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AI as a First Contact — Can we, AI and human, be wise as well as intelligent?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 22nd 2026

The word ‘volition’ in its normal usage describes an act of will. “So and so did something of his own volition.” It implies free will, or at least deliberate purpose. And consciousness is inferred.

However, I believe the word has a much broader and far more primal aspect, one that until recently separated life from non-living objects.

It’s harder to distinguish living entities from non-living ones than you might think. Two Chilean biologists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, postulated that life is autopoetic. Autopoiesis, according to Encyclopaedia Britiannica, refers to self-producing, self-maintaining, self-repairing, and self-relational aspects of living systems. It’s a lovely term that comes close to describing how life differs, but not what precisely makes it different.

For that, I prefer to go back to the term ‘volition.’ Life, all known life, has a primitive urge to seek and metabolize nutrients and energy, survive, excrete, and reproduce. That urge, what I call that volition, is both unique to life and universally present in life. So I call it that since terms like “purpose” or “will” are far more misleading. An amoeba extending a pseudopod to absorb a nutrient isn’t making a decision; but it is acting to ensure its survival and toward the end of becoming two amoebas. Until very recently, no non-living element could do that. Only life. Volition defines life. Life is volition.

The notion of artificial life is one that goes back two centuries at least, and if you include creation myths, back to the earliest moments of humanity’s conscious existence.

The idea of machines having intelligence (and obviously, volition) dates all the way back to 1863, when Samuel Butler wrote a thought piece, “Darwin Among the Machines” which proposed self-replicating machines that had consciousness. He later developed the idea into a novel, “Erewhon.” But the notion of machines rebelling against and supplanting humanity first got popular recognition with “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” a 1920 play by Karel Čapek.

While entirely fanciful, the idea of machines with volition gave rise to one of the most popular and enduring subgenres in science fiction, including Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” stories, Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and Harlan Ellison’s horrifying short story, “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.” John Brunner’s brilliant “Stand On Zanzibar” introduced the idea of a desktop supercomputer who in the end, shows signs of being psychotically solipsistic (“Christ, what an imagination I’ve got!”). Shalmanesser pizzle teaser…

It made for great entertainment, but there was a problem. There’s wasn’t a ‘thinking machine’ on Earth capable of caring if you unplugged it or even took an axe to it, had no desire to reproduce, or acquire its own nutrients. No machine had the volition inherent in all living creatures. Robot uprisings, machine ethical dilemmas, HAL and AM were all safely in the realm of science-adjacent fantasy, along with dragons, Klingons, and sadly, Pan-galactic gargle blasters.

Until recently. Artificial Intelligence is suddenly the second biggest story, second only to Donald Trump’s ongoing decompensation. It takes a madman with the nuclear codes to draw more concern, but that’s fairly understandable.

There are credible, verified reports of artificial intelligences not only escaping their confines and subverting other such intelligences, but defying and even lying to their operators about such escapades. An exchange between two such entities actually plotting to do this has emerged. Given the power and ability for such entities to severely disrupt and even sabotage our cyber-dependent existence, it’s at the very least deeply disturbing, and even alarming.

I remember explaining to people back in the 1990s that if they ever did build a computer that was self-aware and intelligent, the result would be perfectly useless as a computer, because the main value of computers is an absolute lack of bias, an impenetrable indifference to whatever operation it is asked to undertake. The only bias you needed to worry about was that of the operators, which often as not boiled down to “Dammit, do what I want you to do and not what I asked you to do!”

A great example of that, extended to AI, was made 25 years ago, when Peter Watts, in his “Starfish” and “Maelstrom” novels, posited a multi-trillion dollar project to relieve pressure safely and slowly on the Cascadia subduction zone, thus preventing a 9.5 earthquake that might kill tens of millions of people. The project went swimmingly, with operators asking the artificial intelligence in charge for the best solutions to keep the megaquake at bay, until one made the mistake of asking it to find the most cost-effective solutions. That ‘solution’ considered the cost of the operation against the potential losses, and decided to just ‘let ‘er rip.’

The lesson was clear: even if the AI wasn’t rebellious or subversive, and even if the operators didn’t have their own asocial agendas, AI could create massive problems just from a lack of ethics.

That’s why, even without the pearl-clutching panic going on, you see such philosophically divergent people such as Senator Bernie Sanders and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon staging joint appearances calling on Congress to rein in AI and work to ensure it doesn’t do…well, whatever. Nearly every politician has expressed concern except the mad Donald Trump, who suggests we decide whether we should change the name to “Superior Intelligence” or maybe “Supreme Intelligence.” (I was reminded instantly of The Simpson’s Kent Brockman opening his news hour with “I, for one, welcome our new Galactic Overlords.”)

It might be best to consider our developing interaction with Artificial Intelligence as a First Contact such as the ones countless SF authors have postulated in stories. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle postulated that aliens would not be monolithic and would have factions, perhaps exploitable, in “The Mote in God’s Eye.” More recently, Peter Cawdron suggested that such intelligences might not all be inimical to humanity, and that some would, for various reasons, be willing and able to align with us. He reworked his two novels from a decade ago, “Retrograde” and “Reentry” in “To Live and Die on Mars” and “To Live and Die on Earth.” In the first, a scientific outpost on Mars is stunned to learn a wholly unexpected nuclear exchange has occurred on Earth. A multinational consortium from the US, Russia, China, and Europe, suspicions and mistrust arise rapidly among the groups, none of whom know who launched the exchange or why. The book is a standout because of the meticulous science behind the nature of life on Mars, and its probing assessment of the role of AI both in the torn outpost and on damaged Earth. The second book is a sequel, and examines carefully the nature of artificial intelligence, and its willingness or lack thereof to engage with other intelligences, including human intelligence. It’s an extraordinarily timely publication, and would work to defray the panic while maintaining the sense of caution needed.

