21st Century

A Thousand Failures


POST 1307

 

 

Thanks For Protecting Our Elections

In a major crackdown on illegal voting, our Kash Patel-led FBI revealed that they had uncovered seven (7) legal resident non-citizens who voted in Texas in 2024. They arrested and charged the seven in a “sweeping federal election integrity operation.”

From The Onion, of course.

That’s right: Our proud FBI posse netted 7 bad guy voters from a sea of 11,000,000 votes cast in Texas in 2024.

Kudos to the dedicated geniuses at the DOJ for deploying all of that specialty talent in this “sweeping federal election integrity operation” to end this massive voter fraud. We wouldn’t want our Justice Department people to waste time pursuing small stuff, like:

the thousands of Epstein sex traffickers and abusers, including the creeps who raped little girls

governmental insider trading

no-bid contracts awarded by the President

our illegal and unwinnable war in Iran which has not been authorized by Congress (see Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution)

$BILLIONS in violations of the Constitution’s  Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause

contempt of court and contempt of Congress

the illegal invasion of Venezuela, the kidnapping of its president and the theft of its oil, its oil money and its gold

numerous assaults on the Constitution.

We all know that any of that would be a “sweeping” waste of DOJ time and talent.

So, DOJ, thanks for protecting our elections from the illegal 0.00000636% of votes cast in Texas in 2024. That’s one in every 1.6 million votes. If that rate of fraud happened nationally, there would have been ninety-five (95) illegal votes out of over 152,000,000 total votes cast!

We’re all breathing easier now.

Footnote To The Remembrances and Honorings on 9/11

Source: (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

In Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter From an American on September 11, 2026 she quotes from The Amazing Spider-Man, volume 2, number 36, published on November 14, 2001 (read it here). The key question is asked,

How, in a city that hundreds of superheroes call home, were those superheroes powerless to stop the 9/11 attacks?

“The sane world will always be vulnerable to madmen,” Spider-Man answers when a devastated couple fleeing from the devastation challenges him, “because we cannot go where they go to conceive of such things. We could not see it coming. We could not be here before it happened. We could not stop it.

“But we are here now. You cannot see us for the dust, but we are here. You cannot hear us for the cries, but we are here.”

But the superheroes Spider-Man identified in the chaos did not wear capes. They wore hats that said “FDNY” and “FEMA” and “POLICE.” The “true heroes,” Spider-Man said, were those ordinary people who ran back into the buildings to rescue others waiting in the dark, who joined together to storm the cockpit of a hijacked airplane and bring it down to the ground before it could hit the Capitol or White House, and who helped each other to safety or to face the terror.

They were ordinary men and women “made extraordinary by acts of compassion, and courage, and terrible sacrifice,” and who rejected “the self-serving proclamations of holy warriors of every stripe.”

These and others are the people the President and the Secretary of Defense dishonor and waste with their stupidity, their vacuous bluster, their failures and their consequences that come to be inflicted upon the American people. They are the losses these leaders call “small potatoes.” Our extraordinary people are the ones who will again and again fight in our battles, some of which would never come about were there competent leadership.

We the People are the ones being made far more vulnerable to terrorist attacks by the bottomless ineptitude of Trump’s mania for performance over competence. We ignore the reality at our terrible peril.

Crank up the volume and click the pic

Nevertheless, we always, always, always honor our ordinary people, “made extraordinary by acts of compassion, and courage, and terrible sacrifice.”

IMPORTANT HISTORICAL NOTE: Spider-Man says, “.  .  .  we cannot go where they go to conceive of such things. We could not see it coming. We could not be here before it happened. We could not stop it.”

But we could have stopped 9/11. Our intelligence people warned of imminent attacks by al Qaeda and George W. Bush and his top people both ignored the warnings and lied to us about the threats and the results. That includes Bush, V.P Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Link through and read about it. The warning detailed in that report wasn’t the only briefing Bush and his national security team received about attacks on the U.S., but they ignored the warnings.

And we got 9/11.

Click me – and play the video under “What Cait is fighting for”

This Election Is About

Each Sunday through the last one before the November 3 election we’ll post what you or pundits or candidates say this election is about. Cait Conley, Democratic candidate for New York’s 17th District (Hudson River Valley), West Point graduate, Special Ops leader, decorated combat veteran and national security expert,  says:*

The #1 issue is affordability.

Put your idea about this election in the Comments section below to help us all to see clearly the key motivating issues for We The People. It’s about doing what the title of Rachel Bitecofer’s book instructs:

Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts

You tell us where that is.

Special Notice For Northbrook Residents

The Meadow Plaza  shopping center in downtown Northbrook has been sold to Pulte Homes.

They plan to erect 5 or 6 story condos on the property. Big buildings in the village (not city) of Northbrook. There are new zoning variations largely unknown to the public that would allow this major transformation of the village. Watch here and here for full information.

There is a public hearing about this issue set for Tuesday, October 6 at 6:00PM at the Techny Activity Center. If you care about the vibe, the congestion and the entire flavor of the village, be there.

  • _______________________________________________

* “The politicians who created this mess are not going to be the ones who fix it. How do you tolerate what’s being done to our country? The answer is: you don’t.“

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Integrity, Trump Style


POST 1306

“Cheat Like Hell”

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At Trump’s Loser-Palooza in a half-empty stadium two weeks ago he spoke to the Republican National Convention crowd saying:

“We want honesty in our elections. We want honesty in our country,” Immediately after declaring that, Trump led his MAGAs in a pledge.

“Please raise your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it any way. I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters. I don’t care. I am gonna go out and I’m gonna get my friends, my family and we are going go out and vote on November third or we are going to vote before that.”

