Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 9, 25th Amendment Watch, 23d Edition. The Canadian Harvard and Oxford doctor in economics vs. the Wharton playboy. The Trade War with Canada edition.

By Self-created photograph by Jonathunder - Own work, GFDL, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64543672

If this is a match of intellects, and it likely is, Canada has already won the trade war. 

Carney is undoubtedly a genius and the only international leader currently in office, maybe ever in office, to have run the economies of two different countries.  Trump is increasingly obvious of rather low intellect and a real estate developer with a very narrow understanding of the economy, who is in turn heavily influenced by Peter Navarro, a 77 year old economic theorist who uniquely champions tariffs.  To make matters worse, Trump is suffering a rapid dementia related mental decline.

The US right now is destroying its own economy.

August 26, 2026

Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel, aluminum, furniture and clothing (50%),  cheese, appliances and some seafood, (25%) and on electronics and tools (15%), effective September 8.

It also pledged aid to Canadian workers.

It was a dollar per dollar match on US tariffs, which it basically offsets.

As a side effect of this, the price of household paper products, toilet paper and paper towels, is climbing.

Thanks Don.

On the contest of intellects, the petulant baby in the Oval Office threatened to rename Lake Ontario the Lake of America or something.  Trump actually thinks he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, even though it remains the Gulf of Mexico in reality.  The Lake Ontario thing is incredibly stupid.  Nobody reacted positively to it, although I'm sure that administration flunkies will pretend it's a great idea.  Curtis Hertel Jr., chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, stated:

Donald Trump has been America first in name only his entire presidency. He promised lower prices, higher wages, and no foreign wars … all of that is bull shit.  Renaming th fourth best Great Lake isn’t going to change that.

Americans aren't impressed with the latest Trump stupidity.

Trump shitposts fail to win support for Canadian trade war

On Trump dumping American cattlemen, John Barrasso, Senator from Trump, oh, um, Senator allegedly from Wyoming, posted this on Twitter:

Americans want US beef on the table – not foreign imports. Wyoming ranchers produce the highest quality beef in the world. Our ranchers don't ask for special treatment. They simply want a fair marketplace. It needs to be easier – not harder – for Wyoming ranchers to feed America. I will continue to fight for policies that strengthen Wyoming beef producers and invest in the American cattle herd.

Barrasso is a Trump suck up and hasn't really done much for Wyoming in years.  During election cycles he's for whatever he thinks Wyomingites are for and is otherwise a rank cowards pretending he thinks Trump is brilliant when he knows that he's not.  Last time he ran he became worried about gadfly candidate Reid Rasner and accordingly pulled to the hard right.

Barrasso must regard the Wyoming livestock industry as sufficiently powerful enough to actually hurt the GOP, or this an issue near enough to the hearts of Wyomingites, that he needs to speak up.  He didn't do that when public lands were on the table.  It's interesting in part because the Wyoming range cattle industry in particular, and agriculture in general, have been so pro Trump and pro GOP that it's quite literally actually stupid.  We posted on this the other day.

The GOP's useful idiots in agriculture.

Neither Hageman or Lummis have said anything.

Hageman, of course, has incentive not to.  She's a Trump endorsee and is now running against James Byrd tof Lummis' seat.  This makes her exposed on this issue.  If she speaks up, and she's going to have to, it puts her between somebody that supports here that she probably thinks is a heaping bowl of stupid in reality, but then exposing her to voters who she probably figures are more heaping bowls of stupid.  Byrd is perfectly suited to exploit this as Hageman comes from a farm/ranch and can't stay silent before she looks like a traitor.

Lummis, of course, comes from a ranch too, but as she's nto running, she doesn't have to say anything.  She seems to be bucking for a Trump cabinet post, anticipating that people will jump the Trump ship post election.

Anyhow, on Dr. John:

Beefing over foreign beef plan, Barrasso breaks with Trump administration

Closer to home, businesses have been closing right and left in Casper.

