King Donny before he was a national embarrassment, and just working on being a family one.
April 30, 2026
Secretary of Defense Hegseth testified the war had cost the US $25B so far.
We clearly have absolutely no idea how to get out of it or win it.
May 1, 2026
Iran responded to King Donny's threats to ramp up the war on Iran, now in a ceasefire, with threats of their own.
They seemed rather unimpressed by Donny.
Donny's administration says it doesn't have to comply with the sixty day provision of the War Powers Act due to the ceasefire.
May 3, 2026
Iran sent the US a fourteen point peace plan.
May 4, 2026
The U.S. rejected Iranian peace proposals and is now going to escort ships through the Straits of Hormoz. Iran threatened to strike the ships and has already claimed to have hit a U.S. Navy craft with missiles, which the U.S. denies.
cont:
Iran attacked ships in the straits today with small surface vehicles and it resumed drone strikes on the UAE.
May 6, 2026
Yesterday was Taco Tuesday, and so we have this headline from the Tribune.
Well of course we do. Trump's an ignorant man with extremely limited world experience with a cabinet of sycophants. This was a war run by ignoramuses.
Trump paused his latest version of the illegal war with his escort program in the Straits of Hormuz. We have no way out of the war that anyone in D.C. grasps.
The US has clearly and absolutely lost this war, not succeeding in a single one of its objectives. At this point, absent ground operations, this is humiliating US defeat, worse than the loss in Vietnam.
May 7, 2026
Taco's flip on the most recent operation is because Saudi Arabia denied the US use of its airspace.
It seems to be the case that Taco didn't inform the kingdom of the operation before coming up with it.
cont:
So, now we're hitting targets in Iran again, the war we won several weeks ago, and which was definitely over before we started blockading Iran.
Compared to this, the Allied landings at Gallipoli in World War One were an absolutely stunning success.
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.
This is so insane, it's not clear which category of trailing thread to put this in, so we'll give it its own post of dishonor.
It appears pretty clear that Trump himself penned part of this pleading that's being filed as a motion over the ballroom. The lawyers who signed the pleading should be ashamed.
Trump is nuts. Anyone supporting him, is supporting a madman.
Typical member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus . . in their relaxed clothing, not their Confederate dress uniforms. Ready to spear any thinking that might arise in an educational system.
What a bunch of flaming dipshits. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus decides that the new UW President is too "woke" to serve in that role:
During the Revolutionary War, George Washington ordered his troops inoculated against Small Pox.
This week Pete Hegseth lifted the requirement that troops be inoculated for influenza for "religious" reasons.
The current GOP is heavily anti scientific.
Opposition to vaccinations has been in American history largely a thing of smaller Christian and non Christian sects which are fairly anti scientific, as opposed to the majority of Christians who have no objection to vaccination. However, when the far right of the country started to turn weird, listening to such medical lights as boob model Jenny McCarthy, that began to change a bit. Covid really made it worse as a significant portion of the country turned anti vax under the leadership of Donald Trump, who got the vaccine, but who recommended some really lethal approaches to the crisis as well.
Troops who don't get inoculated ought to just be given dishonorable or less than honorable discharges. That's what should have occurred to those who refused the Covid vaccine.
April 24, 2026
The war department stands ready for what comes next. Locked and loaded. May God continue to breast—bless our warriors each and every day and on each and every mission.
Hegseth.
Breast?
Okay, I get that it's a slip of the tongue, um, well, but it's an odd one.
BASH: Is this measles outbreak a consequence of the administration undermining support for vaccines?
DR OZ: I don't believe so. Secretary Kennedy has been advocating for measles vaccines
BASH: Oh, come on
From a CNN Interview of Mehmet Oz, a prime example of the Oprah Effect.1
In fairness to Dr. Oz, who in fairness should not be a government official, he does want people to get the measles vaccine.
Also in fairness, the dissing of vaccines isn't really a Trump thing in and of itself, but he gave it some boosted unneeded assistance by taking the political step of promising Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. a job as the HHS Secretary if he'd drop out of the last Presidential race. Kennedy is a quack, and an opponent of vaccines in varying degrees (it seems to change day by day). The rise of this movement, however, started with people like Jenny McCarthy who sadly has a son with autism. McCarthy herself was a Playboy model and her only real expertise is in showing her naked visage, something that really doesn't qualify a person for anything serious, and in fact may achieve much the opposite.
