"Under continuous construction"

Behavior

An Update – With Questions


POST 1249

ICE Murders

Intending no disrespect, Renee Nicole Good is still dead. That’s the way it is when an ICE thug shoots someone in the face or shoots them pretty much anywhere else. It isn’t a movie and the actors don’t get to go home. Renee Nicole Good is and will remain dead and her children will remain orphans.

That was said to make it clear that she isn’t a statistic or an avatar. She was a real person just like you and me and now she’s dead because of ICE brutality directed by Donald “Shaky Brain” Trump, Stephen “Goebbels” Miller, Christi “Puppy Killer with a Rolex” Noem and Pam “President’s Hit Man” Bondi.

It doesn’t get more real or more permanent than dead, and our titular leaders don’t give a damn about that or anything important to you, like your life, just as they don’t care about Renee Good losing hers.

Two more innocents were gunned down by Border Patrol last week in Portland, OR, so it seems right to do a count of the deaths by our immigration thugs. Here’s what I found from Google AI.

Since January 1, 2017, ICE has reported that 70 people have died in its custody. [Note that we don’t know how many have died in the El Salvador torture prison.]

Independent reports suggest a higher potential number, with a 2024 analysis by the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, and American Oversight finding that 95% of 52 deaths in ICE custody between 2017 and 2021 were potentially preventable with adequate medical care. 
.

A report by The Trace revealed that between 2015 and 2021, 59 shootings by ICE officers resulted in 23 fatalities. [We must have had a lot of domestic terrorist drivers who tried to run down ICE agents in those years.]

More recent reports from late 2025 and early 2026 indicate a notable increase in the use of force.
.
During the current Trump second term, federal immigration agents have shot at civilians at least 16 times, resulting in four deaths and at least seven injuries, according to a data analysis. [all emphasis original]
.
None of the deaths of incarcerated people were of White guys. But most, maybe all, of the deaths of protesters gunned down by ICE were White. Make of that what you will.
Questions

Do you feel safer?

Is our nation safer?

Is it okay for a vigilante quality posse of goons to shoot law abiding people?

Is this the kind of country you expected or want?

Did you vote for this? This question will make a lot of people twist their innards. Guilt is a terrible thing.

More Pesky Questions

Have you noticed that nearly all the Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE – action is happening hundreds to thousands of miles from our borders, where there is no immigration going on?

Can we now stop pretending that what is going on has anything to do with the enforcement of our immigration laws?

Can we now publicly declare that our officially designed domestic terrorism is actually about racial domination in pursuit of White racial purity? You know: like superior Aryan purity?

Playing With Numbers

It’s clear that making this a White Christian nation is a key priority of Trump, MAGA and most super rich guys. So, what would it look like if we removed all those pesky “others”?

We’re already well on the way to expelling all Brown and Black people. People with Somali ancestry are obviously next to be imprisoned and expelled, even though between 70 and 83% of them are U.S. citizens and most others are here legally. But this is the Trump era, so those numbers are no impediment to ICE thuggery.

Muslims, Jews and Asians will likely be next. I have no clue what they’ll do with/to Native Americans. Since Trump likes Andrew Jackson so much, maybe there will be another Trail of Tears that leads to deportation vehicles.

The population of the country is about 348 million, so when we get rid of the 60% of unwelcome non-White, non-Christian “others” the population will be about 139 million.

That leaves me wondering who will do all the jobs that those disappeared people are doing now. What will Trump do with all the vacant rooms in his hotels? What will be our sense of ourselves? Don’t ask me because I won’t make the cut. I’ll be looking for a country to live in.

Three Questions

Who will remove Emma Lazarus’ poem from the base of the Statue of Liberty?

The last line to each stanza of the Star Spangled Banner is “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave,” just as Francis Scott Key wrote it. Who will compose a revised last line that both rhymes and reflects our new and deeply compromised freedom and bravery?

When Trump has Arlington National Cemetery dug up to build the “Nobody has ever seen anything like this” Trump U.S. National Golf Course, what will he do with the 430,000 caskets and headstones of all those “suckers and losers”? How will the caskets and headstones be kept properly paired?

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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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

You Knew This Was Coming


POST 1247

ICE thugs have been brutalizing people both verbally and physically for a year. The crowds of protesters have confronted them and have somehow stayed peaceful in the face of ICE brutality and illegality.

Now a mother in Minneapolis is dead at the hands of an ICE agent holding a gun like he thinks he’s Rambo. Trump and his mouthpieces claimed the ICE thug was afraid for his life, but video of the scene puts the lie to that. The real issue, though, is that he should never have been where he was and doing what he was doing.

This is Donald Trump’s Gestapo, crafted by his chief Nazi, Stephen Miller. It is Trump’s national private police, made up of people desperate to feel strong, needing to feel in charge of themselves for once and basking in the glow of receiving a pat on the head from someone in authority. Thanks to megalomaniac Trump these people are unrestrained by law, justice or even simple decency. They are the American SS.

They abuse people who may possibly be guilty of a misdemeanor but likely aren’t, like overstaying a visa. They abuse people born in this country and who are, therefore, citizens of the U.S. by order of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. They abuse legal residents, like visiting nurses and college students. But all of these people are treated by ICE like they’re heinous criminals who have been convicted of the most terrible crimes. Committing offenses against humanity is the ICE marching order. It’s designed to terrify all of us into compliance.

It was just a matter of time before there would be unjustifiable violence*. I mean, really, they recruited thousands of low character men craving some justification for acting out their anger, gave them face masks, uniforms without identification and guns. They put them in black, unmarked vehicles and told them they have quotas to meet and that isolating the right suspects is unimportant. Just lock up bodies. I wonder how many of them are the very same January 6 insurrectionists who are traitors to our country. How many of them do you suppose are Proud Boys or Oath Keepers? Bear in mind that Hitler recruited his Gestapo from prisons and recruited violent criminals.

Oh, and they made these thugs above the law, untouchable and all powerful over state and local officials and law enforcement.

WHAT THE HELL

DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN?

.

This ICE murder in Minneapolis is one of several ICE murders – two more in Portland yesterday. And you know that Trump, Miller and Noem all lied about the Minneapolis murder in less than an hour. They lie reflexively, automatically, pathologically – and they will call this and any other violence a reason to send our military to Democratic (blue) cities to enforce martial law. You know that they’ll call for yet more brutal actions and they will spew yet more vile lies about law abiding people – like your neighbors or even you.

With the invasion of a sovereign nation and the kidnapping of its president; the lionization and pardoning of January 6 terrorist insurrectionists, calling them heroes and patriots; with the justice-free Department of Justice; most especially with the astonishing cowardice of the Republicans in Congress; with the six extremist Justices of the sycophantic Supreme Court; Trump hopes he will have redirected us away from the Epstein matter so that we won’t find out about the crimes he committed and he’ll thereby escape accountability.

But we won’t forget the violation of those little girls. We won’t allow them to be abandoned again. And we won’t allow justice to be perverted for the benefit of rich perverts.

See Andy Borowitz’s 9 second read about Minneapolis.

And if you want clarity about what is happening to America and Americans, see Rick Wilson’s 3-minute read, Stephen Miller’s Murder Machine – Murder and Lies in Minneapolis.

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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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Doing “Things”


POST 1245

Preface: Nearly all of this post was written prior to the American invasion and kidnapping done in Venezuela yesterday. Consequently, there are just a few comments about that particular dog wagging and lawbreaking included here. We will do a deeper dive soon. Meanwhile, keep your eye on the prize.

Click me for the story by The Onion. My preferred caption for all of the posed pictures of Trump signing an executive order is, “Look! Look! I made a boom-boom!”

We the People are an endlessly clever and creative band and we relentlessly ridicule those who have earned and richly deserve our contempt and shaming. The year just past provided non-stop material for satire and verbal punches in the nose to our national abusers of decency, the law, the Constitution and even rational thinking. A few favorites are sprinkled in this post.

First, though, please accept my thanks for reading these posts and sometimes commenting on them. We all can do our part in this war to stop fascism, to protect and defend our Constitution, our democracy and our way of life and to restore decency to its place at the forefront of our cherished values. These posts are part of my modest effort to do just that. Indeed, when you see a message in these posts encouraging you to share them and to encourage others to subscribe (one more time: it is still and will remain a freebie!) it’s for the purpose of stretching the reach of the message from those of us who think democracy is a pretty good thing worthy of our collective moral muscle, to those who need our encouragement.

This particular post is less my words than direction to the brilliance of others. We start with the year end post of Prof. Heather Cox Richardson.

Click me

She brings context and points a finger at the guilty responsible for so many deeply destructive, anti-Constitutional and outright illegal things that have happened since January 20. Most examples are blood boilers, preludes to full-on fascism, but some really good stuff happened, too, like judicial decisions that pinned Trump’s ears back. Those are fun.

Many commentaries are persuasive, yet most often we’re left not knowing what to do to make the change we want to come about. Turns out some people can help fill that “huh?” hole.

For example, Robert Reich published 10 Crucial Things You Can Do in 2026 and it’s a really good list. You’ll know how to do every one of those “things”.

Here’s one of my “things”.

Are you on the fence about mean girl puppy murderer and poser in front of men illegally jammed into a torture prison at her direction, Christie Noem? Should she be removed from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security?

First, Watch this little video of Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (IL-3) as she skewers Noem by detailing her lies, her law breaking and her joyful cruelty. Then decide a proper fate for her.

Next, call your representative and senators and demand that they oust this talent-less Eva Braun by means of a humiliating impeachment. That’s a “thing” you can do.

Now Some Bitter, Well-Earned Congratulations:

Watch and listen to Jesse Welles’ message about recruiting ICE thugs. If you want more to make you think, click here.

– to the many millions of Americans who voted for Trump and who have lost their Obamacare subsidy so that their healthcare insurance now costs more than double what it cost last week. That will make it completely impossible for millions to get insurance at all and they will be relegated like so many to only the hospital emergency room for healthcare, including for their children. Millions of them live in red states and they didn’t vote for this to happen.

– to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and legal residents who have been unjustly thrown to the ground, handcuffed, their faces mashed into the pavement, thrown into unmarked vans and either imprisoned or deported, all without an arrest warrant or even reasonable suspicion of any wrongdoing. It sucks to be an American with fascists in power and only the sociopaths voted for this.

– to the millions of kids who now go hungry because of the cruel withholding of SNAP benefits, a huge proportion of which used to go to families in red states. Again, they voted for Trump, but they didn’t vote for this to happen.

Grifting with Jesus

– to all the dozens of Venezuelans who have been illegally murdered at sea and now on land, but who were never formally accused of, incarcerated for, convicted of or sentenced for any crime.

– to all of us for our windfall benefit created by Trump’s piracy at sea of at least two oil super tankers filled with Venezuelan oil.

– to the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have died of starvation or lack of inexpensive medicines because Trump ended the USAID program.

– to all of us for the blatant crushing under heel of the First Amendment on Christmas day by Trump and various departments of what’s left of our government. “If lawmakers could destroy the right of freedom of conscience, they could destroy all other unalienable rights. Those in charge of government could throw representative government out the window and make themselves tyrants.” Read Heather Cox Richardson for this sad story.

Maybe you’d prefer an upside down Bible from the steps of St. John’s Church.

– to the terrorist cult of MAGA for its cheering Trump auctioning off a hastily painted Jesus, where he announced through his actions yet again that there is no bottom. There is nothing so undignified, so clownishly demeaning of our country that Trump will refuse the opportunity to grab it by its septic tank and tarnish our nation before the world.

– to Merrick Garland and his timid DOJ for epic, even galactic foot dragging, thereby refusing to enforce our laws. That allowed Trump to run in and win the 2024 election. See William A. Finnegan’s take down of what happened. This story will gnarl your innards yet again over the DOJ cowardice that enabled the current, ongoing destruction of our Constitution and blatant lawlessness, every bit as much as our lap dog Republican Congress has enabled that through the same cowardice.

Yes, really

– to the people of Venezuela for losing their country to Donald Trump. He’s made it clear that he admires and wants to be like Vladimir Putin, invading a sovereign nation, bombing facilities and killing its citizens. Trump has gone even farther by kidnapping its leader. Now he’s just like Putin. Maybe worse.

NOTE: Don’t be distracted. This invasion and kidnapping have nothing to do with drugs, democracy, elections or how bad or how illegitimate is Maduro as president of Venezuela. It is about the massive reserves of oil beneath that country and what that’s worth to Trump. That’s why we’ll “run the country.” Plus it’s a first step toward domination of all of South America and maybe Greenland, because Trump desperately needs to show what a strongman he is.

– finally, congratulations to us, for our dog being wagged relentlessly by yet another illegal Trump military distraction. But We The People will not let the Epstein scandal go away and Trump will get what he is due.

You know that this congratulatory list could be very long and you understand the sarcasm. You get that we cannot – we must not – tolerate more of this, which means that you and I must take action because our dire circumstances have become worse. Whatever you and I are doing, it isn’t enough. This is a great and lasting task before us. But, what to do? Try this to jump start your engine:

  • I can’t vouch for the claimed connection to anyone named Van Gogh, but the message is clear and compelling. There is a blank page before us waiting for what’s next in our story of democracy and it is our honor to write that story.

I repeat: Whatever you and I are doing, it isn’t enough. But we can do “things” and keep on doing “things”.

Many, many thanks to all who step up, do “things” and carry a load for the sake of all of us.

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    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!), because 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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

A New Year Wish For You


POST 1244

A long time ago, yet not seeming to be so long past, Marilyn and I married. Without planning to do so, we began traditions of our own, not quite like hers and not quite like mine.

Our children, grandchildren and more gather every year and one thing we do is to plan a family philanthropy project. That, of course, is an opportunity to reach beyond ourselves and be of service to others, as well as being a good and fundamental teaching for the young ‘uns and even a good reminder for the old ‘uns.

And we do a holiday talent show, with everyone getting their very own time to shine, 3 minutes to entertain us all with dancing, singing, a magic trick, showing a complex, hands-on project – whatever each of us chooses to show and tell. It’s great fun, with lots of laughs and high energy applause and cheering.

This year a grandson sang Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and I heard the song in a way that was different and far more valuable than before. Here’s the lyric that changed things for me:

Through the years
We all will be together
If the fates allow

But the fates don’t always allow. They may for a while, but they likely will have things in store for us that we cannot or will not see, until at last we can no longer avoid the reality that we will not always be together. We are left to deal with the absences.

All religions have their holy things, their holy rituals, their holy incantations and their divines. But this year our grandson led me to something holy that might have been obvious long ago, but I got it clearly and in full measure just now.

To me what is most valuable, most enduring to the heart and most dear and holy is my family, together. That’s holy.

And so I wish you not just a happy new year, but a holy one, wherever you find holy, perhaps with your dear ones, whether they are near or far.

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Behavior Geek


POST 1241

A Disambiguation Science Moment

Today, the winter solstice, is not the shortest day of the year. In fact, there is no shortest day of the year. They’re all the same length: 24 hours; 86,400 seconds. What this actually is that is noteworthy is the day of this year with the shortest duration of daylight. Conversely, it’s the day with the greatest duration of dark sky.

But you knew that. Here’s another way to look at it.

Starting today, we’ll gain between 1 and 3 minutes per day until the summer solstice on June 21. Consider that we can shed more and more light on reality all next year to influence our November 3 election to create more sanity in our federal and state governments.

More light. It’s a good thing.

We Start Here

Machiavelli told us long ago, it matters far more what people think of you than what the reality is. And we are experts at manipulating our self-presentation [and] we are so good at it that we actually believe the nonsense we say to other people.

– Bill Moyers interview of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, 2012

Haidt was talking about all of us, but this was pre-Trump. The concern today is about our not-so-dear president, his sycophants and his millions of supporters. They actually believe the nonsense they say.

And the concern is also about the cavers, the ones who sell themselves out for a short term gain. The reason for our concern is the terrible effect they have on our nation and on each of us individually, including their attack on values we all claim to hold but which are sold out by so many.

We learned during Trump 1.0 that when he says outrageous, incendiary, un-American things that he’s telling us what he actually will do, including breaking the law. Oddly, many are surprised.

Click me

“We’re shocked, shocked, to find that there is crime being done in and from the White House!” It’s a Captain Renault moment in America, over and over.

To mix metaphors probably way too much, we really did know what that snake was when we picked him up, so there should be no surprise at all. Horror? Fear? Blood running cold? Sure. But not surprise.

Perhaps what is more shocking is the capitulation done by people who had no need to capitulate. The knee benders. The ring kissers. The simple greedy bastards. The ones who obey in advance.

From Wikipedia:

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (“Paul Weiss”) is the sole law firm targeted by an executive order that did not sue the administration and instead made a deal with the administration to avoid sanctions and restore access [to federal courts].

In addition to Paul Weiss, eight other firms made preemptive deals with Trump to avoid being similarly targeted by executive orders. As part of the settlements, the nine law firms have agreed to provide a total of $940 million in pro bono work to efforts supported by the president. Plus, they and many others each agreed to Trump’s extortion plan that they “donate” $16 million to Trump’s presidential library, for which there is neither a location nor architectural plans.

Trump doesn’t read and his only book is Mein Kampf, so there will be no need for book shelves, nor file cabinets for documents in a Trump library, were it to be built. Likely, there would only be his greatest hits album detailing his tough guy speeches and reruns of The Apprentice shown in a gold and white theater.

Columbia University went completely paws up to Trump when he pulled $400 million in federal funding from them. To get him off their back they relinquished control of their programs, their classes and even their selection of students and faculty.

What they and so many others have in common is that they have ignored Timothy Snyder’s messages from On Tyranny – 20 Lessons From The Twentieth Century. Here’s a sampling. Note that the comments below are mine, not Snyder’s.

Lesson No. 1: Do Not Obey In Advance. Don’t do what you think the bully wants you to do, perhaps hoping to curry favor. Doing so is surrendering without even an objection, much less a fight. It’s voluntarily going paws up. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damn bully in the face. Hard.

Lesson No. 2: Defend institutions. Tyrants want to smash them, disempower them so that they can control everything and everyone. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damn bully in the face. Hard.

Lesson No. 5: Remember professional ethics. Refuse to succumb to directives ordering discrimination and violation of your oaths. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damn bully in the face. Hard.

There is more, of course, but it all comes down to taking a stand protecting and defending what must be protected and defended, like the Constitution. Failure to do so is nothing but caving in, hoping you’ll quickly get out of the crosshairs of the bully and will be able to do so on the cheap. The best that can be said about that is that it is astonishingly short sighted and self-deluding.

When a little kid has a temper tantrum and you give him what he wants, hoping to shut him up, you’ve trained him to come back in full tyrant form and demand more. That’s what happens to those who are quick sell-outs to bullies. The bullies take your lunch money the next day, too. Don’t be an idiot. Put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damn bully in the face. Hard.

And that’s the message that so many should have heard and heeded. Trump’s threatened lawsuits would have been easy to defeat in court because his actions weren’t defensible. His style is to make capitulation the cheapest exit from his bullying. But there really is no exit for those who cave and ultimately it isn’t cheap.

There are many short-term thinkers, like the bullies who became ICE thugs. Trump found a cheap hook to recruit them – a $50,000 signing bonus – and then he owned them. He told them to bully, beat, gas, shoot and assault people indiscriminately – strangers, fellow citizens, neighbors – anyone even a little brown – and to pay no attention to whether they were U.S. citizens or legal residents and to essentially ignore whether they were criminals or not. Trump got his national thug army and set them a-thugging. The goal wasn’t about crime. It was and is to terrorize the country so that he could rid the country of non-Whites using illegal immigration as a cover story. Plus he’d get to cow all of us into submission.

And these ICE thugs stepped up to collect their checks and then started beating up innocent people. When Trump is gone and sane people are back in charge – like when we once again remember and invoke our common values – look for prosecutions of all the bullies.

For these and others, the day will come when they are in deep, deep trouble, maybe anguish, because they gave up, sold out on the cheap for their greed and for their lust for power until nothing was left. They will look for strength deep inside and will find an empty vacuum where their souls used to be.

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

You’re A Pirate!


POST 1239

Yes You!

On September 2, 2025 the Secretary of Defense (he prefers “Secretary of War – it’s more chest poundingly tough guy sounding) Six Gun Pete Hegseth had a special day. It started with spotters finding a non-military open boat, apparently from Venezuela, in international waters. It was powered by engines commonly used for water skiing and was carrying 11 people. Six Gun Pete ordered the boat to be blown up, same as he had done to others over the prior weeks, killing nearly 90 people.

Without so much as a whiff of evidence he claimed that the boat had been  carrying illegal drugs. But even if there had been drugs:

  1. The boat hadn’t been headed for the United States, 1,200 miles away and traveling in a different direction, so the U.S. had no authority to intervene.
  2. The standard protocol for handling a situation where contraband is suspected is interdiction by the Coast Guard, not murder.

Nine of the 11 people aboard that small boat were killed by a U.S. missile. That left a vexing problem for the head of our “Department of War.” There were two survivors of that U.S. missile attack. They were clinging to floating parts of the destroyed boat and were, by any notion of reality, shipwrecked survivors. They were non-combatants completely unable to be a danger to anyone. Had there been illegal drugs on board their boat, they couldn’t have delivered them anywhere because they had no boat; just flotsam. They were harmless corks in the ocean, leaving Hegseth the task of deciding what to do with them. Maritime law said that they must be rescued.

Instead, our valiant War Czar made the brave call: “Kill them all!” he announced with manly vigor about people who had done no harm to the U.S. or to any Americans.

So, on Hegseth’s order, Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley issued the order to kill those two men bobbing in the ocean. Another missile was fired and they immediately stopped being survivors.

There was no longer a legal threat to Hegseth that would have arisen had they instead been rescued and brought to the United States for a pesky habeas corpus thing. That was good for Hegseth, because in a trial he would have had to produce evidence of drugs aboard that boat. He would have had to demonstrate that the drugs were bound for the veins of Americans. But Hegseth had no such evidence. His tough guy deception and lies could go unchallenged just by killing those 2 helpless guys bobbing like corks in the ocean. So, that’s what he did.

We were not and are not at war – at least we are not in a declared war or a war authorized by Congress. Clearly, then, the killing of those 11 people could not be acts of war. It was instead cold blooded murder, ordered by Six Gun Pete Hegseth.

We don’t know if the president ordered Hegseth to do that, but it seems more than likely that he did, since he always needs to appear to be the Tough-Guy-in-Chief. Wanton murder is one of the things that pirates do, but this story has become more blatantly criminal and more obviously a foul tale of piracy since September 2.

On December 10 your president ordered that an unarmed merchant oil tanker sailing from Venezuela be boarded and commandeered by U.S. forces. The ship was not bound for the U.S. and no evidence of materials that could be used to harm the U.S. has been presented as justification for the assault. Here’s where Trump’s official policy to pick a fight with Venezuela crosses from stupid into total piracy,

The president has announced that the ship will be sailed to a U.S. port and its cargo of 1.8 million barrels of oil with a market value of roughly $95 million will be taken. Stolen. Pirated. And Trump is threatening to steal yet more Venezuelan tankers.

That’s piracy by anyone’s definition, including that of hundreds of years of maritime law, the laws of the World Court and the laws of the United States. And because this is being done in your name,

You are now a pirate
and your Jolly Roger waves over the seas,
malevolently declaring American piracy and murder.
.

Wouldn’t piracy and murder fall under the definition of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors“?*

It was bad enough when V.P. Dick Cheney (or was it Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld?) announced in 2003 that we would steal Iraqi oil and that it would pay for our invasion of Iraq and reconstruction of that country. But the Chinese have controlled Iraqi oil since 2003 and it’s claimed that $150 billion has been stolen. It seems that we weren’t as good at piracy then as our genius leaders led us to believe. But we were quite adept at murder. We’re still good at that.

Now we have Trump’s larceny and murder going on. What could possibly go wrong?

Shiver me timbers, matey. And wag the dog.

UPDATE!

The federal judge’s order regarding the seizure warrant for the ship carrying Venezuelan oil was unsealed yesterday. It gives permission to Trump and his grifters to keep the spoils of their piracy. But it’s hard to know anything substantive about that, because the unsealed document is nearly completely redacted. Everything but the title page is blacked out. There’s no way to check any of the claims, nor the reasoning for the judicial decision. There’s nothing left that could benefit the American people.

From The Mercury:

A US court released a heavily redacted warrant on Friday that had authorized the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a move Caracas decried as an act of “international piracy” and “blatant theft”.

______________________________________________

* See Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

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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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Your Government At Work – Maybe


POST 1237

Click me

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. No one alive on that day could have foreseen the intentional decline of the United States of America that has occurred, brought to us by political self-dealing, greed, power lust and voter indifference. Those at Pearl Harbor 84 years ago didn’t fight and die for the mess we have now. Read this.

The Rusty Wheels of Government

Take a look at this:

H.J.Res.54 – Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights protected and extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only. (119th Congress)
Sponsor: Rep. Jayapal, Pramila [D-WA-7] (Introduced 02/12/2025)

Has changes in:

    • Cosponsors (1 new, 68 total)
      • Cosponsor: 12/03/2025: Rep. Goldman, Daniel S. [D-NY-10]

My representative hasn’t sponsored this critical bill yet, so I wrote to him asking him to cosponsor this legislation that is designed to allow for the elimination of Big Money from our elections, our politics and our laws and to ensure that the protection of our rights extends only to flesh and blood human beings. You know: reverse the dreadedful Citizens United manipulated Supreme Court decision.

If your rep hasn’t signed on yet, tell them what you want. Here’s a link to find his/her contact info. Just enter your zip code in the lookup box on the top right of that page. Your doing that will be part of lubrication for those rusty wheels of government.

Got The Alleged Bad Guy

You’ll recall that Trump directed thousands of people to storm the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, inciting that insurrection. When they had vandalized everything they could find, tried to find Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi so they could lynch them and had defecated in the halls of Congress, they left with Trump saying he loved them and that they were fine people and patriots all.

Over 1,500 were tried and convicted of crimes. Then Trump, the tough on crime president, pardoned all of them in 2025, including the thugs who tried to kill cops. Isn’t he just the epitome of tough-on-crime?

Last Thursday our government bad guys catchers announced that they had arrested the guy they are sure planted the backpack bombs in DC just before that January 6, 2021 insurrection. Did I mention that it was planned and incited by Donald Trump.

The alleged perp catching isn’t the news. What is most significant is how the presenters of this nab spoke in a news conference. Note that the team included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Director of the FBI Kash Patel, Assistant FBI director Dan Bongino and U.S. Attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro. Here’s what they did and said that is worthy of note.

  1. The entire event was little more than a self-congratulatory victory lap, all speakers chanting their own version of, “We’re so great! We’re so great! Na, na, noo, noo! We’re so great!” like so many high school jerks. They are so pleased to take nearly all the credit for the bust and give just an honorable mention to the FBI agents who did all of the hard work. So much for professionalism.
  2. Every speaker presented with righteous superiority the various failings, ineptitude and the unworthiness of President Biden and his entire administration. They’ll have us know that for four years they did nothing to find the bad guy, our performative ones say. And weren’t we lucky to finally have these real professionals at work for the American People? No, really, they’re just so great!

And there was more embarrassing stuff.

Please watch the 26 minute circus sideshow for yourself. Then come back to the Comments section below and let everyone know what other horribles I missed.

This complete lack of professionalism and childish bravado is what Americans voted for, however unknowingly. Now we wait as this story plays out, There will be charges made of possession of forbidden materials and whatever other charges they can conjure. There will be a trial held and the perp will go to prison, unless, of course, Bondi’s DOJ geniuses find ways to screw up this trial, too, like they did the James Comey and Letitia James prosecutions. If all that happens while Trump is still in office, watch for this perp to receive a January 6-worthy presidential pardon, unless, of course, Trump finds out that the guy is Black.

In Yet Another Attack .  .  .

.  .  .  on American values, the Trump White House issued its 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America. Giving credit where it might be due, it’s possible that there isn’t even a handful of staffers who can spell “strategy,” much less know what it is, but their numbers wouldn’t include key players, because they’re just players.

This is a document that blows off all U.S. obligations to NATO, abdicates international order, promotes U.S. imperialism, embraces tough guy murderous rulers and promises to roll over all of Latin America to “protect our interests,” whatever that convenient phrase might mean when uttered by any Project 2025 extremist.

This document is an ugly read that will offend your very being, so instead read Heather Cox Richardson’s piece about it from her December 5 post. Be sure to first take your heart attack pills.

The Ignoble Prize

It became clear even to Trump he will never be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, this for substantial reasons having to do with a lack of peace influenced by him, plus his continuing international belligerency. But his fragile ego needs a prize, so a solution was found. It is for Trump to award himself the first ever FIFA (soccer) Peace Prize. That brought raucous international disapproval and booing of fans, who declared, “This is pathetic.” The inscription on the medal reads, “For continuing discreditable service against the common man and attacks against laudable values.”

In receiving the award Trump said that he was so moved that he was speechless. He then proceeded to babble incoherently for 40 minutes, mispronouncing slurs against Presidents Obama and Biden and mimicking his insults of Sen. Adam Schiff. Reporters around the world once again bemoaned that America chose Trump as the best we could offer.

es
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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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Thanksgiving Message From a Geek


POST 1234

Stand-Up Guys Do: “Don’t Obey Illegal Orders” Video

Six Democratic lawmakers posted a video to remind our military folks that they are required to refuse illegal orders, like committing murder. Trump, Hegseth and others are calling these elected officials insurrectionists, saying that their actions are punishable by death, but of course they broke no laws, incited nothing unpatriotic and called for following the law and the Constitution. Nevertheless, Trump made threatening statements designed to inflame his followers and bully the six.

Sen. Mark Kelly was on Rachel Maddow’s program on Monday with his comments about the extremist, murderous comments.

“I’ve had a missile blow up next to my airplane. I’ve been . . . nearly shot down multiple times. I’ve flown a rocket ship into space four times, built by the lowest bidder, and my wife Gabby Giffords, meeting with her constituents, shot in the head. Six people killed around her. A horrific thing. She spent six months in the hospital. We know what political violence is, and we know what causes it, too . . . The statements that Donald Trump made . . . incite others . . . He should be careful with his words. But I’m not going to be silenced here . . . I’m going to show up for work every day, support the Constitution, do my job, hold this administration accountable, hold this president accountable when he is out of line. That’s the responsibility of every U.S. senator and every member of Congress. He’s not going to silence us.”

I love stand up guys and am thankful for these six brave people. See number 1 below.

Thanksgiving

I’ve been thinking about what kind of Thanksgiving message to offer and confess that several times I’ve lapsed into a lazy “This is awful” funk. The times invite us there, but that is, as I say, lazy. So, with just a little effort, here’s a starter list of things to be thankful/grateful for, listed in no particular order.

  1. That there are strong, stand up people like Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), as well as Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Chris Deluzio (D-PA) standing up for the rule of law.
  2. That in these fraught, threatening times millions of us are standing up and speaking up, refusing fascism and governmental cruelty.
  3. That when ICE thugs show up, a protest gathers within minutes, like in that town of 1,500 where 800 people showed up to say NO! to ICE.
  4. That 30,000 kids walked out of school and protested ICE in Charlotte.
  5. That New Yorkers purchased the goods of street vendors so that they could scram and not be exposed to ICE thugs.
  6. That we still have our five fundamental freedoms of the First Amendment.
  7. That our courts are standing up for us and truncating the power of the president to order our National Guard and our Marines onto our streets. The courts are ruling against the compromising of our Department of Justice and against presidential overreach and gross violations of the law.
  8. That we care about our fellow citizens and instinctively reach out to help, like that Chicago neighborhood that stepped up to help a deli owner whose shop was vandalized.
  9. That 1.3 million men and women volunteers are on duty all around the world right now, standing guard, saying that nothing bad will happen to us on their watch.
  10. That doctors all over the country are putting the lie to Robert Kennedy’s baseless claims about vaccines and causes of autism.
  11. That Trump’s ongoing decline into mental incompetence and physical deterioration is on public display.
  12. That Trump is so bad, so demonic, so anti- all that is good that he has caused the unthinkable to happen: that I now agree with Marjorie Taylor Green sometimes.
  13. That millions of us are donating money, food and our labor to help feed those who cannot take care of themselves or their children. And remember that it’s just November and that December through March it gets really cold in most of the country. Donate warm clothing, like a warm coat for someone who has no coat.
  14. That dear ones will be gathering all around the country tomorrow to make a statement about gratitude. In my family, once everyone is seated with a plate of food, we take turns saying what we’re grateful for. If that isn’t a standard practice in your family, I recommend it. I promise you’ll be surprised and, yes, grateful and thankful for what you hear.
Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Slurs, Slights, Slime and Special Slime


POST 1233

Click me for the full story.

Slurs

From Rick Wilson’s post, Quiet, Piggy:

On Air Force One, which is far below the standards of his upcoming gilded Qatari bribe jet, Trump pointed his finger at Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey and snapped, “Quiet. Quiet, Piggy,” because she committed the unpardonable sin of asking about the Epstein files and what he knew.

Then,

He did not call Catherine Lucey “piggy” because he’s concerned about her health. He did it because she asked about Epstein, the files, and what Trump knew. When cornered on anything that smells like legal exposure, he defaults to the playground, because that is who he has always been: a 79-year-old mean girl with worse hair and more indictments.

Later,

Trump’s body insults are part of his dominance game. He is telling that reporter, and every woman watching, that the price of challenging him is public humiliation. He is sending a message to every young woman in journalism who watched that clip: ask a hard question, and the President of the United States might turn you into a meme, a punchline, a target for his howling online mob.

Trump saves his most rotten vitriol to spit it at women, whom he continues to think of only as sex toys, so he attacks their appearance. There has been plenty of commentary about Trump’s frequent demeaning of women, but Wilson’s is the best take down I’ve seen.

Trump tries to humiliate men, too, but never for their appearance – only for Trump’s need to demean their intelligence and competence. They are a threat to him due to his lack of both. Hence, he reverts to his playground bully name calling default. All of it comes from this now dementia addled, obese, decaying Petri dish smear of a human.

He continues to degenerate in full view, even as his apologists ramp up their excuses, denials and lies. It’s both a sad spectacle and grossly dis-empowering to our country that this rotting-in-place president is displayed before the world.

Slights

The sweet and touching remembrances by dear ones at the Dick Cheney memorial on Thursday were heartfelt and appropriate. The memories from professional colleagues surely spoke accurately and appreciatively of their experiences with the departed. This was the right place for such things. Yet we must remember a fuller picture than that.

He was nicknamed Darth Cheney for justified reasons. He helped spread the lies that brought us into two intractable and arguably illegal wars that killed hundreds of thousands for no significant benefit to any but our defense contractors. He was a promoter of our country torturing prisoners and of our abandoning the rule of law.

He was an architect of the plan that he and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld hatched, declaring that Iraqi oil would pay for that war. It was a plan for nothing less than piracy.

Cheney held onto his Halliburton stock and this so-called selfless servant to our nation profited handsomely. Sound familiar?

He also outed Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer (i.e. spy), putting her life and that of her husband, Amb. Joe Wilson, at risk and ending her career.

Cheney proudly declared that budget deficits don’t matter, so he, Dubya and Rumsfeld conducted their wars “off balance sheet.” I still don’t know what that means, but I do know about the trillions of dollars of national debt they piled onto our backs. And our children’s. And our grandchildren’s. And  .  .  .

So, let the tears of loss for some fall as they may, but let’s not forget the fuller story and thereby inappropriately deify one responsible for so much death and destruction.

Here are more slights.

George W. and Laura Bush were at the Cheney memorial, as were Joe and Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, Mike Pence, Al Gore and Dan Quayle. Notably absent were Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack and Michelle Obama, who were invited to attend. Read whatever you like into those absences from a state funeral.

The sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump, and his nowhere-to-be-seen wife, Melania, plus J.D. Vance weren’t there because they weren’t invited.

Note that I intended to insert a photo of Cheney into this section and, in the end, I couldn’t get myself to do it

Slime

16 million men.

That’s how many Americans went to war to battle and eliminate the hatred and barbarity that swastikas represent. Are we losing our collective memory of those men, what they stood for and what they stood against? Did we forget the horrors of fascism?

It took us hundreds of years to figure out that a noose is a symbol of terror and hatred. At last in 2022 we got The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act signed into law. Now it looks like things are changing that could challenge that.

Here’s the beginning of WaPo’s story from Thursday, November 20. Click the headline pic for the full story.

The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika — an emblem of fascism and white supremacy inextricably linked to the murder of millions of Jews and the deaths of more than 400,000 U.S. troops who died fighting [Nazis and their swastikas] in World War II — as a hate symbol, according to a new policy that takes effect next month.

Instead, the Coast Guard will classify the Nazi-era insignia as “potentially divisive” under its new guidelines.

“Potentially divisive?” Ya think? Is that the terminology the Coast Guard used in 1943 as they were patrolling our coasts looking for Nazi u-boats and aircraft?

Later that same day, The Hill reported:

Click the pic for the full story.

Makes me wonder if the slimy Trump administration leaked a story just to see what the public response might be, this in order to find out what they could get away with. Wouldn’t legalizing Nazi and White supremacy symbols in our military just tickle our hatred-stoked White supremacists, our un-Christian nationalists and our various extremist haters who think lynching is a fun, all-American way to cut loose on a Saturday night? That leak oughta solidify support from President Bone Spurs’ base.

Consider yourself slimed.

Special Slime

Six Democratic lawmakers, every one a veteran of military service, our intelligence services or both, published a PSA video for our military folks, reminding them not to obey illegal orders. Indeed, they are required to refuse illegal orders and are taught and ordered as such by the instructors at our military academies and elsewhere. That directive is in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).* It is also in the Department of Defense Law of War manual, which specifies that “responsible commanders are required to decline to carry out orders that are contrary to the law of war.” 

President Bone Spurs has been issuing plenty of illegal orders, like sending the Marines into Los Angeles and murdering people in small boats in international waters. Harry Litman reports, “As Marty Lederman has documented in a comprehensive analysis, neither the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force nor any Title 10 operational authority plausibly applies [to render attacks on Venezuelan fishing boats legal].

These lawmakers said in their video that our troops should obey their oath to the Constitution and not obey illegal orders from superiors. For their efforts, these patriots were rewarded by Trump calling them traitors guilty of sedition and promoting the idea that they be hanged.

That set Trump’s howling mob to making death threats against them. These hystericals can’t figure out that not only these six patriots, but all of us should protect and defend the Constitution instead of obeying the Dementia-In-Chief.

That’s constitutional slime, as well as inciting violence, which is illegal.

For more detail on Trump’s perfidy and calls for yet more murder, this time of elected officials, read Heather Cox Richardson’s post.

Just For Sardonic Grins

This is some of why I’ve long considered myself an Eisenhower Republican. Realistically, that kind of conservatism – yes, that’s what it was called – is long gone. But if enough Democrats can regain their spines, that stuff might yet be coming, but only if we demand it.

Tell you what: Go tell your senators and representative what you want.

Finally, Andy Borowitz reported that Lindsey Halligan Reveals Her Dream is to Someday Go to Law School. Might be a little late for her.

___________________________________________

* Examples of illegal orders from the UCMJ linked article:

A superior orders a soldier to engage in war crimes, such as:

Targeting civilians intentionally. [Think: murdering civilians in small boats in international waters]

Torturing prisoners of war. [Think: waterboarding. See the above in the Cheney section.]

Looting or pillaging property

A commanding officer orders personnel to suppress lawful protests in violation of First Amendment rights. [Think: Lafayette Park in 2020 and in U.S. cities in 2025]

Violations of International Laws. [Think: those small boats and those illegal wars]

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Geeking Over Behavior


POST 1232

We learned during Trump 1.0 that when he says outrageous, incendiary, un-American things that he’s telling us what he actually will do. Then, oddly, when he does what he said he would do and breaks the law, so many are surprised.

“We’re shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you to find that there is crime being done in and from the White House!”

But we really did know what that snake was when we picked him up, so there should be no surprise at all. Horror? Fear? Blood running cold? Sure. But not surprise.

Perhaps what is more shocking is the capitulation done by people who had no need to capitulate. The knee benders. The ring kissers. The simple greedy bastards. The ones who obey in advance.

From Wikipedia:

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (Paul Weiss) is the sole law firm targeted by an executive order that did not sue the administration and instead made a deal with the administration to avoid sanctions and restore access.

In addition to Paul Weiss, eight other firms made preemptive deals with Trump to avoid being similarly targeted by executive orders. As part of the settlements, the nine law firms have agreed to provide a total of $940 million in pro bono work to efforts supported by the president and the firms.

Plus, they and many others each agreed to Trump’s extortion plan that they “donate” $16 million to Trump’s presidential library, for which there is neither a location nor architectural plans. Trump doesn’t read and his only book is Mein Kampf. There will be no need for book shelves. Neither will there be file cabinets for documents in a Trump library, were it to be built. Likely, there would only be his greatest hits reel showing his tough guy speeches and The Apprentice reruns in a gold and white theater.

Columbia University went completely paws up to Trump when he pulled $400 million in federal funding from them. To get him off their back they relinquished control of their programs, their classes and even their selection of faculty.

See Notes 4 & 5 below.

What they and so many others have in common is that they have ignored Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny – 20 Lessons From The Twentieth Century.

  1. Rule No. 1: Do Not Obey In Advance. Don’t do what you think the bully wants you to do, perhaps hoping to curry favor. Doing so is surrendering without even an objection, much less a fight. It’s voluntarily going paws up. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damned bully in the face. Hard.
  2. Rule No. 2: Defend institutions. Tyrants want to smash institutions, disempower them so that he can control everything and everyone. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damned bully in the face. Hard.
  3. Rule No. 5: Remember professional ethics. Refuse to succumb to directives ordering discrimination and violation of your oaths. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damned bully in the face. Hard.

There is more, of course, but it all comes down to taking a stand protecting and defending what must be protected and defended. Failure to do so is nothing but caving in, hoping you’ll quickly get out of the crosshairs of the bully and do so on the cheap. The best that can be said about that is that it is astonishingly myopic and self-deluding. When a little kid has a temper tantrum and then you give him what he wants, you’ve trained him to come back in full tyrant form and demand more later. That’s what happens to quick sell-outs. Don’t be an idiot. Take a stand.

And that’s the message that so many should have heard and heeded. Trump’s threatened lawsuits would have been easy to defeat in court because his actions and demands weren’t defensible. His style is to make capitulation the cheapest exit from his bullying. But there really is no exit for those who cave. So, take a stand.

There are yet more short-term thinkers, like the bullies who became ICE thugs. He found a cheap hook to recruit them – a $50,000 signing bonus – and then he owned them. He told them to bully, beat, gas, shoot and assault people indiscriminately – fellow citizens, neighbors – and to pay no attention to whether they were U.S. citizens, legal residents and to essentially ignore whether they were innocents or criminals.

The goal wasn’t about crime. It was and is to terrorize the country so that he could rid the country of non-Whites, using illegal immigration as a cover story, plus cow all of us into submission.

And these ICE capitulators stepped up to collect their checks and then started beating up innocents.

The question to ponder in this “greatest country in the world,” in this “indispensable nation,” in this “American exceptionalism country” is why our educated people in this land of the free and home of the brave would be so easily seduced and manipulated. How does this happen here?

The day will come when the capitulators are in deep, deep trouble, maybe existential anguish. They will look for strength deep inside and will find only an empty vacuum where their souls used to be.

They gave up. They sold out on the cheap until nothing was left.

BTW

From Bloomberg News:

The FBI Redacted Trump’s Name in the Epstein Files.

Hundreds of FBI personnel scrubbed the Epstein documents in AG Bondi’s possession. They removed or redacted Trump’s name and those of his favorite deviants.

Now connect the dots to explain Trump directing Congress to vote to release the Epstein files. He’s made sure that everything incriminating or even embarrassing to him has been redacted from the files that will be released so that there is no risk to Trump, everything sanitized for his protection and no justice to be found anywhere.

He’s ordered the DOJ to investigate Democrats who might be connected to the Epstein crimes. That way Trump can refuse to release hundreds, perhaps thousands of files, claiming that doing so would interfere with an ongoing investigation. There will be terrible obstruction games to come.

The fix is in. If you listen you can already hearing Trump falsely brag yet again that he’s been exonerated.

Given the likely tampering of evidence, consider the votes in Congress yesterday to be not an open road to justice, but the end of the beginning of that road. The real battles are just getting underway.

If you long for justice for those long suffering women who were a while back those horribly abused girls – children; if you long for justice for the sake of justice itself and for the protection and welfare of us all; If one of your fondest wishes is for a fair and just country that resembles at least a little the America you grew up believing in; then you are advised to put your hopes and expectations on low and anticipate a long, critical and brutal fight against the very worst people ever spawned by this country. And expect to be a soldier in that fight, along with the rest of us.

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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