vote

Guest Essay: It’s The Right Question


My friend Ed Gurowitz is an insightful guy. He recently had something to say that connects Black History Month with a larger picture. His post speaks to how easily we can lose our democracy or, harder, keep it and spread it to all we men/women whom we long ago declared are created equal.

Ed gave me permission to share his essay with you. Read it and be prepared to nod your head in agreement. Then do what he says to do.

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Black History Month: Who is an American?
by Ed Gurowitz

Published February 1, 2022

As you probably know by now, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the following in defense of his party’s stand against the John Lewis voting rights bill:

“The concern is misplaced because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”

While McConnell attempted to walk the statement back the next day, what he said is what he said and, I believe, what he meant.

Many thanks to JN for this

For opponents of voting rights, African-Americans are not “real” Americans. Neither are Native Americans, and for some on the Right, neither are Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Asian-Americans…the list goes on and on.

For me, having participated in the civil rights battles of the 1960’s and since, this is profoundly disheartening. For a while there, it looked like things were moving, however slowly, in the right direction – the direction of Dr. King’s famous statement that “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

So what happened? I believe that the election and presidency of Barack Obama, with a Black man at the head of the government and a beautiful Black family in the White House uncovered the racism that every Black person knows was always there, and the execution of George Floyd and the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and so many other Black men and women exposed the structural or systemic nature of that racism.

In a recent article in Medium [required reading – JA], Peter Burns talked about a centuries-old theory first articulated by a 2nd Century Greek historian called Polybius. The theory, called anacyclosis, says that societies go through a cycle of stages:

Monarchy

Tyranny

Aristocracy

Oligarchy

Democracy

Mobocracy

So, the United States was established under the British monarchy. As detailed in the Declaration of Independence, the monarchy became tyranny, and a group of men, all white and mostly enslavers, got together and, from their position of profound white male privilege, created an aristocracy – rule by an elite few – which became abusive in its own right, so (white) people demanded and got a kind of democracy. Democracy in the United States in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries was still largely restricted to white men, but there was some evolution as women and Black people exercised the right to vote. (It’s worth noting that even US “democracy” was based in the Constitution on protecting the rights of white men and, until the Civil War, enslavers.)

The abolition of government-sanctioned enslavement after the Civil War began a process of degradation of democracy, a degeneration that culminated in the naked racism of the reaction to the Obama presidency, the “populism” of the Right (which was thinly disguised mobocracy), and the full-blown mobocracy of the past five or six years. What, after all, were Charlottesville, MAGA rallies, the Mother Emanuel murders, synagogue and mosque bombings and desecration but mob rule.

The danger of anacyclosis is that it is cyclical – mobocracy is unstable and leads back to monarchy (rule by one person) and then tyranny and there we go. Trump and his followers are angling for a monarchic second term for their leader in the 2024 elections.

Here is hope: If Dr. King was right, then each time through the anacyclosis cycle moves us along the moral arc of the universe toward greater justice, but the cost in lives lost and people’s suffering is too high. The alternative is to rededicate ourselves in this Black History Month to breaking the cycle of anacyclosis and moving the US toward a democracy that is sufficiently stable to not degenerate into mobocracy. This will require all the tools we have – speaking out, demonstrating, demanding justice, and the most powerful tool – the vote, starting with this year’s mid-term elections. So here is how to honor those who, like John Lewis, dedicated their lives and sacrificed for democracy:

VOTE!

Ed Gurowitz

Master Coach, Diversity and Inclusion (DEI) Specialist, Strategy Consultant, Executive and Leadership Consultant & Coach

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Final Comments

Ours is the current iteration of our schizophrenic national story, the one that both embraces and rejects whomever and whatever is not exactly the same as “us.”

Quoting Lincoln,
.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation
so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Many thanks to AT for this

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I submit to you that Ed is right about what needs to be done. And if we are to keep our democracy, if we are to answer Ed’s question properly, and if we are to pass Lincoln’s test, then Ed’s direction needs a couple more steps.
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We must both make it possible for all voting age Americans to vote (Read: eliminate voting suppression laws and practices) and then provide the motivation that gets people to show up and vote. That’s on all of us, because we want to – we must – long endure.

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The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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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, so don’t bug me about it.
  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 vibrant.

JA


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

Existential


Steve Bannon told us long before the 2016 election that he wants to “tear it all down,” meaning the administrative state. That includes our Constitution, democracy, learning and wisdom and the institutions that uphold our moral foundation. He wants it all blown up.

He is a nihilist, a hater of authority and a manufacturer of chaos and hatred. I have no interest in understanding his deep and profoundly debilitating daddy issues that drive him to create destruction, because doing so is useless to the critical task at hand. What is important is to recognize how impactful Bannon is and has been to Trump becoming the first American dictator and what that means to us.

Trump used Bannon first to get himself elected, then to convert the presidency into a money machine for Trump. Neither of them has even a consciousness, much less a concern for all who get crushed by their maniacal, mentally ill lust for ever more power and money. And, of course, Trump has used hundreds of sycophantic goons to subvert every agency of all three branches of government, demonstrating just how easy it is to get people to sell out and be manipulated for what they think are self-serving reasons. Even with regular examples dangled in their faces they just can’t seem to get it into their heads that they themselves will be next to be fed into Trump’s guillotine.

Many of us want to preserve our democracy and don’t agree with the 20% of Americans who are both Trump followers and who think violence is justified in order for them to get their way. That leaves us with critical challenges, chief among which is to answer the question, “What are you going to do about it?”

One option is to give in to the threats. History is teeming with examples of people cowed into submission by the threat or use of force. That means that they willfully made themselves serfs without rights, just pawns to be played and sacrificed for the benefit of the bullies. It’s understandable how fear could make people allow that, but if we do that we invite the despotism the bullies seek to create and which you and I don’t want.

In a recent webinar presented by The Atlantic one of the topics discussed was how to deal with millions of our fellow citizens who accept accusations that are completely untethered to any facts and who reject out of hand any observable evidence that counters their beliefs. The point made by the experts is that we don’t have an option of changing such peoples’ minds because they are set in concrete. They are impervious to all information that doesn’t support their predetermined certainties, so we must do things to appeal to those who have at least one foot on real ground if we are to protect our democracy.

