Saturday, July 26, 2025
Thursday, July 26, 1945. Churchill out, Attlee in.
The Potsdam Declaration was issued:
No. 1382
Proclamation1
Proclamation by the Heads of Governments, United States, China and the United Kingdom
(1) We, the President of the United States, the President of the National Government of the Republic of China and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to end this war.
(2) The prodigious land, sea and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and of China, many times reinforced by their armies and air fleets from the west are poised to strike the final blows upon Japan. This military power is sustained and inspired by the determination of all the Allied nations to prosecute the war against Japan until she ceases to resist.
(3) The result of the futile and senseless German resistance to the might of the aroused free peoples of the world stands forth in awful clarity as an example to the people of Japan. The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will3 mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland.
(4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether she will continue to be controlled by those self-willed militaristic advisers whose unintelligent calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether she will follow the path of reason.
(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay.
(6) There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world.
(7) Until such a new order is established and until there is convincing proof that Japan’s war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth.
(8) The terms of the Cairo Declaration4 shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.
(9) The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives.
(10) We do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as [a] nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. The Japanese government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.
(11) Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those industries which would enable her to re-arm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted.
(12) The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.
(13) We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all the Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.
Potsdam July 26, 1945
Harry S Truman
Winston Churchill
by H. S. T.
President of China
by wire
The results of the 1945 British election were announced. The Labour Party won an unexpected landslide over the Conservatives. Clement Attlee accordingly became the Prime Minister on this day.
The results were not a condemnation of Churchill, but an expression by the British people that they wished to go in a new direction, post war. One of Labour's slogans had been "Cheer Churchill – Vote Labour"
The British minesweeper Vestal was heavily damaged by a kamikaze attack.
Last edition:
Wednesday, July 25, 1945. Truman orders the atomic bomb used on Japan.
Equality, Raven Peak mulled as names for Grand Teton summit with disgraced leader’s name
Equality, Raven Peak mulled as names for Grand Teton summit with disgraced leader’s name: Mount Grizzly 399, Mount Liberty ruled out by state naming board.
Wyoming’s biggest hospital gets mixed performance review following ownership transition
Wyoming’s biggest hospital gets mixed performance review following ownership transition: In 2024, Banner Wyoming Medical Center met the majority of its 17 contractual covenants — such as maintaining essential services and adding new technologies. It fell short in four areas.
No surprise.
Wyomingites may claim to prefer the government to be out of everything, but Casperites liked their county owned hospital.
Friday, July 25, 2025
Pioneer Day. Pie & Beer Day. Public land sales, part 1. The historo-religious motivation for some (but certainly not all) of the backers.
Flag of the putative State of Deseret.
Church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact - religion and politics should not be mingled.
Millard Fillmore
Those who believe that politics and religion do not mix, understand neither.
Albert Einstein
It was 170 years ago that Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers came to the Salt Lake Valley in search of religious freedom… and, finally, a land of their own in which to practice it.
Mike Lee.
In this thread, we're going to tread, which will be part one of two, where we shouldn't.
Religion and politics.
Well, religion, politics and history.
And in the context of public land.
Eh?
Well, exactly.
Albert Einstein was exactly correct. Those that believe politics and religion do not mix truly do not understand either. Indeed, they should mix. A person who holds a religion should let him inform his views. If a person doesn't, they're not very sincere about their religion, or have a weakly developed intellect. If a person strongly believes that something is wrong, such as abortion, and their religion informs them on that, well, they can't really walk away from that, a la Joe Biden. By the same token, however, a person should not be foreclosed from advancing their views for other reasons, nor should a person demand that another person except their views solely because of their religious views, unless they clearly put it that way.
The thing a person ought not to do, however, is to advance a position for religious views, while keeping that view hidden.
Particularly if it forms the primary basis for the view.
And we look here first, at the transfer of public lands. Later on we'll look at the US support of Israel in warfare this past year.
Yesterday was Pioneer Day in Utah, a state holiday.
Like Wyoming Day here, probably almost nobody gets it off. The day commemorates the first entry of Brigham Young and his group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847.
That's interesting in that, essentially, it's sort of a species of religious observation. There are no doubt other such observations in the US, but they're rare. Wyoming Day commemorates the day that Wyoming became a state. Utah became a state in 1896, after Wyoming. Pioneer Day, however, celebrates an event occurring fifty years before that, and which is inseparable from the LDS religious migration. Unlike the often cited landing of the passengers of the Mayflower, which is often erroneously to be an exclusively a religious migration, nobody in that 1847 team of travelers was not a Mormon.1
There have been two big backers of the concept of Utah grabbing Federal lands in Congress, Celest Maloy and Mike Lee, both of Utah.
