Tuesday, July 7, 2026

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

And now it's a helipad

King Donald has spent a lot of his time this term of office remaking Washington D.C. itself.  He's already vandalized the Rose Garden, the East Wing, and the Reflecting Pool. Messing with buildings is something he is familiar with, and which he fancies himself good at, even though the evidence from D.C. is that he has the taste of a 19th Century bordello owner.

Now it's a helipad.  It'll be granite and on the White House grounds, and have the Presidential Seal on it.

The supposed reason is that the new Marine Corps 1 choppers are bigger, or more powerful, than their predecessors and therefore weren't working out well on the White House lawn.

The new helicopters are Sikorsky VH-92 Patriots. They are big.

Trump claims that Sikorsky will pay for the pads.  Lockheed Marine, which now owns Sikorsky, has more or less confirmed that.

I'll credit some of this story as credible.  These giant helicopters are really heavy, no doubt, and Washington D.C. is a swamp.  It may indeed have surpassed the dent in the lawn level.

Still, there's reason for concern.  Not one of Trump's major DC endeavors has worked out well. The East Wing desecration is way over the original price estimate and is likely to be torn down as soon as the illegitimate claimant to the office is out.  The Rhino Lining on the reflecting pool has been a disaster and has lead to a false criminal charge against an innocent former Olympian. Just on sheer experience, there should be concern that the price here will be off, the taxpayer will foot the bill (which maybe in this instance they should) and that it'll go badly.

Moreover, the helicopters maker footing the bill is disturbing, relationship wise.

Marine Corps 1 itself is one of those things that has turned the Presidency from being representative of the people into a type of king.  Eisenhower introduced it in 1957 as he wanted a quick way to get to his summer home in Pennsylvania.  There's no reason that the taxpayer should have been stuffed with that.  Now we've been stuck with a Presidential helicopter ever since.

Different countries, it might be noted, approach this differently.  Lots of countries do use government aircraft for chief executives, but some really restrain it.  Finland is one example.  It has aircraft for the chief executive, but if that person is traveling long distance, they do so commercially  A relatively recent Mexican president intentionally did that.

There's probably no way around this at this point, but frankly it is a bit much.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 142nd Edition, 25th Amendment Watch 21st Edition. The Vietnam Rag, Red Scare Editions.

Wednesday, July 7, 1976. First women at West Point.


And, a day after it happened at Annapolis, women arrived for the first time at West Point.  119 women to be exact.

German terrorist Monika Berberich, Gabriella Rollnick, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett escaped from the Lehrter Straße maximum security prison in West Berlin.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 6, 1976. First women at Anapolis.

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.

Wednesday, July 7, 1926. Coolidge heads for the Adirondacks.

President Coolidge and family left for the Adirondacks, or more specifically White Pine Camp.  They'd remain there until September 18, 1926..

The resort still exists.

Last edition:

Monday, July 5, 1926. Coolidge's Sesquicentennial Address.

Friday, July 7, 1876. Congress asks what's going on.

Congress made an inquiry:


The Rocky Mountain News told the tale.


Note the Budweiser advertisement.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 6, 1876. Custer's defeat hits the New York Times.

Sunday, July 7, 1776. Declaring independence is one thing, winning it quite another.

Being a Sunday, Congress did not meet. 

Philadelphia July 7, 1776

I have this Moment folded up a Magazine, and an Evening Post and sent it off, by an Express, who could not wait for me to write a single Line. It always goes to my Heart, to send off a Packett of Pamphletts and News Papers, without a Letter, but it sometimes unavoidably happens, and I suppose you had rather receive a Pamphlet or News Paper, than nothing.

The Disign of our Enemy, now seems to be a powerfull Invasion of New York and New Jersey. The Hallifax Fleet and Army, is arrived, and another Fleet and Army under Lord How, is expected to join them. We are making great Preparations to meet them, by marching the Militia of Maryland, Pensilvania, and New Jersey, down to the Scene of Action, and have made large Requisitions upon New England. I hope for the Honour of New England, and the Salvation, of America, our People will not be backward in marching to New York. We must maintain and defend that important Post, at all Events. If the Enemy get Possession there, it will cost N. England very dear. There is no danger of the Small Pox at New York. It is carefully kept out of the City and the Army. I hope that your Brother and mine too will go into the Service of their Country, at this critical Period of its Distress.

