The Wednesday Night Massacre — The battle between Trump and America is joined

The Wednesday Night Massacre

The battle between Trump and America is joined

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 14th, 2025

Some of you may remember the Saturday Night Massacre. It was the turning point of the Watergate scandal in 1973, when it was revealed that Richard Nixon had taped his conversations in the Oval Office—which would likely include conversations pertaining to the break-in at Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate hotel and subsequent conversations about the cover-up of the crime and possible White House complicity.

The special prosecutor investigating the case, Archibald Cox, promptly issued a subpoena for the tapes. Nixon refused, and ordered Cox to drop the subpoena. Cox refused. Nixon then ordered the Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, to fire Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered the assistant attorney general, William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox. He refused and resigned. Finally, Nixon found a willing toady in the contemptible Robert Bork who said, in effect, oh, hey, master, no problem! Cox is gone. Bork went on to become a hero to the morally bankrupt conservative movement, even getting nominated to the Supreme Court before people remembered who he was.

The fiasco pretty much sealed Nixon’s fate. Americans hadn’t yet been subjected to 50 years of right wing propaganda designed to erode their confidence in democracy, freedom, justice and themselves. They realized that Nixon’s behavior was not that of an unjustly accused president, and his support plummeted.

Now here we are not one month into the most criminally capricious and ethically destitute administration in US history, and an even bigger massacre has taken place.

Eric Adams is the mayor of New York City, and he is a piece of work. He was, at best, a shady cop for many years, and rose to captain. He retired, got elected to the state senate, then became Brooklyn borough president, and then ran for mayor, winning handily against an inept vigilante.

Adams’ ethics, if he ever had any, vanished, and by 2024 he had been indicted on federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. He was the first mayor to face federal charges while still in office.

Then Trump got elected, and set about destroying rule of law. After Matt Gaetz flamed out, he picked his second-best alternative, Pam Bondi, to run the Justice Department. (Yes, she was sloppy seconds to Matt Gaetz, so don’t get your hopes up.) The DoJ immediately became what Trump claimed it was when it was prosecuting him: corrupt, incompetent, and politicized. (Trump ALWAYS accuses others of being what he is himself).

Trump needed scapegoats who couldn’t fight back to blame the country’s problems upon, and immigrants are his version of the Jews under Hitler. He was delighted that Eric Adams shared his views and wished to punish people in order to make it look patriotic. Eric Adams wouldn’t be much use in prison. So he told Bondi to make the charges go away, just like he did with hundreds awaiting trial for January 6th, and she passed word down to one of her flunkies, Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, to make the case go away. Emil, no hero, passed word down to one Danielle Renee Sassoon, who was appointed the acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York by Trump just the month before. Bove claimed that the charges against Adams, a Democrat, were politically motivated. (The charges were brought under Merrick Garland during the Biden Administration.) Bove no doubt presumed that Sassoon would be as corrupt, nuts and/or servile as all Trump’s other appointments.

Well, turns out she isn’t.

She wrote a seven page letter detailing why she could not follow Bove’s orders to drop the case against Adams, and resigned effective immediately. Starting to sound familiar?

It turned into an avalanche. According to an MSN report, According to a person briefed on the matter, after Sassoon refused to dismiss the case, the Trump administration directed John Keller, the acting head of the Justice Department’s public corruption unit, to do so.

Keller also resigned on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter said. Kevin Driscoll, a senior official in the department’s criminal division, has also resigned, one of the people said.

Three other deputies in the Justice Department’s public corruption unit – Rob Heberle, Jenn Clarke, and Marco Palmieri – also resigned on Thursday over the orders to dismiss the Adams case, a person familiar with the matter said.”

Wow. This already makes the Saturday Night Massacre look like an office spat over nuking popcorn in the microwave and stinking up the place. Seven resignations on principle, and counting.

An army of skunks couldn’t stink up the place the way Trump has.

More resignations are expected as all the decent people get out, leaving the Justice Department (and our dependence on a fair and just legal system) in the hands of obedient strutting swine and toadies. Good luck, America. I’ll probably end up in Gitmo for writing this.

Mind you, the massacre 52 years ago took place when lack of evidence made the entire Watergate case a matter of “he said she said.” Many people sided with Nixon in good faith. That’s not the case here.