I don’t have confidence in the Democrats’ willingness to face reality and do what needs to be done. Test my lack of confidence by listing all the times in a week you hear or see any Democrat directly and specifically unmasking the insurgents, the liars, the cheats and the haters. Include the times that you see the bad guys get punished for doing things like Lauren Bobert’s attack on Muslims and the White supremacist, anti-Semitic statements of Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene and the homicidal representatives with their AR-15 Christmas cards. Where are the smack downs of Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz? Add up all the incidents of push back to the crazies that you find in a week. I’m betting that the number on your list will be zero or very close to it. I’m afraid that we just can’t count on the Dems to do the right and necessary things – yet.

But what if we can turn up the heat on them?

We need people who will primary our confrontation avoiding senators and representatives. We need those people to be on the fiery point of the arrow aimed at the Trump conspiracy to end our nation. We need people who will organize giant protest marches in the streets of our towns and cities. We need people to show up at the protests and demand justice be visited on the law breakers and that democracy be assured for We The People. We need people to canvas door to door and encourage the non-voters to show up because that’s in their own best interests and because they’re screwed if they don’t.

We need you and I to get up off our BarcaLoungers and make noise. Lots of noise. We need for us to show up at protests and put lawn signs out front where the neighbors will see them. We need to write opinion pieces online and in local and regional newspapers (where they still exist). We need us to call into online talk shows and blast back against the hypocrites and haters so that other listeners might have their eyes cracked open just a bit. We need to go to town hall meetings and smack down the smack of the violent ones.

We need people who will challenge every calm and reasonable approach to our crisis of democracy, because those calm and reasonable tactics are powerless to stop an authoritarian coup backed by 20 million armed people who believe violence is okay. Doubt that? Grab your history book and read about Nazi Germany in the 1930s – and no, that isn’t hyperbolic and yes, it’s an apt comparison. We are in that kind of danger.

This is no thought experiment. This is existential – an actual life and death battle for democracy. Steve Bannon and the rest of the bad guys say they want to tear it down. I say, “Not on my watch.”

What do you say?

475

That’s the number the Associated Press published in an illuminating examination of our bemoaned, hallucinatory plague of voting fraud.

They looked at the 2020 election votes in the six so-called battleground states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – where 25.5 million votes were cast. The total of all suspicious votes (like people voting for dead relatives) reported by those states was just 475. That’s 0.00186% of the total vote.

President Biden’s cumulative margin of victory in those states was 311,257, which places the suspicious votes at 0.15% of the margin. Even if all those sketchy votes actually were fraudulent and even if all of them were added to Trump’s vote count in just one battleground state (pick one, any one), they still wouldn’t come close to making a difference in the outcome.

Some of us think that there is a firm reality that can be counted upon, like gravity, verifiable facts and counting. The rest aren’t interested in reality. For them, it’s evidence, schmevidence. So, sadly, nobody’s views will be modified even a little by the AP reporting. Such is the state of our political trench warfare and the failures of education to overcome primitive beliefs. Turns out we really aren’t much beyond beating drums in the jungle.

And Just For Fun

Thanks go to SS for the pointer.

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The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

Did someone forward this 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!)

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, so don’t bug me about it.
  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 vibrant.

JA


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

Winning, Part Three: Pick One


Preface

In the first two parts of this series I did my best to make the case that Republicans cause us to suffer from their two fatal flaws: obstructionism to anything rational; and a complete absence of any policy that would serve We The People or our country. You could throw in hypocrisy and dishonesty, but let’s keep this simple.

At the same time Democrats suffer from two fatal flaws: spinelessness to confront Republicans; and an almost complete lack of self-promotion.

Sensitive Reader Warning

This third post contains both snark and some words Mom told you not to say. In addition there is exaggeration contained herein that may not be intended seriously – maybe – so sensitive readers should squint their eyes while reading.

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We have a complex national insanity. The symptoms include the very effective tactics Republicans have scammed on the American people and the dreadful Democrats’ messaging and, worse, how they consistently bring a fork to an Uzi fight. They’re really quite pathetic and in each election they live out Einstein’s definition of insanity:

Doing the same things and expecting different results
.

Example

During the Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Trump-lite Glenn Youngkin blew the naked racist dog whistle of Critical Race Theory, pledging as governor that he will put a stop to the hateful indoctrination that makes white children feel ashamed of their skin color. He would never allow CRT to be taught in Virginia schools. He’s so very brave and upright, he wants us to believe, but really he and what he said are just a standard pile of Republican dog doo-doo.

That’s because the actual, on-planet-Earth truth is that there is not even a single K-12 school in Virginia – or in any other state – that even mentions Critical Race Theory, much less teaches it to kids. Not one. Youngkin made hay of it, though, and isn’t he just the perfect little White supremacist hero?

The real point for us and those wanting to beat candidates like Younkin is that no Democrat yelled,

“LIAR!!!”

.

Where was Terry McAuliffe when it was time to call out Youngkin for his lies and challenge voters to decide if they like being lied to by Youngkin? Where is any Democrat when it’s time to call out Republicans – ever? That’s the fork at the Uzi fight, the fights that Democrats are so good at losing.

I have two options for Democrats, offered under the assumption that they actually want to win elections and perhaps stop the 50-50 “dance of the delicate senators.” All they have to do is to pick one of these options.

Option One

Start kicking butt and taking names. Call out the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the Republicans. Nail them for their complete absence of integrity, ideas or policies to deal with our vexing issues. Say it over and over that all they have are culture wars – tricks to drive Americans to hate one another and to ensure their minority rule – and obstruction.

Say the words:

The Republicans haven’t a constructive thing to offer We The People.
.

Forget the statesman-like posture, Democrats. It looks great, but it loses elections. Attack! Just do it. I promise I won’t tell your mom.

Option Two

Let all the former Confederate states secede from the Union.

We’ll build Trump’s moronic wall between us and the new Confederacy, not Mexico, and seal them out, so they’ll have to stand on their own. Of course, they won’t like that, because they’re so dependent on federal subsidies, meaning money from blue states. Too bad for them. Let’s see if they can feed their kids using the bluster of their fierce independence, Trump flags on their pickup trucks and their hatred. Let’s go, Bubba!

Best of all, we’ll win elections and won’t have to deal with all that crap.

So, that’s it, Democrats. Jump into the alley fight – the Uzi fight – with the attitude, resources and intention to win. Do whatever is necessary. If you’re not willing to do that, then let the crazies walk away – urge them to walk away – make them go away.

Pick one.

End of snark.

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Winning Summary

No other time matters but now – and time is growing short.

The Republicans really are America’s Radical Front and have made themselves the enemy of our country. They’ve stacked the deck against American values in the Senate and minority rule is taking over. It’s fueled by fear and rage and power lust that puts all of us at risk.

