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Daniel in the Liars’ Den — The assault on science and sanity continues

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 17th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

The Guardian on February 14th had a story by Aliya Uteuova with this lede: “Nearly 15% of Americans don’t believe climate change is real, study finds.” The University of Michigan poll continued, “Denialism highest in central and southern US, with Republican voters less likely to believe in climate science.”

My first thought was that this was actually kind of reassuring. Thirty percent of Americans don’t know the Earth revolves around the sun. Forty percent believe in angels. This poll showed that only one in seven respondents were total idiots who couldn’t see irrefutable evidence even as it was biting them on the ass.

It’s been quite a while since I stopped assuming climate denialists—the remaining ones—were acting in any sort of good faith. The ones remaining are getting more strident, perhaps reflecting the more intense propaganda emanating from the filthy fuels industries and the rightwing thinktanks. Certainly I am encountering more in social media, and seeing peripheral effects from the constant attacks on people acknowledging climate change.

Some are easy to ignore. The moment someone starts babbling about how climate change can’t exist because god swill and puny humans can’t change the divine plan, I just block them. They are at best delusional and at worst total morons, and no amount of logic or persuasion is going to convince them that I’m anything other than hellbound, along with Taylor Swift and Joe Biden.

Some parrot the same talking points we’ve been hearing for the past forty years. Climate change isn’t because of volcanoes, sunspots, Milanković cycles, end of an ice age, orbital perturbations, yada yada yada.

If I’m not busy, I’ll stick around to politely and firmly refute the points made. Even if I’m not feeling particularly charitable, I know this approach is by far the most effective. Usually they just run away. Being polite and earnest stymies trolls and confuses the more strident ones who think they can annoy the opposition into making silly mistakes.

Lately, I’ve seen more blatant lies. For instance one claim I saw was that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere dropped by 20% during the pandemic-related shutdown.

Well, that would be lovely. Having the concentrations drop to 340ppm would ensure a habitable Earth 50 years from now. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. The rate of increase dropped by 20% in 2019, but that meant concentrations only increased from 417ppm to 419ppm.

Another claim was that the Harvard Climatology Department had PROVED that the only reason Earth was warming was because we were coming out of an ice age. Needless to say, nobody at Harvard has made any such claim, and the records indicate that, if anything, we probably would be going into an ice age about now.

However, with greenhouse gases at their current levels, no ice ages are in the offing, no matter what they might do for Ray Romano’s career.

But it’s the residual ripple effects of the propaganda that can be the most pernicious. The public at large has a mistrust of scientists, one carefully fostered by fundamentalists, oil-industry flacks, and the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues, ie, the galaxy of think tanks, radio show hosts, big churches, and Faux news and its clones, and the poison blogosphere.

The other day, just as a reminder that their standard tactics of smearing and lying have become more expensive, climate scientist Michael Mann won a million-dollar defamation suit against conservative bloggers who accused him of falsifying data and once compared him to a convicted child abuser.

A few days ago, I passed along a link to an article that Stanford Magazine did about Dr. Daniel Swain to some friends. It was a good article, and Swain’s expertise would be useful for that group.

But I got one response that caused my jaw to drop. “He’s a media whore,” my friend wrote.

Now, my friend has been a bit tetchy ever since the Dodgers signed Ohtani and Yamamoto. And while the article itself was well done, the magazine cover was, to put it mildly, a bit over the top. It portrayed a colossal Daniel Swain a good half a mile tall, striding through heavily-forested foothills, his head well above the clouds. I could see where someone might detect a slightly fawning note from Stanford, based on that cover. And from that, it could be inferred that it suggested the sort of treatment Swain might be expecting from the press.

Except I’ve been a regular on his blog, weatherwest.com, for most of a decade. I was familiar with his style and approach from before he became famous. (The way he became famous was unlikely in the extreme. In trying to describe a persistent blocking high in the Gulf of Alaska that was causing a massive drought in California, he coined the phrase “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge.” It caught the popular imagination. Now, only Swain knows if he ever actually sought fame, but I seriously doubt he sat up in bed one restless night and shouted, “I know! I’ll coin an awkwardly alliterative analogy! Eureka!”)

Swain does appreciate the opportunity to convey his expertise to the world. He puts in long hours doing just that—not just interviews, but in serious scholastic research and considerable effort in keeping his relatively small audience on his blog well informed, and encourages others of similar expertise to contribute freely.

I know a couple of people who are well known and who are media whores. They constantly self-promote, resent anything resembling competition, and pretend they have the answers. They’re depressingly easy to spot. I find them annoying.

But Swain is not one of them.

Indeed, the same day I had that email exchange, he did one of his “office hours” on YouTube. Anyone watching those quickly realizes that this is not a man basking in the effusive glow of public acclaim. As he often does, he was fielding questions from the chat thread, and he got one about Rossby waves. Those are defined as a “large horizontal atmospheric undulation that is associated with the polar-front jet stream and separates cold polar air from warm tropical air.” per Brittanica. There’s a hypothesis that decreasing ice cover in the Arctic Ocean and subsequent warming has caused the waves to increase in amplitude and decrease in frequency, allowing polar air to sweep into the middle latitudes. It caught the media’s fancy, since it was a handy explanation of big cold snaps in the midst of a warming climate. I admit I’ve based arguments on that myself.

Swain said that while he generally accepted the thinking behind the hypothesis, there just wasn’t any solid evidence that it was happening at this time. It was a very ‘Daniel’ sort of answer. If there isn’t a solid, concrete answer, he won’t hesitate to say so, and go on to discuss the elements that prevent a hard-and-fast answer. It’s exactly the sort of response a responsible scientist would give.

Certainty in the face of randomness and complexity is the mark of a charlatan.

