Accountability

Administration Deportations


POST 1162

CAUTION!

This post contains well-placed snark likely to displease Constitution violators.

The Correct Renditions

You know that last week our brave president and his brown shirt action figures rounded up over 230 migrants, claiming without any evidence that they are Venezuelan gang member terrorists. Note that I claim, similarly without evidence, that they are Norwegian flower salesmen.

They were put on airplanes bound for El Salvador where they were accosted by guards, who dragged them to an overcrowded super-max concentration camp. The administration claimed that they are the worst of our immigrants and that the American people are now safer. Trump agreed to pay the El Salvadorans $6 billion to incarcerate those deported, an inventive international extension of our prison-industrial complex.

WAIT: Wasn’t El Salvador one of those “shit hole countries?”

All of that was done without probable cause, without accusation or evidence of any specific crimes, without charging, without trial and without conviction of any crime. The name for what was missing is DUE PROCESS OF LAW, as required by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which apply to all “persons,” not just “citizens.” Look that up via the links.

While those airplanes were flying south a federal judge heard arguments and ruled that the disappearing of those men was both illegal and unconstitutional. He ordered the administration to cause the planes in the air to turn around and come back to the U.S. and that a deportation plane that had not yet departed remain on the ground. Our bold, chest-thumping administration then did what no administration had ever done before: they ignored the judge’s ruling. The 230 remain locked up in El Salvador.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” – Vice-President of the United States, JD Vance

Yeah, they are. It’s in the Constitution. You could look it up, you fauxbilly.

“We are not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think” – Border Czar Tom Homan

It’s great for Homan that he’s in America where he can believe and say stupid things. In an authoritarian country like Hungary, Turkey or Singapore, he’d be locked up and forgotten for saying such manly man strength and idiocy. That’s the America Trump is working to create.

BTW: How did we end up with czars? It started with Dubya.

“What we are expecting is the Supreme Court to say what has always been the case, which is, when the president is using his powers as commander-in-chief, those determinations are not subject to judicial review .  .  .”   – Homeland Security Advisor and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

Oops. Once again Stephen “The cruelty is the point.” Miller got it wrong.

All of that flies in the face of 248 years of precedent, established law, the separation of powers, the Constitution and more. Plus, it’s factually wrong, as all but the angry chest thumpers know quite well. Note that it not known if these Administration officials themselves are Venezuelans or even Americans, but they are known Trump gang members.

These are the first administration officials to be accused of un-American acts by your Disambiguation Agency (“DA”), which so far is still not invaded and violated by Musk and his abhorrent flying monkey tech criminals.

The DA will order them to be shackled, hooded and jammed into an airplane bound for rendition, as were the 230. They will remain ineligible for recourse or a pubic hearing, this by virtue of the Habeas Stupidus Act proscribed by Project 2025.

It Isn’t Just Federal Perps

Here’s another flamer. From Daily Docket, March 20, 2025:

[North Carolina] GOP challenger Judge Jefferson Griffin is refusing to concede [the election to the state’s Supreme Court, which he lost].

Griffin sits on the Court of Appeals [where his case now sits], and he wants his colleagues to retroactively change election rules, throw out tens of thousands of votes in Democratic counties and declare him the winner.

  • North Carolina has a long standing and proud tradition of Republican malfeasance and dirty tricks. Stand by to see if they get away with this one, Meanwhile, Griffin has a reservation on that rendition airplane. So does Arizona loser Kari Lake, and for much the same reasons.
  • We cannot end this section without considering Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He went to Samoa and trumpeted his groundless poo-poo indictments of vaccines, convincing many people to forego vaccinations, resulting in thousands of confirmed cases of Covid-19 and dozens of deaths. A similar situation is playing out in the U.S. on children whose parents were persuaded by Kennedy to refuse their kids the measles vaccine. At least 2 children are now dead. with third death under investigation. Prior to Kennedy’s baseless attacks on vaccines it had been 20 years since the last U.S. death from measles.  That’s plenty of evidence to cause Kennedy to be shackled. muzzled and perp-walked onto that rendition airplane.
  • Expect regular additions to the manifest for these flights.
  • ACTION

  • There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

    The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want that to happen.

  • Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

  • REBEL!

Continuing Quote for This Century

From Mark Elias’10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy:

10. Don’t give up hope

Our best political movements were hopeful. John Kennedy insisted that “we should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.” Bill Clinton was the man from Hope. Barack Obama ran a campaign based on hope and change. Donald Trump and the Republicans want you to give up hope. Despair and cynicism fuel their movement. We must always, in the words of Jesse Jackson, “keep hope alive.”

Best Headline of the Week

From the NKC Occasional Update of March 21:

Hakeem! Chuck! Don’t make me stop this car!

Who will lead?

Late Addition Sunday Dark Cloud

From David Corn of Mother Jones’ Our Land of March 22:

And Tulsi Gabbard, [Trump’s] director of national intelligence, not only cheered on this decision [to silence the Voice of America, VOA]; she boosted the Russian critique of VOA. When Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysia-based right-wing podcaster who has written for RT, the Russian propaganda outfit, hailed Trump’s demolition of VOA and echoed the Russian line by claiming it had “perpetuated pro-war narratives against Russia,” Gabbard shared his post. Here was the top intelligence official in Trump’s administration accepting and spreading Vladimir Putin’s take on VOA.

What could possibly go wrong?

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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. 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.

Goo Gobs of Blame


POST 1161

Post 1160 was originally entitled “To Wimp or Not To Wimp: That Is The Question.” It was a ripping on Chuck Schumer for his signing on to that total abdication of power, the abhorrent continuing resolution. The only thing in that un-American bill necessary for keeping the government open and operating is the first sentence of Section 3. Instead, Mike Johnson and his Jellyfish Caucus jammed in all the rest of what Trump wanted, formally neutering Congress. Then Schumer caved in and voted for it. That’s why my post was entitled as it was.

But then our constitutional democracy ended.*

So, the title, focus and energy of Post 1160 shifted and the message is spelled out best by someone more able to articulate our dreadful reality. Many thanks to SL for directing me to the work of The Intellectualist.

The name of this publisher itself is a brave declaration in this age of anti-wisdom, anti-science, anti-knowledge, anti-critical thinking, anti-intellectual, anti-learning,** anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Jews, anti-anything-not-White-and-claiming-to-be-Christian, anti-sovereignty of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, anti-justice, anti-democracy – let’s stop there and focus on just the last two. Post your own anti-whatever in the Comments section below.

Here’s a link to the essay in The Intellectualist, Black Saturday: The Day the United States Ceased to Be a Constitutional Democracy. Perhaps you prefer a musical reference: last Saturday, March 15, was the day the music died. It is the day when Trump and his anti-American, anti-democracy, hate and anger mouth foamers completed taking down the other branches of government.

Congress was already in Trump’s pocket, as was the Supreme Court. Last Saturday he defied a District Court order, which put all power in his own hands. Pick your word: fascism; authoritarianism; monarchy. Doesn’t matter. Our democracy has been trashed, leaving us great misery to come.

