Democracy

Who and What We Are


POST 1213

With Sad and Angry Regret, John Lewis

Nope, we’re not better than this.

There have been assassinations here since before we were a country. Multiple presidents have been shot. Sandy Hook happened and we were all so sad, but we continued killing one another as though those little kids were still alive and in their 1st grade classrooms.

Until his murder I knew next to nothing about Charlie Kirk. Had I known more about him likely I wouldn’t have agreed with him about any of his views, which, of course, is not the point. The point is that someone wanted to murder him and did so quite easily.

Click me and read the whole text.

Now President Trump plans to give Kirk our highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Kirk didn’t find a cure for a terrible disease. He didn’t carry people out of a burning building. He didn’t risk his life saving church or synagogue members from a would-be assassin. He didn’t stand a post anywhere to protect our freedom and our democracy, nor did he serve We The People in Congress. No, he was just a political activist. During his first term Trump gave drug addict Rush Limbaugh the PMoF, so with the flipping of another of those medals soon to Kirk’s next of kin, Trump is continuing to debase what was once a richly deserved, high honor.

Vice President Fauxbilly Vance has gone to Utah to retrieve civilian Charlie Kirk’s body and casket, plus his family, and fly them to Phoenix. In Air Force Two. On our dime. For a political activist. Not for an esteemed titan of democracy. Not for a hero. For just a political activist who had success motivating young people.

Kirk was a supporter of Trump, so of course Trump, the Adoration Junkie, has ordered flags at federal buildings to be lowered to half-staff. Do you suppose he’d do the same for any progressive activist who was shot? Or for any of the “suckers” and “losers” buried at Arlington National Cemetery?

Click me

Here’s Jennifer Rubin from before the arrest of the alleged perp:

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, Donald Trump has chosen to politicize [Charlie] Kirk’s murder, blaming the rhetoric of the “radical left”—all before anyone has been identified, let alone arrested for the murder.

Sadly, he and the MAGA troops reserve outrage only when Republicans are targeted (compare the near-silence when [Democratic] Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was targeted, the mockery when [Democrat] Paul Pelosi was nearly killed, and the snide remarks when two Minnesota Democrats were assassinated).

In each of these cases Trump demonized the left or ignored others’ tragedies, both of which encourage more violence.

So, don’t even think of both-sidesing this idiocy.* Only one side promotes violence to get its way. Only one side encourages hatred of the other side, although I confess to speaking ill at times about the violent ones, the willfully ignorant ones and the hateful ones.

Only one side adores a convict president who regularly urges them to violence. Only one side has a leader who promoted violent, murderous, treasonous insurrection and then pardoned the criminals, leaving them to believe that they can get away with maiming and killing in his name any time.

Only one side continues to pervert the Second Amendment from solely encouraging a stand-by militia for an at-risk fledgling country, to promoting a universal right to own and use modern weapons of war. Only one side stockpiles arsenals of weapons and ammunition, encouraged by puff-up slogans, like  “from my cold, dead hands,” and other pitiful macho, tough guy excuses. They give goose bumps to those angry guys who need to show they’re tough guys. And they give them excuse to do violence to others.

We have always been a violent society. Ask Blacks whose people were whipped and lynched. Ask Native Americans whose ancestors were massacred as state policy in order to take from them what we promised to leave to them. Ask any parent of a school child, anyone living in a drive-by kill zone – ask anyone.

So, no, John Lewis, We aren’t better than this. This is exactly who and what we are. We are violent, self-excusing murderous perps. In fact, I’ll take this one very dangerous step further.

We’ve Seen This Awful Movie Before And We Know How It Ends

In 1933 shortly after Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in a free and fair election, there was a mysterious fire in the Reichstag building where the German parliament met. Here’s a pretty good explanation from Wikipedia:

The Reichstag Fire Decree . . . officially the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State . . .  was a decree issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1933 in immediate response to the Reichstag fire. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With the Nazis in powerful positions in the German government, the decree was used as the legal basis for the imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered “friendly” to the Nazi cause. The decree is considered by historians as one of the key steps in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany.

One mysterious fire and fingers of blame – scapegoating – were pointed and all semblance of democracy and everyone’s freedom were lost for a very long, murderous time.

Now consider this over-blown, over-played, over-politicized murder of Charlie Kirk. A super “conservative” guy was shot by someone who disliked him or his views. You don’t suppose that Trump will call that “radical lefty” violence and use it to brand all liberals as traitors, do you? Oh, wait: he already has.

It’s time to suspend your explanations and your self-protection schemes against the evils of Trump’s authoritarianism. Recognize that even if this murder isn’t the sole justification for the absolute power being sought by Trump, truncation of your liberty is on the way.

This ain’t bean bag.

Be sure to read Charlie Sykes’ post, Weaponizing the Murder of Charlie Kirk. The attacks on our freedoms are flying fast and with fantastical hatred – all aimed at you.

Final comment: For those like Charlie Kirk who claim to be Christians and use their bible thumping to justify spewing vitriol toward others (see footnote), you have to show me where in the Christian bible – any version of Christian bible – where followers are instructed to hate others, to persecute others. Then these thumpers can get me to believe they’re true Christians. Until then, they’re just hateful hypocrites.

Many thanks to pal FL for his contributions to this post.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • I believe that deliberate, conscienceless mendacity.
  • the acceptance of falsehood and hypocrisy,
  • is the most dangerous of all sins.
  • Tennessee Williams, 1957
  • The biggest liar in the world is They Say.
  • [Or, “People are saying” – JA]
  • Douglas Malloch, 1978
  • _____________________________________________________

* Excerpt from Thom Hartmann’s piece, The “Both Sides” Scam: How False Balance Fuels Extremism:

” .  .  .  in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination — the guy who downplayed slavery, demonized Black and brown people, promoted the racist, antisemitic Great Replacement Theory, attacked queer people, made degrading comments about women, said gun deaths were fine because that’s the price we must pay for the Second Amendment .  .  . “

I guess with his murder Kirk paid what he said is “the price we must pay” for what is actually the constantly misused and abused Second Amendment, contorted by macho wannabees and the NRA. And Charlie Kirk. This hateful extremist righty, this performative Christian should not have been murdered. But Trump promotes violence against the left which will fuel the next murderers who think they are the true patriots doing Great Leader’s bidding.

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    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA


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

The News


POST 1209

First, a Feel-Good

Things are changing. People are standing up and speaking out. Not just the usual suspects, but even Republicans and MAGAs. Even some high profile types are finding their way out of “nice” and are on the attack (at last!). Trump has so outrageously overplayed his hand that we’ve had some electoral wins and a beginning of the possibility of ripping our country out of the treasonous clutches of the fascists. So, what will we do when the good guys are back in charge? It starts with a re-set.

