The Manchurian Candidate. It's like Donald Trump and MAGA really are the Reds.

The hammer and cycle in red. . . it might as well be the symbol of the Trump presidency.

We've remarked before on how the GOP has adopted the color red, the color of the far left, as it's own.  That's beginning to seem more appropriate than ever.

Our dim illegitimate chief executive has gone to China and returned.  In the process, it seems clear that he's getting ready to abandon Taiwan.

Trump's entire trip to China was a complete and utter humiliation for the United States.  An embarrassment of the highest order.  But it fits a pattern.

Trump loves Russia's Putin.  He's super impressed with Xi.  He's kind of a bit of a fan boy to Kim Jong Un.  He loved Orban who was a Putin ally.

If our adversaries from former Communist states had conspired to place into office a man to act as a sleeper agent, they could not have succeeded more wildly than Donald Trump has done without being one. . . presumably.  He's brought a US that was already in trouble down from a world power to a second rate collapsing nation.  It's utterly incredible.

China is Closing In on Taiwan.

With China having just been visited by our extraordinarily weak, and increasingly demented chief executive, this really bears watching.

Trump's illegal war on Iran has depleted US weapons reserves massively and wasted them on hard ground targets, something military analysts know is ineffective.  We have less of an ability to counter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan now than at any point since. . . well. . . probably 1947.

The likelihood of it happening his high.

The likelihood of Trump doing utterly nothing if it does happen is also high.

In 1949, when mainland China fell to the Communists, Republicans howled over "who lost China?"  In 2026 or 2027 when Taiwan falls, they'll probably just kneel to their beloved, Donald Trump.

The question will be, why?

Painted Bricks: The vanity presidency He's trying to turn the whole country into a tacky branded property.

Painted Bricks: The vanity presidency He's trying to turn the whol...:   The vanity presidency He's trying to turn the whole country into a tacky branded property.

The vanity presidency He's trying to turn the whole country into a tacky branded property.

 

The vanity presidency

He's trying to turn the whole country into a tacky branded property.

King Donald's War, Part 5. After 13/15 U.S. deaths, Hundreds of Iranian deaths, $50B spent fighting it, and a massive increase in the price of oil, King Donny surrenders to the Iranians. The "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied" edition.

April 8,2026

What MAGA wizard King Donny said at the start of the war:

What the befuddled demented agreed to as an a starting point now:

The MAGA's I know and read about are already bragging this up as another example of Trump brilliance.  This demonstrates how completely brainwashed MAGA really is.  There is a Trump Derangement Syndrome alright.  It's what allows people who voted for no more overseas wars, lower prices, a return to (Calvinist) Christianity, and a deep belief in a conspiracy to keep the Epstein files hidden vote for a man who has now waged two wars, surrendered to a Muslim theocracy, caused higher prices, while hiding the Epstein files and living a life contrary to the Gospels to be worshipped no matter what he does.

We lost this war, completely.  We not only lost it for us, we lost it for Israel too.  Israel, which duped Donny into the war, deserved it.  The American people did not.

Thirteen American servicemen died for nothing whatsoever, other than an attempt at the greater glory of Trump.  Their lives were wasted. Their deaths didn't serve the nation, but one man.  Six were Army National Guardsmen.  Six were members of the USAF.

No Trumps or Musks, or the children of the rich, died.  If you visited Epstein Island, your family wasn't fighting.

And by the way, the oligarchs grew richer during the war, due to timely made trades and a rise in the price of oil, which made regular Americans poorer.

Trump once claimed that veterans were suckers.  The veterans of this war are.  But more than that, those who voted for Trump were proven to be.  There was no excuse to support him in the last election and there's no excuse not to remove him now.  

Before the war Iran was a theocracy.  It still is.

Before the war the Iranian people wanted freedom. They still do, and still lack it.

Before the war Iran could launch missiles and drones at their enemies. They still can.

Before the war Iran had 1000 pounds of uranium.  It still does.

Before the war the Strait of Hormuz was open.  Now Iran gets to charge a toll for its passage.

During the war Iran shipped more oil at a higher price than it did before the war.