Read the piece in The Intellectualist. It’s the best explainer. Then weep, rage and make plans to protect yourself from the orange Big Brother. I prefer to begin by pointing fingers of blame. Childish, I know, but, oddly enough, it turns out I’m human and putting blame where it’s due feels right.

→ Blame Trump’s parents for failing to hold him accountable, effectively being his first enablers, teaching him to lie, cheat and steal. Their lousy parenting allowed him to avoid hundreds of well earned spankings.

→ Blame higher education institutions for letting Trump’s father buy him diplomas.

→ Blame his podiatrist for lying about bone spurs that later magically disappeared.

→ Blame all the suck-ups everywhere.

→ Blame Presidents and Congresses for blowing off millions of people for decades, most decisively since Reagan, his trickle down economics larceny and our steadfast march away from accountability. That set the stage for pissy people embracing violence, threats of violence and massive idiocy at ballot boxes, voting for completely unqualified candidates who cleverly spoke to their pissy.

→ Blame Democrats for ignoring the needs and aspirations of millions of working people, which, of course, made them pissy.

→ Blame Democrats for constantly pretending that this is some imaginary other age, when people acted with integrity and were polite at all times, where they never raised their voices and fought only to win great intellectual debates. Today that’s called spinelessness.

→ Blame all the spewers of Big Lies and conspiracy fantasies and all the willfully ignorant fools who believe them.

→ Blame the very clever, manipulative lawyers, the cunning political operators and the vast army of liars who lack all integrity all the time. They parade their dishonesty as though it were a virtue and somehow they’re never checked on that.

→ Blame the Supreme Court Black-hearted Six for driving the final nail into the coffin of democracy with its 2024 decision allowing presidents to break the law and not be held to account. Now Trump really can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and suffer no consequences.

→ Blame congressional Republicans for having no spine, no courage, outrageous hypocrisy and for thinking not of our country or of We the People, but of what’s best for themselves in the short term, first, last and always.

→ Blame Democrats for a complete lack of vision and the inability to motivate anyone.

→ Blame the hundreds of thousands of Americans who long ago went heads down, refusing to see what has been right before them, who only recognize what touches them directly and who turn away from what is even just a bit uncomfortable.

→ Blame me for failing to find a way to reach far more people and be a more effective wake up call, a disambiguator making a difference.

There. I feel better.

  • The Constitutional Democracy Preservation/Reinstatement To-Do List

Our Constitution is extremely sick and it appears that it could be terminal. What I want to know is what the Constitutional Democracy Preservation/Reinstatement To-Do List has on it. I’m certain that there are brilliant legal minds working on that right now. There are also countless organizations calling for rallies and demonstrations. That’s where we start.

There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Click here or on the map below to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want to do that.

Democracy doesn’t look like Musk’s goons breaking into agencies and threatening the workers with violence and arrest. It doesn’t look like Musk’s evil flying monkey hackers stealing your financial, tax and medical records, either.

Democracy doesn’t look like:

Trump rounding up some aliens who have been charged with no crime, not even charged with being in our country illegally;

accusing them of felonious acts and offering no evidence;

denying them anything resembling due process;

expelling them from our country – disappearing them;

turning them over to El Salvador concentration camp thugs;

and disobeying the orders of a federal district court judge, this so that Trump could aggregate all power to himself. All that’s left to do are a few details, as Trump pisses on the graves of our Founders.

That most decidedly is not what democracy looks like.

Demonstrations like those upcoming on April 5 are where we stand tall – this is what democracy looks like.

Say it out loud:

This is what democracy looks like.
.

REBEL!

________________________________________

* Read Steve Schmidt’s post, First They Came For . . .

** If you’re old enough you might remember President Kennedy proclaiming, “College is America’s best friend.” That was in an age when we were in a battle against the Soviets for industrial and technological leadership and we needed lots of smart, well-educated people.

The same battle continues to rage, now standing up to Russia and China. We still need smart, educated people. But instead of promoting secondary education, Trump is trying to tear down our institutions that supply that education. Who do you suppose he wants to win this battle and lead the world?

By making college unaffordable and student loans unbearable, we risk deterring our best and brightest from pursuing higher education and securing a good-paying job.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI)

  • We also pull the rug from under our country with that crushing cost.
    Fun Fact: Both Barack and Michelle Obama had outstanding student loans when Obama became President.

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.

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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. 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.

Wimps, Leadership and Stupiditudes


POST 1159

NEW!
Wimps

At Donald Trump’s 100 minute, gag-athon, look-at-me address to Congress on March 4, he spewed dozens of lies, non-sequiturs, phantasmagorical idiocies and real world cruelty. In short, he was classic Trump.

When Rep. Al Green (D-TX) could stomach Trump’s verbal feces no longer he stood and interrupted, shaking his really nice cane and calling out Trump’s Trumpiness until at last Trump called for the Sergeant at Arms to remove Rep. Green. A couple of other Democrats left with him.

The key point is that EVERY Democrat in attendance should have stood and walked out. Instead, nearly all just sat in their stew of meek, hands folded properly in their laps, legs demurely crossed at the ankles, once again looking weak, powerless and volunteering to be voiceless. I’m tempted to ask when they will learn to play hardball against the fascist, cowardly, hypocritical Republicans, but it’s clear that the time stamp reads “NEVER.”

One might argue that it was proper to endure Trump’s verbal harangue to honor the office of the presidency, but that ignores the dishonor that Trump does and is to the presidency. It ignores his backsliding to the primitive, as well as the subservient dishonor of the Republican legislators.

Two days after Trump’s speech the Republican controlled House voted to censure Rep. Green for his outburst. No surprise there. It was Republicans predictably playing hardball for political advantage. Sure, they cloaked their smear in claims of impropriety, which is a laughable thing for that group of thugs to do. But the censure had nothing to do with propriety. It had everything to do with attempting to curry favor with Trump.

Actually, though, the big story is that 10 Democrats voted to censure Green. His own team shoved the knife into his back! Even Green himself failed to vote against the censure.

What’s with these people who can’t stand firm? What’s with these people who can’t fight the good fight? It’s no wonder that the American public sees Democrats as weak, this at a time when strong leadership is demanded.

In 1928 humorist Will Rogers famously said, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” That was said as the Democrats were losing the presidency to Republican Herbert “Great Depression” Hoover, the future Mayor of Hoovervilles everywhere.

People got the humor then and we get it now. But that dysfunction, the Democrats’ act that never gets put together, is allowing the disintegration of our democracy, our Constitution and our way of life. By not supporting Green on the floor of the House or against the fraudulent censure vote, they let Trump and the Republicans look strong and made themselves look like wimpy milquetoasts yet again.

For the record, here are the inductees to the Democratic Wall of Shame for voting to censure Al Green:

  1. Ami Bera of California
  2. Ed Case of Hawai’i
  3. Jim Costa of California
  4. Laura Gillen of New York
  5. Jim Himes of Connecticut
  6. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania
  7. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio
  8. Jared Moskowitz of Florida
  9. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington
  10. Tom Suozzi of New York

Shomari Figures of Alabama voted “present,” as did Green himself. Go figure.

