Courage

How Does Trump Hate You? Let Me Count The Ways*


POST 1169

Crushing Us With Hatred

It isn’t just Trump. He’s assembled a gang of fascist tool-boys and -girls into a hit mob, abhorrents like Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, Kash Patel, Fauxbilly Vance, Pam Bondi Steve Bannon and so many more.

He’s doing everything he can to tear down our country, to trash the things that make us strong, our safety in a very dangerous world, our belief in ourselves, our health, our economic resilience, the rule of law, truth, justice and the American way.

“You can’t love your country if you hate half the people in it,” Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) said recently. A version of that – Aaron Sorkin’s words – was said by fictional character Sydney Ellen Wade in the 1995 film The American President:

How do you have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can’t stand Americans?

Do you have that patience? Neither do I. But these haters are using their power to do hateful things to millions of Americans. Trump makes his hatred plain to see. His insane need for retribution drives the meanness and destruction that he visits upon Americans, done under the flimsiest claim of patriotism with the flourish of a slimy circus sideshow barker. But his reality show isn’t reality. It’s just a cruelty show of gladiatorial murders.

What he does isn’t patriotism, because nobody can both love America and hate Americans.

Boiling Blood

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was in the U.S. legally for many years. He is a sheet metal apprentice, is married to a U.S. citizen and has 3 children. He has never been accused of any crime, much less convicted. He was working to build his American dream. Then the Trump thugs swooped in, snatched him up, threw him in a white van and

SOLD HIM

to an El Salvador dictator.

Our courts, including the Supreme Court, have ordered that Garcia be returned for various reasons, like due process, like that the Trumpies have admitted that it was an error to grab him, like that everything about this stinks, including Trump’s claim that he can disappear American citizens the same way.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers are making America a joke before the world with their idiotic claims that they can’t bring Garcia back to this country. Read Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s report of this Trump-caused American tragedy. It will make your blood boil  because of the hatred Trump has for America and for Americans.

Transcript of phone call between President Trump and Abrego Garcia’s children **
.

Trump: The only reason I’m on this call is because the failing New York Times leaked a story that it would happen. So, what’s your question for your president?

Garcia children (heard sniffling): We’re so sad. We miss our daddy. Why did you take him away from us?

Trump: Look, your daddy is a very dangerous man and I as your president must protect the American people.

Garcia children: But you said you made a mistake, that he shouldn’t have been taken away.

Trump: That doesn’t matter. He’s in a place where he can’t hurt anyone now and they are very tough there. Very tough. They will deal with him toughly and he’ll stay there because no prisoner ever gets out. Plus, I negotiated a great deal with President whatshisname to make those immigrants disappear. Forget about your daddy. He’s never coming back.

Garcia children (wailing in sorrow): That’s not fair. You’re so mean to him. Bring our daddy back to us.

Trump: I have tariffs to announce, plus I’ve been told that a love letter from Kim Jung Un just arrived for me and it’s very complimentary. He likes me a lot, so this call is over.

The Ultimate Cheat

Trump is and will continue to use defiance of the courts over the Garcia case and others to distract us from his tariffs and the destruction of our economy. It’s his current bright, shiny object deployed so that we don’t see the full truth of his law breaking.

He’s neutered Congress***, so now it’s full speed ahead to

DEFY THE COURTS AND DECLARE HIS KINGSHIP!

.

From Meidas+ Touch, April 14:

Donald Trump met with El Salvador’s autocratic president, Nayib Bukele, and used the occasion not to promote diplomacy or human rights—but to spread Russian propaganda, mock the Supreme Court, and flirt with the idea of sending American citizens to prison camps in El Salvador. Yes, you read that right.

Trump openly said he would defy a Supreme Court ruling ordering the return of Kilmer Abrego Garcia—an innocent man the Trump regime deported by “mistake” to a gulag in El Salvador. When asked whether he’d help bring Abrego Garcia home, Trump sneered, attacked the press, and had Pam Bondi peddle blatant lies about Abrego Garcia’s legal status.

Like I said: blood boiling. Yours, mine and everyone’s, as Trump wipes his muddy Gucci loafers on our Constitution.

