Posts by: Jack Altschuler

A New Proposal


POST 1251

Let’s take a short break from the ongoing ICE brutality, from the corruption and incompetence of the Trump administration, from its bedrock of self-serving dishonesty, from Trump as pit bull, using every American thing as a fire hydrant to piss on and claim as his own and from the America-defeating Republican cowardice.

You remember Gaza, right? Those people were all over international news for, what, a year? Maybe two? First they were evil for the thousands of rockets they fired into Israeli cities and then for the October 7 massacre.* Then they were victims when Israel hit back. Then they were pitiable for their lack of human basics, like water, food and shelter.

Then something happened somewhere else and the world forgot about them. But their dire circumstances remain and call for something to alleviate the suffering. Oddly, they offer a formerly unimaginable solution to this very old problem in this very old region, so let’s remember these people for a couple of minutes.

The Palestinians can’t have all the territory “from the river to the sea,” regardless of college student chants. The chanters are people who think they are well meaning, but they very much are not.

The Palestinians and the Israelis refuse to live together peacefully. There are sovereignty and religious problems that are intractable and all solutions offered for co-existence have proven to be unacceptable to some or all. People are locked into their stories and will do anything to prove themselves right. But we shouldn’t let self-defeating intransigence get in the way of a solution and the present circumstances offer one that was formerly unthinkable.

As you consider what follows, ignore the current reality of the immobile far right coalition ruling Israel now. It will take more time, but Netanyahu will at last go to prison and the Knesset will balance quite differently.

Israel has all the power in that region right now, so it can dictate. Consider this dictatorial solution.

Click for a larger view.

It is for Israel to declare a two state solution. A new state of Palestine will be carved out of Jordan – the east bank of the Jordan River – and part of Syria and Lebanon. Gazans will be relocated to that territory. Some may not mind being forcibly moved, because Gaza is not much more than rubble now. If they do mind, that won’t matter much, because, again, Israel has all the power and can dictate.

That Jordan, Syria and Lebanon will have to cede territory to the new state of Palestine is a tough one. No country would look favorably on such a loss of its territory. Plus, since 1948 no Arab or Muslim country has ever offered anything to sustain the Palestinian people. They have periodically made wars designed to eradicate Israel and they’ve supplied materials for Hamas to use to build rockets to fire into Israeli cities and kill Israelis. Otherwise, no Arab or Muslim state has ever helped, nor now wants to help Palestinians. This is going to require some truly exceptional diplomacy and perhaps some exquisite arm twisting.

Bear in mind that the current configuration of states in that region is largely due to European countries arbitrarily dictating it be so following WW I. Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon didn’t exist before then.

That carving up of land was done following the Ottoman Empire having grabbed vast territories and reshaped borders for hundreds of years before that. Redefining territory in that region is almost an international sport. While unpalatable to the current countries, carving out land for a new state of Palestine has historical precedent, including the establishment of Israel.

All those Gazans will have to go somewhere. They can’t live within Israel. A separate state is the obvious answer.

Israel will absorb Gaza. They will own what they broke – the Pottery Barn rule. Fixing it will fall entirely to Israel. And Israel will absorb the West Bank for its obvious security value.

To sweeten the deal, Muslims will be allowed access to all their holy sites in Jerusalem. The physical and spiritual security there will be protected by an international guard.

The Palestinians will have to do the very hard work to build a country of their own, perhaps with international help, like the Israelis did. We Americans will have to help. Our no-sighted hard heads will have to deal with the fact that the citizens of the new Palestinian state won’t be their notion of White or Christian. To these hard heads I offer new age psychotherapy: get over it!

This solution is outrageous, yes, but nobody will be able to prevent the implementation of this unilateral solution because, one more time, Israel holds all the cards. Everyone will abhor this idea – everyone – even as nobody – literally nobody – has a better idea.

Sure, there is mountain of details to surmount to make this work. But refusing that climb guarantees unending war, miserable people suffering and dying in spiritual and physical degradation and entirely without hope for a better life. We know that because we’ve seen this movie over and over.

Got a better idea? Put it out there. The world awaits.

Did this piece make you think? Did it distract you from your distractions? Good.

Hurry. People are suffering.

The Last Laugh

From Andy Borowitz, The Borowitz Report of January 9:

LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—In a move that was widely hailed across the free world, on Friday King Charles III of the United Kingdom reasserted British rule over the colonies formerly known as the United States of America.

“In recent days, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller have been advocating a muscular return to colonialism,” the monarch said. “I couldn’t agree more with those chaps.”

“We lost the colonies because our King went insane,” Charles added. “But now the shoe’s on the other bloody foot, isn’t it?”

As for what this change in status would mean for Trump, the King said, “Perhaps he could room with his old chum, my idiot brother.”

_____________________________________

* Right, it was Hamas. But Hamas is composed entirely of Gazans. And the non-Hamas Gazans tolerated Hamas’ constant violence, so it’s on all Gazans, like it or not.

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    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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

No Fever, But A Hopeful Dream


POST 1250

January 6, 2027, 9:00 PM EST

East fireplace, Statuary Hall, U.S.Capitol Building. Photo courtesy of Daniel Holt

The mid-term election is over, Congress members have been sworn in and the new Congress is open for business. The Democrats are in the majority in both the House and in the Senate. Hakeem Jeffries is the new Speaker of the House. The majority leader in the Senate is a surprise – Elizabeth Warren.

This evening the two chamber leaders sit in comfortable chairs on either side of the east side fireplace in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building. Behind them are statues of Alexander Hamilton Stevens of Georgia and Robert M. La Follett of Wisconsin,* both seated. There is a robust fire in the fireplace as red lights on the front of two television cameras glow and Senator Warren begins.

