Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 1. The Return of the Neo Con Edition.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Matthew, Chapter 24.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

James Madison

January 2, 2026.

The United States v. Iran

We start off this year with the no more forever wars president threatening to intervene in Iran.

Iran is a bad actor, without a doubt, but what we'd particularly note here is that Trump's policy of intervention is beginning to look a lot like the Neo Con policy.  A person can like that, or not, but it's not what he was promising at all.  I'd heard various Trump supporters cite the "no more forever wars" line as (one of) their reasons for supporting him.

January 3, 2026

United States v. Venezuela

The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and took Maduro and his wife prisoner.

No Declaration of War exists, of course, and there's no Congressional authorization for the use of force.  This is, therefore, an illegal operation.

The news is too early to really make any definitive predictions about how this will turn out.  Wars, however, tend to end when the attacked party decides they are over.  Maybe this will tip the scales in Venezuela and things will change.  Or maybe his followers dig in and carry on, in which case we are now committed to a wider conventional war, and perhaps a following guerilla war.

U.S. Delta Force seizes Venezuelan leader, sources say

US military captures Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro after striking military sites

The US Is Attempting Regime Change In Venezuela

Cont:

Trump's comments on the raid on Maduro:

As usual, when he reads a prepared statement, he sounds awful.  While called to address the illegal attack in Venezuela, it meandered into the usual Trump mental mush addressing various Trump favorite topics and fantasies.  Use of the National Guard in various states ended up being addressed by the clearly senile illegal occupant of the Oval Office.¹

Trump has made it clear the U.S. intends to occupy Venezuela, apparently forgetting that simply seizing the head of state doesn't amount to a full surrender of anyone opposing a U.S. presence.  This will require thousands of U.S. troops on a continent in which we've never had boots on the ground.  People aligned with Maduro have no reason to cooperate with the US at all, and have plenty of reason not to.

Inside Venezuela there were protests over the U.S. action.  Outside of the country Venezuelan expats celebrated the news.

Trump also made it clear that he intends to reverse the fifty year old nationalization of Venezuelan oil.  Either Trump, or more likely somebody in his regime, has a real pre World War One view of the world, as this example of imperialism and gunboat diplomacy makes clear.  Trump actually cited the Monroe Doctrine and his new security priorities.

Trump justified the action on the basis of ending Venezuelan drug exports to the U.S.

By way of a set of predictions, and knowing more about the use of military force that Donald Trump does, if the U.S. isn't in complete control of the country within thirty days, this will evolve into a guerilla war requiring no less than 100,000 U.S. troops.  If the U.S. hasn't turned the country over to Venezuelans within one year, it'll evolve into a low grade guerilla war requiring no less than 50,000 boots on the ground.

January 4, 2026

United States v. Venezuela

So where are we now?

Yesterday it looked like, for awhile, that effectively what the US had done was to have mounted a coup of the Venezuelan government with the silent complicency of Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodríguez, sidestepping Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado Parisca.

Then came Trump's babbling senile statement about the operation.

Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as the country's President. She's just as left wing and Maduro, and she immediately indicated that she regard Maduro as the President and that she's not cooperating with the US.

So, what was achieved?  We don't know, but unless we're going to do a full scale invasion of Venezuela, all we may have done is replace one left wing leader with another.

A bit closer to home, sort of:

Barrasso, Lummis, Gordon Cheer Trump's Military Strike On Venezuela

Well, of course they did.  Was there any doubt?

January 5, 2026

Yemeni Civil War

Saudi backed forces retook Mukalla.

Nigeria

Gunmen killed 30 in Kasuwan-Daji.

Syria

Britain and France carried out a joint airstrike late Saturday on an underground facility where members of the ISIL were located.

United States v. Venezuela

Pope Leo XIV commented on Venezuelan independence yesterday, stating:

The good of the beloved Venezuelan people must prevail over every other consideration and lead us to overcome violence and to undertake paths of justice and peace, safeguarding the country’s sovereignty, ensuring the rule of law enshrined in the Constitution, respecting the human and civil rights of each person and of all, and working to build together a serene future of collaboration, stability, and concord, with special attention to the poorest who suffer because of the difficult economic situation.