Leadership

I’ve been asking who will lead us back to being the United States of America, land of the not wrongfully fired, home of the Rule of Law, but just about all I see of Democrats are passionless, directionless placeholders at a time when we need clear, strong, informed and impassioned leaders confidently saying, “THAT way.”

Instead, what we have is Chuck Schumer doing his self-defeating dance, bailing out the Constitution killing Republicans by announcing he’ll vote for their continuing, all-for-rich-guys-and-autocracy, continuing resolution (CR).

Yes, he advocated for helping the Cowardly Elephants pass a bill to extend tax cuts for the ultra-rich, disempower the Congress and give TrumpMisk a signed blank check to continue their destruction of all we hold dear.

Why do Democrats consistently bring bubblegum to a gunfight?

I’ve been wondering where the voices from the old guard have gone. Where are Obama, both Clintons, Gore, Harris, Pelosi and Biden?  Indeed, where are the traditional Republicans, like Romney, Bush, Pence, Boehner and the droves of Senators who quit during Trump I, like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. Seems like I’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places.

Who will lead?

Bottomless Depravity

From The Atlantic Daily:

“In 2023, Donald Trump posted that electric-car supporters should “ROT IN HELL.” [caps original] Now he is showcasing Teslas on the White House lawn.”

Trump doesn’t drive, but according to himself, he will ROT IN HELL.

From Louise Hartmann, March 13, speaking to Trump’s Covid depravity:

  • Oh, the lies kept rolling, the truth was denied.
  • They let our people suffer, they let our people die.
  • Not just neglect—this was by design,
  • Trump’s deadly COVID betrayal, drawn on racial lines.
  • Click the link for the entire poem – because we must never forget.
  • Speaking Of Wimps

  • To TrumpMusk: You piss off gray haired ladies at your ultimate peril. You’ve been warned.

    Headline from Andy Borowitz:

“Trump Gets New Podiatrist’s Note in Preparation for War with Canada”

Many thanks to KL for pointing me to this.

Also from Borowitz:

“In 2010, the Tea Party protested their taxes being spent by a guy they claimed was born in Africa. In 2025, their taxes are being spent by a guy who was definitely born in Africa. Come on, Tea Party, take it to the streets!!!”

Stupiditudes Of This Trump Week

Massive storms, killer tornadoes, winds blowing semis onto their sides in the St. Louis area. killing 34 people in six states.  As bad as it was, NOAA and our National Weather Service experts were there to warn people so they could protect themselves and stay safe. Now TrumpMusk are firing more thousands of NOAA people, which will crush our ability to keep people safe, like the folks in Ashville, NC who needed those advanced warnings; and like in any coastal area in Florida; and for the folks in Tornado Alley and elsewhere when violent weather is coming.

If you were a Trump voter, are you feeling different now, knowing that soon you won’t be able to rely on getting advanced warnings to stay out of harms way, like hurricanes and tornadoes?

If you are a human being who cares not just for yourself, but for others, too, are you thinking that now is the time to stand up and speak up while you still can – perhaps before your right to free speech is terminated and you’re sent to a detention camp in Louisiana like Mahmoud Khalil?

Does it seem like it’s best to take action before tragedy strikes much closer to home, before all the air traffic controllers are fired and it’s way too dangerous to fly; before FEMA is completely gutted and there is no help coming when tragedy strikes your life; before our children can no longer get a good education or before our vets can’t get healthcare?

I think it would be self-destructive to stay home instead of joining others in protest.

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. 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.

Dream Sequence 2


POST 1158

NEW!

I’m over at BLUESKY now, with Maddow, O’Donnell and other smart folks. Find me at:

@jaxpolitix.bsky.social
Executive Summary

→ What happened to Zelens’kyi in the Oval Office and what should have happened next

→ Yet more hatred in the Oval Office – again

→ Still looking for who will lead us back to the United States of America

This Happened

President Trump, Vice-President Vance and Brian Green, a right wing conspiracy journalist with no legitimate reason for being there, all publicly delivered their incoherent, demeaning rants in the Oval Office aimed at humiliating President Volodymyr Zelens’kyi of Ukraine. Instead, they humiliated the United States of America before the world. Then our national leaders expelled the leader of an allied nation from the White House.

Dream Sequence: This Should Have Happened

President Zelens’kyi stood and took a step toward toward the door of the Oval Office to leave, then stopped abruptly. He paused in place for a moment with a look of sudden clarity on his face. Then he turned to Trump and Vance.

“Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President, I just thought of something that had not come to me before this moment. My country is at war and I really have not had time for such notions.

“My people have suffered grievously from illegal and cruel Russian aggression. Many thousands of my countrymen, women and children have been killed and our buildings and our energy infrastructure lie in ruin. Many thousands of our soldiers have suffered and died fighting the invaders. That we have achieved some success on the battlefield is in part due to the munitions and field intelligence the United States has generously supplied, which is why I have thanked the American people many, many times, including during a major address to your Congress. We all know this to be true.

“We all also know that Mr. Putin has openly made his goals clear. He wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He has publicly declared that after he has destroyed and annexed my country that the Baltic States will be next to be invaded; then Poland. We can reasonably assume that stealing all the rest of what had been Soviet Union territory will come next and that all of Europe will be at risk. Democracy itself will be endangered everywhere. All that stands in his way are the people of Ukraine.

“We Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying to stop Putin from decimating western culture, from killing tens of thousands of Europeans and from damaging, isolating and neutering the United States. Now you, Mr. President, have announced a “pause” in armament shipments to us and cut us off from intelligence reports and satellite utilities. That has emboldened Mr. Putin, to the enormous disadvantage and harm to we Ukrainians. Indeed, your actions threaten to hasten a terrible future risk for all of western culture and safety.

“It is our children who have been orphaned and killed and kidnapped, not yours, and it is we who have been doing the fighting, the bleeding and the dying, not your soldiers.

“What has come to me just now, Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President, is that it is you who should be thanking the Ukrainian people for fighting the righteous fight so that you do not have to send your sons and daughters into harms way to stop this international terrorist. But you have never uttered a word of gratitude for our suffering and sacrifice.

Not once have you thanked us for keeping your people safe, for all that we have done and continue to do for you and for freedom everywhere. We protect your people, your way of life and we protect the world for the blessing of democracy. You have never uttered a word of thanks to we Ukrainians. Not ever.

“That is what I have just realized, Mr. President. Now all the world knows.”

With that, Volodymyr Zelens’kyi turned his back to Trump and Vance and walked out of the Oval Office, raising a fist above his head and declaring in his strong, but war strained voice, “Slava Ukraini!”

Shame

I posted a Ukraine dream sequence almost exactly 3 years ago. It was about creating peace. Sadly, none of what I dreamed has come about and now our government has stopped support for that embattled nation. Trump, the Russian “useful idiot,” is quite deliberately handing Ukraine to Putin.

