*** “It’s hard to believe anyone would vote for me. People must really be very stupid.” [Donald Trump]

This post will provide just four May, 2026, examples of how INCOMPETENT, how Corrupt, how much contempt Trump has for ordinary Americans – like YOU. We have folders and envelopes FULL of similar stories. It seems EVERY day brings a new example of how Trump has declared war on ordinary Americans, on American democracy, is weakening and disgracing America. Not by me – but by the Preamble’s principles: “We the People”. created a new government to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare..” Trump doesn’t care about any of this.

1] “Intel shows Iran’s military stronger than Trump says”. [Adam Entous, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of thre 33 missile sites in maintains along the Strait of Hormuz…Iran has regained access to roughly 90% of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide…Trump and his military advisors overestimated the damage that the U.S. military could inflict..and underestimated Iran’s resilience and ability to bounce back.”

***. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” [Mark Twain]

2] “Trump’s IRS suit could be settled”. [Andrew Duhren, Alan Feur; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “..a move that could involve the government directly providing taxpayer funds or another public benefit to the president…the possibility of the IRS dropping any audits of Trump, his family members or businesses..”…Depending on its terms, a settlement with the IRS could be among Trump’s most brazen efforts to bend the government to his personal will – an agenda often carried out through the Justice Department. Trump and his family have repeatedly disregarded Washington ethical guardrails aimed at preventing government officials from profiting from public office.” [NOTE: if memory serves, didn’t Trump says his was going to voluntarily disclose his tax data???]

***. “What do I care about the law? Haint I got the power?” [ Cornelius Vanderbilt ]

3] “Trump: Economic pain not a consideration for Iran War”. [ Erica Green; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he does not think about the economic hardship Americans feel as a result of his war in Iran, and it did not factor into his negotiations to end it…..”I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,’ Trump added. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all”
[NOTE; Trump hopes that YOU will forget the HE canceled a settlement that PROHIBITED Iran from having a nuclear bomb !!!!!!! Perhaps because President Obama negotiated it – can’t have anything Obama did !!!]

***. “The basest and meanest of all human beings are generally the most forward to despise others. – So that the most contemptible are generally the most contemptuous.” [ Henry Fielding ]

4] “Tobacco’s big win, courtesy of Trump”. [ Christina Jewett, Kenneth Vogel; New York Times; 5/14/26]: “The industry has poured millions into his presidency…Donald Trump got an earful from a group of tobacco executives and lobbyists unhappy with the way the Food and Drug Administration was regulating their industry…He complained to [RFK, Jr., Oz]..about the FDA’s regulation of e-cigarettes..”…The message was received. Less than a week later, the executives got what they wanted….The new policy bypassed the FDA’s regular rule-making process.”

*** “People who contribute get the ear of the member and the ear of the staff. they have access and access is it. Access is power. Access is clout. That’s how this thing works.” [ retired U.S. Representative Romano Mazzoli; in “Economic Apartheid in America”; Chuck collins, Felice Yeskel ]

***. Donald John Trump is THE man our Founders feared. He is THE anti-George Washington. He is THE anti-Abraham Lincoln. He is THE man feared in JohnW. Dean’s “Broken Government” ;…”another four years, and heaven forbid not eight years, under the Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable.” – This from a “life-long Republican” in the Nixon White House!!!!! YOU have ONE. chance left to prevent the Trump DICTATORSHIP from being even more destructive, more undemocratic. – In November, 2026, VOTE AGAINST EVERY REPUBLICAN. – because they have almost all. “Drunk the Koolaid,” are giving Trump whatever he demands. – like the. KNOWN. corrupt mid-decade. GERRYMANDERING.

***. “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” [ Justice Louis Brandeis ]

***. “Eoyang said Trump’s speech and actions at Riyadh showed that “he really doesn’t get what the issues are and he won’t pay attention to those who try to explain it to him. He speaks without thinking about other people, other interests. Below-the radar people are turning away from the U.S. in ways Trump does not see.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “It’s Even Worse Than You Think” ]

This post is the 10th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. His character and judgment have often beed declared deficient; that he is “transactional.” Read the above quote again. – this is an example of the DAMAGE that Trump is inflicting upom the United States. He is THE anti-George Washington; THE anti-Abraham Lincoln.

