Category: Foreign Affairs

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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.

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No Tariffs? Oh, SNAP! — Revolt against Trump grows

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 2nd, 2026

Trump got two ginormous setbacks in his efforts to turn America into a libertarian paradise with himself as the Howard Roark figure this week.

The first was a court ruling, when U.S. District Judge John McConnell ruled that the administration had no right to deny use of emergency funds as a stopgap measure to continue SNAP, and that the administration acted illegally in denying SNAP benefits to some forty million people, noting that those benefits had continued without a hitch during the 2019 shutdown.

The administration, intent on blackmailing the country, is complaining that they need court guidance on how to dispense the funds, since they have apparently forgotten how to do it since the last time, a month ago. The admin has to give the court an accounting tomorrow, Monday.

The larger issue of Trump’s capricious reallocation of SNAP funds already allocated by Congress is before the Supreme Court. In normal times, the case would be a no-brainer. Rescission, or reallocation of funds, is permitted only in emergencies and on a limited scale. Trump has simply reallocated (stolen) hundreds of billions in already-allocated federal funds. But knowing this Court, they will rule that they “need to study the matter” further while permitting Trump to continue gutting the country.

Trump, meanwhile, wants to force millions into starvation. At the very least, it would take his lie about how “they’re eating the pets” and turn it into truth. Not that Trump is any big lover of truth.

And the Senate somehow worked up enough nerve to challenge Trump’s takeover of the Congressional power of assessing tariffs and revoked all of his tariffs. As if that wasn’t a big enough slap at his pumpkin face, the vote happened just a day after he was frantically negotiating with China’s Premier Xi in an effort to get China to import at least some of the American soybeans. He had just gotten Xi to agree to import roughly 35% of what it had been importing before Trump came alone, in exchange for who knows what? [Hint: keep an eye on Intel stock. China wants some high-end chips that American heretofore had not wanted them to have because of cyber and military uses]. Xi will doubtlessly hold Trump to whatever they agreed, even though he will no longer have to pay the tariffs.

Soybean farmers are overjoyed, but that will be short-lived. It’s still only 35 or perhaps 40 percent of prior sales, and few business can survive a 60% cut in revenues, especially farmers. Meanwhile, tariffs have jacked the prices of farm equipment and fertilizers, and the draconian ICEcapades of this hateful administration mean a large labor shortage. The farmers are still badly screwed by Trump policies.

Even baseball bit Donald on the ass. He wanted to make a thing of the fact that the two teams were respectively from California and Ontario, since he was already punishing both locales for not being pro-Trump. (A joke making the rounds up north goes: “Canadians are so smart that not one of them voted for Trump.”) He is mad at Ontario Premier Doug Ford (Canada’s answer to Ron DeSantis) who aired an ad accurately portraying Ronald Reagan as being largely opposed to tariffs. Trump riposted by slapping a completely arbitrary 10% additional tariff on Canadian goods, a move so gratuitously capricious that it may have been what sparked the Senate revolt. And he’s mad at California and California governor Gavin Newsom because…well, heh, you’ve seen the things Newsom’s staff have been putting out on social media. Trump may love Trump, but he hates having a mirror put up to him.

If he was hoping to use the World Series to humiliate and insult Canada or California, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays had other ideas. This World Series was a classic, hard fought, not decided until the final out, exciting as hell, with two wildly popular and talented teams. And even the most xenophobic of Trump’s followers couldn’t make some nativist thing out of it: I’ll bet the Blue Jays have more American-born players than do the Dodgers. Ohtani, Yamamoto, and Sasaki are all Japanese, and of course Freddie Freeman is Canadian. LA also has players representing much of Central and South America, as well.

Public sentiment regarding the shutdown, and the House being in extended recess, is turning rapidly against the Republicans. The propaganda outlets all demand the Democrats end the shutdown and pass “a clean CR”, and the Democrats simply note that a “clean CR” would gut medical coverage for tens of millions of Americans, and destroy many vital government services that DOGE hadn’t already ruined. They also note that until the House reconvenes, no meaningful negotiation is possible. Squeaker Mike Johnson (R-What Christianity Might Look Like if They’d Crucified Ayn Rand Instead) is now saying he may not reconvene the House until January 2026. Between that and the increasing gaps in services and funding the government provides for vital social function, public support for the GOP is plummeting. There are off-off year elections this week, including a critical district reallocation vote in California, and while the scope of the elections is small, Republicans are bracing for bad news as public dissatisfaction mounts.

