Thursday, August 3, 1911. Arbitration and tension in Morelos.

The United States signed arbitration treaties the United Kingdom and France in separate ceremonies at the White House.

The treaties would be amended beyond recognition by the Senate.

Still, it's interesting that hey were done. Today, Trump would go into a long twitter post about the wonderful thing about Tiggers, refuse to ponder them, and put tariffs on Andora.

In Morelos rebels were refusing to disarm even though Madero was urging them too.  Gobernación licenciado Emilio Vázquez Gómez asked for revolutionary troops to be sent to the region, which Madero had suggested, to calm the situation, received no answer from the provisional government. He resigned as minister of gobernación on this day and was replaced in that position by an hacendado, Alberto García Granados.

Cigarette advertisement in the August 3, 2026 Life magazine.  Cigarettes were considered effeminate at the time and this brand clearly marketed to women with the age old smoking is glamorous angle.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 2, 1911. Revolutions and a legal pioneer.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Haiti, Lawyers, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Women

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

Wednesday, June 26, 1946. The Nationalist Chinese Strike.

Chiang Kai-shek launched a nationwide offensive against the Red Chinese designed to take control of the entire country. A sign that things might not go well occurred when Nationalist pilot Liu Shanben defected to the Communists with a B-24 Liberator.

The Nationalist Army had the edge on paper.  It was larger and much better equipped.  It also had more combat experience, the Red Chinese having sat out much of the Second World War.  The Nationalist also had the benefit of various degrees of U.S. training, and oddly enough, German training before that.

World War Two vintage U.S. poster depicting a Nationalist soldier and his family. The soldier is accurately depicted in a Nationalist uniform, which was based on German uniforms, including the iconic German feldmutze.  He's carrying a 98 rifle, although the straight bolt handle would indicate that it is not a K98k, many of which were supplied to the Nationalist by Nazi Germany.  The rifle instead is a Mauser Standardmodell, a commercial predecessor to the K98k, or perhaps a Chinese made copy.  Of course, this is just an illustration but it's likely based on photographs.  By this point in 1946 many Chinese troops had American equipment of various types, but many infantrymen remained equipped just like this.  Indeed, Chinese soldiers were more likely to carry Mauser bolt actions than any other rifle.

Last edition:

Tuesday, June 25, 1946. The World Bank commences operations.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, China, China (Xuzhou), Chinese Civil War, Economics, Food, Nationalist Chinese Army, Office of Price Administration, World Bank

Una más, por favor. An illegal war with Cuba, 1.ª Edición.

21 de mayo de 2026

Having not really completed anything meaningful with Venezuela, other than having tasted blood and developing fondness for it, and having gotten us into an endless war with Iran we're losing, King Donny the Mad is about to launch a war against Cuba, starting with a claim that Raul Castro, age 94, must be brought to justice over a US civilian aircraft that was shot down by the Cubans in 1996.

Oh horse poop.

Some in Demented Donnie's administration have been drooling over a chance to attack Cuba since the easily manipulated narcissist illegitimately moved back into the Oval Office.  Military action against Cuba has been a desire of displaced Cubans and their descendants in the US since 1959.  If the US attacked the island and removed the government, Lil' Marco would claim it as a victory attributable to him, one way or another, in the 2028 Presidential campaign he's clearly running in.

That's part of the problem.  Influential "Republicans" (there are no real Republicans left anymore) like Marco and the Robot Ted Cruz would do anything for a Cuba Libre other than actually live in Cuba.

Of course, with this administrations lust for territorial acquisition, as desire expressed by some imperialist Republicans going into the Spanish American War, the annexation of Cuba with the goal of making it a state, would be the more likely goal in the short term.  If Trump, or Marco, pulled that off, the irony would be that it would be solidly Democratic and admitting Puerto Rico as a state would happen immediately thereafter.

Probably the only thing that's really been holding this up has been the commitment of forces to Iran, where Iran is deploying Muhammed Ali's old "rope a dope" strategy and refusing to surrender even though King Donny assures us he won and the war is over.  Actually defeating Iran will require a ground invasion that even Donny, who can choke down killing schoolgirls, can't seem to muster up the will for and which the American public doesn't want.  The war itself has already achieved a level of unpopularity matched by that of the Vietnam War after Tet.

But, the thought is, this will go better. . . or at least Cuban Americans will like the result.

The threats against Castro started a couple of days ago.  Within the last twenty four hours China, which Trump went to and acted like a orphaned puppy, has warned the US to knock it off.

May 22, 2026

The future of Cuba belongs to the people of Cuba is terms of how they're governed, what the system looks like and so forth, but the national security threat, that's 100% something we're going to focus on because that's about America.

Marco Rubio.

What crap.  

Cuba has been a Communist country since 1959 when Fidel Castro overthrow the authoritarian government there (it wasn't obvious he was Communist at first).

They have not attacked us since then. 

We have, however, effectively attacked them, landing Cuban contras there in 1961.

Rubio knows this, however.  His parents were immigrants from Cuba who came over before the 1959 revolution, and who actually planned on returning to the country before the Communist nature of the revolution became apparent.

And that's part of the problem here. Cuban Americans are never going back to Cuba, but they imagine Cuba Libre with the same zeal as Irish Americans imagined a Republican Ireland.  In the latter case, that unthinking zeal helped contribute to decades of strife in Ireland, and here it's contributed to decades of misery in Cuba.

