Democracy

Stand a Post – 2


POST 1141


Preface to This Guest Essay – It Could Be Entitled, “Stand a Post-2.”

On December 22 I published Our Problem, a flaming declaration of the obvious and dangerous truth, that most Democrats have shown themselves to be toothless tigers and are completely unready to battle the horrors that face us. Lifelong pal Frank Levy had something to say about that and he posted an insightful comment. You need to see it, so it’s here as a Guest Essay.

Frank has been an activist forever. He was a Freedom Rider in the 1960s when registering Black people to vote in the deep south was a death defying act. He does more than give lip service to doing what is right and good. He tells us that it’s time to get up off our butts and take action. He tells us that we cannot count on Democratic elected officials to fight this war to preserve our rights, the Constitution and our democracy. He’s right.

For context, review my post first and then come back to read Frank’s wise words.


Jack – You are right. The Dems are MIA. They are not going to save us. They are not even going to lead us. So, what? They have been MIA for a long, long time. The only thing that will save us and our on-life-support democracy is what has always saved us – WE THE PEOPLE!

With no disrespect, my longtime friend, you are suffering from a serious case of useless pundit syndrome. We all know what the problem is. We know it all too well. There is no shortage of media pundits (all of whom incorrectly predicted the election), scholars, and the like explaining ad nauseam what went and is wrong. There is no shortage of useless verbiage telling us how bad things will be. We know all of that.

What we need are people willing to offer some solutions, a defensive or even offensive strategy or tactical plan so We The People can survive the coming catastrophe and maybe even restore liberal democracy to America sometime in the future.

So with no lack of arrogance I am offering my own save yourself and democracy to-do list:

  1. Never miss an opportunity to inform elected officials – Republican and Democrat, local and national – about your position on every issue. Write them, Call them. Make them hear you!
  2. Get together with like minded people to form a local resilience and resistance force. Meet regularly. Make plans to do meaningful acts of resistance. There really is strength in numbers. This is our John Lewis moment!
  3. Make a plan to protect your job, your savings, your retirement funds, your healthcare plan, your health, your home.
  4. If you live in a red state, make plans to create an underground railroad, to help women needing an abortion or healthcare get what they need.
  5. Create or work with a local food bank so when food prices skyrocket and there are food shortages people in need can get affordable food.
  6. Raise your own livestock (cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys) or find a farmer to raise it for you – there will be food shortages. Be prepared.
  7. Again, if your live in a red state create an underground railroad to help LGBTQIA+ individuals get to states where it is safe to live, be married, and get gender affirming health care.
  8. Find new, reliable, courageous news sources. The media for the most part has surrendered to MAGA and Trump’s threats.
  9. Stop trying to make nice with MAGA people. They do not share your values. They will not agree to the same set of facts. Without agreement of those two things there is nothing to talk about.
  10. Buy a copy of Timothy Snyder’s book, “On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.” Read it. It is your new Bible. Do not leave home without it.
  11. If you think you will need to leave this country to go somewhere safe – get or renew your passport now.
  12. Decide whether or not you have the means and are willing to provide sanctuary for those immigrants Trump and his evil henchmen want to deport or incarcerate.
  13. Join a group like Indivisible. They have great information and resources to help us in this fight. (www.Indivisible.org)
  14. Contact me one on one. I will be happy to share what I know, and what my friends and I in Alabama are doing. ([email protected])

I am sure there are other things we can and should be doing in this terrifying time, but this is a start. This is what my friends and I are doing now.

_____________________________________________________

Okay, maybe you won’t be raising your own livestock. At the very least you need to see Frank’s comment as making the point that your circumstances are likely to become extremely bad. With what you see and hear every day you shouldn’t require clarification of this.

  1. You see the billionaire tech-toadies buying their way into power and the monied supplicant suck-ups (oh, wait: that’s redundant) bending a knee instead of standing in integrity.
  2. You see the cabinet appointments chosen not for their qualifications or their excellence, but for their loyalty to Trump so that they protect our Felon-in Chief.
  3. You see the guardrails coming down, so you know our democracy is in trouble.

Frank mentioned Indivisible.org. There are other ways to stand that post, including The Union, MoveOn.org, Country First, Focus4Democracy, The States Project, Indivisible Illinois and more. Go stand a post with at least one of those organizations working to protect our democracy.

We are in for a long, achingly hard battle, so put your ideas for action in the Comments section below to help us all.

REBEL!

.  .  .  against the billionaire tyranny.

From The Union

Tomorrow is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day. You know the stories of how right wing haters tried to stop the creation of a day of remembrance for this (gasp!) Black man, this non-violent icon of peaceful change for the betterment of all. Tomorrow is also the inauguration of a man dedicated to hatred, selfishness and repression. The contrast would be comical if it weren’t so damaging.

The folks at The Union have some ideas about how you can help peaceful change come about.

Register Voters: Help your community by assisting people in registering to vote or becoming election workers. (If you’re interested in learning how to get involved with voter registration in your area, please reach out to The Union for more information.)

Volunteer at a local food bank: Help provide meals for people in need.

Community Cleanups: Lead efforts to clean up parks, streets, or public spaces, promoting community pride and solidarity.

Reach out to a friend or relative to see how they’re doing and encourage them to get involved in local volunteer opportunities or pro-democracy initiatives.

Sign up for a volunteer event at our Action Center! Key races are happening this year in Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Virginia. Get involved and mark your calendar today!