The names of the thirteen known men and women who gave their lives, not for their country but for Donald Trump, are:

CWO Robert Marzan

SFC Nicole Amor

SFC Noah Tietjens

Sgt Declan Coady

Maj. Jeffrey O'Brien

Cpt. Cody Khork

Sgt. Benjamin Pennington

Maj. John "Alex" Klinner

Cpt. Ariana Savino

TSgt. Ashley Pruitt

Cpt. Seth Koval

Ct. Curtis Angst

TSgt. Tyler Simmons

Only some of the names of the 170 some Iranian girls the U.S. killed during the war are known.  Those names, including a few of the names of their teachers, are:

1. Hana Dehqani, eight years old

2. Fatemeh Salari, 34 years old

3. Reza Habashian, seven years old

4. Arya Bahadori, nine years old

5. Ali Asghar Zaeri, eight years old

6. Zahra Bahrami, seven years old 

7. Ahmad Soltani, eight years old

8. Hamed Par-ashegh-nezhad, seven years old

9. Fatemeh Yazdan-panah, young girl, age unknown

10. Mahdis Nazari, seven years old

11. Athena Chamani-nezhad, six years old

12. Amirghasem Zaeri, seven years old

13. Fatemeh Dorazehi, 10 years old

14. Arad Ahmadizadeh, eight years old 

15. Saman Karimzadeh, seven years old

16. Fatemeh Shahdadi, age unknown

17. Nadia Shahmiri, nine years old

18. Parham Ranjbari, nine years old

19. Mahmoud Gholamyani, 35 years old

20. Fatemeh Rahdar, 10 years old 

21. Amir-Hassan Rasouli, eight years old

22. Zahra Behrouzi, eight years old

23. Mohammadhatam Raisi, 10 years old

24. Asna Raisi, 12 years old 

25. Benyamin Jangjou, eight years old

26. Mohammad-Sadra Zarei, eight years old 

27. Maryam Pazark, 10 years old

28. Liana Mohammadi, seven years old

29. Mandana Salari, 29 years old

30. Sara Shayesteh, five years old

31. Zoha Pasand, eight years old

32. Esra Zakeri, nine years old

33. Salma Zakeri, six years old

34. Fatemeh Taherifard, 29 years old

35. Zahra Ansari, seven years old

36. Fatemeh Fadavi, 10 years old 

37. Mahna Zarei, two months old

38. Athareh Zarei, 10 years old

39. Alireza Zarei, nine years old

40. Mohammadreza Shahsavari, eight years old

41. Samira Basarde, 38 years old

42. Ehsan Saleminia, six years old

43. Fatemeh Zahra Karimi, seven years old

44. Zeynab Bahrami, 10 years old

45. Mohammad Shah-dousti, eight years old

46. Reza Barani, seven years old

47. Athena Ahmadzadeh, 10 years old

48. Khadijeh Darvishi, nine years old

49. Roqayyeh Karimi, 42 years old

50. Reza Ranjbar, six years old 

51. Marzieh Bashiri-far, 38 years old

52. Mohammad-Mehdi Chegini, 10 years old

53. Mohammadian Bahrami, 17 years old

54. Ali-Akbar Karyani Pak, eight years old

55. Hananeh Mehdikhah, seven years old

56. Fereshteh Sangarzadeh, 44 years old 

57. Mohammad-Ali Karyani Pak, seven years old

58. Parsa Mokhtari-nasab, 12 years old

59. Arina Arab-Kish, eight years old

60. Makan Nasiri, 12 years old

61. Esra Farahi-Zadeh, young girl, age unknown

About half of the American lives were due to a mid air accident, but they're just as dead as they would be had they died fighting.  All of the Iranian lives lost that are listed are due to a targeting accident.

What the death toll for anybody in Lebanon, which opened up as a theatre of war while this was going on, we don't probably really know.

May the perpetual light shine upon them.

If any question why we died, 

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

None of these people had a choice in the offering of their lives for Trump's desperate attempt to have a legacy.  American voters do have a choice on allowing him to continue to kill in an attempt to gain one, however.  They'll have that choice in November, and through their members of Congress, they have a sort of choice now.  The second it becomes clear to Republican members of Congress that their phony jobs are in danger by supporting a madman, they'll suddenly have never supported him. 

April 9, 2026

Nothing is going through the Straits of Hormuz yet. . . a sign that shippers doubt the ceasefire will hold.

