The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Tenth Edition. Finger on the nuclear trigger.

 

Oh yeah, that's the look of a sane man, right?   Photo by LAURENT GILLIERON / POOL / AFP via Getty Images, posted under Fair Use Exception.

Kaitlan Collins:  "Mr. President, what would you say to sex abuse survivors of Epstein who haven’t seen justice” 

Donald Trump: “You know, I’ve never seen you smile”

Man, that's creepy.

I wonder how many teenage girls head that after they were raped at Epstein Island?

February 7, 2026

Trump claimed in an interview with the New York Post that Venezuela failed to get their AAA rockets off the ground during the U.S.'s raid as the US used a "discombobulator" on them.

Um. . .sure.

In a bit of a defense for the deranged prince, what the military probably was referring to was an electronic jamming system.  While no doubt the most recent variants are quite advanced, such systems have been around for a very long time.

Trump's incredibly racist post depicting the Obama's as apes was taken down and blamed on a staffer.

Um. . . sure.

Trump is also claiming that the US has wanted a triumphal arch for 200 years, with is complete nonsense and which is only slightly less weird than his claim that Presidents have wanted the giant outhouse he hopes to build for 100 years.

February 9, 2026

Loss of inhibitions can be a sign of dementia.

This is definitely a "get off my lawn" moment.

February 10, 2026

Trump is clearly unhinged.

A spoiled brat and a real estate developer by trade, he sees the world through a pinhole.  His mind is turning to much.  He needs to be removed.

February 20, 2026

I flew to Iraq. I was extremely brave. I said to my people, 'Am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor?'…Someday I'm going to try. I'm going to test the law

Donald Trump.

February 21, 2026

Greenland has universal health care.  

Greenland is presently taking care of a U.S sailor evacuated from a U.S. submarine. . . by a Danish Seahawk helicopter.

Trump is completely delusional.  He should be removed.

Greenland doesn't need this, and moreover, Greenland's universal healthcare is something Americans lack.  If anything, Denmark should send a hospital ship to us.

This is patently absurd.  Frankly, at this point, anyone supporting Trump is not doing so out of faith in him, unless they're just willfully ignorant.  So outside of that, why on Earth is anyone not demanding that he be removed?

March 4, 2026

Mad King Donny is threatening to cut off all trade with Spain.

March 16, 2026

This is the first installment of this since Trump ignored his advisers and launched a war against Iran that he thought might last a few days and bring him a big victory.

It isn't.  It's wrecking the economy and there's no end in sight.   He is, of course, having a complete fit:

With Iran, Trump has met something that truly doesn't care what he thinks about anything whatsoever.  He can't bully them, he's already attacking them.  The news isn't cheery and he can't lie his way out of it.

Given this, the stress of his complete impotence here is going to get worse and worse, and probably with that, his behavior  He's threatening not to directly take on the Press, which may finally cause the US press to grow a spine.

And things may be beginning to finally happen:

A theory very close to the one I've advanced here.

We are now in a very dangerous place in the globe. Trump is an immoral man, and he's demented.  He's also getting desperate.  At some point my guess is he'll start asking Hegseth about what nuclear weapons might do here.  And he will commit, to some degree, U.S. ground forces.

March 22, 2026

In his madness and frustration over his  massive, and frankly stupid, miscalculation over Iran's reaction to being attacked in an illegal war by the US, Donald Trump is now resorting to broadcasting his illegal intentions on social media.  If Iran does not open the Straits of Hormuz, which its not going to, he's going to order US forces to illegally strike the electrical power structure of Iran.

Trump is a monster.  The 25th Amendment  must be invoked now.

With Trump reaching new levels of barbarism and insanity, we will close with this edition.

March 24, 2026

Mark Jacob on how the press ignores the biggest Trump story

"The president of the United States is clearly mentally unfit for office."

And with this entry, which nails it, we'll go on to a new edition.

To sum it up, Donald Trump is insane.

Cont:

He looked old, and he seemed tired. His speech slurred. More than anything else, he seemed utterly unattuned to the many crises that are all piling up around his many careless decisions. He finished speaking, everybody else at the table took turns lavishing him with praise, and then it was time to head to Graceland.

