Accountability

What I’m Seeing


POST 1206

Unconservative

The right wing has taken a terrible blow to its head, its heart and its morals and has become not the right wing, but the wrong wing. Perhaps you’ve wondered what actual conservatives have been thinking for the past years as they’ve allow themselves to become compromised and putrefied.

Patty Vasquez has thought about that and she offers a warning to them in her post, Dear Conservatives: Trump Is Betraying Everything You Stand For, although it may already be way too late to reach them. Read it and then pass it along to Uncle Bubba and Aunt Spunky. Maybe they were once conservatives back in the days before Newt Gingrich began the angry, self-focused, extremist pollution of our politics that started us on the downward spiral to today’s not-conservative fascism.

No Comment Needed

Click me for the story – but you already know it.

Clear Message

Trump took all those trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane, the Nubile Express, to frolic on Sex Traffic Island. Is there actually anyone who believes that Trump was there just to play poker or to splat his 300 pound overload onto a beach chair? O’ the horror of the nasty visual of him in swimming trunks and a much too long red necktie!

He recently had Air Force 1 fly him to Scotland at a cost of millions of dollars of your tax payer money and offered only some phony, manufactured excuses for the trip. The real reasons for the trip were to promote his golf courses there – on our dime – and also to distract you from the Epstein story, the scum bag tattle tale of sin and lawbreaking that will not go away. And no, you’re not surprised.

The Scots have an opinion on all this and especially on Trump’s obvious criminality. They’ve offered a message for him, presented by some Scots who have a fine clarity about right and wrong and a skill for expressing their views ever-so-elegantly. Many thanks to pal Kirk Landers for sending the link.

NOTE: This video contains strong language guaranteed to be offensive to some. If you are one of the “some” people, please use good judgment.
.

Everyone else, yer gonna love this.

______________________________________________

Deconstructing Trump Corner will return on Sunday.

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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


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

Can We Drop The Pretenses and Denial Now?


POST 1205

It’s About One Thing and One Thing Only

The Trump immigration cruelty, breaking of laws and the rest have nothing to do with immigration. They have nothing to do with the economy. They are unrelated to international trade or safe borders, disease prevention, ending war or the Nobel Peace Prize.

Click me for the story.

The cruelty is about getting rid of Brown and Black people, which is why ICE locks up even legal Brown American citizens and doesn’t discriminate between immigrants with or without a criminal record. In fact, ICE doesn’t even check for criminal records. They just kidnap people, zip-tie them and send them to a hell hole prison. Make America White Again!

The cruelty is about establishing public fear of Trump so that he has all the power. Even big law firms, major universities and financial institutions are chickening out and bending the knee for what they seem to believe is their short term advantage or perhaps protection from Trump’s cruelty.

That is compounded by Trump’s incremental militarization of our cities – notably only where there are Black mayors. Trump threatens several more cities with the deployment of our military and none of them is near the top of the list of cities with the most crime. He threatened New York, Baltimore, Chicago and Oakland, all Democratic strongholds with large African-American populations. They could be next and won’t that be a fine distraction from the withheld Epstein files?

Militarization is what dictators do to suppress and control the population.

During his first administration Trump ordered Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to have his troops “shoot [protesters] in the legs.” Milley refused, but now that Trump has fired the generals most likely to refuse his illegal orders and has replaced them with Trump sycophants, what do you suppose will happen when there are peaceful protests that Trump doesn’t like and they are surrounded by our troops carrying weapons of war?

That’s essentially what happened at Kent State in 1970 when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed peaceful protesters (full disclosure: they were saying mean things about the administration). Guardsmen killed four and injured nine kids. Who was the idiot who issued live ammunition?

Surely, Trump figures that fear will keep we rubes in line.

Again, this is what dictators do to suppress and control the population.

All of that is diabolically supported by a cowardly Republican controlled Congress and the Supreme Court that was hand picked by Trump. Whatever their beliefs, they are all receiving death threats from Trump thugs, making it most unlikely that they will stand up to him.

Every Trump outrage is about one thing and one thing only: Making Trump a king. Der Führer.

Can we drop the pretenses and denial now?

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Address of August 14*

In urging you to read her whole post, here’s an excerpt from Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s report of August 14.

Noting that “this time requires us to act anew, not just think anew,” Newsom nodded to President Abraham Lincoln’s famous call from 1862: “The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

The Staples Singers

Trump bungled every aspect, every detail of his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage on Friday. The bungling began even before the two met. Trump landed first and Putin showed up late, causing Trump to have to wait for him for nearly an hour, making Trump look like a chump.

Then Trump treated Putin to red carpet treatment and gave him a ride in the presidential “Beast.” At the end they parted, saying false, hollow niceties about one another and Mr. Art of the Deal flew away with no deal and with no pathway to a deal. Trump just plain got played by Putin – again. That affects all of us and, oddly, connects to The Staples Singers.