Casper’s Outback Steakhouse closes permanently after nearly three decades of business

Little Shop of Burgers announces closure at end of month

Two locally owned Casper small businesses closing permanently

And, good riddance:

Enough! Evanston Man Says He's Leaving The State Over Property Rights Fight

On other economic fronts, the US came out with its "Economic D-Day" against Iran, which are really sanctions against Iranian trading partners, but not really.  It delayed the imposition of them to January 1, 2027, which means they won't happen at all.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 8. $40,012,700,535,679.44

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Agriculture, Canada, Disaster, Donald Trump, Economics, Food, Government, Kyla Scanlon, Republican Party, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

Thursday, August 24, 1911. The beginning of a world shaking event.

Chinese citizens living in Chengdu, lead the Tung Chi Huei, went on strike over the Qing Dynasty's agreement with foreign nations to build a railroad through the Sichuan Province, after businesses there had raised $20,000,000 to build it themselves.

It was the beginning of a revolutionary era in China that would not end until 1949. . . or maybe it hasn't ended yet.  Suffice it to say, it was the beginning of events so massive that even now we do not know how they will work out, over a century later.

It's proof that what often seems regional, and even minor, can end up global, and epic.

As if Mexico didn't have enough on its hands, the United States officially rejected the award of the Chamizal Arbitration.

From the New York Times on this day?

Why? Well, they were Jewish, that's it.  Russia was h eavily anti semitic.

What a world, and the good old days.  Massive disturbance in China, revolution in Mexico, pogroms in Russian, and petty border disputes.

The first ever sculpture of a butter cow was displayed at the Iowa State Fair.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 23, 1911. British secretly plan for war.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, British Army, British Navy, Francisco León de la Barra, Herbert Henry Asquith, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mexico (Morelos), United Kingdom, Victoriano Huerta

How did war gamers get the war with Iran right, before it started, and the Administration didn't?

The other day I posted an item noting that old Avalon Hills gamers could have predicted the outcome of our ill advised and illegal war with Iran.  

Turns out, they did.  

I hadn't realized that at all when I posted that, but somebody I know well and who also likes hex and counter games did, and pointed it out.  

GMT Games has it as part of their Next War series in the form of Next War: Iran.

Here's GMT Games write up on its game:

Description

The Middle East has long been a hobgoblin for foreign powers and, as much as Afghanistan, also a graveyard of empires. Sitting squarely astride ancient trade routes and with the added impetus of the world's addiction to oil, the area has been a hot spot for centuries.

Now, with the old regime teetering and losing its grip, Iran makes a bid for forcing the West to recognize its complete sovereignty and control over its own affairs by striking at the one thing they care about: the flow of oil. Mining the Straits of Hormuz and declaring it closed to all traffic, Iran defies the world. The US, and perhaps some of its allies, takes action to re-open the straits and get the black gold flowing to the world again.

Next War: Iran is the sixth game in the Next War series. It is unique in the series in that the Allied player has to do the attacking while the non-Allied player attempts to defend its territory against neo-imperial oppression. With a long logistical tail, few true allies in the region, and the menace of Iran's A2AD capabilities, re-opening the Straits is a tall order.

The game came out in 2024.

Note the difficulty the war poses:

With a long logistical tail, few true allies in the region, and the menace of Iran's A2AD capabilities, re-opening the Straits is a tall order.

Gee. . . . 

Maybe Pete should have bought a few boxes of Next War:  Iran rather than worrying about low T.

The game was, we'd note, the 2024 Charles S. Roberts award winner for Best Hypothetical Game.

Blog Mirror: Trump and Hegseth ignored the grim history of the Iran-Iraq war. We will pay the price of their ignorance for years.

 

Trump and Hegseth ignored the grim history of the Iran-Iraq war. We will pay the price of their ignorance for years.

King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.

 July 21, 2026.

If any question why we died, 

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Kipling. 

Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, age 19, killed in Jordan. 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan also died.  Both were assigned to Air Defense Artillery units.

