Category: Trump Second Term

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Springtime for Trumpie and USA — Winter for … well, everybody

Springtime for Trumpie and USA

Winter for … well, everybody

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 19th 2025

It really does feel like March 1933, doesn’t it? Hitler has just seized power. In America, the country is teetering on the verge of collapse, and a dozen states are no longer accepting US currency, opting for state script instead. A third of the banks have collapsed, and millions are starving, desperate, homeless. The Republicans are saying the poor are refusing to buy food or pay rent in order to punish the rich. A new guy, an affable and seemingly shallow New York pol named Roosevelt is about to be inaugurated, and the same people beating their breasts over starving children refusing to keep millionaires comfortable are warning the country will collapse, banks will fail, and people will suffer greatly—just like they did under Republicans, only they leave that last bit out and hope nobody notices. Meanwhile, Japan has expanded over much of west Asia and is making little effort to conceal its plans for the Philippines, Indonesia, and even Australia.

We’re at about January 1933 if the parallels hold up. Things are bad and look to get far worse in the near future.

American voters were seduced by an unholy coalition of plutocrats and zealots, who gleefully encouraged people to be their worst. Hate immigrants, gay and trans people, liberals, non-Christians and anyone with a good education. They believe such ridiculous lies as immigrants have a higher crime rate and eat people’s cats and dogs; gays and trans are forcing children to have sex-change operations in secret, liberals want us all to live in caves and hug trees, and non-Christians are completely amoral and most are terrorists. And worst of all, the educated sneer at morons and use big words. It’s why flat earthers hate astrophysicists.

It’s not really a surprise that a crowd like that would vomit up a con artist, a rapist, a philanderer and a felon to the oval office—again. What is shocking is that there are so many Low People (as Stephen King once famously referred to them as) that they could do it. I think a lot of fundamentalists are correct that only God can make people good. Take anyone who thinks that only an invisible, silent sky pixie in his head stops him from stealing, raping, cheating and killing, and give him permission to be a scumbag in the name of god and country, and you end up with a depressingly large number of scumbags.

How low? Well, look at the politicians who watched the Los Angeles fires and thought to themselves, “Hey, I can use that to blackmail the country into doing what I want!” Sure, they’ll provide aid. But they want … conditions.

It’s about as low as an American politician can possibly sink. Donald Trump is one of those politicians, of course, but that’s no surprise. There are mob bosses, serial killers and CEOs with more principles and decency. A lot of it comes from states that California has sent many billions of dollars helping after disasters, such as Florida. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Scumsuckers) said, “I believe that if a state is so grossly mismanaged that the initial disaster is not quickly contained, then we have a responsibility to do common-sense things.” OK, but remember your whole fucking state is going to be underwater by the end of the century, and you’ll be begging for our help. “Rebuild maybe so that the conditions are such that the threat from fire is lessened so that we won’t have to do it again,” added Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Mewling Hypocrites). Have you asked California for aid in hardening your structures against hurricanes, Carly? Oh, and what’s your stance on immigrants? Ready to throw those whiny ungrateful Cubans out?

At least Florida, like California, contributes more in revenues to the country then it gets back. It’s small compared to the $85-120 billion California overpays, but at least Florida carries its own weight. The loudest whiners come from pauper states that take far more than they give back. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Blub blub blub), a shell of a man emptied by toxic religion and subservience to Donald Trump, indignantly demands conditions. Say, Mike, how much did California demand in return for helping after Katrina? Or any of the other dozens of catastrophes your state has suffered?

Gavin Newsom said of Trump last year, “Everything was a transaction against his own citizens.”

Indeed. Well, expect more of that. Trump is out to punish anyone who didn’t vote for him. States, individuals, it doesn’t matter. He feels victimized because people hate him for being a hateful person, and he is out for revenge. It’s all very noble, you know.

But Trump and his followers have various weaknesses to exploit. The MAGAts and zealots are of a fundamentalist mindset, and are rapidly developing factions and schisms over such issues as whether there are “good immigrants” versus the regular kind, or how much government should be destroyed. (Most, but far from all, are smart enough to want to keep the parts of government they benefit from.) Those can be exploited. The billionaires have a united front right now, but wait until they start seeing others getting favored treatment, whether they actually are or not.

And finally, Trump himself has myriad weaknesses. He’s vain and cowardly. He just moved his inauguration inside and semi-private, supposedly because of cold weather (24F, or -5C, but who could have guessed it would be cold in January?) but I suspect he feared a small crowd would be there, or worse, a large unfriendly crowd from the 100,000 strong demonstration held two days before. He also doesn’t hesitate to screw over his helpers and followers. He’s infamous for that. Tens of thousands of people spend large amounts of money-in some cases life savings—to bear witness to his glorious restoration to the throne, only to have him cancel just 36 hours prior. Even the given reason was stupid. And threatening America’s best allies seems like a really dumb idea, especially given the quality of the few “world leaders” who do support him in Russia, China, Hungary or North Korea.

And you’re seen the quality of his cabinet and other position nominees. You could find a better collection of people in the county drunk tank on a Saturday night with a full moon. Criminals, bankrupts, white supremacists, conspiracy nuts and fools. It’s like each was made from a shaving off Donald Trump himself.

Lastly, there’s Trump’s competence. Or lack thereof. His followers are going to be very upset that many of his “first day” promises are vaporware, idiot ideas aimed at angry morons. His followers, as is usually the case, will be the first to get hit by his supposed brainstorms. Pissing off an angry, ignorant mob that has already been artificially riled up by propaganda seems like a really dumb idea.

As for the rest of us, resist in any way possible. Be rude. Be firm. Make life as difficult as possible for these idiots. And maybe we can salvage the country by doing so.

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Cry Havoc! — And let slip the war of dogs!

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 3rd, 2025

For those of you familiar with Marc Antony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, no, I didn’t transpose the famous quote. This isn’t a mustering of the troops. This is just an avoidable dog fight amongst mangy curs scrapping over carrion.

I’m referring to the opening day of the 119th House of Representatives. The second order of business (after the quorum call) is the vote to select a new Speaker. Mike Johnson (R-Self-Styled Christians Who Worship Trump) is the current Speaker—for now. A weak man stuck in an impossible situation, he’s been the least effective Speaker since the antebellum era, the last time the nation has been so divided by sectionalism. The Democrats, at least, are taking it seriously. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who fractured her hip and had it replaced last month, is there. They know there is an outside chance that in all the chaos, they could end up in control of the House. At the very least, they can enjoy the spectacle of the Republicans self-destructing. The margin Republicans enjoy in the House is one vote. And at least one Republican, Thomas Massie (R-Screaming Right Wing Loons) has indicated to kindred soul Matt Gaetz (former R-Pedophiles, now OANN flack) that he would not be supporting Johnson. Colorfully. “You can pull all my fingernails out; you can shove bamboo up in them; you can start cutting off my fingers…I am not voting for Mike Johnson tomorrow, and you can take that to the bank.” OK, let’s put him down as a tentative no vote. A new complicating factor is Chip Roy (R-Mean Texas Bigots) who wants to be in charge of the Rules Committee. The MAGA coalition allow that if Johnson endorses Roy for that role, it might bring the non-Massey coalition in line and put Johnson over the top. However, the other 150 members of the GOP caucus who aren’t completely insane aren’t impressed. Don Bacon from Nebraska told the press, “Putting Chip Roy in charge of the rules committee is like putting Stalin in charge of amnesty and diplomacy.” This puts Johnson in an impossible situation—support the loathsome Roy and risk losing non-MAGA Republicans, or reject him, which would probably cost him three or four MAGA votes, perhaps more. Well, hee-whack. He didn’t support Roy, to his faint credit. Massie voted for the 118th House Majority Whip, Tom Emmer, so Johnson’s margin is zero. Why am I paying such close attention to this? Well, without a House Speaker, the new Congress, whose members were sworn in earlier today, cannot convene. Until they have selected the Speaker, the only thing they can do under the Constitution is select a new Speaker. They don’t officially exist until that happens. …and Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina just voted for House Republican Gym Jordan (R-Men’s Shower Room). Right. Cry havoc, indeed. Havoc is a neat word. It means either “wide and general destruction” or “great confusion and disorder.” The GOP have just implemented the second meaning of the term. Congress is paralyzed. They can’t certify Donnie as President. For starters. I’m wondering what happens on the 20th if Donnie still hasn’t been certified. Trump himself realizes it’s a very important formality—he staged an insurrection to try to prevent Biden from being certified almost four years ago. I’m sure folks remember. This is the third go-around where the GOP have imploded over picking a speaker. It took 15 votes to get Mike Johnson, a relative unknown, into office that last time. Almost two weeks. That takes us very close to January 20th, you know? Living where I do, I know any number of idiots who opine that the United States would be better off without a government. Or they want a government in charge of cops and the military and nothing else, thus owing nothing to the people. Every so often I point out that if government spending is the heart of the economy, keeping the blood flowing, then governance is the brain. The United States without a government, one responsible to the people, is just another shit hole country like Russia or Hungary, and at worse is a vast anarchy like Somalia. It would fly apart, and there’s maybe ten states with the economic might and diversity to survive as sovereign nations. Most of the red states would be economic basket cases without the support of the nation. The MAGAts, who love America but hate the United States, may be taking us on the first step along that path. I’ve suggested this before, and now I’ll do so again: if just five Republicans cross the aisle, and become Democrats, this would not only provide the country with a functional Congress, but blunt the horrors that Trump hopes to visit upon us. He’d threaten to primary them like he does, but as Dems, they would be facing a Republican in the next election anyway. It’s unlikely to happen, but if enough simply abstain from voting at some point in the Speaker votes to come, Hakeem Jeffries could take over, and the country can remain functional. Trump is bad. Anarchy with Trump pretending to be president would be even worse.
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Overall Sickness — More poison is the only cure, Trump thinks

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 18th, 2024

“The shocking assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO on a New York City sidewalk earlier this month is viewed as “acceptable” by four in 10 young adults, an Emerson College poll found.

“The survey concluded that 41 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 – a percentage that far exceeds any other age group – found the shooting to be either “somewhat” or “completely” acceptable.

“Additionally, 23 percent of adults in their 30s thought the shooting was acceptable, along with 13 percent of adults in their 40s, 8 percent in their 50s and 10 percent in their 60s and 70s.”

–Raw Story

Donald Trump (R-Rich White Trash) weighed in, saying, “I think it’s really terrible that some people seem to admire him (Luigi Mangione), like him. And I was happy to see that it wasn’t specific to this gentleman that was killed. It’s just an overall sickness, as opposed to a specific sickness. That was a terrible thing. It was cold-blooded. Just a cold-blooded, horrible killing. And how people can like this guy is — that’s a sickness, actually.”

As usual, Trump got it completely wrong. It was specific, if not to Brian Thompson personally, to his role in the medical coverage system. Pretending it was result of of “overall sickness” is just giving protection to our screwed-up medical system.

That America has an overall sickness is beyond dispute. Just the other day we had another school shooting, three dead including the shooter, a 15 year-old girl. Just as I was responding to a gun nut on Facebook who called me “evil” for advocating for gun licenses. (Haven’t heard back from him.)

And of course, the fact that Trump got elected is proof that a plurality of voters have lost their minds and their sense of decency.

But Trump’s personal contributions to that “overall sickness” could fill volumes. He swears he’s going to issue a blanket pardon to all the rioters jailed in the wake of the January 6th insurrection, quite a few of whom are violent, unrepentant criminal filth. He wants to try members of the J6 Congressional committee for treason, apparently unaware that quite aside from the fact that they were committing the opposite of treason, the Constitution explicitly protects members of Congress for anything said in the chambers while in session. Doesn’t matter, I suppose: none of Trump’s supporters care what the Constitution says.

He hasn’t hesitated to call for the execution of protesters—yes, including peaceful protest—who didn’t riot on his behalf. Death is cheap under Trump; he has a long list of people who he thinks should be executed or thrown in prison for life. He very avidly wants to execute people, and has stuff the once-proud Supreme Court who have allowed executions to proceed, even when the prosecutors and the family of the victims begged them not to. He has proudly posed with the likes of Daniel Penny and Kyle Rittenhouse. Both indisputably killed people, but got off in court. More of that overall sickness, I suppose.

But then, we’ve established that under fascist rule, you don’t have to actually be guilty of any crime in order to justify being executed by the state. Trump has made that clear. His criminals get pardons, of course.

Sebastrian Gorka, who looks and sounds like an extra from a film about Stalin’s Politburo, came out the other day and said that anyone who expresses approval of the slaying of Brian Thompson should be executed. Gorka may sound like the dreary, bitter old drunk at the end of the bar whom everyone hope will pass out soon, but he is slated to serve as deputy assistant to the president and serve as senior director for counterterrorism in the NSC.

Gorka is probably something of a pretend intellectual and self-styled political scientist, but even he ought to be aware that while advocating for someone’s murder is a criminal act (as well it should be), expressing approval that someone died is not. “They ought to shoot so-and-so” can get you arrested and possibly convicted. “That son-of-a-bitch had it coming” is not a crime. It’s just an opinion.

But Gorka is more interested, like his empty, vainglorious master, in causing suppression and fear, and has no use for any moral niceties that may be involved.

But he likes history, so he should be aware of a saying about powerful leaders that has applied everywhere throughout history: “When you make dissent impossible, you make revolution inevitable.”

I doubt Gorka or Trump possess the wisdom to know when to slip the iron fist back into the velvet glove. Meanwhile, the new regime will add me to their list, if I’m not already there.

