21st Century

On Not Being a D*ck – v3.0


POST 1202

Ed. note: This is the last post “On Not Being a D*ck,” as you know full well who is and who isn’t.

Emergency

Decide for yourself if you should call the paramedics after watching this video.

The Trumpstein Catastrophe

After Trump whined stupidly at the end of a press briefing about his spa workers who were “stolen” by Epstein, as though they were his property stolen by a thief in the night, a reporter shouted to Trump:

What did you think Epstein was stealing those women for?!?
.

But Trump didn’t answer that key question.

And they weren’t women. They were just kids. Children. Underage girls. Not women. And they weren’t his property.

He’s a d*ck – only in the sense of cruelty. He’s always been a d*ck.

Listen to Keith Olbermann’s comments about this here.

And you need to see Ben Meiselas’ review last week.

  • The Real Reason

.Here’s a headline from the August 3 Gannett News-Press:.

    • Is there justice, along with snakes and gators, in the Everglades | Opinion
    • DeSantis and Trump are turning our country into a police state in order to round up those coming to America
    • fleeing extreme poverty, violence and brutal dictatorships
    • Howard L. Simon

Just two more points. DeSantis and Trump are turning our country into a police state:

  1. In order to cement a dictatorship in America so that they and their fellow fascists have all the power.
  2. To rid America of all people of color and, eventually, all non-Protestants. Whatever color you are, whatever religion you align with, if you aren’t White and Protestant, sooner of later they’ll be coming for you.

If I’m wrong, no matter. These guys and their fellow fascist wannabees are still d*cks.

If they don’t want to be d*cks, they should try aggressively promoting democracy and following the law.

  • About the Dems
  • I’ve been asking about who will lead us on a path back to something that looks like America and I still have no answer, but I do have more questions.

  • Justice Samuel Alito

    Justice Clarence Thomas

    At 75 and 77 years old, unconstitutional Supreme Court d*cks Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are the oldest on the Court. Their departure from the Court is quite possible, even likely, while Trump is president. Replacements will have to pass muster in the Senate and if that happens while the Senate is majority Republican, very bad things will happen.

  • What will the Dems do when Trump nominates a younger far right supplicant to himself to sit on the Court and do his bidding for decades? Stopping that nail from being driven home into democracy’s coffin will be next to impossible. That should keep you from sleeping well and, perhaps, motivate you to get out on the street to canvass for your Democratic Senate candidate.
  • Because the 2026 election could produce a Democratic majority in the Senate starting on January 3, 2027. Then the leadership question morphs a bit.
  • Mitch McConnell made “the most consequential decision I’ve made in my entire public career” by stonewalling Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Court for over 10 months. McConnell was so very proud of his thumb in the eye of the Constitution. That gave us Neil Gorsuch on the Court instead of Garland. Is there a Democratic senator with the courage to do a McConnell stonewall to a Trump nominee to the Court if given the chance?
  • The radical Rs are finding new, slimy ways to rig the system, including wiping likely D voters from voting roles, killing mail in ballots and eliminating ballot drop boxes, The new red state scum bag move is to redistrict by slicing and dicing current districts to produce extra districts that will be safe Republican House seats. Texas alone intends to create 5 of therm and other red states are looking to do the same thing.
  • Gov. Gavin Newsome is promising to fight back by doing the same kind of redistricting in blue California and governors in Illinois, New York and other blue states are looking to do the same. We either fight this Republican slime or we will be slimed and there will be no Ghostbusters to come and save us.
  • Other than Newsome, what Dem has the chutzpah to do what must be done, including stonewall Trump’s nominations?
  • That is the nitty-gritty of my “Who will lead?” question. We need people ready to claw and scratch, bite and kick – fight fire with fire, slime with slime – to stop the destruction of all we hold dear. Otherwise, we’ll be the smug virtuous ones lying prone with a fascist’s boot on our necks.
  • Forget about “When they go low, we go high.” I’m as much a fan of Michelle Obama as anyone, but her very nice declaration is a paving stone on the path to fascism.
  • So, Democrats: put on your big boy and big girl pants and don’t be such gutless wimps.

The Democrats are more interested in grasping for social virtue than improving the material and emotional well-being of Americans. When your representatives won’t represent, you become your own delegation.

– Prof. Scott Galloway, June 20, 2025

Jimmy Buffett And You
Perhaps you remember the Jimmy Buffett song Last Mango in Paris (full lyrics here). In the song, an old man tells his story to Jimmy. Here’s the chorus, now personalized for you:
.
I ate the last mango in ParisTook the last plane out of SaigonTook the first fast boat to ChinaAnd ____________________ there’s still so much to be done.
.      Write your name here
.
Our work wasn’t finished with the civil rights wins in the 60s or the Viet Nam confrontations in the 70s. The haters, the usurpers and thieves never left. Now they’re ethnically cleansing our country of Black and Brown people and either renditioning them to foreign torture gulags or stuffing them into American Koncentration Kamps. They’re cramming our courts, universities and government agencies, even our entire Department of Justice with authoritarian supplicants.
.
As brutal as were those righteous battles of the 60s and 70s; as painful and as belief destroying as were the murders of Kennedy, King and the Kent State 4; as barbaric as was the 1968 Chicago Police riot; as abhorrent as the Reagan years of “trickle down” lies and the illegal Iran-Contra scheme; as democracy destroying and sanity stupefying as was Trump’s first term; we are now at a far more dangerous precipice. We are threatened with losing everything.
.
We see it, so we know. And we cannot un-know.
As much as we’ve battled, there’s still so much to be done.
The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Office tends to confer a dreadful plausibility
  •  on even the most negligible of those who hold it.
  • Mark Lawson 1992
  • Among all the diseases of the mind
  • there is not one more epidemical
  • or more pernicious than the love of flattery.
  • Richard Steele, 1711
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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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA

* I propose that we fight this Republican democracy killing with something more muscular. We should leave the safe red districts as they are and then create a new blue district for every Democratic voter. Illinois would produce over 3 million new blue seats in the House and New York would supply over 4.6 million new blue seats. Continuing this nationwide will produce over 75 million new Democratic Representatives in the House. Who cares what Texas does?