Just 19 years old. She died, not so that Iran would not have a nuclear weapon, not for liberal democracy in Iran, but because a demented old narcassist duped by a prime minister of a desperately minoritarian regime in the Middle East could spill her blood for its purposes.*

Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and every American supporting this war has blood on their hands.

And not just hers.

Isabella Gonzales.  A life cut short, and a life taken on behalf a regime that would likely send her to Mexico on the basis that she has a Spanish last name, if it could, for a war that most Americans don't want, and which is being fought for Israel.

I'm not, as I've noted before, in favor of women in combat.  Pvt. Gonzales left a few social media type posts of herself, in uniform, acting very cute, and very feminine.  She did not deserve this.  It sounds brutal to say this, but this is a man's role.

But more than that, this is a role that should be filled, if it had to be, by those who brought it about.  Why are the Trumps not in action? 

Why have they never been?

A person who did.

1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, 2nd Battalion, 55th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, 25 years of age.

The classic look of a lieutenant.  Too bad he died for utterly nothing.  He deserved better.

A third serviceman was killed but has yet to be identified.  It taking this long probably says something about the nature of his wartime death, a war that we're waging and which we're waging illegally, with no declaration of war.

Not one prominent MAGA, we'd note, has stepped up to the plate.  Barron, Eric, Donald Trump Jr.,.Ivanka Trump and Tiffany Trump.  Won't you?  You can join Pete Hegseth in our new colonial escapade, and;

Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need*

Nah, that's not going to happen.

Most days now, it won't even be the main headline.  Troops will go on killing and dying, and for what?  A goal never clearly expressed, and which cannot be obtained without massive loss of life.

July 22, 2026

The third soldier:

Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, age 28.

And killed elsewhere in Iraq.

Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, age 30.

I suppose their faces look like America as it is. . . but not really the America that people like some in the Trump seem to want it to look like.

CST  headline:

Well, like they say, freedom isn't free, and apparently giving up your freedoms for a demented narcissist isn't either.

The Houthis are threatening to close the Red Sea.

July 24, 2026

From the CST:

Waist deep in the big muddy.

July 26, 2026

The Houthis hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

News reports hold that the administration has put on hold an escalation of the war due to a shortage of air defense munitions.  Savvy analysts, including yours truly, have been warning about that occurring for months, and not it's here.

So, in keeping with that, a prediction.

This is also likely a moment that Putin and Xi have been waiting for as well.  Our weapons stockpile has been built up over years, and now we've wasted it on a war fought for Israel and Trump's vanity.  Both Putin and Xi know that the next President, assuming at Trump 2028 coup to be unsuccessful, and assuming that we don't have another President before 2028, is much less likely to be a complete patsy and geopolitical dimwit.  

For Russia, that means Russia needs to fight on in hopes it can win before the next administration comes on.  For Xi, that means the time to invade Taiwan is. . . now.

July 27, 2026

We're really back to, if not surpassing, the Vietnam War era administration fibbing levels.

Pentagon reveals hundreds of new Iran war casualties

More than 600 troops have been wounded in the Iran war, officials disclosed Saturday, almost 200 more than previously known.

July 29, 2026

Trump openly showed frustration with Netanyahu who was in town for Lindsey Graham's funeral as Bibi announced ahead of time that he wanted to share Israeli intelligence on Pickaxe Mountain. 

That intelligence would reportedly show that the Iranians are reconstituting their nuclear program there and have no plans to give it up, which is obvious.  That frustrates Donny, however, who was basically suckered into the war by Bibi and now can't find a way out.  Bibi is trying to keep him focused and involved.

Iran launched a series of missile strikes on US targets yesterday.  The missiles were reportedly alls hot down, but they cause the US to burn through it's depleting anti missile supply.

July 30, 2026

Well worth reading.  We're not only losing, recent actions have made us even weaker than we were before.

Midweek Update #21: Iran Is Toying With The USA

Plus: Iranian Strategy; How Does This End?

