For the first time in US history, more Americans are moving to Europe than the other way around.
Indeed, European immigration to the US is at historic lows. US emigration is at historic highs.
Why?
Simple, the US has become a dumpster fire. It's no longer really a democracy but a semi democracy presently ruled by an insane (if we don't assume worst) megalomaniac who is destroying the economy. We look like uneducated morons, which a lot of us actually seem to be. There are absolutely no positive indicators which the US tops the charts at. We are the 23d happiest country on the planet. Finland, Iceland, and Denmark are the first three. We cling to obsolete signs of greatness, such as refusing to have a national health care system and having a tax system that grossly under taxes Americans and funds a government that benefits us little, while people like Reid Rasner campaign for even lower taxes. We've gone from being a country that had nearly no military to having one that has a bloated military that serves an insane President.
What's not to love?
Well, there is the country, but that involves being realistic, which will get you accused of being a left winger (which should not in and of itself be regarded as an insult) by insufferable twat waffles like Chuck Gray.
We are really due for an overhaul.
Ironically, the orange buffoon destroying the White House probably helps show us the way on this. He's shown us where we have massive institutional defects. And he's taken us off the global map as a great power and made us a second rate one. Part of our descent into ignorance was a legacy of what was then a noble Cold War response to things, including a big military and governments that meddled bigly.
Now we are going to have to dance to the tune of others, but the good thing is that the others are adults.
To progress at all, which doesn't mean a return to high immigration or anything of that sort, we're really going to have to get back into education, which people like the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and other right wing zealots hate. Better to be dumb is their default position.
Better to be smart, and educated, and face our problems honestly.
Yesterday the United States mounted an early morning military operation and removed the chief executive, arguably an illegitimate chief executive, from office and brought him to the United States to face criminal charges, even though the real ability of the US to charge somebody overseas with a crime is dubious and we ignore that when people do that to us.
Later in the day, Donald Trump, also an illegitimate chief executive, gave a press conference.
This demonstrates senility. There's no doubt about it.
January 9, 2026
There is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,. . .
Donald Trump.
Need anyone say more?
The 25th Amendment needs to be invoked now.
January 10, 2026
At a meeting with oil company executives, which was odd in and of itself.
"Hold on, I need to look at my beautiful ballroom” — then got up and walked to the door.
Wow. What a view! This is the door to the ballroom!
The man is a child, but then, that's what senility does.
It's worth finding the video. Trump is clearly senile and its at the point where nobody can hide it. Rubio is sitting there grim faced, because that's all he can do.
It's not, I'd note, just me that's been noticing a rapidly declining cognitive ability in Trump.
If Trump was a partner in a law or accounting firm, he'd have been wheeled out the door by now. If he ran a business on his own his employees would be jumping ship. The man is mentally gone.
At this point its absolutely the case that these conversations are, beyond a shadow of a doubt, taking place behind Trump's back. Rubio, Vance, etc., are discussing his mental incapacity. Rubio is full blown on correction mode all the time. Vance is hiding most of the time. The big question is who is angling for what. We have no reason to believe that these characters all get along with each other, and we know that the Trump administration basically breaks down into 1) National Conservatives, using him as a distraction (Vance, Miller), 2) New Apostolic Reformation Evangelicals who figure that Trump is divinely charged with a mission to bring in a new, Evangelical, Christian age (not in the admin, but think Mike Johnson), 3) rank sycophants who worship Trump unthinkingly and 4) rank opportunist (Marco Rubio). Any one of these groups save for the sycophants would have pushed Trump out by now, but no one group is really in agreement with what comes next. Opportunists don't want the NatCons or the NAR people in, the NAR people don't want the opportunists or the NatCon people in, the NatCon people know that this is their only chance.
January 15, 2025
January 16, 2026
Invoke the 25th Amendment you cowardly bastards.
January 17, 2026
He's completely unhinged:
The 25th Amendment needs to be applied now. Trump is a madman. This is utterly insane and anyone supporting it is a complete moron.
Congress, step in.
Section 4
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
Do your duty. Congress can declare itself to be the body that declares Donald Trump to be Bat Shit Crazy. If it was a Democratic Congress, presumably it would. It only requires a few Republicans who are sycophantic toadies to go get it done.
Get it done.
January 19, 2026.
Okay, MAGA adherents and Republican politicians, explain why this isn't batshit crazy:
cont:
The Atlantic.
Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw
Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?
The man is bat shit crazy. He needs to be removed.
From that article:
Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland.
Congress, screw up your courage and do something.
January 20, 2026
Trump gave a long, rambling, completely unhinged speech today in Europe.
