Factories, but not Factory Jobs

No place for people

So I’ve heard that one of Trump/Musk’s justifications for large scale layoffs of government employees is that no one will really suffer for long. What will happen, they say, is that the unemployed will find fulfilling, well-paid jobs in the factories that Trump’s tariffs will return to our shores.

But, come, this is a fantasy. If manufacturing is coming back to America (itself not certain), then it will be modern and efficient. Meaning it will be automated. Factories will have a workforce of (mostly) robots. Today, you don’t want people on the factory floor. They just get in the way. You have machines instead.

Thus, in an age of automation, the economy may be based on manufacturing, but employment is not. Which means that the supposedly well-paid factory jobs coming in the wake of tariffs will almost certainly never get here. 

One wonders what they will do then…our glorious leaders? When yet again the prosperity they promise to the many proves an illusion? And all they can offer is still greater wealth to the vanishingly few? 

When You’ve Lost Karl Rove

Good Ole Karl 

So I read the other day that Karl Rove is looking a bit askance at the Trump administration. He says it is exhausting Americans, and the regime will end badly.

Well, of course. That’s sort of like saying Tuesday comes after Monday. Most weeks, anyway.

But it is fascinating to see good ole Karl getting into this fight. This is the man who was “Bush’s Brain.” And who did so much to make demonizing Democrats a popular pastime. And he also worked very hard to make the GOP the focused and obedient militant Party-Army that it is today. When Trump says sh*t, Republicans ask what color. And that wouldn’t have happened without Karl.

So what do we say about Karl? Perhaps not much. Perhaps nothing. Except, of course, to note that the man who did so much to get us into this mess is now vaguely noticing that it is, in fact, a mess.

Except, of course, and obviously…

He’s taking none of the blame. No matter how much he deserves it. 

How very Republican of him. 

Reading Mr. Brooks’ call for an uprising

 

We The People

By this time, you will probably have already read, or read about,  David Brooks’ op-ed in the New York Times,  What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal. It is genuinely an important piece in that it was written by a conservative who was in opposition to us lefty loonies for decades, but who would now stand with us.

Why? It seems he has discovered that Trump and his regime are, indeed, illegitimate and a threat to everything America stands for…at least, everything good that America stands for.

I’m glad to see this. And I’m heartened that the call is coming from the Right. (At last someone over there is hearing something other than Fox News or the Heritage Foundation.) And I hope, very much, that Mr. Brooks is heeded and we do manage to cobble together a united front that will be able to bring down our Trump and his emerging dictatorship..

Yet, I fear this will be hard to do. Mr. Brooks is hardly a MAGA, and the GOP remains beholden to that curious movement. I see very little to indicate that Republicans, in general, and Trumpsters, in particular, will feel any sympathy for his positions. Meanwhile, the Left can’t seem to stay united long enough to support AOC and Bernie, much less coalesce around some future leader or leaders who could provide common direction. 

Still, better small things than nothing. Let us hope that this op-ed piece will resonate with enough people…right, left, and center…that something will come of it. After all, a single drop of rain can presage a mighty storm. 

Now The Right Is After The Pill and Condoms

Who They Really Are

Interesting and terrifying article on the CommonDreams website the other day, Group That Helped Reverse Roe Sets Sights on Birth Control, by Jessica Corbett. It turns out that “the conservative Christian group, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF),” which was one of the prime movers behind the end of Roe v. Wade, is now gunning for birth control. Yes, they want to make condoms, the pill, IUDs, etc., illegal. 

We all saw this coming, of course. The real thrust of the Right was always against recreational sex, not abortion. Abortion was just the convenient launching pad for the larger effort. 

In short, the Right stands revealed for what it truly is. Not a band of humanitarians protecting the unborn, but Anthony Comstock returned, full of hate, detesting pleasure, and eager to condemn all and sundry to the pit for exercising (God forbid!) their freedom to choose.  

Conservatives Hate Science

You mean I'm not God?

