Domestic Policy

Full Transcript – First Press Conference


Outside the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives
.

Jones:  Mr. Speaker, Cynthia Jones here – Laughing Stock News. We cover the Congress.

You know about the blistering list of lies George Santos told in order to get elected in New York’s 3rd congressional district. You’ve been asked about that repeatedly and have refused to make a statement condemning his dishonesty, much less calling for Santos’ removal from the House. Why are you so passive in the face of this enormous breach of trust?

Kevin McCarthy: We will follow the Constitution for this as for any questionable action. This matter has been referred to the House Ethics Committee and we will abide by their decision. Besides, it’s not as if the Democrats don’t lie. Why aren’t you pursuing Adam Schiff for all the unethical things he’s done?

Jones: What are the unethical things you think Representative Schiff has done?

McCarthy: Miss Jones, everybody knows about his misbehavior. People are saying – many people are telling me – he’s done terrible things.

Jones: Can you name just one thing, Mr. Speaker?

McCarthy: I’m not going to do your work for you, Miss Jones. Look it up yourself. Next.

Altschuler: Mr. Speaker, Jack Altschuler of Disambiguation News. Untangling politicians’ word salads and mis-directions. We’re still recovering from reporting on Herschel Walker.

As you know, your Republican caucus has recently dramatically reduced the power of the Ethics Committee. In addition, that committee is notorious for taking an extremely long time, sometimes years, to decide anything. Please explain why referring Representative Santos and his obvious lying to that committee is a proper path to deal with him and to restore trust in the House.

McCarthy: As I’ve said many times, he was elected to Congress by his constituents and their wishes must be followed, as well as the dictates of the Constitution.

Altschuler: First, Mr. Speaker, to be more accurate about the election, George Santos wasn’t elected to anything. His phony résumé and his phony personal history were elected. Further, the Constitution has nothing to do with a representative being a flagrant liar and subsequently being punished for lying.

McCarthy: Yes, well of course we’ll abide by the Constitution and the recommendation of the Ethics Committee. Don’t be surprised if we find Democrats have lied, too. And what about those classified documents Biden hid in his garage? Who was he making secret deals with? He could have compromised our national security! See, that’s what you journalists do. You let Democrats slide and then viciously attack Republicans.

Jones: Who told you that journalists do that, Mr. Speaker?

McCarthy: Everyone knows that, Miss Jones, if that is your name. President Trump knows that. People are saying – many people are telling me – there’s so much unfairness in the mainstream media. You’re so unfair.

Connors: Mr. Speaker, Phil Connors, Groundhog Day News. Again.

Let’s stay focused on the Santos issue.

Last week The Gallup Organization released their survey findings of who Americans trust. Only telemarketers were found to be less trustworthy than members of Congress. Aren’t you perpetuating that distrust by refusing to act promptly and decisively to deal with Mr. Santos for his blatant and pervasive lying?

McCarthy: No, not at all. The American people didn’t send us here in the majority expecting us to eat our young. Besides, he was a solid vote for me when I needed that vote. I won’t forget it, either, unless, of course, I hear from President Trump and he says to get rid of that loser.

Connors & Jones: WHAT!?!

Altschuler: So, you’re saying that you getting the Speakership was more important than the veracity of this entire institution and that you’ll dump Santos if Trump tells you to do that?

McCarthy: I’m saying that Santos can help our country by voting the way I tell him to vote, which is how President Trump tells me to vote. That’s how we’ll begin hearings into the corrupt FBI to get to the bottom of their phony investigations.

Altschuler: Mr. Speaker, you’ve spoken many times about wanting to investigate the investigators, claiming “weaponization of the federal government,” but are you aware that every FBI Director beginning with J. Edgar Hoover and up to the present has been a Republican? Does that information change your desire to make accusatory claims against the agency?

McCarthy: Absolutely not! Those people have been so unfair to President Trump with their witch hunts. They raided his home in the dead of night and all they found were a few pieces of paper, but they’re making it sound like a breach of national security or something in order to persecute him.

Altschuler: Seriously?

McCarthy: Our special subcommittee under the purview of Rep. Jim Jordan will get to the bottom of this weaponization swamp.

Repeat: Mr. Speaker, Ralph Repeat of Culture Wars Review. Reporting the oldies again and again.

Back to Representative Santos.

What do you say to the people of New York’s 3rd congressional district who feel insulted, betrayed and, as of this morning, have made it clear that they realize they have no representation in the House because George Santos has shown that his word means nothing?

McCarthy: We’ll be extra careful to consider their opinions. In fact, we’ve already told them what their opinions are. Plus, we’re ready to investigate Hunter Biden and his incriminating laptop. We’re going to get to the bottom of Benghazi, too. We’ll repeal and replace Obamacare and we’re going to expunge the impeachments of President Trump. Plus, we’ll block any socialist Democrat efforts to raise the debt ceiling. We’ll put a stop to their tax and spend craziness.