We really have a evered amateurs at war problem going on.  Hegseth apparently just feels that bombing wins wars, which has never worked.  Trumps managed to go from having a horror of war into being nearly bloodthirsty, at least in his rhetoric.  We're depleting weapons like crazy when we're already broke.

The war not only will have a losing result, but this is going to have a severely bad end for the country.

July 31, 2026

The U.S. resumed strikes on Iran yesterday.  A drone strike on gas vessels in Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta occurred which is fairly clearly linked to the war, but the details have yet to be developed.

As an aside, I've already noted that the recent dead are half female and 3/4s minorities.  It's also the case that one, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, was  lesbian in a same gender union.

I'm noting that as the dead do not line up with Pete Hegseth's and MAGAs world view of who are Americans, yet they're the ones dying.

Iran has conducted a cyber attack on the Minnesota public water systems.

Cont:

The dipshit in the Oval Office blamed Minnesota for the Iranian attack on that state's public water systems.

He really doesn't care about you folks.

August 1, 2026

The illegitimate Trump Administration is meeting at Camp David today to discuss the illegal war it started.

August 3, 2026

Trump called off attacks and promised not to resume if a deal could be reached quickly.

It's won't be.

Iran and Oman are apparently in separate discussions on the Strait of Hormuz.

August 4, 2026

Trump claimed yesterday that talks were "underway".  Iran denied that any were going on.

In fact, last night, Iran has launched a drone attack on a U.S. military base in Kuwait. and Iran struck a cargo vessel off the coast of Oman, all after King Donny  claimed the U.S. and Iran have resumed negotiations.

Nobody knows for sure what the story is here, but we all know that Trump is an outrageous liar.

Trump is showing signs of getting increasingly frustrated with the war and clearly doesn't have any idea what to do.  Iran knows that and has zero incentive in working with him on anything.  More likely than not this is going to drag on for many more months.

The critical breaking point may prove to be a military one.  The US cannot sustain the war and it's now very clear that's the case.  Every single day of active fighting in the Middle East brings war with China, now inevitable in my view, closer.

"Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics" is the phrase that come to mind.  Trump isn't a student of either.  Neither is Hegseth, by observation . Trump listened to armature hawks like Hegseth whose war philosophy seemed boil down to "make big boom, kill people, opponents surrender" which would demonstrate that he wasn't much of a student of history.

The U.S. Army has used up most of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles in the war.

August 6, 2026

Apparently Hegseth and Trump got into a raging argument about the war at Camp David.

August 8, 2026

Iran has announced that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the United States meets certain conditions, including lifting the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions, withdrawing U.S. forces from around Iran, paying war reparations, releasing frozen Iranian assets, and ending attacks on Iran’s allies and threats against the country.

Yup, they're dictating terms to the U.S.

Those responsible for this debacle, from the Secretary of Defense down to the military planners, need to go, and need to go right away.  Fire them.

August 10, 2026

Leaks from the Administration indicate that Trump is now at the point that the US will end the war if Iran only promises to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Iran is refusing that offer, wanting the US to pay reparations.

This is a complete defeat.

Donald Trump is about to become what he never wanted to be: Jimmy Carter. Held hostage by Iran. And it was all voluntary.

Chris Christie.

This is such a humiliating turning point that we will close this edition out with this.

Footnotes:

*“The White Man’s Burden" by Kipling, quote in part. 

I don't admire the sentiments in this poem at all.  It's racist.  But it expresses the type of WASP colonialism, sans the Protestantism which at least moderated it a bit, of the colonial 19th Century, that the US is now experiencing under Donald Trump.

Related threads:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 8. Donald Trump, China's (and Russia's) greatest ally edition.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 9. The paper tiger edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025 Israel v. Iran War, 2026, Barbary Pirates, Donald Trump, Gaza, Iran, Israel, King Donald's War, Rudyard Kipling, Straits of Hormuz, Stupidity, The Second Trump Administration, United States

Tuesday, July 27, 1926. The Filipino House votes for an independence plebiscite.