Efforts to force a political change in Cuba should have ceased in 1961 when John F. Kennedy withdrew air support for the Cuban contras.  There was no good reason at all other than anger not to normalize economic relations with Cuba at least by the early 1980s.  That's what we should do now.

Ho Chi Minh wouldn't recognize Communism in Vietnam today and, if transported from wherever his soul went to, he's be convinced that South Vietnam had won the war and reformed itself.  If we weren't keeping Cuba on the trophy shelf of failures, the same would be true for Cuba.

But we live in a dangerous age.  Donald Trump is desperately searching for something for Americans to remember him by (and we certainly have plenty to recall right now).  Marco Rubio has the misplaced child of immigrants probable loyalty to an imaginary paradise or imaginary would be paradise.

We're cruising right back into Havana's harbor where every American military adventure to date has been a disaster.

Remember the Maine.

June 25, 2026

With Cuba, Trump had better beware of what he wishes for

What obligation does the U.S. bear toward the impoverished island prison?

Roads to the Great War: America's Children at War

Roads to the Great War: America's Children at War: America's schoolchildren served on the home front during World War I. Although American children were geographically removed from the ph...

Friday, June 14, 1946. No nukes.

The United States proposed to the  United Nations Atomic Energy Commission a proposal for United Nations to control all nuclear weapons. 

The proposal was remarkable for a number of reason, not the least of which was that it would have subjected the entire collection of the world's nations to a sort of limited central government.  It also shows how liberal politics in the U.S. were at the time.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 12, 1946. British reject Jewish immigration to Palestine.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, British League of Nations Mandates, Palestine

Sunday, June 4, 1876. Fast train.

"Lightning Express goes coast-to-coast in 83 hours (in 1876!)"

June 4, 1876 Are We There Yet?

Last edition:

Friday, June 2, 1876. Breaking the Snow Camp.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Dakota Expedition, Dakota Territory, Great Sioux War, Weather

King Donald's War, Part 5. Quagmire. The $25,000,000,000 and thirteen American lives later, "So we (but not Donald) were in Vietnam for 18 years. Iraq, many, many years....I've been doing this for...six weeks" Edition.

 

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.

May 10, 2026

Headline from the CST:

Let's be honest, the Administration is incompetent.  Governed by flaky theories, linked to a romantic image of the past in more ways than one, and headed by a person with dementia.  Of course it's no closer to an end.

The US sent a counter proposal to Iran. They haven't replied.

What is new is that the UK and France are deploying ships to the region in anticipation of using them to keep shipping lanes open.

We'll remind everyone once again that this war is completely illegal, and Trump should be impeached and removed from office for the illegality.

May 11, 2026

Iran's counter proposal was rejected by the US.

May 18, 2026

The UAE was hit by drones yesterday, and an attempt was made on Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump warned Iran it was running out of time.

The New York Times informed readers that Israel had constructed a secret base over a period of a year in Iraq for the war.

May 19, 2026

Trump threatened Iran with massive devastation and then called it off claiming that regional states asked him to. 

Whatever.

The ignoramus has backed himself and the entire country into a corner and has no idea what to do.

May 20, 2026

Aided by a defecting Bill Cassidy and some other defecting Republicans who finally decided they weren't a complete pack of cowardly little sissies, Congress advanced a War Powers bill.

This isn't the same as voting on it, they're just advancing it so it can be voted on. Still, it's a blow to the Big Sissie.

May 24, 2026

Contrary to what reports are holding, no lasting solution to the conflict with Iran has been reached, particularly in regard to the nuclear material.

We appear to be on our way to something no better than what Trump ripped up in the form of what President Obama had negotiated.

And he didn't have to kill a bunch of Iranian school girls to get it.

May 26, 2026

Americans are waking up the news of more war in the war that Trump said he'd already won and a couple of days ago said a deal was close to ending.

These strikes were on missile locations and boat launching sites.

May 28, 2026

Iran retaliated with an attempted strike on a US base in Kuwait.

Trump threatened to "blow up" Oman, a US ally, if it didn't cooperate on the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel declared a swath of Lebanon a "combat zone".

And with the entry demonstrating Trump's insanity, we will close out this issue.

May 29, 2026

Iran and the US agreed to a ceasefire extension involving opening the Strait of Hormuz and starting nuclear weapons talks.

June 1, 2026

The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes yesterday, and Iran's civil government announced it was completely yielding to the Revolutionary Guard.

Israel pushed deeper into Lebanon.

cont:

Iran is withdrawing from peace talks.  Donald Trump claims he doesn't care.

June 2, 2026

From this afternoon.

Seems like a good place to start a new entry on a war that was only going to last a few days and which Trump has repeatedly told us all is over.

Last edition:

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.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, F. E. Warren AFB, Food, Hypocrisy, Iran, Israel, King Donald's War, Lebanon, Lies, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, Straits of Hormuz, Trump Derangement Syndrome, United States, United States and Israel v. Iran, War

Trump goes to China, without any cards It's enough to make the Nixon era seem like the good old days.

 

Trump goes to China, without any cards

It's enough to make the Nixon era seem like the good old days.

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?

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 132nd Edition. Voting with their feet

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.

And the sooner the better.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 131st Edition. Ballroom Blitz

Labels: 2020s, 2025 White House Vandalization, 2026, Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, The Second Trump Administration, White House Correspondence Dinner Assassination Attempt 2020s, Zeitgeist

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