Routine analysis of this notes that the grab the land movement is strong in Utah in general. Their state took a recent run at it in court, and their legislature has been in favor of it, even if certain districts in Utah are not. Congressman Jason Chaffetz found out the demographic differences when he went down the same path as Lee a decade ago.
While its changing, over 50% of Utah is a member of the Latter Day Saints.
No surprise there.
Nor is it a surprise that Lee is, and that Maloy is.
Nor is there something shocking or wrong with that, just as there isn't anything wrong, right wing pundits aside, with the next Mayor of New York City (probably), Zohran Mamdani, being Shi'a Muslim.
But the argument here is that their religious convictions are informing them, and other Utah politicians, to seek to remove Federal ownership from Federal land, as well as the history of their faith.
Which takes us to the Mormon War and the Utah War, with the former name sometimes being used for the latter (indeed, we've done that here in the past).
The actual Mormon War was the period of violence that occurred in Missouri when members of the LDS church were there.
Which probably requires some background to make sense.
The Latter Day Saints are not a Christian religion, although if you ask them, they'll most certainly maintain that they are. The fact is, however, they aren't. The LDS is a polytheistic religion holding that there are many gods and many worlds. We simply happen to live in a world in which God the Father, as Abrahamic religions worship, is actually a man who became a god after having lived his life in another world. The Mormons believe that Jesus Christ was the product of a Devine man (God) and a Devine mother and that Jesus Christ is their elder brother, since he was the firstborn in the spirit world. Perhaps in order for that to make sense to non Mormons its important to note that Mormon's believe that all the souls in our world already exist, and that when a child is born, a preexisting soul is embodied in that person, with the souls memory of his pre birth existence blocked. Mormons do admit that Christ became God before his birth. Mormon's also feel that if you live as a Mormon and adhere closely to the tenants of the LDS, you too can become a god, and will have your own world in the afterlife.2
That sort of sums up their beliefs today, sort of, although no doubt very unfairly.
What's that have to do with public lands?
Bear with us.
Joseph Smith started out is religious career in the Second Great Awakening as a fairly conventional protestant evangelist. Indeed, his evangelical career started after the dates for the events he claimed made him a profit, which raise the question of why he was a regular protestant at first and didn't mention his later claims at the time. By the early 1830s, however, he'd relocated to Ohio along with his early adherents and was espousing a new set of beliefs, some of which we've summarized above, but which also claimed that Native Americans were descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel and that giant battles featuring armored men and elephants had taken place in North America. He also had Jesus Christ visiting the continent, and blacks as descendants of a union between Cain and an ape. Most controversially, however, his new religion strongly advocated polygamy.
Sexual libertine behavior, which Smith personally displayed, was not unknown at the time, and there were "free love" movements even then, although they were not linked with religion.3 Smith, whose own sexual behavior exceeded the bounds of what he espoused for his followers, was unique in doing so. It was all too much for the residents of Ohio, and it proved to be too much for the residents of Missouri, to which he relocated with adherents in 1838.
Violence ensued and Smith himself lost his life over the matter of sex, when breakaway members of the LDS accused him of advocating polygamy in order to dally with women, a fairly fair charge. Smith reacted with destruction of a press that made accusations against him. He ended up in jail, and a riot of upset locals ultimately resulted in storming the jail. He was shot through a jail door he was attempting to block.
The LDS suffered a schism right at the time, with one branch of it evolving rapidly back into a conventional protestant church. The main branch, however, took off for the West and started settling in the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1847, at which time the region was in Mexico. The first really largescale American settlement of that type (Spanish settlements up into the West dated back to the 1600s and were well established, but not in what is now upper Utah), they became a major presence right away.
The Great Salt Lake Valley is a long ways from Missouri, and it was even a greater distance if you had to walk or travel by horse, but the entire oddity of Mormon beliefs remained bothersome to most Americans, particularly Second and Third Great Awakening Americans for whom even Catholics were way too much. And it wasn't just Americans. John Stuart Mill in his great book On Liberty briefly pondered the practically of the British landing troops in Texas in order that they could march to Utah and stamp out the religion.
