Category: Justice and the Courts

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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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Three Days To Go — Tension is actually decreasing

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 2nd 2024

This is probably the next-to-last piece I’ll write before election day, and believe me, I’m really looking forward to having things to write about other than American politics. For one thing, once the election is settled, I can sit down and consider my Solstice essay. It’ll probably be a doozy this year. Something about addled old farts who use words like “doozy”, perhaps.

With the election just three days away, I’m feeling considerable optimism. Trump’s campaign behavior is part of it; he’s acting like he’s already lost, and boy, does he know it. He was supposed to attend last night’s Penn State football game in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, and abruptly canceled that. This is the campaign equivalent of spitting on babies and waving a Soviet flag.

His rhetoric is getting increasingly unhinged and violent, and he keeps saying things that would be political suicide for any candidate who isn’t a cult leader. As women arise en masse to protest the Dobbs decision, he’s prattling on about how he will protect women “whether they like it or not.” He’s still loudly fantasizing about shooting opponents, particularly former members of his own administration.

The voting patterns show considerable reason for optimism. It’s startling enough that over 62 million Americans have already cast ballots. (And of that 62 million, less than a dozen were cast by non-Americans, if previous voting patterns hold true). But of that 62 million, 56% were women.

It reflects a trend of new voter registrations over the past year, where over 55% of registrants were female.

In an absolute genius move, the Harris campaign ran an ad letting women know that their vote is absolutely secret, and not only do they have no obligation to vote as their husbands demand, but they have the right to lie about how they voted. Apparently Republicans really hate the idea that women can have a secret ballot too, and Newt Gingrich stood up to huff loudly that Harris was encouraging women to lie to their husbands. Newt Gingrich. You remember old Nootie, of course. Played a seminal role in turning the once-proud GOP into mindless obstructionists for corporation, now on his fourth wife, cheated on one wife while she was dying of cancer. Outside of Trump himself, about the last person on Earth to be lecturing women on marital fidelity and lying to their spouses. It’s a bit like being lectured on diplomacy by Triumph the Insult Dog.

In Pennsylvania, the state whose number one football team Donald just pissed on, new voter registrations ran nearly 3-1 for Democrats, and independents got more new registrations than Republicans.

The unedited version of the “grab them by the pussy’ tape from the 2016 election showed up on TikTok, and millions of users too young or too disengaged in 2016 are seeing it for the very first time. Chris Hayes thoughtfully played the entire tape on his MSNBC show last night, and it’s every bit as appalling as the edited excerpts we’d all heard before suggested. I imagine it’s wildfiring through the rest of social media now.

Two of Trump’s campaign stunts, both on the level of Mike-Dukakis-in-the-tank, backfired. There’s a meme rocketing around social media now that show Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sitting together, laughing their heads off. The captions read [Joe] “I made him drive a garbage truck!” [Kamala] “I made him work at a McDonalds!” I posted a image of Trump in the garbage truck and labeled it “From the Department of Repetitive Redundancy Department.” It failed to impress Trump supporters, I’m sorry to say.

Mainstream media are still playing the silly horserace game, of course. CNN and the NY Times played up a weak jobs report from yesterday as a “devastating blow” to Harris, apparently unaware of the fact that it normally takes about six months for changes in the economy to seep into the public consciousness, and longer if the economy is doing well and people only know what Fox News tells them. The gain of “only” 22,000 jobs for the month will have absolutely no effect on the vote.

The plutocrat press is learning that making newspapers into rich man’s toys isn’t working out: the Bezos-owned Washington Post has lost over 300,000 subscribers over their public self-neutering, and the LA Times, with a much smaller circulation, has lost some 50,000.

Even the Supreme Court, resolutely fascist, has backed away from further opportunities to tamper with the election. They denied cert on several GOP-backed suits following the Virginia case.

I suspect that a lot of Republicans are not going to vote for Trump, and many will vote for Harris. Millions, perhaps. Enough to seriously tilt the scales. It helps that over 600 Republicans of note, including some 200 from the Trump administration, over 100 retired line officers, and dozens of retired Congressionals, have all come out for Harris, including the Cheneys and Schwarzenegger. Harris has gotten endorsements from such Republican bastions as the Economist and the Houston Chronicle.

It’s important to remember that a lot of the Republican disaffection stems from the fact that Trump himself is an incompetent, addled, vicious and dishonest pig. That may or may not affect their votes down ticket, depending on how closely aligned with Trump the candidates are. Congressional votes may hinge, not on never-Trumpers, but on discouraged voters. And, of course, the millions of women voting to take their rights back. They don’t see old “grab them by the pussy” as their preferred protector, it seems.

Finally, a lot of self-identified Christian voters have finally realized that Trump is not a divine test of godliness or whatever the fuck, and are going with the candidate who isn’t a serial adulterer, rapist, con artist, liar and dementia patient. It’s a good look on them.