Keep pressing. They’re starting to crumble.

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Market Markers — How now down Dow?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 11th 2025

 

JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon said he is “far more worried than others” about a correction in U.S. stocks. In an interview with the BBC, Dimon said, “You see a lot of things out there, the amount of uncertainty and I put geopolitics in that category, fiscal spending in that category, politics in that category, the re-militarization of the world in that category. All these things cause a lot of issues that we don’t know how they’re going to sort out…[W]e should be stockpiling bullets, guns and bombs,” as the world’s a “far more dangerous place.”

But remilitarization, while alarming in and of itself, wasn’t the only issue on Dimon’s mind. It’s clear he’s worried about AI, which I consider a multi-trillion dollar economic bubble that could pop at any minute. (My words, not his, just to be clear). He said, “So if the market is pricing in 10%, I would say it’s more like 30%, and I’m not saying next year because the timing of these things is almost impossible.” He considers a “market correction” likely, perhaps in six months, possibly two years.

A “correction” is nabob-speak for a market slump of more than 20%, which in the case of the Dow Jones would work out to a drop approaching ten thousand points.

The very next day, Lev Parnas wrote this: “Trump’s Tariff Shock EXPOSED — The $1 Billion Crypto Heist They Don’t Want You to See. Minutes before Trump announced 100% tariffs on China, a secret wallet moved over $1 billion into crypto — triggering the biggest market crash in months and revealing […] insider corruption and market.”

OK, it was no crash: the Dow slipped 1,500 points over two days, about 3% of its value. But yes, the timing was almost prima facie evidence that the corrupt and venal Trump gave some insider traders a heads up before making his shock tariff announcement. It’s hardly the first time something like this has occurred—indeed, Trump’s seemingly erratic and capricious tariffs games have made some people, including Trump and members of his family—obscenely wealthy.

This entire administration is run by corrupt plutocrats intent on plundering the entire American economy. This collection of libertarians and fascists have managed to convince themselves that the economy can manage quite nicely without any economic involvement of the society that created that economy in the first place. They’ve spent so much time arguing that workers are nothing more than an economic outlay and to argue otherwise is communism that they’ve taken up believing their own propaganda. Most of them are corrupt, and the rest are delusional. And they are in charge.

Add the vindictive madness that drives Trump and his supporters, the desire to utterly destroy a fifth of the labor force for the crime of dark skin or accents, the sheer paranoia and xenophobia that is causing them to cheer the dismantling of the United States of America (and yes, the democratic constitutional government IS the United States of America, and without it, it’s just another big patch of land with lawless tribes)—combine all that, and the stage is set for an economic catastrophe.

Project 2025, in the form of White House Office of Management and Budget director Russel Vought, is manipulating the latest Republican-engineered government to dismantle huge chunks of the government, firing tens of thousands of experienced and capable government employees supposedly because of the shutdown. There have been a dozen shutdowns, some lasting weeks. Workers got furloughed, knowing their jobs (and in most cases back pay) would be there when the shutdown ended. Vought’s vision of a fascist dictatorship means he must do as much to destroy the government now while he has the opportunity. He is doing this to the open cheers of his senile mouthpiece president, who has openly cheered “the unprecedented opportunity” to dismantle “democrat agencies.”

Most of those supposedly Democratic functions: education, medical care, legal protections, scientific research, and public protection agencies such as the weather service, OPEC, and FEMA, disproportionately serve the people in Republican areas, where state services are thin or even lacking and the overall economy is either weak or exploited by plutocrats in the name of “supply-side economics.”

But make no mistake—we’ll ALL be hurt if Trump and his handlers pull this off. We’ll begin missing meals or end up in the camps just in time for the entire financial structure to to implode, possibly taking the currency and remaining national wealth with it, leaving America—and Americans—bankrupt and destitute. Then, and only then, will the malefactors in the top 1% realize that we were the tide that raised their yachts.

By then, it will be too late. Unless we move to prevent it now.

 

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Cornered Rat — More dangerous to deal with

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 27th 2025

This week’s offensives against George Soros and the city of Portland reflect, not a disintegration of America, but a disintegration of the Donald Trump regime.