Majority Leader Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Good evening. We’re here to address the American people and to formally declare what your Congress will do so that you know what to expect. We are here to stand guard for you and for our country. Thank you for being with us on this historic night and on this journey of American patriotism.

Democrats have taken majority control of both houses of Congress and we embark now on the ourney to restore our democracy and return the Congress to being a co-equal branch of government focused on the values, the needs and the hopes of We The People, exactly as the Founders intended.

Speaker Hakeem Jeffries: We begin with a symbolic demonstration of the promises we made to you during the mid-term campaign. We invited the minority leaders of both cambers to join us tonight, but they declined. Then, because our country needs both parties to work together and focus on the Constitution, our laws and the oath of office that every one of us has taken, we’ve offered the opportunity to all Congressional Republicans to participate in our ceremony tonight. None accepted our invitation.

Sen. Warren holds up a thick document.

EW: This is a copy of Project 2025, the horrid, anti-America fascism handbook written by the Heritage Foundation. It has been followed for the past two years by our attention seeking, insatiably needy, power grabbing president and our far too compliant Republican colleagues. Tonight Speaker Jeffries and I will rip out every section of this ghastly document, one after another, and throw them into the fire. We will burn them as a symbol, a stake in the ground, to put all on notice, that we will fight back against every one of the abhorrent policies that our Republican colleagues have failed to oppose.

These policies assaulted your rights.They took money from you and gave it to the super rich. They destroyed the agencies that have kept us healthy. They neutered the parts of government that have for decades helped to educate our children. They de-funded what made us the world’s research leader and compromised what has kept all of us safe in a very dangerous world. All of that destruction and more needs to be reversed and fresh air breathed into our country. That’s what we have promised to you that we will do. We begin that sacred duty tonight symbolically casting out this Project 2025 demon.

Sen. Warren hands the document to Speaker Jeffries.

HJ: Speaker Jeffries holds up the document.

The first section in this that is focused on the presidency opens by taking a cheap shot at – and this is exactly what they wrote – the “supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country.” That’s what they disparagingly call most of us. “Woke.”

Whatever “woke” is, it’s their hateful slap in the face of most Americans. Throughout this document the authors seek to divide us and diminish whole swaths of the American people, which inevitably excludes you from the okay group. That stops now.

Here’s the really odd thing. They continue in this section of their Mein Kampf manifesto to quote Founder James Madison in Federalist No. 47, with his warning,

“[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

But that is exactly what President Trump and his compliant Republican Congress have been doing – fyranny!

The Republican authors of this domestic terrorism manual give us no clue why they point Madison’s accusing finger at themselves, as that puts the lie to everything else they wrote. Perhaps in their cruelty, they really just don’t get it.

EW: They have brought us tyranny. You can see it in the escalating grocery store prices caused by the president’s illegal tariffs. You can see it as masked gunmen bang down doors and drag people out of their homes. You can see it as they rip our people out of their vehicles and throw them to the ground. You can hear it as a fellow immobilized in an ICE agent’s headlock yells repeatedly “I’m a citizen!. I have identification!” and the agent yells, “I don’t care” and proceeds to throw him into an ICE vehicle. And you can see it as ICE agents gun down American citizens who pose no threat and who have broken no laws.

You can see how they terrorize our citizens everywhere they can, hiding behind their face masks, Kevlar vests and menacing their weapons of war. They do all this as our perverse, obscene, un-American Justice Department bestows on them a claim of immunity. You can see it as millions have lost their jobs and you can see it as our Department of Justice violates our laws every day. This stuff is right out of the Project 2025 playbook. And it’s the stuff Hitler did. It’s what Stalin did and it’s what decades of Chinese leaders have done. Brutality and intimidation. And Trump and the Republicans are doing it now.

We’ll have no more of that.

Speaker Jeffries rips that section from the Project 2025 document, throws it into the fire and hands the rest of the document to Sen. Warren.

EW: Let’s look at another section.

They proceed to unmask the anti-American directives in this horrid document until the entire thing – all 922 pages – is in flames, one section at a time being reduced to ash.

EW: Together we welcome back our republic, our democracy and the America that we love.

_________________________

But today, January 18, 2026, the destruction of our republic, committed by fascist wannabes, continues. If you have doubts about that, check with anyone in Minneapolis. Or Portland. Or New Jersey. Or Chicago. Or .  .  .
.
The symbolism of this dream must be made real.
.
Trump, in his manipulations, his money and power grabs and his mania to out-Putin Putin; in his inept, incompetent and criminal lieutenants who wield their power with the glee of imbecilic sociopaths; his Gestapo attacks, beatings, jailings and murders carried on with impunity and immunity – it’s all a package designed to drive us to despair and to make us succumb to Trump’s destruction of our democracy so that he can be our all powerful dictator. We must not – we cannot let that happen. Our job is to make this democracy dream come true.
.
The antidote to despair is action.

Take action!

________________________________________

* Many thanks go to Daniel Holt, Associate Historian, US Senate Historical Office for his help in identifying the gentlemen represented by the statues on either side of the east fireplace.

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    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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

An Update – With Questions


POST 1249

ICE Murders

Intending no disrespect, Renee Nicole Good is still dead. That’s the way it is when an ICE thug shoots someone in the face or shoots them pretty much anywhere else. It isn’t a movie and the actors don’t get to go home. Renee Nicole Good is and will remain dead and her children will remain orphans.

That was said to make it clear that she isn’t a statistic or an avatar. She was a real person just like you and me and now she’s dead because of ICE brutality directed by Donald “Shaky Brain” Trump, Stephen “Goebbels” Miller, Christi “Puppy Killer with a Rolex” Noem and Pam “President’s Hit Man” Bondi.

It doesn’t get more real or more permanent than dead, and our titular leaders don’t give a damn about that or anything important to you, like your life, just as they don’t care about Renee Good losing hers.