Rick Wilson put some thought to that and wrote a bill to be introduced in Congress on January 20, 2029 or, perhaps, on January 3, 2027. Read his Restoration of America Governance Act, designed to undo much of Trump’s lawless and unconstitutional actions. It’s a short and good read.

Now, Ugly Stuff
  1. Heather Honey is the election conspiracy theorist liar who claimed that in the 2020 not-stolen election that in Pennsylvania there were 205,000 more votes than voters. Baseless idiocy. She’s all about preventing people from voting and now Trump has named her to a new “election integrity” post at DHS. What could possibly go wrong?
  2. From Democracy Docket: “On a recent episode of his podcast, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon made a chilling prediction: ICE agents will be stationed near polling places for the 2026 midterm elections.” Last election they made it illegal to bring water to people waiting to vote in long lines on hot days. Thugocracy.
  3. Louisiana told the justices of the Supreme Court that it will no longer defend the court-ordered map that added a second majority-Black congressional district. Instead, the state argued that any use of race in redistricting is unconstitutional. Yes, really.
  4. In a separate case, Alabama asked SCOTUS to strike down a lower court ruling requiring it to draw another majority-Black congressional district.

Points 3 & 4 are noteworthy for one reason. The GOP in most red states have worked tirelessly for decades to prevent non-Whites from voting, from purging voter registration roles using cruel racist schemes, to closing nearby polling places, to eliminating ballot drop boxes, to their wildly discriminating voter ID laws and more. Now they’re objecting to rulings that favor fair representation for non-Whites on the basis of racial discrimination! Their hypocrisy has no bottom.

    5. From this “Treason” post detailing Trump’s attack on Nicolle Wallace:

Since returning to power, Donald Trump has unleashed a coordinated assault on the free press unlike anything in American history. He’s personally attacked journalists he wants removed; he’s revived his “enemy of the people” designation against the Constitution’s only protected profession; he’s sued major outlets for coverage he deems unflattering; he’s threatened to revoke broadcast licenses of outlets who don’t cater to his preferences; he’s weaponized the FCC and effectively installed a personal “bias monitor” to oversee CBS News; he’s hijacked Voice of America and turned it into a pro-Trump global news outlet; he’s de-funded organizations like NPR and PBS; he’s changed long-standing Justice Department policies to make it easier to monitor journalists, to seize their records, and to search their homes; and more.

And that’s just about his attacks on one part of the First Amendment.

I’m a political news junkie, so I don’t expect anyone to be as focused on this stuff as I commonly am, but I found myself doing something that, on reflection, is frightening.

I was doing some chores in the kitchen with the TV on CNN. They covered the embarrassingly fawning Cabinet meeting, with seemingly otherwise functional (if unqualified) adults not reporting on their departments, but instead spewing cringe-worthy adulation onto Trump. CNN’s next topic was reporting on Trump’s threats to send our military into Chicago and reflexively I clicked off the TV. I bailed. I dropped out. Couldn’t stomach the river of bile. But if this political junkie dropped out, likely, that means that huge numbers of people won’t pay attention to what is happening to our country. That’s really dangerous.

I’ve dropped back in. We all need to be in.

Next, Bang Bang!

First, let’s recognize that our pathological president is working his hardest to negate everything Obama and Biden accomplished, including the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. However insufficient, that was the first major gun safety legislation passed by Congress in nearly 30 years.

Next, much as it’s so painful to see the reality, let’s recognize the brutality of the murders and wounding of little kids at the Annunciation Catholic Church School in Minneapolis last week.

Now I want you to imagine you’re the mom in the photo to the right, running in near panic for her children. She didn’t even put on her shoes. She just ran. You would, too.

Take a moment to feel her panic, her dread, her terror. That is the reality of every mass shooting, especially when it involves children.

Recognize that Trump wants to make it easier for hate-filled terrorists to get guns, assault rifles, large capacity magazines, bump stocks and more. Trump wants to do nothing to prevent the horror that has overcome that woman or anyone. His actions steadfastly declare that he doesn’t care how many little kids are ripped apart by bullets fired by a hatred filled terrorist.

Last, Some Hopeful Stuff

Chicago Mayor Brandon Jackson stood strong yesterday, calling Trump’s invasion of Chicago exactly what it is. He signed the Protecting Chicago Initiative executive order. It does many things including protecting the people from federal overreach and declaring that the CPD won’t collaborate with Trump’s Gestapo. Jackson joins governors Newsome, Pritzker, Moore, Walz and others standing against and speaking out VERY LOUDLY against Trump’s violations of our Constitution and the militarization of our country. Listen to Mayor Jackson’s powerful presentation here.

You know lots of the reasons why we have to do whatever it takes to defeat Trump, his sycophants, his cowardly, hypocritical legislators, his lying, extremist administration officials, his ICE Gestapo, his education destroyers, his know nothings undermining our healthcare and all of science – all of those who seek to destroy our values. We need to see Rick Wilson’s  Restoration of America Governance Act become real.

And we can do that.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Whoever is careless with truth in small matters
  • cannot be trusted in important affairs
  • Albert Einstein, 1979
  • The truth does not change
  • according to our ability
  • to stomach it emotionally.
  • Flannery O’Connor
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    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

ICYMI*


POST 1208

Got some health issues going on, so no new post today. Instead we reprise a “wake up to reality” call from July 6 titled, The Last Day.

The BBBB

At last there were just enough Republican cowards, liars and hypocrites to pass Trump’s Big Barfy Betrayal Bill. Who would have thought it possible to amass so many legislators more afraid of losing their privileged seats in Congress than motivated to keep people from starving to death or dying of preventable maladies?

The Congressional Republicans cheered and took a group thumbs-up photo after the signing of that awful legislation that is so destructive of the American people and our way of life. They seemed to say “cheers for our side,” as though getting a legislative win were more important than doing what is best for the people.
.
That bill is the gateway to the loss of our freedom.
.
Its passage has created the next to the last day.
.
Who Doesn’t Care?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) offered an amendment to stop the Republicans from cutting half the funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Board. That’s the agency that has caused over $20 billion to be returned to Americans who had been cheated by a bank, credit card company or the like. Every Republican voted against her amendment.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) submitted an amendment to increase taxes on income over $10 million. Every Republican voted against that.

Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) had an amendment about Medicaid. The Republicans want to take it away from 17 million Americans. Her amendment was to at least keep in place Medicaid for brand new babies and their moms while they are in the hospital. Every Republican voted against it. Hey, if babies die, they die. Same for moms. These are the “pro-life” guys. Hypocrites.

Sen. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) amendment opposed the Republican plan to cut food assistance for low income families. It would guarantee food assistance at least for families with children under age 12. Every Republican voted against it.