It’s too early to be complacent, mind you. Trump will challenge the results and put up a huge fight to try to de-legitimize the vote. He’s already said he would. Just like he did in 2020. So expect a battle.

But Trump isn’t fighting for you. He’s fighting for himself. And he knows he has everything to lose.

 

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Supreme Court Fights Democracy — Fascist judges march against freedom

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 30th 2024

A decision, that a few years ago would have utterly shocked court observers but was now met with the usual weary resignation, was handed down this morning by the corrupt fascists on the Supreme Court.

The ruling upheld efforts by the Republican-controlled state of Virginia to purge some 1,600 voters from the polls just days before the election on the dubious grounds that DMV registrations didn’t indicate that they were citizens.

Glenn Youngkin, the rabidly Republican governor, issued an executive order on August 7th that mandated daily checks of voter registration against DMV records, and demanded full nine-digit social security numbers as well as drivers’ licenses from voter applicants. There was also a provision mandating paper ballots.

The date was no accident: August 7th is exactly 90 days before the November 5th election, and federal law forbids significant changes to the electoral process within 90 days of an election.

Gleeful Republicans found 1,600 voters with DMV discrepancies; either the citizenship box was checked ‘non-citizen’ or not checked at all. Given the vanishingly small number of non-citizens who knowingly try to vote, it’s unlikely that more than 1% of those 1600 were, in fact, acting with fraudulent intent.

Suits were filed, pointing out that August 7th was “within” 90 days and challenging the scope and scale of the changes, all of which were imposed, not by legislation, but by executive order from a partisan governor. Per the Guardian, “The US district judge Patricia Giles granted an injunction request brought against Virginia election officials by the justice department, which claimed the voter registrations were wrongly canceled during a 90-day quiet period ahead of the November election that restricts states from making large-scale changes to their voter rolls.”

The Supreme Court sprung into action as only galvanized zealots can, and today slapped down the Giles ruling without explanation. The vote, of course, was 6-3. As usual, the zealots put Donald Trump, or at least God, ahead of the law.

Expect the Court to overturn other, similar legal findings by federal courts over the next day or so. After all, the howling lies of the Trump campaign supercede all evidence or legal protocol.

Trump’s three charlatan judges have destroyed the legitimacy of this Court, and if Harris overcomes the frantic efforts by the GOP to steal the election, she’ll have her work cut out for her in finding ways to restore public trust in the Court.

Clarence Thomas is arguably the most corrupt justice in the history of the United States. Just the known, provable evidence in public light should be enough to impeach him a dozen times over. There is strong evidence that the Trump administration blocked the findings of the FBI background check on Bret Kavanaugh that would have disqualified him from public office, or even a shop at a fast food joint. Neil Gorsuch has a grubby record that was somehow not brought to light by the FBI under that same administration. Amy Coney Barrett is a member of a cult that makes the Stepford Wives look normal and uncreepy. And Samuel Alito reduced the rights of women to rubble and tragedy in his Dobbs decision, which he based in large part not on American law, but on the writings of a 17th century English juror who opined at length on matters such as witchcraft and heresy, two concepts not recognized in American law. Roberts, the Chief Justice, is a weak and compromised man unable to stand up to the onslaught of Opus Dei freaks and Ayn Rand nihilists that have flooded his Court.

If they help Trump get back in despite popular vote, (and that’s a strong possibility) then you will think of this sad excuse of a Court as being “the good old days” back when your vote, your rights, and your freedom actually still meant something.

Further, if Trump does get back in, he’ll add vigorous young fascists to the Court, ensuring corrupt and antipathetic rule for the rest of our lives—lives likely to be ‘nasty, brutish and short’ under a fascist zealot regime.

Anyone who has studied real political history in America knows that legislatures—state legislatures in particular—can pass all sorts of laws that are capricious, unfair, bigoted and flat out insane. The main role of the courts is to hold such up to the writing of the Constitution and strike down the ones that infringe on the rights of the people. For a list of ridiculously unconstitutional laws non-corrupt Supreme Courts have struck down over the years, visit this fine website: https://constitution.congress.gov/resources/unconstitutional-laws/

When the courts are knowingly corrupted and subverted by people who want unresponsive power or even worse, want to wield power in the name of their ever malleable gods, then that one wall against the madness of fools and knaves has fallen.

And that’s what Trump wants. That’s what the fascists underwriting him want. And that’s what the zealots want.

November 5th is your last chance to stop them.

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The Hottest Day in History — After a cool, tranquil start

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 6th 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

There really isn’t anything to suggest today is unusual. It’s 6:30, full light, and it’s 53 with a very slight breeze from the north. Perfect dog-walking weather, or so the dog, ancient but always eager, thinks. There’s a faint scorched smell in the air this July 6th, but it’s not residue from fireworks. They’re banned here, and residents, mindful of the fire situation, were happy to comply.