We’ve made the point many times during Trump’s second term, but it bears repeating: There’s little reason to believe that any of this is an affectation. Trump is a lifelong pathological solipsist. He’s fed that solipsism by vacuum-packing himself in an information environment of buttery flattery, spending his days marinating in the most over-the-top praise both in person and online. And it hasn’t helped that, as he’s gotten older, he’s seemingly fallen prey to the same tendencies that many old people do: the strongest parts of his personality just keep getting stronger. Any day now, he seems genuinely to believe, it’s all gonna turn around. Everybody just wait and see. The golden age is mere moments away.

Last edition:

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Ninth Edition. Trump is insane and the end of the United States as a great nation.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 25th Amendment Watch List, Castratis, Civil Unrest, Donald Trump, Espionage, Ignorance, Mental Health, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration, United States, War

Thursday, March 21, 1901. Surrenders on Panay.

 Philippine Insurrectionist on Panay began to surrender under orders from Ananías Diokno.

The RRS Discovery, a British National Antarctic Expedition ship was launched.  She was the last wooden three masted ship to be built in the United Kingdom.

Nikola Tesla applied for the patent for "Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy" that being "a machine to capture the sun's cosmic rays and turn them into electricity".

Maine adopted a flag.

Last edition:

Wednesday, March 20, 1901. Selbsttäuschung

Labels: 1900s, 1901, 1930s, 1933, Espionage, German Kriegsmarine, Massachusetts (Boston), Personalities, World War One

Wednesday, March 15, 1911. .45 ACP Trials.

Final trials began to determine whether the John Browning designed Colt Special Army Model 1910 or the Elbert Searle designed Savage Model 1907 would become the first automatic pistol to be adopted by the U.S. Army.  Both were chambered in .45 ACP, a Colt designed cartridge.

The Colt Special Army Model 1910 is familiar to history as the M1911.  The Savage, less so.

The Colt would go on, of course, to be adopted and is the greatest military handgun of all time.  Still superior, in the minds of many (including the author), to any handgun that came after it.

As a minor note on that, I recently went through security in at a Wyoming court and the Sheriffs Deputy manning it was armed with a high end 1911. I asked him about it.  He'd been in the Army, and rejected all the 9mms that came after the M1911.

He's not the only one.

The Silver Spray was caught in a snowstorm on Lake Erie, foundered, and its fishing crew froze to death in the lake.

Last edition:

Tuesday, March 14, 1911. Worries in El Paso.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, California, Canada (British Columbia), Japanese Antarctic Expedition, law, Maderistas, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Mexico (Juarez), Progressive Era, Progressivism, Texas (El Paso)

Monday, March 11, 1901. Tourism and Hawaii.

The era of major tourist hotels started in Hawaii, when the Moana Hotel opened on Waikiki Beach.

The hotel remains in business today.

Cpt. Ralph Van Deman started identity files for Filipino persons of interest, starting what is a basic intelligence methods.  He'd go on to become the director of the United States Department of War's Military Intelligence Section.  During World War Two, as a civilian, he was an ardent opponent of Japanese internment.

The tanker Atlas departed from Port Arthur, Texas, with 3,000 barrels of crude oil from the Spindletop oil fields, bound for the Standard Oil refineries in Philadelphia, marking the first shipments of Texas oil.

The United Kingdom rejected the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, as amended by the United States Senate, because the Senate voted to fortify any canal built across Central America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 10, 1901. Blood rain.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Italy, Sicily, Weather

Monday, February 4, 1946. Weather and War Brides.

National weather forecasts returned to American newspapers for the first time since December 15, 1941.

The SS Argentina arrived in New York City with 452 British war brides, one war groom and 173 children, the first large-scale such arrival.

The partially completed deck of the USS Kentucky (BB 66). February 4, 1946. She'd never be completed and would be scrapped.

Last edition:

Sunday, February 3, 1946. The Gouzenko Affair.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Espionage, German SS, Radio, The Holocaust, The Press, USSR

Instead of invading Greenland, maybe they should fix the head.

 

The toilets on the Navy’s largest aircraft carrier keep failing

The USS Gerald R. Ford, currently taking part in operations in the Caribbean, sees some of toilets fail nearly every day.

 

The Navy is struggling to build ships

Sunday, December 28, 1975. Conflict in the Third Cod War.

The Icelandic Coast Guard vessel ICGV Týr rammed the Royal Navy frigate HMS Andromeda which was escorting two British fishing trawlers in what Iceland claimed as its territorial waters in the first confrontation of the Third Cod War.

The Týr is still in service.  The HMS Andromeda went on to serve in the Falklands War and was decommissioned in 1983.

