News reports this morning hold that Trump is considering canning Pam Bondi for her poor handling, if that's what she's doing, of the Epstein matter, which just won't go away.
The weird thing is that if you hang out with kiddy diddlers, brag about checking out teenage models at a pageant in the buff, talk about grabbing, well you know, people start to think you might be a kiddy diddler.
Weird, eh?
And she's gone.
According to the Daily Mail, the British tabloid, which I would not regard as fully reliable, she begged not to be canned. She probably ought to regard it as a relief, given that she's now off the sinking ship.
It's my sincere hope that she never works as an attorney again. She's been an embarrassment to a profession that's far too often embarrassed. Her conduct has been reprehensible. Frankly, I doubt that she'll practice law, however. She'll probably lectures at some university, which seems to be the place all departed politicians go, and I'm certain that she'll work on a tell all book that condemns Trump, now that he's terminated her career.
News reports this morning hold that Trump is considering canning Pam Bondi for her poor handling, if that's what she's doing, of the Epstein matter, which just won't go away.
The weird thing is that if you hang out with kiddy diddlers, brag about checking out teenage models at a pageant in the buff, talk about grabbing, well you know, people start to think you might be a kiddy diddler.
Weird, eh?
Anyhow, Trumps thinking of canning Bondi, and putting Lee Zeldin in her place. Zeldin is another Trump lawyer. He's currently the head of the EPA.
If Bondi departs, she'll be the second major Trump admin sycophant to be canned, Noem being the first, so both cannings will have been of women. A big difference, however, will be that Bondi is downright dangerous. If Trump turns on Bondi, she'll turn on him. Trump's advisors know that, but may be too afraid to tell him, and he's likely to dense to grasp that.
Noem, who turned out to be loathsome as the head of Homeland Security, won't be turning on Trump. . . yet. She's wait for him to be out of office, then she will. But she's been back in the news due to her husband showing up in photos cross dressing and wearing big fake boobs.
Frankly, Noem, and her husband are to be pitied for this, not condemned. But it does raise the interesting topic of hypocrisy in the Trump Administration. The administration is thick with Christian Nationalism and "conservative values", but Noem was widely rumored to he engaged in an extramarital affair with another Trump official, even carting him around on expensive junkets. and now it turns out that her husband had what I'd regard as a sexually centered mental illness, one which he apparently didn't adequately attempt to conceal, and perhaps didn't attempt to conceal at all. Trump himself is a serial polygamist and there are at least credible indicators that he may have fished in the shallow end of the pond, if not worse. Bondi didn't acknowledged abused women after ranting at Congress. Miller sounds like Himmler most of the time he speaks but is Jewish.
Perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised. The Nazis were sort of the same way. There were affairs and of course one legendary homosexual scandal.
Since the war with Iran started J. D. Vance has been hard to find He's not out cheerleading the war like the nervous sounding Bessant or the administration like the "I took my family to Epstein Island but all I got was this T-shirt and I know absolutely nothing" Lutnick. Vance is widely believed to have leaked his opposition to the war right as it started.
Another nearly silent, but not quite silent, Administration figure is Marco Rubio, who may be the one administration figure who doesn't do the "Oh Donald, may I kiss your ass" routing at cabinet meetings. He hasn't been able to completely avoid the topic, but he's been pretty quiet Indeed, Rubio tends to be remarkably quiet and when he shows up he tends to look really uncomfortable. There's reason to believe that Rubio is the main backer on the administration's near invasion of Cuba and now that Trump is looking like a military dumbass, there's a real chance that Trump's ardor for military adventure may be over For that matter, while the current military has been very damaged by Trump, there are likely still enough real officers in the military to protest against start ing a second war when the current one isn't finished, and it's going to be at least a year, if not years, before that occurs. Marco may have lost his campaign slogan for 2028 of Viva Cuba Libre "I did that".
Rubio and Vance are somewhat unique in the Trump orbit as they're both real Catholics. Press Secretary Leavitt is apparently as well, although it sure doesn't show as she's a full time liar.
Rubio, when he speaks, tends to be pretending to be angry while saying Trump didn't say what he said, but what I'm going to say, even though Trump didn't say that camp.