Columbian guerilla groups Unión Camilista Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) issued a warning to the US about the US having a presence in Venezuela.

FARC is a Communist guerilla movement while the ELN is a "Catholic Communist" or Liberation Theology guerilla movement. Columbia is their main focus, but they operate in Venezuela.

While the raid has been portrayed as lacking casualties on the U.S. side, U.S. troops were in fact wounded and have been air evacuated to the U.S.

Something being reported this morning:

January 6, 2022

United States v. Venezuela

Wyoming’s Barrasso, Lummis back Trump’s Venezuelan invasion, Hageman silent: Rep. Hageman, who’s running to replace Lummis, has been mum on the military strikes and Maduro’s capture.

Hageman's failure to say anything is really interesting.  MAGA boosted the platform of "no more forever wars" but the US has been fighting everywhere, and is threatening to attack a NATO ally, Denmark, over Greenland, an act that would be deeply immoral and flat out insane.  Indeed, the fact that the country is being lead by a mad man is increasingly clear, with most Republicans doing nothing about it.

Wyoming has had a strong commitment to the military.  Indeed, an overly strong one as not only do an unusually large number of Wyomingites volunteer for military service, which is admirable, the state had nearly supported a military against the government attitude in recent years.  Now, with it appearing that the US might send Wyoming's sons and daughters to die in Venezuelan jungles while doing something that will gut the state's oil industry, some may be having second thoughts.  Hageman may be hedging her bets for her Senate run, or she may actually be among those who are horrified by the insane neo colonialism of the Trump interregnum.

January 6, 2026

Venezuela and Greenland.

There's a lot of weird war related news circulating today.

Trump claims that the government of Venezuela is going to, well, here:

The U.S. doesn't need millions of gallons of oil to be sold to the US, and further the means by which Trump claims this will happen, he'll control the sales, is legally dubious.

Frankly, I don't believe that this will occur.  Much of what Trump has been saying about Venezuela is a lie and I suspect this is too.

If it isn't a lie, Wyomingites are going to get another dope slap from the demented fool they voted for.  It'll take the price of oil in the state for years.  It's at $46.37, below profitability, right now.

Of course, the goal would be to depress the price of oil, which consumers in most locations want depressed, even though we ought to be weaning ourselves off of oil.  But closer to home, this is another example of why Wyomingites are absolute idiots to vote for the GOP.

The Nobel Peace Prize winning Venezuelan woman who probably ought to be running the country is headed home.  Hopefully she takes over the government, although there's every sign that the Venezuelan socialist party will continue to do so and not much will really change.

Trump, who is demented, is now threatening Greenland.

If we lived in a sane time they'd be taking him out of the Oval Office in a straight jacket, but the Republican Party is now largely bat shit crazy so there's a real chance we'll do this, even while, for the first time, some Republican leaders are dismissing it.

Trump needs to be removed via the 25th Amendment, and like yesterday.

January 8, 2026

United States v. Venezuela

It looks like Il Duce Don's intervention in Venezuela is receiving the same treatment the outbreak of the Second World War did in Nazi Germany

Does The US Public Have A Different Idea Of What Makes America "Great"?

Public Reaction to the Venezuela intervention Is Surprising

Readers of the epic The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich will recall that while many Germans were enthusiastic about Hitler coming to power, the public was not thrilled at all with the outbreak of World War Two.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

The difference, maybe, is that democracy had already fled in Germany by 1939, whereas its trying to hold on in the United States.

cont:

Rubio Details Plan to Sell Venezuela’s Oil and Guide the Country’s Post-Maduro Future

This is being hailed in some quarters as a rational plan, fitting into sort of a trend line to express relief when Marco Rubio says something as opposed to Donald Trump.

Well, at least it's a plan.

The problem with it is that it really requires Venezuela's cooperation and there's no reason to believe that will be forthcoming.  In this sense, it's likely to be like the 1954 Geneva plan for Vietnam, which everyone agreed was a nifty plan, and never stood a chance.

The main goal of the Socialist in Venezuela right now is no doubt to stay in power, which the Trump administration seems content to let them do.  That may be because Rubio knows that removing them would involve a large-scale war. 