Argentine guerilla commander Roberto Quieto was captured by soldiers in Martinez, Argentina during a raid on a warehouse. He'd betray his confederates under torture.

Quieto was a lawyer by training and would disappear while in Argentine captivity in 1976.

Both Chile and Argentina went through a period like this, called the Dirty War in Argentina.

Down 14-10 with  32 seconds remaining on  the clock, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach threw a long pass to win the game.  Interviewed later, he'd say:

It's a play you hit one in a hundred times if you're lucky.  It's a Hail Mary pass.  You throw it up and pray he catches it.

Staubach thereby coined, unintentionally the phrase that's irreverently used to refer to such desperate passes in football today.  I dislike the phrase so much I thought about not posting it here, but it's so frequently used, I relented.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 23, 1975. Going metric.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 79th Congress, Cheesecake, Ethnicities, It was because of World War Two, law, Marriage, The Press, The relationship between men and women, Women, World War Two

Wednesday, December 26, 1945. Boxing Day.

Seagulls surround the USS Wisconsin after it dumping of Christmas meal leftovers.

Former Vietnamese Emperor Duy Tân, 45, (Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San) was killed in an airplane crash in Central Africa.

As Emperor, he had participated in an anti French rebellion while only 16 years old, an event which lead to the French removing him from his throne.  He thereafter went into exile on Réunion Island, where he retained pro independence views.  During World War Two he held anti Vichy views and entered the Free French Navy, and then Army, when the island was liberated from Vichy.  DeGaulle, realizing how desperate the situation in French Indochina was, was having  him returned to Vietnam where he would have been re-installed as Emperor, which would have amounted to deposing Boa Dai, who had sided with Vichy.  His untimely death left the Communist dominated Viet Minh as the only real functioning anti colonial force in the region.

Still highly regarded in Vietnam, most Vietnamese cities have streets named after him.  His remains were reinterred in Vietnam in 1987.

The Red Chinese won the Gaoyou–Shaobo Campaign in which the Nationalist troops were principally made up of units that had formerly collaborated with the Japanese.

Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, who in spite of his age saw some service in World War Two, died at age 73.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 25, 1945. Christmas.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, Cheesecake, Christianity, Christmas, Holidays, Imperial Japanese Navy, It was because of World War Two, Newspapers, religion, The Cold War, Wake Island, War, War Crimes, Women

The ghosts of Billy Mitchell and António de Oliveira Salazar visit Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, graduate of the Wharton School of Business, has no grasp of mathematics or history.  He's become the poster boy for questioning the intellectual value of an Ivy League education.

And very clearly, one of the things he doesn't understand is shipbuilding and naval warfare.

Fantasy class warship, probably in the cruiser class, maybe, which the Trump administration plans on building as part of a "Gold Fleet", some naval marketing genius' terms for a vanity suck up project that will never get built, but which appeals to Trump's edge of death vanity.  The artwork heavily resembles a Revell model box for one of their cheaper modells from the 1970s.

2025 is the 100th anniversary of the court marital of Billy Mitchell.  Mitchell, a World War One aviator, accused the Navy Department and the War Department (which was more or less the Army Department) of “incompetency, criminal negligence and almost treasonable administration of the National Defense.”  He had more than one point, but his big point was that the biggest ship could be sunk by aircraft.  The battleship Navy was horrified.

The British attack on the Italian port of Taranto in 1940 proved Mitchell quite right.  Pearl Harbor proved him right beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Mitchell was convicted in his court martial and went on to retirement the following year, but by 1941 he had been proven so right that he was lauded as a hero and the U.S. Army Air Corps named a bomber after him, the B-25 Mitchell.

Mitchell is still right, there's only one thing that's really changed. Aircraft have evolved.

They've evolved from mannered bombers and fighters to a new class of aircraft, the unmanned drone.  This event has been anticipated since late World War Two, and by the 1950s the British already assumed that the day of unmanned aircraft was about to arrive. The predictions on the speed of the evolution of such craft were wildly off, but the Russo Ukrainian War proves the day is now here, and not just in the air, but on the sea.  The Ukrainians have sunk or damaged about 24 Russian ships through the use of drones during the war and pretty much rendered Russia's Black Sea Fleet a nullity.