This is effectively the final constitutional test. The Emperor Has NO Clothes. He's batshit crazy and everyone knows it. If the cabinet will not act, it's because their souls are corrupt. It's up to Congress at this point, and the Republicans are gutless cowards.
If they don't act, this is the end of the United States as a great power, and likely the end of the American economic era. It's a disaster.
It's also the end of this edition. Trump's dementia is now in the rapidly accelerating stage and we've entered a new stage of frightful senility. I had predicted the application of the 25th Amendment over a year ago. What I hadn't counted on was evil men like Stephen Miller, or complete fools like Scott Bessett. It's doubtful that it'll be applied now. Like Hitler's minions, they're rather go down in the bunker, or can't realize that they are.
The first attempted use of the the Yokosuka MXYZ Ohka suicide jet failed when the flight of Betty bombers carrying them towards their target, the US fleet off of Okinawa, was intercepted and all the bombers shot down.
The Battle of West Henan–North Hubei (豫西鄂北會戰) between the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army began.
The RAF hit Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, which also resulted in 125 civilian deaths.
The Royal Air Force hit Venice harbor from the air.
Greenland's defenses are being boosted, something that Denmark claims is coincidental, but which comes hard on the heels of soon to be octogenarian president elect Donald Trump making sounds about the United States "needing" it, which is complete baloney and likely further evidence of his inability to contain his mental wonderings in the face of the onset, most likely, of dementia.
$1.5B in U.S. Dollars are to be spent, a major amount.
Expenditures will include two extra dog sled teams, two more inspection ships, two more long-range drones, two extra dog sled teams, funding for more staffing at Artic Command in Nuuk, and upgrades to airports.
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen claimed the timing of the announcement is an "irony of fate" and was something that needed to be done for a long time.
On Greenland, it's worth noting that the US has a base there, Pituffik Space Base, which was an Air Force base before the Trump dribble the Space Farce was created. Anyhow, the base, controlled by the absurdly named Space Base Delta 1, is there, but could just as easily be taken over by an adult nation, such as Canada, Denmark itself, or Norway. Denmark and Greenland really ought to serve notice to the US that the US can move out on inauguration day.
Pvt. Fred T. Huff, 698 Pulaski St., Athens, Ga., one of the soldiers in an American infantry battalion trapped behind German lines.for six days in the Belmont sector, France, eats while waiting for transportation to the rear area for a rest. 31 October, 1944.
U.S. Infantrymen who were cut off by the Germans for six days in the Belmont sector, France, file down the road after being relieved. 31 October, 1944. 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, 36th Infantry Division.
Bearded Lt. Martin J. Higgins, 29 Garrison Ave., Jersey City, N.J., left, receives a warm handshake from Lt. Charles O. Barry, 120 West St., Williamstown, P.A., when he rejoins his unit in the Belmont sector after being cut off by the Germans for six days. Lt. Higgins was one of the officers with a battalion cut off by the Germans. France. 31 October, 1944. Note the M1 Carbine has a grenade launching attachment. 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division.
The Royal Air Force raided Gestapo headquarters at the Aarhus University in Denmark The goal was to destroy Gestapo records to aid the Danish resistance. The raid was conducted, as an earlier on in France had been, with Mosquitos.
The Germans evacuated Salonika. Remaining Aegean German garrisons were trapped.
German Army Group North was trapped on the Courland Peninsula.
T/5 Miles J. Wermager, center, of Magnomen, Minn., a member of a cavalry unit near Monschau, Germany, receives his first piece of chicken since D-Day from T/4 Frank F. Leichtman, left, of Bresho, S.D. 31 October, 1944.
Complete to a flute, turban, and ersatz snake, TeC 5 Hernry Vin Roten, seated, of Brooklyn, N.Y., muses fellow GIs and pretty guests from the nearby French town of Toul at a Halloween party given by members of an air evacuation holding station. 3rd Army Air Evac. Holding Station. 31 October, 1944.
Adolf Hitler approved the Ardennes Offensive "Wacht am Rhein", known in the west as the Battle of the Bulge.
Market Garden, the semi failed or wholly failed, hastily put together Allied invasion of The Netherlands hadn't even commenced yet and therefore makes for a remarkable contrast. The Germans were planning a mid winter offensive and it was still summer, showing planning foresight, but also an appreciate at some level of the inevitability of further retreats into the winter.
"Members of an American airborne unit (82nd Airborne Division) flock to an American Red Cross Clubmobile for coffee and donuts on the eve of their takeoff for the airborne invasion of Holland. 16 September, 1944. Cottesmore Airdrome, England." These troops are equipped with the then new M1943 Field Jacket and M1943 paratrooper field pants. This uniform was new and replaced the ones that had been used just a few months prior in Operation Overlord. The M1943 field jacket wa already becoming a universal issue item, although oddly the trousers were not.