And it hasn't in Lebanon, where Israel continues to conduct operations arguing, logically enough, that it doesn't apply there anyway.

April 13, 2026

Well negotiations are going badly so now King Donny is threatening to blockade Iranian ports.

The world's worst dealmaker screws up the Iran negotiations

Forget the "Art of the Deal” myth.

April 17, 2026

There apparently is an agreement for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

April 18, 2026

A suspicious package caused a lockdown on parts of F. E. Warren yesterday.

Related?  I don't know, but then, I don't know.

The Straits of Hormoz were announced open yesterday, and then Iran announced that they are under strict Iranian control today.

April 20, 2026

The United States announced a second round of talks in Pakistan and even discussed the delegation, with Trump claiming the parties were close to a deal.

Iran said nope, it wasn't going to any talks.

April 21, 2026

Some reporters are indicating that the US and Iran were close to a deal to end the war and that it was blown up by Trump's tweeting.

April 22, 2026

Trump was going to rain down destruction if things weren't moving yesterday, yadda yadda, yadda. . .

On other matters related to Mad King Donald's War, there are persistent rumors that recently he asked for the nuclear codes and was denied them by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Did that happen?  We just don't know.  If it did, we are way past the point where the 25th Amendment needs to be invoked.  But again, we don't know.

April 23, 2026

More head's rolling in the DoD:

Navy Secretary leaving role ‘effective immediately,’ Pentagon announces

Undersecretary Hung Cao will serve as the Navy’s acting secretary amid John Phelan’s sudden departure.

It's well known that Hegseth has the Secretary of the Army in his sights but hasn't been able to pull that off yet.

Interesting . . . 

In other news, Iran is reporting that its Revolutionary Guards seized to vessels. Granted, that's not the Iranian Navy, but it does show that Iranian forces are more resilient than the US claims.

April 24, 2026

Trump's war on the global food supply

Just the latest moral and logistical atrocity.

April 25, 2026

Talks that were supposed to start today, aren't.

April 26, 2026

News has leaked that an Iranian Air Force F5 hit a US base in Kuwait awhile back.

The F5 was a great airplane.  They haven't been made since 1987 but they're in the class of weapons, like the A10, that just keeps on keeping on.

The interesting thing here is that we've supposedly completely destroyed the Iranian Air Force and Navy, and yet the Iranians are still capable of flying (they were pretty limited in this before the war) and putting small boats in the sea.  In order to really defeat Iran, we would have to be troops on the ground, and the Iranians will fight.

April 27, 2026

Guests and panelist on This Week made it clear that the momentum with the war is now with Iran and that if proceed on the current path, Iran will come out of the war stronger than they went in it.  

April 28, 2026

It's hardly been noticed, in part because of the attack at the Correspondence Dinner, but the US is on the verge of basically formally surrendering to Iran and leaving Iran a more powerful nation than it was when the war started.

Trump Blinked

This will close out this edition.  The man who is attributed with the Art of the Deal, which of course was ghostwritten, is being shown the Art of the Squeal by a nation that's not impressed with him, and which is run by people vastly more intelligent than he is.  He's going to surrender.  He won't call it that, but that's what he's about to do.

And with the surrender imminent, we'll go on to a new edition of this thread. 

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 4. The Raving Madman threatens to resort to mass war crimes.

Labels: Catholic, Christianity, Donald Trump, King Donald's War, religion, The Madness of King Donald, United States and Israel v. Iran, War Crimes

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 129th Edition. An unfortunate observation of our times.

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 128th Edition. Attem...: The 127th edition of this was teed up to go before last night's White House Correspondence Dinner, or this would be that edition.  Havin...

I tend to over empathetic.

That might be an easy thing to claim, but it's true.  I'm often tortured in litigation by how little Plaintiff's lawyers care about their clients.  Indeed, I think it's a hallmark of being a Plaintiff's lawyer, which I'm not, to not really give a rat's ass about them.  Most of them are callous to it.  I'm also tortured, however, by the extent to which litigation is regarded as a mere business transaction while it wrecks the lives an livelihoods of real people.

I'm bothered by the personal plights of people I don't know.  In movies with sad situations I'll find myself tearing up.  The killing of the Iranian schoolgirls in the current war bothers me so much that I couldn't tell my wife about it without starting to tear up and saying "think about their poor parents".  I can hardly stand to think about it now and it fills me with rage that we killed them, even if it was a targeting accident.  We have excuses, but we have no sympathy.

