Posts by: Jack Altschuler

Precedented


Post 1,009

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Precedented I

Republican Warren G. Harding was our nation’s 29th President of the United States. His administration was infested with scandal. He died two years into his presidency, thus preventing him from doing even more damage. He was long considered the worst president ever, an impressive achievement, given some of the dopes who have held that job.

But then came Nixon to lower the bar.

Then Dubya.

Then Trump.

Even before they came along with their scandals and criminal behavior there were extremists who promised division, chaos and nothing to solve our national problems and challenges.

In the early 1960s the Republican Party was a groundswell of extremism, proudly led by Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). He was famous for saying chest-thumping, stupid absolutist things, like,

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
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He ginned up “the base” with such stuff, along with promises of nuclear annihilation. Goldwater and other far righties made fearful advances toward taking over the Republican Party and caused moderates more than a little worry. On July 14, 1963 Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY) gave a speech addressing this very issue. Sections of it are below. I’m confident this will feel uncomfortably current.
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I am now convinced that, unless the vast majority of Republicans who subscribe to these [extremist] principles are aroused from present inaction – whether this inaction stems from complacency, from fear or from a fantastically short-sighted opportunism – the Republican party is in real danger of subversion by a radical, well financed and  highly disciplined minority.

For it has now become crystal clear that the vociferous and well-drilled extremist elements boring within the party utterly reject these fundamental principles of our heritage. They are, in fact, embarked on a determined and ruthless effort to take over the party, its platform and its candidates on their own terms – terms that are wholly alien to the sound and honest Republican liberalism that has kept the party abreast of human needs in a changing world, wholly alien to the broad middle course that accommodates the mainstream of Republican principle.

This cannot be allowed to happen. The continuing commitment of the Republican party to its historic principles including its fundamental dedication to equality of opportunity for all men cannot and must not be betrayed. No temptation of political gain through cynical expediency can be permitted to becloud our commitment to principle and purpose.

After branding these extremists “the radical right lunatic fringe,” Rockefeller went on to say,

These people have no program for the Republican party or the American people except distrust, disunity and the ultimate destruction of the confidence of the people in themselves. They are purveyors of hate and distrust in a time when as never before, the need of the world is for love and understanding.

They have no concern with and offer no solutions for the problems of chronic unemployment, of education and training, of housing of racial injustice and strife, of all the other problems which must have answers if our democratic ideals are to be translated into living reality.

So much of what has happened over the past 50 years has been labeled “unprecedented,” including anything from the falsely named Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus to nearly everything Donald Trump has done or said over the past 9 years, perhaps foreshadowed by his fraudulent Birther defamation. But in fact, there is precedent for much of what we’ve seen, perhaps excluding Trump’s over 30,000 lies and his blatant attacks on the rule of law and his denial of actual reality.

It’s sad to say, but extremism never fully disappears. It waxes and wanes with new appearances of those who covet power for themselves above all else.

This stuff is precedented, including by the Confederates in the 1800s all the way into the 1900s; Nazis in the 30s and 40s; by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both of whom thought they were above the law; and by the dastardly far right today using perversions of our laws to steal the vote from whole swaths of our citizens and to mount a multiple front assault to steal an election from our nation. It’s plain that these attacks on freedom, democracy and our Constitution come along regularly to torture our nation.

Fortunately, our justice system is now applying the proper elbow to the solar plexus of law breaking extremists. The political elbow blows, though, are left to us to deliver to make extremism wane before permanent damage is done.

Precedented II

Likely you remember those pictures for kids about which you’re asked to name what doesn’t belong, like a carrot in a tree. It’s more difficult to identify what’s missing from a picture.

It’s right that we have empathy for Palestinian civilians who have been wounded or killed and for their loved ones who are suffering. They are our fellow human beings in terrible circumstances, largely through no fault of their own. The media coverage of that is front and center. We are fed those images every day, but there’s something missing from that picture.

The only victims of the October 7 massacre to which the world media seems to be paying any attention are the hostages. The focus is largely on what happened next.

There is footage of injured Palestinians, but where is the coverage of the 3,300 injured Israelis? We see awful funeral processions for dead Palestinians, but what about the funerals of the 1,400 Israelis killed and the wailing of their loved ones? We see the destroyed Palestinian homes and apartments, but where are the stories and video of the thousands who had to flee their homes in terror on October 7 and who then came back to devastation? Even as so many Palestinians suffer, there are tens of thousands of Israelis suffering, too. Why the stark empathy disparity?

This is not unprecedented. This is standard unbalanced world attention orchestrated by Hamas and we’ve seen this time and time again. Hamas, like Yassir Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Army before it, uses the suffering of Palestinians to twist world opinion in their favor. They keep their own people hostage in areas they know Israel must attack in order to stop Hamas, so Palestinians suffer, making Israel look like the bad guys. It’s such an obvious PR scheme and the world falls for it every time.

People are calling for a ceasefire in the name of mercy, but it doesn’t work that way (see this). Were the IDF to simply pack up and go home now they would leave Hamas its weapons, its mob of terrorists and time to rearm. That would hasten the next October 7 style massacre of Israeli civilians. More brutally said, the lopsided empathy of the world, calling for a ceasefire, seems to prefer Israeli corpses over Palestinian corpses. Where is the mercy in that?

This manipulative PR stunt is not unprecedented. It is old and predictable and cruel.

Just For Fun

Here’s are five golden rules for spotting an idiot, this from Arwa Mardawi of The Guardian.

  1. Beware of anyone who describes themselves as a “proud non-reader of books.”
  2. Similarly, avoid anyone who thinks that every book should have been a six-paragraph blog post.
  3. Remember that wealth isn’t directly linked to intelligence.
  4. Dropping “AI” or “ChatGPT” into every second sentence is a major idiot red flag.
  5. Keep a wide berth from people who obsess about their IQs.

Here’s my favorite, linked to #3 above:

Click the pic for the source. Many thanks to JN for the pointer.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Just Say No To Metastasizing


Post 1,008

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O’ Those Crazy Republicans

1. As Karoun Demirjian outlined in the New York Times, Jim Jordan and his allies deployed a pressure campaign – meaning threats of violence and death – against those Republicans opposed to him. As she puts it, they’re “working to unleash the rage of the party’s base voters against any lawmaker standing in his way.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) said,

“So far I’ve had four death threats. I’ve been evicted from my office in Colorado…because the landlord is mad with my voting record on the Speaker issue. And everybody in the conference is getting this …. Family members have been approached and threatened, all kinds of things are going on ….”

