Showing posts with label Air Force One. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Air Force One. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 148th Edition. The Aerodrome: Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.

The Aerodrome: Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.: It's been revealed (leaked?) that Trump flew out of Turkey not an an older Air Force One, as he'd claimed, but on a C-32A . The C-32...

We'll note something that wasn't noted when this was originally posted.  The report of an Iranian threat was from Israel. The CIA regarded had "low confidence in the report.

Hmmm. . .

Well, it's not like most of us have to worry about such threats in general.  I guess I can't, therefore, gauge the reaction to it.  It is interesting that man with such fatalistic comments about the threat of death earlier has this reaction. .   or is it?  We're sometimes told that when threats happen, as in the January 6 insurrection when Trump tried to go down to his fellow Confederates, the Secret Service will completely take over.

It also sort of puts the whole who goes, and who risks getting killed matter, in a different light.  Or does it?

Well, with all of this, I don't believe there was ever an Iranian threat.  I suspect that Israel was picking up background noise from Iran.  It's not impossible that a rogue Iranian unit might have attempted to assassinate Trump, and of course he made himself an Iranian target by participating in the assassination of their leadership.  But I bet there was never a central effort to do it.

Indeed, it's not in their best interests.  Iran is a lot better off with Trump in charge.  The incompetence of the Trump Administration and the abject cowardice of the Republican Party has proven to be their best ally.  They'll dictate terms to us by November which the Trump Administration will accept.

Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.

It's been revealed (leaked?) that Trump flew out of Turkey not an an older Air Force One, as he'd claimed, but on a C-32A .


The C-32A is a militarized 757.

This would indicate that the Iranian threat against Trump must have been deemed fairly serious, which would necessarily give rise to the question of whether or not the threat still exists.  

This behavior would suggest it does:
While I'm a frequent Trump critic, and don't even believe he's actually a legitimate President, I don't blame the efforts to sneak Trump out on another plane if the threats were deemed credible.  I do regard the stationing of AAA at a New Jersey golf course to be questionable while we're running out of AAA in the Middle East due to Trump's illegal war there.  He could just skip golfing or risk it.

Perhaps of more interest is who was put on the catering van to make the switch in aircraft with Trump. They were Dan Scavino, Walt Nauta and Natalie Harp.  The only one you may have heard of is Harp, whose a tall blond fitting into the general Trump harem appearance profile and who has some sort of flunky job with Trump.  The White House Press Corps rode the substituted Air Force One back as did some senior White House officials.

Now, I'm not saying everyone should have been on the 757.  I do find it interesting that the figures who were allowed to ride the substitute C-32A were not really important people.  I'm also not saying that Harp and Trump are doing anything illicit, although I do find Harp to be an odd figure.

I also wonder if every President would have taken this option.  I suspect not, but I suspect some would have.

I'm also noting how embarrassing this is. The claimed most powerful military in the world has been defeated by Iran, whose Air Force is so depleted it rarely gets anything in the air, although contrary to some claims, it has during this war, having put an F-14 in the skies on at least one occasion.

It's an existential defeat.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 147th Edition. Have we reached an "Is Paris burning?" moment?

Monday, August 10, 2026

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 142nd Edition, 25th Amendment Watch, 22nd Edition. Worry.

If you aren't afraid of what's going on with the United States government and Donald Trump's increasingly demented brain, you should be.  We've really entered the Twilight Zone on this one.

Tom Nichols, the columnist for The Atlantic, nailed it in this MS Now interview, in which he stated: 

Nichols: It’s almost like we have a relative in the room, and there’s something deeply wrong with him. And we’ve all agreed not to talk about it. But there is something deeply wrong with him.

His friends know it, his critics know it. His staff, I’m sure, knows it. The world knows it. World leaders know it. And most importantly, our enemies know it, which is why they don’t take him seriously.

Nobody hangs on his words. They kind of do, but mostly out of freakish curiosity to see what kind of wild thing he’s going to say next, not because his words have any inherent meaning or reflect policy.

You know, I spent years teaching students that when the president speaks, it’s policy, and you must pay attention when the president speaks because nobody can contradict him.

Now, you know, are we really cutting off all trade with Spain? Who knows? Maybe. Maybe not. It might have just been a stray electron, you know, careening around inside his brainpan. Who knows?

But this is really dangerous because in the middle of all this stuff—and we can laugh about, you know, the Islamic Republic of Japan and all of that—but he made several statements about an ongoing war that the United States is losing. And no one’s even trying to pretend that they can make any sense of it.