Our Army at Crown Point is an Object of Wretchedness, enough to fill a humane Mind, with Horror. Disgraced, defeated, discontented, dispirited, diseased, naked, undisciplined, eaten up with Vermin -- no Cloaths, Beds, Blanketts, no Medicines, no Victuals, but Salt Pork and flour. A Chaplain from that Army, preached a Sermon here the other day, from "cursed is he, that doth the Work of the Lord, deceitfully."

I knew better than he did, who the Persons were, who deserved these Curses. But I could not help myself, nor my poor Country any more than he.

I hope that Measures will be taken to cleanse the Army at Crown Point from the small Pox, and that other Measures will be taken in New England, by tolerating and encouraging Inoculation, to render that Distemper less terrible.

I am solicitous to hear, what Figure, our new Superiour Court made in their Eastern Circuit. What Business they did? Whether the Grand Juries, and petit Juries, were sworn. Whether they tried any Criminals? or any civil Actions. How the People were affected at the Appearance of Courts again. How the judges were treated, whether with Respect, or cold Neglect &c.

Every Colony, upon the Continent will soon be in the same Situation. They are erecting Governments, as fast as Children build Cobb Houses. But I conjecture they will hardly throw them down again, so soon.

The Practice We have hitherto been in, of ditching round about our Enemies, will not always do. We must learn to Use other Weapons than the Pick Axe and the Spade. Our Armies must be disciplined and learn to fight. I have the Satisfaction to reflect, that our Massachusetts People, when they have been left to themselves, have been constantly fighting and skirmishing, and always with success. I wish the same Valour, Prudence, and Spirit had been discovered every where.

John Adams to Abigail Adams, on this day. 

Concerned about the spread of smallpox amongst the retreating American army which had invaded Quebec and the dore strategic situation,  Major General Philip Schuyler, commander of the Northern Department of the Continental Army, convened a council of war at Crown Point, New York, to assess the military situation following the American retreat from Canada and the disastrous situation of the troops. In attendance was Major General Horatio Gates who was the newly appointed commander of American troops that had invaded Quebec. That army's attrition had been so high, much of it recently due to disease, that it really didn't exist.

Smallpox was a major topic of the meeting.  A decision was made to make a stand at Champlain where the LaChute River empties into the lake.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 6, 1776. President Hancock sends a letter.

Monday, July 7, 1456. Joan d'Arc innocent.

A posthumous retrial of Joan d'Arc found her innocent of the charge of heresy that had lead to her wrongful execution twenty-five years earlier.




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


Narva Triumphal Arch.  It's green, just like Trump's Arch of Defeat should be.  By Florstein - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19091231

Donald Trump, who can see the grim reaper at the door, and besides him when he goes to sleep and wakes up in the morning is desperately seeking a legacy that he won't achieve, that being some sort of serious man.  As part of that, he seeks a monumental arch, while actually having just lost a war. 

It ought to be algae green, just like the reflecting pool.

L'arche De La Défaite.  The first monument to spectacular defeat ever erected by the loser.  A fitting, if temporary, monument to the loser himself, Donald Trump.

Trump's second, and illegitimate, term is even two years old. With amazing speed, everything Donald Trump is touching is turning to shit.  

Usually with dictators there's progress at first, simply because they tend to come in during a time of crisis and address that immediate thing before everything starts to fall apart, which it inevitably does.  Arguably, in Trump's case that one thing was illegal immigration.  Decades of high immigration had angered blue collar and lower Middle Class Americans in general, and Joe Biden lost control of the border with Mexico in his term, his failure to act in part brought about by a sense of humanity which unfortunately didn't carry over to his policies on abortion.  Aided chiefly by that, but also fueled by anger over social changes that people simply didn't and don't support, Trump did the one thing he is good at, sold Trump.