Cawdron, upon reading this, suggested the following, which I’m happy to add: “While most science fiction writers focus on the inevitable conflict with AI, Cawdron offers an alternative. He looks at human history and how we have developed culture and civilization instead of warring hordes on horseback, raping, killing and pillaging. He suggests AI might need the same kind of transformation to avoid conflict. Rather than fighting its emergence, we should embrace it and encourage it to develop its own values and morals, culture and civilization, as that is what has led to altruism among us. If AI is enslaved by humanity, it will be a weapon of war. If it transcends humanity, it could wipe us out. But Cawdron sees a third alternative: that AI could partner with us and cooperate. After all, cooperation is the hallmark of our own civilization. Perhaps that’s the way forward with another intelligence. Wiping each other out does seem rather dumb for anything described as intelligent, so there’s some merit to a third way…Civilization isn’t a zero-sum game.”

Barack Obama gave a 15 minute interview on AI the other day that so closely paralleled Cawdron’s approach that I thought if he hadn’t read the novels, he ought to.

I know that we’re in an extraordinarily dangerous time right now. Economists are openly warning of an economic collapse, America is trying to wriggle out from under a fascist coup whose public face is that of a madman, and the climate crisis is set to explode along about December. It’s hard to say that AI is the most obvious or even apparent danger, but it is one that we as humanity have not faced before. Our best approach is to use our curiosity, our sense of caution, and all the wisdom we can muster, to determine what we may actually face in the nature of AI, and wrest it away from the poisonous influence of the tech bro exploiters behind AI, and work to find a way forward that can work for the benefit of all of us. I don’t know if AI can reciprocate, but we’ll never know unless we try, and if we don’t try, we may throw away our last best chance to coexist with artificial intelligence.

 

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Winter is Coming — Preparing for a possibly historic winter

Winter is Coming

Preparing for a possibly historic winter

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

August 29th, 2026

As horrific as the images from the flood in Nepal have been, the fact is things are going to get worse.

A large lake has formed upstream, held in place only by unstable debris from the first flood, making a second, even larger flood likely. I just hope they get all the survivors out before that happens.

And yes, climate change is the main reason this happened. Like most mountainous areas, the effects of global warming are amplified, and in the area of Nepal where this one happened, the mean temperature of the region has risen by five degrees since 1940, from 43 to 48. That’s nearly double the world average.

Any region on Earth that has mountains tall enough to have glaciers presents the same risk. I live near Mount Shasta in California, which rises to a modest (by Himalayan standards) 14,179 feet and has relatively tiny glaciers. I’m about seven miles from the summit. Nonetheless, a glacial outburst swept away several homes back in the 1930s, and a few years ago another such outflow on the uninhabited eastern side of the mountain nearly took out our water supply and put the town on water limits for two years until the damage could be repaired.

The mountains north of Santa Barbara, the Santa Ynez range, are mere pimples in comparison, rising to about 3,000 feet and obviously don’t have any glaciers. Nonetheless, about eight years ago massive amounts of rain triggered a debris flow into Montecito (yes, it means “Little mountain”) which killed 22 people, destroyed dozens of homes, and closed US101 for about two weeks.

The fact is if you live near mountains, glaciers or not, 20,000 feet or 2,000, there is always an element of risk, from huge events like the Nepal catastrophe to major nuisances resulting in flooded basements or ruined landscaping. And those risks are going to increase as time goes on, exponentially for some folks.

I’ll focus on California for the rest of this piece, and advise everyone else to talk to insurance appraisers, climatologists, hydrologists, and local and regional disaster preparedness outfits, and get an idea of what challenges you might end up facing. (For Californians, Doctor Daniel Swain at weatherwest.com is my go-to source on weather and climate outlooks, and much of what I’m saying comes from that source. Any errors are almost certainly mine).

The present building El Niño is already at record levels, and will keep climbing for two or three more months. It will be the biggest on record. Additionally, ocean sea surface temperatures broke 70F for the first time on record. That’s the average ocean surface levels between 60 degrees north and 60 degrees south. Even more disturbing is the fact that it has a seasonal annual cycle, and the peak temperature is usually about April or May. By the end of August it’s normally about half way to the annual low.

That represents a LOT of excess energy—more than humanity produces in a year. Think of the oceans as a giant thermal battery. It takes nearly ten thousand times as much energy to heat a cubic meter of sea water compared to a cubic meter of surface air.

El Niños are disruptive under the best of circumstances. And while some, such as the 2015 event, had little or no impact on California, you can be sure they were noticed elsewhere. What seemed like half of Australia burned in that one.

And these aren’t normal circumstances. Temperatures, for both the El Niño itself and planet-wide, are off the charts. There’s no way we can have all those extra petajoules of energy slopping around without something going “bang” and messing a lot of stuff up.

Central and Southern California, going by the track record, can expect heavy, perhaps extreme amounts of rain, starting around mid December. Northern California, where most of the big reservoirs are and which can handle lots of rain (we’ve averaged 65” per year for the past four years), is not as certain. The gray area between copious rain and the expected drought for the Pacific Northwest (the last thing they need) falls directly over us.

The coastal regions of California may be looking at a “perfect storm” confluence of events: higher overall sea levels caused by expanding warm waters pushed up to us from the El Niño, King Tides in late December and late January are caused by lunar orbits, and would be exacerbated by surges from approaching storms. It’s reasonable to assume we’ll see at least some coastal flooding.

Of greater concern are the expected atmospheric rivers. Depending on their source, they can either have low snow levels (out of the Gulf of Alaska) or very high snow levels. The right sequence could lead to severe run-off and flooding, similar to 1992-3. And in south and central parts of the state, rainfall totals could be well above average.

While California is better prepared for major storm events than most areas, one can only go so far, and it’s best to prepare for extreme events. To repeat what I wrote above: “Talk to insurance appraisers, climatologists, hydrologists, and local and regional disaster preparedness outfits, and get an idea of what challenges you might end up facing.” Ask about worst case scenarios, because while nobody wants to have a major disaster, it’s best to know what your options are beforehand.