The faint odor is left over from the day before, until today the hottest day the town has ever recorded. For a few minutes yesterday, late in a bronze afternoon, it ticked 106.1, unheard-of in this mountain town.

It’s cool, it’s fresh, humidity is low. Thunderstorms are not in the offing, and there’s a mercy. Five miles away, the still-large snowfields of Shasta glisten in the morning sun. They look pristine, but weeks of heat have turned them into cornsnow, and the streams and rivers are all very cold white water.

It’s supposed to be 107 today, and experience suggests the forecast is a bit conservative. But the cool nights are a pleasant surprise; forecasts had us getting nights in the mid 60s, hideously hot for us. Nearly everyone in town depends on “mountain air conditioning”–using exhaust fans to suck the warm air out of the homes and replace them with fresh, cool night air. So after a silent mountain night, the house is fresh and cool.

There is birdsong, but this late in the year it’s subdued. A few whipoorwills and cheeseburger birds stake claims already taken, and in the distance a logging truck grunts its way up the hill.

There shouldn’t be a sense of gathering force, but I know better. In a couple of hours the morning sun will feel uncomfortably harsh. Insects will be silent, birds waiting under leafy canopies.

The heat is coming.

I think about the state of the world. Things there, too, have been unnaturally hot, a symptom of an underlying change. In the United States, the fever has been tumultuous. The Supreme Court has utterly abdicated its role as guardian of the constitution and ruled that yes, the president (or at least one particular president) is above the law. There is a historical precedent, even if the order is a bit different.

Then, as now, it won’t end well.

Biden seemed vague and confused during the debate as Trump mindlessly shouted the same prefabricated lies he has been shouting all along. It was painful to watch, but this, too, had a historical precedent, a warning from the past.

There was once a man who ran for high office. He was a criminal and even though he professed great love and patriotism, he led a violent effort to depose the government. He was hoarse, a hateful shouter who knew that you only needed to keep your lies simple and repeat them, over and over. He “uncovered” groups who were different, and could be scapegoated, and he could lie viciously about them. He worked up a social frenzy and convinced followers that they need only punish these groups and remove them from society and everything would then be fine.

After his conviction, he ran for office again. He was an absurd figure, short, dumpy, and not particularly bright. But he convinced his followers he was like unto a god, and there were hundreds of images of him, tall, muscular, chiseled, a stern, steely-eyed leader whose very presence challenged the sun itself. He, and only he, could restore lost greatness and respect to his land, and he could solve all problems. Sane people saw him as a bad joke, but his followers worshiped him. If he told them white was black, then by gawd white was black, although some moderates would argue it was a dark gray.

He didn’t win his election, getting only 32% of the vote, a plurality. But he came close enough that he could steal the rest, and all that lay in his path was one old man, a colossal figure in recent history, still a hero to many, but old, so very old.

The man bullied him mercilessly as his followers swarmed through the streets, beating political opponents and savaging members of the groups the man has scapegoated. The old hero gave in, and gave the man the role of leader.

Here’s where the order was changed. The man took power first, and then had the laws changed so that any “official act” he committed was legal. Once that took place, it was over. No more elections, and freedoms vanished in a growing morass of horror and lawlessness.

The Enabling Acts gave Hitler all the power he wanted and more, and yet they were nothing more than a change in the law that said any of his official acts were protected and he could not be punished for them.

The old hero he wore into submission was Paul von Hindenberg, a truly old man who died just a couple of years later. He wasn’t alone: before Hitler was done, some 45 million other people died.

The order has changed this time. The Supreme Court has passed its version of the Enabling Acts already, but Trump has yet to come close enough to seize power. Between him and that is an old man. Not as old as von Hindenberg was in 1932, and not nearly as feeble. But Trump and his brown shirts are working feverishly to cast him in that role, hoping, as always, that they can manufacture truth from lies.

Even the politicians and journalists who are shouting for Biden to drop his opposition to the new Leader haven’t paused to wonder why they aren’t shouting for Trump to step down. After all, the man is a criminal, a liar, a thief, a moral and ethical wastrel, and his only redeeming qualities are his incompetence and his short life expectancy. How does an evening of confusion in the face of shouted lies stack up against that?

We know what Trump and his followers want. Like Hitler, they make no secret of it, appealing to the same vile, vicious cretins that lie in the underbelly of any society. They betray in the name of patriotism, defile in the name of their god, and want simple answers to questions that don’t have answers.

But unlike the weather, this is reversible. Trump and his Nazis can be stopped.

It’s starting to warm up out there. The air is cool, but the sun is not fooled. It will put us to the test this day.

The morning chores are done, the garden is watered, pets are seen to, careful provisions for shade and water made. The house is cool, and even if we lose electricity, we should be comfortable and safe.

I know my history. I know what to expect, how to prepare.

How about you?

