Sorry Charlie — But We Have Other Things To Discuss

Sorry Charlie

But We Have Other Things To Discuss

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 14th 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, yes. Release the Epstein files!

Leveling Out? — Hints of a Seismic Shift

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

May 19th 2025

There’s a word I’m hearing more and more, not just from Democrats and Independents, but from Republicans, judges, army personnel, and even some in MAGAland. That word is “overreach.”

The “gift” from Qatar may have been the tipping point. It was blatant corruption, a vast and ridiculous gift that was so ludicrous that even people totally undismayed by the criminality and avarice of Trump realized what a fool the man truly is.

Never mind that the interior of the plane resembles an Ed Wood notion of what a 1920s Turkish bordello must have looked like. We’re used to that particular aesthetic from Trump, after all. It is quite literally a flying albatross, weighed down with dross and easily brought down with a drone with a good laser on board. An albadross, if you will.

In fact, it’s a white elephant. It was originally commissioned in 2012 by the Qatari Royal family and delivered in 2015. The Qatari regime quickly realized it was a gaudy turkey, and gifted it to King Abdullah II of Jordan. The king flew it for a bit, and then returned it. Since 2020, the Qataris had been trying to find a sucker to unload it on. Low mileage, at least: it has only logged about 25,000 air hours, a minuscule amount compared to any commercial 747.

Estimates on the cost of bringing it up to the standards of Air Force One range from $350 million to $one billion, and certainly would not be ready before 2029. One of the many rationales that Trump gave for accepting this thing was that he was mad at Boeing because the new Air Force One already commissioned won’t be ready until 2029. Apparently he was so annoyed at Boeing over that that the day after accepting Qatar’s Golden Turkey Award, he signed off on an agreement between Boeing and Qatar to deliver $89 billion in planes over the next 15 years. I’m sure the board of directors at Boeing were heartbroken to hear this.

That same day he made a deal with Saudi Arabia, that according to The Hill, “includes a $142 billion defense and security deal that equips Saudi Arabia with state-of-the-art war equipment provided by dozens of U.S. firms. The equipment includes air and missile defense and air force and space advancements.” I’m sure this was met with considerable interest in the Knesset.

One oddity in the $600 billion deal, touted as an invest-in-America thing, was the arrangement to sell 500,000 advanced Intel AI chips. The Saudis already had a vast program to develop AI technology going, and most of the chips appear to be going to the technology-poor United Arab Emirates. It’s widely suspected the chips might go to China, and possibly Iran, as relations between Iran and the desert kingdoms has thawed considerably in the past year. One more thing to keep the thoroughly sandbagged Netanyahu up at night.

Nobody has explained why the plane needs to be brought up to AF1 specs given that Trump is supposed to be out of office by 2029. Maybe the administration thinks Donald Trump Jr. will be president. But for right now, the whole damn thing has to be taken apart to make sure the Qataris didn’t load it up with spyware, or other little malevolencies that might result in headlines like “AF1 unexpectedly loses power over Israel, crashes into Knesset.” What a coincidence.

Whatever wet dreams Donald might have had of flying in royal grandeur over an undeserving world aren’t going to happen soon, especially if Congress grows a backbone and forbids the gift—which they have the power to do.

And Trump would have to redo that silly interior, which is designed explicitly for the tastes of the Qatari royal family. Not a US flag or Big Mac in sight. Like most white elephants, it suffers from being tailored to a specific taste. A retired but still very popular basketball star is trying to unload his estate at 10% of original asking price because he had his name, face, and jersey number plastered all over it, and for most people “23” is just another number.

Trump has always been mocked by his non-admirers, for his venality, his grandiosity, his feeble grasp of policy, and his over the top and often demented “truths.” But now even Donald’s followers are beginning to suspect that he is, in fact, a living embodiment of that Qatar plane: gaudy, ridiculous, non-functional, and widely regarded as a white elephant.

Support for Trump is eroding, rapidly outside of the GOP, but now, critically, within the GOP itself. Most of what Trump is doing is stuff nobody signed on for outside of the fascists behind Project 2025, and even the Heritage Foundation libertarians are beginning to realize the stories about Donald’s dementia and erratic behavior weren’t just rumors but could pull him—and them—down.

A lot of people, myself included, have drawn parallels between Trump and Hitler, comparisons invited by Trump himself, who openly adopts strategies of the vile German leader. But while Trump may recognize Hitler’s strategic genius, he doesn’t have that strategic genius, and is in reality just a poor Xerox of the German dictator. Even Hitler would shake his head sadly at his greatest fan. Hitler, at least, had enough sense to go mad after he consolidated power. Trump doesn’t and that might be his downfall.

 

Odds and Gods

Odds and Gods

Momma Nature is gonna spank little baby

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

December 8, 2012

The Climate Change conference is taking place right now in Qatar, a ludicrous choice since Qatar has the highest per capita emissions of CO2 in the world.

Adding to the general air of clownishness that surrounds this meeting is the fact that Senator Inhofe and Lord Monckton showed up—two of the biggest fools the denier community has. Inhofe wanted the world to know it wasn’t hot and dry in Oklahoma, and Monckton tried to claim he was the representative from Burma and actually managed to address the meeting before the ruse was discovered and he was kicked out of the country.

In the meantime, some of the details of the IPCC’s next comprehensive report leaked out. It’s a pretty terrifying report. Climate Change will reach catastrophic levels by 2050, 37 years away. That’s pretty bad. But the IPCC does not address the billions of tons of methane that will be released as the permafrost in Siberia and Canada melt. This is not a projected problem—it’s been going on for twenty years now, and is one of the main reasons why the rate of climate change keeps exceeding scientific predictions.

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