Oh, and by the way, Jenny McCarthy appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show multiple times in the 2000s to discuss her erroneous theories on autism and vaccines, and to promote a book she wrote.
Much of this story has to do with the inability to understand the difference between present conditions and past ones. People tend to assume that negative developments in a population mean a negative present condition. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they also represent a positive one. I'll give a personal example.
In 1982 I had pneumonia while at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. I was extremely ill, literally on death's door.
Before the advent of antibiotics the fatality rates for bacterial pneumonia were between 60% and 70%.
Not good.
Now, the survivability rate is pretty good.
I've had a colon surgery for a developing condition that would have killed me even thirty years ago.
The point? Well, if I go on to develop Alzheimer's, which I pray I do not, it'll mostly be because I didn't die at age 19 of pneumonia.
Also, fwiw, Meet The Press this weekend had a physician on who noted that diseases we can now vaccinate for are associated with cancer, which is a developing field of medicine. I.e., you get some disease that's not big deal when young, and then you get cancer when older. You don't want cancer.
A fellow I know who suffered a heart attack, and who was otherwise very healthy, may have developed his heart condition this way as well.
The Trump Interregnum is threatening to pull broadcasting licenses of those who do not give a happy spin to the war against Iran.
March 21, 2026
Waging a war against American airports must be easier than waging a war against a real country that fights back:
cont:
Absolutely reprehensible.
At this point, support of Trump is indecent.
March 31, 2026
We were horrible in Vietnam until we did Rolling Thunder One and Rolling Thunder Two, and then we won. As soon as we do half-measures, we lose. The faster we get this over the better. If we seize Kharg Island, it's technically boots on the ground. It could be done almost flawlessly. If we have enough firepower, it would be very easy to defend.
Rep. Rich McCormick, whom apparently is unaware that the US lost the Vietnam War.
April 10, 2026
Melania Trump made a rare and awkward televised appearance to deny ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The appearance was so rare, and the rumors regarding her association with Epstein so long lasting, that there's lots of open speculation as to why, although the release of a book in the UK asserting she was an Epstein bedmate a year prior to her association with Trump may be the reason. Or it may just be that she's tired of her reputation being dragged through the mud.
Note, I'm not asserting the book is correct. I don't know, and I'm not going to read it. She's asserting that at least some of what's being said are lies, and no doubt some of them are lies. I'll note the repeated claims that she was a prostitute is a lie. Her claims that Epstein did not introduce the couple are mostly likely correct.
I'm surprised by how surprised people are that she speaks English poorly. Frankly, it just sounds heavily accented to me.
I'm not a Melania fan, but I don't envy her position.
Marrying Trump made her rich and we don't know why she married him, and her marriage no doubt now looks like a pretty poor choice to people who do not adore Trump. Maybe she adores Trump. It's certainly made her a target, and she can hardly defend herself due to her poor speaking abilities.
Democrats like high gas prices because of their radical climate agenda. So people understand what the president is doing and agree with him.
Sen. Dr. John Barrasso.
So, Trump causing higher prices. . . Democrats want higher prices. . . so Trump's a Democrat?
Yeah. . . Wyoming's really getting its money worth out of this public servant. . .
Frankly, I don't believe that Barrasso believes a word he's saying a lot of the time. If Trump announced tomorrow he was a member of the Socialist Party, Dr. John would appear with a copy of the Greatest Hits of Karl Marx.
April 16, 2026
Kennedy was just put in this position by Trump to get him out of the way in the election. No more proof than that is needed to establish that Trump really doesn't give a rats ass about the health of the American public. Kennedy is a complete nut.
Of course, Trump also elevated Dr. Oz to power as well, putting the sort of dimwitted pop crap from the Oprah Show into power.
While we're at it, Pete Hegseth, who has tattooed himself with the symbols of Catholic Crusaders while being a member of some Protestant sect that Crusaders would regard as being weird heretics, but who is trying to Christianize, in the far right Evangelical sense, the Department of Defense quoted to a gathering at one of his prayer functions the famous speech from Pulp Fiction, that being:
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
This is good script writing, but it's not actually what's in the Bible.