But it’s not an answer a media whore—or any whore—should give. Don’t tell the marks what they need to know; tell them what they want to hear! It’s rule number one. If I was Swain’s unscrupulous agent, I would draw him aside and say, “Son, you’re doing it all wrong. I say, I say, son, you don’t get the return business if you’re saying things to the John like ‘You call that loving, mister? You sound like a Yugo with a flat tire!’ or ‘Oh, come on. That thing looks like the ghost of a poison mushroom. Can’t you at least paint it orange like the original?’ Nah, you gotta make them happy. Make ‘em feel big, y’know? Now, let’s hear your ecstatic moan.”

OK, he wouldn’t benefit from having me as an agent. Or as he might put it, I would be a “piss poor pimp.”

So why does a guy who normally is responsible, reasonably liberal, and scientifically literate declare a scientist who is the antithesis of a publicity hound a “media whore?”

Inculcation. Propaganda. The public at large is inclined to assume the worst of any responsible figure who challenges the present public gestalt.

That current gestalt is very toxic indeed. It’s pervasive, and manages to be both blatant and subtle at the same time. People honestly believe George Soros is giving scientists billions of dollars to push us all back to the stone age by destroying technology. And people don’t realize the people promoting such ideas are spending billions in order to protect trillions in profits made at our expense. It has to stop.

There’s no quick cure to it. It will take time. The parties dumping the poison into public discourse have to be called out, again and again, their lies shown for what they are, and the vacuity of their attacks exposed.

George Orwell once said, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” He also said, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.” It is not the freedom to say two plus two make five.

Be a revolutionary. Tell the truth, no matter how much people don’t want to hear it. Be like Dr. Daniel Swain.

In America, the number of people accepting the truth of climate change has climbed to 85%. Keep telling the truth, and truth will prevail.

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Lay Down Lay Down — The power of song lives on

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 26th 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

The 1970s pop star Melanie passed away a few days ago, and while most of her songs were simple pop songs (“I’ve got a brand new key”) there was one she sang that hit me, and many other people, with a deep emotional impact.

In my case, it was because I completely misunderstood what the lyrics were about. She was singing about the Woodstock Festival. She sang,

Lay down, lay down

Lay it all down

Let your white birds smile up

At the ones who stand and frown

We were so close, there was no room

We bled inside each other’s wounds

We all had caught the same disease

And we all sang the songs of peace

Some came to sing, some came to pray

Some came to keep the dark away

So raise the candles high

Cause if you don’t we could stay black against the sky

Oh, raise them higher again

And if you do we could stay dry against the rain

My take on it was something much darker, much more tragic. In our schools, they taught about the Great Plagues that afflicted Europe in the middle ages. They taught about how the populace, frightened and horrified by the disease that killed members of nearly every family, felling them by the millions, saw the mysterious curse as something sent by Satan. When the waves of death arrived, packed faithful flocked by the dozens, by the hundreds, by the thousands, in every chapel, church and cathedral. Inevitably, people who were infected but asymptomatic were in their numbers, and they created what today we call “super-spreader events.” Fleeing to the church “to keep the dark away” they “raised their candles high” beseeching God to protect them. And they died in the millions.

Read the lyrics above. Reflect on the mass deaths and privation that was a part of our history. My mistake wasn’t an unreasonable one. Melanie was singing about a peace festival. I was listening to a tale dark and tragic, expressed in tones of love and hope.

It made for an amazing song, one of those rarities that, when you hear it for the first time, decades later you remember exactly when and where you were when you heard it. Perhaps unwittingly, Melanie created a masterpiece.

Her death came only a few days after the passing of the creator of another such song, one just as powerful and memorable. Les McCann, however, knew exactly what he was doing when, together with Eddie Harris, he recorded what I consider the finest improv session piece ever. “Compared to What.”

Just the beginning rivets your attention:

I love the lie and lie the love

A-hangin’ on, we push and shove

Possession is the motivation

That is hangin’ up the God-damn nation

Looks like we always end up in a rut

Tryin’ to make it real, compared to what?

It was a protest song, one of pure genius. It came out as Vietnam drew to its bloody and futile close, and captured the disaffection and despair Americans felt. “Have one doubt, they call it treason.”

(As usual, I’m listening to music as I write, and Greg Lake just asked me, “How did God lose six million Jews?”)

Protest songs have a way of staying in your memory in a way others can’t. I could talk about Bob Dylan, but that would make this piece at least three times as long. So I’ll mention just two others of extraordinary power: James McMurtry’s “We Can’t Make It Here Anymore.” And Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction.”

McMurtry’s country-tinged song is about the misery and loss the middle class and the poor have suffered in the bloody wake of “supply side economics” which translates to “Give the national wealth to the rich so they can afford to laugh at you.”

In the wake of the Dobbs decision by the vicious zealots of the Supreme Court, this stanza has a particular poignancy:

High school girl with a bourgeois dream

Just like the pictures in the magazine

She found on the floor of the laundromat

A woman with kids can forget all that

If she comes up pregnant what’ll she do

Forget the career, forget about school

Can she live on faith? live on hope?

High on Jesus or hooked on dope

When it’s way too late to just say no

You can’t make it here anymore

In the 14 states that have outlawed abortion, there were 68,000 pregnancies that resulted from rape. Fuck your morals, Supreme Court, and fuck the god you worship.

Eve of Destruction is nearly 60 years old, and after that vast span, remains amazingly timely. Unfortunately.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China

Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama

Ah, you may leave here, for four days in space

But when you return, it’s the same old place

The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace

You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace

Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace

Substitute all the fascist dictatorships in Russia, in Hungary, in Turkey, even in Israel, for “Red China” and you’ve got today’s headlines. “Even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’.”