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Guilty x 34 — It’s official—Trump is a felon

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

May 30th 2024

As soon as I heard that the jury in the Trump trial had reached a verdict, I glanced at the clock and realized that a) the jury had found the case to be a slam dunk and b) the use of the singular in the word “verdict” suggested strongly that the result was unanimous on all counts.
And in fact, that’s exactly how it turned out: guilty on all 34 counts.
They may be relatively low-level felonies, and on first offense jail time is rare. But Judge Merchan is going to be considering the demeanor and behavior of the multiple felon during the trial, the number of felonies committed, and whether he showed any remorse or contrition. Merchan is also going to reflect on the attacks on his family and court officials and gauge the viciousness of the convict, and he may even consider the sad spectacle of Republican congressionals lining up outside the court in a blatant effort to intimidate.
I don’t think judicial leniency is in the works.
Sentencing is several weeks away, and of course Trump is going to appeal. So we won’t be seeing him in an orange jumpsuit any time soon.
Trump’s sycophants are already churning out disinformation. I saw a claim that Trump had not been allowed to know what he was charged with until the trial is over. Obviously that would be a massive constitutional no-no, but I remember reading the charges, in detail, on the day Trump was arraigned many months ago. Perhaps Fox News forgot to mention it and so Trump didn’t know. He just showed up at court to cool off and catch forty winks, right?
One of the reporters covering the story noted that when the jury filed in to render its verdict, not one of them looked at Donald Trump. And I remembered the scene from “To Kill a Mockingbird” when Atticus tells Jeb that a jury that has found a defendant guilty they don’t meet his eye. Of course, that trial was a miscarriage of justice. This one wasn’t. The jurors can stand tall and look everyone in the eye.
I think this is a seminal moment for the country. Not only does it show that nobody is above the law, but it is a body blow to the fascist movement that has been backing Trump. They can claim the trial was rigged, and surely will, but the testimony and proceeding are all there in the public record. I carefully kept a copy of Judge Merchan’s jury instructions, which are an apotheosis of judicial fairness and acumen. In my estimation, Merchan is more of a judge than Roberts, Scalia, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Gorsuch and Coney-Barrett, combined.
But there is this: Donald John Trump is a felon. He is a criminal. That is engraved in stone. And while many of his supporters won’t care about that, any more than brownshirts cared that Hitler was a jailbird convicted of insurrection. If anything, their support for Trump will get tighter, because trash always clumps under pressure.
But many of his followers, the ones who suffer from lack of information rather than lack of ethics or values, are inevitably going to hear of today’s verdict, and say, “Hold up. He’s a criminal?”
Trump’s odds of winning in November were already very slim. They are nonexistent now, and I’m quite sure the GOP is debating the destruction of an inevitable civil war amongst the right wing against the certainty of an electoral bloodbath if this felon is the candidate.
I’ll close with this: Truth Social learned a verdict had been reached, and as divorced from reality as the inmates in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, quickly celebrated with this:
“LATER, LOSERS!”

 

 

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Deliberations — A hanging in the balance

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

May 27th 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

I suspect that I’ll be writing a second piece later this week, should the Trump trial for falsification of business records jury return before next weekend. That would probably good news for anyone who believes Trump is guilty of the charges and should be convicted of some, if not all of them. A quick jury return would mean the jury found the case for the state to be a slam dunk and at that point all Judge Juan Marchan has to do is decide how many years Trump should get sentenced to. Given the behavior of Trump and his slimy cohorts during the trial, I doubt judicial leniency is in the cards. If convicted on all counts, it’s unlikely Trump would live long enough to serve out his sentence.

While Trump and his minions may disagree, that’s the best possible outcome for the nation and society in general. Yes, I know some of his fans have been making terrorist threats, but if we can’t stand up to those types of coward and bullies, then perhaps America isn’t worth the trouble.

Second best result—and least likely, in my opinion—is outright acquittal on all charges. I know it’s hard to imagine that the state didn’t have a strong enough case to convince the jurors on some of the charges, but then my perspective – and yours – is that of an outsider who depends on what is in the media. The jurors are remanded to a very specific set of criteria (which Merchan will be reiterating, spelling that out for them tomorrow) and they may decide that whatever they may think of Trump’s behavior and ethics, the actual charges weren’t backed by evidence.

The most likely outcome is that Trump may be found guilty on some or most of the charges. This would indicate a jury that takes its duties and responsibilities seriously, and is taking the time to carefully weigh each charge and determine if it rose to the level of actual legal culpability. So if it’s June the third and we’re still waiting on the jury, don’t panic. It may just mean they are all doing their job in good faith, and even if on some of the charges there’s a hung jury, that may mean one or more of the jurors legitimately thought the state didn’t rise above the required level of reasonable doubt.

If we get to the tenth of June and there’s still no verdict, then the nightmare scenario comes into play. At that point it’s possible that the jury reports back to Merchan that it is unable to get a unanimous verdict on all charges. If it further comes to light that the vote on nearly all the charges was 10 or 11 to convict, then it would be clear that Trump and his crowd managed to get a ringer empaneled who planned to vote to acquit on all charges no matter what.

