. No hearing was held. No misconduct cited. The Army woke up on April 3 with a new chief it did not choose, in a war it did not start, preparing for a phase the previous chief apparently could not be trusted to execute.

The question is not why George was fired. Every general in the building knows why. The question is what order is coming in the next fourteen days that required removing the one man in the chain of command who might have said no.

The war has no perimeter. The chain of command has no objectors. And the next phase has no one left to stop it.

https://t.co/dAOBBMsgDS

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Proud to have contributed to this inspiring little clip "Science and the Satirists" by Dr Kate Watson, my tutor during my week in Oxford last summer, studying the French revolution and its aftermath. I was the cameraman!

https://t.co/2ChHDYux0I

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Ik weet vrij zeker dat Loesje niet heeft willen zeggen wat hier staat.

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

How to win friends and influence people.

[Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins]

Asked why he didn't coordinate with allies before going to war with Iran, Trump says, "We didn't tell anyone about it. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?"

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

@chrisklomp Sterkte.

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Hoe breng ik een Boekenweekessay terug tot een brief in Wat zou doen? (Volkskrant).

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Meanwhile in the frat house.

[Right Scope 🇺🇸 @RightScopee]

SENATOR TIM SHEEHY: How many genders are there?

HEGSETH: Two.

SHEEHY: I know that well, I'm a "she-he (Sheehy)." What is the diameter of a rifle round fired out of an M4A1?

HEGSETH: 5.56.

SHEEHY: How many pushups can you do?

HEGSETH: I did 5 sets of 47 this morning.

SHEEHY: Most important strategic base is in the Pacific?

HEGSETH: Guam.

SHEEHY: How many rounds of 5.56 can you fit into the magazine of an M4 rifle?

HEGSETH: Standard issue is 30.

SHEEHY: What size round is the M9 Beretta standard issue sidearm for the military?

HEGSETH: 9mm.

SHEEHY: What kind of batteries do you put in your night vision goggle?

HEGSETH: Duracell.

SHEEHY: You represent what warfighters deal with every day on the battlefield. You understand them. What happens is - decisions made in rooms like this cause d*ad 17, 18, 19-year-old Americans. Your priority is warfighters. I support you.

Time to get loud for @PeteHegseth

If you strongly support Pete Hegseth and everything he’s doing to help keep America safe, drop a “👍”

I tagged him so he will definitely see it

MAKE THIS GO VIRAL ON 𝕏. LET’S GO 👏

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

“But her e-mails.” “But she danced in the streets with kids.”

[Robert E Kelly @Robert_E_Kelly]

If you remotely paid attention to Trump’s first term, you knew this would happen if he won again. Literally everyone outside of MAGA shouted this all year in 2024. And yet Rogan endorsed Trump…

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Basically.

[Joseph O'Neill @JosephONeillx]

In 2024 Iowan farmers faced an electoral choice between (1) a party that knows how to govern and cares about farmers, and (2) a party that can't govern and doesn't give a crap about farmers. They chose (2).
In November they will face the same choice again.

[De Telegraaf @telegraaf]

Jan Maarten Slagter: Wonen is goedkoper ondanks huistekort https://t.co/uqodnbHi9C

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Ik wijs ook even op de (al 20 jaar consistente) laagste in dit staatje.

[Alice Evans @_alice_evans]

Britain’s politicians have pushed through a number of well-intentioned policies that have been ultimately disastrous.

Another great column by @jburnmurdoch

[Jan Maarten Slagter @JMSlagter]

Overlooked point: Monster Raving Loony Party on the brink of national break through.

[Tom Scotson @_tomscotson]

Overlooked point: The Tories received their worst by-election result ever

The won only 547 votes more than the Monster Raving Loony Party