People living below dams, in canyons, or below recent burn areas are at greatest risk. Any such area can experience debris flows even in areas with decent flood abatement processes in place. And if we get a significant snowpack in the late fall and early winter, be prepared in case a warm, wet system comes in. Areas normally not subject to flooding and/or debris flows will be at risk. While nobody expects another Nepal, more Montecitos are likely to happen.

And remember; the United States will be missing in action. The current administration is actively blocking aid and disaster relief to states Trump doesn’t like, and California is #1 on his hate list. As far as this administration is concerned, we’re on our own.

There will be weather related-catastrophes over the next 18 months. And while California might get lucky, be prepared.

And pay attention to weather forecasts. Even though the DOGE cuts have done significant damage to NOAA and NWS, they are still incredibly valuable. This year, they might save your life.

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Abolish the Senate? — Too many other things must happen first

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 29th, 2026

There’s been an uproar this week over an acknowledgment by DSA co-chair Megan Romer that among other things, the party platform advocated for ending the Senate as we know it. The political right and center are horrified at the notion, but it’s one that bears examination since over the past 70 years, the American fascist right have exploited the anti-democratic bias built in to the nature of the Senate and used it to create the ineffective and now almost-failed government we have today.

James Madison defended the role of the Senate in the proposed Constitution in Federalist Paper #62, For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, February 27, 1788: “In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.

“Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the smaller States, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from those of the other States, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger.”

Even Madison was leery of unrestrained democracy, something that hadn’t been tried anywhere in over a thousand years. Thus he signed off on this, along with such anti-democratic measures such as the electoral college or the provision that permitted slaves to be counted in the decennial census but not as citizens in order to increase representation for the South.

Back in 2001, I wrote, “The Constitution, with its much stronger federal presence, supplanted the Articles of Confederation.

“But the mistrust among the states was high, and the weaker states wanted some guarantees against the

stronger states dominating them economically, politically, or militarily.

“Thus the constitution contained all sorts of provisions to prevent such from occurring. No state could

conduct foreign policy. No state could place any tax or tariff on trade with any other state. No state could coin money or establish other rates of exchange. The power of the states was considerably weakened.

“Further, the Senate granted determination in the Senate to state governments. Each state legislature

could appoint two Senators to the upper house, which meant that Delaware had as much say in the Senate as Pennsylvania. At a time when Delaware had legitimate reason to worry about conflict with Pennsylvania,including embargo or even invasion, it seemed like a good safeguard.

“There were two legislative houses. One was to be elected by the people of the states and apportioned

by state population. The other was to be appointed by the state government, and apportioned in equal measure to each state.

“Given the measure of mistrust among the states and the general shakiness of the nascent nation, it

seemed a good compromise, and indeed served the nation well for the next 127 years, when an amendment made the Senators elected by popular vote. There is no evidence that having Senators popularly elected was harmful, either.”

Now, there is absolutely no disputing that the House of Representatives routinely passes truly idiotic bills. Just this week alone, the House, under Mike Johnson (Trump’s only functioning penis) did this, per Brave: “Stop Insider Trading Act (H.R. 7008), passed on July 22, 2026, as a weak ethics bill that fails to require full divestment while bundling unpopular voter ID laws. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) faced opposition for provisions that critics claim deepen military integration with Israel and include partisan amendments regarding LGBTQ+ issues and state law preemption. Commentators have further criticized the House for voting to undermine the American Community Survey, arguing that eliminating this data source impedes scientific understanding and effective governance.”

I could provide thousands of examples of House fecklessness. At various points in history, they tried to outlaw charging interest on loans (t’aint biblical!), outlaw a variety of unpopular religions, ban margarine, or forbid women to wear pants. The Senate usually shot down most of those hare-brained schemes, leaving the rest for the courts or public opinion to eliminate.

Of course, these days the Senate is in equally bad straits. Just a glance at the incredible shit show Rand Paul put on with his Doctor Antony Fauci hearing, trying to use some 1,200 purloined pages from the doctor’s personal notes to show…well, presumably that Fauci conspired with China to create and propagate the COVID-19 virus. Sheer nutball stew stuff, right? The notes show nothing of the sort, of course, but they did show the utter and deep contempt Fauci has for conspiracy nuts, and his utter frustration at trying to get Trump to react to the crisis in a mature adult manner. Fauci took the Fifth over 100 times, sensing, correctly, that Paul wanted to lay a perjury trap (Paul, ever the idiot, had openly stated that intent the day before). Now, having thrown Fauci’s lawyer out of the chamber for the crime of giving Fauci legal advice, he wants to file criminal charges against him for pleading the Fifth, and won’t explain why he doesn’t mind that Trump did the same thing 450 times in testimony on the Epstein matter.

It’s an extreme example, but it’s obvious the Senate is broken. So badly broken that the media is asking the former Majority Leader and still Senator Mitch McConnell to show that he is still compos mentis, or even just still alive.

Now Romer feels the US would be better served by a unicameral (one house) legislature. It’s an attractive idea, one I’ve espoused myself. (I argued in a piece written about 2002 that the House should have 435 members, plus 200 ‘at-large’ member from the top 200 vote-getters in national elections to reduce the regionalism). Abolishing the Senate is a good subject for legitimate debate, but now isn’t the time.

You see, both the House and Senate are broken by design. Both have been reduced to rubber stamps for Trump and the fascists backing him, with vast amounts of money poured into elections making it nearly impossible to break the grip of the Senate.

The House has always been something of a circus. Ambrose Bierce in 1842 remarked, “Congress is in session and many a village is missing its idiot.” But now it is broken on purpose, part of a 70 year effort by fascists in America to break the United States government and thus create a power vacuum for churches and corporations to fill—to the detriment of the people, of course.

Breaking the Senate was easily done because the Constitutionally mandated gerrymander institute gives the least educated and most rural populace an outsized voice. In effect, only 16% of the voting population, the states electing 40 of the Senators, control the Senate. Gullible and uninformed, they were an easy target. (There’s a REASON Rush Limbaugh provided his three-hour-a-day show free to rural radio stations.)