And I’ll just add one last thing that you just brought up.

If this were any other president, this would be a national crisis. I mean, Joe Biden got somebody’s name wrong, and it was headlines. The president gets all kinds of things wrong, completely, you know, is out to lunch at an important NATO summit, and, you know, it’s Wednesday.

This is a crisis.  

Trump's brain was really on full display over the past week while he was attending the NATO summit.

During a public meeting with Zelensky, he referred to him as Putin.  For that matter, he claimed:

We had 11 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan.

The same man who can't get out of the war claimed:

In one day, we could knock down every single bridge in Iran. There's not a thing they can do about it ... if we have to, we'll take them out. They have desalinization plants. We'll take them out if we have to ... maybe we'll take over Kharg

Attacking desalinization plants would likely be a war crime.

On the bogus Red Scare:

I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Leneeen.

On Spain, which he liked the next day or day after:

Spain is a wasted cause. We don't want to do any trade business with Spain anymore, by the way. I'd like to cut it off. Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. Cut off all trade with Spain, please. Including visits. We don't want anything to do. They're hopeless. Bad

And on IEDs.
The roadside bomb is a bomb that goes on when you're driving your little around, and it goes on and you have no legs, no arms, and no face.
The latter, I'd note, is typical for Trump in this stage.  He talks about something that everyone else in world knows more about than he does, and then gives it a toddlers explanation.  A week or two ago he discovered that the word dumb is spelled dumb.  He was so pleased to discover that. Apparently he really believed that most people thought it was spelled "dum".

That last item should worry us in and of itself  A President ought to have a trusted advisor to tell him, "look Donny, the entire f*****g world except you knows how that word is spelled.

Instead, we're on a roller coaster in control of a man who has the mind of a toddler.

July 11, 2026

On his recent trip to be ignored at the NATO summit, in Turkey, where the participants have tired of the raving octogenarian, Donald Trump switched airplanes as Qatari One lacks the full set of countermeasures that the two Air Force Ones have.  It took the Press about a day to figure that out, which wasn't all that difficult, particularly as the lame excuse was that it was going to a U.S. Airbase in the UK so the airmen there could admire it.  Nonetheless, the Administration is now suing over the story breaking.

The story further developed, basically, that the Iranians, after having their complete leadership killed in the first hours of the war might revisit the tactic on Donald Trump, which is the very reason that nations at war do not do this.  A more likely story, however, is simply that there's an intelligence assessment that it was a risk, which it obviously is.  When Trump was called on the real reason for the airplane's diversion he at first sort of brushed it off, but by yesterday he no longer was.

Now we're getting this:


This is flat out absurd and frankly nobody believes it.  Given the sort of missiles this would entail, it threatens what amounts to a nuclear strike on Iran.  

Frankly, this entire episode is a massive example of playing a stupid game and winning a stupid prize.  Trump made himself a target by assassinating or allowing the assassination of the Iranian civil government.  If they aren't targeting him, and frankly they likely aren't, it's because they deem it in their best interest not to, and not because the US would retaliate, but because it's in their best interest at this point to have the country lead by a distracted demented fruit loop.

For what it's worth, a President can't give a "if they kill me, do this" order.  Once the President dies, his role as Commander in Chief dies with him.  This could only occur if the next President authorized it.  If a President was assassinated by a foreign power, there'd be some sort of military retaliation, but this wouldn't be it.

The real danger here, however, is that Trump went from "m'eh" to absolute panic in the space of a day.  He's getting extremely erratic and he's not going to get better.  Normally if a threat like this was made parties would be getting ready to invoke the 25th Amendment.  We're now so used to this it's just another day.

July 22, 2026
Green New Scam where we were scammed. The whole country was, I wasn't scammed. I got it right from the beginning… they were saying wind was so wonderful, so wonderful, except you couldn't, watch your television, they wanted to watch the debate. Donald Trump against Sleepy Joe Biden. Nobody could watch it because the wind wasn't blowing. Remember that?
Everything about this Trump babble is completely erroneous.

Seriously, he needs to have the 25th Amendment applied to him.  That it isn't, is reckless in the extreme.

August 10, 2026

An example of the rank stupidity of the Second Trump Administration.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose and Policy.  Pursuant to the Presidential Memorandum of December 5, 2025 (Aligning United States Core Childhood Vaccine Recommendations with Best Practices from Peer, Developed Countries), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) completed a scientific assessment, which identified a set of consensus vaccines that are consistently recommended in all peer countries and found that the United States currently recommends more childhood vaccines than any peer nation, including more than twice as many vaccine doses as some European nations (scientific assessment).  The scientific assessment also found that, instead of implementing vaccination mandates, most peer nations maintain high childhood vaccination rates through public trust and education.  In the United States, by contrast, individual States set mandatory vaccination requirements that children must meet to attend school.