Republicans haven’t even a single policy that would serve We The People or the country, so they inflame culture wars to keep us divided. They stoke hatred and fear and division and tribalism to the point of lying Americans into committing violence against one another.

Stop looking for the Republican bottom. There is no bottom, no low to which they won’t go, including encouraging murder. Rep. Paul Gosar made a video of him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden with swords. Ted Cruz even attacked Big Bird. Yes, BIG BIRD! And a lot of these elected senators and representatives promoted and supported the insurrection that was intended to end our democracy.

That is the reality and we better stay awake and take action, because allowing ourselves to doze off or to be a door mat to radicals, a typical non-response of Democrats, will end our dreams of a better America. It’s time to wake up.

That leaves us with the key question of our time:

How long are Democrats, Independents and traditional Republicans going to let these radicals get away with killing us and our democracy?
.

Clearly, the point is not that we should act like them to create division, nor should we participate in lying, hypocrisy, dereliction of duty or fear and hate mongering.  The point is that it’s time for Democrats to fight back with a national surgery of truth to excise the Republican festering wounds to our country.

It’s time to go public, loudly, and name what they’re doing so that Americans can see that abhorrent truth for themselves. Call them out every time. Nail these guys for their dishonesty. Shout out their dereliction of duty. Blast them for their anti-democracy, anti-American behavior and their endless streams of lies against We The People. The same goes for the abhorrent talking heads spewing lies and stoking hatred and division.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Start doing what will win elections – scratch, bite, kick, claw. Fight like you want to win. Put them under a national microscope and show their ugliness to everyone. Stop letting them get away with poisoning our country.

And stop waving the cost of Democratic policies and proposals in everyone’s face. Wave the banners of Democratic successes. Sell the benefits. Do it over and over.

No, not just the President. Every elected official with a “D” after their name, every pundit, and every cabinet officer has to sell the benefits and call out Republican hypocrisy and lies.

And for those of us who aren’t Democratic operatives, read the graphic to the right. To make the message plainer for our time, just insert “The ongoing Civil War to kill democracy.” We each have to do our part to ensure massive voter participation in every election. The next one is just 356 days away.

Winning in Three Simple Steps
  1. Call out Republican cheating, lying, hypocrisy, anti-democracy and anti-We-The-People words and actions. Just tell the truth. Forcefully.
  2. Sell Democratic successes and benefits for We The People. No more public hand wringing or endless talk about cost.  Put President Biden’s name in BIG letters on every infrastructure project so that Americans connect the dots from the President to their own well-being. When the Build Back Better bill passes, label those projects “Courtesy of President Biden and your Congressional Democrats.”
  3. Do what’s required to produce massive voter turnout.

And do all of that all of the time. That’s how to win.

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The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

Did someone forward this 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!)

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, so don’t bug me about it.
  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 vibrant.

JA


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

Chutes & Ladders, Knives & Guns and Karma


Most of us are taught to play by the rules from a very young age because human relationships and even civilizations require rules in order to prevent chaos and the breakdown of society. So we play Chutes and Ladders pretty much according to the rules.

Robert Frost said it best:

Good fences make good neighbors.

So we make sure that we agree about the fences, just as we agree on the rules of Chutes and Ladders.

But now we have a national problem: one side isn’t honoring the fences. It isn’t playing by the rules. It’s playing with wanton disregard for order, truth and the law. It is actively breaking down society. That is what bullies and insurrectionists do. That is what “all about me” types do. They play dirty. They cheat. They act without regard for others. They throw sand in the sand box, to invoke yet another metaphor, so they can own it.

When Democrats play by the rules, honor the fences and don’t throw sand they keep themselves at a very dangerous disadvantage. As Nicolle Wallace put it, “Democrats continue to bring a knife to a gun fight.” Wallace is right.

Senate Minority Leader McConnell has repeatedly vowed to block all Biden initiatives – he has 100% focus on that. Sadly, that leaves no focus for America and the American people. His message could not be plainer: “We want all the power, so screw you, We the People.”

And Republicans are pleased to do any and everything to make that happen.

They lie, claiming a stolen election.

They enable and lie about insurrection.

They run a spy ring to sabotage our electoral processes.

They project their wrongdoings on Democrats.

They create and encourage conspiracy thinking to stoke fear and hatred.

They filibuster nearly everything.

They enact onerous, unconstitutional laws to prevent those likely to vote for Democrats from voting.

They put partisan conspiracy nut cases in charge of elections.

They enact laws to enable Republicans to overturn the will of the people.

They remove hundreds of thousands of voters from state voting registers.

Those are just some of the dishonoring of fences and throwing of sand – the “guns” – Republicans are firing in this gun fight.

Democrats respond by saying things like, “That’s awful,” and somebody gives a speech from the well of the Senate that nobody hears. That’s the knife Democrats bring to this gun fight. It’s way past time for Democrats to arm themselves properly.

Democrats need to get serious about messaging that will change the minds of the American people. We need talking heads to be everywhere calling out Republican lies and power grabs. We need elected Democrats and pundits telling Americans that Republicans don’t care about We the People and that all they care about is stealing all the power and money for themselves  We need bumper stickers that say:

“Republicans are picking your pocket and breaking your legs.”

“How do you like being lied to by Republicans?”

“Republicans are coming for you next.”

“If you like being a peon, you’ll love Republican rule.”

“You can’t love America and vote Republican.”

“Republicans are why you can’t get what you want.”

“Rs want your rights, so we stand and fight.”

We need talkers pointing fingers at cameras and scaring the hell out of voters by telling them the truth about the horrible dystopian future the Republicans are creating. Failure to fully engage, all rhetorical guns blazing, will lead to nothing less than vigilante terrorist murders and the end of democracy.

So, pass this along to your senators, representative and elected state officials. Tell them to stop playing nice, to put some starch into their spines and go on the offensive. This is not a contest against an opponent in a board game. This is a rhetorical and legislative gun fight against a well armed enemy of the We the People. Lock and load.

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A New Balance

Vaccine refusers have their reasons. Some of those reasons might even be rational and based on something real on planet Earth. I can’t think of any, but let’s assume that not everyone who refuses to be vaccinated is a conspiracy nut.

My guess, though, is that most believe in some sort of conspiracy, like the Bill Gates nanobots-in-vaccines believers and the autism wailers. My favorites, though, are the freedom screamers, the people who are certain that having to wear a mask is a tyrannical government’s abridgement of their freedom. They believe there’s no pandemic, that COVID is a hoax and it’s no worse than “strenuous flu,” as a mentally ill former president described it.