That would be a devastating blow to the nation’s self-image of being a nation of laws. It might even do more damage than Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. Trump’s known crimes, and his flagrant abuse of the pardon power are far worse than we saw in 1974, but in that half century, standards have slipped, especially amongst Republicans. They enjoy the privilege of lowered expectations. They get away with this shit in large measure because they’re no better than they ought to have been.

But while Trump may dismay but never disappoint, the jury is a different story. We expect better from them, and if Trump has managed to corrupt them, then it’s another victory for the immoral and unethical trash.

Exactly how the nation would react to that outcome would be pretty much determinative.

I would love to say that this wouldn’t happen, but I can’t. Not honestly. Trump’s corruption is very far-reaching, and while the large majority of his followers are disaffected and ineffectual clowns, there are some very powerful interests devoted to the rise of a fascist state who see Trump as their perfect agent.

Americans are notoriously slow to react to that sort of threat. Usually they don’t really react until it morphs into an actual attack, whether it be Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor or 9/11. And in this instance, the attacker may well have possession of the very instruments Americans would need to respond; the government, the military, and the directed will of the population.

A verdict widely seen as honestly arrived at will do much to defray such a eventuality.

Eric Trump (“Butthead”) whined that nobody has sacrificed more for this country than his family. The usual self-pitying, self-aggrandizing crap you expect from the Trumps. But he picked Memorial Day weekend to do that.

Anyone who is inclined to prayers or thinking good thoughts, give those who died a “thank you.” And honor them by fighting tyranny.

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The Supine Court Strikes — What is this silly ‘law’ stuff, anyway?

The Supine Court Strikes

What is this silly ‘law’ stuff, anyway?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 26th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

The Heritage Foundation, or as I like to call them, the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues, represents a broken and twisted philosophy, a sick combination of fascism and Christian reconstructionalism. So it’s no surprise that their hirelings are also broken and twisted creatures.

Take the six “justices” that the Foundation lied, cheated and stole in order to infiltrate the Supreme Court. That suborned court is presently pretending to “deliberate” over whether a President or former president has absolute legal immunity for any actions taken while holding office.

They spent this week, after weeks of absurd delay, quibbling with lawyers over whether a president could be held accountable for “official acts” versus personal misdeeds. It’s a distinction without a difference; if it is an illegal act, then by definition it is not an official act. Presidents are required to “faithfully execute the laws of the United States.” Their own constitutional job description deems illegal acts to be outside the duties and responsibilities of the office. Were he not so hopelessly corrupt, even the befuddled and pampered pet of billionaires, Clarence Thomas, would be able to discern that. (Slappy made one real contribution to the proceedings, wanting to know if the appointment of Jack Smith as special prosecutor was legal. It didn’t have anything to do with this case, and I’m sure his wife, Gin Soaked, put him up to it. I doubt he has the wit to think of it for himself.)

The court will doubtlessly remand this case to the lower courts, who already made their decision loud and clear. Stripped of the legal niceties, they perceived the claim of absolute right of presidents to be a huge load of utter rubbish and about as unAmerican as it gets. But remanding it means the court gets to pretend to ‘consider’ it again no sooner than October, and can wait until five months after the election to decide if Trump can be held liable for his many crimes or not.

Yes, the true purpose of all this is to delay the various trials of Donald Trump until after the election. If the Heritage Foundation can only steal this coming election the way they stole the last five of six elections that produced a Republican president, then they can grandly declare the Republican President has the divine right of kings and end this democracy nonsense once and for all. But they can’t do that right now. After all, that would be giving BIDEN unlimited power and he might use it to order the Supreme Court (well, two thirds of it) taken out and shot, or Trump assassinated. (Assassinating Trump is pretty much redundant at this point; he’s well topped himself with his ongoing antics and clear lack of power in the court and on his silly vanity social media.)

Trump cannot possibly win a fair election. The primaries show that a full third of Republican voters want anyone other than Trump. He has only 30% support from independents and that’s plummeting in the face of Trump’s weakness and culpability on display in the ongoing trial. But the Heritage Foundation, with the backing of most of America’s 850 billionaires, is working hard to keep Republicans in control of government, or, failing that, to at least have enough votes in the gerrymandered House and corn-and-sagebrush-weighted Senate to keep a second Biden term paralyzed and ineffectual. (Most people still don’t understand how fantastic the accomplishments of the first Biden term—the roaring economy, the explosion of manufacturing jobs, the rise of unions and wages—were, despite the unending efforts of Republicans to subvert and deny such accomplishments.)

Thanks to the power of propaganda, people still blame Democrats for the economy (always better under Democratic administrations), the debt (90% of which came from Republican policies and misadventures) and the border (a non-crisis that is exacerbated by Republican refusal to consider legislation that they themselves introduced to try and codify American policy toward refugees.)