Winning

“We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning.” So said the reality show huckster.

Are you sick of winning yet? Here’s a short list of what you’ve lost:

– money – gobs of it, and you’ll lose way more as tariffs ramp up to spike the price of everything you buy and the sinking stock and bond markets trash your investments

– the privacy of your IRS information – all of it. Privacy is required by law, but Trump don’ obey no stinking laws.

– access to Social Security

– the rule of law

– world class healthcare – poof, gone!

– safety for our judges, legislators, administrators, commenters – anyone who Trump decides he doesn’t like. He wants us to live in fear.

– preparedness and protection from pandemics and severe weather

– the trust of the world

So, no, you’re not sick of winning.

There is no hyperbole in saying that we are a voluntarily failing nation. Led by Trump and his fascist goons, this country is bringing down the world, leading our former allies to circle the drain with us.

All that and more are why millions of us have taken to the streets and are looking for a political Moses to lead us out of Pharaoh Trump bondage. Perhaps one day the word “winning” will justly apply to us.

Stupid Spend

They won’t say exactly how much they charge for a sub-orbital flight in Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin spacecraft, but it’s rumored to be in the millions of dollars. It costs $150,000 just to apply. On its first passenger flight someone paid $28 million in an online auction for the 10 – 11 minute flight. Let’s do some math.

There have been roughly 52 passengers on Blue Origin spacecraft. Let’s guess that an average price paid for the flights is $2 million. That brings us to a very conservative total of $104,000,000 that has been shelled out for 11 minutes on a rocket. What else might have been done with that $104,000,000 had the passengers been more philanthropically inclined?

– 962 students could have gone to a 4-year, in-state public university and left with a diploma and no student debt.

– 104,000,000 children could have been vaccinated against polio.

– 47 military field hospitals could have been set up in Ukraine.

– 104,000 desperately poor children in Mississippi, Louisiana and West Virginia (our poorest states) could have gone to summer camp for 2 weeks.

– 693 Habitat for Humanity houses could have been built.

Instead, a bunch of very rich people went for an over-the-top carnival ride for 11 minutes.

_____________________________________________________

* Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning for abusing the title of her beautiful love poem, How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) for the purpose of exposing today’s ugly reality.

** My fabrication. It means nothing, but it felt good to write that.

*** It would be kind of cool if a bunch of Republicans in Congress suddenly discovered they each has a spine and together they can stand up to Trump.

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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.

BACK OFF!


POST 1166

At Last It’s Happening and We Know The Answer

I’ve been asking the key question since the last election, as we suffered under leadership insufficiency and have steadily been sorely pained by would-be political leaders who cannot lead anyone. The question is

Who Will Lead?
.

Now I think we’ve seen the face of who will lead.

Cory Booker has always led with his insight, with his values and his heart and his 25 hour marathon speech in the Senate has sealed the deal to lead us. It’s not because he kicked out hateful segregationist Storm Thurmond as the longest filibusterer. That was symbolically good but was beside the point. It was his speaking with righteous passion and clarity about values – our values – that establish him as a guy to lead us back to being the United States of America.

We’ll see where this goes, but good things are happening beyond Booker’s filibuster. There was Susan Crawforde’s win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the halving of Trump margins in Florida. Now Mallory McMorrow, the fiery Michigan state senator, has announced her candidacy to be the next U.S. senator from Michigan. We’re starting to flex our muscles.

The National Declaration

We did a national demonstration yesterday to send a message to the awful guys. It was officially named “BACK OFF!“, but the energy of the crowd said, “BACK THE F*** OFF!“

There were millions of people in over 1400 demonstrations nationwide yesterday. Some say that we won’t have made any difference, but I have a short list for you that says otherwise.

    1. We made it clear for everyone to see that we are not alone. Millions of us have one another’s backs.
    2. We put a stake in the ground that we support those legislators and officials who stand for our democracy, our Constitution and our people. We let them know that when they won’t stand for the awful and un-American things the Republicans are doing, that we have their six when they are brave.
    3. We told the world that we are not like Trump, Musk and their army of cruel, greedy sycophants. They don’t speak for We The People. We are rising up in righteous fury.