Altschuler: Mr. Speaker, your Republican caucus has promised to hamstring our nation by refusing to pay for “things such as Medicaid, food safety inspections, border control and air traffic control, to name just a handful of thousands of programs.” Does that mean you’re okay with the breaches of safety that will cause? And are you okay with the United States defaulting on its debt which the prior Congress authorized and, most importantly, with failing to protect the full faith and credit of our nation?

McCarthy: Of course. My caucus is prepared to make all abortion illegal, end or privatize all those entitlement programs, put prayer back in our school rooms and have good guys with guns everywhere to ensure our MAGA way of life, regardless of the cost to anyone or the whining of liberal economists. We know we’re right. That’s why we never listen to anyone.

Jones and others: HUH!?!

McCarthy: Of course, we’ll listen to President Trump. He’s a great businessman and an expert on economics. He knows how to make great deals to make America great again and eliminate our national debt.

Altschuler: You do know that our national debt grew 40% under Trump, right?

McCarthy: There you go with that unfair press business again. Why don’t you instead ask about Biden’s horrible judge picks and how he’s undermining our nation, like with that Ketanji woman? She’s really black, you know.

Econ: Mr. Speaker, Eric Econ of 4N – No Nonsense Numbers News, cutting through the math.

Last week Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin said, “failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability.” How do you respond to her dire warning as you threaten governmental default?

McCarthy: That’s just socialist Democrat talk. We don’t pay any attention to it.

Altschuler: Back to George Santos, Mr. Speaker. Are you comfortable being in the House of Representatives seated just a few steps from this liar? How can you count on him to honor his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution when nothing he says can be counted on to be truthful?

McCarthy: Easy. Watch me.

(Turning to his right) Miss .  .  .  I forgot your name.

Taylor-Greene: It’s Susie Taylor-Greene, Mr. Speaker.

McCarthy: Right

Taylor-Greene: My sister asked me to let you know that we’re behind you all the way, locked and loaded.

McCarthy: Excellent!

Now, I understand that you had a question for me about the new drapes in my Speaker’s office. They’re really beautiful and they don’t remind me of my awful predecessor at all. Be sure to look at my golden gavel, too. It’s really cool.

Altschuler: That’s not gold, Mr. Speaker. It’s a lot of brass.

  • ————————————
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

A Modest Proposal – v5.0


Sports First

The Bahamas Bowl, certainly the grand daddy of them all, was played on Friday in Nassau, Bahamas. Who knew there was a football stadium there?

My beloved Miami University (OH) Redhawks battled the Blazers of the University of Alabama – Birmingham. Both teams came to the game following inspiring 6 – 6 seasons. UAB won 24 – 20 in an epic see-saw battle played in a nearly empty stadium.

While watching the game I learned from ESPN that there will be 42 bowl games this year. I think, though, that they overlooked one.

The Toilet Bowl
.

With our ongoing national struggles with anger, violence, grievance, absurd, hateful conspiracies and loony anti-democratic fantasies we could surely cobble together a team led by Marjorie Taylor Green (“if Steve Bannon and I had organized [the January 6 insurrection], we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed”). She can recruit Jim Jordan, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Kari Lake and the rest of the delusionals for the Bile-Based-On-BS Wing of the Republican Party team. They can face off against the team of Spineless Republicans, those who aren’t delusional but who refuse to stand up for the Constitution and reality.

Somebody please flush.

Now on to Modest Proposal v5.0.

Trump Isn’t the Problem

The long knives of the law are sharpened. They are even now carving air in preparation for serial prosecutions. Indeed, the slicing and dicing has already begun and tomorrow at high noon EST we’ll learn of the recommendations for prosecution that the January 6 Committee will be passing along to Merrick Garland and Jack Smith at the Department of Justice. If Trump was ever the problem, that problem is going away.

The real problem is the voluntary and eager belief in Trump’s frauds by his public. It’s their willing acceptance and often their adulation for his public dishonesty and his grifts. It’s their mutual embrace of ignorance. His followers enthusiastically applaud his wearing of the mantle of victim and they embrace their own victim-hood at his direction.

Many Americans – perhaps as many as 20% of us – are ready to fall for any nonsense-spewing mouthpiece who tells us we’ve been treated unfairly or how we’re disrespected by others. These are the people Lincoln said can be fooled all of the time. Here’s an example.

Covid came ’round for a permanent visit and many of these easy-to-manipulate people fell for Trump’s lie that Covid would magically disappear. Then they fell for the nonsense that masks, distancing and lock downs are abridgements of their freedom. Trump told them to inject bleach and Lysol into their veins, take Ivermectin and do other self-harming things and they said, “Okay.”