On a less gloomy note, there’s one song that is on my list of unforgettably powerful pieces for no other reason than that it is an absolutely beautiful song, soaring and inspiring. “Bratya” by Michiru Oshima, and performed (in Russian) by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. It comes from, of all places, a Japanese anime from the turn of the century: Full Metal Alchemist. The song was written specifically for the anime, and the English translation perfectly captures the profound tragedy of the youthful Edward and Alfonse Elric, crippled and unnatural due to their breaking the first law of alchemy and attempting to bring their dead mother back to life. It’s a dark and diabolical premise that makes this show one of the best animes made. And any anime where Oshima appears in the credits pretty much guarantees it will be something special. Soundtracks, even incidental music, can have powerful effects. This is, quite simply, a lovely song telling a story of tragedy and hope.

Steve Earle has written some of the most stunning songs around. You could call him a protest singer but only if you stipulate that his anger is more existential and less political. He challenges reality.

A long time ago before the ice and the snow

Giants walked this land each step they took

The mighty mountains shook and the trees took

A knee and the seas rolled in

Then one day they say the sky gave way

And death rained down, and made a terrible sound

There was fire everywhere and nothing was spared

That walked on the land or flew through the air

When all was over the slate wiped clean with a touch

There God stood and He saw it was good

And He said, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust”

Just his album “Jerusalem” is one of the greatest gems around.

Obviously this list is personal, and I’m sure some of you are thinking, “That idiot. That song was dumb.” I could list a dozen others, including, yes, some songs that are dumb. Knew they were dumb when I first heard them, but they had a certain something…

As for whether I’m an idiot, well, be kind.

In any event, farewell, Melanie, and farewell, Les McCann. And thank you. You gifted us, not just with delightful songs, but cherished memories.

Links to the full lyrics are below, and all of the songs mentioned can be found on YouTube.

Enjoy.

No.

Cherish.

https://genius.com/Melanie-lay-down-candles-in-the-rain-lyrics

https://genius.com/Les-mccann-and-eddie-harris-compared-to-what-lyrics

https://genius.com/Barry-mcguire-eve-of-destruction-lyrics

https://genius.com/James-mcmurtry-we-cant-make-it-here-anymore-lyrics

https://sonichits.com/video/Michiru_Oshima_%26_BEPA/Bratya

https://genius.com/Steve-earle-ashes-to-ashes-lyrics

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Atomic Batteries — Mass Production is at hand

Atomic Batteries

Mass Production is at hand

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 23rd, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

Betavolt, a Chinese battery company, this week announced it was beginning mass production of a battery about the size of a microdisk and about 3 mm thicker that can produce 100 microWatts at three Volts—for 50 years.

While the concept behind the battery isn’t new—the US was making ‘atomic batteries’ in the early 1960s—it is the first to meet Chinese health and safety regulations, such as they are, for mass production.

This particular battery uses an isotope of nickel, Ni-63, encased in a proprietary wafer of diamond dust as a semiconductor. According to Betavolt, the unit won’t leak radiation even if punctured or gunshot. Preliminary tests indicate that the units, intact, are at normal background levels.

The units can be run in groups, either serial or parallel configurations. So, according to Betavolt, they can be used for such things as “aerospace, AI devices, medical, MEMS systems, intelligent sensors, small drones, and robots – and may eventually mean manufacturers can sell smartphones that never need charging.” Betavolt intends to have a much beefier model available in 2025 that can produce a full watt at 3 volts.

This is a breakthrough and has a strong potential to be what the tech bros like to call “disruptive.” It packs an energy density ten times that of lithium batteries, and isn’t affected by temperatures. “Unlike traditional batteries, this nuclear battery operates safely under extreme conditions, from temperatures of 120 to minus 60 degrees Celsius (248 to minus 76 Fahrenheit), and is resistant to punctures and gunfire without catching fire or exploding,” according to Science and Technology Daily. Tesla owners in the northeast will probably be interested to hear that.

The building blocks are plentiful. Ni-63 is easy to make from Ni-62, which is very plentiful, and there’s no shortage of diamond dust, which can be found naturally or synthetically. So mass production is feasible. Ni-63 has a half-life of 100.1 years, so the 50-year lifespan of the battery assumes about a 20% loss of power over that time period. Ni-63 decays into copper.

Of course, there is a downside. While considered a “low-level” contaminant by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and thus safe for near-surface disposal, it is Class C, which is the highest level of that overall designation. The NRC adds, “Class C waste is waste that not only must meet more rigorous requirements on waste form to ensure stability but also requires additional measures at the disposal facility to protect against inadvertent intrusion. The physical form and characteristics of Class C waste must meet both the minimum and stability requirements set forth in § 61.56.”

Physical Characteristics

  • Half-life: 100.1 years
  • Emissions: Beta particles with a maximum energy of 66 keV and an average energy of 17 keV
  • Maximum Range: 5 cm in air; < 0.01 cm in tissue

Dose Rate and Shielding

  • Dose rate to the skin at 10 cm: negligible (for an unshielded point source)
  • Dose rate to epidermal basal cells from skin contamination of 1 µCi/cm2: negligible
  • Shielding: None needed.
  • Annual Limit on Intake (ALI): 9000 microcuries via ingestion and 2000 microcuries via inhalation. The ingestion of one ALI will produce a dose of 5 rem.

Detection

A wipe survey using liquid scintillation counting is the preferred method for detecting Ni-63. G-M detectors will not detect Ni-63 contamination.

Precautions:

Ni-63 contamination cannot be detected with a G-M meter, and special precautions are needed to keep the work environment clean. The regular use of wipe testing, using a liquid scintillation counter, is the only way to insure that your work space does not contain low-level removable contamination.

Radiation Monitoring Requirements: Radiation monitoring badges are not required for Ni-63 users, since the monitoring badges will not detect Ni-63.

Waste Disposal:

  • Solid Wastes/Liquid Scintillation Wastes: through the Off-Site Radioactive Waste Disposal Program
  • Liquid Wastes: through the Sewer Disposal Program. The laboratory disposal limit for Ni-63 is 3 mCi per month.