I note all of this as I'm bothered today by the extent to which the horrible human being and his acolytes in the White House have actually made me so fatigued that I'm having a hard time caring about what occurred at the Press Dinner.

Intellectually, I know it was awful.  I don't support killing people.  I'm opposed to abortion.  I'm opposed to the death penalty.  I'm opposed to wars save in the case of absolute need, a part of which his self defense.  I'm realistic enough to know that people can take the lives of others in self defense, but murder of a person is never justified.

But day after day of Trump's assault on human dignity has worn me down so much that I'm not empathetic about yesterdays events.  I know that they were wrong, but it's just an intellectual acknowledgement of it.

Sooner or later, most likely sooner given his advanced age, Donald Trump is going to pass on and go to his reward.  He's publicly wondered if he's damned.  As a Catholic, I hold to the belief that we should hope and pray for his salvation and that we do not know who is amongst the damned.  Hans Von Baltazar posed the question if we might dare to hope that all men are saved, and while we might dare to hope it, I very much doubt that is the case.  Still, we have no idea who is amongst the damned and who is amongst the saved, but just by objective Christian criteria, there's not a single member of Trump's administration that I hear about often whom I would not regard as having their souls in jeopardy.

I hate fact that Trump is so vile that he's made it so that I'm having a hard time being empathetic about a horrible event.  If Trump was to choke on a Big Mac today I'd say a prayer for his salvation, but it wouldn't be one of those things were I consciously morn a death, as I usually do.  I'm not wishing for his death, but I'm so burnt out about all things Trump I'd say a prayer for the dead and then probably move on to other things.

Trump has made many things that way.  He's done such violence to our society and its norms that its reached the state where it's almost impossible to care about them. At this point, if the next President had to tear out the Reflecting Pool, I wouldn't care.

When Trump is gone the nation is going to have a monumental time repairing itself.  I guess we have the example of the post Civil War era, in which the country manage to come back together in spite of actually fighting itself.  How it managed that isn't really clear.  It seems like it just decided it would.

Here's to hoping that the Better Angels of Our Mercy might return.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 128th Edition. Attempted assassination at a pointless event.

Labels: 2020s, 2025 White House Vandalization, 2026, Conspiracy Theories, Donald Trump, Men, Military, News, Secret Service, The Press, The roles of men and women, Weapons, Women, Zeitgeist

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 127th Edition. The Dipshit Edition. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus decides the a General officer of the U.S. Army is too "woke" to be the President of UW.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Army, Education, Ignorance, Stupidity, United States Military Academy, University of Wyoming, Woke, Wyoming Freedom Caucus, Zeitgeist

Did America Just Create a Secret New Military Branch?

This stuff has really got to stop.

 

We need to amend the Constitution, Part Two. The Budget.

1862 U.S. Dollar.

The United States Constitution actually lacks a budget provision.  What provisions it has provide the following:

• Article I, Section 8 (Spending Clause): Grants Congress the power to lay and collect taxes, pay debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare.
• Article I, Section 7 (Revenue Bills): Dictates that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives.
• Article I, Section 9 (Appropriations Clause): States "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law," ensuring Congress, not the executive branch, controls spending.

We need a specific set of controls on the budget.

For decades Congress has spent more than it brings in through taxes. It's at the crisis level presently, with Congress busing the budget and adding to the deficit at a monumental level.

At one time, pundits use to ponder if national debt and deficit spending were bad things. They are, but no credible person doubts that the current levels will actually destroy the American economy in the near future.  Trump, listing to extreme pundits and having graduated from Wharton, which apparently is a preparatory preschool based on his level of lack of understanding of economics, believed that tariffs would fix this and everything.

Well, it hasn't, and it won't.

We are now at the point where we need a severe austerity budget, or a massive rise in taxes, or both.  We have no real choice.

Anyhow, on fixing the budgetary process, it can be fixed. The Constitution should be amended to require a balanced budget, with a provision to retire 10% of the national debt as part of it, annually, save in the instance of a Declaration of War, or a Declaration of National Emergency.

To put this plainly, this would require ever budget to be balanced and the national debt completely retired within a decade.

Of course, what if Congress ignored that.