On Liberty came out in 1859, and was no doubt written prior to that. While Mill concluded that such an expedition was impractical, by 1857 the United States and the Mormons were actually at war. The war ended in 1858 with concessions on the part of the LDS combatants, but like a lot of people who've lost a war (consider the American South) a sort of lost cause element to it remains, even though the Mormons did not seek to separate from the US. They did seek, however, autonomy.
Early on the LDS hoped for a huge state in the southwest, which they called Deseret.
Utah Territory in blue, State of Deseret dashed lines By derivative work: Mangoman88 (talk)Blank_US_Map.svg: User:TheshibbolethWpdms deseret utah territory legend.png: User:Tsujigiri - Blank_US_Map.svgWpdms deseret utah territory legend.pngFile:1855 Colton Map of Utah and New Mexico (first edition, first state) - Geographicus - UtahNewMexico-colton-1855.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16103609
The US didn't see eye to eye on that. Be that as it may, they heavily settled throughout the region of what was imagined to be Deseret and are strongly represented throughout it today. And the name "Deseret" lives on, preserving its memory.
Early on, Mormon pioneers often viewed land communally. The LDS church today owns 1.7 million acres of land, operates some of the largest agricultural businesses in the US. It owns major blocks of land throughout the US, including in Wyoming and Nebraska. The fact that it a gigantic landowner is often missed. It's reasons to purchase land are varied, and it makes no effort to hide that it does this. Part of this is done for a sort of agrarian charitable reason, but there are other reasons as well.
Mormons tend to have large families, although this is not always the case by any means. The extent to which their families are abnormally large, moreover, is exaggerated as in the American WASP culture any number of offspring over two is regarded as freakishly large. I am, of course, from a Catholic family and got this all the time growing up, even though I'm an only child.
Having said that, the more traditionalist a Catholic family is, the more children there tends to be in it.
The reason differs considerably however. Catholics would point toward the marriage vow itself and how it notes that it includes the question “Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?” I've heard one Catholic cleric, Fr. Hugh Barbour, note the purpose of the marriage is to bring up children willingly for the worship of God.
Catholics, like most Christians, believe that human beings cooperate in the creation of souls through the marital act. Mormons, however, do not believe that. They believe that there are a finite number of souls and that they exist in already, and that the marital act causes those souls to inhabit a body. One the full number is run through, the end of time occurs. By having large families, in their view, they are assisting in bringing that about.
Which brings us back to Mike Lee.
Not all Mormons are traditionalist by any means. The Mormon church itself has been fluid over the years in regard to its beliefs and has abandoned polygamy and certain other tenants which brought them disrepute in American society. There remains, however, a conservative element that is sympathetic to the original views and while it embarrasses the larger LDS church, it's usually not to hard to find examples. Polygamy, for instance, persisted in being widely accepted in Mormon communities for well after its official abandonment, and of course, it continues on in Mormon communities today, even though it is definitely a minority view, and definitely condemned.
But amongst those like Lee, the history of Deseret and deeply held LDS beliefs heavily inform his views. He was willing to abandon Montana from his land grab, but Montana had never been part of Deseret. Everywhere else he held on.
Grabbing the land from the Federal government would sort of reverse a position that early Mormon pioneers had to abandon, and it satiates a fear of the Federal government that remains in some quarters today. Additionally, the "more land for housing" view makes some sense for those who imagine very large families. Lee himself was one of seven children to a father was president of BYU, although Mike Lee only had three children himself.
In the background of it all, however, are changing times.
Even now you will hear reports on how fast the LDS faith is growing. But it isn't. Having had a dramatic late 20th Century and early 21st Century increase, its numbers are now really dropping off and its in decline. The late 20th Century and very early 21st was sort of the golden age of Mormon expansion, and it altered the culture of the faith a bit. Outside of the "Jello Belt", that region of the west, and predominantly in southwestern Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, and Utah, where Mormons are a majority or at least very strongly represented in the population, Mormons were a little reluctant to identify too strongly with their faith, lest they run into a prejudiced reaction. At least two Mormon lawyers I knew would make excuses for their Mormonism, usually on the basis of "not being a Mormon" and "marrying into the faith", even though they were really in the LDS and at least one of them was born into it. When I was a kid, Mormon kids routinely identified themselves as "Jack Mormons", i.e.., those who only weekly observed their faith, even though they were not.
