Wednesday, April 08, 2026

Little Men JD Vance and Ron DeSantis and The Littlest Man Donald Chump

First up, Katie Phang.



Now for Ron Doo-Doo DeSantis.  He isn't the president and his governorship has mere months left.  (He's out of office around January 7, 2027.)  But he can't stop his destroying and destruction.  Kanishka Singh (REUTERS) notes:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure that gave him and other state officials the power to designate groups as "terrorist organizations" and expel students who support them, with rights groups saying the law will chill free speech.
The law empowers the state's chief of domestic security, governor and cabinet to designate any organization they determine engages in extremist acts as a "terrorist organization."

After such a designation, the group can be forcibly dissolved and face a freeze on state funding, according to the legislation. It also says that students shall be expelled from their institution if they "promoted a domestic terrorist organization or a foreign terrorist organization."

Doo-Doo needs to be flushed and gone already.  And Chump can't go right behind him.  Robert Davis (RAW STORY) reports:


President Donald Trump appears to be "cornered" by his own mortality as the cracks in his coalition deepen, according to one expert.

David Rothkopf, the former editor of Foreign Policy Magazine, discussed Trump's continued efforts to find a way out of the war in Iran on Monday's new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" with host Joanna Coles. Rothkopf noted that Trump's old tricks of getting someone to bail him out, charming others, or bulls------- don't appear to be working. That is happening at a time when several MAGA figures like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Thune (R-SD) seem to have realized that the political winds are blowing away from Trump, Rothkopf noted.
"He's cornered, and nothing he's doing is working," Rothkopf said. "All his old tricks ... He doesn't know what to do. And on top of it all, he's dying. He is old. He is infirm. He disappears for three days at a time. He doesn't have what he used to."

Rothkopf added that Trump's inability to pass some of his signature policies through Congress, such as the SAVE Act, is an example of his waning power.


I agree, we are seeing the final days of Donald Chump.  The editorial board of THE TIMES UNION notes:

In the midst of a crisis, President Donald J. Trump said there really was no crisis.

He boasted how brilliantly he was handling the crisis.

He described his actions as unprecedented.

He blamed European countries for the crisis.

The enemy, he assured Americans, didn't stand a chance.

This was all just a temporary moment in time.

And the economy was great thanks to him.

No, we are not talking about Mr. Trump's address to the nation last Tuesday about his war in Iran, the most consequential crisis so far of his shambolic second term. We're talking about his address to the nation on March 11, 2020, when the topic was the most consequential crisis of his first term, the COVID-19 pandemic.

That crisis would persist for more than three years and claim more than 1.2 million lives before the World Health Organization declared the global pandemic over in May 2023.

We recall Mr. Trump's handling of that catastrophe because of the troubling similarities with his latest one - and because of one big, troubling difference.

Mr. Trump handled the pandemic with all the hucksterism that made him a political star. He pandered to conspiracy theorists as he scoffed at precautions like protective masks and social distancing. He promoted quack cures and sparred with his own public health experts. He obsessed over the idea of a Chinese plot. He called the pandemic the Democrats' "new hoax." He predicted the virus would almost magically go away.


He's so useless and has been his entire life.  He's not a leader.  He's just a con artist, a huckster.  And good for THE TIMES UNION for catching that this was a repeat of how he handled the big crisis of his first term.  

Meanwhile, lap dog JD Vance continues to hump Chump's leg any chance he gets no matter how much Chump humiliates him.  Farrah Tomazin (DAILY BEAST) reports on the latest JD humiliation:

JD Vance was advised to check his phone for updates on the war during a press conference as he struggled to keep up with his boss’s escalatory attacks against Iran.
The jet-setting vice president was caught off guard as he stood on the world stage alongside Hungarian President Victor Orban, moments after Donald Trump put out an incendiary post warning that a “whole civilization” will die tonight if Iran does not make a deal by his 8 pm deadline.
Asked by a Washington Post reporter if he had any new information to believe a deal could be reached, Vance initially replied: “I don’t—unless I have a text message from Steve Witkoff,” who is Trump’s Middle East envoy.

But as he reached into his pocket for his phone, the vice president realized in real time that things were changing.

“I do have a message from Steve Witkoff,” he acknowledged somewhat awkwardly after glancing at the text.
“Wouldn’t you like to know the subject of this message?” he added. “But no, uh, I need to read it first before I talk about it. But here’s, here’s… uh, what time is it in the United States right now?”