Two more innocents were gunned down by Border Patrol last week in Portland, OR, so it seems right to do a count of the deaths by our immigration thugs. Here’s what I found from Google AI.

Since January 1, 2017, ICE has reported that 70 people have died in its custody. [Note that we don’t know how many have died in the El Salvador torture prison.]

Independent reports suggest a higher potential number, with a 2024 analysis by the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, and American Oversight finding that 95% of 52 deaths in ICE custody between 2017 and 2021 were potentially preventable with adequate medical care. 
.

A report by The Trace revealed that between 2015 and 2021, 59 shootings by ICE officers resulted in 23 fatalities. [We must have had a lot of domestic terrorist drivers who tried to run down ICE agents in those years.]

More recent reports from late 2025 and early 2026 indicate a notable increase in the use of force.
.
During the current Trump second term, federal immigration agents have shot at civilians at least 16 times, resulting in four deaths and at least seven injuries, according to a data analysis. [all emphasis original]
.
None of the deaths of incarcerated people were of White guys. But most, maybe all, of the deaths of protesters gunned down by ICE were White. Make of that what you will.
Questions

Do you feel safer?

Is our nation safer?

Is it okay for a vigilante quality posse of goons to shoot law abiding people?

Is this the kind of country you expected or want?

Did you vote for this? This question will make a lot of people twist their innards. Guilt is a terrible thing.

More Pesky Questions

Have you noticed that nearly all the Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE – action is happening hundreds to thousands of miles from our borders, where there is no immigration going on?

Can we now stop pretending that what is going on has anything to do with the enforcement of our immigration laws?

Can we now publicly declare that our officially designed domestic terrorism is actually about racial domination in pursuit of White racial purity? You know: like superior Aryan purity?

Playing With Numbers

It’s clear that making this a White Christian nation is a key priority of Trump, MAGA and most super rich guys. So, what would it look like if we removed all those pesky “others”?

We’re already well on the way to expelling all Brown and Black people. People with Somali ancestry are obviously next to be imprisoned and expelled, even though between 70 and 83% of them are U.S. citizens and most others are here legally. But this is the Trump era, so those numbers are no impediment to ICE thuggery.

Muslims, Jews and Asians will likely be next. I have no clue what they’ll do with/to Native Americans. Since Trump likes Andrew Jackson so much, maybe there will be another Trail of Tears that leads to deportation vehicles.

The population of the country is about 348 million, so when we get rid of the 60% of unwelcome non-White, non-Christian “others” the population will be about 139 million.

That leaves me wondering who will do all the jobs that those disappeared people are doing now. What will Trump do with all the vacant rooms in his hotels? What will be our sense of ourselves? Don’t ask me because I won’t make the cut. I’ll be looking for a country to live in.

Three Questions

Who will remove Emma Lazarus’ poem from the base of the Statue of Liberty?

The last line to each stanza of the Star Spangled Banner is “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave,” just as Francis Scott Key wrote it. Who will compose a revised last line that both rhymes and reflects our new and deeply compromised freedom and bravery?

When Trump has Arlington National Cemetery dug up to build the “Nobody has ever seen anything like this” Trump U.S. National Golf Course, what will he do with the 430,000 caskets and headstones of all those “suckers and losers”? How will the caskets and headstones be kept properly paired?

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    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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

People Are Saying


POST 1248

Fascism isn’t coming. It’s here. It isn’t absolute yet, but that’s very close. An administration edict following the ICE murder in Minneapolis tells the story.

The FBI has declared that it and only it will investigate the murder. They have frozen out investgative personnel from the city of Minneapolis, the Hennepin County Sheriff and the state of Minnesota. In other words, Kash Patel, Director of the FBI and supreme Trump supplicant, will be the sole arbiter of all the “facts’. He alone will manipulate them for maximum benefit to Trump and avoidance of all culpability.

But the administration has already declared that 37 year old mother of 3, Renee Nicole Good, was the bad guy and that the ICE thugs acted properly and has complete immunity from any prosecution.

The government, via ICE agent,s is free to murder at their pleasure.
.

Truth and justice will be declared by the totalitarian administration because that’s what happens in authoritarian regimes. That’s what happens when fascists are in charge. And it’s here. Now.

We have precious little time to stop this. Trump has already suggested cancelling our elections in November, elections that will otherwise most likely deliver a Democratic Congress that can stop him. Our only hope for preventing ongoing murders and saving our democracy lies in our actions today.

You must read Steve Schmidt’s post and click through and watch the videos he offers. Schmidt writes,

Democracy is what keeps all of us free from the [Nazi] jackboot.

He’s right, but people have already been kicked by that boot. If you don’t believe it, ask any of the loved ones of the 5 or 6 people murdered by ICE just last week.

People – people who know – are saying that we’re fast running out of time. Our fight must be fought today, tomorrow and on if we are to remain a free people.

Wisdom From Dubya

I bet you never thought you’d read those words here.

Our 43rd president, the one who did and said so many brain-free things, famously asked,

“Is our children learning?“

Watch starting at 0:32.

While it’s obvious that Bush never learned, my question is whether We The People are learning. Can we read the obscene words, written ostentatiously in Sharpie on the walls of government, and the anti-Constitution and anti-truth declarations of the cowardly administration brutes? Do we see what is happening to us, even with this devil in plain sight?

The Fourth Estate

In a stunning editorial, The Washington Post responded to Trump’s invasion and kidnapping in Venezuela in Justice in Venezuela, The next challenge is setting the country up for long-term success, just as though Venezuela is ours to set up in any way we like.