Bove’s order to Sassoon made it clear that there was a fiddle in the case. Again, according to MSN: Sassoon said the memo Bove wrote directing the case be dropped makes clear Adams is being granted leniency in exchange for assisting the federal government with its immigration priorities, citing a meeting Jan. 31 that she, Bove, Adams’s attorney and members of her office attended.

Adams’s attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the Department’s enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed,’ Sassoon said in the letter Wednesday.”

Rachel Maddow reported that the order was to dismiss the charges against Adams “without prejudice” which, Maddow explained, meant that they were to be suspended rather than dropped entirely, and would be left hanging over Adams’ head for as long as he was in office and carrying out Trump’s pogrom against immigrants for him. No hint of coercion there, right?

It’s been 52 years since the Saturday Night Massacre. Since then, Americans have been subjected to a half century of endless propaganda designed to erode American confidence in democracy, freedom, justice and self-respect. The Massacre effectively ended Nixon. Will this end Trump? With a corrupt Court and servile, cringing Republican congress? Will the public finally rise up against this criminal?

When the right decided to avenge Watergate and end the American experiment, they probably didn’t think it would culminate in Donald Trump, already known back then as a vicious and unreliable clown.

But their cause is a broken and twisted one, so it’s no surprise their hirelings are broken and twisted people.

All the decent people in the Justice Department are getting out. What remains are swine and lower than swine.

Good luck to all of us

World Wide Weather — In the Event Of

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 5th 2025

www.zeppscommentaries.online

With the events in Boulder this morning, with Elon Musk’s move to take over the NOAA headquarters, we must prepare for the possibility that NOAA may vanish, or be subsumed into a commercial weather service that puts profits and political expediency ahead of accuracy.

Below are a list of site that may survive such a purge and continue to be useful. Note that many depend on NOAA for their basic data and hopefully are scrambling to access data from outside the United States.

I’ll also included tips for security accessing sites that may not be approved of by the government going forward so you won’t be in the dark.

https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/home.html

“This global website presents OFFICIAL weather observations, weather forecasts and climatological information for selected cities supplied by National Meteorological & Hydrological Services (NMHSs) worldwide.The NMHSs make official weather observations in their respective countries. Links to their official weather service websites and tourism board/organization are also provided whenever available. Weather icons are shown alongside worded forecasts in this version to facilitate visual inspection.”

https://www.bbc.com/weather

Weather forecasts for thousands of sites around the world

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/

“The Met Office has been keeping folks informed about changes in the weather for over a century and a half now. As the official forecaster for the UK, they know their stuff! Based in Exeter, their team watches endless amounts of data from locations all over using some high-tech supercomputers. We appreciate how the regional forecasts on their site make planning trips featured in our travel blogs a breeze. Beyond daily outlooks, they also offer specialized guidance for marine weather that even the hardiest sailors rely on. With unmatched experience studying the complex sciences behind our atmosphere, the professionals at the Met Office have a well-earned reputation for reliable predictions.”

https://weatherspark.com/

“WeatherSpark is one of the best weather sites for super simple yet effective planning. Based out of Seattle, their team has made forecasting fun with their clean interface focused on graphics over jargon. We love how their maps show easy-to-grasp color animations right on top of places featured in our travel blogs. Beyond standard precipitation and temp charts, they provide cool extras too – from “feels like” Adjusted Temperature charts to chance of snow measurements. WeatherSpark also gathers hyper-local data using sensors embedded around cities. This street-level detail comes in handy when we’re deciding between hiking trails. And it’s not just us – Foursquare users voted them ‘Best new weather app’”

[Note: while based in Seattle, they are close enough to the Canadian border that they may be able to continue operations]

https://www.windy.com/?41.248,-122.113,5

Based in the Czech Republic, Windy has a real time wind map of the globe.

https://www.sat24.com/en-gb

Global coverage by satellite in real time.

 

https://www.ventusky.com/

Ventusky (AI forecasts, so remember what happens if you ask AI if water freezes at 27F)

“This is one of the best weather websites. You see forecasts for a whole week and hour to hour too. This lets owners schedule events better. Ventusky works worldwide too. Alerts come quickly if bad weather is near. The app is neat and easy. AI helps explain what weather means. Companies doing things outside need good weather tips.