Vance was in Budapest on Tuesday morning to show support for Orbán, a far-right leader facing a serious risk of losing Hungary’s April 12 election.
The uncomfortable moment was followed up by another question from a Reuters reporter, who told Vance he might want to check his phone properly.

“I do think you have to read that text because we have reporting that the United States is striking some targets in Kharg Island,” she said.

“You did say that the military objectives of this war have been achieved. So could you help us understand why the president is still threatening to attack every bridge and every power plant in Iran?”

The war is sensitive for Vance, who served in the Marines and whose political reputation was built on his opposition to foreign intervention—a position that was shaped by his brief deployment in Iraq.

The fool has to be told to read it.  JD, a little man.  

 


Here's C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Tuesday, April 7, 2026.  One of Chump's 'deadlines' looms (though he's already spoken of hw he may change it), he spent a great deal of time yesterday . . . insulting Joe Biden, his call for War Crimes results in a lot of attention, and much more.




President Trump said on Monday that a cease-fire proposal put forth by mediators between the United States and Iran was a “significant step,” but he warned that it was “not good enough” as his deadline of Tuesday evening for a deal approached.

Iran, for its part, rejected any proposal for a cease-fire, mandating that any peace plan include a complete end of hostilities. Diplomatic talks coordinated by Pakistan and other regional countries were continuing, officials said, even as there appeared to be little agreement on what any cessation of hostilities would look like.

If Iran does not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, Mr. Trump has threatened to launch a massive attack targeting bridges, power plants and other civilian facilities that would, in his words, send Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” But the president has also extended self-imposed deadlines in recent weeks, and diplomats around the world were asking whether Mr. Trump would find an off-ramp again or if he would follow through this time with what could be a gigantic conflagration.

At MEIDASTOUCH NEWS this morning, Ben explains that Iran's response is to mock him.



Ben notes that last night  Chump "was telling AXIOS that he may hold off on tomorrow's strikes against civilian infrastructure in Iran."

Today on MORNING JOE, Mika noted the changing deadline(s) from Chump. 



They touch on War Crimes in the segment above.  THE NEWSHOUR (PBS) did a segment on the War Crimes aspect last night.


Amna Nawaz:

For perspective now on President Trump's talk about bombing all of Iran's bridges and power plants and whether that's legal under international law, we turn to retired Lieutenant Colonel Rachel VanLandingham. She spent 20 years in the Air Force and is now a professor at Southwestern Law School.

Welcome back to the show.

You heard in our reporting there the repeated threats by President Trump to bomb Iranian infrastructure. He said specifically there's a plan to decimate every bridge in Iran, to destroy every power plant. You have heard the concerns, Colonel, about this potentially being a war crime.

Based on your expertise, is it?

Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham (ret.):

He's both threatening a war crime and he's engaging in a war crime through that rhetoric itself. And I will explain that.

First of all, the law of war, that's not just international law. It's U.S. law. And our military members are deeply trained and steeped in this law. The law of war prohibits measures of intimidation against a civilian population, including threats of violence whose primary purpose is to sow terror amongst that civilian population.

Those civilians whose electricity ensures that there's refrigeration for their medicine for those that are dependent on refrigerated medicine, that provides electricity to hospitals, where there are lifesaving operations ongoing, where babies are being born, whose electricity is helping ensure that the water is purified and clean, they are terrified.

It's reasonably foreseeable to believe that such rhetoric will sow terror amongst the civilian population, and, therefore, one can infer that that's what President Trump intends. So he's committing a war crime just through that language.

Second of all, he's threatening to make our military engage in war crimes and therefore stain their honor and their soul and come back with moral injury. Why? Because threatening to destroy every bridge and every single power plant in the entire state of Iran is called an indiscriminate attack. That is a war crime.

Why? Because the law of war says we don't engage in total war for anymore. We don't believe that children are the enemy and that civilians are the enemy. The law of war says, look, we're going to divide the battlefield, which in modern days is often a city like Tehran, into civilian objects, and they're protected, and civilian people, they're protected.

And then there's military targets, lawful military objectives that make an effective contribution to military action and whose destruction provides a definite military advantage. We divide the world into those two camps. By saying we're just going to bomb everything, bomb every single bridge, every single power plant that serves civilians, that is threatening indiscriminate attack.

And it is one of the most horrible war crimes there are because it brings us back, straight back down the slippery slope to total warfare.

Amna Nawaz:

Well, Colonel, let me ask you, if I may, if the military and their lawyers can argue that, yes, the power plants provide electricity to civilians and they use these bridges, but that the regime also gets electricity from these power plants, that these same bridges are used by members of the Iranian military forces, does that justify making them targets?

Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham (ret.):

You have to make an individual case-by-case analysis of each bridge and every power plant that is being considered to be a lawful military objective, because, first of all, just saying, by its use or intended use, has to make an effective contribution to military action, not the regime in general, but to military action.

Second -- and so a bridge, therefore, like the bridge that was destroyed last week, a bridge could make an effective contribution to military action because it's being used as a resupply line. Logistical lines are often a legitimate lawful military objectives in war, despite the fact that they also have a civilian use.

Their destruction at the time has to provide a definite military advantage, but that's not the end of the analysis. The law of war goes even further to say, OK, once you have determined that there's some kind of military connection here, there's a connection to military action, and this destruction or disablement will produce a military advantage, then you have to look at, will civilians be harmed?

And, of course, by taking out power plants that are civilian in nature, civilians will be harmed, because civilian power plants provide civilians electricity to their homes, to water purification plants, to hospitals, you name it, right?

This is why the United States strongly condemned Russia and our State Department concluded that Russia was engaged in war crimes of indiscriminate attacks because it was taking out power plants, electrical infrastructure in Ukraine during the dead of winter, in which Ukrainians were plunged into life-threatening cold without the definite military advantage.

Amna Nawaz:

So, Colonel...

(crosstalk)

Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham (ret.):

So, the next step that you -- go ahead.

Amna Nawaz:

If I may, let me just ask you this then. At this point in time -- we have a minute or so left -- what would your advice be to U.S. military commanders if they receive these kinds of orders? What's your message to them?

Lt. Col. Rachel VanLandingham (ret.):

Follow your oath to the Constitution and to the law. Follow, trust your training. Ensure that there's discrete analysis done on every single power plant that's on a targeting list, on every single bridge to ensure that, not only it's a lawful military objective, but that proportionality, that the harm to civilians, right, is not excessive compared to the direct and concrete military advantage to be gained.

And that means that most of these indeed will not pass that test. And that's what our military professionals are trained on. And I really hope they go back to that training and that they're taking these threats of war crimes given by the commander in chief and filtering them through their own training and their own conscience and their own legal obligation to follow the law of war.

Because these are war crimes that they don't follow those steps. And those war crimes do not have a statute of limitations. And many of our -- and it has universal jurisdiction. And so many of our allies could -- if you want to travel to Europe, ensure you don't get engaged in a war crime.





Chump is no longer merely a convicted felon, he's now someone who is  a lame duck with fading power.   Michael Tomasky (THE NEW REPUBLIC) observes:


The presidency of Donald Trump is now officially in collapse. His war is not exactly a disaster, but it sure isn't the cakewalk he envisioned when he sprang it on the American people and the world with no notice on February 28. His firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi because she wasn't sycophantic enough indicates a man who is utterly incapable of understanding anything about how democracy is supposed to work. His economy is a wreck and may well get worse. His proposed budget, especially the half-trillion-dollar increase to the Pentagon, is wildly out of whack with the priorities of the public.
I could go on—and on. But on top of all that, Trump’s purchase on reality, tenuous at the best of times, is slipping fast. Think about what it takes for the “leader of the free world” (a phrase we are now obliged to tuck inside irony quotes) to wake up on Easter morning—the day of the resurrection of the same Jesus Christ in whose name “War Secretary” Pete Hegseth says we are killing Iranians—and post this unhinged and inflammatory comment on social media: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F[**]ckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell -- JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
The sentence with the three expletives will catch the notice of most Western eyes, but I have a feeling it’s the next one, and its schoolyard-level sarcastic mockery, that will get the lion’s share of the attention in Iran and across the Muslim world. And that wasn’t even his low point of the past week. His speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday was an embarrassment, rife with conspiracies, self-pitying grievance riffs, tasteless “jokes,” and bile spewed at the usual targets—again, on a venerated day on the Christian calendar, Maundy Thursday, the last full day of Jesus Christs’s mortal life. Trump rendered a supposedly solemn occasion profane in the way only he can do.

A rickety house often stands longer than we imagine it will. The support structures are surprisingly sturdy. But finally one day, something comes along—a hard rain, a mighty wind—against which the beams and foundation are no match.

Donald Chump is losing it.  He is disgracing himself (and this country) on the world stage.  In response to his remarks on Sunday, CAIR issued the following:


“President Trump’s deranged mocking of Islam and his threats to attack civilian infrastructure in Iran are reckless, dangerous, and indicative of a mindset that shows indifference to human life and contempt for religious beliefs. 