So, we're going to sell some oil.  We'll probably invest in their petroleum infrastructure.  The whole thing will depress the price of oil, to the detriment of US producers, and most of the people we were complaining about in Venezuela keep their jobs.

cont:

The Senate voted to have a vote on a War Powers Resolution that would prohibit further military action in Venezuela.

Contrary to some reporting, this does not have an immediate effect of prohibiting further action in Venezuela, but there may very well be the votes to do that, in which case there are definitely enough to prohibit actions against Denmark in an insane effort to seize Greenland.

Trump is, of course, upset. This may very well take the wheels off of the Venezuelan go cart.

Also, in related news, the administration is proposing a $1.5T budget, that's trillion, for defense next year, which is also insane. The country doesn't have that kind of money.  Frankly a person has to wonder if that is just some sort of bribe to the military, which may not be all that happy about some current events.

Some in the traditional conservative camp, on the other hand, are very enthusiastic over Marco Rubio and Venezuela, although no element of realism seems to have sunk into the facts that in reality, the country is run by the same political groups that were running it last week and there's very little that can be done about that other than a war of economic attrition.

January 9, 2026

Russo Ukrainian War

The US has issued a warning to U.S. citizens in Ukraine to expect a significant Russian areas attack within the next few days.

United States v. Mexico

Trump threatened in a recent interview to hit drug cartel sites in Mexico, something the Mexican government will not welcome, and will likely resist.

This was something he asked about doing in his legitimate term, and was held back by the sane people in his first administration.

Iran

Iran is experiencing such widespread civil strife it appears to becoming unglued.

Misc:

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,and Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller have all moved on to military bases out of security concerns.

Iran

Iran appears to be headed towards outright revolution.

Footnotes:

1.  A real irony is present here in that Maduro was not the legitimate head of state, at this point, of Venezuela, and Donald Trump is not the legitimate head of state of the United States.

Related threads:

What we actually did and are doing.

Labels: Donald Trump, Nicolás Maduro, Predictions, The Madness of King Donald, United States v. Venezuela

So now what, and what did we actually do?

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Conspiracy Theories, Delcy Rodríguez, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Nicolás Maduro, The Madness of King Donald, United States v. Venezuela, Venezuela

Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2025. Part 10 (the final edition for 2025). The Gunboat Diplomacy Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, Cambodia, Central Intelligence Agency, Jordan, Russo Ukrainian War, Saudi Arabia, Smedley Butler, Syria, Thailand, The War On ISIL, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, War, Wars and rumors of wars, Yemen

First set of Labels:

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Civil Unrest, Donald Trump, Greenland, Harriet Hageman, Iran, law, Monroe Doctrine, Neo Conservatives, Nicolás Maduro, Petroleum, The Second Trump Administration, Venezuela, War, Wars and rumors of wars

Voices of Kalaallit Nunaat: An open call to Greenlanders, and musings.

 

An interesting blog entry by a native Montanan.

Voices of Kalaallit Nunaat

An open call to Greenlanders

I note this in part because she's a nature writer, and native Montanas are close to nature, like native Wyomingites.

Indeed, I've tended to find since Donald Trump reared his New York overfunded balding head that real Trump backers in my home state either lack education, or tend to be imports.  I know part of that is a really harsh judgement, but I don't find too many natives, in any demographic, who are fire breathing Trumpites who are exceptions to this rule.  There are, I'd note, educated Trumpites here, for sure, but they tend to be imports.  

I think people know what the unrestrained wealth and exploitation mean to Wyoming, and that helps explain it.  Wyomingites are, if they are real Wyomingites, conservative/libertarians but not populists really.  

Imports who move here, however, including some who claim to be us, or want to be us, often are Southern Populists at heart.  Indeed, a couple of years ago I was out in the sticks and saw a giant Stars and Bars flying above somebody's camp tent, something that, when I was young, would stood a good chance of having been ripped down by any native passing by.  

I've written a lot about how we got here.  The question now, is how we get out. We'll be getting out, one way or another.  The question is, however, whether a rational conservatism can emerge that's free of the horrific elements that Trump has interjected into what's passing for conservatism now, or whether it will pass the way the way that French conservatism did after Vichy.  I think, frankly, the latter is more likely.