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Missing


POST 1198

What Are We Missing?

On top of the furies of indignation, betrayal and the immoralities of the bitter poison that is every day Trumpism lies the Epstein criminal conspiracy on top. It has oddly joined MAGAmites with 90% of the population to call for the release of the Epstein list of sexual predators who abused and sex trafficked underage girls and perhaps others.

The MAGAmites wanted and were promised by Trump that once President he would let it all fly and the anticipated list of degenerate Democrats, Hollywood big shots and various coastal elites would be exposed. Then Republicans could splash about in moral superiority over the decadence and depravity of woke hypocrites. There would be no more hiding the truth, no more protecting the rich and powerful. Trump would uncork the drain of the DC swamp and all the bad guys would drown on the way down.

Except that’s not what happened. Trump is hiding the facts, the evidence. He’s doing exactly what MAGAmites were furious over when they dribbled conspiracy crazy on Dems, whom they were sure were getting away with horrible stuff, but they couldn’t prove it because facts were withheld. But this isn’t about Dems. Turns out MAGAmites are a lot like you: they don’t like being betrayed, even by their cult leader.

Trump is a master of distraction, the King of Bright Shiny Objects to direct your attention away from something damaging to him. His withholding of the Epstein list is widely believed to be his effort to prevent information incriminating to Trump from becoming public, but it does far more than that. Refusing to make the information public has transfixed public attention on the sordid Epstein mess, leaving us to wonder what Trump is doing that we aren’t focusing on, terrible things that are cruel, criminal and destructive.

Like:

Hiring thousands of additional ICE agents to act as his private, masked army, his Gestapo.

Putting thousands of immigrants into inhumane cages and holding them incommunicado

Arresting and incarcerating American citizens solely because they didn’t have citizenship papers in their possession and look Hispanic (read: Brown, not White)

Renditioning thousands of prisoners to various countries around the world

Setting the stage in Los Angeles for us to accept our military being deployed in our own country.

That last may be the key to what we are missing.

“Chronic venous insufficiency is a condition where the veins in the legs have difficulty drawing attention from the fact that the Epstein Files still haven’t been released.” anonymous source. Getty image

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibits deployment of our military on U.S. soil except for the most unusual circumstances, like an invasion from another country. No invasion has happened to the U.S. since the War of 1812.

Trump’s many horribles are at least as bad as you think they are, but the Epstein distraction may be hiding something far worse. We may be missing a looming final lurch into crushing authoritarianism.

Reference my post about that very thing. The Epstein distraction may be the preparation for some terrible event which Trump will use to declare martial law and become de facto dictator. Such actions are what dictators do and Trump is clearly a megalomaniac eager to burn our Constitution and aggregate all power and gobs of money for himself alone.

Yeah, we’re missing something critically important, for sure.

Who Will Lead?

Regular readers have likely recognized my discontent with the Democratic National Committee, a supposed leader of the right values and against the wrong values, We look there and to members of that tribe’s muck-a-mucks to do valiant and effective battle against those who would violate our values and do us and our nation harm. We expect them to vigorously promote our general welfare. My discontent boils for the lack of all that.

Who will lead us out of the morass of today to avoid the far worse morass of tomorrow? I’ve asked this question many times and we see some capable people speaking out (sometimes) against the cruel and the outrageous. Nevertheless, it remains opaque as to who will stand and declare, “THAT way – Follow me!” in such a compelling way that We The People will follow with our passion, our wisdom and our patriotism.

Truth be told, we Boomers made this horrid mess. George W. Bush lied us into two “forever wars” that killed and displaced millions, leaving brutality in its wake. Now Trump is clawing and scraping away our Constitution to institute dictatorial control and eliminate our rights and our freedom.

Both of these elected ones are charter members of the Boomer generation, each wholly unfit to lead a nation. Each enlisted many other Boomers and others into their perfidy, all to create their version of destruction and abandonment of facts and reality. Many in Congress and the courts are Boomers, too.

Here’s the key:

  • We cannot find our way out of this morass
  • using the same thinking and the same tools that got us into it.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, recently announced that they will conduct a postmortem of the 2024 election. It took them 8 months to decide to do that. His examination won’t focus on the campaign, he said, as though the Committee’s lack of relevance to over 77 million voters and 90 million who didn’t bother to vote can be explained by an arcane partial study.

But that won’t help. Not for a party that dumped David Hogg from their leadership. Hogg is an established voice of Gen Zs. They listen to him. They sure as hell don’t listen to Boomers and X-ers, the very people who have made it next to impossible for them to find a path to the American dream. And the DNC dumped the very guy who can help to enlist the people who can clean up the mess. Suicidal.