“It even learns where you are to give better forecasts. Maps and pictures show lots of weather details too. Plus fun articles teach about weather. Whether for work or play, Ventusky gives good weather so plans can happen no matter the sky.”

https://www.meteoprog.com/

Meteoprog

“Meteoprog combines weather data and technology to help countries, companies and people better address weather-related challenges. This site provides the ability to track meteorological information around the world. Meteoprog has been forecasting the weather for over 20 years. This site has own solutions and forecast models.”

https://www.worldweatheronline.com/

Weather World Online

“World Weather Online is one of the best weather websites. Weather-obsessed and accuracy-focused, we pour passion into predictions for all – from skiers to surfers. Daily downpours or weekend wonders worldwide, you’ll get reliable, up-to-date climate intel. Sports folks score with specially simulated conditions. Businesses and developers leverage our precise APIs in myriad mediums. Continually crunching complex climate data through our forecasting framework, we fuse major meteorological models for the most masterful meteorology possible.”

https://www.Weatherwest.com

I’ve no doubt Daniel Swain will keep his site going for as long as possible and is surveying sources of reliable meteorological and climatological information.

A lot of these sites depend on NOAA, in part or in whole, for their forecast models. Should NOAA go dark or be mismanaged into irrelevance, sites like these will be prepared to step in should we be reduced to being charged money for inferior information.

Security is always an issue. People should get a good VPN (Proton is free and works quite well), along with a Tor Browser (also free), use Duck Duck Go for searches (also free and they don’t track you). For untraceable communication, the ancient pre-web technology of Usenet is available. Type in “Endless September” on your internet search engine for details.

We are in unpredictable times, and access to good scientific data is under assault. Prepare now while there is time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 30th 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Four more years of this craziness. At least.

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

 

 

 

 

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

Springtime for Trumpie and USA

Winter for … well, everybody

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 19th 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 3rd, 2025

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

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

The Thompson Shooting — He wasn’t the real target

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 8th 2024

There was something different about the Brian Thompson shooting. Assassinations (and this almost certainly was an assassination rather than a typical random murder) are not usually an accepted part of American life, even when the victims were wildly polarizing figures such as Huey Long, George Wallace, Ronald Reagan or Robert Kennedy. (The two exceptions were Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy, whose deaths were widely cheered in the South.)

There have been the deaths of foreign leaders that met with widespread approval from the American public: Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin come to mind.

Fame or infamy played a major role in such incidents, of course. But with Brian Thompson, fame wasn’t a factor. Perhaps 1 in 20 Americans had even heard of the man before he got shot. Take the top 100 corporations in America, and the average person might be able to name five of the CEOs on that list.

The corporation he ran, United Health Care, was the most notorious of the so-called “health care providers” (they provide exactly no health care, but are simply a bridge troll between people and a human right), one with the highest denial of coverage rate in the country (32%, nearly a third of all cases they supposedly covered) and we knew it was widely hated, not just by its victims, but by friends, relatives and co-workers of those millions who suffered.

UnitedHealth Group, an umbrella corporation that includes United Health Care, made $22 billion in profits in 2023. Revenues were $371.6 billion. United Health Care was roughly a quarter of that gaudy total. Remember, “profits” don’t include salaries (Thompson alone got over $10 million a year plus perks) or money spent fighting claims for denial of coverage and overcharging.

Nobody makes $22 billion “serving the public.” The only way to make that kind of money is by robbing the public blind. In a vital and necessary public need like health care, a certain amount of viciousness is required. Denying claims supposedly reduces costs, but I can’t help but wonder how much was spent on lawyers and lawgivers in order to fight resistance to those often-frivolous denials of necessary care. What is the ratio between pennies saved and costs of screwing the clients?

Remember, in most countries, access to health care is considered a human right! Canadians complain about the cost and inefficiency of their system, but the per capita cost is about 62% of what Americans pay, and not only is it 100% coverage for everyone, but includes dental and vision and some mental health care.

Actual medical providers—you know, doctors, nurses, clinics, hospitals, rather than bridge trolls—report that up to 40% of their expenses related to patient care come from filling out the endless and endlessly varying insurance forms and requirements, nearly all unique to each of the hundreds of bridge trolls, big and small, that stand between patients and care with their hands out.