     

A paper by Chinese physicists (Effective separation and recovery of valuable metals from waste Ni-based batteries: A comprehensive review by ie Wang, Yingyi Zhang, Laihao You, Kunkun Cui, Tao Fu and Haobo Mao and curated by The School of Metallurgical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, 243002, Anhui Province, China, and School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Anhui University of Technology, Maanshan, 243002, Anhui, China) states flatly, “On the one hand, waste Ni-based batteries cause serious harm to the environment and human health. On the other hand, they contain many valuable metals such as Ni, Co, Mn, Zn, and rare earth elements (REEs). These valuable metals and REEs have very high strategic value and are widely used in high-temperature structural materials to improve their mechanical properties and oxidation resistance.”

The paper goes on to detail several methods of disposal/recycling that can be used to mitigate what otherwise would be a significant environmental and safety hazard. These vary in both cost and effectiveness.

So while this is a significant step forward, it isn’t without challenges and drawbacks. Yes, the batteries as units seem safe and effective, but in mass production present major possible problems.

Expect to be hearing much more about this.

Sources:

Princeton Environmental Health ^ Safety

https://ehs.princeton.edu/laboratory-research/radiation-safety/radioactive-materials/radioisotope-fact-sheets/nickel-63

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1385894722012670

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The David Fallacy — Why (some) zealots support Trump

The David Fallacy

Why (some) zealots support Trump

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 16th, 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

They held the Iowa caucuses yesterday, and I don’t regard the results as being of any particular importance, given how unrepresentative they are of the country as a whole. (Mike Huckabee won in 2008, Rick Santorum won in 2012, and Ted Cruz in 2016.) The only reason Trump won in 2020 was that he ran unopposed, about the only way he can actually win an election.

He essentially ran unopposed this time, since the only other significant candidates were a pair of “me-too” clingers who ran as Trump-lite: Ron DeSantis and Nicki Haley. Those two dead-enders managed to get 40% of the Republican vote, which shows just how weak Trump really is.

Haley’s birth-name was Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, and MSNBC actually showed one voter opining that it wouldn’t be right for a “Hin-doo” to be president. Despite that, Haley was mad because MSNBC was “dividing us by race” for simply pointing out that country white evangelicals aren’t going to strongly support Haley because of her skin color. Haley, MSNBC didn’t create those bigoted clowns. And trust me, they weren’t watching Joy Reid anyway. She’s not one of the ‘good ones’ in their books.

DeSantis was already a bad joke, between his elevator clown boots and picking a fight with a cartoon mouse and losing. He wasn’t as big on god-flogging as Trump, so wasn’t seen as sufficiently godly.

So Trump fetched up with 51% of the vote. I was expecting him to get 60% or more, between the high number of fools in the GOP and the weak field arrayed against him. So even if the ratings-driving media is trying to hype his chances, the results show his fundamental weakness.

MSNBC devoted five full hours to this non-story, and I managed to miss most of it so I could play Solitaire and watch an animated movie. (I would point out that while I didn’t do so good playing Solitaire, the movie, Maboroshi, on Netflix, was pretty damned good).

But I did catch one gem that made MSNBC’s entire wasted night worth a glance. Barely able to contain their laughter, Joy and Rachel Maddow explained “The King David Hypothesis.”

King David lived around 1,000 BCE, and yes, there is evidence that he actually did exist, although outside of notoriously unreliable holy writ, little is known about him.

But the religious accounts are satisfyingly florid. A simple shepherd, he killed the giant Goliath with a slingshot, and got noticed by the reigning king, Saul. Saul took him in to the palace, but then expelled him when he decided David was plotting to kill him and steal his throne. But before then, Saul has made David rich for killing the giant, and among other marriages, David marries Saul’s younger daughter, Michael. The dowery is 100 Philistinian heads, although accounts differ as to whether that was cranial-type heads or the other kind, foreskins. Either way, it made a lot of Philistines very unhappy. He’s also got about eight other wives and unknown numbers of concubines of varying gender, something that’s always fun to point out to bigoted morons who want America to observe “biblical marriage” only.

Jehovah gets annoyed at Saul for failing to commit genocide (the Amalekites, look it up) and sends the angel Samuel to name David king. After various intrigues and production of a family lineage that makes it apt as well as physically likely that he was the father of the Abrahamic religions, he becomes King, and is sufficiently murderous and Machiavellian enough to keep even Jehovah happy. Between the smiting and the slutting, David made Trump look restrained and faithful.

All right, so intellectually, morally, and romantically, David was a hot mess. (For his wives and concubines, “consent” was not an option.) But he’s “beloved by God” and the father of the true religions, all 15,000 of them that we know about. What to do, what to do? Zealots hate ethical quandaries.

Thus was born the King David Hypothesis. God chose David because he was flawed, and the fact that he was flawed showed that God could make David have a good heart and be a great king despite all the murdering and raping and conniving. Because of God, David was great because God made him so and his flaws just showed how good God was at his job.

Thus and so, the reasoning goes, even though Trump is flawed (the polite way of saying “a hot mess”), God has chosen him to be Der Leader to show that God can take even the vilest spittoon of a person and make him great. So even though Trump is about as Christian as a rabid pig, Christians are duty bound to support him because God wants him to be great.

Ah, the religious mind! The wonder of it all!

Meanwhile, the portion of America that isn’t religiously insane continue to watch Trump slide. He went on to claim this was his third, and greatest win in Iowa (neither statement was true), and his main lawyers in the trials about tax fraud and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, Joe Tacopina and his two partners, Chad Seigel and Matthew DeOreo, up and quit the same day of the caucuses, showing his continued inability to keep lawyers for any length of time. Even lawyers have standards, even if the standard is only “Fuck you, pay me.”

Meanwhile, Trump continues his mastery of the religiously gullible. The morning after his win in the caucuses, he posted “President Trump: Suspend my campaign?” The grift is if he doesn’t get a million donations, he’ll drop out of the race.