Vance has come out with a book on his conversation to Catholicism which is a big off ramp from the Trump Administration and its Paul Whites and Franklin Grahams. It's a pretty clear signal that he's separating himself from the Evangelical far right fanatics and is beginning the process of separating himself from Trump. The book is likely to draw criticism but it's a really smart move, as he's essentially getting up from the Paul White Bee Dance table and walking over to the adults and sitting down with the sane and sober. He's going for the National Review/First Things crowd, not the NASCAR Country Pop gang. By the time 2028 rolls around, the folks who were admiring Franklin Graham's letters to Trump will have forgotten all about them, for the most, part, with some being on to new wives and affairs but assured that as they were once saved, they'll aways be.
Rubio likely knows this is what Vance is doing and he's going to have to do something himself What isn't clear The value of being a failed President's Secretary of State hasn't really been there since Kissinger managed to find it had one. Trump is looking worse as a President, indeed worse as a mammal, every day. My guess is that if Trump isn't removed via the 25th Amendment, he'll find he forgot to let the cat out prior to November and will leave the administration.
When he leaves he can do what Bondi will do, if fired, and what Vance can't do, while Vice President, that being writing a tell all book. Bondi's will be a bombshell, which is why Trump should not fire her if he's smart. Bondi's "I Know Where all the Bodies are Buried and Who All the Teenage Concubines Were" tell all will be something else. Rubio's "I Tried To Stop Trump From Being A Dumbass" book will be less salacious, but interesting Vance won't have a chance to write something like that before 2028.
General Douglas MacArthur issued the first regulations against fraternization between American soldiers and Japanese citizens as an attempt to stop soldiers from consorting with prostitutes. The regulations would grow into an extensive program of segregation.
Montana Democrat Senator James Murray convened his Committee on Education and Labor for the first hearing on comprehensive national health insurance. His concern arose from his prior role as a labor lawyer for coal miners.
Murray had been born in Ontario and was moved to Butte upon the death of his father that very year. He was left a very wealthy man by an inheritance that came about when his uncle, who raised him, died.
Murray was an Irish American/Canadian Catholic and died in 1961.
It's really dispiriting to realize that national health insurance, which was a desire of the Truman Administration, has never come about. All the arguments against it really fail, but the opposition to it has left the United States the only major nation without it and has contributed enormously to the decline of the United States as a first rate nation since the 1970s.
Eamon de Valera proposed the name "Fianna Fáil" for his new political party which was scheduled to organize on May 16. "Fianna" (soldiers) and the Lia Fáil, the coronation stone for the ancient kings of Ireland, formed the basis of the name.
The hard to characterize republican party is still around. It's political positions have shifted a great degree over the past century and indeed the ability to do so is a self acknowledged feature of the party.
Watts residents voted to become part of Los Angeles.
Calvin Coolidge declined an invitation to send American delegates to a League of Nations conference in Geneva to discuss America's reservations about joining the World Court.
The United Kingdom extended the military court system over Boer guerillas.
The British were turning increasingly desperate, and harsh, in their effort to put down the ongoing resistance of Boer Bitter Enders.
William Carver of the Wild Bunch was killed in Jack Owens' Bakery in Sonora, Texas, by Sheriff E. S. "Lige" Briant and his deputies while attempting to effect an arrest for suspicion of murder.
Carver was one of the individuals in the famous Fort Worth portrait from 1900 and went by the nickname "News".
Trump's going to lose this case, which will be another example of the wheels coming off of his administration. His presence at the Court will not impress anyone, let alone the Justices. Trump seems to have lost any sense that he's not that impressive to about 70% of Americans.
His attendance is, frankly, appalling.
Cont (April 1, 2026)
JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH: Do you think Native Americans today are birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?
D. JOHN SAUER, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: I think so. I mean, obviously, they've been granted citizenship by statute ...
GORSUCH: Put aside the statute. Do you think they're birthright citizens?
SAUER: No, I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens.
GORSUCH: I understand that's what they said. But your test is the domicile of the parents, and that would be the test you'd have us apply today, right?
SAUER: Yes, yes. So, if a tribal Indian, for example, you know, gives up allegiance to ...
GORSUCH: Are tribal members born today birthright citizens?
SAUER: I think so, on our test, if they're lawfully domiciled here. I'm not s—, I have to think that through, but that's my reaction.
GORSUCH: I'll take the yes. That's alright.
Gee Louise, this administration is really something.
It turns out that Trump left after Justice Jackson pretty much eviscerated the solicitor, D. John Sauer, who was sent to argue this. Sauer's career really ought to be over for such a lame argument that was so obviously legal deficient. He's a former Missouri solicitor and, more important, one of the lawyers who was willing to represent Trump in the past.