A snippet of what's actually found in Ezekiel in this area, which is supposed to be what the assassin character is quoting, is here:
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because the Philistines acted vengefully and exacted vengeance with intentional malice, destroying with undying hostility, therefore thus says the Lord GOD: See! I am stretching out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and wipe out the remnant on the seacoast.
Thus I will execute great acts of vengeance on them, punishing them furiously. Then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I wreak my vengeance on them.
A bit different. I'd have expected Hegseth to know that. Part of what's noted in the actual text is a warning against vengeance.
The larger text states:
The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, turn toward the Ammonites and prophesy against them.
Say to the Ammonites: Hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD: Because you jeered at my sanctuary when it was desecrated, at the land of Israel when it was destroyed, and at the house of Judah when they went into exile, therefore I am giving you to people from the east* as a possession. They shall set up their encampments among you and pitch their tents in your midst; they shall eat your produce and drink your milk. And I will turn Rabbah into a pasture for camels and all of Ammon into a grazing place for flocks. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.
For thus says the Lord GOD: Because you rejoiced over the land of Israel with scorn in your heart, clapping your hands and stamping your feet, therefore, see, I am stretching out my hand against you and giving you up as plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and wipe you out of the lands. I will destroy you, and you shall know that I am the LORD.c
Against Moab.
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Moab said, “See! the house of Judah is like all the other nations,” therefore, I am exposing the whole flank of Moab* with its cities, the jewels of its land: Beth-jesimoth, Baalmeon, and Kiriathaim. I will hand it over, along with the Ammonites, to the people from the east that it may not be remembered among the nations. I will execute judgment upon Moab that they may know that I am the LORD.
Against Edom.
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Edom took vengeance on the house of Judah and incurred terrible guilt by taking vengeance on them, therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I will stretch out my hand against Edom and cut off from it human being and beast alike. I will turn it into ruins from Teman to Dedan; they shall fall by the sword.
I will put my vengeance against Edom into the hands of my people Israel; they will deal with Edom in accord with my furious anger. Thus they shall know my vengeance!—oracle of the Lord GOD.h
Against the Philistines.
Thus says the Lord GOD: Because the Philistines acted vengefully and exacted vengeance with intentional malice, destroying with undying hostility, therefore thus says the Lord GOD: See! I am stretching out my hand against the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites and wipe out the remnant on the seacoast.
Thus I will execute great acts of vengeance on them, punishing them furiously. Then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I wreak my vengeance on them.
One of the things that's slightly interesting here, as a random observation, is that generally Catholics use a lot more of the Old Testament as a rule than Protestants. Protestants are often shocked how "Jewish" Catholic services are, and well given as the Apostolic Faiths date back to the Apostles, that makes sense. Maybe Hegseth can be somewhat excused therefore for quoting Quentin Tarantino's script.
It does make me wonder, however, if Hegseth has seen the movie. In the film Jules Winnfield, the assassin in question, has a Road to Damascus moment and decides to give up being a hit man. Vincent Vega, who continues on in that role after Winnfield has a Crisis de Coeur, is gunned down by one of his intended targets, who himself is excused as a target by the mob boss after he intervenes to save his life. Tarantino is not noted to be religiously observant at all, but he may have accidentally have written some moral lessons into the film.
If so, Hegseth missed them.
We might close out this issue of this thread here, as with Donald Trump's mental health rocketing towards the completely unhinged, the ignorance level of the Trump administration is accelerating. RFK Jr., for example, is starting a podcast. Markwayne Mullin is in the cabinet. Things are occurring back scene. The administration, the most ignorant one in American history, promises to get weirder.
Footnotes:
1. The Oprah Effect is so named here to explain the phenomenon of Oprah Winfrey putting some flaming bogosity on to her popular daytime television show and thereby having millions of people give it credence. There are a fair number of examples, including the rise of Dr. Oz.
Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. One man worried his cabinet who planned around a possible mental collapse that didn't come, the other is having a mental collapse and his cabinet is doing nothing.
We later learned that in 1973 as Nixon came under increased pressure due to Watergate, his aids feared he would do something rash. Nixon was reacting badly under the stress. He was lashing out. He was drinking heavily.
Of course, in the end, he resigned.