Fortunately, the religiously insane are actually a small part of the population. Even amongst the GOP ultra-committed who turned out in -30F wind chills to caucus, he only managed half the vote against a nothing field.

So don’t let these nuts alarm you. He’s going down.

 

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Hunter’s Point — Game Set Match

Hunter’s Point

Game Set Match

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 10th 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

Hunter Biden probably doesn’t have a personal theme song. Mostly that’s limited to politicians and /or megalomaniacs. Bill Clinton had “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” Calvin of cartoon strip fame usually made his up on the spot, and it was, of course, about him. All six year olds are megalomaniacal.

Since Hunter isn’t a politician and there’s no evidence to suggest he’s a megalomaniac, he may be one of those rare individuals who does something so outstanding and the public assigns a song to him.

After yesterday’s brutal fiasco of a open committee meeting where he did nothing worse than show up with lawyers, sit quietly except to note he wished to testify publicly, and then quietly left when Marjorie-Taylor Greene stood to assault and defame him.

The chaos this simple act caused was riveting, and if you ignore the fact that the Republican bozos are amongst the highest elected officials in the land, hilarious.

Nancy Mace fumed that Biden was taking advantage of ‘white privilege.’ “You are the epitome of white privilege coming into the Oversight Committee, spitting in our face, ignoring a Congressional subpoena to be deposed,” Mace told the president’s son. She had to ignore the fact that he was there offering to be deposed to testify in public.

When called out for such an asinine claim, (and I’m not making this up) Mace said, “I come from a district where rich and poor is literally Black and white, Black versus white on most days. My largest jail in my district, which is the largest jail in the state of South Carolina, has had seven or eight deaths in the last two years. I was there with our Black and African American council members trying to get the right thing done. And I’ve stood with those Black families because I know the differences that they see day to day in their life. And I try to do the best that I can.”

Yes, Nancy, you take real good care of your darkies. It’s just like they’re part of the family. But that doesn’t really explain how Hunter Biden was exercising white privilege, especially in front of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor-Greene.

Speaking of which, Armpit Maggie wasn’t amused by Biden’s snub. Ranting like a high school mean girl, she yelled at the departing Biden, “Excuse me Hunter! Apparently you’re afraid of my words! Wow, that’s too bad!” Mags, I don’t think that one is going to be included in “Great Speeches of the Twenty-First Century.” Biden didn’t explain the timing, but it’s known that Greene displayed a couple of dick pics, supposedly of Hunter, that were stolen from his laptop. It’s what you expect from Armpit Maggie.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) noted the deep Republican hypocrisy behind Biden refusing to testify in private: “Here is the subpoena to Scott Perry, who didn’t comply. Here is the subpoena for Mark Meadows… he did not comply. Here is the subpoena to Jim Jordan, who did not comply.” Moscowitz also showed subpoenas for former GOP Reps. Mo Brooks (R-AL), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). He added he would vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt if the same was done for every Republican he listed. Oddly enough, no Republican took him up on that.

The Republicans looked so stupid that Charlie Kirk wondered if they were secretly leftists.

Which brings me back to having a theme song for Hunter Biden. After all, you rarely see a fiasco like yesterday’s meeting where the instigator did nothing more than show up as demanded and politely offer to testify in public.

So theme song for Hunter: “Send in the Clowns.” Here’s a partial list of the lyrics: “Isn’t it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, You in mid-air. Send in the clowns. Isn’t it bliss? Don’t you approve? One who keeps tearing around, One who can’t move. Where are the clowns? Send in the clowns?…Where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns. Well, maybe next year…” [Credit: Frank Sinatra, Written by: Stephen Sondheim, Album: Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back] Sondheim couldn’t have possibly imagined the state of the 2024 Republican party, but he sure got their theme, didn’t he?

Which leads me to a second item As the Constitution stipulated, Congress must invite the President to give an annual State of the Union Address each year. Normally, the invitation is for some time around early-to-mid February. And separation of powers, don’t you know? The president can only do so at the invite of Congress. This year, the invite is for mid-March. Why such a late date? Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson remembers how Joe Biden flat-out owned the Republicans in the last year’s address. It was embarrassing. And he knows Biden openly calls Trump a threat to democracy. So he has scheduled the speech to occur AFTER the “Super Tuesday” primaries, thus assuring that Trump will be the nominee of the GOP, whether he has the legal right or not. It’s the sort of sneaky dishonesty you expect from zealots and fascists.

But the Constitution doesn’t say the president has to show up in person to deliver the speech. Thomas Jefferson, who had a terrible stutter and, not surprisingly, hated public speaking, delivered his speech by mail. Most Presidents in this media age love the almost always beneficial exposure they get from the speech. So people think it’s automatic.

But the president can, quite literally, mail it in. …Or they can have someone give the speech for them.

I think it would be kinda fun if Joe Biden decided not to address Congress, but sent, in his stead, Hunter Biden.

Wouldn’t that be FUN? There ought to be clowns…

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Welcome to 2024 — Yeah, it’s one of those years…

Welcome to 2024

Yeah, it’s one of those years…

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

January 1st 2024

www.zeppscommentaries.online

It was a year for the books. Worldwide we saw the rise of climate dislocation, with more floods, more droughts, more storms and yes, even more blizzards. This, in turn, sparked economic dislocation, higher rates of disease, and increasing rates of migration. Humanity is rising to the occasion with fascism on the rise worldwide, including the most unlikely places on Earth—Israel and the United States. There is no philosophical system of government more poorly suited to deal with a global climate crisis. As a rule, such regimes resort to war, invasion, and mass incarceration as ways of dealing with poor crops and panicked populations. And fascists promise they alone can fix it. They’re lying, of course.

With a super El Niño blossoming, expect wild weather to continue at least into summer. Chances are decent that you’ll be one of the lucky ones and the weather will remain reasonably tranquil. But you’ll be reading about a lot of strange events.