“Profits” also doesn’t include the billions spent on lobbying against any sort of universal health care program, and paying to ensure that the legislatures are stuffed with well-paid toadies and cryptofascists dedicated to a land by the corporations, for the corporations, and of the corporations. The billions spent on advertising, lying to the people about how they only exist to help, are also deductible.

Lying and cheating are standard business costs, you know. Thank lobbyists and Citizens United for that.

Even with the improvements we saw under Obama and Biden, health care access in America is the worst in the developed world. Trump is vowing to eliminate Obamacare and Medicaid and Medicare, and if he pulls any of that off, health care in America will plummet below that in basket-case countries such as Somalia or Haiti.

I can’t help but wonder how many voters voted for Trump, aware he wanted to get rid of the ACA and the government providers, but thought to themselves “It will save money and my health insurance will protect me.” Ho, boy, are they in for a surprise.

It’s bad, and it’s going to get much worse, and most people are uneasily aware of that.

Which brings us back to Thompson. Now, for all I know, he was a fine family man, a good neighbor, and supported the local little league team and donated to the Salvation Army. Nearly all people have at least some redeeming features, after all. But he was solidly behind the most loathsome policies in an industry widely despised for such policies. He didn’t inherit UHC’s appalling numbers—he created them, indeed, was on his way to a meeting to boast about them to inspire more of the same when he got shot.

The media reacted with shock and outrage, and we heard the usual mewlings about the streets flooded with guns and random nuts and lack of Christianity that are always heard when someone gets shot in a newsworthy fashion (less than 1% of all shootings, granted). But that died away quickly when the response on social media made itself evident.

The vast majority of reactions ranged between satisfaction to outright glee. UHC posted the usual “shock and sorrow” notice on Facebook, and within 24 hours had 55,000 “laughing” emojis—some 98% of the total responses. Hundreds of thousands of “denied coverage” jokes flew around the blogosphere. The national consensus amounted to “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” There have been celebrity deaths that drew elements of derision and pleasure—Michael Jackson, Andrew Breitbart, Antonin Scalia—but they were famous in their own right. Brian Thompson was a relatively unknown personage. His death was cheered, not because of his individual presence, but because he represented what is arguably the most hated business sector in America. And that hatred is overwhelmingly widespread.

Should Donald Trump’s years of bad living catch up to him and they drag him away, face down, off the Fourth Green, millions will be dancing in the streets. Thompson’s family should know he wasn’t hated for the person he was like Trump is.

But this Thompson shooting incident feels much less like another sad tale in gun-ridden American than it does what those in power most fear—it felt like a SPARK.

“Medals for Everyone!” — A guide to understanding Trumpenstein II

Medals for Everyone!”

A guide to understanding Trumpenstein II

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 17th 2024

If you haven’t seen the 1933 Marx Brothers classic “Duck Soup,” now might be a good time to do so. Raucous and absurd, it’s also a fairly handy guide to what Americans might expect over this coming year.

In the movie, a rich plutocrat (Gloria Teasdale, played by Margaret Dumont) with more money than common sense makes the nation of Freedonia an offer it can’t refuse. $20 million in US dollars (worth nearly $500 million today) but there’s a catch: she gets to appoint the next leader of Freedonia. She has someone in particular in mind: Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx).

Rufus is erratic, egotistical verging on monomaniacal, impetuous and basically a force of chaos. Without the intervention of moronic money, he would never have gotten within a time zone of the levers of power.

Freedonia falls into corrupt paralysis and eventually ends up at war with its neighboring country. Freedonia collapses, and the enemy troops find Rufus and his rich sponsor, toss them in stocks and pelt them with fruit.

This being a Marx brothers movie and not the country you grew up in, it’s all very hilarious.

Thanks in large part to the power of propaganda, a majority of American voters felt liberated to be complete, vicious, selfish shits and elect a hateful nut as President. If you think of the coalition of plutocrats and corporations that promoted this (the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues, and yes, I’m going to keep right on calling them that until they throw me in the camps) as the Teasdale coalition, and Donald J. Trump as Rufus T. Firefly, then suddenly Duck Soup stops looking like an amusing, if dated parody and instead, becomes our future.

I won’t bother discussing the start of our new era. The headlines speak for themselves. Not only is it as bad a start as we can imagine, but it’s a worse start than we could imagine. Andy Borowitz caught the spirit of this new world order with a picture of Matt Gaetz and the caption: “Maybe this is what QAnon meant when they talked about bringing pedophiles to Justice.”