2. From Heather Cox Richardson on October 16:

Last week, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) called for shutting down the government in November unless Democrats agree to cutting all spending for processing or releasing into the country any new migrants. He says the demand is “non-negotiable.” But U.S. and international law require the U.S. to process asylum requests, even if a migrant arrives in between legal points of entry.

Former senior Department of Homeland Security lawyer Tom Jawetz told Greg Sargent of the Washington Post that Jordan’s plan “would be both illegal and a practical impossibility.” Administration officials “are legally obligated to process people for asylum on request,” he said. “It’s not a choice.”

But therein lies the heart of today’s Republican Party: its extremist leaders no longer believe that rules apply to them.

3. Ohio has a ballot initiative on the ticket to enshrine women’s healthcare, including the right to abortion, into the state constitution. The Republican Secretary of State of Ohio has rewritten the ballot initiative from the clear, simple language of the original to something confusing, unclear and unattractive to voters. It’s a Nixon-worthy, Roger Stone-worthy dirty trick. Its like the Republican sponsored billboards in largely minority areas that remind people to vote, but they advertise the day after the actual election.

4. 147 Republican members of congress voted to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes. They tried to keep your vote from being counted. That’s against the Constitution They supported Trump’s entirely fraudulent, dishonest, anti-American claim of a stolen election. Most of the traitors are still in congress.

5.  From Haaretz on October 20:

Republicans Compare Jewish Protesters Calling for Gaza Cease-fire to January 6 Insurrectionists
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is among the pro-Trump supporters calling for hundreds of American-Jewish protesters who staged a sit-down in a congressional office on Wednesday to be ‘held in the DC gulag,’ equating their actions with the treatment meted out to those who stormed the Capitol in 2021.

First, of course, there is no “DC gulag.” Second, while I don’t agree with the demonstrators, all they were doing was demonstrating. They didn’t try to kill police. They didn’t vandalize the building. They didn’t try to overturn the Constitution of the United States. They didn’t  .  .  .  oh wait. I’m being logical in opposition to Marjorie Taylor Greene, the logic and reason arsonist. What was I thinking?

That is thugocracy from the likes of Jim Jordan and other far right extremists. Indeed, that’s MAGA style democracy, which is to say, no democracy.

All this and far more are what the Republican Party is today.

“But,” you might say, “traditional Republicans aren’t like that.”

Perhaps 20% of Republicans, every now and then, might be described as “traditional.” But any of them who cave in to MAGA thugocracy or who don’t publicly oppose the slimy and violent tactics and the destruction the thugs are doing are letting their cowardice drive their actions. They’re selling out our country. Which of them will stand up for what is right if doing so costs them something?

It doesn’t matter if they disagree in private with the wrong that they see. Their public silence is tacit support for the Republican path to destruction. Effectively, duty means nothing to them. So, don’t bother to wave the Yeah-But flag, because it’s meaningless. The Republican Party is irredeemable from its criminal march to destroy our democracy.

This is not the first time when power obsessed, virulent autocrats have tried to murder our democracy. They tried it in the 1850s, the 1930s and the 1950s. If you know our history you realize that each time they were traitors to the values we believe in. They actually perverted the words of the Declaration of Independence for their ends. They did the same with the Preamble to the Constitution and even the Federalist Papers. Some waved our red, white and blue next to Nazi swastika flags in the 30s and 40s. They’re doing it again today.

They and their cause are a cancer metastasizing inside our nation. Theirs is a grand larceny of what protects our nation from those intent upon stealing our birthright as a nation and as individuals. They are metastasizing the disease against which our Revolutionaries fought.

So we persevere in the fight for our democracy. We never give in. We join the battle because that is what we must do. We will not allow dishonesty and breach of oath and faith to stain our nation or to go unpunished. We will not allow our democracy to be destroyed.

This is from The Union, the activist arm of The Lincoln Project:

Scared, sad, worried, heartsick, jittery and jaded about our democracy? Put all of that on the shelf right now. Step up and join The Union. The Action Center is a direct line to volunteer actions you can take every day through more than 100 partner organizations dedicated to electing pro-democracy candidates. We’re an activist coalition 65,000+ strong, with members from across the political spectrum. And while we don’t agree on every issue, we’re in complete agreement about the one that counts: Defending American democracy now and strengthening it for generations to come. [emphasis mine]

Update

Hamas continues to rain rockets on Israeli civilians. 31 days after the October 7 massacre there are still over 3,300 injured Israelis, 249 are still being held hostage and 1,400 are still dead.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

There’s No Way To Be Subtle About This


Post 1,007

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Millions were horrified by the October 7 massacre in Israel. And millions have reveled in blaming the victims.

The insanity is not just the most recent “kill the Jews” massacre, but also the enthusiasm of Hamas apologists around the world, including at elite U.S. universities where lots of very ignorant smart students (“useful idiots”) parade their ignorance and misplaced values.

Israelis were good guys when they were murdered victims. As soon as they stood up and fought back the terrorists were forgotten and Israelis somehow became the bad guys. Being a target of such blame is a regular feature of life for Jews. Reference: The past 3,500 years.

The blood of murdered Israelis wasn’t yet dry before the wailing for Palestinians as the victims of Israelis began. The true responsibility for their suffering is the cruelty and criminality of Hamas and the inept, even criminal Palestinian leadership for 75 years. That truth has, at best, been touched only tangentially, as the world blames Jews yet again.

Well, screw that.

Here is a list of resources for the world to review as it decides where to point its finger.

Read Daniel Wolf’s post, J’Accuse – An Open Letter to Hamas Apologists.

And if you have the courage for it, read Dana Horn’s Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now.

And if you think every mad thing in the Middle East is the fault of Jews and Israel, you owe yourself the benefit of an explanation grounded in fact. Find it here, oddly, from a far right source.

And if you’d like to hear a message of truth from an Israeli who means it when she says, “Never Again!” watch this video.

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I can already hear the yeah-but chorus, so,

There is a stereotype of Jews meekly walking into Nazi gas chambers. That stereotype ignores the uprisings and rebellions done by Jews who would not be willing victims to that evil. Be assured that today not even one single Israeli is thinking anything but “Never Again!” This woman certainly isn’t. They – we – will not be meek victims.

If you think the Israeli offensive is too much, too brutal, that’s understandable – and you need to focus on this: A Hamas leader proudly declared last Thursday that, “There will be second, third, fourth Al Aqsa against Israel.” Indeed, this one isn’t over yet and Hamas continues to rain hundreds of rockets into Israel to kill civilians.

“Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesperson said, ‘We are not ashamed to say this with full force. We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again.'”

He went on with yet more extermination talk. Does it still look like the Israelis are the bad guys?

Hamas is telling us as plainly as can be that either Hamas is stopped here and now or there will be another October 7, then another and another. They will never stop killing Israelis and Jews until Israel is erased from the globe and all Jews are dead.

Or until Israel stops them permanently.
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So, to the clueless judgment dispensers of the world, especially the ones demanding that Israel stand down immediately:

If you were leading Israel right now, what would you do?

You’d damned well do whatever it takes to silence Hamas because you must protect your citizens.

You’d be sad for the non-combatant Palestinian losses and mad as hell that Hamas made you do that by putting their command centers underneath hospitals, their rocket launchers next to schools, their weapons caches in apartment buildings and their preventing civilians from escaping to safety.

Various Arab countries are pulling their ambassadors and envoys from Israel, including those of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and more. Their actions are in protest of Israel going after the Hamas murderers and the unintended harm to non-combatant Palestinians. If these Arab countries care so much about Palestinians, why has not even one of those countries or any other Arab or Muslim country done anything for Palestinians for over 75 years except to stoke their anger and send them arms to kill Israelis?

Gaza is by far the world’s oldest refugee camp and the entire Arab world is dedicated to keeping it that way. Next door to Gaza in the same desert there is a thriving, modern state. The Palestinians could build such a place for themselves, but instead they suffer in misery. They do so willingly and they accomplish not much more than to harbor resentment. Some transform their resentment into terrorism. It looks like they’d rather have their resentment and their rage and do their terrorism than have a good life for themselves and build something of value for their children.

So, after reading this and reviewing the linked material, somebody please tell me what Israel should do beyond what it is already doing to protect Palestinian civilians during this war started by Palestinian Hamas genocidal terrorists.

EXTRA CREDIT POP QUIZ
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Question #1: Name a country that would not pursue and attack foreign terrorists who had murdered over 1,400 of its citizens injured over 3,300 more and took over 240 hostages.

Answer #1: There are none. Not even one.

Question 2: Name the nations, organizations and self-appointed insightful ones who would criticize any nation for taking actions to protect its citizens and to apply justice.

Answer #2: There are none. Not even one. Except when it’s Israel pursuing terrorists. Then the world bloviates its useful idiot criticisms of Israel.

Question #3: Name all the nations of the world that announce in advance where they will attack and advises civilians where to go for safety.

Answer #3: The U.S. prior to bombing Japan and Germany in WW II. Israel in Gaza. That’s it.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Decency


Post 1,006

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There is much craziness parading through our society and our politics today and it causes great harm. Examples happening today:

Do you think Governor DeSantis should be guarding the door to your OB-GYN to keep you out?

Do you think some self-important bully or self-appointed guardian of everything should make decisions about what your children can read?

Surely, your answer to both questions is NO, but we are awash in this power grabbing, rights killing insanity anyway. There is a predicate to this.

For several months in 1954 Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunt and career destruction committee, commonly called the Army-McCarthy Hearings, inflicted great harm on many quite innocent people wholly undeserving of his cruelty. McCarthy falsely stated that he had a list of names of people working in the State Department who were communists and he presented himself as the hero who would root them out. His fraudulent accusations knew no bounds and were the “alternative facts” of that era, as he attacked blameless people like a hungry hyena.

Finally, on June 9 McCarthy violated an agreement and branded as a communist a young lawyer working in the office of Joseph Welch, Chief Counsel for the United States Army. Welch could contain himself no longer and said,

Little did I dream that you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you.

Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Substitute for Sen. McCarthy our Republicans in congress today. They do and say horrific things. They vilify innocent people and sacrifice our national values to gin up “the base,” the fearful, angry mob of Americans seeking retribution for whatever ills they can conjure.

These legislators today do their cruelty for the very same reason McCarthy did his: to garner power for themselves. They are as heedless of the harm they do to others as was McCarthy. They haven’t a care at all for the harm they do to our country,

Joseph Welch’s compassionate protection of his young associate proved to be the beginning of the end of McCarthy’s reign of terror. McCarthy was censured by the Senate and not long after that died of complications from alcoholism.

We are in a moment not unlike that of those dreadful, predatory 1954 hearings, now with fraudulent claims about elections, slippery insinuations and false accusations that groundlessly demonize our fellow citizens. We suffer the division and malice of the extremists and the barely masked calls to violence. How will we get out of this?

Who today will issue the message calling for decency that will shock our nation to its senses? Who has the moral standing and the moral sense that Joseph Welch had on that June day in 1954? Who will deliver the message we all know we so critically, even desperately need to hear? Who will challenge those with self-serving hatred and greed, the extremists with their disdain for the values our patriots fought and died to protect? We dearly need a Joseph Welch right now.

Indeed, at long last, have we a sense of decency?

Quote of Mid-Week

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from old ones” (updated/corrected 11/1/23, 12:20PM with great thanks to Mardy Grothe)

                  – John Maynard Keynes, English Economist 1883-1946

We need a great many of our fellow citizens to abandon old, destructive ideas.

The Good Question Department

From pal MZ:

How come they are counting the dead bodies in Gaza but not in Ukraine? Russia is bombing Ukraine every day.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Connecting Dots


Post 1,005

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Congressional Republicans have pseudo-patriotic, brain damaged explanations for not supporting Ukraine. Of course, they’re either making up “alternative facts’ or clutching their boundless ignorance to their chests, the place where courage should reside but obviously does not. The reality is that Ukraine is fighting our fight for us. It is the fight for Western civilization, for our values and for democracy everywhere. Now why would these elected congresspeople oppose fighting for our values and our democracy? The answer to that question is the first dot for making a picture.

There was an active shooter at a middle school in the Milwaukee suburb of Germantown, WI on Monday the 23rd. The only casualty was the shooter, killed by police, who arrived quickly and acted immediately. We sure could have used those folks at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX last year.

On Wednesday the 25th there were what the experts call “spree shootings” at a bar and grill and at a bowling alley in the towns of Lewiston and Auburn, ME. The suspect, now dead by his own hand, was a former military firearms instructor. He had been committed to a mental health facility last summer. He is reported to be “hearing voices” and made threats against others, including against the National Guard base in Saco, ME.