If conservatism can survive Trump, which frankly I very much doubt, when it reemerges it's going to have to rebuild a lot nationally and internationally that Trump and his minions have utterly destroyed.  More likely, however, what will emerge after this era is a renewed liberalism countered only by a somewhat middle of the road liberalism.  Again, France provides the model.  After the Second World War the French Third Republic was dominated by the hard left, including a very powerful communist party, countered only really by a centrist to liberal centrist Catholic party.  The French right died. 

I suspect that's the country's political future, in a way.  Starting in 2026 the Democrats will regain the House and, if Trump is still in power, provide a block to an outraged and increasingly insane Trump.  By 2028, the Senate is likely to go Democratic too, assuming it doesn't in 2026.  The White House will have a legitimate President following the 2029 election who will almost certainly be a Democrat.

That President, whether he's Republican or Democrat, and who won't be J. D. Vance or Marco Rubio, is going to have a big task in front of him.  Part of that will be to repair the international damage done by Trump. 

Not all of it will be capable of being repaired.  A western world that had depended upon the U.S. to be the world leader of Western ideals will never, and I mean never, trust the U.S. again.

But the U.S. will also be much diminished in the Western Hemisphere, in spite of what Trump, Vance, and Rubio think.  In South American a new block will emerge, likely with former major rivals Argentina and Chile as the leadership, but with Brazil, a massive country in extent and population, more significant than the U.S.  Canada will be regarded as a serious, educated, intelligent nation by the Europeans.  The U.S. will still have weight in the world, but in the way that France or the United Kingdom do now, save for Asia where the U.S. will still be a major presence.  We will have been forced to look to the Pacific, as so many in the past have urged us to do in the past, by Trump and the Republican party soiling our relationships with our intellectual home.  

Basically, we will have been the kid that left home, got into drugs, and embarrassed everyone. We'll be the Hunter Biden of Western nations.

Domestically, we're going to have a lot of repairs to do.  A new President will quietly accept much of what Trump has done in immigration.  The damage done to trade economics will likely have repaired by them, the tariffs having by then settled into an economic background as part of a new system which will not generate all that much in income but which countries are by then used to.  Businesses won't come back to the U.S. due to them, and the Rust Belt dreamers will have gone on to despair.  The Agricultural sector will be barely reviving, I'd guess, from a Trump induced economic collapse by that time.

The U.S. will return to environmental and conservation sanity and begin to try to make up lost ground and lost damage, in part because its role in the world will have been so decreased that it will have no choice.  Fools who insisted that we had to grab Venezuelan oil as China was going to will wake up and find that China will, by 2028, be using largely electric, not gasoline, vehicles. Europe won't be far behind, and a U.S. auto industry that will wish to sell will have advanced in this direction, with U.S. consumers, less enamored with a 19th Century economy than Donald Trump, will have as well.

If Trump's "Travis, you're a year too late" petrol pipe dreams will have achieved little, and they will, perhaps a revival of nuclear power might actually make a difference.  Like many of Trump's policies, or those who used Trump to gain position, that policy on the margin of his larger policies, would be beneficial.  The pipedreams about coal and oil, however, will go nowhere and already are going nowhere.  Indeed, Wyoming's coal fortunes, so desperately pinned on Trump, are going nowhere at all, and the price of oil in the state is down in the disastrous levels.

In larger things, people sometimes ponder the existential "problem of evil", that being why does God allow bad things to occur.  A common answer is that God does not allow it unless a greater good can come out of it.  While I don't want to go so far as to claim to detect a Devine hand at work here, I wonder if a bit if we're going to see something like that occur.