Our only real hope is that the new regime, like that of Rufus T. Firefly’s, will be so corrupt and incompetent that it will simply collapse before it has a chance to utterly destroy the nation. What such a collapse might entail I can’t really imagine. But it has already begun.

We’re already hearing reports of a incandescently angry Trump screaming at aides over leaks, mostly because the leaks tend to be true. We’re seeing flat-out lies already, and repression is rapidly spreading. I know that for some time the earth sciences have been moving data and access to data out of the country, a stream that has become a flood since the 5th of November. I imagine a lot of other disciplines that fall under the tent of “woke” or “bad for business” or which contradicts holy script are all doing the same thing. We’re not going to get out of this without falling into a mini-dark age at the very least.

Fortunately, most of the world’s library is on-line and safely abroad. They can ban all the books they want, but as long as people can log on overseas (magic words: Tor Browser and a virtual private network) access to knowledge and wisdom will remain.

Another reason to believe that the age of Trump might be short-lived: his policies (tariffs, deconstruction of nearly the entire federal government, deporting nearly half of the agricultural labor force) are going to be catastrophic for the economy, and no matter how much his regime tries to hide it, the same plutocrats who made Trump possible (the top ten richest Americans added $68 billion to their wealth in the DAY after Trump as elected) are going to start seeing immense losses.

Social unrest will probably rise to levels unseen since 1933. Trump wants to respond to protest violently, which is the surest path to cause discontent to blaze into full rebellion. Trump and his motley crew are probably too arrogant and too stupid to realize it, but they are creating what will become a social tsunami. It won’t be pretty.

And remember: Trump already has dementia, and is in terrible physical condition. He personally will not last, and knowing his management style, his death will create a bloodbath in every organization he heads, including the United States.

The next few years are not going to be pretty. I haven’t even discussed what America’s abdication from the world stage is going to mean, except that under the very best possible scenarios, America will no longer be the strongest nation in the world. It may not even be in the top ten.

But hang in there. History shows that things like this don’t last long unless folk like you give up. Be prepared to resist.

Decision Day 2024 — House and Senate up for grabs, along with our future

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

November 4th 2024

Kamala Harris is going to win. And fairly substantially. She will be our next president and with any luck at all, by next March Donald Trump will be just a bad memory.

But if you can vote, do so. Especially if you are in a state or a Congressional district that is even remotely close. Harris won’t be able to put many of her campaign promises into effect if Republicans control either House. At this point, I think the Dems have a good chance of taking the House back, but I’m not so sure about the Senate. Even with Mitch McConnell shuffling off to well-deserved obscurity, I expect whoever replaces him will be just as obstructionist and possibly a crazy MAGAt.

Some of the smaller polls are producing startling results. Texas might just dump Ted Cruz, and may even break for Harris, despite the best efforts of the fascist government in Texas to skewer and interfere with the vote there. North Carolina may go for Harris: a lot of voters there heard Trump’s claims of no government assistance in the wake of the hurricanes, looked around, and realized that Trump was lying. Many realized that the future will bring more natural disasters, and they need a government that won’t base assistance on how you voted in the last election. Harris is leading in solidly red Iowa by two points.

America needs a government that is competent, clean, and works on behalf of everyone in the country, and not just people waving Trump flags. Unless Democrats take the White House and BOTH the House and the Senate, that’s not going to happen.

Imagine a future where the news of the governance of the nation isn’t dominated by Marjorie Taylor-Green, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Mike Johnson, Elise Stefanik, Joni Ernst, Rick Scott, or any of the other nutball rabble that infest our governance these days. Yes, many of them will be re-elected or didn’t have to run this time, but if they are in the minority, it will put an end to the endless kangaroo court hearings, and Congress might actually become useful again. Instead of clownish hearings about impeaching Biden or punishing family members of his, we may instead hear about debate over housing assistance for young adults entering the workplace, expanded Medicare, and further efforts to rein in the corporations.

Fascist plutocrats like Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos, and the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues will continue to poison the well, of course, and they will have the usual clown shows where some attention seeker in the GOP ranks will call for Harris’ impeachment three days after she takes office. That won’t change. But at least a solid win for the Dems will set them back, and reduce the threat they pose to our freedoms.