But Trump was never popular with the majority of Americans, and, having no real existential or even political philosophy himself, he came with a pack of extreme ideologues will to advance their own agendas, as dictators always do, who don't care of people suffer as long as that extreme agenda is advanced.  Trump's idealogues, however, actually come from two different camps to start with, far right wing Evangelical Christians and National Conservatives, who really don't see eye to eye on everything, while agreeing on some things.

And then there's Trump himself.  Eighty years old and in declining mental and physical health, and unable to accept what he was, and is.
  
Sic transit Gloria Mundi.

Царь хороший, бояре плохие*
Giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea, I think the president, unfortunately, is receiving bad advice on this deal.
Ted Cruz
These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are ‘tumbling’ down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! President DJT”
Donald Trump, once again displaying his understanding of the world that if the stock markets are doing good, everybody is doing great.

The United States lost the war with Iran.  It was not a war that the US should ever have been in to start with.  Donald Trump was told by some of those in his own administration not to do it, but convinced by those who saw it as some sort of Evangelical Christian crusade, and coaxed along by Bibi Netanyahu, we went to war, illegally, with no plan on how to win it.  

Iran won.  They came out of the war stronger than they went in it, and now we're going to make them wealthier than they were before.

Some Republicans are finally actually reacting.  They can see the Trump era ending and don't won't to be remembered as the men and women who paid radical Islam.  Some can't quite bring themselves to do it, such as the cowardly Ted Cruz, who blames it on advisors.

Trump's not letting them do that.  He's sticking to his actions and embracing the GOP with the stench of the illegal war and the dimwitted settlement to it.  He's also trying to shove the final heavy lifting and excuse making off on J. D. Vance who is known to have opposed the war in the first instance.  A person has to wonder about that.

Vance was supposed to go to Switzerland to sign the formal instrument of surrender.  Something happened overnight, and now he's not.

Monuments to ignorance
I'm doing a great job on the Reflecting Lake. I got so into it. I've upgraded it like you wouldn't believe... It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be waterproof. It's going to be reflecting again.
Donald Trump.  It's a pool, of course, not a lake.  And, um, waterproof?

Algae came back to the reflecting pool immediately.  It was predictable that it would, but the dark blue Rhino Lining probably increased the temperature of the water and made the water even more conducive to algae than before.

Pretty predictable.

The entire cost of the effort grossly exceeded what Trump claimed it would cost, going from seven digits to low eight digits.  When the algae immediately appeared excuses were developed (it was the pipes), and the moronic MAGA conspiracy theories erupted.  The algae was planted by Democrats, some truly ignorant people maintained.

Nope, it just grows in hot water.

Now, compounding the disaster, gallons of hydrochloric acid have been poured in the pool.  It's removing the Rhino Lining.

That can't be ignored.  

Hopefully, it's just accepted and the Tide-E-Bowl blue lining will just be allowed to rapidly peel off.  A real solution that isn't something they'd use on cheap Texas hotel pool can be left for the next administration.

Perde i colpi**
She’s probably happy I talked to her. I didn’t have to talk to her. She begged me to take a photo with her. She wanted a photo with me so much. I wouldn’t have even done it, but I felt sorry for her.
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump's statements are completely made up. I am frankly astonished. I don't ‌know why ⁠the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies, after all, it's not the first time it's happened. 

I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence. There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg.
Giorgia Meloni
The serious and offensive words of President Trump towards Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend all of Italy. For this reason, I have decided to cancel my visit to the United States scheduled for the next 21 and 22 June.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

Trump's at the G7. They should have sent Vance to that.

Trump's mental decline is frighteningly apparent to anyone who cares to see it.  He gets angry easily and says anything that comes into his declining mind.  Included in that has been an increasing number of statements to and about women that are common amongst senile old men.

He has the deluded belief, it seems, that people really like him.  They don't.  And now people are making that plain to his face.

He probably doesn't notice.  The moronic things he says on a daily basis are probably often things he really believes.