I rest my hopes on our Gen Zs. There are enough of them, they are educated, packed with energy and more accepting of others than any other generation. Plus, they don’t want to live in the mess we’ve made.

We Boomers, Xers and Millennials aren’t off the hook. We, too, must continue to fight the good fight. And we must continuously invite our Gen Zs to join and to lead.

Here’s a quotation courtesy of friend Mardy Grothe, author of Deconstructing Trump*:

  • Upon the profound discontent of the young in every country
  • do I set my faith. I beg you, the young, to be discontented.
  • I pray that you may rebel against what is wrong,
  • not with feeble negative complaining
  • but with strong positive assertion of what is right for all humanity. — Pearl S. Buck
  • Pass that along to the Zs you know.
  • Let’s be clear about missing. It seems we are missing Democratic leadership. Demand nothing less.
  • The Deconstructing Trump* Corner
    .
    • A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger
    • is prepared for a master, and deserves one.
    • Alexander Hamilton,1797
    • It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion
    • will legislate its creed into law
    • if it acquires the political power to do so.
    • Robert A. Heinlein, 1953
    • _________________________________________

    * Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history.

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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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or casually cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA

 


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Our Freedom v3.0 and Good Trouble


POST 1196

July 17 – A Day For Good Trouble

John Lewis knew a lot about the trouble that often came while taking a stand for what is good and what is right. He reminded us of the need to risk for what matters most. Today, on the anniversary of his death, we follow his leadership.

Good Trouble rallies are happening today all over this nation, all roughly between 5:00 – 7:00PM local time. Here’s a link. Go find one close by. Show up, stand up and make good trouble for what is good and what is right.

  • “Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation
  • until true freedom comes,
  • until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”
  • – John Lewis
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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 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, correcting or expanding, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Our Freedom – v2.0


POST 1195

Preface

This is the second in a series examining the state of our freedom. Link to the first installment here.

What About Our Welfare?

Not so-called entitlement programs. This is about our general welfare, like NOAA, NWS and FEMA and how they work to enhance our safety – our welfare. It’s based on what has been discussed in the press about what was done in advance of the tsunami in the Guadalupe River that swept away hundreds of people, including those kids in the summer camps along the river.

This is not the first time that such massive flooding has happened in Kerr County. The folks in charge of monitoring and warning saw the massive storms approaching and they knew what would happen in hill country, as massive amounts of rain water flowed downhill to the river. So,

Question #1:

Radio alerts were sounded, but there was no siren, no audible alert. An audible alert system was scratched in this hyper-conservative county many times, even if it were funded by the federal government and not local property taxes because, as one resident put it, “.  .  . send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House .  .  . ” Naturally, such folks don’t want to fund an emergency alert system through taxes on themselves – like for the common good. See this for details.

As of this writing at least 134 people are confirmed dead and about 97 are still missing. If it turns out that all the missing have died, that’s 231 people dead from the flood. The warning system those Texans refused would have cost about $1 million, so it appears that these hyper-conservative locals and Gov. Greg Abbott decided that those lives were worth just $4,329 each and not one cent more. Extremist ideology comes at a cost.

Question #2:

Why weren’t there people riding the road along the river, calling out a warning to all those summer camps of kids, to residents, to hikers and campers, Paul Revere-like, warning them to evacuate and get to high ground immediately?

We know that there was precious little time to accomplish the warning – perhaps just 3 hours – but people in pickup trucks or on horseback could have carried the warning to many who were not able to receive a radio or cell phone alert – assuming such alerts were sounded. Where were those guys? Why weren’t they organized for such an emergency?

Question #3:

Two of the top weather guys took early retirement due to insane pressure from DOGE. Consequently, they were unavailable during the run-up to the flood and no one took their places, so the best skills were missing from the extreme weather warning toolbox. How did that expertise gap hamper efforts to protect people along the river? That’s being examined now.

FEMA funds were already cut and no FEMA people were pre-positioned to provide quick support. I fact, it took until three days after the initial flooding for FEMA to show up. They weren’t even reliably answering their phones due to the shortage of personnel. Way to go, DOGE!

Question #4 – an aggregation:

Are Trump and Musk proud as can be for saving of the salaries of those weather and FEMA experts? Was this a major victory in their brain-free battle against largely non-existent waste, fraud and abuse? Now that they’ve significantly de-funded FEMA, will the effort to find the remaining victims of the flood be truncated, bodies left to decay in the flood debris, loved ones left in a hellish void?

Question #5:

The Preamble to the Constitution speaks to the purpose of that document and of government itself. One of the duties of government is to “promote the general Welfare.” How are we doing at that? And what does that say about our freedom?

Recall that in a time of great fear and constant want, FDR laid out the Four Freedoms:

1. Freedom of speech and expression

2. Freedom of worship

3. Freedom from want

4. Freedom from fear

So, here’s Question #6:

Given the terrifying nature of that flooded river, of our more powerful and more frequent hurricanes and tornadoes, of mass incarceration of wholly innocent people and the intimidation of our entire society, how are we doing on the Freedom from fear part?

Freedom is a demanding thing. It’s a high bar to clear and we all know that we must be vigilant to keep our freedom secure. At least, those of us who aren’t fascists and who aren’t willing to be subjugated by a dictator – we know that. And we know that our freedom is under continuous and dangerous attack.

What About Freedom From Dictatorship – as in: Freedom To be Free?