As The Union wrote in its recent post,

“Thank you for your dedication to justice, community, and democracy.”

TikTok

You would compromise our national security so that you can post and view inane videos for free? Really? Or so that you can make a few bucks on that platform, as though that’s the only place you can make a buck? Seriously?!

Seriously!?!!
.

We can be bought – we sell out – so cheaply. But you don’t have to do that. Reach down and grab your ass. That is what’s at stake.

Fun – Yes, Really

Click me

Did you make it this far in this long post? Good for you, because here’s a gift courtesy of Dan Rather at Steady. Fleetwood Mack tells us “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” It’s a message of hope – “It’ll be here better than before” – and we surely need hope right now, because tomorrow – as in: Monday – won’t be better than today. But we are going to make our tomorrows better than before – if we work at it. Let’s go.


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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.

Stand a Post – 1


POST 1140


President Biden’s Farewell

“Oligarchs.”

President Biden said, “Oligarchs.”

Biden has spent 50 years protecting and defending this bold experiment, this idea of the rule of law, of rule by the people. Now he calls to us with a warning about what is so plain to see, that our country is well down the path to abandoning our democracy and turning it over to a group of ultra-wealthy oligarch wannabees and to a power hungry cruel despot wannabe.

At the edge of his last days in public office, Biden appealed to us, saying,

“I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands, a nation where the strength of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure. Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it, too.”
.

Watch his address. Listen to his warning. The dreadful dangers are real. They are an existential threat to our country and they have the potential of being an existential threat to each and every one of us. As he said, “Now it’s your turn to stand guard.”

So, I offer to you this metaphor from the barricades, absent any hyperbole:

It’s time for you and I and all of us to
grab a rhetorical activist weapon and stand a post.
.

Thank you for stepping up to serve.

REBEL!

.  .  .  against the billionaire tyranny.

Imagine

Biden’s accomplishments for the American people are largely ignored now and his favorability ratings are quite poor. But imagine how things will look to our children and grandchildren 30 years from now.

Roy is a carpenter building houses for the last of our homeless. He’s done well by doing good, so he grabs a beer in the kitchen and drops into a chair. He doesn’t know why, but he begins to think in a way he had not before, largely because he had been quite busy doing the basic blocking and tackling of everyday life. But on this day, for reasons he cannot explain, he gets to thinking about what has happened. He turns to his wife.

“You know, this really has been great most of the time. I have a good job that pays a good wage. We live well, much better, in fact, than our parents did. And this all started because of the programs Joe Biden put in place all those years ago, including his support of unions.

“We got internet service way out here because of Biden’s program. We have good healthcare and our country is safe, in part because we’re making those little chips here instead of buying them from China. That bridge over the river finally got rebuilt and we can afford to send both of our kids to college without leaving them with a pile of debt. Plus your mom’s still alive because she didn’t get Covid. That’s because Biden put together the system that delivered a vaccine to her arm and that protected her.

“I didn’t think much of Biden when he was president, so I’m surprised to say that now he’s looking like he was a really good one.”

That self-reflection only happens if we stop the people who want to bring down our country, this while sitting on their piles of money that they took from us.

So, I offer to you this metaphor from the barricades, absent any hyperbole:

It’s time for you and I and all of us to
grab a rhetorical, activist weapon and stand a post.
.

Thank you for stepping up to serve.

REBEL!


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.

Who Will Sound the Alarm?


POST 1136


Late Addition BSO Update!

In his so-called press conference yesterday, Trump once again rattled his sabre, saying that he won’t rule out military force to take back the Panama Canal, seize Greenland and force Canada to become our 51st state.

And the reporters at the press conference and elsewhere stared fixedly into that sun, blind to what is happening around them.
.

His threats are today’s BSO – bright shiny object – to distract us from whatever nefarious, criminal or unconstitutional act he doesn’t want us to see. Too many are taking the bait. We need everyone to stop reacting to his manufactured chaos. Pay attention to what actually matters, what is actually happening.

Like that his threats toward Panama, Greenland and Canada are actually threats that undermine NATO.

The Value of Idiocy

Recently Trump spoke at the Turning Point AmericaFest and said we’re going to take back the Panama Canal. That came as a big surprise to the people of Panama who own it. Should Trump attempt to grab it, that would be an illegal invasion, a violation of territorial integrity and national sovereignty, much the same as Putin grabbing the Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the Donbas in 2022.

He also reiterated that he wants Greenland, which the Danes assure us is not for sale. Plus he wants to make Canada our 51st state. I have friends in Canada and they have assured me that they like their maple leaf flag and their relative freedom from mass shootings. They’re quite satisfied being Canadians. They don’t need Trump dealing with them as though they are pawns in a real estate deal.

Here are a few reasons Trump would say such idiotic things – check all that apply.

Ο  It gets him the constant attention that he craves, an indispensable for life to him, much like air to the rest of us. He has no need for his mouth dribblings to make sense.

Ο  It’s catnip for his over-testosteroned followers and keeps them dumbed-down so they’ll continue to cheer his every dribbling.

Ο  He’s too ignorant to realize the implications of saying such stupid things.

Ο  He keeps the chaos rolling on, which keeps opponents off balance.*

Fortunately for Trump’s galactic narcissism, he’s not shackled by the limits of reality or his promiscuity with stupid.