I don’t suppose anyone in that crowd of sheeple people (those who follow like ignorant, unthinking sheep) noticed that first he invoked principle and uprightness. Then he directed them to “cheat like hell.” That should be shocking, but it’s just more contorted Trump inside-out integrity crushing. It’s no surprise to anyone listening, least of all to his sheeple, who surely don’t even notice it.

I also don’t imagine that anyone in that crowd would dispute his claim of being the “greatest president in the history of the United States,” as to do so would have required them to have cracked a history book at some time in their likely long forgotten past.

Connecting Dots

From Tom Nichols’ piece in The Atlantic:, Trump Has It Out For Canada:

.  .  .  Trump’s attitude toward Canada is almost indistinguishable from the way Russian President Vladimir Putin sees Ukraine: not as a state but as some kind of historical anomaly that should be returned to its rightful owners. Trump might think it’s funny to post memes of Canada with an American flag superimposed on it, but those jokes are a lot less hilarious to people in places such as Ukraine, who are fighting a war against a dictator who feels exactly the same way about their country.

More assault on integrity.

The Dog That Has To Pee Highest On Every Fire Hydrant

The Trump hand-picked directors of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Board voted to close the center for “renovations” that will continue until Trump gets his name placed on the front of the building again. It’s odd how the schedule for “renovations” is affected by serving Trump’s vanity.

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper refused to allow that illegal renaming act to occur. Trump was so miffed (feel free to use your own descriptor) that he posted on social media that without his name going onto the building, “.  .  . unfortunately, the Building is destined to doom. Isn’t that too bad?” Allow me to translate.

Mafia Don is saying, “Nice little place you got here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.” That’s extortion, pure and ugly.

Such is the focus of attention and the infinite pettiness of the President of the United States. That is the kind of focus on his ego frivolities and abdication of serious responsibilities that adds impetus to Canada disengaging from the U.S. and establishing stronger ties with the European Union and elsewhere. It encourages Russia to destroy Ukraine. It tells the world that America is a wholly unreliable country focused solely on presidential vanity. It tells the world that we have no integrity, that we can’t be counted on.

Our national pettiness, cruelty and unreliability are what will greatly help this to become the Chinese century. It will make America not much more than a dope on the sidelines of history being made by dependable nations.

Keep that in mind when AI takes our jobs, sabotages our utilities and unleashes diseases on our wholly unprepared citizenry. Like all the important things that don’t immediately massage Trump’s fragile and infinitely needy ego, all he did was to say stupid things about AI, boast of his genius and ignore the looming catastrophe.

  • “To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature.”
  • George Conway, The Bulwark
  • Best Read For A Fuller Perspective On Our Demise 
  • Read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American of September 16, 2026. It will give you more clarity about how Trump is hobbling our country.
  • What she doesn’t say is that even as Trump has made himself abhorrent to nearly 2/3 of our citizens, even as he has made himself and the United States of America international pariahs, most of the Republicans in Congress continue to sit in their cowardly supplication to him. So have Google, Apple, TV networks and some universities and law firms. This cowardice and supplication are how tyranny wins. It’s yet more abdication of integrity.
  • This Just In
  • On Friday, September 18 President Donald Trump announced via a post on his so-called Truth Social that representatives from CNN, MS-NOW and Politico are banned from the White House. His view has been widely denounced as a violation of the First Amendment, but Trump’s response was, “Who cares? They’re all stupid and terrible people.”

Later he posted that he didn’t feel his ban was wide enough and should be extended to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. We are left to wonder if he will also ban representatives like Punxsutawney Phil’s press secretary, journalists from Friends of the Chicago River, reporters from Iran’s Ayatollah News, all Canadian journalists and, most specifically, all communications personnel from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office.

New Feature: This Election Is About

Each Sunday through the last one before the November 3 election we’ll post what you or pundits or candidates say this election is about. I’ll get this started, saying:

This election is about the lives of We The People.

Put your idea about this election in the Comments section below. We’ll post samplings of how readers see this, so indicate if you want your name appended to your comment.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Continuing Centuries of Repression


POST 1305

For The Glory Of Rigging The Vote

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Regular readers of these Disambiguations may recall numerous references to Paul Weyrich (here and in other posts). He’s the Republican who decades ago declared proudly and openly that he didn’t want all eligible voters to vote. He said that  if they did Republicans couldn’t win. Somehow for him and many others, that describes a conservative. You decide what it is they want to conserve.

He wasn’t the first in America to suppress the voting rights of others. Surely, the earliest dishonor belongs to White slave owners. Even after slavery was constitutionally, if not actually, abolished, Blacks were prevented from voting by means of poll taxes, rigged jelly bean counts, rigged literacy tests, by violent intimidation and by outright murder.

Even the Founders wanted only landed White men to vote. In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams famously urged her husband, John Adams, to “remember the ladies” in the Articles of Confederation then being written. She noted that women would not hold themselves bound by laws in which they had no voice or representation.* It was the equivalent of a “no taxation without representation” statement the Founders should have understood. John Adams ignored her appeals and women gained no voting agency. It took until 1920 for Americans to realize that women were full citizens and that they deserved the full rights attendant to that. Even so, the rich boys domination club didn’t go away.

In recent decades the effort to suppress votes has taken on some clever twists. Republicans have jiggered voting district borders to minimize representation of non-Whites, like in South Carolina, where 25% of the people are Black. There are 9 congressional districts in that state but there is only one Black representative, just 11% representation.

Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts governor in 1812, showed us the successfully self-serving way to manipulate district borders and was immortalized when his scheming was dubbed “gerrymandering.” He’d be so proud of today’s Republicans. Read about it at the Brennan Center.

The Supreme Court is a formidable partner in voter suppression, as most recently it green lighted states to rig elections in the Louisiana v. Callais case. That was the last blow needed to crush Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and render it powerless to protect the rights and freedom of all citizens even if they weren’t rich White guys.

Click me

Another favorite voting rights crusher is to remove polling places from where Black, Hispanic and poor people live in order to make it harder for them to vote. In Louisville, KY they removed all ballot drop boxes but two in the downtown area, making it next to impossible for rural people to hand deliver their mail ballots. That’s great for Republicans because those people would otherwise overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

Now we have Trump’s un-constitutional assault on voting by mail. Mail voting is more popular with Democratic voters than Republican voters, so putting Trump’s heel on all voting by mail would result in vote totals more favorable to Republicans. So very cunning of Trump.

Then there’s the selective removal of names from state voter rolls by means of sneaky tricks, like Texas disenfranchising 1,000,000 from their voting roles. Several years ago Ohio claimed to be removing the names of dead citizens from its voter rolls. They mailed envelopes mostly to voters in Black neighborhoods. The citizens were instructed to send the enclosed card back to the state within 10 days or they’d lose their voter registration. Ohio also passed a law that removed a voter if s/he missed a single federal election and the Supreme Court upheld that law. Guess what happened when scores of  those mostly poor and minority infrequent voters showed up to vote in the next election.

Why you can’t get through to a Trump Supporter. Click this pic

And there were the inordinately long lines at polling places in Black neighborhoods – as much as 12 hours on the east, mostly Black side of Cleveland, OH. Those in line to vote were entirely without a bathroom, water or food. Compare that to the maximum 2-hour wait in White neighborhoods of the same state. Well done, Ohio Republican election officials!

Here’s the simple truth. If every citizen of voting age were able to and did vote, very few Republicans would be elected. Paul Weyrich knew that and so do today’s Republicans, so they do everything possible, whether un-constitutional or illegal, to stop people from voting for Democrats. Weyrich laid out the fundamentals of the plan for domination and later generations have used their creativity to expand that, standing on the necks of voters since then.

What remains is that we as a nation are consistently influenced by Republicans to be all about electing and promoting rich guys, White power and domination.

The Trump Demolition Derby

You’ve long known that Trump is a walking, talking scam, fooling some of the people all of the time. Check this out.

Ted Dintersmith gets the checkered flag for his metaphor of Trump running a demolition derby. Click the graphic to see a readable version identifying some of his scams. Here’s a teaser.

Click me

After his long trail of bankruptcies, [Trump’s] fulfilling his dream of being a billionaire. In 2025, he boosted his net worth by a stunning $1.4 billion. He made off with $636 million on a memecoin [sic] while 989,000 buyers lost $3.8 billion. He’s extracted $115 million of personal gain from foreign sources. Toss in a $400 million private jet from Qatar, upgraded at taxpayer expense. All made possible by a complicit Congress and SCOTUS, cheerleaders to his destruction.

The urgent message I see in that is the last sentence:

All made possible by a complicit Congress and SCOTUS, cheerleaders to his destruction.

The complicit Congress part is what we must crush this November 3. Then we’ll be in a position for the Democrats in control of Congress starting on January 3, 2027 to do a Mitch McConnell on impending SCOTUS appointments from Trump or Vance until the the new sheriff comes to town January 20, 2029.

Best Read Of The Week

Read Morgan Freeman’s (yes, that Morgan Freeman) post, The Price of Trump. It’s a full view reminder of the bill we pay for Trump’s demolition of our democracy. Hint: However costly you think it is, it’s worse than that.

___________________________________________

* See especially the final two paragraphs of Abigail Adams’ letter.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

I Don’t Get It


POST 1300

Via a quick AI search I found that Trump and his brain-free and dishonestly named (it never was about efficiency) DOGE chainsaw hackers mangled America like this:

ο Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Cut roughly 20,000 positions, slashed $4 billion in medical research funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and saw major workforce reductions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alongside significant cuts to Administration for Children and Families programs. [1, 2]

Wait: Drastically reduced medical research means fewer cures for the things that hobble and kill us. Slashing the CDC means leaving us vulnerable to the next pandemic. Cuts to children and family programs leaves millions medically adrift. That’s efficiency?

ο Department of Education: Slashing nearly $900 million through the cancellation of 89 independent research contracts under the Institute of Education Sciences. [1]

Wait: Cutting research contracts will leave us more ignorant and unready to compete in anything, anywhere.

ο Department of Defense (DOD): Civilian workforce reductions expected to impact up to 8% of personnel (roughly 61,000 employees) alongside numerous contract reviews. [1]

Wait: Aimless slashing leaves us more militarily endangered in a dangerous world.

ο Other Agencies: Widespread layoffs, contract “deobligations” [I guess that’s a word] or survey terminations also hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Homeland Security (specifically the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties), and the U.S. Census Bureau. [1, 2]

Wait: Cutting those agencies leaves us more vulnerable to storms of ever increasing violence. Slashing the agencies that protect our rights and our elections is a direct assault on our freedom.

Need more to be convinced that Trump is putting us at great risk? Read Trump has been dismantling post-9/11 counterterrorism protections, Senate report says. He’s eviscerating our protections against international bad guys. And that’s supposed to be better for us?