From the Heather Cox Richardson post of July 7:

As Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol pointed out in Talking Points Memo, it appears that officials in the Trump administration are using immigration as a way to establish a police state. Indeed, they are using the concept that presidents have control of foreign affairs as a way to work around the laws in place to prevent a dictatorship. [emphasis mine]

In her July 9 post she quoted Sen. Edward Kennedy in his 1987 opposition to the Robert Bork nomination to the Supreme Court.

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, [B]lacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….”

Too much of that 1987 warning feels frighteningly like today. Indeed, we’re being Borked regularly by the ultra-right, ideologue Supreme Court six.

If Trump gets away with establishing a police state, what do you suppose will happen to our next election? What will have happened to our freedom then?

The Deconstructing Trump* Corner
.
  • A bad cause will ever be supported
  • by bad means and bad men.
  • Thomas Paine, 1777
  • Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
  • Frank Leahy, 1955
  • _________________________________________

* Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history.

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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 this 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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Read This!


POST 1190

The message below has at times been incorrectly attributed to Liz Cheney. According to authentication services, it was written by Dr. Pru Lee.  Makes no difference to the substance and urgency of the message.

It’s long – and worth it.

***

Dear Democratic Party,

I need more from you.

You keep sending emails begging for $15, while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.

This administration is not simply “a different ideology.” It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.

And you?

You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF?

That won’t save us.

I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech.

I want strategy.

I want fire.

I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.

Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds.

Surprise.

Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying, “Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”

I call bullshit.

If you don’t know how to think outside the box…

If you don’t know how to strategize…

If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire…

what the hell are we giving you money for?

Some of us have two or three advanced degrees.

Some of us have military training.

Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.

Yes, the tours around the country? Nice.

The speeches? Nice.

The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.

That was great for giving hope.

Now we need action.

You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years. We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.

Look at the disappearances.

Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights.

If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.

So here’s what I need from you — right now:

⸻

1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.

I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs.

Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse.

Make it public. Make it unshakable.

Let the people drag the rot into the light.

If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones.

If Congress won’t act, let the country act.

This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.

Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.

And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented.

You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.

The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.

⸻

2. Join the International Criminal Court.

Yes, I said it. Call their bluff.

You cannot control what the other side does.

But you can control your own integrity.

So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.

Join.

If you’ve got nothing to hide — join.

Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts.

Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty.

And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.

Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.

⸻

3. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.

Don’t just send postcards. Send resources.

Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training.

If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it.

If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly.

This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.

Stop campaigning.

Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is.

We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.

Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy.

And let’s be clear:

The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.

They prepared for this.

They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions.

They built a machine while you wrote press releases.

We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years.

It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint.

You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029, a coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.

You should be publicly laying out:

• The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again

• The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine

• The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable

• The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador

You say you’re the party of the people?

Then show the people the plan.

⸻

4. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.

If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth.

Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.

Give people tools, not soundbites.

We don’t need more slogans.

We need survival manuals.

⸻

5. Leverage international media and watchdogs.

Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up.

They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.

Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.

Make what’s happening in America a global scandal.

And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.

Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky.

That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up.

If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.

Get creative. Go underground. Go global.

If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.

⸻

6. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.

Not everyone inside this regime is loyal.

Some are scared. Some want out.

Build the channels.

Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.

Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes.

And while you’re at it?

Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors.

Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.

We are not the bullies.

We are not the ones filled with hate.

And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it.

They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.

But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd.

We don’t need purity.

We need numbers.

We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.

⸻

7. Study the collapse—and the comeback.

You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship.

They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.

They went after the structure.

The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.

They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time — until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on  and his power crumbled beneath him.

You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025,

every aide who defies court orders,

every communications director repeating lies,

every policy writer enabling cruelty,

every water boy who keeps this engine running.

You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down.

You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.

⸻

Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.

They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS.

A M E R I C A N S.

And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.

We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines.

We want backbone.

We want action.

We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.

We are watching.

And I don’t just mean your base.

I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening.

I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.

Often when I speak, it echoes.

But when we ALL speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.

We need to be deafening.

You still have a chance to do something historic.

To be remembered for courage, not caution.

To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.

But the clock is ticking.

And the deportation buses are idling.

Jax Responds

Perhaps you’re as sick as Dr. Pru Lee and I are of the Democrats’ begging for bucks but always keeping their feet in concrete. Well, here’s the roadmap and your marching orders. Now, go. Take action. Demand action. Make the difference that must be made.

Love Note To The DNC

We understand that you think Boomers and Boomer mentality will get us where we need to go. But instead it’s brought us here. Doing more of what brought us here won’t get us there. [emphasis indicates that I’m screaming]

If we’re to save ourselves, it will be the Zs who power that. So stop rejecting people like David Hogg. He and others like him will enlist the Zs and they will be the engine of change. Your purity tests – jeez, you must have a death wish.

And get your damned hand away from my wallet and out of my inbox until you wise up and actually do something. I’ve offered help repeatedly but you never – never – reach back. All you do is send my contact info to various Democrats who – guess what? – ask for donations. Screw that.

It’s horrible that we have to appeal to you to fight the good fight, but you’re the only game in town that isn’t fascist or too weak. That doesn’t mean we like you. You’re just the least bad choice. Try standing up and fighting and we might come to like you again.

And tell me: Why do you need all this to be explained to you?

The Debate Between Thomas Jefferson and Trump

In case you are at all unclear about the stakes, read Barbara Powers.