The amendment would provide that if Congress failed to pass a balanced budget, but passed a budget by a set day, taxes of all types and government fees of all types would automatically proportionally rise to cover the budget.  Additionally, government payments, outside of payments for debts, medical obligations, and wages would cease.  Payments of all types to Congress would completely cease, including payments for their staff. 

Yes, that's harsh.  The harshness would be the club that would put the pressure on to keep it from occurring.

If no budget was passed, say by February 1 of each year, the last balanced budget would come back into effect (it was during the Clinton era), with the additional provision of 10% of the national debt being paid for.  If taxes had to go up to make that work, and the other provisions noted, they would.

Yes, this is severe, but the severity of it is what would cause Congress to actually take this seriously.  

We know what a Declaration of War is. What would the Declaration of an Emergency be?

Well, predicting an emergency is tough, but I'd require 3/4s of the Congress to declare it and it could only last for one year.  To renew it a second time would require 3/4s of the Congress and 3/4s of the state legislatures.

One final thing.  No government assets of any kind could be sold to balance the budget or help retire the debt.

It's April Fool's Day,. and the Big Fool intends to address the nation. The question is, will anyone listen?

I haven't decided if I will, or not.

The day couldn't be more appropriate.  A man whose made his political career, and he is a politician, of fooling a large percentage of the population hopes to fool you again, even as his mind descends into mush.  Anyone listening to him and believing him at this point is fooling themselves.

Trump is not qualified for his office.  He's a liar, and he lacks the legal, ethnical, moral and mental ability to hold his job.  He only remains in office as his cabinet is packed with sycophants, and the Republican Party made up of cowards. 

The topic will be the war.  By now Trump's grown bored of the war and his back is against the wall.  It's illegal, and Congress isn't going to vote to keep funding it.  The Iranians have shown themselves to be far tougher than Trump, a bully, and all bullies are cowardly, can imagine.  They're not beaten, and they're not cowed. They're actually winning.

Listening to Trump is nearly pointless.  His speeches are streams of lies.  He's going to lie.  Why bother?

Or should one listen?  I ask sincerely.  

Would you have listened, if you were German, to Hitler's radio addresses in 1945?

Like Trump's there weren't many by that time.

If you were to, it'd be out of morbid curiosity, or to try to discern what was coming next. Was there going to be a surrender and what would it consist of.  Or was Der Fuehrer going to take the country down into defeat with him.

And that's the same question we have with Trump.

Related threads:

Downfall. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Twelfth Edition. He's insane, we all know it, and he's in power. This will get much, much, worse.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, 25th Amendment Watch List, Donald Trump, Heather Cox Richardson., Ignorance, Joseph Biden, Mental Health, Richard Nixon, The Madness of King Donald, United States and Israel v. Iran, World War Two

King Donald the Unready* plays emperor without thinking and now there's no good way out.

An interesting one from TNR:

Trump Erupts in Fury Over His War Failures—and Exposes a Big Weakness

His rage at NATO is actually an admission that he needs our allies’ help—and that he wants somebody to blame as his war goes from bad to worse.

Somewhat related, I had a conversation with my MAGA associate, whose been pretty quite recently (he has five boys that are all old enough to have his own views and who are sick of the US supporting Israel on everything. . . I bet this war has been interesting at home. . .).  He noted, however, "I almost feel sorry for those mullahs, hiding in caves".

Now, he's never served in the military and doesn't know much about military matters, at all.  I noted that must be pretty bad, and then the fortunes of war became the topic.  I.e., how will this war end.

"We've already lost" was my statement.

He looked stunned.

We have already lost.  When you launch a war with war aims that are based on  your experiences as a real estate developer, you are a fool.  

Trump has no real world experience in anything.  He's just been a real estate developer, and that's not much.  That's based on money.  

An existential war, and that's what a war between Israel and Iran is, isn't based on that.  It's based on two fundamentally opposed world outlooks.  Israel's war aim is to end Iran as a military threat forever, and under Netanyahu, it's been willing to commit genocide in order to achieve security.  Nobody is looking at Gaza anymore.  Nobody is looking at Lebanon either.  Basically, Israel is fighting the war, with the US as a mercenary dupe, quite frankly, the way the mob war is depicted in the Godfather.  