The Epstein files aren’t going away, and now, with the election of a new Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona (in a deep red district that went for Trump by 30 points!) Congress now has the votes to force a floor debate and vote on the matter.

Mike Johnson, perhaps the greatest coward in the history of Congress, has suspended congressional business for a week while frantically trying to delay swearing in newly minted Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva. This would under normal circumstances, be the sort of chickenshittery you might expect from Johnson-without-a-Johnson, but what makes this far more remarkable is that it means Congress cannot do anything to avoid a government shutdown on October 1st. Trump is, incredibly, trying to make that part of his plan, which apparently involves firing most of the people that made government functional. While the shutdown would not affect Social Security or Medicare or Veteran Affairs (already damaged by Trump and Musk’s sweeping rape of the government) it would bring to a halt most of the government’s most loved elements—national parks and reserves, monuments, and most other non-essential functions.

We’ve been through this contrived “crisis” a dozen times or more since Newt Gingrich realized it was a great way to extort the country. And sometimes the government has shut down, and Republicans have taken it on the chin each time because the public, for the most part, realized who the extortionists were.

This time is different. Not only can Congress not come up with a last-minute solution to the crisis, but Trump’s answer is to fire all the non-essential workers, ensuring the crisis becomes permanent no matter what Congress does.

The Republicans rigged the “Big Beautiful Bill” to ensure that the most vicious fallout wouldn’t occur until after November 2026, and this will undo in one swipe the palatability for the stupid people who love Donald Trump.

Donald announced a military invasion of “war-ravaged” Portland, Oregon yesterday. This will come as news to Portland residents, who probably thought their greatest adversary was forest fires—and this has been a relatively mellow fire season.

He also declared AntiFa a “domestic terrorism” organization. He needs to set up a new PAC: “Fascists against AntiFascism.”

He has also declared war on George Soros because decades of antisemitic “pro-Israel” propaganda from Faux News means most of his supporters have heard of Soros. But then, Soros is supporting Newsom’s redistricting battle after Texas’ Trump-sponsored move to steal five Congressional seats.

And last week was an unmitigated fiasco for Trump. First, there was the Jimmy Kimmel thing. The only thing stupider than losing to a comedian with twenty million followers is picking a fight with a comedian with twenty million followers in the first place.

Then there was the catastrophe of the UN address. Bad enough that Trump’s staff fucked up the teleprompter, which meant that the wingless Donald had to fly solo, but he went on to tell the assemblage their countries were all “going to hell”, and whined about the teleprompter, an escalator that stalled, and that the UN rejected a remodeling bid from Trump FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.

One Blue Sky wit wrote, “Lead your life in such a way that if the escalator breaks, it isn’t because someone wants to kill you.” Seems easy enough advice to follow, doesn’t it? Well, funny story…

So, Donald is on the ropes. He’s scared, he’s desperate.

That isn’t necessarily good news: cornered rats are considerably more dangerous than regular rats. Remember that.

But murderous desperation is showing up in Congress, too. Marjorie Taylor-Greene posted a tweet today telling her members that In the Event Of, she wants them to know she isn’t even remotely suicidal and any unexpected death should be met with a healthy skepticism. Now, MT-G is noted for histrionic persiflage, it is true, but this sounds more like someone who is genuinely frightened. I’ve little love for her, but I wish her a long and healthy life!

Meanwhile, another nasty clown in the GOP, one “John Gillette (R-Kingman), wrote on the social media site X that U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., was calling for the government to be overthrown and should be hanged. ‘Until people like this, that advocate for the overthrow of the American government are tried convicted and hanged.. it will continue,’ Gillette said in response to a video of Jayapal.’’ [excerpt from Huffpost]

Jayapal’s ‘crime’? Calling for people to get out and demonstrate. That’s all.

I have a feeling that we are rapidly approaching a climax to the rise and hoped-for fall of Donald Trump. But I won’t breathe freely until he is out of office and in prison where he belongs.

Best of luck, everyone!

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Sorry Charlie — But We Have Other Things To Discuss

Sorry Charlie

But We Have Other Things To Discuss

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 14th 2025

Charlie’s a good Nazi. That’s all I have to say about that.

Because our servile corporate media can’t think of anything else to talk about this week, let me fill you in on some of the other, apparently less important stories, going on right now.