For a clear explanation of the full cost to us of the DOGE massacres, read Why the full cost of Elon Musk’s DOGE is still coming into focus by Hayes Brown

The point of DOGE was claimed to be something about government efficiency. Instead what we’ve done is to cut ourselves off from critical services, leaving our neighbors without healthcare and even without food and allowing over 700,000 to die in other countries. We’ve stifled learning – I guess there’s nothing left to learn, according to our MAGA DOGE-brains – and crippled  individual and national growth and stopped even trying to keep up with the rest of the world. Worse, we are disarming ourselves militarily in a very dangerous world.

About 350,000 federal workers and contractors lost their jobs through the manically celebrated DOGE ready, fire, aim idiocy. That’s a plus, they tell us, unless you were one of those workers who lost their jobs and income or you’re any of the people and businesses the now unemployed used to do business with, like the waitress at the diner who’s lost all that tip income. It’s a total minus if you’ve needed any of the things those folks used to do for us.

Somebody tell me how we’re better off for having sacrificed both our present and our future this way, because I don’t get it. Explain how even the Narcissist-in-Chief benefits (of course, his benefit is his only interest), because he’s screwed his base and knee capped the economy. How does that help him? How does it help any of us to deplete our ability to defend our nation militarily, economically and medically?

On the other hand, Trump’s knee bending buddies are doing just fine, like the oil companies who have raked in a WINDFALL OF 26.5 BILLION IN PROFITS in just the second quarter, as well as the war matériel companies who are making lots more bombs, drones, rockets and profit.

Same kind of question in foreign affairs. Trump has offended our allies, sucked up to opponents and left millions to suffer and die. He started a war from which there doesn’t seem to be even a face saving exit, much less a victory, and neutered our diplomatic corps, replacing them with incompetents. He has an evil clown running the FBI, putting us all at risk. He chopped the IRS so that his rich friends can evade taxes, thereby efficiently dumping yet more debt on us and our progeny. In short, he has vastly and possibly catastrophically weakened our nation.

What will we do when China decides to invade Taiwan? What will we do if Putin decides to nuke Ukraine and invade the Baltic states? What will we do after Saudi Arabia decides to nuke Israel once we’ve given them the ability to do that?

Mark Felt aka Deep Throat.

One more time: Somebody tell me how we’re better off for having sacrificed both our present and our future this way, because I don’t get it. In other words, the “I don’t get it” boils down to asking, “Who’s better off due to our madness of neutering our nation to our existential peril?” Plus, explain how even the Narcissist-in-Chief benefits.

Your answer should include some version of Deep Throat’s clear imperative: Follow the money. Be sure to post your answer in the Comments section below, because, like I said, I don’t get it.

Question for Senators John Cornyn, Tom Tillis and Bill Cassidy

Senators, you were on your way out, career over. You had no need to suck up, but  you sucked anyway. How does it feel to be Trump’s most recent, most public and dumbest dupes?

Best Unmasking of the Week

Perhaps you’ve heard something about David Ellison and his mass grab of Warner Brothers, CNN, et.al.  but you need perspective on the harm to us that is on the way. Some has already arrived, like Bari Weiss having gutted 60 Minutes. Read Marc Ellis’ Open Letter To David Ellison to learn what’s coming.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Policy


POST 1299

Click me

The insightful, prolific and clever singer-songwriter Jesse Welles has done it again: He’s told the truth. Listen to his song, There’s a Hole.

After you’ve heard it, remind yourself that we attacked Iran for no specific reason, fueled by no coherent strategy, we lusted after vague and wandering, inconsistent goals, all entirely without an exit plan. To be fair, there have been great clouds of presidential bluster. How could we have been suckered into that after 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan?

This sounds suspiciously like our idiocy in Vietnam, the very place President Bone Spurs avoided with five fraudulent deferments.

A key difference between then and now is that there was a draft then and kids just out of school were being vacuumed into that Southeast Asia death machine, leading to constant protests in our streets. You know, demonstrations of “.  .  . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” that’s guaranteed to us by the First Amendment. You remember that right, right? President Bone Spurs doesn’t.

The protests weren’t only about the killing and dying: they were also about the stupidity.

There was no specific reason for that war except for the inane, hyper-righty “domino theory,” which history has proven to be bunk. It was the “mushroom cloud” scare tactic of the day. There was no coherent strategy, the goals were vague and inconsistent and the entire thing lacked even a hint of an exit plan. Nobody wanted to kill or be killed for hollow, vaporous reasons; hence, people opposed the war and the draft.

Now there is no draft, so there are no student protests. Instead, government appeals to the patriotism and manliness of our young. Instead of forcing them into the death machine, now we trick them into it with puffery and slick slogans (“Be all that you can be.”) and signing bonuses that poor kids can’t refuse.

Click me

To extend the comparison still further, there quite obviously was no way to win the Vietnam war, so a proposed street solution was for us to declare victory and go home. Richard Nixon couldn’t abide that solution, declaring that he wasn’t going to be the first American president to lose a war. He really did think it was all about himself and his legacy, body counts be damned. That’s Trump’s policy, too.

Nixon managed to avoid signing his name on that imaginary surrender document by quitting the job and dumping the whole mess onto Gerald Ford. That led to the embarrassment of helicopters under fire evacuating our diplomatic personnel from the roof of our embassy in Saigon, now renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Click me

Arguably, the signatures of Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower and Truman belong on that imaginary surrender document. Bear in mind that our involvement in Vietnam began by bailing out President Charles de Gaulle of France, a country stripped of its military might due to WW II. We covered for him so that he could keep his colony, then part of what was called French Indochina.

Isn’t it interesting that the combatants in that war in Vietnam consisted of those wanting to remain colonials – the South Vietnamese – versus the people fighting for their liberty, for an independent nation, the North Vietnamese. How did we descendants of American revolutionaries who fought against colonialism get on the wrong side of that fight? Oh, right, de Gaulle had been an ally in WW II.