By the early 21st Century things really began to change, and particularly did after Mitt Romney was the GOP nominee for the President. Mormons had sort of arrived and come out of the shadows.
It didn't really last long, however, as a variety of forces began to work against it. One was that the industrial nature of Mormons had made Utah into a really attractive place to live. Utah's towns and cities are beautiful and well kept, something that is frankly often not the case for a lot of the West. Compared to Salt Lake, Denver is a dump. Towns like Morgan Utah make small Wyoming towns look pathetic.
What that means, however, is that Utah has attracted a lot of non Mormons and Salt Lake shows it in particular. Salt Lake has the temple, to be sure, but it also has a young non Mormon community, some of which outright flaunt their non Mormon status. Hence the title of this entry. July 24 is Pioneer Day, but it's also Pie & Beer Day in which hipsters celebrate with, well, pie and beer. It's become sort of a big deal.
And as Mormons have moved into the mainstream, the mainstream has sort of pushed back. Regular Mormon families are moving more towards the conventional American midstream in terms of belief, than the other way around.
What this means for it long term cannot yet be known, but Mormon birthrates are also dropping off dramatically.
When things start changing, the reaction often is to grasp back towards the past to try to drag it into the future. In the West, the Ghost Dance provides a spectacular late 19th Century example of that. What Lee and Maloy are doing does as well. It's probably not so much part of a deliberate plan as an instinct.
It's an instinct that a lot of Mormons in Utah and elsewhere outright reject, which shows that its always dangerous to assume that any one group can be really narrowly defined. And we're not saying that this is an overall Mormon world view on the topic. We're only noting what we think we're seeing in Lee, Maloy, and Utah's elected government.
And we'd note this is probably a fading, if presently strong, effort.
One of the Salt Lake newspapers has started a series on this, noting basically what I just did (I actually started this tread prior to the paper). This doesn't cover it all, however. It'd explain none of what we see in Wyoming backers like Harriet Hageman. We'll look at that next.
Footnotes.
1. Most of the passengers on the Mayflower were not Puritans.
2. There's a lot more to the LDS faith than this, including that the Book of Mormon is "another testament", but I'm not going to go into it here as I only hope to touch on what's relevant to the topic. In shorty, this isn't a discussion on Mormonism itself.
3. Such movements must have been extraordinarily risky for secular women, but they were oddly common, and not just in the US. There were a variety of them, and it was a feature such varied movements pre Stalinist Communism and Russian Orthodox Khlysts.
Wednesday, July 25, 1945. Truman orders the atomic bomb used on Japan.
Truman ordered the bomb dropped on Japan. The news was conveyed to the military to accomplish the act.
The Potsdam Conference took a recess so that the British delegation could return to the UK to hear the election results.
Marshall Pétain spoke at his trial for the first time, stating he was deaf and had not heard a thing that had been said in court up to that time.
American cruisers Pasadena, Springfield, Wilkes-Barre and Astoria bombarded Japanese air bases in southern Honshu.
US aircraft attacked Kure naval base and the airfields at Nagoya, Osaka and Miho for a second day, sinking the battleships Hyuga, Ise, and Haruna, the escort carrier Kaiyo and the heavy cruisers Aoba and Iwate are all sunk. The Japanese put up no resistance.
The US declared that Mindanao was free of organized Japanese resistance.
The Japanese pulled out of Taunggyi in the Shan states, Burma.
British naval and air units continued attacks on Japanese positions and transportation targets on the west coast of Malaya.
Last edition:
Tuesday, July 24, 1945. An unsurprised Stalin.
Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aircraft, boats and ships, China, Espionage, Harry S. Truman, Japan, Joseph Stalin, Nuclear power, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, Weapons
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Sunday, July 25, 1915. The Bandit War.
Mexican raiders burned a railway bridge belonging to St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. In response, Governor James E. Ferguson to ordered a unit of Texas Rangers to assist local law in keeping order in the area.
The Bandit War was a result of the instability of Mexico, then fighting the Mexican Revolution.
Italian forces occupied the Cappuccio Wood.
,_John_Singer_Sargent,_1884_(unfree_frame_crop).jpg)
Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, age 56, French socialite, mode John Singer Sargent's painting Portrait of Madame X, passed away. The painting was originally regarded as scandalous, as in its original version, one of her dress straps had fallen away. The controversy caused Sargant to relocate from France to the United Kingdom.
It was his favorite painting.
Harvesting was ongoing in the Midwest.