Trump stupidly thought that the Iranians, who have a theocracy, think like he does.  He'd give them the dope slap and they'd give up, or if they didn't, there'd be a January 6 type revolution in the streets.  Nope, nothing like that has happened or is going to. Even the Kurds, who would like to be independent, have so little faith in King Donald that they're not rebelling.

Now a series of really horrific choices are before him.  For one thing, under the War Powers Act, he's running out of time to submit this to Congress and it appears fairly certain that there's a real chance that Congress would say "nope".  He's running out of money quicker that that, and is going to have to go to Congress and ask for $200B, with some Republicans already indicating they won't support that.

It's clear, moreover, that he can't bomb his way into victory.  That's never worked, and it isn't working here.  Indeed, not only is it not working, the limits of airpower are really showing.  We've done a massive aerial assault and yet the Iranians keep hitting back.

And the Iranians have hit on the idea of waging an economic war, which is a strategic use of airpower, missiles in the air in this case, knowing that there's little support of the war anywhere, and that people now get to think about how foolish King Donald is every time they go to the pump.  Indeed, an economic war against the US as an Islamic warrior concept has been around for a long time, and is actually what Osama Bin Laden had in mind when he staged the Twin Towers attacks.  Bin Laden turned out to be an economic moron as that had no effect on the economy at all, but this is.

And the Iranians have shown themselves to be able to effectively close the Straits of Hormuz, locking up 20% of the globe's oil supply.  Wharton School of Business graduate Trump (I'm now at the point where Wharton ranks in my mind with correspondence courses in the back of cartoon books) apparently has no grasp at all on how the global oil market works.**  His stupid, and it was stupid, reply is "well we have lots of oil".  Yeah., we do, in a global market.  

J. D. Vance, or whatever his name is, had the comment "well other people are suffering more than we are", which is also moronic. That's saying that yes, you are suffering.

The only way to open the Straits of Hormuz back up is to land Marines on the north shore of the Straits and make a broad beachhead.  A broad beachhead is subject to broad attack, which in turn requires a deeper beachhead.  Choose the analogy that you want, but pretty soon you are looking at either Da Nang in 1965, in which we went from Marine beachhead, to expanded perimeter, to full intervention in the Vietnam War, or Anzio in 1944, which turned into a man eating mess.  Optimistically, a Marine force to open the Straits of Hormuz would have to be backed up, in the end, by a two division commitment form the U.S. Army, and that would be just to hold on to some real estate, not to win the war.

Of course, it'd help in the current pseudo chief executive had cracked a history book from time to time, but Trump just isn't that smart.

Winning the war would actually require a full scale ground invasion.  We could probably pull that off, but it would require an investment of manpower on a scale not seen since the Vietnam War.  The Korean War would be a good analogy, actually.  It'd require a full scale call up of the National Guard and Reserves, and the standdown would not come for many years.  It'd cost something like 20,000 men killed, optimistically, and accelerate inflation at an unsustainable rate under the current tax structure.  In other worlds, unlike the Cold War in which budgets were less out of control, we couldn't keep this running long and would actually have to raise taxes, and massively, something that should be done in any event.

So, here we are.  Israel got a a war that Bibi wanted, although winning that war now depends more on Dick and Jane in Hastings, Nebraska, than it does on anyone in Israel.  The US got into an illegal war it didn't want at all, and which nobody can honestly state has a goal that makes sense.  Pete Hegseth and his Evangelical friends got a fever dream in which they bring about the end of Islam, which isn't going to happen.  

Well, if its any consolation, Trump gets bored pretty easily.  Marco Rubio probably still wants to invade Cuba.  There's a fairly good chance that Trump will just pull the U.S. military out of the war, effectively surrendering to Iran but without his pen on anything.  We'll go on to invade Cuba with just as little grasp of what that will take.  Republicans in Congress will still sit around acting like they're getting paid to do something.  

Sic transit Gloria Mundi.

Footnotes:

*Recalling Æthelred the Unready, the terrible Saxon king, whom after his death was lampooned as being "unready", i.e., "ill advised".

Æthelred the Unready, whom in spite of being a terrible king, was the Saxon king for 38 years, a remarkably long time.

**A very respected cousin of mine went to Wharton and went on to a fantastic career in business.  He was the sort of person who was simply a natural businessman from day one.  Indeed, I always though him a fish out of water in Wyoming where he really didn't fit in.