Now we are, by choice and by self-destructiveness, an ally of no one and we are once again fighting an unwinnable war. We haven’t a ghost of an exit plan and we have proudly learned no lessons that we should have learned from  20 years in Vietnam and re-learned from 20 years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because Trump is incapable of admitting he made a mistake, the list of American dead and wounded in Iran will climb higher and higher. More on that in a moment.

Separately, we have now blown up 67 small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing 221 people. There continues to be no evidence of drugs on those boats and the cocaine supply in the U.S. hasn’t slowed. That’s likely because none of those boats was headed for the U.S. The drugs come to our shores via other paths. Still, Trump wantonly murdered those boat people for no reason other than his need to demonstrate how tough he is. And our government called our murderous actions legal. That’s policy.

The men on those boats were South Americans and they likely had brown skin, so there’s no reason for our empathy deficient, racist government geniuses to care about them, any more than they care about non-Christians in Iran. Bear in mind that had they lived, those 168 little girls we blew up in that Tehran school five months ago would have grown up and probably given birth to more non-Christians. That’s plenty of reason for our racist Trump government to refuse to even apologize for murdering them.

This is what passes for our national defense policy. It satisfies our mental incompetents in government and is good business strategy for their buddies, the war matériel contractors.

Once again, Trump is incapable of admitting he made a mistake, like killing those little girls, so this Iran bloodbath will continue at least until he’s out of office. Come to think of it, that’s a lot like the Vietnam war that killed over 58,000 of our military people and millions of Vietnamese people. But the Vietnamese were Asians and were nothing more than body counts to our government.

Perhaps the 25th Amendment will be invoked and forced upon our dementia addled president. The ugly prospect of surrender in Iran will then be left to a hapless J.D. Vance. There will be no word dance left for him to do and Trump will have skated from accountability yet again. That’s our policy.

Until then this illegal, intractable Iran war is an effective public distraction from Trump’s Epstein adventures in pedophilia. That’s policy, too.

Quote of the Week
  • “We should confiscate the billions Trump made in crypto and distribute it to Epstein survivors.”
  • Andy Borowitz
The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Now You Know-V2.0*


POST 1297

Trump’s speech last Thursday was a collection of lies that eclipsed all such collections ever assembled anywhere in the world – like nothing you’ve ever seen. Except .  .  . you hear his lies, idiotic claims of victimhood, fear mongering and demands for retribution every time he speaks, so it isn’t like nothing you’ve ever seen. It’s exactly what you’ve seen for 11 years, although to be fair, this rant was amped up beyond his normal cartoon bobblehead absurdity. You can be forgiven for changing channels in protection of your mental health and stability and missing the entire episode of Not So Stable Genius.

That’s what the news stations did. But I digress from the main point, which is what we now know.

After his blustering about imaginary successes, false claims about the economy, the Iran war and that we are “the hottest country in the world,” whatever that means, along with other mouth dribbles the meaning of which is totally opaque, he focused on election fraud as his justification for the SAVE America Act.

He says our voting circumstances are bad – very bad, and still he offers no evidence, much less proof of his claims. Millions of illegal immigrants, non-citizens, are voting, he says. Voting machines are switching votes to be against him, China is controlling our elections, Democrats are rigging voting and “mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt.” He urged viewers to fact check his data at WhiteHouse.gov, but all the justification he said is there is either fully redacted, missing or the opposite of what he claims.

His completely unjustified claims of voting fraud are the flaccid muscle for his demanding that Congress pass his SAVE America Act.

Trump said it in the final seconds of his tantrum (read the full text here):

To all Americans, I ask you to pick up your phone tomorrow, call your Representatives in the House and Senate and demand that they pass the SAVE America Act without delay.

Congressional bills are often named to make them palatable to the voting public, festooned with patriotic sounding names and plain language puffery. For example, George W. Bush had his Patriot Act, which we later learned was horribly anti-patriotic. Trump’s SAVE America Act is actually a voting suppression proposal designed to stop from voting everyone who might vote contrary to Trump. It is a way to activate the many decades long Republican efforts to deny the right to vote of anyone who might vote for Democrats. It doesn’t, it can’t and it won’t save America.

It would fly in the face of the Constitution, taking control of elections from the states and plopping it in the lap of the fat occupant in the White House. That is all it would take to end our democracy, effectively ending the United States of America. There would be no saving of America.

We would become something else altogether. Maybe school children would be taught to sing Trumpland Über Alles and we’d Make Slavery Great Again. Whippings and lynchings would once again feed the MAGA-brain blood thirst and ICE would fire bullets through every car window.

Without a scintilla of doubt the election this November is about just one thing:

It is a battle that pits We The People, our Constitution and our democracy
against the forces of despotic evil.
.

Trump has laid it all out with his pompous demand that he never be held to account for anything, anywhere, any time and his lap dog Supreme Court has made it so. His blatant grab for authoritarian power is in plain sight for everyone to see. No more hiding the ball. No more chiseling at the edges of destruction. It’s an in-your-face dismantling and swindling of our entire country.

You know the kinds of things Trump does and he is now desperate. Don’t be surprised if he declares some phony emergency and uses that to alter, postpone or cancel the November election. Trump laid it out for you in his special brain addled way.

In case you didn’t know before now, now you know.

Our existential charge is to Stop Hateful Idiocy Today. You work out the acronym.

Quote Of The Week

“Americans Favor Work Requirements for Members of Congress.” – Andy Borowitz

___________________________________________

* Here’s a link to the original Now You Know post, from which the closing line of this post was taken.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Who Owns the Constitution?