For decades now military theorist have wondered if the pride of the US Navy, the supercarrier, is actually obsolete. The speculation began as early as the 1970s when really good long range air to surface and surface to surface anti shipping missiles appeared on the scene.  The viability of such missiles was proven during the Falklands War when Exocet missiles in Argentine hands sank the HMS Sheffield and the cargo ship Atlantic Conveyor and severely damaged the HMS Glamorgan.  The Exocet went into production in 1975, and while still around, it's undoubtedly the case that it's improved over the last 50 years and there are other missiles around that are just as good or better.  The U.S. Navy started worrying about such missiles just as soon as they were produced, but the Navy's large supercarriers have never had to encounter them.

That is, in part, because we have not fought a peer to peer conflict since World War Two.  In spite of that, it's worth noting that the U.S. military has not exactly shown itself invincible in wars less than that.  The North Koreans and Chinese, the former of which only had an army from around 1946 or so, and the latter of which had just come out of a largescale civil war and which chose to deploy, to no small degree, troops who were conscripted out of the losing side of that war, fought us and our UN allies to a standstill in Korea.  Starting about a decade later we fought and ultimately were defeated by an Army that was quite primitive in comparison to our own, although a lot of that defeat was a morale issue.  Since that time we've fought and beat Iraq twice, but we were never able to prevail in Afghanistan, in no small part due to a major strategic miscalculation by Donald Rumsfeld, and our current Oval Office occupant ended up surrendering to the Taliban.

Now, of course, there's been very little naval action in anything that I've mentioned, but that shouldn't really give us any comfort. What naval action that has occured since 1945 shows that long distance anti ship warfare had improved remarkably since 1945.  The Argentines, not wanting to be exposed to it, didn't evey deploy an aircraft carrier it had during the Falklands War.  

Now, of course, people are pointing out that the awkwardly named Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has the most combat ships in the world, although its not regarded as the most powerful. That would be the U.S. Navy.  The U.S. Navy, with its supercarriers, holds that title, and it should.  But it can't be ignored that Ukraine has proven that sinking ships is now pretty possible with air and sea drones.

That's where the future of naval warfare is, not with vanity "battleships".

Indeed, that was proven in 1941.

The Navy knows that, but senior military officers right now know that if they want to keep their jobs they have to feed the demented monkey in Trump's brain.  And that brain isn't pegging out on the smarts meter by any means.  Statements by Donald Trump show him to be in the full grasp of dementia and raise questions on whether he was every very sharp.  

He's also incredibly vain.

And more than a little scared.

Being vain and scared, he's quite easy to manipulate.  Given the chance to name something after himself, and believe that it will be around after his body is rotting in its grave, which will be quite soon, he'll take the bait.  And hence the Trump Class of "battleship".

It'll never happen.

It takes at least two year to design a warship, and often multiples of that.  And then it takes another two to five years to build it. Trump no doubt plans on being living at age 90, but he won't be, and his demented brain will be reduced to complete mush should he live that long.  The Navy knows that, but the Navy likes to have money and ship projects bring in money.  Every since World War Two the U.S. military has engaged in acquisitions of things it didn't need for one reason or another, and the Army has proven that even a simple project like designing an assault rifle can take so long that a person who entered the overall task early in his career can retire before its done.

And hence António de Oliveira Salazar.

Salazar was the Portuguese dictator who came into power in 1932 and who fell into ill health and suffered a stroke in 1968.  The Portuguese government replaced him and he died 1970. But they never told him.  He was simply given glowing reports on how well everything was going and assured he was still running the show.

I'm pretty convinced that's more or less what's going on with Trump right now.

The Navy is simply going to slow roll this project.  Glowing reports are going to be given to the Demented Dear Leader.  The entire project will go swimmingly.  Meanwhile, others will report the same on the White House Ballroom.  Neither will ever be built.

Indeed, already the palace intrigue is on.  J.D. Vance is gathering allies.  Mike Pence is scooping up Heritage Foundation defectors.  Congressmen and Senators who are too tainted with the stench of MAGA, or who don't want to be there when Trump falls and takes MAGA out with it, are abandoning their offices to go on to new pursuits, readying themselves to reemerge cleansed from the inevitable bunker scenes that are already beginning to happen.

Thursday, December 23, 1915. Villa defeated again.

 

The news reported a Villa defeat.

Henry Ford Abandons His Peace Ship

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 22, 1915. Hartmannswillerkopf ends.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Alsace-Lorraine, Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, World War One

Monday, November 23, 1925. USS Wyoming commences an overhaul.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 23: 1925   The USS Wyoming commences an overhaul at the New York Navy Yard.