“These statements are not made in a vacuum. They follow a long pattern of anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies that have dehumanized Muslims at home and abroad. The casual use of ‘Praise be to Allah’ in the context of violent threats reflects a disturbing willingness to weaponize religious language while simultaneously denigrating Islam and its followers.

“Congress must not remain on vacation while the President openly promises to commit war crimes that could trigger even more regional and global conflict. Lawmakers have a duty to reconvene and to reassert their authority over matters of war and peace, and to ensure that no president can unilaterally drag our nation into war.”

Last week, CAIR said President Trump’s Threat to bomb Iran “Back to the stone ages” was “anti-Muslim, racist, and dehumanizing.”

CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.       

Chump is disgusting and is disgusting in public.  Hazel Gandhi (THE MIRROR) reports:


Donald Trump said Kim Jong Un referred to former President Joe Biden as a "mentally re------ person," repeating a disturbing slur by the North Korean dictator.

The president was speaking to reporters to provide an update on the U.S. and Israel's war on Iran today. During this address, he was heard talking about how several allies like South Korea and Japan failed to help the U.S. during the war.

Trump said that Kim, whom he got along with "very well," referred to Biden in a conversation as "mentally re-----." Trump added that Kim said "very nice things" about him.



“Do you notice, he said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally re{***]ded person, OK? So, don’t tell me about your stuff,” the president said. “[Of] Joe Biden, he said, ‘He’s a mentally retarded person.’ He was so nasty to Joe Biden, it was terrible. But to me -- he likes Trump.”


He's a butcher to his people.  Kim Jong Un liking you is nothing to brag about.  And repeating his real or imagined (who knows with Chump's dementia whether it was said or not) insults about another US president?

Whose side are you on, Donald Chump?

It sure isn't America's side.  America first was the lie you told to get back in the White House.  America first is not "Let me have Netanyahu's back as he attacks Iran."  

Donald has lost it.  The 25th Amendment needs to be invoked.  Paul Krugman called for it to be invoked over the weekend.





Sarah Ewall-Wice (THE DAILY BEAST) reports that he also attacked Joe in front of children at Monday's Easter Egg Roll:

The president, 79, was participating in activities at the annual Easter Egg Roll on Monday, but he couldn’t keep his mind on the holiday spirit and resorted to political attacks while mingling with children.

Trump was sitting at a table with a group of young children and started signing autographs.

“Biden would use the autopen,” he told the kids.
“What?” one confused kid could be heard responding. It wasn’t clear whether he was too young to know about the former president or didn’t know what an autopen was.

“He’d have an autopen follow him, Joe Biden,” Trump told the group. “He didn’t sign. He was incapable of signing things, so they’d follow him around with a big machine. You know what it was called? An autopen.”
But the president was not done talking about the autopen as the children continued with their activities.

“And he’d have the autopen sign for him. He’d take the paper, hand it to his guys. Sign it with an autopen. Give it back,” Trump told the confused children. “Not too good, right?”

As he spoke, some of the children looked around, as if they were no longer interested in hearing what the president had to say.


His vile Sunday comments -- on Easter Sunday, no less -- were beneath the office of the President.  Pablo O'Hana (METRO) observes:


Trump’s Republican Party is dead. Not only in its soul, but in the essential qualities that once defined it. While it may still win seats in the Midterms and retain the loyalty of millions, what truly matters has been lost. The capacity for independent judgment, for institutional self-respect, for the basic reflex of saying ‘No, not this’, is gone. Donald Trump’s Easter Sunday post, in which he threatened to bomb Iranian power plants, dropped the f-word into the public record, and signed off with ‘Praise be to Allah’, is not an opportunity to wake up Republican Party officials, members and voters. It is simply more evidence that they may be breathing, but in reality they’re dead inside. We have been here so many times before that Trump reaction commentary has become its own genre, with its own predictable arc. Something happens. Jaws drop. A Republican or two issue carefully worded statements expressing concern. The news cycle moves on. Nothing changes.


The words are not just shocking. They are unhinged.

“Power Plant Day… Bridge Day… Open the f***in’ Strait… you crazy b*******… or you’ll be living in Hell.” Posted in a frenzy, laced with threats, profanity and mockery, it reads less like the considered voice of the leader of the free world and more like the rant of a barroom bully spoiling for a fight.

And yet this is Donald Trump, the President of the United States, broadcasting to the world. This is what American leadership looks like now. The post lays bare something far more dangerous than bluster. It shows a man losing control of events, of strategy, and increasingly of himself.