Then the magical vaccines arrived (the ones Ron DeSantis gladly took and advocated for and is now making criminal accusations against). Conspiracy bad guys filled the blab-o-sphere with insane claims of nanobots, sterility and sickness from the vaccines.

And people were fooled. They believed that stuff.

Such things are tenets of their near-religious beliefs that fuels their hatred for “the establishment,” the “deep state.” There’s no convincing them otherwise using such stuffy, old-fashioned things as facts and logic. And now over a million Americans have died from Covid, nearly all of whom could have been saved, but for their slavishly listening to Trump.

And it gets worse, as many of these people have again been fooled and believe the calls to hatred and violence. That leads to innocent people being hurt or killed. This cannot go on. Fortunately, I have .  .  .

The Solution

Since we cannot convince these people of the existence of reality, they will remain a danger to us all. We must not allow them to live among us creating havoc and destruction. The obvious solution is to remove them to an isolated place of their own where they can no longer harm the rest of us.

We have vast, mostly uninhabited regions of our southwestern states that could be turned into internment camps for the politically fooled. Or perhaps we can do what Trump tried to do: we’ll buy Greenland from the Danes and put them there. Maybe just the northern half.

I can hear you wailing patriotically, “But what about their rights?” Good question, and I’ll use one of their tools – whataboutism – and ask, “What about our rights? Like the right not to be shot by one of those crazies. Like the right not to be assaulted by their hatred. Like the right to not be terrorized by death threats. Like the right not to be infected in public by their deadly, virus-laden exhales.

These people are a clear and present danger to us and to our nation. Remove them and we’ll remove the danger to our election workers and to Jews in synagogues and to parishioners at the Mother Emanuel AME Church and to partiers at Club Q and to first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School and to shopping grannies at Tops Friendly Market and at Walmart. Hate crimes would largely disappear.

So, give them far south Arizona and New Mexico. We’ll put up a big, strong wall, a wall like you’ve never seen before. It will run along our southern border, so maybe we can get Mexico to pay for it.

Trump himself said we should shred the Constitution, so c’mon, Americans. Time to do the right thing.

If all that hasn’t convinced you, read Adam Serwer’s explainer about the Republicans, The Cruelty Is the Point. After that you’ll know why these people must be separated from the rest of us.

And read Tom Nichols’ Why Did The Oathkeepers Do It? You’ll see our malcontents in a new and useful light.

  • ————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA

 


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

Potpourri v17.0


Leadership

It’s nearly a week since attention addicted Donald Trump hosted attention addicted Ye (formerly named Kanye West by his mother) and extremist hate monger, attention addicted Nick Fuentes,* all chummy at dinner at Trump’s conspiracy and stolen documents clubhouse. Very few Republicans have expressed objection that a former President of the United States would be “palling around” with these haters, these racists, these antisemites, these homophobes.

Indeed, nobody in Republican leadership has uttered a word in public about this newest Trump heinous outrage. Nothing from House Speaker Wannabee Kevin “The Weenie” McCarthy. Nothing from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Nothing from presidential candidate wannabee Ron DeSantis. No nuthin’ from nobody in leadership.

This is clearly a moment to stand and be counted doing and saying the right thing. But Republican leadership is clearly too intimidated to do that. They’re choosing the coward’s way, because doing the courageous thing – the right thing – would lose them some votes from extremist voters.

So, once again we see these Republicans caving to extremists, sacrificing the nation and what’s right and instead they’re doing what’s wrong. That has the perverse effect of putting extremists in charge and moving us yet closer to thugocracy.**

We aren’t experiencing a lack of Republican leadership. Rather, these people are leading in plain sight, howling out loud with their silence or limp-wristed whining that they cower before the crazies. They implore us to follow them suicidally over that cliff. We’re being led by profound cowardice and dereliction of duty.