In this newspaper owned by Trump suck-up Jeff Bezos, they celebrated our violations of the the rules based order established largely by the U.S. 80 years ago. They prohibit the violation of national sovereignty, of the strong overpowering the weak. The newspaper muses about how the U.S. will re-order and exploit that country, specifically to divvy up its resources among U.S. petro giants. And it completely fails to address what really happened in this brutal invasion that killed at least 32 Venezuelan military and countless others in the apartment building we bombed. Apparently, The Post supports Vladimir Putin’s notion of justice, where might makes right and that all the horrible things that happen from that are just fine.

They also muse about Secretary of State Marco Rubio becoming Viceroy of Venezuela. How does that sit with you?

The Post seems think this invasion and our “running” that country will be a good thing for us, because Venezuela has the largest deposit of known oil reserves in the world. We’ll just have to enforce our law to make English the official language there.

That is how Jeff Bezos and the now disgraced Washington Post see the world. Clearly, The Washington Post has abdicated its responsibility as part of the Fourth Estate. Kathryn Graham and Ben Bradley would be appalled. So are all the journalists who resigned from there because of all of Bezos’ Trump sucking.

Read Steve Schmidt’s post from Monday and you’ll begin to feel the terrible weight of our circumstances, the great distance we have strayed from what we know is right and good, valorous and honorable. You’ll see how we have become the Great Satan to billions of people around the world through abdication of what we know to be moral, this through official, flagrant dishonesty and through abject incompetence.

There are nowhere near enough thumbs to put in the holes we’ve made in the dyke of righteousness that used to call to the world to ally with us and to charge into harms way with us when necessary, solely in defense of what is right and good.

But our well of goodwill has been befouled. Our former allies are choking on our poison, as they are forced to recognize our decline into becoming an international fascist pariah.

In an X post from Sen. Elissa Slotkin, of all people:

President Trump’s decision to bomb targets in Venezuela, depose Nicolas Maduro, and “run” Venezuela continues the signature trend of his presidency, relentless focus on foreign entanglements and looking tough abroad, to distract from what’s happening to Americans’ pocketbooks.

It’s really to distract from all of his violations of We The People, including the Epstein criminality and Trump’s culpability.

And Yet

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.

– Sen. Edward Kennedy, 1980

It’s hard to read those words today without cynicism clogging our throats. Nevertheless, in these dark times, Kennedy is still right. It’s up to us to keep the dream alive.

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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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

You Knew This Was Coming


POST 1247

ICE thugs have been brutalizing people both verbally and physically for a year. The crowds of protesters have confronted them and have somehow stayed peaceful in the face of ICE brutality and illegality.

Now a mother in Minneapolis is dead at the hands of an ICE agent holding a gun like he thinks he’s Rambo. Trump and his mouthpieces claimed the ICE thug was afraid for his life, but video of the scene puts the lie to that. The real issue, though, is that he should never have been where he was and doing what he was doing.

This is Donald Trump’s Gestapo, crafted by his chief Nazi, Stephen Miller. It is Trump’s national private police, made up of people desperate to feel strong, needing to feel in charge of themselves for once and basking in the glow of receiving a pat on the head from someone in authority. Thanks to megalomaniac Trump these people are unrestrained by law, justice or even simple decency. They are the American SS.

They abuse people who may possibly be guilty of a misdemeanor but likely aren’t, like overstaying a visa. They abuse people born in this country and who are, therefore, citizens of the U.S. by order of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. They abuse legal residents, like visiting nurses and college students. But all of these people are treated by ICE like they’re heinous criminals who have been convicted of the most terrible crimes. Committing offenses against humanity is the ICE marching order. It’s designed to terrify all of us into compliance.

It was just a matter of time before there would be unjustifiable violence*. I mean, really, they recruited thousands of low character men craving some justification for acting out their anger, gave them face masks, uniforms without identification and guns. They put them in black, unmarked vehicles and told them they have quotas to meet and that isolating the right suspects is unimportant. Just lock up bodies. I wonder how many of them are the very same January 6 insurrectionists who are traitors to our country. How many of them do you suppose are Proud Boys or Oath Keepers? Bear in mind that Hitler recruited his Gestapo from prisons and recruited violent criminals.

Oh, and they made these thugs above the law, untouchable and all powerful over state and local officials and law enforcement.

WHAT THE HELL

DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN?

.

This ICE murder in Minneapolis is one of several ICE murders – two more in Portland yesterday. And you know that Trump, Miller and Noem all lied about the Minneapolis murder in less than an hour. They lie reflexively, automatically, pathologically – and they will call this and any other violence a reason to send our military to Democratic (blue) cities to enforce martial law. You know that they’ll call for yet more brutal actions and they will spew yet more vile lies about law abiding people – like your neighbors or even you.

With the invasion of a sovereign nation and the kidnapping of its president; the lionization and pardoning of January 6 terrorist insurrectionists, calling them heroes and patriots; with the justice-free Department of Justice; most especially with the astonishing cowardice of the Republicans in Congress; with the six extremist Justices of the sycophantic Supreme Court; Trump hopes he will have redirected us away from the Epstein matter so that we won’t find out about the crimes he committed and he’ll thereby escape accountability.

But we won’t forget the violation of those little girls. We won’t allow them to be abandoned again. And we won’t allow justice to be perverted for the benefit of rich perverts.

See Andy Borowitz’s 9 second read about Minneapolis.

And if you want clarity about what is happening to America and Americans, see Rick Wilson’s 3-minute read, Stephen Miller’s Murder Machine – Murder and Lies in Minneapolis.

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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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Why Venezuela?


POST 1246

Severe Mental Illness

This pic is small because*

Mary Trump’s book, Too Much and Never Enough, details the background of her severely emotionally damaged and galactically needy Uncle Donny. She knows the details because it is family lore to her. Alas, I’ve heard her speak many times but have not read her book. Nor do I have formal training or credentials as a mental health expert, but why should that stop me from explaining the real story about Venezuela?