I expect that MAGA and QAnon will disintegrate after the inauguration. Trump won’t be their figurehead any more; at the very least he will have lost his clout, and in all likelihood he’ll be in prison or a rest home. Yes, America, like everywhere, will always have a significant population of nasty right wing nuts—bigots, greedheads, haters—but without the cult leader, they will crawl back to under the rocks where they belong.

Most importantly, control of court appointments must be taken back. Trump appointed three disgraces to the Supreme Court, and he’s even on record suggesting that his District Attorney (appointed, because there isn’t a prayer the Senate would confirm her) would be his pet corrupt Florida judge, Aileen Cannon. He’s also said he will make the loony Robert F. Kennedy Junior the nation’s ‘health czar’ and put the eerie Reinhard Heydrich clone Steven Miller in charge of immigration. Yesterday, he proposed to put the nation’s missile defense in the hands of noted rocket scientist Herschel Walker! Trump probably would like to have Mafia-type rule, but what he would achieve to control our lives would be an extremely malignant and incompetent idiocracy.

Last week Joe Biden made an ambiguous statement that interpreted one way, suggested he called Trump supporters at large “trash.” There was a lot of outrage over that, of course, but it’s significant that the outrage didn’t spread much outside of Trump’s most devoted followers. Many people who have known Joe Biden for years don’t believe he meant it that way (the remark, Biden says, was aimed at some of the trash who spoke at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally) and among those who did, there was considerable doubt that the supposed judgment was particularly harsh. It’s hard to give people the benefit of the doubt when they shout that liberals are communists, Democrats are scum, and want to impose their church doctrines on us all, not to mention nutball opinions about vaccines, reading material, women’s right to vote, eugenics, and “race science.” Some of these flat-earth nuts want us to doubt the Moon landings took place.

It’s time to put this idiocy back in its place. People have an absolute right to wrong-headed and illogical opinions, but they don’t have the right to impose them upon the rest of us. And yes, this includes religious-based opinions. Robert Heinlein once wrote “One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.” And a meme popular on social media states, “America is not a Christian nation. It is a nation in which you are free to be a Christian.”

So do vote. Even if you are in a state that is solidly blue or red, your vote could tip the balance in the House and Senate, and ensure that America remains America, and doesn’t become a corrupt and evil kleptocracy.

The Future History of MAGA — Operation Hummingbird

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 22nd 2024

Let’s suppose Trump attains the Presidency next January. It’s not out of the question. At this point, I fully expect Kamala Harris to win by some 10 million votes, but we all know the opinions of the lowly American voters may not be the determining factor, given the groups of eager little fascists who will be counting and certifying the votes, the ignorant morons in Congress who were only stopped last time by Mike Pence, and the five and dime toadies on the courts. Trump may be President again no matter what the American people want.

What Trump wants may also not be a factor. His obvious dementia is worsening by the day, and if he even knows he’s President, he may not be able to rise above the level of Rufus T. Firefly (“Medals for Everyone!”). But the sleek vicious people backing and propping up Trump know exactly what they want, and they are operating on the same game plan that brought Trump this far.

Their position is going to be very precarious. Much of America is going to be shocked, and then angry. Donald’s been threatening to send out the military and the national guard to “deal with” protesters, and I can’t feel certain that they won’t open fire on unarmed American protesters. That almost certainly will not pacify the population.

Some of Donald’s most fervent supporters, the ones in the red caps and flag-bedecked clothes, are going to start fulfilling some of their sick fantasies. They have people they want to round up and deal with. Gays, ‘immigrants’ (pretty much anyone with dark skin or an accent), Blacks, infidels and drag queens will all be at risk. Even though the party line is staunchly pro-Israel, Jews will be on the list.

The Trump cabal know it will be hard enough to quell a popular uprising without the aggravating factor of the MAGAts, who will be proudly noisy and public in the persecution of their perceived enemies. They will be seen as loose cannons, and worse than loose cannons.

We’ve been here before, in history. Just 90 years ago, in fact.

It’s been called the Röhm purge, or Operation Hummingbird, but it’s best known around the world as The Night of the Long Knives.