Here are just a few pics from the demonstration in little Tucson, AZ, where there were over 14,000 people lining the streets 5 deep, carrying signs and chanting amidst the constant honking of the horns of cars passing by. The air was electric.

That’s a United States Marine holding the Distress flag. He told me that he’s in distress for our nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best sign of the day

Just For Fun

From Andy Borowitz:

Americans Demand Breathalyzer Be Attached to Pete Hegseth’s Phone
.

Washington (Borowitz) – Amid the outcry over the leaking of top-secret war plans, on Monday millions of Americans called for a breathalyzer to be attached to Peter Hegseth’s phone.

In emotional apology at the Pentagon, Hegseth said that someone in his position “should never drink and text, and so I am giving up texting.”

According to national security experts, a journalist was given access to highly sensitive war plans that are normally available only to people using a public bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.

From The Onion:

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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 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.

Freedom And The Call


POST 1157

NEW!

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

@jaxpolitix.bsky.social
Executive Summary


> What do you suppose we’re missing?

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

MISSING

Click me – first see Note #4 below

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

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

Donald Evans wrote in his notebook:

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

Liberty Ship SS John W. Brown – click me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Freedom

Click me – first see Note #4 below

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here it is in quiz form:

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

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

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

Thanks FL for this.

REBEL!

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

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


POST 1151

CAUTION!

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

Bill Maher has a satirical bit he does periodically entitled,

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

Here’s my offering in that format.

Click me for a better view

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Danger

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quotes of the Week

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

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

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

Who will stand up to Trump at high noon?

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

Backbone

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

The text of the letter ends,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA

 


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

This Is Where The Bus Stops


POST 1150

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

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

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

Back to the busses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GET THE F**K OFF OUR BUS!

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

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

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

REBEL!

A Bleak Anniversary

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

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

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

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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Stupid Distractions and Stop The Steal


POST 1148

Ugly Highlights From Last Week

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

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

Curiosity of the week:

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

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

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

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

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

But,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop the Steal

Not that phony stop the steal. This one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Anyone Who Missed the Message

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

– Simon Rosenberg, Hopium Chronicles, Feb 6, 2025

REBEL!

____________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

This Is Not Normal


POST 1145

It’s no surprise that Trump is making moves to erase the entire Biden presidency. It’s not just Biden’s legacy he’s after. He’s trying to erase Biden from future history books. The reason his infantile tantrum is no surprise is because that’s what he attempted to do to the Obama presidency during the first time Trump attempted führer-ship. How insecure does one have to be to need to erase everyone else?

But there’s more to it.

Take a look at the Trump lineup of demolition as described by Heather Cox Richardson on January 24. It is his standard everything, everywhere all at once sowing of chaos and suffering.

The Guardian reported today that incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered a halt to almost all foreign aid, with the exception of military assistance to Israel and Egypt. The Guardian notes that this order is likely unlawful, since Congress sets the budget and in 1974 declared it illegal for the president to impound funds. Still, a source foresaw the end of the global influence the U.S. has had since World War II, telling The Guardian: “Freezing these international investments will lead our international partners to seek other funding partners—likely US competitors and adversaries—to fill this hole and displace the United States’ influence the longer this unlawful impoundment continues.”

As Peter Baker of the New York Times notes, new president Donald Trump is trying to break NATO by demanding that members increase military spending to 5% of their nations’ economies, although the U.S. currently spends about 3% of its GDP on defense. If we were to meet that requirement, Baker points out, the U.S. would have to increase its defense budget by $567 billion a year. Isabel van Brugen of Newsweek reports that an Italian news agency says that Trump intends to pull about 20,000 U.S. troops from Europe and wants Europe to pay to maintain the rest.

Trump has undertaken to dismantle the postwar democratic government at home, too. He has stopped the funding for repairing roads, bridges, airports, and ports that passed Congress in a bipartisan vote in 2022, as well as taken away funding for new solar manufacturing plants and other new systems to address climate change.

He has frozen all travel and communications at the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” one researcher told Dan Diamond, Lena H. Sun, Carolyn Y. Johnson, and Mark Johnson of the Washington Post. “This is like a meteor just crashed into all of our cancer centers and research areas.”