Trump's going to lose this case, which will be another example of the wheels coming off of his administration. His presence at the Court will not impress anyone, let alone the Justices. Trump seems to have lost any sense that he's not that impressive to about 70% of Americans.
His attendance is, frankly, appalling.
Cont (April 1, 2026)
JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH: Do you think Native Americans today are birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?
D. JOHN SAUER, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: I think so. I mean, obviously, they've been granted citizenship by statute ...
GORSUCH: Put aside the statute. Do you think they're birthright citizens?
SAUER: No, I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens.
GORSUCH: I understand that's what they said. But your test is the domicile of the parents, and that would be the test you'd have us apply today, right?
SAUER: Yes, yes. So, if a tribal Indian, for example, you know, gives up allegiance to ...
GORSUCH: Are tribal members born today birthright citizens?
SAUER: I think so, on our test, if they're lawfully domiciled here. I'm not s—, I have to think that through, but that's my reaction.
GORSUCH: I'll take the yes. That's alright.
Gee Louise, this administration is really something.
The day couldn't be more appropriate. A man whose made his political career, and he is a politician, of fooling a large percentage of the population hopes to fool you again, even as his mind descends into mush. Anyone listening to him and believing him at this point is fooling themselves.
Trump is not qualified for his office. He's a liar, and he lacks the legal, ethnical, moral and mental ability to hold his job. He only remains in office as his cabinet is packed with sycophants, and the Republican Party made up of cowards.
The topic will be the war. By now Trump's grown bored of the war and his back is against the wall. It's illegal, and Congress isn't going to vote to keep funding it. The Iranians have shown themselves to be far tougher than Trump, a bully, and all bullies are cowardly, can imagine. They're not beaten, and they're not cowed. They're actually winning.
Listening to Trump is nearly pointless. His speeches are streams of lies. He's going to lie. Why bother?
Or should one listen? I ask sincerely.
Would you have listened, if you were German, to Hitler's radio addresses in 1945?
Like Trump's there weren't many by that time.
If you were to, it'd be out of morbid curiosity, or to try to discern what was coming next. Was there going to be a surrender and what would it consist of. Or was Der Fuehrer going to take the country down into defeat with him.
Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. One man worried his cabinet who planned around a possible mental collapse that didn't come, the other is having a mental collapse and his cabinet is doing nothing.
We later learned that in 1973 as Nixon came under increased pressure due to Watergate, his aids feared he would do something rash. Nixon was reacting badly under the stress. He was lashing out. He was drinking heavily.
Of course, in the end, he resigned.
Donald Trump, who like Hitler doesn't drink, is visibly collapsing before our eyes. He's obviously been in a state of mental decline for a decade now, and its increasing. He was heavily impaired when elected, making any rational person wonder why he was elected to the office, other than that people the weird insurrectionist feared that Joe Biden's dementia was too advanced to allow for him to hold office again, something that history should not forgive Biden for. Even that doesn't really explain it, as Harris was the alternative in the end, for people who play along with the two party system nightmare that actually doesn't have to exist.
A major difference between late stage Nixon and late stage Trump, other than that Nixon was not insane (a major difference) is that Nixon was surrounded by sane, if not always admirable, advisors. Trump is surrounded by sycophants.
That's a huge difference as we now know that Nixon's advisors consulted amongst themselves about his mental state. They were worried about it. None of them were as deeply loyal to Nixon at all costs as Trump's sycophantic advisors are to him.
Many, including me, have wondered how it is that Trump's cabinet hasn't acted to replace him. Heather Cox Richardson, in one of her video shorts, has provided the answer. The people surrounding Trump have nowhere else to go.
In Trump's first administration his cabinet included sane people. Trump didn't know how to take office and in fact his natural laziness kept him from really ever fully forming a government. That natural laziness came into effect when he was elected a second time. He was kept from acting like a king in his first term as his advisor wouldn't let him, and he didn't like that. In his second term he wanted people who would slavishly do what he wanted without question, and he got them almost exclusively.
If you look at the current cabinet you can see that, with perhaps two or three exceptions, it's wholly made up of people for whom Trump is their only chance. Some may be rich, but wealth is credited much more than it should be as allowing for intellectual independence. People lavish praise on Trump not because they believe it, but because they are his willing concubines and have prostituted themselves to him. Some of these people are outright dim. Some have just sold their souls and know that when Trump falls, they fall with him, as Richardson has noted.