It appears that our elected leadership has officially and quite dangerously abandoned our values, our principles and the safety of the world for the sole purpose of serving one man’s vanity.

Still, there are places in America where there is still the capacity to feel national shame caused by officials without honor. There are fellow citizens who have the juice to deliver the condemnation that those doing shameful things deserve. Go join those voices at the next demonstration against TrumpMusk and your cowardly Republican congresspeople.

Hatred Report of the Week

Read what Prof. Timothy Snyder has to say about our elected leaders spewing hatred and scapegoating “others” in his post, Antisemitism in the Oval Office – even if you aren’t Jewish. Snyder doesn’t say as much in his essay, but immigrants, whether legal or not, criminals or not, U.S. citizens or not, continue to be vilified and scapegoated by Trump and by others infected with the poison of hatred. He did the same thing against Muslims during his first administration. Are you seeing a pattern yet?

We don’t know who will be next. But we do know that someone will be next.

Leadership Update

I keep receiving emails from Hakeem Jeffries. Other than listing a couple of Trump horribles to tweak me into sending cash (8 pings in 11 days), he offers nothing. I keep his emails in a folder labeled “Stupid Democrat Solicitations.”

Jeffries’ public speaking is a tour de force of uninspiring recitation of talking points read by a policy wonk. Nobody will be energized for the fight by listening to him. In short, he isn’t the guy we need to lead the charge.

Schumer is worse. Sometime, long ago, he accidentally entered a hospital OR where his passion was surgically removed.

I ask yet again:

Who will lead?

Flash Update

The verified total of Trump’s lies during his first term is 30,572. That means he lied to us every 52 minutes, ’round the clock for four years!

Let’s just say that the newly inaugurated president isn’t going to sit on his laurels during his second term. He’s well on his way to another four years of five-figure fibbing. – The Cap Times, January 27, 2025

What puzzles me is how that’s okay with Trump voters.

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. 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.

SOTU, Social Security & Ugly


POST 1156

Executive Summary

> What SOTU? You mean the 2 hours of self-serving blah? Couldn’t watch. Did the Democrats boycott or walk out or just politely sit there and take it on the chin yet again?

> On being 150 years old

> A dire warning about justice and ugly

SOTU – Actually, Just a Reality TV Promotion

The only moment of a Trump State of the Union address I liked was when Nancy Pelosi dramatically tore up his speech. I wish today’s Democrats would reach down to see if they, like her, have a pair (calm down – it’s a metaphor, not a gender excluding phrase) and, if so, that they would show some ferocity.

Meanwhile, Trump is rapidly turning over the United States of America to Putin. Soon you’ll have to address me as Comrade Disambiguation. Doesn’t exactly slide off the tongue as easily as the way Trump is sliding democracy from us and abandoning our values and our role of leadership in the world. You heard that he’s shutting down some counterintelligence operations, right?

That’s why I couldn’t and didn’t watch. Besides, over 30,000 lies in his first administration far exceeded my maximum lifetime tolerance.

Social Security Fraud

I am 150 years old and I collect Social Security under my name and under 3 aliases. I have to draft off the Medicare account of a neighbor – please don’t tell him – but I’m in pretty good health, so apparently I’m under that radar. Here’s the problem.

Elon has been blabbing on about 150 year old Americans fraudulently collecting Social Security and I guess I’m guilty of that. Well, like my superannuated contemporaries, only guilty for the 3 aliases.

Anyway, It’s plain as can be that Musk is totally clueless about the needs of our – of your – seniors and only says what he says to be bombastic and to protect his billions of dollars of federal contracts. Perhaps he thinks he sounds smart or powerful or thinks he’s on his way to Mars (please!). But, of course, he’s a dumb bunny, clueless about our nation’s values and pleased to say stupid things.

I’m concerned that he and the other POTUS will find me and my antiquated friends and start using us in some propaganda piece that brings the extremist militants out of their hidey-holes to threaten and abuse us. I confess that I’m barely strong enough to hold and fire my .38 caliber pistol and am much more comfortable with my little .22. The problem is that I’m not confident that it has enough stopping power to protect me from the MAGA anti-patriots carrying their AR-15s who will be banging down my door – the ones who make death threats to grannies and Democrats, much less Trump’s soon to be constituted brown shirts. What can I do?

Plus, if they cut off my aliases, where will I get enough money to live? The winter cold really hurts these old bones. I need help and help is expensive.

So you see, I’m in quite a bind. I need protection from Trump, from Musk and from our American terrorists; from the juvenile hacker snoops at Social Security and Medicare, from the clueless right-wing talk radio and TV blabbers, from Republican Trump sucks and, of course, from our citizens who, after Social Security is cut or privatized, will chant at me, “Let him die!”

Thanks for this find, TF.

Did you hear that they’re slashing food stamps? I’m hoping to make it to 200 years old, but that’s going to be far more difficult after Trump cuts yet more benefits, stuff I paid into for all the many decades of my working life. Looks like I’ll have to eat cat food.

If I were your great, great, great grandfather, what would you tell me to do?

A Dire Warning

You know well of the unqualified Trump supplication nominees for department heads and the now confirmed heads of the various departments of the executive branch. None is more dangerous than the head of the Justice Department, because that agency is supposed to be a watchdog standing guard over all the others.

Click the pic. Many thanks to DL for pointing me to this.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has long been outspoken about such things. You need to watch and listen carefully to his comments to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. This is one of the scariest 5 minutes of video I have ever seen, because he is right. This is going to be a monumental battle for the heart of our nation, for the values we hold dear, and it’s going to take all of us if we’re to keep our constitutional republic.

Ugly Brought Us Here

From Dan Gardner’s brilliant post, The Ugly American,

Picture the worst stereotype of an American abroad. Loud, abrasive, arrogant. Incurious about local culture and politics because Americans have nothing to learn from foreigners. Incapable of delivering even a few words in another language and certain they can always make themselves understood by speaking English at a higher volume. Smugly confident that the United States is the most advanced of civilizations, in every way that matters, and all the rest of the world silently dreams of being American, or least meeting one of God’s chosen.

Those are ugly Americans. Can you come up with names of people in our country today to which such a description, such a label might apply? Tell you what: ping your Canadian friends and ask what they think. Or check with NATO leaders – all of them except dictators Orbán in Hungary and Erdoğan in Turkey and Commissar Whatshisname in the U.S. All the rest have posted their support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy. Then read Gardner’s essay in full. It’s excellent.

These over-proud, angry and poorly informed Trumpy Americans brought us here, along with the millions who didn’t bother to vote. And the Trumpies bought most of America’s privately owned 440 million guns. I think most are in the hands of people who should never own any weapon more dangerous than a staple remover. That’s a very dangerous situation.

I suspect they just like the feeling of power that having a gun gives them and they think that a gun will bring them safety from some imagined threat. Plus, I believe they think the Second Amendment was written so that they can attack our government if they don’t like it – as if they could defeat the U.S military. We know that last reason is accurate, because many of the Second Amendment loonies have said exactly that.