NATO has invoked Article 4 in the wake of the Russian drone attack in Poland. The Russians claim the incursion of 19 drones, many of them armed, into Polish air space was “unintentional.” The Poles shot four of them down, and the Russians seemed disinclined to object to that. Article 4 isn’t a declaration of war (that’s Article 5) but it’s the equivalent of when a skunk starts tapping his forepaws and lifts his tail. It means “Back off. Now.” Putin clearly thinks that America is too cowardly and weak to call his bluff because he knows the American president is too cowardly and weak. But even without America, the EU has an economy 40 times the size of Russia’s and a military that, while not as huge, uses well maintained equipment and ordinance from the 21st century. Also, if Putin is hoping Trump will support him when the chips are down, he’s living in a fool’s paradise.

Some idiot MAGA wannabe named Tori Branum put in a SWAT call to ICE to raid a Hyundai plant and the Icicles promptly rounded up some 475 people, 300 of which were actual Korean nationals there on Visas to train American workers. Only one didn’t have his papers in order, and there’s no evidence he did so intentionally. South Korea is furious. They got their workers back, but none of them want to return to the plant in what many of them doubtlessly now think of “that shithole country.” It may cost the US a half trillion dollars in planned investments, and Japan and Vietnam are both openly rethinking making manufacturing plants in the US. That idiot congressional wannabee and the cowboys at ICE just negated the whole rationale behind the tariffs.

A district court just ruled that Trump doesn’t have the Constitutional power to levy tariffs unilaterally. That was clear to anyone who knew anything at all about the law and separation of powers, but it came as a huge surprise to the Pedodent, who is screaming that it will cost the US (imaginary) trillions in revenue. Now, the Supine Court may make one of its secret rulings that Trump can continue the tariffs for a few decades while they pretend to think it over (now their favorite ploy for supporting the Unitary Executive, or what historians refer to as “the dictator”).

In a bit over two weeks, funding for the government runs out. This is a crisis we’ve seen far too often, dating back to Newt Gingrich and his scheme to blackmail America, but the difference this time is that because of Trump’s gratuitous and illegal use of Rescission (reallocating or just flat-out stealing budgeted funding) there’s no point in passing a budget and so the Democrats can’t be arsed unless and until someone puts a choke collar on the Trumpster.

In Brazil, where corporate interests haven’t totally neutered the government, the former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was found guilty of plotting a military coup. Four out of the five Supreme Court justices tasked with judging the former leader found him guilty. He got over 27 years in prison. Hey, remember when we had a real supreme court that didn’t have six fascist clowns in black dresses? If the Suck-ass Six had been trying Bolsonaro, they would have put him back in office while they spent twenty years claiming to decide if he should have been voted out.

Netanyahu may have finally overstepped with the fascist right that support him, bombing Qatar. Supposedly they were bombing Hamas terrorists with those magic bombs that never hurt innocent people. The Qataris were not amused, and for a wonder, neither was the United States, usually head supplicant to Benji.

California, which still maintains American values, made it illegal for peace officers to wear masks or conceal their identities. In pre-Trump America that may have seemed a no-brainer, but now that Trump has his own secret police made up of January 6 rioters, mercenaries and other bottom-feeder thugs in masks, it’s become necessary. Steven Miller, poster boy for Gay Nazis Who Pretend to Like Jews, is planning to double down on ICE raids in Los Angeles. If they show up with masks, I hope the LAPD arrest them. Not holding my breath, but Californians are going to be asking them hard questions if they don’t.

Meanwhile, we’re hearing the word “Stagflation” more and more. Those of us alive in the 1970s remember it well: 15% annual inflation combined with 8% unemployment, the result mostly of the “oil shock” when OPEC doubled oil barrel prices. Ah, good times. The Republicans (!!!) tried the experiment of government control of wage/price freezes (Whip Inflation Now) which compounded the disaster. Republicans are weird. They hate all the good things about socialism (universal healthcare, schooling, child care,etc.) but when the heat is on, they embrace all the worst elements of communism (wage and price freezes, hiding unfavorable statistics, and economic coercion of corporations). Oddly, they insist socialism and communism are the same thing.

Meanwhile, farm workers, documented or not, are avoiding the fields because of ICE raids, and tariffs are driving the costs of all imported foods up. In July, the wholesale price of produce jumped 38%. Yes, in just one month. And we’re just now coming up on the main harvest time, and tariffs are just starting to bite. Job growth was already starting to slow when Trump took office as the Biden boom ran its course.