We start where Trump started: his daddy didn’t care much about him and paid him no attention, no matter how outrageously he acted. He was left with massive validation deficits and lifelong severe daddy issues.

He was sent to military school in the hope that the discipline there would magically convert this primitive savage into a civilized human being, but that hope was dashed. His school record shows that he was a bully and actually tried to throw a fellow cadet out a window.

He was mentored by his father’s attorney, Roy Cohn, an awful man who aided Joseph McCarthy in his communist witch hunts that ruined countless lives.

From Google AI:

.  .  .  Roy Cohn was Donald Trump’s fiercely loyal mentor, trusted advisor, and surrogate father figure, teaching [Trump] ruthless tactics for business and media manipulation;

So, Trump found a daddy to give him attention and who taught him world class manipulation. Cohn taught him to never apologize for anything and to never admit making an error. He taught Trump to always double down and attack. Trump was a good student of Cohn’s lessons in cruelty, as the past 10 years attest.

Of course, you’ve observed his excessive need for adulation, including those disgusting, fawning Cabinet meetings. You’ve seen his inability to remain focused, his need to constantly attack others and much more mentally unstable stuff. In fact, he just attacked a sovereign nation and brought charges against its president that are laughably amateurish. And that leads to the reasons for that invasion and kidnapping.

You may recognize the pic to the left, as it was published in the Disambiguation last Sunday as The Onion used it. Trump does this show off pose for his executive orders, so I proposed that because his actions are so blatantly an infantile lurch for attention, the proper caption for the picture is, “Look! Look! I made a boom-boom!“. It’s a piece of his lifelong mania of craving attention, which brings us to Venezuela.

Little Donny had his sycophantic, brain-free bumblers cobble together a massive invasion force. They bombed an apartment building, destroyed infrastructure in Caracas and killed what’s estimated to be 32 members of the Venezuelan military and an unknown number of innocent civilians, all to kidnap the president of that country and his wife.

Trump has admitted repeatedly that the invasion was about securing Venezuelan oil. He’s going to sic our big petro companies on the country and its oil fields, they’ll rebuild oil pumping infrastructure and everyone will make a lot of money. Which is a load of horse pucky, because the petro guys don’t want the opportunity to spend billions of dollars in such an unsure venture. They were burned badly doing that years ago, plus the price of oil is so low that it’s uneconomical to pump it at all.

Trump hasn’t even mentioned drug smuggling as a motivation for his cruelty heaped on Venezuela, which is sensible, since most illicit drugs shipped from Venezuela go to Europe, not to the U.S. Plus, he had already pardoned Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who had shipped over 400 tons of cocaine and illegal weapons into the U.S. After that outrageous pardon, it’s hard for Trump to claim he’s tough on the illegal drug trade.

He’s already rattling his sabre at neighboring Columbia and Cuba and threatening to buy Greenland or just take it from Denmark.

That is a map of Greenland overlaid by the red, white and blue, captioned, “SOON”. It’s from the wife of American chief Nazi Stephen Miller. It was posted Saturday on X after our invasion of Venezuela. Not surprisingly, the Danes, who own Greenland, don’t like it.

So, now we’re down to the real reasons for Trump’s invasion and kidnapping of the head of a country.

His messages and his actions couldn’t be clearer: he’s demonstrating that he’s so powerful that he can do anything, he can dominate anyone, that he has no need to be truthful or obey the law and that he can intimidate everyone. Said another way, his message is,

Look! Look! I’m so special! I’m so powerful!
Look at the impressive things I’ve done, Daddy!
Now for sure you’ll love me!
.

But Daddy will never love him. Never.

Nothing will ever be enough for Trump and he doesn’t care how many people he harms in his quest for what he cannot have, including the 32+ he just killed in Venezuela and the over 100 he blew up in their small boats; including the people he bombed in Nigeria and Syria; including the people victimized by Trump’s Gestapo, our unaccountable ICE thugs. He loves fascism for its gift of absolute power. There’s no need for him to consider other people, because he can just run over them, and even whole countries.

From Rick Wilson, Venezuela is the Iraq of Vietnams, The Easy Part Is Over:

Snatching the bad guy is the easy part.

The hard part is what happens next: when the cameras leave, when the speeches fade, and when reality shows up with the butcher’s bill.

And this is where the danger starts, because the Trump administration is built to win news cycles, not outcomes.

Be clear that winning news cycles is solely about “Look at me!”

Trump is locked in his constant parade of ever-expanding, ever more outrageous actions to gain attention and approval that he didn’t get and will never get from Daddy.

About the Fascism Part

From Steve Sheffey:

Here’s a “Clip from the 1942 Spencer [Tracy] / [Katherine] Hepburn film Keeper of the Flame that could have been filmed today.”

The film’s message of lawlessness, domination and crushing cruelty is frighteningly familiar.

At the time of this film we were fighting fascism and fascists and between 50 – 85 million people died. We had our democracy wits about us then. We won the fight and saved our democracy and made democracy available to all who wanted it. We need those same wits about us again to once more fight fascists, except this time we have to fight them here in America.

All because Trump has gigantic daddy issues.

And that’s why we invaded Venezuela. Or maybe it was a practice run for invading Cuba, as Lawrence O’Donnell posited last night. Regardless, it’s all about daddy issues.

For further context and some actual reality in this fabricated, Trump-led awful fantasy that darkens our skies every day, read Heather Cox Richardson’s January 6 post. Who but a mentally and emotionally compromised person would do all that harm?

___________________________________________

* This pic is small because I can’t stand looking at that crepe’s face and because he’s such a small, insignificant person. He knows it and he’s terrified that you’ll figure that out.

  • Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Doing “Things”


POST 1245

Preface: Nearly all of this post was written prior to the American invasion and kidnapping done in Venezuela yesterday. Consequently, there are just a few comments about that particular dog wagging and lawbreaking included here. We will do a deeper dive soon. Meanwhile, keep your eye on the prize.