So I read with much interest a recent article in EurekaAlert!, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Entitled “Conservative Americans consistently distrust science,” the piece noted that recent surveys indicated that American conservatives distrust and dislike science – and not just science that contradicts their beliefs (i.e., evolution and climate change) but science in general. They just don’t like it. Period.

In particular, they don’t like science because it says everything can and should be questioned. Nothing is immune to examination. Which is another way of saying that their own beliefs could be disproven.

And, in their vast narcissism, that is unthinkable. Conservatives of the MAGA variety must be utterly correct. They are infallible. When they speak it is ex cathedra.

And so science, for them, is blasphemy. It interferes, you see, with the everlasting worship…

Of themselves.

Dark Brandon Returns…thank God.

Dark Brandon...American Hero

So I read that Joe Biden has decided to re-enter American politics. He is, according to CNN, Feeling out a bizarre post-presidency, and looking to speak out against Trump, do fundraising for the party, and otherwise make himself useful to the American people.

Not surprisingly, Democratic Party insiders have reacted with alarm to Biden’s plans, and seem to want to silence him, if they can.

Personally, I find the Party’s attitude appalling. Biden can help, and the fact that he is willing to work for the Party which rejected him so unfairly says much that is good about him. Moreover, it is exactly the sort of thing that younger Democrats want. They may see Biden as too old, but at least he’s active and challenging Trump where it hurts. This is in stark contrast to what the Party elites are themselves doing…which is, maddeningly, nothing.

So three cheers to Dark Brandon, back from the political grave, and ready to fight the good fight!

And may all the fools and media pundits who said you were senile crawl back under their rocks, never to be seen or heard again.

Jon Steward is not innocent

Jon Is Not Innocent

Very interesting piece over on the Wonkette Web site, “Jon Stewart Very Sorry He Believed His Own Both-Sides Bullsh*t,” by Doktor Zoom. In it, the good Doktor takes Steward to task for his attacks on Biden during the election, while largely ignoring Donald Trump.

The piece is interesting and probably on target. But the reason I find it important is that this is one of the first times I’ve seen someone take on Jon Steward and the whole crew of critics on the Left who set out to take down Biden in the midst of an election – and, in the process, did much to put Trump back into the White House.

Frankly, I would love to see the Democratic Party Insiders and Pundits held accountable for their actions. While I suppose it can’t be said with 100% certainty that if they had held their fire in the run up to the election that Biden would have won, still, you have to think that they greatly diminished his chances, and did much to get us into our current hellish mess. 

It would be lovely to think that someday, somehow, they will be confronted with that fact. And, if possible, be made to pay for it. 

Lazy Young Men?

So I read the other day that House Speaker Mike Johnson has defended the GOP’s cut to Medicaid because it will get young men back to work. The headline I saw, in The Latin Times, was  Mike Johnson Says Men Need to Stop 'Playing Video Games All Day' and Get to Work: 'They're Draining Resources' "Return the dignity of work to young men who need to be at work instead of playing video games all day."

It was such an absurd statement that I had to go check to be certain it wasn’t a fabrication or a joke. But it seems to be true. Johnson really said something very much like that.

The first question, of course, is how on earth young, healthy, able-bodied men…none of whom would qualify for Medicaid…could actually be somehow getting it. The second question is how many young men really are wasting their lives playing video games all day. My guess is that the population of such individuals who are refusing to work and, instead, spending their waking hours blasting imaginary alien invaders to imaginary hells in imaginary universes is vanishingly small.

So I have to think that something else is going on here. I suspect that Mr. Johnson is trying to distract from the fact that cuts to Medicaid are not going to impact welfare cheats but rather the elderly, the infirm, infants, and young, single mothers. The cuts are, in other words, going to harm the most vulnerable among us for the benefit of a few obscenely wealthy and obscenely immoral billionaires.

The second thing I suspect is going on, though, is that we see in Mr. Johnson’s comment what the Rich and Powerful today really think of the people “below” them in social status. That is, for the 1%, there is no such thing as the working poor. Instead, there are merely scum who waste their time playing games…and whose extinction will do the human race no end of good.