With his idiocies like these and more, his Cabinet pics of likely felons and will-never-be-ready-for-a-serious-post fools, he continues to live in our brains rent-free. I say, “Break the glass to ring the alarm and evict the bastard.” Let’s talk about We The People instead. Who will sound that alarm?

  • A Coming Comeuppance

    People are reacting with their feet to far right extremism.

OB/GYNs are leaving Red states so they can practice medicine, be true to their Hippocratic Oath and not be thrown into prison. They and other docs and nurses are vacating stifling Red states and leaving healthcare deserts in their wake.

Women who are miscarrying and don’t want to bleed out in a parking lot are saying good-bye to Red states to avoid preventable death.

School teachers who want to teach history, not a revisionist, pablum, self-flattery version of it, are saying good-bye to Red states, leaving teaching voids.

Parents are grabbing their kids and moving to where their young will get a good education and where there are books on the library shelves. Many are moving to states with sensible gun safety laws, hoping their kids won’t be gunned down in school.

Have a look at Sheila Markin’s exploration of this nascent migration in her recent piece, How MAGA Extremism Helps Blue States. It will take a while for Red eyes to see the reality, but Red states are going to pay a price for their assaults on freedom and reality. Besides, Trump Is About to Betray His Rural Supporters.

Do you thrill to the sight of MAGA self-destructing? Do you pulse red, white and blue when bullies get kicked in the shins? Does your sense of balance solidify when what went around, comes around? Then read Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s December 27 piece and watch Steve Schmidt’s piece exposing Musk and Ramaswamy for what they are.

If masochism is your thing, read Dan Friedman’s reveal, Hero of 2024: Richard M. Nixon. You’ll gain a fresh perspective on our massively contorted Supreme Court. It appears that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is now sounding the alarm about our extremist Supreme Court. Who’s listening?

Fighting Words
What has been said or whispered about for years is now fully in the open. People with enormous piles of money (like Musk, Thiel and more of the South Africans and so-called Christian Nationalists) are scheming to bring apartheid here. They are now blatantly demanding to control the world. Every one of them is a racist and xenophobe, believing they are superior, the ones designed to rule over all others.
.
We go about our ordinary, non-oligarchic lives in blissful ignorance of the proposed destruction of our republic, even as our elected leaders either succumb to whatever trifles buy their acquiescence, or they act to promote the whims of the monied bullies because they cannot or will not see what is before their eyes.
.
We have seen this picture before and we know what will happen in a Fourth Reich, the Musk-Trump Führer-ship. It will happen unless we American frogs suddenly realize that we are being boiled in what will have become a militarized state.
.
Who are the American leaders who see what is happening and who have what it takes to sound the alarm so that they wake up all we boiling frogs? I don’t mean bloggers as leaders. We have plenty of flapping lips. I mean political/social/cultural people with some power and who can speak bedrock-shakingly with a thunder that wakes the sleeping? Where is the proper condemnation of the bullies. Where is the needed primal scream heard ‘round the world?
.
Which brings us to a related point.
.
We officially abandoned accountability when Ford pardoned Nixon for any and all crimes he may have committed. Effectively, Ford said out loud that if you’re rich enough or high enough in the power structure that you can get away with all sorts of crimes. Now the Supreme Court has formally cemented that slap in the face to the rule of law into national policy so that Trump really can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and suffer no consequences.
.
Trump is escaping accountability for having incited an insurrection against the United States and for stealing highly classified documents and showing them (or selling them) to whoever he wants to suck up to or who he wants to suck up to him. His money, plus the money he’s grifted from his ignorant, easy to manipulate followers, has bought him out of accountability for his crimes – yet again.
.

Thought experiment: What would have happened if Obama had incited an insurrection or stolen classified documents? Would 6 Supreme Court justices have granted him immunity and a Get Out Of Jail Free card? Would Republicans go all crickets about such obvious crimes? Bear in mind that Obama was and still is Black. And a Democrat. And he still ridicules Trump. Compare and contrast this iteration of insanity with the one that protects Trump from accountability. For extra credit, propose a world in which Elon Musk is investigated by the IRS and the SEC, the same agency which sat on its hands in the 2008-2009 financial meltdown.

If you are horrified, watch Steve Schmidt’s discussion with Paul Reickhoff. You’ll feel worse.
I ask again: Who will sound the alarm?
.
The election of Trump and the rise of Musk tell us that we have outrun the fear of what nearly destroyed the world. We have outrun the wisdom of those who rebuilt it. We can’t remember — or at least not enough of us can.
Our democracy only functions if those who seek high office have at least a rudimentary sense of honor. Now that Trump has run his last presidential race, the nation must insist that the Republican Party relearn what honor means.

* Watch John McCain’s gracious and patriotic concession speech of 2008 (just 4:45) for the quintessential model of driving unity and community.


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.

The Light


POST 1133


Tree of Life Synagogue

Joe Biden wrote two months ago, on the sixth anniversary of that awful mass murder,

“.  .  . a gunman armed with an AR-15, multiple handguns, and hate in his heart, opened fire and killed 11 Jewish worshippers [sic] and wounded six more, in the deadliest act of Antisemitism in our history. It shattered families, pierced the heart of the Jewish community, and struck the soul of our nation.”

There wasn’t much light to be seen on that terrible October day in 2018.