Hypocrisy Corner

Kayleigh speaks!

She’s a liar, just like Trump.

Many thanks to JN for this.

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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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Movie


POST 1189

I’m writing in the hours following the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear and missile facilities and the Iranian response of their announced-in-advance missile attack on the vast U.S. military facility in Qatar. There will surely be more surprises to come, engineered by one of the world’s most awful regimes and more surprises from the other of the world’s most awful regimes. We wait for shoes to drop.

Let’s set aside the typical Trumpian stupidities:

“We’re not at war with Iran; we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

His bombastic claims: “We obliterated their nuclear facilities,” which bomb damage assessment experts have shown to be false.

The idiotic flip-flopping denials: “We’re not after regime change,” then “Make Iran Great Again” through “regime change.”

Let’s instead have a look at serious issues that serious minded leaders would commonly contemplate seriously with advice from serious minded advisors. Not that such advice might be seriously considered by Trump.

Whether you think the attack on Iran was the right thing to do or you see a blisteringly dumb move that is a probable prelude to something very bad happening, that attack will have many consequences.

It isn’t at all likely that, having taken a public drubbing, Iran will let go of its hostilities and go all golden retriever puppy with love for the twin devils, Israel and the U.S. They will want to hit back and are far more likely to be willing to make war than negotiate. It’s about venting rage and proving how tough they are.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 86 years old and is not politically strong. He’s already offered recommendations for a successor, including his son, which further complicates the possibility of negotiations and the calculus of predicting what actions that country may take. We’ll leave that speculation to our well informed intelligence people, sadly led by second-raters who owe their suck-up jobs to Trump patronage. Trump will ignore all of them.

What we know is that saving face is critically important to this Iranian regime and to the culture of the country. Nobody reacts well to humiliation and even Khamenei’s detractors in the streets of Tehran will want to hit back, especially because for them this is a holy war. Did anyone at the White House, the Defense, State, Homeland Security or the Intelligence Departments consider what would happen on Day 2?

You know this from at least as far back as Colin Powell invoking the Pottery Barn rule about war: You break it, you own it. And now we own this one.

Here are just a few examples of how the Iranians might strike back.

  1. Physics and chemistry tell us that their 60% enriched uranium cannot be used as is to make a traditional nuclear bomb. But it can be used to make dirty bombs – common explosives laced with radiologically hot material. They could smuggle IEDs or bombs into any country and detonate them in crowded cities. Use your imagination to identify which places would be near the top of their hit list. Dirty bombs don’t have nearly the explosive power of nuclear bombs, but they can make a huge radius of land uninhabitable for hundreds of years.
  2. If they have sleeper cells in the U.S., they can be activated to do damage to us physically and psychologically. If you think we distrust one another now, just wait until Iranian sabotage has occurred in the U.S., some Americans have been killed and you’re suspecting every stranger you see of being a murderer.
  3. They can mine the Strait of Hormuz (see these maps) to shut down shipping of gas, oil and other goods. 20% of global petroleum output travels that narrow stretch of water and shutting it down will drive up oil prices globally and likely tank Trump’s economic agenda.
  4. They can attack U.S. forces in the area, as they did in their retaliatory attack in Qatar on Monday. Given that no substantial damage was done, this was likely intended solely for domestic consumption, a public beating of chests and a saving of face. That may likely prove to be a self-destructive action, but proud, angry people might dismiss the cost to themselves and approve yet more attacks.
  5. They can fire barrages of missiles and drones at Israel, assuming they still have substantial stockpiles.
  6. They can task their tech geniuses to create destructive cyber attacks that disrupt our power grids, businesses, defense capabilities and more.

If they did any of those things, what would our U.S. dictator wannabe do? He’s an amoral, irrational and self-serving narcissist whose mania requires that he be seen as strong, most strongly, and always right. He would insist that any Iranian aggression be countered massively. Bigly. Like nothing anyone has ever seen. There aren’t too many choices available for an all-about-me tyrant trying to show that he can pee higher on the fire hydrant than the other dog.

  1. He could order massive bombing of all Iranian infrastructure. “Bomb ’em back to the stone age” was a very popular phrase after 911, when our proud, angry people wanted retribution. So was Sen. John McCain’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb, bomb Iran” in 2008, wanting for us to show the world what tough guys we were.
  2. Trump could order 300,000 – maybe 500,000 – troops to invade Iran. That will be a forever war that will kill hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of our military men and women. We will build an Iran War Memorial on the National Mall. Trump will get to play wartime president to burnish his orange ego. But critically, he will ignore the flag draped caskets carrying suckers and losers, as they arrive at Dover, DE.

It doesn’t appear that anyone is considering what comes next, most dangerously, the President.

Will Russia, China and North Korea supply Iran with war matériel and scientific know how? If they do, what will we do?

If we learn that we didn’t “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities (we didn’t), will Trump order more bombings?

Given their stockpiles of enriched uranium and scientific know how, if Iran continues to refuse to negotiate, what will we do? What will Israel do? What might Iran do?

What will we do to win hearts and minds of Iranians? We weren’t too good at that in Iraq or Afghanistan.

We’ve seen this movie before. We know the plot and that it takes decades to end this bad movie. It will cost thousands of lives and massive treasure that creates trillions of dollars of debt that will never be paid off.

Trump will be long gone when the reality of his ever-expanding war dawns on us. By then there will be someone else in the White House to blame for his war folly. Just like when Dubya was gone and Obama and Biden took the heat for exiting his Iraq and Afghanistan war failures.