COVID doesn’t care if you’re in New York City or rural Missouri. All that’s required to contract the disease is to be un-vaccinated and in close proximity to an infected person who is still able to exhale on his/her own. And yes, that happens even in rural Missouri. Just ask the people in rural South Dakota what happened last winter. Oh, wait – you can’t do that because so many of them are dead.

Last winter South Dakota had the highest rate of death from COVID in the world. “Who needs a mask?” they said. The rest of us know the answer to that question, but the governor of SD still proudly stands for the right to contract COVID and die. And the face mask and vaccine refusing mania has become yet more perilous, as the Delta and Delta Plus COVID variants have made their way into the lungs of lots of Americans.

What’s significant about these variants is how much faster and efficiently they spread to others’ lungs and that they are far more deadly than yesterday’s COVID-19. Let’s consider what that might mean.

I bet that a huge percentage of vaccine refusers are rugged individuals and Trump supporters. Imagine what would happen if tens or hundreds of thousands of them manage to get themselves infected with the new ultra-deadly COVID variants. Without their being vaccinated and with anti-viral drugs largely ineffective in people with these variants, the die off this winter will be ghastly.

Here’s the Machiavellian craziness of it all: That die off might be great enough to counter-balance the Republican purging of black, brown and young people from voting rolls in swing states.

Not hoping for any such thing, but karma always has its way.

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Commissar DeSantis announcing re-education camps for Florida students and teachers. Click me.

←

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not DeSantis’ mother – but the words fit. This was originally targeted at unruly airline passengers. I’m aiming it at an unruly governor.

..

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, 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, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Legislation Republicans Will Champion – The KBL Act


It seems so obvious that I just don’t understand why no member of Congress and no state legislature officials have proposed this. It comports perfectly with today’s Republican Party and its policy of having no policy other than obstructing all progress and stoking cultural wars to aggregate power for itself at the risk of our democracy. They find unconstitutional laws to be very attractive, so I have one for them. First, the substantiation for it.

It has yet to be judicially established that Republican members of Congress and/or their staffs took January 6 insurrectionists on tours of the Capitol Building – scouting missions – on January 5. However, other members of Congress witnessed these “case the joint” expeditions, so we can safely believe they occurred. These reconnaissance operations were critical to the insurrectionists if they were to have a chance of finding Mike Pence in order to hang him and to find Nancy Pelosi in order to murder her. That’s wrong.

After the bloody destruction and vile befoulment of our most symbolic building happened, the confirmation of the Elector’s votes took place, as proscribed by the Constitution. But even after the insurrection that put the lives of all members of Congress and their staff members in peril, 8 senators and 140 congressmen/women voted to reject the will of We the People. They succumbed in subservience to the Jackass-In-Chief, who constantly brayed lies about election fraud. Only a single example of voting fraud could be found. It was a guy in Pennsylvania who tried to cast his dead mother’s vote for Trump. That near-total lack of evidence of fraud (one in 160,000,000 votes cast = 0.0000006%) is why over 60 of Trump’s lawsuits were laughed out of court. Still, the 148 cowards voted to undermine our democracy. That’s wrong.

Those 148 legislators and more also blocked the formation of a special commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection. Some of these investigation refusers are the same people who were insane fanatics for investigating the Benghazi tragedy TEN TIMES OVER! But this time, when our entire democracy was threatened, they refused to look even once. Whatever their reasons (feel free to suggest your views on that), they voted to continue their attack on the Constitution. That’s wrong.

Captain No

Senate Minority Leader McConnell has done to Biden what he did to Obama: he vowed to block any and all things promoted by the President and has pretty much made good on his obstructionist promise. That subverts the will of the people and threatens our democracy. That’s wrong.

Our Senators and Congressmen/women have said some dazzlingly, on-the-face-of-it blatantly false things. Call them stupid, if you want, for saying that the January 6 insurrectionists were ordinary tourists visiting the Capitol Building (on a day when it was closed to visitors due to the pandemic), but they saw what you saw and they aren’t stupid. What they are is dishonest and cowardly. That’s wrong.

Republican state houses and Republican governors are stampeding their voting suppression laws through their legislatures to make sure that they can maintain minority rule. They’re even attacking their own structure and processes in an effort to remove impartial election officials and replace them with Republican/QAnon operatives. That’s wrong.

That’s a lot of wrong going on and defeating that at the voting booth level will take a very long time. Actually, it may be impossible to reverse the damage. We must do something far more expeditious, so I propose my unconstitutional act of democracy restoration and protection. Its very unconstitutionality should be like mother’s milk to Republicans.

The Kibosh Illegal Lying Liars Babbling In Government and Legislatures Idiotically Eliminating Self-government
(“Kill Big Lies” ) Act

.

Provisions of This Act

Section 1: It shall be illegal to promote small or big lies whenever the aim is to undermine our democratic processes and/or our democracy.

Section 2: All federally elected and appointed officials, as well as all their staff members shall be held personally responsible for any and all harm to persons and/or property caused directly or indirectly by their efforts to aid or abet insurrectionists or democracy threatening actors. Liability shall be determined based on the stupidity of statements uttered, actions taken and obstructions attempted. Penalties shall be doubled for obviously self-contradictory claims.

Section 3: All state level attempts to prevent or limit voting shall result in the immediate removal from office of perpetrators, be they legislative, executive or judicial, and the permanent removal of voting rights from them. In addition, they will be required to deliver pizza and bottled water to voters waiting in line to vote.

Penalties for Violation

Section 4: All violations of this law shall be deemed a felony with penalties of not less than 1 year nor more than 112 years in prison and up to $5 million in fines. In addition, violators of any provision of this Act shall immediately be placed in stocks in the public square of the municipality where they live, to be ridiculed by the citizens as the laughing stocks that they are. This public humiliation shall continue for a period of not less than 30 days nor more than 112 years.

Attempts to Avoid Compliance With This Act and Penalties

Section 5: No state shall be allowed to declare a states rights objection to this federal law. Each and every attempt to do so shall cause the proscribed penalty to be doubled and one Republican congressperson or senator of that state per attempt shall be removed from office. If, due to prior penalties, there are no longer any federal representatives or senators from a state which has again violated this provision, the penalties shall shift first to the governor of said state, then sequentially to members of the state legislature. Should all of those have been removed from office for their attempts to violate or circumvent this law, random registered Republican voters in the state will be selected for prosecution, including eliminating their right to vote.

Period of Applicability of This Act

Section 6: This law is retroactive to January 20, 2017 and there is and shall be no statute of limitations on any act of dishonesty or unconstitutional manipulation to which this law applies.