Executive Order 14407 of May 29, 2026 (Realigning United States Core Childhood Vaccine Recommendations With Best Practices From Peer, Developed Countries), committed the Federal Government to ensuring that Americans are receiving the best scientifically supported medical advice in the world, as well as to protecting religious liberty and parental authority.  However, implementation of my Administration’s prior directives regarding childhood vaccines has been delayed due to litigation over the composition of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and separate updates to the Federal vaccine schedule.  Therefore, I am taking further action to reaffirm that it is the policy of the United States that the core childhood vaccine recommendations should be aligned with scientific evidence and best practices from peer, developed countries while preserving access to vaccines currently available to Americans.  Further, it is the policy of my Administration that Federal programs and funding should support maximal parental choice over childhood vaccines, consistent with the Federal Government’s constitutional and statutory obligations and the fundamental principles of personal autonomy and informed consent.

Sec. 2.  Recommendations for Childhood and Adolescent Vaccines.  (a)  Based on consultation with my advisors and review of available scientific evidence, it is hereby declared that the United States recognizes Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations informed by the three distinct categories of childhood immunization recommendations identified in the scientific assessment, as specified below:

(i)    immunizations recommended for all children:  measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus, and varicella;

(ii)   immunizations recommended for certain high-risk groups or populations:  respiratory syncytial virus monoclonal antibodies, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal B, meningococcal ACWY, and dengue; and

(iii)  immunizations based on shared clinical decision-making:  hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and COVID-19.

(b)  The Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations also recognize that the combined measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine should be administered in three separate single-disease shots once such products are domestically available and that, to the maximum extent feasible, all childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits.

(c)  Each executive department and agency shall review the Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations and take any appropriate steps to advance them, to the fullest extent allowable by law.

(d)  States and territories are advised to review the Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations and consider updating relevant laws and regulations that define the scope of immunization requirements for contexts such as school enrollment and attendance based on the scientific assessment and best practices from peer, developed countries.

(e)  The United States will routinely reassess the Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations according to the findings of the HHS Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines as specified in section 3 of this order.

Sec. 3.  Improving Vaccine Research and Options for American Parents.  The Secretary of HHS, through the HHS Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, shall, within 90 days of the date of this order, present plans to the President through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy to, to the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law:

(a)  offer options to administer core childhood vaccines, starting with MMR, as single vaccines rather than combination products/doses, including by working with the private sector and other countries as appropriate, while guaranteeing continued availability of combination vaccines and those vaccines recommended for shared clinical decision-making;

(b)  assess the ideal timing and sequencing of all core childhood vaccines and adjust the Federal childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule as appropriate based on gold‑standard science;

(c)  develop additional alternative adjuvants to aluminum and conduct comparative safety and efficacy studies;

(d)  ensure continuous evaluation of the risk/benefit profiles of all childhood vaccines based on United States and international data; and

(e)  improve vaccine safety monitoring, transparency, and research. 

Sec. 4.  Maximizing Parental Choice over Childhood Vaccines.  (a)  The Attorney General shall take appropriate measures to further meritorious legal actions challenging State laws that conflict with States’ constitutional and Federal statutory obligations related to parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection under the law, including, to the extent applicable under Federal law, States’ obligations to provide religious and medical exemptions from childhood and adolescent immunization requirements.

(b)  The Departments of Justice, Education, and HHS shall take appropriate action to ensure that their contractors and grantees, including States and localities, are compliant with their constitutional and Federal statutory obligations related to parental authority, religious freedom, disability accommodations, and equal protection under the law, including, to the extent applicable under Federal law, their obligations to provide religious and medical exemptions from childhood and adolescent immunization requirements.  

Sec. 5.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c)  This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d)  The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of Health and Human Services.

                             DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
At some point you have to admit that Donald Trump is fairly stupid.

He has, we will give him, some native skills. But by and large, he appears to be fairly dumb.

An example on this very topic:
They have a vaccination that’s the size of a bottle of soda poured into a child’s body.
Trump.

That statement is moronic.

The question at this point would be, has he always been this dumb, or did he decline into stupidity?