2023 closed with something of a bang, with Japan recording a 7.6 earthquake on her western shore last night, which resulted in tsunamis as high as three meters. Too early to know about casualties, but there are reports of moderate damage. And the sun popped off with an X5 flare, the strongest of this eleven-year solar cycle. Fortunately, the resultant Coronal Mass Ejection isn’t aimed at us. It could have caused some problems otherwise. Neither have anything to do with climate change, but it was nature’s way of saying, “Hey, heads up, assholes!”

Oh, it’s going to be an election year! Oh, happy happy, joy joy! Not just here, either. The Conservatives in the United Kingdom have to call an election by December whether they want to or not, since even a super-majority Parliament has to have one at least every five years. The Tories don’t want to, of course, but the population has finally realized what an utter catastrophe Brexit has proven to be, and all the plutocratic and Putin propaganda in the world can’t unring that bell. And since even Tories have enough sense not to bah humbug the voters with an election at Yule Time, and summers are a rotten time for such, they’ll call it either in late spring or early autumn. If Labour can manage not to shoot themselves in the foot (and that is something they are true marvels at) then they should win back Parliament. How desperate are the Tories? They’re talking about bringing back Boris Johnson, or even Liz Truss! They’d be better off digging up Winston Churchill and running HIM.

In the US, things are a bit more problematic. Trump cannot possibly win an election legitimately. But he and the Republicans are liars, cheats and thieves, and knowing that this is their last best chance to consolidate power and establish a fascistic forever rule in America, they are going to pull out all the stops.

Fox News has learned that telling really blatant lies can be very expensive—three quarters of a billion dollars and counting. But more indirect lies that don’t smear individuals are still safe. The other day, they raised the question: Will it affect Trump if he’s indicted? Of course, he already HAS been indicted. Four times, 91 counts. But they’re trying to pretend that didn’t actually happen and Trump is the victim of a smear campaign to make him out like some sort of criminal. Fox learned to be cautious. They didn’t learn to be honest.

You’re going to see some of the nastiest, most vile tactics America has seen since the 1930s, and for similar reasons. The soul, even the very existence of the nation is at state. Republicans know if they don’t steal this one, they are done as a viable political movement for at least a generation. Democrats will have to fight back with everything they have. They can’t bring polite petitions and debate skills to a gunfight. They don’t have to fight dirty, but they have to fight fucking HARD. Republicans will steal your country out from under you and essentially make a slave of you. Never forget that.

Social media will continue to evolve, or in the case of Ex-Twitter, devolve. Between massive propaganda operations and AI deep fakery, expect a lot of misinformation and disinformation. Because the National Association of Zealots and Ideologues have spent billions trying to dismantle America’s educational system and turn it over to the zealots, Americans under the age of about 50 fare very poorly when it comes to critical thinking skills. Conspiracy theories are rife, and such types are the most gullible people on Earth. You can sell anyone even the most absurd nonsense if you dress it up as secret knowledge the authorities are trying to hide from you. And smears will be rife. Already are rife. There’s no evidence to impeach Biden. The “liberal media” barely exists at all. Trump is not a victim. The Democrats are not out to rape children or take away your guns. The fact that they haven’t should tell you that.

People, stop believing bullshit. They aren’t telling you these things for your benefit. Quite the opposite. They need gullible and stupid people until they don’t. Then your value will drop to roughly that of a used condom.

It’s going to be a rough year, and it will sicken and depress many of you. You’re in a fight not of your choosing or making. If you win, you stand to get back the free and wealthy world you grew up in. Lose, and you find yourself powerless and captive, and in the camps if you protest.

Get ready. It’s going to be a bitch-kitty of a year.

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Low-Rent Gods and Men — Does Trump reveal God’s Purpose?

Low-Rent Gods and Men

Does Trump reveal God’s Purpose?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 27th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

 

A survey conducted by Denison University political scientist Paul Djupe found around 30 percent of Americans believe Trump “was anointed by God to become president.” Thirty percent.

Now, I don’t know anything about the methodology of this poll. Frankly, I doubt the number is anywhere near that high. Ten percent, tops. Trump’s support among the religious is pretty much limited to evangelicals, and they only make up 25% of the population. And the same Economist article that cited that number also reported, “In a Pew poll in 2021, more than a third of white evangelicals said the government should stop enforcing the separation of church and state.” Outside of that group, the notion that scrapping separation of church and state and making Trump some sort of god/emporer drops through the basement. I doubt very much 10% of Catholics buy into that, much less mainstream Protestants, non-Christian and unaffiliated/secular.

Still, there’s a lot of Americans who do believe that nonsense. One of the stranger ones is the notion that there are seven “mountains” to a godly life: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government. Daemons controlled those, but Trump has already climbed and taken over entertainment, business, media, government and family. This group thinks he’s taken over religion, as well. That would leave education to surmount.

OK, let’s take a pause while you get your breath back. Those of you still laughing, imagine being in bed with Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Yes, that’s a cruel thing to do to you, but if you don’t stop laughing you might hurt yourself.

There’s a saying popular amongst us secular sorts: “Science asks questions that demand an answer. Religion provides answers that demand no questions.” Obviously, that’s a simplification. There are many people of faith who do ask questions, including of their own beliefs. And some scientists are as hidebound and rigid in their intellectual structure as any 16th century preacher. But the fact remains that the true first commandment in many branches of religion is “Thou shalt not question.” Obviously, this is a fertile demographic for opportunists and demagogues.

Let’s see about those mountains that Trump is supposedly climbing. I’ll start out by noting that you’re far more likely to find a sea slug at the peak of Everest, just so you aren’t burdened by any suspense about the following.

Entertainment: Trump was a B-list celebrity with a reality TV show. The highest Neilson rating it ever got was 7.0. It never was anywhere near the most popular show in its timeslot.

Media: Trump had Faux News, and now, having cost them $787 million in costs from lying on his behalf, he doesn’t even have that. He has Truth Social, which is pretty pathetic, and lunatic-fringe outfits like Newsmax and OANN, both of which face massive defamation suits of their own.

