Social Security Archives · Zepp's Commentaries

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 5^th 2025

I only watched the first half hour of Trump’s speech last night. I understand he raved and ranted and lied for a full 100 minutes, which puts him in line with other windy despots, such as Castro or Hitler or Mao. I’ve always wondered why dictators feel a need to orate at such length. Do they enjoy holding a captive audience? Or is there a deeper insecurity at work here? Braggarts often are compensating for something.

The speech was interrupted several times by chants of “USA! USA!” from the Republican side. One hears it often at international sporting events, and it’s usually good natured if a bit tiresome. But there was an edge, a bellicosity to the chant here that made it sound more like “Sieg Heil!” All that was missing was the stiff-armed salute. It’s a pity the camera angle couldn’t pick out faces of those saluting the dictator: I wondered how many wore the same joyous truculence of the true believer, and how many sneaked nervous glances about, too aware of the penalties for inadequate enthusiasm. (I wonder if anyone in the room looked for the same thing and had the wisdom to realize that the true believers would be the greater threat to Trump than the shivering cowards. When Trump’s programs implode and the public fury rises, they will turn faster and harder against Trump.)

“Never be the first to stop applauding” – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Trump got into the issue of waste in Social Security. Apparently he hoped a long list of patently untrue claims would give him some credence, but as usual, he over embellished, breaking down “recipients” by age groups—110 to 115, 116-125, and so on up to 350. That last one amused me: apparently someone filed for social security benefits either in 1675 or at the age of 260, when Social Security actually came into existence. I watched Mike Johnson shaking his head sorrowfully over that, and recalled that the man is a Bible literalist, which means he really believes Methuselah really lived to be 969. Maybe he thought the SS recipient in question was actually one of Noah’s children, and was just lying about his age in order to pick up girls. Was he first paid in ducats or florins?

Of course, there are no checks going out to people older than about 113. The December 2024 Social Security stats show that a bit over 89,000 people got payments, in line with the census report from 2020 which showed 88,000 in that age group. The database is in COBOL, which uses numbers like 150 to indicate that the person in question is dead.

But Trump has two audiences he wants to reach: those who are in on the con as part of his drive to flat-out steal the Social Security trust fund, and utter fools. If you believe him but don’t know which group you’re in, you’re in trouble.

Trump babbled about the “woke agenda” of course. Among other items that he considers woke: “biodiversity,” “transgenic mice,” and “discriminants.” As I said, his main audience is morons.

At least one Democrat, Rep. Al Green (D, Texas) stood and shouted “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!” and “He has no mandate!” Mike sent the palace guard to evict him. It’s a pity the rest of the Democrats didn’t join him.

Still, Trump woke up this morning to a new crisis, which probably took the sheen off what he doubtlessly considered a wildly successful oration: the Supreme Court ruled that he must honor the contracts made from funds allocated by Congress to outfits such as USAID.

The ruling, which in any sane time would have been a 9-0 no-brainer, was dissented by Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. Alito wrote the dissent, saying he was “stunned” that judges might think it is the duty of judges to adjudicate contracts under the rule of law. That is, after all, only the reason judges exist in the first place, and obviously is just some woke liberal crap and must be struck down. I wonder if any of those four have considered what may happen if they managed to rule against their own raison d’être. Of course, their masters at the Heritage Foundation probably have golden parachutes ready for when they finish selling out the country and there is no longer any reason for silliness like “Constitutional Law.”

But it puts Trump right up against that red line: does he abandon his efforts to dismantle the government by fiat, or does he defy the Court? Either way leads to the end of his government, either as a legitimate government or a government at all.

For all of us, the red line is here. And if he crosses it and defies the courts, then either Trump must go, or America does.

Your choice what to do next.

August 9^th 2020

Last week, a high school sophomore used her phone to snap a pic of the main hallway of her high school, jam-packed with kids the way such hallways often are, few wearing masks. The high school principal promptly suspended her, and when word got out, had to back away from that punishment in considerable confusion and indignation.

Today it came to light that at that school, six students and three administrators have tested positive. It’s a pretty safe bet it will wildfire through the rest of the school population. Reports of similar outbreaks are popping up all over the country already as Republicans continue to press for Americans to sicken and die in order to protect profits for the wealthy.