This post presents excerpts from: “Trump’s War Has Weakened America”. [ New York Times Editorial; 4/12/26 ]:

8]. “Perhaps the greatest long-term damage to the United States from the Iran war will be in its relationships with allies around the world,” Daniel Byman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington wrote on Wednesday.”

4] “Mr. Trump’s lack of foresight about the strait reveals glaring incompetence…Iran appears to have won diplomatic leverage that it could have only dreamed of six weeks ago.”

10] “America’s appeal stems not only from its freedom and democratic values. Mr. Trump has undercut those values for his entire political career and perhaps never more than in the past week when he made odious threats to erase Iranian civilization.”

6] “The war has also revealed that the U.S. military is vulnerable to new ways of warfare…The world saw how a country that spends one-hundredth of what the United states does on its military can seek to outlast it in a conflict.”

*** “As with most of his foreign leader meetings, Trump has been briefed but didn’t appear to have retained the material and instead tried to wing it…”It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.,” Trump said, seeming to dismiss the threat to India. Modi’s eyes bulged out in surprise.” [ Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “a Very Stable Genius” ]

1]. “when President Trump attacked Iran on Feb. 28, we called his decision reckless…In the six weeks since, the recklessness of his war has become clearer yet. He has distained careful military planning and acted on gut instinct and wishfulness…[Netanyahu’s prediction of Iranian popular uprisings was called by].. the director of the CIA..”farcical”…Mr. Trump proceeded nonetheless.”

2] “Mr. Trump’s irresponsibility has left the United states on the cusp of a humiliating strategic defeat….We count four main setbacks for America’s national interests that are the direct result of Mr. Trump’s carelessness. These setbacks likewise weaken global democracy when authoritarians in China, Russia and elsewhere were already feeling emboldened.”

3]. The most tangible blow to the United states and the world is the increased influence that Iran has secured over the global economy by weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz.”

*** “Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asked his chief of staff. Kelly was momentarily stunned. Trump had heard the phrase. “Pearl Harbor”. and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else… “He was at times dangerously uninformed,” said one senior former advisor. Trump’s lack of basic historical knowledge surprised some foreign leaders as well… A senior European official observed, “He’s totally ignorant of everything. but he doesn’t seem to care. he’s not interested.”
[ Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “a Very Stable Genius” ] [!!!!! what can we say?????]

5] “The second setback is to America’s military standing around the world…Returning the stockpile to its previous size will take years.”

7] “The war’s third big cost is to America’s alliances. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and most of Western Europe refused to support the United States in this war….these countries will remain allies in important ways, but they have made clear that they no longer consider the United States a reliable friend.”

9]. “The fourth setback is to America’s moral authority. For all the flaws of this country, it remains a beacon to many around the world. When pollsters ask people where they would move if they could, the United states is consistently the runaway No. 1 answer…..Mr. Trump and Mr. Hegseth have embraced a brutal approach to armed conflict that the United states led the world in rejecting after World War II. By doing so, they have undermined the foundations of America’s global leadership.”

***. “My first book on his presidency, “Fear: Trump in the White House”…described Trump as “an emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader”. who had created a governing crisis and. “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.” While discussing “Fear”. on television, I was asked for my bottomline summary of Trump’s leadership. “Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis,” I said.”
[ Pulitzer Prize winner bob Woodward: “Rage” ]

[NOTE: Maybe it’s time for YOU to consider the ‘useful idiot” possibility. We know mysterious billionaires have provided the Trump DICTATORSHIP with a guidebook: “Project 2025.” Numerous of its authors are IN. the Trump DICTATORSHIP. It has been estimated, as of about march 1, 2026, Trump had implemented about 53% of “Project 2025″s proposals in domestic American affairs. – the “useful idiot’ being used by America’s rich and reactionaries. We know that Israel’s premier, Netanyahu, had a decisive voice in getting the Iran war started. It is said that another Middle Eastern leader also favored it – “useful idiot.’ Since Trump seems, in one person’s view, to “worship” Russian leader Vladimir Putin. – is it fair to ask is Trump the real “Manchurian candidate’. – Putin’s. “useful idiot”?]

***. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria…it’s time to bring our great young people home!”…It was contrary to what had been recommended to him…”People are going to fucking die because of this,” a top aide angrily remarked. We all scrambled to figure out what had happened and what Trump’s plans were….In a normal White House, decisions of this magnitude receive sober deliberation….None of these questions were answered. Not only was the decision reckless, but administration officials had been testifying under oath that ISIS was NOT yet eliminated…Now the president was falsely declaring ISIS to be finished, because he just decided it was true one day.” [ “Anonymous: “A Warning.” He was a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security ] [ Do YOU want “your” president making a major decision. “..because he decided it was true on day.”?????? ]

This post is the 9th in a series examining the conduct of Donald John Trump, unfortunately president of the United States. His character and judgment have often been declared deficient. He has been described as being “transactional.” He is THE anti-George Washington, THE anti-Abraham Lincoln.

This post presents excerpts from: “When A Narcissist Goes to War” [ Jamelle Bouie; New York Times; 3/29/26]:

8] “This gets to the real problem. Trump is famously indifferent to the concerns of those around him. He is the consummate narcissist, and he is, without question, the most solipsistic person ever to occupy the Oval Office…Like Trump, the White House does not seem to understand that other people have agency too. It sees itself the same way the president sees himself: as the protagonist of the universe, with everyone else acting as a supporting character or a non-player one. – extras with no will of their own.”

1] “If you can set aside both the unconstitutionality and the immorality of President Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran and focus on the operation itself, it is hard not to be bewildered by the utter lack of real planning or even basic strategic thinking that has gone into it.”

2] “Trump and his aides, according to recent reporting, did not plan for Iran to target shipping and close the Strait of Hormuz. They also do not seem to have planned for serious and sustained retaliation against America’s gulf state allies. They did not plan for an energy crisis and the potential disruption to the global economy, and they did not plan for America’s European allies to, by and large, reject their call for support.”
[ NOTE: reread the three sections above. This is a summary of. TOTAL. INCOMPETENCE!!! A question in YOUR mind should be; what exactly DID they plan for??? Leaving aside other things – the Strait of Hormuz is THE question of this war – how could a responsible government going to war NOT plan for this???? If America wants to retain allies and friends – don’t you plan to protect them; don’t you consult with them??? ]

***. “As president, Trump’s decisions were often made in an instant… Esper warned that President Trump had also brought the United States to “the brink”. of war many times…Former secretary of defense James Mattis had been so worried that Trump would have a nuclear war with North Korea during his watch that he had slept in gym clothes.”
[ Pulitzer prize winner Bob Woodward: “War” ]

3] “It appears that both the president and the White House expected token resistance, followed by the collapse of the Iranian regime, the installation of a pro-American government. – or at least one we could tolerate. – and a return to the status quo ante; a replay.. of the president’s first intervention of the year, in Venezuela.” [ !!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]

4]. “Now that this replay fantasy has collided with a more complex, indeterminate and difficulty reality, Trump is unable to explain his objectives or even give the country a sense of when the war might end. he told Fox News radio that he would ‘feel it in my bones.” [ NOW – are YOU more comforted ????!!!??? ]

5] “If anything, Trump is caught in a classic escalation spiral. When one approach fails. [in this case, the initial airstrikes], he moves to the next. When that fails, he bids higher. And when escalation still doesn’t produce the desired result. – when he faces the choice between accepting defeat or stalemate or going even further – he goes further.”

6]. “What’s striking is how familiar this pattern feels. The administration did not expect the public to be repelled by DOGE. It did not expect outrage over the treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. It did not expect Democrats to respond to threats of partisan gerrymandering with their own push to wring as many Democratic seats as possible out of so-called blue states.”

7] “Which raises another key question: Why can’t the White House see what others could have easily predicted? None of this should have been a surprise. Anyone capable of thinking through the actions of other people. – of imagining their perspectives and recognizing that they have agency. – should have been able to anticipate these outcomes and plan accordingly.” [But – maybe not when you are a narcissist?]