And, of course, Trump has declared a war on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. In his revoking of LBJ’s Executive Order 11246, itself based on FDR’s Executive Order 8802, he explicitly rejected the principles for which the Americans fought in World War II.

Mara Gay was on Nicolle Wallace’s program Deadline: White House in the afternoon following Trump’s inaugural address. Her comments were so striking that I transcribed them and offer them to you in this PDF – because our current reality is so very not normal. We’ve had extremists and hate mongers and un-American traitors before, but as for all things Trump, now there is no bottom.

There is far more like that to report, but for now, a useful question is, “How are Trump voters going to feel when the consequences of all these things hit them, like”

When workers fail to show up to build that new I-75 bridge over the Ohio River because Trump cut the project and eliminated their jobs, or when the roads and bridges in your town crumble and nobody shows up to fix them;

When investment in those chips plants dries up, manufacturing jobs stop coming home and we are at the mercy of the Chinese who have no mercy for us;

When FEMA funds aren’t available for victims of catastrophes that happen;

When nobody prepares for the next pandemic and it wipes out our grannies and our little kids;

When funds for research for Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease, obesity and Alzheimers have been cut off (they already have been) and you and your loved one are left hopeless;

When NATO has been made a eunuch and Putin overruns Ukraine and then sends troops into Poland and the Baltic States;

When Xi invades and swallows Taiwan;

When your daughter doesn’t get treatment for her rare disease;

When global warming increases unchecked because we defunded renewable energy projects and encouraged “drill, baby, drill” and now the super hurricane is on the way with no presidential Sharpie to redirect it;

When Proud Boys, 3 Percenters, Oath Keepers and other hoodlum vigilantes are attacking state capitols, our election volunteers, our cops and even you because you asked a tough question at a town hall and nobody is coming to help because our law enforcement agencies have been gutted.

When Trump’s economically counterproductive tariffs and his stupid head abandonment of the fight against public health threats like bird flu are fully developed, I’m pretty sure that the price of eggs will be the least of your worries.

There are already signs of major disapproval of Trump for what he’s doing, including his sycophant, dishonest reprehensible, loyal-only-to-Trump (and who cares about the law?) cabinet picks. A key Trump horrible last week was his politicized idiocy of falsely assigning blame for the midair tragedy to DEI and making attacks on imaginary Democratic policies. His evidence for his claims is “common sense,” but of course there is nothing common or sensical to Trump’s statements. Let’s hope he continues to be this offensive to everyone and he loses yet more public approval.

Most of our last 100 years have been a bulwark of democracy against fascism. We fought wars and sacrificed our young to stop that cruelty, but oligarchs and fascist believers starting with Reagan have been chipping away at our democracy for decades. Now Trump is demolishing it in giant explosions, aided and abetted by cowardly, hypocritical Republicans in Congress.

Here’s the high, hard one:

You did this, Trump voter. You and the 6 million who voted for Biden but stayed home on election day 2024. I’m hoping that there is still time for you to wake up, to join the rest of us and

  • REBEL!

Breaking News!

.
  • Last week Jim Acosta left CNN. It was a shameful moment when the network pushed him out but it was another statement of courage and integrity for Acosta. Recall that he is the White House correspondent who withstood Trump’s false, demeaning and cowardly attacks for four years and did it with dignity and decency. Kudos to Jim Acosta.
  • Watch his announcement on Substack here.
  • His final message to us for now is a descriptor of how he works and is a timely and powerful mantra for all of us right now:
Don’t give in to the lies.
.
Don’t give in to fear.
.
Hold on to the truth
.
Hold on to hope.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

We In A Heap O’ Trouble


POST 1139

Fires and Little Minds

We can be calmed and grateful that two Kardashian sisters have at last spoken, bringing their public safety expertise to the Los Angeles fires disaster. We’ll ignore their useless finger pointing and that of most everyone else and instead focus on people’s need to blame.