They put all of us at risk. Those guns bring us 2 mass murders every 3 days and our ongoing suicide deaths. And they support the national demolition of our government and our values, destruction that threatens us more deeply every day.

There is little hope of changing their minds, but they are no more than 1/3 of our eligible voters. Should we ever again have an election, the other 2/3 of us better show up.

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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. 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.

Extortion, Ugly Americans and Gaza


POST 1155

Executive Summary

> Musk failed. He’s expelled.

> Once an extortionist, always an extortionist

> Giving credit where it’s due: DOGE excels at idiotic claims and vile cruelty.

> It used to be “makers and takers.” Now it’s “Trumpys and parasites.”

> Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas were repatriated to Israel last week – in boxes.

Musk Update

Elon Musk failed to email his declaration of 5 things he did last week, as required by the demand email set forth in this space on February 26. Accordingly, he is immediately fired from his non-job. He will have 15 minutes to remove his personal items from his office and until noon tomorrow, Monday, March 3 to leave this country permanently.

The Extortionist

In 2019 Trump got caught trying to extort President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, demanding an announcement from Zelenskyy claiming he was investigating wrongdoing by Hunter Biden in Ukraine. Trump hoped that would kneecap Joe Biden in the upcoming election. Appropriately, Trump’s attempted extortion got him impeached.

Ukraine continues to be in need of military aid and Trump is making that aid contingent upon Ukraine giving away half of its rare earth mineral wealth and caving in to Putin’s Russia.

It’s yet another Trump extortion. To be fair, it’s actually a protection racket. You can almost hear Trump saying to Zelenskyy, “You’ve got a nice little country. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”

The Lowest god

Surely, the Trump/Vance ambush  of President Zelenskyy served to puff up Trump’s extremist bro-bros. It served to buoy Putin’s ambitions to restore the Soviet Union through grabs of entire countries. And it served to display the reality that everything associated with Trump is solely about money and fame/power. But all that Trumpian worthlessness misses the point.

From Norm Eisen, The Contrarian, March 1:

Trump and Vance in one fell swoop managed to embolden our adversaries (not just Russia) and alienate our staunch European allies.

As Trump and hillbilly Vance vomited their playground bully stupidities, believing that they were humiliating President Zelenskyy, they were, in fact, humiliating themselves. They are too vain and clueless to understand that, but that misses the point anyway. They were humiliating the United States of America before the world. That’s the point.

We all understand that their Mafia don behavior in public will be enthusiastically applauded by right wing extremists (MAGA swagger for the insecure) and by spineless Republicans. But it will serve as a warning to our allies that the United States is no longer the leader of the free world and cannot be counted on as an ally. It will show Putin and Xi that we are nothing more than a grovelling paper tiger that can be manipulated by a single complementing breath and a pat on Trump’s comb-over.

Apparently, Trump’s art of the deal is nothing more than crude extortion and humiliation. Trump fancies himself king and a god. Perhaps he is right. But he is solely a god of self-humiliation

Trumpy Americans

They are the ones who support Trump and his pet raptor, the co-president of Smash and Grab. Just like Trump, Musk is severely challenged to stay within sight of truth, reality and decency. Look at this tweet from him →

Let’s unpack that.

First, there isn’t 90% of Americans loving DOGE; it’s around 50% and falling. That is like the oops of Musk conflating millions into claims of billions when he reports government savings through his ready, fire, don’t-bother-to-aim shotgun firings.

Musk gets such things wrong because:

A. He just likes the sound of “billions” the way some people like the sound of their own voice.

B. His love of ignorance and fantasy far outweighs his experience with truth and reality.

C. He’s going to Mars anyway, so why should he sweat the small stuff that doesn’t hurt him?

D. He’s been far too busy jumping like a 4-year-old to notice little discrepancies that are off by a thousand times.

E. All of the above

Second, other than the most determined-to-be-angry extremists, almost nobody “loves” a phony, largely illegal bunch of juvenile delinquent flying tech monkeys or their greedy non-boss.

Third, this statement apparently from Trump’s mean girl press person* makes clear that for those in the White House and for the national Trumpy ones, there are “others” and who cares about them because everything is only about whether it affects “you”? – meaning themselves. Empathy has no place in this White House or in that third of our citizens.

In this age of extremist rage, Mitt Romney’s label “takers” has devolved into “parasites.” Today there is never a description of anything by MAGAs, Republicans, oligarchs or fascists without including demonization of “others.” That stuff often comes from the ethically strained White House and always comes from dictators.

The over-proud, angry and poorly informed Trumpy Americans brought us this crashing of the America they claim to love but clearly they don’t. It’s the America they should have learned about in civics and history classes, the America of All-We-The-People, but they obviously never did.

Finally,

Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas were quite alive when they were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. The mother likely was raped and tortured after that. Then they were all dead.

In repatriating the bodies to Israel, Hamas substituted a deceased Gaza woman for the dead mother of two dead children. Connect all that to some other dots and perhaps you’ll see things a bit differently, if you dare.

From Mike Koplow regarding the return of the bodies of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas last week:

It is unfathomable to watch Hamas parade coffins of dead innocents who were kidnapped into Gaza [and are now being flaunted] before the cheering hundreds as music blares, unfathomable to watch them march tortured hostages onto a stage in a public square and force them to humiliatingly thank their cruel captors in front of television cameras before their release, unfathomable to contemplate that no Palestinian in Gaza appears willing to step forward and put an end to this or to even publicly object.

As you contemplate the horrors visited upon non-militant Gazans, consider Koplow’s words and scratch your chin a moment to see if you can understand, even if only a bit and even if only for a moment how that might have come about.

What if you had attended that concert in the desert on October 7? What if that were your family returned in boxes? What if one of those humiliated prisoners was your brother, friend, or father who was tortured for no reason other than Hamas savage sadism, was malnourished and forced to humiliate himself in front of cameras and a cheering Gaza crowd? That is the kind of reality Israeli’s live in.

Go slowly and gently with your certainties – and teach your idealistic college student waving a Palestinian flag to do the same. Perhaps there is more to learn. Perhaps there are things worth standing up for that are beyond our own individual limited view and which surpass our own individual sense of offense.

_________________________________________

* Questions for 27 year old Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary:

  1. Do you think that bratty mean girl rants are what the world should hear from the press room of the White House?
  2. Do you think that the cross you prominently display absolves you from the answer to the question, “What would Jesus say?”?
  3. No seriously, do you think it’s okay to lie for Trump?

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. 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.

Enough Small Ball


POST 1153

Executive Summary

> Link through to J.B. Pritzker’s address for inspiration and direction.

> Focus on the Big Picture – they are trashing the constitution, the rule of law, democracy, freedom of the press and our individual freedoms. We need an inspirational leader to stop the bad guys.

> We the People are for the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse, but even more we want to eliminate Elon Musk. We provide the firing email to him.

Where To Start
  1. If you have not heard Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s State of the State address you need to hear it. Start at the 33 minute mark. It’s about America. His words are medicine for your heart.
  2. Trump has stomped his foot on the neck of freedom of the press. From Ron Fournier:

“The White House said Tuesday that presidential aides will dictate which news outlets regularly cover the president and presidency up close .  .  .”