Severability

Section 7: If any part of this Act should be found to be unconstitutional, it shall be considered severed from the Act, leaving all other provisions intact. So there.

Who Is Eligible To Vote For This Act

Section 8: All members of the duly constituted voting public shall be eligible to vote for this bill in the Comments section below. No onerous voter ID is required. Early voting has started. Black, brown, poor and young people, high school seniors, college students and naturalized citizens are all eligible to vote – always. Plus old white guys and angry young white guys (“guys” is gender neutral here), as well as Native Americans, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Buddhists, Jesus freaks, droolers and both conspiracy nuts and sane people. Also white collar, blue collar and no collar workers, as well as unemployed non-workers, the physically challenged and all convicted felons, whether they’re now free or still in prison. Urban, suburban, rural and wandering citizens are eligible and encouraged to vote. Gun ownership is not required for voting privileges, nor is an Armageddon hiding place, nor is a facility with the English language required. Those under the physical care of a Republican are encouraged to grab a laptop when the obermeister isn’t looking and register their vote. Polling places are everywhere internet electrons can reach, so no worries about a long journey to vote or a long wait in line or threats from Republican intimidation thugs. Bring your own pizza and bottled water.

Republicans like this kind of heavy-handed, blatantly unconstitutional legislation. It’s their style, their M.O. to promote anti-democracy things, so we might expect them to champion this Act.

On the other hand, this proposal puts the sting to them, so I don’t expect to hear a chorus of “D’OH!!!” from the Capitol Building and all Republican state houses, nor do I expect to see pictures of these Republicans posted on their FaceBook pages showing them slapping their foreheads. Still, we know who and what they are.

They are so busted.

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, 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, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Serendipity


The word “serendipity” stems from the ancient Persian tale, Serendipity and The Three Princes. It’s sometimes called The Three Princes of Serendip.* It was translated in 1557 into Italian as The Peregrinaggio. It is a tale of “the gift for discovery by accident and sagacity of things  .  .  .  not in quest of [it].” It’s commonly thought of as finding something of value while looking for something else.

I just had one of those moments when I came upon one of my long forgotten essays from shortly before the 2018 mid-term election. This isn’t about being self-congratulatory. Because of our current circumstances, I think it’s worth revisiting.

By 2018 we had endured a year and a half of Trump’s general election outrageousness and cruelty, then two years of him in office. That he was greatly popular with a substantial swath of Americans led to a search to understand his voters. The search was more than to satisfy our need to understand why otherwise sensible people voted for this brutish thug. If we were to stop his worst, those who would stand up to his behavior had to be voted into office. Quickly.

I did some research and posted an essay to help in the search, taking care to understand, rather than to persuade. The video is embedded below and I encourage you to have a look at it with fresh eyes, because we are still fighting to stop authoritarian rule.

Here’s that video:

Originally posted October 28, 2018, just before the mid-term election

Every bit of what was going on two and a half years ago is still going on. Indeed, some is far worse now. Republicans will not stop it. They have become a cult of anger, hatred, cowardice, violence and subservience. That means that we have to elect Democrats to stop the authoritarian stampede and to keep our democracy.

Click me for the Bamboo Ballot idiocy story

Expect the illicit Arizona election recount  of Maricopa County – the non-audit done by partisan ignorants and QAnon conspiracy believers, as they violate election ballot integrity – to report massive voting fraud that neither they nor anyone else can substantiate. After watching the video above, consider how our angry citizenry will react to the deceitful reports from Arizona that confirm their biases.

The 2022 mid-term election is of the same critical nature as that in 2018. It’s just 506 days away, with Republicans working every day to cheat their way to long term minority rule by gerrymandering, purging voter roles, requiring oppressive voter identification, closing polling stations, intimidating professional voting administrators and more.

We have two key jobs. The first is to fight voter suppression. We’re attacking that in the courts and, because there are potentially hundreds of repressive anti-voting laws, that will be a massive challenge.

We’re also attacking that in Congress. There are two bills – the For The People Act and The John Lewis Voting Rights Act – that we need to get through the McConnell-strangled Senate. The key obstructionist this time is, of course, Joe Manchin. We need a magic wake-up pill for him. It seems that those holding that pill are West Virginia voters. That’s why phone banks to those folks are so important right now.

The second job is to figure out a way to appeal to our voting citizens who feel blown off by the establishment. They aren’t all crazy. They are all angry. Please jot your ideas of how to appeal to them in the Comments section below.

Meanwhile, we best not count on serendipity to aid us in this mission. It’s time to be intentional. If we find something else of great value along the way, then lucky us.

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* Serendip is the classical Persian name for Sri Lanka.

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Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, 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, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Proper Names


Ed Note: This post begins in a dark way, because there is substantial darkness over our democracy. But keep your hopes alive, because we may be at the start of a new day. Read to the end for the unmistakable rays of sunlight of the dawn.

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Trump has gotten away with an enormous dung heap of wrongdoing. One of the reasons for his constantly skating from accountability is that before anyone can pin up his picture in the post office he’s done something else outrageous and likely illegal, so our attention is thus diverted and “poof!” goes the prior malfeasance.

Now we’ve found that he directed OUR Justice Department to snoop on Democrats and major news organizations. Under both of his Attorneys General, Sessions and Barr, investigations were conducted on those whom Trump saw as opponents. Emails and phone records were snatched and gag orders were issued so that Trump could dig for dirt on Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff, their staffs, their families, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, their reporters, someone’s underage kid and whoever else the Tantrum Tyrant wanted investigated. All are Democrats. Except for the president’s own lawyer, Don McGahn and his wife, on whom he also snooped.

Tweeted Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post, “[G]ood God, they were running a police state. Barr needs to be hauled in and at the very least disbarred.” She’s right, and it shouldn’t stop with Bad Boy Barr.

Something to hope for. Image by LORRAINE DAY from Pixabay

This is truly horrible stuff, typical of Trump’s moral bankruptcy. It breaks yet more norms that are fundamental to a democracy. But what I have not heard yet are words like “illegal” or “felony” or even “misdemeanor.” Is anyone going to dig into these corrupt actions and bring charges?

So far we’ve seen nothing from Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland to indicate that he’s willing to bring wrongdoers to justice if they were a part of the prior administration. And what will happen  to the focus of the public, our news organizations and Congress when the next bright, shiny object of Trump’s unscrupulous weaseling is dangled before our eyes? How many prior wrongdoings will we forget?