Donald Trump, who like Hitler doesn't drink, is visibly collapsing before our eyes. He's obviously been in a state of mental decline for a decade now, and its increasing. He was heavily impaired when elected, making any rational person wonder why he was elected to the office, other than that people the weird insurrectionist feared that Joe Biden's dementia was too advanced to allow for him to hold office again, something that history should not forgive Biden for. Even that doesn't really explain it, as Harris was the alternative in the end, for people who play along with the two party system nightmare that actually doesn't have to exist.
A major difference between late stage Nixon and late stage Trump, other than that Nixon was not insane (a major difference) is that Nixon was surrounded by sane, if not always admirable, advisors. Trump is surrounded by sycophants.
That's a huge difference as we now know that Nixon's advisors consulted amongst themselves about his mental state. They were worried about it. None of them were as deeply loyal to Nixon at all costs as Trump's sycophantic advisors are to him.
Many, including me, have wondered how it is that Trump's cabinet hasn't acted to replace him. Heather Cox Richardson, in one of her video shorts, has provided the answer. The people surrounding Trump have nowhere else to go.
In Trump's first administration his cabinet included sane people. Trump didn't know how to take office and in fact his natural laziness kept him from really ever fully forming a government. That natural laziness came into effect when he was elected a second time. He was kept from acting like a king in his first term as his advisor wouldn't let him, and he didn't like that. In his second term he wanted people who would slavishly do what he wanted without question, and he got them almost exclusively.
If you look at the current cabinet you can see that, with perhaps two or three exceptions, it's wholly made up of people for whom Trump is their only chance. Some may be rich, but wealth is credited much more than it should be as allowing for intellectual independence. People lavish praise on Trump not because they believe it, but because they are his willing concubines and have prostituted themselves to him. Some of these people are outright dim. Some have just sold their souls and know that when Trump falls, they fall with him, as Richardson has noted.
Why these people are in this position is another matter. Some got there as they believe in Trump. Others were placed their by forces supporting Trump, knowing that he was too lazy to actually do the work to pick competent people. The Heritage Society, for example, saw Trump as a hollow vessel they could pour their radicalization through.
Trump's cabinet, therefore, is much like Hitler's. Where was Goebbels going to go? And Trump's true followers are much like members of the German SS, who fought to the bitter end. They didn't see a future, literally, in a post war Germany where they figured they'd be killed, if not by the Allies, then by the Germans. MAGA still shows up like the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne, the French SS unit that went down fighting in Berlin. They thought the alternative to that was a bullet in the back of the head. Real Trump loyalist show up as they fear that if Trump fails, or more likely when he does, they're era is over. And like the SS in Berlin, they fanatically hope that Der Fuehrer will pull off a miracle, which he won't, or that they'll be saved by some mysterious outside force at the last hour.
That won't happen either.
Many people have wondered how the Germans were so cowed by a leader who was sending them into a disaster. It can't be said that Americans are. Only 30% of Americans actually support Trump. Probably an equal if not larger number outright hate him at this point. If the election was held today the Republicans would loose both houses, and in November when the election is held, they will.
But here's the dangerous thing. Between now and November the leadership of the US is in the bunker and Der Fuehrer is insane.
I've long held that Trump would be removed in 2026 by the 25th Amendment. I hadn't considered, however, the points Richardson raises. He still might be but as she notes if Trump goes down, they all go down with him. They're a bunch of cowardly sycophants and they do not appear to be willing to save their country any more than Goebbels was.
Still, even in Hitler's cabinet not everyone was unquestionably loyal towards the end. Himmler actually serious considered trying to cut a separate deal with the Allies and effectively remove Hitler via a coup. There was even one SS member in the July 20 plot. It remains possible, but only barely so, that the cabinet will vote to save itself.
We know that at least a few people in the cabinet likely are willing to do that. J. D. Vance is one. Marco Rubio another. Both of them hope to be President and neither benefits from going down with Trump. I've long thought they were playing out this string until they could act. But two men alone won't get it done. There's likely a few more, but only few. None of the ass kissers in cabinet meetings are amongst them.
Which brings us to this. Over the next few months things are going to be extremely bad. Trump's mental state is declining so rapidly it's difficult to gauge. He's going to pull out of the war he joined with Israel which will be a major defeat he can't disavow. The economy will not rapidly recover and he can't blame that on Biden. He's lost the Hispanic vote and he won't be able to get it back. The Arab American vote which dimly voted for him is lost as well. The people who are left in his cabinets who openly support him increasingly look like outright kooks. The financial flood to his family is not being ignored and is very likely to result in post Trump criminal prosecutions, maybe of Trump himself.