Business: Until Elon Musk came along, Trump had lost more money than any individual in the history of America. He took over three casinos and they all went bust within a few years. Casinos are licenses to mint money! He’s been found guilty of tax fraud and is awaiting sentencing. He settled a vast class action suit for fraud for Trump University days before he took office. He is banned from running charities after he was found to have stolen from a children’s cancer charity he ran. Business attracts thieves, con artists and other filth, and it certainly attracted Trump. But he never was any good at it.

Entertainment: Well, his venality and endless personal scandals kept cartoonists and humorists busy for decades, so I suppose there’s that. And he attracts eyeballs, although the leading reasons are “What’s that idiot done now?” and “Oh, fuck, NO!”

Family: he’s had three wives and at least a dozen mistresses. He was banging Stormy Daniels while Melania was carrying his youngest son. His niece, Mary Trump, openly despises him. He buried one of his exes in an unmarked grave on one of his golf courses, and its rumored that her coffin contains incriminating evidence Trump wanted to go away forever.

Government: Yes, he was a one term president. He won despite losing the popular vote, and never has won a popular vote. The economy contracted during his term, the worst since Hoover, and the deficit exploded. He turned the Supreme Court into a sad joke. And because of the cowardice of mainstream Republicans, that party is now home to traitors, religious nuts, violent extremists, and the most ignorant fools America can scrape up.

Religion: Well, define “religion.” If love of money, power and self-aggrandizement is a religion, then Trump qualifies. Claiming to have god on his side doesn’t count. Nearly every dictator and tyrant in the history of this sad world has claimed to have god on his side. Fundamentalists cannot question and cannot learn. They are fodder and feeding ground for monsters. In stressful times, they are enough to put a Hitler or a Cromwell in power.

That leaves Education. Again, the term is subjective. When the evangelicals talk about that particular mountain, they have something entirely different from what most people think of when you mention education. Math and science are not a part of that particular equation. For that matter, the word ‘equation’ isn’t, either. Learning biblical writ, obeying and never questioning are considered virtues, and a child who questions is a child who must be beaten. So Trump may surmount Education, although, like Religion, it might be in a form none of us would recognize as such.

If ten percent of the population swallow the nonsense of Trump being “the Will of God,” that’s disturbing and a sad reflection on humanity in general. Thirty percent would be catastrophic, a certain sign that a culture has fully decompensated and slid into madness. Mass jailing and mass executions will follow, along with widespread misery. So that’s why I don’t buy that poll. America is having problems, but it isn’t in hospice.

But never forget that this type of religious fervor is toxic, and an infection in even the healthiest of societies.

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Merry Trumpmas! — Seasons Gratings from the Donald

Merry Trumpmas!

Seasons Gratings from the Donald

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 26th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

According to a zealot blog calling itself County Local News, “President Trump Delivers Heartfelt Christmas Message, Celebrating the True Miracle of Jesus Christ.”

Zealots are disingenuous liars, and County Local News was no exception. Here is Trump’s Christmas message, in full: “Merry Christmas to all, including Crooked Joe Biden’s ONLY HOPE, Deranged Jack Smith, the out of control Lunatic who just hired outside attorneys, fresh from the SWAMP (unprecedented!), to help him with his poorly executed WITCH HUNT against ‘TRUMP’ and ‘MAGA.’ Included also are World Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and ‘sick’ as the THUGS we have inside our Country who, with their Open Borders, INFLATION, Afghanistan Surrender, Green New Scam, High Taxes, No Energy Independence, Woke Military, Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Iran, All Electric Car Lunacy, and so much more, are looking to destroy our once great USA. MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

Their version of Trump’s holiday greeting was a handout from the day before: “BREAKING: President Trump wishes everyone a Merry Christmas. ‘The birth of Jesus Christ is the true miracle we celebrate each year. He is the ultimate source of our joy, our hope, and our peace.’” For what it’s worth, the only other source that quoted this was John F. Kennedy Jr., presumably not the one who died in a plane crash a quarter century ago.

I doubt very much Trump wrote the version that had the zealot blog and the fake Kennedy so enamored. But the one he sent out on Christmas Day was very much Trump. Normal Christmas messages from American presidents don’t include the phrase, “ MAY THEY ROT IN HELL.” Compare with Biden’s message: “”From our family to yours: Merry Christmas, America,” Biden wrote in a post on Twitter, alongside an image of a Christmas tree surrounded by gifts on Monday morning. He went on to write, “This Christmas Eve, my wish for you and your family is that you take a few moments of quiet reflection and find that stillness that’s at the center of the Christmas story. May you find peace in this silent night. And warmth from those surrounding you.”

Trump wasn’t done with the peaceful introspection and jollity of the holiday. He raged, “”It’s hard to have a truly great Christmas when you have a Crooked and Incompetent President who wants to put his Political Opponent in jail, and who has been working hard (for a change!), illegally using all of the levers of Law Enforcement, to do so. We are in the fight of our lives to save our Country from MADNESS & DOOM. MAGA 2024!!! 2024 WILL GO DOWN AS THE YEAR OF GREAT AND FULLY COORDINATED ILLEGAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE BY CROOKED JOE BIDEN, THE WORST AND MOST CORRUPT PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, THE DOJ, FBI, A.G.’s, & D.A.’s THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY, BUT DESPITE IT ALL, IN THE END, THERE WILL BE A BIG AND GLORIOUS VICTORY FOR THOSE BRAVE AND VALIANT PATRIOTS WHO WANT TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!”