The country that comes out of Trump Drunk in 2028 with a bad hangover is going to be a much lesser nation.  Maybe that's a good thing, particularly of Europe, where we derived our culture from, revives to claim a larger place.  We'll need to get used to being told what we will do, and like a bratty teenager, which we've proven ourselves to be, we'll have to get used to that.  Our Evangelical Puritanism which most Americans assume is Christianity will have taken a sharp hit.  Our botching foreign wars will end as nobody will really trust us much as a solo actor.  Nations that need alliances, and many do, will look to us only in concert with others, which will make them safer. Taiwan and South Korea will look to Japan, and perhaps to Australia. Europe will look to ourselves.  Nobody will care one wit about us, and we'll have to look, pleadingly, to everyone else.  Our environmental destructivism will start to come to an end.  Our cultural imperialism will come to an end, as nobody will admire a country that could produce such vile characters as Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, or Jeffrey Epstein.  Our absolute lust for the wealthy, that came in with Ronald Reagan, who looks less and less like a hero, will come to an end as well as we have to face a Republican ramped up budget crisis the only way we can, taxes, and taxes on the wealthy.

Not all of Trump's legacy, including the tiny positive portions of it, or the negative massive aspects of it, will go away.  Trump has destroyed the post World War Two United States.  But the country itself will survive, and rebuild, and probably be better than it was before.  

Perhaps the U.S. can get back to being the U.S.

Oh, and Greenland will be independent. Americans won't really be welcomed there.  The U.S. military won't be there.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 113th Edition. Some things you aren't hearing much about right now and some things that require explanation that we're not getting. The Venezuelan Distraction Edition.

Hmmmm. . . . 

The U.S. attacked Venezuela over the weekend as its a major drug exporter to the U.S., or maybe because we wanted to liberate the country from Maduro, or maybe because it has oil.  

One of those things.  

Anyhow, 

Somethings we aren't hearing much about now.

• Where are those Epstein files?

Where, where?

Still delayed.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose leaves office today, claimed Trump would attack Venezuela as nothing distracts like war.  She said that, not me.

I'm not saying that he attacked Venezuela for that reason, although I don't put it past him.  But we sure aren't hearing much about them now, are we?

They could have dropped the entire file in a giant Playboy Ephebophilia, Collectors Edition, complete with underaged centefolds, and nobody would have noticed.

• What's up with the economy?

Do you know?  I don't, and I follow the economy.

• What's going on in the Russo Ukrainian War?

Trump was going to instantly end the war, but it turned out to be hard.  

Over the last month he was praising Putin, and then sort of praising Ukraine, and now we don't hear anything about the war at all.  Utterly nothing.

I'm sure Trump didn't end the war.

By The image created by © Yuriy Kvach, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31547668

Somethings we need explanations on.

• Greenland?

What is the real source of Trump's fascination with Greenland?  The strategic need line is complete and utter crap.  If somebody is actually telling him that, they need to be dope slapped into the 21st Century.  

I don't really think it's Trump, as I don't think Trump is smart enough to know anything about Greenland.  Having watched him now for years, I'm pretty much convinced that he was a fairly good salesman at one time, but he was never very intelligent.  Now he's demented so he's not even a good salesman.  

It's something or somebody else, or . . . 

• Putin and Trump?

We have to seriously consider once again why Donald Trump is a Russian asset.  

We know that he is a Russian asset, but we don't know why.  He may be simply because he likes them for some reason.  Or he may have really bought into some weird vision of the world that's centered in the 18th Century, in which he's King Donald the Demented and Putin is Tsar Vlad the Magnificent.  Btu with the threats on Greenland we need to at least consider the possibility that Trump is a full-blown Russian asset as they have something on him, or are giving something to him.

That sounds extreme, but a US that pulls back to the Western Hemisphere and wrecks NATO is a gift to Russia.  And it appears to be happening.  Putin had been a backer of Maduro but he didn't lift a finger to help him once our illegitimate head of state caused that illegitimate head of state to be seized.

And Putin has been oddly quiet.

It's clear that at least for the time being the relationship between the United States and Europe is wrecked.  If you were writing a script for a Russian mole to occupy the White House, even Tom Clancy couldn't do better than this.

Harry Dexter White. . . it's sort of happened before.

• Lindsey Graham.

What's going on with Lindsey Graham.  Unlike Trump, he's not dumb.  His complete and utter sycophancy needs some explanation.

• Stephen and Katie Miller

Okay, this is going to be delicate, but there's something really weird about Stephen Miller playing Joseph Goebbels and his wife playing, well, Joseph Goebbels.