That means they decide who can attend press briefings, ride in the steerage section of Air Force 1 and more. The rate of destruction is accelerating.

Leadership I

Yes, Trump intends to replace ordinary, Constitution defending workers with people loyal only to Trump. That’s what he said he’d do.

Yes, Musk is a chainsaw wielding maniac, a racist and a thief.

Yes, it’s deplorable how cruelly and illegally our civil servants are being treated.

Yes, it’s immoral and homicidal to withhold food from starving people and medical aid from the sick.

Yes, it’s a blatant abuse and a prelude to grand larceny that Musk and his juvenile delinquent flying monkeys have your personal financial and other private information and they now control when and whether you receive your tax refund or your Social Security check.

Yes, it used to be unthinkable that funding for Alzheimer’s Disease research could be cut, but that’s exactly what Trump is doing.

All that is horrible, yet it’s relatively small ball. It misses the point, the big picture, the forest unseen because of the trees. We need crystal clear focus on the forest.

Trump told us he would be a dictator. He wants to do away with Congress, the courts, the press, freedom of assembly, everything and rule as dictator. I repeat: He told us.

Hitler dismantled Germany’s democracy in just 53 days of bullying and threatening members of the Reichstag to get them to prostrate themselves. As Trump is bullying and threatening our legislators and press, don’t you think it’s time we stopped pretending Trump might work within the bounds of our government when he is right now manufacturing an American dictatorship?

Lickspittle Republicans are using cowardly silence to allow Trump to take down of our democracy. It’s time we put banana peels under their shoes like these people did at a recent town hall in Georgia.

Focus on the BIG PICTURE:

  • TRUMP IS STEALING OUR COUNTRY FROM US
  • AND HE’S DOING IT IN PLAIN SIGHT!

Enough small ball, however important those issues truly are. There is an ongoing TrumpMusk revolution to stick our Constitution, our laws and our democracy into an incinerator. It’s time for us to fight back with a real American revolution to restore what our Founders fought a mad king for, what our Union military fought for, what our dough boys and our WW II Yanks fought for. It is time to stop the bad guys.

Russell Vought is the newly confirmed Director of the Office of Management and Budget, which is frightening because he is a chief architect of Project 2025, the Republican road map to dictatorship, the plan that Trump is executing right now.

Vought said,

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains … We want to put them in trauma.

Really? That’s the America you want, Oberführer Vought? We the People surely don’t want that.

Anne Applebaum put the actions of DOGE into perspective, writing,

DOGE has attacked at least 11 federal agencies that were embroiled in regulatory fights with Musk’s companies or were investigating them for potential violations of laws on workplace safety, workers’ rights, and consumer protection.

Does that sound like the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse? It sounds to me like Musk is trashing the legitimate agencies scrutinizing him and his companies. That’s what Chainsaw Musk can do when he controls government. That’s how Trump can get away with stealing classified documents and inciting an insurrection.

It is unacceptable to be immobile with hopelessness and frustration now. The battle call from the bugle of America is deafeningly loud and it is calling you and me. It is calling us to be in the streets with millions of patriots telling the cowardly Republicans that we demand that they find their spines, that they stand up and end this insanity. And that bugle tells them that if they fail to answer that call that we will discard them like rotting food waste.

Leadership II

We need national, inspirational leadership, so I wrote to my senators and representative:

Our democracy is in an existential moment – you know this. We need powerful, stand-out leadership, not policy wonks, and with few exceptions, we are presented with Democratic and Republican Party deafening silence. Where is that leadership? Where are you?

Feel free to copy, paste and send that message to your legislators. Find them on house.gov and senate.gov. Go there and click on the Contact button.

Leadership III

Hakeem Jeffries was on Rachel Maddow’s show on Monday and spoke with true bureaucratic zeal about policies House Democrats are pursuing. She replied by saying, in so many words, that what people want is not new policies, but inspiration and leadership. Maddow is right. Jeffries, for all of his fine qualities, doesn’t seem to be wired to provide what we need.

Who will step up in our hour of need?
.

Hey: What about Adam Kinzinger to lead our charge?

Not-So-Dear Elon:

Chainsaw Musk

It was announced by someone in the White House that you are now merely an advisor to the President. That means that you have no power or authority over anyone or any agency of our government. You have no license for your cruelty. Of course, you really never did.

Nevertheless, you sent an email to many thousands of our dedicated public servants, treating them like misbehaving school children, demanding that they justify their jobs or be fired. You required them to reply not later than last Monday night.

Turnabout is fair play, Chainsaw. Here is your requirement from America.

You will list not less that 5 actions you took in the last week that actually helped our country. You will justify your claims with actual facts, unlike the fatuous idiocy you commonly make up. You will email your information to [email protected] not later than midnight this Friday, February 28 so that your reply can be vetted and reported in the JaxPolitix Disambiguation on Sunday.

Failure to comply with this directive will result in you being fired from your non-job and banished from America forever. That will give We the People a reason to smile.

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. 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.

I Don’t Know It For a Fact – Plus “Shane”


POST 1151

CAUTION!

This post contains unrestrained snark. It is recommended that sensitive readers use only one eye and then, jeez, get over it.

Bill Maher has a satirical bit he does periodically entitled,

  • I Don’t Know It For A Fact.
  • I Just Know It’s True.

Here’s my offering in that format.

Click me for a better view

When he was 12 years old Trump was in a terrible car crash that damaged his brain, making him unable to think in any way but in terms of “what’s in it for me.” Also injured in that crash was his heart. Surgeons had to remove a major section of it, which made him permanently disabled, without the ability to care about others. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump is congenitally unable to think in strategic terms, only in a tactical, transactional way, and cannot express himself in any way but in word vomit. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

The next Trump Towers will be built in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riyadh, Budapest and – a long shot – Beijing, depending upon his effectiveness at sucking up to evil foreign dictators whose approval he craves. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump contracted a nearly fatal case of Severe Asshole Disease following a high stakes poker game he lost, but which to this day he insists he won. He claims that cards were switched, a terrible fraud! That trauma left him unable to think in any terms but taking money from others. Plus, it left him always feeling unjustly treated, a victim captured in the terror of the truth, that he’s a loser. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

As soon as Musk’s destruction of all government agencies is complete, Trump will fire him and sic the Justice Department on him for retribution, whining on Truth Social that Musk upstaged him repeatedly in the reality show that is Trump’s life. He will also persecute Musk’s kid, X, for being in the Oval Office, stealing some attention from Trump and having what he will call, “a stupid name.” Plus, he will call Musk infantile names like Muskrat and doo-doo head. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump read Mein Kampf and memorized Hitler’s speeches, which he kept on his nightstand. He practiced reciting them to his first wife, Ivana, believing that she would find that as erotic as he did. They had three children, but none after he began reciting those speeches to her. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Elon Musk loves apartheid and wants to bring it to America to subjugate all non-Aryans and take their money. Then he will cash in his Krugerrands, gold coins made from gold mined in near-slavery conditions by Black labor. He will use that as seed money for his next venture, making soylent green, which he intends to feed to his Black laborers. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Danger

In Steve Schmidt’s Presidents Day post, JD Vance is a fool on a ship of fools, he shares the words of Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert Jackson, who was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazis following WW II. Jackson said this in his closing argument:

Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.