He did lead up to it, another item the zealot blog missed. On the 23rd he prepared the country for the warmth and serenity of a Trump Christmas by writing, “THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, LIED TO CONGRESS, CHEATED ON FISA, RIGGED A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ALLOWED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, MANY FROM PRISONS & MENTAL INSTITUTIONS, TO INVADE OUR COUNTRY, SCREWED UP IN AFGHANISTAN, & JOE BIDEN’S MISFITS & THUGS, LIKE DERANGED JACK SMITH, ARE COMING AFTER ME, AT LEVELS OF PERSECUTION NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN OUR COUNTRY??? IT’S CALLED ELECTION INTERFERENCE. MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

OK, there’s a wealth of this out of Trump and I don’t need to belabor the point. It should be clear to everyone that not only is he showing the emotional motility and perseveration characteristic of severe dementia, but he is flat-out mentally ill.

The raging paranoia and lies resonate with zealots, a group who believe they are being persecuted because they can’t force everyone else to live by their rules. It’s telling that this County Local News outfit totally ignored the psychological shitstorm on Truth Social and pretended that the bland handout that Trump surely had nothing to do with was the totality of Trump’s Christmas spirit.

Grinch, Scrooge, and Trump. Sounds like the law firm from hell, doesn’t it?

But it must be emphasized: Trump is mentally ill and an immediate danger to himself and others, and must never be allowed anywhere near power, ever again. And his followers are at best self-deluded, and at worst opportunistic and vicious liars.

Zealotry is a fulminating disease, containable in a healthy society, and dangerous in a society battered by crises and uncertainty. America has been battered, and as often happens, the worst abusers promise to fix it and make it right. It never works out that way.

A few months ago, I had a MAGAt rage at me that Trump was the most popular man in America in the 80s and 90s and he sacrificed that to lead the nation to greatness. I was alive back then, and I remember that Trump was seen, at best, as an obnoxious joke. There are hundreds of Doonesbury and Bloom County comic strips from the era attesting to the national reaction to his vainglorious venality. Amused disgust was about the lightest reaction. I could only walk away, laughing.

And now, Trump is both senile and decompensating. He is a grave danger, and must be stopped.

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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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“Shall have engaged in insurrection…” — Colorado Supreme Court stunner

“Shall have engaged in insurrection…”

Colorado Supreme Court stunner

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 19th 2023

www.zeppscommentaries.online

Today’s ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court (Anderson vs. Griswald) set the US political scene upside down and inside out. The four-three decision ruled that Trump had engaged in insurrection against the United States of America and therefore was ineligible to hold office, and thus should be excluded from the Colorado primary ballot. It’s worth noting that the three justices who dissented did NOT dispute that Trump had engaged in insurrection, but that it wasn’t grounds to exclude him from the ballot. The decision was made by a court where, while all seven were appointed by Democratic leges, was infamous for originalist and conservative rulings, especially in regards to the Second Amendment, which could best be described as being in the Church of Yosemite Sam.

The dissent was based on whether a state elections board had the right to determine the participants in a federal election. This decision will get to the Supreme Court very quickly, I should think, and I imagine some, if not most of the justices are slapping their foreheads and wondering why they had to deal with this hot potato at a time when the legitimacy of the Court is teetering in the public eye. Given that valid arguments in this case can be made for both sides (Trump supporters are pointing out that Trump hasn’t been convicted, or even indicted for insurrection). But Trump is a clear and present danger to the country, and there is solid evidence that he did participate in insurrection, and that he gave aid and comfort to enemies of the United States.

So, lacking clear direction or meaningful precedent to base stare decisis upon, the Court essentially may use political calculation. Despite the reputation of the Court these days, that doesn’t mean their decision is a slam dunk. Yes, Trump appointed three of them, and two of the others are, respectively, a bought-out hack with the manners and morals of a Sudanese border guard, and a religious whack finding his cherished beliefs under worldwide attack for his authorship of the ruling undoing Roe V Wade.

But still not that easily determined. The justices are going to be uneasily aware of the fact that Trump has tried to overthrow an election, and that the propaganda net that made Trump possible is unraveling quickly, often because of court decisions. Trump is becoming a political liability.

They aren’t as insulated as they like to pretend, and have to be aware of Trump’s stated intentions should he become President again. He has made it clear that he will eviscerate the power of the courts, exactly in the same way that Netanyahu did with the Israel Supreme Court, now just an empty and token shell. Even Clarence Thomas has to realize that if the Court no longer has any clout, his sugar daddies aren’t going to be arsed supporting him in the style to which he has become accustomed. The Court has little incentive to support a man who will destroy it.

It’s a microcosm of the entire issue of what a state, including a free and democratic state, can do to protect itself against wannabe tyrants and demagogues. Freedom of speech is both the greatest strength of a free country and its greatest weakness. What do do about someone who runs for office advocating the downfall of the existing state?

There’s a case in recent history of someone running for the highest elected office in the land, a man who not only was indicted for trying to overthrow the state, but convicted and imprisoned for it. Once out of prison, he was free to run again, take office, and destroy the state.

That man was Adolf Hitler, architect of the Beer Hall Putsch and eventually, chancellor of Germany which became a nightmare of lawlessness and slaughter before self-destructing after just a dozen bloody years.

Under present German law, Hitler would be disqualified from holding office.

The Court will be in a position where they need to not only try to reestablish their legitimacy, but avoid their own destruction, since a Trump regime would at best regard courts as puppet apparatus for subjugation of anyone Trump found annoying.

The mere fact of the Colorado court decision does put yet another large dent in Trump’s political power, and it is certain that other states will now be encouraged to make similar moves.

Of course some of the red states will try to make a similar exclusion of Biden, claiming that he’s being impeached and he sold sex-slave children in pizza boxes to Lemurians and try to exclude Biden.

Yes, it’s a mess. It may be the court will rule that yes, Trump was in violation of the 14th amendment, but that it’s not the place of individual states to act on a federal crime. And then rule that only federal courts could rule, and proceed to uphold the Colorado case without it turning into a complete circus.

But this is all just guesswork. The only prediction I’ll stand behind is that the Court will act as quickly as possible on this one.