They're both Jewish.

Miller is the chief proponent of White Anglo Saxon Protestantism in the administration, and he ain't one.  I don't know the ethnicity of his wife, but she could pass for a Mizrahi Jew.  

This might not quite be as weird as it sounds, although its downright dangerous for them.  Goebbels had been a Communist and you can find plenty of Nazis who were drawn from German populations that were repressed in the most violent ways during the Third Reich, but there's the lesson.  The policies that Miller advocates for would, in the end, put him and Katie in the hold of a boat and deport them to a place that people who think like him would think he would find more to their liking, or at least theirs.

Before this sounds too one sided, there's a real lesson for Catholics supporting Trump.  His people don't think you are very American either.

Careful Steve and Katie. . . this is how a lot of your fellow travelers see you.

• The weather.

It's been super warm this winter.  No winter at all.  

How long do we intend to ignore this?

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 112th Edition. Clinton calls Trump's bluff.

Labels: Bill Clinton, Crime, Donald Trump, Ephebophilia, Epstein Scandal, Republican Party, The Second Trump Administration, The wealthy, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Zeitgeist

Thursday, October 9, 1000. Leif Erikson steps foot on North America. . . well probably not but it is Leif Erikson Day.

 

Today is Leif Erikson Day, commemorating the date on which Leif and his crew set foot on North America, probably on Newfoundland.

Well, it was sometime in the fall, probably, and it was in the year 1,000. . . well maybe.

Anyhow, he did do that.

This day is actually set by the a reenactment ship, the Norwegian ship the Restoration, reaching North America in 1825.

Leif was born in Iceland to Erik the Red and his wife Thjodhild and, probably contrary to what many might suppose, he was a Catholic, the religion of his mother.  Interestingly, this was the same year that Iceland converted to Christianity.

Last edition for 1825:

Thursday, March 24, 1825. State Colonization Law of March 24, 1825.

Labels: 1820s, 1825, Hudson's Bay Company, The Frontier West, Washington

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List.

 

What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots.

Liz Cheney

Section 1

In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3

Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

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.

January 7, 2025. 

Trump calls in and Junior puts him on speaker (in Greenland). He says we need to take over Greenland because there are “ships sailing around and they’re not the right ships.”

 Ron Filipkowski

And so the Madness of King Donald is on full display, giving room for a Regency in favor of J. D. Vance.

How long will the decent interval be?  My prediction is 18 months.

That would be Monday, July 20, 2026.

cont:

We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Donald Trump.

cont:  

Reporter: Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?

Trump: No.. I can’t assure you on either of those two.

And:

The windmills are driving the whales crazy. Obviously.

Trump also stated he'd  use "economic force" to compel Canada to become a 51st state. 

And:

It's called rain. It comes down from heaven. And they want to do no water comes out of the shower. It goes drip drip drip ... you can have all the water you want. It makes no difference.

And, he claimed at his press conference that  Hezbollah was at the January 6 riots.

January 14, 2025

Because creating a new agency obviously makes sense:

January 16, 2025

January 22, 2025

He (Kim Jong Un) liked me, I liked him. We got along very well…I think he has tremendous condo capability. He's got a lot of shoreline.

January 23, 2025

Half pipes. You see 'em all the time. Half pipes. People live in those half pipes now. You know, they have homeless living in those halftype

and;

The head of a country that lives in forest. A number of them, actually. Finland told me this. Austria told me this. The head of Austria, the head of Finland. And it was beautiful they way they expressed it. They said, 'We live in a forest. We are a forest nation.'

and;

We're gonna be demanding respect from other nations. Canada, we have a tremendous deficit with Canada. We're not gonna have that anymore. As you probably know, I say you can always become a state. If you're a state, we won't have a deficit, we won't have to tariff you.

and;

 REPORTER: You would agree it's never acceptable to assault police officers?

TRUMP: Sure

REPORTER: Among those you pardoned is a guy who used a stun gun on a police officer. Why does he deserve a pardon?

TRUMP: Well, I don't know

January 25, 2025

I'm signing an executive order to open up the pumps and valves in the north. We want to get that water pouring down here as quickly as possible ... you're talking about unlimited water coming up from the Pacific Northwest, even coming from parts of Canada.