The Republicans are for letting millions of Africans die from lack of medicines and surplus food already paid for and ready to ship.

The answer to the question beginning this section is that Republicans don’t care.

From Robert Reich:

[Their BBBB] establishes an anti-immigrant police state in America, replete with a standing army of ICE agents and a gulag of detention facilities that transform ICE into the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the government and it’s accountable to no one.

That is Trump’s private fascist army.

All of this is stuff you don’t want and perhaps you don’t even want to hear about, but this is what you get from Trump and his cowardly Republicans.

And we may have few chances left to vote them out of office. Trump said so.

The Posse Of Destruction Makes It Worse

From The Onion. Click me

John Roberts, Chief Justice to those other 5 black robed thieves of liberty, has placed himself in history to be the leader of the cabal who wouldn’t do their jobs – that “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” thing. Instead, they have substituted the name “Trump.”

The Roberts Court outrageously gave the President a get out of jail free card, allowing him to commit practically any crime while President and do so with no consequences (Trump v. United States). That matches nearly all of Trump’s no-accountability life. Then the Court put a nail in the coffin of birthright citizenship (Trump v. CASA). That oughta keep non-Whites from voting.

There are more Roberts assaults on our Constitution, of course. These are just two of the most recent.

John Roberts and his Posse of Destruction have abandoned their sworn duty (the real one) and have systematically dismantled our We The People protections from government cruelty. Indeed, they have neutered nearly every avenue to protect this nation from the onslaught of fascism and a cruel dictator.

That has dire consequences for your freedom.

The Final Manipulation

From Wikipedia:

The Reichstag fire .  .  .  was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday, 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany .  .  . the Nazis attributed the fire to a group of Communist agitators, used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and induced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties and pursue a “ruthless confrontation” with the Communists. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

That freedom killing Decree lasted until the end of the war.

Trump just got his horrible BBBB passed. It will give him radically enlarged power; hence, its passage signals the next to the last day. Now he needs something else big to solidify his dictatorship, so watch for some large act that looks like sabotage. He will blame Democrats, immigrants, LGBTQ citizens and journalists. He’ll use it to curtail our freedom and to declare a state of martial law. That will put Marines in your town and your freedom will be gone.

Then our Republican controlled Congress will sit like lap dogs, mute and meek, and watch Trump dissolve Congress and the courts. Trump will be a dictator exactly as he declared he would be when he said maybe there won’t be another election.

Then by extension, Prof. Timothy Snyder’s post Concentration Camp Labor tells us what comes next, powered by ICE thugs, who bring us deportations of innocents, imprisonments in concentration camps and then the normalization of slave labor.

I know that all sounds radical, outrageous. The German people didn’t see it coming, either.

Nevertheless, that will be the last day.
.
Unless There Is A Lot Of Action

First, a definition: autocracy = dictatorship

And dictators are never good for the people. The Founders knew that because they lived under a dictator, mad King George III. He was a lot like Dementia King Donald I. We need to get to the same level of clarity as our Founders possessed.

Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt wrote How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy? and I strongly recommend that you read it. The article ends with this:

America’s slide into authoritarianism is reversible. But no one has ever defeated autocracy from the sidelines

Got it?

A Question About Our Self-Debasement Into Fascism

Every day Trump and his Gestapo are kidnapping people, beating them, killing them, locking them up and deporting them. Due process isn’t something even thinkable under these circumstances. Now they’re making jokes about detainees being eaten by alligators. They’re even selling Alligator Alcatraz merch. That extreme cruelty is being normalized and it’s being done in your name.

Here’s the question:

Are you okay with that?
.
Here’s How Trump Will Be Defeated

Trump will issue an executive order and an all-caps tweet ordering the carving of his likeness into Mt. Rushmore. It will be done as he demands, at “warp speed.” Construction will begin immediately.

At the point where his mug shot is discernible there will be a 7.5 magnitude earthquake directly beneath the far right side of the mountain. The likenesses of the other four presidents will be completely unharmed, but the portion of Mt. Rushmore with Trump’s face will disintegrate, with huge rocks plunging to the valley below, The only remaining evidence of Trump will be a slightly orange cast to the dust hanging in the air.

MAGAs, Christian nationalists, insurrectionists and Bible thumpers will stand in awe from seeing God’s judgment declared upon Trump right before their eyes and they will abandon him instantly, paving the way for a return of freedom and representative government.

___________________________________________________

* In case you missed it.

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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

A Start


POST 1207

Congress

Amazingly, even Rs and performative MAGAs are offended by the sex trafficking of children and child rape, so they’re demanding all of the Epstein materials. It’s likely that these guys once knew someone who was a girl and are horrified by what Epstein, Maxwell and their clients (johns, really) did to them. Maybe the awfulness is close enough to home that they’re willing to displease even the foremost frequent flyer on Epstein’s Nubile Express, what with his attempts to cover up his behavior to avoid accountability for what pretty much everyone believes he did. Now we know what it takes to break through the Republican cowardice to get them to begin to stand upright. It’s a start.

Blast From The Past

Ronald Reagan, he of the “Government isn’t the solution to our problem; government is the problem” brain-free campaign sloganeering, used to be Saint Ronny. Nobody talks much about him now, so perhaps his sainthood has been voided. Regardless, this former B actor had great White House script writers and he delivered his lines well.

Here he is explaining tariffs to We The Ignorant. Watch this and imagine what Trump would call Reagan today. Trump is the one who said John McCain wasn’t a hero and that our military dead were suckers and losers. He’s the one who turns on former supporters and friends for the most trivial of reasons, just to exact revenge. He calls it retribution. You can ask John Bolton how that works now.

And people are beginning to react to his thin skinned delusions. It’s a start.

Voting Rights

Paul Weyrich didn’t want you to vote, because far righties’ “leverage” goes up when fewer people vote. Click me.

Perhaps our greatest fighters for our supposedly Constitutionally protected voting rights are Marc Elias and his team of snarling, biting pit bull legal fighters. They file blizzards of lawsuits against gerrymandering, illegal purging of voters’ registrations, closing of polling places, removal of ballot drop boxes, the killing of mail in ballot options and more. We know that the cheaters will continue to cheat – they always have. And we know that the job of stopping their abuse of We The People will never end.

The Republicans have been public about their scummy tricks and un-American attitude on who should vote and who they think shouldn’t vote at least since Paul Weyrich, a founder of the hateful Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), guys who write extremist legislation for Republicans to pass. He openly declared his un-American recommendations in 1980. Click the pic and hear the slime drip from his mouth. The good news is that Elias and his team are on duty, doing great work to protect all of us, to stop the cheaters. You might want to subscribe to his Substack and throw a few bucks their way. It’s a start.