He was in possession of a military style rifle designed not for deer hunting or target shooting, but to kill lots of people at a really fast rate. Plus, he was apparently carrying a large supply of ammunition. The shooter killed 18 people, injured 13 others and broke hearts throughout the state and our country.

The alleged shooter legally owned that assault rifle, all that ammunition, a hand gun and whatever other killing implements he carried. Why do you suppose he was able to do that?

One of the senators representing the people of Germantown, WI is Ron Johnson (R-WI). He’s a steadfast opponent of any and all legislation that might have kept a gun out of the hands of both of those alleged shooters. There are many dozens like him in Congress. Now, why would so many of our nation’s senators and representatives oppose safety in that way, especially when the overwhelming majority of We The People want it? The answer has nothing to do with originalist Constitution notions or even bravado and chest thumping about the Second Amendment. The answer to that question is the second dot for making a picture.

It took the majority Republican House 22 days to find a replacement for Kevin “Cut Mine Off’ McCarthy. He gave away nearly everything, so it took only eight flaming radical congresspeople to dump him. Matt Gaetz (“he who partied with under-age girls”) led that attack on McCarthy, pretty much only because after McCarthy gave away everything to become Speaker for less than 10 months, Gaetz wanted what was left of his dignity, this in order to please Trump. That’s the third dot.

The extremists supporting their second nominee for speaker, Gym Jordan (R-Hell), threatened other Republicans and their families with violence if they opposed his nomination. That’s thugocracy. Those threats deeply divided the Republican caucus and resulted in a complete standstill in the House during a worsening crisis in Ukraine and the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

Without the Republican paralysis of Congress they would have been able to take action. But the flamers blocked that and all other congressional action for over 3 weeks. Some are promising to ensure that the government is made to shut down just before Thanksgiving. Now, why would they do any of that? Consider that the fourth dot.

Now they’ve elected Mike Johnson (R-LA) as the new Speaker of the House. He’s the guy who led the effort in the House to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He’s an election denier. A Big Lie guy. A Trump toady. A fanatic. A legislative insurrectionist. Yes, every Republican voted for him.*

“To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards of men.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Many thanks to MG)

He’s a God-invoking hypocrite who is guilty of attempted destruction of our democracy and our Constitution. Perhaps you remember the Constitution as that thing to which Johnson swore his solemn oath, hand on the bible he thumps, to protect and defend our Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Then he enthusiastically led Republican representatives to violate it in legislative insurrection. Consider Mike Johnson guilty of dereliction of duty, a breaker of his word, unfit to serve and the fifth dot.

We could go on, but all the dots inevitably become a picture of destruction, of American terrorist attacks on our nation. These people are robotic acolytes of Trump and Steve Bannon. Doing what is best for America is not their motivation. What they want is to “tear it all down.” They want to demolish our government, our institutions, our rule of law, our notions of equality, our Declaration of Independence and Constitutional guarantees that no person, no race, no nationality, no religion is above others. Our 234 years of laws make clear that White Christian men have no claim of dominion and power over the rest of us. But that’s no obstacle to these extremists. Doubt that?

Those better-than-the-rest-of-us straight (they claim), White Christian (they claim) men – no women – would be pleased to enslave you if you are not one of them. We know that, because that was the very essence of the South before the Civil War and that is what the present day domination seekers promise. They want to dominate you. They want to own you.

The Republican picture is one of destruction, domestic terrorism, hatred, fear mongering and subjugation of the great masses of us by a privileged class that believes they are above us.

That’s what people voting Republican are voting for.
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When the dots are connected they reveal a democracy and freedom apocalypse, a picture that you and I will deeply dislike.

Quotes Of The Week

From Sheila Markin in The Markin Report of October 27, “The Coup Caucus Won:”

The extremists don’t want government to work. If government doesn’t work then Biden can be blamed and democracy can be seen as a failed form of government. The goal of GOP extremists is to trash the system and crash our government .  .  .  For them, chaos IS the goal.

In a webinar on Friday Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL-6) answered my question about what the magic pill is to get the right people into Congress who will pass legislation that delivers what We The People want, like democracy. He made some insightful comments and ended by focusing on hope. It’s not in robust supply in these politically dark times. Here’s his final comment:

“The magic pill is us.”

That rather smacks of then-candidate Barack Obama declaring what was so plainly true:

“We are the people we’ve been waiting for.”

They are both right. It’s up to us.

_____________________________________

* From Steve Schmidt’s The Warning on October 26:

Perhaps the best way to understand this point [of difference in Speakers] is by appreciating how cynicism can fuel fanaticism. Kevin [McCarthy} believed in nothing but power, while [Mike] Johnson sees power as a means to impose his fanaticism.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Stupid


Post 1,004

—————————————

It Never Went Away

Cowboy George W. Bush and his posse are back and that isn’t good.

President Biden counseled Israeli leaders not to be consumed by rage because otherwise there will be horrible consequences. All of which is to say that there aren’t any good options for Israel; only various degrees of bad options. ‘Twas ever thus. Nevertheless, Biden did the statesman thing and counseled properly.

In contrast, Bush and his frontal-lobe-addled cowboys are advising extreme violence. (Read this one.)

Ari Fleischer, Dubya’s press secretary, was asked about Biden having counseled restraint.”Who the hell does he think he is?” said the dissembler. “How dare Biden, with no skin in the game, tell Netanyahu to hold back?” he seemed to say. He didn’t say it so that I could hear it, but I think Fleischer might be just a little bit consumed by rage over Biden’s having alluded to Dubya’s blunders following 9/11. He’d have us know that our longest wars, unwinnable and with constantly moving goal posts, with lie stacked upon lie and with dead and displaced people everywhere were good things. Just look at how stable the Middle East is, now that Dubya got rid o’ that varmint Saddam.

Fleischer’s boss, Cowboy Dubya himself, decided that Hamas is a bad actor and said, “We’ll find out what [Netanyahu’s] made out of.” Does Netanyahu have the right stuff to kill and displace millions of people like Dubya did? Can he lie his country into a multi-front war and leave to others the job to clean up the carnage he created? Does he have what it takes to be consumed by rage and mindlessly seek revenge regardless of all the terrible consequences and the enormous body count – like Bush did? We’ll see.

I want to call Dubya stupid (“Is our children learning?”), but in part he’s brilliant. He managed to steal two presidential elections with dishonesty, with in-plain-sight Supreme Court manipulation of one of them.