Four days ago on Christmas morning, just hours prior to lighting the first candle of Hanukkah, Tree of Life sent this:

This week, our community will recount a powerful story: a story of courage, unity and the triumph of hope over adversity, of light over darkness.

Each night, as we light another candle, we honor the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days. We tell the story of the Maccabees’ unwavering bravery in the face of insurmountable odds. Their strength to stand up, rebuild and protect what was sacred has inspired generations—that same courage fuels our work at The Tree of Life as we envision a world where hope, kindness and resilience prevail.

With each candle, may we all remember that Hanukkah calls us not only to be the light but to spread it. By coming together, we amplify the brightness of hope, illuminating a future where all can thrive in safety and peace.

One of our challenges today is not just that we don’t agree on much; it’s that we all think we’re right. So, intransigent, inflammable, indignant and ignorant ways are often the norm. Facts need not intrude on this spectacle of craziness and sometimes self-justified cruelty. Welcome to 21st century America, land of victims who are victimizing.

That makes the job of each American – to be and to spread the light – much more difficult. And I am certain that you see clearly the enormous need for light in this democracy threatened by powerful, corrupt people intent on tearing down all we hold dear. That means that each of us has to go beyond our feelings of shock, hopelessness and fear and get up, find our own way to the light, likely alongside others, and do what needs to be done.

We have an owners manual that gives us direction. It is the Constitution. We have reference materials, like the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers and 248 years of the writings of many wise people. To be fair, we also have writings from some wretched fools, so be careful in your selection. Pull up a wooden chair at the library table. Read, learn and follow the instructions.

And recognize that the incoming administration has pledged to burn our owners manual and reference materials. In years past labels like “traitor” would have been pasted on such people with Republicans doing most of the labeling and pasting. Republicans, please explain to all of us why burning down our republic is now somehow acceptable.

Sadly, many no longer seem to have what used to be called common sense or the humility to be ashamed of themselves. Bluster and lack of accountability have taken their places and they have a sky high opinion of their opinions.

Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing,
once all other possibilities have been exhausted.
  • – commonly attributed to Winston Churchill, but he never said that.
  • Sometimes Israeli Ambassador Abba Eban gets credit for some
  • variation of this statement. Had either of them
  • said this, he would have been right.

We have promoted so many other possibilities, most notably now the attempts to strong arm our democracy toward fascism by rich, cruel usurpers supported by angry, heavily armed citizens who fear their special place in our society is slipping away. So many practice various forms of discrimination and repression and more harm is promised. They’ll try any self-serving thing that crosses their corruptible minds.

Citizen screamers will always cling to their pompous anger and grievance. They honestly believe that there are those who are naturally superior to others (e.g. book banners/burners, immigrant haters, replacement theory whiners, patriarchy promoters, etc.) and that it is self-evident that those holding such a view are the superior ones. In reply, let us read together from page one our founding documents: “Nuh-uh.”

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

– Mark Twain

We can wish for the lessons for doing right to be simpler, obvious to everyone and easier, but they are not and they won’t be. We’ve built an impassioned barrier, a self-constructed divide that makes us distrust one another and which dims the light from the shining city on the hill. Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan,

Mr./Mrs./Ms. America, tear down these walls!

When we do that we will have begun to end our violence toward one another. Until then, our primary job will have to be to counter our angry, violent fellow citizens, whether they’re the elected officials attacking our republic or others attacking Americans with threats and physical violence. We must do this before they hurt someone, like our immigrants now being threatened with family separation cruelty – again. There is enormous stubbornness in this violent country, so becoming the light will be difficult and will take a long time.

Be clear: We are at terrible risk right now and it’s going to take all of us to set things right, to turn up the light of the shining city on the hill.

There are glimmerings. The darkest day of the year is behind us and ever more daylight shines, a little more each day. And so our charge is not only “to be the light but to spread it.” That means stepping up and fighting the darkness that is trying to smother our nation. We must make incremental improvements every day.

It’s about the light. It’s always about the light.

_____________________________________

NOTE: No post this Wednesday


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.

Our Problem


POST 1132


This Piece is Entirely One-Sided

Here’s why.

No Democrat is threatening violence on anyone. No Democrat is in a militia practicing to assault the Capitol Building on January 6, 2025 or is preparing to send Christmas cards with pictures of themselves brandishing an AR-15 and lusting over the blood of patriots. No Democrat is making death threats to poll workers or to Republicans who support Trump. No Democrat went to an election rally and applauded hateful and racist slurs or chanted about death to anyone.

And no Democratic leader is inciting anger and hatred or promising to terminate our Constitution and to crush our institutions that protect us and make the trains run on time.

That’s why this is one-sided.

We’re Running Out of Time
It isn’t over until it’s over.

– Yogi Berra – also Lenny Kravitz

You might like this version better:

The opera ain’t over until the fat lady sings.

– Dan Cook, writing for the San Antonio News-Express, Texas, ~ 1976

And the fat lady ain’t sung – yet. The burning issue for us now and for the foreseeable future (that means always) is to keep the savages at bay, to prevent the Huns from sacking our country, to keep the fat lady silent.

We have truths that we proclaim to be self-evident but which some abandon as soon as there’s profit to it, and there’s great profit to be made by abandoning those truths, by shedding integrity and sacred oaths. That abandonment is what Trump, Musk and the Republicans are doing in order to make yet larger piles of gold in front of themselves.