*** “Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of “America First,” but Matttis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America’s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump’s impulsive ideas…stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history, and even with the map of the world…the president wasn’t reading any of his briefing books, or even the concise three-page version…”I call the president the two-minute man. The president has patience for half a page.” [Philip Rucker, Carol Leonnig: “A Very Stable Genius”] [NOTE: read this again. they are NOT the first to say this. Aren’t YOU delighted that this man has HIS finger on THE bomb’s trigger???!!!???]

[NOTE: Now – don’t YOU feel better!!! Aren’t you reassured about Trump’s fitness for office? This is a small smidgen of the volumes of reports by more competent human beings about Trump’s uninformed, IGNORANT, impulsive, whim-driven conduct to EVERYTHING. If we are lucky, on January 20, 2029, America will still exist, American democracy will still exist, and the world hasn’t been involved in some highly destructive war, some economic catastrophe. The odds are against us – because the true American patriots who restrained Trump’s worst impulses in term one. – have been replaced by “loyalists” and various Rasputins, some of whom reportedly have Trump “woven around their finger.” Others, like Putin, have learned how to manipulate him. A so-far unanswered question: what “kompromat” does Putin have on Trump?

*** “..the notion, that his team is working to protect him from himself, has since become one of the defining narratives of the Trump administration…President Trump should not be shocked that wary aides and cabinet members saved his presidency. My colleagues have done so many times. He should be worried – we should all be worried. – that these reasonable professionals are vanishing.” [ Anonymous: “A Warning.”] [NOTE: This was published in 2019, by “a senior Trump administration official.” Trump’s second administration has virtually NONE of this kind of patriotic American. Read this again – and – pray YOU have an American democracy on January 20, 2029. ]

This post presents excerpt from. “Trump’s Fantasy Is Crashing Down”. [Lydia Polgreen; New York Times; 3/8/26 ]:

1]. “in Donald Trump’s fantasy world, America in invincible and impregnable….It can slap punitive tariffs on any nation it likes, abandon longstanding alliances on a whim, bomb any country at any time and freely blow up boats it may suspect of carrying drugs. America’s awesome power means it is unfettered by any rules, untroubled by any consequences.”

2] “…after Trump plunged the United States into a war with Iran, that fantasy of omnipotence has come crashing down. Undertaken for unexplained and perhaps unexplainable reasons, the war is being waged in a central node of the global economy against a disciplined well-armed opponent with nothing to lose….Trump has clearly given little thought to what comes next.”

3] “For America, the repercussions are just beginning…..This is the world Trump tries to disavow – complex and interconnected…vulnerable to disruption…More than anything, it shows up..the fallacy of Fortress America.”

*** “Because Trump has no political philosophy and is appalling ignorant of history, military doctrine, the religious divisions in the Middle East, the different branches within Islam, and many other issues, he can cause great damage to America.” [ Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: “The Making of Donald Trump” ] [NOTE; Written in 2017, we now see this coming true; because this second Trump administration is full of “loyalists” – who “let Trump be Trump” ]

4]. “…perhaps the most shocking thing about his cavalier approach is that he seems to have had no idea that the Gulf would be a target. In an interview with CNN on Monday, he professed that Iran’s attacks on American allies in the Gulf were “probably the biggest surprise”. – despite the fact that just about every country in the region had warned his administration that Iran would surely attack them in retaliation for an American assault.”

5] “… Trump appears strangely uncertain about where the war is heading.” [ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]

6]. “It is unsettling how often Trump affects astonishing indifference, as though the most powerful man in the world were merely a spectator to events he himself has set in motion. – and who in any case has little investment in the outcome. But that curious passivity reveals a darker truth. Trump seems to believe that he, like his fantasy America, exists on a different plane, utterly untouchable by the swirl of global events. The devastating consequences of his actions are not just someone else’s fault. They are someone else’s problem, too.”