It must be just great to be a political cowboy and now a terrible artist. Maybe he isn’t stupid after all. He’s just a really bad person who managed to fool half the country and wants to see Netanyahu act as brainlessly and homicidaly as he did.

Stupid.

What Speaker?

Many Republican representatives who present themselves as rational traditionalists, practical let’s-get-the-job-done people, bemoan the suicidal no-speaker dance. That’s good, but there’s just one thing,

It’s a MAGA talking point that eight Republicans were joined by all the Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy from the job he lusted after and for which he sold his soul. The reason we’re in the fix we’re in, they’re saying, is because of the Democrats, this from MAGA extremists and so-called traditional Republicans alike. Really?

It isn’t the Democrats’ job to save Republicans from their self-imposed dysfunction and boundless stupidity. The Republicans are in the majority and can do pretty much whatever destructive-of-democracy thing they want to do – even seriously consider Constitution burning, legislative terrorist Jim Jordan to be speaker. Blaming Democrats and calling on them to save Republicans at the eleventh hour won’t change the Republicans’ accountability. Plus, it’s really stupid.

Fortunately, I have a solution. For the next roll call vote for speaker we need four or five Republicans to vote for Hakeem Jeffries to be speaker. That will end the current contest to see how many ways the Republicans can screw things up. Plus, it just might result in getting done the critical and urgent tasks that are before our nation.

Wait! I have another solution. Elect me to be Speaker of the House.

How Many?

What is the minimum number of dead Palestinians in Gaza for the world to get past blaming Israelis and at last face up to the reality that Hamas set those people up to be killed? What is the number of broadcasts, headlines and videos of bereft, suffering Palestinians that the public needs in order to see what is in plain sight, that the Israelis have to protect themselves, which means they have to stop Hamas? But Hamas embedded themselves and all their war making capabilities in civilian, non-combatant Palestinian neighborhoods, which means that the Palestinian people are living in the center of the bulls eye of war because Hamas set it up that way. And Hamas likes when Palestinians are killed, wounded and orphaned because that draws the world’s sympathies and stimulates enmity toward Israel.

Key question: If your family lived in Buffalo, NY and had been viciously attacked by fighters from Fort Erie, ON Canada, how would you feel and what would you do? Would you just sit and accept the brutality visited upon your people? Or would you step up to make sure those attackers are both made to pay the price for their murdering and made incapable of ever again attacking your people?

Message to sensationalist media people: Get past your need to show what’s sensational. Report on the cause more and the effect less.

I’ll make it plainer. Start reporting on the outrages and abuses done by Hamas on both Palestinians and Israelis instead of attacking Israel for working to protect its citizens.

Stop being stupid. Willfully stupid.

Gratuitous

Molly Ball wrote in the Wall Street Journal: Matt Gaetz Tore the House GOP Apart. He Isn’t Sorry. Steve Schmidt continued:

Certainly, he desecrated the House when he helped incite an insurrection that saw the Confederate battle flag finally breach the Capitol Rotunda 156 years after Appomattox. It’s absolutely true that he betrayed his oath, and carries himself like a graduate of an “affluenza” academy that turns privileged and spoiled young men into irredeemable punks. Beyond that, he is petulant, arrogant, dishonest, unserious and an avatar for this age of lightness, decay and political rancidity.

That was included just for the gratuitous ridicule value of one worthy of ridicule. Schmidt went on to say the important part:

He is a luminescent beacon of our national decay and political crisis, but he did not break the House.

Cowardice did.

There’s a lot of political cowardice and stupidity in the Republican Party by those too self-obsessed to stand up and do what they know is right. Governing to produce the best for our nation is supposed to be the goal. But for them, it’s not.

That, too, is willfully stupid.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Intractable


Post 1,003

—————————————

I need your great idea. Israelis and Palestinians need it more and the world is demanding it.

An example of that demand is in an October 18 op-ed from Charles M. Blow in the New York Times, An Evolving Moral High Ground in the Israel-Gaza War. Blow says of the Hamas attack that killed over 1,400 Israelis, butchered babies, took hostages and more that it, “.  .  . was horrid, barbaric and inexcusable. Israel has a right to defend itself and pursue the perpetrators.”

Then he says “.  .  . evacuation orders [to Palestinians] are imposed, electricity and basic supplies are cut off — is also horrid and not a justifiable response to the terrorist attacks.” Many are expressing similar views, including in massive street demonstrations around the world. They are especially calling for Israel to stop all attacks in Gaza. Understandable. Got it. Just one thing.

Hamas isn’t done trying to kill Israelis. In fact it has continued to fire rockets into Israel. If Israel stops attacking Hamas, they’ll do yet more killing of Israelis. If Israel backs off all military pressure, it will be jump starting the next large scale wave of Hamas terrorists killing Israelis.

On October 19, speaking from the Oval Office, President Biden said,

“[H]istory has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world keep rising.”

Substitute “Israel” for “America” in his words and you have the problem Israel faces right now.

We all understand the humanitarian imperative to avoid harming non-combatant Palestinians. But the “just one thing” part is the answer to the question of what Israel should do. We can ask it another way: After a cease fire, what comes next to accomplish these goals:

  1. Minimal harm to civilians.
  2. Safe and secure borders.
  3. An end to Hamas – because if they exist at all they will continue to kill Israelis, which would negate points 1 and 2

Did I get that right? What am I missing?

Hamas has two purposes for existing: to eliminate the state of Israel and to kill Jews. It’s in their charter. It’s hard to find a solution to end the violence when one party is absolutely dedicated to the elimination of its adversary as a state and the killing of all of its people. They leave no room for negotiation, much less any path to peace.

It looks to me that if Israel continues attacking Hamas sites in Gaza that the collateral damage will be dead and wounded Palestinians. If they back off, the dead and wounded will be Israelis. Either way, the world will blame Israel and Jews for civilian deaths. I’m at the tipping point to “I don’t care what the world thinks or who it blames.” But that’s just me.

Blow says that “Israel has a right to defend itself and pursue the perpetrators.” How should they do that in a way that protects non-combatants? Once we get past the Kumbaya recommendations, the practical requirement – the imperative – for protection remains. What should Israel do to defend itself and to pursue the perps?

Please don’t offer an “Everyone deserves to live in safety and freedom” solution, because that isn’t a solution, as Hamas won’t abide by it. And bombardment back to the stone age is unacceptable on its face, even though that has been the solution of choice for thousands of years. In the present day it’s called “ethnic cleansing” or whatever is Putin’s phony justification for what he’s doing to the people of Ukraine.

There are a lot of very smart people who have worked to find an answer to this so-far intractable problem. We need your great idea, something that can work for everyone.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Astonishing Idiocy


Post 1,002

—————————————

Astonishing National Idiocy*

Twelve score and 6 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Twelve years later they gave us our glorious Constitution.

Now we are engaged in a great congressional and state legislative war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

We cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow – this congress and these state legislatures. The brave men and women, living and dead, who long struggled there have consecrated them far above our poor power to add or detract. Yet their courage and their suffering are now defiled by those today committed to violating their sacred oath to protect and defend the Constitution of this land. Instead, they have tried to end our democratic republic and they continue to undermine the tenets of our free society. They seek to ensure that this nation, so conceived and so dedicated to Liberty, cannot endure.

Now we are faced with the prospect of a key betrayer of our nation becoming Speaker of  the House of Representatives. He stands in candidacy solely because of the cowardice of men and women who know better, but who chuse to compromise themselves and our nation for personal gain.

The world will little note what we say here, but it will never forget what the betrayers are doing here. It is for us the conscious, the loyal, to be dedicated to the unfinished work of the patriots who came before. It falls to we the living patriots to reject the usurpers, the cowards, those who seek to undermine our Constitution and steal the vote from every American. There is no other who will protect our justice, our Liberty and our freedom.

So it is for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from the loyalists of old we take increased devotion to that cause which they served and for which they shall not have served in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Because if it perishes, we will have done this to ourselves. Astonishing idiocy.

Astonishing Middle East Idiocy

Bret Stevens wrote a remarkably clear analysis of the Gordian knot that is the intractable conflict in Israel/Gaza in his Sunday piece, Hamas Bears the Blame for Every Death in This War. Clearly, Hamas is responsible for all the Jewish death and destruction done by their hands, their knives, their beheading swords, their rifles, their rockets, their mortars and their machine guns. Hamas has only one purpose, and it is to kill Jews. They are to blame for those deaths and that destruction. But who is to blame for this war’s Palestinian deaths?

Hamas embeds its command headquarters, its rocket launchers – really all of its war matériel – in civilian sites, like schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and mosques. If Israel is to stop Hamas from killing Jews, it must destroy Hamas’ war making ability, but that means that non-combatant Palestinians will be in harms way of Israel hobbling Hamas.

Some have already been killed or injured in this war and many more will almost certainly be harmed. Hamas likes when that happens, because Hamas and the ivory tower pinheads pontificating far from danger can then blame Israel for horrid war atrocities.

As long as Hamas can make jihad on Jews, every death, regardless of nationality, helps their cause.

This is not new. Every Israeli reaction to war, intifada, jihad and suicide bombers has resulted in condemnation of Israel at the United Nations, on TV from myopic, blathering talking heads and from street protesters. That offers Israel a horrific choice:

Israel can come down hard on its attackers to degrade their ability to harm Israelis, but doing that means unintended harm will come to otherwise non-combatant Palestinians; or,

Israel can stay its substantial military might in order to protect Palestinian non-combatants and in the process leave Israelis vulnerable to the next homicidal attacks by Hamas.

This choice is fundamentally one of deciding the nationality of the next pile of corpses. It’s a hideous, ghastly choice engineered by Hamas.

What, you might ask, is the Astonishing Idiocy about this? It is in the comments from responders to Stevens’ essay, some packed with false equivalents, childish “can’t we all get along?” logic, phony accusations and more. It’s the part of the general public swayed by hyperbolic condemnation of Israel spewed by self-certain delusionals, regardless of what Israel does.

It is verbal violence promoting military violence against Israelis.

So, tell you what: Let’s invite Hamas, Hezbollah, the IDF and civilians from all parts of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Israel to join hands and sing Kumbaya and the Coca-Cola song about inviting the world to sing in perfect harmony. That should solve this problem.

That last was bitter sarcasm aimed at the Astonishing Idiocy of those comfortably willing to sacrifice Israelis on the alter of their ignorance and arrogance.

Once most of the hostilities had subsided and Israel was amassing hundreds of thousands of troops preparing a land invasion of Gaza, I began to think about what that would look like. It would be a blood bath, an atrocity. Hamas murderous militants would be killed and their stores of weapons would be seized or destroyed, but that would come at the cost of the death and suffering of thousands of Palestinian non-combatants and IDF soldiers.

So, I imagined a personality transformation, wherein Benjamin Netanyahu morphed from a self-serving despot wannabe into a statesman. Far fetched, I know, but stay with me.

He would announce that the IDF will stand by and not invade Gaza. It will protect all in need of protection. All that would be required is for Hamas to release all hostages/prisoners regardless of the color of their passport, be they civilian or military. Hamas must surrender its rocket launchers, rockets and other armaments. Certain criminals will be turned over to be tried in fair courts like at Nuremberg.

Right. This is fantasy. But a land invasion and the death and destruction it will cause won’t bring security to Israel. It will bring universal condemnation. And it will ensure that the next intifada is worse than all that came before, possibly looking more like the Yom Kippur war of 1973 when Arab nations joined forces to eliminate Israel.

Thomas Friedman agrees and sees a land invasion as a terrible and self-destructive thing (here and here). So does Marc Lynch of Foreign Affairs (here), as does President Biden and so many others. I fervently hope my confirmation bias vision comes to pass. Anything else will be self-inflicted Idiocy.

Homegrown Astonishing Idiocy

6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume, a very cute Palestinian-American Muslim boy living in Joliet, IL with his mother, was stabbed 26 times by their landlord. Of course, his mom was stabbed multiple times, too, and was unable to attend the funeral of her little boy.

Apparently, he and his mom were guilty of the terrible crime of being Muslim. At least their attacker seems to have believed that to be a crime.

Words fail me. Tears and boiling blood do not.

Tuesday, October 17 4:00PM CDT

It’s reported that a rocket has exploded on a hospital in northern Gaza, killing hundreds. Various terrorist groups immediately blamed Israel. They didn’t look for facts or even informed opinions. That’s standard Middle East hate bias knee-jerk stuff.

Meanwhile, the Israel Foreign Ministry says it and others have video that proves that the missile was a misfire of a Hamas rocket. Several others fired at the same time made their way into Israel, but one never arrived there. It hit that hospital.

Even if they hear that explanation and see the video, no Palestinian will care about it and no rage will be calmed. They are determined to accuse, blame and be enraged. Without evidence. That rocket was just the best thing for Hamas. Makes me wonder if it really did misfire.

President Biden’s trip to the area has already been undermined by the Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians and others slamming doors.

Welcome to the fog of war where truth doesn’t matter, everyone is inflamed and almost nobody is informed.

Would that the only thing with enough importance to warrant comment were the perfidy, the cowardice and the disloyalty to country of congressional Republicans. O’ for those easier times, just 11 days ago.

______________________________

* Paraphrased from The Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln, delivered almost 160 years ago on November 19, 1863 at Gettysburg, PA.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Much To Say


Post 1,001

—————————————

Save a Life

I don’t have combat fatigues or desert boots. I don’t have an assault rifle or mortar shells, nor even a hobby style drone. I’m a pilot but I cannot fly a military fighter or helicopter. I’m good with a Band-Aid, but I’m no corpsman, much less a doctor. Plus, I passed my “best if used by” date for war a long time ago. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t help.

Regular readers know that my focus is usually on the insanity that passes for our national politics. I write, hoping to disambiguate and make a difference. That is something I can do.

And I can do something for the young people who are guilty of having gone to a music festival in the desert. I can do something for those who survived in their “safe rooms” as Hamas terrorists set fire to their houses. I can do something for the families murdered near the Gaza border. I can do something for those now homeless in Ashkelon because of Hamas rockets.

I can write to you.

American Friends of Magen David Adom is about saving lives. Every penny of every contribution goes toward saving lives. It’s their tagline: “Saving lives. It’s in our blood.”

My temple sponsored a new ambulance for them. That’s the kind of “every penny” for saving lives that I mean. They don’t discriminate – they help all they can.

Writing about and giving to save lives is something I can do.

Reading and giving to save lives is something you can do.

Click here or on the logo of Magen David Adom. Poke around their website to see what they’re about. Then click on the DONATE button and enter an amount that pinches a bit.

Go ahead. Save a life today. It’s in your blood.

And pass this along to your friends and family, your Facebook groupies, your congregants (any congregants – this is ecumenical, universal saving of life), your neighbors, your Sunday afternoon football bros. Every one of us was taught to help others, so here’s the opportunity in real time to do that. So, be a hero – lead the way.

Hurry: lives hang in the balance.

Victims

I watched part of Andrea Mitchell’s program on MSNBC on Thursday and listened to her telephone interview with a 22 year old woman in Gaza named Salma Shurrab. Shurrab described living without running water or electricity, with no hope of securing more food and in the midst of rubble. She said that there is no safe place and that hospitals are running out of supplies. She called Hamas “the Palestinian Resistance.” She called the IDF “the Aggression.”

Surely, she knows that Israeli actions are in response to the violence unleashed on Israelis since October 7 by Hamas terrorists (my word, not hers). We don’t know if she has details about beheaded Israeli children or Israelis burned alive or grandparents and Holocaust survivors dragged away as hostages. She must have some information about the death and destruction done by Hamas fighters, yet she points her finger at Israel. That made me wonder.

When her brother and his friends were thumping their chests, brandishing their AK-47s and yelling “Death to Israel! Death to Jews!” what did she do? Did she tell them that they were not allowed to lob missiles from their house in Gaza City to kill Israeli civilians?

For the past 20 years Palestinian mothers and fathers could have been teaching their children not to be terrorists, not to be bomb makers or suicide bombers, not to be murderers. They didn’t do that and you know what their grown sons have done. You know who has paid the price so far. You know who is going to pay a far greater price soon.

The failure of those parents made certain that the coming invasion and loss of Palestinian life was inevitable. Their failure has put the life of that woman talking to Andrea Mitchell at risk. Their failure has ensured that another generation of Hamas terrorists will arise to do nothing but kill and, in the end, get thousands more Palestinian civilians killed.

President Biden said,

“.  .  .  [Hamas’] stated purpose is the annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people .  .  .  Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price.”

Many billions of dollars of aid from Qatar, Iran, Turkey and elsewhere have poured into Gaza over the years. That money could have gone to building hospitals, schools, tech startups, infrastructure and more. Instead it went into building rockets and buying armaments so that most Gazans live in militarized subsistence and their children are angry, quick to blame and eager to kill.

While most Palestinians aren’t militants carrying AK-47s or firing rockets targeted at Israeli civilians, they are not innocent victims because they allowed bomb factories to be placed in their mosques, command posts under hospitals, rocket launchers in kindergartens and all the rest of the war preparation that was done using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Civilian death is what happens when hatred and blame come home. The Palestinians allowed their sons to grow up to be terrorists. So, with sincere concern for Salma Shurrab, there is no Palestinian civilian innocence.

Now, incrementally, the world is cautioning Israel to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians, but that advice is way too late. Advice and support that could have actually made a difference to preserve Palestinian life has been missing for decades.

As the body count ramps up, talking heads, in their self-righteous indignation, will call the Israelis terrorists, butchers and murderers. What you’ll hear is how Palestinians, injured or killed, were innocent victims of the oppressor, Israel. If history is a teacher, you won’t hear about Palestinian responsibility and they’ll have no useful ideas; just finger pointing. They’re no more than useful idiots for Hamas.

Palestinian civilian death is tragic, but is guaranteed by the promises of Hamas to kill any and every Palestinian who so much as speaks of peace with Israel or Jews. Hamas exists for only one thing: killing Jews and killing anyone who doesn’t want to kill Jews. Doubt that? Read their charter, especially Article 7. Easier: read this.

What Will Happen

This post was written on Saturday, October 14. The IDF had bombed most of Gaza and instructed Palestinians in the north to go south, telegraphing where the IDF land invasion would begin in the search for hostages and Hamas fighters. The Israeli forces will not stop; they will not use half-way measures. Here’s why.