Finally – as in: At Last

Gov. Gavin Newsome has taken the fight to Trump and shoved it in his face. He declared war on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his abhorrent Trump-demanded, mid-decade gerrymandering to create 5 more Republican seats in the House. Every day Newsome mocks Trump by tweeting at him in Trump’s own communication style.

I’ve been asking who will lead us out of the valley of democracy death for a long time. We’ve been hoping for a Democrat to stand up and smack the far right liars and cheaters and now we have one. It’s a start.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • It is against Stupidity in every shape and form
  • that we have to wage our eternal battle.
  • William Booth, 1890
  • Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist
  • while you react to life on his own terms.
  • Elizabeth Bowen,1938
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    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA


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

Can We Drop The Pretenses and Denial Now?


POST 1205

It’s About One Thing and One Thing Only

The Trump immigration cruelty, breaking of laws and the rest have nothing to do with immigration. They have nothing to do with the economy. They are unrelated to international trade or safe borders, disease prevention, ending war or the Nobel Peace Prize.

Click me for the story.

The cruelty is about getting rid of Brown and Black people, which is why ICE locks up even legal Brown American citizens and doesn’t discriminate between immigrants with or without a criminal record. In fact, ICE doesn’t even check for criminal records. They just kidnap people, zip-tie them and send them to a hell hole prison. Make America White Again!

The cruelty is about establishing public fear of Trump so that he has all the power. Even big law firms, major universities and financial institutions are chickening out and bending the knee for what they seem to believe is their short term advantage or perhaps protection from Trump’s cruelty.

That is compounded by Trump’s incremental militarization of our cities – notably only where there are Black mayors. Trump threatens several more cities with the deployment of our military and none of them is near the top of the list of cities with the most crime. He threatened New York, Baltimore, Chicago and Oakland, all Democratic strongholds with large African-American populations. They could be next and won’t that be a fine distraction from the withheld Epstein files?

Militarization is what dictators do to suppress and control the population.

During his first administration Trump ordered Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to have his troops “shoot [protesters] in the legs.” Milley refused, but now that Trump has fired the generals most likely to refuse his illegal orders and has replaced them with Trump sycophants, what do you suppose will happen when there are peaceful protests that Trump doesn’t like and they are surrounded by our troops carrying weapons of war?

That’s essentially what happened at Kent State in 1970 when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed peaceful protesters (full disclosure: they were saying mean things about the administration). Guardsmen killed four and injured nine kids. Who was the idiot who issued live ammunition?

Surely, Trump figures that fear will keep we rubes in line.

Again, this is what dictators do to suppress and control the population.

All of that is diabolically supported by a cowardly Republican controlled Congress and the Supreme Court that was hand picked by Trump. Whatever their beliefs, they are all receiving death threats from Trump thugs, making it most unlikely that they will stand up to him.

Every Trump outrage is about one thing and one thing only: Making Trump a king. Der Führer.

Can we drop the pretenses and denial now?

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Address of August 14*

In urging you to read her whole post, here’s an excerpt from Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s report of August 14.

Noting that “this time requires us to act anew, not just think anew,” Newsom nodded to President Abraham Lincoln’s famous call from 1862: “The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

The Staples Singers

Trump bungled every aspect, every detail of his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Anchorage on Friday. The bungling began even before the two met. Trump landed first and Putin showed up late, causing Trump to have to wait for him for nearly an hour, making Trump look like a chump.

Then Trump treated Putin to red carpet treatment and gave him a ride in the presidential “Beast.” At the end they parted, saying false, hollow niceties about one another and Mr. Art of the Deal flew away with no deal and with no pathway to a deal. Trump just plain got played by Putin – again. That affects all of us and, oddly, connects to The Staples Singers.

I listened to their wonderful hit Respect Yourself the other day and heard their message a bit differently than I did in 1972 when it topped the charts. Back then it was a message to our angry and disrespectful and the violence prone people, suffering  in the midst of great and largely justified public rage in our country. Today I heard it as a message to all of us to respect ourselves and one another by proudly standing up for what we know is right.

We know the Alaska meeting was wrong for America and the world. We know this Epstein stuff stinks 16 different ways, that disappearing people is wrong and awful and unlawful, that the assaults on our healthcare, the education of our children and the security of old people who paid into a system that now owes them are all wrong. And we know that abandoning Ukraine, giving it lies instead of munitions and turning our back on those embattled people is wrong on so many levels.

So, have a listen to Respect Yourself for a message – see if it speaks to you, giving you guidance for your actions today. And do, indeed, respect yourself.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Truth is on
  • the march
  • and nothing
  • can stop it
  • Émile Zola, 1898
  • We must always take sides.
  • Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
  • Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
  • Elie Wiesel, in Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 1986
  • _______________________________________________
  • * Watch the entire session. This is what you’ve longed to hear. It will fill your heart and stiffen your spine with resolve.
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    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA


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

Pharaohs


POST 1203

Who’s the Pharaoh?

WW II resulted in 6 million Jews being murdered. They made up over 36% of all Jews worldwide. But all the Jews in the world accounted for just 0.7% of world population. One result of that was world sympathy for this tiny minority that was the wretched victim of the hatred and brutality of the Holocaust. That sympathy was part of the impetus for the United Nations vote to recognize the new state of Israel.

Israel continued to enjoy world sympathy and support, partly because of recurrent attacks on Israel by Arab and Muslim states in the area. We all love an underdog. Sometimes.

That world support ratcheted up on October 7, 2023 with the horrific attacks by Hamas. But then Israel mounted its offense and now has backed itself into a corner. Its hard line position of ongoing military attacks on the rubble that is Gaza and, far worse, the Israeli blockade of food and medical supplies – humanitarian aid – intended for Palestinians has raised the anger of millions. Due to that cruelty Israel is fast losing world support and making itself a pariah state.

The Children of Israel (Hebrews, not yet Jews) entered Egypt roughly 3,800 years ago. They wound up slaves to the Pharaoh and at last escaped in what was named the Exodus about 430 years later. Passover is a story of redemption from slavery and the universal wish for freedom. Pharaoh kept freedom from the Children of Israel.

But now Israel is the pharaoh, oppressing Palestinians.
.
Today’s Other Pharaoh, If We Let Him

Chicago radio personality Patty Vasquez (WCPT, 820-AM, Chicago) has managed to connect the dots into a clarity that you’ve felt in your bones but may have been unable to articulate. From her post Everything is For Sale: Trump Turned Democracy into a Transaction:

[Trump is b]uying more political power. Buying favorable testimony. Everything is negotiable when you’re running the country like your personal criminal enterprise.