Um. .. there aren't any such valves. This is pure batshit crazy.

In any normal time, this would send Donny to the retirement home.  It's completely nuts.

Also, fwiw, water flows from the Continental Divide, west.  Not from north to south.

cont:

We may be a very substantially enlarged country in the not too distant— Isn't it nice to see -- for years, decades, we’re the same size to the square-foot, probably got smaller actually but we might be an enlarged country pretty soon.

I actually figure at this point there's a good chance he's going to order the military to invade Canada. 

January 26, 2025

Okay, there is now this by the person who (illegitimately and illegally) claims to be the head of the most powerful nation on Earth.

No serious nation does this. The man is a dangerous fool.

25th Amendment.

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.

Of course, this is aimed at the American public, with the presumption that being a mob tough guy is cute or admirable, rather than this depiction being childish and repressible.   

The American public may disagree, in which case, truly, it has become childish.

When we are past this era, and it won't be soon enough, the long lasting American anti intellectual streak in the culture has to end. Yes, some people really are smarter than other.  No, collective widom doesn't trump intellect.  People need to get educated.

January 29, 2025

We identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas. And you know what's happened to them? They've used them as a method of making bombs.

We didn't appropriate $50M for condoms for Hamas. 

Truly, this is rather weird, even for Donald Trump, and some people will believe it, which is pathetic.

January 30, 2024

A helicopter/aircraft collision occurred last night near Washington D.C.  The helicopter was a Blackhawk, and therefore a military helicopter.

Trump took to social media:

Let's face it.  Trump is simply stupid.  The nation has elected a wealthy, dimwitted, vengeful, ignoramus.

January 31, 2024

This is simply surreal:

January 31, 2025

This one is shameful beyond all measure:

This is, frankly, shameful in the extreme:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

SUBJECT:       Immediate Assessment of Aviation Safety

On January 29, 2025, a commercial aircraft and a military helicopter horrifically collided near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.  American families today woke up without their loved ones after what should have been a routine trip, and the entire Nation mourns the loss of the victims.

This shocking event follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).  The Obama Administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude.  During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence.  But the Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous “diversity equity and inclusion” tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with “severe intellectual” disabilities in the FAA.   

On my second day in office, I ordered an immediate return to merit-based recruitment, hiring, and promotion, elevating safety and ability as the paramount standard.  Yesterday’s devastating accident tragically underscores the need to elevate safety and competence as the priority of the FAA. 

Consistent with the Presidential Memorandum of January 21, 2025 (Keeping Americans Safe in Aviation), I am further ordering the Secretary of Transportation (Secretary) and the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (Administrator) to review all hiring decisions and changes to safety protocols made during the prior 4 years, and to take such corrective action as necessary to achieve uncompromised aviation safety, including the replacement of any individuals who do not meet qualification standards.  This review shall include a systematic assessment of any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation safety standards and protocols during the Biden Administration.

Consistent with the Presidential Memorandum of January 21, 2025, the Secretary and the Administrator shall take all actions necessary to reverse concerning safety and personnel trends during the prior 4 years, instill an unwavering commitment to aviation safety, and ensure that all Americans fly with peace of mind.

Shameful.

Trump is pitting people against each other on racist grounds.  He's an embarrassment to the country.

It's worth watching when it's signed.  Trump has the appearance of a profoundly stupid man.

On his appearance, his physical condition is rather obviously declining quite rapidly.  He can no longer hide that he's bald and his hair is white. The orange tan stuff, which was always disgusting, isn't working.

Latest babble:

February 5, 2025

Trump proposed the Gazans be cleared out of Gaza and given new land, and the existing area become a real estate development belonging to the United States.

This came in a conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who pretty clearly thinks Trump is nuts.

If the Gazans could be resettled in a viable location, which won't happen, it would address much of their problems.  The US then owning Gaza as a sort of Levantine Club Med is bat shit crazy, however.  

Trump claimed Middle Eastern leaders thought this was a great idea, which they immediately denied.  It's pretty clear the major Middle Eastern powers also regard Trump as a lunatic.