Trump is blaming because he sees political advantage in attacking Gov. Gavin Newsome. He’s also blaming because he loves to and needs to demonize and hate what he cannot – as in: not able to – understand. Plus, he hasn’t even a single constructive idea about even the most obvious challenges to our nation. That is what ignorance can do for the enthusiastically clueless. Nevertheless, blaming is taking center stage. It is dribbling from Trump and coming from other points of ignorance.*

If you want to blame someone for the fires, blame the millions of Americans who bought into the California dream and demanded to live in that area. That produced housing that was far too dense, with too many houses on every block, jammed together, making it easy for flames to jump from house to house and far too difficult for fire fighters to stop the progression of a fire.

Or blame all the municipalities for failing to realize that there is an entire ocean immediately next to them, but they have never installed pumps and pipes to supply ocean water into the fire hydrant piping system.

Or blame the tax payers for their blissful ignorance, demanding excellent services but refusing to pay for them, so they don’t have them. Turns out there is no free lunch. You don’t pay, you don’t get.

Or blame the politicians we elect who prostrate themselves before the money of Big Fossil Fuels and who then repeat the mantra that there is no global warming or, if there is, that burning hydrocarbons has nothing to do with it. Who could forget that 97% of world climate scientists told us decades ago and ever since then that the Earth is warming and that human burning of hydrocarbons was accelerating the danger? Worse, who could forget the politicians denying that and siding with the miserable 3% of scientists who conducted “research” that was funded by fossil fuel companies?

Or blame us for electing those cowardly politicians.

The Best Blaming Award, though, goes to Trump for his fantasy, gibberish criticism.

From NBC News, Trump blames Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for deadly wildfires:

“’Governor Gavin Newscum [sic – kudos to Trump for extending his infantile, bratty string of name calling] refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,’ Trump wrote in one of several posts on his social media platform, Truth Social.
.

“Newsom’s Director of Communications, Izzy Gardon, accused the president-elect of ‘playing politics’ while the wildfires continued to wreak havoc in southern California.

“‘There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction. The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need,’ Gardon said.”

Someone please explain to the rest of us how a felonious president-elect ignorantly pointing his finger helps the victims of these fires.

To be even-handed, talent-less, pretty Kardashian women who spend their days primping are leveling blame with all the authority of ignorant playground brats. Somebody please explain to the rest of us how that helps the victims of these fires or makes things better in any way.

I don’t know if it is universal in human nature, but it certainly is universal in American culture to shift at light speed from terrible events to blaming. What is that, a fear response? A self-protective avoidance of accountability? A venting of anger? Something else? One thing it is not is helpful to making things better.

Something Has Been Lost

From Thom Hartman, Why Do Republicans Hate a Prosperous Middle Class? (hint: it’s about greed):

At the end of the day, all Republican politicians care about is money. Greed is their principle animating force, and what binds them to their morbidly rich donors. [emphasis original]

I encourage you to read Hartmann’s post. It is shockingly accurate.

From Steve Schmidt, America: where kings were once toppled:

Elon Musk has embraced his white South African pedigree with a zeal that would have made even the most vicious Afrikaner beating in a black skull with a club smile in delight. Whether cheer leading for the British racist Tommy Robinson or the German AFD, which holds that the SS was not a criminal organization, Elon Musk is dropping the curtain. Following the connective thread is not difficult— or rather should not be — but for much of America’s media it is a bridge too far. For them, it is better to pretend that it isn’t happening. The news these days is often what can be seen and heard, but is not allowed to be spoken. That’s too bad because the danger is coming closer.

Our press – now referred to as the mainstream media, or worse – used to be called the Fourth Estate, a bulwark against tyranny and official wrongdoing. These folks held up a light so that all of us could see what is really going on and then hold perps accountable. A great many outlets have gone out of business – it’s expensive to field investigative reporters – and many more seem to have lost their spines. That’s an invitation to the destruction of all that is good about this nation. In Steve Schmidt’s words, the danger is coming closer. It’s a good time to subscribe to your local newspaper while you still have one.

The Worst News and the Best News

Click me – refer to Note #5 below.

From Marc Elias’ post on Democracy Docket, January 14:

    • It was predictable that the legacy media would fail to stand up to Trump and his barrage of lies.