From the Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2021:

There’s a story that US President Joe Biden has told many times over the years about his first trip to Israel.
.
As a freshman senator in 1973, Biden was granted a meeting with prime minister Golda Meir, who together with Yitzhak Rabin briefed Biden on the many threats Israel faced, showing him a series of maps.
.
“I guess she could see the sense of apprehension on my face,” Biden said in a 2010 retelling of the story. “She said, ‘Senator, don’t look so worried… We Israelis have a secret weapon.’ And I thought she only had said this to me, no one else in the whole world .  .  . And I thought she was going to tell me about a new secret weapon.”
.
So what is Israel’s secret weapon, Biden asked eagerly.
“We have nowhere else to go,” replied Golda.
.
That was true in 1948, in 1967, in 1973 and in all the conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah. It is still true today. That is why Hamas cannot and will not win this or any war against Israel.
.
At the same time, Israel, now propelled by humiliation, outrage, the real need to protect its citizens and, indeed, Jews everywhere, is falling into the Hamas trap – more on that here.
.
Mass civilian deaths from an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza will paint a black scar on Israel and has already interrupted peace negotiations with Saudi Arabia. The price for Hamas to achieve that interruption is already over 3,000 dead and there likely will be thousands more Palestinian deaths, but Hamas doesn’t care a bit about that. They have a boatload of bastardized Quranic phrases to justify slaughter. Again, read their charter.
.
Both Hamas and Israel could have peace. But for that to happen, both sides would have to want peace. At least one side doesn’t want it, any more than Yassir Arafat wanted peace when it was within easy reach in 2000 at Camp David.
.

If you have a workable solution to this mess, contact the nearest Israeli embassy immediately. But, please, be real. If those were your babies who were beheaded, your children who were hacked to death in the desert, your parents who were burned alive or shot dead fleeing their burning home or taken hostage, how would you counsel Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz?

In WWII we Americans firebombed Dresden, Tokyo and more cities. We dropped atomic bombs on two cities that were not military targets. We were after eliminating the enemies who sought to kill us. Can you conjure a reason there should be different rules for Israel facing the homicidal insanity of Hamas?

The maniacal Hamas murderers can’t be jawboned into becoming flower children. They live solely to kill. It’s in their charter.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

An Unavoidable Parallel


Post 1,000

—————————————

The Shutdown

We were at the edge of a cliff. It wasn’t just U.S. bankruptcy and the end of the authority for economic bedrock that were at risk. With our failure to honor our debts we would lead the entire economic world over that cliff.

At the 11th hour Speaker of the House McCarthy and President Biden shook hands on a deal to raise the debt ceiling and honor our debts, plus they agreed to pass a budget in a timely manner to avoid even the threat of yet another government shutdown. McCarthy gave his word as leader of the House Republicans, as Speaker of the House and presumably as a man.

Then McCarthy reneged. He broke his word and led our government to the edge of shutdown, with all the international, national and personal harm to Americans that threatened. Sadly, that wasn’t the worst part.

McCarthy broke his word In plain sight, but so did nearly every Republican in the House when it came to funding our government. On the first go around 90 Republicans voted against their own budget plan. Then, with only a few hours left, the continuing resolution was placed on the floor for a vote as a last chance to avoid a shutdown. 21 Republicans voted against it. They voted to shut down your government. They voted to not pay our troops, our air traffic controllers, our security personnel and so many others.

So, bad as it was, the worst part wasn’t McCarthy breaking his word and violating the deal he struck with the President. The worst was that the Republicans violated the sacred oath they swore – most on their own Bibles – to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

They made themselves liars. They proudly declared their disloyalty. They voted not to pay our sailors who are now headed for the Middle East to rescue our countrymen being held hostage by Hamas. The liars voted to undermine our nation.

Would you make a deal with such people? Their voters did.

Here’s a useful descriptor of Kevin McCarthy from Mother Jones‘ Inae Oh:

.  .  .  a man whose entire career is owed to soulless ambitions for power.

That fits the 21 Republican extremists and the hundreds of spineless ones who cower under their desks when they’re called upon to stand up for our country.

Now they’re proposing to replace McCarthy as speaker with the repugnant Jim “Who cares about sexual abuse of student athletes?” Jordan or Steve “David Duke without the baggage” Scalise.

To date I have not heard a consistent excoriation of Republican dis-loyalists that should come from the mouths of Democrats and loyal Republicans alike. The sound of crickets is exactly why I wrote this post.

The Why

As people are suffering, the radical Republicans in Congress are doing nothing but firing up culture wars and starting a fraudulent, lie-filled impeachment inquiry, where even their own witnesses testified that there is not even a hint of anything impeachable about President Biden.

If you want to know why these Republican terrorists attack our government and weaken our country instead of doing things to help Americans, there is only one thing you need to know:

They don’t want to improve government.
They want to tear it down.
.

That sounds a lot like Hamas.

And that alone explains the looming government shut down, the impeachment “inquiry,” the perfidious attacks on the DOJ and FBI and more. These extremists will hobble the House to powerlessness and then point fingers, saying, “See? Government doesn’t work.”

We live with destruction always lapping at our shores and we must decide what we will do to protect this noble experiment in self-rule and the rights and freedoms that accompany it.

From MacBeth by William Shakespeare:

    • Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
    • That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    • And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    • Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    • Signifying nothing.

In time, these MAGA traitors, these falsely self-defined patriots, will be unmasked and stopped. They are, in fact, nothing but idiots with guns, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but a shouted “F”*K YOU!” Just like Hamas.

They have fooled themselves into believing that they stand for honor. That’s their idiot’s tale. In fact, they stand only for domination and destruction. One day they will go, leaving behind mountains of rubble. It will be their shameful mark on our national history, much like the wreckage that the Civil War traitors left and like the debris fields Hamas has left in Israel.

The Unavoidable Parallel

The Hamas leaders and fighters knew that they could not defeat Israel and push all the Israelis into the sea. They knew that any attack would trigger retaliation, likely with far greater intensity than anything Hamas could summon. They knew that their own people – Palestinians – would be killed or injured in the process. So, what do they hope to accomplish?

It’s posited that Hamas hopes that Hizbullah in Lebanon, West Bank militarists, Iran and other Arab states would join in the attacks and together they would destroy Israel. Perhaps. And what else?

In times past they used the suffering of Palestinians from Israeli counter attacks as proof of how Palestinians were victimized by Israel. Oddly, the world largely bought that cartoon explanation, delivering many anti-Israel resolutions before the United Nations. Maybe Hamas’ ferocious intensity this time could deliver such loss and humiliation that Israel would do far worse to Palestinians now, generating even greater international condemnation of Israel. We don’t yet know, but that is monstrously cynical and cruel.

What we do know is that Hamas has said that when Palestinian civilians are killed by Israeli attacks that Hamas will murder hostages. Their only goals are death and destruction. That’s what terrorists do.

What should Israel do? What should the United States do?

Here at home the Republican destroyers are attacking our political and cultural foundations at all levels of government, much like Hamas is doing to Israeli society with their rockets and their invasion. Destruction is what terrorists do. They have no plan for a better future. They just want to tear everything down.

It’s up to us to stop the destruction here at home, to quiet the idiot’s tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but destruction.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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