The Philippine House of Representatives voted to approve a resolution calling for a plebiscite on independence for the U.S. Territory.  It was vetoed by U.S. Military Governor, Leonard Wood, but the legislature overrode the veto and the measure then went to the final consideration of U.S. President Coolidge, who vetoed the measure the following year.

The US and UK entered into an accord to address alcohol smuggling.

Hearst newspapers ran this editorial:

Last edition:

Monday, July 26, 1926. Ports of call.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Abraham Lincoln, Bahamas, Diplomacy, Mountain Climbing, Straits of Hormuz, Swiss Army, Switzerland, United States and Israel v. Iran, Weather

BREAKING: The House just voted to integrate Israel and the US Military (and this is a bad idea).

This idea is frankly insane.

When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, I recall at home my mother was a fan of Israel.  Basically, she sort of thought it was a small nation that really stood up to larger neighbors, sort of an underdog things.  She also thought that it was a fulfilled promise of the New Testament that it existed, which is something I've heard the very orthodox Catholic theologian Jimmy Akin also express.

My father, however, was not as sympathetic.  He didn't express a lot of views on Israel, but basically he thought it came about as a way for Western nations to feel better about the Holocaust but that it foisted a large  European population on an Arab populace that had a different religion and didn't want them there, and that wasn't a good idea.  He also felt that Israel had a tendency to pick on its neighbors a bit.

When I was quite young, I shared my mother's view, in part because it seemed like every time it got into a spat it really cleaned up on its neighbors.  By my teens, however, my view was shifting and ultimately shifted a great deal.  I didn't become anti Israel, but I frankly sympathized to a large degree with the Arab Palestinians in regard to what had happened to them. By my 20s, additionally, I was of the view that Israel's ongoing existence as a Jewish state was a demographic impossibility.

Later my views shifted more towards the middle, but I've never really been in the "support Israel at all costs" camp.  One of my good friends, of an Evangelical background, holds the view that supporting Israel is mandated by the Bible.  I'm reminded, however, that the Old Testament is fully of examples of the People of Israel acting badly, which was frequently a reason that God would send a prophet to them, with the prophets frequently being unwelcome.

I'm a Catholic, of course, and I hold a much more nuanced view of the modern state of Israel.  It might be that modern Israel is indeed a fulfillment of the Biblical promise that the state would be restored, but I don't think that means at all that the country gets a free pass at everything.

And I'm much more of my father's view, and frankly probably well to the left of it, that American support of Israel has a lot to do with war guilt from the 1940s.  

The 1940s are now a long time ago. Israel is a country and it deserves to exist, although I still feel that its existence is very tenuous given the demographics of the neighborhood.  It doesn't deserve to be attacked, but it doesn't have license to wage genocidal level wars on neighboring territory, as the recent war in Gaza became.  Long term, if Israel is going to continue to exist, it's going to have to come to some sort of accommodation with its neighbors, and that means the entire region needs to figure out what to do about the plight of the Palestinians, which nobody has demonstrated an inclination to do.

Under Benjamin Netanyahu I suspect the silent Israeli policy, opposed by a large number of Israelis, is to drive the Arabs out of lands that were within British Mandatory Palestine.  That has never been openly stated, but if they were driven out, the thought would run, the demographic problem is solved.

The moral one certainly wouldn't be.

Anyhow, the modern GOP is more in love with Israel than any group of Americans has ever been, and that says something.  Israel always had the solid support of both parties, but now the GOP is absolutely besotted with Israel.  So much so, that we're integrating our militaries to a certain extent.

The irony of this cannot be overstated.  Since he came into office Trump has beat the National Conservative drum that the US is to be an isolated entity until itself.  He's come as close to taking us out of NATO as he can, and doesn't seem done trying, and he's ignored a major war that actually involves a major Western country, Ukraine.  He's all be declared that if Russia attacks Western Europe he doesn't care.  He's threatened to outright invade the territory of a NATO member, Denmark, in order to steal land from Greenland, which doesn't want us there.

But with Israel, it's totally different.