Be clear that we are at terrible risk. This is a fight to the political death, where, in the end, either democracy or fascism will lie dead on the floor. At issue in this moment is how we fight for what is right, the patriotic fight, the fight for truth, justice and the American way, so that democracy prevails.

Can You Spot What’s Missing From This Picture?
.

That’s right: In this fight for the heart and soul of America, the Democrats are MIA. They’ve self-neutered. Customarily the Republicans/MAGAs bring automatic weapons to a fight and Democrats bring bean bags. Now the Democrats aren’t even showing up.

The Republicans are “flooding the zone with shit,” as the daddy-issue-encumbered and hateful Steve Bannon calls it. It’s the same thing Trump has always done – spew one outrage after another, whether in actions or lies, such that responding is an overwhelming task.

Far worse, now he has all MAGAs doing it, lying, making up shit as Bannon directs, claiming victories that aren’t theirs, demonizing everyone not MAGA, promising whatever they can think of but will never deliver – like lowering food prices. As they do that, the Democrats self-disable. What happened to that “protect and defend” thing in the oath they swore to? Why aren’t they rising to this occasion bare knuckled?

Democrats don’t seem able to understand going on offense. Enough of the cute golden retriever puppies. We need an army of pit bulls and they’re nowhere to be seen.

We need to employ political savagery. No genius is necessary to see this, because the nice guy Dems get the snot beat out of them over and over. We consistently need something far more visceral and aggressive than standard wimpy Democratic Party patty cake.

Consider the presidential debate. Trump declared that Haitians in Ohio are illegals in our country (false) and that they’re eating the dogs and cats of the local residents (false). Kamala laughed derisively at him. That would have been an appropriate come back at a cocktail party, but not in a political street fight.

She should have told him, “No! Either you’re a big enough fool that you believe whatever crap you’re told by conspiracy idiots or you’re lying right now. And I will not let you get away with lying to the American people!”

But she didn’t say that. No one else in the Democratic Party is fighting like that, either. They look like lap dogs.

Voters couldn’t be more clear about wanting a strong leader, a tough guy, but Dems consistently show them they’re amiable guys, polite guys who smile derisively when they should be throwing rocks through windows.

I love Jamie Raskin, but he sounds like the law professor that he is. That doesn’t reach working people.

I love Mallory McMorrow, but she’s a Michigan legislator and doesn’t have a national platform.

Hakeem Jeffries occasionally shows signs of life. AOC does that all the time, but the Dems muzzle her.

Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer both died years ago and nobody told them.

We don’t need Romney-esque, “Oh, golly, that’s unfortunate” pablum. The American people are primed and ready for an ongoing attack by Democrats in the name of We The People, but the Dems continue to refuse to fight.

Where are the snarling dogs with ripped flesh and blood dripping from their teeth? Where is the chorus singing the same song over and over, the one that actually reaches voters? Oh, right: that’s the Republicans.

The MAGAs are submarining our economy, our institutions and our Constitution and they aren’t even sworn in yet. Meanwhile, the Dems are silent or inept. Harris and Walz are nowhere to be seen, even though over 75 million people voted for them and want to hear from them. They want them to punch back, to attack over and over, but they aren’t even in the ring, much less taking a swing at the anti-patriots.
.

Thom Hartmann dove into this last week, in part detailing what happened at a fancy DC restaurant the night of President Obama’s first inauguration. The Republican movers and shakers and power brokers in attendance focused on throwing Obama’s presidency into a dumpster. From Hartmann:

After the meeting, Kevin McCarthy famously said of their commitment to obstruction:

“If you act like you’re the minority, you’re going to stay in the minority. We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign.” [He was right. JA]

And, sure enough, they did. And continue to do so to this day. And the voters rewarded them, “shellacking” Obama’s Democrats in the next election.

Where are the Democrats today with that kind of spine? Where is our resolve to fight, rather than enable, fascists? What happened to our principles and commitment to democracy? [emphasis original]

Following that meeting these Republican snakes announced that job number one was ensuring that “President Obama will be a one-term president.”

That was their notion of their sacred duty in Congress: focus on trashing the opponent in order to help themselves. They had no concern for growing American jobs, the welfare of our vets, dealing with George W. Bush’s disastrous wars, healthcare – nothing. They were all about slash and burn, jam up the gears so that nothing would get done, this in order to make Obama look bad. That’s what Republicans did and it’s what they still do.

And Democrats can’t even call out blatant Republican lies.

That is our problem.

.

The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but she’s waiting in the wings, as Elon Musk asserts the power of the presidency.

  • Democrats: You’re way late.
  • ***** WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? *****

Required Reading

Jamelle Bouie’s brilliant piece, Don’t Surrender and Call It Compromise.

Rahm Emanuel’s wake up call, The Road Back to Power For Democrats.

  • _____________________________
  • PS: Feel free to thank me for omitting all the anger-dripping sarcasm I did not print here.
  • NOTE: No post this Wednesday.


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

U-Turn


POST 1130


From Wikipedia:

A kakistocracy (/kækɪˈstɒkrəsi/, /kækɪsˈtɒ-/) is a government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.[1]: 54 [2][3] The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century.[4] [emphasis JA]

That term was coined then, but we’re reviving that dreadful threat right now.

Paul Newman

Paul Newman

With obviously predictive value, here are two variations of Paul Newman’s Second Law:

Just when things look darkest, they go black.

– or –

It’s always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black. (Might be from John McCain or Mao Zedong.)