One of our Facebook conspiracy nuts posted a video from Kristi Naom (Governor-Fascist) who was crowing that despite never having had a lockdown, her state only had 165 deaths per million people. Which is true, but that puts South Dakota 25^th on the list of deaths per capita, surprisingly high for one of the least crowded populations in the country. And the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is this week, with 400,000 people expected to attend. Very few masks, but outdoors and, thanks to biker hygiene, social distancing will occur. Additionally, the local tribes are blocking access on reservation roads to the bikers in a vain effort to save the Great White Race from itself. So the carnage shouldn’t be all that bad, comparatively speaking. Maybe only a few dozen bikers will die, and a few hundred will be sickened for life. Well, live free or die, right guys? With the GOP, that’s a multiple choice question.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has stepped forth to save the country, as he has so many times already. Speaking from yet another high-priced country club golf resort that he happens to own, he declared the lack of Congressional action in order to save the country from uncontained spread of the disease and to get the economy rolling on “far left” Democrats. He would “continue unemployment payments to millions of newly unemployed Americans at a rate of $400 per week – a $200 drop from the earlier $600 payment, defer payroll tax through the end of 2020, defer student loans and interest, and extend the federal eviction moratorium.” (The Guardian, today). He’s lying through his teeth, of course: the Democrats passed a comprehensive bill to slow the spread and keep the economy from crashing clear back in late May, and it’s been sitting in McConnell’s inbox ever since. Trump is aggrieved because the Dems wouldn’t surrender to the latest blackmail-disguised-as-an aid package in which the Dems let funding for Social Security and Medicare be trashed, destroying both programs, and in return, the Republicans give a great deal of public money to the rich and powerful, and tell them with a wink and a nod to spend the money on helping workers (they never do, of course) and what they don’t give to the rich, Trump and his family steal for themselves. Trump said he would make the payroll tax ban permanent if reelected, which would end Social Security and Medicare once and for all. Since most of his base are ignorant old farts, that would seem counterintuitive, but they seem to be too stupid to realize they are being robbed blind, and in any event, Trump’s courageous stand against coronavirus ensures that many of them will be too sick or too dead to care anyway.

The Democrats didn’t surrender to the blackmail, and so a frantic Trump has issued those executive orders taking funds from programs designed to help workers and order it spent on workers. But no worries: it will get stolen, because that’s what Trump and the Republicans do. That’s all they are good for. They, and the entities they serve, are parasites, and they are blindly and furiously blaming the host body for having the temerity to start dying on them. (We saw this on a smaller scale in the 1930s, when Republicans furiously blamed the people for staging food and rent strikes when in fact people had no money for food or rent).

The Lincoln Project, a Republican think tank devoted to ending Trump’s regime, summed up his pretense at saving Social Security and Medicare thusly: “This defunds Medicare. This defunds Social Security. Tax collection is just deferred. You’ll still owe these taxes next year.” AND you lose your pension and medical coverage eventually. What a deal, amiright?

No worries; anyone who has even seen a picture of the Constitution knows that the Executive doesn’t have authority to do any of that. He’s going to have to stop posturing and power-grabbing and deal with the Democrats or watch the country collapse. And folks, right now we’re about two weeks from collapse. I’m not sure if Trump is for or against the destruction of America, so don’t depend on him to save anyone. But when his XOs are struck down by the courts, he’ll blame the Dems for blocking his efforts to save us all through the medical procedure known as exsanguination.

There was one mordantly humorous story this week. A Trump supporter, one Caryn Schouten, told a reporter, “This is probably a very bad analogy, but I’d say he [Vice President Pence] is like the very supportive, submissive wife to Trump. He does the hard work, and the husband gets the glory. If you are a hard-working Caucasian-American, your rights are being limited because you are seen as against all the races or against women, or there are people who think that because we have conservative values and we value the family and I value submitting to my husband, I must be against women’s rights. I would say it takes a stronger woman to submit to a man than to want to rule over him. And I would argue that point to the death. I do not love Trump. I think Trump is good for America as a country. I think Trump is going to restore our freedoms, where we spent eight years, if not more, with our freedoms slowly being taken away under the guise of giving freedoms to all. Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority. Rapidly.”

There’s Trump’s base in a nutshell. Pence is not only white, but he’s got a submissive vagina. And that’s what Trump needs from his supporters. Remember that next time you see some idiot wearing a MAGA hat.

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