Category: Political issues

A palace in a Boeing 747 for free? Ha! Source: YouTube

The San Antonio Express-News reported last week that modifications are almost complete in the “flying palace” that Qatar gave to Trump last year: Trump’s Qatari dream jet sets course for Air Force One duty by July 4.

The ultra-rich who already own a big chunk of the planet and who intend to own and control the rest of it all fly around the world in private jets. Increasingly they are contriving to keep these flights secret, but to some degree they can still be tracked.

The Washington Post had a fascinating story last week on how someone built a system for tracking “business jets,” monitoring for a situation in which a large number of these jets converge in one place. The story is Want to track the apocalypse? One theory: Follow the billionaires’ jets.

That’s a brilliant idea. That apocalypse-watch system avoids intimidation by not tracking any oligarch in particular. You may remember the case of the young guy who was targeted by Elon Musk after the guy tracked Musk’s jet and reported the jet’s moves on social media.

All this gave me an idea. I have been using Claude Code to write programs for me, and it has done a fine job. For example, I now have a searchable database of the complete works of Sir Walter Scott, as well as a searchable database of Scott’s letters.

I asked Claude if it would be feasible to track a bunch of planes belonging to super-rich evildoers, log the data into a database, and use that database as a tool for open-source intelligence, which is the only kind of intelligence available to those of us who are poor but who crave to understand what is going on in the world. (I am hardly the only person doing this kind of thing.)

Claude said sure. The work took about two days of Claude time. Claude Code built the system for me in 14 steps — among them acquiring the “tail numbers” and other information about jets to track, creating a database schema, finding a free source of ADS-B tracking data, capturing the data and poking it into the database, and building interfaces to query the database using a web page and an RSS feed.

My system has been running now for only three days. It will take a while to build a strong database containing some very useful history. Most of those planes don’t fly every day. But even after three days, it’s getting interesting.

I don’t have any data yet on American tech billionaires. I’m not sure yet whether that’s because they haven’t flown in the past three days or they have a means of keeping their ADS-B tracking data out of public databases. (I won’t try to describe ADS-B here except to say that every plane of any size is required to constantly transmit a stream of data about its location, altitude, etc. Thousands of ground receivers collect this data. It’s perfectly legal. It’s how you can go on line to see whether the plane you have to meet at the airport is going to be on time. It’s how I know that an Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris often passes right over my house at 9 p.m.)

I am seeing, though, a great deal of flying about by foreign royalty and oligarchs — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Russia in particular. For example, what does Qatar, a tiny but super-rich oil country ruled by a royal family, have to do with China? I have no idea, but a Qatari Airbus landed in Beijing on Monday, a couple of days before Trump arrives. Is that merely a coincidence? I don’t know, but one of the things to watch for is the sneaky ways global oligarchs meet up to coordinate their moves. The database that Claude built for me has some special logic to monitor for convergences. As for Qatar and Trump, it has long been obvious that they’re trading favors.

As much as I would like to, I can’t put this database on line, because it would attract the wrong kind of attention. But this is one of the ways I try to watch a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere.

A screen capture from my database built by Claude

Update:

Source: Flightradar24

This morning my flight tracking database reported that a plane owned by the U.S. Department of Justice, and believed to be Kash Patel’s plane, was over the North Atlantic. I verified this with FlightRadar24, which says the plane is en route from Richmond, Virginia, to Ankara, Turkey. Why would Patel be going to Turkey? A Google search doesn’t find anything written about that. Patel was just dragged over the coals by a Senate committee for his promiscuous travel at taxpayer expense.

The New York Times said that King Charles’ rebuke of Donald Trump was “subtle.” I don’t think it was subtle at all. Rather, it was a historic example of how the English language, in the hands of those who know that language well, can beat the living daylights out of fools and be perfectly civil about it.

I think it was subtle, though, how Charles signaled in his opening joke that that’s what he intended to do. He referred to Oscar Wilde’s line, “We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.” I can’t decide whether the Republicans in the chamber realized that they were being horse-whipped or whether they figured out that the politeness of Charles’ diplomatic language gave them plausible deniability.

Democrats were quick to rise to their feet and applaud when Charles upbraided the Trump administration. Charles upbraided even the Republicans in Congress, for not restraining executive power. Republicans, though, stood and applauded slowly and reluctantly. They had no choice, politically. How could they, as mere tyrant-enabling boot-scraping lickspittles, stonewall Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith?

Charles took a lot of heat in Britain for even coming to Washington, out of concern that it could be interpreted as some degree of approval of Trump. But that’s not how it went.

I wonder who wrote that speech. Charles, no doubt, was very much involved in deciding what he would say, not least because of his emphasis on the environment. If you have not watched the speech, it’s very much worth the time. It’s on YouTube.

Here you can see what Charles really thinks of Trump’s coarseness, as Charles almost wrestles with Trump to try to pull his hand away.

https://x.com/AdamJSchwarz/status/2048860957993001251/video/1

It has happened over and over. A population of fools falls for the lies and promises of a charismatic right-wing authoritarian. Slowly and painfully the slow learners realize that they’ve been had, but by then getting rid of a corrupted, criminalized government may not be an easy matter. Just ask Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, Spain under Franco, Portugal under Salazar and Caetano, Greece under the Colonels, Argentina under the military junta, Chile under Pinochet. Now Hungary under Orbán is history. Still to fully learn their lesson and throw off a criminal government: Russia under Putin and America under Trump.

It looks to me like an iron rule with no real exceptions: Right-wingery always leads to ruin, remorse, and revolution. Hungary is incredibly fortunate to be able to have their revolution with a lawful election. It remains to be seen whether the United States will be able to do that. Orbán was able to stay in power through institutional capture, patronage, propaganda, legal harassment, and intimidation. Orbán was not very violent. Trump, on the other hand (like Putin), is entirely willing to use violence to get what he wants.

The extreme right is often good at producing spectacle, enemies, and temporary, triumphal euphoria for those who are susceptible. But the extreme right cannot, anywhere under any circumstances, produce anything that is durable and decent.

Hungary’s Péter Magyar is troublingly conservative. But at least he promises to restore democracy, turn Hungary away from Putin, and rejoin Europe. If he doesn’t do that, I suspect that, given what they’ve so recently learned, the people of Hungary will catch on pretty quick.

At least we’re getting better and better laughs out of the blunders of the Trump regime. Their cluelessness in not comprehending that a visit by Vance would help Orbán lose the election was hilarious, as were the stories about Vance and Jared Kushner stomping out of Pakistan after the Iranians made fools of them. And then there was Melania’s press conference, which Saturday Night Live had a lot of fun with.

And then there’s this (⬇︎), apparently intended to keep evangelicals on board. I shudder to think what it must be like to be so stupid.

Pete Hegseth. Source: Wikimedia Commons

I had a nice email this morning asking if everything is OK since I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks. Yup… Here in the woods everything is fine. But some days it’s an effort to manage the rage at what’s happening in the world. Rage doesn’t make good commentary, nor is it good for mental health. So back to the garden with me, or the kitchen, or the computer.

Plus there’s not much I can add when I think that the media and our public intellectuals are getting things right. Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman, in their daily Substack posts, are doing a fantastic job of writing the first draft of history. That should be the New York Times’ job. The Times, though, can’t just come right out and say plainly that what we are dealing with not only is fascism, but also complete idiots and psychopaths. Still, reading between the lines, it’s obvious that the New York Times staff now understand perfectly well what we’re up against, though they were a year or two (or more) late, and they continue to do a lot of sanewashing.

Part of the rage — you probably feel it too — is that we as civilized people have no choice but to stand back and watch as this pig circus of pluperfect idiots, who understand nothing other than domination and destruction, blunder around the world destroying things and killing people at enormous taxpayer expense. And because stupid people don’t know they’re stupid, they believe themselves chosen to instruct the rest of us on moral excellence. Just listen to this prayer by by the odious Pete Hegseth:

“Almighty God, who trains our hands for war and our fingers for battle, you who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old, making her land a desolation where none dwell, behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous. Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans, and break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish. Let their bulls go down to slaughter for their day has come, the time of their punishment. Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind.

“Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence. Surround them as a shield, protect the innocent and blameless in their midst. Make their arrows like those of a skilled warrior who returned not empty-handed. Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy. Preserve their lives, sharpen their resolve, and let justice be executed swiftly and without remorse that evil may be driven back and wicked souls delivered to the eternal damnation prepared for them. For the wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. We ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ, King over all kings and amen.”

I have to believe that eventually we not only will remove these people from power, we’ll also hold them accountable. But it isn’t just them. It’s also the 77 million idiot Americans who voted for them. Fixing that kind of dumb will take generations.

What was it he said? I’m tempted to quote him, even at the risk of indulging my rage:

Pour out your wrath upon those who plot vain things and blow them away like chaff before the wind.

That level of depravity and the blind projection of what he is onto others is almost incomprehensible. But here we are.

Official White House photo via Wikimedia Commons. The photo was taken March 5, 2026, five days after Trump started bombing Iran. Click here for high-resolution uncropped version.

Everyone should see this photo. I’ve cropped it to fit the space, but if you click on the high-resolution link you’ll see the wide version.

The photo captures the total madness of American power under Trump. Not only are such people rafters-and-rabies crazy, they think so highly of themselves, and they are so delusional, that they think this kind of Jesus theater is somehow uplifting. Fools don’t know they’re fools. Religion in America has always been blind and dumb and foolish. But now it has merged with fascism.

I don’t know who the people in the photo are, other than Paula White, a millionaire who speaks in tongues and sells “blessings” for cash. It’s safe to assume that all of them are con men who fleece the ignorant.

From Pete Hegseth to Pam Bondi to Stephen Miller, this is what Trump has brought to Washington.

Phil Berger, president pro tempore of the North Carolina Senate and the most wicked man in Raleigh. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

For fifteen years, Phil Berger has been doing the devil’s work in Raleigh. North Carolina is a purple state, with a Democratic governor but a legislature that Berger has turned into a right-wing instrument of terror. In yesterday’s Republican primary, the unofficial returns showed Berger two votes behind the Rockingham County sheriff, Sam Page, 13,075 to 13,077.

Provisional votes have not yet been processed. There surely will be a recount. Page declared victory, but the media are mostly saying that it’s too close to call.

OK. I’ll call it.

Unless it freezes over, there is no way in hell that Berger will allow a mere two votes to put an end to his power.

One of Berger’s projects was changing the law so that Republicans control the state and county boards of elections by taking away the Democratic governor’s power to appoint members of the state board. The puppet strings from which the state board of elections dangles, not to mention all one hundred Republican-dominated county boards of elections, go straight into Berger’s busy hands. Utter ugliness, Republican style, is guaranteed as Page and Berger continue to fight it out. I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t go to the N.C. Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republicans. One Republican member of that court is Berger’s son, nepo baby Phil Berger Jr.!

Where there is evil to be done, Berger has done it — the “bathroom” bill and the marriage amendment to inflame the culture wars, tax cuts for the corporations and the rich, interference with the state’s universities, the starving of the public school system and diversion of public money to religious schools and private schools, and obscene levels of gerrymandering to send right-wingers to Raleigh and to Washington.

Berger caused himself a lot of blowback with his maneuvers to try to cram casinos down North Carolina’s throat, including a proposed casino in his home county of Rockingham. The sheriff, Sam Page, didn’t like that idea because of all the crime and drunk drivers it would bring. The casino blunder was one of the few times that Berger didn’t get what he wanted, and he opened the door to be primaried. The sheriff is no saint. But if Sheriff Page was able to take Berger’s place in Raleigh, then the political machine that Berger built as the N.C. Senate Republican leader would come crashing down.

There is nothing that any Democrat can do as Berger goes to work to keep his power. The Democratic governor has no power to keep things legal and honest. Republicans own it all — the state and county boards of elections and the N.C. Supreme Court. Thanks to gerrymandering, the Democrat who will run against Berger in the fall doesn’t have a snowball’s chance.

Berger is a case study in Republican ruthlessness. Sheriff Page had better watch out for the payback. I hope he’s got good lawyers. Half the voters in Berger’s senate district want him out. That, too, is going to generate some ugly Republican-style politics in Rockingham County. But I doubt that Berger spends much time there.

Update, Saturday, March 7: The news from yesterday is that, after the provisional votes were counted, Page is now ahead by 23 votes. There probably will be a recount. But now the election is a bit harder for Berger to steal.

Illustration by ChatGPT 5.2

Paul Krugman’s Substack dispatch this morning, Billionaires Gone Wild, is about how, starting with Reagan, then worsening after Citizens United, billionaires are taking over the world. This is not just an American phenomenon. The lead story today at the English edition of Le Monde is France’s 13,335 millionaires who pay no income tax. France’s Finance Ministry tried to deny that this was true. But further digging confirmed it.

Billionaires can afford propaganda, of course. And they are increasingly buying up the media to turn them into organs of propaganda. Millions upon millions of Americans — who at least can see that their lunch is being eaten — are bamboozled by the propaganda and believe the lie that it’s poor, brown-skinned immigrants who are eating their lunch. Americans are taught to admire and almost worship the rich. How can they be shown who it is who is really eating their lunch?

Right-wing politicians and propagandists use demonization against their political enemies very effectively. Just look at how they treated the Clintons and the Obamas — demonization based upon lies, lies, and more lies.

Progressives have no choice but to learn to do this. And progressives don’t have to lie to demonize the rich. Just telling the truth would do the job. As Krugman points out, it isn’t just that the super-rich are using their power to make themselves richer. They’re also spreading fascism — though Krugman uses milder language: “Unfortunately, their non-monetary goals are often worse than their greed.”

Democracies will never be safe until the super-rich are demonized instead of worshiped and taxed out of existence. Wealth taxes are a start. And something, of course, must be done about the U.S. Supreme Court.

All of a sudden, Jon Ossoff, a U.S. senator from Georgia, is on the presidential radar screen.

Keith Duggan, Washington correspondent for the Irish Times, has noticed him: Flickers of Obama: Is Georgia senator Jon Ossoff a Democratic presidential runner? Also Newsweek: Is Jon Ossoff the Man Democrats Have Been Waiting For?

What got their attention was a rally speech that Ossoff gave on February 7 in Atlanta (link below).

Not only is Ossoff qualified, he is not an easy target for Republican demonization. Not only is Newsom from the state that Republicans hate the most — California — he’s also from San Francisco. Pete Buttigieg is gay. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an unapologetic socialist. (I think that Buttigieg would make a fine secretary of state. And AOC has definitely earned her way into the cabinet of the next Democratic president.)

Whereas if Ossoff has any such political baggage, I’m not aware of it. He has the perfect education — Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, and the London School of Economics. The Wikipedia article has more on his past and his political positions. Just imagine having someone in the White House who actually knows something about the world!

Once upon a time, it was a rule with the Democratic Party that there had to be a Southerner on the ticket. Democrats foolishly forgot that.

Ossoff is in rally mode in the video, and that’s fine. But it’s high time now that someone does a sitdown policy interview with him.

Update: Jennifer Rubin also writes about Ossoff in her Substack post today: Undaunted in Georgia.