The Biden administration is a mixed bag of resetting our values. It is blocking Congress in its efforts to unearth Trump’s manipulations to enrich himself at the Trump International Hotel, the DC facility he leased from the federal government. Biden’s Justice Department is asking the judge to dismiss lawsuits against Trump for violently clearing Lafayette Park of peaceful protesters. AG Garland is continuing what the former AG did to block the defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll. One has to wonder why Biden would want to protect Trump from litigation.

This has huge implications for the future of our country. Allowing people in high office – like the President – to “get away with shooting someone on 5th Avenue,” like Nixon getting pardoned by Ford, like Reagan getting a pass on Iran-Contra, like Trump getting away with breathing while in office, which meant that he was doing something illegal, assures that future presidents will commit crimes, knowing that they will get away with them. They’ll leave office, skate free and recast themselves as statesmen, while We the People remain betrayed.

Do you want this to be a democracy? If so, then there’s a lot of bad news for you now, like this from Jewish Dems:

American democracy is in danger. Over half of Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen because GOP leaders continue to exploit Donald Trump’s Big Lie, and they are now using it as an excuse to suppress the right to vote. Fourteen states have already enacted 22 voter suppression laws making it harder to vote, and hundreds more have been proposed. New data shows that voter suppression laws enacted in Georgia will have a disproportionate impact on Black voters.

Today’s Republicans have no interest in facts, truth, reality or integrity. They are solely interested in power and money. So, they recast the January 6 insurrection, the assault on our democracy, on the Capitol Police and on that symbolic building as (take your pick):

– a normal gathering of tourists

– a peaceful protest

– justifiable actions because the election had been stolen by (impossible to find) fraudulent votes

– something in the past – we should move on

And the lack of Republicans’ interest in facts, truth, reality or integrity allows them to claim they are protecting our national honor and the integrity of our elections, even as they viciously attack both.

Just be clear that your eyes tell you what you need to know and that “alternative facts” are just a rebranding of lying. But those who wallow in the pig slop of alternative facts have legislative power in two-thirds of the states and they are engineering voter suppression of such magnitude that they may well achieve anti-democracy minority rule that will last for decades. That’s insurrection without the street mobs.

From Confucius:

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.”

Mobs in the streets, mobs in the state legislatures and the elected Republican mob in the Capitol Building are all insurrectionists. Call them by their proper name.

Our democracy is already compromised and so far there hasn’t been even a hint of a light at the end of our long, dark insurrection tunnel. It’s time for Merrick Garland to break from the cowardly Justice Department he inherited and file five indictments against Trump for obstruction of justice. The details and the prosecutorial roadmap are all in Mueller’s report. Click here for a copy and focus on Section 2.

Now here are those promised rays of sunshine.

Last Friday Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed the entire Justice Department Civil Rights Division to drive a stake in the ground for voting rights. Here is some of what he declared:

  1. Because this is a huge battle, he will double the number of lawyers in the Civil Rights Division specifically in order to protect voting rights.
  2. The Criminal Division will prosecute all violations of civil rights laws.
  3. All lawful citizens will have the right to vote, will have equal access to the polls, their votes will be counted, they will have access to voting registration and they will be protected from voter intimidation.
  4. Early voting and voting by mail will be protected, as will the post-election integrity of ballots. (Arizona Republicans, brace yourselves.)
  5. Voting officials, poll workers and volunteers will be protected from efforts to intimidate them.

Just brave words so far, but it’s a good start. At last we have a warrior for democracy with the muscle to do something about it. And we have to hold him to his word.

Garland ended his presentation by quoting from John Lewis’ final address published just after his death.

“[Dr. King] said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”

Our country is calling on you and me to do that, to help clean house, hold accountable and name names. So, you and I must do more than just hope and vote. Obey the dictum of the bumper sticker:

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

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Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.

Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, 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, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Survival


Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)

“The single greatest threat to our security right now is domestic terrorism and the tensions and polarizations between us.”

– Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), former CIA Agent, now serving on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Given her security background and current access to national security information, it seems likely she knows what she is talking about.

I wrote of that same concern in a recent post and some of my words were picked up in a very clever Star Wars format video that you can see below. Many thanks to reader Bob Beltran for his creativity.

The key words from both are:

In the absence of the Republican Party and with Trump soon to be headed to prison, the nation will face its most threatening foe: domestic terrorism. All that stands against this hateful enemy is “We the People” in a desperate fight for democracy.

The words “absence of the Republican Party” refers to:

⋅  The incremental departure of moderates and conservatives from the GOP, leaving only extremists

⋅   The decades-long GOP negation of anything Democrats propose, regardless of the needs and desires of the citizenry – ”  .  .  .  the modern G.O.P. is allergic to any proposal to spend taxpayer money to advance the public good.” – Paul Krugman

⋅   The de facto abdication of fact and reason as official Republican Party policy

What is left in Congress are people on a self-important power trip that is long on puffery, slogans and inaction and short on observable facts and useful policy. That is increasingly leading us to a two party system of Democrats versus domestic terrorists flying a GOP banner. That’s dangerous stuff, especially in the hands of politicians who believe QAnon conspiracies and are beholden to citizens with firearms and the inclination to use them. Our very survival as a democracy is threatened.

There’s more.

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I continue to be amazed by President George Washington’s prescient comments in his Farewell Address of 1796. He used a great deal of it to direct caution against the nefarious acts of “factions,” by which he meant political parties. His primary concern was the action of men loyal to party over country.

Bear in mind that this was then a new country and the states were only loosely connected, making the union vulnerable to sabotage by vested interests, like political parties. That was his context and his concerns for our republic were well founded. Crucially, his concerns remain applicable for our republic even today. Here is one piece of his warning:

” .  .  .  [parties] are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government  .  .  .  “

Hold that thought.

From The New York Times: On Politics newsletter of March 25:

“State-level Republican lawmakers have proposed hundreds of bills this year that would tamp down voting rights  .  .  .  “

In that same newsletter they report:

“Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, said that states simply ‘are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever’.”

Really, Mitch? How would you explain to President Washington the over 250 Republican Party/Faction bills in 43 states that have been described by many as Jim Crow 2? Like the Georgia law that makes it a felony to give water to people standing in line for 8 hours to vote. Bear in mind that their wait is primarily due to states shutting down polling places in non-White and poor areas.

Back to George Washington.

McConnell’s posturing and manipulation now look a great deal like the very ”  .  . . [usurpation] for themselves the reins of government” by “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men” about which Washington warned us. And even McConnell’s disingenuousness seems almost tame compared to the outright anti-American insurgency that is much of the GOP in Congress. Don’t tell our first president about that. He warned us.

