Accountability

Keeping Score


Post 1,031

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Keeping Score of Republican Voters

In a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll we learned that 45% of Republican-aligned adults responded that Trump “Best represents [my] values.” That’s more than double such identification with the next nearest Republican candidate.

Click me to make it easier to read this chart.

They’re talking values here. Not policies, not patriotism, not democracy, not America. Values.

AND THEY IDENTIFY WITH TRUMP!

Something has gone terribly wrong when nearly half of Republicans think Trump even has values (other than for himself) and they think he best represents their own values.

MAGAs, thoughtless sheep that they are, are followers without consciousness or conscience, excusers of verbal and physical violence. Those are values. So is hatred. And they most identify with Trump.

I have a question for all of them:

What is it that makes you need to hate people so much?

Okay, another question:

What happened to the values Mom & Dad taught you and that you learned in Sunday School or at the 4-H, or in the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts or even in kindergarten? What in the world made you sell yourself out?

Hint: Watch for answers in my post on Wednesday, January 24.

These people and their hatred have moved the needle not to the right, but to the wrong. All those self-righteous Evangelicals, for example, certain of their holiness, believe they’re doing God’s work and they’re are encouraged by their extremist political overlords and their pastors. That they support and promote vileness that is entirely anti-Christian makes no difference to them. They are bonded in a brotherhood of other-ing everyone not exactly like them. That is the America they insist upon. Those are quite odd values for bible thumping Americans to hold. But they do hold them, just the way Trump spouts them.

I don’t know how to create the counter to that, to stop the march to oblivion. Worse, it appears that Democrats don’t know either.

However imperfect, the America we used to have (or at least were working toward) is, in reality, the America we believed in not so long ago. Now those notions are at best quaint to many and at worst they are the enemy of the angry millions.

So, Republican voters’ score: D-
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Keeping Score On The Supreme Court

We suffer under six extremist justices because in order to get through the Senate vetting process they lied or misled about their beliefs:

including their intent to honor stare decisis (leave prior Court decisions alone)

including Roe v. Wade being settled law

including opposition to legislating from the bench – nevertheless, they made up cases so they could make new, extreme partisan law

That’s how they got on the Court: dishonesty. There’s lots more, but we’ll save that for another day.

Don’t expect Clarence Thomas, whose wife was a key supporter of the insurrection, to do the right thing and recuse himself from cases concerning January 6. He’s just not into doing the right thing.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba, speaking on Fox News (begin at 6:00) about the Supreme Court case regarding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, said the most un-American thing. She said,

“I think it should be a slam dunk in the Supreme Court. I have faith in them. You know, people like Cavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he’ll step up. Those people [the other Trump appointed justices] will step up .  .  .  “

She finished, saying that their stepping up will be because of the law and fairness. But everyone can see that her intent was to declare that they owe Trump, so they’ll pull his butt out of the fire.

She might be right.

So, Supreme Court score: D-

Trump attorneys’ score: F

Keeping Score Of Begs

It isn’t surprising that no Republicans hit me up for campaign solicitations. I think I got hit on once by Trump and possibly many times, as I’m sure I tagged that first email as spam, so I don’t see those exercises in victimhood, retribution and grift.

Meanwhile, many Democrats have found me. I mean many. Here are a noteworthy few.

Elizabeth Warren contacted me once and Gavin Newsome a few times.

Independent Krysten Sinema has written to me with her hand out six times. Good luck with that, Krysten.

Adam Schiff gets the award for the most interesting, thoughtful and well written begs. He’s knocked on my door 79 times.

AOC writes the most friendly, caring and grass roots informative solicitations. She’s hit me up 183 times.

The winner is Joe Biden and all those who write solicitations for him. They have reached out to touch my wallet over 594 times since he announced last April. That’s an average of two per day. Even if the rate of his solicitations doesn’t increase, given the number of days until the election, I’m looking at about 558 more hits just from Biden. I’ll help him, but woe be unto my Delete key.

Stand by for the final count in my post of November 10, 2024.

So, political donation begging score: Don’t get me started.
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Keeping Score on Speakers of the House

On February 23, 2023 I sent a request to the then-Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. He had given 41,000 hours of video recordings of the January 6 riot and insurrection to Tucker Carlson – and only to Tucker Carlson. Carlson then cherry picked the recordings and put together an impressively dishonest and misleading piece of propaganda, suggesting that the insurrectionists were ordinary peaceful tourists. That’s why I asked McCarthy to send the videos to me, too. Oddly, I never heard from McCarthy, despite repeated requests.

The new speaker is a bible-thumping extremist, so I don’t expect him to do the right thing, either. In fact, he posted footage of the insurrection on his website and blanked out faces to protect the villainous perps. Odd, since we’ve seen the videos of these perps many times and many have already been convicted of their crimes, so their faces are known.

Consequently, this is your final update about those videos. They aren’t going to show up in my Inbox unredacted, so you’ll just have to live with what your own eyes have toldl you – no gaslighting. What a concept!

So, Speakers of the House: F
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Keeping Score of Republican Legislators
    • “The GOP is more interested in nursing grievances and stoking anger than actually solving problems. That’s exactly what Donald Trump has trained them to do.”
  • – Eugene Robinson
So, GOP legislators: F
  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

Immigration, Healthcare and Disappearing Spine Disease


Post 1,026

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The Real Immigration Issue – Said Out Loud

With a noteworthy and continuing firmness, Congress has steadfastly stood tall for doing nothing to reform of our immigration system. That has left our proud Republican congresspeople free to whine, point fingers of blame, complain and demonize.

In the face of thousands of hopeful immigrants arriving daily, our courageous Speaker of the House, He Who Hates America, sent all representatives home for 3 weeks. The Republicans don’t want our immigration system fixed because they’d rather use our dysfunction to stoke their base against Biden and Democrats, even though it’s a challenge that is actually the responsibility of Congress, so they leave asylum seekers hanging. “The cruelty is the point.”

We do have a real and serious immigration problem, but it isn’t the one that is commonly talked about. Here’s the real immigration issue, said out loud:

Republicans don’t want any Hispanic, Black, Brown,
Asian or Muslim people in our country. *
.

After all, those people are so very inconvenient to straight, Christian nationalist, White Supremacist suburban and rural patriarchal posers.

Let’s be precise: This describes Republican extremists and Republican “moderates” (read: cowards). It certainly describes some others, too, especially the true believers of the wholly made up, hateful, bigoted, racist Replacement Theory.

Republicans still talk about people seeking asylum coming from the south, but nobody is complaining about White, European applicants seeking to immigrate – unless they’re from Ukraine and seeking asylum. They don’t want those people because allowing them in our country would help Ukraine in its fight for survival against Putin and Republicans are in the tank for Putin.

  • Side note: I remember a time when Republicans
  • were in the tank for America.

Our immigration problem isn’t about immigration. It’s about racism and White supremacy and delusional, hateful Christianity. Nothing more.

The Healthcare Ripoff

Read this from STAT, the healthcare newsletter from the Boston Globe:

INSURANCE
American taxpayers pay as much for health care as other countries do for universal coverage

The U.S. government spent more on health care last year than the combined governments of Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Austria, and France did on universal health care coverage, according new CMS data. Their populations add up to a total of 335 million people, compared to the U.S. population of 331 million.

The $1.8 trillion in federal and state health care expenditures in 2022 funded by taxpayers last year — about 41% of the nearly $4.5 trillion in both public and private health care spending — calls to mind an argument made by economists Amy Finkelstein and Liran Einav. “We’re already paying as taxpayers for universal basic automatic coverage, we’re just not getting it,” Finkelstein said at the STAT Summit in October. Read more from STAT’s Annalisa Merelli.

Wait, what? We’re paying full price for universal healthcare – actually, many times what other countries with universal healthcare pay – but “we’re just not getting it”? Are we really allowing ourselves to be ripped off like that?

Well, yeah, we are.

And our politicians, in the pockets of Big Pharma, insurance, big hospitals and more, don’t want to change a thing.

Please open your hymnal to page 2024 as we sing together all the verses of “That Sucks.”

Disappearing Spine Disease, or,
“What Do You Want Me To Say About Slavery?”
Definition

psycho-emetic [SI-ko-e-MET-ik] – noun

1. so stupid that it makes you puke

  • Jax Dictionary

At a town hall in New Hampshire last Wednesday Nikki Haley was asked what the cause of the Civil War was. She went on a tear about states rights, limited government and more and never mentioned slavery!

When she was done windbagging, the questioner pointed out her astonishing exclusion of the obvious historical fact of slavery. This pretender to the throne responded by asking, “What do you want me to say about slavery?“

Yes, Nikki Haley really did ask that stupid question. That’s psycho-emetic.

We don’t want to keep her hanging, so to answer her question, what we wanted her to say about slavery is that it was THE cause of the Civil War. We wanted her to say how unfathomably horrible slavery was, how wrong it was and that millions of people still suffer from its consequences 159 years later. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she asked what color the questioner wanted her Republican chameleon outfit to be.

I just wish she had had the courage to say her truth: “I’m not going to say the obvious, that our Civil War was about slavery, the greed that slavery supported and the enormous cruelty it spawned, because if I did that I’d lose MAGA votes.” But she didn’t say that.

What she did do was to instantly disqualify herself for any job that calls for intellectual honesty, moral courage and the ability to speak truth. What she did do was to support the banning and burning of books that mention anything about race, discrimination and our horrifying history of slavery. What she did do was to tell us that she’s such a suck up that she would be unable to confront either foreign or domestic enemies.

No, Nikki, even if you’re from the South, you may not own human beings. That was the cause of the Civil War. It wasn’t about northern aggression. It wasn’t about states rights. It wasn’t about limited government. It was about slavery, you coward!

Poor Nikki Haley is just another carrier of Republican Disappearing Spine Disease. Have low expectations of her, because like the hymn about universal healthcare that we pay for but don’t get, this sucks.

And the hits just keep on comin’.

One Last Thing
  • Definition:

re·ces·sion /rəˈseSH(ə)n/ – noun

  • 1. a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.
    – Oxford English Dictionary
    For our math challenged, “two successive quarters” means 6 months in a row.
    .
    Republicans continue to say that a recession is less than a heartbeat away or that we are in a recession right now. Here are the facts (as in: observable reality):
    .
    1. We have had nothing but growth in GDP, month after month, quarter after quarter for a really long time. The rate of growth slowed during the Trump-ignored pandemic in 2020.
    2. The S & P 500 returned 26% last year and the DJIA is at an all time high. Doesn’t sound very recession-y to me.
    3. Because there are business cycles, saying that a recession is coming is like saying that the sky will be dark. Sooner or later you’ll be right. Meanwhile, there is no recession.
    4. We keep making more jobs month-after-month, wages are higher for everyone who depends on a paycheck, insulin is just $35 a month instead of hundreds, they’re almost ready to replace the I-75 bridge over the Ohio River, and, and, and .  .  .
    5. If you’re one of the moaners saying that your economic situation is good, but that our national economy sucks, get over your slavish following of phony righty propaganda. They’re just feeding you mind crap, hoping for political advantage.

    Which sucks.

    Okay, This is the Real Last Thing

    For a wonderful list of places/causes/ways to take action and make a difference to protect our unfathomably precious democracy – that task you’re going to focus on and contribute yourself to this year – check in with Mobilize.us. Consider this an addition to the list on this post.

  • ________________________________________
  • *  Trump in Waterloo, IA on December 19:

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country. All over the world they are pouring into our country. They come from Africa, they come from Asia, they come from South America.”

He called it a “border catastrophe.” He said, “They’re poisoning the blood of our country.”

  • That’s it plain and simple: Racist, xenophobic fear and hatred is what immigration reform – and Trump and MAGA – are all about.
  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

Prep for 2024: Existential


Post 1,024

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Definition
  • existential: [ eg-zi-sten-shuhl, ek-si- ]
  • adjective

    1. of or relating to existence:

    Does climate change pose an existential threat to humanity?

    2. of, relating to, or characteristic of philosophical existentialism; concerned with the nature of human existence as determined by the individual’s freely made choices.

___________________________________

So, it’s about existence. Being-ness. It’s a lot like life – your life. And it’s the same for our democracy.

Either you have it or you don’t.

And the existence of our democracy, of our republic, hangs in a critical balance and will tip to either continuing its existence or to death this November 5.

Steve Schmidt’s post on December 25 recalled the early days of our revolution and compared the existential threat of that moment to what we and our nation face today. About the many current day traitors to the core of the meaning of America, Schmidt wrote:

There are no great speeches from the racists, Confederates, Klansmen, know nothings, lynch mobs, Bund or any of a dozen other lesser totalitarian movements that have sprung to life in America during our history. They have left behind rivers of blood, pain, suffering and oppression, but no great ideas or monuments to achievement.

The words that gave life to the Confederacy, Jim Crow and January 6 were poisonous and unworthy ones. They came from the lips and pens of America’s villains.

Think about that term: villains. You know what it means. You know one when you see one. And you see one every time you see anyone connected to MAGA, however intentional or duped-to-mindlessness they may be.

Thomas Paine

Schmidt called upon the words of Thomas Paine,* who challenged his countrymen as the Continental Army was struggling, writing,

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered;”

We are challenged today in much the same way as were our revolutionary patriots. We’re threatened by a powerful force using all of its cunning, all of its hatred and all of its might to crush what we hold dear. That force promises tyranny. That’s what villains always do.

The question for us in our time is the same as it was in that frigid winter of 1777: Will we be summer soldiers, sunshine patriots, or will we stand by our country and insist upon – fight for – the values we declare are ours?

Think of a value you hold dear. The MAGA mob is already trying to take it from you. Will you fight for it?

The choice is before us. If we succumb to the comfort of self-imposed immobility, wearing blinders to the in-plain-sight daggers at the throat of our freedoms, if we let the villains dominate us, we will be without freedom not only for our lifetimes, but for those of our children, our grandchildren and beyond.

More from Schmidt:

All Americans who love freedom should feel the deepest contempt for the hustlers, charlatans, cynics and opportunists who have attacked [our country] in recent years under the MAGA banner. All American patriots should have a special contempt for the weakness and cynicism of the politicians who so easily, effortlessly and willingly got on their knees to service Trump.

Schmidt calls for contempt, but a deep and potent contempt for these swindlers is not enough. Action is demanded of us right now to defeat the hustlers, the charlatans, the cynics and the opportunists who would steal our freedom from us by the cheap tricks of vitriolic lies and manipulation of our system of government.

We all know right from wrong and we know wrong when we see it. We cannot walk past this one, this existential battle calling our names, imagining someone else will stand and fight.

Here’s an example of standing and fighting for what’s right. Look at what Kirk Bangstad is doing in the battleground state of Wisconsin:

In case you can’t read this, these are the opening words of a filing with the circuit court of Wisconsin seeking a declaratory judgement to take Trump off Wisconsin election ballots and to disqualify him from serving as President. Trump earned that by inciting and supporting insurrection, a rebellion against our Constitution and an obvious violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.**

Bangstad is just a guy, a private citizen, a small businessman with a little local brewery. He’s taken up arms (metaphorically speaking) against a cruel and powerful enemy.

You can fight the good fight, too, and you don’t have to file a lawsuit to do it. There are plenty of things you can do, including,

Link to Sheila Markin’s post and you’ll find a terrific action list.

Join The Union (a Lincoln Project project) and they’ll connect you to organizations doing work that tickles your sense of democracy and makes a difference.

You can contribute to Kirk Bangstad’s efforts to make America America.

At root, making America America is what this is all about. It’s about stopping the thieves, the traitors, the turncoats who are using our bedrock values and sacred symbols and our heartfelt love of America to corupt all that we cherish. They have turned against our own country, perverting what generations of our countrymen and women have fought and died to protect and defend.

This is existential. This is our time to stand and be counted. This is our call to battle stations for our country and to have one another’s back.

The time to take action is now.
.

“Every generation has a moment where they have to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms. I believe this is ours.” [emphasis original]

President Joe Biden

I believe that, too.

So do you..

Join the battle!

___________________________________

* Heather Cox Richardson wrote further of Paine’s Common Sense on December 29.

But how long it took to establish that new nation would depend on how much effort people put into success. “I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake,” Paine wrote. “Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.”

** Here is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Do you find any part of that to be unclear? Neither do I.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

I’m Sorry


Post 1,021

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I’m sorry that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) hates America.

At least he hates the Capitol Police and the DC cops who saved his miserable ass on January 6, 2021. He wants to protect not the cops, but the mob that attacked, injured and killed cops. And he clearly wants to protect the traitors who sacked the Capitol Building, carried a traitorous Confederate battle flag through it and pissed and defecated in the halls.

He still challenges the 2020 decision of We The People and tried to have us all stripped of our votes and our voices. He’s promoting a presidential candidate who has called for the “termination” of our Constitution, who says he’ll be a dictator if elected and who encourages Americans to commit violence against fellow Americans. No, I don’t think Mike Johnson loves America at all. I think he hates America.

I’m sorry, too, that his principles shift like a weather vane as the winds change.

He repeatedly wailed crocodile tears over the awful, unfair, partisan impeachment of Donald Trump. You likely recall that in one impeachment Trump was caught trying to extort Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, this for a Trump political advantage over Joe Biden in 2020. In the other impeachment he was caught leading an insurrection, a traitorous act. In both cases the evidence was and still is in plain sight. Nevertheless, Johnson’s croc tears.

The impeachments were largely decided on party line votes only because Republicans hadn’t the courage of the Republicans who told Richard Nixon that they would vote to impeach and convict him for his crimes because he was, in fact, a crook. Just like Trump.

So, Mike Johnson shed his aforementioned crocodile tears over and over for the unfairness of one-party impeachments, never mentioning the cowardice of his party and its denial of the obvious high crimes and misdemeanors of their orange fuhrer.

Then the wind shifted to Republican control of the House and a Democrat in the White House.

As Speaker Johnson has seen his party spend over 11 months digging for evidence of any Joe Biden high crime or misdemeanor, this in order to impeach him for something – anything – jaywalking – whatever. Literally, the only thing they’ve come up with is to invent the label “Biden crime family.” They have unearthed no facts to support that or their other dishonest accusations. Meanwhile, they have nothing – as in: NO THING! – that so much as hints of anything untoward done by the President.

To be clear, the Republicans have launched an entirely baseless political proctoscopic examination of anything that might possibly appear to be attached to Biden, but probably isn’t. And Mike Johnson, he of the “awful, unfair, partisan impeachment” crocodile tears for Trump, has waved his magic wand and “Abracadabra, WHOOSH!” Partisan impeachment is okay now! Who woulda guessed it? And Johnson isn’t shedding crocodile tears over this awful, unfair one-party thing now.

It’s that weather vane thing. I’m wondering if Johnson is good buds with Lindsay Graham.

Here’s why they’re doing this:

  1. The Democrats impeached Trump. Now that they have control of the House, they want to eliminate that election advantage for Biden. They want Biden tarred and kicked in the Constitution, however much fraud and hypocrisy that might require.
  2. The Republicans held eleven (11!) different hearings on Benghazi in 2016 looking for wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton. They found nothing, NO THING! But they kept digging anyway, wasting millions of dollars and thousands of brain-free political hours, when instead they might have actually done something to benefit the country.* What they accomplished was to keep a false appearance of Clinton wrongdoing in the public eye until the 2016 election in order to disadvantage Clinton. They are trying to do the same thing to Joe Biden with their “impeachment inquiry” ahead of the 2024 election.

Meanwhile, I’m sorry that the Republican controlled House:

hasn’t passed an emergency supplemental bill

hasn’t passed a regular Appropriations bill – that’s going to crash and burn again in just a few weeks

hasn’t passed a funding bill for aid to Ukraine or Israel **

hasn’t passed a bill to enhance border security (although they’ve whined a lot and pointed fingers at Biden)

hasn’t passed a bill for humanitarian aid for Gaza

hasn’t passed the Farm Bill

With Mike Johnson’s partisan hand on the gavel they haven’t even been able to name a post office.

To be fair, last Thursday they managed to pass an $886 billion military spending bill. There’s much to scrutinize there, including that some of our lavishly paid military contractors design, build and deliver weapons that the Pentagon doesn’t want.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering if Biden can legally redirect some of that defense overspend to support Ukraine, as they fight to protect western democracy, and to support Israel, as they fight to stay in existence.

Ah, what was I thinking? If Biden were to ignore this mean-spirited, do-nothing Republican House and instead do what needs to be done for our country and for our allies, Mike Johnson wouldn’t stand for that. Biden would be impeached for protecting our national security without employing extortion or retribution.

I’m sorry, but I really don’t think Mike Johnson loves America.

LATE ADDITION

Yesterday the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump could not be on the Colorado primary ballot nor be elected President from that state – something like that. The word “disqualified” is prominent in the court’s ruling. Details are still being sorted out. The expectation is that the case will be appealed to the US Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Trump just lost again.

I’m not sorry about that. At all.

_______________________________

* Fun fact: The last Benghazi hearing closed on December 12, 2016, oddly, just a short time after the November election. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

** As the House went on vacation for 3 weeks, Speaker Mike Johnson tweeted his explanation for sitting on their hands regarding aid to Ukraine. He tweeted, “we must secure our own border before we secure another country’s.“ Apparently, he thinks our having done nothing to improve our immigration system for decades means that we must remedy that before we help to stop Russia from killing, raping and kidnapping Ukrainians. Apparently, he doesn’t just hate America. He hates Ukraine, too.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

The Speech You Never Heard


Post 1,020

___________________________________

On the morning of November 22, 1963 everything changed. President John F. Kennedy was in Dallas, TX to deliver a speech at the Trade Mart that afternoon and, as is quite obvious, that speech was never delivered.

Back then we were ever vigilant against our sworn enemies, communism and the Soviet Union. In contrast, today only half of our Congress opposes Russia and many openly support murderous Vladimir Putin. Our wonderful Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills were still in the dream stage in 1963 and now they’re being incrementally dismantled. Back then social media was just the AM radio playing top 40s hits and 5 minutes of news per hour.

In some ways, the world of 1963 was quite like today, as we struggled to balance competing needs and overly aggressive people could be found behind many podiums spouting self-serving nonsense.

Kennedy’s intended comments on that dreadful day are still available and he has some valuable words for us yet today. You can find the complete speech here. Meanwhile, here is a sampling.

In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.

There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.

But today other voices are heard in the land – voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to [today] . . .

We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will “talk sense to the American people.” But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense . . .

Our security and strength, in the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others, and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain their independence of choice . . .

But, in today’s world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles – on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny . . .

Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society. [all emphasis mine]

Consider Kennedy’s intended words, as you contemplate the ongoing mania of some who call themselves Americans but who, it is plain, want to destroy us, to “tear it all down.” Think of these democracy destroyers’ abhorrent resistance to support an ally in its hour of need, as it struggles against a resurgent Russia modeled after the Soviet Union and fights the fight for freedom for all of us. Consider our struggle to maintain equanimity amidst those who are, “expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility,” as well as the “voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality.”

It seems to me that Kennedy’s intended call to strength on that November day in Dallas was to be a call we must answer even today. We must be strong against the perfidy of those who plainly no longer believe in the America you believe in. For reasons that defy reason, they want our nation to emulate the cruel autocracies that have always led to war and suffering, the crushing of the human spirit and the loss of freedom for everyone.

I cannot help but wonder about the intellectual and moral principles of our time. So many seem to have embraced anti-intellectualism, denial of reality and have championed lying as though it is a virtue. This very vocal type is not a new species, as they have always been with us, but they are especially loud today.

This is not now nor was it ever a Boy Scout merit badge existence for all, but this is today a denial of such things with far greater passion and popularity than we have seen in a very long time, perhaps since the Civil War. That was not a war of northern aggression, nor was it a victim’s lost cause. It was a tremendous battle to determine if we would follow and even become our better angels, as Lincoln called them. It was an exclamation of our bold claim that we hold as self-evident that all men are created equal, as well as all the rest of our original intellectual and moral principles. It was a test of whether we mean what we say. We ultimately ratified those higher principles with blood.

Yet here we are 159 years later, still beset by liars, cheaters and selfish men and women who would burn books, lest we learn truth, who willingly defy their sacred oath and who take joy in ripping at the fabric of our society and of our nation. Millions listen to that corruption and they incrementally ratchet down our intellectual and moral principles.

We have a great deal of work to do.

 Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

Blood Pressure


Post 1,019

___________________________________

To keep us at MAGA juiced-up blood pressure levels, read this from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From an American of Monday, December 11:

This [Republican congressional] unwillingness to fund a crucial partner [Ukraine] in its fight against Russia has resurrected concerns that the Trump-supporting MAGA Republicans are working not for the United States but for Russian president Vladimir Putin, who badly needs the U.S. to abandon Ukraine in order to help him win his war.

Media outlets in Moscow reinforced this sense when they celebrated the Senate vote, gloating that Ukraine is now in “agony” and that it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.” One analyst said: “The downfall of Ukraine means the downfall of Biden! Two birds with one stone!” Another: “Well done, Republicans! They’re standing firm! That’s good for us.”

Perhaps you can recall a time when Republicans were the red, white and blue flag wavers, the Goldwater “nuke the bastards” tough guys standing up to the Russians. Well, that time of stiff spines is long gone and what is left is a flaccid relic of a once patriotic, if over the top, party. Now they are nothing but Trump toadies willing to – indeed, enthusiastic to – sell out our friends, including NATO, and even our own nation.

All it takes is an exceptionally short memory to fail to recognize what Putin is doing.

This former KGB thug pledged to reconstitute the Soviet Union and has said that after he destroys and owns Ukraine that the Balkan states are next. Belarus is already a vassal state and a glance at a map will tell you that Poland will follow, then Moldova, Romania and inevitably Hungary, the country of Putin suck-up Viktor Orbán.

Can you already see the Russian tanks rumbling through downtown Budapest the way they did in 1956? Back then the Soviet Union brutally put down the revolution against its authoritarian savagery. Come to think of it, what Putin has done to Ukraine looks a lot like what Putin’s longed for Soviet Union did to dissident countries back then. But no worries. I’m sure he doesn’t intend to inflict the same destruction on other European nations. Do you?

All we have to do is to provide arms to Ukraine now and the Ukrainians will crush Putin’s megalomania. Instead, we have Republican jellyfish, brain-free supplicants to Trump The Terrible Tyrant, bottling up the legislation that would allow President Zelenskyy to put up the STOP sign.

Why is it that Republicans want to support and emulate Putin? Why do they want to crush everything here that is not straight, White, Christian, paternalistic and authoritarian?

Oh, wait: Most of the Republicans are (publicly) straight, White, Christian, paternalistic and authoritarian. They just don’t have what it takes to allow anyone different from themselves to have a voice in this country, or even a place in this country.

How’s your blood pressure now?

Just a Curiosity

By anyone’s calculation, what is happening to Gazans is awful. It’s a humanitarian catastrophe. No wonder people are protesting in the streets of cities across the globe. Not too surprisingly, I have some questions about that.

Where were the voices of protest when we and our allies were fire bombing the civilians in Dresden and other German cities during WW II? Where were those voices when we fire bombed Tokyo and other Japanese cities that had no military significance?

We pursued and kill those who killed our people, regardless of where the bad guys were; it was okay for us to defend our nation and do what needed to be done to ensure there wouldn’t be another attack on us; it was okay for us to do what we needed to do to protect ourselves. How come it was okay then to create a humanitarian catastrophe in those fire bombed cities in response to our being attacked and our citizens killed, yet it isn’t okay for Israel to do that same thing now?

Oh, right: Now it’s the Israelis fighting the aggressors, the murderers, not us, and the world has a different standard for them. They aren’t allowed to do what every other nation in the world is allowed to do. Why do you suppose that’s so?

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

There Is A Way


Post 1,018

—————————————

Last Sunday I brought you a celebration of our press at last speaking the truth out loud, that Donald Trump and his extremist angry/cowardly/sightless followers are bringing despotism to and killing democracy in America. It’s right there in plain sight for all to see, yet the alarm bells are only beginning to sound. The problem with the writings to which I directed you is that they offer very little hope or direction to staunch the bleeding of our democracy. That’s beginning to change, too.

Robert Kagan’s essay, A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending, Is a seminal work of laying out the threat that we face. This week he posts a follow up, explaining that, “Some readers were unhappy that I did not offer a solution.” He does so now in, The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it. In case you don’t have access to the Washington Post, here’s the bottom line: Republicans have to speak out against Trump and his awful promises of doom and dystopia. Clearly, loudly and constantly.

Voters to the right of center have little to no interest in what Democrats have to say, so while Democrats must speak up loudly and often, they won’t change minds or votes of people on the right. What they can hope for is to motivate those center and left of center voters to show up and vote, this because if Trump wins, it will be our last opportunity to vote.

The far right voters are welded to Trump and against Biden and Democrats, so their votes to save democracy aren’t available. The people who are “persuadable” are those in the center right and some on the right. They haven’t confidence or trust in Democrats, which is why the message to save democracy has to come from Republicans.

It appears that most Republican elected officials who disapprove of Trump and extremism favor silence and cowardice. Then they quit. Ref: Bob Corker (R-TN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), two generally centrist and reasonable Republicans who quit the senate when they saw the obvious, that legislatively violent extremists had taken over what used to be called the GOP. Flake was replaced by the undependable and enigmatic obstructionist, Kyrsten Sinema. She was a Democrat who, after repeated in-your-face smashings of President Biden’s plans to solve our vexing problems and advance our freedoms and our democracy, at last switched to Independent. She can’t be counted on for much of anything to stop the authoritarian avalanche.

When Corker left he was replaced by Republican drone Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). She was just another spine-of-a-jellyfish, dead weight to our national progress in the Senate, an obstruction to everything to make things better.

We’ve just had a spate of otherwise reasonable congressmen announce their upcoming retirements. It’s what Republicans in Congress do, instead of standing up for what they know is right and against what they know is wrong.

It seems to me that Kagan is right, that we need people like Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell to broadcast the truth and to urge voters to vote against the impending doom of Trumpism. Some, perhaps many legislators, might lose their jobs to extremists, but is their job more important than our country?

Some will get death threats to themselves or their families for having the temerity to speak the truth. That seems to go with the territory, now that Trump and other big mouths have normalized hatred, violence and “retribution”. Whether they are willing to face an important test of their integrity is the question.

Here’s a link to Heather Cox Richardson’s essay on Friday about some people who were up to the challenge and saved our democracy for us. We need far more like them right now.

It isn’t just elected officials whom we need to stand up and tell the truth. We need ordinary Americans to speak up, people who care whether their children will be free or if they will just be powerless, lackeys to the despot. We need them – us – to be brave at the school board meetings, at Starbucks, making phone calls, canvassing, stuffing envelopes, talking with neighbors and even with crazy Uncle Bob.

Looks like influence is all we have. We better use it. Many thanks to SL for the graphic.

We need to feel the spirit of the heroes who kept faith with our democracy and give ourselves over to something so much greater than ourselves.

We all know it’s easier to click the remote and watch a football game, the opiate of the masses in these times, than to get up and do something to make things better. Far more important is for us to stop things from crashing and devastating our lives and our future. That’s what your influence is for.

If you’re not seeing it, click here to last Sunday’s post and then on the links to the essays by people who are laying out the truth for you, in living color – while they still can.

The trailer below accompanies all of my posts. It exhorts us in magenta font to rid ourselves of the democracy murderers:

  • Fire the bastards!
  • It’s in our power to do that. We’ll need help from Republicans, those with both integrity and a spine, so contact your representative and your senators, be they an R or a D. They know the difference between right and wrong. They speak the truth in the cloakrooms. Tell them you demand that they say it out loud and in public. Tell them to do so often and loudly.
  • Okay For Genocide on Campus
  • Since capturing the #3 slot in the House Republican Caucus, Rep. Elise Stefanic (R-NY) has distinguished herself with some impressively stupid, hateful and divisive comments. Many are the times that I have wondered if there is anything going on inside her head. Indeed, in the words of Rabbi David Wolpe, formerly of the Harvard University antisemitism advisory committee, “We are at a moment when the toxicity of intellectual slovenliness has been laid bare for all to see.” I like that phrase: “toxicity of intellectual slovenliness.” That’s the cadre of We the People who dismiss science, critical thinking and who lazily and brainlessly accept what some know-nothing loudmouth says. Including lawmakers.
  • But kudos are in order to Elise Stefanik for her questioning of university presidents from MIT, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. She asked them simply if students calling for genocide would be acting in violation of the schools’ codes of conduct. She slammed them for their mealy-mouthed “It depends on context” replies. Elise finally got one right.
  • I’m just wondering when the context would be such that it would be okay to call for genocide and harassment based on religion, race or anything else. When would such spewing of hatred be considered within a university’s code of conduct? I’m sure the presidents of these elite universities can explain it to me.
Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

EXTRA! EXTRA! – v2.0


Post 1,017

—————————————

Yesterday there was a mass shooting at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV). It is reported that a lone gunman shot and killed 3 people and wounded 1. The police and FBI killed the perp are working to find accomplices (if any), where the weapon(s) used were obtained, whether they were purchased legally and, most important, the shooter’s motives.

There are two pieces of recurring news that accompany this shooting.

  1. Children of school age have lived with a looming sense of danger all their lives. They are accustomed to active shooter drills to the point that the mass shooting at a school yesterday produces just another shoulder shrug by them, although some wonder if they’re next. They don’t want to talk about it and they go on with their lives with yet another wound to their mental health and to their hearts. Nobody knows what the long term effect of such ongoing trauma will be.
  2. Congress will likely offer nothing at all. The members were called out by the Parkland kids for their “thoughts and prayers” hypocrisy a few years ago, so what can they say? A few well meaning legislators will stand and call for reform and exactly nothing will change to create better safety for our citizens. The good news is that neither anyone in Congress nor anyone in any state legislature will have to find his or her spine. None will have to stand up to the gun lobby or understand the Second Amendment for what it actually says, instead of believing the perverse story told by the gun lobby.

Be clear that it takes courage to face reality and stand up for what’s right. Sadly, that commodity – courage – is in very short supply in the ranks of our lawmakers.

Doing the Math
  1. This was the 631st mass shooting this year on the 340th day of the year. The math says that we’ve averaged 1.85 mass shootings per day since the first of the year.
  2. There were 2,408 people killed in the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor 82 years ago today. In 2023 we lose that number of our people to mass shootings every 16.6 days.* In 1941 we went to war over those deaths. Today we do nothing.

So, no big deal about this shooting at UNLV.

————————————————

* For the purists, there have been 40,086 gun deaths since the first of the year. That includes homicides, suicides, accidents and mass shootings. Our world leading average is 118 gun deaths per day. Every day.

We’re number 1 in this shame game and we intend to stay number 1. You can’t stop us because, hey, we got guns.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

At Last


Post 1,016

—————————————

It took years for our media to stop pointing out the “mistakes” Trump was making in his presentations and to at last state the obvious: He lies and he’s a liar. By the end of Trump’s administration the Washington Post had documented over 30,000 Trump lies. That’s over 20 per day for 4 years. These were not inadvertent errors or little oops moments; they were flat out lies. It took the Post and the rest of the mainstream press years to find the nerve to state that obvious fact. Now we’ve come to another reckoning with reality, this, too, of the forehead slap variety.

It seems that our mainstream media has figured out that Donald Trump and his rabid followers and cowardly tag-a-longs comprise an existential threat to our republic, to democracy, to the Constitution and to our way of life. Journalists have figured out that these unfaithful ones are actually proclaiming their evil intent out loud and promising to deliver destruction.

This promise of a destructive rampage seemed obvious and dangerous to me at least as far back as April 9, 2012, well before the Trump bastardization of our country. Later Trump undercut our intelligence agencies, threatened nuclear war, promised retribution against various opponents and agencies of our own government and far more. Imagine that: it wasn’t enough to demonize Mexicans as rapists and drug smugglers and criminals, as he did during his infamous escalator candidacy announcement in 2015, complete with paid actors pretending to be supporters. Trump has attacked and continues to attack us all directly and repeatedly.

Now he’s promised to take down the Constitution, aggregate all power to himself, kill our generals, imprison political opponents, station our military in our cities to control we citizens, this in violation of the Third Amendment, and more. He’s promising all this in his campaign speeches. If there’s one lesson we should have learned quite well a long time ago it’s that Trump doesn’t do hyperbole. When he promises something outlandish, he means to deliver it, regardless of illegality or harm to others. Now it’s clear that his overriding message is that he plans to tear everything down and build a dictatorship solely for himself; as in: Nothing for you.

No democracy. No shining city on a hill. No last best hope. No lamp beside the golden door. Nothing but serfdom under a mad king, exactly what the colonists rebelled against.

Which brings us to morning in the journalism world.

At last journalists are writing and speaking about the obvious reality of the existential threat promised by Trump.

In the Washington Post Robert Kagan explains that A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending. Kagan’s post is a serious buzz kill, because what he lays out has been in plain sight for a long time – we should all have been able to see this coming – and it’s a deadly serious threat to us and our country.

The entire January/February issue of The Atlantic is devoted to the theme: If Trump Wins. It’s a very ugly picture.

The Economist tells us that Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024.

And you can check the New York Times for Donald Trump’s 2024 Campaign, in His Own Menacing Words.

These are just a sampling of current pieces. If you don’t have online access to these publications, go pick up copies at a newsstand. You remember those, right? The big box bookstores have a whole section of periodicals. Go there.

Spoiler alert: The news you’ll find is clear and terrifying.

Like his constant lying, it appears that the secret is out about the doom of Trump looming menacingly on the horizon. Journalists are finally naming names. At last.

You need to be naming these threats, too, especially to low information friends and family members who don’t see what’s coming and which will clobber them if they let it.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

What Will You Do?


  • Post 1,014
  • PLEASE read the comments that follow this post.
  • __________________________________

Millions of years and millions of generations have made mammals and humans in particular protective of our young. It is a species preservation imperative and our instinct to preserve and protect has magnified into a tenderness, a softness of heart and an arms-enfolding vigilance for children.

That is why my heart breaks for 4-year-old Abigail Edan, who was held captive by Hamas terrorists. She’s alive only because her father shielded her from Hamas bullets with his body, this following her mother having been gunned down.

And my heart breaks, too, for the Palestinian children who are suffering, orphaned and terrorized. Would that I had a name and picture to make this more personal, but you’ve seen the pictures and videos so you know as well as I of the enormous trauma to these little kids.

To be clear, my heart breaks for all the innocents, whether dead or suffering, whether they are children, adults or old people. It’s just that little kids like Abigail Edan grab at my heart by the fistful due largely, I suppose, to that protection imperative.

In this momentary truce while innocent hostages who were held by Hamas are being exchanged for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, people of many nations are beseeching Israel to be cautious, to protect civilian Palestinian life. Everyone – including Israel – agrees that’s the right thing to do, but there’s just one answer needed in order for Israel to comply:

How can Israel ensure that Hamas is made thoroughly unable to attack Israelis when the terrorists still hold their arsenals, stand ready to unleash death on Israelis and they have promised to do so “again and again“?

Hamas is dedicated to only two things: Wiping Israel off the map and killing all Jews. They’ve armed themselves to do just that and they don’t care who else suffers or dies in the process. Recall Maya Angelou’s words:

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

So, believe Hamas: They are murderers.

Given the homicidal reality of Hamas, its butchery, its ISIS-copying barbarianism, Israel must protect its citizens. Doing that requires eliminating Hamas’ ability to attack Israel and Israelis. But Hamas is hiding behind cute 4-year-olds who are just as precious and just as heart grabbing as Abigail Edan.

With the constant of worldwide condemnation of Israel, I’ve asked this question in various ways and haven’t heard any workable answer:

If you were making the decisions for Israel, what would you do?
.

In an effort to protect Palestinian civilians, Israel has announced when and where it would attack so that civilians could get out of the way. It did so via tens of thousands of leaflets dropped on Gaza and by tens of thousands of cell phone warnings. It has directed Palestinians to go south because attacks would commence in the north. It has done everything short of taking Palestinians by the hand and leading them out of harms way.

At the same time, Hamas has blocked civilians from leaving the northern part of Gaza. Hamas has kept them where they know Israeli munitions will strike because they’re directed at Hamas weapons caches which Hamas embeds with civilians. Arguably, Hamas is the murderer of those thousands of innocents, including those cute 4-year-old Palestinian kids.

Setting aside the insanely one-sided and ignorant international rage-fests against Israel, I’m wondering where the demonstrations are against Hamas for causing the deaths of Palestinians. Hamas is getting them killed as surely as if they themselves were shooting Palestinian children.

If you want to rail against the cruelty happening to Gaza Palestinians, and even if you don’t care about the cruelty still being done to Israelis by Hamas rockets, at least dump the responsibility for the main part of the human carnage in Gaza where it belongs: On Hamas.

Everyone agrees that the fighting and the misery it causes are awful, so what should Israel do now? Should it stop rooting out the torturers, the rapists, the murderers and their weapons caches? Should it hold peace talks with people who not only don’t want peace, but who live only for killing Israelis? Come on, help a little. Tell us your workable solution.

For those who still want to go rabid over the actions of Israel, first be informed. Go there. Live in the terror of that constant siege, waiting for the rockets and the machine guns to be pointed at you and your 4-year-old daughter, knowing that the terrorists intend to gang rape your 12-year-old daughter and that they may burn you and your spouse alive in your own house. We know that those are their intentions because it is what they have already done. Stay in that terror for a year or two and then let’s see if you still think Israel should stop attacking Hamas.

And remember: Your 4-year-old daughter is counting on you to protect her with your arms-enfolding vigilance. What exactly should Israel be doing now? What will you do?

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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