October 4, 2026
Running out of time.
We're starting a new edition of this for several reasons.
To start off with, King Donald has been in rare form the last few days. Whether these qualify as 25th Amendment events or not is another matter. They probably don't. But they do show the titanic weirdness of the man.
The first was a long rambling post about trying to enact Permanent Daylight Savings Time.
Personally, I hate Daylight Savings Time and I always have. It was a stupid idea when it came into being, and it still is. I'd like to see it go. But King Donald and some Republicans, and probably some Democrats as well, would like for it to be adopted year around.
This is dumb, and yes that's spelled with a "b".
The reason it's dumb is that the sun rises and sets when it does with no regard to the opinions and musings of man. In real terms, there's a real high noon, and a real midnight. The clock should be based on that.
The stupidity of Daylight Savings Time somehow accepts the concept that by moving the arms of the clock, it somehow changes that. What Daylight Savings Time is, in real terms, is Go To Work An Hour Earlier. Apparently we're dim enough, however, to accept that if we pretend to move the arms of the clock, we're still going to work at 8:00 a.m. in the summer, rather than 7:00 a.m.
We're not.
Anyhow, Donalds wants the bill to pass. If it does, at least it looks like the 119th Congress did something. Here's his long screed:
Cotton has been a pretty consistent back of Trump's all along, so this is really ironic. He's getting stabbed in the back by the guy he supported, which isn't surprising. Everything Trump touches gets destroyed.
Cotton's reasons here are solid. Everything he's stated here is correct. I can personally recall the 1974 experiment with this.
Sunday, January 6, 1974. Messing with the time.
In a bizarre response to the ongoing oil crisis, the U.S. began a trial of year around daylight savings time.
I recall it well, as when I walked to grade school in the morning, it was pretty dark. We still walked, however.
What I noted there has been noted by supporters of King Donald's proposal. Kids don't walk to school as much as the culture's addiction to laziness and automotive transportation actually increased since 1974.
Anyhow, what are the reasons for this absurdity?
Golfing and tennis. Oh, and "farmers want it".
On that last item, farmers don't care one whit about this. They're going to work when they are going to work. DST doesn't change that at all.
Indeed, I've always heard the justification for DST being the one that Trump is giving. You can go out and play sports when you get home from work as you'll have more daylight.
M'eh.
The reason, anyhow, this appears here is that Trump posted, and therefore wrecked, Cotton's cell phone number. That's really mean. Only a self centered asshole would do a thing like that. Trump's been asked to justify it in a press interview and just repeats his reasons that he wants the vote.
Personally, and I have no way of really knowing this, I think he wants it as the Republican 119th Congress has done nothing and now we're headed into a general election with inflation ramping up, an illegal war going on, and none of the list of usual suspects excuses working anymore.
Also for the same reason, Trump's been running around giving campaign rallies to the true believers. I haven't tracked where he's been going, but I've read that it tends to be in places where there's a lot of MAGA. Quietly some candidates in battleground states are trying to distance themselves from him. Anyhow, at one such rally Trump, who didn't graduate from Wharton with honors and never appeared on the Dean's list, stated:
I am a person with very high intelligence—one of the highest IQs in the world.
Okay, this is at the really weird level.
Generally really intelligent people don't run around saying "I'm high IQ". Trump says it all the time, which suggests that he's really insecure about his intelligence.
Frankly, at this point, if anyone believes he's super intelligent, they're probably either stupid or incredibly gullible. MAGA by now is the bottom of the bell curve in intelligence and ignorance.
What's going on with the 25th?
It's rather clear at this point that my prediction that the 25th Amendment would be applied after the first 18 months of Trump's illegal occupation of the Oval Office were off the mark. This probably should be regarded as a failed prediction.
Having said that, I saw somebody hinting at the possibility that their similar thought might not be.
I think it's a long shot right now, but there's still a chance, and a not insubstantial one, that a backroom plot, basically, remains in place. The same basic parameters would be in operation, replacing Trump with J.D. Vance before the 2028 election.
My thought was that it would occur before the 2026 election in order that the GOP had a chance to save itself before that election. Clearly that was wrong. But that in and of itself might be part of what's going on. The various factions in the Trump backrooms that supported his campaign and which boost their pet theories on everything may very well have realized that the results would be unpopular. Economic radicals behind the tariffs, for instance, likely were aware that they'd be hugely disruptive. They may have given up the 2026 midterms from the onset. They likely didn't appreciate that Trump would start a war with Iran, but most of the rest of the stuff Trump has done has backers within the administration. All of those people also know that they're in the minority in terms of American culture so Trump is their best chance of making this stuff happen.
But, if I'm correct, at some point Trump has to go and take the stench out with him. There will come a day, and it's probably in November, when Trump will be personally blamed for what's occurred. The Republicans are going to lose both houses of Congress in a month. A Fall Guy will be necessary, and Trump has made himself that person. He's even asked for people to imagine him on the ballot.
A lot of people will.
After November 3 being a Trumpite in most places will have lost its value. A lot of the Republican politicians who have supported him all along will grow silent, or more silent than they already are. Harriet Hageman will likely not be heard to mention his name. John Barrasso won't either. Poor Chuck Gray, who has campaigned more than anyone else in Wyoming on being a deep lover of all things Trump, will be lost, but even he will rally to claim that "true conservative values" need to be defended.
Anyhow, the point is Republicans are already dog trotting away from Trump. Trump is, at the same time, stabbing some of them in the back. Chip Roy got it, and now Cotton is getting it. After the vote in November, there will be very little reason to be a Trump backer in the GOP, save for being in a district of diehard MAGAs, which is a declining population.
The National Conservatives and Christian Nationalist still need Trump, however. Nobody else is going to help them get in their worldview. They can sort of home that Vance will, but Vance is too savvy to adopt anything fully that's going to wipe out his hopes of being President.
And hence the gamble.
Right now, it may well be the case that NatCons and Christian Nationalist are seeing how far they can have Trump carry on as a sort of dictator until it's too late, and Vance's chances in 2028 are destroyed. That may have already occured. Letting that occur might be one reason that Marco Rubio hasn't acted. But my guess is that they're riding along and just don't quite know where that point is.
It might be coming very soon. If Trump makes an effort to steal the 2026 midterms, and he will, that might present the opportunity. If it isn't taken then, it has to be taken some time in 2027. 2028 will probably be too late.
Related threads:
Daylight Savings Time, Dangers, and Crabbiness.
Last edition:
