Category: Foreign Affairs

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Da Week Dat Wuz — Things rapid enough for ya?

Da Week Dat Wuz

Things rapid enough for ya?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

June 15th, 2025

 

The past ten days have been about as wild as it gets. It reminds me of an observation the then-prestigious Times of London made in late April of 1945, in the wake of Roosevelt’s death, the collapse of Germany, and Hitler’s suicide: “Events seem to be happening with extreme rapidity.”

We’ve seen huge impromptu demonstrations in Los Angeles (and spreading rapidly to other cities), an assassination (with the assassin, apparently a Trump supporter, still on the loose), a Senator manhandled and briefly arrested at a press conference for asking a question, a planned demonstration that its organizers claim attracted 12 million people nationwide, a war in the middle east threatening to engulf the world (like most conflicts there do at one point or another) another war between two nuclear powers that has only grudgingly slowed down to hurling insults, a landmark court decision determining the limits on presidential ability to call out the national guard, and increasing chaos surrounding the fate of what may be the most problematic budget bill in American history.

In the background behind much of this was the constant incompetence and stupidity of the Trump administration. To paraphrase the late great P.J. O’Rourke, “What in most administrations would be considered roadblocks in this administration is usually the road.” You have the Speaker of the House calling for an arrest of a governor (of California, no less) for disagreeing with a President about the illegal deployment of troops. Note that it wasn’t the governor breaking the law in this instance.

The month began, as so many weird and crackpot things do, with Trump’s Truth Social account, which reposted an utterly demented conspiracy theory that Joe Biden had, in fact, been assassinated in 2020 and replace with something called “a robotic clone.” Um, does that mean the original Biden was a robot, and if so, why clone it when you can just swing by Radio Shack and build a new one?

It remains unproven that Trump was upset when someone posted “TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out” in the Wall Street Journal. But that didn’t stop the most idiotic and corrupt Attorney General in American history (yes, even worse than John Mitchell) from stating that anyone calling Trump a TACO would be arrested, thus creating a viral meme that threatens to be bigger than the dumb blonde arguing with a white cat, or even “Hitler finds out.”

A rumor made the rounds that FIFA was considering pulling the World Cup out of the United States. People knew it was a joke when it was reported FIFA was upset about the corruption and ineptitude of the administration, which is a bit like hearing the drummer for Blue Cheer requesting the band play a bit more quietly. No, FIFA isn’t pulling the World Cup.

Trump and Elon Musk had a breakup that was done with all the class and dignity of a drunken hair-pulling brawl amongst the girls backstage at a seedy strip club. Trump’s endlessly fascinating association with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein came up during their quiet discussion.

Trump had his grand military parade yesterday, and it had about the same spirit and verve of baseball fans leaving a stadium after a three-hour rain delay turns into a cancellation. Trump just sat there and reminded everyone of the old Leslie Gore song, while a girl, presumably a niece or something, chewed on a miniature American flag behind him. One headline snarked “By the tens, Americans turned out to cheer for Trump’s birthday.” Even the troops seemed unenthusiastic, with several groupings not even marching in step. It’s one thing to be proud and military; quite another to be used as a prop in a Marx Brothers movie.

I’ve been saying for several weeks that we’ve seen the high water mark of what historians might end up calling “the Trump madness.” We’ve already seen the twin towers of his economic policy—tariffs and the Ayn Randian wet dream in his “Big Beautiful Bill”—effectively collapse.

Trump’s Hitlerian dream of ridding America of “vermin” now seems to be falling apart. He thoroughly pissed off and dismayed his most stridently racist supporters by floating the idea of a “gold card” for Visas that could be purchased for just five million dollars by any Russian plutocrat or Columbian drug lord willing to put up the money. Trump seemed to think most agricultural workers and hotel maids had a few million or so laying around, and that this scheme would generate five trillion or so.

And now it seems, with demonstrations spreading and Trump’s standing in the polls deep underwater on his biggest political strength—throwing out eleven million people—ICE is being ordered to rethink their priorities. A memo was released by a ranking Gazpacho officer, Tatum King, that said, “please hold on all worksite enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meatpacking plants), restaurants, and operating hotels…other case types/investigations such as human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are ok, however we are not pursuing non-criminal collaterals.”

It’s unlikely that Jesus came to Trump in his sleep and told him “Try to act like a fucking human being.” More likely Trump was dismayed by the spread of the demonstrations, his loss of support on what had been his centerpiece campaign stump item, and, most likely of all, intense pressure from the corporations and special interests that exploit and make billions on immigrant labor—hotel and restaurant chains, Big Agriculture, and other parties that profit from the near-slavery conditions imposed on people trying just to survive. Many of them are, of course, Republicans, because humans exist to make money for their betters, right? Trump was seriously interfering with that.

It’s a hard and very welcome slap on Steven Miller’s gleaming pate, but there’s no shortage of little shit states with mad dictators who would welcome someone with Steve’s unique personality and talents. He’ll find his own little Holocaust to run and do fine. Meanwhile, I bet the administration is already Photoshopping him out of the group pix already.

I don’t expect things to calm down, but I do think Trump and his minions will continue to see their power ebb.

At least, one can hope.

 

ADDENDUM: Trump just tweeted this: “Our Nation’s ICE Officers have shown incredible strength, determination, and courage as they facilitate a very important mission, the largest Mass Deportation Operation of Illegal Aliens in History. Every day, the Brave Men and Women of ICE are subjected to violence, harassment, and even threats from Radical Democrat Politicians, but nothing will stop us from executing our mission, and fulfilling our Mandate to the American People. ICE Officers are herewith ordered, by notice of this TRUTH, to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.

“In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside. These, and other such Cities, are the core of the Democrat Power Center, where they use Illegal Aliens to expand their Voter Base, cheat in Elections, and grow the Welfare State, robbing good paying Jobs and Benefits from Hardworking American Citizens.

“These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities — And they are doing a good job of it! There is something wrong with them. That is why they believe in Open Borders, Transgender for Everybody, and Men playing in Women’s Sports — And that is why I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers, to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role. You don’t hear about Sanctuary Cities in our Heartland! I want our Brave ICE Officers to know that REAL Americans are cheering you on every day. The American People want our Cities, Schools, and Communities to be SAFE and FREE from Illegal Alien Crime, Conflict, and Chaos. That’s why I have directed my entire Administration to put every resource possible behind this effort, and reverse the tide of Mass Destruction Migration that has turned once Idyllic Towns into scenes of Third World Dystopia.

“Our Federal Government will continue to be focused on the REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came, and preventing the admission of ANYONE who undermines the domestic tranquility of the United States,” he concluded. “To ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, the Patriots at Pentagon and the State Department, you have my unwavering support. Now go, GET THE JOB DONE! DJT”

So make of that what you will. I wonder if Miller wrote it. “Remigration” sounds like something Hitler might have come up with.

 

 

 

 

 

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Why Dictators Stop Being Great — They Fall; Hitler, Stalin…Trump

‪Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 27th 2025

“It’s easy to be cynical about public opinion, but scholars of authoritarianism are pretty clear that there’s a serious difference in what an autocrat polling at 80% and what one polling at 40% can do. Not obeying in advance includes not surrendering to specious narratives of omnipotence.”

Tim Marchman‬, ‪@timmarchman.bsky.social‬

Perhaps the most reassuring item in the news this week was that Trump is cratering in all the polls. Overall, his approval rating is minus 10 (45-55) and he’s underwater on all policy elements, including immigration. Apparently throwing out American toddlers with cancer is, even for the most rabid haters in MAGA, a bit much.

Marchman is absolutely correct about the role public opinion can play in the rise and fall of despots. People don’t like to admit it, but Hitler was immensely popular in the 1930s, not just in Germany, but in the United States as well.

In Germany, once he had established power, Hitler’s mesmeric sway over the German people was almost unbounded. The huge cheering crowds were totally unfeigned, and the girls blowing kisses and flowers at the fuhrer doubtlessly fantasied about having his babies. Absurd as it may seem, the brown-eyed mousy-haired little man, so similar to a famed American comedian of the time, was seen as the exemplar racialist dream. After all, he saved the economy. He beat inflation. He made Germany great again. He rid the country of enemies, foreign and domestic, real and imagined. (Does any of this sound familiar?)

It wasn’t until the tide turned against Germany following D-Day and the Russian resurgence that his popularity began to crack. Like all despots, he banned polls and independent news, but he couldn’t stop people from gossiping and whispering about the empty shelves, the strange lack of neighbors, the lack of any news from overseas, and of course the huge number of families with war dead.

Hitler knew the limits to his support, no matter how propped up it was by propaganda and news control. There was a reason all of his death camps were built outside of Germany and in the occupied territories. His work camps, hardly any less atrocious, were portrayed as happy, productive, genial places with smiling parents watching healthy children playing in the sun.

Hitler had extraordinary influence and popularity in the UK and the US prior to the start of the war. Ken Burns did a three part six-hour documentary about it in 2022, The US and the Holocaust. One example he noted was that after Charlie Chaplin did The Great Dictator, pressure from Germany ensured that America made no more films disparaging Germany and its fuhrer until hostilities actually broke out.

American plutocrats in 1933, envious of Germany’s apparent rise from the depths of the Great Depression and admiring of Hitler’s approach to undesirables, actually staged an abortive attempt to overthrow FDR and replace him with General Smedley Butler. It was aptly known as the Wall Street Putsch.

Despite the fact that Butler had voted for FDR and hated capitalism, American plutocrats, who were no smarter or more loyal than our present bunch, felt he would reverse all the proposed New Deal stuff and return America to the capitalist greatness that had ruined it in the first place. (Trump likes to rhapsodize about the “good old days” of the Gilded Age, from post-Civil War until Teddy Roosevelt, a “golden era” that saw two major depressions, thousands of bank failures, and an appalling standard of living for 95% of Americans.)

Accounts vary on how close the plotters (which included the same prominent families that support Trump today) came to actually pulling this off. Close enough that the NY Times tried to pretend it never happened, anyway. If there had been polls in those days, Hitler probably would have polled better than FDR, at least amongst people wealthy enough to have telephones. (A presidential preference poll a few years later proved catastrophically wrong because it solicited opinions only from those who had phones.)

People don’t like to admit it, but Stalin was also immensely popular in the USSR. Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn has a passage in “The Gulag Archipelago” about how the inmates in the prison containing Solzhenitsyn erupted in an outpouring of utter grief at the loss of the leader and father of the working class. Most of those weeping had been unjustly imprisoned for anywhere from ten to twenty-five years by Stalin, for trivial or non-existent “Anti-Soviet Agitation” charges. One such mourner was a man who had been practicing his signature on a copy of Pravda and was impolitic enough to write one of his autographs across an image of Stalin. Ten years in the Gulag for that. Yes, he mourned the loss of his Great Leader.

But the USSR provides a perfect example of just how important the “consent of the governed” can be. It fell, in 1990, the most repressive and brutal regime in modern history, with nary a shot being fired. People were simply fed up, and en masse, the citizenry took away their support.

America has several advantages. First, the dictatorship of both Germany and the USSR arose at a time when both nations were in horrible condition, with widespread corruption, hunger, and humiliation. All the stuff Fox News likes to pretend America was suffering from under Joe Biden, only of course it wasn’t. Second, we have polls, and enough of a free press that we don’t have to take the word of Katherine Leavitt (Baghdad Barbie) as to how well-loved Trump is. And if Hitler and the Soviets were incompetent, capricious, and cruel, Trump is just as bad, only he lacks the wit to hide his mistakes. Finally, the same weakness that allowed Americans to stumble blindly into a Trump dictatorship is also their greatest strength: they have no history of living under dictatorial regimes, and even before it gets off the ground, a majority of Americans want to end it.

Trump wants to end Wikipedia. He is trying to end a free media. He is arresting judges. He doesn’t like stories about how he’s throwing American children with cancer into his El Salvador death camp.

But even if he manages to still those voices, people will talk. And notice the privations, the loss, the ‘disappeared’ and the vicious cruelty that dictatorial regimes always employ.

With a free press, the end will come quicker.

Stay informed.

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Trumpenomics — The best way to save money is to waste it

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 12th, 2025

G. Elliot Morris, formerly one of the guiding geniuses behind the late, lamented 538 website, came up with this tidbit today: “According to the Hamilton Project data, the U.S. government has spent $2.17 trillion as of April 10, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. ET (the data, which comes from the Treasury, is updated in near-real-time). That is just shy of a 6% increase over spending on the same date in 2024 when the feds had spent “just” $2.05 trillion at this point in the year. This puts the US federal government on track to spend $8 trillion this year, barring other budget changes…”

As odd as that stat is in light of ElonTrump’s chainsaw ‘cost-cutting’ measures, it only tells a small part of the tale. In fact, trillions of dollars have been lost over the past two months to waste, fraud and abuse, and even though Trump had to scurry back on his “Liberation Day” tariffs in light of a potential total economic collapse, the wholesale destruction will continue.

The slashes to government programs, big and small, have been capricious, arbitrary, and often cruel. Thousands of on-going projects have been stopped in their tracks, even though the money for them had already been allocated and spent, meaning that money—hundreds of billions—has been thrown away. Just the ongoing research programs that just got torched alone were in the billions.

They’ve gutted thousands of departments by taking a very systematic and subtle approach: just fire anybody who a) is on probationary status and b) has a vowel or a consonant in their name. This meant every promising new hire who hadn’t been there two years yet, all temporary employees, and anyone who had just been promoted for doing a superior job but whose promotion came with probationary status. With no regard to capabilities or functions.

Courts have ordered thousands of employees unfired, and many of those returned to find their chairs, their desks, and their computers all gone, either trashed or dumped at fire sale prices.

Many of the most important (and popular) government programs, including the Department of Education, NOAA, NASA, Department of the Interior and Social Security are being gutted. That last one, which makes up about 10% of national economic income for the general public, is teetering and in danger of collapse. They want to privatize the Post Office, which means thousands of non-profitable rural post offices will close even as the price of sending a letter explodes ten-fold.

I’ve actually had right wingers whine that we wouldn’t be complaining if a Democrat did to the government what Trump is doing. Typical of MAGAts—they love to howl about what victims they are as they rape and bully everyone around them.

Fact is, Democrats DID cut government spending, and even balanced the budget. This was in Bill Clinton’s second term, with vice President Al Gore overseeing the government efficiency task force. It was called “Reinventing Government” It eliminated what Elaine Kamarck, administrator of the program, said was “more than 400,000 federal positions between 1993 and 2000 through a combination of voluntary departures, attrition and a relatively small number of layoffs.”

Hundreds of departments were merged or eliminated, and the savings were so great that the Clinton administration had the first (and last) balanced budget since 1968. The day George Bush Jr took office, newspapers and economists where rhapsodizing about “surpluses as far as the eye can see” and there was serious talk of retiring the national debt by 2010. Of course, Republican fiscal fecklessness and greed, serving the notion that the national treasury should be the plaything of the very rich, eliminated the surpluses and instead created record floods of red ink, which their propagandists assured the public was the result of “Democrat spending.” It was a lie, but it was repeated endlessly.

And Reinventing Government slid into the memory hole, partly because it didn’t support the fascist narrative, and partly because it worked exactly the way government was supposed to work: democratically, with decision-making and responsibility shared between Congress and the executive, and with time taken to determine what jobs and projects served a good purpose and which were just accumulated fat. It worked so well hardly anybody even noticed it.

So the next time some wankers moan in self pity that people just hate right wingers, it isn’t politics or factionalism; it’s disgust for greed, incompetence, capriciousness and viciousness. The Democrats used competence, honesty, and good faith. The difference is night and day. People don’t hate Trump and Musk for “saving money”; they hate them because they are hateful people who are destroying the country and selling it off for parts and at our expense.

Even though Trump had to back off on his massive tariffs folly, the damage is already nearly unrecoverable. Not just the incredible waste and incompetence of his “cost-cutting”; the extraneous damage inflicted.

The bond market is teetering. US bonds are the “safe haven” for investors during market crashes, something that New Deal economics took out of our lives which Reaganomics restored. Stocks tank, you invest in bonds and wait it out.

But bonds depend entirely on “The Full Faith and Credit” of the United States, and under this administration, nobody trusts that government. As far as good credit goes, the US might as well be Zimbabwe. And the bond market—nearly $30 trillion in size—relies entirely on trust in the US government.

You hear a lot about China owning a chunk of that, and it does: about $1.8 trillion. About 6%, more or less. A small but significant share. (Most of the bond market is money the US owes to itself).

Trump is going out of his way to antagonize and even insult the Chinese with his mindless bluster. If China tanks the bond market, they will take great economic damage. But the US would be ruined. It would take decades for the nation to recover, and it wouldn’t look anything like the US that we all enjoyed in the 20th century.

It’s clear Trump isn’t running the show: his plutocrats, including Musk, are. But they aren’t noticeably smarter or more competent, and often mistake greed for wisdom. Most of them have the compassion and knowledge of Charles Montgomery Burns, Homer Simpson’s boss. Two words: Howard Lutnick. And he’s not even the worst one: far from it. Trump’s Secretary of Education is talking about using that thinking computer thingie for educating the kids, what was it she called it? Oh, yes, “A-One.”

Hope she didn’t pick Hewlett-Packard for the computers. Everyone knows HP and A One are competitors.

Sheesh.

 

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Trump America — Another business destined to fail

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 5th 2025

When the Dow drops 3,600 points—9% of its value—in just two days, it’s pretty safe to say market conditions are ‘unsettled’ in much the same way that Grindavik is unsettled.

My guess is we’ll see a partial recovery Monday, and then the slide will resume. It’s illegal to manipulate markets for a quick and dirty profit, but that’s hardly going to slow down Donald Trump, America’s most powerful con man. He’ll keep right on making announcements that will manipulate the market to his advantage.

The game has already begun. Erik the Moron piped up today, saying that the tariffs were “negotiable” and the first countries to negotiate would get the best deals.

While that made perfect sense to a dimwitted conman, it will also completely blows up the premise behind Trump’s tariffs. The stated reason is that it will force manufacturing to either move to America or start up there. But that means the tariffs have to be inflexible and permanent. Nobody is going to go to the trouble and expense of moving their operations stateside only to find the tariffs have been dropped or reduced and they find themselves competing with competitors back in their previous locales who didn’t move.

The sheer hucksterism of “move now because these deals won’t last” is pretty jawdropping.

Of course, to make a factory that was paying its employees $1.50 a day to set up shop in America means that to make it work, the have to slash pay scales and find a way to greatly reduce all other costs to match what they were paying in Vietnam or Laos or wherever. In other words, to make it worth the overhead of the tariffs, they would have to cut everything to third world levels: no OSHA, no FDA, no EPA, no minimum wage, nothing.

Donald, of course is working hard to get rid of all that crap. It’s patriotic to send your eight year old to work in a poisonous, dangerous place where they might live to be 12 if they’re lucky. Florida is already working on legislation to replace migrant labor with child labor. No, I’m not kidding.

Warren Buffet, who knows a thing or two about the markets, suggested that Trump also inflicted the incoherent tariffs in order to drive interest rates up, something that would also greatly profit the markets. That statement left Donald screaming in rage, which tells you that Buffet pretty much nailed it.

Trump is openly defying courts, ignoring direct orders not to send innocent people to his gulags, knowing that the five fascists on the supreme court will rule in his favor. It won’t be Donald who ends the United States: it will be Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett, none of whom seem to realize that once they’ve ended the country, they will no longer have any importance to anyone. Some of them are rich and will do OK in the new plutocracy, but lawn jockeys like Thomas and religious whack jobs like Coney Barret will find themselves on the outside looking in.

Basically, the plutocrats are working to parcel out the United States and make it an impoverished third-world nation while making off with tens of trillions in profits. It’s the biggest heist in history. Then they move on to the next prosperous zone and conduct a parasitic orgy there. China would be a sensible target since it’s already authoritarian. If they aren’t stopped, your life, and the life of your children, will be one of misery and deprivation.

Think Trump and his manipulators are not out to ruin your life and kill your children? Consider this Raw Story news article today: “A federal judge in Rhode Island accused the Trump administration of “covertly” withholding funds for Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief programs from states that didn’t vote for him, Courthouse News reported on Friday. In March, U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a preliminary injunction in favor of 23 states that sued the government over its plan to implement a broad pause to state aid,” noted the report.”

A court finding is a bit more than a accusation. The reason McConnell ruled the way he did was because he had solid, incontrovertible evidence that Trump was deliberately cheating people for the crime of living in a state that didn’t vote for him.

Pussy Riot, indisputably the bravest rock group in the world, showed up in Manhattan today to urge Americans stand up for themselves against Trump’s planned tyranny. The cowardice of the Republicans is well documented. Democrats, as always, are divided on the notion of whether ‘tis nobler to be spineless, gutless, boot-licking cowards or not. Fortunately, most are not.

It’s the same as with the American public, where I’ve had people tell me they won’t come to today’s demonstrations because they want to keep their heads down and survive. Understandable, but I have to wonder what makes them think life outside of Trump’s gulags will be any improvement. He plans to leave you in poverty and squalor. That’s what’s in store. At least in prison you’ll get moldy bread and contaminated water, just like you would outside. And inside, nobody expects you to pretend to love Trump. Hopefully.

As most of you know, four American serviceman drowned in Lithuania in a motor vehicle mishap. Their bodies were eventually all recovered, and as the caskets were taken to the airport yesterday for the flight back to America, thousands of Lithuanians lined the streets to pay their respects.

The servicemen landed today, but Donald Trump wasn’t there.

He had a golf tournament to watch. That was more important than losers and suckers.

The rallies against Trump begin in an hour and a half (I’m finishing this at 7:25 PDT). I’m hoping nationwise five million will show up, but I think three million will get the point across. There may have do be more than one day of rallies, and widespread strikes and boycotts. But if we want our freedoms back, that’s what it’s going to take.

In a world of Cory Bookers, don’t be a Mike Johnson.

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Lost Signal — Even by Trump’s standards, this was dismal

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 27th 2025

The breaking story about the Signal chat group conversation leading up to the bombing of Houthis in Yemen was already one of the most egregious and bizarre in the annals of American history.

Accidentally inviting the top editor of one of America’s most renowned journalistic magazines, (Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, in case you’ve been on the far side of the Moon this past week) to a group chat about a pending military attack is a bit like being in an NFL team huddle and glancing up to see the stadium announcer is also in the huddle, holding a microphone, listening carefully to the play plan and nodding thoughtfully.

Of course, to stretch that simile further, in this particular huddle there’s no assurance that any of the guys wearing your uniform are actually on the same team. You already know the coach is working for the other guys, after all.

The participants, caught out, have been throwing excuses and lies around madly in all directions like custard pies in a Mack Sennet movie. They’ve tried claiming that the transcript was a hoax, that they didn’t discuss classified information, and that Goldberg made it up because he doesn’t like Trump.

Tulsi Gabbard doesn’t seem to know what country she was in during the discussion. Well, you know how it is: you see one Asian country, you’ve seen all of them. At least one participant was in Moscow during the chat.

Speaking of Moscow, it seems that the reason the Pentagon had issued a blanket order the week before to never use Signal for any official reasons was because Russia had successfully hacked the encryption of the app. And while the Russians may not have been involved with this particular breach, it seems that the names, phone numbers, emails and passwords of all the participants in the session were available online.

About the only people who didn’t know were the American public. But by inviting Goldberg, they got that covered.

To call this a clusterfuck is a bit like saying the Fyre Festival didn’t go well. It’s damning with faint praise.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the man who somehow invited Goldberg to the chat room, claims he never met Goldberg and had no idea who he was. Evidence, including photographs, says otherwise. It’s not quite clear how inviting a total stranger to a top-secret national security chat is somehow better than inviting the editor of the Atlantic. Apparently one guy there was awaiting confirmation to his government post!

But never mind all that. One person was conspicuous by his absence: Le grand citrouille, King Pumpkin, the Donald.

You seen scenes where a major military operation is underway, and they release photos of the president and his cabinet all sitting around, looking tense and serious as they rescue hostages or grease bin Laden or whatever.

Not in this case. The closest to presidential leadership is when one of the participants says vaguely that he thinks Donald approves of what they’re doing here. Evidence suggests that Trump had no idea what was going on. To paraphrase the famous Watergate investigative question: “What did he know, and does he know that he knew it?” It seems pretty clear that the President of the United States was absent simply because he had nothing to offer.

Trump himself seems to have no idea what the scandal is about, and is mostly reduced to his boilerplate deflection and denial, some of which may actually be valid. It’s pretty clear he has no idea what Signal is, but having discerned that something called Signal was involved, he has declared it defective and wants people to look into it. After all, it let that Goldberg, who was mean to him in the past, in. Something must be wrong with Signal.

He’s variously tried claiming the transcript was a hoax (that backfired: Goldberg released more to show it wasn’t) and that the Democrats were to blame somehow, and that no secrets were discussed. (Several of the participants have tried making that claim, stopping just short of saying the dog ate their homework.) He is, in a word, clueless.

He doesn’t even have the wit to address the specifics, but is just generally doing The Donald, the things he always does when he’s feeling defensive. He’s the old guy with the cane batting at imaginary insects.

He finally realized that there was something to all this confusing ‘signal’ stuff and described the event as a ‘glitch’ and boasted that it was the first glitch in the two months of his administration. A sardonically amused Rachel Maddow that evening spent a full half hour running down the glitches so far. She didn’t pad it or speak slowly. It’s an impressive pile of glitches, worthy of Inspector Clouseau.

But no worries: Trump will have Clouseau’s real-life equivalent, Inspector Hegseth, in to determine what, if anything, happened.

In addition to the blatant incompetence, malice and possible treason, public discourse needs to include whether Trump has any control over this gang of fascists, crooks and subversives or is just their little smiley face for the public. Are the lights on? Is anybody home?

The next day we learned that a) four US soldiers were missing in Lithuania and b) nobody had bothered to tell Trump about it.

If you need more evidence of how feckless, reckless, and anti-American this junta is, consider the following exchange between Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut and alleged Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

HIMES: Do you think it’s responsible for you, as head of the intelligence community, to retweet posts from individuals affiliated with Russian state media?

GABBARD: That retweet came from my personal account.

HIMES: Personal account? You’re the Director of National Intelligence, not an Instagram influencer. There’s no such thing as “personal” when you’re elevating Kremlin propaganda.

GABBARD: I have the right to share information—

HIMES: Information? You mean Russian disinformation. You sit in high-level intelligence briefings, then turn around and boost the same narratives Moscow is pushing. Should we just CC the Kremlin on your next meeting and cut out the middleman?

GABBARD: This is just an attempt to smear me—

HIMES: Smear you? You lied under oath in a Senate hearing yesterday, claiming you knew nothing about classified information, while sitting in Signal chats where war plans were discussed. You retweet Kremlin-backed sources, then act shocked when people question your loyalties.

GABBARD: I’m focused on national security—

HIMES: National security? While pushing Russian propaganda and pretending you’re clueless about intelligence leaks? If a Democrat had done half of this, you’d be screaming treason on national TV.

GABBARD: This is about free speech—

HIMES: Free speech? You’re the President’s top intelligence advisor, not some random guy on Twitter. Every word you amplify has consequences. And right now, you’re handing America’s enemies exactly what they want—straight from your “personal account.”

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1904907517261705605

Speaking of Twitter, I’m a bit surprised Musk wasn’t one of the participants. I suppose he’s too busy destroying the United States, though. That can keep a man busy, you know.

Or maybe he’ll join the chat when they discuss bombing Toronto. Hopefully the Russians will leak that before it happens.

 

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The Ambush — Senile Man bites visitor

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 1st 2025

That Trump is vicious, deceitful and a bully has never been in question. We’ve known that about him for over 40 years, because of his long and tawdry history of cheating contractors, mistreating employees and renters, endless scams (including bilking a children’s cancer charity), humiliating wives, and general lechery. The man is, and always has been, a pig.

He’s also incompetent. He lost more money in business in the 20th century than any other American businessman, and only his willingness to lie, cheat and steal kept him afloat. Casinos are almost a license to print money—he bankrupted all four that he owned.

He has no respect or use for family, friends or allies. He turns on them with monotonous regularity, and it’s no accident that his most vociferous critics are family members, former associates, employees, members of his administration, and supporters. I don’t include friends in that group since I doubt he has ever experienced friendship. Petless his entire life, it’s no surprise that he feels no need for human contact other than commercial sex.

He is and always has been a hateful, loathsome, despicable man, and the fact that he not only is tolerated but thrives in our society is a deep condemnation of American social values and principles.

I’ve known this about him for decades. That’s going back to his wild public fling with Marla Maples, when I saw the expression on the face of his wife—the one now buried in an unmarked grave on one of his golf courses.

So even though I was appalled at the cheap and thuggish ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday, I was totally unsurprised. He had to put on a show for the only man he regards as his better, Vladimir Putin (he even snuck a “reporter” in from the Russian propaganda outlet TASS to record the ambush for Putin’s entertainment). He also had to appeal to his dwindling band of flying monkeys, the group of so-called Americans who cheer Trump and revere him as some sort of cheap Jesus figure. Including, of course, the cowardly, treasonous Republicans who are selling out their country in the vain hope of currying favor with a man who almost certainly will turn on them when they are no longer of any use. He has given Congress “battered wife syndrome.”

You can find videos all over the net of the seven minute meeting, and see it for yourself. It won’t be pleasant—not if you have any pride or self-respect, or care even faintly about your country.

For America, it was one of the lowest points in her history. For Trump, it was just another Friday.

But almost missing in the mountain of coverage is one of the most alarming elements in his display, the open and increasingly unstable dementia. Raving about his predecessor in office who armed Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion in 2018, he repeatedly referred to him as Obama. Not Biden. Obama. He also said ridiculous things, such as that Ukraine attacked Russia, or that the US gave Ukraine $350 billion, although that might just have been his characteristic Hitleresque lies, rather than senility.

He had one of his toadies on some right wing blog attack Zelenskyy for his non-business suit garb, saying it disrespected the Oval Office—the same Oval Office where Elon Musk in his goofy “Tech Support” Tee Shirt stood not three days earlier.

He did immense damage to the United States, and has placed the US squarely in the realm of pariah nations—those with regimes like Putin’s, or Xi’s, or Kim’s—places too unstable and too inimical to American interests to be trusted.

But the senility showed up again later, when he pardoned Pete Rose. Apparently he thinks pardoning Rose will allow him to enter baseball’s hall of fame. Rose did have a criminal record: he pled guilty in 1991 to failing to disclose taxable income. He had to pay the taxes owed, serve five months in a resort prison, and do community service. It was unrelated to his MLB woes. I’m not sure Trump even knew Rose had that criminal record (I had very nearly forgotten it myself) but he apparently was pardoning him from being banned from the HoF. Which, of course, he doesn’t have authority to do.

It may actually help Rose, though, because far too many of the baseball owners are cut from the same cloth of cowardice and servility that stain the American character in the face of wealth and power. So Rose may get inducted as a result, and even though I feel he should be inducted myself, under these circumstances I think it would add, rather than absolve, the air of disgrace around Rose. He’s lucky he’s dead.

Trump also made the fiat declaration that English is the official language of the US. Again, he doesn’t have the authority to do that, but I’m sure there are endless Nazi bigots in state legislatures avid to declare the speaking of any language other than English illegal. “Did I hear you say ‘tête-à-tête’? You’re for the camps, you furrin asshole!” I wonder if dialects are illegal too? Is Scotty from Star Trek breaking the law in our new world ordure?

This all comes in the middle of a massive dismantling of the United States, so in the end it may not matter, because by the time he’s done with us, the US will just be another third world shithole and it won’t matter what he says or does because we’ll all be dead, in the camps, or terrified into utter silence.

Unless, of course people start growing some angry self respect and love of country, and start growing it NOW.

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The United States versus America — The time is coming to choose sides

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 19th, 2025

I picked up a follower on Blue Sky the other day (I must be in double digits by now!) whose page reveled in his love of country and patriotism. He had pictures of himself in uniform, along with pictures of wheat fields and sunsets and dogs and all the other things that make America special in the eyes of hyper-patriots.

Nothing to take offense to, but I was mildly curious. I’m skeptical of hyperpatriotism for the same reasons I’m skeptical of overt religiosity or guys who scream about “impure women” or whatever. All are signs of fundamentalism, a mental disorder I’m at best uncomfortable around. My writings and posts don’t attract such people, other than the ones who want to scream about what a degenerate I am. One of the nice things about Blue Sky is that people like that tend to weed themselves out in pretty short order.

But I was curious. What did my new-found friend think about events over the past month? I scrolled through his past few weeks of posts. Not one word about any current event: nothing about the abandonment of Ukraine, or a psychopathic South African billionaire and his pock-faced juvenile delinquents rummaging through all the national secrets and finances. Nothing about the immense damage Trump has already inflicted on the country, both domestically and in foreign affairs.

I didn’t block or mute the guy, but I did elect to not follow him back. (Some people think the number of followers they have validates them, and that’s fine. I measure my reach by the number of people I elect to follow BACK. This eliminates all the people who want to sell me land, drugs, or bitcoin, the illuminati, or who want to sex me all night long for the cost of a penicillin shot.)

The polls show that Trump’s popularity is dropping at over 2% a week, which in the ideologically rigid present state of public opinion represents a vast and momentous shit. His polls on the economy have dropped 12% in two weeks, even though the economy really hasn’t reacted to his policies. But many idiots still measure the economy by the price of eggs, which is like picking the Superbowl winner by which mound of corn a chicken pecks at first. And the price of eggs is skyrocketing as bird flu decimates the laying hens.

The malicious ineptitude of the TrumpenMusk regime is starting to percolate through all the propaganda from newspits like Newsmax or the Washington Post. All the redcap morons are starting to realize they really mean the stuff they said in Project 2025, and do hope to wipe out medicare and social security and shift ALL the tax burden to the lower class while they totally raid the entire nation’s wealth. Right now they just see it in them cutting programs that matter to them; day care, product safety regulations, conservation, etc. In short, all the millions of things government actually does because it’s far cheaper and more efficient than the private sector could possibly manage.

For many years, the right wing has promoted the silly notion that you are a patriot if you love America but want to get rid of the United States. Instead of “United States” of course they say “government” and they lie constantly about how the government is wasteful (it is, but so are corporations; but a lot of their operations are ‘proprietary’ and so they aren’t transparent or responsive to public interest, and unfortunately it’s been nearly 250 years since Americans had to deal with power centers that were unresponsive to the public interest.) Government is oppressive, evil, eats kittens, yada, yada, yada.

What they don’t understand (and are prevented from understanding) is that the United States, the thing that makes America special, IS the Constitution, and the government which it founded. The separation of powers, the mandated responsiveness to the people, the protection of the oppressed, the Bill of Rights – that is what the United States is. That is what the rest of the world envied. Not fields and dogs and sunsets, because every fucking country in the world has those, and some are prettier. Without the United States, America is just another patch of land filled with squabbling and destitute peasants, no better than most and worse than some.

The Constitution—the heart and soul of the United States—exists with the express purpose of using government to defend the people from the depredations of banks, aristocrats, and churches. While it has had an imperfect record with these, it worked well enough to make America the greatest of nations for a long, long time.

Trump and Musk are the vile faces of an evil consortium of fundamentalist churches, rapacious corporations, and vicious plutocrats—all the evils men like Jefferson and Madison wanted to free the citizenry from. The reason Trump and Musk are dismantling government isn’t to save the taxpayers money—they have zero interest in that, and quite the opposite, in fact. They want to create a power vacuum and fill it themselves, and put every public need on a “make it pay” basis. Instead of a not-for-profit service such as social security or medicare, they want to run it on a 30% markup, and regard the actual services as outlays that need to be minimized for the sake of profit.

We’re rapidly approaching a point where all the dog and sunset-loving cardboard patriots have to decide if they love a rapidly diminishing America, or want to fight for the United States.

I know which line they may cross: when they declare that they are no longer obliged to observe court rulings. That’s where I begin to advocate the overthrow of Musk and Trump by any means possible. At that point, they are outlaw, and enemies of the United States.

If people want to keep the America they love, they may well have to take up arms on behalf of the United States.

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Let the Lunacy Begin! — Chaotic Trump’s chaotic start

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 30th 2025

“A 100 metre-wide asteroid has triggered global planetary defence procedures for the first time after telescope observations revealed it has a chance of colliding with Earth in 2032…Based on measurements gathered so far, the asteroid has a 1.3% chance of smashing into Earth on 22 December 2032, or put another way, a nearly 99% probability of barrelling past without incident.”

My response to that January 29th Guardian article was “Sure. Why the hell not?” Figure Trump will have been just reelected President for life and beyond on a unanimous vote from Congress and the Supreme Court. Most of the US will be an Ayn Rand hellscape where trillionaires amuse themselves by having captive workers put on sex shows. Churches will be clamoring for the newest bible from Lord Elon Musk.

An asteroid capable of wiping out a major city would be a welcome distraction.

Granted, it’s been a bit chaotic the past 10 days or so. Trump talked about shock and awe, which was one way of describing his blitzkrieg-style power grab.

First there was the blanket pardon. Trump is lazy and incompetent, and thought it was too cumbersome to vet all the 1600 or so people convicted for actions taken on January 6th. While questionable ethically (pardons are not supposed to be based on politics or transactional) most of the people pardoned committed minor offenses and some had even done their time. Others where vicious criminals, guilty of anything from sedition to child rape. The head of the Proud Boys was shopped by his own son, and rightly so. Now out, he’s threatening and trying to track down his son. Another died in a shootout with police, and another convicted of forcible child rape and sentenced to 17 years. Fortunately, more responsible adults have kept his ass in prison.

Then there was the since-rescinded spending freeze which caused 48 hours of utter chaos. Matthew J. Vaeth wrote the memo (given the secrecy and buffoonery of the administration, it’s impossible to guess if Trump even knew about it) even though he was only acting interim director of the Office of Management and Budget. But he was also one of the authors of Project 2025, and made his fascist impulses known in the memo, writing “The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.” Just another howling Heritage Foundation right-wing nut.

It was blatantly unconstitutional, of course. Congress appropriates spending; the chief executive branch only administers it, and has no say in second guessing the Congressional budget. A few years back there was a move to give the president line-item veto power, and it was slapped down by the courts as unconstitutional.

Then there was the abjectly silly attempt to get government employees a seven-month buyout option, a bonus for early retirement. Again, totally illegal. This scheme sprung from the noble brow of one Elon Musk, who made a similar offer to Twitter employees when he bought the media, a first step toward turning it into the plane of Nazi vomit it is today. He even used the same title: “A Fork in the Road” for both memos. Musk wants to do for America what he did for Twitter. X it out and replace it with…well, a right wing shit pile.

Rachel Maddow noted that JD Vance, who once said, “So step one in the process is to totally replace — like rip out like a tumor — the current American leadership class, and then reinstall some sense of American political religion.”, was almost wholly backed in his unlikely political career by Peter Theil protégé Curtis Yarvin, who wants to rip out the entire government and replace it with a corporation. He concludes, “If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia.”

Personally, I have a phobia of dictators, I admit it. Never turned out very nicely. And this clown is holding the strings of the vice President.