POST 1293

Quote Of The Week

This is from Jamelle Bouie’s essay, The Supreme Court Doesn’t Own the Constitution.

But if we hope to recover and revitalize our democracy, we must start to think as citizens with duties, obligations and the sovereign power to make our world anew.

This Supreme Court, with its black robed, black-hearted extremist majority, acts as though our Constitution is a wad of Play Doh to be used for the delight of their infantile tantrums. They use it to placate their overlord in order to seek his favor and avoid his paranoid, neurotic paroxysms. They use it to take whatever they want, flaunting all conventions of morality, ignoring the harm they do to us.

But literally, our Constitution is not their toy or their weapon or their tool of appeasement.

It’s ours. Yours and mine. It’s of We the People. You know: those folks referenced in the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution:

You remember it from civics class in high school, right? Can you still recite it from memory? If not, click through to refresh your memory and your understanding of our Constitution and what it’s designed to do for We the People.

Because it’s ours. You could check with James Madison about that. He will explain it to you in clear, definitive terms.

A Little Snark

From Andy Borowitz’s post of June 18:

Ayatollah Names Trump Employee of the Month

It’s been a horrific week for the intermittently conscious Donald Trump aka Julius Geezer, who turned 80 but doesn’t look a day over 110. As the [Trump adulterated] Reflecting Pool continues to Make Algae Grow Again .  .  .

The real MAGA exposed!

The not-so-funny joke is in the implication of Borowitz’s title.

Trump started this war with chest pounding muscular claims and cartoon worthy fictitious goals. Now we’re faced with a laughable Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) that is largely an agreement to talk about an agreement. It hands Iran everything it wants, leaves that country stronger than before and leaves our country weaker. It provides confirmation to the internationally held belief that we are all idiots. It’s an embarrassment that shows how to lose everything all at once: respect, decency and thousands of lives.

Trump’s ride in the victorious Iranian parade.

Trump is a best friend to the radical theocrats of Iran. Watch for him waving an Iranian flag while leading a parade down Valiasr Street in Tehran. Trump will be the one with not only with an Iranian flag, but also with Russian and Chinese pins in his lapels replacing our stars and bars. He’ll be carried in a rickshaw so that he can sleep through most of the parade.

Be sure to pre-order Trump’s forthcoming book, The Art of Being a Schlemiel*.

________________________________________

* From Wikipedia:

Schlemiel (Yiddish: שלימיל, romanized: shlimil; sometimes spelled shlemiel) is a Yiddish term meaning “inept/incompetent person” or “fool.”

It’s also what you call someone who has been played. The butt of a joke. The easy-to-fool target. That is what he’s made us – We the People. Ask anyone viewing us from another country. They see us as dangerous fools.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Where Are We?


POST 1292

David and Goliath Today

In Timothy Snyder’s recent post, Sky Defense: Bringing it Home, focused on the terrible war in Ukraine and the undefinable courage of that Ukrainian David incrementally slaying the evil Goliath of Russia, he wrote,

By resisting Russia, Ukrainians are defending what is perhaps most basic about decent political life: the idea that people should be who they choose to be, not whom they are forced to become.

I’ve told you many times that the Ukrainians are fighting for freedom as a proxy for all freedom loving people, the list of which includes us. They are standing up to tyranny, to domination of the many by the few. The lesson in that is obvious.

We need to be strong and resolute like the Ukrainians. We don’t have an army shooting at us, but some of our tribe have been killed, like Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Some have been manipulated and horribly abused, like Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Many have died in American torture prisons and Gestapo-like goons patrol our streets looking for people to abuse and imprison for abuses like not looking Aryan.

But it’s as clear as it can be that this is tyranny of the many – that’s us – by the greedy, cruel, self-focused few. Now is the time – it’s always the time – to decide to be David and stand up and fight the Goliath of Trump/MAGA/billionaire evil.

In the Old Testament, Genesis 22:1, we’re told that God tested Abraham, first calling his name. Abraham answered, “I am here” or “Here I am” or “Here am I.” Terrified though he may have been, he answered the call. So it is with us today.

Our country is calling us. It’s time for us to stand and declare, “I am here.”

Because like the Ukrainians, we should be who we choose to be, not who we’re forced by the fascists to become.

One More Thing

Incompetent Tulsi Gabbard held the job of Director of National Intelligence, DNI, quite incompetently for a year and a quarter. Now she’s gone from that post, but there’s a twist.

In Trump’s first administration he got away with appointing incompetents everywhere by avoiding the Senate “advice and consent” protocol. Instead, he fired Cabinet secretaries and appointed incompetent “acting” replacements, thus once again avoiding the rules that apply to everyone else. Perverting the system is a way of life for him.

Likely you heard that Bill Pulte is his latest “acting” DNI. He has no intelligence, military, diplomatic or bureaucratic experience.  In a word, he is incompetent to be DNI. What qualifies him for that post in Trump’s mind (also in Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s mind, what there is of it) is that Pulte has an unblemished record of being a Trump suck up.

That is what passes for the best and brightest in today’s government.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Maybe You Thought The Civil War Was Over


POST 1283

It’s April 12, 1861* All Over Again

An on-point look at the steadfast discriminatory pummeling into  powerlessness of the 1965 Voting Rights Act by the Roberts court can be found in The Post-Racial Deception of the Roberts Court. It was penned by Cedric Merlin Powell, University of Louisville, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, and published in the SMU Law Review. It is a ponderous, thick-headed cure for insomnia. Good news: you’ll get Powell’s message from his conclusion:

Post-racial deceptions are disruptive, devastating in impact, and disconcerting because they ostensibly preserve fairness and the Court’s vaunted legitimacy, but instead chill all positive race-conscious remedial efforts and initiatives to advance substantive equality through the diversity imperative. The Roberts Court’s post-racial constitutionalism has undermined anti-discrimination law in virtually every area: school integration, affirmative action, Title VII, housing, and voting rights with the added effect of constitutionalizing its post-racial deception.