Even so, he clearly has some reservations:
Nothing bad can happen from what we're doing. Nothing bad can happen. It's possible it doesn't work. I don't think that's much of a possibility, frankly.
Trump.

We're gambling with children's well being based on the medical advice of a non doctor who is a complete and utter quack.

And Trump on Joe Biden's cancer:
If you feel sorry for him, don’t feel so sorry, because he’s vicious.I really don’t feel sorry for him.

Last edition:


Friday, July 10, 2026

The Aerodrome: Air Force One, Aircraft boneyards, Arizona (Tucson), Boeing 747, Boeing VC-25B, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, RAF Mildenhall, United States Air Force, United States and Israel v. Iran

The Aerodrome: Missing a rather obvious upgrade. Was; The Aerodr...: The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument. : This blog was never intended to be political, but in the age of Donald T...

Missing a rather obvious upgrade. Was; The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.

The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.: This blog was never intended to be political, but in the age of Donald Trump, which will go down as the most corrupt political era in U.S. h...
So Trump went to the NATO summit in Turkey and, at some point, it dawned on somebody that this meant he was a stone's throw from Iran. . . and that maybe Air Force One made for a good target.

Frankly, the war in Iran has been very surprising in numerous ways, including htat much of what had always been predicted about such a war just did not occur, at least so far.  For instance, it had always been assumed that Iran would activate sleeper cells in the US if a war occured.  Right now, given that nothing occurred, we have to assume that Iran either has remarkable restraint, or it doesn't have sleeper cells  Nothing has happened.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz should have been no surprise at all, but what has been a surprise is Iran's resilience to attack.  People thinking that defeating Iran would be easy were always completely delusional, and indeed it won't happen unless the US commits troops the ground in very large numbers, but country's ability to just shrug off repeated attacks is really impressive.  It's engaged in some major missile offensives during the war and even now has only used a faction of what it has.  Early beliefs that all its launchers were taken out proved to be completely erroneous. 

Anyhow, while Trump was embarrassing the United States in Turkey the negotiations, such as they were, between Trump's son in law and the equally unqualified former lawyer and real estate figure that Trump has charged with this matter, fell apart.  J. D. Vance, occasionally saddled with trying to get the ink dry on some settlement, isn't working on it and is instead touring around the country making stupid statements in from of the Screw American Voters Act.  Trump used the opportunity, in addition to insulting Spain, to insult the Iranians, who were already pretty much ignoring him.

The it dawned on somebody that the new Qatari Royal Coach lacks electronic countermeasures, unlike the other jets in the Air Force One stable.

Oops.

Given that, one of the old Presidential buses was flown over to haul Trump around and the new one was flown to RAF Mildenhall on the excuse that the airmen might want to see it.

Yeah, a big airplane. What a treat for airmen.

The real reason, of course, was that it dawned on somebody that given as the plane has no countermeasures if the Iranians took a shot at it, only luck and fancy maneuvers, maybe, would keep the giant plane in the air.  And as Donald Trump murdered the head of the Iranian state, worrying that the Iranians would figure that turn about was fair play isn't irrational.  For that matter, even if the Iranian state might not attempt that, there's plenty of irregular forces in the region that might not particularly love Donald.

So, the US has sunk $400,000,000 into this dubious gift and it isn't as capable as the older aircraft.

As earlier reported here, when Trump vacates the Oval Office, which he has no legal right to be in already, the new Air Force One is supposed to be going to a Trump Presidential Library.  What a joke.  And an expensive one on the American taxpayer.  

Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution states:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Congress has so suspended its duties that getting anyone to enforce this clause seems like a lost cause right now, but maybe in a future presidency somebody will dust the document off, walk down to Congress, dope slap the whole body until the current deadwood leaves (John Barrasso, looking at you) and people who actually will do their job reappear.  Should that occur, this airplane should not leave the Air Force inventory.  But what to do with it is another question.  $400,000,000 have been spent on it. 

There are already two new Air Force One's being built.  Those ones will be properly equipped.  The existing Air Force Ones already are.  Hopefully not another dime is spent on this one.

But that, frankly, puts it in the domestic hauler category.  I suppose it could be used for that, save for the fact that it's a national embarrassment. 

Given that, my prediction is that it will be junked.  I don't think it'll ever go to a Trump presidential library, assuming one is every built  Trump's already 80 years old and every morning when he wakes up the Grim Reaper is there asking how he's feeling.  It won't be used by a future President, and it's not going to be used by the Air Force for anything.

It's just a waste.

Boneyard of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.

It'll go to top men.  Top men.