Anyhow, we were all so impressed that he went to Wharton.

My mind has really changed on Wharton, and frankly a lot of the big name schools.  Both Donald Trump and Wyoming's Secretary of State, Chuck Gray, are Wharton graduates which says a lot, and not in a good way, about Wharton.  Gray, at least, is clearly smart, indeed smart enough to dupe a lot of Wyomingites into voting for him.  Trump appears to me to have a very modest intellect.

Pete Hegseth is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, which is even more amazing.  Hegseth simply doesn't appear to be that smart.

All of this calls for a separate thread, but clearly the level of prestige these institutions have traditionally held simply isn't warranted today. 

The end of the American Century and planning for what comes next.

Donald Trump is systematically accelerating American decline making what might have happened over a two or more decades, had the existing trends remained and the U.S. not corrected itself, take place over a matter of months.

By the end of the Trump presidency, even if that end happens this year with him being taken out of the White House in a straight jacket, the US will not be the world's dominant economic power.  China will be, followed by the European Union.  The US will not be the leader of the free world, that's already ceased to be the case.  The EU is.  The US won't even be the moral leader of North America.  Canada is.

And thanks to the war with Iran, the US is rapidly ceasing to be the military power it once was.  Traditionally declining global powers lose that status last, and I suppose that's what's happening to us, but in a matter of months rather than decades, as is the norm.  We are, right now, losing a war with a third rate power and we don't even know why we are fighting it, other than that Bibi Netanyahu wanted it fought while he had somebody he could coax in the White House.  Right now, nations that looked to us since 1939 for help are quitting that, or have quit.  Maybe only a few remain in the Pacific, but that will end within a matter of months.

Had Trump not pushed this all into high gear, it might have happened over a long period of time anyhow.  The US hasn't been in control of its budget for decades and that was going to cause this to occur no matter what.  We might have been able to arrest that with a major effort, but that would have required most of the current members of Congress to get new jobs.  Now, however, things are so accelerated much of this is just going to happen all on its own.

Americans had better get used to it quickly and, for that matter, they'd better start planning for a post Trump world where we dance to the tune called by others, not to the one we called.  

While we can lament this in many ways, not all of it will be bad.  We will have to start rebuilding coalitions, but we're going to have to accept that we'll be regarded as a junior, and stupid, member of them.  We deserve that.  We're going to start building green energy and the like as people are going to tell us to and we're going to like it.  People like Chuck Gray who run around screaming "not on my watch" will be looking at green power in California by the end of 2027.  

We're going to have to look at reforming our tax and economic structure.  A lot of the giant moneybucks people like Musk will be leaving anyhow.  They love money, not the country, and the money will be leaving.  We're going to have to pay for what we buying, and what the Baby Boomer and their parents bought, in terms of a government.  Foreign countries are going to give us no choice.  We're not going to be the world's banker within the next two years.

People who worried about "forever wars" and the like, after the war against Iran is over, won't have to so much anymore.  They'll get what they wanted, just not the way they wanted it.  We'll crawl back to our alliances, but we'll be a comparative minor member in many ways.  As we can't pay for the huge military we have, we likely won't have it.  I'll look at that in another post.

Nothing lasts forever and you don't appreciate the good things, in many cases, while you have them.  Trump hasn't done the United States one single favor in either of his administrations.  He'll go down in history as the worst President in American history.  His legacy will be the acceleration of the end of the American Century.

Tuesday, March 16, 1976. Wilson resigns at the point where Trump should have.

Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced his retirement at age 60 due to what he knew was advancing dementia, although, in those years before this was as understood as well as it currently is, he cited physical and mental exhaustion.  He would die in 1995, although his dementia never took fully hold.

The more power to him.  Right now, in the United States, we have a demented President in a family with a history of dementia, who is sending people off to war based on his feelings.  History will not forgive us for putting up with this.

John Thune, in the Senate, is too old for his job.

John Barrasso, in the Senate, is 73, way too old for his job.

And the people who will die in the current war can take no comfort in that, as Congress is composed, on the Republican side of abject cowards.