Never mind Trump’s lies and bullshit. The far more dangerous ones are the ones promoted endlessly on the propaganda outlets like Faux News and church pulpits.

How effective is it? The Republicans have taken out the old Reagan chestnut “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and are running on it, despite the obvious and clear evidence that virtually everyone, including the people asking that question, are in fact better off now than they were four years ago when hundreds of thousands were dying of COVID, unemployment was more than double what it is now, and the president was a psychotic liar.

Stolen elections? They’ll have you think it’s Democrats. But if you look at people indicted and convicted of election or voter fraud, nearly all of them are Republicans. Which party has administration officials facing trial for falsifying election certifications?

Even as Trump disintegrates, expect a blizzard of lies and hate from the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues. To them, the brass ring is nearly in grasp. They only need one final election to seal the deal, and erect the Christian Fascist state they dream of, where workers are powerless and frightened, consumers are captive and utterly at the mercy of merchants, minorities of all kinds dehumanized and cut off from society, and questioning any of this is not only treason, but sacrilege.

They almost have America. They can taste it.

And once they have it, they don’t plan to share it with you.

America won’t be yours.

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The Arizona Ruling — Religious fascists cower before the shit storm they have created.

Bryan Zepp Jamieson
April 10th 2024
www.zeppscommentaries.online

The Guardian tried to cover Trump’s ever-shifting stance on abortion rights again today, and wound up trying to pretend this was a coherent response:
Asked if Arizona’s ruling went too far, Trump replied: “Yeah, they did. That will be straightened out. As you know, it’s all about state’s rights. It will be straightened out. I’m sure the governor and everybody else are going to bring it back into reason and that it will be taken care of, I think, very quickly.”
The Guardian managed to miss that the ruling that caused this week’s shitstorm was an exact example of what happens when the laws regarding abortion are left to “state’s rights.” Arizona’s supreme court absurdly upheld a law passed by the territorial legislature in 1864, back before Arizona was even a state, that outlawed all abortion other than to save the life of the mother. Other states are considering even disallowing that one life-saving restriction as part of their holy crusade.
But it gets worse. Trump has frequently brayed that he made the overturning of Roe vs. Wade possible. The Guardian failed to mention that.
The Guardian utterly ignored a video Trump made LESS THAN TWO DAYS EARLIER in which he said, “They [Democrats] support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month. The concept of having an abortion in the later months, and even execution after birth. And that’s exactly what it is. The baby is born, the baby is executed after birth is unacceptable, and almost everyone agrees with that.”
That would be disgraceful coming from a drunken misogynistic wife-beater in a sleazy bar pissed on cheap whiskey. It would even be disgusting coming from an even lower life form, an evangelist drunk on Jesus. This is coming from a thieving, lying sewer rat of a man who wants to be President again.
How much do you have to hate women to even believe that they would cheerfully terminate their pregnancies in the ninth month? Or even the third month? As for women getting abortions “after the baby is born” that’s a lie on the level of “Jews drink the blood of Christian babies.” It’s a disgrace, and no person saying such a thing can lay any claim to decency. Trump certainly cannot. Trump is trash. This proves it.
It misrepresents what Roe vs. Wade stipulated. There’s a reason—and it’s not medical—why people speak of “trimesters” in pregnancies. No sudden change occurs at the end of 90 days, or 120 days. It’s just that Roe vs. Wade laid out restrictions states could impose on the fundamental right to an abortion: In the first trimester, governments could place no restrictions on women’s ability to choose to abort pregnancies other than imposing minimal medical safeguards, such as requiring abortions to be performed by licensed physicians [per Wikipedia, cited]. In the second trimester, increasing risks to the mother’s health gave states a compelling interest that allowed them to enact medical regulations on abortion procedures so long as they were reasonable and “narrowly tailored” to protecting mothers’ health [per Wikipedia, cited]. And finally, in the final trimester, “From the beginning of the third trimester on—the point at which a fetus became viable under the medical technology available in the early 1970s—the Court ruled that a state’s interest in protecting prenatal life became so compelling that it could legally prohibit all abortions except where necessary to protect the mother’s life or health [per Wikipedia, cited].
Do I even have to say that no state has ever allowed the killing of an infant under any circumstances? Women-hating drunks might believe it. Religiously insane zealots might believe it. And Donald J. Trump may believe it. But it is not true.
Even as many Republicans are suddenly realizing that they went too far in trying to appease the zealots and alienated a huge majority of voters, a lot of them who were fulsomely “pro-life” last year are suddenly “pro-choice” or “let the states decide.” The first is hypocritical. The second is disingenuous as well as hypocritical.
At the time Roe vs. Wade was delivered, only five states had it generally legal (and doctors were free to refuse for any or no reason). In 13 states it was legal in cases of risk to woman’s health, rape or incest, or likely damaged fetus. In 31 states it was legal in cases of risk to woman’s life. And in Pennsylvania it was illegal under all circumstances, a draconian and murderous stance that several states are now avidly pursuing.
A lot of Republicans are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They were “pro-life” before, but now they either want states like Arizona or Pennsylvania or Alabama to decide what rights, if any, you can have, or they have pretended to cave entirely and say Arizona went too far. Trump, of course, stands for both sides of that giant back-step.
Republicans are not to be trusted. Zealots are definitely not to be trusted. (Their own bible approves of abortion when infidelity is suspected). And Trump was never trustworthy to begin with.