CLICK AND READ THIS. Many thanks to JHA for the link.

This is going to be really bad. We are about to have a government run by the worst, least qualified, hateful, rule-of-law destroying, most unscrupulous citizens. That’s baked into this bitter cake, unless .  .  .

.  .  .  we ditch the hand-wringing, the hopelessness and the rest. Because it will be far worse unless we get to work to stop our headlong plunge into self-destruction. Here are two actions for you to take.

1. Drown Your Republican Senator in Snail Mail, Email and Phone Calls

Demand that s/he VOTE NO on every one of Trump’s anti-competent, anti-qualified, anti-democracy nominees. Look up when your senator’s term ends and tell them that you vow on your children’s lives that if they vote to approve even a single one one of Trump’s democracy destroying picks that you will do everything you can to defeat them next election because your children’s lives would be imperiled by those nominees.

Extend your influence by recruiting your family and friends, neighbors and people you meet when you fill your gas tank and the granny who you help by reaching something on the top shelf for her at the supermarket. Post on whatever social media you use. Do it all repeatedly. Put up a yard sign that reads, “Friends don’t let friends ruin our children’s future.” Tell them all to drown your senator with promises of firing him/her.

Got a connection to someone with a podcast, a pundit with a broadcast email following, someone with connections? Get them to promote the downfall of Trump’s attempt to be führer of the Fourth Reich by directing their audience to pressure their Republican senators to reach around back where their spine is supposed to be an VOTE NO on all those hateful, un-American candidates.

2. Focus on Your State

Focus on the states to kick out the gerrymandering perps, the voter registration cancelling manipulators, the operatives who closed so many polling places and eliminated ballot drop boxes making it harder for many people to vote. How ’bout we encourage everything we can to re-invigorate voting rights. All we have to do is campaign to send Republican state officials packing.

Plus, you need to send a check to The States Project, because they are all about getting all 50 states to actually practice democracy. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Need Motivation?

From Heather Cox Richardson:

If Trump has now abandoned the performance he used to win the election, Trump’s planned appointments to office reveal that the actual pillars of his presidency will be personal revenge, the destruction of American institutions, and the use of political office for gain, also known as graft.

We’ll be upside down and without brakes if we don’t start the U-Turn now.*

REBEL!

_________________________________________

* Newman’s First Law: “It is useless to put on your brakes when you’re upside down.”


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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.

What It Looks Like


POST 1129


Rebels in Damascus celebrate the downfall of Bashar al-Assad. Click me

We begin with a quotation from Anne Applebaum, writing in The Atlantic about the conditions that precipitated the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

“There is nothing worse than hopelessness, nothing more soul-destroying than pessimism, grief, and despair.”

We shed no tears for this brutal dictator and murderer, but don’t imagine that because this is not Syria, but is the democracy that is the United States of America, that we are somehow immune. We are just as vulnerable to the cruelty and brutality that arrive on the same train as lofty nationalist, chest-pounding rhetoric, exactly as happened in Syria, Russia, Germany, Italy and many more countries. Indeed, the soul crushing hopelessness always starts with the arrival of that jingo train.

Steve Schmidt describes what’s coming to us as the new administration rams its train of destruction into America.

” .  .  . the furies will be let loose by wicked and arrogant people who think they have been picked by the hand of god to lead their people into a storm of their own making.”

That is what has been promised to millions of ears that insisted upon remaining deaf to the real danger. That is what we’ll get unless we put the brakes to the locomotive of our political and cultural destruction.

That is the reason we must rebel, but most of us don’t know what that can look like or how to go about it. Several action opportunities can be found at the end of some of my recent posts (here and here), and now there is a wonderful overview available to you from a source from which you would not expect to find the action items for the rebelling we need right now.

President Barack Obama delivered his remarks at the 2024 Obama Foundation Democracy Forum a few days ago. This is a must read for clarity, context and specifics about what we must do.

Don’t look for an angry diatribe about the horrid, anti-Constitutional fascist poison sprayed maniacally from the inbound train of the incoming administration. Although that’s an accurate descriptor of what is facing us, look instead for what needs to be done to save our democracy, actions for both the short term (2026 and 2028) and for the long term.

We are at an inflection point only hinted at since the Civil War and it is going to take us generations – the long term – to make the changes necessary for us to have a country that includes all of us – like the Pledge of Allegiance, “with liberty and justice for all.” But the thing about the long term is that it’s made up of tens of thousands of short term actions.

The rebelling we need to do doesn’t include demonizing those with whom we’re sure we have nothing in common. Indeed, a slight scratch beneath the surface of most of us will most certainly reveal things about which we agree – like the thing that moves strangers to help tornado and hurricane victims without first checking their political, racial or religious credentials. That’s where we must focus.

Your assignment today is to read President Obama’s remarks. It’s a long piece, but even in this age that trains us to have a short attention span, I believe you’re up to the challenge. Read it, then sit back and think about how his message applies to you.


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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 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.

How We Fell Off the Sled – v 2.0


POST 1128


A short while back I wrote that We’ve Fallen Off The Sled because we really have been dumped from our metaphorical transportation to a more perfect union. I had a perfectly serviceable 9-point post detailing how we did that, but I’m quite sick of election postmortems (likely, you are, too), especially when all they do is point fingers and wring hands. So, I did the humane thing and shredded that post.

