Accountability

This Is Going To Be A Challenge


Reading time – 3:50; Viewing time – 5:07  .  .  .

The experts tell us what is painfully obvious, that we’ve trained ourselves to have a short little attention span and we refuse to hone our ability to hold conflicting or complex thoughts in mind. We are impatient in the extreme.

Examples:

It used to take about 45 minutes to bake a potato. Now it takes 4 minutes in the microwave oven and we stand in front of the machine counting down the last 30 seconds and maybe opening the door before it beeps because we just don’t have the patience to wait those last 7 seconds.

The online order that took 3 minutes for you to place arrives on your doorstep in no more than 2 days. We used to be satisfied with 2 weeks.

Information on nearly anything is available in under one second and we’re surprised if it takes more than one click to find it.

No doubt you can think of more examples of our expectations for instant gratification and wish fulfillment, but let’s just admit to our near-universal impatience. That’s why this is going to be a challenge.

That kind of behavior and expectations neatly delivers to us leaders who couch every issue as a simple problem with a quick, binary choice of solutions, when in reality most of the challenges we send our representatives to solve are complex, three dimensional puzzles that require holding complex thoughts in their heads and staying focused, on-task.

Bumper sticker slogans are so much easier than six pages of explanation and they’re instantly gratifying. That encourages our leaders to deliver what Elaina Plott described as, ”  .  .  .  a warped polity whose leaders are manipulative of public opinion rather than responsive to it.” Further, she said, “Popular discourse is given [over] to extremes.”

Chris Hedges wrote about this in a 2012 essay, How To Think. By the standard of our national nanosecond attention span, his piece is long and thick. So, go ahead – test your focusing skills – read the entire excellent essay. Meanwhile, here’s a excerpt:

“Human societies see what they want to see. They create national myths of identity out of a composite of historical events and fantasy. They ignore unpleasant facts that intrude on self-glorification. They trust naively in the notion of linear progress and in assured national dominance. This is what nationalism is about—lies. And if a culture loses its ability for thought and expression, if it effectively silences dissident voices, if it retreats into what Sigmund Freud called “screen memories,” those reassuring mixtures of fact and fiction, it dies. It surrenders its internal mechanism for puncturing self-delusion. It makes war on beauty and truth. It abolishes the sacred. It turns education into vocational training. It leaves us blind. And this is what has occurred. We are lost at sea in a great tempest. We do not know where we are. We do not know where we are going. And we do not know what is about to happen to us.”

Hedges’ comments were made 4 years before Trump was elected. What’s changed in the interim is the severity of the problems we face, as well as our having achieved an increasing clarity about the looming disaster that is about to happen to us. At the same time, we’re ever more impatient.

Click the caricature for the original

If Donald Trump has served a useful purpose for the United States it surely is as a caricature of our acquiescence to ignorance and easy non-solutions to complex problems. Those things give us a chest-thumping sugar high right until the moment when reality arrives and we come crashing down, like when we learned about all those children ripped from their mothers’ arms and then put in cages. He’s shown us daily what foolishness, greed, hate mongering and dishonesty can do to a nation. Perhaps the results of the mid-term election indicate that we are beginning to see for ourselves what has happened to us. We don’t like it and we’re taking action to redirect our country.

Angry old white guys who long for a proud and pleasant but fictitious past are dying off, so my hopes are for our young to put their shoulders to the wheel and move this national wagon in the right direction. The Parkland kids are showing the way. They just received the 2018 International Children’s Peace Prize, awarded by Bishop Desmond Tutu in Cape Town, South Africa. The Millennials at www.Represent.us and the tens of thousands who canvassed for candidates in this election are showing us the way as well.

For them and us to succeed will require that we hold complex thoughts in our heads and stay focused. It means now and then we will have to accept less than instant gratification. It means we may have to live with some level of disappointment and nevertheless stay the course.

This is going to be a challenge. And it is our challenge.

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish that goal requires reaching many people, so:

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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Perversion


Reading time – 4:41; Viewing time – 6:43  .  .  .

First they were the “silent majority.” Then they were “values voters,” which seemed to imply that those who didn’t see things exactly their way had no values. Now they’re “the base” or “Evangelicals.” Regardless of the label, they were and are focused on being a minority holding power over the heathen majority as though it’s a religious imperative. It’s a most exclusionary position, as in “I’ve got it and you can’t have it.” Whether it’s citizenship, civil and voting rights, power, superiority – it doesn’t matter. It’s all about we-who-are-right-and-good-and-godly versus all the people who are wrong and less-than and probably unpatriotic, too. Whatever advances their agenda is okay.

Paul Weyrich was the Dean Wormer of voter suppression.

Paul Weyrich, a conservative commentator and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, declared the Republican marching orders in August, 1980 while speaking to the Religious Roundtable, saying,

“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

Republicans have been pursuing Weyrich’s repressive dictum tied to a fairy tale of religious purity ever since. They’ve made claims of massive voter fraud without any evidence to suggest that it even exists and have warned of dire consequences to our country if the “wrong” people are allowed to vote. They’ve quite ably reduced opposing voter turnout by:

– Purging voter roles for spurious reasons, primarily of people of color and the poor

– Purging voter lists of people only because they haven’t voted in the past few elections

– Closing offices, making it difficult to register to vote

– Closing polling places making it difficult to vote

– Challenging ballots due to minor errors, like omitting a middle initial

– Dirty tricks, like sending mailings with the wrong date or place for voting

– Requiring IDs that many poor people simply don’t have

From The Onion, of course. Click the pic for the article.

– Refusing to accept IDs that many people do have

– Rejecting voter registrations on ridiculous technicalities

– Redistricting (gerrymandering) that effectively neuters votes

– Claiming voter fraud with absolutely no evidence of it having occurred

– Packing the courts with right wing judges who allow these perversions to stand

Voter suppression advances the control and wealth of the minority to the detriment of the majority, which perverts our democracy. Right now there is no equivalency on the Democratic side, although there has been in the past. But there is perversion equivalency somewhere else: it’s the Big Money influence on our politicians and our democracy. Now, that’s an equal opportunity perverter.

There’s a reason you’re paying crazy high prices for your meds. It’s because the pharmaceutical industry lobbies in the form of direct and indirect cash support for politicians. That monetary influence reduces their inclination to do anything that the big companies wouldn’t like, such as opposing mergers and acquisitions that reduce competition. The near-monopoly created by those mergers allows and even encourages med makers to raise prices. And it’s actually worse than that.

In economic terms, pharmaceutical price hike damage is compounded by what’s called inelastic demand. That means that your purchases won’t be reduced if the price goes up because your life depends on those meds.

We have plenty of anti-trust (i.e. anti-monopoly) laws on the books, but they’re pretty much ignored. There was the breakup of AT&T in the 1980s (which has by now been largely negated) and the Microsoft suit in the 1990s, but not much else for decades. Meanwhile, the mergers of major companies continue.

Many of our air carriers have merged, like Continental being absorbed by United and US Air was bought by American and, unsurprisingly, ticket prices are rising. And if the T-Mobile and Sprint merger is allowed to happen, and regardless of which carrier you now use, what do you suppose that will mean for your cell phone bill? That’s right: it will go up.

And it’s not just your financial burden that might be affected.

The gargantuan size of companies resulting from allowing already big companies to merge can be a contributor to a decline in democracy and even a rise of fascism. Here’s how it works.

When we feel powerless, we look for someone to lead us back to a feeling of being in control of our lives and our country. But the autocratic leader we choose then partners with the huge companies to get their loyalty and support. In return, those companies get to avoid accountability for their actions and we pay the price.

In the end, we’re left even more powerless and our democracy will have been perverted. Read Tim Wu’s piece “Be Afraid of ‘Bigness.’ Be Very Afraid.” Bigness – monopoly – warps government, which perverts democracy and invites autocracy, which steamrolls you.

This discussion wouldn’t be complete without making clear that all of our perverting craziness is for the purpose of the ultra-wealthy few keeping and grabbing even more power by undermining our democracy. The drum major for that band is, of course, Donald Trump. But all those denials of rights of our citizens are part of the perversion.

It’s in Trump’s interests to kneecap the system that’s in place and to diminish those in his path. He went on a tweet storm last week bashing Robert S. Mueller and the FBI. You owe it to yourself to review CNN’s clear-headed, examination of what he tweeted. As you read it, be clear that his is not just a temper tantrum. It’s a perversion of our democracy.

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish that goal requires reaching many people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!). No subscriber information is ever shared with anyone, anywhere, any time.
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Potpourri v5.0


Reading time – 2:55; Viewing time – 3:47  .  .  .

I attended a demonstration last week in Naples, FL. This was one of the over 1,000 demonstrations spread among all 50 states protesting the Matt Whitaker appointment as acting Attorney General, seen as the first concrete step to Trump neutering the Mueller investigation.

We were on a corner of busy US Highway 41. People brought signs and many driving by honked horns in support. The most important moment for me was when a guy in a pickup truck drove by, windows open, and yelled, “I’m for Trump. I got a job.”

And, of course, he’s right. The righties will point to that and declare that’s proof that Trump is great for America. The lefties will point to the rock steady growth of the economy since 2009 and say it was inevitable. I say that this guy just helped us to understand why people voted for Trump.

It’s about the dignity of work. It’s about being able to care for yourself and your family. It’s about not having anxiety over every dollar. It’s about pride of accomplishment. And millions of Americans have been locked out of all of that.

They aren’t all racists or stupid or deplorable or blind or morally bankrupt or anything more or less than human. And too many of the college educated and urbane just don’t seem to get it. Pal J.C. offered a link to a David Brooks essay that suggests that there may be better ways to see ourselves and to build something of lasting value, rather than continuing on our path to extreme Us-Them.

Democrats who can’t seem to figure out how to appeal to red state America don’t get it. Hillary didn’t get it. Tom Perez, head of the DNC, doesn’t get it. Maybe what that guy in the pickup truck wanted to say is that none of us has to be wrapped in a self-righteous cocoon and all of us care how we’re treated.

Can we stop talking about how Democrats can win votes in red states? How about figuring out what’s really going on in peoples’ lives – all people – and deal with those challenges?

Read Brooks’ essay and post your comments below.

“When small men attempt great enterprises, they
always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

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The CDC tells us that there were 200,000 opioid related deaths in the U.S. from 1999 – 2016. They also tell us that the rate of those deaths in 2016 was 5 times what it was in 1999. That’s not good.

Lethal dose

Now the FDA has approved a new drug, trade name Dsuvia, a new form of sufentanil. It is 10 time stronger than today’s opioid, fentanyl. One of the justifications for its approval is that it’s claimed that it is valuable for treating pain from battlefield injuries when an IV can’t be used. Said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, “The military application for this new medicine was carefully considered in this case.”

Perhaps. But given our record of failing to keep a tight rein on supplies of these powerful drugs and the consequences to hundreds of thousands of now dead people, I’m wondering how we’ll prevent things from becoming far worse.

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Finally, perhaps you’ve heard pundits talk about Trump being entirely transactional and wondered what that meant. Branding expert Scott Galloway recently posted a video that explains that clearly and the section of his video dealing with that is posted below. You’ll instantly appreciate the difference between strategic (vision-centered) versus tactical (transactional). If you’d like to view his full post (most is non-political), click here.

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish that goal requires reaching many people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!). No subscriber information is ever shared with anyone, anywhere, any time.
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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Break the Glass!


Reading time – 1:01  .  .  .

Donald Trump just crossed a red line.

President Trump has now made the first clear and substantive move to end Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation by firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and putting into his place Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker. Whitaker was formerly a pundit who publicly declared his opposition to Mueller’s investigation and recommended his “starve the beast” tactic to end it. That is to say, he’s a protector of Trump instead of a protector of the Constitution. Be clear that the only job of the Attorney General of the United States is to protect and defend the Constitution. Now Whitaker is in a position to undermine that very document.

At stake is the rule of law.

This is a choice point between whether this will be a nation of laws or a nation of men. Another term for nation of men is dictatorship, which, if not bad enough in itself, often degenerates into tyranny. There’s a reason the Founders rejected the divine right of kings.

If Mueller’s team is shut down, the perps they’ve discovered will get away with their crimes. That includes this President of the United States and his family. In such a future, we will have declared that the president is above the law, as are all of his henchmen.

Click me to find a demonstration near you – then SHOW UP AT 5:00PM TODAY.

It’s time for action.

But that isn’t okay with you, and you want to do something about it. That’s why you’re going to show up today at 5:00PM local to protest this attempt to subvert the law and our way of life. Click the pic to the right to find a demonstration near you, then SHOW UP.

This is not a drill. This is an emergency.

BREAK THE GLASS!

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish that goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

VOTE TODAY!


Reading time – 57 seconds  .  .  .

VOTE TODAY!

No distractions. No postponement. No “My vote doesn’t count.”

Click me to confirm your voting place information.

VOTE TODAY!

Vote for Democrats to infuse some spine into Congress so that they check the abhorrent behavior, crimes and lies of this president. You know – like the Constitution says they’re supposed to do. But this Republican controlled 115th Congress steadfastly refuses to do its job.

Vote for Democrats because you’re sick of the ridiculous lies the Republicans tell you, like that they’ll protect the pre-existing conditions requirement of your medical insurance. That’s what Republican candidates are saying to voters, but they voted to repeal Obamacare 54 times! That’s why I say they’re lying to you. If you want solid healthcare  and healthcare insurance, vote for Democrats.

NOTE 1: Nearly all Americans are just one serious illness away from personal bankruptcy. Allowing the Republicans to remove pre-existing conditions coverage (as they’ve promised to do since 2010) will put us all at risk – again.

Note 2: Both Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have promised to go after Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as a way to fund tax cuts for the rich. That means your healthcare is at risk if Republicans stay in power.

Vote for Democrats because you’re smarter than the Republicans think you are and you see their 40 years of lies that has sent nearly all the money to the richest 1%. You want fairness restored.

Vote for Democrats because you simply cannot tolerate being lied to about immigration reform, the very thing Republicans had in hand but they refused it solely because President Obama was for it. Then they blamed Democrats for the lack of immigration reform!

Vote for Democrats and send the wimpy, cowardly Republicans home so they will have to get a job where they actually do their job.

Vote for Democrats because you’re sick at heart from the racism, xenophobia, hate, fear mongering and the incitements to violence.

Vote for Democrats because you refuse to have your hopes for your children and grandchildren crushed under the heel of a tyrant.

Vote for Democrats because you want America back.

VOTE TODAY!

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish that goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

There’s Only One Message


Reading time – 2:49; Viewing time – 4:01 .  .  .

– with a special message from Carl Reiner

VOTE!

Everything else is secondary. Read Tom Friedman’s piece – he explains it better than I can.

Just a few more comments.

Trump showed up on that enormously painful day after having been asked to stay away by the Mayor of Pittsburgh, the rabbi of the synagogue where 11 people were killed and 6 were injured and 70,000 residents of Pittsburgh (over 23% of the city’s population). He was specifically dis-invited by the grieving families, but he showed up anyway. Really, though, why would he accede to the wishes of those grieving people, when he has a photo-op moment? Everything is always about Trump, regardless of the consequences to others.

Gail Collins wrote of Trump that, “His rhetorical high point probably came when he went to the synagogue where 11 people were murdered and didn’t say anything.” Translation: Every time Trump opens his mouth something bad comes out.

Last week Trump released a 45-second ad that is blatantly racist and lacks even the slightest hint at subtlety. It is bald faced fear mongering. Except for the assertion that Luis Bracamontes is an illegal immigrant convicted of killing two cops, every other statement in the ad is false. What is noteworthy is Trump’s having yet again shown us that there is no bottom to his low.

Trump and the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee lied and cheated their way to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. When Trump was asked about his lying throughout the process, he told a reporter, “We won” – that’s all that mattered.

Now you know every thing you need to know about Trump. Everything is solely about Trump winning. Protecting our country and preserving our democracy mean nothing to him. Getting more power and wealth for Trump is all that matters. Truth, reality, propriety, morality, honesty, rules, impact on others – none of it matters because everything is always about Trump getting more of what he wants. That’s his reason for going to Pittsburgh when he was specifically asked not to come. That’s how we get a blatantly dishonest, 45-second fear mongering, anti-immigrant ad 5 days before the mid-term election. That’s how Brett Kavanaugh, accused by multiple women of sexual assault, makes it onto the Supreme Court. Clearly, for Trump the end justifies the means. And the means are the manipulation tools he uses without regard for the suffering he causes others and the damage he does to our democracy.

The destruction of democratic America and the establishment of Trump as autocrat is what he is working to create every day. And that is the America our spineless Republican Congress is allowing to come about through its cowardice and refusal to check Trump.

And that is why there is only one message:

VOTE!

Here’s Carl Reiner’s message for you:

I’m not customarily or historically a partisan. I care about issues and principles. If you must, sneer at me as unrealistic and disparagingly call me a Boy Scout. No problem here. But this election comes so plainly in a desperate moment for our country that most issues and policies are at best secondary. The only issue on which to focus is to save our democracy, and you can’t do that with sniveling, cowardly Republicans controlling Congress.

Vote for Democrats who will stop Trump’s destruction of our democracy.

Vote for Democrats who will begin to restore the underpinnings of our democracy that Trump has compromised.

VOTE!

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Here’s another message from a lifelong Republican. Have you noticed how many have the same message for you? Have you noticed how many lifelong Republicans have left that party because the party left them and no longer remotely promotes their values?

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish that goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

I Didn’t Want To Write This Post


Reading time – 4:54; Viewing time – 6:18  .  .  .
I didn’t want to write this post. I want to be better than this, to be evolved and enlightened. I want to be patient and understanding and have equanimity, but that just isn’t happening. Not now and perhaps not for a very long time.

I’m mad as hell.

I’m sick of weenie politicians offering their damned “thoughts and prayers.” I’m nauseated by the spinelessness of our leaders who are, instead, followers of the biggest financial donors. I’m sickened by elected officials who value their political life far more than the actual lives of attendees at religious ceremonies and little children in school. The core value of these officials seems to be, “Let ’em all die, as long as I get re-elected.”

I attended what was offered as a healing ceremony at my synagogue on Sunday morning. The kids attending Sunday School were brought in for the last 15 minutes of the proceedings and as I watched their little bodies make their way to open seats I couldn’t help but realize that these kids have now been taught to be afraid all the time, everywhere. And that’s absolutely not okay.

Nobody has ever solved the riddle of how to take fear and hate and anger from the hearts of our citizens, so I don’t have any notion that the riddle will be solved now. What I do believe is that we can open our eyes to the reality all around us and start to deal with it.

The Anti-Defamation League keeps track of anti-Semitism in America and reports that anti-Semitic incidents were up 57% in 2017 over 2016, with the highest increases occurring in the first 3 months of the year. It’s interesting to note that these spikes in acts of hatred occurred during and just after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Then the acts of hate spiked again following the “Unite the Right” neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, which was conducted by “fine people,” according to our president.

Trump is the obvious and easy-to-name provocateur of intolerance because of his well documented incitements to hate and violence. His wooden recitation of words from a Tele-prompter that were written by someone else means nothing, because everyone knows he’s completely disingenuous in his sympathy and is only mouthing the words. The withholding of his vilification of others barely lasted an hour following his Tele-prompter charade, when he was back to naming enemies and demeaning them. We’ve always had a problem of hatred in this country, but we’ve often had a leader upon whom we could count to call upon our better angels. Now, we don’t.

And it’s missing from many of our elected leaders, too, especially those who spinelessly refuse to stand up to Trump.

For those who desperately want to deny the one-sidedness of the incitement to hate and violence that lives in our politics and our country, I have a question for you: What is it that you’re pretending not to know? Perhaps you’ll like my question better in this form: What is it that is right before you every day that you refuse to see and refuse to hear?

If you call yourself a Republican I invite you to examine if that’s really true. The Republican Party of Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and H. W. Bush is long gone. There are still some ugly echoes from them, like the overt racism of Nixon and the racial stereotyping by Reagan (recall his self-serving lie, saying there were “welfare queens” in Chicago), but the basic conservatism of any and all of them is gone, regardless of the Republican label in use by others today.

Today’s Republican Party is the party of discrimination, the withholding of rights, hatred and the impoverishment of middle class and poor Americans and anyone who is not from white, Christian European stock, and the violent perps feed off that. If the things in that list don’t describe you, then renounce your membership in that party right now, because the Republicans of today abandoned you in favor of protecting their own asses and in the process they lost any semblance of moral standing and the right to a place of leadership. And it’s not just the discrimination that’s a problem.

They’ve sold out to the gun lobby because that gets them big donations for their campaigns. Were they honest they would declare the number of people who they figure can be butchered by semi-automatic weapon carrying angry people before they’ll stand up for sensible gun safety laws. Don’t look for that declaration, though, because going public with that would upset their big money donors.

Eleven people were killed and many more were wounded in the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday, this in the name of blaming Jews for the miserable life the killer had made for himself. It’s the same pattern as for the butchery in the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and the Sikh temple in Milwaukee and the LGBTQ partiers at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando and those little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the people at the Las Vegas concert. Nearly all those dead bodies can be attributed to the cowardice of our elected officials to stand up and lead.

I went to the healing ceremony on Sunday and found no healing. I’ll get to that someday. Right now I’m mad as hell and I don’t give a damn about politicians’ “thoughts and prayers.” I want action.

For more following our most recent massacre, be sure to read Howard Fineman’s essay and Bari Weiss’ essay, too.

Correction: While she lived through those years, Rose Mallinger, the 97 year old shooting victim originally mentioned in this post, was not a holocaust survivor. Apologies for the error. JA

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Ed. Note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The American Citizens’ Power Restoration Act


Click the pic for a full view. Then CLICK HERE and follow the instructions to be sure you really are registered to vote, even if you’re sure that you are.

Reading time – 5:43  .  .  .

This post has been updated.

For decades there has been a continuing creep of power into the hands of the Chief Executive. In part, that has been caused by the abdication of responsibility of Congress.

Further, there has been a continuing increase of big money influence in our politics, giving far too much power to wealthy interests, often to the detriment of the country and at the expense of the people.

The intent of this Act is to remove excessive power from wealthy interests and to enjoin all but human beings from participation in the elections, the electoral process and the governing of this nation, and to restore power to all the people of the United States of America. Some sections of this proposed Act will require an Amendment to the Constitution in order to be adopted. Nevertheless, I invite you to consider the points offered and comment below.

  1. Section 1: Power to create. Congress shall have the power to establish limitations on who may contribute to candidates, elections and the election process; the duration of service in public office; the amount of money and money equivalents that may be contributed to elections and to actions designed to influence elections (“electioneering”).
    1. For the purpose of this Act, money is property, not speech, and therefore may be regulated.
    2. Any and all regulations of human activity that are created by or fall under the jurisdiction of this Act shall be applied equally to all citizens.
    3. Any and all regulations of non-human activity that fall under the jurisdiction of this Act shall be applied equally to all non-human entities.
  2. Section 2: Contributions. No United States citizen shall be allowed to contribute more than $5,200 to any one candidate in any one election cycle, nor shall any citizen be allowed to contribute an aggregate total to all candidates in any one election cycle more than $50,000.
    1. The contribution total limits apply to money and any and all money equivalents, including but not limited to services, use of real estate and/or offices, staff support, advertising, travel and other tangible or intangible items and actions of value.
    2. All money, money equivalents, and any other thing of value contributed to an election campaign must be disclosed to the federal government at the time of such contribution. The information required to be disclosed includes but is not limited to the identification of the contribution, whether financial or a money equivalent, the amount of the contribution and the identity of the contributor. The federal government shall publish a continually updated list of contributions for public review.
    3. No foreign entity of any kind may contribute money or any money equivalent to any campaign, election, election process or electioneering in the US, nor may any foreign entity lobby for or against any elected or appointed position in any governmental body.
  3. Section 3: Participation by human beings only. No entity that is not a human being may participate in any federal, state or local election or election process or in electioneering in any manner.
    1. This Section applies to businesses of any and all forms, including but not limited to corporations, partnerships, LLCs, unions, associations, influence organizations (“lobbyists”) and any other entity that cannot be commonly identified as a human being (“non-human entities”).
    2. Disputes as to whether a potential contributor is a human being or non-human entity shall be resolved by a panel of three (3) board licensed physicians.
    3. No non-human entity may contribute anything to affect any election, nor may any non-human entity contribute to any form of aggregated funds designed for the purpose of electioneering.
    4. For purposes of this Act, “election” means any and all components of the process of an election campaign.
    5. For purposes of this Act, “contributions” includes but is not limited to contribution of money either directly or indirectly, in kind contributions, physical or intellectual actions or offerings, aggregation of funds, and other actions that might directly or indirectly affect an election or the election process.
    6. For purposes of this Act, “electioneering” means any and all activities that might:
      1. promote or denigrate an individual running for elected office;
      2. promote or denigrate any political party;
      3. advocate for or against any issue, including but not limited to contribution of money or things or services of value, either directly or indirectly, designed to influence an election or the election process. Specifically prohibited are participation in any manner in PACs, SuperPACs, 501-c4 organizations or any entity, the actions of which are intended in any manner to affect an election or the election process or the functions of government, regardless of the percentage of such organization’s resources used for such purposes.
  4. Section 4: Term Limits. Supreme Court Justices and all elected positions, whether federal, state or local, shall be term limited as follows:
    1. For Supreme Court Justices, the maximum allowable duration of service shall be 20 years.
    2. For elected positions of two years duration, the maximum allowable duration of service shall be twelve years or six terms.
    3. For elected positions of four years duration, the maximum total allowable duration of service shall be eight years or two terms.
    4. For elected positions of six years duration, the maximum allowable duration of service shall be twelve years or two terms.
  5. Section 5: Who is allowed to vote and equal access to voting. All citizens of the United States of America who are in good standing are allowed to vote in all federal, state and local elections within the jurisdiction of their primary residence.
    1. All laws that restrict voting by means of a mandatory government issued picture ID are immediately void upon the adoption of this Act.
    2. Convicted felons who have served their sentences either in full or as adjusted by an appropriate court and who would be eligible to vote absent a criminal record are allowed to vote, regardless of the violation for which they were convicted.
    3.  Locations of voter registration and polling places and hours of operation of such places shall be located within each state for the equal convenience of all citizens of each state.
      1. No citizen shall be discouraged from voting due to the inconvenience of location or hours of operation of voter registration offices or polling places.
        1. There shall be no undue burden of travel to such places from any residence in any state. Voter registration places and polling places shall be located such that there is not more than 30 minutes required to travel to such places for any citizen.
        2. Hours of operation of voter registration and polling places shall be uniform across any state and not designed to discourage either voter registration or voting.
    4. All states shall offer a minimum of three (3) weeks early voting time prior to all scheduled elections, whether federal, state or local.
    5. All states shall offer absentee voting for a minimum of six (6) weeks prior to all elections, whether federal, state or local.
    6. Congress shall institute a national holiday on federal election days to encourage voting by all citizens.
    7. All states shall institute automatic voter registration upon a citizen applying for a driver’s license or the achievement of a citizen’s 18th birthday, whichever occurs first.
  6. Section 6: How Election Results are Determined.
    1. The Electoral College is dissolved upon the adoption of this Act. All election results shall be determined solely by the totals of the popular vote.
    2. The final result for all elections will not be determined until all votes cast are properly counted and registered, regardless of the length of time required for such counting and registering.
  7. Section 7: Oversight
    1. No candidate running for office in any federal, state or local election may at the same time be involved in any way in the control or influence of the election itself.
    2. Both appointed and elected officials whose responsibilities include in any way the oversight, control or influence of elections must first resign their position before running for office.
    3. Both appointed and elected officials who have any influence whatsoever on voter registration and any part of the electoral process must resign their position before running for office.
  8. Section 8: Enforcement. Congress shall establish appropriate penalties for violation(s) of the provisions of this Act.
  9. Section 9 Severability. Should any provision of this Act be found unconstitutional, it shall be severed from the rest of the provisions of this Act and all remaining provisions shall be left fully in force.

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Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Who Cares?


A partial compendium of Trumpian distractions designed to keep your eye off the ball. Click the image for a larger view.

Reading time – 2:59; Viewing time – 4:17  .  .  .

North Dakota Republican lawmakers must think they’re in Texas or North Carolina, because they’re pursuing the same kinds of voter discrimination that’s become so popular with voter suppressionists in those other states.

They passed voter suppression tactics designed to stomp on the rights of 40,000 Native Americans. Here’s where it gets really weird: they started their discrimination after early voting had already begun.

Gotta give points for creativity to the North Dakota Republicans, because all the voter suppression actions in most other states has been to keep black, brown and poor people from voting, but not in North Dakota. Their anti-Constitutional genius is designed to keep poor Native Americans down. It seems that all those broken treaties over the centuries didn’t constitute enough cruelty to satisfy the supremacist power thirst of these Republicans. And the story gets worse.

Native Americans challenged that law in Federal court, which stopped it. But then the Republican North Dakota Secretary of State appealed to the Eighth District Court, which reversed the lower court and allowed the discriminatory law to stand. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, which decided that the law should go into affect.

So, who cares? We don’t care about Native Americans any more than we cared about Puerto Ricans when the hurricane slashed through that island and killed 2,975 Americans. None of them is from white European stock, so who cares?

Then there’s the deceit of the Kavanaugh debacle. Read the letter from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers posted halfway down the HUFFPost article. You’ll come away with clarity about the fundamental dishonesty of the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. To wrap a bow around that, here’s a link to a video of Donald Trump mocking Dr. Blasey Ford. His words aren’t only cruel; they’re utterly false. But really, if you’re in power, who cares?

A football coach, an athletic director and fifteen high school kids were killed and yet more were injured by a gunman at Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, FL on Valentine’s Day this year. Don’t even try to imagine how you would cope if one of your children had been shot dead at school, because unless you’ve lived it there isn’t even a remote possibility that you understand. But Fred Guttenberg does and he knows that doing something to help is what must be done. Guttenberg’s daughter, Jaime, was one of those killed that awful day in Florida.

Jaime was a dancer and she often helped those in need. She was small in stature, but took action to stop bullying. She simply cared about doing things to help others, so Fred created a foundation to do just that. It’s called Orange Ribbons for Jaime and I urge you to take a look. Watch Fred’s short video on the About page of the foundation’s website. Then take action to be like Jaime – do something to help others, like contributing to this foundation. Fred is completely transparent about what the foundation supports and, not surprisingly, that includes common sense gun safety reforms.

And support March For Our Lives, too. You remember David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and Emma Gonzalez – those kids who are wise beyond their years and who both broke your heart and filled it, as they spoke out on that day of murder in Parkland. They’re still speaking out and you can believe that they won’t stop until we defeat the gun lobby, whose only care is the profit to be made selling yet more guns. They won’t stop until we decide as a country that our children’s lives are more precious than unlimited arsenals in the house of any angry nut bag in this country. Chip in to help this movement.

Because the answer to the question “Who cares?” is you.

#WeAreTheMob
#WeWillVote

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Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Perfect Examples


A partial compendium of Trumpian distractions designed to keep your eye off the ball. Click the image for a larger view.

Reading time – 558; Viewing time – 8:31  .  .  .

NOTE: This was written and videoed prior to any Senate votes on Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

CAUTION: Language in this post may be inappropriate for sensitive readers and there’s just a little snark, too.

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Recall from a couple of previous posts the differentiation between a liar and a bullshitter. According to Harry G. Frankfurt,

“The distinction between lying and bullshitting is fairly clear. The liar asserts something which he himself believes to be false. He deliberately misrepresents what he takes to be the truth. The bullshitter, on the other hand, is not constrained by any consideration of what may or may not be true. In making his assertion, he is indifferent to whether what he is says is true or false. His goal is not to report facts. It is, rather, to shape the beliefs and attitudes of his listeners in a certain way.”

Here are a some perfect examples of what bullshit looks like.

You know about Trump claiming to have had the largest inaugural crowd ever. That’s just stupid and quite unimportant bullshit, but bullshit nevertheless.

Trump likes to claim that The Celebrity Apprentice was the number one show on television. With the exception of one episode in one season, the show almost never even cracked the top 10. That Trumpian claim, too, is stupid and quite unimportant bullshit. Here’s where bullshit becomes substantive.

On September 25 Donald Trump addressed the United Nations and said that his administration, “ .  .  .  has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” That’s a ridiculous claim, to be sure, but that wasn’t the most important part.

After a short pause for translations into the various languages of the attendees, the delegates in the General Assembly began a long, slow roll of laughter at Trump for his obvious grandiosity and the absurdity of his claim. That national humiliation hasn’t happened before at the UN to anyone or to any nation and it’s a clear and painful embarrassment for this country, but even that isn’t the most important part. That came the next day.

At a news conference Trump said,

“They weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing with me.”

“We had fun.”

“That was not laughing at me. So the fake news said, ‘People laughed at President Trump.’ They didn’t laugh at me. People had a good time with me. We were doing it together. We had a good time.”

That was bullshit.

Trump has made a laughing stock of the United States of America, in part through his bullshitting. Perhaps that’s what he meant when he said over and over that only he could do so many things. And really, can you think of anyone else who could have accidentally had the entire world laughing at the United States?

I repeat the clarity offered by Mr. Frankfort:

“In making his assertion, [the bullshitter] is indifferent to whether what he is says is true or false. His goal is not to report facts. It is, rather, to shape the beliefs and attitudes of his listeners in a certain way.”

Speaking of bullshit  .  .  .

Let’s be clear about a few things surrounding the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.

Read this article in The Washington Post for all of Brett Kavanaugh’s lies about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony. In his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh even contradicted himself, so he made himself a liar right in front of the Committee.

Further, the President – perhaps Senate Republicans, too – have hidden over 90% of the documents that pertain to Kavanaugh’s record, including all of the documents pertaining to his time in the Bush White House, where the White House counsel team that Kavanaugh was on busied itself declaring that torture isn’t torture.

We’re left to guess why they would shield Kavanaugh’s documents from the Democrats and what dishonest and disqualifying things we might find among those documents. True, that’s speculation, but just guess what the Republicans would be saying if the roles were reversed. That hiding of documents is an attempt,”to shape the beliefs and attitudes of [Trump’s] listeners in a certain way,” and it’s Presidential bullshit.

Kavanaugh claimed to have had no participation in the torture memos, but we’re left to wonder if he’s telling the truth. As Sen. Richard Blumenthal discussed with Kavanaugh at the hearings, Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus: false in one thing, false in all things.

Brett Kavanaugh has shown himself to be fundamentally dishonest. I don’t mean he fudged just a trifle; I mean he’s a serial liar. Have a look at this video that reveals a series of lies he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in just the past few weeks.

Kavanaugh has lied to Congress, both at the hearings for becoming a federal judge and in the hearings regarding his Supreme Court nomination. That’s perjury. It’s contempt of Congress and it’s a felony.

Brett Kavanaugh on the bench? That’s bullshit. Brett Kavanaugh belongs in jail.

Likely you’ve heard that the FBI isn’t interviewing dozens of witnesses (some say as many as 40) who could help to shed light on what happened or what did not happen between Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. Many of these witnesses have volunteered to be interviewed and the FBI hasn’t even returned their phone calls.

Translation: Trump has put the blinders on the FBI and prevented them from doing the kind of thorough, professional investigation they customarily do. Trump’s investigation isn’t about truth or falsity. “It is, rather, to shape the beliefs and attitudes of [Trump’s] listeners in a certain way.” In other words, it’s bullshit.

Answer this question: What kind of country do you want? We may not know one another, but I’m willing to bet that your answer doesn’t include bullshit in our highest public offices.

Next question: What are you willing to do to get what you want?

You know where this goes. It comes down to us getting off our butts and advocating for what we believe in. It comes down to us knocking on doors to spread the word. It comes down to us voting. It comes down to us bringing others to the polls with us, people who otherwise wouldn’t vote.

Because if we don’t do that, someone else – perhaps a bullshitter who wants a very different America from the America you want – will do all of that, and they’ll get their way because they’ll be the only ones talking and voting.

It comes down to us. You know what to do.

One last thing  .  .  .

I’ve seen nothing about it in the press. I haven’t found a word written nor a word spoken about the debt we owe to three men in particular. I speak, of course, of Lindsey Graham, Brett Kavanaugh and Chuck Grassley, who speak for so many.

It has been a long time coming to unshackle this marginalized group and to let fly the voices of a people who have suffered iniquities for so long. At last we are hearing the voices of the long suffering, angry, rich, old white men of America.

Each of these men has shown us the way, as they let fly their pent up anger at those who have been mean to rich, white guys. They snarled and they spit and they sneered. They vented their emotions for all to see and at last led us toward the promised land, the true path of America for its real citizens, angry, rich, old white men.

Forever may she wave with gilded edges in rooms of elegance, the red white and blue!

————————————

Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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