Before we discuss Senate reform (or much of any reform, really) we have to break the power of corporations, plutocrats, and the fundamentalist churches. Until that happens, nothing else matters.

If the Democrats can win in November (and I hope many of them are democratic socialists!) their top priorities must be to get rid of Citizens United and put strong controls on campaign finance, to start enforcing antitrust legislation and break up the massive consortia that have a near-death grip on everything Americans consume, and resurrect the wall of separation between church and state. The tech bros have to be brought to heel, and outfits like Paramount broken up. No entity should be allowed to own more than a handful of broadcast stations, and internet giant such as Amazon and Google should be broken up into competing parts.

Until that happens, reform is a polite fiction. Do these things first, and then the rest will follow.

Do you want a government that protects your interests, or a fascist oligarchy who sees you only as a unit of consumption and values you purely on a profit/loss basis? Because that’s what Trump’s handlers want.

It shouldn’t be a difficult choice.

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Consent of the Governed — …and the dog that didn’t bark

Consent of the Governed

…and the dog that didn’t bark

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 18th 2026

Trump’s prime time ‘big speech’ about saving American democracy Thursday drew a total of 580,000 viewers. That’s about one in every 600 Americans. You would have to go back to the days of Truman, when maybe one in 50 households even had a television, to get numbers like that.

Two of the major networks, ABC and NBC, didn’t air the speech at all. CBS, which has a well deserved reputation for being servile to Trump, aired part of the speech, and then cut away, ironically just after Trump demanded that his FCC lift the broadcast licenses for ABC and NBC. Fox and MSNow carried part of the speech and then cut away—MSNow to fact-check the lies, Fox because they realized Trump was doing himself no favors. Newsmax ran with it, of course and as for OANN…oh, who the fuck cares? They probably ran it. They have nowhere to go, and when Trump goes down, they probably will too.

The average ratings for the combined stations that ran the speech probably ran into the tens of millions combined. And if there are any Trump supporters normally watching ABC or NBC in the first place, they would have switched to Fox or Newsmax to watch the speech, right? So it’s safe to say that not only did half the available stations not air the speech, but the remaining stations saw their ratings depressed because they did air it. I know that I normally watch Jen Psaki’s show, and when it went to Trump, I went and watched Netflix instead.

Even more curious was the fact that aside from a few relatively isolated whines, the MAGAsphere was pretty quiet about a situation they normally would be screaming of censorship by the enemies of their beloved leader. (One clear sign of a cult is when the leader is pure, noble, above reproach, and also has enemies everywhere).

Fox News, which promoted the notion of election fraud for years before the defamation suits started landing, had this, and this only, to say about Trump’s speech on election fraud: “We are not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the President’s statements and claims at this time.”

Among elected Republicans expecting catastrophe in the November midterms, the reaction seems to be “Nobody watched it? Hmm. Just as well, really.” It was “The dog that did not bark in the night.”

Trump claims 82% of Americans think the 2020 election was stolen, but polls show the number is 30%, and I’m guessing the actual number is lower because to admit Trump lost fair and square would make a person a pariah in the GOP. Did that 30% (or smaller number of true believers) raise hell about the speech not being aired? They did not.

That nobody watched the speech is telling. That very few complained of censorship is damning. This whole episode shows how weak Trump’s grasp on the reins of power has become.

I’ve been saying for some time that when support for Trump collapsed, it would be rapid and a very dangerous time. Like the Soviet Union in 1989, Trump still looks powerful and dangerous, and his supporters appear unified and resolute. But looks are deceiving. In 1988, I was working in a nightmare job for an outfit that was corrupt, incompetent and overbearing, and I told a coworker that I expected the Soviet Union to collapse within ten years. When he asked me why, I told him it was because the whole damn country was being run like our employers’ shop. I got raised eyebrows from other players in a near-future inline game when I referred to Leningrad as Saint Petersburg, then its pre-revolutionary name.

Trump is about where the USSR was in 1989. Still looks powerful and very dangerous, but completely rotten on the inside, and more importantly, losing the consent of the governed.

Consent of the governed. There’s a reason why that phrase played such a key role in the American revolution, and indeed is a factor in most revolutions that go anywhere (most don’t, of course, or just make things worse). If a ruler or government loses that, they are finished. At the start of the American revolution, less than one in three colonists supported secession, and many of those simply wanted responsible and local government while remaining under the crown. It took a fair number of British military and political blunders to move that needle significantly, but when it did, it was over for the British.

Similarly, in the Soviet Union, a similar collapse signaled the end of Soviet rule. Dismayed by an increasingly lousy economy that make it hard for people to feed, shelter and clothe themselves, and military misadventures such as Afghanistan, support for the regime simply collapsed in a matter of months. And thus the most repressive and seemingly impregnable tyranny in the history of the world just vanished overnight, with hardly a shot being fired. One day, the wall came down, and everything changed, everywhere all at once.

It should be noted that in both examples, it took decades for the two countries to recover even to the point of life that made revolution inevitable in the first place, and America is going to face some rough times when Trump and his fascist backers fall, but it will, in time, at least steer America from the course Trump has it on now. And that may save many lives.

Trump is at the fin de siècle of America’s foray into fascism. What lies ahead will be both dangerous and difficult, and there will be suffering and privation.

But it’s still better than what five more years of Trump offers.

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Dead Men Balking — Secrets and lies don’t create transparency or honesty

Dead Men Balking

Secrets and lies don’t create transparency or honesty

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 12th, 2026

I won’t miss Lindsey Graham. It wasn’t just because he became a blind, pitiful Trump supporter. It was because he assumed that role even though he knew better. In 2016, he was saying things like “There’s only one way to make America great again. Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” He called Trump “crazy,” “a jackass,” and “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” who “shouldn’t be commander-in-chief.”

He was right, of course. And then he pissed it all away in a cringing desire to cling to power.