Click me for the story by The Onion. My preferred caption for all of the posed pictures of Trump signing an executive order is, “Look! Look! I made a boom-boom!”

We the People are an endlessly clever and creative band and we relentlessly ridicule those who have earned and richly deserve our contempt and shaming. The year just past provided non-stop material for satire and verbal punches in the nose to our national abusers of decency, the law, the Constitution and even rational thinking. A few favorites are sprinkled in this post.

First, though, please accept my thanks for reading these posts and sometimes commenting on them. We all can do our part in this war to stop fascism, to protect and defend our Constitution, our democracy and our way of life and to restore decency to its place at the forefront of our cherished values. These posts are part of my modest effort to do just that. Indeed, when you see a message in these posts encouraging you to share them and to encourage others to subscribe (one more time: it is still and will remain a freebie!) it’s for the purpose of stretching the reach of the message from those of us who think democracy is a pretty good thing worthy of our collective moral muscle, to those who need our encouragement.

This particular post is less my words than direction to the brilliance of others. We start with the year end post of Prof. Heather Cox Richardson.

Click me

She brings context and points a finger at the guilty responsible for so many deeply destructive, anti-Constitutional and outright illegal things that have happened since January 20. Most examples are blood boilers, preludes to full-on fascism, but some really good stuff happened, too, like judicial decisions that pinned Trump’s ears back. Those are fun.

Many commentaries are persuasive, yet most often we’re left not knowing what to do to make the change we want to come about. Turns out some people can help fill that “huh?” hole.

For example, Robert Reich published 10 Crucial Things You Can Do in 2026 and it’s a really good list. You’ll know how to do every one of those “things”.

Here’s one of my “things”.

Are you on the fence about mean girl puppy murderer and poser in front of men illegally jammed into a torture prison at her direction, Christie Noem? Should she be removed from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security?

First, Watch this little video of Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (IL-3) as she skewers Noem by detailing her lies, her law breaking and her joyful cruelty. Then decide a proper fate for her.

Next, call your representative and senators and demand that they oust this talent-less Eva Braun by means of a humiliating impeachment. That’s a “thing” you can do.

Now Some Bitter, Well-Earned Congratulations:

Watch and listen to Jesse Welles’ message about recruiting ICE thugs. If you want more to make you think, click here.

– to the many millions of Americans who voted for Trump and who have lost their Obamacare subsidy so that their healthcare insurance now costs more than double what it cost last week. That will make it completely impossible for millions to get insurance at all and they will be relegated like so many to only the hospital emergency room for healthcare, including for their children. Millions of them live in red states and they didn’t vote for this to happen.

– to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and legal residents who have been unjustly thrown to the ground, handcuffed, their faces mashed into the pavement, thrown into unmarked vans and either imprisoned or deported, all without an arrest warrant or even reasonable suspicion of any wrongdoing. It sucks to be an American with fascists in power and only the sociopaths voted for this.

– to the millions of kids who now go hungry because of the cruel withholding of SNAP benefits, a huge proportion of which used to go to families in red states. Again, they voted for Trump, but they didn’t vote for this to happen.

Grifting with Jesus

– to all the dozens of Venezuelans who have been illegally murdered at sea and now on land, but who were never formally accused of, incarcerated for, convicted of or sentenced for any crime.

– to all of us for our windfall benefit created by Trump’s piracy at sea of at least two oil super tankers filled with Venezuelan oil.

– to the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have died of starvation or lack of inexpensive medicines because Trump ended the USAID program.

– to all of us for the blatant crushing under heel of the First Amendment on Christmas day by Trump and various departments of what’s left of our government. “If lawmakers could destroy the right of freedom of conscience, they could destroy all other unalienable rights. Those in charge of government could throw representative government out the window and make themselves tyrants.” Read Heather Cox Richardson for this sad story.

Maybe you’d prefer an upside down Bible from the steps of St. John’s Church.

– to the terrorist cult of MAGA for its cheering Trump auctioning off a hastily painted Jesus, where he announced through his actions yet again that there is no bottom. There is nothing so undignified, so clownishly demeaning of our country that Trump will refuse the opportunity to grab it by its septic tank and tarnish our nation before the world.

– to Merrick Garland and his timid DOJ for epic, even galactic foot dragging, thereby refusing to enforce our laws. That allowed Trump to run in and win the 2024 election. See William A. Finnegan’s take down of what happened. This story will gnarl your innards yet again over the DOJ cowardice that enabled the current, ongoing destruction of our Constitution and blatant lawlessness, every bit as much as our lap dog Republican Congress has enabled that through the same cowardice.

Yes, really

– to the people of Venezuela for losing their country to Donald Trump. He’s made it clear that he admires and wants to be like Vladimir Putin, invading a sovereign nation, bombing facilities and killing its citizens. Trump has gone even farther by kidnapping its leader. Now he’s just like Putin. Maybe worse.

NOTE: Don’t be distracted. This invasion and kidnapping have nothing to do with drugs, democracy, elections or how bad or how illegitimate is Maduro as president of Venezuela. It is about the massive reserves of oil beneath that country and what that’s worth to Trump. That’s why we’ll “run the country.” Plus it’s a first step toward domination of all of South America and maybe Greenland, because Trump desperately needs to show what a strongman he is.

– finally, congratulations to us, for our dog being wagged relentlessly by yet another illegal Trump military distraction. But We The People will not let the Epstein scandal go away and Trump will get what he is due.

You know that this congratulatory list could be very long and you understand the sarcasm. You get that we cannot – we must not – tolerate more of this, which means that you and I must take action because our dire circumstances have become worse. Whatever you and I are doing, it isn’t enough. This is a great and lasting task before us. But, what to do? Try this to jump start your engine:

  • I can’t vouch for the claimed connection to anyone named Van Gogh, but the message is clear and compelling. There is a blank page before us waiting for what’s next in our story of democracy and it is our honor to write that story.