The Texas gerrymander isn’t about fair representation, it’s about purchasing a House majority. The Maxwell interviews aren’t about justice for victims, they’re about shopping for dirt on [Trump’s] enemies. Every institution, every norm, every democratic tradition is just another item in Trump’s democracy yard sale.

We’re not sliding toward authoritarianism anymore. We’re there. And we better start fighting our way out.

Because now Trump is an American pharaoh.
.

Recall Jimmy Buffett’s call to us: “There’s still so much to be done.” Find a way to make good trouble. Find a way to disobey.

We’ll find nobody in the Trump administration or in any suck up red state who will change their evil ways because we asked nicely, so we have to resort to something with muscle.

I’m calling for a nationwide strike – a work stoppage
.

– by all immigrant workers. It’s detailed here and it’s no joke.

Rosa Parks refused to obey the order to move to the back of the bus and she became an avatar for courage to fight what was wrong. The Montgomery, AL city officials refused to abandon their racist, segregationist ways. Nothing could sway them until Montgomery’s Black people refused to ride the city buses. They boycotted for over a year and, faced with bankruptcy of the system, the city at last succumbed to the insistent, non-violent pressure of the brave people who, instead of riding the bus, walked miles to create change.

We’re in a similar position now. Trump will never give in to demands for democracy because of our demonstrations alone. Far more powerful will be our refusing to work.

– Let the produce rot in the fields

– Let building construction grind to a halt

– Let restaurants and hotels be unable to operate, including Mar-a-Lago

– Let rich people’s landscaping become overgrown and go to seed

It may be insufficient for only immigrants to strike and it may be grossly unfair, too. So, let’s expand this strike to all democracy loving Americans. Our rights and power to withhold ourselves is something no ICE goons can stop and no Presidential temper tantrum or boundless greed can control.

Let my people go!

Who The Other Side Is

Mehdi Hassan is an impossibly intelligent fellow. He recently had a whirlwind debate with 20 people, one at a time. They were young Trump voters who proclaimed world views vastly different from Hassan’s and likely from yours. Their self-proclaimed identities went all the way from racists and White supremacists to self-proclaimed fascists and Nazis. You know: D*cks.

The back-and-forth is fascinating. As interesting as the debate are the reactions of the group when they are watching others engaging with Hassan. You may be surprised and likely appalled at what they applaud. Watch the exchange here.

Medical News

Scientists at the Center on Brain Dysfunction have isolated a new and powerful bacterium. This has been a decades long effort to identify the cause of self-destructive and often cruel behavior that eventually leads to pronounced dementia. The bacterium has been identified as:

Stupidococcus Stupidoniae
.

Stupidococcus readily infects others, especially in closed environments, like in Congressional caucus rooms and in cloak rooms. In early stages a patient with stupidococcus may sound lucid and even confident in making pronouncements, but as the infection progresses logical functions deteriorate markedly.

Speech patterns become increasingly unintelligible, with words garbled and flamboyant phrases repeated many times in a single, overly long sentence. Unsupported superlative claims that adjoin most statements are like nothing anyone has ever seen. That is especially pernicious, as a person suffering from stupidococcus may appear to be confident but actually his internal light is, at best, only flickering. Practitioners should monitor for signs of paranoia, often manifest by violence, like subjects throwing ketchup on the wall.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced last week that he is terminating grants for further research of this disease so that people don’t come to expect anything from government. His funding cuts for mRNA research should close the door on progress toward disease prevention and reduce what he called “socialist aid” to millions who suffer from this now incurable disease and others. Kennedy declared that his actions will combat waste, fraud and abuse and that he expects the number of new cases of autism to decline, offering no plausible explanation for that.

Upon hearing the news of Kennedy’s financial aid cuts to medical research, former head of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele reminded Americans that, “You can’t cure stupid,” adding, “and now we never will.”

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Office tends to confer a dreadful plausibility
  •  on even the most negligible of those who hold it.
  • Mark Lawson 1992
  • Among all the diseases of the mind
  • there is not one more epidemical
  • or more pernicious than the love of flattery.
  • Richard Steele, 1711
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    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA


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

On Not Being a D*ck – v3.0


POST 1202

Ed. note: This is the last post “On Not Being a D*ck,” as you know full well who is and who isn’t.

Emergency

Decide for yourself if you should call the paramedics after watching this video.

The Trumpstein Catastrophe

After Trump whined stupidly at the end of a press briefing about his spa workers who were “stolen” by Epstein, as though they were his property stolen by a thief in the night, a reporter shouted to Trump:

What did you think Epstein was stealing those women for?!?
.

But Trump didn’t answer that key question.

And they weren’t women. They were just kids. Children. Underage girls. Not women. And they weren’t his property.

He’s a d*ck – only in the sense of cruelty. He’s always been a d*ck.

Listen to Keith Olbermann’s comments about this here.

And you need to see Ben Meiselas’ review last week.

  • The Real Reason

.Here’s a headline from the August 3 Gannett News-Press:.

    • Is there justice, along with snakes and gators, in the Everglades | Opinion
    • DeSantis and Trump are turning our country into a police state in order to round up those coming to America
    • fleeing extreme poverty, violence and brutal dictatorships
    • Howard L. Simon

Just two more points. DeSantis and Trump are turning our country into a police state:

  1. In order to cement a dictatorship in America so that they and their fellow fascists have all the power.
  2. To rid America of all people of color and, eventually, all non-Protestants. Whatever color you are, whatever religion you align with, if you aren’t White and Protestant, sooner of later they’ll be coming for you.

If I’m wrong, no matter. These guys and their fellow fascist wannabees are still d*cks.

If they don’t want to be d*cks, they should try aggressively promoting democracy and following the law.

  • About the Dems
  • I’ve been asking about who will lead us on a path back to something that looks like America and I still have no answer, but I do have more questions.

  • Justice Samuel Alito

    Justice Clarence Thomas

    At 75 and 77 years old, unconstitutional Supreme Court d*cks Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are the oldest on the Court. Their departure from the Court is quite possible, even likely, while Trump is president. Replacements will have to pass muster in the Senate and if that happens while the Senate is majority Republican, very bad things will happen.