The Red Army took Sofia, Bulgaria. They then turned west to attempt to block the Germans from retreating from Greece.
The fronts were drawing close.
A general strike broke out in Denmark over deportations by the Germans.
The Royal Navy raided Sigli in Northern Sumatra.
The Second Quebec Conference ended. The course of combat across the globe was ratified, wit there being an additional agreement for a campaign in Burma, and the British joining American forces in the Pacific in its final campaigns against the British, something the US would effectively recant on as the war drew to a close.
Gustav Bauer, German Chancellor in 1919 and 1920, and very briefly a prisoner of the early Third Reich, died.
Danish King Christian IX handed a new constitution to the Icelandic parliament granting it more independence, but not independence. He also asked for every church on the island, all Lutheran, to hold a service in honor of the event. As it was Sunday, they all would have held services in any event.
The date is widely observed in Icelandic communities in North America, but not on Iceland.
A further advance towards independence would come in 1918, when the Danish Kingdom of Iceland was established, and the island declared independence in 1944.
The United Kingdom broke off diplomatic relations, the last thing that occurs before a declaration of war, or not, over the Mexican government's treatment of diplomat H. C. Cummins.
An exchange in the UK a few days prior:
MEXICO (BRITISH AGENT).
HC Deb 16 June 1924 vol 174 cc1737-91737
Mr. A. M. SAMUEL (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether the Mexican Government have attempted to expel Mr. Cummins, British Diplomatic Agent in Mexico City; whether Mr. Cummins has refused to leave and has shut himself up in the British Legation; whether His Majesty's Government regard the action of the Mexican Government as a breach of international courtesy, and, if so, what steps His Majesty's Government are going to take?
Viscount CURZON (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is able to make any statement as to the state of affairs existing at the British Legation in Mexico City, and as to the causes which have led up to it, and what action His Majesty's Government proposes to take?
The PRIME MINISTER The statements made in the question put by the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. A. M. Samuel) may be taken as substantially correct. For some time there has been friction between the Mexican Government and Mr. Cummins, His Majesty's Government being unable to agree that the complaints made against Mr. Cummins were justified. On the 13th May I was informed that if Mr. Cummins were not withdrawn he would be expelled on the 10th instant. I had been desirous of regularising our relations with Mexico for some time, and decided that. Sir Thomas Hohler, who had previously done good work in that country, should go out at once on a special mission and report to me. On his arrival, Mr. Cummins was to leave. On the 15th April that information was sent officially to the Mexican Government, and I trusted that matters would be allowed to rest there. The Mexican Government have, however, 1738not only declined to withdraw their notice of expulsion, but are, apparently, in ways reported in the Press, proceeding to carry it out. His Majesty's Government regard the action of the Mexican Government as a grave breach of international courtesy, but I am still waiting for further information, as the result of communications I have made to the Mexican Government. I can only add, at the present moment, that I informed the Mexican Government that, in the event of their taking steps against Mr. Cummins, with which His Majesty's Government did not concur, the Hohler Mission could not be proceeded with. Though Sir Thomas Hohler is due to start at once, he has not yet left.
Colonel ASHLEY Is there at present free communication between His Majesty's Government and Mr. Cummins?
The PRIME MINISTER I believe that it is interrupted at present, though we are getting communications through.Mr. W. THORNE Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the nature of the charges made by the Mexican Government against Mr. Cummins on account of which they desire his expulsion? There must be some reason surely.
The PRIME MINISTER The allegations made by the. Mexican Government against Mr. Cummins amount briefly to this, that Mr. Cummins made rude communications to the Mexican Government.
Mr. RONALD McNEILL Has not the friction arisen owing to Mr. Cummins' representations as to the rights of British subjects, made on the instructions of the Government?
The PRIME MINISTER ; The trouble which has arisen during my term of office can be accurately described by what my right hon. Friend has just said. The latest communication which caused offence was with reference to the case of Mrs. Evans, whose property was seized by the Mexican Government.
Mr. McNEILL Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the rights of British subjects will not be sacrificed in any circumstances owing to a new representative being sent there?
The PRIME MINISTER The whole idea which I had in mind was that, by regularising our relations with the Mexican Government, we should be in a very much better position than we are at present to negotiate about those rights.
Mr. SAMUEL Is it not impossible to carry out negotiations with any country which does not conform to the usages of civilisation?
It's not immediately clear to me what became of this spat.