    • It was predictable that the corporate leaders would jettison any principle to suck up to Trump.

A large number of publications that used to have the courage to speak truth to power have caved in to Trump. The Washington Post is owned by Amazon gazillionaire Jeff Bezos. He refused to publish the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the election. So did the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Pat Soon-Shiong. Now each of them has pledged to give Trump $1 million for his inaugural events. Surely that’s coincidence.

You. might recall what happened after January 20, 2017, when millions of dollars donated for Trump’s inaugural could not be accounted for. Recall that he is the same perp who had a charity whose main beneficiary was Donald Trump.

More and more companies are doing what Prof. Timothy Snyder in On Tyranny,** calls “obeying in advance.” It’s a capitulation driven by greed and spinelessness and it threatens our republic.

That is the worst news.

The best news is that some people are doing something about that.

Jennifer Rubin resigned from the Post and she and Norm Eisen have started an online news and opinion publication they call The Contrarian. I just subscribed and recommend that you do, too. Click through and have a look.

If we are to keep this republic and fend off the haters, the fascists, the oligarchs, the White supremacists and the rest who want to burn our Constitution, destroy our democracy and subjugate all of us, we need smart, brave people to speak truth to power, to call out the lies and the liars and to rally us in defense and protection of our Constitution and all that we hold dear.

Your part is to support the people doing that. Subscribe. Do it for your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. Do it for your crazy Uncle Bob and for your totally lawn obsessive neighbor. Do it for your librarian and the teachers in your schools, for the bewildered kids who need mental healthcare and for our millions of hard working, law abiding immigrants who make your life easier and less expensive. Do it because just a picture of the Statue of Liberty gives you chills.

Do it because you still believe.

___________________________________________

* Following the release of the Special Counsel’s report, Trump called Jack Smith, “a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election [sic].” He was right about the last part and stupid about the first, but he did get in a typical schoolyard brat derogatory.

** Also available in a graphic format for those who miss their comic books.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

A Thought Experiment and Explanation


POST 1127
A Balancing Act

Everyone believes in freedom. Everyone wants it.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

You can read Jefferson’s “Liberty” (yes,he capitalized it) as “freedom.”

Let’s make the assumption that we believe in Jefferson’s declaration of equality and freedom and we endorse the expansion of his declaration from “all men” to include, at long last, all women, people of all races, religions, sexual orientation, economic condition – everyone. That claim contains a conflict that is a fundamental of our country.

All men may be created equal in some respects, as in their value as a human being, but neither Jefferson nor we believe that we all were all born with the same innate talents and abilities. Some have great physical talents like athletes and dancers, talents that the rest of us cannot match. Some have the capacity for great intelligence, like surgeons, physicists and philosophers. And some have an impressive talent for amassing money.

We are mimicking Les Miserables with our astounding level of wealth inequality. It is greater than in France in 1789 and greater than just before the Great Depression, as our great rich have amassed more wealth for themselves than the total wealth of over 90% of us. They have and are embracing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but many are left to suffer, some in Dickensian poverty.

In other words, some have the great freedom that comes of great wealth and some have the greatly constricted freedom of just getting by or of abject poverty. Our system is based on an unequal distribution of freedom, this in spite of us all being “created equal” and having “unalienable Rights,” including “Liberty.”

What are we to do with this desire for both freedom and our claim of equality of all? We can level the playing field somewhat by taxing the wealthy and directing the proceeds to the common good, to things which will benefit everyone, including the poor, but that necessarily curtails the freedom of the rich. It’s a challenge that in this country goes back at least to post-Civil War times, when wealthy landowners objected to paying taxes designed to benefit the now-free former slaves with roads and schools. Set aside the moral implications of that statement and just recognize the very real conflict in the balance of equality and freedom.

Generally speaking, Democrats believe that the best thing is to do is to take some money from wealthy people and direct it to the common good, like education, healthcare, infrastructure, national defense and more. Republicans believe in freedom above all and they understandably decry government hands reaching for their wallets for anything other than national defense. Who’s right?