So, instead We the People must focus on the survival of our democracy. This is no spectator sport, so, TAG – WE’RE IT.

Special Note: Washington’s Farewell Address is read in full in Congress at the start of every new Congress. Even so, the Republicans just can’t seem to remember his message.

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2022 Winter Olympics

With the reasonable assumption that the pandemic will be under control by February next year, likely many people are planning a trip to China for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. But does attending these Olympics send the wrong message to that brutal and dangerous regime? Would attending be counter-productive for the free world?

I recommend that you read what Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) has to say about that before making travel plans. He has a nuanced proposal that is well worth our consideration.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

Transcript of the Third Debate


Transcript of former Vice-President Joseph R. Biden’s closing argument at the imaginary 3rd and final Presidential Debate, 2020

Well, folks, we’ve gotta give credit where it’s due. It’s only right.

We’ve just heard the closing argument of President Trump, giving you his best story to get you to vote for him. It was so odd that he couldn’t give us a single reason to vote for him, like what he’d do in a second term. He just whined about how he was being treated so unfairly. He offers us nothing and wants us to believe he’s a poor victim. That’s pathetic. But still, some credit is due. Here’s the credit.

Never in at least the last 100 years of presidential contests have so many lies been told in just two minutes. He’s really very good at lying. That’s the credit he’s due.

Lots of his lying is just Trump trying to make himself look good, so he makes up total fictions hoping you’ll buy the nonsense and he does it in such a tsunami of lies that there’s no chance for you to say, “Wait  .  .  .  what?” But that’s dangerous, because it puts you and your family at risk.

Like his lies about the coronavirus. Folks, we’re not rounding the bend; one thousand of us are dying every day and it’s getting worse.

Trump surrenders to COVID-19, February, 2020

We’re in the midst of the biggest surge of infections yet, now over 80,000 per day. He tells us that he’s done an incredible job with this pandemic, but the truth is that he abandoned his post and let the virus attack. He’s literally done nothing to help you stay healthy. And every day he models the very behavior most likely to make a lot more people sick and for many of them to die, like his refusal to wear a mask and like his super-spreader rallies. And just last week his chief of staff announced that they waved the white flag of surrender and won’t do a thing to protect you. All they’re doing is counting on vaccines and treatments that don’t exist.

That’s why some of the kids in your child’s school got infected and were sick for days, perhaps for weeks. Maybe it hit your child. It’s why people’s grandparents – maybe yours – got sick and died alone. It’s why our doctors and nurses are so exhausted and our hospitals are so overcrowded that you can’t get help if you have a heart attack or are involved in a car crash. That’s what has happened because this president abandoned his post. He quit.

He lies to make it sound like he’s done something useful, but he hasn’t helped you at all. He even demeans the true experts who can help you.

And he’s cut way back on testing so that the number of cases reported will be lower just to make him look good. But that doesn’t lower the actual number of people who become sick and die. How dumb does he think you are?

Folks, his lying has made the greatest country in the world look like a helpless 3rd world nation. We’re leading the world in infections, suffering and death. That doesn’t fit too well with our notion of American exceptionalism, our can-do spirit.

Sadly, Trump will never be a real live boy because he lies all the time.

Have you heard enough lies from this president?

Folks, I’ll never surrender. I’ll never wave a white flag or give up on We the People. We’re going to beat this thing together.

How about his lies about the economy? Millions of our fellow citizens – maybe you – have lost their jobs and 42% of those furloughed won’t ever be rehired – and still he lies.

He tells you how great the economy is doing. The tax cut he’s so proud of was supposed to increase your wages and stimulate new jobs. That’s what he promised you. How’s that working out for you? Folks, it was never going to happen.

Instead, he gave billions of dollars to big corporations to buy back their stock in order to increase their stock prices so that big shareholders would become even richer. And the money also went directly into the investment portfolios of other rich guys. Nearly nothing went to you, and still he lies to you about how great the economy is doing. C’mon man, gimme a break!

Have you heard enough lies from this president?

He lies to you about how great our international safety and security are, but he’s alienated all of our friends, the nations who partner with us to protect us all. And he’s sucked up to Putin and other brutal dictators, putting us all at risk and lying to you at the same time.

Have you heard enough lies from this president?

He said he was going to drain the swamp – maybe you wanted him to do that. But what he did instead was to get rid of the competent people who make the government work for us and he replaced them with industry insiders, lobbyists, big donors and incompetents. They’re all swamp creatures! Then he fired them and recruited even worse people and lied to you about that, too!

The We The People Presidential BS Detector

Have you heard enough lies from this president?

He loves to vomit out his strings of superlatives about himself, but they’re all just vapor. There’s no substance to them. They’re just more of his lies.

Folks, we all know how this works. Every one of us has a very sensitive BS detector and the big We The People BS Detector has been pegged out for 4 years. So, if you’ve had enough, if you’re sick of being lied to and cheated and put in harms way for no reason other than so Trump can grab more money, more power and more attention for himself, it’s time for you to take a stand and speak up. You do that with your vote.

This won’t cut it. If you’ve heard enough lies, you have to VOTE HIM AWAY!

Vote this liar out of office right now. Put on your mask and go to your polling place this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest. Get in line and stay in line to make your voice heard with your vote. Tell Trump you’re done with his lies.

Folks, this president has broken our country. Fixing it will require an end to his lies. Then we’ll put America back together again. We’ll Build Back Better and restore America’s health and honor and leadership in the world because this is the United States of America.

God bless you and God bless our troops.

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Signs of Trump Insanity Affecting You

From STAT:

Three Western states join California’s Covid-19 vaccine review group

Washington, Oregon, and Nevada yesterday joined California’s Covid-19 vaccine safety review group, which will independently review any Covid-19 vaccine approved by the FDA. Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the initiative last week. The review panel is currently made up of California scientists who specialize in immunization and public health, and the governors of the three states who have joined the effort will also select and name their own experts to the panel. States are taking up this effort to verify a vaccine amid concerns about a politicized and rushed approval for a Covid-19 vaccine. In addition to these four states, New York last month also announced that any FDA-approved Covid-19 vaccine will be independently vetted by state health officials. [emphasis mine]

How insane is it that we can’t trust our formerly world leading Food and Drug Administration to ensure that our vaccines are safe and effective – this because of Trump’s lies and manipulations? There truly is nothing that Trump won’t lie about and ruin, including our confidence in those entrusted to protect us and even your health.