  • What will the Dems do when Trump nominates a younger far right supplicant to himself to sit on the Court and do his bidding for decades? Stopping that nail from being driven home into democracy’s coffin will be next to impossible. That should keep you from sleeping well and, perhaps, motivate you to get out on the street to canvass for your Democratic Senate candidate.
  • Because the 2026 election could produce a Democratic majority in the Senate starting on January 3, 2027. Then the leadership question morphs a bit.
  • Mitch McConnell made “the most consequential decision I’ve made in my entire public career” by stonewalling Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Court for over 10 months. McConnell was so very proud of his thumb in the eye of the Constitution. That gave us Neil Gorsuch on the Court instead of Garland. Is there a Democratic senator with the courage to do a McConnell stonewall to a Trump nominee to the Court if given the chance?
  • The radical Rs are finding new, slimy ways to rig the system, including wiping likely D voters from voting roles, killing mail in ballots and eliminating ballot drop boxes, The new red state scum bag move is to redistrict by slicing and dicing current districts to produce extra districts that will be safe Republican House seats. Texas alone intends to create 5 of therm and other red states are looking to do the same thing.
  • Gov. Gavin Newsome is promising to fight back by doing the same kind of redistricting in blue California and governors in Illinois, New York and other blue states are looking to do the same. We either fight this Republican slime or we will be slimed and there will be no Ghostbusters to come and save us.
  • Other than Newsome, what Dem has the chutzpah to do what must be done, including stonewall Trump’s nominations?
  • That is the nitty-gritty of my “Who will lead?” question. We need people ready to claw and scratch, bite and kick – fight fire with fire, slime with slime – to stop the destruction of all we hold dear. Otherwise, we’ll be the smug virtuous ones lying prone with a fascist’s boot on our necks.
  • Forget about “When they go low, we go high.” I’m as much a fan of Michelle Obama as anyone, but her very nice declaration is a paving stone on the path to fascism.
  • So, Democrats: put on your big boy and big girl pants and don’t be such gutless wimps.

The Democrats are more interested in grasping for social virtue than improving the material and emotional well-being of Americans. When your representatives won’t represent, you become your own delegation.

– Prof. Scott Galloway, June 20, 2025

Jimmy Buffett And You
Perhaps you remember the Jimmy Buffett song Last Mango in Paris (full lyrics here). In the song, an old man tells his story to Jimmy. Here’s the chorus, now personalized for you:
.
I ate the last mango in ParisTook the last plane out of SaigonTook the first fast boat to ChinaAnd ____________________ there’s still so much to be done.
.      Write your name here
.
Our work wasn’t finished with the civil rights wins in the 60s or the Viet Nam confrontations in the 70s. The haters, the usurpers and thieves never left. Now they’re ethnically cleansing our country of Black and Brown people and either renditioning them to foreign torture gulags or stuffing them into American Koncentration Kamps. They’re cramming our courts, universities and government agencies, even our entire Department of Justice with authoritarian supplicants.
.
As brutal as were those righteous battles of the 60s and 70s; as painful and as belief destroying as were the murders of Kennedy, King and the Kent State 4; as barbaric as was the 1968 Chicago Police riot; as abhorrent as the Reagan years of “trickle down” lies and the illegal Iran-Contra scheme; as democracy destroying and sanity stupefying as was Trump’s first term; we are now at a far more dangerous precipice. We are threatened with losing everything.
.
We see it, so we know. And we cannot un-know.
As much as we’ve battled, there’s still so much to be done.
The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Office tends to confer a dreadful plausibility
  •  on even the most negligible of those who hold it.
  • Mark Lawson 1992
  • Among all the diseases of the mind
  • there is not one more epidemical
  • or more pernicious than the love of flattery.
  • Richard Steele, 1711
  • Mid-Term Election
    Countdown Timer
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe at no charge – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too, because it’s going to take ALL OF US to get this job done.

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
    6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA

* I propose that we fight this Republican democracy killing with something more muscular. We should leave the safe red districts as they are and then create a new blue district for every Democratic voter. Illinois would produce over 3 million new blue seats in the House and New York would supply over 4.6 million new blue seats. Continuing this nationwide will produce over 75 million new Democratic Representatives in the House. Who cares what Texas does?


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

Potpourri v24.0


POST 1197

Car Sales And Trumponomics

Dr. Brian Beaulieu of ITR Economics is an economics and investments guru with a pretty good prognostication track record. He sees the chaos that is happening in our economy and sees the numbers. Here’s his recent report.

We did not have the June data for auto retail sales when I did my Fed Watch on Friday. Have it now. The May-to-June drop in domestically produced light duty vehicle retail sales was the worst spanning 60 years of data (including tough recessions) at -26.2%. For foreign produced light duty vehicles, the June drop was -39.6%, the most severe May-to-June decline in a history spanning 50 years.

The data is showing that:

1. Creating uncertainty is bad economic policy.

2. Playing whack-a-mole with tariffs is bad economic policy.

3. It may be possible to have a president come into office with economic policies that truly can disrupt the business cycle, at least temporarily.

You may not research what Beaulieu commonly does, but likely you know in your gut what he expertly shows us.

The Unlimited National Restoration About People’s Equity Act (UNRAPE) of 2025

Trump’s Big Barfy Betrayal Bill (BBBB) is a blatant transfer of trillions of dollars from poor and working class Americans to the very wealthiest in our very divided and economically grossly out of balance society. It is the biggest, but certainly not the first move to impoverish We The People entirely for the benefit of the very wealthy. It will leave most Americans feeling like they’ve been financially raped – yet again – because they have been. Indeed, $50 trillion (with a “T”) has gone from We the Regular People to the uber-rich over the last 40 years.

This is what oppressive governments do. The result is an impoverished populace with all power and most of the money in the hands of the insanely rich. It’s time to reverse that trend with this proposed bill.

TITLE I – WEALTH CLAWBACK

An annual 10% wealth tax is imposed on all persons having over $1 billion of net wealth. Let’s claw back, some of what they took from us.

TITLE II – FAIR SHARE

Federal personal income tax rates are hereby restored to those in effect when Ronald Reagan became President. The top tax rate then was 70% of income over $762,933 (in today’s dollars).

TITLE III – FEDERAL MINIMUM TAX

A minimum federal income tax rate of 20% is imposed on incomes over $1 million, regardless of the source of the income, whether filing individually or jointly, to ensure that very rich people who regularly use arcane tax exemption schemes not available to poor and middle class Americans pay their fair share.

TITLE IV – CORPORATE INCOME TAX RATES – BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE ALONE

Corporate federal income tax rates are hereby restored to those in effect prior to the first of George W. Bush’s tax cuts. The maximum corporate tax rate of 35% will apply to corporations with taxable income over $10 million. Corporations with taxable income over $15 million will be subject to an additional tax of 3% of the excess over $15 million, or $179,000 (in today’s dollars), whichever is smaller. That was the first time in American history when taxes were cut during war time.

For reference, Donald Trump’s 2018 Tax Cut and Jobs Act created no additional jobs and added $1 to 2 trillion to the federal debt, so the restoration of the corporate tax rates to the higher former rates should have no effect on employment numbers but will be a big help with our massive debt.