Trump’s enablers want a Unified Executive, which is a fancy way of saying “Dictator.” Trump may be a bit vague on that, but I’m sure he likes the sound of a scheme that means unlimited profit. He’s like a Ferengi from Star Trek, only not ethically limited by the Rules of Acquisition.

There’s the start of the mass deportation. The claim is he’s deporting criminals. In reality, most of those being deported have no criminal record, and contrary to what the hate mongers on the right claim, the act of being in the country without permission is not an actual crime. People who call them “illegal people” are, wittingly or not, just using the tired old Nazi tactic of dehumanizing their victims. And as for “anchor babies” (Barron Trump qualifies for that term), even this sad spectacle of a Supreme Court is going to find it hard to opine that the 14th amendment can be erased by an executive order from a nutball president.

That all said, there are two things going on for which Trump is not responsible.

He didn’t cause yesterday’s horrible mid-air collision in Washington, DC or even make it more likely. Yes, he forced the head of the FAA to resign, but that was just last week and couldn’t have affected day-to-day operations in the control towers. It was just pure bad luck. Trump, of course, tried blaming the crash on “Biden policies” because Trump is a morally empty dirtbag.

Nor is Trump responsible for the current price of eggs. That’s almost entirely because of the fast-spreading bird flu, which has resulted in the deaths of some 130 million hens. Trump is no more at fault for that than Biden was, but unlike MAGAts, I’m honest enough to not base a blame game just on which party is in the White House.

That said, expect produce prices to explode, since crops are rotting in the fields because of Trump’s pogrom against foreign workers. And I have little hope of any positive approach to bird flu, either.

Four more years of this craziness. At least.

Say! Is there any way to speed up that asteroid?

 

 

 

 

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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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The Dark Age — Once again, dear friends…

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 6th 2024

First, I want to apologize to my readers. I really blew it on my forecast on how this election was going to turn out. I’m especially sorry to those who took my forecast in good faith—I’m sure it added to the pain you are feeling now, and I deeply regret that.

I’ve been contemplating overnight and this morning over how I—and others, including the Harris campaign—so totally got it wrong.

I don’t have any real answers and indeed, more questions than I began with. How could such a large number of Hispanics support Trump? He’s made it clear that they are one of his target groups; when he says “illegal immigrants” he’s including Hispanics born here, or naturalized. They’re part of the twenty-two million people he wants to mass deport. He isn’t doing it to “save the economy.” He’s doing it because he’s a bigot, pandering to other bigots.

I don’t understand the self-professed Christians who supported him. He is the antithesis of everything they supposedly stand for.

And most of all, I don’t understand the women who voted for Trump. In seven states, freedom of reproductive choice was on the ballot, and many women in those states voted for reproductive freedom and then went ahead and voted for the man who destroyed that right in the first place!

I underestimated the power of the aggrieved anger that the right wing media—mostly run by plutocrats who wanted to use the mob to destroy the safeguards the constitution has to protect that same mob—and there was one thing I did get right; the economy is extremely strong, but it hasn’t really reached the lower middle class and the poor, even as conditions were beginning to improve.

A friend of mine once told me that revolution and revolt was most likely, not when things were at their bleakest, but when things were starting to improve. He told me that some forty years ago, and a close look at major upheavals throughout history confirms this to be true. Not always, but usually.

I have friends in the scientific community, so I was already aware of an on-going effort to save and secure date In The Event Of. Efforts will be redoubled; some of the incoming administration regard such data as either blasphemous or economically inconvenient.

America is heading for a scientific dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

The Ukraine will be on their own now, along with the states surrounding the genocidal Netanyahu. Trump wants to end NATO, which will give his buddy Putin license to invade much of eastern Europe, and he won’t stop there. The NATO nations need to start gearing up for a war footing NOW. There may be a general war in Europe within two years. The middle east will become a sea of flames, and before his mad reign ends, Netanyahu will have slaughtered millions. Other major nations currently not involved, such as Canada, Japan, India and China—may step in.

America is heading for a geopolitical dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Project 2025 is alive and well, with all its draconian plans. I was compiling data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today for a Trump-loving client, and it occurred to me to advise him that when this annual task comes due next year, neither I nor the BLS may be around.

America is heading for a governance dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Putting tariffs on most foreign imports and deliberately destroying over half the agricultural production force isn’t going to lower costs or put food on the table. Destroying nearly all federal jobs is going to create a huge labor surplus. States attempting to fill the huge gaps left will have to double, triple, quadruple taxes.

America is heading for an economic dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Trump will pursue his mad aim to encourage profligate use of fossil fuels, dooming the already inadequate efforts to mitigate climate change. The world has already entered a catastrophic zone: America is now a major part of the problem.

America is heading for an environmental dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

With the Department of Education gone, public schools will fall prey to the same people who have already benefited from spreading misinformation, disinformation, and slowing the spread of scientific and historical knowledge. Thousands of books will be banned “for the children” and eventually, movies and other forms of communication. Literacy will fall, both by design and through sheer incompetence.

America is heading for an educational dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Rights will rapidly contract and then vanish altogether. People will be told that the era between 1865 and 2025 was an aberration in American culture, and that life under our caring despots who safeguard our morals and thoughts is what the Founders really intended.

America is heading for a humanitarian dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

Here in California, and other deep blue states, talk of secession is mounting rapidly. It may, in the end, be the only way we can protect ourselves from the libertarian and fundamentalist quagmire that Trump plans. It would mean dissolution of America, and/or civil war. A peaceful way back may not be possible.

America is heading for a dark age, but there’s no reason to drag the rest of the world into it.

To the rest of the world: help us where you can, but remember our leaders will be inimical, and this sort of madness can be contagious.

We’re on our own.

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