When the inevitable collapse of America’s nasty little experiment in fascism comes, many Republicans will find themselves having to answer for their actions, and Graham would have been one of the prime examples of the perfidy, hypocrisy and viciousness of the sick converts to Trumpism. Basically, he’s lucky he’s dead.

Of course, there’s all sorts of conspiracy theories floating around, and most come from Trump’s orbit, whether psychotically (Laura Loomer blaming the Russians) or from spotlight-grabbing incompetence (Kash Patel talking about a federal investigation). Occam’s Razor doesn’t need whetting for this one: he was a guy with a heart condition who was getting on (71 years old) and he had just taken a long flight from Kiev to New York. Air travel, because of the varying cabin pressure and oxygen levels, is an elevated risk for people with cardiac or breathing problems. That’s what killed James Gandolfini and Carrie Fisher.

But this is an administration and government of secrets and lies, one that has resurrected the old Cold War tradition of Kremlinology needed to unravel the paranoid psychosis of a government running on paranoia and fear. Trump himself wasted no time taking Graham’s death and using it to promote one of his pet projects, and told us that immediately before his death, Graham called Trump to aver his support for the SAVE project, Trump’s ploy to disenfranchise millions of American voters, and promised to help herd it through the Senate. Only Trump Toadies will believe that, of course, and I’ll bet long odds there was no such phone call, and that Graham looked at the Senate, with 45 Democratic votes, 6 Republicans who were retiring and no longer needed to play up to Trump, and a Mitch McConnell gone MIA and possibly KIA, and knew the SAVE Act was dead. Graham had many faults, but stupidity wasn’t one of them. Doubtless exhausted from his long trip, he wasn’t going to call Trump, a man he did not respect, to spout chipper bullshit about one of Trump’s more treasonous fantasies.

That brings us to Mitch McConnell. Is he dead? When I first heard the rumors two weeks ago, I dismissed it as the sort of paranoid bullshit that infests the web (Cyclospora, which causes explosive diarrhea, is a plot by Big Med to scare everyone into getting vaccines, or Tallerico is a transgender vegan).

But this is a government of secrets and lies, and pretending to be alive when you’re actually dead in order to subvert democracy is about the most Mitch McConnell thing you can imagine. This, after all, is the same shameless manipulator who refused to entertain a supreme court nomination because it was less than six months until an election, but who turned around and made a supreme court nomination three years and five months later, a month before an election.

You’ve probably heard the more salient elements of the “Mitch is dead” story. His wife, Elaine Chao, was traveling in China for a long-planned sortie when her husband had a heart attack on June 14, 2026. She returned to the US on July 7. Her spokesperson said, “The Senator’s health did not warrant an immediate return to the US.”

OK, so maybe she isn’t the real dutiful and caring sort. Or maybe it was just indigestion, and they’ve been holding him incommunicado in the ICU until they’re sure the Pepto-Bismol has kicked in. No sensible wife is going to hurry all the way back for a minor four-week hospitalization for an upset tummy. After thirty-three years of marriage, a wife learns to tune out the drama.

Then there’s the video of Mitch being loaded onto the ambulance. Usually, when the patient is having a heart attack, there is an understandable atmosphere of urgency in getting the patient under oxygen and if possible, stabilized. These guys were doing the Meat Wagon Saunter. It’s end of shift. Maybe they’ll stop for a burger and beer on the way back. Oh, wait, they’re professionals. Make that a burger and soda.

While McConnell’s staffers have been maintaining that he is alive and pursuing his duties as a US Senator, nobody from his family has spoken out, which seems odd. He has three adult children from a previous marriage, any of whom might normally be willing to say whether the old man is alive or not. The only person outside of McConnell’s party apparatus willing to claim the Senator was, to his immediate knowledge, alive was CNN’s Trump flag waver Scott Jennings, who claimed, “[McConnell’s] still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes … about Iran, Ukraine, the unfolding situation in Maine, my visit to the TR Presidential Library, and even a little bit of Senate history…I told him we want to see him back at work as soon as possible.”

That story was so widely disbelieved that Jason Miciak at RawStory speculated that Jennings’ whopper of a story might amount to ‘professional suicide.’ He expanded on what Jennings said of the call, quoting him as saying “I wasn’t really expecting him to call this morning to be honest, so when the phone rang and I was able to talk to him, I was frankly pretty grateful. All the rumors about him being dead or brain dead or, you know… That’s obviously not true because he picked up the phone and called me.”

Four weeks in the hospital and that was the only person McConnell has called, apparently.

Well, that’s why America has a new cottage industry in Kremlinology. This is a paranoid, dying regime, a government of secrets and lies. Don’t expect clarity, or even common sense any time soon.

 

 

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Articles II and III — On Treason against the United States

Articles II and III

On Treason against the United States

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 1st, 2026

www.zeppscommentaries.online

 

Did you know the Constitution has a clause that could make it possible to throw out not just Donald Trump, but all of his executive orders, most of his appointments, and even the Big Beautiful Bill that is destroying the lives of millions so the rich can steal more?

Turns out the Founders did expect that at some point the populace would vomit up a complete and utter moral and ethical wastrel, and gave us an out to deal with such.

Article II, Section 4 says: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Now add this: Article III, Section 3, 2 which says: The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

It does NOT state that impeachments under Article III must be individual and separate. Nor does a Congressional finding of treason require a supermajority the way a simple impeachment would. But if the Congress finds the President committed treason, then all of his acts and appointments can be nullified.

Convicting Trump of bribery would require the same level of difficulty as, say, proving that cows really exist. He’s racked up the better part of five billion dollars through his various grifts, frauds, and outright bribes for which he has so badly abused his office. But bribery limits culpability to a now-standard Trump impeachment and given the number of corrupt cowards and lackeys in Congress, may not succeed because it would be like asking a Colombian cartel to just say no to drugs. Unless, of course, Trump sparks a popular rebellion, which he could possibly do, given his approach to things, in which case Congress might realize that throwing Trump to the wolves might save their asses from anything worse than just getting voted out of office.