Racist is racist and no amount of Supreme Court verbal sleight of hand can mask its deviousness and cruelty. Same for the shameless Congressional Republicans doing shameful, deceitful, discriminatory things.

Bait And Switch

George W. Bush appointed John Roberts to the Court in 2005. During Roberts’ confirmation hearing he told us that he was an originalist, a traditionalist and a steadfast proponent of

Stare Decisis: A legal principle requiring judges to honor previous rulings, providing consistency and predictability in the law.

Roberts described Roe v Wade as “settled law” then. But he trashed it in its first direct test before him. I guess it wasn’t decisis-ed enough for Roberts. Likely, he thought he had integrity wiggle room to pull the plug on the prior ruling, but he didn’t.

Then he trashed the 1965 Voting Rights Act at least twice.

Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, which requires certain states and local governments to obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices; and subsection (b) of Section 4, which contains the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions are subject to preclearance based on their histories of racial discrimination in voting.

When that law was overturned the Court’s decision made the gerrymandering and voter suppression shit hit the fan immediately in a dozen and a half states. Good-bye voting rights for non-Whites.

Last week the Roberts Court, proudly led by Justice Not-So-Stare-Decisis, trashed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Awful 6 have allowed the state of Louisiana and all the states that breathe that same polluted, hateful  air to racially redistrict their states to cut out representatives of color and thereby neuter non-Whites.

Calling all that racist switcheroo Bait and Switch really is far too generous to Roberts, because it looks like he showed up at the Court waving a stare decises flag while secretly looking for ways to kill Roe, neuter civil rights legislation and give big money people gigantic power over you (see this Sunday’s post for more on that). Some and maybe all of that was at least partly racist. So forget his alter boy looks. He’s a racist and the Court’s racist decisions have impact.

Roberts may not mean to be cruel and discriminatory, but his intentions are irrelevant. What matters is what he does and the cruel and discriminatory effect that has. He leads a “renegade, partisan Supreme Court.”

Nixon was a raging racist. Reagan was a raging racist with a Hollywood face and an “Oh, golly” manner. Trump is whatever is beyond racist. What is that Republican hatred about?

Reagan campaigned accusing fictitious “welfare queens” and “young bucks” of grossly scamming we good White folks via welfare programs. Key word: fictitious. Reagan was a president urging us to hatred, much like today.

Be clear that John Roberts’ Awful 6 are a critical part of inciting racism. And recognize that we are just short of the cheating apotheosis initiated by the racist Moral Majority and Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich. He realized that Republicans could not win unless they suppressed (that means cheated) other voters. Their Song of Hatred is not only still being sung; it is blaring from loudspeakers all over our country and from the Court Chamber of the Supreme Court itself.

Given that, recognize how desperately we need a half dozen more Supreme Court justices to counterbalance the Awful 6.

Here’s what Sen. Rafael Warnock told Margaret Brennan on Face The Nation:

[S]tates that used to play old games, they’re playing new games. They’re 21st-century Jim Crow tactics in new clothes: moving voter polls, closing polls in Black and brown communities, purging people — people literally showing up [to vote] and not knowing that their names have been purged from the [voting] rolls. And the data shows that this disproportionately impacts Black and brown citizens.

That’s what the Supreme Court Awful 6 allowed.

From Rick Wilson in The Red Court Kills Voting Rights:

The War on Voting has entered its scorched-earth phase.

We are no longer debating “voter integrity,” “ballot access,” or the other endless sea of euphemisms in the polite, tepid tones of a Sunday morning talk show. We are witnessing a twin-pronged demolition of the democratic franchise so cynical, so surgically precise, and so fundamentally nihilistic that it would make a Cold War politburo blush.

Have a look at the Daily Docket, Mark Elias’ update for May 1:

After Supreme Court’s destruction of Voting Rights Act, here’s the latest on redistricting
.

Elias lists what the various states are doing to immediately undermine representation of and for people of color. John Roberts has given the go-ahead for them to do freebase racial gerrymandering. All of the gains of the 50s and 60s are systematically and relentlessly being wiped out, one Supreme Court decision at a time. Too bad for you, Dr. King, Malcolm X, Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, Roy Wilkins and so many others. And Rosa Parks, you get to the back of that bus right now to make room for Jim Crow to take over the entire thing.

The long term struggle for civil rights may not be dead, but it’s gravely injured. Maybe that win over enslavers in 1865 only postponed the full cruelty, because it looks like the haters aren’t just back; they’re back with a vengeance. They’re in plain sight and trashing our dearest values and our hopes for humanity before our eyes. The Civil War never ended and it’s being carried on by power crazed, scaredy-cat Americans, their hatred officially being permitted by our very own Supreme Court.

Finally,

From Ted Dintersmith in Better Days???:

Our esteemed SCOTUS is hastening the collapse of our democracy. John Roberts doesn’t seem to give a damn about America’s future.

He’s echoed by Robert Reich’s stunning revelation, Sam Alito and My Friend Mickey.

Last, a quotation from Steve Schmidt’s piece, A New Birth of Freedom, a piece inspired by Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:

The United States is great because it can be made new again by the people who are sovereign and free. It can be made more just and perfect. It is a place where dreams can be fulfilled and where freedom can flourish, but it will never be a place that is free from the dangers that come from the people who want to take those things away.