Now we have in our president a puppet of Putin, who is a man, “in whom those [savage] forces now precariously survive.” Just ask Vladimir Zelenskyy about Putin’s savagery. Justice Jackson was right then and he’s still right. Worst of all, Trump has modeled himself after such evil despots.

Trump is fond of saying, “Only I can _____________.” You fill in the blank. Sometimes he’s right. Only Trump can lead the dismantling of the American order both at home and internationally, putting we and the world in terrible peril.

You know parts of the list of the dastardly, un-constitutional, illegal actions he’s taking and you have a bad taste in your mouth for the cruelty he’s unleashed on tens of thousands, now millions of Americans. What you must do with that is to see that it is all of a piece and not get your underwear in a bunch over just one or two issues. The point is that he is leading a coup to take sole control and ownership of all of America and pocket all our riches for himself.

Trump would be right to crow, “Only I” can do that. And he will do that unless you and I stop him. Now would be a fine time to do that stopping, because “Only we” can prevent Hitler II.

Quotes of the Week

“We’re going to lose our democracy,” said Sotomayor, unless Americans and “particularly” young people take steps to inform themselves well and combat the misinformation chaos created by the rise of the internet.

  • – Josh Sackheim FB post, Feb 12,
  • reporting on comments of
  • Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor
  • at Miami Dade College in Florida

The tumult is smoke. But don’t look away: The fire is a national takeover.

Who will stand up to Trump at high noon?

Indeed, who will do that? We’re looking for that leader.

Backbone

There is an Open Letter to Career Prosecutors, executed on Presidents Day, February 17, 2025. It is circulating now and you MUST read it. It is a cautionary message of support for our good and honorable prosecutors who are under attack from the Trump Justice Department for refusing to do wrong. It is a message of standing with and for these prosecutors as they stand with and for our Constitution and the rule of law. It is signed by over 900 former prosecutors.

The text of the letter ends,

“generations of former federal prosecutors are watching with pride and admiration and stand ready to support you in this honorable pursuit.”

Then come the names. 39 pages of the names of people with courage and integrity. People who then, now and always stand by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Read the letter. And in your heart, stand with them for our career prosecutors today.

Could we – you and I – do any less for our democracy? Not if we stand for something worthy.

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. 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.

The Worst


POST 1149

A Partial List of Executive Order Destruction
  1. They’re cutting funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), slashing support for indirect costs associated with medical research. Good luck with that break-through treatment your baby needs to survive.
  2. They’re cutting funding for the CDC, which will be forced to stop preparations to deal with the next pandemic and the one after that. They’re cutting support to deal with opioid overdose prevention, too.
  3. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is being shut down, so we will no longer have warnings about dangerous weather.
  4. Even the sign has been taken off the USAID building, making it clear that the agency is so yesterday. We don’t care if babies die, tens of thousands succumb to HIV and China replaces us globally in the hearts and minds of millions so that they gain access to the resources we need.
  5. The Department of Education is set to receive the wrecking ball. Your children are already well behind where their parents were at the same age in reading, writing, science and the rest. The destruction of the DOE will ensure that their children – your grandchildren – will be even more ignorant. Plus, some of the DOE money will be redirected from public education to private schools via vouchers. Are you okay with your tax dollars going to the school at Our Lady of Grift, or the St. White Guy Patriarchy Academy?
  6. Musk has announced the imminent demise of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Apparently, we didn’t really need the $17 billion the agency recovered for We the People who were fleeced by fraudulent and predatory practices. We can look forward to a resumption of the days of wanton financial cheating and the emptying your wallet.
  7. Christian Nationalist Russell Vought was made director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is an author of Project 2025, which is a roadmap to destroying the Constitution and our government. To be fair, that wasn’t done by executive order. It was a cowardly Republican vote in the Senate for a decidedly anti-American extremist.
  8. Newly installed director of HHS Christi Noem, the, promo actress for her dentist, made a visit to Guantanamo, where Trump plans to dump 30,000 immigrants. They are possibly undocumented people who are possibly accused criminals who were possibly convicted. Trump explained, “We don’ do no stinkin’ vetting for nobody for nuthin’. Besides, they’re brown. We don’ need no dark people to mess with our White privilege and we don’ need no stinking rule of law or habeas corpus,* either.” Note that I did not follow the events of Noem’s visit, so I don’t know if she shot and killed any cute puppies while she was at Guantanamo.

Notice the resemblance,

especially in the dead eyes.

We’ve had 3 weeks of Trump flaunting the law. There have been lawsuits to stop him and he’s lost them all, but just as his Josef Goebbels (Stephen Miller) said about ripping babies from mothers’ arms at the border, “The cruelty is the point.”

The court system is a long, slow process. Some lawsuits may take years to conclude. Meanwhile, Trump will be getting away with lawlessness and harming people.

Trump has captured the public narrative (yet again) with his lawlessness and his unending torrent of verbal vomiting of fantasies and lies. The rule of law isn’t even a speed bump to him. As his advisor Steve Bannon advised, “Flood the zone with shit” and Trump is doing exactly that. It may be shit, but it’s a tsunami that overwhelms everything so fast that stopping him is more than a daunting task.

Saving the Worst For Last

I know that this has been a long year for you over just the past 3 weeks, but take a trip with me in the WayBack Machine. We’ll set the dials to take us to the thrilling days of yestermonth, when there was separation of powers, un-elected rich guys couldn’t stomp on your privacy, your financial well-being or the programs Congress had ordered. The rule of law, that quaint, old fashioned notion, was king and it applied to everyone, except fat, orange, mentally declining narcissists.  Even as there were people in black robes undermining the rule of law, there were guys with silver bullets enforcing it. But things have changed.

Now thousands of silver bullet guys have been fired as retribution for having enforced the rule of law. Replacements are being required to pledge themselves to the fat, orange, mentally declining narcissist, instead of to the Constitution and the rule of law. All executive department heads (or nominees) have similarly pledged their loyalty and have given away their integrity to that same fat, orange, mentally declining narcissist.

He is blatantly ignoring court orders and the separation of powers that for nearly 250 years has prevented us from being violated, dominated and sometimes terminated by a cruel despot, like mad King George III. And the stomping by an un-elected apartheid devotee and his hacker delinquents upon your privacy, your financial well-being and programs Congress ordered  continues. They are defying court orders. They even want to murder Big Bird. So do the Republicans in Congress.

In short, this president and his integrity-free operatives are daring anyone to stop them from taking sole power over the United States of America and strangling this country with fascism.

That’s the worst.

.

We cannot count on our self-neutering elected Democrats or the always-with-their-hand-out-for-contributions DNC to lead actions to stop the steal of our country, so it’s up to us – as in: you, me and the millions who recognize that injustices and wholesale attack on our nation and our people are underway.