The mid teens were freakishly wet, leading to high crop yields throughout the United States. This in turn contributed to a boom in wartime homesteading, due to the increase in crop prices caused by the war.
Last edition:
Saturday, July 24, 1915. The Eastland Disaster.
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Third Edition and Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 98th edition. The Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.
July 19, 2025.
_-_Philo_Vance,_1933.jpg)
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people, not at all referring to the immoral of this world or the greedy and robbers or idolaters; for you would then have to leave the world.
But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person.
For why should I be judging outsiders? Is it not your business to judge those within?
God will judge those outside. “Purge the evil person from your midst.
St. Paul to the Corinthians..
The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump 2003 birthday wishes to Jeffrey Epstein, part of a book compiled for Epstein's birthday by his paramour and fellow procurer Ghislaine Maxwell included a Trump made drawing of a naked woman, with "Donald" written over the figure's genitals and apparently somewhat mimicking pubic hairs.
I'm not going to post the drawing.
Of course, Trump, in Trump fashion, has declared it to be a fake. And now he's suing the Wall Street Journal.
This all followed an increasingly desperate effort on Trump's part to divert attention from this story. Rather than try to set out the reasons that the story won't go away, I'll just link in this analysis with Ezra Klein, with which I agree.
Trying to get ahead of this, and I think that he'll find by suing the Journal he set himself behind, he's also ordered the release of the Epstein grand jury testimony.
Not the supposed "Epstein files", but the grand jury testimony. That's frankly not what people have been asking for, but its offered out as red meat for the dogs in hopes that they'll satiate themselves and go away.
It doesn't look like they will.
His most loyal supporters, of course, have simply built this into their conspiracy theory, although in a way in which the logic train derails pretty quickly. Trump isn't hiding anything. . . it was the Democrats. . . .
Um, okay. . .
I have a feeling the 25th Amendment schedule has been moved up.
The simple fact of the matter is that Donald Trump has a forty year history of hanging out with kiddy diddling creeps. That didn't start with Epstein. Maybe you could hang around in a pornographic atmosphere for 40 years and not inhale anything, but it wouldn't be easy. And once the rot sets in, and the poison is available, it tends to corrupt.
Hugh Hefner was always a creep. But he was married when he started off on his path of dissipation. He wasn't rapey at first.
And its been clear for a long time, for those who have cared to look even a little, that Trump is a deeply immoral man, and he's surrounded himself, in many instances, by those who are likewise deeply immoral.
Trump has 5 kids with 3 women.
Elon Musk has 14 kids with 4 women.
Pete Hegseth has 7 kids with 3 women.
Linda McMahon is being sued for enabling child sexual abuse.
Trump's affinity for young women has been denied by his defenders, but his own words convict him. Trump, with Howard Stern on the topic of a teenage Lindsay Lohan, stated:
TRUMP: What do you think of Lindsay Lohan?
STERN: She's hot.
TRUMP: I've seen a close-up of her chest. Are you into freckles?
STERN: Imagine having sex with this troubled teen?
TRUMP: She's probably deeply troubled—and great in bed.
From the same interview:
TRUMP: How come the deeply troubled women, deeply deeply troubled.
STERN: Right.
TRUMP: They're always the best in bed. For some reason what I said is true. I mean they're just unbelievable.
STERN: I can tell.
TRUMP: You don't want to be with them for the long term—but for the short term, there is nothing like it.
How is it that this administration, lead by a serial polygamists, who hasn't given any indication he's reconsidered the morality of his conduct, and who is now floundering like a fish on the deck on the Epstein scandal, can be seriously regarded as some sort of Christian leader?
Well, that was always baloney in the first place. Nobody can identify a Christian denomination that Trump is actually a member of. He was a Presbyterian growing up, but he's disavowed that religion. He's sort of generic American Evangelical at best, which makes sense as by and large American Evangelicalism has dumped a lot of Christianity, particularly in the sexual area. . . as long as its conventional.
Populist right wing America has long accommodated itself to deep sexual immorality, but only of a conventional kind. Far less than a century ago it was difficult for Americans to obtain a divorce, and divorce was looked down upon. Now people who have repeat marriages, or who are living together outside of marriage, have no problem identifying themselves as right wing American Evangelicals. St. Paul may have cautioned people about all sexual immorality, but in the American Civil Religion, that doesn't apply to sex between a man and a woman, apparently.
Unless, it turns out, that woman is under 18 years old. That, it turns out, is a bridge too far.