Why these people are in this position is another matter. Some got there as they believe in Trump. Others were placed their by forces supporting Trump, knowing that he was too lazy to actually do the work to pick competent people. The Heritage Society, for example, saw Trump as a hollow vessel they could pour their radicalization through.
Trump's cabinet, therefore, is much like Hitler's. Where was Goebbels going to go? And Trump's true followers are much like members of the German SS, who fought to the bitter end. They didn't see a future, literally, in a post war Germany where they figured they'd be killed, if not by the Allies, then by the Germans. MAGA still shows up like the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne, the French SS unit that went down fighting in Berlin. They thought the alternative to that was a bullet in the back of the head. Real Trump loyalist show up as they fear that if Trump fails, or more likely when he does, they're era is over. And like the SS in Berlin, they fanatically hope that Der Fuehrer will pull off a miracle, which he won't, or that they'll be saved by some mysterious outside force at the last hour.
That won't happen either.
Many people have wondered how the Germans were so cowed by a leader who was sending them into a disaster. It can't be said that Americans are. Only 30% of Americans actually support Trump. Probably an equal if not larger number outright hate him at this point. If the election was held today the Republicans would loose both houses, and in November when the election is held, they will.
But here's the dangerous thing. Between now and November the leadership of the US is in the bunker and Der Fuehrer is insane.
I've long held that Trump would be removed in 2026 by the 25th Amendment. I hadn't considered, however, the points Richardson raises. He still might be but as she notes if Trump goes down, they all go down with him. They're a bunch of cowardly sycophants and they do not appear to be willing to save their country any more than Goebbels was.
Still, even in Hitler's cabinet not everyone was unquestionably loyal towards the end. Himmler actually serious considered trying to cut a separate deal with the Allies and effectively remove Hitler via a coup. There was even one SS member in the July 20 plot. It remains possible, but only barely so, that the cabinet will vote to save itself.
We know that at least a few people in the cabinet likely are willing to do that. J. D. Vance is one. Marco Rubio another. Both of them hope to be President and neither benefits from going down with Trump. I've long thought they were playing out this string until they could act. But two men alone won't get it done. There's likely a few more, but only few. None of the ass kissers in cabinet meetings are amongst them.
Which brings us to this. Over the next few months things are going to be extremely bad. Trump's mental state is declining so rapidly it's difficult to gauge. He's going to pull out of the war he joined with Israel which will be a major defeat he can't disavow. The economy will not rapidly recover and he can't blame that on Biden. He's lost the Hispanic vote and he won't be able to get it back. The Arab American vote which dimly voted for him is lost as well. The people who are left in his cabinets who openly support him increasingly look like outright kooks. The financial flood to his family is not being ignored and is very likely to result in post Trump criminal prosecutions, maybe of Trump himself.
And yesterday, a judge made clear that his obscene bordello on the Potomac addiction to the White House will never happen.
He's a desperate, and demented, man.
Trump, from now to November, will try to steal the November election. He's already trying. And he'll do every odd thing imaginable or never imagined to try to deflect attention form his failure. There will be no limit to what he will try. Invasions of Cuba and Greenland are possible, with Cuba almost a certainty. Deals with Russia, or China, or whomever. Attempts to cancel the election, or seize the polls are probable. Ignoring the courts a near certainty.
The 25th Amendment should save us from this but might not. Impeachment of Trump should occur, but will not, unless there's a massive post November shift in Congress.
Instead, expect things to get worse and worse. And expect the few members of the administration who aren't willing to go down in the bunker to start resigning. Vance can't, Trump being removed or dying in office is his only hope of being President. Rubio can, and he will, likely before November.
The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake occurred which resulted in an tsunami that devastated parts of Hawaii, most notably Hilo. Up to 173 people were killed, mostly in Hawaii.
People fleeing the tsunami in Hilo.
Warnings were given but many ignored them, thinking them an April Fools Day joke. The event is responsible for a much improved warning system.
Bituminous coal miners went on strike in the U.S.
The U.S. Navy destroyed 24 Japanese submarines. Seems like a terrible waste really.
The UK made Singapore a Crown Colony and separated it and its mostly Chinese ethnic population from Malaya.
What does Russia want was a question that was posed (from more than one Reddit sub).