Behavior

Our Freedom – v1.0


POST 1194

Preface

This is an initial check on the shaky boat that is our freedoms. More will follow.

Short Term Greed Disease

From Harry Litman in his post, Paramount Caves – And We All Lose:

When Donald Trump sued CBS and Paramount for $10 billion in October of 2024 for supposedly deceptive editing of Kamala Harris’s response to a question about Middle East policy, the case was roundly ridiculed. Multiple commentators noted that the First Amendment barred Trump’s claims, which they dismissed as an abusive “political stunt.” Reason Magazine dismissed it as a “laughable lawsuit.”

Thanks to Paramount, however, Trump now gets the last laugh — and at the expense of essential First Amendment values. In other words, all of us.

Paramount announced Tuesday that it was settling this joke of a lawsuit for $16 million — to go toward Trump’s future presidential library.*

The widespread perception is that Paramount, the parent company of CBS and 60 Minutes, which ran the clips of Harris, ponied up what is in effect ransom money to ensure that a proposed $8 billion merger with Skydance Media would go through. To put a finer point on it, Shari Redstone, who owns the controlling stake in Paramount Global, stands to reap over $2 billion — possibly much more — from the merger.

This is essentially the same story some major law firms, Disney, ABC and some universities played out. They caved to Trump, too. It’s the same $16 million extortion (ransom? bribe?) figure that gets people to surrender in advance, to give up without a fight. The cavers caved for short term gain or minimization of loss. In other words, for short sighted greed and cowardice.

Every instance of chickening out of the necessary fight involved bogus claims by Trump that could easily be dismissed in court. The failure of these corporations to put up their dukes paved a path of surrender of the rights of every one of us.

For Trump to have total control he doesn’t have to fight and defeat everyone. He just has to intimidate us by picking off a few, like, it seems, Shari Redstone. To be fair, I don’t know her or really anything about her. What I do know is that she could have stood tall and called BS on Trump, because his claims are BS. They are an attack on the Constitutional freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the laws of our nation, but she didn’t do that. Her play is to get her merger done and pocket a wad of cash, something that likely would be prevented were she to piss off Trump.

That’s how dictators and usurpers do it. They threaten individuals with harm and get them to fold without a fight as the rest of us are watching and being cowed. Read Jim Acosta’s dire warning here about where this takes you and me.

When this happens, as Litman writes, “We all lose.” Our freedom is gone.

And What About Our Health?

Likely, you’ve heard about the ongoing explosion of cases of measles, a disease we thought we had eliminated over 30 years ago, but it’s back, thanks to our anti-vaxxers. See what STAT has to say about that and what it means to you and your freedom at

BREAKING NEWS  

By Helen Branswell
Special Note To The “Adults In The Room” Curbing Trump’s Worst

Get this: You’re not.

You may think you’re standing guard against the worst, but in reality (you remember that stuff, right?) you’re enabling it. It’s time for you to have a piercingly serious talk with your reflection in the mirror. That only works if the compromises you’ve made against your soul aren’t already so terrible that they prevent you from seeing your reflection. Pray that they aren’t and that there is still something of value to salvage.

Read Rick Wilson’s post, Your Silence Isn’t Strategy. It’s Surrender. You won’t like it, “adult in the room.” In fact, if you squint one eye you just might see how you are contributing to all of us losing our freedom.

Parting Shot

What with our Republicans having passed the Big Barfy Betrayal Bill that de-funds or under-funds so much of what protects us, like FEMA, the National Weather Service, medical research, the FDA, the National Institutes of Health, all programs that promote reduction of the burning of fossil fuels, education and so much more, read Nancy Kohn and Art Friedson’s take on that and more in We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Science. Here’s a sampling.

Why on earth would the ruling party in the United States of America actively and aggressively oppose the pursuit of science in 2025? The answer is as sad as it is scary. Because science is the pursuit of truth, and the truth is often diametrically opposed to the MAGA agenda. Climate science is only one example of many.

If we lose science, we lose our freedom. – and perhaps much more.

The “Deconstructing Trump”** Corner
.
  • Patriotism is when love of
  • your own people comes first;
  • nationalism, when hate for people
  • other than your own comes first.
  • Charles de Gaulle, 1969
  • In every age it has been the tyrant,
  • the oppressor, and the exploiter
  • who has wrapped himself in the cloak
  • of patriotism, or religion, or both
  • to deceive and overawe the People.
  • Eugene V. Debs, 1918
  • _________________________________________

* Raise your hand if you believe each those $16 million extortion settlements will fund a presidential library and not instead go into Trump’s pocket. Oh, wow – no hands.

** Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history.

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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. 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and 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 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

In America


POST 1193

Are You Among The Disfavored People?

university student, professor or administrator

scientific or medical researcher

farmer

non-White person

LGBTQ person

veteran

woman

any form of non-Christian

child

protector of the planet.

any Democrat (Trump hates you) or a current or former government employee

any person not accused or convicted of any crime and in this country legally – easy ICE targets

Bummer for you, because this country is solely for Christian-claiming (although not doing what Jesus would do), straight White men who insist on telling you how to live, establishing limits to your freedom and deciding your restricted fate, which may include warrantless deportation.

And all that gets far scarier when you consider that Trump is declining into dementia and JD Vance is next in line. He might be smarmy, disingenuous and heartless (I guess he forgot about his hillbilly roots), but he’s smart, diabolical and under the thumb of Peter Thiel, his sugar daddy, the private information thief.

Speaking of Disfavored

Let’s declare out loud what this deportation lunacy is actually about. The goals are:

  1. To get rid of Brown and Black people because they aren’t European White. Those immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
  2. Expand White privilege
  3. Feed raw meat to Trump’s base
  4. Suppress votes of Democrats

Those goals are well met by snatching Brown people, especially those who look Hispanic, off streets, from farm fields, from Home Depot parking lots, from a public park in Los Angeles and more. No need to check their papers, because we no longer care if the snatchees are here legally or even if they are U.S. citizens.

Nobody has a right to due process under the Trump administration. We just snatch ’em, shove ’em in a bus or van, cram them handcuffed onto an airplane and into rendition to be abused and held incommunicado. That’s the new American Dream Nightmare.

Here’s what our populist speaking but not practicing President and Republican Congress have done to make sure we’re number one in inflicting cruelty on immigrants.

Click the chart for Steve Schmidt’s comments.

This chart shows our Big Barfy Betrayal Bill carve out for ICE and compares it to the defense budgets of 20 countries. We are now poised to spend more on anti-immigrant actions than the total the next 10 countries spend on their national defense. That’s probably good, since those immigrants are drug dealers, rapists and murderers. So said the man with the golden escalator, the golden toilet, 34 felony convictions, boundless ignorance and a mania for cruelty, but not for reality.

Are you feeling safer now with our huge expansion of ICE, the American Gestapo? Read this from Jennifer Rubin for more.

The Lies and Cheating Didn’t Start With Trump

In 2010 the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case. The lawsuit was about a movie trashing Hillary Clinton, intended by its producers to be aired during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Court struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold Act (properly, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002) and told the Citizens United group they could show their movie. That should have been the end of that case, but it wasn’t.

Chief Justice John Roberts did something almost unheard of. He called the litigants back and ordered them to argue the rights of corporations, something not even remotely part of the original lawsuit. The Court then made a second ruling, deciding that corporations have all the rights of flesh and blood humans.

That unleashed the furies of fabulous wealth, which allowed those corporations and insanely rich people (plus foreign influencers) to donate fabulous amounts of money to political campaigns and overwhelm the wishes of we small folk. Roberts had made up a whole new case to serve his agenda and it worked.

As a result, the gun lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby and more lobbies control the votes of Congress and you have almost no influence. So, we don’t get the gun safety legislation 80% of us want, the healthcare-for-all that 67% of us want and far more. These legislators don’t care what you want because they don’t have to. They’re funded by corporations and super rich guys.

This Court that can’t seem to tell the difference between a corporation (a fictional “entity”) and human beings. The Court is composed of strict originalists, they tell us, but they don’t recognize the Founders’ abhorrence of undue influence exerted by the wealthy.

Like I said, it didn’t start with Trump. Before he showed up the Court had already greased the gears of the fascism express. The Court further cleared the way with it’s ruling in Trump v. United States, allowing the President to break any laws he wants and get away with it. Does that sound originalist to you?

In America

Likely you’re feeling disheartened, as are most of us because of the blatantly illegal, immoral and cruel actions of this administration. But here’s the thing: we don’t get to wallow in our despair because there’s so much that must be done and we’re the only ones who can do it.

The Charlie Daniels Band song In America was released in 1980 as

“.  .  .  a reaction to the varying difficult issues facing America in the late 1970s – the fallout from the Watergate scandal [etc.]. [Wikipedia]

We have “difficult issues facing America” now, too.

The fascists have come back to divide us and steal America from us.
.

The CDB’s message tells us about Lady America, that “We’re gonna put her feet back on the path.” The fascists, the oligarchs, the selfish rich guys “can all go straight to hell.” That’s not exactly what Charlie sang, but I like the sound of it.

You’ll see Lady America back on the path when the pain hits – from tariffs and the resultant higher prices and empty shelves, stolen healthcare, stolen food assistance, scarcities, babies beginning to suffer and die, neighbors being sent to concentration camps, jobs being lost and more. As Thom Hartmann puts it, Trump’s Tax Cuts Come with a Body Count — Starting with Grandma. That’s when we’ll all come together, “feet back on the path.”

Click this link and listen to the song. While our fight and our battle victories may not be happening at the pace we’d prefer, they’re happening – because of us.

The “Deconstructing Trump”* Corner

For the week following the Fourth of July and Trump’s failed narcissism parade, at which both he and Melania fell asleep, this is about Trump:

  • Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
  • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
  • Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater?
  • It’s resentment of another man’s achievement.
  • Ayn Rand – that’s for our Libertarian friends
  • _________________________________________

* Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history. As such, we explore his volume and add its applicable wisdom to these posts.

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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. 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and 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


Movie


POST 1189

I’m writing in the hours following the U.S. attack on Iranian nuclear and missile facilities and the Iranian response of their announced-in-advance missile attack on the vast U.S. military facility in Qatar. There will surely be more surprises to come, engineered by one of the world’s most awful regimes and more surprises from the other of the world’s most awful regimes. We wait for shoes to drop.

Let’s set aside the typical Trumpian stupidities:

“We’re not at war with Iran; we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

His bombastic claims: “We obliterated their nuclear facilities,” which bomb damage assessment experts have shown to be false.

The idiotic flip-flopping denials: “We’re not after regime change,” then “Make Iran Great Again” through “regime change.”

Let’s instead have a look at serious issues that serious minded leaders would commonly contemplate seriously with advice from serious minded advisors. Not that such advice might be seriously considered by Trump.

Whether you think the attack on Iran was the right thing to do or you see a blisteringly dumb move that is a probable prelude to something very bad happening, that attack will have many consequences.

It isn’t at all likely that, having taken a public drubbing, Iran will let go of its hostilities and go all golden retriever puppy with love for the twin devils, Israel and the U.S. They will want to hit back and are far more likely to be willing to make war than negotiate. It’s about venting rage and proving how tough they are.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 86 years old and is not politically strong. He’s already offered recommendations for a successor, including his son, which further complicates the possibility of negotiations and the calculus of predicting what actions that country may take. We’ll leave that speculation to our well informed intelligence people, sadly led by second-raters who owe their suck-up jobs to Trump patronage. Trump will ignore all of them.

What we know is that saving face is critically important to this Iranian regime and to the culture of the country. Nobody reacts well to humiliation and even Khamenei’s detractors in the streets of Tehran will want to hit back, especially because for them this is a holy war. Did anyone at the White House, the Defense, State, Homeland Security or the Intelligence Departments consider what would happen on Day 2?

You know this from at least as far back as Colin Powell invoking the Pottery Barn rule about war: You break it, you own it. And now we own this one.

Here are just a few examples of how the Iranians might strike back.

  1. Physics and chemistry tell us that their 60% enriched uranium cannot be used as is to make a traditional nuclear bomb. But it can be used to make dirty bombs – common explosives laced with radiologically hot material. They could smuggle IEDs or bombs into any country and detonate them in crowded cities. Use your imagination to identify which places would be near the top of their hit list. Dirty bombs don’t have nearly the explosive power of nuclear bombs, but they can make a huge radius of land uninhabitable for hundreds of years.
  2. If they have sleeper cells in the U.S., they can be activated to do damage to us physically and psychologically. If you think we distrust one another now, just wait until Iranian sabotage has occurred in the U.S., some Americans have been killed and you’re suspecting every stranger you see of being a murderer.
  3. They can mine the Strait of Hormuz (see these maps) to shut down shipping of gas, oil and other goods. 20% of global petroleum output travels that narrow stretch of water and shutting it down will drive up oil prices globally and likely tank Trump’s economic agenda.
  4. They can attack U.S. forces in the area, as they did in their retaliatory attack in Qatar on Monday. Given that no substantial damage was done, this was likely intended solely for domestic consumption, a public beating of chests and a saving of face. That may likely prove to be a self-destructive action, but proud, angry people might dismiss the cost to themselves and approve yet more attacks.
  5. They can fire barrages of missiles and drones at Israel, assuming they still have substantial stockpiles.
  6. They can task their tech geniuses to create destructive cyber attacks that disrupt our power grids, businesses, defense capabilities and more.

If they did any of those things, what would our U.S. dictator wannabe do? He’s an amoral, irrational and self-serving narcissist whose mania requires that he be seen as strong, most strongly, and always right. He would insist that any Iranian aggression be countered massively. Bigly. Like nothing anyone has ever seen. There aren’t too many choices available for an all-about-me tyrant trying to show that he can pee higher on the fire hydrant than the other dog.

  1. He could order massive bombing of all Iranian infrastructure. “Bomb ’em back to the stone age” was a very popular phrase after 911, when our proud, angry people wanted retribution. So was Sen. John McCain’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb, bomb Iran” in 2008, wanting for us to show the world what tough guys we were.
  2. Trump could order 300,000 – maybe 500,000 – troops to invade Iran. That will be a forever war that will kill hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of our military men and women. We will build an Iran War Memorial on the National Mall. Trump will get to play wartime president to burnish his orange ego. But critically, he will ignore the flag draped caskets carrying suckers and losers, as they arrive at Dover, DE.

It doesn’t appear that anyone is considering what comes next, most dangerously, the President.

Will Russia, China and North Korea supply Iran with war matériel and scientific know how? If they do, what will we do?

If we learn that we didn’t “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities (we didn’t), will Trump order more bombings?

Given their stockpiles of enriched uranium and scientific know how, if Iran continues to refuse to negotiate, what will we do? What will Israel do? What might Iran do?

What will we do to win hearts and minds of Iranians? We weren’t too good at that in Iraq or Afghanistan.

We’ve seen this movie before. We know the plot and that it takes decades to end this bad movie. It will cost thousands of lives and massive treasure that creates trillions of dollars of debt that will never be paid off.

Trump will be long gone when the reality of his ever-expanding war dawns on us. By then there will be someone else in the White House to blame for his war folly. Just like when Dubya was gone and Obama and Biden took the heat for exiting his Iraq and Afghanistan war failures.

Like I said, we’ve seen this movie before. The question for us now is whether we remember the lessons of that movie before a lot of people get killed and whether Congress has the backbone to dial down the madness. Indeed, have we learned anything at all?

From his post on Monday, When Incompetence Goes To War, Dan Rather, with his many decades of reporting and his experience in too many wars, gets the last word.

Truth IS the first casualty of war.

The first things you hear often are untrue, and so are many of the things you hear later.

Wars are by their very nature chaotic and unpredictable. What you most expect frequently does not happen; what you least expect often does.

Up close and personal, wars are almost unbelievably savage. The television screen and the printed word do not come close to conveying their harsh realities.

Countdown to November 3, 2026
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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!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get this 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and 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 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Trump Derangement


POST 1188

War!

With no authority to do so, the Derangement In Chief has sent our military to war against Iran. First he ordered Iran to give him “unconditional surrender” and did so very strongly, in a strong way like nothing anyone has ever seen. He has no need for strategy because, he figures, Iran will bend the knee to him like so many others have done and he will skate from accountability just as he has all his life.

Iran is yet another country we have attacked that has done us no harm, like Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. How will we get out of this? What comes next? What will Congress do? Oh wait: they won’t do a thing.

We learn nothing. Not from Vietnam, not from Iraq, not from Afghanistan, not from Libya, not from the repeated economic failure of trickle down economics, not from years of lies about Reagan’s mental degeneration, not from the sale of the U.S. invited by Citizens United, not from 2 mass shootings every 3 days, not from whatever is promised and never arrives, not from a thousand phony declarations that up is down, not from strong bombings that never bring what is promised, not from regime change that brings little more than chaos – nothing. We learn nothing.

From Rep. Ro Khana (D-CA):

Are you with the neocons who led us into [war in] Iraq or do you stand with the American people?

Trump derangement may well get our our military people and Iranians killed and make countless numbers of people refugees.

The Syndrome

It is that, because he really is deranged. We’re paying a price for that and it’s going to become way more expensive. The cost will be in the transfer of your money to the piles of wealth of the already absurdly rich, of course. But far more expensive will be the cost to our bedrock values and our freedom.

Steve Schmidt described Trump as

.  .  .  an American fascist who sits in the White House with a 49.8 percent mandate, and believes that he is Caesar, when in fact he is Nero.

Gotta take issue with Schmidt.

First, 49.8% is no mandate. It’s barely a plurality.

Second, the Nero thing. “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” is a cute sentence, but perhaps a bit misleading. The violin wasn’t invented until about 1,500 years after Nero died, so “fiddled” doesn’t mean he played a musical instrument.

Nero was fond of cruelty and perhaps was less attentive to affairs of state than was needed (hence: fiddling). In 64 AD the Great Fire of Rome engulfed most of the city. It burned for 6 days and 7 nights and destroyed much of Rome. Needing a scapegoat to avoid accountability, Nero is alleged to have blamed that great destruction on the early Christians – might have called them home grown terrorists – who were subsequently persecuted. In effect, Nero declared war on his own country, casting Christians as enemies of the state. Does any of this sound at all similar to events today?

Schmidt seeing Trump as a Nero, what with his attack on our norms and structures and scapegoating of immigrants, is accurate. Same for his anti-Semitic dog whistles. He always has someone to blame in order to dance away from his own accountability, like blaming Dr. Anthony Fauci and China for the “China virus.”

Trump ranted just after NO KINGS day and Schmidt pasted that rant into his post. Read it yourself and see if you can beat my performance. I counted 14 outright lies in those roughly 450 words. That’s one lie every 32 words, although my tally may be low due to my being distracted by Trump’s head spinning idiocy, his extraneous, unrelated inanities, his pandering to extremists and, worst of all, his incitement to violence.*

Tyrants always need a scapegoat, someone for the public to hate, demonize, persecute and blame. For Nero it was the Christians. For Trump, it’s immigrants and the Jews. Are you next?

Trump derangement is now looking to blame others and cause them suffering, kidnapping, torture and death. That’s real.

The Minnesota Murders

They got the bad guy – you know that. But ultimately that won’t be the big story.

The Trump rant you read in Schmidt’s piece was after most of America ignored Trump’s Parade of Narcissism down Pennsylvania Avenue. Instead, over 13 million Americans dissed him and marched in streets all over this nation to oppose his cruelty, his dumb-headedness, his attack on all we hold dear. Go read Trump’s rant again, this time pretending you’re a Trump supporter. I’m guessing you’ll hear the call to division and violence loud and clear, just as do Trump’s supporters, like the Minnesota murderer.

That’s the lede of the Minnesota murderer story and the ongoing Trump insane reality show.

Trump’s calls, largely by dog whistle but sometimes done overtly, is for more killers like the Minnesota murderer. It’s a call to kill Democrats, progressives, liberals, non-suck-up judges, all Trump detractors and, of course, immigrants, all non-Whites and Jews.

If you want to know why there are so many murders and attacks
and death threats done by people on the right,
it’s because the leader of that cult of hatred is calling for them.
.

Trump began demonizing immigrants just after his golden descent on his golden escalator to announce that he was running to be President. His audience was paid actors in his reality show. He proudly vomited to them and his TV cameras that Hispanics are rapists, drug dealers and murderers.

He began calling for violence at his rallies, telling his thug attendees to beat up protesters. He told police not to be “too nice” to perps they loaded into their cruisers. He said to bash them up a bit.

We have right wing violence
because the right wing leader calls for it, eggs on his loyalists
and they feel puffed up by their hatred
and their power to cause death.
.

This isn’t a “both sides” thing.**

From Simon Rosenberg of the Hopium Chronicles:

“The G7 – Trump went to the G7, arrived late for his first meeting, bent the Trumpian knee to Putin, tweeted that Tehran, a city of 10m, needed to evacuate, left a day early blowing off a meeting with Zelensky [sic], refused to sign a joint statement on Iran and Israel, then signed it late last night. In an impromptu press event with UK PM Keir Starmer he dropped papers all over the place.”

“Despite him having all this “strength” the world is not bending the knee to Trump, something all can see; while the world also [sees] him repeatedly, pathetically, urgently, bending the knee and all of his other ugly parts to Putin, again and again and again.”

Trump derangement.

Your Health

From STAT:

.  .  .  the current administration is undermining confidence in vaccines: by canceling or stalling NIH grants focused on vaccine development, especially mRNA vaccines; undermining a separate FDA committee and laying off agency staff; firing the full ACIP*** roster; and putting resources into investigating the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism instead of focusing on more valuable post-licensure monitoring. Read more here.

Trump derangement. It’s not a joke. It’s an actual syndrome and it has already killed Americans.

Message From Sen. Joni “Pig Castrator” Ernst

Click me

_____________________________________________

* David Korn of Mother Jones explains our political violence in this video. Get this: there is no “both sides” in American political violence. When you come across any report that is treating our national insanity of violence as though it is somehow balanced left and right, recognize it for the brain-free substitute for actual journalism that it is.

** Read Marc Elias’ short comments about both-sides in our news media.

*** The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices

Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election
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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!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get this 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and 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 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

IMMIGRANTS UNITE!


POST 1185

First, Minnesota

A thug murdered three Minnesotans, two of them Democratic state legislators. This should come as no surprise, since Trump has been calling since 2015 for violence against Democrats, progressives, protesters and anyone who disagrees with him about anything. He claims to be “your retribution” against “those others.” So of course some wing nut listened to him and took action, perhaps expecting to be pardoned by Trump.

This is just today’s chapter in Trump’s program of I Don’t Care, So Death To You.

To The National Brother/Sisterhood/Childhood of Immigrant Workers
.

Yesterday there was a massive national demonstration, an opposition, a revulsion, the rejection of the tyrant’s attack and his anti-America corruption of the values we hold dear. Indeed, our immigrants, whether documented or not, came here to live by those values and they and we won’t stand for this vile little man’s evil.

This President has unleashed his attack thugs, masked gunmen bearing no identification, no badge of any kind, carrying no arrest warrants and exercising no concern for innocent people. He dispatched them with instructions to kidnap anyone who they think looks like they might be in America without documentation – that means Black and Brown people. They select kidnap victims based on their ignorance.

They have arbitrarily claimed thousands of people to be criminals. They have arrested citizens of the United States with the same right to be here as any of us. They possess no evidence of anyone’s wrongdoing and act in the total absence of due process rights. In short, they are thugs acting illegally at the order of a lawless president and you, immigrants, are their primary target.

Demonstrations against this lawlessness are powerful and good, but it will take more for the American public to become fully aware of what these illegal actions mean to Americans. They don’t realize that they themselves will feel the effects of this. They don’t realize that one day the tyrants will run out of Black and Brown people to abuse and others will be next to be labeled enemies. That’s what tyrants always do.

That is why I’m calling for an ad hoc action, a labor strike, to make clear how Trump’s White, Non-At-All-Christian actions will impact everyone. Specifically, I’m calling on:

hotel and restaurant workers

construction laborers

domestic workers

garment workers

farm workers

landscapers

day laborers, like the folks who hang out early in the morning at Home Depots and 7-11s hoping to earn a day’s pay

It’s time to take a stand, so immigrant workers:

DO NOT SHOW UP FOR WORK THIS THURSDAY OR ANY THURSDAY UNTIL THIS CRUELTY STOPS.

.

Maybe some of the White privilege people who whine and moan their “Replacement Theory” lunacy will show up in California’s Central Valley to do stoop labor, like picking strawberries and lettuce. Maybe they’ll do the work of moving heavy wheel barrows full of cement or removing debris from construction sites. Maybe they’ll scrub the pots and pans in a hot commercial kitchen 14 hours a day, or clean befouled hotel rooms left by hotel guest slobs. Maybe they’ll scrub the floors of rich people’s homes.

But none of that is ever going to happen. Here’s what will happen.

None of those angry, privileged White guys will show up to do the hard work our immigrants do every day. Housing construction will slow to a halt, restaurants will close their doors and produce bins in grocery stores will be empty. And there will be a lot of hotel rooms that don’t get cleaned and landscaping around rich guys’ houses will become nothing but weeds.

It’s time to make the point to all American citizens that their way of life is dependent upon the hard working immigrants to this country and that those tax paying immigrants are a major part of the reason for hope for this nation.

Immigrants to America Unite!

You have nothing to lose but the threat of deportation to a torture concentration camp, never to see your family again.

.
Memo To Silent Americans

.

Turn off the ignorant and the stupid.

.

Treasonous Americans are trying to steal your country, your values, your freedom, your future and your hopes for your children.

They tried an insurrection to murder leaders and take over your government, killing and maiming cops and befouling our Capitol Building.

Trump pardoned the convicted criminals, enabling them to continue to conspire to overthrow us.

The Supreme Court gave the president the right to break our laws with impunity.

Trump and his criminal suck-ups are moving every day to use our military to take action against you and make this a police state.

THAT WILL BE THE END OF YOUR FREEDOM!
.

DO NOT sleepwalk through reality. DO NO be an existential threat to the United States of America through passivity. DO NOT tolerate the murderous Oath Keeper criminals, the DOGE flying monkeys who stole your personal information and the lying Trump bastards violating your Constitution and your rights every day.

Wake up!

.

America isn’t about any king.

It is about We The People.

We declare that in no uncertain terms right here.

.
Pics From The Highland Park NO KINGS Event

Yes that Highland Park. July 4, 2022. 7 killed, 48 wounded. Still this little village turned out over 3,000 yesterday to tell everyone that we will not have a king. We will not tolerate cruelty to anyone. The Law is the law and nobody is above it. Those sentiments were on display in over 2,160 locations nationwide with attendance in the millions.

Paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s address to the House of Commons in the darkest days of the blitzkrieg of the Battle of Britain, June 4, 1940:

We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight them in our town squares, we shall fight them in the hills. We shall never surrender. We shall fight them in our state houses, we shall fight them in our Congress. We shall fight them in our courts and we shall fight them in our voting booths. We shall rescue and liberate ourselves from their cruelty to carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, we restore our promise of America.

 

kakistocracy | kakəˈstäkrəsē | government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state

 

 

 

Credit to MG for this one

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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. 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and 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


Friday Extra – Reality Show


POST 1183

BSO Distraction

MSNBC and CNN are hyperventilating over the online feud between our president and his now estranged Director of Smash and Burn. It’s two billionaire tyrant brats having a public spat as reality show, but it’s far more than that.

These temper tantrums are Bright Shiny Objects designed to cause you either to fail to see or to ignore Trump’s horribles, like his new Muslim ban – 14 Muslim majority countries are accused of being such bad guys that no one from within their borders may come to the U.S. If you’re paying attention you’ll note that among the countries not on Trump’s list are:

– Saudi Arabia, where the leader, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, also known as MBS, had Washington Post journalist Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi tortured, murdered and dismembered. But that’s okay, because they’re letting Trump build a tower named after himself in Riyadh.

– Qatar, which just gave Trump a bribe of a $400 million airplane.

– Egypt, a citizen of which just injured 12 American Jews with a flame thrower and Molotov cocktails – dunno what Trump’s payday is with the Egyptians, but you can be sure that it’s a most impressive grift.

Of course, Trump is doing other things, like trying to end habeas corpus, defying judges and justices without being held in contempt of court and trying to get his despicable One Big Beastly Bill enacted so the Republicans can begin to end Medicare and Medicaid and let kids stay sick and let granny die. After all, Sen. Joni “Pig Castrator” Ernst has explained that we’re all going to die anyway.

Trump doesn’t want you to notice his treasonous efforts; hence, his reality show spat with Musk, who is angry because Biden’s deal to promote electric vehicles is being ended by Trump’s OBBB, so Musk-enriching spiffs will be gone; hence, his pissy.

You get the idea. So, ignore the stupid, bratty, rich jerk spat and focus on the substantive stuff, the repugnant, anti-American things they’re doing to bring our country crashing down.

Our Streets

You and I are just like the Founders in our abhorrence of kings – dictators, really. We are threatened by such people right now, in part because of the national insanity we’ve tolerated far too long. That’s why June 14 is

NO KINGS DAY!

.

You have to know what you stand for, or you’ll fall for anything.

Click on the map to find a demonstration near you. As of this writing there are over 1,400 of them, all for people across the nation who won’t tolerate Trump’s reign of scams, cruelties, corruption and the destruction of our Constitution he hopes will lead to his dictatorship and make him King Donald I.

But America isn’t about any king. It is about We The People. We declare that in no uncertain terms right here.

So, show up on June 14 to demonstrate who we really are, what we stand for and what we won’t stand for. And pass this message to others. This existential battle needs all of us.

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

Emergency


POST 1181

Paramedics Aren’t Enough
We all have to show up for this emergency.
.

Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is presented as a budget bill, but its 1,116 pages hide aggressively subversive things buried in its bulk that have nothing to do with budgets and everything to do with crushing our rights and our freedoms. This bill is a clear and present danger to the United States. It is an existential threat to our way of life and the values you and I hold dear.

In a level headed, referenced piece on the site of Campaign Legal Center entitled These Hidden Provisions in the Budget Bill Undermine Our Democracy, Eric Kashdan lays out some examples of the subversion* in this bill.

“An Attack on the Judicial Branch

“The first of these outrageous policies — buried in Section 70302 of the legislation — would severely restrict federal courts’ authority to hold government officials in contempt if they violate judicial orders.”

Just consider the Supreme Court’s order to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. and the Trump Administration’s refusal. This provision would actually make Trump’s criminal contempt of court legal.

“A Flood of False Information in Elections

“The second problematic provision — found within Section 43201(c) of the House reconciliation bill — would impose a 10-year ban on the enforcement of all state and local laws that regulate artificial intelligence (AI), including rules for AI’s use in political campaigns and elections.”

Read that again: This bill will kill the efforts of our states to stop election misinformation, interference and manipulation of voters.

The New York Times has an exhaustive walk-through of this assault on democracy. If you’re feeling too happy, sample your way through it and you’ll be cured.

This “Big Beastly Bill” (kudos to Nancy Kohn and Art Friedson for the label – link through to their post – it’s brilliantly clear) is cloaked as a budget bill but is chock full of democracy destroying provisions like the destruction of checks and balance that has nothing to do with budgetary issues. And it’s full of nuclear attacks on Americans, most especially on non-super rich Americans. It is straight out of the Project 2025 homegrown political terrorist playbook.

The treachery throughout this plan for a bloodless coup is a clear violation of both the Faithless Clause and the Deceit Clause of the Constitution and is likely in violation of various sections of U.S. Code: Title 18 — CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE, especially the Fraud, Unlawful, Cruel and Kaput (collectively the “FUCK Acts”) statutes.**

Trump and his fellow conspirators may well be in violation of sections of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which includes provisions for treason, seditious conspiracy and more. To be accurate, they aren’t trying to overthrow the government. They’re supplanting established norms with a blizzard of self-serving edicts nobody voted for and refusing to honor even a ghost of their oath of office.

Please link through and read this short, clear-headed explanation. There is more bad stuff in this bill than can be listed there, but this will get you started in your research to understand this awful bill.

Good-Bye Norman Rockwell

My wife and I have long enjoyed election day, walking to our local polling place, seeing neighbors there and all of us practicing citizenship. It’s a Norman Rockwell scene that affirms who we all are.

Now, though, we are threatened by tyrants who are working day and night in every venue imaginable to take away our rights of citizenship, to tear down our country, to impoverish you and me and to pocket the spoils for themselves. They want to set fire to that Norman Rockwell scene. That is the imminent danger we face.

Update From Sen. Pig Castrator

At a town hall on May 30 Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) responded to a constituent question about the massive cuts to Medicaid in the Big Beastly Bill – $880 billion – and how that will affect our most vulnerable. She smirked and said, “Well, we’re all going to die.”

That, apparently, is what passes for promoting the general welfare and compassion for the suffering, according to Republicans. See for yourself here. Watch for the smirk at 0.42.

Did You Know?
The Byrd Rule*** allows a single Senator to remove non-budget related provisions from bills that are attempting to be passed under budget reconciliation.
.
CALL YOUR SENATORS, because it takes 60 votes to overcome [a filibuster], and ONLY ONE SENATOR to call out these un-American provisions.
Action

Here are the two things we – you and I – must do.

1. Immediately phone both of your senators – no snail mail, no email – whether they’re Democratic, Republican or Independent. You can reach them through the

U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121

.

Tell them to invoke the Byrd Rule** on every single non-budgetary provision in this bill. That won’t fix everything, so they’ll also have to invoke the filibuster, too, if/when it comes time for voting on the entire caca package. Then tell them to VOTE NO on this attack-on-America bill.


2. Attend a NO KINGS protest on June 14. Click the map below for clarity about why you need to be there and to find a rally near you. I promise you that you’ll be emboldened and proud stand with people who show up to practice citizenship and to declare, “NO KINGS ON MY WATCH!“

Also, listen to New York Attorney General  Letitia James tell us it’s time to stand up and fight back. Do not give in to fear.

Finger Pointing Department

If you want to know who to blame for our ongoing debacle (root cause, primary driver), it might surprise you to learn that it isn’t Donald Trump. It’s who enabled Trump to happen. Click here.

Head Scratcher Department

Country Joe McDonald sang his song I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag at Woodstock 55 years ago. In it he asked about the Viet Nam war, “What are we fighting for?” I’d like to hear some of today’s Trump supporters answer that question – what are they fighting for?

_________________________________________________

* sub·ver·sion
/səbˈvərZHən,səbˈvərSHən/
  1. the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.
    “the ruthless subversion of democracy”
    Source: Oxford Languages

** These Clauses and statutes don’t exist, but they should so that we can accurately describe the un-American actions of today’s faithless, selfish, cowardly Republican saboteurs and hold them accountable.

*** From Google AI:

The Byrd Rule is a Senate rule that limits what can be included in reconciliation legislation to provisions that directly affect the federal budget, specifically spending and revenues. It prevents reconciliation bills from becoming vehicles for non-budgetary policy changes. 

Click here for a plain language explanation of the Byrd Rule, or here if you want to really get down in the weeds with it.
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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. 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 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Sleight of Mouth


POST 1180

Bright Shiny Objects

During the 2016 election campaign of Doñald* Trump we heard the audio recording of what became known as the Access Hollywood tape. In it Trump is heard bragging about trying to f*ck married women. He said, “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful… I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.” Clearly, without their consent.

He said he would, “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” Sexual predator stuff. It was a plain, direct admission of having committed multiple counts of felony sexual assault.

Later that same day, as reported in Wikipedia,

WikiLeaks begins publishing thousands of emails from the personal Gmail account of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, revealing excerpts from Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street.

While Doñald’s crude comments remained in the public discussion, Clinton’s pay for giving speeches to Wall Street firms proved to be a powerful distraction. And so it goes with most Trump vulnerabilities.

Heather Cox Richardson posted on May 16,

In his newsletter today, retired entrepreneur Bill Southworth tallied the times Trump has grabbed headlines to distract people from larger stories, starting the tally with how Trump’s posts about Peanut the Squirrel the day before the election swept like a brushfire across the right-wing media ecosystem and then into the mainstream. In early 2025, Southworth notes, as the media began to dig into the dramatic restructuring of the federal government, Trump posted outrageously about Gaza, and that story took over. When cuts to PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and the U.S. Agency for International Development threatened lives across Africa, Trump turned the conversation to white South Africans he lied were fleeing “anti-white genocide.”**

So the political lesson is that when exposed as a cheat, fraud, liar or sexual assaulter, Trump dumps something explosive to distract the public. It’s the Bright Shiny Object insanity plea.

Like Doñald surrendering to China by reducing tariffs from 145% to 30% and getting nearly no concessions in return. Nevertheless, the self-crowned master of negotiating claimed a big negotiating win for America and personally attacked his critics, which became the story.

Like the week ending with Moody’s downgrading America’s credit score (as did two other ratings agencies), so Doñald had his spokesman, Steven Cheung, make personal attacks on a Moody’s analyst. As with nearly all things related to Trump, Cheung completely failed to address the substantive issue.

Like the Supreme Court overwhelmingly shooting down Doñald for using the Alien Enemies Act to kidnap people off the street, so Doñald countered by announcing a $400 million dollar aircraft “gift” from the Qataris, which became all the buzz.***

Another of Trump’s get-away trick for his indefensible assaults on law and morality is to do bad stuff by stealth in the middle of the night, like the Republican House did when cobbling together the theft of Medicaid via their fetid, stinking budget. They are sneaking their rip-off, their larceny from poor children, from grannies in nursing and retirement homes, from desperately poor people in Red states and so many more millions of Americans needing healthcare. It’s all to transfer more trillions of dollars to greedy billionaires and add another $5 trillion to our national debt, the debt service of which will overwhelmingly be paid by working Americans, not the greedy billionaires.

Does this ghastly, dreadful, putrid stuff make you want to stand up and scream? Well, there’s good news for you.

Slighting You and Me

From Dan Rather, May 16 regarding the rancid Republican budget bill:

Trump and Johnson don’t want to give anyone time to read the fine print [in the 1116 page bill].

Because then folks would know that the bill would cut $625 billion from Medicaid, pushing more than 8 million of our most vulnerable from its rolls.

People would also be aware that cuts to the food stamp program would target poor families with children, seniors, and veterans.

Voters would find out that someone making less than $15,000 a year would see their federal taxes increase by 74.3% by 2031. That is not a typo.

Trump claims all of these cuts are necessary to make his $4.5 trillion tax cut for billionaires and corporations permanent.

Reader and friend E.L. gave me the heads up that last Sunday was the 98th anniversary of Charles LIndbergh’s flight across the Atlantic Ocean. It was quite a feat and it put Lindbergh into a special class, which became quite mixed.

He was quite familiar with the Nazis and said this in a 1945 speech:

History is full of [the] misuse [of power]. There is no better example than Nazi Germany. Power without moral force to guide it invariably ends in the destruction of the people who wield it. Power . . . must be backed by morality . . .

We are suffering terribly from a lack of morality in our government. If this continues, there will surely be destruction of We The People before “the destruction of the people who wield [power].”

From Norm Eisen’s Memorial Day post:

To memorialize our veterans’ sacrifices is to attend to the fragile, unfinished work of fighting autocracy and building a country worthy of their service. It is to hold tight to the idea of America, even when its practice falters. To do our part, as they did—not on distant battlefields, but on our streets, among our communities, and in our courthouses.

Our Streets

You and I are just like the Founders in our abhorrence of kings, monarchs, despots and dictators. Won’t tolerate one in our America. Which is why June 14 is

NO KINGS DAY!

.

Click on the map, to find a demonstration near you and register. If there isn’t one close by, register to organize one. Or wait a few days, as new sites are popping up every day. As of this writing there are hundreds of them, people across the nation who won’t tolerate Trump’s scams leading to his dictatorship. Many thanks to Indivisible for kick starting this national demonstration to strengthen America and metaphorically kick would-be kings in a most debilitating spot.

Yes, June 14 is the date of Trump’s birthday and his narcissistic, “Aren’t I The Powerful One!” military parade. It’s designed to show the world what a tough guy he is, able to tear up Pennsylvania Avenue with tank treads in a single afternoon and waste $45 million beyond that. Instead, he could hire more air traffic controllers, but that wouldn’t be special for him.

“NO KINGS” – kinda has a ring to it.

__________________________________________

* We’ll call him “Doñald” now and then to honor the millions of Hispanic people living in our country who are threatened by him every day and who live in fear. We honor all who walk down the sidewalk or speak out in any way Trump doesn’t like, be they citizens or visitors.

We extend our flick off to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its masked thugs who refuse to produce identification and who have no arrest warrants, but happily kidnap people. Didn’t kidnapping used to be a federal offense?

** Musk, too, claims there is a genocide of White farmers ongoing in his native country, South Africa. Here’s the fun part: His own Grok xAI says that isn’t true.

*** The giving of such a “gift” is called “bribery.” Also, “foreign emoluments,” which, like bribery, is prohibited by the Constitution.

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

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose


POST 1179

I recently ran across a post from election year 1996 and was struck yet again that

  • “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
  • “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
  • – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, 1849

But the intensity, the rotten flavor does change and sometimes brings diabolical things, like this.

The plan was for the House Rules Committee to do a mark-up vote on the Trumpy-named The One Big Beautiful Bill. It has horrific provisions, like huge cuts to Medicaid, disapproved by 75% of Americans, logging on public lands, $4 trillion in tax cuts for the rich and a corresponding increase in our national debt – you get the idea. Those are just some of the embarrassingly awful provisions of this authoritarian bill that were driving Republicans to vote at 1:00AM today, thinking they can sneak it past you and me.

The sneaky part is the “things stay the same” because for decades Republicans have done terrible things that the vast majority of Americans dislike and they often try to creep them through without our seeing what they’re doing. But we do see. We know their slimy ways, regardless of the time of day when they do them. For more on the “sneaky” and this administration’s “slimy,” read Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of today.

Check the news today to find out what happened. If the committee passed this giant wad of wet toilet paper of a bill, it will to to the full House for a vote on Memorial Day, when all Democrats will vote against it and we will hope that 4 Republicans will have sufficient spine to stand against it.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Take Note, Trump Voter

I am grossly offended by the dishonesty that is thrown at me by the Liar in Chief and his band of traitors to America, as they spray their bent logic, their broken morality, their attack on every facet of our rule of law and their worst efforts to kill and bury The American Dream.

I abhor those calling upon our fears and our anger and rallying us to hate and strike out at others. It’s a mean spirited but effective ploy for votes and power, no doubt. It’s been used by demagogues and power mongers all over the world and it works, especially with low information voters. But it appeals because even as people are tricked onto the slide down to inevitable catastrophe, they’ll have the opportunity to have their fists clenched in a momentary rush of feeling powerful. But that’s all it will be – a momentary rush. And it will leave us all the poorer, more divided and far less free. See the next section of this post for more on that.

When someone tells us, “It’s those guys in the Washington swamp,” or “It’s the east and west coast elites,” or that it’s some fantasy Mexican drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes or it’s phantom Tren de Aragua terrorists, they give us targets for our anger, even as there’s no sense in their words. Their hatred creates an “us” versus “them” mentality that they use to justify cruelty.

Simple solutions to complex problems are appealing. We like simple because we understand it and are comfortable with it. Unfortunately, many things just aren’t simple. So, I’m wary of people who tell me that their simple solution will solve all or even some of our enormously complex problems, or that they will solve problems “on day one.” It just doesn’t work that way.

I don’t trust people who lie to me, saying tariffs are paid by other countries or who extort individuals and companies to kiss the ring. The liars and the power cheaters will smear us with their lies and get their simple solutions in place, but then We The People will stand up and push back hard. Then we’ll banish the cheaters, but we’ll be left with the mess they made and it will take the work of generations of Americans to clean it up.

It’s looking like we have to stand against that now, before yet more damage is done to the things you care about.

Click here and look for more specifics coming on Sunday.

Here’s a card that was placed on my wife’s car windshield while she was grocery shopping.

Upon seeing the card my first reaction was to wonder about the rage the creator of the card must carry around to have gone to such bother just to be a jerk.  It isn’t road rage; it’s parking rage. Clearly, this guy has serious and debilitating anger issues which he wishes to impose on the rest of us.

Which made me wonder about this society, where vomiting out our every thin-skinned inkling of injustice and blaming others for our every disappointment is considered normal and even powerful and worthy of counter-attack and cruelty, sometimes online and sometimes in a supermarket parking lot.

Oh, and the reverse side of the card has a sketch of a fist with a raised middle finger, the true logo of MAGA. Welcome to the world of the perpetually angry.

Oh, and my wife is doing just fine. Thanks for asking.

We are now mired in the quicksand of Trump mendacity, thievery and his destruction of all we hold dear. So many promises have been broken, like the promise – the oath – to protect and defend our Constitution; like promises to our friends and neighbors who need help; like the promise of ending so much suffering, like promises to our friends and allies and like the promise of the American Dream for our children.

We need strong, positive leadership in this country and we need it right now. It can’t wait until the 2028 election.

If you’d like to learn how we’ve been manipulated into voting for exactly what the majority of us don’t want, read Thom Hartmann’s post, America’s Long Coup: How the GOP Rigged, Lied, and Stole Its Way Into the White House for Over 50 Years. As you read it, have water handy, because the truth will set your hair on fire.

And you’ll know what to do.

Today’s Fun Fact

Here’s yet another “stays the same.”

.

Finally, Some Cautionary Questions

I am the son of parents who were children of parents who were children of immigrants.

  1. Should I steel myself against the time when my front door is bashed down in the middle of the night by masked thugs carrying weapons, men who offer no ID, who have no warrant for my arrest signed by a judge, indeed, no warrant at all?
  2. What if they have come to arrest me and force me onto a deportation flight to El Salvador? Isn’t that kidnapping? Isn’t that a federal offense?
  3. Should I somehow prepare myself for a similar event on a sunny day while I’m walking down the sidewalk to the barber shop?
  4. What is the best safety protocol, knowing in advance that I won’t be afforded a telephone call or a judicial hearing?
  5. Am I at greater risk for having no tattoos but knowing a smattering of words in Spanish?
  6. How should I advise my wife and children on what to do, how to survive, in my absence?

And the non-immigration question: I write these posts and they are quite disparaging of Mr. Trump. Given his mania for retribution and my modest means, how should I prepare myself for his baseless $2 million defamation lawsuit?

Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election

Countdown Timer

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

Who Benefits?


POST 1178

Last Wednesday I showed you that “repugnant, organizationally illiterate, DUI Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has announced that he is firing 20% of our flag officers [generals and admirals]” and that he “plans to eliminate legacy weapons and equipment programs.” I asked a critical question:

Who will benefit from us hobbling our national defense?
.

There are more areas to which to apply the “Who Benefits?” question..

Trump cut military aid and satellite surveillance capability from Ukraine. Then, having eliminated all motivation for Putin to negotiate to end the war in Ukraine, he invited Putin to a 30-day ceasefire, which Putin rejected, of course.

Same question again: Who benefits from our double-dealing?
.

Scott Galloway wrote in his post Brain Drain how we have massively cut our support and promotion of science, research and the things that have made us healthy, prosperous, safe and the go-to place for the best and the brightest in the world. Now those brilliant and creative people are either avoiding the U.S. entirely or are accepting schooling and R&D opportunities in other countries. And it isn’t just foreign born smart people who are abandoning us. It’s America’s best and brightest, too.

Trump’s self-defeating wounds are massively stupid actions that will crush the momentum of 80 years of our investments in growth and innovation. They will set us behind many other countries.

Same question: Who will benefit from our knee capping ourselves like that?
.

More in this line from STAT:

The city of Milwaukee was in the middle of a public health crisis when the Trump administration abruptly laid off 10,000 federal health workers last month. A lead crisis, to be exact: Late last year, a student had a concerning blood test, and the source turned out to be their school. The city took on the case, but investigating more than 100 schools is much more complicated than the typical exposure that occurs inside one family’s home. The local team would often turn to CDC scientists for both strategic planning and step-by-step guidance. Then the layoffs occurred, and all of those federal scientists were gone.

Who benefits from our government abandoning our health and safety needs?
.

Hint: It isn’t the lead poisoned children in Milwaukee – or those in any other place.

Trump imposed his brain-free tariffs with the precision of a car crushing machine and already our economy has been harmed, our supply chain is missing links, prices are on the rise, shelves at Walmart will be empty in not much more than a month and most of our former friends are avoiding us and looking for other partnerships.

Same question yet again: Who will benefit from our bad will, our forcing a trade war on the world and our abandoning our friends and allies?
.

I could go on with many more examples. The point is that Trump and his greedy billionaire power grabbing dictator wannabes and his lying, traitorous ideological sycophants are doing everything they can to destroy our strength, our leadership, our good will and our freedom.

Who will benefit from our self-destruction?
.

Here’s another question, one that you won’t like if you aren’t speaking out against these attacks on our country. It’s the one that our children and grandchildren will be asking you and me in the years to come, as the ashes from our self-immolation rain down on them.

What did you do to prevent this catastrophe?
.
One More Category

Trump is offered and may receive a “gift” of a $400 million airplane.

Get serious: Nobody gives $400 million like this and expects nothing in return. It is not a gift. It is a quid with an as yet unnamed pro quo. What do the Qataris want?

This “gift,” if retrofitted to the performance, communications and security measures required for it to be used as Air Force 1, will cost we taxpayers between $600 – 900 million.

Plus, Trump has bullied our military into giving him his narcissistic “big, beautiful” military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. It will include 6,000 troops, 50 fighter jets and bombers and 150 military vehicles, including tanks that will destroy the pavement. It will cost you and me at least $45 million dollars. That doesn’t count the cost to restore Pennsylvania Avenue.

Obviously, there is no need to ask who benefits from these “mine’s bigger than yours” over-indulgences. Makes me wonder if there are limits to infantile behavior. Scratch that. Obviously, there isn’t.

Li’l Fun – Just To Lighten Up A Bit

This is to the tune of Harry Belafonte’s version of Matilda. Here it is karaoke style so you can sing along.

               Orange Trumpy
  • 1.
  • He say dey Argentina gang bangs.
  • Got no evidence of such t’ings.
  • Orange Trumpy, de courts do slap down, he jus’ ain’ no big king.
  • Everybody!
  • .
  • Chorus
  • Orange Trumpy (grifting with the crypto)
  • Orange Trumpy (trade apocalypto)
  • Orange Trumpy he take de money and run Mar-a-Lago.
  • 2.
  • He say we subsidize Canada.
  • Dumped a tariff on ’em, uh-huh.
  • Dey fight back and send de message to Trump, “Go screw ya.”
  • 3.
  • Walmart say de prices get big.
  • Tariffs make sick economy pig.
  • Moody’s does downgrade of U.S., is no longer safe gig.
  • 4.
  • Orange Trumpy say he don’ really know
  • If defend Constitution’s his show.
  • Orange Trumpy ignore court orders and kidnap your neighbor.
  • 5.
  • Orange Trumpy don’ care none ’bout your health
  • Just as long as he increase his wealth.
  • He say Granny jus’ go die and let cancer kill kids.
  • 6.
  • He say burn books that ain’t enough White.
  • Fire librarians just out of spite.
  • Orange Trumpy, he can’t read nothin’ and wants you be dumb, too.
  • 7.
  • Orange Trumpy sell dinner access, is plain,
  • Billionaires try to get in his brain.
  • But Orange Trumpy, dementia makes him don’ know nuthin’ no more.
  • Everybody!
  • .
  • Chorus 2
  • Orange Trumpy, sucking cash and airplanes.
  • Orange Trumpy, griftin’ wid just half brain.
  • Orange Trumpy, he take de money and run Mar-a-Lago.
  • Finally, The Scantron Crisis
  • Donald Trump has decreed that little girls may have only 2 dolls and 5 pencils (Merry Christmas!). Got me to wondering if pencils are still used in schools. Turns out they are, primarily for Scantron answer sheets.
  • But what’s a kid to do while taking her 5th grade math test, Mr. Pencil President, when her pencil points break or they aren’t sharp enough? Can you negotiate a deal for her? Your daddy got you test score deals at The Wharton School, right?
Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election

Countdown Timer

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

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