Of course, there's no reason to believe that Trump ever saw any lines as blurred, or any lines at all. Maybe he didn't bed teenage girls, but he hung around with those who did. That alone is wrong.
But we don't know, of course, what we don't know. If we were detectives, and assigned this as a set of facts to investigate, we'd sure suspect that quite a bit of kiddy diddling was going on in this circle of very wealthy "pals". Indeed, their money alone would make it easy for them to get away with things for a long time, or perhaps indefinitely.
It'd make a great film noir, albeit a creepy one.
If it all feels like something deeply fake has been and is going on here, it's also now admitted that Trump's constant claims to perfect health are fake. He has chronic venous insufficiency. It won't kill him or anything, but it doesn't suddenly appear either. He is an old man, with an old man's disease. He's had it for awhile.
Old, and under stress, Trump's rambling "weave" has become so normal that people don't even pay attention to it anymore. On Tuesday, Trump interrupted an energy and innovation event in Pennsylvania to “brag” about his uncle, John Trump, claiming that the at MIT professor had been particularly impressed with student Ted Kaczynski.
Dr. Trump died in 1985, before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber. And Kaczynski didn't go to MIT.
Trump went after Fed chair Jerome Powell and was upset that Biden appointed him. . . except he didn't appoint him. Trump did.
Trump's routinely claiming that petroleum prices have gone way down at the pump. They haven't.
Okay, what's this have to do with the 25th Amendment? Well, it's that bridge too far thing. I've long predicted that Trump would be removed from office under the 25th Amendment before the November, 2026 election. I think this speeds that up. Trump's utility to the NatCons is almost done with. The Big Ugly Bill was passed, and spending on things the NatCons disapprove of has been cut. ICE and the Border Patrol are getting a massive funding boost, and that's going to see mass deportations really ramp up.
Of all of Trump's supposed agenda items, the ones that NatCons really care about have been pretty well advanced. None of them have achieved what might be regarded as full success, but they've gone a lot further than they had a right to hope for. Trump's ongoing association with them, however, isn't going to advance them any further. Indeed, as people begin to feel the impact of funding cuts, they'll start to get angry. If it turns out that Trump was fishing in the shallow end of the female pool, it's completely done with.
In fact, the best thing that could possibly happen for the NatCons would be if Trump turns out to be a Dirk Diddler with an eye for girls who should be looking for prom dates.
Eh?
Well, here's why.
I've always maintained that Trump has no real allegiance to anything other than Trump. NatCons certainly do, however. NatCons have always known that their vision, which is relatively new in American politics, had very little chance of rapidly advancing as they had no chance of finding a Francisco Franco who could get elected. They're smart, and they also realized that they could coopt populist discontent, something that ironically the Democrats had a chance of doing with Bernie Sanders. And right wing populism legitimately shares some common goals with National Conservatism, which is nationalistic, ethno-nationalistic, and isolationist.
Where the two depart, however, is that populism is always a very shallow stream. Most populists would be happy if "Mexicans" were sent home, and everyone had to be a "Christian", in a fashion that didn't include the Apostolic Faiths, and which didn't really make you "go to Church" on Sundays, or which held that the spouse you married three spouses ago is your real spouse. NatCons, however, have much more intellectual view on everything, and they espouse "traditional values" in the fashion that Franco, or if you prefer, Belloc, would have recognized, and they'd legislate towards that end.
That man isn't Donald Trump, it's J.D. Vance.
The rest of the NatCon agenda is dead in the water if the Republicans don't hold the House and the Senate in 2026. It can't be cemented if Vance isn't elected in 2028. The GOP won't hold the House, at a bare minimum, if the "Trump agenda" becomes any more unpopular than it already is, and it will. It's becoming increasingly likely that the Republicans will lose the Senate. There's no way on earth that Vance can win the 2028 election as a stand alone Presidential candidate.
But if Trump were to go after the impact of the current legislation starts to sink in, the taint might stick to him. That would give the GOP a chance, albeit only that, to ride things out until 2028. And Vance might have a chance if he became President due to a Trump removal. And, the way things work, that might given NatCons a fellow traveler in the Oval Office for a solid ten years, as Vance could complete the last two years of Trump's term and eight years of two terms on his own.
In terms of "removal", I mean that. That's what will have to happen. Trump isn't going anywhere voluntarily. And hence, the 25th Amendment comes in.