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

Minority Rule


Reading time – 3:52  .  .  .

NOTE – read to the end for the key message.

60%  of Americans want stricter gun safety laws and regulations.

61% of Americans support a woman’s right to choose.

66% of Americans want a government health insurance plan for all.

70% of Americans believe most undocumented immigrants working in the U.S. should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.

That’s just a very small sample of what the majority of Americans want. But they either don’t have those things or they now realize these issues are mortally threatened by the new composition of the Supreme Court, as manipulated by Mitch McConnell. It can all be traced to the decades-long push for minority rule by monied interests and the Republican Party.

There is a huge story to tell and it is much too big for a 1,000 word post, but you already know some of the basics. For example, you know that in White areas of many of our cities the wait time to vote is about 15 minutes. In the poor and Black parts of town the wait time can be eight hours due to the closing of polling places, a limited number of voting machines and insufficient staffing.

In the 2018 election Democrats in Wisconsin got 205,000 more votes than Republicans, but the Republicans wound up with a 27 seat advantage in the state Assembly. It has been the same in North Carolina for many years.  And in those states, as in about 2/3 of the rest, it allowed the state houses to restrict voting rights for massive numbers of Americans. Say it with me: Gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering allowed states to remove a voter’s registration if the voter didn’t return a post card within 14 days. And those post cards were targeted at poor and minority people.

Gerrymandering allowed states to impose ID requirements in order to vote, something that is both relatively costly and burdensome to obtain for poor people. Note that the Constitution only requires citizenship to vote.

Gerrymandering allowed the secretaries of state of these discriminatory states to close polling places, locate polling places in difficult to reach areas, restrict voting days and hours and more.

Gerrymandering is what reduced mail-in ballot drop boxes to just one in all of Harris County, Texas (that’s the entire Houston metropolitan area).

Minority rule has also given us Republican governors who suck up to Trump and who have by fiat denied mandatory face mask wearing in their states – places like Iowa, South Dakota, Florida, Nebraska, Texas and more – this as the cases of COVID-19 are skyrocketing, with more than 70,000 new cases every day.

Republicans want very much to restrict voting rights. That’s because they will become an extinct species if We the People actually have a democracy – i.e. majority rule. Paul Weyrich, founder of the self-righteous Moral Majority and other right wing manipulation machines said it plainly, clearly and publicly in 1980:

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the election, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

The leverage Weyrich was referring to is that of Republicans, not conservatives. There’s a difference, as exemplified by there being nothing conservative in most of what Donald Trump does or says. He’s all about not conserving what the Founders intended.

Weyrich was right. If the roughly 100 million eligible voters who typically don’t vote, many of whom are unfairly prohibited from voting, suddenly showed up to vote, no Republican would win, because most of those 100 million citizens aren’t rich people. They are minorities and poor people and, of course, tens – perhaps hundreds – of thousands of disaffected, frustrated middle class people. Most of them would vote for Democrats, which is why Republicans don’t want them to vote.

What that means is that a small minority is ruling this country. It’s how the Supreme Court wound up looking as it does. It’s how the Republicans have controlled the Senate. It’s how the House has been largely under Republican control for decades. And it is why we are now in this insane election process that threatens to be decided by our lopsided, contorted Supreme Court, instead of by We the People.

We can’t change our current insanity instantly, but we surely can start the process and it’s up to you to do that.

Samuel L. Jackson has laid it out plainly for you. Watch his YouTube video, because he’s very smart. Do as he says.

If you haven’t voted yet, you have only 6 days left. It may be too late for mail-in voting, although you may be able to drop off your mail-in ballot at your precinct voting place, your city hall or in a ballot drop box. In-person early voting is ongoing and it’s your best opportunity to ensure your voice is heard and to vote this horrid minority out of office.

VOTE NOW!

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Resources
  1. Read John Pavlovitz’s great clarity in “No, I Won’t Agree To Disagree. You’re Just Wrong.” He’s right.
  2. This Is Not Normal, by Amy Siskind in The Washington Post
  3. The entire “Sunday Review” of The New York Times, October 18, 2020: Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here.
VOTE NOW!

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Idle Speculation of the Week

Rudy Giuliani is spending his days and nights in Ukraine, digging for dirt to help Donald Trump. He’s unleashed volumes of anti-Biden, pro-Trump Russian propaganda repeatedly. Even his daughter opposes his behavior.

He tells us he’s Trump’s lawyer but that he’s not being paid. Does that combination make any sense to you? Speculate on this: What does Giuliani get out of being Trump’s muck-making slime bag? My idle speculation is that Trump has promised to make him Attorney General if Trump is re-elected.

Scientific Speculation of the Week

From STAT:

“A new modeling study finds that there could be half a million Covid-19-related deaths by the end of February next year, but universal mask use could save 130,000 of those lives.”

Just wondering which group the fiercely independent face mask refusers want to be in, the 130,000 who could live or the rest who will be dead. There’s a really big cost for them stomping feet and yelling, “You can’t tell me what to do.”

Scientific speculation: The rest of us pay a huge price for refuser selfishness.

Unintentionally Revealing Quote of the Week

From the New York Times:

”  .  .  .  Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, essentially offering a verbal shrug on CNN on Sunday: ‘We’re not going to control the pandemic.’

‘We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations, because it is a contagious virus — just like the flu,’ Mr. Meadows said.”

Mark Meadows is co-founder with insanely rabid Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) of the patriotically misnamed Freedom Caucus. Apparently, Meadows wants us to be free to get sick and die.

What he’s telling us is that our top national leadership is not focused on protecting the American people. They are doing nothing to prevent our exposure to a killer virus that is most definitely not like the flu. Instead, these public servants (supposedly serving We the People) are focused on vaccines and therapeutics that don’t exist! That’s minority rule as a cruel, manipulative, homicidal refusal to act and to lead. And it’s killing us.

Watch this 1-minute video.

Did I mention,

VOTE NOW!
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Quotes for Today

From Rachel Maddow on October 27, 2020: “If you’re standing in line waiting to vote, know that you are pulling a thread through a lot of history. Stay in line.”

From Admiral (Ret.) William McRaven in his 20-minute 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas: “Don’t ever, ever ring the bell.” [i.e. quit]

From me: Get in line, stay in line and vote to change our country and change the world.

From Yoda: “On you, everything depends.”

From me again: I like Joe Biden, but if the Democrats had nominated a box of rocks to run against Trump, I’d vote for the rocks.

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There might not be time to mail in your vote and have it arrive in time, so DROP IT OFF in a drop box.

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA

 


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

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