Like I said, we’ve seen this movie before. The question for us now is whether we remember the lessons of that movie before a lot of people get killed and whether Congress has the backbone to dial down the madness. Indeed, have we learned anything at all?

From his post on Monday, When Incompetence Goes To War, Dan Rather, with his many decades of reporting and his experience in too many wars, gets the last word.

Truth IS the first casualty of war.

The first things you hear often are untrue, and so are many of the things you hear later.

Wars are by their very nature chaotic and unpredictable. What you most expect frequently does not happen; what you least expect often does.

Up close and personal, wars are almost unbelievably savage. The television screen and the printed word do not come close to conveying their harsh realities.

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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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Little Friday Comment


POST 1187

As of this writing President Trump has said that he will make up his TACO mind about whether to go to war against Iran within the next two weeks.* Why he would make such a strategic announcement to our adversaries like a circus barker saying “You ain’t seen nuthin yet?” This comes from somewhere beyond sanity or national security.

This is not a commentary about what Trump’s decision should be. Rather, it’s about his decision making methodology and the limitations of this president of greatly limited capability.

Our news folk are telling us that he is conferring with:

The civilian leader of our national defense. I find no comfort in hearing that he is giving serious consideration to what SecDef Pete Hegseth has to say. He’s the guy who had to overtly declare that he’d stop his drunken ways if he were confirmed for the post he now holds and we don’t know if he’s honored his pledge. He’s the same fool responsible for failing to protect what should have been top secret plans to bomb the Houthis in order to protect our shipping through the Gulf of Hormuz. He instead sent his plans over an unsecured service with at least one participant on the string having no security clearance at all. Are we supposed to trust his advice to the President regarding our military services and security in war?

Our military defense people. Trump dumped all the top people – the generals – who he knew were primarily loyal to the Constitution. He replaced them with people primarily loyal to Trump. Who cares about some pesky solemn oath, anyway?

Can we be confident these replacements will refuse to obey an illegal order?

Our intelligence people. Lots of agencies there, but they all funnel to the Director of National Intelligence, who right now is Tulsi Gabbard. That’s “Putin Talker” Gabbard. That’s “no experience in intelligence work” Gabbard or even at keeping a secret. Not hard to imagine that she might give advice to the President based upon what Vladimir Putin wants us to do, rather than what is in the best interests of our country. Worse, it’s not hard to imagine Trump preferring to hear about Putin’s preferences.

Our Secretary of State. Marco Rubio is a smooth talking, pleasant looking pol who has shown us repeatedly that he is not much more than a political weather vane. He will say and do only what Trump wants him to say and do, leaving decisions and policy without a check or expanded options.

Then there is Trump’s learning disability and gnat-like attention span. This president doesn’t read. They’ve had to put the President’s Daily Brief  (“PDB”) into comic book format. They’ve tried creating videos for this reality show freak of a man to advise him of international threats.

He can’t stay with any train of thought for more than a few minutes. That isn’t sufficient when the topic is anything more complex than how many Big Macs this infant tyrant wants for dinner, much less for the brutal and perilous questions of war.

Fortunately, the power to declare war rests solely with the Congress, not the president. Unfortunately, we have no assurance that the Congress will put on its big boy and big girl pants and stop this president from acting from his dementia addled brain to get a lot of people killed with no thought to the day after.

Our last two forays into war lasted 20 years, got over 7,000 American troops killed, hundreds of thousands of locals killed, millions displaced and upheaval in the region that continues even today. All that was started by a similarly un-serious, incompetent president who listened to the wrong people and whose primary concerns were his popularity and his legacy. He lied us into wars against two nations that had done us no harm and were not a threat to us.

Trump craves grossly narcissistic things, including money, power and adulation. He gets none of those from Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving the possibility of a chip on Trump’s shoulder that may influence his decision about war against Iran. But it shouldn’t.

Now, in this appallingly dangerous world, un-serious incompetence is more lethal than ever and we are once again saddled with it.

__________________________________________

* That “two weeks” business is nothing but a stall to make Trump seem in control, seem assertive and to give him time to do a dozen other outrageous things to distract you so that you stop thinking about whatever he was supposed to make happen in two weeks. Think: Infrastructure Week.

Stop listening to talking heads who grind on about what will happen in two weeks. That grind isn’t worth your time or attention.

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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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

IMMIGRANTS UNITE!


POST 1185

First, Minnesota

A thug murdered three Minnesotans, two of them Democratic state legislators. This should come as no surprise, since Trump has been calling since 2015 for violence against Democrats, progressives, protesters and anyone who disagrees with him about anything. He claims to be “your retribution” against “those others.” So of course some wing nut listened to him and took action, perhaps expecting to be pardoned by Trump.

This is just today’s chapter in Trump’s program of I Don’t Care, So Death To You.

To The National Brother/Sisterhood/Childhood of Immigrant Workers
.

Yesterday there was a massive national demonstration, an opposition, a revulsion, the rejection of the tyrant’s attack and his anti-America corruption of the values we hold dear. Indeed, our immigrants, whether documented or not, came here to live by those values and they and we won’t stand for this vile little man’s evil.

This President has unleashed his attack thugs, masked gunmen bearing no identification, no badge of any kind, carrying no arrest warrants and exercising no concern for innocent people. He dispatched them with instructions to kidnap anyone who they think looks like they might be in America without documentation – that means Black and Brown people. They select kidnap victims based on their ignorance.