We're not only supporting Israel, with which we have no written treaty, we're backing Israel up in one of its wars, the one against Iran, which we can now not get out of and are basically carrying on, and losing on our own.  In spite of that, we're about to significantly merge our defense industries to no benefit of our own, but major benefit to Israel.  And in doing that, we might note, we're going it for a country that has periods in which its been governed by the extreme Socialist left.  It's also been a country which actively spied on the United States.

This is just flat out nuts.  

Israel has been in existence for nearly 80 years now and it can defend itself.  I see no reason at all to tie the US to regional wars which have a heavy religious element to them.  If Israel is going to persevere, it needs to find a way to do so with Arab allies, not the United States.  It's come a long ways towards doing that, and facilitating that is in the interest of world peace, even if it really has nothing else to otherwise do with US interests.  Fighting Israel's wars for it is flat out wrong, but this makes that more likely, and we're already doing that right now.

Indeed, if the US had a sane leader and a sane policy, we'd be looking for ways to pull out of the Middle East entirely.  We don't due to petroleum oil, which provides a good reason, in addition to the environmental one, to do what China is doing, which is to pull away from petroleum as rapidly as possible.  The whole world should be doing that, and recent actions by the Saudis, as well as some of the past decade, show that Saudi Arabia expects that to be done.

If we'd started it a decade ago, we'd be largely petroleum free, to everyone's benefit, right now.

So why are we doing otherwise?

It's really for the simple reason that the GOP has been captured by the American Evangelical right and that body has a strong theocracy behind it that views supporting Israel, and an eventually conversion of the Jews to (Protestant) Christianity as a prerequisite for the Second Coming.  Israelis know this and make use of it, which is how Netenanyu was able to push Trump along into a major war it could not have pulled off itself.

If this keeps up, this is going to have a bad end.

It likely will not, however, keep up, which is the irony.  

In the 2022 election Muslim Americans, enraged over Joe Biden's moderate support of Israel following the attacks on it by Hezbollah, voted for Donald Trump.  But at the same time younger American voters were shifting their views towards the Palestinians.  Younger Americans have no personal memory of the Holocaust. Their parents weren't swept up by it, and indeed, their grandparents weren't.  It's something in the rear view mirror, part of history.  Israeli attacks today, however, are not.  

Also new is the large numbers of Muslims in the US.  

Only 1.3% at most of Americans are Muslim, but only 2.4% are Jewish.  There are, therefore, more Jewish voters than Muslim ones, but in both instances their votes are only significant where they are concentrated, and Muslims are very much concentrated in some places.  They're making an electoral difference in those places.

The GOP is doing a really good job of angering massive numbers of Americans.  By now, it's largely lost Hispanics, who helped pull it through in 2022.  It's no doubt completely lost Muslims.  Those people who really didn't want the US in foreign wars are now wondering what happened.  Economic conservatives are horrified.

I very much doubt this provision will survive in the Senate.  It shouldn't.  But already, during the Trump Administration, we've seen the rise of outright antisemitism due to the war with Iran. We haven't seen anything like this since 1940.  It will grow worse.

And this will be one of the factors that's going to drag the Republicans down in the fall.  If passed, it won't survive the next administration.  And not only is it going to be a factor in dragging down the GOP in the fall, it'll help drag down far right Evangelicalism in general.

Indeed, I suspect the Israeli far right knew that, which is why it had to strike while the iron was hot, and Donald Trump in office.  It doesn't expect this era to last in the US.

King Donald's War, Part 9. The paper tiger edition.

To me, I think it’s over, I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re liars, they’re cheats, they’re sick people.Now I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it.

July 8, 2026

Donald Trump, after being played by the Iranians.

US strikes resumed.

And Israel hit Gaza with airstrikes.

July 9, 2026

And the undeclared illegal war seems back on full stop with Donald Trump almost disinterested in it.

