Accountability

January 6 Special


POST 1135

From Adam Kinzinger’s Country First post today, The Truth About January 6th – Never Forget:

Sadly, the incoming administration and their allies have tried to normalize the events of January 6, 2021, and distort the truth.  Here’s the truth, 4 years ago, Donald Trump incited a Mob that marched to the United States Capitol, a symbol of our democracy, and our nation faced an unprecedented attack.

1. The Mob attempted to stop the certification of a free and fair election almost leading to a Constitutional Crisis.

2. The Mob desecrated the United States Capitol.

3. Members of The Mob assaulted the Men and Women of the Capitol Hill Police and DC Metropolitan Police.

4. The Core of our Democracy was shaken by a sitting President who was too small to admit his defeat.

That last point is the key to all. Trump is too small to admit his defeat, too small to admit anything that doesn’t support his grandiose fantasies about himself – and for him, it’s all about himself. He doesn’t care a bit – it never enters his small mind at all – who gets hurt or killed, like our DC and Capitol Police, as he protects and defends only his fragility.

Trump declares that the January 6 felons who attacked and attempted to bring our republic crashing down, the ones who openly and vaingloriously tried to end our democracy and the rule of law, are patriots. That’s sufficient example of his smallness, his weakness and his cowardice.

And yet in the face of his many public lies about that day, over 77 million Americans voted for this mental and moral cripple. It turns out that millions love our cowboy fantasies.

The American cowboy is a White guy (always White and always a guy) who wants nothing more from the government than to be left alone. He’s tough and he’s rugged. He’s a stand alone individual with a Dresden flag – “Don’t tread on me” – tattooed on his body, inscribed on his gun belt and painted on his pickup truck. His woman is at home cooking dinner, tending the children, and patiently waiting to be his submissive play toy. He’s a patriarch. And first and foremost, he’s a tough guy.

He loved Sarah Palin chanting “Drill, baby, drill” as though it was a message from God, although truth be told – and it is, sometimes – no god directed men (women don’t count) to impoverish and poison themselves. He loves to hear Trump chanting”Drill, baby, drill.” It makes him feel proud and powerful. Plus, cowboy knows that global warming is a hoax, so he has no concerns for his children being killed in a hurricane, a flood, a tornado or a monster fire. Drill, baby, drill.

These Americans like feeling proud and powerful. They’re saps for chest pounding.

We’re a highly educated society, yet so many willingly surrender their belief in reality, science and learning, exchanging it mindlessly for preposterous conspiracy fantasies. Think: Pizzagate. That attempted murderer pounded his chest all the way from North Carolina to shoot up a pizza shop in DC. Very proud. Very powerful.

They cheer murderers like Kyle Rittenhouse, who armed up and went to Kenosha to fight the riot there. He killed two, wounded one and was somehow acquitted. They cheered George Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin for the outrage of walking outside while Black. He, too, was acquitted because he “stood his ground” against a teen armed with Skittles and a Diet Coke. These perps, too, were very powerful and pounded their chests proudly.

Now Luigi Mangione, the highly educated son of wealthy parents, allegedly murdered the UnitedHealthCare CEO in New York He is being cheered. A group calling itself “The December 4th Legal Committee” has raised over $200,000 online for his legal defense with implications that he is some kind of hero. Rumors have it that contributors to the fund are very proud and powerful.

Each of these killers is a very proud and powerful American with a well-pounded chest. Real cowboys.

Killings are a great American sport. They’re riveting entertainment for a few hours.

When 20 first graders and six teachers and staff were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we were shocked. Then we did nothing to prevent the next massacre of children. That takes some kind of pride and power.

That’s how we handled Columbine, too, and all the rest, including those done in churches, supermarkets and at the Las Vegas concert, where 58 people were killed and over 500 injured. Each murder is just a temporary diversion, maybe even a Walter Mitty fantasy for these American desperados, which some contemplated as they fondled their guns. We’re tough and we’re rugged, they tell us. Don’t tread on them.

They like things simple out there on the prairie. So many things are far more complex than they like. They  have no need for complexities or nuance and they reject elites who they think talk down to them. So they keep it simple and vote for whoever makes them feel proud and powerful. It’s really that simple.

_________________________________________

Here we are four years later on another January 6 and over-proud Americans who assaulted cops and the Capitol Building are still proclaiming that they are the true patriots, that the DC and Capitol police they claim to support didn’t get attacked, injured or killed, that January 6 was a day full of love and that packing heat is a sign of a real American.

Here we are on this anniversary of an insurrection, a traitorous act against our own country. Proudly ignorant Americans have been easily manipulated into voting for a felon, a retrograde masquerading as a cowboy. It’s no problem that he’s a phony rugged guy, who wants to lie, grift. break laws and have only fawning cowards around him. Plus he wants absolute, never ending power. The mindless simplicity of his message has tricked American cowboys and others and given a reckless felon the reins of power, including the nuclear codes.

Welcome to the anniversary of January 6, 2021, an insurrection triggered by a far too small man; a day which should live in infamy, but instead lives in glory for far too many Americans.

“After the rioting and the mayhem, a majority of Republican members of Congress still voted to overturn the election. Still. 147 members of Congress — many of whom are still in office today. Insurrectionists, too. Albeit in suits and ties.” [emphasis original]

– Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) , A horrific anniversary, January 6, 2025

“And we should commit to remembering Jan. 6, 2021, every year. To remember it as a day when our democracy was put to the test and prevailed. To remember that democracy — even in America — is never guaranteed.”

– President Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, January 6, 2025

 

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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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


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

Frail Societal Memory


POST 1134

Memory, If Any

Today, the story of the Second World War stands at the edge of remembered history, as the participants of humanity’s greatest trial are at the end of long human life spans.

– Steve Schmidt, Danger Ahead

So, too, the memory of the Great Depression, driven by Robber Barons, whom today we call the 1% or the “obscenely rich.” There aren’t too many left who experienced firsthand the deprivations these enormously rich people caused the American people nearly 100 years ago, like the 25% unemployed, the houses foreclosed, the “Will work for food” signs, the Hoovervilles and all the rest.

On the other hand, there are plenty of us who should vividly remember the 2008-2009 financial debacle, wherein none of the 1% perps was held accountable. How come we let them get away with that? How come we put up with Dubya screaming that the sky was falling and that we had to bail out the banks “right now!”? That was another nail in the coffin of accountability in America, because bail outs are what we did and nobody was held accountable.

Nobody talks about that any more and reading these paragraphs may be the first time you’ve thought about this triple whammy to us in a very long time. It’s essentially a lost memory, which, as Santayana instructs, means that we are doomed to repeat it. Indeed, things are financially even more perilous now than they were in 2008 – 2009.

Here’s Heather Cox Richardson on December 11:

Biden shifted the U.S. economy from 40 years of supply-side economics that had transferred about $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1% and hollowed out the middle class.

That legalized theft from you is what Trump promised to reinstate, so chant this out loud:

Make Robber Barons Great Again!
.

That’s what a plurality of Americans voted for. Somehow, we have failed to remember our shared reality. And it’s crazier than that. Here’s more from RIchardson:

Biden listed the numbers: more than 16 million new jobs, the most in any four-year presidential term in U.S. history; low unemployment; a record 20 million applications for the establishment of new businesses; the stock market hitting record highs.

With proper acknowledgment of Biden’s and the Democrats’ inept, inconsequential, dreadful communication, even our current reality has been flushed from our memory and we blindly go about upending ourselves by electing  a candidate who promises to end all of that improvement.

Kids in Iron Lung machines due to polio. Those of us who were kids then remember scenes like this. Click the pic for the story.

Here’s more largely lost memory.

I was a young boy during the great polio pandemic of the 1940s and 50s. Mothers were afraid to let their kids swim in a pool or play with other kids for fear of the contagion. When Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine became available in 1955 doctors’ offices were mobbed by moms and kids in line to get it. The same was true of the vaccines against measles and other terrible childhood diseases.

Before I could come to my university campus I had to show proof of having been vaccinated against smallpox. There was an ongoing worldwide battle to eradicate that horrible disease and that battle was largely won. Cue the international applause for vaccines. In your face, Robert Kennedy!

All that was in an era when vaccinations weren’t just good, they were miracles. And only people who see a boogieman behind every tree made stupid and wrong claims about the vaccines. Their equally ignorant descendants are doing it again now because we have so little societal memory of the death and suffering people endured long ago, or of the blessings of vaccinations. Those who lived through those times are rapidly leaving us now and are replaced by people ignorant about what happened, leaving them susceptible to the blatant and murderous idiocies of the know nothing blabbers.

RFK, Jr. lived through the same health pandemics as many of we older boomers, but apparently that worm ate part of his brain and compromised his memory and cognitive functioning so that he lacks good sense. Now he is poised to allow our kids to be threatened by those preventable, awful diseases once again by standing in the way of the simple processes that keep kids healthy. And those in our society who have no societal memory of the horrors of the past are succumbing to their love of knee-jerk tantrums and are believing what should be unbelievable. So, let’s all sound RFK’s call:

Make Polio and Measels Great Again!
.

Dirty little secret:

RFK, Jr. knows that the claim that vaccines cause autism was invented and broadcast by a British doctor (key word: “Invented”). When peer reviewers tried to replicate his findings, none was unable to do so. In reviewing his paper they found that he had copied/pasted sections multiple times to make his work look more exhaustive. In short, they determined that he and his work were frauds.

There is no connection between vaccines and autism. None. Decide for yourself why Kennedy would be proudly proclaiming what has repeatedly been debunked by experts – actual doctors and scientists. You know: qualified, reality based people.

They’re Doing It Again

On Monday, December 16 Donald Trump did a press conference. He isn’t the president, but CNN, MSNBC and Fox all gave him 40 minutes of free air time – i.e. attention. He didn’t have to pay anything to promote himself. As Heather Cox Richardson described his performance – yes, performance – she wrote that he spewed

. . . attention-grabbing threats alongside lies and very little apparent understanding of actual issues. His mix of outrageous and threatening is central to his politics, though: it keeps him central to the media, even though, as Josh Marshall pointed out in Talking Points Memo on December 13, he often claims a right to do something he knows very little about and has no power to accomplish. The uncertainty he creates is key to his power, Marshall notes. It keeps everyone off balance and focused on him in anticipation of trouble to come.

Do you remember a time when this didn’t describe Trump every time he opened his mouth? No, you don’t. Not since the phony golden escalator and the paid phony adoring fans moment in 2015. The networks are still giving away billions of dollars of air time to Trump. All he has to do is to announce he’s going to say something and they roll over to give him the attention he wants – free. They don’t consistently do that for any other politician, not even the current President of the United States. It has been nearly 10 years of this cable news spinelessness and they haven’t learned a thing. They don’t seem to have a memory for how they were played.

It’s long past time when we should have learned to ignore Trump’s craziness, kept our balance and focused on ourselves, on We The People.

Just For Fun

Trump started back-peddling from his baseless campaign claim that he’d get food prices down.; He declared that during his Meet the Press interview on December 8. About that, Dan Rather said,

So it looks like all those people who voted for him, despite all the reasons not to, will be abandoned on aisle 6, in the hoodwink section. Because not only will Trump be unable to bring prices down from the day he “takes the oath of office,” most economists say his proposed policies, like imposing tariffs and deporting undocumented workers, would actually drive prices up — way up.

So, you with the red hat .  .  . you want fries with that SuckerBurger?

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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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


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

Our Problem


POST 1132

This Piece is Entirely One-Sided

Here’s why.

No Democrat is threatening violence on anyone. No Democrat is in a militia practicing to assault the Capitol Building on January 6, 2025 or is preparing to send Christmas cards with pictures of themselves brandishing an AR-15 and lusting over the blood of patriots. No Democrat is making death threats to poll workers or to Republicans who support Trump. No Democrat went to an election rally and applauded hateful and racist slurs or chanted about death to anyone.

And no Democratic leader is inciting anger and hatred or promising to terminate our Constitution and to crush our institutions that protect us and make the trains run on time.

That’s why this is one-sided.

We’re Running Out of Time
It isn’t over until it’s over.

– Yogi Berra – also Lenny Kravitz

You might like this version better:

The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

– Dan Cook, writing for the San Antonio News-Express, Texas, ~ 1976

And the fat lady ain’t sung – yet. The burning issue for us now and for the foreseeable future (that means always) is to keep the savages at bay, to prevent the Huns from sacking our country, to keep the fat lady silent.

We have truths that we proclaim to be self-evident but which some abandon as soon as there’s profit to it, and there’s great profit to be made by abandoning those truths, by shedding integrity and sacred oaths. That abandonment is what Trump, Musk and the Republicans are doing in order to make yet larger piles of gold in front of themselves.

Be clear that we are at terrible risk. This is a fight to the political death, where, in the end, either democracy or fascism will lie dead on the floor. At issue in this moment is how we fight for what is right, the patriotic fight, the fight for truth, justice and the American way, so that democracy prevails.

Can You Spot What’s Missing From This Picture?
.

That’s right: In this fight for the heart and soul of America, the Democrats are MIA. They’ve self-neutered. Customarily the Republicans/MAGAs bring automatic weapons to a fight and Democrats bring bean bags. Now the Democrats aren’t even showing up.

The Republicans are “flooding the zone with shit,” as the daddy-issue-encumbered and hateful Steve Bannon calls it. It’s the same thing Trump has always done – spew one outrage after another, whether in actions or lies, such that responding is an overwhelming task.

Far worse, now he has all MAGAs doing it, lying, making up shit as Bannon directs, claiming victories that aren’t theirs, demonizing everyone not MAGA, promising whatever they can think of but will never deliver – like lowering food prices. As they do that, the Democrats self-disable. What happened to that “protect and defend” thing in the oath they swore to? Why aren’t they rising to this occasion bare knuckled?

Democrats don’t seem able to understand going on offense. Enough of the cute golden retriever puppies. We need an army of pit bulls and they’re nowhere to be seen.

We need to employ political savagery. No genius is necessary to see this, because the nice guy Dems get the snot beat out of them over and over. We consistently need something far more visceral and aggressive than standard wimpy Democratic Party patty cake.

Consider the presidential debate. Trump declared that Haitians in Ohio are illegals in our country (false) and that they’re eating the dogs and cats of the local residents (false). Kamala laughed derisively at him. That would have been an appropriate come back at a cocktail party, but not in a political street fight.

She should have told him, “No! Either you’re a big enough fool that you believe whatever crap you’re told by conspiracy idiots or you’re lying right now. And I will not let you get away with lying to the American people!”

But she didn’t say that. No one else in the Democratic Party is fighting like that, either. They look like lap dogs.

Voters couldn’t be more clear about wanting a strong leader, a tough guy, but Dems consistently show them they’re amiable guys, polite guys who smile derisively when they should be throwing rocks through windows.

I love Jamie Raskin, but he sounds like the law professor that he is. That doesn’t reach working people.

I love Mallory McMorrow, but she’s a Michigan legislator and doesn’t have a national platform.

Hakeem Jeffries occasionally shows signs of life. AOC does that all the time, but the Dems muzzle her.

Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer both died years ago and nobody told them.

We don’t need Romney-esque, “Oh, golly, that’s unfortunate” pablum. The American people are primed and ready for an ongoing attack by Democrats in the name of We The People, but the Dems continue to refuse to fight.

Where are the snarling dogs with ripped flesh and blood dripping from their teeth? Where is the chorus singing the same song over and over, the one that actually reaches voters? Oh, right: that’s the Republicans.

The MAGAs are submarining our economy, our institutions and our Constitution and they aren’t even sworn in yet. Meanwhile, the Dems are silent or inept. Harris and Walz are nowhere to be seen, even though over 75 million people voted for them and want to hear from them. They want them to punch back, to attack over and over, but they aren’t even in the ring, much less taking a swing at the anti-patriots.
.

Thom Hartmann dove into this last week, in part detailing what happened at a fancy DC restaurant the night of President Obama’s first inauguration. The Republican movers and shakers and power brokers in attendance focused on throwing Obama’s presidency into a dumpster. From Hartmann:

After the meeting, Kevin McCarthy famously said of their commitment to obstruction:

“If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority. We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.” [He was right. JA]

And, sure enough, they did. And continue to do so to this day. And the voters rewarded them, “shellacking” Obama’s Democrats in the next election.

Where are the Democrats today with that kind of spine? Where is our resolve to fight, rather than enable, fascists? What happened to our principles and commitment to democracy? [emphasis original]

Following that meeting these Republican snakes announced that job number one was ensuring that “President Obama will be a one-term president.”

That was their notion of their sacred duty in Congress: focus on trashing the opponent in order to help themselves. They had no concern for growing American jobs, the welfare of our vets, dealing with George W. Bush’s disastrous wars, healthcare – nothing. They were all about slash and burn, jam up the gears so that nothing would get done, this in order to make Obama look bad. That’s what Republicans did and it’s what they still do.

And Democrats can’t even call out blatant Republican lies.

That is our problem.

.

The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but she’s waiting in the wings, as Elon Musk asserts the power of the presidency.

  • Democrats: You’re way late.

  • ***** WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? *****

Required Reading

Jamelle Bouie’s brilliant piece, Don’t Surrender and Call It Compromise.

Rahm Emanuel’s wake up call, The Road Back to Power For Democrats.

  • _____________________________
  • PS: Feel free to thank me for omitting all the anger-dripping sarcasm I did not print here.
  • NOTE: No post this Wednesday.

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

Just A Little Insanity


POST 1131

Spend just one hour at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL and then tell me if that’s the Great America we should make again. Consider the brutal slow murder of George Floyd or the self-appointed neighborhood guard George Zimmerman who murdered Trayvon Martin and got away with it, as did the murderers in the Tulsa massacre. Explain if that’s the Make America Great Again model we should emulate.

Explain 20 kids and 6 teachers murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School or the dozens shot at that Las Vegas concert. Explain how great America was then, that mythical America to which our red hatted citizens want to return.

Click me

We are steeped in violence and proved it yet again on Monday as a shooter first killed 2, injured 6 and then murdered herself, leaving two of the injured with life-threatening injuries. This happened at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI. That event was our 83rd school shooting (one every 4 days) and our 656th mass shooting (almost two every day) this year, with almost 19,000 shot dead and over 38,000 shot and injured. Those aren’t statistics. Those are people.

What’s your bet about what the Founders who wrote the Second Amendment would think about semi-automatic assault weapons being used to kill kids in schools? What’s your bet about whether they considered it a right to own large capacity magazines or telescopic sights or bump stocks?

Read the Second Amendment – all 27 words:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

I wrote “all 27 words” because our gun crazies and our Second Amendment lovers commonly ignore the first 13 words.

You can plainly see that the Amendment says that the only reason for the people to be allowed to keep and bear arms is to have a militia. But that job is taken and well done by our National Guard. They are the militias that are well regulated. The weekend, skulking-through-the-woods tough guy wannabes are not well regulated. We have no need for Rambo-at-home, so we have no need for private citizens to have a home arsenal.

I’m betting that the family and friends of the grannies who were shot to death at the Topps Supermarket in Buffalo wish that before that awful day there had been a bunch of infringement of the right to own guns. Same for the survivors and next of kin of Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

It is way past the point when we should have figured out that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” should be infringed.

Read this book – click it

We all understand the slavish obeisance of our elected officials to the firearms industry because of the financial largess bestowed upon these politicians who do the industry’s bidding. That has allowed the distribution of over 20 million very profitable AR-15s into coat closets and car trunks in America and over 150 million hand guns, many carried openly or concealed. It seems that enough of our legislators think that children being murdered in school is a small enough price to pay for the money they get for their campaigns.

Get this: If you have guns and don’t keep them unloaded and locked up, do not tell me how much you love your kids or any other kids because you just wouldn’t be believable.

All of this craziness has several names: Insanity; Immorality; Stupidity; Cruelty; Hypocrisy.

Make America Great Again is a useful campaign slogan, a jaunt in Jingo-land, but we don’t have a model for when America was great when it comes to citizen gun safety. It is insane that we haven’t even a history book memory of a time in America when we weren’t murdering one another. Guns make those murders so very easy. They don’t make America great.

I used to think those calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment were over-reaching, but no longer. I have grand kids in schools who have always had to do active shooter drills. Every kid in your town does, too. They think those drills are normal, but it’s insane that they have to do them.

And it’s insane that we are leaving our children and grandchildren a country awash in citizen blood.

So, one more time:

Click me

From Kirk Bangstat of Minoqua Brewing Company:

Our 2nd taproom in Madison is a mile away from the Abundant Life school shooting that occurred yesterday, and I spent a few hours last night with our customers endlessly going in circles about why it’s impossible for America to end gun violence in this country when most other developed countries have figured it out. [emphasis mine – JA]

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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


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

We Do Know What’s Coming – A Sampler


POST 1126

Today we take a quiet Sunday to club Republicans over the head for their excellently done sellout of America and the American people and the world class hypocrisy of so many. Sadly, we do know what’s coming.

  1. As soon as Trump began his awful run for the White House in 2015 it was obvious what we were in for.  Recall his demonizing of Hispanics coming to this country, whom he described as drug carriers, rapists and criminal transmitters of disease. He said this to a small group of paid actors in the lobby of his building, recruited to cheer for him wildly. As soon as he got off the escalator he claimed there were thousands there. That was just his first official lie and a harbinger of his fraud to come. Republicans began to debase themselves before Trump almost immediately. We should have known what was coming.
  2. Then there were the impeachments. It was clear to everyone that he was guilty of those high crimes and misdemeanors, but Republicans in the House refused to vote against him. Only a small handful of Republicans in the Senate had the integrity to vote him guilty. The rest decided that they didn’t want to get primaried. Worse, they knew that a guilty decision would have prevented Trump from ever again holding any “office of trust” – we would have been rid of him. They chickened out. We wouldn’t be facing the frontal assault on our Constitution and our democracy now, had there been 10 more Republicans with a spine. Translation: The Republicans’ careers in Congress were more important to them than the fate of the United States of America or the oath they swore. Where have the patriots gone, you ask? They’ve been replaced by cowards and hypocrites. We should have known what was coming.
  3. Matt Gaetz was the most hated man in the House, mirroring Ted Cruz, the most hated man in the Senate who isn’t named Josh Hawley. Gaetz, a reasonably accused sex trafficker, high school girl schtuper, Ecstacy aficionado, Justice Department know-nothing and more, has removed himself from consideration for the job of A.G., a position for which he is profoundly unqualified. Perhaps now he can be prosecuted and get the cell of his pal Jeffrey Epstein. He’s being replaced by Trump’s defense lawyer and suck up (but looks good on TV – very important to Trump) Pam Bondi. We did know what was coming.
  4. Speaking of the Department of Justice, somebody please tell us what “weaponization of the Department of Justice” is. It sounds terrible, so it’s a great campaign slogan for Republicans to use to accuse Democrats of something bad. Isn’t the Department of Justice supposed to be weaponized against wrongdoing, like insurrection and theft of classified documents? Whatever evil “weaponization” means, I’m certain the Trump administration will do exactly that. They’ll prosecute everyone on Trump’s hit list and more just to harass them and drain them of money. We do know what’s coming.
  5. Sure, we believe Trump when he says he knows nothing about Project 2025 and will have nothing to do with its implementation. I mean, he said so, right? We do know what’s coming.
  6. Even if you follow news and politics only a little you likely saw that Jack Smith has dropped his indictments against Donald Trump for inciting insurrection, election interference, fraud, possession of stolen classified documents and more. That absurd Office of Legal Counsel memo (NOT law) from 1973 that says that a sitting president cannot be indicted and prosecuted is a justice killer, a rule-of-law violator, as is the 2024 Supreme Court issued “get out of jail free” decision. Combined with Merrick Garland’s unconscionable two years of foot dragging and Trump’s defense attorneys’ masterful manipulation of the courts to delay, delay, delay, Trump will have gotten away with his heinous crimes. Had you done any of the things Trump did, you would already have been rotting in a prison cell for a couple of years. It sure looks like a prime case of two sets of laws, one for rich, powerful people and another for the rest of us. We did know what was coming.
  7. Are you a woman or do you know and care about a woman? Coming are a national abortion ban, bans on contraception, prosecutions of OB/GYNs and a constant Christian Nationalist (which actually isn’t Christian at all) drum beat of reducing women to nothing more than sex toys, incubators and house slaves. We do know what’s coming.
Quote Adjustment Following the Election

From Salon.com, November 14:

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on the direction of America and the future of pluralistic multiracial democracy.

True, but that soft peddles the fundamental point. Let me help.

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on whether this is or ever will be America.

You Can Get Anything You Want at Alice’s Restaurant.

There is hypocrisy masquerading as justice and even as popular will, just as there was when Arlo Guthrie told his tale. Watch over the next few years – could be even faster if the MAGA barbarians are able to shred the entire Constitution sooner. Watch the MAGA faithful, the willfully ignorant, the dupes, the “I could never vote for a Democrat” non-thinkers, the “I want a strongman, not one of those woke types and for sure no woman” chest pounders and even those too lazy to get off the couch and vote.

Watch what happens as the hatred spreads and their freedom evaporates. They may cheer as the freedom of others disappears, but not when it clobbers them. Then, o’ golly, that won’t be fair.

Watch as they realize that the nice guy down the block has been ripped from his family and thrown into a concentration camp, his children left weeping. Watch as the cost of food and everything else skyrockets but wages are stagnant. Watch their eyes as diseases like measles, polio and smallpox make a big comeback, when the kid across the street is struggling just to breathe and the elderly lady next door has died with horrible sores all over her body and they realize that they might have been infected.

Listen to the hypocritical excuses, the lame, “It’s not my fault” exculpations. Watch as the testosterone overfilled, Bible thumping crowd begins to feel the pain of women dying in pregnancy, a threat that exists only because of their actions.

Yale Professor of History Timothy Snyder knows what’s coming. He lays it out for you here.

Oh yes, we do know what’s coming.

Bide your time. And

REBEL!

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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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


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

How We Fell Off The Sled v 1.0


POST 1123

I had this nifty 11-point list of the many ways Democrats lost the election. It wasn’t pretty, but it was factual. Then, in a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized that only one of them was a root cause issue, a progenitor of all the rest. Indeed, it took only one of them to make Trump and MAGA, the Freedom Caucus and the rest of the reactionary, angry people possible.

The Democrats, once the party of working people (think: FDR being elected President 4 times), have ignored working people for decades. Other than the “big tent” talking points and Biden’s consistent support of unions, the Democratic Party became a haven for the college educated, with little to no outreach to working people, our term for those who don’t work in offices.

Reagan is the one most responsible for the beginning of the destruction of unions, with his firing of all of the air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981. Back then controllers were dying from heart attacks and strokes due to stress and over-work. Their pleas went ignored and the strike was a last ditch effort for survival. They were completely disregarded, disrespected and were fired. Where was the Democratic cavalry? It never came over the hill.

The Democrats hardly fought back for unions or for working people, instead battling Republicans for the college educated. Most recently, Harris counted far too heavily on suburban, college educated women for votes and ignored the plumbers, landscapers and construction workers who keep those suburban women comfortable. Those working people don’t like being ignored.

On-Point Quotes

“Democrats increasingly are the party of university educated elites, and they have an unfortunate knack for coming across as remote and patronizing scolds.” – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, November 17, 2024

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

“My needs go ignored and I feel disrespected.”

When people are blown off there is a direct and instantaneous reaction of anger – even of hatred.

Example: Democrats stuck their fingers in their ears, failing to listen to Gen Zers who were furious over Netanyahu’s death machine in Gaza. That machine was armed with 2,000 bombs supplied by the U.S. That pissed off a whole generation. You can pile on the hopelessness of Z’s prospects for housing, food, relationships and more. Sure, we can point to the pluses of a historically low level of unemployment and increasing wages in some sectors of the economy, but Zs continue to feel blown off.

People from various generations have been knee-jerking in reaction to feeling blown off by people in power – by the “coastal elites” and the obscenely rich. We have an unspoken dictum from our financially comfortable, “I got mine. Too bad for you.”

16 years ago we got Obama. He was supposed to make a big difference. Check with those who most closely identified with him. Ask whether things got better for them and specifically if they feel they were heard. We can point to the Republicans who stopped every train with Obama’s name on it, but the rich guys and coastal elites blew off everyone who is not them and then pointed at the Democrats as the source of the blow off. And the Democrats went all radio silence.

4 years ago we got Biden and he was supposed to make a big difference. And he did. You know about the enormous improvement in employment, wages and new businesses started. You know that it’s finally infrastructure week and much more. Price increases have slowed. All that is great except for three things.

1. The Biden administration has done a world class job of crappy communication about the victories and what they mean to ordinary Americans.

2. Regular Americans can’t afford to feed their families because food is way too expensive and that continues to get worse. Nobody cares that we’re better off than other first world countries because we live here, not there.

3. The failures at the southern border continue and finger pointing, however accurate – or not – doesn’t help working people who feel at risk. Ditto the world class crappy job of communication over the dramatic slowing of illegal entries.

The “I’d rather be us than them” election crowd finally put a sock in it because everything they hoped for was lost. Let’s see what some vote totals can tell us.

2020                        2024

Biden/Harris                                  81,283,098               73,981,301

Trump                                             74,222,958               76,587,122

Winner’s Margin                              7,060,140                 2,605,821

Eligible voters who didn’t vote ~ 80,000,000                80,870,000

Notions about this

1. 7.3 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 did not vote for Harris in 2024. Where did they go?

2. Trump picked up a couple of million more votes in this election over the prior one. Seems likely that a good portion of those votes were from blown off pissy people who switched from voting for the Democrat and this time voted for the Republican. Likely, they saw Trump as the less crappy of two crappy candidates.

3. About 80 million people won’t get off their lazy asses to show up and vote. Nobody knows what the outcomes of our elections would be if they did. I just hope no eligible voter who didn’t bother to vote complains to me about what happens to them following this election and how awful life has become for them. They won’t like what I have to say.

Finally

Whatever the issue, and we have plenty of them, having voted for Trump won’t fix them. His win will only have accomplished a proud double middle finger in the air from every working person and their very loud FUCK YOU! to members of “the establishment” or the imaginary “swamp” and those perceived as the privileged, the elite, the ones who disrespect their inferiors.

But nothing will get better for angry working class folks. More tax breaks for the rich will not help them. Cancelling Obamacare won’t help them. Massive tariffs not only won’t help them, they will hurt those people terribly. Deporting 11 million (or is it 20 million?) undocumented immigrants won’t help because, for example, our FUCK YOU! crowd won’t do the jobs those undocumented people have been doing. That will result in higher food prices for everyone and small business bankruptcies and the resultant loss of jobs. Elon Musk pulling the rug out from under our social services will imperil our elderly especially, and poor children will go hungry. Trump having his lick-spittle AG persecute and prosecute Trump’s opponents won’t help anything but Trump’s ego. Destroying the Department of Education will badly affect the children of our middle finger deploying citizens.

All these Trump voting people will have is the satisfaction of screaming into the night and feeling powerful only for the duration of the echoes of their screams. Their lives will not get better.

Don’t think for even a minute that Donald Trump will be recognized as a source of their ennui, and that’s fitting because we all did this. I’m as guilty as anyone for calling those supporting Trump stupid, self-defeating and a bunch of other unflattering, disrespectful names.

The true source of their suffering and anger is those of us who have blown them off for decades – for half a century. It turns out that people don’t like to be disrespected.

And that is how We The People fell off the sled.

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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


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

What Will Happen – Part 1 of 2


POST 1120

Preface

This is Part 1 of 2 of what you can expect in the second Trump presidency. Some of what follows is snark or satire. Most is not.

Expect Part 2 on Wednesday.

Healthcare

Bobby Kennedy will be in charge of healthcare – your healthcare. He doesn’t like vaccines, so count on our not being prepared for the next pandemic and for there to be a massive number of preventable deaths. And count on ever increasing diagnoses of measles, polio, tetanus, smallpox and more in our little ones because, again, Kennedy doesn’t like vaccines.

Expect an ongoing idiocy from Kennedy of quack practices and assaults on science, health and sanity. Expect an undermining of the USDA, compromising the safety of the meat you eat including Trump’s Big Macs. Expect, too, an attack on the FDA, compromising the safety of our meds. The list of Kennedy’s undermining of our national health and safety will be very long and galactically stupid, as he does as Trump instructs, “whatever the hell he wants.”

The Economy

Genius nut job Elon Musk will be in charge of our economy. He has pledged to cut $2 trillion from our national budget. He can’t cut our military spending or other mandatory things, which leaves only “discretionary” spending. He will cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Departments of Education and Energy and more. All programs designed for the welfare of We The People will vanish. Better start figuring out how you’ll pay for your healthcare, your meds, how your kids will get educated and more.

We’ll have cheap gas and accelerating global warming to depress and imperil our children and grandchildren. The list of the carnage Musk will create is long and terrifying, as he does, “whatever the hell he wants.” Ah, but we’ll have a balanced budget. Why should anyone care about you?

Trump will re-up his previous tax reduction gift to rich people and will expand it. He will promise great benefits to working people and some to poor people. They will be, “greater than anyone has ever seen,” but nobody but the rich and big corporations will receive enough for any benefit to be identifiable.

All economic indicators, the Dow, S & P and the rest, will plunge in value following Trump cashing out his portfolios. Same for his rich buddies who will be given advance notice. Once securities have hit rock bottom the rich will buy them up just as rich guys did following the crash in 1929. Ordinary people will be economically devastated, as jobs disappear and whatever savings they had for retirement disappears. You already know that we’ve seen this movie before and we know how it ends.

Freedom

Expect encroachment on the freedoms of any who are not White and on all women. All forms of contraception will be outlawed except the so-called rhythm method favored by the Catholic Church, Evangelicals and Christian Nationalists (who aren’t really Christian in their beliefs and actions). This method excels at systematically producing many babies, a la the Dark Ages. All forms of post impregnation medical procedures will be outlawed, with prison sentences imposed for affected women and for medical professionals who dare to treat a woman having a miscarriage. Someone will keep a tally of women who die because of these prohibitions. The numbers will seem like they are from a horror film.

Blacks, Hispanics, Jews and Muslims will be encouraged through intimidation to stay in their place and not be uppity. Or they can leave this country. KKK white hood outfits with nooses attached to the belt and torches to carry, as well as Gestapo and SS uniforms will be popular Halloween costume choices.

Women will be expected to be subservient to all males. Their roles will be limited to sex object, household servant, involvement in teaching young children and low level business positions. In no circumstance will they be allowed to have a position of any power in this perfect patriarchal America. What would you think of bringing back witch trials?

Ear worm warning: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA will play in all elevators and all music on hold. There will be no escape.

Guns

Gun deaths will continue to mount. The rate may well increase. There will be absolutely no direct or indirect curbs to reduce gun violence, as age restrictions for purchasing firearms and accessories and limitations on those with a violent history are eliminated. Trump may wallow in finger pointing about shootings in our large cities, which, of course happen, but they are at a much lower per capita rate than in rural states, AKA The Wild West. No matter. Trump will always tell us that cities run by Democrats are  the worst.

Miscellaneous Un-American Activities

It’s logistically insanely difficult to round up 11 million or more people and deport them. There may be Gestapo raids in various Hispanic neighborhoods ripping families apart. Expect rampant cruelty that is never prosecuted.

Look for prosecutions on fantasy charges against people Trump doesn’t like. The prosecutions won’t result in anything substantive, but they will impoverish the defendants, so Trump will be able to giggle with glee about how he crushed his detractors.

Expect thousands of civil servants, the people who make the trains run on time, to be fired and replaced by Trump suck-up know-nothings.

Look for conflicts of interest and outright grift and graft on an epic level. There will be no prosecutions.

The Trump administration will end when JD Vance invokes the 25th Amendment to replace him. Then things will get worse.

Expect that to happen just into Trump’s third year, which would allow Vance to stay for two more terms, assuming that there will still be elections and such an old fashioned concept as “terms.” If we no longer have elections, the timing won’t matter.

Dos and Don’ts
Do

Stay connected to others, especially those who believe in democracy. It’s critical to your sanity.

Grieve the loss. It’s real and it hurts.

Get up and get active. Nothing restores the spirit like taking action to make things better.

Fight to Make America Not Suck. Get a red, write and blue MANS hat. I don’t know where to find those. Go all entrepreneurial with that.

If there is an election in 2026, dig in with everything you have to elect anyone who will oppose Trump and will restore our democracy. We need control of at least one house of Congress to put a brake to the Trump Train of Destruction.
.
Don’t

Don’t surrender to despair.

Don’t wallow in grief.

Don’t drop out.

Don’t succumb to “All is lost.” The fight just got much more difficult, so we must step up our efforts for truth, justice and the American Way.

And most important,

Don’t let the bastards get you down!

.
Final Note

There is nothing in this post that you didn’t already know. That is how blatantly, screamingly, obviously awful this stuff is. We have a lot of work to do.

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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


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

We’re Doing This To Ourselves


POST 1119

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”
  • – Abraham Lincoln, 1864
  • So, too, ourselves, today, right now

In watching this train wreck election proceed in slow motion I had to admit the foul truth, that half of my fellow citizens voted against democracy. They voted for lawlessness and assault. They voted to let pregnant women bleed out and die. They voted for a huge tax increase on themselves and they voted to condone violence against fellow citizens. They voted for little lies and for massive, gobsmacking lies, for denial of science and the embrace of idiotic conspiracy theories to replace truth. And they voted to end the rule of law and to let a convicted criminal and sexual assaulter get away with his lawlessness. His sentencing for 34 counts of fraud in a couple of weeks should be quite the spectacle.

They voted in favor of gerrymandering and voter suppression, shooting protesters in the legs and for martial law. They voted for minority control of our cities, our states and our nation. They voted for willful ignorance and cruelty and for despotism. They voted for letting Putin do anything he wants to do. They voted for MAGA friend Putin to have his cyber-thugs rain down bomb threats on polling stations in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. “Hey, Russia, if you’re listening.  .  .” Big help for the cheater. Remember that Trump cheats at golf, too. And real estate and foundations and university. Everything, really.

“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
  • – commonly attributed to Winston Churchill, but he never said that.
  • Sometimes Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban gets credit for some
  • variation of this statement. Had either of them
  • said this, he would have been right.
  • We are here today, having promoted the strongarming of our democracy out the door and the welcoming of fascism controlled by rich, cruel usurpers and angry citizens who feel their special place in our society is slipping away. They are allowing fascism, in part because it is now cloaked in the flag and carrying a Trump Bible. It seems we forgot to remember.
  • We tried slavery and we continue to practice various forms of discrimination and repression. Some will always cling to self-justified anger, grievance and the notion that there are those who are naturally superior to others. It is self-evident that those holding such a view see themselves as the superior ones. When will we once again choose to do the right thing?
  • Our main challenges now are to figure out how to live to fight another day and something else equally daunting. It is figuring out how to repair the gaping rifts that caused our national and individual sails to luff instead of to propel us forward, resulting in driving this threat into existence. The repair is made exponentially more difficult by so many loud, hateful voices shrieking fear and hatred into our ears every day. It’s a lot like 1930s Germany and nobody speaks of the elephant in the room.
  • No Democrat is threatening violence. No Democrat is in a militia practicing to assault the Capitol Building on January 6, 2025 or is preparing to send Christmas cards with pictures of themselves brandishing an AR-15 and speaking menacingly of the blood of patriots. No Democrat is making death threats to poll workers. No Democrat went to an election rally and cheered hateful and racist slurs or chanted about death to anyone. And no Democratic leader incites anger and hatred.

Doesn’t matter any more. This MAGA leader does.

A dictator just on day one, you say? Millions believe that lie. We have elected ourselves into an open prison controlled by a dictator. Changes will come incrementally and we’ll barely notice what we have done to ourselves until we’re afraid all the time and injustice rules the land. We will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave, so we can replace the Star Spangled Banner with something befitting a military parade goose stepping down Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Stand back and stand by.”

And recognize that we are doing this to ourselves. All the dysfunction, the violence, the hatred and the destruction of all we have claimed to hold dear for nearly 250 years are self-inflicted wounds. Be glad that most of the brave ones who fought and many who died to protect this democracy cannot see what we are doing to the country over which they stood guard at enormous personal sacrifice.

  • We have a system that is brilliantly designed to self-correct via the ballot box. I don’t see how that self-correction can happen in a dictatorship.
  • I still believe in America. Not much has changed substantively – yet. On the other hand, I don’t have much respect for our willfully blind, the ones who refuse to see what is before them, or the willfully hateful, the ones who want to tear it all down.
  • The clock has run out. There is no more time. More donations won’t help, nor will post cards to swing states nor canvasing or another post in this space. We are left in awkward impotence.
  • The sun will still come up each day – read Simon Rosenberg’s piece – but now we will need some heretofore undiscovered wisdom and strength to find our way through the coming loss of rights and freedom in order to get back to decency and democracy. This is going to take a long time and it’s going to hurt.


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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


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

Where Have They Been?


POST 1117

From NBC, October 29 (trimmed for brevity):

.  .  .  Nikki Haley criticized Trump world on Tuesday for being “overly masculine with this bromance thing” after former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

On Fox News on Tuesday, Haley addressed a comedian’s racist jokes about Puerto Rico and Latinos, a moment that has roiled the Trump campaign and was condemned by multiple Republicans, including members of Congress.

“This is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos,” Haley said, instead calling for discipline around the campaign. “This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they have.” [Mascuilinity now means hatred and cruelty?]

Haley noted other language used throughout the rally, as well as in Republican ads and messaging, that she called destructive to drawing women into the fold on Election Day.

She said, “destructive to drawing women into the fold.”

She said, “That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump’s style.”

Those are her concerns? She’s not concerned about the racism and the misogynist cruelty?

Haley failed miserably because her sole focus is on winning the election. She didn’t show even a whiff of concern for decency. Plus, this election isn’t about Trump’s style. It’s about his pathological substance.

HALEY COMPLETELY FAILS TO ADDRESS HOW MISERABLY TRUMP WORLD BEHAVES AND ITS COMPLETE LACK OF DECENCY. HALEY DISCARDED ALL CLARITY ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG. WHATEVER SPINE SHE ONCE MIGHT HAVE HAD HAS MELTED AWAY, ALONG WITH ANY SENSE OF MORALITY.

Nikki Haley’s values are upside down. Were the opportunity to present itself, I would vote for a golden retriever over Haley, this for its fidelity and for Haley’s lack of it.

Many Republicans – hundreds of them – have recovered their senses and are speaking out against Trump. Haley isn’t one of them. They are pledging to vote for Harris. So glad they’re standing up for what is right and good and patriotic.

But in the face of the constant outpouring of Trump and MAGA cruelty, vicious lies and attacks on our Constitution,

Where have they been for the last nine years?
.

Come to think of it, where has George W. Bush’s courage been? Wasn’t he the swagger president, the “You’re either with us or against us” tough guy? Where’s his repudiation of Trump and MAGA and where is his endorsement of Harris? Where is Mitt Romney’s? Or John Boehner’s or Paul Ryan’s? Where are the quiet ones who sometimes appeared to be “traditional Republicans,” like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski?

Each of them and more took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Why aren’t they standing up and fighting against this obvious threat to our Constitution?

Key Quote For This Election
.
“Bad People get elected when good people don’t vote.”  – Sen. Cory Booker
.

We know the difference between right and wrong and between good and evil and we vote accordingly. Good on you for standing strong and being a voter.

Your family, friends and neighbors may need your encouragement to vote. Please speak out. Urge them to vote. Don’t tell them who to vote for because that kind of message is almost never welcome. Just urge them to vote.

It’s time for all of us to take a stand.

Many thanks to MG for this quotation from Scotty Reston.

It’s not the vibes and it’s not the polls: it’s the votes. 
Are you registered to vote? Check it out on any of these websites:
.

NOTE: Many states allow same day voter registration and voting!

https://www.vote.org/am-i-registerilled-to-vote/

https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration

https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/am-i-registered-to-vote/

“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016


  • 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 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. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore, even if that makes them a few bucks more expensive. That will help to keep them your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

    Click me

    JA


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

Five


POST 1116

Did you already vote? Great! And you’re not done protecting our rights, our freedoms and our democracy.

You know quite well that MAGA and the acquiescent, cowardly Republicans stand for hatred, cruelty, violence and un-American values and norms. They cannot make themselves bigger so they use every hateful method to make everyone else smaller and poorer in every way. Here’s the most recent evidence of their crimes against America and Americans.

The Trump Nazi Bund rally at Madison Square Garden last Sunday was a goose stepping jamboree, a festival of hatred and cruelty. From Heather Cox Richardson:

The hateful performances of the early participants set the tone for the rally. Early on, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a steamingly racist set. He said, for example: “There’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico.” He went on: “And these Latinos, they love making babies too. Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” Hinchcliffe also talked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins.*

You may recall that Trump made himself the anti-hero for the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria by throwing rolls of paper towels to people devastated by that storm. You may also recall that Puerto Rico is one of the Trump-named “shithole countries.” Actually, Puerto Ricans are Americans, but people like Trump, Vance and that swamp creature comedian don’t like to acknowledge that.

That kind of thing is why you voted against the MAGA creeps.

As my friend, futurist David Houle recalled, in the 60s the establishment types hated protesters, anti-war types – anything that wasn’t locked down establishment. They wore their certainty of their being the true Americans on their sleeves and also wore it on their pick up trucks and cars with signs reading, “America: Love it or Leave it.”

Writes Houle,

The “conservative candidate,”  Donald Trump, has been trashing America.  He most recently called America a “garbage can of a country.”  I don’t think that any presidential candidate in U.S. history has ever spoken so negatively about this wonderful democracy.

What?!  If you, Mr. Trump, do not love America or want America to once again become a “shining city on a hill;”

If [you] Donald Trump [don’t] like America, [you] can leave it! Love it or leave it, Donald.

Remember that Trump has been painting America in dystopian terms since 2017.

It’s time we recognized that Trump does not love America and he doesn’t care a bit about the disaster he will leave behind him. He wants to change nearly everything about America and all for the worse for our rights, our freedom and our democracy. So, per my friend David’s observation, it’s time for Trump to leave.

AND NONE OF THAT IS THE POINT!!

.

As I explained in this post, the point is that Trump is just the marionette, the puppet designed to distract us from what the Heritage Foundation fascists are doing. What they really want is to put Vance in the White House so he can be their tool boy to destroy our democracy. Their plan is to get Trump into the White House and then invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him and put Vance at the Resolute Desk to enact all of the democracy destroying carnage of Project 2025!

Trump is doing everything he can to keep his loyal followers juiced up, mindlessly angry, full of certainty and hatred. He’s doing nothing to attract additional supporters. That’s a perfect recipe for losing the election so he can attack his popular and Electoral College losses by inciting violence.

I don’t have a magic formula, a witch’s cauldron of potion to cure the extremists. What I’m sure of is that Trump must not be allowed anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and that starts with his overwhelming loss at the polls. The good guy legal eagles will have to figure out how to stop his valueless lawsuits. Our law enforcement people will have to figure out how to deal with the violence and the phony electors. All of that is above my pay grade. But crushing MAGA in this election is right on our level.

So, you voted. Did you think Trump and MAGA extremists would go away because you voted in this free and fair election? Nope.

This win for our rights, our freedom and our democracy needs to be an overwhelming victory for Harris-Walz and a crushing defeat for Heritage Foundation fascism. That’s why you aren’t done taking action.

Look at the countdown clock below. Five days is all we have to create the tidal wave victory for the America we believe in.

Just five days to stiff arm fascism.

Five days to protect the future for our children and grandchildren.

Just five days to block politicians from OB/GYN exam rooms.

Just five days to ensure we have leaders who will take steps to stem the hemorrhaging from our gun violence.

Just five days to restore decency to our government and our nation.

We have just five days to banish the haters from our politics.

We have just five days to encourage people to vote, using our door knocking, postcards, phone calls and more.
.

“Hard work is good work.” There are lots of options for you,

Many of which are listed here

There are Post Cards to Swing States – Holland & Muskegon MI

You can knock on Doors in Wisconsin

Rockin’ Zoom Phone Bank – Indivisible Illinois

Or this

Or this

And of course there is this potpourri of opportunities to make a difference.

This stuff is easy to find and easy to do, so find something. The key: TAKE ACTION TODAY!

Tell people to vote like their life depends on it.

Because it does.

___________________________________________

* In case you are a Trump apologist or Trump explainer/whisperer, consider this.

Eleven years ago a US Navy submarine surfaced right into a Japanese fishing boat. The fishing boat sank and nine people were killed. The submarine captain with an otherwise fine record, was officially disciplined and had to resign from the Navy. Here’s why.

The leader is responsible for everything – that’s everything – that happens on his/her boat, whether it’s during the captain’s watch or not. It’s the captain’s job to make certain that all involved are properly trained, that they know their jobs and that they execute them properly. No excuses.

And so it is in the Trump campaign. Trump is responsible for the hiring, training and execution of his election team. Someone on his election campaign invited that crude “comedian” to speak, so Trump is responsible for his crude, cruel words. Trump can dance all he wants, but Trump is responsible for that hurtful meanness. He can try to distance himself from that, he can apologize – no matter. He’s accountable.

It’s not the vibes and it’s not the polls: it’s the votes. 
Are you registered to vote? Check it out on any of these websites:
.

https://www.vote.org/am-i-registerilled-to-vote/

https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration

https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/am-i-registered-to-vote/

“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016


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