Alt-Right

Bumper Sticker


While taking a road trip recently we were amazed by all the billboards for personal injury attorneys. We saw the same billboard posted three deep. We saw not only repeated cycles of multiple billboards for a single firm, but even two identical billboards stacked one on top of the other.

These advertisements were in the farm fields among the acres of winter wheat. Some were near wind generators. They were in the cities. They were nearly everywhere. Sometimes they were for any kind of injury and sometimes they were for specific injuries, like the attorney who apparently specializes in cases of injury related to over-the-road trucks. Lots of them were for medical injury cases. All of that made me wonder,

What does this endless solicitation for victims say about us?

Are we so clumsy or careless or unlucky that we’re constantly being injured? And if we are, how does that translate to someone else having to pay for our clumsiness, carelessness or injury?

We have over 70 years of Republicans training Americans to be angry and to see themselves as victims of some great global cabal or of the anti-American Democrats or of some supposed coastal elites or of some swamp. We’ve been instructed to see awfulness and grievance-stoking evil behind every tree, disrespect in every word and deed and a violation of our values and principles by anyone who disagrees with us. Our discontent has been validated constantly over those decades to the point that millions of us are now more dedicated to being angry and resentful than to anything else.*

We have a former President to whom this nation has listened for many years and who cannot get a full thought out of his mouth without lies accusing someone of wronging him. Worse, he has taught an entire generation of politicians and ordinary citizens to mimic his invented victimization. Woe be to these hapless victims for the terrible wrongs visited upon them by “others!” (That last is sarcasm.)

Now we the public have ramped up our victim-hood, to the point that nothing can assuage our pain until someone else pays for it and even then we’re still pissy. So, the ambulance chasers keep posting their come-on billboards and we keep them in business, seeking payment for the ills of our lives at the cost of 30% of a settlement, plus expenses.

Clearly, some people wrong others, whether intentionally or accidentally. When that happens, they should be held responsible and made to pay to clean up their mess.

But there isn’t always a bad guy. Sometimes it’s just the embodiment of the bumper sticker:

Next time be more careful.

The Train Derailment

It took a while for Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation, to show up in East Palestine, OH. I don’t know anything about that timing, but a lot of people are pretending to be inside his head and are ascribing fantasy reasons for it. Those fantasy reasons are of absolutely no value, other than that these people have something to whine about, someone to blame and something to use to crank up the anger of listeners. Instead, let’s do some digging into substantive things we can learn.

During the Trump administration when conscious reasoning by governmental officials was a cause for being fired, there was a mania to eliminate government regulations. The mania was based on the evidence-free notion that all regulation is bad.

Trump demanded that any new regulation be counter-balanced by the elimination of three existing regulations. Pick three, any three. Doesn’t matter which ones. Doesn’t matter their relative merit, whether they have anything in common with the proposed new regulation or whose pockets would get lined by removal of the regulations. That ought to work, right?

That brainless adherence to a goose stepping mantra has started to come home to us. The NTSB** will investigate and issue a final report on the cause of that train derailment. I’ll bet the report will include that a key cause was the elimination of railroad safety measures that were part of the regulations that were thrown away during the Trump administration. That’s an easy one to predict, because that actually happened.

I’ll also bet that those regulations that were dumped a few years ago were eliminated at the behest of the railroad industry. Now the people of East Palestine are suffering the consequences of that.

For a better understanding, watch the video of Pete Buttigieg speaking at the crash site, as well as the commentary by Brian Tyler Cohen. I like Cohen’s commentaries, but he’s particularly wound up over this issue and talks quite rapidly. You’ll be rewarded by hanging in there for the full 9:22.

It’s About The Kids – Of All Ages

Click the pic and watch the 59 second sheriff’s video of violence in a Florida high school. This is what we’ve taught our kids to do. Want to work in a school?

First read this from the National Education Association. It details the violence our teachers and school staff face every day. This dysfunction is driven in part by the massive increase in mental health problems in our nation and in school kids in particular. I believe it’s what we’ve created by means of our national pastime of adults behaving like brats on the playground. You know: the role models.

Our national promotion of violence is key. We can throw money at schools for support of student mental health, training for staff and more (although the public doesn’t want to pay for any of that), but if kids are getting messages outside of school that violence is good, justified and right, fixing this is a mountain that cannot be climbed.

We need major cultural change. We need moms & dads, politicians, everyone in any position of leadership to stop acting like a brat. If we stop teaching kids to be violent, they’ll stop being violent and magically, so will the rest of us. If we provide the money required to do what needs to be done, it will get done. This whole thing is a painful exercise in avoiding the obvious, the forehead slap about the things we all know we need. And no, teachers unions aren’t the problem. We are.
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We’ve been under-funding our schools for decades, possibly forever. But if you think taxes are high, think about the cost we’re already paying with half-way measures to prevent school shootings and mass murders in countless venues. Ask any Sandy Hook mom about that cost. Think about the cost we pay when we let yet another kid slip through the cracks into a hopeless life. Think about the stupid stories we tell ourselves about how great we are, even as millions are suffering and we’re doing nothing about it.
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It doesn’t have to be this way.
Top Stupiditude of the Week

Click the pic for the stupiditude story. Many thanks to Jim Nathan for the pointer.

‘Nuf said.

See Note #5 below

____________________________

* From David Corn’s American Psychosis, page 120:

” .  .  .  the New Right feeds on discontent, anger, insecurity, and resentment, and flourishes on backlash politics.”

Jack’s comment to that: The New Right isn’t new. The Right has been nurturing discontent, anger, insecurity and resentment for well over half a century.

** For a forehead slapping look at self-embarrasing Republicans in the House Oversight and Accountability Committee majority, read Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American of February 25. It will make you glad you aren’t a Republican or it will drive you to leave that party, looking for signs of intelligent life elsewhere.

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

S**t Spewers Flooding The Zone and A Letter to Kevin


Caution: Those sensitive to nasty words Mom told you not to say should skip to the second section of this post.

Richard Nixon couldn’t remember sending his goon squad to break into the Democratic National  Committee Headquarters at The Watergate to steal opposition documents. Later he couldn’t remember his mob boss style cover up of his crimes. Now, that’s a poor memory. Or a load of Presidential shit.

Later Ronald Reagan told us he couldn’t remember sending his goon squad to sell arms to Iran (a crime). He also couldn’t remember giving the proceeds of those sales to the Contras in Nicaragua (a crime). Apparently, the theory was that the Iranians would be so grateful for getting their hands on American weapons that they would then somehow convince Hezbollah to free the 7 Americans they were holding hostage in Lebanon. That whole thing went on for 5 years and, like Nixon’s, it was a tall pile of Presidential shit.

Once in the Oval Office George H.W. Bush issued presidential pardons to all the Iran-Contra hands-on perps, which was only sensible, since he as Vice President had been the architect of the plan. That pardoning was a fine setting of precedent, too, because it was done again when Trump pardoned convicts Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. And Trump’s reasons for doing that were very much like Bush’s. That’s yet more Presidential shit.

George W. Bush lied us into two wars and into torturing prisoners at black sites. He lied us into mindless tax cuts and off-balance-sheet wars and so much more. He was a master Presidential shit spewer.

Now Sen. Rick Scott (R-Prevarication) says he didn’t really mean that he wanted to “sunset” Social Security and Medicare. However, his policy document says he wants to do exactly that. He’s a really tall shit spewer.

To be fair, though, all of that is a load of shit, but not exactly shit spewing.

It’s over two years later now, but Trump and his brainless acolytes are still saying that the 2020 election was rife with fraud and the accusations come in a torrent, claiming that poor little victim Trump was cheated. Key word: “torrent.”

Steve Bannon counseled Trump in order for him to win the 2016 election and “tear it all down.” He told Trump to “flood the zone with shit.” An ongoing torrent of shit was the key strategy. Bannon said to babble easily disproved “alternative facts” so rapidly that response would be impossible. Trump trained his press secretaries and his advisor Kellyanne Conway to do that very thing. Betcha Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Sean Spicer still claim that Trump had the biggest inauguration crowd ever. Period! The far right crazies do the same thing every day. That’s a huge amount of shit spewing.

Please ignore the complete absence of evidence for Trump’s claims of voting fraud or anything else. Pay no attention to the dozens of court cases he filed claiming fraud, all of which he lost, and his multiple illegal power grab attempts that have been unmasked. Irredeemable shit spewing for selfish gain is what these people are about.

Where have you gone, Merrick Garland? We need someone to clean up all the shit spewed in aisle 45.

It’s the same shit spewing when it comes to insane actions, like stocking cabinet positions with obviously incapable, dishonest, sycophantic people. This works quite well to crush the opposition through the sheer volume of the shit they spew. It’s that torrent thing.

Logistics and shipping company owner Louis DeJoy is still the Postmaster General in charge of hobbling the Postal Service. And Bill Barr is now out peddling his revisionist history book, detailing his fantasy about the integrity that he knowingly abandoned decades ago. His is an entire self-promoting career of working to crush our system of checks and balances by spewing shit, like his summary of the Mueller Report. Barr is totally full of shit that he spews with perfect conceit.

See Note #5 below

Mehdi Hassan has written a brilliant piece in an Atlantic essay lifted from his forthcoming book. The essay is focused on how to deal with the shit spewers and is entitled How To Beat Trump In a Debate. Do read his piece, because he will teach you what to do when faced with people for whom

– truth means nothing

– machine gun speed lying is the greatest of skills

– stealing your power is their holy quest.

See Note #5 below

NOTE: Stealing your power is what the shit spewing is all about.
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Consider yourself having been cautioned long ago by the Jefferson Airplane about how to deal with insanity and untruth from shit spewers. Back then the spewers were the ones piling up lies about the war in Viet Nam, which got 58,000 Americans killed, many times that number wounded and nobody knows how many Vietnamese were killed.

Here’s the last stanza of the song White Rabbit:

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s off with her head
Remember what the doormouse said
Feed your head
Feed your head

We’re living in perilous times, as shit-spewing, self-serving voices of anarchy and authoritarianism are trying to steal from you every day. In a sense, nothing has changed, because the shit spewers today are just like those of generations before, although today’s spewers spew much faster. They’re still trying to steal your power. That’s why you have to feed your head every day, although that isn’t enough now, any more than it was enough in 1967 when that song was released and the parade of body bags was underway.

Here’s Newton’s 7th Law of Motion:*

You must take action or you will be acted upon.
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We have elections coming up – we always do – and some of these are critical, like the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat I told you about.

Did I mention that you must take action or you will be acted upon? Check out The States Project for some of the best actions to deal with the assault on you and your power. This stuff matters if we’re going to stop the shit spewers from stealing from us.

An Open Letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy – Snail Mailed February 23, 2023
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Many thanks to JN for this – click me

Speaker McCarthy:

it’s widely reported that you have released to Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson over 44,000 hours of U.S. Capitol video records of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. You claimed that in giving Carlson access you were delivering “truth and transparency over partisan games.”

As a most interested citizen of the United States and a political commentator, and in the spirit of truth and transparency over partisan games, I’m requesting that you release all the same materials to me that you gave to Carlson, this for my review and commentary. Speaking Speaker-to-Speaker, you know it’s the transparent thing to do.

I await your reply.

Regards,

.
  • Jack Altschuler
  • Chief Disambiguation Officer and Part-Time Speaker of My House
  • Looking For Help
  • Lots of bad stuff goes on. There are many murders every day. People lie, cheat and steal.
  • What I have not been able to understand is why the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh is being treated as national news, elbowing out everything in its path. There is gavel-to-gavel coverage on CNN, MSNBC, Court TV and other outlets.
  • I remember the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart and the overwhelming coverage that received. Same for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. The one thing I’ve found in common in those cases is that these were or are about wealthy White families.
  • Somebody please explain the why of the Murdaugh spectacle.

_____________________________

* You’re right: he only had 3. Check it out here.

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

Guns, then Nikki Haley


Guns

After I had delivered a leadership workshop to an executive group we went to lunch at an upscale suburban restaurant not far from the meeting venue. I sat across a small table from a guy who had a pistol in a holster clipped to his belt. I’m not a gun guy and I felt profoundly at risk, but I tried to be cool about it.

“Why do you carry a gun?” I asked. You could reasonably expect him to have said that he carries it in case a bad guy shows up or an argument became dangerously heated or in case he sees a crime in progress. None of that is what he said.

He said – and I’m quoting him – “Because I can.” As in: because it’s legal; because the Second Amendment says he can. He was letting me know he has rights.

In fact, everyone I’ve encountered who is carrying an easily spotted gun and to whom I’ve posed my question has answered the same way. “Because I can.” It’s always said with some degree of chip-on-the-shoulder and with bravado bordering on defensiveness.

I can push a broom in a crosswalk on 5th Avenue – that’s legal – but the right to do so hardly explains why I would do such a thing. Same for the gun carrying business.

So, I leaned into my questioning of the guy across the table from me at that restaurant, acknowledging he does have a right to carry and asking why he would do so. I then got a series of statements that can be collected in a bucket labeled, “In case something happens.” But I don’t think that’s much more than a small part of his truth.

I think his truth is that carrying a pistol makes him feel strong and powerful and in control. While wearing his pistol he can wear his “Don’t even think of messing with me” tough guy attitude with ease.

He’s prepared to be a hero – the good guy with a gun who will stop bad guys with guns. He’ll be the protector of grannies wheeling their shopping carts across the suburban parking lot. He’s ready for a return to the Wild West when people believed that a good old fashioned shoot out solved all problems. Bummer he wasn’t on the Michigan State University campus that night to confront the murderer. Pay no attention to the kids who would have been killed in the cross fire.

That’s just one of the problems – the price we pay – for that guy carrying in order to feel strong and powerful and in control. Even if he really is a good guy – and I’m pretty sure he is – there are plenty of others who carry a gun for less honorable reasons than protecting those grannies and those students.

They carry firearms and always say, “Because I can,” as though saying so makes it sensible for them to have a killing machine strapped to themselves. But every choice has consequences. One of the choices we’ve made is to let people do that. One of the consequences of that choice played out in East Lansing, Michigan last week.

Nikki Haley

To her cheering attendees, rah-rah sign wavers and applause line clappers at the kickoff rally for her presidential candidacy race on February 15, Nikki Haley said of Republicans,

“We’ve lost the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections. Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans.”

She was right about all of that – except for the four words about Republicans’ cause. The American voting public keeps telling them that their cause is wrong, not right, but Republicans act as though they’re deaf. Or perhaps they just don’t care about We the People.

Consistently, over 92% of the American public wants universal background checks on all sales of firearms. Half of all Americans want assault weapons, high capacity magazines and more to be outlawed. But Republicans block such legislation from coming to a vote or they vote against it. Republicans never ask Gen-Zs what it’s like to go to school feeling like they have a bulls eye on their backs. It wouldn’t matter if they did ask, because the Republicans aren’t listening to the answers. They’re completely wrong on this.

61% of Americans want abortion to be legal, yet Republicans continue to wave their holier-than-thou flag and oppose We The People. They’re completely wrong on this.

63% of Americans want universal medical insurance – single payer, Medicare for all, just like in all the other first world countries – but Republicans block legislation or vote against it every time. They’re completely wrong on this.

85% of the American public wants Social Security but Republicans launch sneaky back stabs to kill it, using dishonest, patriotic sounding names. But a theft of people’s security through Republican treachery remains just that. They’re completely wrong on this.

Haley is flat out – let’s call her “mistaken.” Republicans have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans and they keep losing the popular vote because their cause is wrong. And only gerrymandering, the theft of voting rights and the existence of the archaic, anti-democratic Electoral College allow them to win any elections at all.

Quotes Making The Point

“Mr. Trump didn’t change the Republican Party; he revealed it. Ms. Haley, for all her talents, embodies the moral failure of the party in its drive to win at any cost, a drive so ruthless and insistent that it has transformed the G.O.P. into an autocratic movement.” [emphasis mine]

Also,

“There is a great future behind Nikki Haley.”

“Haley, like [Lindsay] Graham, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance, and so many others, sees principles as disposable, making her yet another example of why the GOP cannot be trusted with power. Haley knows how to say the right things about how the violence of January 6 was bad, but to this day she refuses to hold Trump accountable, and so there is no way to know if she or any other candidate will withstand the antidemocratic demands of Republican primary voters. For Republicans in elected office, the GOP base is now so hostile to our democratic institutions that loyalty to the Constitution has become an unaffordable political luxury.” [emphasis mine]

  • Tom Nichols, The Pointless Nikki Haley Campaign
  • The Atlantic Daily, February 15, 2023

“‘Absolute Hypocrisy’: GOP Unveils Bill to Make Trump Tax Cuts Permanent While Howling About Debt”

  • Jake Johnson, CommonDreams.org 
  • February 16, 2023
  • Addendum

  • From NewsMax – click the pic

    On Friday, February 17 Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) signed his political death warrant. He’s term limited by Ohio law for the post of governor, but whatever other political posts he might be interested in, they are now permanently closed to him.

  • He spoke in a monotone from the state capitol in Columbus about the massive train derailment that occurred in East Palestine, OH two weeks earlier, one of well over 1,000 derailments we experience each year. His message to residents was largely a pat on the hand, saying that it’s safe to breathe the air in town and it’s safe to drink water from the municipal water supply and its 5 wells.
  • That didn’t go down well for the residents of the town who were witnesses to thousands of dead fish in the Ohio River, or with some of their fellow citizens with significant skin rashes and respiratory irritation, or with people suffering from strange diseases that somehow coincidentally showed up immediately after the train crash. It wasn’t reassuring for citizens who use private water wells and who were terrified for the safety of their little kids. Nobody felt safer about the long term carcinogenic effects of the burning vinyl chloride that spewed black clouds over their town.
  • Note that DeWine did not drink a big glass of water from the East Palestine municipal water supply during his address to Ohioans. He appeared to do that 4 days later. There has been no reporting on his health following that drink.
  • His presentation came across as a limp-wristed cave in to the Norfolk Southern Railroad.
  • I have been a fan of this moderate Republican for a while, but that relationship is over. I’m on the side of the people of East Palestine, OH.

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

New AP Class in Florida; Ukraine; The Key Word


Caution: The first section of this post contains infectious snark. It is contraindicated for those not yet vaccinated against the current virulent right wing strains of BS-2022 and BS-2023. Note that constitutional virologists are predicting an exceptionally deadly strain next year. Subscribe here (⇒⇓) to stay up to date on this threat.

Gov. DeSantis proudly displays his signature on his “Don’t Say Gay” bill on March 28, 2022, while proudly using unknowing children as props.

There has been a nagging sense of incompleteness since Florida Governor Ro DeSantis courageously ended AP African-American studies classes in Florida’s public high schools. His high minded and heroically placed stake in the ground is a good first step, but it’s clear that something is missing. What Florida high schools need to finish the noose is a class in AP White Supremacy.

This will be a two semester senior level course designed to send students into the world on the far right path and with the tools, the knowledge and the attitude for successful superiority.

Topics included in the syllabus for this course are:

Racial superiority, specifically including the identification of differences in intellectual potential and work ethic

The truth about BLM, the NAACP and other organizations that seek to take money from hard working Whites and distribute it to lazy, shiftless “others”

The truth about the War of Northern Aggression

The proper “place” of non-Whites

Northern lies about poor treatment of the Negro in the south

Clarity about gender identity: “hetero is the way to go.” This issue is included in this program because Gov. DeSantis let us know that gender issues permeate AP African-American studies classes to indoctrinate impressionable students. This is the one arena in Florida public education where the existence of LGBTQ issues may be briefly discussed without indictment of teachers on a 3rd degree felony violation. Otherwise, such discussion would be a violation of the “Don’t Say Gay” law. No texts will be used in this module, lest they filter to other students who are incapable of learning of such things without experiencing trauma or, worse, conversion.

Education on how to purchase, handle and fire semi-automatic weapons

The title of the books in the box is “Black History.” Click the pic

The beauty and pride of the Confederate battle flag and of pickup trucks, especially when used together. Students will be taught how to run lefty campaign buses off the road and also how to overwhelm streets in cities both large and small. Tactics for shutting down lefty rallies will be included in this module.

Training on the appropriateness of violence to enforce White supremacy, including subtleties like how to make anonymous death threats to those who would undermine White position and power

Hands-on training in disruption of school board meetings and socialist lefty protests, plus training in state capitol capture while wearing camo, face masks and carrying semi-automatic assault rifles with high capacity magazines. Role play will be a critical part of this module, so students should arrive in appropriate clothing and be prepared to yell for long periods of time. Foul language will be encouraged.

Students will be trained to register for concealed carry and will be advised to bring their guns to class in case some bad guy with a gun shows up.

This is a lot to cover in just two semesters, yet it is crucial that these Florida students be prepared to move to what’s next, whether it’s an occupation or further schooling or pursuing elective or appointed office. It is imperative that they make the White choices.

Gov. DeSantis, we await your signature.

End of snark

——————————–
Ukraine

We are a primary supplier of weapons and ammunition to aid Ukraine in prosecuting their defense against Vladimir Putin’s reign of terror to re-establish the Soviet empire. Indeed, some of his pals are publicly calling for Russia to annex Poland and the Baltic States after Ukraine is conquered.

President Biden has been careful to avoid tweaking Russia into WW III, a wise caution. However, that avoidance has repeatedly left Ukraine with insufficient armament and training to do what must be done, this because of delays in deliveries. It appears that’s about to happen again.

We recently committed to deliver M1A2 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. These are the most advanced and capable tanks in the world and quite obviously would be of great benefit to the Ukraine fighters. There’s just one problem.

These tanks, ammunition and spares won’t arrive in Ukraine for months, perhaps not until the end of the year. Ukraine doesn’t have months. At best they have weeks.

The Russians are amassing troops and weapons in the east of the country and possibly in Belarus to the north, clearly preparing for major offenses. They may wait until late spring when the ground has dried. Either way, if Ukraine isn’t ready with overwhelming force, they will be overwhelmed.

Putin is using formerly imprisoned conscripts and providing nearly no training to them. He’s prepared to throw a nearly limitless number of bodies at the Ukrainians who can’t possibly win a war of attrition, especially an attrition of bodies.

That leaves us with the obvious: Ukraine must be prepared to counter Putin’s forces by using technical capabilities, firepower and logistical superiority. Translation: M1A2 Abrams tanks, massive supplies of ammunition for artillery and automatic weapons, missile and drone shoot-down rockets and the rest. And a gaggle of F-16s would be enormously helpful to stop rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. The children and grannies left in their cities would appreciate that.

Now would be a really good time to make all of that happen. Otherwise just a few weeks from now could see the entirety of Ukraine both leveled and an annexed part of Russia.

Key Word – Government Acronyms

First, there was a Chinese surveillance B (Balloon) at 60,000 feet. It posed no BITN (Bump-In-The-Night) threat because not a lot of folks are hanging out at that altitude, but it was a spy vehicle. So, after deciding that it was too big to drop on Great Falls, Montana, the RSPs (Royal Smart People) let it drift to just offshore SC (South Carolina). That’s when our President’s orders were acted upon by an F-22 pilot with a Sidewinder missile. They bravely caused the B (Balloon) and its P (Payload) to make a BS (Big Splash).

BPP (Balloon Payload Pieces) are incrementally being vacuumed from the floor of the ocean by our heroic NOBSS (Naval Ocean Bottom Suck Squad) personnel The EGs (Electronic Geniuses) are mapping out what can be learned from the pieces as they arrive in their Ls (Labs).

NOTE: As of this writing, no telltale SFs (Smiley Faces) have been found on any part of the balloon.

Three more Fs (Floaties) were found between 20,000-30,000 feet. That’s where civilian aircraft fly every day, so the Fs posed a BITN threat. That’s why our President called upon a group of F-22 pilots to slam their Sidewinder missiles into each of the Fs. They made the floaties AFDAGB (All Fall Down And Go Boom).

We didn’t know what those floaties were or why they were at the locations where they were discovered. We didn’t even know if they were balloons. They were much smaller than the Chinese spy balloon, and there was so much ignorance that they were designated UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects).

Our keen and razor sharp press corps and our highly educated and insightful public sped into action immediately to ask key questions, like, “Are these alien space ships?” and “We must have tracked them, so what part of our galaxy did they come from?” and, “What are the aliens like?” and, “Has ET (Extra-Terrestrial) been consulted?”

The thing is that the answers to these questions and more can be found in the first word of the designation for the Fs (Floaties): “Unidentified.” I mean no offense when I say that the very word means that we have not identified them. As in: “I don’t know.” It doesn’t mean AB (Alien Being).

Not being able to identify them immediately does not mean that they came from across the vastness of OS (Outer Space). It doesn’t mean that God sent them as a W (Warning), either. It means – I think I already said this – that we don’t know.

As of the time of this writing our GP (Government People) have not released any information about the three UNIDENTIFIED Fs (Floaties), except that the RSPs (Royal Smart People) believe these are not CSVs (Chinese Spy Vehicles). What they do know for sure is that they are UNIDENTIFIED.

That’s your key word for today, boys and girls: Unidentified. It means, “I don’t know.” It does not mean SBFAP (Strange Being From Another Planet).

For further information on this topic, please consult your OB (Ouija Board).

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

Five Years Without Valentines


It was five years ago today when Valentines stopped for 17 high schoolers and teachers at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. They were killed by a former student. Apparently, he had issues. Maybe he was full of hatred for others who were doing well and he, not so well. Maybe others were wealthier, so he felt like he was on the bottom of the social totem pole. Maybe he just felt powerless and had to find a way to feel powerful.

Darth Vader told us something about that.

.

Feeling powerful is what the Dark Side is all about. It isn’t about justice or fairness. It isn’t about righting wrongs. It is only about feeling powerful for a few moments. It is about holding the power of life and death over others. It is about putting a pitiful band-aid on the desperate, bottomless hopelessness and despair of one’s fear about one’s value. That’s when everything is transformed and the power of the Dark Side becomes known.

The Uvalde shooter knows it. So does the Sandy Hook shooter and the Mother Emanuel AME Church shooter. The Columbine shooters know it, as do the Tree of Life Synagogue shooter and the Buffalo shooter and the Monterey Park shooter. They all know the power of the Dark Side and they loved the feel of it, the smell of it, the taste of it.

Jamie Guttenberg

But people like Fred and Jennifer Guttenberg hate that the shooters know that, because one of those murderers killed their 14-year-old daughter, Jamie, and 16 others that Valentines Day five years ago. She was a dancer. Then suddenly she wasn’t. Now she’s a face for what the Dark Side does and is a placeholder for all the victims of impotent people who find their power by harming or killing others.

Jamie would have been 19 years old now. Maybe she would be a freshman in college. Maybe she would be enrolled at a dance conservatory. We’ll never know and neither will her parents or her brother, Jesse. All because a loser wanted to feel powerful, so he ended all Valentines for all those kids and teachers by going to the Dark Side. And nothing changed to make kids or anyone else safer.

Five years earlier twenty-six first graders – little 6 and 7 year old kids – and staff were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Those kids would be getting their drivers licenses around this time, but of course now they won’t.

That massacre was going to turn the corner, soften the hearts of legislators and break the hold of the gun industry on politicians. It remains baffling that 26 murdered little kids changed nothing.

These are the victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, TX, 5/24/22. The sister of one of the kids who was killed asked, “Mom, what picture will you use for me?

Last year, following the shooting of 21 children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX and the mass murder of grannies at a supermarket in Buffalo, congress at last passed a law to promote gun safety. 193 Republicans in the House voted against it.* The law does some good things. And it’s a pitiful substitute for what we really need. Read the caption to the left.

We still haven’t done what we all know we need to do to stop murderous rampages. We probably won’t do those things until we decide that we love our children so much that:

.

we stop allowing an extremist minority (the ones who need guns to feel strong) to control us and our laws;

we stop tolerating massive campaign contributions from the gun industry to power-craving, self-serving politicians;

we stop mouthing platitudes and actually do what’s needed to deal with mental illness.

Until then our kids will continue to do active shooter drills, hiding under their desks, terrified. Some of them will die. And some will be huddled in corners, hoping Mom has a good picture of them for their memorial.

____________________________

Breaking News

As of 12:42AM EST February 14, 3 are dead and 5 are injured, some with life threatening injuries, from shootings the prior evening. This happened on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Police encountered the shooter who then killed himself.

This is one of over 43 shootings just yesterday. So far this year there have been 5,205 shootings, of which 2,235 were homicides and 2,970 were suicides, which are much easier to do with a gun than any other way.

Now we have yet more stopped Valentines.

____________________________

  • * We must dedicate ourselves to crushing the political careers of these greedy cowards, hypocrites – you pick the word – who allow this carnage to happen. They weenie out of accountability, essentially saying, “Hey, I didn’t pull the trigger.” They justify gun ownership for any moron with a few bucks, this on the basis of a fraudulent reading of the Second Amendment and a baseless claim of freedom.
  • They continue to make it so very easy for people to go first to the Dark Side, then to a gun store, then to a school campus to start shooting people to death.
  • Fire the bastards!

____________________________

No post tomorrow. See you Sunday.

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

SOTU


This was absolutely the best SOTU I’ve seen in terms of both content and style, with strong persuasion value for independents and undecideds. They’re some of the people who will decide the next elections.

I especially loved Biden’s rope-a-dope over Social Security and Medicare. He suckered in the liars/haters/cheaters and showed them to be the dopes who want to end or privatize those enormously popular programs, a move that would infuriate tens of millions of Americans who were watching at that moment.

Biden said,

“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans, want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I’m not saying it’s the majority.”

“Hi, I’m Marjorie and I’m a rude, mean girl. I yelled,’You lie!’ at the SOTU. I sure showed that Biden guy who’s the smart one.”

That’s when the Republican congressional temper tantrum started.

Biden continued,

“Let me give you — anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I’ll give you a copy — I’ll give you a copy of the proposal.”

The proposal to sunset all government programs, including Social Security and Medicare, was written by the former chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Rick Scott (R-FL),* who somehow, in an act of desperation, denies his own proposal. The crazies knew of that proposal and others even more draconian, but still they booed. They yelled, “Liar!” They were apoplectic. They snarled in anger. They were extremists being extremists.

“You know, it means if Congress doesn’t keep the programs the way they are, they go away.

“Other Republicans say — I’m not saying it’s a majority of you, I don’t even think it’s even a significant — but it’s being proposed by individuals. I’m not — politely not naming them, but it’s being proposed by some of you.

More jeering and heckling.

“Look, folks, the idea is that we’re not going to be — we’re not going to be moved into being threatened to default on the debt if we don’t respond.”

That’s when the apoplectics began to quiet, because they knew they were angering millions of Americans by threatening to default on US debt obligations and not pay our bills. And they couldn’t afford to be seen as the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid enemies that they really are.

“Folks — so folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?” Cheering. “They’re not to be — all right. We’ve got unanimity.”

“Social Security and Medicare are a lifeline for millions of seniors. Americans have to pay into them from the very first paycheck they started.

“So tonight, let’s all agree — and we apparently are — let’s stand up for seniors. Stand up and show them we will not cut Social Security. We will not cut Medicare.”

And everybody stood and applauded! Even the crazies!

“Those benefits belong to the American people. They earned it.”

Rope-a-dope. Genius execution by Biden.

The extremists had displayed themselves to be exactly what they are – rude horribles unmindful of the needs of the American people – and McCarthy looked weak, ineffective and powerless. This was a clear demonstration of truth. The entire event is one of the most lopsided contests I’ve seen.

“Hi. I’m Sarah and I lie. You can tell, because I’m talking.

Nearly as good, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican rebuttal with true-to-form dexterity of dystopia speak. She extended her lying streak and sounded both wooden and stupid. She was almost as good a promoter of Democrats as Biden.

She got one thing right, saying, “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.” She just doesn’t get that it’s she and the Republican extremists who are the crazy ones.

Sanders spoke to the 11% of voters who are hair-on-fire types, living in the Cave Of Crazy. But she was, I believe, off-putting at best to everyone else. Let’s hope she’s very visible for the next two years.

This SOTU address was a brilliant display of Biden as warrior and Republicans as fools. The energy he marshaled for his presentation is what has largely been missing from many of his prior presentations and likely what has driven his low approval ratings. Those low numbers certainly are not about his programs or policies, as those are extremely popular.

There’s more that gets in the way of progress, like ineffective DNC communication and frequent failure of Democrats to smack down the Republican liars, haters and cowards. But energy – especially from an 80 year old man whose age augers against his continuing in office past 2024 – is what Biden needs to display every time he’s behind a microphone.

Great kudos to Biden’s masterful speech writers and to his 2 weeks of preparation. Both paid off. And kudos, too, to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, lifelong liar, mean girl and new promoter of Democrats.

This was a good night for truth, justice and the American Way. Cue music and waving cape.
.
From the “You’re Not Going To Believe This” File

You’re Not Going To Believe This #1

When I had stopped shaking my head in disbelief, it became clear that you need to know that this goes on.

“Only in Mississippi”: White representatives vote to create White-appointed court system for Blackest city in U.S.
A White supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by White state officials.

Read in Mississippi Today: https://apple.news/A99E_dva5SleoMi7OnGEJ9w.

Believe it or not, it’s worse than this already looks. Thanks to JN for pointing this out

Yet, this isn’t an “Only in Mississippi” story. This is akin to former White Republican Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan who, by the powers granted to him by his rights-revoking White Republican legislature, sent a state appointed White city manager to Flint, essentially dissolving all of its city government. That guy eventually poisoned 6,000 – 12,000 Black kids in the city with lead from a changed water supply, a “human made public health crisis.”

Just another White guy imposing cruelty on Blacks.

You’re Not Going To Believe This #2:

Click me

Rollan Roberts II of West Virginia announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the presidency last month. He has no governmental experience, but he invokes God and vomits platitudes with the best of them.

More important was his announcement speech, where his pregnant wife fainted, or perhaps collapsed from something far worse. The point is his non-reaction to her being sprawled unconscious on the floor. Watch the video and notice how fast others go to aid her and how long this idiot stood at the podium in glorious self-importance.

Is this really the kind of person Republicans want in the White House?

_____________________________

* You can read Sen. Scott’s 12 Point Plan to Rescue America for yourself and I encourage you to do so. In spite of his denial about attacking Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he declares,
.
“All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”
.
That’s in his point #6, seventh statement on page 36. If we were to follow his imperative, everything will go away absent a congressional vote to continue. That includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid – everything. Never mind the pragmatics of Congress actually being able to handle such a challenge.
.

Scott’s screed is a tour de force of absolutism, pandering and dishonesty and should be celebrated for the idiocy that it is and for his using half-sense as an art form. It will play well to the far right extremists.

You don’t suppose Rick Scott intends to run for president, do you?

_____________________________

Look for a special Valentine’s Day post on Tuesday.

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

Maybe We Should Try It


Thanks for this, Jim Nathan

Final Comments of President Biden’s State of the Union Address, February 7, 2023

“And finally, to my Republican partners I say – and this is from the heart – no joke: cut the crap.

“Stop the brinkmanship over the debt ceiling. Not even you are dumb enough to pull that stupid default stunt again. I hope. Besides, Americans are locked and loaded to blame you for the consequences if you dummy this up.

“You want to talk policy? Great. Let’s go. We need to talk about spending and taxes. We need to talk about immigration. We need to talk about education and global warming and national defense. We need to find the best solutions to these issues and more so that we deliver for the American people.

“But if instead of developing policy that will help our nation and our people, all you want to do is to spread hatred, to demonize and to stoke culture wars – you know: the malignancies you grow – you’re no partner at all. In fact, you’re an enemy of the American people.

“But you don’t have to be.

“Choose whose side you’re on. I’ll be pulling for you to choose the side of America and Americans. Here’s a good way to show you’re on the right side.

“The Founders declared this to be a democracy. So, put on your originalist hat and reverse all your voter suppression crap. All of it. Pass laws that make that happen all across this land. And no, we’re not going to negotiate that.

“Oh, and that balloon thing. We couldn’t have learned anything about its capabilities, what it surveilled or how it worked if we had blasted it out of the sky as soon as it crossed into our airspace, making it crash on land. It would have become an unintelligible pile of junk. That’s why we shot it down over water. We want the counter-intelligence. Get it? So, get a grip, join Team National Security and cut the tough guy bombastic crap.

“We have big challenges to tackle and big opportunities to champion. And there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together.

You believe that, right?

“May God bless America and God bless our troops.”

Democracy

There are many zealots on the right, especially the far right, who attack the fundamentals of our democracy. Some openly promote autocracy. They assault our institutions that are designed to protect this experiment in self-rule and, in doing so, they establish themselves as the enemies of democracy. Yet we have to look at this as a system.

Can this be a democracy when in 2010 the Supreme Court, through gross manipulation of the Citizens United case, gave unlimited power to corporations and wealthy people? The Court has allowed and even encouraged them to have dramatic influence on our elections. Those big money spenders have vastly more power than you do. So much for one person, one vote.

Can this be a democracy when state legislatures practice and the Supreme Court encourages gross gerrymandering, such that elections aren’t elections at all? Those gerrymandered districts take the vote right out of your hands. They take away your voice and your power.

Can this be a democracy when before every election more and more citizens are cast off voting roles so that only the voters chosen by those in power are allowed to vote?

Can this be a democracy when polling places and early voting ballot drop boxes are located in such inconvenient locations that some people, chosen by those in power, are physically unable to vote?

Can this be a democracy when formerly incarcerated people are told they can vote, but they can’t exercise that right until they pay fines and fees they can’t afford? Note that the Constitution doesn’t make the right to vote contingent upon one’s state of freedom or the payment of fines or fees. The franchise is wholly independent from such restrictions.

Can this be a democracy when a political party has, at best, made itself subservient to White supremacy and at worst has promoted hatred so as to intimidate our citizens to keep them from voting or working in election related positions?

This list could be longer, but surely you get the point that we have institutionalized the practice of limiting who gets to vote and selecting who gets outsized election influence. We have thereby predetermined who has power and who does not. That’s our system. It’s as heinous as poll taxes or a jelly bean jar at a Jim Crow polling place.

Democracy is a lovely idea. Maybe we should try it.

Quotations

Abba Eban, Israeli statesman and ambassador, addressed the United Nations in June, 1967, saying,

” .  .  .  men and nations do behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”

Often attributed to Winston Churchill,

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

Perhaps we have at last tried enough failed paths and can resume the originally intended course.

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

Theocracy Is Just A Tool


What do you think about the Framers, the guys who hammered out the Constitution in a locked room with windows nailed shut and, obviously, no air conditioning, this over the course of the very hot Philadelphia summer of 1787? Are they the forebears of all national bedrock, the seers with the ability to establish the true way for whatever might come over the course of centuries? Or were they just normal men, each with his own foibles, stumbling along just as you and I do, simply doing the best they could do to conjure the needs of a new nation?

If you think the former, then you’ll surely align in some measure with the so-called “originalists” on the Supreme Court, who imagine they can see into the minds of the Founders and that we should adhere to what these justices see. That isn’t entirely unsupported, as the Federalist Papers contain a wealth of insight into their intentions, as do the the letters and other writings of some of the Founders.

If you think the latter, then you likely believe that the Constitution was intended as a series of guideposts and was intentionally left incomplete and subject to modification. The amendment process supports that view, as does the obvious fact that nobody in 1787 could have envisioned many, perhaps most, of the inventions, world changes and societal needs that have arisen over the course of the intervening 236 years.

Now, though, we are at a terrible crossroads, where many are openly denying reality, some are committing violence and a screeching minority is doing its best every day to eliminate the very democracy envisioned by the Founders. Worse, some of the howlers have their hands on the reigns of power and, worst, some howlers sit on the Supreme Court. That puts us in danger of losing what the vast majority of We the People want and believe in. The demand that this country should adopt Christian nationalism is a prime example of the danger we face, and that’s just a smoke screen for what the howlers really want.

Whatever one’s individual beliefs and practices regarding religion or God, we are intended to be a secular country. The Founders wrote about that and the First Amendment is its legal foundation, as it says,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise thereof; [emphasis mine]

The courts have established that the First Amendment also intends that we have freedom from religion. It’s a right, as in: guaranteed. But we haven’t been completely faithful to refraining from wedging religious beliefs into our public rules.

“Under God” was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. “In God We Trust” has been on every piece of our currency since 1957. We were in the Cold War then and had to differentiate ourselves from the godless commies to show that we were the good guys. Clearly, those insertions meant that God was on our side.

So, since 1957, every time we pay a buck for goods or services we’re confirming that we believe in and trust in God. That’s quite unfair to a lot of our people and is a self-evident violation of the intent of the First Amendment.

We violate the First Amendment every time we give public money to religious organizations. George W. Bush called them “Faith-based institutions” and doled out taxpayer cash to them. Issuing school vouchers to redirect money from public education to private schools, many parochial, is another example. More on that in a minute. There’s something very hinky about those freedom of and from religion violations, but there they stand, wearing the imprimaturs of our laws and of the Supreme Court. The drafters of the First Amendment would be baffled by that. It appears the some justices aren’t the originalists they claim to be. That malleability goes further.

In Jessica Mason Pieklo’s piece, How Conservative Justices Are Driving Us Toward Theocracy, she writes of the Court,

First, they have responded in kind to the Republican Party’s lurch to the far-right and open embrace of anti-democratic principles by issuing more and more substantive decisions on its shadow docket. Second, the Court’s conservatives, led by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, have started actively rewriting decades of legal precedent to help pave the path for even more regressive anti-democratic policies to emerge from states that are held in conservative gerrymandered capture.

She goes on to make the point that efforts to establish this country as a Christian nationalist theocracy are a giant step toward eliminating democracy altogether and to the establishment of autocracy – religious fascism.

Katherine Stewart was quite direct in making this point in her op-ed in the New York Times, posted on the heels of the Supreme Court stomping on our rights in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion:

Breaking American democracy isn’t an unintended side effect of Christian nationalism. It is the point of the project. … Its purpose is to hollow out democracy until nothing is left but a thin cover for rule by a supposedly right-thinking elite, bubble-wrapped in sanctimony and insulated from any real democratic check on its power.

The democracy attackers use many means to warp our country. A favorite is the aforementioned de-funding of public education, as by vouchers. They use these to transfer public cash to private schools, including the funding of religious schools. Perversely, they then attack the very pubic education system they have then under-funded, saying it is failing, claiming privatization is the cure. That’s your tax money transferred to religion and to very rich guys.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is doing the same thing to the Postal service by having trashed all the high speed sorting machines and hobbled mail delivery. The theocracy thumpers now claim that The Postal Service should be privatized because it doesn’t work properly. I’m guessing that these guys think God is on their side and that a theocracy would deliver the mail on time. Regardless, privatization would deliver the cash to rich guys. Even without full privatization, the logistics (i.e. delivery) company DeJoy used to run has been paid over $286 million by the Postal Service, and he still has a 30% stake in the company.

Snap your brain onto the most important issue: the point of all the sanctimonious Christian nationalism talk isn’t about Jesus. Indeed, the point of killing Roe and threatening to ban contraception isn’t about religion or pro-life.

They’re tools for ending our democracy for the benefit of rich and powerful people and for those who baffle themselves with their own BS, believing they’ll be sitting at the Big Kids’ table.

Back to the opening question about your belief in what the Founders intended.

If you think of yourself as an originalist, you’re forced to believe in democracy and a secular country, because the Framers specifically wrote the framework for democracy and excluded the possibility of Christian nationalism.

If you think of yourself as believing in choice number two, working to conjure the needs of our nation within the Constitutional framework, begin your thinking with the clarity that we Americans don’t like having others’ views jammed down our throats.

Either way, it’s clear that this is supposed to be a secular democracy. We the People really do believe as Thoreau advised,

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

That pretty well cautions against destruction of our democracy or establishment of a Christian or any other theocratic nationalism forced on We the People. Indeed, the Framers specifically didn’t want any part of that, having escaped the yoke of King George III and the Anglican Church.

In the acts of primitive rage of our extremists, they make it clear that they want to establish Christian nationalism and destroy democracy. Well, you know,

.  .  .  when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know you can count me out

– Revolution, John Lennon

To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men.

– Ella Wheeler Wilcox

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

The Best We Can Do


Disarming the Monterey Park shooter – Click me

Monterey Park, CA

After hearing an interview with Brandon Tsay, the man who disarmed the Monterrey Park shooter, Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action, said,

“We are asking everyday civilians to stand up to gunmen because our lawmakers are too cowardly to stand up to gun makers.” *

You know in your bones that she’s right.

Here Are The Totals:  January 1 – 28**

Click me

.
  • All gun deaths                 3,244 – 116 per day
  • Mass shootings                   43 – 3 every 2 days
  • Children killed                    128***
  • Children injured                  297***

Those aren’t just numbers; they’re people. Like granny. Like your kids. Like you.

Is this the best we can do? Really?

Speaking of Violence

You know that Tyre Nichols was beaten by 5 Memphis cops and that he later died from that attack. You may have watched the videos that were released Friday evening. You may be tempted to share your horror with others by inviting them to watch the video.

Before you do, read this from Bear Bellinger of Indivisible. In part, he writes,

“Sharing the video is sensationalizing violence while minimizing the pain that it imparts on Black bodies. Share solutions. Share actions. Share outrage. Do. Not. Share. The. Video.“

So, hold on to your horror, your sadness, your rage. Your feeling that way and more proves that you are a human being with empathy, but that’s not enough.

“We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.”– MLK

Is this the best we can do? Really?

It Ain’t Over

Here’s a graph of total Covid deaths since the first, then-mysterious one in February 2020.

Click me

As you can see, we’re continuing to raise the death count, now at the rate of 543 dead bodies per day – and the rate is increasing. Weirdly, the pile up of bodies has faded into national background noise, as we seem to have forgotten the over 1.1 million already dead – roughly equivalent to everyone in Dallas, TX – the nearly 104 million total cases reported (likely, there are many more) and all the suffering. The point of showing you the graph is to help you realize that this isn’t over. The war isn’t won. Not all the boys are coming home.

  • I’m over 70 and my age alone makes me a pretty good target for any variant of this virus. And it found me. I hunkered down with Paxlovid and got better. Then Covid came back, laughing at me for my foolish belief that I had beaten it. I think it’s gone now.
  • I didn’t like having Covid, but the point is that I’m still here and able to say so.
  • Thank you, vaccine people!
  • Fie on vaccine conspiracy crazies!
  • The majority of us took one or two vaccines, but only about 16% of Americans have taken the bivalent vaccine for protection from the primary variants that are stalking us right now. You need to get it into your head that you need to get the updated booster into your arm. Not tomorrow; today, if you want to avoid being one of the 543 tomorrow.
  • Did I mention that only 16% of us have protection against the new viruses that are trying to take us down?
  • Is this the best we can do? Really?
  • Congress
  • Fifteenth ballot winner for Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-Hypocrisy), is convening a new select committee, which means he gets to select its members. It is the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government (“HSS-WTF“).
  • Per Heather Cox Richardson,

“Yesterday in The Bulwark, Jill Lawrence explained that the true goal of the committee is ‘shoveling paranoia and distortion into the news stream’ to make right-wing voters distrust the government even more than they already do. David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida who left the party in 2018, told Lawrence: ‘It’s a drug they’re going to put out on the street for conservative media and conservative voters.'”

No surprise there. No surprise, either, that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Rabies) will chair the WTF committee to ensure it is a circus of hateful delusion. It’s just what he does.

Plus, McCarthy has evicted Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) from the Intelligence Committee and plans to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the Foreign Affairs Committee. He falsely claimed that Schiff and Swalwell had lied to the American people and that allowing either of them on that committee would compromise national security. As for Omar, Republicans need to punish her because, as is quite obvious, she is a woman, is of color and is a Muslim. He didn’t say that part out loud.

So, he’s packing the Intelligence Committee with far right extremists who tried to overthrow our government on January 6. All this is a matter of integrity to McCarthy, he told us. Seriously, he said that.

I figure that removing Schiff and Swalwell and replacing them with brain-free extremists will significantly lower the overall intelligence of the Intelligence Committee. My recommendation is to have low expectations of it.

As for the Foreign Affairs Committee, clearly, we wouldn’t want anyone with foreign experience to have a seat there. Good thing they ditched Omar.

That’s where the Republican majority is focused, even as we face a debt ceiling debacle.

Is this the best we can do? Really?

Education

Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida and 2024 presidential wannabe, is doing his best to keep kids in his state ignorant and to polarize his citizens. He recently removed AP (Advanced Placement) African-American studies from the high school electives offerings, claiming it is not education, but “indoctrination.” That was his word choice.

It’s interesting that De Santis doesn’t consider AP French to be indoctrination. Neither does he claim AP European History or AP American History or AP World History or AP U.S. Government and Politics or AP Spanish or any other AP course to be indoctrination. It’s only indoctrination if it’s about Blacks. Stoking culture wars in a “one up, all others down” society: does it get any better than that for any self-serving extremist?

This is his latest move to promote ignorance in Florida, following his book banning and the threat of 3rd degree felony charges against teachers or librarians who so much as whisper words suggesting anyone or anything that is not straight – the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law. This has led to a new state motto flapping above the capitol building in Tallahassee:

IGNORANCE R US

.

In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

  • “1984”, George Orwell
  • Many thanks to my lifelong friend, Frank Levy, for the quote.

Is this the best we can do? Really?

Finally, a Chuckle

Of course you remember Hurricane Ian that devastated Ft. Myers, FL last September and threatened states all the way to North Carolina. I pinged friends there to see if they were OK – they were – and they sent the pic of Mar-a-Lago to the right.

Ian, was that the best you could do? Really?

_______________________________

  • * The only thing that stops a cowardly, bad lawmaker with a vote is a good lawmaker with a vote.
  • Elect good lawmakers.

** Source: www.GunViolenceArchive.org

*** Firearms are the Leading Cause of Death for Children in the United States, But Rank No Higher Than Fifth in Other Industrialized Nations – Kaiser Family Foundation

______________________________

  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

The Through-Line


Last Sunday’s post dealt with the goal of extremist Republicans: destruction. They want to destroy democracy and replace it with autocracy – fascism. They want to destroy the Constitution and replace it with some tool of absolute power only for themselves. They want to destroy facts and truth and replace them with propaganda and self-serving fictions – “alternative facts” – which, as you know, are lies wearing an enemy uniform.

And they don’t care who gets hurt. That was perfectly captured by Trump’s soon-to-be-indicted lawyer, John Eastman, who, at the rally of insurrection on January 6, 2021, proudly declared, “We’re kicking ass and taking names!” I guess that works happily for the kickers, but not so much for the kick-ees. The bad news is that you are intended by the extremists to be one of the kick-ees.

This post is my promised through-line offering to help to explain this behavior, why the self-righteous extremists would want destruction.

I believe this is driven by a primitive, tribal fear of “others.” It is intentionally exclusionary of those not of “our clan.” It is a defense against anything different, anything that might upset what is familiar and feels safe. It is existential tribal warfare.

We pick up a major thread of this to use as example: our 400-year habit of persecuting Blacks. They are different, as White supremacists will have you know. We have bounced around hating many “others” over the centuries, too, including indigenous people (happily misnamed “Indians”), Asians, Irish, Italians, Jews, Catholics and more – really any group that isn’t Anglo-Saxon Protestant and even some who are. The problem now is that Whites are losing their place as our majority racial group and – gasp! – some of those other people have already secured some rights for themselves. Even women! If this is a zero sum game as so many believe, what’s a frightened White supremacist to do?

My stab at understanding this is aided by the pages of Andy Borowitz’s Profiles in Ignorance (see Fine Print #5 below):

“In 2020, Stuart Stevens, who worked on both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns, published It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump. Stevens points out what few Republicans have acknowledged: the views that people find abhorrent in Trump make him not the antithesis of Reagan but his rightful successor. “What happens if you spend decades focused on appealing to whites and treating nonwhite voters with, at best, benign neglect?” Stevens asks.

“You get good at doing what it takes to appeal to white voters. That is the truth that led to what is famously called “the southern strategy.” That is the path that leads you to becoming what the Republican Party now proudly embraces: a white grievance party .  .  . Today, in the age of Donald Trump, the most openly racist president since Andrew Johnson or his hero Andrew Jackson (to the extent a know-nothing narcissist is capable of having a hero), many Republicans who find Trump repulsive or at least consider him abrasive and uncouth hark back to Reagan as the standard compared with whom Trump is woefully inadequate .  .  .

But in the area of race, there is a direct line from the more genteel prejudice of Ronald Reagan to the white nationalism of Donald Trump.”

“As for Reagan’s ‘civility and personal grace,’ as Peter Wehner put it, which Reagan, exactly, was he describing? The one who used racist dog whistles like ‘states’ rights’ and ‘welfare queen’? The one who said, of student protesters, ‘If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with’? The one who wished that California’s hungry would contract botulism? The one who permitted his press secretary to turn AIDS into a joke? The one who called African leaders cannibals and monkeys? The Party of Reagan seems pretty recognizable to me [now].”

The through-line also picks up grievances against government. “Government is the problem,” declared Reagan at all campaign stops and at his first inaugural. It moves that line through Trump’s efforts to undermine all government, leading the way to today’s Republican Rabid Rabies Caucus. They amplify America’s original sin in order to appeal to White voters. They pick at the scabs of both real and imagined grievances, giving people something to use to justify their tribal fear-turned-to-anger-turned-to-hatred.

It didn’t start with Reagan. He was hundreds of years too late to have begun that. What he did do is to pick up the ball that Richard Nixon had carried (his “Southern Strategy”) and run way downfield with it. That was “Saint Ronny,” as the myopic, “O’ for the good old days” folks call him, but there was nothing saintly about him.

Pogo was right

Be clear that this post looks mostly at the issue of race being used to polarize our citizens. The important part is that this and more were used to lead to a violent attempt to end our democracy, commit murders and subjugate our people. Worse, some of our elected officials participated in this attempted coup to destroy our country. Here’s a list of the 147 Congressional dishonorables who violated their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. They instead chose to surrender their honor and integrity to a would-be tyrant in order to serve their petty selfishness. And they’re still doing that.

History is full of examples of self-serving dishonorables who stoke fear and hatred in order to seize power for themselves. Our challenge today is that many of our dishonorables are still in positions of power and influence. They stoke amygdala stimulated fear and hatred of “others” – that primitive tribal thing – and seek to crush E Pluribus Unum.

That is the through-line.

I’m not sure that John Lewis was right when he declared powerfully, “We’re better than this.”

But we could be.

Finally, this Great Trampling of Rights is well underway by these tribal terrorists. That’s what all the destruction is about. If a right is to endure, there must be a mechanism to ensure it against these assaults. So, here’s a question for us and for our rights:

What is a right without a remedy?

It seems to me that the remedy is up to us.

  • __________________________
  • 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 a lot 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, so don’t bug me about it.
    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.

    JA


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

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