Of course, there’s more to consider in this thought experiment. Thom Hartmann has a fine piece explaining that crime isn’t caused so much by poverty as by wealth inequality. When people feel they’re being treated unfairly by a system that allows such extreme wealth and poverty at the same time, they react quite negatively. Were we to change the rules to achieve a more equitable economy, the logic goes, we would have less crime. It is unavoidable that such a modification would result in less freedom for some. Would we still be the “land of the free” if some were less free than before?

Trump and his coming Fourth Reich are way off the edge of the continuum in favor of ever-greater wealth for themselves and, of course, domination of everyone else. If you think the balance between freedom and equality (call it “equity” or “fairness’) belongs at a place other than off the freedom edge of the continuum, you have a problem.

Those coming into power soon have no interest in you having the freedom/equitable balance you believe is right. They only have interest in what serves themselves, which is ever-greater wealth and power. If you are to nudge that balance away from that far edge and toward something more equitable, wishing for that isn’t going help. You’re going to have to do something.

What’s this Rebel! Stuff?

It’s the verb form of the word, with the accent on the second syllable. It’s about you taking action against the usurpers, the thieves of our freedom, our democracy and what is good about America. Resisting is blandly insufficient. If we are to restore anything resembling the intentions of the Founders we will have to do what they did: Rebel!

To be clear, the Founders made war and I intend nothing of the sort. This is about non-violent rebellion. I advocate fiercely against any civil war that the MAGA violent ones seem to be gleefully anticipating.

This rebellion is about leaning heavily on elected officials to do the patriotic thing, rather than some “don’t primary me” selfishness. It’s about working hard to get liberal democracy candidates elected. It’s about protesting in the streets loudly and often, demanding the America we have been promised, which doesn’t include grift or graft and which doesn’t over-balance in favor of the grossly rich,

THAT kind of Rebel!

If we really want what we say we want, we’re going to do more than we’ve ever done. The promise of the destruction of our Constitution is in the air, made by men and women being put into positions of power by billionaire bullies. The longer we wait to take action, the steeper and more arduous the climb from the coming depravity will be.

Thomas Paine

From Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, The American Crisis, words which he declared to be Common Sense:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”

The time for disorientation, apathy and the wringing hands is past. This is the time for action.

Rebel!

Here’s How

From Simon Rosenberg:

Call your Senators and Representative to let them know your dissatisfaction with the rapist, fraudster, traitor and 34 times felon’s pick of Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy; and to inform them of your expectation that they will leave it all out there on the playing field to block these profoundly dangerous nominations whether they have a vote on them or not.

Contact the White House and ask President Biden to order the FBI to begin background checks into Trump’s nominees immediately and before Trump installs Patel to disable the process.

Further, it’s as obvious as it can be: the inept DNC needs new leadership.

One of the most effective Democratic state chairmen, Ben Wikler (WI), is running to become the DNC chairman. He’s done amazing things, like flipping the state Supreme Court to be more liberal, getting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers reelected, picking up 14 congressional seats and more. Check him out at BenWikler.com. And don’t miss Thom Hartmann’s endorsement of Wikler and explainer, America’s Future Hangs on a Democratic Party Decision .

Need motivation? Read Thom Hartmann’s How to Stop the Billionaire Takeover: Democrats Must Declare Class Warfare. He’s right. It’s time to

REBEL!

NOTE: See Michael Shaw’s comment below. Please add your ideas for action in reply to his excellent question.

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

Rebel: To Resist or Defy


POST 1124

I often listen to Jon Meacham’s marvelous podcast, Reflections of History, which I was doing recently while walking the dog. He presented the speech given by then-Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy on St. Patrick’s Day in 1954. Kennedy’s words have relevance today, so here is a small portion of Meacham’s presentation.

Kennedy said,

“Here is a challenge to the United States, whom we salute tonight as the torchbearer of liberty. Let us inscribe on the inner wall of the Iron Curtain for all to read, oppressor and oppressed, the words of the Irish martyrs. Let those partisans of freedom behind the Iron Curtain, who see little hope for their generation and little more for the next, hear these words spoken by Sir Roger Casement to the jury which had convicted him of high treason for his part in the Organization of the Irish in 1914.