 

There is no telling how bad the war and the economy will get, but one thing is starting to become certain: The war in Iran and the escalating economic damage from it is getting in the way of Trump’s true love, which is waging culture wars that stir up the ugliest impulses within the MAGA base. The president desperately wants everyone to stop talking about oil prices, bombed schools and the Strait of Hormuz, and get back to stoking racist hysteria and leading revenge campaigns against his perceived enemies.

Trump’s desperation to refocus attention on his obsessions and grievances was on full display over the weekend. For nearly two days, the White House avoided press questions about the downed fighter jet, presumably to shut down any discussion of the rescue mission that was underway. Instead, the president bellowed a few of his incoherent threats at Iran on Truth Social, but largely focused on his usual obsessions: complaining about ABC News and the New York Times, posting misleading polls to convince himself he’s popular and repeating white nationalist slogans about non-white immigrants. It was only after both Air Force servicemen were recovered that Trump deigned to acknowledge the situation — and of course, to take credit for their rescue.

Trump and his allies are working in tandem to redirect attention away from the war and onto their culture war fixations. On Wednesday, as the Supreme Court was hearing arguments about birthright citizenship, White House staffers and some of the more odious members of Congress fanned out on X, cheerleading for the justices to strip children born to immigrants of their citizenship. Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called the 14th Amendment ” the gravest and most preposterous of all constitutional abominations.” On Truth Social, Trump tailored the sentiment to his vocabulary level, calling the constitutional guarantee “STUPID.” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, one of the most compulsive MAGA social media users in Congress, tweeted, “The Constitution isn’t a national suicide pact.” The following day, Trump kept whining after realizing the Supreme Court looks likely to rule against him. “Kangaroo Court!!!,” he posted on Truth Social, along with a Fox News video claiming birthright citizenship is a “constitutional wrong.” 

Despite the administration’s hyperbolic efforts to portray a 158-year-old amendment as an immediate threat to civilization itself, Trump and his allies could not turn media attention away from the very real disaster that is the Iran war. Thursday’s headlines were dominated by the surge in oil prices that followed Trump’s failure of a speech. It’s not that the press ignored the birthright citizenship case, but most coverage outside of Fox News focused on how skeptical the justices were of the president’s position.




Turning to Chump's Mini-Me Pete Hegseth, Steve Mollman (NEWSWEEK) reports:

Retired Army Major General Randy Manner warned that the Pentagon is heading into a “very dangerous” moment after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired senior Army officers, arguing the move risks silencing honest military advice during the Iran war.

Manner made the remarks during an appearance on Alex Witt Reports on Sunday, as the decision continues to draw criticism from former senior military leaders and Republican lawmakers with deep defense credentials.
The firings have raised alarm about civil‑military relations at a time when the United States is engaged in conflict and facing high‑stakes decisions that rely heavily on experienced military judgment. Critics say abruptly removing senior officers without clear public explanations risks undermining morale, discouraging a breadth of views, and weakening confidence among troops.

Manner warned that the consequences could be immediate and severe.

“That is an extremely dangerous situation to be in,” he said on Alex Witt Reports. “Only two other leaders in the world have seen that, and that was Stalin and Hitler, who purged the best officers that they had before each of the wars they engaged in."


Let's wind down with this from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's office:


Read NBC’s Story Here

Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), demanded more information following reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blocked or delayed promotions for over a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military. 

Gillibrand’s letter to SASC Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) requests a closed hearing concerning Secretary Hegseth’s actions to examine whether they may have been motivated by politics or inappropriate bias.

The full letter can be found here or below:

Dear Chairman Wicker,

I am writing to request a closed hearing concerning the Secretary of Defense’s decision to withhold promotions for officers selected for promotion to general officer. Public reports allege that these holds may have been motivated by political ideology, inappropriate bias, or immutable and constitutionally protected characteristics rather than merit. Military advancement must remain strictly meritocratic and based on performance.

As a former Chair of the Personnel Subcommittee, I know that there are many appropriate reasons for withholding promotions, and examining the basis of the holds often involves sensitive or adverse information that warrants certain privacy safeguards for the officers in question. It is critical that we both assert the constitutional oversight role of the Senate and ensure that our military is selecting the best candidates for promotion to general officer based solely on merit, free of unlawful bias or prejudice. A closed hearing will ensure that we can protect the privacy of these officers while gathering information to understand the justification for withholding their promotions, with the goal of demonstrating to our colleagues in the Senate and to the American people that they can remain confident in a military promotion system based on individual merit and demonstrated performance.

Sincerely,

###


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