They have arbitrarily claimed thousands of people to be criminals. They have arrested citizens of the United States with the same right to be here as any of us. They possess no evidence of anyone’s wrongdoing and act in the total absence of due process rights. In short, they are thugs acting illegally at the order of a lawless president and you, immigrants, are their primary target.

Demonstrations against this lawlessness are powerful and good, but it will take more for the American public to become fully aware of what these illegal actions mean to Americans. They don’t realize that they themselves will feel the effects of this. They don’t realize that one day the tyrants will run out of Black and Brown people to abuse and others will be next to be labeled enemies. That’s what tyrants always do.

That is why I’m calling for an ad hoc action, a labor strike, to make clear how Trump’s White, Non-At-All-Christian actions will impact everyone. Specifically, I’m calling on:

hotel and restaurant workers

construction laborers

domestic workers

garment workers

farm workers

landscapers

day laborers, like the folks who hang out early in the morning at Home Depots and 7-11s hoping to earn a day’s pay

It’s time to take a stand, so immigrant workers:

DO NOT SHOW UP FOR WORK THIS THURSDAY OR ANY THURSDAY UNTIL THIS CRUELTY STOPS.

.

Maybe some of the White privilege people who whine and moan their “Replacement Theory” lunacy will show up in California’s Central Valley to do stoop labor, like picking strawberries and lettuce. Maybe they’ll do the work of moving heavy wheel barrows full of cement or removing debris from construction sites. Maybe they’ll scrub the pots and pans in a hot commercial kitchen 14 hours a day, or clean befouled hotel rooms left by hotel guest slobs. Maybe they’ll scrub the floors of rich people’s homes.

But none of that is ever going to happen. Here’s what will happen.

None of those angry, privileged White guys will show up to do the hard work our immigrants do every day. Housing construction will slow to a halt, restaurants will close their doors and produce bins in grocery stores will be empty. And there will be a lot of hotel rooms that don’t get cleaned and landscaping around rich guys’ houses will become nothing but weeds.

It’s time to make the point to all American citizens that their way of life is dependent upon the hard working immigrants to this country and that those tax paying immigrants are a major part of the reason for hope for this nation.

Immigrants to America Unite!

You have nothing to lose but the threat of deportation to a torture concentration camp, never to see your family again.

.
Memo To Silent Americans

.

Turn off the ignorant and the stupid.

.

Treasonous Americans are trying to steal your country, your values, your freedom, your future and your hopes for your children.

They tried an insurrection to murder leaders and take over your government, killing and maiming cops and befouling our Capitol Building.

Trump pardoned the convicted criminals, enabling them to continue to conspire to overthrow us.

The Supreme Court gave the president the right to break our laws with impunity.

Trump and his criminal suck-ups are moving every day to use our military to take action against you and make this a police state.

THAT WILL BE THE END OF YOUR FREEDOM!
.

DO NOT sleepwalk through reality. DO NO be an existential threat to the United States of America through passivity. DO NOT tolerate the murderous Oath Keeper criminals, the DOGE flying monkeys who stole your personal information and the lying Trump bastards violating your Constitution and your rights every day.

Wake up!

.

America isn’t about any king.

It is about We The People.

We declare that in no uncertain terms right here.

.
Pics From The Highland Park NO KINGS Event

Yes that Highland Park. July 4, 2022. 7 killed, 48 wounded. Still this little village turned out over 3,000 yesterday to tell everyone that we will not have a king. We will not tolerate cruelty to anyone. The Law is the law and nobody is above it. Those sentiments were on display in over 2,160 locations nationwide with attendance in the millions.

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s address to the House of Commons in the darkest days of the blitzkrieg of the Battle of Britain, June 4, 1940:

We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight them in our town squares, we shall fight them in the hills. We shall never surrender. We shall fight them in our state houses, we shall fight them in our Congress. We shall fight them in our courts and we shall fight them in our voting booths. We shall rescue and liberate ourselves from their cruelty to carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, we restore our promise of America.

 

kakistocracy | kakəˈstäkrəsē | government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state

 

 

 

Credit to MG for this one

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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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Now Is The Time – It Always Is


POST 1184

Click the pic

On February 19 Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker delivered his State of the State address. Appropriately, most of it was focused on Illinois issues, but he reserved his final comments for the state of our country and the perils we face moving forward.

We are now four months further down the dangerous path Pritzker described and things are turning more dire with every Trump power grab and his every attack on our Constitution. That makes Pritzker’s warning yet more important and urgent.

Down goes Trumpy! Down goes Trumpy! Down goes Trumpy!
Trump ridiculed Biden for tripping on the Air Force One stairs. Do you think he’ll rip himself for doing the same thing? Click the pic

Watch and listen to Gov. Pritzker’s cautionary message. If you’d like to watch his entire address (36 minutes), click here.

Here’s another framing from Pritzker about where we stand in the march of history:

What we do and don’t do matters. It matters right now more than it ever has before. When my future grandkids look back on this moment, I want them to know that my voice was one of the loudest in the room, screaming for justice and fighting against tyranny.

What do you want your grandkids to know about what you did when everything was on the line?

It’s time to stand strong in the face of the tyrants. Here’s what Churchill said about that in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, even as the bombs of Hitler’s blitzkrieg (“lighting war”) exploded in London.

Click me. Definitely click me.

America isn’t about any king.