Still, having read analyses from pundits proved useful because it brought me to a blinding flash of the obvious:

The Democrats have been resting on their laurels for over 80 years!
.

There have been a few bright flashes during that long interregnum of idea famine, like Medicare and Medicaid, but those happened nearly 60 years ago. Biden did some FDR-worthy things with infrastructure, bringing back manufacturing and more. Then he proceeded to allow fellow Democrats to fail to wave their Party flag. They sat on their hands and let Republicans beat the snot out of them and their policies.

Where the hell is the Democrats’ fight? Where the hell are the Democrats at all? I believe you can find them with their butts on their laurels, basking in the glow of how right and good they are. But,

“Some American men feel the sun setting on them while reckoning others enjoy the warmth on their faces. And Democrats have left those people alone in the darkening shadows for a very long time.” Ira Leavitt, The Sound and Fury of American Antipathy

Why should those folks vote for Democrats?

The Republicans have been fighting against all of FDR’s programs and all other programs designed for the welfare of the American people for all this time. They’ve had a 50-year plan to eliminate all these policies at least since Saint Ronnie. The Democrats have no plan, not a 50-year plan nor a 50-state plan. They are nowhere. The Democrats quit trying 80 years ago. That is how we got Trump and his billionaire fascists and

That is how we fell off the sled!
.

We dumped ourselves off it.

What We’re Facing

A few years ago I was riding in the back seat of my favorite Uber driver’s car, engaged in a lively conversation, when he made a most stunning statement. I don’t remember his precise wording, but he invoked conspiracy craziness, saying that the Earth is flat, not round.  I asked where that came from, to which he replied that there was no proof that the Earth is round, or some such gibberish, and besides, it looked flat to him.

I casually mentioned orbital space flights, during which humans and machines have traveled around Earth in a circular pattern, not in a straight line or in a tight rectangular trajectory. He challenged that by saying that those flights could have been faked or that the astronauts were lying.

Let’s think for a moment about some the things that our science and reality deniers claim didn’t happen/were faked:

The moon landings

The assassination of President Kennedy

Elvis lives!

The Holocaust

The Sandy Hook murders

And, of course, there are the things that the deniers claim happened but actually didn’t, like the Pizzagate non-event. You may recall that in 2016 conspiracy loonies claimed that high level Democratic officials associated with the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign were running a sex trafficking operation from the basement beneath a pizza shop in DC. An especially excitable idiot came from North Carolina with his firearms to put an end to that operation. He fired several bullets through the floor of the pizza shop. The only problems were:

  1. That building has no basement, so there never was a pedophilia operation or anything else going on below the pizza shop.
  2. Had there been a basement occupied by young girls, the North Carolina vigilante idiot likely would have wounded or killed some of them.

Some conspiracy zealots still hold that there was a sex trafficking operation there. It’s the same perversion of reality – belief in what has been shown to be false – as my Uber guy who, when confronted with the observed fact of a round Earth, simply claims that the observations are lies. That is the perversion such people believe. Think: space lasers.

All of which brings us to the main questions (really just one stated in two ways):

  1. How did we get to the point of denying facts, science, learning and intelligence?
  2. How did we get to the point where it’s okay to defend absurdities with reality-free claims – sometimes called “alternative facts” – and insist that actual evidence is a pack of lies? (No, Trump did not have the largest inauguration crowd ever. PERIOD!)

John Kennedy declared that “College is America’s best friend,” which you can reasonably interpret to mean that education is a good thing. It appears that we’ve slipped away from that best friend and now seem to be embracing vacuous ignorance as a virtue. Some of us have decided to refuse to learn what has been known for hundreds of years, that the Earth is round.

That is what we’re facing: Denial of reality. And it shoves us off the sled time and again.

Such people are obstacles on the path to a better America. Democrats, often their favorite targets, are going to have to get their butts off their laurels and get in the game, the one challenging the notion of America, if things are to get better.

Finally

We’ve had a few weeks since the election of continuing shock, battling dizziness, hand-wringing, hopelessness, confusion, thinking about where to emigrate to, and collective self-pity. It’s time to do as the low cost psychotherapists advise: GET OVER IT!

In fact, it’s time to pick a path to support truth, justice and the American way. Being self-congratulatory nice guys will not help in the battle to overcome the manipulation, hatred and cruelty of the MAGAs. Patting ourselves on our purity-infused backs won’t defeat the cowardly Republicans peddling the destruction of our Constitution and our democracy.

Right now Trump and his band of marauding Mongols are planning the destruction of our republic (see: Project 2025), but thus far don’t have any power, so their only marching orders are (to paraphrase segregationist George Wallace), “Chaos today, chaos tomorrow, chaos forever.”

Once in office, if Trump can go after those he thinks said mean things about him, how long do you think it will be before he muzzles Dorothy, the small and meekor you?

Now we’re facing a possible Secretary of Defense – i.e., the person in charge of keeping us safe in a very dangerous world – who, according to multiple reports, can’t keep his d**k in his pants, can’t keep a drink out of his mouth and can’t keep his hand out of the cash box.  That such a person is a serious candidate tells us plainly that we’ve fallen very, very far from the sled.

Right now is the time to show America a better path. Roll up your shirtsleeves and get to work, because the battle to save America is underway. Get back on the sled and

Rebel!

In fact, step up, like Messman Doris Miller.


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.

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.


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.