I repeat: Whatever you and I are doing, it isn’t enough. But we can do “things” and keep on doing “things”.

Many, many thanks to all who step up, do “things” and carry a load for the sake of all of us.

  • Goes fast, doesn’t it?

    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!), because 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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

A New Year Wish For You


POST 1244

A long time ago, yet not seeming to be so long past, Marilyn and I married. Without planning to do so, we began traditions of our own, not quite like hers and not quite like mine.

Our children, grandchildren and more gather every year and one thing we do is to plan a family philanthropy project. That, of course, is an opportunity to reach beyond ourselves and be of service to others, as well as being a good and fundamental teaching for the young ‘uns and even a good reminder for the old ‘uns.

And we do a holiday talent show, with everyone getting their very own time to shine, 3 minutes to entertain us all with dancing, singing, a magic trick, showing a complex, hands-on project – whatever each of us chooses to show and tell. It’s great fun, with lots of laughs and high energy applause and cheering.

This year a grandson sang Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and I heard the song in a way that was different and far more valuable than before. Here’s the lyric that changed things for me:

Through the years
We all will be together
If the fates allow

But the fates don’t always allow. They may for a while, but they likely will have things in store for us that we cannot or will not see, until at last we can no longer avoid the reality that we will not always be together. We are left to deal with the absences.

All religions have their holy things, their holy rituals, their holy incantations and their divines. But this year our grandson led me to something holy that might have been obvious long ago, but I got it clearly and in full measure just now.

To me what is most valuable, most enduring to the heart and most dear and holy is my family, together. That’s holy.

And so I wish you not just a happy new year, but a holy one, wherever you find holy, perhaps with your dear ones, whether they are near or far.

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Year End – Part Two


POST 1243

The Terrible Truth

The DOJ, led by fearless suck ups Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche, has complied with about one smidgenth of what is required of them by law. Legislation demands that they turn over to Congress all – as in: ALL – files, documents, images, video recordings and the rest of the material in its possession related to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes, not later than midnight, December 19. Instead they turned over just a small fraction of the materials, saying they’d dribble out more over the next weeks.

In addition, they redacted documents so heavily that there is page after page with nothing but a solid black mask. The redactions were supposed to be used only to protect the names of the over 1,200 victims of child sex trafficking and rape and to protect national security, in the imaginary instance that such protection were necessary. Instead what Congress and We The People received was an extensive exercise in the use of black ink, likely protecting those who deserve no protection. Worse, our corrupt DOJ exposed the names of many of the victims of those horrible abuses.

We are left to realize that any evidence of wrongdoing by Trump and those he wants to protect (read: donors, rich supplicants and political power suppliers) will suddenly vanish – POOF! – just like the text on those wholly redacted pages.

TOL’ Ya So

I told you this was going to happen and it took no clairvoyance to figure that out, because dishonest, illegal and morally corrupt is what Trump and his fawners do. Expect many months of stalling and lies waiting for the required documentation. And expect evidence of wrongdoing by big fish to somehow be “lost.” But something deeper is showing itself.

Given the disparity of the obscene tormenting by ICE and the Department of Justice of everyone who looks even a little Hispanic and the special rules that continue to enrich the already rich and the faux release of Epstein documents, we now have our perfect polar opposites richly displayed. Together they illustrate what we all know is the terrible truth:

  • There is a special version of justice
  • for the rich and powerful
  • and a very different and cruel version of it
  • for the rest of us.
Humans

Rodney King:

“Can’t we all just get along?” *

Me:

No. It’s not even a remote possibility.

You:

Why not?

Me:

Because some people are maniacal about dominating others. Fight them and there is literally or figuratively blood in the streets. Or if you go along to get along with the power Nazis, that will mean surrender and submission. Loss of your autonomy. Life as a door mat.

Some other guy:

But most major religions – that’s where we commonly turn for moral guidance – talk about some version of wolves living with the lamb and the leopard lying down with the kid and the calf lying with the young lion – Isaiah 11:6.

Me:

Right. But the actual outcome of that co-habitation is well fed wolves, leopards and lions. It’s the same kind of contradiction with beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks – Isaiah 2:4. There will always be bad guys and we better have more than fanciful wishes and bits of messianic philosophy for dealing with them.

Democrats are beginning to go on the offensive against the domination brutes and the freedom thieves, like taking the reins to drive the Epstein investigation. We are hearing from people with stiffened spines. Maybe we’re seeing the beginnings of hope.

See footnote ** below

Here’s an accurate, if hand-wringing, description from Bret Stephens about the orange menace to the world:

— what more is there to say about the character of this petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man? — sometimes the point bears stressing: We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House.

And from Steven Beschloss

No matter how long I live after we get through this dark chapter, I will never get over the immorality, the amorality, the corruption, the criminality and the cruelty in service to one of the worst humans to ever walk the earth.

Key Learning

That is our starting point.
.

There will be a ton of work to do and it is going to take over a generation to fix what loathsome Trump has broken and to establish a new national ethos worthy of a democracy. A key question for all of us is whether we have the grit to stay that course. That won’t be easy in a country where instant gratification isn’t fast enough. Nevertheless, keep the faith and do the work, because it falls to us to fix this.

Finally, Ending the Year Like An Odd Animal

President Donald Trump continues to wag the dog to distract us from the Epstein trafficking and pedophilia and his cover-up. Here are some of those wags.