As an obvious precautionary move, an old Air Force One was sent to the UK to substitute for the Royal Omani Coach gifted by the Gulf State, which turns out not to have countermeasures.  That was not admitted, but pretty strongly leaked. Trump claimed the plane was sent to an Air Base in Germany so that the airmen would get to see it.

Um, right.

July 13, 2026

Trump announced that the United States is going to take over the Strait of Hormuz and "run" it for a period of fifty years, taking compensation as part of the occupation.

That's flat out insane.

It's also flat out colonialism.

And it would require ground troops to do it.

It's probably a stupid bluff, and it is stupid.

July 14, 2026

So apparently we fought Iran in order to become the Barbary Pirates.

cont:

Trump apparently was told its piracy, so now costs will be defrayed, he claims, by investments from Gulf States.

So, instead of pirates, we're mercenaries.

It won't happen.

July 19, 2026

Headline from the CST:

There were missile strikes in Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Tell me again about how we've won this war and Iran's military is destroyed. . . this wouldn't seem to support that.

July 20, 2026

If any question why we died, 

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Kipling. 

Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, age 19, killed in Jordan. 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan also died.  Both were assigned to Air Defense Artillery units.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 8 and CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 140th Edition, 25th Amendment Watch Nineteenth Edition: L'arche De La Défaite Édition

Labels: Donald Trump, King Donald's War, L'arche De La Défaite, Naïve monarchism, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration, United States and Israel v. Iran, Zeitgeist

Friday, July 12, 1776. One Country (absent that problematic Quebec).

The Second Continental Congress received the first draft of the Articles of Confederation.

Contrary to some latter day suggestions, this demonstrates that the thirteen colonies who had declared independence conceived of themselves as one confederation, i.e., one country, right from the onset.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 9, 1776. Troops read the Declaration of Independence.

Labels: 1770s, 1776, Army, British Army, Declaration of Independence, George Washington, New York, New York (Bowling Green), New York (Manhattan), New York and New Jersey campaign, the spoken word, The written word

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 144th Edition. Just in case you've begun to think that being governed by an 80 year old demented dictator is somehow normal, here's. . .

 

Kristrún Mjöll Frostadóttir, in black.

Kristrún Mjöll Frostadóttir, the Prime Minister of Iceland.  She graduated from Reykjavik Junior College, the University of Iceland, holds a master's degree in international studies from Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, and a master's degree in economics from Boston University.

She's 38 years old.

And she's a Social Democrat.

She makes Donald Trump and the entire Trump cabinet look like idiots and a country that feels that it has to elect idiots twice her age, idiotic.

Iceland, by the way, had a working parliament in 930.  And yet they don't feel compelled to elect demented octogenarians.  The oldest person to ever serve in that role was Gunnar Thoroddsen, who was 69 years old when he took office in 1980.  He served three years and retired.

An example from a country that's been electing people a lot longer than we have.  We don't have to elect demented geezers and wet our pants when the world "Social" shows up in politics.

That's something ignorant children do.

And demented octogenarian toddlers and their syncophants.

Last Edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 143rd Edition. The Chopper Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025 White House Vandalization, 2026, Aircraft, The Second Trump Administration, United States Marine Corps, Washington DC, Washington DC Vandalization, Zeitgeist

Sunday, July 7, 1946. Mother Cabrini canonized.

Italian born Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized by Pope Pius XII, the first American citizen to receive the same.

She was the founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  She is the Patron Saint of Immigrants.  She  founded 67 orphanages, schools and hospitals throughout the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean region, and in Europe during her lifetime.

The Presbyterian Church and the Episcopal Church, at that time probably the wealthiest church in the United States and the Church of the wealthy to some extent, announced they would merge, an odd announcement given their real theological differences.  

Not too surprisingly, the merger did not in fact occur.

U.S. Navy Ensign Jimmy Carter married Rosalynn Smith in Plains, Georgia.  They'd be married for 75 years.

Last edition:

Friday, July 5, 1946. Introduction of the bikini.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Clothing, France, France (Paris), It was because of the Cold War, Men, Scandal, Sex, Swimming, The differences between men and women, Women