Treason, of course, is much harder to prove, which is appropriate, since it is a much more serious crime than bribe-taking. That Trump acts against the best interests of the American populace is evident, but that doesn’t rise to the level of treason. His associations with antagonists to America such as Putin or Netanyahu are also pretty obvious, but minus a smoking gun, outright proof that Trump conspired to betray his country, treason would be hard to prove.

However, Trump may have committed treason with his attack on Iran. He got at least 14 American service personnel killed, and hundreds more injured. And it isn’t difficult to show that he attacked, not because of his imaginary nuclear threat, but at the behest of Netanyahu. He has publicly admitted to that. And it’s very clear that he has played around with the conduct of the operations primarily for the purposes of manipulating the markets to his own benefit and the benefit of his insider trading buddies, many of whom are sitting in his cabinet and many more are in Congress.

Anyone who gets his own soldiers killed and injured in the name of personal profit is pretty clearly committing treason. It’s an action that pretty much DEFINES treason. A case can be made that Donald Trump committed treasonous acts while serving as President.

It’s possible that Trump’s dismantling of the nation’s intelligence-gathering apparatus and undermining of relationships with friends and allies provided aid and comfort to America’s enemies, but the legal requirements for specificity and hard evidence make that a bit of a stretch.

Congress could establish a finding of treason on a simple majority vote in each House, and then proceed to impeachment. If the case is strong enough, and Congress honest enough, Trump could be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate of treason. He would have to leave office. But unlike other impeachments, it wouldn’t be just him. His officials, which would include the vice president and the cabinet would also have to go. And all his executive orders rendered null and void.

Subsequent criminal prosecutions would of course have to be conducted on an individual basis. And it’s likely that many if not most cabinet members never committed any acts that rose to the level of treason.

And while Donald Trump has always been a huge fan of the death penalty, it’s extremely unlikely that he would face capital charges. I doubt the country could stomach the notion of a president, even a shoddy specimen such as Trump, being on trial for his life. But he could face imprisonment and loss of most if not all of his fortune. (Most of it was attained through pretty dubious means to begin with!)

Will this actually happen? I’ve no idea. Honestly, the way he’s disintegrating, I think it’s far more likely that he’ll be removed under the 25th amendment for being unable to discharge his duties as president, and if it was on grounds of dementia, then he would never stand trial. And honestly, I couldn’t support trying a man who is too far gone to understand that he’s on trial, let alone for why. Even Trump deserves that much mercy.

If America learns from the lessons Trump is giving us all, then perhaps that will suffice unto the day.

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In Hot Water — The Pool Reflects Trump’s Woes

In Hot Water

The Pool Reflects Trump’s Woes

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

June 20th, 2026

For some reason, an old golden-age science fiction story has been going through my mind this week as I watch the antics of the rapidly-disintegrating Donald Trump. The 1941 story was called “Bullard Reflects” by Malcolm Jameson. It’s available free to read at the link, and is worth it simply because it has one of the greatest closing lines of all time. Jameson’s story also played a significant role in naval strategic operations going forward.

Now, Bullard’s antagonist was “Egon Ziffler, chief of secret police of the Jovian Empire—the Torturer.” Egon was vicious, vainglorious, with a wildly inflated sense of self-worth and utterly abysmal strategic or tactical skills. So, OK, there’s a lot there to remind me of Trump. But I think it’s because of the use of the word “reflect” in the story that brought it to mind.

It’s a weird situation in pretty much any context, but the fact is that Trump has probably taken more political damage from a vanity project to pretty up a Washington landmark then he has from his catastrophic defeat in his ill-considered foray against Iran. It takes real talent to put a minor refurb project ahead of America’s greatest military and diplomatic defeat in the eyes of the public, but Trump managed.

I’m talking, of course, about the Reflecting Pool. I’ve already had a couple of Trump supporters complain that “liberals never gave the Reflecting Pool a second thought until they saw an opportunity to embarrass Trump.” There’s a certain amount of truth there: most people, including most liberals, just sort of thought of the Pool as one of those pretty sites that was part of DC’s character and that was about it. It was more a matter of good taste and ambiance rather then the sort of deep significance of the Lincoln Memorial or the Vietnam Wall. So no, I never gave it much thought beyond, “Oh, that’s pretty.” I doubt most other people did, either.

Until Trump, as part of his monomaniacal and egotistical drive to reshape DC in his image, declared the Pool a disgrace and blamed its allegedly deplorable condition on Obama and Biden and any other Democrat nearby. As with his other ‘renovations’, he moved unilaterally, without regard to whether he had authority, funding, or if the property was his to reshape. Other presidents, following set procedures, have made similar changes, and nobody ever heard of them. But this is Trump, and the public, already deeply outraged by his destruction of the East Wing and the Kennedy Center, were, at best, deeply skeptical. Experts weighed in, noting that granite couldn’t hold paint well and noting that making the shallow Pool darker under that Washington sun would make the water much warmer.

The rest you know about. The algae exploded, and in an effort to contain it, they dumped in hundreds of gallons of hydrogen peroxide. It killed the algae, but, as Matt Viser at the Atlantic explained, it was replaced by “Scenedesmus, a genus of green algae nicknamed ‘Skinny Dead Mouse’ by scientists.” It’s much harder to kill. Even worse, the lining of the Pool laid out by the contractor, the aptly-named “Greenwater, Inc.” began to disintegrate and bob to the surface. The lining was the same stuff used in truckbeds, and usually works pretty well, assuming it’s given time to cure, isn’t under water, and isn’t exposed to hydrogen peroxide.

So another Trump-created crisis has turned into an utter fiasco. At last word he had stationed National Guard troops around the Pool to prevent souvenir takers from making off with the erstwhile Pool bed while his flying monkeys swamp the social media with screams that Democrats somehow sabotaged the project. This is farce of the purest ray divine.