Demonstrations are scheduled for Presidents Day, this Monday, Feb 17. That’s a really good day for millions of We The People across the country to take a stand.

Click here to find an action near you. If you don’t find something nearby, make one – there’s information for that at the same site.

Oh BTW – eggs are $10 a dozen. Didn’t Trump promise he’d make the price go down? Was that supposed to happen on day one? Did anyone tell the hens about all that?

RESIST!

Required Reading for Action

Read Robert Reich’s Feb 6 post, What You Can Do.

___________________________________________

* noun: habeas corpus

a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention. [emphasis mine – JA]
Source: OxfordLanguages

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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. 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.

Stupid Distractions and Stop The Steal


POST 1148

Ugly Highlights From Last Week

There is a cadre of Musk hacker delinquents playing larceny games within our Treasury Department in the form of making “extensive changes to the [Treasury Dept.] code base for the payment system.” To whose benefit do you suppose those “extensive changes” will accrue? Who will get slammed one way or another by the malfeasance of these flying monkeys, as directed by the dangerous crime spree mob boss, Secretary of the Treasury, Elon Musk.

Oh wait – DOGE is not a federal agency or department, Musk was never qualified by anyone for any post and he was never elected to anything. You have as much right to his phony DOGE job as he does, but he gave Trump $288 million so he’s controlling your money now.

Curiosity of the week:

Musk and his flying monkeys are eviscerating USAID as their first move. That’s happening as USAID was/is investigating Musk and his Starlink internet hardware and service, which somehow was being used by the Russians to attack Ukraine. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Musk’s delinquents – his storm troopers – invaded the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a first action to delete the agency that analyzes, predicts and warns us of dangerous weather conditions, including tornadoes, hurricanes and damaging winds and rain, all to keep us safe. That’s significant because it was recently discovered that a Sharpie cannot redirect a hurricane.

Musk intends to privatize the agency, giving away what we paid to establish and improve for 90 years, all to absolutely no benefit to We the People. Next he’s promised to eliminate the Departments of Education and Energy. It’s all so very Project 2025 to give away our assets to rich guys.

Trump earlier indicated that he plans to: invade Panama in order to retake and own the canal; make Canada our 51st state; and somehow acquire Greenland.

Now Trump says he’s going to send our troops to Gaza, ethnically cleanse all Gazans from the area and develop Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Surely, there will be a Trump Tower there and the whole area will be renamed Gaz-a-Lago or Trump Mediterranean.*

But,

– He isn’t going to send troops, take over Gaza and build a Middle East vacation spot for rich people.

– He isn’t going to annex Canada. He isn’t even going to impose a tariff that sticks. He’s already backed down. Same for Mexico.

– He isn’t going to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal.

It’s all nothing more than fraudulent, flapping lips of distraction so that we won’t see his traitorous coup.**

It’s about the neutering of our law enforcement, dismantling of our intelligence agencies for the outright theft (or at least control) of our Treasury Department money and Trump’s power over the entire country.

This is the biggest burglary (now in progress) in the history of the world.
.

His packed courts and hobbled FBI won’t do anything to stop him. This will continue as long as we are willing accomplices through our silence or our refusal to see what is before us.

And he’s aided and abetted by siccing techno-grifters on the nation. Read this.

Stop the Steal

Not that phony stop the steal. This one.

There were rallies/demonstrations all over America last week The one in front of the Treasury Department in DC had about 1,000 protesters. We’ll need a lot more actions. Here’s a short list.
.

Constant protests, lots of them, likely requiring leaders of various NGAs to set aside ego and coordinate efforts (see below). The people’s power is in our numbers.

A blizzard of lawsuits filed at the federal, state and municipal levels – constant pressure. Who’s a lawyer you know who will suit up for this battle?

A blizzard of communication to every Republican coward in elected office. Tell them constituents are working hard to fire them. As well, reach out to Democrats to let them know what we expect from them and that we have their backs.

Public communication – ads, commercials, social media videos, etc. – about how American citizens have been hurt by the Trump/Musk/Republican cabal of oligarchs. Tell the stories of real people; e.g. women who couldn’t get health care and then bled to death from miscarriages; new cases of polio and other diseases for which there are proven safe, effective vaccines, but which RFK discourages, resulting in sick, paralyzed kids; people – including our FBI agents – injured or killed by pardoned Jan 6 perps. This is key to success and Democrats suck at communication.

Civil disobedience, culminating in a national labor strike to include all but necessary safety, health and national security personnel.

You and I can do all of that or, at the very least, we can appeal to people who can. Do you know a leader of an activist organization like Moms Demand Action, Indivisible, MoveOn, Our Revolution, Leaders We Deserve, Country First or any other? Call them. Text them. Email them. Tell them to join with other organizations to fight by using the power of a massive number of Americans.

My boyhood pal Frank Levy is a most impatient activist. We should all be that way now. Here’s his call to action.

What 47 and Musk are doing is a threat to many if not all Americans. As Heather Cox Richardson said in her February 5 Letters From an American, quoting Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), “It is extraordinary how much access Elon Musk and his sort of creepy 22-year-old henchmen have to all of our data.” Musk and his vigilante kid demons have no idea what damage they are causing. They now have the ability to cut off all Social Security checks and IRS refund checks and spy on the bank account information of most Americans.*** So, what can we do about it?

We can stand up, speak up and act up. How? If every individual who voted for Kamala and Tim went on strike for two days and rallied together on the steps of their state capitol it would shake cowardly 47 and let everyone in his government know that “We are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore.” [I’ll add that millions in red states are mad as hell, too. This isn’t what they voted for. – JA]

Fighting back is simple. It does take courage, resilience and a determination to resist. But this is on us. Our future is in our hands. We cannot count on the feckless Democrats to help. We are on our own.

I’m calling for a national two-day strike to occur on Thursday and Friday, February 20 and 21, 2025. Who will join me?

In the 60s we used to chant “Power to the people!” This is a good time to renew the call.

For Anyone Who Missed the Message

Trump 2.0 is a profound, ongoing betrayal of America and everything that has made this remarkable nation the most powerful and prosperous in the world. It is why we must fight.

– Simon Rosenberg, Hopium Chronicles, Feb 6, 2025

REBEL!

____________________________________________

* Republican idiot (redundant?) Nancy Mace, in flagrante Trump suck-up form, said, “Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago,” thus securing her place with Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan and a few more Republicans as the dumbest rocks at the bottom of the bucket. The rest of the Republicans aren’t dumb. Rather, they are cowardly hypocrites, bought off by a threat and for a few baubles tossed on the ground before them.

** Read Prof. Timothy Snyder’s post, Of Course It’s a Coup and Sheila Markin’s post, Trump and Musk Smash and Grab.

*** Just a guess, but I suspect that to Musk’s delinquents this diabolical rewiring of our Treasury Department is not much more than a video game played to win a pat on the head from Musk. It gets the rest of us suffering and even death.

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. 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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