Adolf Hitler rose to power in part through the street violence, real and implied, of the SA, the Sturmabteilung. This was just a collection of thugs, loonies, stilyagi, and militia types, disaffected, resentful and alienated males who felt dispossessed and deprived and had long lists of villains and “types” to blame for that. Then, as now, they were fertile ground for a demagogue seeking street power. Then, as now, they were more than willing to step into a new role that made them feel empowered and part of something greater than themselves. They would cheerfully loom threateningly at political rallies of opponents, lurk armed near polling places, and just generally give Hitler street muscle.

After he became Chancellor, Hitler quickly realized that the untrained and undisciplined thugs, the Brownshirts, as they were known, would be a massively destabilizing feature of his still-precarious regime. They needed to be brought to heel.

He couldn’t just shoot the lot of them, of course. They numbered in the millions, and people would talk. But Hitler understood that the bellicosity and bluster of those people was mostly for show, and they could be brought to heel.

Hitler had two other paramilitary groups at hand—the Schutzstaffel (SS) under Himmler, and the Gestapo, under Heydrich. Both were better trained, better disciplined, and critically kept a much lower profile during Hitler’s rise to power. They were designed to be his agencies of vengeance, persecution and suppression after he attained power. Eventually, they would be the backbone of Hitler’s “Final Solution” that sent twelve million people to their deaths in his camps.

On the night of June 30, 1934, Hitler had them strike against the Brownshirts. In one of those supreme strokes of irony that only utter despots can come up with, the purge was justified on the grounds that the Brownshirts were agents of a group of immigrants intent on overthrowing the new order—about the only ‘crime’ they weren’t guilty of.

The purge was over by July 3rd, and while the official number of extrajudicial executions was only 85, the number killed is estimated at being between 700 and 1000. While the purge was aimed at the Brownshirts, a large number of other Germans wound up as collateral damage—traditional conservatives, trade unionists, members of the Reichstag, including former Chancellors and cabinet members.

It would be pretty easy to extrapolate current day equivalents, in additions to the red-capped loudmouths who hate libruls and “illegals”; people like Mike Pence, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Mike Johnson, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Laura Loomer. Yes, some of those are staunch Trump supporters who, once he’s back in office, will no longer be of any use, but would still be loud embarassments, disappointments, and so on. His opponents will go, of course.

Most of the Brownshirts survived the Night, of course. Many wound up in the SS or the Gestapo, a sleeker, darker, disciplined and vicious army designed to kill and terrify. Those less morally and politically nimble wound up in the army, or the camps. In the end, none of them did well in Hitler’s doomed Reich.

So if you’re a member of MAGA, and you are envisioning a bright future where an avuncular Trump beams at you as you kick liberals to death in the streets or rape the daughters of immigrants or cut the beards off rabbis, read your history and ponder this:

After he takes power, Trump (or the people propping him up) is going to look at you. And he isn’t going to see a brave patriot who sacrificed for the cause. He’s going to see an uncontrolled and unkempt loudmouth who already betrayed his country once.

He won’t like you. He won’t trust you.

You might even wind up in the camps before I do.

He Does Mean It — We know the truth behind Trump’s lies

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 14th 2024

The New York Times may not be a particularly good source, because it’s utterly incapable of acknowledging, let alone challenging the threat Donald Trump poses. They cling to a safe and reassuring pretense that this is just a routine election where Democrats favor the middle class and the Republicans favor the upper class. They are incapable of recognizing that one of the candidates is a violent, sociopathic fascist with Hitlerian ideations.

But they aren’t alone in this delusion. Trump supporters, the ones who don’t wholeheartedly embrace his paeans of hatred and revenge and suppression, are telling themselves that Trump doesn’t really mean those things he says.

An article by Shawn McCreesh appeared today titled “The Trump Voters Who Don’t Believe Trump.”

The subheader read: “When the former president endorses violence and proposes using the government to attack his enemies, many of his supporters assume it’s just an act.”

This appeared in today’s…[drumroll]…New York Times. I see it as a sign that even the Old Grey Lady has realized that horse-race coverage of an ordinary political contest just isn’t cutting it.