I listened to their wonderful hit Respect Yourself the other day and heard their message a bit differently than I did in 1972 when it topped the charts. Back then it was a message to our angry and disrespectful and the violence prone people, suffering  in the midst of great and largely justified public rage in our country. Today I heard it as a message to all of us to respect ourselves and one another by proudly standing up for what we know is right.

We know the Alaska meeting was wrong for America and the world. We know this Epstein stuff stinks 16 different ways, that disappearing people is wrong and awful and unlawful, that the assaults on our healthcare, the education of our children and the security of old people who paid into a system that now owes them are all wrong. And we know that abandoning Ukraine, giving it lies instead of munitions and turning our back on those embattled people is wrong on so many levels.

So, have a listen to Respect Yourself for a message – see if it speaks to you, giving you guidance for your actions today. And do, indeed, respect yourself.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Truth is on
  • the march
  • and nothing
  • can stop it
  • Émile Zola, 1898
  • We must always take sides.
  • Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
  • Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
  • Elie Wiesel, in Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 1986
  • _______________________________________________
  • * Watch the entire session. This is what you’ve longed to hear. It will fill your heart and stiffen your spine with resolve.
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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 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


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

Pharaohs


POST 1203

Who’s the Pharaoh?

WW II resulted in 6 million Jews being murdered. They made up over 36% of all Jews worldwide. But all the Jews in the world accounted for just 0.7% of world population. One result of that was world sympathy for this tiny minority that was the wretched victim of the hatred and brutality of the Holocaust. That sympathy was part of the impetus for the United Nations vote to recognize the new state of Israel.

Israel continued to enjoy world sympathy and support, partly because of recurrent attacks on Israel by Arab and Muslim states in the area. We all love an underdog. Sometimes.

That world support ratcheted up on October 7, 2023 with the horrific attacks by Hamas. But then Israel mounted its offense and now has backed itself into a corner. Its hard line position of ongoing military attacks on the rubble that is Gaza and, far worse, the Israeli blockade of food and medical supplies – humanitarian aid – intended for Palestinians has raised the anger of millions. Due to that cruelty Israel is fast losing world support and making itself a pariah state.

The Children of Israel (Hebrews, not yet Jews) entered Egypt roughly 3,800 years ago. They wound up slaves to the Pharaoh and at last escaped in what was named the Exodus about 430 years later. Passover is a story of redemption from slavery and the universal wish for freedom. Pharaoh kept freedom from the Children of Israel.

But now Israel is the pharaoh, oppressing Palestinians.
.
Today’s Other Pharaoh, If We Let Him

Chicago radio personality Patty Vasquez (WCPT, 820-AM, Chicago) has managed to connect the dots into a clarity that you’ve felt in your bones but may have been unable to articulate. From her post Everything is For Sale: Trump Turned Democracy into a Transaction:

[Trump is b]uying more political power. Buying favorable testimony. Everything is negotiable when you’re running the country like your personal criminal enterprise.

The Texas gerrymander isn’t about fair representation, it’s about purchasing a House majority. The Maxwell interviews aren’t about justice for victims, they’re about shopping for dirt on [Trump’s] enemies. Every institution, every norm, every democratic tradition is just another item in Trump’s democracy yard sale.

We’re not sliding toward authoritarianism anymore. We’re there. And we better start fighting our way out.

Because now Trump is an American pharaoh.
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Recall Jimmy Buffett’s call to us: “There’s still so much to be done.” Find a way to make good trouble. Find a way to disobey.

We’ll find nobody in the Trump administration or in any suck up red state who will change their evil ways because we asked nicely, so we have to resort to something with muscle.

I’m calling for a nationwide strike – a work stoppage
.

– by all immigrant workers. It’s detailed here and it’s no joke.

Rosa Parks refused to obey the order to move to the back of the bus and she became an avatar for courage to fight what was wrong. The Montgomery, AL city officials refused to abandon their racist, segregationist ways. Nothing could sway them until Montgomery’s Black people refused to ride the city buses. They boycotted for over a year and, faced with bankruptcy of the system, the city at last succumbed to the insistent, non-violent pressure of the brave people who, instead of riding the bus, walked miles to create change.

We’re in a similar position now. Trump will never give in to demands for democracy because of our demonstrations alone. Far more powerful will be our refusing to work.

– Let the produce rot in the fields

– Let building construction grind to a halt

– Let restaurants and hotels be unable to operate, including Mar-a-Lago

– Let rich people’s landscaping become overgrown and go to seed

It may be insufficient for only immigrants to strike and it may be grossly unfair, too. So, let’s expand this strike to all democracy loving Americans. Our rights and power to withhold ourselves is something no ICE goons can stop and no Presidential temper tantrum or boundless greed can control.

Let my people go!

Who The Other Side Is

Mehdi Hassan is an impossibly intelligent fellow. He recently had a whirlwind debate with 20 people, one at a time. They were young Trump voters who proclaimed world views vastly different from Hassan’s and likely from yours. Their self-proclaimed identities went all the way from racists and White supremacists to self-proclaimed fascists and Nazis. You know: D*cks.

The back-and-forth is fascinating. As interesting as the debate are the reactions of the group when they are watching others engaging with Hassan. You may be surprised and likely appalled at what they applaud. Watch the exchange here.

Medical News

Scientists at the Center on Brain Dysfunction have isolated a new and powerful bacterium. This has been a decades long effort to identify the cause of self-destructive and often cruel behavior that eventually leads to pronounced dementia. The bacterium has been identified as:

Stupidococcus Stupidoniae
.

Stupidococcus readily infects others, especially in closed environments, like in Congressional caucus rooms and in cloak rooms. In early stages a patient with stupidococcus may sound lucid and even confident in making pronouncements, but as the infection progresses logical functions deteriorate markedly.

Speech patterns become increasingly unintelligible, with words garbled and flamboyant phrases repeated many times in a single, overly long sentence. Unsupported superlative claims that adjoin most statements are like nothing anyone has ever seen. That is especially pernicious, as a person suffering from stupidococcus may appear to be confident but actually his internal light is, at best, only flickering. Practitioners should monitor for signs of paranoia, often manifest by violence, like subjects throwing ketchup on the wall.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced last week that he is terminating grants for further research of this disease so that people don’t come to expect anything from government. His funding cuts for mRNA research should close the door on progress toward disease prevention and reduce what he called “socialist aid” to millions who suffer from this now incurable disease and others. Kennedy declared that his actions will combat waste, fraud and abuse and that he expects the number of new cases of autism to decline, offering no plausible explanation for that.

Upon hearing the news of Kennedy’s financial aid cuts to medical research, former head of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele reminded Americans that, “You can’t cure stupid,” adding, “and now we never will.”

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
  • Mid-Term Election
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  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe at no charge – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too, because 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 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


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

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
  • Mid-Term Election
    Countdown Timer
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe at no charge – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too, because 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 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.

On Not Being a D*ck – v2.0


POST 1201

The Trumpstein Catastrophe

Perjurer, sex offender, human trafficker and pedophile Ghisiaine Maxwell has been transferred from the Tallahassee women’s prison to Club Fed, a minimum security day camp prison in Texas. There are tennis courts, a putting green and lots of fun things to do there. We have just a few questions, starting with these.

  1. The prison transfer happened following a visit to Maxwell last week by Trump’s former lawyer, Todd Blanche. He is no longer busy trying to protect Trump from 34 felony counts (he failed) and is now Deputy Attorney General to Attorney General Pam “The files and list were on my desk for review but, golly, I don’t know where they are now” Bondi. How did Maxwell earn this vacation prison privilege? You don’t suppose that she promised to keep silent about Trump’s participation in the goodies that she and Epstein offered Trump, do you? Trump did make it clear that he likes girls “on the young side.” You don’t think Blanche was there to offer her a deal, do you? You don’t suppose she agreed to say nothing about whatever Trump did to those girl children in exchange for being transferred to prison day camp, do you?
  2. You don’t suppose that Todd Blanche offered that for her silence that soon Maxwell will be pardoned or her sentence commuted, do you?
  3. If your middle school daughter (referred to as a “nubile” by Maxwell) were one of the sex trafficked girls, how would you feel about sexual abuser Maxwell’s good fortune? How would your sex trafficked daughter feel about that?

What crimes are worse than arranging for the raping of a 13 year old girl multiple times a day? Maxwell made that system work on over 200 young girls and now she’s getting this special treatment. Trump’s ass saving fix is in and it may save Maxwell’s ass, too. This whole thing stinks so bad.

Everyone in that monster convict cabal is a d*ck.

Your blood should be boiling over this, especially if you were one of those girls. Or you’re a betrayed MAGA. Or if you were once a young girl. Or if you have a daughter. Or if you know a daughter. Or if you have a sister. Or if you had a girlfriend when you both were in high school. Or if you have even an inkling of the difference between right and wrong.

D*cks.

Health – Or Not

This piece of health news comes from STAT.

“Immunized kids are healthier kids who can focus on growing, playing, and learning,” Kristina Bryant, a member of the AAP’s infectious diseases committee, said in a statement. But flu vaccination rates among both children and adults have dropped in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • Wait just a second. Vaccinations have dropped? That same STAT report opens this way:

The flu death toll among kids during the 2024-2025 season has reached an astonishing 266, the worst single season total — except during the 2009 flu pandemic — in the 21 years that the CDC has recorded pediatric flu deaths. Five new deaths were added on Friday, and it’s likely that number could rise further before the 2024-2025 season officially closes at the end of September.