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GOP is Trumped — Disintegration is snowballing

GOP is Trumped

Disintegration is snowballing

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 24th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

There’s a “train-crash” fascination to the on-going destruction of the Republican party. The other day the House caved on the latest appropriations $1.1T bill, and Armpits Maggie promptly filed a motion to vacate, the GOP rule that allows the party to dump their own speaker at any time and for any reason. Should the vote occur, then religious nutbag Mike Johnson and his “head-of-lettuce” tenure will go the way of Kevin McCarthy. And of course, even with a unanimous party-line vote, the GOP doesn’t have enough seats to refill the position. Two hundred and eighteen votes are required from the full House, and they only have 217 seats. That will drop to 216 in April.

That’s assuming the vote is even held. However, there is a procedure called “motion to table” which allows the House to decide if a motion should reach the floor for a vote in the first place. Yes, it’s repetitive and redundant, which makes it perfect for fans of repetitive redundancy.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who likes Mike Johnson about as much as he likes toe fungus, has an idea. A handful of Dems could vote for the motion to table, along with the large majority of Republicans, and that only needs a majority of the quorum, so at most 216 votes to pass. Mind you, they won’t be voting FOR Mike Johnson. They would simply be voting not to vote at all.

But Mike Johnson would have to make a deal. First on the agenda would be for Republicans to step aside and permit the $95b aid package to Ukraine to go through. Second would be to permit a full floor vote on the border bill that Trump scuttled a couple of weeks ago. And if it were up to me, I would add a third stipulation: shut down the Biden impeachment inquiry. Lev Parnas blew the inquiry, already a bad joke, sky-high. Johnson might actually see that as a favor, since it’s reached the point where the only people being damaged by it are Republicans. But it would mean that the House would actually have to do real work, like voting on legislation and formulating plans to move the country forward. So maybe it would not be such a gain for the GOP, unless of course they decide they need to distract from Trump rather than serve him.

Trump himself is disintegrating rapidly. His latest stunt was to boast that he had the cash to cover the real estate fraud judgment against him while at the same time insisting that he doesn’t have the assets or the ability to have the judgment underwritten. We’ll find out tomorrow how that is going to turn out. It’s not impossible that Trump could face criminal counts of fraud and perjury from this going forward.

The latest was the merger between Truth Social and Digital World Acquisition Corporation. The media are loudly braying that this merger would give Trump an on-paper valuation of three billion dollars, but in reality it will do nothing of the sort. Truth Social is a toy social network, with active membership around 850,000 and dropping. DWAC is pure smoke and mirrors, selling only memes, with their entire valuation based on the number of mouse clicks they get. Does that sound like something worth three billion dollars to you?

But Trump can’t cash out his shares for six months after the deal goes into affect. And lenders aren’t going to look at the initial IPO price and assume Trump has three billion in stock; they’re going to look six months ahead, to when Trump would have to repay their loan with interest, and see if the stock has retained even 1/6th of its value.

And it won’t. Neither company has anything tangible to offer, and I predict the IPO will be one of the most disastrous in market history—and it won’t recover. Why should it? It could lose 80% in its first day of trading, and I wouldn’t care to bet it even had penny stock status by mid October.

The latest with Trump is that his handlers are trying to keep him out of the public eye as his mental and intellectual deterioration continues to snowball. Instead, they’re releasing videos of speeches and rallies he held in 2020 and even 2016, and hoping the media won’t notice. Even American corporate media would have to take note of that, especially since the speeches would be referring to “Crooked Hillary” or talking about getting out of Afghanistan.

Further, handling Trump, even in his dotage, is a challenge. Compos Mentis or not, he’ll want to babble to live cameras about how smart he is and how everyone loves him and will vote for him to kick that wicked President “Gangly” Lincoln out of office once and for all. So he’ll be appearing on OANN and Newsmax, and posting all-caps messages on Truth Social, and Democrats will be gleefully recording and using all of them. Trump has already come out in favor of slashing Social Security and Medicare, and wants a nation-wide 15 week abortion ban, which is political suicide.

Trump wrapped up the delegates needed for this summer’s convention, making him the nominee. (Biden did the same, only much more quietly and in a more orderly fashion, and didn’t threaten to kick anyone who didn’t support him out of the party, because Biden has a functioning brain.)