“’If it be treason,’ said Sir Roger, ‘to fight against such an unnatural fate as this, then I am proud to be a rebel and shall cling to my rebellion with the last drop of my blood. If there be no right of rebellion against the state of things that no savage tribe would endure without resistance, then I am sure that it is better for men to fight and die without right than to live in such a state of right, as this.’”

There is no longer an Iron Curtain and we no longer face a Cold War, but we face an enemy perhaps more dangerous now than the communists were then and the fascists were before them. It is now the threat from Americans who wish to and are striving with all their might to take down our democracy, to burn our Constitution and replace it all with fascism, with dictatorship, subjugation and the elimination of our freedom.

Their tools are much the same as those used by the communists and the fascists to fool people and cow them into mindless obedience. They use lies, absurd propaganda, intimidation, bullying, appeals to our basest instincts, pitting us against one another, contorting the law for selfish gain of power and money and making everyone afraid all the time. That is the threat we face today from our home grown enemies of democracy and freedom. The threat will grow more dire with each passing day, unless . . .

. . .  unless we heed the words of Sir Roger “to fight against such an unnatural fate as this . . .” and “be proud to be a rebel.”

In these times of profound discouragement, dismay and confusion over the way forward, withdrawal from the fight is actually ongoing support for defeat. Rather, it is time like never before for us to rebel against the darkness as instructed by Sir Roger, because that duty falls to us today. There is no one else.

Succumbing to fear ensures that fear will never leave us. Courage is taking action in the face of fear. Sir Roger knew that and we know that, too. This is a time for courage.

I go through periods wondering what I’m doing in a country where half the people vote for their own downfall. Is this country so bamboozled by anger, hatred and fear that there is nothing left that is redeemable?

Then the dawn comes and I realize that I’m no quitter, that I won’t allow the barbarians to destroy what we hold dear. There is a whole civilization that has been buried behind lies, hatred and bigotry, all so that the angry ones can flick their middle fingers, scream into the night and turn over our country to the self-aggrandizing thieves.

Well, they can’t have it. I won’t stand for it. I will not allow them to bully me.

Dick Altschuler, 1943

One year my dad and I were at the Oshkosh airshow standing near a B-24. Perhaps he escorted that very bomber into harms way over Germany on one of his 69 missions in his P-47. I looked at a waist gunner’s window on that bomber. His only protection was a thin sheet of aluminum easily pierced by enemy bullets. Still, that gunner went into battle and did what had to be done. My dad did the same, as did 16 million other Greatest Generation Americans. 416,800 of them never came home. You can find them in huge cemeteries like those in Normandy and on Iwo Jima, all graves facing home.

Those people faced the greatest brutality the world had ever known. They did that to keep the promise of America for you and me. I’ll be damned if I’ll let the grifters and the liars, the cheats and the willfully ignorant take it away. I’ll be damned if I’ll let the haters and the selfish ones sully the memory and slander the courage of our brave ones. It’s our duty to stand and fight where we can.

This is going to take a long time and it’s going to hurt more often than it will feel good. But this is the contest – the fight of our lives. When we fail, we’ll have to get up and fight once again. We’ll have to keep getting up as many times as it takes to cure our country of this awful disease.

As Shakespeare wrote, King Henry V, holding his sword high, said to his troops at the terrible battle of Harfleur “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. . .” And so we march into the breach as many times as it will take to secure the promise that is America. It’s just behind the wall that the barbarians made out of fear, anger and hatred.

We can do no less to honor our brave ones.  We can do no less to “Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Listen: You’ll hear your children and grandchildren and the grandchildren after them calling you. They’re counting  on you.

From Terry Real in his wonderful post:

Facing this alone may well feel overwhelming. But we are not alone. There are millions of us. The greatest political resource left standing is the beating hearts of one another.

Join with others in this fight. Our hearts beat together and we stand strong together.

Once more, dear friends. Once more,

Rebel!

.

Coming soon: Specific actions you can take. Example:

Block unqualified or criminal or just idiotic Cabinet appointments.

______________________________________________________

Many thanks to SC for pointing me to the Terry Real piece.

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

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