If you’re Black or Brown, you lose first because that war still rages. Who do you suppose will be next?

_____________________________________________

* April 12, 1861 was the day when Confederate forces opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, thus beginning the Civil War. That war succeeded in killing over 700,000 Americans in just 4 years. That’s 479 soldiers killed every day for 4 years. Or five 9/11s every 8 days.

That’s just a sampling of what greed and racial hatred can do.

 

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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.

Deterioration


POST 1280

Starting At The Bottom and Deteriorating From There

Early in Trump’s first administration many mental healthcare professionals offered their professional opinions of Trump’s mental state. Many criticisms of their diagnoses followed, saying that no valuable diagnosis could be made in the absence of an in-person interview. It turns out that is incorrect.

My friend Sheila Markin (The Markin Report) dug into this during Trump’s fist term in an interview in 2024 of Dr. Vince Greenwood, a psychologist. He is certified to make assessments using the Hare Assessment Test. She reports their conversation it here.

I urge you to read her report. Add to that our observations of all the chaos and destruction that Trump has caused since January 20, 2025 and all the obvious signs of Trump’s mental deterioration we all see and commonly refer to as dementia.

This is not a happy case of confirmation bias. It is a serious and foreboding clinical diagnosis from a qualified professional and what we see every day that is a clear and present danger to all of us.

The Emptying Cabinet

From Dan Rather in his piece, Kash Out, explaining the likely upcoming departure of yet another of Trump’s galacticly unqualified Cabinet secretaries:

Patel, a former public defender with scant law enforcement experience, was a highly unusual choice to run the FBI, but one that makes sense if you want to change the FBI’s mission from protecting Americans to pursuing vengeance.

Trump has many skills, high on the list of which is avoiding accountability, His record is not unblemished (see: the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault and defamation cases; the New York tax fraud case; the Stormy Daniels hush money case; 6 bankruptcies; etc.), but he’s managed to get away with cheating and defrauding a lot of people, including stiffing contractors and his ongoing grifting violations. He just hates to be held accountable for his actions like you would be.

What with Pam Bondi’s  complete failure to get indictments of Trump’s many accusers, people who had the temerity to tell the truth, she had to go. Poor Pam. She’s been made available to industry, but who would hire disaster Pam?

ICE Barbie Noem snared too much spotlight that otherwise might have shined on Trump, so she had to go. Will the people of South Dakota re-hire her to be their look-at-me governor? In this age of celebrity over intelligence, integrity, insight and ignorance, maybe they will.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer was caught with her pants down and her liquor up. Too embarrassing to be close to Trump, so he pulled the plug and down the drain she went.

Each of these firings/faux resignations both shifted blame for Trump’s failures and changed the subject from the Epstein scandal. Effective moves, Orangeman! And all the rejects are women.

But now Kash Patel seems to be in the center of Trump’s bulls eye following The Atlantic publishing a piece detailing some of his embarrassing habits, including drinking and being AWOL from his job. And, of course, there’s that damning video of him beer-ing it up with the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team following their gold medal win. Trump didn’t like that. Maybe that deer-in-the-headlights look of Patel’s will seem to fit better soon.

Quick Quiz:
  1. How many unconfirmed department heads (“acting” secretaries – i.e. not confirmed with the advise and consent of the Senate) will there be by November?
  2. How many unconstitutional ways will they find to rig the mid-term election for Trump?
Wuzzup?

The Washington Post reports that a Third U.S. aircraft carrier arrives in waters near Iran. We all get that Trump is trying to amp up his threats. He wants to look like the toughest tough guy, like his idols Putin, Kim Jung Un and Xi.  Orbán used to be in that murderous collection of psychotics but his countrymen enthusiastically booted his fat ass out of office in their April 12 election, along with removing a bunch of his toadies from their legislature.

Back to our aircraft carriers now stationed and ready to threaten Iran, support an invasion and imperil the global economy through American toxic masculinity.

The USS Gerald R. Ford left its patrol of the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean. It is now redeployed to the the Strait of Hormuz.

The USS Abraham Lincoln was patrolling the South China Sea before being deployed to the Persian Gulf.

The USS George H.W. Bush departed Norfolk, VA and is now in the Persian Gulf region.

Consider the important global areas that we are now ignoring at our peril for the purpose of aiding Trump’s Operation Epic Blunder.

Quick Quiz:
  1. Is China giving serious thought right now to taking over Taiwan by force, now that we’ve concentrated our forces elsewhere? Think: Pearl Harbor.
  2. How many terrorists of various stripes are in high gear to cause trouble now that so many places are unguarded?
The White House Correspondents Dinner

This post was prepared before the White House Correspondents Dinner. This section originally supposed what would happen, including the President embarrassing himself and our country with his typical broadsides against the “mainstream media,” the “enemy of the people.” He would display his congenital inability to stay on point, would go off-script into an impressive recitation of meaningless and self-contradictory gibberish and cruelty. That is what we expected. But that didn’t happen because the event was interrupted by a shooter.

It’s too early to post much information about the shooter, but that news will come to us swiftly, At a press conference at the White House after the excitement was over Trump suggested his later follow up would include his prepared vitriol. He will attack the press and, indirectly, the First Amendment and he will attempt to give a black eye to some of the journalists he likes to attack. He will try to be funny, but he will only succeed at being cruel. Of course, that’s just my guess.

Because this is what passes today as presidential.

Best Feel Good In A Long Time

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action, like:

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.

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.

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