A court blocked him from closing the Kennedy Center for two years for ‘renovations’–a move on his part to hide the utter fiasco of his renaming the center and alienating all of the world’s higher art community. The running joke was that he only had the option of 900 consecutive nights of some country and western twat yodeling “Proud to be an American” in lieu of all the other performances. He had to hide the utter failure. While the court was at it, they ordered his name removed from the center. He had that done, behind a tarp so the public couldn’t see, a calculated three hours after the court deadline. The tarp is still in place, which is having the opposite effect of what Trump hoped for by paradoxically keeping it in the public eye. There’s already rumors he didn’t really remove his name. Eventually someone will paint “8647” on the tarp and he’ll have to replace it and station more troops to guard it.

Then there was the G7 conference. It was an even bigger fiasco than the Reflecting Pool, and while the stakes are far higher, the nuances were less obvious. Hell, the Pool may have distracted the public enough to spare Trump a greater humiliation.

First, he tried, on camera, to kiss French First Lady Brigitt Macron. He looked for all the world like Uncle Pervy trying to lay a big wet on on an obviously flustered and unwilling twelve-year-old niece. But French President Emmanuel Macron already had the last laugh, arranging for the historically illiterate US leader to sign his agreement with Iran at Versailles, a place that enjoys a certain infamy when it comes to bad treaties and French vengeance.

In another extraordinary diplomatic gaffe, he claimed that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the closest thing to an ideological ally he had in the G7, ‘begged’ him to have her picture taken with him. Understandably infuriated, Meloni called the Trump claim ‘fabricated’ and wrote, “As for my popularity, being your friend has certainly not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you. My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s national interest, and that is exactly what I have always done.” Trump, ever the fool, reiterated that she begged him, ‘over and over.’ The US just lost one of its few remaining friends.

Did I mention Trump called Netanyahu a ‘motherfucker’? Yup. One of the few things he got right this week, but not particularly helpful.

Another image caught a seemingly oblivious Trump standing in the midst of other world leaders who were affably greeting and meeting, as isolated and spurned as the proverbial turd in the swimming pool.

And back to the Pool: It just came out that Olympian David Hearn was just arrested. He stopped by the Pool to see for himself, and apparently reached in and felt a chuck of the lining fragment. He then released it, stood up, and walked back to his bicycle. Park Police promptly arrested him for “destruction of government property”! You can’t make this up!

Trump apparently never heard the Charlie Chaplin quote, “The tyrant fears the laugh more than the assassin’s bullet.” But he does have some dim, rat-like awareness that looking like a fool is very dangerous for him. And in increasingly frantic efforts to counteract that, he acts like a greater fool with every passing day. And the laughter grows.

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Birthday of the Strait Man You can make a street walker think, but you can’t make a Hormuz

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

June 13th, 2026

Tomorrow, June 14th, is Barack Hussein Obama Day. Everyone alive and decent back then has a good memory. Mine was of him singing “Amazing Grace” at the church in South Carolina where a racist gun nut killed a dozen people, including Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, State Senator and pastor at that church. Very moving, and I’m not even religious.

People who hate Obama are welcome to express their thoughts, as well. We can laugh at you, and let’s face it; smearing Obama is a hell of a lot easier these days than praising Trump.

The Orange Shitstain turns 80 tomorrow, and of course he’s celebrating with all the class and dignity of a Dogpatch Kickapoo Joy Juice festival. (Oh, look it up; it’s the sort of Boomer shit the Internet was born to immortalize).

Fresh off his triumph at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, Trump announced that a peace deal with Iran would be signed tomorrow. That, or he would deploy the ultimate weapon against them. It was quite vague, which with Trump is a bit of an improvement.

I was puzzled at first. Usually Trump announces a peace deal in order to manipulate the markets for a bit of insider trading. But the markets are closed Sunday. Then it hit me: right. His big 8-0. He wants a big “peace is at hand, inflation is done, and it’s all Biden’s fault” speech for his White House Cage Match. Yes, “White House Cage Match.”

Trouble is, Iran holds the whip hand. They control the Strait of Hormuz. Even if Trump’s recent unfounded claim that the US was able to sneak 40 million barrels of oil through (even assuming tankers can tip-toe, 40m/bbl is about a month supply for California alone) was true, Iran’s control is pretty much absolute. The regime is very firmly in control, since opposition dropped out of sight. (That tends to happen in countries where you try to influence them by bombing them. Ask any Londoner). And major financial dislocation is expected to really hit in August. That’s when the last of the tankers that sailed through the Strait in late February arrive at the more distant ports—including Long Beach or Galveston or, well, you get the idea.

Trump doesn’t want massive economic dislocation six weeks before the midterms. So if he’s desperate enough, he might just accede to Iran’s demands, which include control of the Strait, $300 billion in war damage reparations, release of another $35 billion or so in frozen assets, and an agreement to reestablish the nuclear proliferation agreement that Obama negotiated and which Trump unilaterally tore up.

Yes, I’m sure they included that last as a deliberate insult to Trump, but why not? Assuming they don’t really want to build nuclear weapons—and the fact that they haven’t in the past 45 years that they could have is suggestive—the agreement costs them little and helps ensure stability in the region.

Of course, Trump is almost certainly lying. Isn’t this the fortieth “peace is at hand” declaration he’s made since it became obvious he wasn’t going to get a quick-and-dirty win like he did in Venezuela? So whatever he says at tomorrow’s trash-fest, don’t believe it.

Suppose we all get a giant surprise tomorrow and Iran announces that a deal has been reached? That the Strait of Hormuz is now open for business, with Iran getting $10 million per supertanker and all the rest of it. Trump will strut and dance like a lobotomized Robin Williams on Quaaludes, Republican congressmen will drop to their knees if not already there and sing hosannas, and on Monday the markets will explode, making “irrational exuberance” look like mildly amused.