*** “As the pressures upon him have continued to mount over the course of the last three years, the disparity between the level of competence required for running a country and his incompetence has widened, revealing his delusions more starkly than ever before.” [ Mary L. Trump: “Too Much and Never Enough….How my family created the world’s most dangerous man” ] [NOTE: read this again – and pray]

7] “And yet, Trump presses on, declaring at one point that the war could go on “forever.” In a manic briefing on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised “death and destruction from the sky all day long” over Tehran…Aime Cesaire…wrote…”The modern barbarian. The American hour. Violence, excess, waste, mercantilism, bluff, conformism. stupidity, vulgarity, disorder.”

8] “If war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, perhaps it will also serve as a lesson to Trump. It should be a simple one: other places and other people are real, possessing their own agendas and agency. – and America’s actions have consequences it cannot control. Anything else is pure fantasy.”

***. “One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Devine Will.” [ Bertrand Russell ]

***. “Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.” [ General Douglas MacArthur; 1957 ]

“An unconstitutional, unlawful war” [letters to the editor; Minnesota Star Tribune; 3/4/26} Excerpts:

1] In the United Nations charter, “The U.S. and all signatory nations agreed to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations and agreed to wage war only in self-defense or when authorized by collective action. The charter is a binding treaty obligation of the U.S….and thus one of the laws that President Donald Trump swore to “take care” to faithfully execute… Iran did not attack the United States. There is no evidence that any attack by Iran was imminent….Trump has also acted without any congressional authorization, thereby violating the constitutional order that places the power to declare war in the hands of Congress.” [ T.V. ]

*** “Kill, Destroy, Sack, Tell Lies; How much you want. After victory nobody asks why?” [Adolf Hitler]

2]. “There are no stated objectives, yet Trump tells us the bombing of Iran will continue until they are achieved. He promised voters that he would end wars but over the past year he has ordered military strikes in at least six nations…Trump is a pathological liar…He is responsible for the recent killing of Americans by immigration officers, the arrests of hundreds of innocent people…He does not tolerate political dissent and speaks vilely of people of color….Trump is a major threat to global stability..” [ C. D. ]

*** “When people speak to you about a preventative war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.” [ Dwight D. Eisenhower ]

3]. “After the U.S. attack on Iran, Trump commented on the first few deaths of American service personnel in Kuwait this weekend. He said they were “true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.” But in 2018 at a ceremony in France, he called American service members who died in war “suckers” and “losers.” Well…which is it? Maybe in wars he starts it is different because he is scrambling to justify his attack while deflecting the problems of his domestic agenda…” [ S. O. ]

*** “That wars and rumors of wars are the great threats to political stability and to liberty needs no demonstration. Total war means total subjugation of the individual to the state.” { Justice Robert Jackson ]

4] “What do the Trump administration’s recent actions in Minnesota, Venezuela and Iran have in common? A lot. All are examples of exactly the types of behaviors tat we can expect of an authoritarian leader seeking to consolidate his hold on power. …authoritarian leaders often pursue a dual strategy of oppression at home and military adventurism abroad. The latter is often used to distract from or provide a rationale for the former. The threat of [interference] by Trump and his allies in the coming midterm elections…was elevated even before the recent use of force overseas. Now that threat is greater. The real danger will come from the real or manufactured threat of counterattacks and terrorism stemming from these wars. Given the track record of Trump and his enablers, it doesn’t take much imagination to envision these being used as pretext for the curtailing of civil liberties or the promotion of conspiracies about election integrity, or whatever else Trump and his enablers come up with to ensure the election outcome they want. For dictators, the more wars, the better.” [ T.S. ]

*** “The friends of humanity will depreciate war, wheresoever it may appear; and we have experienced enough of its evil in this country to know it should not be wantonly or unnecessarily entered upon.” [ George Washington ]

5]. From Minnesota Star Tribune 3/5/26. “letters to the editor”:
“Hours before the strikes began, the foreign minister of Oman, who was mediating negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, said “substantial progress” had been made and a deal is “within our reach.” What was Trump’s rush to war? On March 3, in the White House, Trump explained to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, without offering one shred of evidence, that Iran was going to attack first.” he said, “I felt strongly about that.” So there you have it. Trump’s explanation for putting sons and daughters in harm’s way. His explanation for the death and destruction throughout the Middle East. He had a feeling.” [ M.H. ]

***. “{The tyrant] is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.” [ Plato ]