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Dogeball — What we expect is bad enough…

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 14th 2024

I think that for most people, the results of the election last month were like being four years in remission, going to your oncologist for a routine scan, only to get the bad news. It’s back, and it has metastasized.

We’re already seeing the plutocracy manipulate the idiot Trump into creating the most blatant kleptocracy in world history. Elon Musk is in charge of the utterly fraudulent “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE.

Let me make a slight digression here: There was an elected office, “The Doge of Venice.” The office existed from 697 CE to 1797 CE. The holder ruled Venice in the name of the oligarchy, and not surprisingly, became fantastically corrupt. Each was elected for life by a council of 40 town aristocrats (the 40 thieves) but it got so bad that according to Wikipedia, “after 1268, the doge was constantly under strict surveillance: he had to wait for other officials to be present before opening dispatches from foreign powers; he was not allowed to possess any property in a foreign land.” That reduced, but far from eliminated the grift and graft that has made the word “Doge” synonymous with corruption. Musk is a stupid person’s idea of a genius, so it’s debatable as to his love of the word stems from arrogance or simple ignorance. “Dogecoin,” dodgy even by bitcoin standards, says it all, really.

So Elon wants to recommend all the agencies that oversee his particular endeavors be privatized (NASA would become a department of SpaceX) or simply eliminated altogether.

National defense would be overseen by Peter Hegseth, a drunk and (kindly phrased) a womanizer. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is meant to oversee Health and Human Services. While he was supposedly backed away from his anti-vax stances, his chosen pick for deputy wants to suspend polio vaccines while the government conducts a double-blind study of its safety and effectiveness. And of course Kennedy still believes the long-discredited conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism.

Kelly Loeffler, a billionaire, and so reactionary even the voters of Georgia couldn’t stomach her, is meant to be head of the Small Business Administration.

Brooke Rollins, former head of the virulently right-wing America First Policy Institute is slated to run the Department of Agriculture. “Small farmers” controlling more than 100,000 acres line up here, please.

Scott Turner, former football player, is picked to run HUD. If single mothers can’t afford housing, they should become NFL players.

Scott Bessent, a hedge fund trader, would run the Treasury Department. Keep investigating those hedge fund traders, guys! I’m sure Scott’s behind you 100%.

Pam Bondi, a notorious election denier and Trump cheerleader will be the Attorney-General. She’ll be in charge of rounding up members of Congress who investigated Trump and any federal law enforcement officials who caused him even momentary discomfort.

The Education Department will be run by the head of a Pro Wrestling outfit. “Wrestling isn’t fake: science is fake.”

A billionaire will be running Commerce. There is absolutely no possibility he would use the position to feather his own nest, because vulture capitalists are nothing if not honest, decent people.

We won’t even bother with the rest of the billionaires (who will make up most of Trump’s cabinet, accurately reflecting America since most of the 330,000,000 people are also billionaires) or the collection of Faux News hosts, a job requirement of which is skillful and unconscionable lying.

It’s small wonder Trump wanted to eliminate FBI background checks (did I mention that Putin stooge Tulsi Gabbard will be running the FBI?) and provide greater ease in making unvetted recess appointments.

I wonder when Trump will change his title from President of the United States to Doge of America? Is America going to the Doge?

Our only real hope is that the sheer incompetence and malice of Trump will bring him down, hopefully by legal and peaceful means. Only an utterly daft fool believes life will improve for the average worker or student or child or retiree under this Duchy.

Over the past few days, there’s been something of a panic over drones spotted over New Jersey. (Was that too sharp a curve? Hey, guys, the essay is over here—I was going to spare you discussion of Matt Gaetz, or the felonious Ambassador to France, or what we’ve done to poor old Greece.)

Anyway, the drones. It reminds me a bit of the big Chinese balloon panic a couple of years back (somewhere I have a meme of a girl in a red vinyl minidress and MAGA cap, lying in a parking lot where she obviously fainted, being offered water by a concerned friend who is telling her, “It’s OK—Joe Biden made the bad balloons go away”). It’ll probably turn out to be something fairly innocuous, and the right wing will have to go looking for its next moral panic. (How about “Atheists are forcing children to abort themselves in the name of Satan”?)

But it cross my mind that if it was some concerted plan of attack, the next few months will be the ideal time. America is going to be in utter chaos as the Doge Trump era begins, both the intentional chaos of the plutocrats raping the country blind, and the unintentional chaos of the sheer incompetence we should expect. We may well be utterly paralyzed, unable to defend ourselves.

If enemies, either foreign or domestic ones not already taking power ever wanted to defeat America, they’ll never have a better chance.

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