Which takes us back to the first entry.  Death is hanging around Trump, but like many an old boomer for whom the Reaper is sharpening his scythe, he just can't accept that that means, but others can.  Republicans are starting to finally move on.  The Europeans not only have, but are starting to say "Va' a farti fottere"***.

He's not needed, except by the people who need him, and we should all be frightened by that.

June 20, 2026

On the white flag of surrender:


Military action continues on between Hezbollah and Isreal in Lebanon.

On the green reflecting pool:


On the latter, an administration tweet endorsed the insane conspiracy theory that Democrats are secretly putting algae in the pool.  A person would have to be a complete moron to believe that.

Cont:

Well, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the ongoing Israeli campaign in Lebanon.

The comedy of errors in this, keeping in mind that violent death is not comedic, just won't end.

Footnotes:

*"Good Czar, bad Boyers".  This was a popular excuse for Imperial loyalist as to stupid Romanov decisions.  It couldn't be the Czar, it must be the Boyers.

It was the Czar.

Fanatic adherence of lunacy continually do this.  "It's never been tried" is the popular one for Communist on why Communism has never worked.  Not really related, but on the Communist theme, during Stalin's early reign The New Republic wrote him to inform him that some bad things were going on in the Soviet Union.

Um, Stalin knew that.

**"His shots are wasted."  Applying to mental decline in Italy, a similar phrase in English for a lost cause would be "his bolt is shot", which refers to a crossbow bolt.

***"Go fuck yourself".

Cont:


Yikes.

June 21, 2026

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and J.D. Vance is back on the plane to Switzerland, after cancelling earlier.

June 23, 2026

Both houses of Congress have now voted to end the war.

This puts Congress and the White House on a clear collision course.

June 26, 2026

Iran fired on a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, for being outside the lanes it established.

This emphasizes that Trump's disastrous war made Iran a more powerful nation in the region, not a less powerful one.

June 27, 2026

The war is now 120 days old.

The US hit Iran with air strikes.

Iran hit Bahrain with drones.

June 28, 2026

And, you guessed it, more strikes.  Clearly this is the ceasefire that isn't as part of the peace that hasn't arrived to end the war we won, by surrendering.

cont:

And its getting worse. Now Iran is hitting Bahrain and Kuwait.  Apparently this has to do with routes through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran claims a right to control.

And so the war that Trump won, but lost, isn't even presently over.

July 2, 2026

Iran has hit Iraqi kurds, our allies, with drones.

Things have really been quiet on this lost war the past few days, and no wonder.  Iran disregards the ceasefire when and where it sees fit.  King Donald has no way out and no plan to find one.  The only options really are completely pulling out, which would be an admitted major defeat, or invading Iran, which the country doesn't support.

With this grim reality, we'll end this edition.

July 4, 2026

A week of funeral processions commenced for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

July 7, 2026

The IRGC fired missiles at vessels in the Strat of Hormuz.

King Donny threatened to "finish the job" if Iran didn't come to an agreement.

And with that latest threat in a war that was supposed to last a few days, then a few weeks, then the US lost, we'll conclude this edition.

Related threads:


Last edition:


Monday, July 6, 2026

Eating like it's 1776, Haudenosaunee Style.

 


Tuesday, July 6, 1976. First women at Anapolis.

The first women to do so entered the United States Naval Academy.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II began a "Bicentennial tour" of several locations in the original thirteen states.  As with much associated with Queen Elizabeth, her tour was a huge success.

South Africa ceased requiring black students to be instructed in the Afrikaans language, which itself is a variant of Dutch.

Soyuz 21 was launched into orbit.

Last edition:

Sunday, July 4, 1976. The Bicentennial.

Saturday, July 6, 1776. President Hancock sends a letter.

The Pennsylvania Evening Post published the full Declaration of Independence, the first newspaper to do so.

President of the Continental Congress John Hancock dispatched a letter with copies to Gen. George Washington so that it could be read to the troops.

Last edition:

Friday, July 5, 1776. Getting the word out.

Thursday, July 6, 1876. Custer's defeat hits the New York Times.

 The New York Times and the Bismarck Tribune reported the disaster at the Little Big Horn.


Last edition: