Conservatism

You’re Being Played, But Not Like You Think


POST 1114

An Insidious Conspiracy

JD Vance is a guy who compared Trump to Hitler. He said, “I’m a Never Trump guy. I never liked him.” He said lots more that was unlikely to cause Trump to find him attractive. Still, he got the nod, so many were asking why Trump picked him to be his running mate.

Vance is where he is because of millions of dollars invested in him by Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Now, why would these guys shell out that kind of cash to get this phony hillbilly into position to be Vice President of the United States? You know they expect to get massive pay back for their investments. Let’s back up the story a bit to see what we can find.

Let’s make the assumption that the people at the Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025, are smart guys. You may not like their values or their policies, you may customarily call them some unattractive names, but they aren’t stupid. They and others like them have waged a 50 year war on our liberal democracy, perhaps even going back to FDR. Their fight has been constant and it is solely about amassing astonishing piles of cash and unlimited power, even as they claim patriotic values to distract you. And we all have been distracted. They have brought us to the point where a fascist, an avowed enemy of democracy, has an even chance to regain the White House.

It’s great fun to ridicule Trump, but that’s looking in the wrong direction.

We love to attack Trump for his crudeness, his cruelty, his lack of substance, his fundamental dishonesty and his flagrant stupidity. Now we’re watching him disintegrate mentally before our eyes.

But shift your thinking from the magician’s hand that you see – that’s Trump – to the one behind his back that is tricking you. Trump is the joker that the magician, the manipulator, the Heritage Foundation, flashes before our eyes. But behind their back is the hand manipulating events that will put Vance into the Presidency. Here’s how.

Trump’s mental faculties are unraveling before our eyes and before the eyes of the world. His ability to stay on a topic has shrunken to just a few seconds of outrageous accusations and idiotic projections, leading to a verbal spaghetti of senselessness. Just imagine the fear our NATO allies feel and the excitement that world dictators are enjoying over the prospect of another 4 years of Trump.

He has refused interviews everywhere. He won’t show up at CNN, CNBC or 60 Minutes and he won’t debate his opponent. He’ll only appear with fawning supporters and even then all he can manage are short periods of cruelty, threats of violence and mental incontinence. He couldn’t even stay glued together at a friendly town hall and had to resort to playing music and swaying moronically for 39 minutes.

His campaign staff, his family, MAGA politicians and pundits all know that they have to limit his pubic exposure because every time he opens his mouth to speak he undermines his candidacy. Far more important, they all know that if he wins the election that he will be unable to execute the duties of the Office of the Presidency or even the dictates of the Heritage Foundation.

You’re being played by master magicians, but not like you think. You’re being made to think that this chaos and instability are about Trump, the joker, but he’s just the distraction. The real danger is the manipulation we don’t see, but it’s being done in plain sight.

Within months, perhaps just days of Trump taking office, the 25th Amendment will be invoked. Congress will support it and JD Vance will become President of the United States, your ruler.

Did that send a shiver up your spine? It should, because Vance is smart, cunning, an extremist and the author of the violent introduction to Project 2025. He would follow its dictates and destroy our democracy. He wants you to be crushed by fascism. You know that frighteningly well.

That is the goal of the Heritage Foundation. Vance is the traitor to democracy who will make you a serf and give oligarchs all the money and all the power. These are our morbidly rich to whom we’ve already transferred $50 trillion of our wealth thanks to trickle down economics and self-defeating tax cuts for the rich.

.
We’ve been played, all right, but not by Trump, the snake oil salesman and marionette of the ultra-rich.
.

We’ve been played by the oligarch wannabes for at least five decades and now we’re being played to put Vance, the oligarch tool boy, into the White House to do their bidding.

.
This election isn’t about Trump’s insanity. It’s about whether we will crush our own democracy through our willful blindness to what is before our eyes.
.

Vance is actually worse than you already think. Have a look at this memo from the guys who ran Tim Ryan’s Senate campaign against Vance. They looked the beast in the eyes and they know what they saw. This guy is smooth, slick and dishonest. And no, he doesn’t think Trump lost the 2020 election. Or at least that’s the story he changed to after being named Trump’s running mate and shifting from being a Never Trumper to being a spineless Trump suck up.

We are powerless to remove Vance from the ticket, so our only hope to protect our rights, our freedom and our democracy is to defeat Trump, which would bar the White House door to Vance. We have to defeat the Republicans running for other offices, too. Our most sacred right,

VOTING

.

is our only weapon to ensure that there will be elections in 2026 and 2028. This is truly a use-it-or-lose-it moment.

We must crush the plan of the Heritage Foundation or it will crush us. So,

If you don’t want a President Vance;

If you don’t want democracy to end and be replaced by oligarchs counting the money they’ve taken from you and exploiting and abusing you;

If you’re tired of being played for a fool;

.  .  .  then you know what we must do. We must defeat the forces of evil which otherwise will subjugate us. They are fascists. They are despotic. They care nothing for your freedom except to take it away from you. They have been working all these long decades to defeat you and end everything you hold dear.

Your vote is critical, but it isn’t enough. You must get people to the polls. You have to motivate voters in red states and blue states and purple states to get off their Barcaloungers and show up and vote.

Put out your lawn sign, make calls to swing states, write postcards to swing state voters and talk to people, even your crazy Uncle Bob. Offer to drive people to the polls. Even staunch Republicans and MAGAs want their rights and their freedom and they won’t have either if Vance is behind the Resolute desk for 4 years. None of us will have the America we believe in if the Heritage Foundation owns it.

It’s time to redouble our efforts to send all Republicans packing – especially Vance and the other extremists – before they can reduce us to serfdom in their fascist state.

Best Guess

Trump is doing everything he can to lose this election by insulting as many people as possible, by advocating policies that will hurt as many people as possible, by flagrantly demonstrating his mental deterioration, by avoiding attracting as few new voters as possible and telling people that after this election they won’t have to vote.

Best guess: He isn’t trying to win in the old fashioned way because he can’t. He wants to spark a civil war and violently take over the country.

They’re Trying To Buy It Outright

From Mother Jones, October 21:

[Elon] Musk is saying he will give out a million dollars a day—every day until the election—to voters in swing states who sign a petition from his pro-Trump political action committee (and no, I will not link to it). He was also pledging to pay $100 to registered Pennsylvania voters who sign his petition through today.

Is that okay with you? I don’t think it’s okay with the Justice Department.

Tell people to vote like their life depends on it.

Because it does.

 

It’s not the vibes and it’s not the polls: it’s the votes. 
Are you registered to vote? Check it out on any of these websites:
.

https://www.vote.org/am-i-registerilled-to-vote/

https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration

https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/am-i-registered-to-vote/

“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

People Are Saying


POST 1093

And They’re Saying A Lot

Here’s former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) on August 4 about the upcoming election, what’s at stake and what to do about it:

I believe in democracy; Donald Trump does not. I believe in the constitution; Donald Trump does not.

There is nothing more conservative than standing for the constitution and standing for democracy. Donald Trump only believes in gaining power no matter the cost to the constitution and the cost to  democracy.

That is why I’m endorsing Kamala Harris. That is why I will do everything in my power to ensure Donald Trump does not win this election.

Here’s what Prof. Heather Cox Richardson has to say about those who would throw our Constitution into the garbage (today’s Republicans – the ones who don’t believe in this republic), just as the enslavers and oligarchs wanted to do in Lincoln’s time:

When Democrats [i.e. today’s Republicans] tried to call those coming together as Republicans [today’s lefties] “radicals,” rising politician Abraham Lincoln turned the tables by standing firm on the Declaration of Independence. “[Y]ou say you are conservative—eminently conservative—while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort,” he said, addressing the Democrats who remained determined to base the United States in enslavement.

“What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by ‘our fathers who framed the Government under which we live’; while you with one accord .  .  . spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new . . . Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated.” [emphasis mine]

We fight the same fight today against those who would enslave us. Now they aren’t slave owners and they aren’t called conservatives. They are called Republicans or MAGAs or Project 2025 schemers. Sometimes they’re called minority tyrants, vote stealers, liars and .  .  .  aw, don’t get me started.

During an interview of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer she was asked about how Trump is doing with Harris as his opponent:

I think Kamala Harris is [Trump’s] worst nightmare: a strong woman of color who was formerly in law enforcement.

What JD Vance Is Saying

Immediately after the Walz pick for VP was announced the Trump-Vance Lying Machine was running at top speed. Here’s Vance, verbatim, on August 7:

Click me

My view on it is it just highlights how radical Kamala Harris is.This is a person who listened to the Hamas wing of her own party in selecting a nominee. This is a guy who’s proposed shipping more manufacturing jobs to China, who wants to make the American people more reliant on garbage energy instead of good American energy and has proposed defunding the police just as Kamala Harris does. I think it’s interesting – actually, they make an interesting tag team – because, of course, Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, and then the few who got caught, Kamala Harris helped bail them out of jail. So, it is more instructive for what it says about Kamala Harris that she doesn’t care about the border, she doesn’t care about crime, she doesn’t care about American energy, and most of importantly, she doesn’t care about the Americans who have been made to suffer under those policies.

What Jax Is Saying
.

EVERYTHING VANCE SAID IS FALSE! ALL OF IT!

.

Right: That isn’t news. Either he is gobsmackingly ignorant and doesn’t have the sense to keep his ignorant mouth shut, or he is a liar. You decide.

Not so much for Vance

Vance (a “faux-billy” from non-Appalachia, per Maureen Dowd) is a political and amoral match for the psychopath Trump. Vance is the guy who called Trump America’s Hitler and was an enthusiastic never-Trumper right, until it was more politically advantageous to him to reverse himself in a spineless jellyfish whiplash. Expect more from him like this.

Can’t wait for the VP debate, assuming the ex-Marine paper pusher, the one whose lies violate Semper Fi (“Always Faithful”)  has the spine to show up.

Speaking of Debates
I have been wondering when Harris would call Trump a coward for refusing to debate per agreement without his open mic and his home boys primed to cheer for him. He’s finally agreed to a September 10 debate, the one he “committed” to, but I have my doubts whether he’ll show up. What to do to encourage him? So many possibilities .  .  .

“Kamala Harris’s Laugh Is a Campaign Issue. Our Comedy Critic Weighs in. The Trump campaign sees Harris’s laugh as a vulnerability to exploit. But far from a liability, it is one of her most effective weapons.” Click the pic

.
What’s the matter, Donald? Are you too chicken to come out of your Mar-a-Lago hidey-hole? It’s just me, a Black, Asian woman who’s a former prosecutor. That too scary for you?
.
If you don’t have what it takes to face me, you don’t have what it takes to face world leaders. C’mon, show us what you got. Gimme your best shot.
.

Paraphrased from Ronald Reagan’s take down of Walter Mondale in their 1984 debate:

I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s obvious mental decline, his criminal convictions, his many indictments, his history of violence toward women or his vast ignorance.

Can’t you just see her saying that and then laughing the Kamala laugh?

Wash, rinse, repeat through November 5.

The point is to belittle him – challenge his fake masculinity. Make his weakness and lack of courage plain for all to see. I want verbal blood on the floor – arterial gushing.

Trump is stumbling around trying to find a nasty name to call Harris. The current one is “Kambala.” So, here’s something for Harris and Walz to use at rallies and the debates:

Name calling? All you have is name calling like a brat on the playground, Donald? That just isn’t enough. This country needs clear headed adults, not childish bullies having temper tantrums.

Prebuttal

Harris and Walz are getting a lot of air time now and you’re seeing very little of Trump and Vance. I can almost hear Trump whining about how unfair that is, how he’s being victimized by the fake media, poor baby. These and more are his standard victim wailings, as at his press conference on August 8.

Did you notice how reporters’ questions weren’t mic-ed so you didn’t know what the questions were and that reporters were not allowed follow up questions? That let him ramble incoherently and you didn’t know that he never addressed the questions.

Many of his rallies were broadcast in full in 2016 by what he calls the “fake media.” I’ve seen estimates of the value of free media time for Trump ranging from $1 – 2 billion during that campaign. Funny thing, we didn’t hear him complain about how unfair that free air time was.

His whining, his temper tantrums and made up s**t about being victimized by the fake media are on the way. Brace yourself for the coming Trumpocalypse. It will be in all caps on his Untruth Social rage machine.

Trump Must Never Get His Hands On Any Power Greater Than The Flush Handle Of A Prison Toilet.
Are you registered to vote? Check it out here:
.

https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/

https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration

https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/am-i-registered-to-vote/

“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016.


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Oh No – Reality!


Post 1,023

___________________________________

Republicans have been trying to kill Social Seciurity only since it began in 1935. Just a few years ago Paul Ryan (D-WI) tried to replace Social Security with a voucher system that he insisted wasn’t a voucher system. But it was and his sneakily misnamed scheme didn’t fly.

Since that Ryan skirmish over reality, Republicans have reverted to periodic bouts of phony statistics, victim whining and magical thinking. But they’re just politicians doing what today’s Republicans do. What about the way the rest of We The People feel about the Social Security system and what to do about it?

First, start with the plain fact that everyone loves Social Security. That is true at least for old people and also for others who know old people and for people who hope to one day become an old person. So, if there is any truth to the claims that Social Security will one day run out of money (and the math suggests that it will on some hotly disputed date), then we are left to figure out what to do about that.

Should we:

Raise the retirement age?

Limit benefits to some generations?

Limit benefits to all generations?

Eliminate cost of living adjustments (COLA)?

Let Granny starve or freeze to death?

Put old people in retirement city collectives, which would be cheaper than individual dwellings (we won’t call them “concentration camps”). After all, we do public housing so very well.

Offer them a bonus to die so we can eliminate the cost of their upkeep and then harvest their organs?

Eliminate the cap on contributions so that rich people and corporations pay their proportionate share of taxes on all payroll, not just some?

Raise the Social security tax rate on everyone?

Make the tax rate progressive instead of a flat tax?

The Gallup organization did a recent study of how we Americans want to see this issue solved. Here’s the chart of their surprising findings:

That’s right: By a 2 to 1 margin We The People would rather raise taxes on ourselves than cut benefits. And I’ll bet you can guess who’s in the 31% in favor setting Granny adrift. Here’s the full story.

Don’t expect any Republican to show this chart as support for his/her speech on the floor of the House or Senate – not when they can instead go histrionic over their fantasy of a deep state. They’ll be arguing yet again against what We The People want, like the way they vote against gun safety laws and abortion.

BTW – and I shouldn’t have to tell you this –  If you don’t want to worry about what the Grinches want to do to your retirement benefits or to Granny’s, elect people who will protect your benefits.

That’s right: If you want Social Security to be there for you, you have to do something about it. That’s the reality.

Boomers Strike Back

All true. All Boomers can do those things.

Truth be told, not only can I write in cursive, but sometimes later on I can read what I wrote. And I can use it to prevent Trump from reading my secret messages – kind of like our WW II Navajo Code Talkers – both because of my semi-undecipherable cursive and because he can’t read anything but a teleprompter (not well) and Mein Kampf (too well).

That’s reality, too.

Worst Person of the Month Award

So many worthy candidates but just one award .  .  .

Ken Paxton, the Republican Attorney General of Texas, has made it his holy mission, his crusade, his bible-thumping idiocy to be the fundamentalist decider in all things in the lives of all Texans.

He’s fighting the federal greenhouse gas rule, as though global warming will somehow skip around Texas and too bad for the rest of us.

He’s snooping into records from a Seattle hospital regarding gender affirming care for Texas kids. You read that right: in Seattle.

He loves the Texas concertina wire fences that slice up people coming to this country from the south. They’ve already killed some asylum seekers. Why aren’t there murder charges against the perps? Oh, right – it’s Texas.

All of that and more is contrary to the will of the majority of Texans, but that’s okay, because Paxton can bible-thump away at anyone who disagrees with him.

One last thing: his impeachment trial on corruption charges is getting close to a verdict.

  • Query: How come so many moral zealots are found
  • to be hypocrites and morality violators?

The worst part of the Paxton story involves Kate Cox, a pregnant Texas woman carrying a fetus that has severe medical problems that make survival outside the womb nearly impossible. Plus, continuing her pregnancy to term with this fetus might cause Cox to lose the ability to have another child and might even prove to be lethal to her.

She went to court in order to obtain an exception from the draconian Texas abortion law. Her case was based on the threat to Cox’s life. She won in the circuit court, allowing her to have an abortion. That’s when Ken the Merciless showed up and appealed to the Texas Supreme Court to block the whole thing. Paxton’s halo glowed like the sun, as he ensured that both Ms. Cox and her baby would likely die. Ms. Cox was running out of time to take action, so she left Texas to get the medical care she desperately needed elsewhere.

That’s why the Worst Person of the Month Award is hereby slimed upon Ken Paxton, the self-appointed dictator of Texas morality, This well-earned derision is for driving Kate Cox out of Texas without even a moment’s thought to her welfare. He’s quite like the medicine man with a bone in his nose, driving witches out of the village to die in the jungle.

“Congratulations, Ken! You’re the Worst Person of the Month, a first class hypocrite and a world class jerk.”

Come to think of it, he’s just like his boss, Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

Tell you what, crepes: You come after me and leave that poor woman alone. She has enough to handle without having to fend off your cruelty and overcompensation for your inadequacies.

Sadly, that’s reality, too.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

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


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Blood Pressure


Post 1,019

___________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How’s your blood pressure now?

Just a Curiosity

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

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

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

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

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

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


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Tentacles of Flames


Post 1,015

—————————————

Near the end of the 1977 movie Star Wars – Episode IV, A New Hope we see Luke Skywalker release his photon torpedoes into the tunnel to the reactor of the Death Star. He banks his X-Wing fighter away and we see the Death Star explode behind him, with tentacles of flame from the explosion reaching for his fighter.

That story isn’t new, including those very dangerous tentacles of flame.

We have before us the election of our national lifetime. The evil empire wants to subvert and destroy what we have worked centuries to build. They promise to dissolve the power of Congress and eliminate fair justice. They have constructed a political Death Star (Project 2025) to do their worst to all of us.*

We have only our X-Wing fighters and our indomitable will to stop them and it will take every one of we pilots to strap in and ride into the battle to eliminate their ultimate weapon. We have to enlist everyone if we are to keep this the America we believe in.

Still, even when we win, we will feel the flames at our backs. The emperor and his Storm Troopers won’t go away and all we’ll have is a temporary respite from the battle to defeat their evil.

Yoda

As Yoda (sort of) said:

Remember this you must, young Jedi: When explode the Republican Death Star you do in 2024, cruel Storm Troopers there still will be and a new evil empire they will seek to establish. Guard the republic you must from their treachery. Ever vigilant you must be.
.
Because They’ll Look Like This

It was inevitable. What’s surprising is that it took this long.

Last Thursday there was a peculiar looking envelope in my snailmail box. It was addressed to “Resident” in a scratchy hand looking like a preschool child’s attempt to imitate printing. The stamp was cocked 90 degrees right and there was no return address. Rather than immediately tossing it into the recycle bin unopened, I took a look.

And was greeted by a swastika.

You can see the appeals to hatred in this PDF of the documents. They invite me to join the American Nazi Party and the National Alliance (apparently a bunch of hateful, not-very-Christian White Nationalists). If their calculations are accurate, all of our national and local problems are due to Blacks (“undesirable and dangerous”), Jews (of course) and especially invading Latinos, of whom there is “an unlimited supply.”

I’m not brave enough to go to either website to learn more and possibly have my computer hacked by frightened and frightening thugs living in a constant rush of hate power. I don’t recommend that you do that, either, unless you know what to do to protect yourself from malicious e-stuff and malicious domestic terrorists.

Many of our elected officials and candidates are just like these extremists, either dog whistling haters or out in the open haters, appealing to voters’ fear of change, fear of “the other,” fear of loss of privilege and the love of blaming others for their insecurities and failings. Fundamentally, these self-important power seeking ones scheme for votes using all the White supremacist tropes of hatred.

These leaders are today’s and tomorrow’s Imperial Storm Troopers against whom we must maintain constant vigilance, as Yoda instructs. They are the tentacles of flame that constantly reach out to destroy our nation. Even when we crush them in the 2024 election – that will be our New Hope – they will not go away. They will Strike Back with evil new ways to subvert our Constitution, our democracy and your freedom. Whether he’s still wearing a much too long red necktie or an orange jumpsuit, the evil Orange Emperor will still command an army bent on destruction of all you hold dear.

For clarity about the twisted, manipulative destruction schemes of the evil empire, watch Rachel Maddow’s explanation here. Many thanks to MA for the pointer.

Warns Yoda,

“Reaching for our backs, tentacles of flame there will always be, even after our great victory next November. So you will go, young Jedi, to the Earth 1 system, where you will find the protectors of our democracy. Train you they will in the ways of The Vote and you will join the battle against the cruel ones who openly promise to destroy what is sacred to you. Protect and defend our democracy you must, with constant vigilance.

….“The Force will be with you – always.”

__________________________________________

*  From Jon Meacham, Reflections of History, November 1:

Conservatism in America in 2022 is hardly what [Russell] Kirk (The Forgotten Father of American Conservatism), William F. Buckley, Jr., Ronald Reagan or the George Bushes would recognize as their guiding ideology. In its contempt for the rule of law, its lack of decency and its disdain for institutions, the American Conservative Movement as popularly understood is facing what many of its traditional adherents see as a crisis, possibly an existential one.

What very well may be threatened existentially is our democracy and our very way of life. Our so-called conservatives today are the Storm Troopers, the Brown Shirts, smashing and destroying everything as they go. They give no thought to sacred oath, to integrity or to our future generations. They goose step thugishly through our most cherished values and ideals.

That is why, “Protect and defend our democracy you must, with constant vigilance.” Go now, young Jedi.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

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


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA

.


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

Forget About Finding the Why – We Already Know – Part 2


Post 1,012

—————————————

First, an Update to Part 1

It’s maddening, deeply sad and quite astonishing that so much of the world is waving Palestinian flags, cheering terrorists, and demanding a suicidal Israeli ceasefire. As of this writing it appears there will be a temporary halt of hostilities to exchange prisoners for hostages. No one knows what will happen after that or the likely fate of the remaining roughly 190 hostages.

Meanwhile, in the cacophony of demands for an Israeli ceasefire, I have not heard anyone demanding that Hamas cease firing its rockets into Israeli cities. So many seem to have lost their powers of critical thinking and even of simple observation. What was and remains predictable is virulent or useful idiot anti-Semitism.

I highly recommend that you watch this discussion between Piers Morgan and British journalist Douglas Murray. You may want to put your fingers in your ears whenever Piers Morgan’s lips are moving, but it’s worth the bother to hear what Douglas Murray has to say. For example:

  1. Israel is the only country in the world that is never allowed to win a war. The world always jawbones Israelis into moderating their actions, much as it now demands a ceasefire, which will inexorably lead to a faster replenishment of arms by Hamas and an earlier next attack on Israel.
  2. Upon viewing the videos they posted online, there is no mistaking the joy, the glee, the rapture of Hamas terrorists celebrating their raping, mutilating and burning to death their Israeli victims. There is no such thing done by IDF soldiers when Palestinians die.

Watch the interview. Then come back and post your comments. I assure you that you will have some.

And watch this video. Scratch your head, if you must, as she reveals the near-complete lack of any Arab support for Palestinians – ever. Then wonder in amazement over how angry so many are at Israel for the plight of Palestinians.

.

Key question for protesters: “Where were you when  .  .  . ?”

Many thanks to MZ for this.

Now, Part 2

It’s hard to understand, but in the face of Trump’s painfully obvious racist and misogynist statements and behavior that there are Blacks for Trump and Women for Trump. They wear the tee shirts and wave Trump flags. They are placed behind Trump at rallies so that everyone sees them. Their self-defeating beliefs appear to be as mindless as they are impassioned and we are left to wonder why they would be so masochistic and so mindlessly ignorant and reactionary.

For a clear explanation of at least some of the reasons for that and to explain the general scrambling of minds, read Sheila Markin’s report. Short version: change is happening and people fear loss of their privilege and status, so they rage.

Perhaps you’ve seen Jordan Klepper’s interviews of Trump supporters. It’s a marvel how these people contradict themselves and then brush that off as meaning nothing. They hold firm to their idiocies. Listen to their rationalizations and their denial of reality, mimicking Trump in his grift and his lies. He’s taught an entire nation that being gaslighted is normal. That’s very dangerous, as now 43% of Americans believe there will be a civil war in the next 10 years. And many are okay with that! They just want to rage and be violent.

I had believed since Reagan’s rantings about things like “welfare queens” and “young bucks” and “trickle down” economics that understanding why people believe the unbelievable, the stupid, the false and the lies was important. Then we could figure out what to do to counter the gleeful acceptance of gaslighting and self-imposed destruction.

Now, honestly, I don’t care about the why of the MAGA insanity, the reality deniers, the willingly gaslighted. I don’t care about the why of the people who go to extraordinary lengths to avoid critical thinking or who love to hate. I don’t care about the reasons behind the fervor of cult members or the people who hate what this country was intended to be and yet claim to be patriots. I don’t care about the why of empty-headed demonstrators or the insane chants of anarchists or the hatreds promoted by Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Mike Johnson or any of the others.

We know what’s behind our self-destructive tailspin to authoritarianism:
We love to hate and we love our rage.
.

We have a crisis of confidence in our democracy and our Constitution. It’s driven diabolically and cruelly by far right extremist nihilists, chaos lovers, hatred stokers – add any negative moniker you prefer. These people have lied and cheated their way into power and they use their positions to tear down what we hold dear, the rights and freedoms we cherish. That’s why preserving and protecting our democracy from these thieves is the number one job for us right now.

To that end I’m recommending a webinar on November 30 at 8:00PM EST from The Union: Project Democracy Town Hall. Here’s the program description:

Join us and Senior Advisor to the Lincoln Project, Trygve [Olson], as we delve into the issues surrounding the extreme party and the vital choices we face in the coming years for a crucial discussion on the upcoming 2024 election. The importance cannot be overstated, as there are significant concerns about preserving democracy and the sanctity of the constitution. This goes beyond any individual, including Trump.

Use this link to register. No need to be shy about it – invite friends and family to this freebie event. We all need to learn about this.

For motivation, watch this video from The Lincoln Project. This is serious business.

Rights and Freedoms

Roughly 50 years ago then-Rep. Gerald R. Ford (R-MI) used a bit of House legerdemain to dislodge the Equal Rights Amendment of 1972 from committee in order to bring it to a vote. Two years later as president (shortly before he pardoned Richard Nixon and thereby weakened the rule of law) he put his support to that amendment, urging congress to pass it.

It has been a rocky road since then and it still isn’t formally ratified. The resistance has come nearly entirely from those bearing the label “Republican” or “conservative.” The conservative term may be accurate, as describing the continuation – the conserving – of patriarchy. Clearly, we wouldn’t want women to have all the rights and protections that men have. What might happen then?

Chief Justice John Roberts was the driver in the Shelby County case that gutted the power of the Voting Rights Act. Roberts wrote for the 5-4 majority, saying that the need for voting rights protections in the former slave states is long gone. It’s a cruel irony that immediately following that fateful decision that North Carolina and a number of other southern states enacted laws to protect Republicans from the pesky votes of non-White people.

Now the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that ordinary citizens cannot file suit challenging gerrymandering. And, of course, our presently torqued to the extreme right court killed the rights established by Roe. The Republican rights killing hits just keep on coming.

The steady march of the destruction of American rights and freedoms goes on, with fearful and angry citizens on the gerbil wheel that propels our nation backward. They are all Republican gerbils.

Today is a good day to be the light

_____________________________

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


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA

 


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

Decency


Post 1,006

—————————————

There is much craziness parading through our society and our politics today and it causes great harm. Examples happening today:

Do you think Governor DeSantis should be guarding the door to your OB-GYN to keep you out?

Do you think some self-important bully or self-appointed guardian of everything should make decisions about what your children can read?

Surely, your answer to both questions is NO, but we are awash in this power grabbing, rights killing insanity anyway. There is a predicate to this.

For several months in 1954 Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunt and career destruction committee, commonly called the Army-McCarthy Hearings, inflicted great harm on many quite innocent people wholly undeserving of his cruelty. McCarthy falsely stated that he had a list of names of people working in the State Department who were communists and he presented himself as the hero who would root them out. His fraudulent accusations knew no bounds and were the “alternative facts” of that era, as he attacked blameless people like a hungry hyena.

Finally, on June 9 McCarthy violated an agreement and branded as a communist a young lawyer working in the office of Joseph Welch, Chief Counsel for the United States Army. Welch could contain himself no longer and said,

Little did I dream that you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you.

Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Substitute for Sen. McCarthy our Republicans in congress today. They do and say horrific things. They vilify innocent people and sacrifice our national values to gin up “the base,” the fearful, angry mob of Americans seeking retribution for whatever ills they can conjure.

These legislators today do their cruelty for the very same reason McCarthy did his: to garner power for themselves. They are as heedless of the harm they do to others as was McCarthy. They haven’t a care at all for the harm they do to our country,

Joseph Welch’s compassionate protection of his young associate proved to be the beginning of the end of McCarthy’s reign of terror. McCarthy was censured by the Senate and not long after that died of complications from alcoholism.

We are in a moment not unlike that of those dreadful, predatory 1954 hearings, now with fraudulent claims about elections, slippery insinuations and false accusations that groundlessly demonize our fellow citizens. We suffer the division and malice of the extremists and the barely masked calls to violence. How will we get out of this?

Who today will issue the message calling for decency that will shock our nation to its senses? Who has the moral standing and the moral sense that Joseph Welch had on that June day in 1954? Who will deliver the message we all know we so critically, even desperately need to hear? Who will challenge those with self-serving hatred and greed, the extremists with their disdain for the values our patriots fought and died to protect? We dearly need a Joseph Welch right now.

Indeed, at long last, have we a sense of decency?

Quote of Mid-Week

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from old ones” (updated/corrected 11/1/23, 12:20PM with great thanks to Mardy Grothe)

                  – John Maynard Keynes, English Economist 1883-1946

We need a great many of our fellow citizens to abandon old, destructive ideas.

The Good Question Department

From pal MZ:

How come they are counting the dead bodies in Gaza but not in Ukraine? Russia is bombing Ukraine every day.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

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


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Justice


The Presumption of Innocence is Still True

But, c’mon:

Click me for the story.

I can hear Ray Charles singing Georgia On My Mind.

Our addiction to Non-Accountability

Why do we do this self-defeating dance? I’ve concluded that it’s an addiction, a sickness, a commitment to rationalization, cowardice and self-imposed helplessness. Here are a couple of examples.

I’ve often wished I could have been a fly-on-the-wall to listen to the discussions between Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford before Nixon nominated Ford for the vice-presidency. What did Ford have to promise in order to get that job?

The abuse to our Constitution done by President Gerald Ford in 1974 was both unprecedented and terrible. He gave “a full, free, and absolute pardon to Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.”

Ford didn’t even wait for Nixon to be charged with a specific crime. He gave him a free pass for any crime Nixon “may have committed” and effectively made it clear that Nixon – and perhaps any president – is above the law.

As bad, it set the stage for more criminality in high places, as in the Iran-Contra crimes. That was where George H.W. Bush repeated the non-accountability travesty 18 years later.

From Prof. Heather Cox Richarson’s Letters From an American of August 9:

When the story of the Iran-Contra affair broke in November 1986, government officials continued to break the law, shredding documents that Congress had subpoenaed. After fourteen administration officials were indicted and eleven convicted, the next president, George H. W. Bush, who had been Reagan’s vice president, pardoned them on the advice of his attorney general William Barr. (Yes, that William Barr.)

The independent prosecutor in the case, Lawrence Walsh, worried that the pardons weakened American democracy. They “undermine…the principle…that no man is above the law,” he said. Pardoning high-ranking officials “demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences.”

Brown University has a fine summary of that sordid affair, including the laundry list of crimes committed by the Iran-Contra perps.

Reagan Teflon-ed his way past those crimes, having known full well what was happening on his authority. He got away with it with his cute “aw shucks.” Then H.W. Bush put the whipped cream and cherry on top with his blizzard of pardons for the perps.

The Reagan and the Nixon scandals were episodes 1 and 2 of modern day presidential malefactors escaping accountability. Is it possible that we’ve learned our lessons, that we’ve completed some national 12-step program to end our non-accountability addiction? Maybe so.

We have a third modern times presidential (alleged) criminal. The difference this time is that for those at the top, the day of reckoning looks to be on the horizon. We seem to have prosecutors with a spine.

Of course, if the next president is a Republican s/he will likely make pardons fill the air like biblical locusts. The candidates have said that they would do that.

Our job today is to support an end to that self-inflicted wound to justice and democracy that we seem to have encouraged by chickening out of doing the right thing in the past. We have to summon the courage to defeat our non-accountability dysfunction and do the right thing.

This is a perilous moment in our history. We must be up to the challenge or we will set the stage for the next crook to do worse.

Republican Sleaze – The World We Live In

Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI) might have ruined more lives through his treachery, cruelty and Trump-magnitude lying than any single individual in the history of Congress. After a particularly cruel attack on a young attorney by McCarthy, attorney Joseph Welch, asked McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Although McCarthy didn’t respond, the answer, of course, was a resounding NO! In the Republican Party today, it’s still NO.

40 years later, every Republican politician and member of that party were sure they knew that Bill Clinton was dirty. Maybe he had something to do with Vince Foster’s death. Maybe Hillary played fast and loose in the Whitewater land deal when she was an attorney in Little Rock. Surely, Bill was a serial philanderer and adulterer. That might not be criminal, but it’s worthy of self-righteous finger pointing, tongue wagging and holier-than-thou shock, shock!, I tell you.

So, they recruited Ken Starr to dig into the Clintons’ underwear drawers and waste baskets for evidence of heinous actions. Starr poked through every dumpster near their residences looking for trash on the Clintons. He did that for FIVE YEARS! and he found nothing. NOTHING!

Then Bill did The Big Stupid. Linda Tripp coaxed her friend, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, to tell all to Starr about her sexual affair with Bill in the Oval Office. Clinton’s Big Stupid was lying to a Grand Jury about it, and that was Starr’s gotcha. Five years and millions of dollars of public money spent and all Starr and the Republicans accomplished was to show the country that Clinton got a blow job.

Republicans cheered in their self-righteousness. Even Newt Gingrich, ethics violator supreme, cheered. They had embarrassed and impeached Democrat Clinton.

Then it was Hillary’s turn. She was put through the congressional meat grinder 33 times in congressional hearings and 4 times in public hearings at a cost of $7 million, all investigating the Benghazi tragedy. The Republicans never found any wrongdoing on her part, but they kept something that looked like a scandal in front of the public for years. Same thing with her email server.

Now it’s Hunter Biden’s turn. Five years of investigation by DOJ attorney David Weiss and all he found were the late payment of taxes and a lie on his application for gun ownership. But that’s not enough to satisfy the Republicans.

Trump-appointed White has trashed the plea deal that he himself negotiated with Hunter Biden and will now dig for more dirt with his new Special Prosecutor credentials, this in an attempt to smear President Biden by association.

Here’s Pop Quiz question #1:

Name all the Democratic Party generated, multi-year sensational witch hunt investigations over the past 75 years.

Right: You can’t name any. The witch hunt theater is entirely Republican sleaze.

Quote of the Week

First, 3 Predictions:

  1. 2024, especially the first 8 months, is going to be a year of circuses like no other.
  2. Biden will win re-election, largely through Republican cowardice and default.
  3. Over the next 10 years, domestic terrorism will be our biggest challenge – by far.

Now to the quote.

It’s tied to the predictions, which are based on decades of Republican lunacy and cruelty.

The fierce and mindless pugnacity of the MAGA mob has many of the traits of religious fanatics. They have the passion, anger and certainty of their rightness as any Crusader, Inquisition zealots, witch burner and more.

So, from the upcoming book by Brian Muldoon, The Luminous One,

This, perhaps, was the original sin of religion—to claim one’s own beliefs are the only truth and to assault anyone who does not agree.

Instead of a continuation of that sin, we’re looking for actual justice.

“Justice, justice shall you pursue .  .  .  ”  Deuteronomy 16:20

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

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


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Rights and The Fourth of July


Idiotic Theories and Your Rights

Collect the entire set of Rights Elimination Bobbleheads

Trump’s infamous attorney general, Bill Barr, is an enthusiastic proponent of the radical “unitary executive theory.” He promoted it in his 19-page suck-up application to be Trump’s suck-up AG.

Jeffrey Clark, the mental lightweight DOJ supporter of Trump’s attempt to make himself Permanent Emperor of the United States, is also a unitary executive theory bobblehead.

The New York Times wrote:

Like other conservatives, Mr. Clark adheres to the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the president of the United States has the power to directly control the entire federal bureaucracy and Congress cannot fracture that control by giving some officials independent decision-making authority.

That idiotic theory is related to the “independent state legislature doctrine,” which would effectively eliminate elections, allowing radical state legislatures to select office holders instead of We The People doing that. Both notions are efforts to crush democracy – i.e. your rights.

Imagine if extremist state legislatures or Trump were awarded dictatorial powers. That would be the end of this as a nation of laws. Instead, this would be a nation at the whim of tyrants with fever dreams of grandiosity. Good thing the Supreme Court just smacked down some of that extremist garbage. More on that next week (and see the Comment about this below).

You know that dictatorial power is what Trump wants. So does Ron DeSantis. That alone should motivate you to make sure that nobody who isn’t an enthusiastic promoter of rights and democracy ever gets his/her hands on any public power. Those extremist – not conservative – schemes are exactly how the far right crazies intend to take away your rights and end your democracy. They want to end majority rule in America.

You’ve played by majority rule since you were on the grade school playground. I’m betting you can’t think of a single reason to do things differently, but the bad guys in the minority can. Their reason is that they want everything – all the money and all the power – for themselves. And they most certainly don’t want any non-Christian, non-White “others” to have power or rights, Constitution and Bill of Rights be damned. Plus, they don’t care a bit about you.

Good thing you know what to do about those guys who want to steal your rights.

Clarity About Rights

For the moment, consider abortion as a placeholder for all rights. First, you must read Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s explainer, which follows her opening section about the recent Russian drama.

While nobody likes abortion and most agree with a ban following 24 weeks of gestation (meaning fetal viability), a huge majority of Americans believe abortion is sometimes necessary and should be a right. And we Americans love our rights. You remember that “Land of the Free” business, don’t you? That means rights.

And that’s true, even as some believe that you should not have all the same rights as they have, like voting rights. Some Supreme Court justices think you shouldn’t have a right to birth control. Some autocrat wannabes want to impose their might and their religious beliefs on you to further limit your rights. Are you feeling good about that?

No, you’re not. You don’t want anyone putting their knee on the neck of your rights, George Floyd murder style.

So, wave the flag on the 4th of July for your rights, for everyone’s rights, for majority rule, all of which means democracy. Yeah, that’s a good thing to wave the flag for. Here’s how to do that.

Grit For Rights

Mallory McMorrow

I’ve been an enthusiastic fan of Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow since her take down in April 2022 of a hatred spewing Michigan state legislator. See why here.

And because you care about murderers killing children, watch her commentary following the Uvalde massacre. Her message is a good one, too, for the anniversary of the Highland Park massacre. And the Little Rock nightclub massacre. And the massacre of Dallas police officers. And the Aurora, CO movie theater massacre. And the Grand Rapids, MI massacre.

Right, you don’t quite remember all of those. That’s because there is a mass murder every day, so only the ones that are spectacular in some way stand out.

Like little kids shredded so badly by assault weapon bullets in Uvalde that DNA samples were needed to identify them. That massacre happened while cops had an unscheduled rest period in the school hallway for an hour while listening to the murderer’s gunfire.

But every one of those people who were shot, regardless of whether we remember the events, had a right to live. I know you remember that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing. That’s about rights. And the right to life was taken away from every one of those murdered people.

Then our leaders stood, with drooping heads, pathetically mumbling something about some damned thoughts and prayers and that this isn’t the time, or some such cowardly drivel. And they DID NOTHING to prevent the next mass killings, so those happened and they keep happening.

The reason for providing those McMorrow links is for you to see what standing strong for what you know is right looks like. Our country needs lots more of this power from you and from me and from all of us. It’s time for moderation in our messaging to end. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

    • Mr. Nice Guy – n. a verbal construction connoting powerlessness; devoid of strength; lacking backbone; avoiding necessary confrontation.
    • – Disambiguation Dictionary, 2023

So, risk having the tough, necessary conversations. Your model for that is in those McMorrow links.

Tell it strong. Tell it from your heart and from your gut. Tell it for your children and your grandchildren who are terrified that they’re next. Tell it for all the people who can no longer tell it for themselves.

And tell your Democratic candidates to reach down, grab their power and wake up their woke. Nice guy milquetoasts are of no use to us at all. This is our time to stand strong.

Wave the flag for that on Tuesday.

Late Friday Extra: Jim Crow Rights

Many rotten tomatoes go to the Supreme Court for its recent decisions on: 1. an entirely hypothetical scenario of a website developer refusing service for a gay couple’s wedding website (they had not asked for one); 2. striking down Affirmative Action in higher education admissions, and; 3. striking down student loan forgiveness. Jim Crow discrimination and segregation have officially been brought back and expanded. Here is a pair of snapshots of facilities with updated signage to accommodate the Court’s decisions.

Click me. I’m suitable for framing.

It’s a new day, but it sure looks a lot like the old days.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

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

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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Hatred, Christian Nationalists & The Supreme Court


An Open Letter to Christian Haters

Did you go to Sunday School when you were a kid? Or at least attend a church service now and then? Here’s what you did with that.

They told you the stories and the lessons from long ago, like to be kind to strangers. They said to be generous to others, especially those less fortunate than you. You remember that stuff, right?

Do you remember the day they told you what Jesus said about hatred? I’m pretty sure they said that Jesus instructed, “Don’t hate,” although they wrapped a lot more words around the message. You sat in your chair and you heard the words.

Then you walked out of the building and said to yourself, “No way, man. I’m gonna do whatever I want, whatever makes me feel good and powerful and in control.” Whatever message or teaching or directive Jesus had for you was cast aside, forgotten, crushed under your heel. In that moment you rejected Jesus completely.

And you’ve been living without Jesus ever since.

Oh, you put up a Christmas tree and you do the other performative stuff and claim you’re a Christian, but you don’t follow the rules. You live under only your own rules and who cares about what those ancient guys said? You like to hate others. It makes you feel good.

This nation has been hating non-Whites for over 400 years. Asians are squarely in the center of the bulls eye again and antisemitism is up 34 percent (seven incidents per day), according to the most recent data a year ago. The count of those acts of hatred is almost certainly higher now. So, with all that hatred infecting people, tell me again how this is a Christian nation.

Bible thumpers, holier than thou types, those wearing beatific masks, please don’t even imagine you’re fooling anyone. There is a universe of issues on which you try to paint your non-Semitic image of Jesus, but it’s just your ongoing dishonesty.

When you invade a prayer meeting at a Black church and shoot the people there, when you blast away the congregants in a synagogue, when you make death threats and distribute hate literature, when you make laws that crush your out-group, you’re refusing, denying and even giving the finger to Jesus.

That’s your truth that you hide from. But know this: we see you for what you are. So, don’t tell us you want this to be a Christian Nationalist country, because you wouldn’t be allowed to live there.

The Constitution

Now that I’ve inflamed a lot of people, let’s take this one step further.

The Articles in The Constitution primarily describe how our government is intended to work. The Amendments primarily define the rights we have as citizens. Here’s a link so that you can review all The Amendments to understand your rights. And everyone else’s, too.

What neither the Articles nor the Amendments offers is an opportunity to check a box next to the parts you like and ignore the rest.

So, if you are an ardent believer that the Second Amendment gives you the unlimited right to own and carry whatever guns or other armament you like, you would surely check the box next to that Amendment. But in calling yourself patriotic, a true American, you also have to check the box next to the First Amendment, which gives everyone, even the people you hate, the right of freedom of religion. That precludes the possibility of this becoming a Christian Nationalist nation. This country was never meant to be that. Get over it.

The First Amendment also gives us the right of freedom of speech. That means that the people you hate can say what they like, just as you can. And they can publish what they want, even if it goes against your rigid principles. There are limits to what anyone can say, but the limits have nothing to do with whether you like what they’re saying.

The First Amendment also gives us freedom of the press, the right of peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. These are for everyone, not just for you. Nobody gets to pick and choose those rights or deny them to anyone else.

We have senators and representatives who rail every day against the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments. They want to leave some of those imaginary boxes unchecked because it’s inconvenient or annoying that others whom they hate have the same rights as they have. The same goes for millions of ordinary citizens.

Show me the patriotism in that. Show me how demanding that this be a Christian Nationalist country comports with our founding document.

Right. You can’t.

So, Just For You .  .  .
.

Here’s a link to become a card carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Click it and join to protect and defend our Constitution. You’re patriotic and want to protect and defend the Constitution, right?

Question Of The Week

Since we’re talking about hatred, the Supreme Court consistently decides cases in ways that negatively impact Americans. They call themselves conservatives, but I’m wondering what they’re conserving. Think:

Citizens United – gave corporations and rich people the right to distort our elections in their favor and against yours

Dodd v. Jackson Women’s Health – killed abortion rights. And don’t even think of imputing your supposed Christian judgments on that – see the last paragraph below.

Various gun safety laws like Heller and MacDonald – effectively made it easier for haters to kill others

A swamp of voter suppression laws (e.g. closing polling places, eliminating ballot drop boxes, gerrymandering, removing voters’ registrations) and they all seem to be decided in favor of the haters

So, our Question Of The Week is,

Why do the so-called conservatives on the Supreme Court hate Americans?

Supreme Court Fallout

If you’re a woman, they stole your reproductive rights. If you’re a man, they stole those rights from your wife, your sister, your daughter, all the females in your neighborhood, extending from sea to shining sea plus you know where else. Almost as bad, that theft of rights is being imputed into other organizations, driven by far right pressure.

Take Walgreen’s, for instance. They just announced that they will no longer sell Mifepristone, the abortion pill. Not just in states where they’ve been outlawed, but in states where it is still quite legal to sell them. They have allowed themselves to be intimidated by far right big money pressure and they’re caving in.

I’m wondering if enough pressure can be applied the other way by we consumers, who have choices. We can explain to Walgreen’s that those choices include CVS, Rite-Aid and the rest.

Here’s a plea from an activist friend:

We hope you will take five minutes today to contact Walgreen’s headquarters at (800) 925-4733 (press 5 at the prompt) to make clear that those who want to strip away women’s fundamental rights are in the minority.

Women make 85% of all consumer purchases in the US (Forbes), and drive 70-80% of spending among consumers (Entrepreneur, Mar 19, 2021). We demand that our medical decisions be respected. We will not spend our dollars at institutions that do not protect us.

I’ll add that right-to-choose voters poll over the falsely named pro-life voters (the guys who hate abortion but love the death penalty) by 24 percentage points. Seems like we Americans like our rights.

Go call Walgreen’s.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

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


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

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

1 2 3 … 12  Scroll to top