The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues (Part 2)

[Fear_Itself]

US Navy ships are running out of food for sailors and Marines.

In message exchanges with him that she shared with USA TODAY, the sailor said service members on the ship eat when they can, and they divvy up food evenly when one person gets more than the others.

Supplies “are going to get really low,” and the crew doesn’t anticipate any port visits until the ship returns from its mission, he wrote in a message on March 11.

“Morale is going to be at an all-time low,” he wrote.

Cookies, deodorant, socks. Iran war puts military packages in limbo

[DavidNRockies]

Or, as Vladimir Putin might call it, a recruitment opportunity!

[dougrb]

Luckily it’s almost over. Trump is going to handle it since JD couldn’t pull it off.

Iran deal ‘very close’: Trump hints at signing agreement in Pakistan

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

@Smapti

Trump Starts Making Up Things the Pope Said as He Breaks With Reality | The New Republic

“Why are you fighting with the pope?” a reporter asked Trump outside the White House on Thursday. “And are you worried it’s upsetting your—”

“No, no, I don’t—I have to do what’s right. The pope has to understand that, very simple. I have nothing against the pope. His brother is MAGA all the way. I like his brother Louis.”

We’re days away from Trump paying Louis to sit in St. Peter’s square and stare menacingly at the Pope during his next sermon like in The Godfather, Part II.

[Smapti]

Franklin Graham is defending the Trump-as-Jesus post. Billy would be spinning in his grave.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/16/franklin-graham-trump-jesus-image-00876201

[papermache]

I hope no one tells Trump about the oil reserves under Vatican City.

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@Euphonious_Polemic

If the UK government does not cancel this visit directly, I suggest King Charles could come down with something that prevents travel. This would save face for the government.

Given Charles’s real health problems, that’s actually not much of a stretch, and I hope the PM will use that excuse.

[Smapti]

Remember when George HW Bush seemingly being mystified by the existence of barcode scanners was a career-ending gaffe?

TRUMP, WHO SPENT 70 YEARS OF HIS LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY, DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A CORNER STORE IS.

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)

[Monty]

@papermache

I hope no one tells Trump about the oil reserves under Vatican City.

I thought it was a pizzaria.

The Pope really tweaked the big baby this time.

Pope Leo XIV said the world is “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” and decried world leaders who “manipulate” religion and the name of God for military gain in a speech in Cameroon on April 16, as President Donald Trump has continued sparring with the pontiff.

“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” Leo said during his four-country tour of Africa. “It is a world turned upside down, an exploitation of God’s creation that must be denounced and rejected by every honest conscience.”

Do ketchup super soakers come in double-barrel models? (The bolding is mine.)

With Vice President JD Vance, a one-time Iran war skeptic, now tasked with brokering a deal to end it, President Donald Trump has been monitoring his progress closely and inquiring with various friends and advisers how they’d rank his performance, according to three people familiar with the conversations.

The president has wondered aloud how they think Vance compares to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a potential rival for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, these people said.

Never over the course of Trump’s second term has his second-in-command been more in the spotlight than in the past week, when a pair of foreign visits and a dust-up between the president and the leader of the world’s Catholics — of which Vance is one — placed him squarely at the center of Trump’s whirlwind.

For now, Trump seems to have full confidence in Vance’s negotiating abilities, with the vice president on standby to return to Pakistan to resume negotiations with Iran if a deal appears to be coming together, according to sources familiar with the talks.

But the president, who spoke by phone with Vance as many as a dozen times during the first round of talks in Islamabad last weekend, has made clear he’s watching carefully.

“If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” Trump said, somewhat in jest, of an Iran deal during an Easter lunch this month. “If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”

WTF do you mean somewhat in jest? Rip van Simple has never, not even once, made a joke in his life. He has zero sense of humor. Also, what he said isn’t somewhat in jest; it’s his m.o..

White House budget director tells congress the cost of the vanity war is not their business.

Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, declined to give senators an estimate of the cost of the military operations against Iran when pressed on the issue during a hearing Thursday.

Vought said the White House is working on a request for additional defense funding but declined to offer an estimate of how much the war has cost taxpayers so far, telling lawmakers that the costs “fluctuate” day to day.

Asked by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) if the administration has already spent $50 billion on the conflict, as some media reports have indicated, Vought said: “I wouldn’t [want] to make a characterization of that at this point.”

That answer didn’t sit well with the senior Democrat, who told Vought, “I would expect you to have pretty good numbers on that so I’m a little disappointed in that answer.”

I’m honestly surprised he didn’t just quote the felon-in-chief and say, “It could go up, it could go down, it could stay the same”.