So there’s all that to consider while nervous talking heads on TV try to suck up to the MAGAt extremists. Just so you know, there’s more to talk about other than some asshole whose only redeeming feature is that he got shot, or as I like to call him, “2025 School Shooting #46.”

Oh, yes. Release the Epstein files!

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Jerk Release Program — Child rapist 20 year sentence reduced

Jerk Release Program

Child rapist 20 year sentence reduced

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

August 12th, 2025

Just days after Trump’s corrupt lawyer/slash DoJ assistant attorney general met privately with convicted child sex felon Ghislaine Maxwell, then serving twenty years for child rape and child sex trafficking, she got moved to Club Fed, a luxurious minimum security prison reserved only for the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful criminals.

Now Maxwell’s on a work release program. The sort of thing someone gets if they get a speeding ticket and can’t pay the fine.

Frankly, I don’t expect her to live long, and I’m perfectly fine with that. Someone’s going to kill her—one of her nearly a thousand victims, perhaps, or relatives of same. Or one of millions of Americans who feel death is about the correct penalty for child rapists.

Or, of course, at the orders of Donald Trump. There’s a saying, attributed to Arabia, that goes, “It is unwise to know the secrets of a king.” And Maxwell has known Trump extremely well for many decades; there cannot be any possible doubt in her mind as to what a loathsome and vicious creature Trump is, and she also no doubt suspects he had something to do with the death of her partner, Jeffrey Epstein. I’m sure Trump would love to order her murdered.

I have absolutely no doubt that she has tons of evidence of her exploits, and Trump’s role in them, stashed away somewhere very safe and secure, held in abeyance by a “dead man’s switch.” She probably told Todd Blanche, Trump’s fixer, that someone, somewhere, had the files and other evidence, and they would remain hidden only for as long as she stayed alive.

It wouldn’t have worked with the Biden administration because there wouldn’t have been any evidence to incriminate them. While there were doubtless some Democratic politicians who availed themselves of her young charges, none had the power to entrap the US government into such a sleazy and sordid deal as the one Maxwell was able to wrangle with the once-proud Department of Justice. Yes, Clinton is on a lot of people’s lists of perpetrators involved with all this, but he’s been out of office for twenty-five years. There’s very few Democrats who won’t agree that if he was involved, then they should throw his ass in jail, too.

I suspect Trump effectively put the National Capitol under martial law because he knew this work-release was coming, and he wanted to try to distract the public. I think he has very badly miscalculated, based just on the initial responses I’ve seen on line.

Trump’s relations with his cult following were already badly strained before this. Most were betrayed by his flip-flop on the Epstein files, and this is going to blow that deep unease sky-high. It comes at a time when the general public is deeply fed up and disgusted with his incompetence, his cruelty, and his obvious lack of interest in anything other than scamming more money.

The military are deeply unhappy with him. Many suspect—correctly—that he doesn’t have the national interest in mind, and regard this week’s meeting with Putin with serious apprehension. His stunt of imposing federal troops on Washington DC on the transparently false excuse of a crime wave is going to result in American soldiers being taunted and booed by their fellow Americans. Further threats to deploy troops in New York and Chicago, following the fiasco in Los Angeles, have further angered military leadership.

And with the on-again off-again tariffs finally in place, and the farm labor force effectively scared out of the fields, the economy is going to take a huge hit and prices are going to explode. People who were whining about 12% inflation in 2016 better brace for 20% inflation starting now.

The possibility that Trump may be brought down by a coup is increasing to levels not seen in America since the crisis of 1933. That was a time when the economy was in utter collapse, and nearly a third of states were using scrip and barter, because they didn’t expect the dollar to be around for much longer.

People were pissed at the incompetence and lack of willingness by the Hoover administration to fix the economy back then, and it was several years, and one half-assed coup attempt, and a strong economic recovery on the strength of the New Deal, before the government was out of the woods.

Now, we face similar factors, combined with a deep and rapidly growing moral disgust with the government. Trump is every bit as incompetent and ineffectual as the hapless Hoover was, but at least people respected Hoover as a human being. Trump is moral filth, and his followers are now realizing it, and they, and an appalled military, realize that Congress and the Court are too compromised by the moral rot and cowardice to solve the matter.

Trump must go, or America dies. There’s no middle road any more.

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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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