And yesterday, a judge made clear that his obscene bordello on the Potomac addiction to the White House will never happen.
He's a desperate, and demented, man.
Trump, from now to November, will try to steal the November election. He's already trying. And he'll do every odd thing imaginable or never imagined to try to deflect attention form his failure. There will be no limit to what he will try. Invasions of Cuba and Greenland are possible, with Cuba almost a certainty. Deals with Russia, or China, or whomever. Attempts to cancel the election, or seize the polls are probable. Ignoring the courts a near certainty.
The 25th Amendment should save us from this but might not. Impeachment of Trump should occur, but will not, unless there's a massive post November shift in Congress.
Instead, expect things to get worse and worse. And expect the few members of the administration who aren't willing to go down in the bunker to start resigning. Vance can't, Trump being removed or dying in office is his only hope of being President. Rubio can, and he will, likely before November.
April 6, 2026
Trump's mental status is collapsing.
That post, posted on Easter, read like something a drunk man would post, and frankly but for the fact that we believe Trump doesn't drink, this post would receive that speculation.
This post has renewed public demands for invocation of the 25th Amendment, and it should. Trump is insane. The reference to God in Arabic is insulting to Muslims, the vast majority of whom have nothing to do with Iran or its leadership.
We're committing war crimes under the leadership of a madman.
I'll note I'm not the only one whose concerned.
I'd originally posted that yesterday as a standalone, which I've taken down as I've posted it here. But what I'll note is that Klungman doesn't say what a lot of us are thinking. Trump is, in my view, edging up on using an atomic bomb.
In normal times, which these are not, there'd be sufficient people around him to probably put a halt to that. Now there aren't. The cabinet appears to be nearly complete flunkies. We'll know this is true if Trump remains in power this week. The military is being stripped of those who oppose rationality.
We not only live in dangerous times, we live in times in which the most powerful nation on earth is governed by a madman.
At this point anybody running in the fall with an "Endorsed by President Trump" (this means you, Delgenfelder) is absolutely unqualified for office.
By the way, the man whom Evangelicals and some others routinely praise as a great Christian spent the day riding around in Washington DC and visiting one of his golf courses. No attendance at church.
cont:
Today is a very special day. It's a day where we celebrate Jesus. It's a day where we celebrate religion. It's an honor to be the president. Our country is doing so well. We've broken every record in the stock market. We've broken every record in our military. And what about the rescue?
Donald Trump in an Easter speech. He's insane.
cont:
If I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil, because it's there for the taking…Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. If it were up to me, I'd take the oil. I'd keep the oil. I would make plenty of money.
Trump. What a morally bankrupt human being.
cont:
I'm polling higher than anybody has ever polled in Venezuela. So after I'm finished with this I can got to Venezuela. I will quickly learn Spanish. It won't take long. I'm good at language. I will go to Venezuela. I'm going to run for president.
Trump again.
There are a pile of these from today. Trump is bat shit crazy. Supporting him at this point is criminal, and not invoking the 25th Amendment is as well. He's completely, utterly, insane.
April 7, 2026
Today we have the news that the insane Donald Trump, in addition to declaring his intention to run for the Presidency of Venezuela (don't discount that with any of the numerous excuses his apologist give for his bat shit crazy statements, we should assume he means it), is defending his statement about keeping Iranian oil on the basis that he's "a businessman" and "to the victors, go the spoils".
Today we're promised a full slate of war crimes.
We offer here a bit of a note.
Often people with a psychotic criminal drive they cannot control hope for intervention. Trump is so out of control right now there's more than a little reason to believe that he's hoping for the same. He has no way out, he's lived a life of utter depravity. The 25th Amendment and hope supervision get him out of the mess he's created, and frankly away from a host of people he probably doesn't like.
Cont:
Even this threat is immoral.
If carried out, it's murder.
Only the immoral will support a thing like this. Donald Trump is a deranged monster.
April 9, 2026
Having learned that being a demented madman didn't impress Iran, he's back at it again with Greenland.
This man needs to be removed from office now. The 25th Amendment needs to be applied immediately.
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