Alt-Right

Freedom And The Call


POST 1157

NEW!

I’m over at BLUESKY now, with Maddow, O’Donnell and other smart folks. Find me at

@jaxpolitix.bsky.social
Executive Summary


> What do you suppose we’re missing?

> Freedom: Who’s getting more and who’s getting less?

MISSING

Click me – first see Note #4 below

I just finished reading Kenneth D. Evans’ book MISSING. It’s the story of his father, Donald Evans, during WW II, both as a fighter pilot and as a horribly abused POW held by the Germans for over a year.

He and our millions of European theater troops were returned to America after V-E Day. They rode on Liberty ships, the very slow transports that had been used to bring food, ammunition, fuel and more to war-torn Europe for years.

Donald Evans wrote in his notebook:

“My heart swelled with pride and gratitude when we came into view of the Statue of Liberty. I feel so grateful for the freedoms that I fought for. I can’t describe how wonderful it felt to finally step back on American soil. For me – the war is finally over.” – page 446

Liberty Ship SS John W. Brown – click me

Evans’ story is, at least in part, that of 16 million Americans during those terrifying days of combat, the soul crushing ordeals and then at last the blessing of coming home. Surely, all those boys felt what Donald Evans felt upon seeing the Statue of Liberty and at long last planting their boots on our ground. They knew what they had done and why they had done it. We today are the lucky ones living in the freedoms secured for us by their sacrifice and courage.

I fear that such pride and gratitude as that of Evans and his fellows-in-arms may largely be things of the past, as we’ve made draft dodger Bone Spurs our president and integrity and courage have been supplanted by today’s spineless hypocrisy and rank cowardice. We’ve celebrated cruelty at least as far back as George W. Bush’s torturing of prisoners. Now our officials sneakily pledge loyalty not to our Constitution, but to a man who lies to us at least 8,750 times per year (that’s a lie every 59 seconds for 4 years), who enacts retribution on those who oppose him and who grifts constantly. You can now buy a dinner with Trump for a million dollars. Choke on that.

Many of our citizens apparently believe that making death threats to fellow Americans is a patriotic act. Our nation’s leaders being obsequious to dictators and abandoning our friends are now reasons for self-congratulation and chest puffing.

So, some seem to think, are abandoning our vets, letting our poor children starve and abandoning the sick and malnourished everywhere, even as meds are cheap and food rots in warehouses. So is cutting support for the education of our children, for protecting our nuclear stockpiles and for abandoning protection for our kids from paralysis from polio and death from measles. Apparently, all that and more is now patriotic and we are at liberty to enjoy those “freedoms.”

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times labeled what’s going on as, “the deconstruction of a once-great superpower.” And it’s happening in plain sight.

What do you suppose Donald Evans and his buddies, the guys who risked their lives, some of whom lost their lives, protecting the promise of America would say to all that? Let’s take that question one step further.

What do you suppose our hollow performative, chest thumping, flag waving extremists and our jellyfish legislators would risk their lives for? Would they man a post just 1/4 mile from the front line, sail into battle in the belly of a warship, fly a warplane with missiles being fired at it, risk torture and death solely for the promise of America?

Said a different way, what is it that so many Americans are MISSING?

Freedom

Click me – first see Note #4 below

From the introduction of history Prof. Timothy Snyder’s book On Freedom:

Traditionally, some people have regarded themselves as free because they exploit the labor of slaves and women. Those who believe themselves free because they dominate others define freedom negatively, as the absence of government, because only a government could emancipate the slaves or enfranchise women.

We no longer have slavery in this country and women have incrementally gained most – but amazingly, not all – citizenship rights, but that doesn’t mean that domination has been eradicated.

Donald Trump and his co-president Elon Musk are on an illegal rampage of domination and destruction of our government, unchecked by Congress, on the promise of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. That name sells well to the American people, but the fact is that they chainsawed their way to mindlessly harming our public servants and accomplishing almost nothing positive. They are finding essentially no waste, fraud or abuse. They have claimed benefit to our country in the hundreds of billions of dollars, only to have it revealed that either there were no actual savings or that the amounts have been exaggerated by a factor of 1,000 or more.

A reasonable deduction is that their efforts are fraudulently labeled and that what they are doing has nothing to do with saving tax dollars. Pair that with Trump’s tantrum about Congress having ordered the hiring of 82,000 new IRS agents to catch tax cheats and bring money into the federal till, and you can see that none of this has anything to do with waste, fraud and abuse. It has to do with destroying government – the “deep state.”

What that has to do with freedom is that crippling our health related functions makes sure that you won’t be free from the next pandemic, that your children won’t be free from measles, polio or smallpox. You won’t be free from financial institutions ripping you off, nor will you be free from nuclear disaster or from grave danger on a commercial airplane flight. And this story gets worse.

What our markets (Dow, S&P, etc.) hate more than anything is uncertainty, like on-again, off-again tariffs. After that comes anything that will negatively affect corporate profitability, like tariffs.

The Dow has dropped nearly 2,000 points since Trump first announced tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. What that means is that the prices of various stocks have gone way down, allowing billionaires, our oligarchs, to swoop in and buy those companies on the cheap. Later, the market will recover, stock prices will be back up and the rich guys will have made a killing. You’re not free to do that because you don’t have billions of dollars to invest.

That scheme will further concentrate American wealth in the wallets of the same 1% that has dominated us for so long. That sounds like a lot of freedom for rich guys, but not much for you and me.

The destruction of our government and the manipulation of our markets for the benefit of rich guys is exactly what Trump told us he would do. Those promises, those chickens, have come home to roost (bringing no eggs). We are all poorer and less free.

All of this grift and fraud is about Trump stealing our country from us.
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Back To What We’re MISSING

Here it is in quiz form:

Q: What do you suppose those guys, standing at the rail of a Liberty ship sailing past the Statue of Liberty into New York Harbor would say to all this Trump fraud, theft and destruction?

A: They’d say that what Trump is doing is everything they went to war to fight against, what they risked their lives for and what thousands of their buddies died for.

Make no mistake: This is personal, because those guys included your father, grandfather or your great-grandfather. We dishonor all of them if we fail to answer the call of duty to our country today to restore our values and our republic.

Thanks FL for this.

REBEL!

Coming Wednesday: Ukraine Dream Sequence 2 – What we wish had happened.

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

SOTU, Social Security & Ugly


POST 1156

Executive Summary

> What SOTU? You mean the 2 hours of self-serving blah? Couldn’t watch. Did the Democrats boycott or walk out or just politely sit there and take it on the chin yet again?

> On being 150 years old

> A dire warning about justice and ugly

SOTU – Actually, Just a Reality TV Promotion

The only moment of a Trump State of the Union address I liked was when Nancy Pelosi dramatically tore up his speech. I wish today’s Democrats would reach down to see if they, like her, have a pair (calm down – it’s a metaphor, not a gender excluding phrase) and, if so, that they would show some ferocity.

Meanwhile, Trump is rapidly turning over the United States of America to Putin. Soon you’ll have to address me as Comrade Disambiguation. Doesn’t exactly slide off the tongue as easily as the way Trump is sliding democracy from us and abandoning our values and our role of leadership in the world. You heard that he’s shutting down some counterintelligence operations, right?

That’s why I couldn’t and didn’t watch. Besides, over 30,000 lies in his first administration far exceeded my maximum lifetime tolerance.

Social Security Fraud

I am 150 years old and I collect Social Security under my name and under 3 aliases. I have to draft off the Medicare account of a neighbor – please don’t tell him – but I’m in pretty good health, so apparently I’m under that radar. Here’s the problem.

Elon has been blabbing on about 150 year old Americans fraudulently collecting Social Security and I guess I’m guilty of that. Well, like my superannuated contemporaries, only guilty for the 3 aliases.

Anyway, It’s plain as can be that Musk is totally clueless about the needs of our – of your – seniors and only says what he says to be bombastic and to protect his billions of dollars of federal contracts. Perhaps he thinks he sounds smart or powerful or thinks he’s on his way to Mars (please!). But, of course, he’s a dumb bunny, clueless about our nation’s values and pleased to say stupid things.

I’m concerned that he and the other POTUS will find me and my antiquated friends and start using us in some propaganda piece that brings the extremist militants out of their hidey-holes to threaten and abuse us. I confess that I’m barely strong enough to hold and fire my .38 caliber pistol and am much more comfortable with my little .22. The problem is that I’m not confident that it has enough stopping power to protect me from the MAGA anti-patriots carrying their AR-15s who will be banging down my door – the ones who make death threats to grannies and Democrats, much less Trump’s soon to be constituted brown shirts. What can I do?

Plus, if they cut off my aliases, where will I get enough money to live? The winter cold really hurts these old bones. I need help and help is expensive.

So you see, I’m in quite a bind. I need protection from Trump, from Musk and from our American terrorists; from the juvenile hacker snoops at Social Security and Medicare, from the clueless right-wing talk radio and TV blabbers, from Republican Trump sucks and, of course, from our citizens who, after Social Security is cut or privatized, will chant at me, “Let him die!”

Thanks for this find, TF.

Did you hear that they’re slashing food stamps? I’m hoping to make it to 200 years old, but that’s going to be far more difficult after Trump cuts yet more benefits, stuff I paid into for all the many decades of my working life. Looks like I’ll have to eat cat food.

If I were your great, great, great grandfather, what would you tell me to do?

A Dire Warning

You know well of the unqualified Trump supplication nominees for department heads and the now confirmed heads of the various departments of the executive branch. None is more dangerous than the head of the Justice Department, because that agency is supposed to be a watchdog standing guard over all the others.

Click the pic. Many thanks to DL for pointing me to this.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has long been outspoken about such things. You need to watch and listen carefully to his comments to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. This is one of the scariest 5 minutes of video I have ever seen, because he is right. This is going to be a monumental battle for the heart of our nation, for the values we hold dear, and it’s going to take all of us if we’re to keep our constitutional republic.

Ugly Brought Us Here

From Dan Gardner’s brilliant post, The Ugly American,

Picture the worst stereotype of an American abroad. Loud, abrasive, arrogant. Incurious about local culture and politics because Americans have nothing to learn from foreigners. Incapable of delivering even a few words in another language and certain they can always make themselves understood by speaking English at a higher volume. Smugly confident that the United States is the most advanced of civilizations, in every way that matters, and all the rest of the world silently dreams of being American, or least meeting one of God’s chosen.

Those are ugly Americans. Can you come up with names of people in our country today to which such a description, such a label might apply? Tell you what: ping your Canadian friends and ask what they think. Or check with NATO leaders – all of them except dictators Orbán in Hungary and Erdoğan in Turkey and Commissar Whatshisname in the U.S. All the rest have posted their support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy. Then read Gardner’s essay in full. It’s excellent.

These over-proud, angry and poorly informed Trumpy Americans brought us here, along with the millions who didn’t bother to vote. And the Trumpies bought most of America’s privately owned 440 million guns. I think most are in the hands of people who should never own any weapon more dangerous than a staple remover. That’s a very dangerous situation.

I suspect they just like the feeling of power that having a gun gives them and they think that a gun will bring them safety from some imagined threat. Plus, I believe they think the Second Amendment was written so that they can attack our government if they don’t like it – as if they could defeat the U.S military. We know that last reason is accurate, because many of the Second Amendment loonies have said exactly that.

They put all of us at risk. Those guns bring us 2 mass murders every 3 days and our ongoing suicide deaths. And they support the national demolition of our government and our values, destruction that threatens us more deeply every day.

There is little hope of changing their minds, but they are no more than 1/3 of our eligible voters. Should we ever again have an election, the other 2/3 of us better show up.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Extortion, Ugly Americans and Gaza


POST 1155

Executive Summary

> Musk failed. He’s expelled.

> Once an extortionist, always an extortionist

> Giving credit where it’s due: DOGE excels at idiotic claims and vile cruelty.

> It used to be “makers and takers.” Now it’s “Trumpys and parasites.”

> Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas were repatriated to Israel last week – in boxes.

Musk Update

Elon Musk failed to email his declaration of 5 things he did last week, as required by the demand email set forth in this space on February 26. Accordingly, he is immediately fired from his non-job. He will have 15 minutes to remove his personal items from his office and until noon tomorrow, Monday, March 3 to leave this country permanently.

The Extortionist

In 2019 Trump got caught trying to extort President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, demanding an announcement from Zelenskyy claiming he was investigating wrongdoing by Hunter Biden in Ukraine. Trump hoped that would kneecap Joe Biden in the upcoming election. Appropriately, Trump’s attempted extortion got him impeached.

Ukraine continues to be in need of military aid and Trump is making that aid contingent upon Ukraine giving away half of its rare earth mineral wealth and caving in to Putin’s Russia.

It’s yet another Trump extortion. To be fair, it’s actually a protection racket. You can almost hear Trump saying to Zelenskyy, “You’ve got a nice little country. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”

The Lowest god

Surely, the Trump/Vance ambush  of President Zelenskyy served to puff up Trump’s extremist bro-bros. It served to buoy Putin’s ambitions to restore the Soviet Union through grabs of entire countries. And it served to display the reality that everything associated with Trump is solely about money and fame/power. But all that Trumpian worthlessness misses the point.

From Norm Eisen, The Contrarian, March 1:

Trump and Vance in one fell swoop managed to embolden our adversaries (not just Russia) and alienate our staunch European allies.

As Trump and hillbilly Vance vomited their playground bully stupidities, believing that they were humiliating President Zelenskyy, they were, in fact, humiliating themselves. They are too vain and clueless to understand that, but that misses the point anyway. They were humiliating the United States of America before the world. That’s the point.

We all understand that their Mafia don behavior in public will be enthusiastically applauded by right wing extremists (MAGA swagger for the insecure) and by spineless Republicans. But it will serve as a warning to our allies that the United States is no longer the leader of the free world and cannot be counted on as an ally. It will show Putin and Xi that we are nothing more than a grovelling paper tiger that can be manipulated by a single complementing breath and a pat on Trump’s comb-over.

Apparently, Trump’s art of the deal is nothing more than crude extortion and humiliation. Trump fancies himself king and a god. Perhaps he is right. But he is solely a god of self-humiliation

Trumpy Americans

They are the ones who support Trump and his pet raptor, the co-president of Smash and Grab. Just like Trump, Musk is severely challenged to stay within sight of truth, reality and decency. Look at this tweet from him →

Let’s unpack that.

First, there isn’t 90% of Americans loving DOGE; it’s around 50% and falling. That is like the oops of Musk conflating millions into claims of billions when he reports government savings through his ready, fire, don’t-bother-to-aim shotgun firings.

Musk gets such things wrong because:

A. He just likes the sound of “billions” the way some people like the sound of their own voice.

B. His love of ignorance and fantasy far outweighs his experience with truth and reality.

C. He’s going to Mars anyway, so why should he sweat the small stuff that doesn’t hurt him?

D. He’s been far too busy jumping like a 4-year-old to notice little discrepancies that are off by a thousand times.

E. All of the above

Second, other than the most determined-to-be-angry extremists, almost nobody “loves” a phony, largely illegal bunch of juvenile delinquent flying tech monkeys or their greedy non-boss.

Third, this statement apparently from Trump’s mean girl press person* makes clear that for those in the White House and for the national Trumpy ones, there are “others” and who cares about them because everything is only about whether it affects “you”? – meaning themselves. Empathy has no place in this White House or in that third of our citizens.

In this age of extremist rage, Mitt Romney’s label “takers” has devolved into “parasites.” Today there is never a description of anything by MAGAs, Republicans, oligarchs or fascists without including demonization of “others.” That stuff often comes from the ethically strained White House and always comes from dictators.

The over-proud, angry and poorly informed Trumpy Americans brought us this crashing of the America they claim to love but clearly they don’t. It’s the America they should have learned about in civics and history classes, the America of All-We-The-People, but they obviously never did.

Finally,

Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas were quite alive when they were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. The mother likely was raped and tortured after that. Then they were all dead.

In repatriating the bodies to Israel, Hamas substituted a deceased Gaza woman for the dead mother of two dead children. Connect all that to some other dots and perhaps you’ll see things a bit differently, if you dare.

From Mike Koplow regarding the return of the bodies of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas last week:

It is unfathomable to watch Hamas parade coffins of dead innocents who were kidnapped into Gaza [and are now being flaunted] before the cheering hundreds as music blares, unfathomable to watch them march tortured hostages onto a stage in a public square and force them to humiliatingly thank their cruel captors in front of television cameras before their release, unfathomable to contemplate that no Palestinian in Gaza appears willing to step forward and put an end to this or to even publicly object.

As you contemplate the horrors visited upon non-militant Gazans, consider Koplow’s words and scratch your chin a moment to see if you can understand, even if only a bit and even if only for a moment how that might have come about.

What if you had attended that concert in the desert on October 7? What if that were your family returned in boxes? What if one of those humiliated prisoners was your brother, friend, or father who was tortured for no reason other than Hamas savage sadism, was malnourished and forced to humiliate himself in front of cameras and a cheering Gaza crowd? That is the kind of reality Israeli’s live in.

Go slowly and gently with your certainties – and teach your idealistic college student waving a Palestinian flag to do the same. Perhaps there is more to learn. Perhaps there are things worth standing up for that are beyond our own individual limited view and which surpass our own individual sense of offense.

_________________________________________

* Questions for 27 year old Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary:

  1. Do you think that bratty mean girl rants are what the world should hear from the press room of the White House?
  2. Do you think that the cross you prominently display absolves you from the answer to the question, “What would Jesus say?”?
  3. No seriously, do you think it’s okay to lie for Trump?

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Enough Small Ball


POST 1153

Executive Summary

> Link through to J.B. Pritzker’s address for inspiration and direction.

> Focus on the Big Picture – they are trashing the constitution, the rule of law, democracy, freedom of the press and our individual freedoms. We need an inspirational leader to stop the bad guys.

> We the People are for the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse, but even more we want to eliminate Elon Musk. We provide the firing email to him.

Where To Start
  1. If you have not heard Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s State of the State address you need to hear it. Start at the 33 minute mark. It’s about America. His words are medicine for your heart.
  2. Trump has stomped his foot on the neck of freedom of the press. From Ron Fournier:

“The White House said Tuesday that presidential aides will dictate which news outlets regularly cover the president and presidency up close .  .  .”

That means they decide who can attend press briefings, ride in the steerage section of Air Force 1 and more. The rate of destruction is accelerating.

Leadership I

Yes, Trump intends to replace ordinary, Constitution defending workers with people loyal only to Trump. That’s what he said he’d do.

Yes, Musk is a chainsaw wielding maniac, a racist and a thief.

Yes, it’s deplorable how cruelly and illegally our civil servants are being treated.

Yes, it’s immoral and homicidal to withhold food from starving people and medical aid from the sick.

Yes, it’s a blatant abuse and a prelude to grand larceny that Musk and his juvenile delinquent flying monkeys have your personal financial and other private information and they now control when and whether you receive your tax refund or your Social Security check.

Yes, it used to be unthinkable that funding for Alzheimer’s Disease research could be cut, but that’s exactly what Trump is doing.

All that is horrible, yet it’s relatively small ball. It misses the point, the big picture, the forest unseen because of the trees. We need crystal clear focus on the forest.

Trump told us he would be a dictator. He wants to do away with Congress, the courts, the press, freedom of assembly, everything and rule as dictator. I repeat: He told us.

Hitler dismantled Germany’s democracy in just 53 days of bullying and threatening members of the Reichstag to get them to prostrate themselves. As Trump is bullying and threatening our legislators and press, don’t you think it’s time we stopped pretending Trump might work within the bounds of our government when he is right now manufacturing an American dictatorship?

Lickspittle Republicans are using cowardly silence to allow Trump to take down of our democracy. It’s time we put banana peels under their shoes like these people did at a recent town hall in Georgia.

Focus on the BIG PICTURE:

  • TRUMP IS STEALING OUR COUNTRY FROM US
  • AND HE’S DOING IT IN PLAIN SIGHT!

Enough small ball, however important those issues truly are. There is an ongoing TrumpMusk revolution to stick our Constitution, our laws and our democracy into an incinerator. It’s time for us to fight back with a real American revolution to restore what our Founders fought a mad king for, what our Union military fought for, what our dough boys and our WW II Yanks fought for. It is time to stop the bad guys.

Russell Vought is the newly confirmed Director of the Office of Management and Budget, which is frightening because he is a chief architect of Project 2025, the Republican road map to dictatorship, the plan that Trump is executing right now.

Vought said,

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains … We want to put them in trauma.

Really? That’s the America you want, Oberführer Vought? We the People surely don’t want that.

Anne Applebaum put the actions of DOGE into perspective, writing,

DOGE has attacked at least 11 federal agencies that were embroiled in regulatory fights with Musk’s companies or were investigating them for potential violations of laws on workplace safety, workers’ rights, and consumer protection.

Does that sound like the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse? It sounds to me like Musk is trashing the legitimate agencies scrutinizing him and his companies. That’s what Chainsaw Musk can do when he controls government. That’s how Trump can get away with stealing classified documents and inciting an insurrection.

It is unacceptable to be immobile with hopelessness and frustration now. The battle call from the bugle of America is deafeningly loud and it is calling you and me. It is calling us to be in the streets with millions of patriots telling the cowardly Republicans that we demand that they find their spines, that they stand up and end this insanity. And that bugle tells them that if they fail to answer that call that we will discard them like rotting food waste.

Leadership II

We need national, inspirational leadership, so I wrote to my senators and representative:

Our democracy is in an existential moment – you know this. We need powerful, stand-out leadership, not policy wonks, and with few exceptions, we are presented with Democratic and Republican Party deafening silence. Where is that leadership? Where are you?

Feel free to copy, paste and send that message to your legislators. Find them on house.gov and senate.gov. Go there and click on the Contact button.

Leadership III

Hakeem Jeffries was on Rachel Maddow’s show on Monday and spoke with true bureaucratic zeal about policies House Democrats are pursuing. She replied by saying, in so many words, that what people want is not new policies, but inspiration and leadership. Maddow is right. Jeffries, for all of his fine qualities, doesn’t seem to be wired to provide what we need.

Who will step up in our hour of need?
.

Hey: What about Adam Kinzinger to lead our charge?

Not-So-Dear Elon:

Chainsaw Musk

It was announced by someone in the White House that you are now merely an advisor to the President. That means that you have no power or authority over anyone or any agency of our government. You have no license for your cruelty. Of course, you really never did.

Nevertheless, you sent an email to many thousands of our dedicated public servants, treating them like misbehaving school children, demanding that they justify their jobs or be fired. You required them to reply not later than last Monday night.

Turnabout is fair play, Chainsaw. Here is your requirement from America.

You will list not less that 5 actions you took in the last week that actually helped our country. You will justify your claims with actual facts, unlike the fatuous idiocy you commonly make up. You will email your information to [email protected] not later than midnight this Friday, February 28 so that your reply can be vetted and reported in the JaxPolitix Disambiguation on Sunday.

Failure to comply with this directive will result in you being fired from your non-job and banished from America forever. That will give We the People a reason to smile.

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

I Don’t Know It For a Fact – Plus “Shane”


POST 1151

CAUTION!

This post contains unrestrained snark. It is recommended that sensitive readers use only one eye and then, jeez, get over it.

Bill Maher has a satirical bit he does periodically entitled,

  • I Don’t Know It For A Fact.
  • I Just Know It’s True.

Here’s my offering in that format.

Click me for a better view

When he was 12 years old Trump was in a terrible car crash that damaged his brain, making him unable to think in any way but in terms of “what’s in it for me.” Also injured in that crash was his heart. Surgeons had to remove a major section of it, which made him permanently disabled, without the ability to care about others. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump is congenitally unable to think in strategic terms, only in a tactical, transactional way, and cannot express himself in any way but in word vomit. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

The next Trump Towers will be built in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riyadh, Budapest and – a long shot – Beijing, depending upon his effectiveness at sucking up to evil foreign dictators whose approval he craves. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump contracted a nearly fatal case of Severe Asshole Disease following a high stakes poker game he lost, but which to this day he insists he won. He claims that cards were switched, a terrible fraud! That trauma left him unable to think in any terms but taking money from others. Plus, it left him always feeling unjustly treated, a victim captured in the terror of the truth, that he’s a loser. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

As soon as Musk’s destruction of all government agencies is complete, Trump will fire him and sic the Justice Department on him for retribution, whining on Truth Social that Musk upstaged him repeatedly in the reality show that is Trump’s life. He will also persecute Musk’s kid, X, for being in the Oval Office, stealing some attention from Trump and having what he will call, “a stupid name.” Plus, he will call Musk infantile names like Muskrat and doo-doo head. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump read Mein Kampf and memorized Hitler’s speeches, which he kept on his nightstand. He practiced reciting them to his first wife, Ivana, believing that she would find that as erotic as he did. They had three children, but none after he began reciting those speeches to her. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Elon Musk loves apartheid and wants to bring it to America to subjugate all non-Aryans and take their money. Then he will cash in his Krugerrands, gold coins made from gold mined in near-slavery conditions by Black labor. He will use that as seed money for his next venture, making soylent green, which he intends to feed to his Black laborers. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Danger

In Steve Schmidt’s Presidents Day post, JD Vance is a fool on a ship of fools, he shares the words of Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert Jackson, who was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazis following WW II. Jackson said this in his closing argument:

Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.

Now we have in our president a puppet of Putin, who is a man, “in whom those [savage] forces now precariously survive.” Just ask Vladimir Zelenskyy about Putin’s savagery. Justice Jackson was right then and he’s still right. Worst of all, Trump has modeled himself after such evil despots.

Trump is fond of saying, “Only I can _____________.” You fill in the blank. Sometimes he’s right. Only Trump can lead the dismantling of the American order both at home and internationally, putting we and the world in terrible peril.

You know parts of the list of the dastardly, un-constitutional, illegal actions he’s taking and you have a bad taste in your mouth for the cruelty he’s unleashed on tens of thousands, now millions of Americans. What you must do with that is to see that it is all of a piece and not get your underwear in a bunch over just one or two issues. The point is that he is leading a coup to take sole control and ownership of all of America and pocket all our riches for himself.

Trump would be right to crow, “Only I” can do that. And he will do that unless you and I stop him. Now would be a fine time to do that stopping, because “Only we” can prevent Hitler II.

Quotes of the Week

“We’re going to lose our democracy,” said Sotomayor, unless Americans and “particularly” young people take steps to inform themselves well and combat the misinformation chaos created by the rise of the internet.

  • – Josh Sackheim FB post, Feb 12,
  • reporting on comments of
  • Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor
  • at Miami Dade College in Florida

The tumult is smoke. But don’t look away: The fire is a national takeover.

Who will stand up to Trump at high noon?

Indeed, who will do that? We’re looking for that leader.

Backbone

There is an Open Letter to Career Prosecutors, executed on Presidents Day, February 17, 2025. It is circulating now and you MUST read it. It is a cautionary message of support for our good and honorable prosecutors who are under attack from the Trump Justice Department for refusing to do wrong. It is a message of standing with and for these prosecutors as they stand with and for our Constitution and the rule of law. It is signed by over 900 former prosecutors.

The text of the letter ends,

“generations of former federal prosecutors are watching with pride and admiration and stand ready to support you in this honorable pursuit.”

Then come the names. 39 pages of the names of people with courage and integrity. People who then, now and always stand by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Read the letter. And in your heart, stand with them for our career prosecutors today.

Could we – you and I – do any less for our democracy? Not if we stand for something worthy.

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA

 


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

This Is Where The Bus Stops


POST 1150

Busses are community things. They aren’t personal transportation like a car. They are everyday exercises in sharing. Trains and commercial airplanes are that way, too. None of them takes us to the door step of where we want to go, but they’re pretty good at getting us within shouting distance. And because we each kick in a few bucks when we ride instead of having to pay the full price of transportation, busses are quite inexpensive for each individual. Cities cover some costs to set up and maintain the system – after all, someone has to buy the busses – and our taxes are where that money comes from.

For the purists of the “Gotta Blame and Hate Coalition,” the “We Got It Right and You’re Wrong” chest thumpers, we have to admit that these busses, the whole city system, really, is just as you accuse: socialism. By definition it’s all of us pitching into the commons for the common good, to do collectively what we cannot do individually.

It’s the same for public libraries, police and fire departments, medical research institutions, agencies that ensure that our food is safe, our armed forces that keep the foreign bad guys away – you get the idea. We just have to reach down deep and find the courage to admit that (gasp!) sometimes we cooperate with one another. O’ the daring to admit that there’s a place here for socialism and in those places there’s pretty good stuff for all of us! And take heart: it’s still okay to wave the red, white and blue, even with the evil of socialism all about.

Back to the busses

Some think that the bus system should be overhauled, maybe scrapped entirely. It sucks up peoples’ tax dollars, they say, and it really doesn’t get us where we want to go. It drops us off and requires us to walk the rest of the way, sometimes through rain or cold or blizzards of snow or blistering heat. No matter the weather, we are left on our own to trudge along, schlepping our schlepables, no matter their bulk or weight and no matter the distance we have to walk.

Some people want the bus to take them all the way to the doorstep of their destination. They want the convenience, comfort and safety of private transportation and they want it for the price of a bus token.

“Failing to take you where you want to go is a waste, a fraud on the public and it abuses the riders,” say the phony fiscal flying monkeys. “That,” they say, “is why we want to shut it down.”

Should they do their system annihilation, the rest of us will be instantly shipwrecked, of course, but those waste, fraud and abuse (“WF&A”) fighters will thump their chests in the ecstasy of their purity of cutting government costs, regardless of the harm they do to We the People. Some un-elected, unqualified, unhinged apartheid billionaire will jump up and down like a 3-year-old pretending to be a bunny rabbit and will likely get a Presidential Medal of Freedom delivered to him by the orange co-conspirator in steep mental decline.

The destroyers don’t offer a notion of what today’s bus riders are supposed to do to get to work or school or shopping when the fighters against WF&A get their way. The fighters don’t care because they get around in chauffeured limousines and are never limited to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

But that’s not how public transportation works because it can’t do that. So we have a solution. It’s called the bus stop. It’s a designated place where people go to get on a bus or to get off their bus. That is where the bus stops. Not at anyone’s house or where they work or shop. The bus stops are for all of us and we all know where the bus stops. We plan accordingly.

It’s pretty much that way for all of what government does. We do stuff collectively – for the commons – and that way the research gets done so that kids get vaccines and aren’t paralyzed from polio or killed by measles. Our military protects us from foreign bad guys, fire fighters show up to save your house, highways and city streets are built and maintained. Actually, our systems work pretty well.

The fighters of WF&A have wailed their accusations but their wailings are vacant and stupid because they haven’t identified any (as in: no) evidence of WF&A anywhere. They’ve shown no reason for wholesale butchering of our systems. No WF&A has been offered as evidence for the horrid abuse of our civil servants.

It’s okay to check for waste, fraud and abuse of the system. But overall, we like the system pretty well because it serves us well, doing what we want it to do. Look out your window and you’ll be able to see the little shelter where people board and depart their bus. That is where the bus stops. The system works.

So, We the People have a message for you WF&A guys, including the juvenile delinquent flying monkeys. Until you can find some evidence, some Earth 1 reason to change it,

GET THE F**K OFF OUR BUS!

In fact, we’re going to tell you that quite publicly over and over.

Demonstrations against the fascist thieves are scheduled for Presidents Day, tomorrow, Feb 17. That’s a really good day for millions of We The People across the country to take a stand.

Click here to find an action near you. If you don’t find something nearby, make one – there’s information for doing that at the same site. There’s a good chance a bus or a train can get you there.

REBEL!

A Bleak Anniversary

We just passed the 7th anniversary of the mass shooting murders at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. The murdered seniors would be 25 now. The massacre occurred on Valentine’s Day, 2018. Just days before this grotesque anniversary this year President Trump shut down the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Read Jim Acosta’s post, A Father’s Love for his Son Takes the Stage.

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

The Worst


POST 1149

A Partial List of Executive Order Destruction
  1. They’re cutting funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), slashing support for indirect costs associated with medical research. Good luck with that break-through treatment your baby needs to survive.
  2. They’re cutting funding for the CDC, which will be forced to stop preparations to deal with the next pandemic and the one after that. They’re cutting support to deal with opioid overdose prevention, too.
  3. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is being shut down, so we will no longer have warnings about dangerous weather.
  4. Even the sign has been taken off the USAID building, making it clear that the agency is so yesterday. We don’t care if babies die, tens of thousands succumb to HIV and China replaces us globally in the hearts and minds of millions so that they gain access to the resources we need.
  5. The Department of Education is set to receive the wrecking ball. Your children are already well behind where their parents were at the same age in reading, writing, science and the rest. The destruction of the DOE will ensure that their children – your grandchildren – will be even more ignorant. Plus, some of the DOE money will be redirected from public education to private schools via vouchers. Are you okay with your tax dollars going to the school at Our Lady of Grift, or the St. White Guy Patriarchy Academy?
  6. Musk has announced the imminent demise of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Apparently, we didn’t really need the $17 billion the agency recovered for We the People who were fleeced by fraudulent and predatory practices. We can look forward to a resumption of the days of wanton financial cheating and the emptying your wallet.
  7. Christian Nationalist Russell Vought was made director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is an author of Project 2025, which is a roadmap to destroying the Constitution and our government. To be fair, that wasn’t done by executive order. It was a cowardly Republican vote in the Senate for a decidedly anti-American extremist.
  8. Newly installed director of HHS Christi Noem, the, promo actress for her dentist, made a visit to Guantanamo, where Trump plans to dump 30,000 immigrants. They are possibly undocumented people who are possibly accused criminals who were possibly convicted. Trump explained, “We don’ do no stinkin’ vetting for nobody for nuthin’. Besides, they’re brown. We don’ need no dark people to mess with our White privilege and we don’ need no stinking rule of law or habeas corpus,* either.” Note that I did not follow the events of Noem’s visit, so I don’t know if she shot and killed any cute puppies while she was at Guantanamo.

Notice the resemblance,

especially in the dead eyes.

We’ve had 3 weeks of Trump flaunting the law. There have been lawsuits to stop him and he’s lost them all, but just as his Josef Goebbels (Stephen Miller) said about ripping babies from mothers’ arms at the border, “The cruelty is the point.”

The court system is a long, slow process. Some lawsuits may take years to conclude. Meanwhile, Trump will be getting away with lawlessness and harming people.

Trump has captured the public narrative (yet again) with his lawlessness and his unending torrent of verbal vomiting of fantasies and lies. The rule of law isn’t even a speed bump to him. As his advisor Steve Bannon advised, “Flood the zone with shit” and Trump is doing exactly that. It may be shit, but it’s a tsunami that overwhelms everything so fast that stopping him is more than a daunting task.

Saving the Worst For Last

I know that this has been a long year for you over just the past 3 weeks, but take a trip with me in the WayBack Machine. We’ll set the dials to take us to the thrilling days of yestermonth, when there was separation of powers, un-elected rich guys couldn’t stomp on your privacy, your financial well-being or the programs Congress had ordered. The rule of law, that quaint, old fashioned notion, was king and it applied to everyone, except fat, orange, mentally declining narcissists.  Even as there were people in black robes undermining the rule of law, there were guys with silver bullets enforcing it. But things have changed.

Now thousands of silver bullet guys have been fired as retribution for having enforced the rule of law. Replacements are being required to pledge themselves to the fat, orange, mentally declining narcissist, instead of to the Constitution and the rule of law. All executive department heads (or nominees) have similarly pledged their loyalty and have given away their integrity to that same fat, orange, mentally declining narcissist.

He is blatantly ignoring court orders and the separation of powers that for nearly 250 years has prevented us from being violated, dominated and sometimes terminated by a cruel despot, like mad King George III. And the stomping by an un-elected apartheid devotee and his hacker delinquents upon your privacy, your financial well-being and programs Congress ordered  continues. They are defying court orders. They even want to murder Big Bird. So do the Republicans in Congress.

In short, this president and his integrity-free operatives are daring anyone to stop them from taking sole power over the United States of America and strangling this country with fascism.

That’s the worst.

.

We cannot count on our self-neutering elected Democrats or the always-with-their-hand-out-for-contributions DNC to lead actions to stop the steal of our country, so it’s up to us – as in: you, me and the millions who recognize that injustices and wholesale attack on our nation and our people are underway.

Demonstrations are scheduled for Presidents Day, this Monday, Feb 17. That’s a really good day for millions of We The People across the country to take a stand.

Click here to find an action near you. If you don’t find something nearby, make one – there’s information for that at the same site.

Oh BTW – eggs are $10 a dozen. Didn’t Trump promise he’d make the price go down? Was that supposed to happen on day one? Did anyone tell the hens about all that?

RESIST!

Required Reading for Action

Read Robert Reich’s Feb 6 post, What You Can Do.

___________________________________________

* noun: habeas corpus

a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention. [emphasis mine – JA]
Source: OxfordLanguages

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Stupid Distractions and Stop The Steal


POST 1148

Ugly Highlights From Last Week

There is a cadre of Musk hacker delinquents playing larceny games within our Treasury Department in the form of making “extensive changes to the [Treasury Dept.] code base for the payment system.” To whose benefit do you suppose those “extensive changes” will accrue? Who will get slammed one way or another by the malfeasance of these flying monkeys, as directed by the dangerous crime spree mob boss, Secretary of the Treasury, Elon Musk.

Oh wait – DOGE is not a federal agency or department, Musk was never qualified by anyone for any post and he was never elected to anything. You have as much right to his phony DOGE job as he does, but he gave Trump $288 million so he’s controlling your money now.

Curiosity of the week:

Musk and his flying monkeys are eviscerating USAID as their first move. That’s happening as USAID was/is investigating Musk and his Starlink internet hardware and service, which somehow was being used by the Russians to attack Ukraine. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Musk’s delinquents – his storm troopers – invaded the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a first action to delete the agency that analyzes, predicts and warns us of dangerous weather conditions, including tornadoes, hurricanes and damaging winds and rain, all to keep us safe. That’s significant because it was recently discovered that a Sharpie cannot redirect a hurricane.

Musk intends to privatize the agency, giving away what we paid to establish and improve for 90 years, all to absolutely no benefit to We the People. Next he’s promised to eliminate the Departments of Education and Energy. It’s all so very Project 2025 to give away our assets to rich guys.

Trump earlier indicated that he plans to: invade Panama in order to retake and own the canal; make Canada our 51st state; and somehow acquire Greenland.

Now Trump says he’s going to send our troops to Gaza, ethnically cleanse all Gazans from the area and develop Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Surely, there will be a Trump Tower there and the whole area will be renamed Gaz-a-Lago or Trump Mediterranean.*

But,

– He isn’t going to send troops, take over Gaza and build a Middle East vacation spot for rich people.

– He isn’t going to annex Canada. He isn’t even going to impose a tariff that sticks. He’s already backed down. Same for Mexico.

– He isn’t going to acquire Greenland or the Panama Canal.

It’s all nothing more than fraudulent, flapping lips of distraction so that we won’t see his traitorous coup.**

It’s about the neutering of our law enforcement, dismantling of our intelligence agencies for the outright theft (or at least control) of our Treasury Department money and Trump’s power over the entire country.

This is the biggest burglary (now in progress) in the history of the world.
.

His packed courts and hobbled FBI won’t do anything to stop him. This will continue as long as we are willing accomplices through our silence or our refusal to see what is before us.

And he’s aided and abetted by siccing techno-grifters on the nation. Read this.

Stop the Steal

Not that phony stop the steal. This one.

There were rallies/demonstrations all over America last week The one in front of the Treasury Department in DC had about 1,000 protesters. We’ll need a lot more actions. Here’s a short list.
.

Constant protests, lots of them, likely requiring leaders of various NGAs to set aside ego and coordinate efforts (see below). The people’s power is in our numbers.

A blizzard of lawsuits filed at the federal, state and municipal levels – constant pressure. Who’s a lawyer you know who will suit up for this battle?

A blizzard of communication to every Republican coward in elected office. Tell them constituents are working hard to fire them. As well, reach out to Democrats to let them know what we expect from them and that we have their backs.

Public communication – ads, commercials, social media videos, etc. – about how American citizens have been hurt by the Trump/Musk/Republican cabal of oligarchs. Tell the stories of real people; e.g. women who couldn’t get health care and then bled to death from miscarriages; new cases of polio and other diseases for which there are proven safe, effective vaccines, but which RFK discourages, resulting in sick, paralyzed kids; people – including our FBI agents – injured or killed by pardoned Jan 6 perps. This is key to success and Democrats suck at communication.

Civil disobedience, culminating in a national labor strike to include all but necessary safety, health and national security personnel.

You and I can do all of that or, at the very least, we can appeal to people who can. Do you know a leader of an activist organization like Moms Demand Action, Indivisible, MoveOn, Our Revolution, Leaders We Deserve, Country First or any other? Call them. Text them. Email them. Tell them to join with other organizations to fight by using the power of a massive number of Americans.

My boyhood pal Frank Levy is a most impatient activist. We should all be that way now. Here’s his call to action.

What 47 and Musk are doing is a threat to many if not all Americans. As Heather Cox Richardson said in her February 5 Letters From an American, quoting Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), “It is extraordinary how much access Elon Musk and his sort of creepy 22-year-old henchmen have to all of our data.” Musk and his vigilante kid demons have no idea what damage they are causing. They now have the ability to cut off all Social Security checks and IRS refund checks and spy on the bank account information of most Americans.*** So, what can we do about it?

We can stand up, speak up and act up. How? If every individual who voted for Kamala and Tim went on strike for two days and rallied together on the steps of their state capitol it would shake cowardly 47 and let everyone in his government know that “We are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore.” [I’ll add that millions in red states are mad as hell, too. This isn’t what they voted for. – JA]

Fighting back is simple. It does take courage, resilience and a determination to resist. But this is on us. Our future is in our hands. We cannot count on the feckless Democrats to help. We are on our own.

I’m calling for a national two-day strike to occur on Thursday and Friday, February 20 and 21, 2025. Who will join me?

In the 60s we used to chant “Power to the people!” This is a good time to renew the call.

For Anyone Who Missed the Message

Trump 2.0 is a profound, ongoing betrayal of America and everything that has made this remarkable nation the most powerful and prosperous in the world. It is why we must fight.

– Simon Rosenberg, Hopium Chronicles, Feb 6, 2025

REBEL!

____________________________________________

* Republican idiot (redundant?) Nancy Mace, in flagrante Trump suck-up form, said, “Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago,” thus securing her place with Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan and a few more Republicans as the dumbest rocks at the bottom of the bucket. The rest of the Republicans aren’t dumb. Rather, they are cowardly hypocrites, bought off by a threat and for a few baubles tossed on the ground before them.

** Read Prof. Timothy Snyder’s post, Of Course It’s a Coup and Sheila Markin’s post, Trump and Musk Smash and Grab.

*** Just a guess, but I suspect that to Musk’s delinquents this diabolical rewiring of our Treasury Department is not much more than a video game played to win a pat on the head from Musk. It gets the rest of us suffering and even death.

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Who Will Lead?


POST 1147

Who’s Behind This Debacle

It isn’t just Führer Dummkopf that’s the problem. It’s his 25 million rabid dupe-dopes who love to kill anything in their way.

the willfully and proudly ignorant

the homicidally angry and hateful

the ones who get their sense of power from hatred and harming others

the sleep walking MAGA lemmings and sheep

the spineless hypocrites

the happily propagandized

the testosterone manipulated puff-ups

the reality deniers

the vacuously self-deluded

the “I Love Cruelty” mob

the lazy couch crouchers

the couldn’t-be-bothered-to-think crowd

the “Who cares about you?” narcissists

the “true patriots” who hate Americans

the descendants of immigrants who hate immigrants, whether documented or not

the believers in a mythical “Great Again” that never was

.  .  .  because they brought us this ongoing Trump destruction of our democracy, the abandonment of the rule of law, the upcoming raid on our treasury, the vicious attacks on We the People, this Republican assault on their obviously-not-sacred-to-them oath to the Constitution of We the People.

Click me

What we’re left with is figuring out how to turn them from the St. MAGA gospel of hatred to something more in line with what Jesus would direct, although they obviously didn’t get the message from Sunday school. Clearly, they never read what the Founders had to say about Christianity as a national religion.

Historical note: They said, “Nuh-uh.” You can look it up in the Federalist Papers or in the First Amendment.

Reconciliation with these people seems nearly unachievable and there is no Mandela on the horizon. But perhaps we can reach the 50 million casual Trump voters to partner to restore our country to its 250-year order. We’re way late getting started and we’re going to need the right leader to battle and beat this existential threat.

Job Qualifications & My Nominee

We need a leader with the brilliance of mind to provide us with clarity for the actions we can and must take. We need a leader with the passion to inspire us to the full measure of our patriotism. We need a leader who is wise and compassionate, who will walk with us and who knows right from wrong,

I’ve been watching and listening for that leader. I see many good people, but most have a hole in their personal résumé, They are smart, but dry and without charisma. Or they have the passion, but not the brilliance needed.

Click me – but read Note #5 below first

This is about leading an army of patriotic Americans in opposition to the would-be fascist totalitarians. This is about giving voice and direction to We The People and doing so with no intention of personal gain. This is about who will stand and declare, “THAT WAY!” Who qualifies for that job?

My nominee is Barack Obama. He’s brilliant, charismatic, clear, inspiring and has no aspirations for political advantage for himself. He has experience as a community organizer and as the leader of our nation and he has the cred to call out the self-serving, the pompous, the liars and the hood-winkers. And he stands for hope and change – he wrote a book about it. Plus, it will be absolutely delicious to watch Trump crumble under truth delivered by the victim of his scum bag birther lies.

Maybe you have a fine nominee. Great, tell us. Let’s pick one and draft him/her. The time to start was yesterday.

  • REBEL!

Follow Up to Dec. 22 POST 1132, Our Problem

In that piece I ripped Democrats for being AWOL in the midst of our existential battle and I stand by that description. One thing that post did not cover is the critical analysis of what should have been done to win hearts, minds and votes and what must be done next time we have a chance to put banana peels under the shoes of the fascist traitors. Fortunately, Ira Leavit offers us some help in his recent post, Blue Voters Need Something to Believe In – Something Big.

Voters care exclusively for what they decide for themselves is important to them. That’s a lesson that Democrats desperately need to learn and Ira gives us an idea of what that might look like. Have a read.

Next, be sure to read Thom Hartmann’s piece If Obama Had Sent a Mob to Kill a Cop, Republicans Would Never Let You Forget It – The GOP would be screaming “Cop Killer” every single day — so why aren’t Democrats holding Trump to the same standard? It’s a brilliant and clear outline of how to win hearts, minds and votes.

Sarcasm Corner

So glad that Führer Trump is gutting the FBI. Those people are a poison to our national blood for having pursued accountability for homicidal criminals, catching der Führer’s “fine people” and sending them to prison. Besides, we don’t need the FBI to pursue law breakers or terrorists or those plotting massive deaths of Americans anymore now that we have a new sheriff in town. He’ll stop ISIS with one hand tied behind his massive ass.

At last someone is eliminating USAID. We don’t care if millions of babies overseas die because, hey, they aren’t Americans. Let ’em drop. Same for people with malnutrition, malaria  or HIV. We shouldn’t have to feed them or provide life saving drugs. Let the Chinese pay the bill.

And those DEI hires at the FAA – cut ’em loose and give those air traffic controller jobs to White Christian men who made it through the 7th grade.

I’m so glad that unqualified, unelected, unhinged Elon Musk has access to and control of all government payments and has your Social Security number, too. Now all government can be shut down and eliminated and Trump will be in sole control of what’s left. It’s the greatest national security breach in U.S. history – you’ve never seen anything like this before. Take a back seat, Edward Snowden, to the Trump/Musk fascist victory! Just hoping we’ll get our Social Security checks from whatever privatized company Trump/Musk gives the agency and its money to. And we can only hope that people who are not fabulously rich can get health care somewhere, somehow. What could possibly go wrong?

And they’re about to eliminate the Department of Education. That’s good, because ignorant citizens are easier to manipulate.

There’s super labor saving now, too, because there’s no longer a need to think long term. We Americans like things simple, no matter how complex they actually are. Now RFK will bring us horrendous diseases, Bondi will bring us prosecutions of the innocent and will allow Trumpy felons to skate free. Patel will allow and encourage violent crimes by crippling our national law enforcement agency. Hegseth will threaten our friends with our military and ignore atrocities done by our not-friends. Rubio will sway whichever way the wind blows. It’s all good.

Boy, this is going really well.

For The Pardoned and Commuted Sentence Felons

My wish is for you to call or write to those you threatened with retribution and death. Apologize to them and beg for forgiveness as an act of contrition. It will be your first step back toward the world of democracy, decency and the worthiness of being called a fellow citizen. Plus, maybe you can start on the road from being just a performative Christian to becoming an actual Christian. You know, like Jesus said you should be.

Until then you’re just a criminal thug.

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Un-American – Extra Urgent!


POST 1146

You know about the tsunami of Trump’s attacks on our government and our Constitution. His is a multi-pronged assault designed to destroy everything we care about, to “tear it all down.”

Vague policy explanations of the reasons to oppose and abhor this danger are insufficient to convey the urgency. This needs to be expressed in “This is how it affects you” terms. Heather Cox Richardson has crafted that for you  in an easy to understand, if painful to read, explanation.

So, this post is essentially hers. Read her essay. Take your time and feel the enormous drive to fascism that is advancing and taking everything away from us. You’ll see that Trump and his billionaire suck-ups are working to make this country into a monster, the likes of which we have fought against in hot wars and in a decades long cold war. This cadre of self-serving oligarchs is creating exactly what your values say are evil and un-American.

Project 2025 is the playbook Trump denied knowing about but he is following it to the letter. You can read a full, Mein Kampf-worthy version here. If instead you want a translation into truthful English of this manifesto for the destruction of our country, the ACLU has that for you.

This war on America is complex and difficult to stop. There are many brave people already fighting it, but there is no assurance that truth, justice and the American way will prevail.

Our standing on the sidelines watching others carry the fight is a losing strategy. Waiting for disaster to befall us before doing our part is nothing less than conceding defeat in advance.

Go read Richardson’s piece right now. Then get in the fight.

REBEL!

  • _______________________________
  • We’ll need a great leader for this. Coming Wednesday: Who Will Lead?

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

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