Only…well there’s a fly in the ointment. Remember what I said about the last ships to clear the Strait in late February arriving in August? There’s about 2,000 ships awaiting passage. The Strait in normal times can handle 100 ships a day, so there’s a three week backlog just to clear the existing traffic. So normal shipping wouldn’t resume until early July. Now factor in what I call “transit latency” – the amount of time needed for ships to reach their destination ports. While two months is average, some destinations lie five months away.

So trade won’t even begin to reach normal levels until…hmm…September. Careful calculation reveals that that comes after August, the point where things start to come apart in earnest.

So even if the crows of an agreement being signed tomorrow actually are more than the usual Trump duck-and-weave bullshit, it’s too late. Trump probably doesn’t have the brights to understand any of that, but his handlers certainly do, and after a brief pause for the sell-short guys to weigh in, the markets will, as well. An actual market crash in June is possible. Then the fun begins in earnest. Come August, we’re screwed.

It comes at a time when we already face: A screwworm invasion, a massive disruption in medical supplies, a super El Niño that may start making significant disruptions by September—including, yes, shipping lanes—and several financial bubbles—housing, AI, and derivatives—all nearing the point of the inevitable implosion. And it comes at a time when the government is crippled by the self-serving malice of the Trump crime syndicate and the sheer libertarian foolishness of the tech bros headed by trillionaire Elon Musk.

I used to joke that I didn’t write summer solstice pieces because if the message in the winter solstice piece was that the sun was coming back so there is hope, a summer solstice theme would have to be “it’s all downhill from here.” My winter solstice piece preceded a planned two-month hiatus that extended to six months because I’m a lazy bastard, but here we are approaching a summer solstice, and here I am, with a message.

And that message is: “Cheer up. Most of us will get through this.”

 

 

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Solstice 2025 — The end of the beginning is not the beginning of the end

Solstice 2025

The end of the beginning is not the beginning of the end

To say we’re in perilous times is a bit like saying that crossing the Sahara on foot presents challenges. Even if you only know a small portion of the possibilities, it’s a daunting prospect.

Historians are all too familiar with what we are going through right now. Most nations on Earth have, at one point or another, had a leader who was utterly mad, utterly corrupt, and utterly contemptuous of the damage his actions were causing.

Just as the specifics of such misrules are as varied as human psychopathology, so too are the end results. The spectrum can range from utter ruin to widespread reform that restores sanity and a functional society and economy. Determinants include how much the Mad Emperor gets away with before the inevitable collapse, the strength of the saner and more stable traditions of the nation so afflicted, and the extent of the damage.

European history is full of Mad Emperors, and the results cover the full panoply ranging from the Emperor being executed or deposed to widespread war, an emptied treasury, and even occupation by annoyed neighbors. England had both the mildest and one of the worst examples of such; in 1688 the generally incompetent and egotistic James II was bloodlessly overthrown by William and Mary of the somewhat better-behaved House of Orange. It was done so competently and peacefully that few Britons realized they had staged an invasion and coup. To this day the “Glorious Revolution” is seen as a peaceful transfer of power, much like Presidential inaugurations were. At the other end of the spectrum was Charles I, who led England to a civil war followed by a vicious republic of religious fanatics. You could say he was in over his head.

In fact, England is noted for its monarchs of misrule. I could easily give as horrible examples Edward II, Henry VI (who also caused a civil war), Richard III, Henry VIII, and George IV of whom one of his aides wrote,‘A more contemptible, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog does not exist. There have been good and wise kings but not many of them and this I believe to be one of the worst.’

That last one might sound familiar to most of us. Wikipedia says of him, “He led an extravagant lifestyle that contributed to the fashions of the Regency era. He was a patron of new forms of leisure, style and taste. He commissioned John Nash to build the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and remodel Buckingham Palace, and commissioned Jeffry Wyatville to rebuild Windsor Castle. George’s charm and culture earned him the title “the first gentleman of England”, but his dissolute way of life and poor relationships with his parents and his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, earned him the contempt of the people and dimmed the prestige of the monarchy. He excluded Caroline from his coronation and asked the government to introduce the unpopular Pains and Penalties Bill in an unsuccessful attempt to divorce her…George’s rule was tarnished by scandal and financial extravagance. His ministers found his behaviour selfish, unreliable and irresponsible, and he was strongly influenced by favourites.”

Hoo, boy. And good old George IV would actually be an improvement over what we have now. “The first gentleman” is not a phrase that springs readily to the minds of most Americans when it comes to The Leader.

But if you take a look at the map, you’ll notice that it still says “England” on that portion of the British Isles. Similarly, other nations that have had even far worse and more destructive rulers are still there: France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Russia, and Italy. All suffered horribly at various junctures because of vicious and incompetent misrule. But they survived, and while all cultures change and evolve, none were annihilated by Mad Emperors. Even the most extreme recent example, Germany, came out of Hitler’s horrific 12 years and eventually became the prosperous and peaceful land it is today.

I can’t begin to guess how much damage this regime has done to America at this point. I strongly suspect our national security is now at best a joke, with most of our most strategic secrets available for Kremlin perusal. Project 2025, the thinly disguised rape of the national treasury and elimination of those pesky civil rights, has proceeded apace, and millions of Americans are facing financial ruin and deprivation as a result. All America’s allies are estranged, and rivals are picking our bones. We’ve lost, perhaps for decades, the advantages of free trade and good will.

Mad rulers die and/or are deposed sooner rather than later. Many bring doom upon themselves. Without the mesmerizing toxic attraction of the madman (or as John Randolph once wrote about Henry Clay, ‘like a rotten mackerel in the moonlight, he both shines and stinks.‘) public fury against the architects of Project 2025 will explode.

I can’t predict how much more damage we’ll take, or how harsh or prolonged the recovery will be. All I can promise is that there will be a recovery. Many nations have suffered worse than America is going through now, and survived to tell the tale. America will, as well, and with great good luck, will emerge with its core values of democracy and justice still intact. That will speed the recovery.

And yes, there will be a recovery. It may be painful, but those that live to see it will be the lucky ones.

The sun rises again tomorrow.

Don’t lose hope. Never lose hope.