  1. Last week Trump had our mighty military send deadly rockets into northwest Nigeria. He said it was to attack ISIS because they were killing Christians. That looked so very satisfyingly protective of Christianity until the leader of Nigeria said that ISIS brutality wasn’t focused on Christians.
  2. Then he attacked Syria the same way and with the same lame excuse.
  3. Last week Trump also pirated another Venezuelan oil tanker and threatened to steal a third.
  4. Even as courts have slapped his hand he’s ramped up recruiting and training of new ICE agents. He promised yet more bonuses to them to induce more thugs to join and pretend to fight the few criminals they can find. Plus get them to imprison and rendition people who are here legally, including U.S. citizens.

Watch for more tails wagging the dog – they’re on the way. Woof.

_______________________________________________

* King is commonly quoted as having said that, but what he actually said was, “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?”

King said that during the 1972 riots in LA, this from a guy whose Wikipedia entry begins, “Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) was an American victim of police brutality. On March 3, 1991, he was severely beaten by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department . . . ” That’s how the lambs, leopards and lions thing worked for him. Even so, he called for peace. If you need a dose of injustice outrage, read the Wikipedia entry of how he was brutalized. If you want to hear about a guy with class, you’ll get that from that Wikipedia entry, too.

Note that the Los Angeles riots were triggered by the police officers being found not guilty for beating the snot out of King. We humans don’t respond well to such injustice, so people spoke out in the only way they would be heard.

Come to think of it, those LA cops kicked and beat King as he lay on the pavement, even as he posed no threat to anyone. That sounds a lot like today’s ICE agents, our American Gestapo. It also sounds like our Defense Department dealing with shipwrecked survivors.

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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 necessarily 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, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Wrong Side of the Bed


POST 1242

 

NOTE: This post started as “Wrong Side Of The Bed” but somewhere in the process of editing it became clear that it actually was “Year End – Part One” but the change didn’t stick in the composing machine. You’ll have to imagine the correct title yourself.

Coming Attractions

The next Democratic (and democratic) president will spend a significant portion of his/her time reversing Trump actions.

  1. How ’bout an elegant evening at the Trump-Kennedy Center? No worries. Trump is just a mongrel dog that has to piss on every fire hydrant and tree and put his name on every building. The Trump name will be erased from the Center, the entryway to the facility will be sanitized and his hand picked, suck up Board Members will be fired, all on Day One. In fact, Trump’s name will be removed from every federal building in the nation. To get a better understanding of how ferociously, psychotically rabid Trump is, see these links from Mother Jones:
  2. We think that the rule of law is a good thing, even as it is under such relentless attack. Again, no worries. The new president will see that the perps doing illegal and un-constitutional things today will be introduced to the defendant’s table in courtrooms across the land.
  3. The new president will issue dozens of executive orders on Day One to reverse nearly everything Trump has done by executive order. The rest of his lawlessness will be challenged and reversed in court.
  4. Trump’s cheap gold glitter will be removed from every part of the White House. If the preposterous ballroom is still under construction, all the glitter will be removed and orders for more will be cancelled. A new use will be found for the building. Maybe for a Boys and Girls Clubs activity center, or housing for homeless vets, or a food bank for needy people.
  5. The snarky, whiny plaques Trump put beneath the portraits of past presidents will be replaced by the simple ones that had been beneath them – the ones that show only their names and dates of service.
  6. The portrait of Trump will be turned around so that it faces the wall.
  7. The next Democratic president will end our illegal, murderous attacks on land and sea and will visit our allies to reassert our commitment to our mutual support and partnership. If the  Russian war on Ukraine is still underway, we will ship massive armaments to Ukraine that can reach into Russia as far as necessary to force Russia to retreat in surrender.
  8. There will be renewed support for the things a large majority of us want, like: Medicare for All: sensible gun safety legislation: tax policy that serves all the people, not just the uber-wealthy; safe and legal abortion; support for fighting climate warming* and scientific research; and making higher education affordable. Our faithful federal workers will be rehired and will restart their efforts to protect us and our Constitution and much more.
  9. The new president will denounce Trump for his efforts to end birthright citizenship, a right that is articulated plainly and clearly in the 14th Amendment.** Similarly, he will excoriate the Supreme Court for having agreed to hear Trump’s case that is an effort to end run that Amendment. New Pres will recommend disbarment of all Trump lawyers who tried to end that right. They will be required to have a copy of the Constitution on their person at all times and all of them will have “XIV” tattooed on the back of each hand.
  10. Serious efforts will be made to make public the horrors of the Epstein cruelty and the criminality of his “guests,” but the new AG will find Pam Bondi’s desk and files empty and her hard drive will have been scrubbed. Have low expectations here.
  11. The Epstein cover up story will not go away. Neither will our resolve to support the victims who were so cruelly abused, some unable to even survive. The next Democratic/democratic president will stand with us to stand by these women. They will at last get the justice and a chance for relief from their suffering. Furthermore, we will not stand by and allow the perpetrators of those horrible crimes to continue to get away with their criminal cruelty. They will receive all the justice they deserve.

You get the idea. America will once again do what is right.

Finally, In This Season of Regaining Light

This is for all the big, tough bullies who beat up defenseless people.

Don’t forget:

The little people are as big as you are.

Whoever you are. – Tom Waits

For those who have at least a little understanding of the meaning of at least one end-of-year holiday (i.e. they know these celebrations aren’t about buying perfume, jewelry or a new car),

wishing you happy holidays and a request for us all to be good to one another.

_________________________________________________

* Climate warming deniers and the insatiable conspiracy mongers and the frothing dark web bobble heads will be required to get a brain MRI yearly and “ace” a cognitive test. They will have to wear a GPS signaling mouth monitor so that we’re alerted when they claim global warming is a hoax. Actually, they are the hoax.

** If Trump can end birthright citizenship, what’s to stop him from ending habeas corpus, free speech, protection from cruel and unusual punishment and the right to vote? What will stop him from restoring slavery?

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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