Gosh, we'll hear, the stress of things just caught up with the old fellow.
Or gosh, we didn't know he was a diddler.
July 20, 2025
Not too surprisingly, women with a connection to this story have resurfaced, including Stacey Williams, who was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model featured in the pornography, um, swimsuit, issue at some joint in the 90s. She was also Epstein's girlfriend in the early 90s, showing some bad judgment on her part.
Anyhow, she states that Epstein took her up the Trump tower where Trump groped her while he and Epstein talked, liking it to “some sort of sick bet or game” between the two “close friends". Several of her friend corroborated the story and she offered to take a polygraph tests, although such tests are frankly worthless.
Trump predictably denied this, but it's worth remembering that he has been convicted for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll.
It's also worth remembering that starting in the last decade it became common to support the women making these difficult accusations. And there are others against Trump. Williams doesn't seem to fit into the category of somebody we'd instantly doubt.
At what point will people take this seriously?
July 21, 2025
The president is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,
* * *
It’s not going to be much, because the Southern District of New York’s practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury.
Sarah Krissoff, former Epstein prosecutor, regarding the release of the Epstein Grand Jury material.
This material, which may be as little as 60 pages in length, is not the same as internal FBI or prosecutorial files, and therefore is unlikely to satisfy the demand for what the government has on Epstein. Indeed, it's more likely an effort to simply end the controversy by doing very little.
Trump's current mental state, in my view, is heavily impacted by advancing dementia, although he's never been a good guy. What Tommy Tuberville's excuse is, however, I don't know.
Tuberville stated this past week that Trump's chronic venous insufficiency might be due to "battling radicals".
Is Tuberville actually that stupid?
At least in terms of what he says that hits the press, Tuberville says some really remarkably idiotic things. Maybe he's just one of those guys that says dumb stuff without thinking about it, making him seem dumber than he really is. Be that as it may, with Marjorie Taylor Green and Tuberville both in Congress right now, the GOP has a couple of figures that are just stunningly unqualified for their jobs intellectually, if what they say is what they actually think. Tuberville, for his party, gives unintended evidence for the worst stereotypes of football coaches, particularly for somebody like me who doesn't like football.
cont:
Apparently Donald Trump is posting a random video of a girl in a bikini catching a snake on social media.
Oh, that's not weird. . .
July 23, 2025
Mike Johnson sent the House home for an extra long vacation rather than make them face a vote on the Epstein files.
Like that's not odd . . .
Well that must mean that nothing is embarrassing in them, right. . . right?
Oh, some of these folks will have "town halls" on their month plus long break. . . it'd be a shame if they were asked about the Epstein files.. .
Apparently Sen. Lummis doesn't agree with the recess.
Lummis Calls For Cancellation Of August Recess
She wants them to stay in session so they can make appointments that haven't been made. While I'm not at all happy with the illegitimate Trump Administration, she certainly has a point. Six months in and there's still hundreds of unfilled offices. This will be a huge problem by next year, if it keeps up, for Maga's as the next Congress is going to be Democratic.
Trump's talking up his latest nutty conspiracy:
Barack Hussein Obama is the ringleader. Hillary Clinton was right there with him and so was Sleepy Joe Biden, Comey, Clapper. They tried to rig an election and they got caught. And then they did rig the election in 2020. And then because I knew I won that election by a lot, I did it a third time and I won in a landslide.
There must be some sort of statute of limitations on blaming Obama for everything. And by this point, isn't this thin gruel for Republicans? Literally everything is Obama's fault, according to Trump and the satellites in his orbit.
This is somebody nobody else can do. I can get the drug prices down… 1000% 600% 500% 1500%. Numbers that are not even thought to be achievable.
Donald Trump.
Those numbers aren't thought to be achievable as that would mathematically mean pharmaceutical companies would have to pay you to take drugs.
On Jerome Powell:
He has these think tanks. The build buildings for people who think. It’s really not thinking. It’s a little bit of a combination of thinking. It’s something you sort have or don’t have… He ought to raise interest rates.
Donald Trump.
July 24, 2025
It appears that the Wall Street Journal learned a lesson from the tactic deployed by The Atlantic, and held stuff back from its first report on Trump and Epstein. At least one insider is indicating that there's a lot more to come, which if true, would explain why Trump is currently bouncing off the walls.