There is something terrifying in that.

What To Do In A Dictatorship

Sometimes, ridicule works just fine.

Here’s an article that might be helpful to us all. “What to do if the Insurrection Act is invoked: With the Insurrection Act looming, now is the time to learn how it might unfold and the strategic ways to respond — including the power of ridicule,” by Daniel Hunter, in Waging Non-Violence. 

In the piece, Mr. Hunter looks at what we can do as individuals should Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, in effect declaring martial law. He offers a variety of useful suggestions ranging from refusing to become violent (Trump will almost certainly try to instigate armed strife. Our refusal to go along with that will infuriate him) to the calculated use of ridicule and humor. 

Maybe not everything Mr. Hunter says will be valuable to everyone, but his article is doubtlessly an important foundation for those of us who wish to consider nonviolent responses to this most dreadful of modern administrations.

The Arts... Damage Assessment

Art In An Age Of Trump and Techbros

Interesting article in Variety the other day, “John Lithgow Says Donald Trump’s Second Term Is ‘Pure Disaster’ for Arts: ‘First There Was Coronavirus, Now There’s This’” by Alex Ritman. In it, Mr. Ritman reports on Lithgow’s response to Trump and his enablers virtual shutdown of art in this country–as evidenced most recently by the White House’s takeover of the Kennedy Center.

It is a fascinating article, and you have to agree with Mr. Lithgow. But you also have to understand the mindset of the current White House and the people who run it. For the businessmen, tech bros, engineers, and “poorly educated” MAGAheds, the demise of the arts is perfectly acceptable. Indeed, it is praiseworthy. For them, Art was something that college-educated, decadent, effete coastal dwellers did. It wasn’t something that Real Americans did. It didn’t increase shareholder value. It didn’t fix trucks and hammer nails. It didn’t code billion dollar applications. It was…suspect.

And so, in The New World Order, we may expect more of this. There will be less public art…or any sort of art…and more crudity. We will have a society built to reflect the aesthetic values of boors and billionaires.

Which is to say, none at all…

Once again, "like a business"

 

The World They Are Building

One of my problems in trying to explain the disaster that Trump represents is that sometimes I talk to Wall Street types. They are perfectly happy with what the Orange One is doing. Oh, yes, the tariffs and layoffs are painful now, but all that will mean massive savings in government debt. So everything will be just ducky. 

The kicker is, of course, that Wall Streeters and Business-types think no more than 3 months in advance. That’s long-term planning for them. And governments should think in terms of decades, or even generations. And right now, what Trump is doing is wrecking our society for untold generations yet to come. The cuts of “wasteful programs” – as in funding for the sciences, basic research, infrastructure, etc. – means that we’ll be behind most every other nation on earth. While Musk’s DOGE is congratulating itself on its parsimony, China is putting big money into AI, computer science, silicon chips, and more.

All of which will give Beijing significant advantages politically, economically, and militarily in the near term, and perhaps permanent hegemony in the long.

Thus, once again, we run across the reality that the government cannot be run “like a business,” and that attempts to do so (particularly by people like Trump and Musk) are not just futile. They’re actually deadly.

Things Don’t Go Better With Koch

Koch's Monster

So we learn that even billionaire “libertarian” Charles Koch opposes Trump’s tariffs. According to several sources, he has funded a “free enterprise” organization intended to stop Trump and his tariffs if at all possible.

Of course you have to applaud that. But you also have to think that there is a good deal of too little, too late here. And let’s not forget that the Koch brothers have been among the most powerful movers and shakers who set up the whole nightmarish reality that we find today in Washington. It was they and people like them, other “libertarians” (a term which, as near as I can tell, means “all power to Kleptocrats, and everyone else can go suck an egg”) who worked so very hard to create the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and put the Donald into office a second time.

I wonder how that feels. That is, to know that your creation is a monster beyond redemption? That it threatens everyone? And, if left to itself, could cause the literal end of the world…

Can’t be fun. Like being Dr. Frankenstein.

But without the genius of Mary Shelly.  

Biowar: We Are At Risk

 

So I was browsing some older articles I have in my Pocket list, and I came across one dating all the way back to 2021, but which is as scary as ever. It was Commentary: Why are so many Republicans refusing vaccination? Because Russia is telling them to, by Lee Mcintyre, The Baltimore Sun. In it, Mcintyre argued that many Americans (far too many) believe disinformation from foreign and mostly Russian sources about vaccinations and diseases. Now, four years on, it seems they are still doing so.

I’m going to say something that I hope isn’t true. But I have the dreadful feeling that there’s a method to this madness. If someone were planning a full scale biological warfare attack on the United States then it would make a great deal of sense to start off by convincing as many of their targets to distrust medical science. 

Thus, I very much fear that someone could be setting us up for the kill. Let us hope that another administration, and a turn toward common sense, will occur between now and (biological) armageddon.

Goodbye, California…and other blue states?

 

So I read an interesting article in Newsweek the other day, California to Negotiate Trade With Other Countries to Bypass Trump Tariffs. In it, the authors detailed efforts by California, and its energetic governor,  Gavin Newsom, to go around the Trump tariffs and trade directly with the affected countries themselves. 

I’m sure that this won’t fly. Nations cannot allow their constituent parts to deal with other countries as though they were, themselves independent. The California Republic cannot be, in other words, a genuine Republic. The term “nullification crisis” springs to mind. 

That said, it is fascinating that California is considering such actions. One suspects that other Blue States will follow. If they succeed, even if only partially, then something very important will have happened. It will mean that the country is beginning to divide between Blue States and Red.

Which means the great American union may be done and gone. And historians will know that the man who was most responsible for its demise was, of course, Donald Trump.

The individual who, more than anyone else, condemned a once great nation to division…and, probably, irrelevance in history.

Rand Paul Agonistes

So I read that Rand Paul is so aghast at Trump’s tariffs that he fears for the future of his party. He notes that each time the GOP has instituted tariffs in the past (as in 1850 and 1930) the result has been a severe economic downturn while the Republican party lost seats in the House and Senate. He fears, in fact, that the Party could be wiped out in Congress for “sixty years.”

I both fear and hope that he’s right. Fear, because I suspect that the tariffs will be every bit as destructive to the American economy (and society) as he says. But, also hope, because it would be lovely to think that the GOP was about to be expelled into the outer darkness for another half century or more.

Or…better yet…far better….

…be dissolved as the criminal enterprise it has so clearly become.

~mjt

Billionaires…The Genuine Despots

When I was a teenager I read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I thought it was an okay fantasy, but not one you should take seriously.

But, there was a scene that stuck with me. In it, one of the main characters considers a villain who wants to increase taxes. The good character then envisions the villain as an oriental potentate, eager to stab a peasant just to gain a few more grains of rice.

And, of course, here we are, decades later…and there is something ironic about that image in Atlas Shrugged. To wit, it wasn’t the nasty old socialists who fit the image of the oriental potentate, but rather the billionaire bros who today run the government through their orange tool. It is they who fill the role…as they kill social security, medicaid, and much else, and thus condemn the aged and the infirm to slow starvation.

All for just a few more pennies in their own pockets… for a microscopic increase in their already obscene fortunes…which neither they nor their remotest descendants  could ever hope to spend.

Copyright©2025 Michael Jay Tucker

"Shadow Government"

So I saw a while back that Tim Walz, who would have been a great VP IMHO, has urged Democrats to form a shadow government to “emphasize the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's actions.” (That’s according to a story in Just The News.)

There’s nothing wrong with the proposal, even though the Magrat Government jumped on it as fast as their little hobnailed boots could manage. Unfortunately, there is a conspiracy theory, popular among knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, GOP troglodytes that a (liberal) “shadow government” is doing Torrible Things to ‘Merica and the world.. 

In fact, of course, there is no such sinister Shadow Government. The term simply means the organization of the party out of power as it attempts to oppose the policies and actions of the party which is in power. It’s what happens in democracies. We’ve done it for years, even though we Americans don’t call it a “shadow government.” That's more of a British thing, but there’s no reason why we couldn’t adopt the term here in the Benighted States of (Trump’s) America. 

In fact, the more I think about it, the more important it seems to me that we have such an organization…something beyond a simple opposition group. That’s because Trump and the G☭P are going to screw up the country. They are a disaster waiting to happen. Or, rather, are happening now. 

And I notice that one definition of “Shadow Government” listed on Wikipedia is “a term for plans for an emergency government that takes over in the event of a disaster.” Well, guess what. That’s exactly what we’re going to need.

Someone to pick up the pieces…

And maybe, hopefully, this time…

Put a few bastards in jail.

~mjt

Tim Walz

DT’s dumb as a brick.

Interesting article in Politico, “ ‘He Thinks He and Putin Are Friends’: John Bolton on How Trump Gets Manipulated: Trump’s former national security adviser lets loose on the leaked Signal group chat and Trump’s foreign policy.” It’s a Q&A by Rachael Bade in which she speaks to John Bolton about Trump’s relationship with the world. 

It makes for distressing reading. Bolton says that Trump does not understand foreign relations, does not understand that Putin is not on his side, does not understand that NATO is a good idea, and, finally, still hasn’t gotten it through his thick head that international economies cannot be run like an episode of the Apprentice. 

In short, the present administration demonstrates, says Bolton, such a wealth of ignorance and arrogance that it is bound to cause us all a great deal of harm eventually.

It is good that Mr. Bolton is making these points. One does wish he had said something…or done something…earlier. But, perhaps better late than never. And, late or not, there is the grim question of what do we do about it?  It is clear that Trump et al are cunning (politically) but stupid in virtually every other way.

And Trump, and his minions, aren’t going to get any smarter. No one, not Bolton, not the rest of the GOP, not the rest of us, are going to be able to educate them.

So it is that perhaps our only hope is the seeming overwhelming task of educating not Trump but rather his supporters. We can only hope that by diligent effort, maybe for decades, we may finally explain to them the functions of government and the basics of civics. 

As I say, an overwhelming task…but at least one that is remotely possible.

Where-as an educated Trump?

Not in this lifetime. And not in this universe.

Measles & Murder

 

I hereby call for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his staff to be charged with murder and child endangerment. 

Second child dies from measles-related causes as Texas outbreak continues to spread:

“Dr. Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration's former vaccine chief, said responsibility for the death rests with Kennedy and his staff. Marks was forced out of the FDA after disagreements with Kennedy over vaccine safety.

"This is the epitome of an absolutely needless death," Marks told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday. "These kids should get vaccinated — that's how you prevent people from dying of measles."

Rand Paul Doesn’t Like Trump’s Tariffs

So I see that Rand Paul…right-wing poster-boy and Ayn Rand’s most fervent disciple…has come out and said that Trump’s tariffs are harmful and dangerous. He opposes them, in short, even though he worked like a champ to get Donald himself back into office.

Oh, the sweet irony of it all. This is a man who genuinely believes that Atlas is going to Shrug at some point in the near future. This is the man who thought Trump was going to be a great Libertarian hero. This is the man who wanted to prosecute Doctor Fauci for the heinous crime of trying to protect people from Covid rather than letting the ignorant masses die in the name of a smoothly functioning economy.

Yet, here he is…facing the consequences of his actions, and realizing that the Orange One stands for Free Enterprise only so long as it means he, himself, is Free to loot governmental coffers and pick the public’s pocket.

It must be hard on the poor chap. Like being five and finding out that the bearded guy down at the corner isn’t Santa Claus, but rather just a stinking drunk who has a regular weekly appointment with that syphilitic hooker who does business behind the dumpster in the alley around the block.

You almost feel sorry for Congressman Paul.

Almost. Not quite. But almost.