Let’s put this UNRAPE bill into the hands of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to expand and improve it. Email her and tell her to be ready with her proposal on the afternoon of January 20, 2029 or 2027, whenever Democrats retake the Senate.

Say Good-Bye To Your Mind

Congress has cut funding for PBS and NPR and Trump has the go-ahead to kill the Department of Education. Robert Reich explains the why of that:

There are five facets to the authoritarian attack on our minds that I cover in the video:

1. Rewrite history
2. Gut education
3. Dismantle science
4. Suppress the media
5. Attack the arts

Trump is unleashing all of them. And added up, they render us less informed, less inspired, and easier to control. They empower Trump to divide us with hatred and fear. And they prevent us from discovering that we have more in common with one another than with the authoritarians who try to rule us.

This attack on our minds ultimately reduces our capacity for self-government, because ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.

From Thomas Jefferson:

An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight.

Given Jefferson’s clarity, it’s easy to understand why Trump would want to keep us and our children ignorant.

Worthwhile Quotations Corner

From Steve Schmidt:

The other day, Van Jones suggested that any person who believes Trump’s babble is “weapons-grade stupid.” That is an accurate statement if there ever was one, and everyone knows that stupid cannot be fixed.

Speaking of Stupid

Our Congress is composed of the geniuses we send to Washington to represent us, our interests and desires and the needs of our nation. The Republican side of it has consistently and spinelessly caved to Donald Trump’s every pathological desire.

Congress voted to de-fund PBS and NPR. Republicans stupidly called it the “Defund Government-Sponsored Propaganda Act.”  Now that Trump has killed Big Bird, betcha Trump thinks that oughta distract and shut up those clamoring for the Epstein list. Won’t happen.

Who cares, Republicans seem to be saying, whether kids, especially rural kids and those with compromised early education opportunities get the obvious benefits of public broadcast programming? Or whether people in rural areas receive weather warnings before the tornado strikes? Who cares if Americans have a non-commercial, apolitical source for news, they whine?

Republicans have been saying for a long time that PBS and NPR are voices of woke lefties, a part of the “fake news.” They claim they broadcast propaganda. I challenge anyone to provide even a single example of PBS or NPR programming that even vaguely resembles those inflammatory, ignorant and stupid claims. C’mon, MAGAmites, help me out here.

All but two Republicans voted to shoot Big Bird and every Republican voted to cut Medicaid, SNAP, USAID, Voice of America, FEMA, vaccine research and the rest. Remember that when it’s time to choose in the upcoming November elections. Tell your friends. Tell your crazy Uncle Bob. Tell your Uber driver.

Click me for protest rights tips.

“The Republicans don’t care about you.”
.

It’s already established that you can’t fix stupid. And it looks like you can’t fix hypocrisy or cowardice, either.

From the John Lewis Good Trouble Demonstration
Highland Park, IL, July 17, 2025

Tens of thousands of people turned out for the Good Trouble protests at over 1,500 marches across the country, both to honor John Lewis and to staunchly, powerfully protest this felonious fascist president. Here are pics of  some signs people carried.

Sure do miss RBG

 

 

 

 

 

Our abused immigrants today are just like  your family members who immigrated here years ago. Same hopes, same dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

Be at the next demonstration, because we’re all counting on us.
The Deconstructing Trump* Corner
.
  • A bad cause will ever be supported
  • by bad means and bad men.
  • Thomas Paine, 1777
  • Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
  • Frank Leahy, 1955
  • _________________________________________

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

Mid-Term Election
Countdown Timer
Goes fast, doesn’t it?

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe at no charge – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too, because it’s going to take ALL OF US to get this job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or casually cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA

.


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

Our Freedom – v2.0


POST 1195

Preface

This is the second in a series examining the state of our freedom. Link to the first installment here.

What About Our Welfare?

Not so-called entitlement programs. This is about our general welfare, like NOAA, NWS and FEMA and how they work to enhance our safety – our welfare. It’s based on what has been discussed in the press about what was done in advance of the tsunami in the Guadalupe River that swept away hundreds of people, including those kids in the summer camps along the river.

This is not the first time that such massive flooding has happened in Kerr County. The folks in charge of monitoring and warning saw the massive storms approaching and they knew what would happen in hill country, as massive amounts of rain water flowed downhill to the river. So,

Question #1:

Radio alerts were sounded, but there was no siren, no audible alert. An audible alert system was scratched in this hyper-conservative county many times, even if it were funded by the federal government and not local property taxes because, as one resident put it, “.  .  . send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House .  .  . ” Naturally, such folks don’t want to fund an emergency alert system through taxes on themselves – like for the common good. See this for details.

As of this writing at least 134 people are confirmed dead and about 97 are still missing. If it turns out that all the missing have died, that’s 231 people dead from the flood. The warning system those Texans refused would have cost about $1 million, so it appears that these hyper-conservative locals and Gov. Greg Abbott decided that those lives were worth just $4,329 each and not one cent more. Extremist ideology comes at a cost.

Question #2:

Why weren’t there people riding the road along the river, calling out a warning to all those summer camps of kids, to residents, to hikers and campers, Paul Revere-like, warning them to evacuate and get to high ground immediately?

We know that there was precious little time to accomplish the warning – perhaps just 3 hours – but people in pickup trucks or on horseback could have carried the warning to many who were not able to receive a radio or cell phone alert – assuming such alerts were sounded. Where were those guys? Why weren’t they organized for such an emergency?

Question #3:

Two of the top weather guys took early retirement due to insane pressure from DOGE. Consequently, they were unavailable during the run-up to the flood and no one took their places, so the best skills were missing from the extreme weather warning toolbox. How did that expertise gap hamper efforts to protect people along the river? That’s being examined now.

FEMA funds were already cut and no FEMA people were pre-positioned to provide quick support. I fact, it took until three days after the initial flooding for FEMA to show up. They weren’t even reliably answering their phones due to the shortage of personnel. Way to go, DOGE!

Question #4 – an aggregation:

Are Trump and Musk proud as can be for saving of the salaries of those weather and FEMA experts? Was this a major victory in their brain-free battle against largely non-existent waste, fraud and abuse? Now that they’ve significantly de-funded FEMA, will the effort to find the remaining victims of the flood be truncated, bodies left to decay in the flood debris, loved ones left in a hellish void?

Question #5:

The Preamble to the Constitution speaks to the purpose of that document and of government itself. One of the duties of government is to “promote the general Welfare.” How are we doing at that? And what does that say about our freedom?

Recall that in a time of great fear and constant want, FDR laid out the Four Freedoms:

1. Freedom of speech and expression

2. Freedom of worship

3. Freedom from want

4. Freedom from fear

So, here’s Question #6:

Given the terrifying nature of that flooded river, of our more powerful and more frequent hurricanes and tornadoes, of mass incarceration of wholly innocent people and the intimidation of our entire society, how are we doing on the Freedom from fear part?