Yesterday the WSJ revealed that Bondi had briefed Trump on what's in the Epstein files back in May and that his name does occur frequently. The files also reportedly contain child pornography which is why, reportedly, Bondi determined not to release the information as she did not wish to reveal the names of the victims.
This doesn't mean that Trump is associated with child pornography, and we'd note again that so far what Epstein seems to have dabbled in was ephebophilia, not pedophilia, which doesn't mean that he wasn't, as Trump has indicated, a "creep". But things just keep looking worse and worse for Trump.
Indeed, Jon Stewart hilariously noted this on his show, comparing the situation to the most recent Top Gun movie, which I have not seen, with fighter countermeasures being deployed.
I haven't looked, but if there aren't new variants of the bunker scene in Downfall circulating, I'd be amazed. Those in fact would be apt as Trump is desperately pulling out everything to deflect attention from the Epstein story, even suddenly going after the Washington Commanders, demanding that they go back to being called the Redskins. His most dangerous action, however, is now a serious attempt to go after former President Obama on some wild conspiracy theory.
That latter move is not only desperate, it's dumb. Trump is now setting a precedent that prosecuting a former President is perfectly legitimate. . . with it being obvious that if he lives through his term, which is unlikely due to his advanced old age, he could be prosecuted as well. That increases the incentive, we'd note, for him to try to advance an excuse that he can run for a third term in order that he can attempt to guaranty that he'll die in office.
A move to prosecute Obama, it should be noted, is a full blown step from democracy into fascism and its impossible to pretend otherwise. I've resisted the claims that we're now in a fascist state, as we're not, but at that point, we are. Trump appears perfectly willing to take us there.
This also ramps up the 25th Amendment pressure. Trump is in a full on panic. His loyal lieutenant, Wilhelm Keitel, oops, Mike Johnson, seems willing to stay in Berlin, oops, loyal to his Leader, and do whatever is necessary to hide what's in the files even up to the extent of sending the House home so it couldn't vote in releasing the files, but this drama isn't going away.
The files should be released. Yes, that will reveal the names of young women who were defiled by the rich, but the fact of the matter is that keeping their names secret is protecting their abusers at this point. And that reemphasizes that Trump's female accusers have, for the most part, been silenced as well.
Robert Reich's look at the story:
What did he know, and when did he know it?
From Watergate to Epsteingate
So, as a final matter, what is in these files and who is being protected? The conclusion that nobody is, is impossible. Trump is clearly panicked, and we now know his name shows up multiple times, but in what context.
Whatever it is, it's impossible to not conclude that Trump himself is being protected due to proof of a grossly immoral act or character, or that some very wealthy and powerful people are being so protected.
Frankly, it's also impossible not to conclude that these files are going to be scrubbed. Congress may be in recess, but the Administration isn't. That would be a crime, but the current administration doesn't have much of a problem committing crimes. If whatever is in these is bad enough to attempt to prosecute a former President, it's bad enough to take the lighter fluid and Zippo to.
July 25, 2025
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell yesterday on the renewed Epstein scandal.
Maxwell was the "girlfriend" and then assistant procurer of Jeffrey Epstein. The relationship started off when she was in a period of financial distress, but never developed to what she seemingly likely hoped, a marriage, as Epstein was frank that he liked teenage girls for sex partners, and that wasn't going to change.
Which does, frankly, bring up the creepy "enigma's never age" line of the Trump birthday wish poem.
At this point, if Maxwell comes out and says that Trump had no interest in the high school and junior high set, it won't matter, as people will believe that the politicized Department of Justice is doing Trump's bidding. And she's not going to say otherwise, would be my prediction.
Jerome Powel somewhat gently took Trump to school in a public meeting at which they were both present, with Trump floundering like a fish on the deck when Powell corrected him on a building under construction, and mostly complete, whose budget was approved, apparently back in 2015.
Related threads:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. A second Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.
Labels: Crime, Ephebophilia, Epstein Scandal, Hebephilia, Hypocrisy, Ross Douthat, Sex, The Press, The rich and the poor, The wealthy, Zeitgeist
Last editions:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 97th edition. The Epstein Connections.
The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Second Edition.
Labels: 2020s, 2025, Donald Trump, Health, Joseph Biden, Mental Health, Stupidity, The Madness of King Donald, Weird
Additional Labels: American Civil Religion, Christianity, Health, homosexuality, Hugh Hefner, Immigration, Marriage, Mental Health, Predictions, Racism, religion, Sex, The relationship between men and women
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