Last edition:

Tuesday, February 17, 1976. The ABA starts its descent. Abuna Theophilos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, arrested.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, 1979, Advertising, Ethiopian Revolution, Missouri, Oriental Orthodox, Professional Organizations, The Practice of Law

Nolan Finely beat me to the punch:

Nolan Finley: It’s time to end the State of the Union

He is quite correct.  The show of the State of the Union Speech, based on the reporting, would have been more proper for Baathist Iran, North Korea, or Nazi Germany.  It wasn't a real State of the Union Address.

There hasn't been one for some time.  

Television destroyed what was once a serious endeavor.  If you look at old State of the Union addresses, particularly when they were still written, they were serious matters.  Now they have all the dignity of a pole dancer performing at a strip club, and they're getting worse.  

Any honest State of the Union delivered since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic would have to start off with "the State of the Union is grave" or words to that effect. An honest one now would have to start off with "the State of the Union is gravely imperiled" and go on from there.  The United States is in really bad shape, not all due to Donald Trump, but with everything about Donald Trump making the nation's condition much, much, worse.  

The nation is hugely polarized.  About 40% of the nation have fallen under the spell of an unintelligent but effective salesman.  Hatreds long thought in the past have revived in an aggressive form.  Congress has completely failed to perform its job, something it started to do at least as far back as the 1980s.  An attack on education and science that began under the Ronald Reagan administration has produced a drove of ignorant ill informed voters.  Ignoring a growing immigration crisis that started in the 1970s fueled massive Rust Belt discontent.  Over funding an all volunteer military has resulted in the creation of a post Cold War military class that's become an a danger to the nation itself.  Ignoring global warming is imperiling the entire plant while lining the pocked of an oligarch class that's rapidly depriving the same Rust Belt class that's now supporting it of any middle class way of making a living.  Ignoring science has also lead to a complete inability to understand basic human biological facts. 

This country is an utter disaster, and it's lead right now by a stupid man whose intellect is crashing into dementia.

Trump is a mentally ill man to start with.  Raised in a family that managed to avoid serving in times of war and whose wealth was started off by a German immigrant (ironically) who engaged in the sex trade, he's always been a self centered man focused on greed and engaging in lust.  In his dementia, he cannot see the world in any manner other than acquisition, and believes his own propaganda about his having a unique understanding of the "art of the deal".  He's the laughing stock of the globe, and at a some point fairly soon in the United States, he'll be regarded as the worst president in the nation's history and the worst human being to ever occupy the Oval Office.  If there's anything redeeming to Trump's reign at all it will be that his profoundly bad occupation of that office has demonstrated how severely various reforms to the Constitution are needed.

Be that as it may, the nation is not going to emerge from Trump the nation it was.  It will be a second rate nation, and that will be due to him, and those who served him.  The US will crawl back to the family of Western nations, but it will just be one of them, not the leader of them.  That's now fallen to the European Union.

When that occurs the millions who followed Trump will deny it, including some of those working for him now . Vance and Rubio will be two who will assert that they were never Trumpites.

On that, we digress.  State of the Union addresses were once written and they were much better when they were. Those days should return.  They were not intended to be an perverted administration's stripping performance while lustful inebriated fans cheered the stripper, which is what they now are.  Today's state of the union addresses are embarrassing in the extreme and not something a mature dignified nation would do, but then, right now, we are not a mature dignified nation.

State of the Union addresses should go back to being written.  If they are delivered orally, they should be given during the work day as they should reflect serious work.  And, frankly, there should be a mechanism, and a severe one at that, that if they are dishonest, there should be an immediate impact.  For example, although now it would have no legal impact, immediately after any oral State of the Union address there should be a vote of confidence.  If a simple majority votes note, the authority of the President should be suspended until he can come back in front of Congress and the nation and not act like a buffoon.

That would require, of course, a serious Congress as well, which we also lack.

In Full Debate On University of Wyoming Budget Cuts, Lawmakers Ask If It's Retaliation The Wyoming House and Senate debated a $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming on Thursday, with the budget committee co-chair John Bear confirming the number was meant to "get their attention." He said legislative directives on DEI were ignored.

 

In Full Debate On University of Wyoming Budget Cuts, Lawmakers Ask If It's Retaliation

The Wyoming House and Senate debated a $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming on Thursday, with the budget committee co-chair John Bear confirming the number was meant to "get their attention." He said legislative directives on DEI were ignored.