But between his legal and medical problems, I’m only offering one in four odds that by election day, Trump will still be the candidate of the GOP. The party itself, to all intents and purposes, may have ceased to exist by then.

If three Republicans in the House quit or change their designation and leave the caucus, Hakeem Jeffries might well be Speaker and Democrats may control the House before they have to certify the election results, and there’s now a very good chance that may happen as the lunatic right, led by Trump, cause sane conservatives to desert the party in drove.

Say what you will, but it’s not going to be boring. Or routine. Or normal. Or even particularly sane.

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Cert Denied — But Justice neither delayed nor denied…yet

Cert Denied

But Justice neither delayed nor denied…yet

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 22nd, 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

I shook my head in disgust when I read that the Supreme Court had denied cert on Jack Smith’s appeal to take up the issue of Trump’s immunity on an expedited basis. This is, after all, the same Court that accepted 19 other such appeals in order to expedite their right wing agenda. So now, I thought, they want to drag their feet?

But upon reflection, I realized that while the court had punted, it wasn’t likely to push Trump’s trials back significantly.

The US Court of Appeals in DC had already signaled that they would expedite their decision on this issue, and it’s very likely that they themselves will give a ruling and then request the Supreme Court take up their ruling on an expedited basis, citing the urgency of a swift resolution of the matter.

Court of Appeals is an Appellate Court, which means that rather than retry the issue at hand, they determine if proper legal procedures were followed in precursor motions, and if the law was applied fairly and impartially.

In this instance the motion is a legal hairball coughed up by the Trump side of unlimited immunity for any and all actions taken as president, combined with a claim that the courts had no constitutional authority over the president under separation of powers.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan leveled those claims, writing in her ruling, “The court cannot conclude that our constitution cloaks former presidents with absolute immunity for any federal crimes they committed while in office. Nothing in the constitution’s text or allocation of government powers requires exempting former presidents…Defendant’s four-year service as commander in chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”

So in about three weeks, a three judge sub-panel of the Appeals Court will issue their own ruling. It’s extremely likely that they will uphold Chutkan, whereupon Trump will appeal for an en banc review, engaging all the justices on the Court.

At that point, several possibilities exist. The Court may decide to take it up en banc but not on an expedited basis. Given that they have already accepted the urgency of the matter, this is extremely unlikely.

Second, they may strike down the panel’s findings. Since Trump is asserting that the Presidency is above the law and no action taken as President can be adjudicated, this, too, is very unlikely.

Third is they uphold the panel, whereupon Trump appeals, and they take up appealing their own decision. This, too, is unlikely.

Fourth is they uphold the panel, and immediately ask the Supreme Court to take it up on an expedited basis.

At that point, the Supreme Court has three options.

One, they take the case on a non-expedited basis and drag out a decision, possibly until the end of next term in 2025. This would be a blatant move, even for them, and would be extremely unpopular. And one way or another, their opinion on the matter would be moot by then.

Second, they make a ruling. Since Trump is essentially demanding that he be freed from all Constitutional restraints and any checks and balances by legalizing any action he (or Biden) take as President, this is extremely unlikely.

Third, they deny cert, which would uphold the Court of Appeals and end Trump’s appeal process. This is—by far—the most likely scenario. They might try to drag their feet on the matter, but with both sides urging a fast resolution, they may deny cert days after the en banc decision, which would end the matter by about the third week of January, allowing the trial for election interference to proceed.

Adding pressure on the Court is the ruling in Colorado (Anderson vs. Griswald) that struck Trump from the ballot on constitutional grounds, in a 4-3 ruling. What is especially noteworthy in this landmark decision is that all seven justices took it as a given that Trump did, in fact, aid and abet an insurrection and was trying to deny the results of the 2020 election. In effect, this is a de jure finding that Trump did engage in insurrection. That is bound to get mentioned in the appeals arguments by Jack Smith’s team. (Three of the Colorado judges deemed the banning improper on the grounds that the amendment doesn’t specify the office of the president, and further, he’s not an “official of the United States” even though he held office and had to take an oath of office to get there, and is seeking immunity on the grounds that the office he held is immune. Firesign Theatre couldn’t have come up with that convoluted logic!)

One indicator that is a couple of weeks ahead of this is the Court of Appeals and the gag order Judge Chutkan imposed on Trump. The Court is expected to give an en banc decision in a week or so if it feels inclined to hurry, and it probably does. The three judge panel loosened the restrictions of the gag order, but only a bit.

The Colorado judges got hit with a flood of death threats and other abuse from Trump’s scummier followers, and it’s likely they’ll try the same stunt with the Court of Appeals, giving the judges some personal experience as to why Chutkan ruled the way she did. That won’t help Trump.

What happens there next will tell the tale. The losing side will appeal to the Supreme Court. Whereupon, look at the options above. Same apply here.

I think we’ll have a clearer view of the legal road ahead no later than January 15th. Mark it on your calendar.

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