It is about We The People.

We declare that in no uncertain terms right here.

.

You and I are just like the Founders in our abhorrence of kings – dictators, really. We are threatened by such people right now. That’s why June 14* is

NO KINGS DAY!*

.

“You have to know what you stand for, or you’ll fall for anything.” – Les Brown

Click the map to find a demonstration near you. As of this writing there are over 1,800 of them, all for people across the nation who won’t tolerate Trump’s reign of scams, cruelties, corruption and the destruction of our Constitution he hopes will lead to his dictatorship and make him Orange King Donald I.

So, show up on June 14 to demonstrate who we really are, what we stand for and what we won’t stand for.

And pass this message to others. This existential battle needs all of us – and we need this battle in order to restore our country.

___________________________________________________

* It’s also the day of Trump’s ego-maniacal military parade. Watch for his lying press secretary Karoline Leavitt to lie in a manic, fantastical frenzy about parade attendance, a la Sean Spicer.

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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 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Center-Right – Really?


POST 1182

The Numbers*
Here is What We Americans Want
.

87% of Americans believe Social Security benefits should be maintained or increased

79% of Americans support raising (not cutting) taxes on the wealthy and big corporations

69% of Americans want Medicare For All (MFA)

63% of Americans believe abortion should be legal

53% of Americans believe automatic weapons should be banned**

64% of Americans want stricter gun laws

74% of Americans want Dreamers to have legal status in the U.S.

62% of Americans believe medication abortion should be legal

82% of Americans want Medicaid to either stay the same or increase

60% of Americans oppose ICE raids in schools and places of worship

77% of Americans support maintaining or increasing SNAP (food stamp) benefits

90% of Americans oppose redistricting (gerrymandering) for political advantage

When asked if they’re righties or lefties, millions of Americans claim to be conservatives – center-right or even more to the right. But when they’re asked specifically about their views on the issues above, they respond just as you see – like progressives. The conservative blabbers really should stuff a sock in their claims that this is a center-right country, because that claim just isn’t true.

If We The People want these things and we’ve wanted them for a very long time, how come we don’t have them? Click here for the answer.

From the Kids Who Sat At The Back of the Classroom Shooting Spitballs Instead of Paying Attention
.

30% of Americans think the 2020 election was stolen from Trump

35% of Americans cannot name the 3 branches of government

26% of Americans believe the sun orbits the Earth

4 – 10% of Americans believe the Earth is flat – seriously!

27% of Americans distrust science

There will be no Blue Light Special to save us on the cheap. This is going to cost our blood, sweat and tears. It is a challenge worthy of America.

If we want something better than we are getting, we’ll have to do something different – like elect people to power who will fairly represent us and who will kill the voter suppression practices that poison the heart of America.

It will take generations to fix the mess we’ve allowed to be made by our legislative self-serving cowards who debase themselves to lobbyists and cower before bullies. And we’ve been harmed by the willful indifference of the over 90 million eligible voters whose butts remain on their couches every election. Now is a good time to start the clean-up on Aisle U.S.***

The Department of Hope

It’s time to stop wringing our hands. It’s time to reach down and grab our grit and use it to attack what deserves to be attacked. It’s time to speak the truth about America and Americans and demand the America We The People want. That fight is what gives us hope.

Start by listening to Tim Walz make it plain for you.

Our Streets

You and I are just like the Founders in our abhorrence of kings – dictators, really. We are threatened by such people right now, in part because of the national insanity we’ve tolerated far too long. That’s why June 14 is

NO KINGS DAY!

.

You have to know what you stand for, or you’ll fall for anything.

Click on the map to find a demonstration near you. As of this writing there are over 1,400 of them, all for people across the nation who won’t tolerate Trump’s reign of scams, cruelties, corruption and the destruction of our Constitution he hopes will lead to his dictatorship and make him King Donald I.

But America isn’t about any king. It is about We The People. We declare that in no uncertain terms right here.

So, show up on June 14 to demonstrate who we really are, what we stand for and what we won’t stand for. And pass this message to others. This existential battle needs all of us.

Don’t Ever Back Down

Democrats plan to hire a TACO truck to serve free tacos outside the Republican National Committee headquarters starting this Tuesday – TACO Tuesdays, as in: Trump Always Chickens Out. Said Mother Jones, “.  .  .  [the idea] has since reportedly irked our ever-mercurial, toddler-brain president.”

This kind of tweaking is, of course, childish and undignified. I love it.

Every day in every way, punch the bully in the nose.

Don’t back down. Don’t ever back down.
.

Click me. Definitely click me.

___________________________________________________

* I looked up all the numbers presented here and easily found them from reputable sources with a simple search, “What percentage of Americans want .  .  . ” There are many reports on each of these topics, so there is some variation in the percentages that can be found. However, in no case was there meaningful disagreement from the intent of what is presented here.

** In the wake of any major mass shooting (think: Sandy Hook; Parkland; Topps Supermarket; Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Music Festival; Emanuel AME Church; Tree of Life Synagogue; Tucson-Giffords; etc.) the percentage of Americans who want automatic weapons, large capacity magazines, bump stocks and silencers to be banned goes up to 80-92%.

*** Gallup reports that approval of Congress is 26%. That means that 3 of every 4 Americans disapproves of our Congress. 53% of us disapprove of the job Trump is doing. Why in the world should we tolerate such horrid job performance? Fire these guys!

Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election

Countdown Timer

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 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.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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