This does provide, however, a real insight into his senile way of thinking. Trump, a real estate developer who really has nothing else to his credit, and lacks any moral character, thinks the whole world is just one big real estate developer.  Essentially he's a collision of amorality, senility, and capitalism.

February 23, 2025

February 24, 2025

King Donny appointed right-wing conspiracy theorist commentator Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI.

Okay, at this,  point, this has reached the mornic level.

March 8, 2025

During Trump's last call with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, Trump became so agitated that he started screaming profanities thus forcing U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to step in and give Canada what they demanded.

This is twice in a week where a cabinet officer suddenly acted independently in front of King Donny.

25th Amendment. . . 

April 16, 2025

As I began writing this, Trump was honoring President Nayib Bukele, who is likely the most popular leader in all of El Salvador. El Salvador has been in the news frequently due to the prison we are operating in collaboration with the Salvadoran government.. . 

 From I Could Be Wrong

April 18, 2025

The Congo in Africa. Many, many people come from the Congo. I don’t know what that is, but they came from the Congo.

Donald Trump, in a press conference with Giorgia Meloni.

My guess is the following set of photographs might be copyrighted, as I don't know who took them, but I'm posting them under the fair use exception for what they illustrate.

Meloni is exactly the sort of right wing populist leader MAGA people claim they want.  She's genuinely a far right politician, but not a babbling vengeful incoherent old guy.  Her expressions, and she's notoriously expressive, say it all. She can hardly stand being there.

cont:

WOMAN: It's an ice fishery, and it's been around since the early 1900s

TRUMP: So it's been around for millions of years

cont:

It's all about slavery and if you look at it that way, we should win that case.

Donald Trump on birthright citizenship.

April 19, 2025

While this thread is focus on Donald Trump, we can't help but note that Lauren Boebert stated Wall Street "is full of Communists selling their stock to hurt President Trump".

Truly, Republicans ought to really stop and think.  That's amazingly stupid.  

And then we have White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who comes across as a total ditz.  In her defense, her job is shoveling shit, but none the less. 

April 20, 2025

Mad King Donny's admin launched a politicized COVID 19 site yesterday.

April 21, 2025

Trump's social media Easter post.

Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country. Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten! Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed Millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy that will go down in history as the single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America. He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing -- But to him, and to the person that ran and manipulated the Auto Pen (perhaps our REAL President!), and to all of the people who CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election in order to get this highly destructive Moron Elected, I wish you, with great love, sincerity, and affection, a very Happy Easter!!! From Donald Trump Truth Social 04/20/25 08:46 AM

This is extremely weird and ought to be evidence enough that Trump isn't well, and should be removed immediately.

April 22, 2025

Rumors are circulating that Pete Hegseth is about to be booted for a second texting war plans scandal.

April 23, 2025

You know, the cost of eggs have come down like 93, 94% since we took office. They are pretty much normally price now.

Donald Trump.

This is a complete lie.  And its such an absurd lie, that it once again raises questions about the sanity of the person saying it.

April 26, 2025

There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along.

Donald Trump.

April 29, 2025

With approval ratings taking, and this before the tariffs have even hit, King Donny is having a fit, and blaming the "fake news media".

April 29, 2025

Reporter: Who do you want to be the next Pope?

Trump: “I'd like to be Pope. That'd be my number one choice.”

April 30, 2025

I suppose this is supposed to be a joke, but it's really insulting.

May 1,2025

Trump, in an interview with Stephen Smith, a black reporter, about Harvard:

We had riots in Harlem and frankly if you look at what's gone on and people from Harlem went up and they protested, Stephen, and they protested very strongly against Harvard, uh, they happened to be on my side. ... I got a very high Black vote.

Uff.

Yesterday, a cabinet meeting was held which turned out to be a praise session of sycophants, with Pam Bondi's praise, claiming Trump had saved the lives of over 250,000,000 Americans the most bizarre and extreme.

The entire cabinet is basically nuts.

And so, after 100 horrific days, we'll make that the fitting close to the first installment of this 25th Amendment Watch List.

Related threads:

"The President of the United States of America is at war with the Constitution and the rule of law."