The opening line reads, “One of the more peculiar aspects of Donald J. Trump’s political appeal is this: A lot of people are happy to vote for him because they simply do not believe he will do many of the things he says he will.” He goes on to list some of the more egregious threats Trump has made, including weaponizing the Justice Department, imprisoning political opponents, purging the entire civil service and replacing it with loyalists who take office swearing loyalty, not to the United States Constitution but to himself. He notes Trump’s blood-curdling threat to have a day of violence, or his cheerful brag that deporting millions of immigrants, documented and undocumented would be “a bloody business.”

None of this is news to anyone who has been following the news. Even the Times has reported on these, and is starting to pay attention to the wilder and more deranged statements Trump has made.

But the heart of the article is this: “Many of his supporters assume it’s just an act.”

We’ve heard that before in history. Less than a century ago, in fact. In 1933 Adolf Hitler got 37% of the vote for Chancellor, and his party, the NAZI party, got a slim majority in the Reichstaag. He was able to leverage that thinnest of wins into one of the most horrific regimes in history.

After the war and Hitler’s suicide, a lot of surviving Germans murmured, “We didn’t think he meant it. We thought it was just an act.” Some of them were doubtlessly just trying to avoid culpability, but a lot were sincere. How else could you explain that Hitler got votes from 3% of German Jews in that 1933 race?

Hitler made no secret of his murderous and psychotic desires. He wanted to rid the world of Jews. He wanted to enslave and decimate “the mud races” to the East and exterminate all Asians. He regarded Americans as a weak and self-indulgent nation of shopkeepers and race-mixers.

But he also had an immense and effective propaganda machine. Historian Robert Wilde has written, “Hitler was able to present an image of himself as a superhuman, even god-like figure. He wasn’t portrayed as a politician, as Germany had had enough of them. Instead, he was seen as above politics.” It’s easy to laugh at the portraits of Trump presented as a superhero (reminding me most unpleasantly of The Boys’ Homelander) or even as a divine figure, Christ-like. But Hitler used the same tactics and imagery to promote himself as a god-savior of his nation.

Wilde goes on to say, “Hitler managed to look like someone who would unite Germany rather than push it to extremes: he was praised for stopping a left-wing revolution by crushing the socialists and communists (first in street fights and elections, then by putting them in camps).” Between “left wing lunatics” and “people with bad genes” Hitler and Trump pounded away at enemies largely of their own devisements.

Critically, there remained one other element that Hitler and Trump used to attain power: they persuaded the power elites, the rich and the industrialists, that he was a true-blue capitalist who would promote industry and weaken the roles of workers and consumers. He would stand tall against communists, socialists, and unionists. So in either iteration, business and the aristocracy supported this mad figure, convinced that once he attained unlimited power, they would be able to control or at least manipulate the erratic figure.

If this all sounds familiar, then you know a bit about history, and you’re realized that I’m not comparing Trump to Hitler just as a cheap and lazy rhetorical device, but because Trump is consciously and deliberately tracing the steps Hitler took to attain power.

You can go to Amazon to find Adolf Hitlers “My New Order” for sale. https://www.amazon.com/Order-Collection-Speeches-Adolph-Hitler/dp/4871879089

The blurb for the book reads: “My New Order has attracted the attention of the press with the rise of Donald Trump as candidate for President of the United States because his first wife Ivana Trump revealed that Donald Trump reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. It can be seen that there are clear similarities between the speeches of Trump and the speeches of Hitler. Here are examples: They repeat themselves constantly, saying the same things over and over again. They never admit they have made a mistake nor do they ever take anything back. To any criticism, they respond by insults and name calling. They use a low form of language, with simple sentences even a person with the lowest level of education or with no education at all can understand. Another contrast is the sheer volume of words. Hitler gave a thousand speeches and spoke millions of words. Hitler communicated almost entirely through his speeches. Hitler’s speeches were long, usually one and a half to two hours long. Trump made one of the longest speeches ever to accept the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States. His speech lasted one hour fifteen minutes. Trump communicates almost entirely through his speeches and through his tweets.”

Sound familiar? It should. Trump is no reader, but he read this one carefully, night after night, according to his then-wife Ivana, now buried on a Trump golf course. Nor does he deny it, justifying the fact that he had the book in the first place by claiming it was given to him by “a Jewish friend.”

My New Order is in effect a explanation by Hitler of how he rose to power. Trump took it to heart.

Stop pretending Trump is a normal candidate who wants to govern. He’s a vicious madman who learned from the ‘best’.

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