Freedom is a demanding thing. It’s a high bar to clear and we all know that we must be vigilant to keep our freedom secure. At least, those of us who aren’t fascists and who aren’t willing to be subjugated by a dictator – we know that. And we know that our freedom is under continuous and dangerous attack.

What About Freedom From Dictatorship – as in: Freedom To be Free?

From the Heather Cox Richardson post of July 7:

As Harvard sociologist Theda Skocpol pointed out in Talking Points Memo, it appears that officials in the Trump administration are using immigration as a way to establish a police state. Indeed, they are using the concept that presidents have control of foreign affairs as a way to work around the laws in place to prevent a dictatorship. [emphasis mine]

In her July 9 post she quoted Sen. Edward Kennedy in his 1987 opposition to the Robert Bork nomination to the Supreme Court.

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, [B]lacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….”

Too much of that 1987 warning feels frighteningly like today. Indeed, we’re being Borked regularly by the ultra-right, ideologue Supreme Court six.

If Trump gets away with establishing a police state, what do you suppose will happen to our next election? What will have happened to our freedom then?

The Deconstructing Trump* Corner
.
  • A bad cause will ever be supported
  • by bad means and bad men.
  • Thomas Paine, 1777
  • Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
  • Frank Leahy, 1955
  • _________________________________________

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

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The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Big Brother At Our Doorstep


POST 1191

The Swinders

Do you remember Peter Thiel – the billionaire PayPal and FaceBook guy? More significantly, maybe you remember him from his being JD Vance’s sugar daddy, giving that loser a fund manager position and then bankrolling Vance into the Senate. Thiel’s support culminated in Vance white washing all the trash talking he did of Trump (remember his Hitler comparisons when he was a “never Trumper”?) and getting the VP job by means of Thiel’s hand on his butt shoving him there.

Elon Musk and his juvenile delinquent flying monkeys stole our personal data from Social Security and other agencies. They sucked up all of your information – bank accounts, debts – everything – and dumped it in the lap of – guess who? – Peter Thiel and his AI company. I suspect that Musk kept copies for himself. This is true Big Brother intrusion into our lives and there is likely nothing any of us can do about that invasion of our privacy.

Of course, you smelled a rat when Musk was claiming to be fighting waste, fraud and abuse but he never found any waste, fraud or abuse. He promised to save us $2 trillion but actually barely broke even in his rampage of destruction. The rat you smelled was the theft of all of our information and its transfer to Thiel. It was for the benefit of Trump, Musk, Thiel, rich, greedy guys and lovers of dictatorship. That is the real reason for DOGE. Just like the Republican Big Barfy Betrayal Bill, it’s about sending your money to rich people and corporations.

You’ve been swindled by these thieves who invite Big Brother into our house.

This robber baron horror story is spelled out in Robert Reich’s piece, The Most Dangerous Corporation in the World.

Health Beat

From STAT:

79%

That’s the proportion of U.S. adults who say parents should be required to vaccinate their kids against preventa[ble] diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella in order to attend school, according to a new, nationally representative poll from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation.

You say you don’t want your kids to be vaccinated against these highly contagious diseases, as well as polio and smallpox? Fine. Just move to an unpopulated offshore island and never set foot on this continent again so that your family cannot infect the rest of us, cause a pandemic and make many people die.

While that offshore island cure for anti-vaxxers is, perhaps, extreme, 4 out of 5 adults in this country, including 68% of Republicans, pretty much agree about vaccinating our children. The question is why Secretary “Brain Worm” Kennedy doesn’t get it. Oh right: he has a brain worm.

And he’s a member of the DKS* wing of the Big Brother clan of cruelty.

Bombing Update

From Steve Schmidt, Headed Back To 2003 (when Dubya lied us into war in Iraq):

“CNN is scum, MSNBC is scum, the New York Times is scum. They’re bad people, they’re sick.”

— Donald Trump, June 25, 2025

Donald Trump’s Iran attack was a failure.

The Iranian nuclear program was not destroyed.

Here is what happened.

The United States used more than half of its bunker-busting arsenal of GBU-57s to obliterate a mountain top, and Little Marco, Champagne Pete, and JD Vance got to appear in a prime time episode of national disaster television behind a demented old man filled with malice, delusions and venom.

Here is what was achieved.

Nothing — except for making the Iranian regime more dangerous.

  • That is what a diabolical Big Brother does and that puts us all at risk.
Why Is All This Happening?

From Robert Reich:

.  .  .  Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, won’t defend their constitutional prerogatives. America is becoming a dictatorship because there are not even 4 Republican senators out of 53, nor 3 Republican representatives out of 220, with enough courage and integrity to stand up for Congress’s constitutional responsibilities.

That is a major piece of how Big Brother has come to be at our doorstep. That is why all this is happening.
.
Hope

Late last Sunday afternoon a huge thunderstorm rolled through our area. I sat on my front porch and enjoyed the show, the distant crashes of thunder, the torrents of rain overwhelming the roof gutters and splashing onto the ground, the rivers flowing fast in the street – it was glorious.

Then almost suddenly the rain slowed and bright sunshine bathed the area, sparkling off the drops on the leaves of the trees.

Wait: rain and sunshine – there had to be a rainbow somewhere.

I got up from my comfortable chair on the porch and went out into the street, turned my back to the sun and right there, low in the sky was the rainbow, just as they always are when the sun shines through rain.

We are living in a time of dread over all the harm and cruelty and the breaking of our laws, our customs and our hearts. Many people – perhaps you – feel a profound sense of hopelessness. Well, here’s something for you.

There is no executive order to arrest and deport rainbows. No bunker buster bomb can obliterate them and there is no tariff to pay to enjoy them.

The laws of physics haven’t been repealed. Light still refracts through raindrops. The science teachers who told us about that are still here and firm in their knowledge, even in the face of our science deniers and book banners/burners.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Science still works. It’s like bedrock. It stands ready and able to support us. Much as the greedy, power hungry thieves want to shake our bedrock, we can stop them from upsetting our country. Our beliefs, our values and our spirit stand strong.

So get off the porch and into the street. You did it on NO KINGS DAY. There still are rainbows right here in America.

______________________________________

  • * DKS – adjective: “Don’ Know Shit”
  • ** AI Overview from Google:

    The little girl featured in the 1964 “Daisy” ad was Monique M. Luiz (born Monique Corzilius). The ad, officially titled “Peace, Little Girl,” was part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 presidential campaign. At the time of filming, Monique was only three years old, according to the Library of Congress. 

Mid-Term Election
Countdown Timer
Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

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