  • So, wait just another second. We had the COVID-19 pandemic that killed over 1.1 million Americans and millions more have been debilitated. The pandemic was finally stopped only after enough of us had been vaccinated.
  • Measles killed many millions over the centuries. It is one of the most infectious of viral diseases. It was at last stopped through universal vaccination. Until now.
  • We had the Spanish Flu in 1918 that killed millions. Now we have a vaccine that prevents that flu and most others, too. That’s a huge success.
  • Nevertheless, some parents are refusing to vaccinate their kids against flu, measles, COVID and more and the body count continues to rise.
  • Isn’t there a lesson that even stubborn people can find in all that success in disease prevention? And yet vaccinations against the flu have dropped and our anti-vaxxers are allowing their children to go unvaccinated against measles, allowing the disease to spread once again and kill.
  • This medical craziness is promoted by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert “Brain Worm” Kennedy. Susceptible to his medical and scientific ignorance are fiercely independent “You can’t tell me what to do” Americans. They puff up on their proud distrust of government, science and the reality of medical experience, along with their mighty resolve to preserve their right to self-destruct.
  • Their refusal of vaccinations against these awful diseases and the consequential peril in which they put the rest of us, as they breathe, cough and sneeze nearby us is, I believe, a demonstration of their contempt for human decency. They may be the very definition of d*cks.
  • Safety Advisory: Your kids will be back in school in a couple of weeks, mixing with unvaccinated children of the indecent ones.

Important Fact: Those 1.1 million people who succumbed to COVID were real, just like you, and they suffered and now they are dead. Don’t let the impersonal nature of statistics separate you from the heartbreaking reality of the personal suffering and loss of every one of those people and the impact of their deaths on the people who loved them. The same goes for unvaccinated children dying of flu or measles.

  • My Toilet Seat

  • The other day my wife showed me that one of our toilet seats has a crack that’s widening and needs to be replaced before it splits. I was in a silly mood and responded jokingly, “If the toilet seat has a crack, whatever can we count on?” Obviously, not great humor; it’s just silliness.

  • But if Democrats have a crack, and it sure looks like a tectonic fissure that’s propagating, who are we to believe in?
  • We need strong, new Democratic leadership.
  • And I need a new toilet seat. I’ll stop by Home Depot today and hope that faceless ICE d*cks without a warrant won’t be there to lawlessly arrest me and send me to be tortured in a foreign gulag.
  • That worry isn’t just silliness.
The Deconstructing Trump Corner
  • [He] was his own world,
  • and nothing that concerned anyone else
  • was important to him . . .
  • and nothing that touched him unimportant. 
  • Kathleen Thompson Norris, 1933
  • Look at [his] comments . . .
  • They prove that the senator speaks his mind,
  • and that he is not working with much when he does so.
  • Anna Quindlen, 1993
  • _________________________________________________
  • * The Florida Department of Corrections offers this bold declaration:

AS FLORIDA’S LARGEST STATE AGENCY, AND THE THIRD LARGEST STATE PRISON SYSTEM IN THE COUNTRY, FDC EMPLOYS NEARLY 24,000 MEMBERS, INCARCERATES OVER 89,000 INMATES AND SUPERVISES MORE THAN 145,000 OFFENDERS IN THE COMMUNITY.

Yes, they put it in all caps. This is what Ghislaine Maxwell just escaped through no merit of her own. What does it say that this is “Florida’s largest state agency?” Floridians must be very proud.

  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe at no charge – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too, because 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 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


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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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 – v1.0


POST 1194

Preface

This is an initial check on the shaky boat that is our freedoms. More will follow.

Short Term Greed Disease

From Harry Litman in his post, Paramount Caves – And We All Lose:

When Donald Trump sued CBS and Paramount for $10 billion in October of 2024 for supposedly deceptive editing of Kamala Harris’s response to a question about Middle East policy, the case was roundly ridiculed. Multiple commentators noted that the First Amendment barred Trump’s claims, which they dismissed as an abusive “political stunt.” Reason Magazine dismissed it as a “laughable lawsuit.”

Thanks to Paramount, however, Trump now gets the last laugh — and at the expense of essential First Amendment values. In other words, all of us.

Paramount announced Tuesday that it was settling this joke of a lawsuit for $16 million — to go toward Trump’s future presidential library.*

The widespread perception is that Paramount, the parent company of CBS and 60 Minutes, which ran the clips of Harris, ponied up what is in effect ransom money to ensure that a proposed $8 billion merger with Skydance Media would go through. To put a finer point on it, Shari Redstone, who owns the controlling stake in Paramount Global, stands to reap over $2 billion — possibly much more — from the merger.

This is essentially the same story some major law firms, Disney, ABC and some universities played out. They caved to Trump, too. It’s the same $16 million extortion (ransom? bribe?) figure that gets people to surrender in advance, to give up without a fight. The cavers caved for short term gain or minimization of loss. In other words, for short sighted greed and cowardice.

Every instance of chickening out of the necessary fight involved bogus claims by Trump that could easily be dismissed in court. The failure of these corporations to put up their dukes paved a path of surrender of the rights of every one of us.

For Trump to have total control he doesn’t have to fight and defeat everyone. He just has to intimidate us by picking off a few, like, it seems, Shari Redstone. To be fair, I don’t know her or really anything about her. What I do know is that she could have stood tall and called BS on Trump, because his claims are BS. They are an attack on the Constitutional freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the laws of our nation, but she didn’t do that. Her play is to get her merger done and pocket a wad of cash, something that likely would be prevented were she to piss off Trump.

That’s how dictators and usurpers do it. They threaten individuals with harm and get them to fold without a fight as the rest of us are watching and being cowed. Read Jim Acosta’s dire warning here about where this takes you and me.

When this happens, as Litman writes, “We all lose.” Our freedom is gone.

And What About Our Health?

Likely, you’ve heard about the ongoing explosion of cases of measles, a disease we thought we had eliminated over 30 years ago, but it’s back, thanks to our anti-vaxxers. See what STAT has to say about that and what it means to you and your freedom at

BREAKING NEWS  

By Helen Branswell
Special Note To The “Adults In The Room” Curbing Trump’s Worst

Get this: You’re not.

You may think you’re standing guard against the worst, but in reality (you remember that stuff, right?) you’re enabling it. It’s time for you to have a piercingly serious talk with your reflection in the mirror. That only works if the compromises you’ve made against your soul aren’t already so terrible that they prevent you from seeing your reflection. Pray that they aren’t and that there is still something of value to salvage.

Read Rick Wilson’s post, Your Silence Isn’t Strategy. It’s Surrender. You won’t like it, “adult in the room.” In fact, if you squint one eye you just might see how you are contributing to all of us losing our freedom.

Parting Shot

What with our Republicans having passed the Big Barfy Betrayal Bill that de-funds or under-funds so much of what protects us, like FEMA, the National Weather Service, medical research, the FDA, the National Institutes of Health, all programs that promote reduction of the burning of fossil fuels, education and so much more, read Nancy Kohn and Art Friedson’s take on that and more in We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Science. Here’s a sampling.

Why on earth would the ruling party in the United States of America actively and aggressively oppose the pursuit of science in 2025? The answer is as sad as it is scary. Because science is the pursuit of truth, and the truth is often diametrically opposed to the MAGA agenda. Climate science is only one example of many.

If we lose science, we lose our freedom. – and perhaps much more.

The “Deconstructing Trump”** Corner
.
  • Patriotism is when love of
  • your own people comes first;
  • nationalism, when hate for people
  • other than your own comes first.
  • Charles de Gaulle, 1969
  • In every age it has been the tyrant,
  • the oppressor, and the exploiter
  • who has wrapped himself in the cloak
  • of patriotism, or religion, or both
  • to deceive and overawe the People.
  • Eugene V. Debs, 1918
  • _________________________________________

* Raise your hand if you believe each those $16 million extortion settlements will fund a presidential library and not instead go into Trump’s pocket. Oh, wow – no hands.

** 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.
  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.

In America


POST 1193

Are You Among The Disfavored People?

university student, professor or administrator

scientific or medical researcher

farmer

non-White person

LGBTQ person

veteran

woman

any form of non-Christian

child

protector of the planet.

any Democrat (Trump hates you) or a current or former government employee

any person not accused or convicted of any crime and in this country legally – easy ICE targets

Bummer for you, because this country is solely for Christian-claiming (although not doing what Jesus would do), straight White men who insist on telling you how to live, establishing limits to your freedom and deciding your restricted fate, which may include warrantless deportation.

And all that gets far scarier when you consider that Trump is declining into dementia and JD Vance is next in line. He might be smarmy, disingenuous and heartless (I guess he forgot about his hillbilly roots), but he’s smart, diabolical and under the thumb of Peter Thiel, his sugar daddy, the private information thief.

Speaking of Disfavored

Let’s declare out loud what this deportation lunacy is actually about. The goals are:

  1. To get rid of Brown and Black people because they aren’t European White. Those immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
  2. Expand White privilege
  3. Feed raw meat to Trump’s base
  4. Suppress votes of Democrats

Those goals are well met by snatching Brown people, especially those who look Hispanic, off streets, from farm fields, from Home Depot parking lots, from a public park in Los Angeles and more. No need to check their papers, because we no longer care if the snatchees are here legally or even if they are U.S. citizens.

Nobody has a right to due process under the Trump administration. We just snatch ’em, shove ’em in a bus or van, cram them handcuffed onto an airplane and into rendition to be abused and held incommunicado. That’s the new American Dream Nightmare.

Here’s what our populist speaking but not practicing President and Republican Congress have done to make sure we’re number one in inflicting cruelty on immigrants.

Click the chart for Steve Schmidt’s comments.

This chart shows our Big Barfy Betrayal Bill carve out for ICE and compares it to the defense budgets of 20 countries. We are now poised to spend more on anti-immigrant actions than the total the next 10 countries spend on their national defense. That’s probably good, since those immigrants are drug dealers, rapists and murderers. So said the man with the golden escalator, the golden toilet, 34 felony convictions, boundless ignorance and a mania for cruelty, but not for reality.

Are you feeling safer now with our huge expansion of ICE, the American Gestapo? Read this from Jennifer Rubin for more.

The Lies and Cheating Didn’t Start With Trump

In 2010 the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case. The lawsuit was about a movie trashing Hillary Clinton, intended by its producers to be aired during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Court struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold Act (properly, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002) and told the Citizens United group they could show their movie. That should have been the end of that case, but it wasn’t.

Chief Justice John Roberts did something almost unheard of. He called the litigants back and ordered them to argue the rights of corporations, something not even remotely part of the original lawsuit. The Court then made a second ruling, deciding that corporations have all the rights of flesh and blood humans.

That unleashed the furies of fabulous wealth, which allowed those corporations and insanely rich people (plus foreign influencers) to donate fabulous amounts of money to political campaigns and overwhelm the wishes of we small folk. Roberts had made up a whole new case to serve his agenda and it worked.

As a result, the gun lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby and more lobbies control the votes of Congress and you have almost no influence. So, we don’t get the gun safety legislation 80% of us want, the healthcare-for-all that 67% of us want and far more. These legislators don’t care what you want because they don’t have to. They’re funded by corporations and super rich guys.

This Court that can’t seem to tell the difference between a corporation (a fictional “entity”) and human beings. The Court is composed of strict originalists, they tell us, but they don’t recognize the Founders’ abhorrence of undue influence exerted by the wealthy.

Like I said, it didn’t start with Trump. Before he showed up the Court had already greased the gears of the fascism express. The Court further cleared the way with it’s ruling in Trump v. United States, allowing the President to break any laws he wants and get away with it. Does that sound originalist to you?

In America

Likely you’re feeling disheartened, as are most of us, because of the blatantly illegal, immoral and cruel actions of this administration. But here’s the thing: we don’t get to wallow in our despair because there’s so much that must be done and we’re the only ones who can do it.

The Charlie Daniels Band song In America was released in 1980 as

“.  .  .  a reaction to the varying difficult issues facing America in the late 1970s – the fallout from the Watergate scandal [etc.]. [Wikipedia]

We have “difficult issues facing America” now, too.

The fascists have come back to divide us and steal America from us.
.

The CDB’s message tells us about Lady America, that “We’re gonna put her feet back on the path.” The fascists, the oligarchs, the selfish rich guys “can all go straight to hell.” That’s not exactly what Charlie sang, but I like the sound of it.

You’ll see Lady America back on the path when the pain hits – from tariffs and the resultant higher prices and empty shelves, stolen healthcare, stolen food assistance, scarcities, babies beginning to suffer and die, neighbors being sent to concentration camps, jobs being lost and more. As Thom Hartmann puts it, Trump’s Tax Cuts Come with a Body Count — Starting with Grandma. That’s when we’ll all come together, “feet back on the path.”

Click this link and listen to the song. While our fight and our battle victories may not be happening at the pace we’d prefer, they’re happening – because of us.

The “Deconstructing Trump”* Corner

For the week following the Fourth of July and Trump’s failed narcissism parade, at which both he and Melania fell asleep, this is about Trump:

  • Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
  • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
  • Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater?
  • It’s resentment of another man’s achievement.
  • Ayn Rand – that’s for our Libertarian friends
  • _________________________________________

* Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history. As such, we explore his volume and add its applicable wisdom to these posts.

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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


The Last Day


POST 1192

The BBBB

At last there were just enough Republican cowards, liars and hypocrites to pass Trump’s Big Barfy Betrayal Bill. Who would have thought it possible to amass so many legislators more afraid of losing their privileged seats in Congress than motivated to keep people from starving to death or dying of preventable maladies?

The Congressional Republicans cheered and took a group thumbs-up photo after the signing of that awful legislation that is so destructive of the American people and our way of life. They seemed to say “cheers for our side,” as though getting a legislative win were more important than doing what is best for the people.
.
That bill is the gateway to the loss of our freedom.
.
Its passage has created the next to the last day.
.
Who Doesn’t Care?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) offered an amendment to stop the Republicans from cutting half the funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Board. That’s the agency that has caused over $20 billion to be returned to Americans who had been cheated by a bank, credit card company or the like. Every Republican voted against her amendment.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) submitted an amendment to increase taxes on income over $10 million. Every Republican voted against that.

Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) had an amendment about Medicaid. The Republicans want to take it away from 17 million Americans. Her amendment was to at least keep in place Medicaid for brand new babies and their moms while they are in the hospital. Every Republican voted against it. Hey, if babies die, they die. Same for moms.

Republicans tell us that they care, but here’s their flag

Sen. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) amendment opposed the Republican plan to cut food assistance for low income families. It would guarantee food assistance at least for families with children under age 12. Every Republican voted against it.

The Republicans are for letting millions of Africans die from lack of medicines and surplus food already paid for and ready to ship.

The answer to the question beginning this section is that Republicans don’t care.

From Robert Reich:

[Their BBBB] establishes an anti-immigrant police state in America, replete with a standing army of ICE agents and a gulag of detention facilities that transform ICE into the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the government and it’s accountable to no one.

That is Trump’s private fascist army.

All of this is stuff you don’t want and perhaps you don’t even want to hear about, but this is what you get from Trump and his cowardly Republicans.

And we may have few chances left to vote them out of office. Trump said so.

The Posse Of Destruction Makes It Worse

From The Onion. Click me

John Roberts, Chief Justice to those other 5 black robed thieves of liberty, has placed himself in history to be the leader of the cabal who wouldn’t do their jobs – that “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” thing. Instead, they have substituted the name “Trump.”

The Roberts Court outrageously gave the President a get out of jail free card, allowing him to commit practically any crime while President and do so with no consequences (Trump v. United States). That matches nearly all of Trump’s no-accountability life. Then the Court put a nail in the coffin of birthright citizenship (Trump v. CASA). That oughta keep non-Whites from voting.

There are more Roberts assaults on our Constitution, of course. These are just two of the most recent.

John Roberts and his Posse of Destruction have abandoned their sworn duty (the real one) and have systematically dismantled our We The People protections from government cruelty. Indeed, they have neutered nearly every avenue to protect this nation from the onslaught of fascism and a cruel dictator.

That has dire consequences for your freedom.

The Final Manipulation

From Wikipedia:

The Reichstag fire .  .  .  was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday, 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany .  .  . the Nazis attributed the fire to a group of Communist agitators, used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties and pursue a “ruthless confrontation” with the Communists. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

That freedom killing Decree lasted until the end of the war.

Trump just got his horrible BBBB passed. It will give him radically enlarged power; hence, its passage signals the next to the last day. Now he needs something else big to solidify his dictatorship, so watch for some large act that looks like sabotage. He will blame Democrats, immigrants, LGBTQ citizens and journalists. He’ll use it to curtail our freedom and to declare a state of martial law. That will put Marines in your town and your freedom will be gone.

Then our Republican controlled Congress will sit like lap dogs, mute and meek, and watch Trump dissolve Congress and the courts. Trump will be a dictator exactly as he declared he would be when he said maybe there won’t be another election.

Then by extension, Prof. Timothy Snyder’s post Concentration Camp Labor tells us what comes next, powered by ICE thugs, who bring us deportations of innocents, imprisonments in concentration camps and then the normalization of slave labor.

I know that all sounds radical, outrageous. The German people didn’t see it coming, either.

Nevertheless, that will be the last day.
.
Unless There Is A Lot Of Action

First, a definition: autocracy = dictatorship

And dictators are never good for the people. The Founders knew that because they lived under a dictator, mad King George III. He was a lot like Dementia King Donald I. We need to get to the same level of clarity as our Founders possessed.

Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt wrote How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy? and I strongly recommend that you read it. The article ends with this:

America’s slide into authoritarianism is reversible. But no one has ever defeated autocracy from the sidelines

Got it?

A Final Question About Our Self-Debasement Into Fascism

Every day Trump and his Gestapo are kidnapping people, beating them, killing them, locking them up and deporting them. Due process isn’t something even thinkable under these circumstances. Now they’re making jokes about detainees being eaten by alligators. They’re even selling Alligator Alcatraz merch. That extreme cruelty is being normalized and it’s being done in your name.

Here’s the question:

Are you okay with that?
The “Deconstructing Trump”* Corner

All Congressional Republicans know that the Big Barfy Betrayal Bill will badly hurt their constituents, but they voted for it, supine before Trump.

Accordingly, we begin this series with two quotations specifically for Congressional Republicans.

  • To sin by silence when we should protest
  • Makes cowards out of men.
  • Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1914
  • He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth
  • makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.
  • Charles Péguy, 1899
  • _________________________________________

* Deconstructing Trump by friend Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history. As such, we explore his volume and add its applicable wisdom to these posts.

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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.

Big Brother At Our Doorstep


POST 1191

The Swinders

Do you remember Peter Thiel – the billionaire PayPal and FaceBook guy? More significantly, maybe you remember him from his being JD Vance’s sugar daddy, giving that loser a fund manager position and then bankrolling Vance into the Senate. Thiel’s support culminated in Vance white washing all the trash talking he did of Trump (remember his Hitler comparisons when he was a “never Trumper”?) and getting the VP job by means of Thiel’s hand on his butt shoving him there.

Elon Musk and his juvenile delinquent flying monkeys stole our personal data from Social Security and other agencies. They sucked up all of your information – bank accounts, debts – everything – and dumped it in the lap of – guess who? – Peter Thiel and his AI company. I suspect that Musk kept copies for himself. This is true Big Brother intrusion into our lives and there is likely nothing any of us can do about that invasion of our privacy.

Of course, you smelled a rat when Musk was claiming to be fighting waste, fraud and abuse but he never found any waste, fraud or abuse. He promised to save us $2 trillion but actually barely broke even in his rampage of destruction. The rat you smelled was the theft of all of our information and its transfer to Thiel. It was for the benefit of Trump, Musk, Thiel, rich, greedy guys and lovers of dictatorship. That is the real reason for DOGE. Just like the Republican Big Barfy Betrayal Bill, it’s about sending your money to rich people and corporations.

You’ve been swindled by these thieves who invite Big Brother into our house.

This robber baron horror story is spelled out in Robert Reich’s piece, The Most Dangerous Corporation in the World.

Health Beat

From STAT:

79%

That’s the proportion of U.S. adults who say parents should be required to vaccinate their kids against preventa[ble] diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella in order to attend school, according to a new, nationally representative poll from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation.

You say you don’t want your kids to be vaccinated against these highly contagious diseases, as well as polio and smallpox? Fine. Just move to an unpopulated offshore island and never set foot on this continent again so that your family cannot infect the rest of us, cause a pandemic and make many people die.

While that offshore island cure for anti-vaxxers is, perhaps, extreme, 4 out of 5 adults in this country, including 68% of Republicans, pretty much agree about vaccinating our children. The question is why Secretary “Brain Worm” Kennedy doesn’t get it. Oh right: he has a brain worm.

And he’s a member of the DKS* wing of the Big Brother clan of cruelty.

Bombing Update

From Steve Schmidt, Headed Back To 2003 (when Dubya lied us into war in Iraq):

“CNN is scum, MSNBC is scum, the New York Times is scum. They’re bad people, they’re sick.”

— Donald Trump, June 25, 2025

Donald Trump’s Iran attack was a failure.

The Iranian nuclear program was not destroyed.

Here is what happened.

The United States used more than half of its bunker-busting arsenal of GBU-57s to obliterate a mountain top, and Little Marco, Champagne Pete, and JD Vance got to appear in a prime time episode of national disaster television behind a demented old man filled with malice, delusions and venom.

Here is what was achieved.

Nothing — except for making the Iranian regime more dangerous.

  • That is what a diabolical Big Brother does and that puts us all at risk.
Why Is All This Happening?

From Robert Reich:

.  .  .  Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, won’t defend their constitutional prerogatives. America is becoming a dictatorship because there are not even 4 Republican senators out of 53, nor 3 Republican representatives out of 220, with enough courage and integrity to stand up for Congress’s constitutional responsibilities.

That is a major piece of how Big Brother has come to be at our doorstep. That is why all this is happening.
.
Hope

Late last Sunday afternoon a huge thunderstorm rolled through our area. I sat on my front porch and enjoyed the show, the distant crashes of thunder, the torrents of rain overwhelming the roof gutters and splashing onto the ground, the rivers flowing fast in the street – it was glorious.

Then almost suddenly the rain slowed and bright sunshine bathed the area, sparkling off the drops on the leaves of the trees.

Wait: rain and sunshine – there had to be a rainbow somewhere.

I got up from my comfortable chair on the porch and went out into the street, turned my back to the sun and right there, low in the sky was the rainbow, just as they always are when the sun shines through rain.

We are living in a time of dread over all the harm and cruelty and the breaking of our laws, our customs and our hearts. Many people – perhaps you – feel a profound sense of hopelessness. Well, here’s something for you.

There is no executive order to arrest and deport rainbows. No bunker buster bomb can obliterate them and there is no tariff to pay to enjoy them.

The laws of physics haven’t been repealed. Light still refracts through raindrops. The science teachers who told us about that are still here and firm in their knowledge, even in the face of our science deniers and book banners/burners.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Science still works. It’s like bedrock. It stands ready and able to support us. Much as the greedy, power hungry thieves want to shake our bedrock, we can stop them from upsetting our country. Our beliefs, our values and our spirit stand strong.

So get off the porch and into the street. You did it on NO KINGS DAY. There still are rainbows right here in America.

______________________________________

  • * DKS – adjective: “Don’ Know Shit”
  • ** AI Overview from Google:

    The little girl featured in the 1964 “Daisy” ad was Monique M. Luiz (born Monique Corzilius). The ad, officially titled “Peace, Little Girl,” was part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign. At the time of filming, Monique was only three years old, according to the Library of Congress. 

Mid-Term Election
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Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
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