Not wanting that to be the only item for the day, we offer the following (note, this was in error, this is a paper from 1923):

The paper noted that it was for the whole family, clean, and unbiased.  It might have been all of those things, but what a bunch of horrible news.

Note the big collection of drug charges.

A surplus store in Casper was going out of business.

The building that business occupied is still there.  It's an office building today, right between the Rib & Chop House and the Ugly Bug Fly Shop, both of which occupy old buildings that were also there, but neither of which were in operation at the time.

Rib & Chop is going out of business with the conclusion of the year.  The most famous occupant of that building was The Wonder Bar which opened in 1937 and which was a Casper institution, with ups and downs, for decades.

Last edition:  

Saturday, November 21, 1925. Lava Beds.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Calvin Coolidge, football, Geology, Lava Beds National Monument, nature

Saturday, November 20, 1875. Winking at collision in the Black Hills and the Las Cuevas War.

Commanding General of the U.S. Army William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to Lt. Gen. Philip Sheridan :

I know that the matter of the Black Hills was settled in all events for this year. In the spring it may result in collision and trouble.. . . I understand that the president and the Interior Department will wink at it.

Cpt. McNelly.

Texas Ranger Captain Leander McNelly and his men crossed into Mexico to retrieve more than 200 stolen cattle.  He was backed by troops of the U.S. Army, but they did not cross.  The Rangers advanced on the stronghold of Juan Flores Salinas, local leader of the rural guard at the Rincon de Cucharras outpost of the Las Cuevas ranch and a  battle ensued in which about 80 Mexican militiamen were killed, and McNelly ordered a retreat back across the river.  The Army covered his retreat across the river with a Gatling Gun.

At that point, Major A. J. Alexander from Fort Ringgold arrived with a message from Colonel Potter at Fort Brown, which read:

Advise Captain McNelly to return at once to this side of the river. Inform him that you are directed not to support him in any way while he remains on Mexican territory. If McNelly is attacked by Mexican forces on Mexican soil, do not render him any assistance. Let me know if McNelly acts on this advice.

McNelly advised the Army that he would not comply.

At sundown, another message arrived:

Major Alexander, commanding: Secretary of War Belknap orders you to demand McNelly return at once to Texas. Do not support him in any manner. Inform the Secretary if McNelly acts on these orders and returns to Texas. Signed, Colonel Potter.

McNelly issued the reply, which was:

In less than a minute, Captain McNelly penned his now famous reply:

Near Las Cuevas, Mexico, Nov. 20 1875. I shall remain in Mexico with my rangers and cross back at my discretion. Give my compliments to the Secretary of War and tell him and his United States soldiers to go to hell. Signed, Lee H. McNelly, commanding.

Over the Rio Grande his force encountered resistance.  Up to 80 Mexicans were killed in the battle before he retreated.  A smaller force of Rangers would cross the border the following day and recover over 400 stolen cattle.

McNelly's troops crossed again on the 21st and proceeded to a customs house where the cattle had been moved to, and which were now promised to be returned.  The Mexican officer in charge refused to treat with him on a Sunday, which it now was and was taken prisoner. The prisoner was threatened with death and around 400 cattle were crossed into Texas.

McNelly died of tuberculosis in 1877 at age 33.  A liberty ship was named after him during World War Two.

Last edition:

Friday, November 12, 1875. Tacoma, Washington, incorporated.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, Washington, Washington (Tacoma)

Friday, November 16, 1945. UNESCO founded. USS Laramie decommissioned.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was founded.

The Azerbaijan People's Government, a puppet of the Soviet Union, began an uprising in Iranian Azerbaijan Province.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower testified before the House Military Affairs Committee that “Nothing guides Russian policy so much as a desire for friendship with the United States.”   The NYT headline read:

Eisenhower Holds Training Essential to Safety of U.S.; General Says It Is Best Way to Avoid War, or if Sudden Blow Comes to Avert Disaster --Declares Russia Wants Amity EISENHOWER HOLDS TRAINING IS VITAL Says Russia Wants U.S. Amity Time Is of the Essence, He Says

Today In Wyoming's History: November 16: 

1945  USS Laramie decommissioned. 

 

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 13, 1945. "Man's material discoveries have outpaced his moral progress."

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Charles de Gaulle, Clement Attlee, Displaced Persons, French Third Republic, Harry S. Truman, It was because of World War Two, Palestine, the spoken word, United Kingdom, United States