We Do Know What’s Coming – A Sampler


POST 1126


Today we take a quiet Sunday to club Republicans over the head for their excellently done sellout of America and the American people and the world class hypocrisy of so many. Sadly, we do know what’s coming.

  1. As soon as Trump began his awful run for the White House in 2015 it was obvious what we were in for.  Recall his demonizing of Hispanics coming to this country, whom he described as drug carriers, rapists and criminal transmitters of disease. He said this to a small group of paid actors in the lobby of his building, recruited to cheer for him wildly. As soon as he got off the escalator he claimed there were thousands there. That was just his first official lie and a harbinger of his fraud to come. Republicans began to debase themselves before Trump almost immediately. We should have known what was coming.
  2. Then there were the impeachments. It was clear to everyone that he was guilty of those high crimes and misdemeanors, but Republicans in the House refused to vote against him. Only a small handful of Republicans in the Senate had the integrity to vote him guilty. The rest decided that they didn’t want to get primaried. Worse, they knew that a guilty decision would have prevented Trump from ever again holding any “office of trust” – we would have been rid of him. They chickened out. We wouldn’t be facing the frontal assault on our Constitution and our democracy now, had there been 10 more Republicans with a spine. Translation: The Republicans’ careers in Congress were more important to them than the fate of the United States of America or the oath they swore. Where have the patriots gone, you ask? They’ve been replaced by cowards and hypocrites. We should have known what was coming.
  3. Matt Gaetz was the most hated man in the House, mirroring Ted Cruz, the most hated man in the Senate who isn’t named Josh Hawley. Gaetz, a reasonably accused sex trafficker, high school girl schtuper, Ecstacy aficionado, Justice Department know-nothing and more, has removed himself from consideration for the job of A.G., a position for which he is profoundly unqualified. Perhaps now he can be prosecuted and get the cell of his pal Jeffrey Epstein. He’s being replaced by Trump’s defense lawyer and suck up (but looks good on TV – very important to Trump) Pam Bondi. We did know what was coming.
  4. Speaking of the Department of Justice, somebody please tell us what “weaponization of the Department of Justice” is. It sounds terrible, so it’s a great campaign slogan for Republicans to use to accuse Democrats of something bad. Isn’t the Department of Justice supposed to be weaponized against wrongdoing, like insurrection and theft of classified documents? Whatever evil “weaponization” means, I’m certain the Trump administration will do exactly that. They’ll prosecute everyone on Trump’s hit list and more just to harass them and drain them of money. We do know what’s coming.
  5. Sure, we believe Trump when he says he knows nothing about Project 2025 and will have nothing to do with its implementation. I mean, he said so, right? We do know what’s coming.
  6. Even if you follow news and politics only a little you likely saw that Jack Smith has dropped his indictments against Donald Trump for inciting insurrection, election interference, fraud, possession of stolen classified documents and more. That absurd Office of Legal Counsel memo (NOT law) from 1973 that says that a sitting president cannot be indicted and prosecuted is a justice killer, a rule-of-law violator, as is the 2024 Supreme Court issued “get out of jail free” decision. Combined with Merrick Garland’s unconscionable two years of foot dragging and Trump’s defense attorneys’ masterful manipulation of the courts to delay, delay, delay, Trump will have gotten away with his heinous crimes. Had you done any of the things Trump did, you would already have been rotting in a prison cell for a couple of years. It sure looks like a prime case of two sets of laws, one for rich, powerful people and another for the rest of us. We did know what was coming.
  7. Are you a woman or do you know and care about a woman? Coming are a national abortion ban, bans on contraception, prosecutions of OB/GYNs and a constant Christian Nationalist (which actually isn’t Christian at all) drum beat of reducing women to nothing more than sex toys, incubators and house slaves. We do know what’s coming.
Quote Adjustment Following the Election

From Salon.com, November 14:

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on the direction of America and the future of pluralistic multiracial democracy.

True, but that soft peddles the fundamental point. Let me help.

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on whether this is or ever will be America.

You Can Get Anything You Want at Alice’s Restaurant.

There is hypocrisy masquerading as justice and even as popular will, just as there was when Arlo Guthrie told his tale. Watch over the next few years – could be even faster if the MAGA barbarians are able to shred the entire Constitution sooner. Watch the MAGA faithful, the willfully ignorant, the dupes, the “I could never vote for a Democrat” non-thinkers, the “I want a strongman, not one of those woke types and for sure no woman” chest pounders and even those too lazy to get off the couch and vote.

Watch what happens as the hatred spreads and their freedom evaporates. They may cheer as the freedom of others disappears, but not when it clobbers them. Then, o’ golly, that won’t be fair.

Watch as they realize that the nice guy down the block has been ripped from his family and thrown into a concentration camp, his children left weeping. Watch as the cost of food and everything else skyrockets but wages are stagnant. Watch their eyes as diseases like measles, polio and smallpox make a big comeback, when the kid across the street is struggling just to breathe and the elderly lady next door has died with horrible sores all over her body and they realize that they might have been infected.

Listen to the hypocritical excuses, the lame, “It’s not my fault” exculpations. Watch as the testosterone overfilled, Bible thumping crowd begins to feel the pain of women dying in pregnancy, a threat that exists only because of their actions.

Yale Professor of History Timothy Snyder knows what’s coming. He lays it out for you here.

Oh yes, we do know what’s coming.

Bide your time. And

REBEL!


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