Another truism comes to the front of the herd: It’s “5 o’clock somewhere”. (The bolding is mine.)

It was 1:30 pm in the White House briefing room, but it must have already been 5 o’clock somewhere for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday when he confused the name of a key waterway for the world’s petroleum market with an equally key ingredient in a popular cocktail.

Bessent was briefing reporters in support of the Trump administration’s effort to tout the effects of last year’s partisan tax bill on Americans’ bottom line when he was asked when he believes gasoline prices will fall from the record prices they’ve been at since the start of President Donald Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran to the $3 target set by Energy Secretary Chris Wright last month.

He replied that the future of fuel prices would be “up to how the negotiations go” and noted that Trump thinks the six-week-old war is almost at its end.

“The U.S. kept their side on the ceasefire. We’ve stopped firing. The Straits of Vermouth have not been completely reopened, so we will see, and I’m optimistic that during the summer, we will see gas with a three in front of it, sooner rather than later,” he said.

I know vermouth is an indredient for a martini, but does anyone actually drink the stuff straight?

[scudsucker]

@Monty

He has zero sense of humor

I object. He has a consumate bully’s sense of humour, he takes pleasure in beating people down.

Sadistic humour, is unfortunately, still humour.

I, personally, hope he dies in a way not even the Monty Python team could imagine. If it involved a steam catapult on an aircraft carrier, all the better.

[Thing.Fish]

Sure, people drink vermouth straight. It’s typically served as an aperitif in Europe. It’s much less common in America, where I would say ordering it makes you look like a pretentious hipster if you’re under 70.

[solost]

The trump admin meets with auto companies to see about having them pivot to manufacturing munitions, WWII ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ style. Totally normal thing to do in the final stages of a little military ‘excursion’ that’s almost over.

Trump administration looks to Ford, GM in WWII-style weapons push: report

[Folacin]

@solost

Totally normal thing to do in the final stages of a little military ‘excursion’ that’s almost over.

When you are out of bullets and living when having bullets is a good thing, you need to get more of them. Even if you used them in a spectacularly stupid fashion.

If China moved on Taiwan, could the US provide any serious conventional support (assuming Trump would want to)?

[ThelmaLou]

Good grief. I guess food and gasoline rationing are next, along with ration books. And Liberty Bond drives-- actually, if he knew what those were, he’d probably institute them.

[solost]

@Folacin

When you are out of bullets and living when having bullets is a good thing, you need to get more of them. Even if you used them in a spectacularly stupid fashion.

If China moved on Taiwan, could the US provide any serious conventional support (assuming Trump would want to)?

We still have our usual military suppliers: General Dynamic, Northrop Grumman, Winchester, etc. If we were really winding down the Iran war, I imagine those manufacturers could replenish our ammo quickly enough.

I don’t believe we’ve asked the auto companies to pivot in this way since WWII, and it’s not like we haven’t fought in wars since then. Feels like a major military ramp-up planned, rather than a ‘let’s get the pantry filled back up quickly’ situation. But I hope I’m wrong.

[ThelmaLou]

That was my point: bring back the glory days of WWII!

[solost]

@ThelmaLou

That was my point: bring back the glory days of WWII!

Or…beginning the ‘glory’ days of WWIII…?!?

I don’t consider myself an alarmist type, but I’m beginning to wonder if ‘I don’t think I’m going to Heaven’ trump and ‘quoting fake bible verse that’s actually from Pulp Fiction’ kegsbreath are actually looking forward to an Apocalypse.

[Q.Q.Switcheroo]

Don’t forget victory gardens!

[Great_Antibob]

@solost

Totally normal thing to do in the final stages of a little military ‘excursion’ that’s almost over.

I had a flashback this morning to almost exactly 6 years ago when he said that there would be no new cases - not new deaths but no new cases - of COVID after Memorial Day.

It’s amazing how much mileage he gets in the US from the same playbook even when everybody can plainly see it happen time and again.

At least folks in other countries aren’t dumb enough to buy that line again.

ETA: And, of course, this comes in the wake of the totally unexpected news that Israel has violated its ceasefire agreement in Lebanon after only a few hours

[Odesio]

@Monty

WTF do you mean somewhat in jest? Rip van Simple has never, not even once, made a joke in his life. He has zero sense of humor. Also, what he said isn’t somewhat in jest; it’s his m.o..

Yeah. Trump’s taken credit for the election of Japan’s Prime Minister,the accession of Pope Leo, and prior to the last election the success of the economy on the grounds that everyone knew he was going to win. You’re right that he doesn’t jest, but he does have a sense of humor when it comes to cruelty. Or at least it’s the closest he knows how to come to humor.