10 Predictions
  1. Rev. Rafael Warnock will win the Georgia senatorial run-off election because:
    • A. Rev. Warnock is a good and wise man.
    • B. Herschel Walker was a great football player with a concussion-damaged head and a hollow heart. Besides, he lives in Texas.
  2. Joe Biden will announce next year that he will not run for office in the 2024 election. Next-gen Dems will rejoice. Republicans won’t.
  3. Trump will have to defend himself against indefensible charges from Georgia, New York and multiple indictments from the Department of Justice. He will be able to string out much of that with delaying tactics; however, he will not be the Republican nominee. That will cause him to claim that he is the victim of election fraud. He will hold rallies where they chant, “Stop The Steal!” except this time he’ll be claiming that Republicans did the stealing. Plus, he will brag that he is morally superior to the election stealing, loser Democrats.
  4. Kevin McCarthy will be elected Speaker of the House. He will resign within one year in the face of the incessant insanity of the so-called “Freedom Caucus,” which doesn’t stand for freedom. It is solely about grabbing power for its members and dominating all others, including McCarthy, thus proving that they are morally superior to the godless, socialist Democrats.
  5. Hunter Biden will be hounded, investigated and the subject of continuous House hearings beginning in January 2023 and running through November 2024. There will be bulgy-eyed indignation, preposterous claims and record setting bluster by Republicans, who will announce that they are morally superior to the George Soros, Jewish controlled Democrats.
  6. The Hunter Biden hearings will establish a new world record. Throughout the entire history of human beings no inanimate object will have been the subject of more scrutiny than will be Biden’s laptop. Not the German enigma machine; not Galileo’s telescope; not the Higgs boson: Hunter Biden’s laptop. It’s the laptop that was forgotten in a repair shop and for which there is no recorded chain of custody.
  7. The result of all of this investigation of Hunter Biden will be: NOTHING! Guilt will be powerfully assumed but no wrongdoing will be found. The Republicans’ final report will announce that the hearings proved definitively that they are morally superior to the cannibalistic Democrats.
  8. Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, will be impeached for failing to overhaul the immigration system that Congress has steadfastly chickened out of even glancing at for many decades. Mayorkas will be vilified, too, for Trump’s treatment of asylum seekers, as well as for the presence of millions of hopeful brown people at the Rio Grande. The Republicans will show conclusive proof that they are patriotically and morally superior to the sex trafficking Democrats.
  9. In an over-puffed statement of standing for the rule of law, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Nazi Germany) will bravely tackle head-on what spineless ones have staunchly refused to confront. He will submit legislation to arrest parking meter violators and banish them to forced labor camps. The entire Freedom Caucus will cheer him raucously. The Senate will filibuster the bill and it will die. The Freedom Caucus will tearfully claim victim-hood, once again crying that they are a casualty of the morally inferior, world dominating cabal of George Soros-led Democrats.
  10. The 2024 Presidential and Congressional election will be an existential moment for democracy and, because of that, the most important election in your lifetime. Again. The election stealing, morally inferior, godless, cannibalistic, sex trafficking, world dominating cabal led by George Soros and socialist Democrats will work hard to defeat the forces of evil. DNC messaging will still suck.
Club Q

Club Q. Click the pic.

We have yet another obvious hate crime. Five dead, dozens wounded and hundreds traumatized. Same evil as the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo and the Walmart in El Paso and the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and so many more. They’re all crimes of hate committed by fearful, angry, well-armed haters.

We have simmering, smoldering fires of fear and hatred in this country and we have always had them. The difference now is that national leaders are telling people that violence is good, violence is justified. We’re being told to act out our hostilities and people on the edge are doing exactly that.

And innocents are dying. Please click this link to put the price of our craziness into perspective.

Timely Quotations

This from my long time friend, written following the mid-term election. See if you agree.

    • ” .  .  .  thank god the election is finally over! I couldn’t stand one more day of those shamefully negative campaign TV ads. All those ads do is make me dislike both candidates. And how many people could be fed, housed, or educated for the hundreds of millions wasted on those TV ads?”
    • – Edmund Sass, Professor Emeritus of Education
    • College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University

And from Elie Wiesel. Consider this in the context of Thanksgiving, just past.

    • “When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”
    • – Elie Wiesel,
    • Holocaust Survivor – yeah, it really happened –  and Nobel Peace Prize Winner

——————————

* Credit goes to that smirking little fascist Fuentes for putting a face on the most extreme, vile, anti-Constitutional hatred and violence in America. Pin his face to the dart board.

Also, given that all three attendees at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Wolf’s Lair are attention addicts, do you suppose any of them was listening – at all? We made inquiries to find out, but Der Führer was not available for comment.

  • **  Government by a corrupt group of thugs.

” .  .  .  projects of sophisticated state capture, through organized crime networks at every level of scale, and utilizing complex arrays of mafia tactics, personnel, and practices.”

If you like violence, you’re going to love thugocracy.

  • ————————————
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Ending the Tyrannical Minority


America has always lived with a minority, although we haven’t always been at its whim. The bad news is that it has taken great acts of hypocrisy, reality denial and blatant power grabs to bring us to where we are now, at the whim of a tyrannical minority. The good news is that we can do something to make this a democracy, as in: self-governing majority rule. To make that happen, we’ll have to do something different, because if we don’t, we’ll just get more of the same. Here’s a plan.

Insanity in the Senate
1. Reform the Filibuster

The Founders envisioned the Senate as a “great deliberative body,” which, I suppose, it has been for short periods and from time to time. However, that entire concept became impossible when the filibuster became a phone-in exercise. The Senate immediately became brain dead because majority rule was exterminated. Nothing controversial can get done because the filibuster makes it necessary to have a super-majority (60 votes) to break a filibuster and then to at last vote on something – anything.

The result of that is that the majority of Americans most commonly do not get what we want.

Example: 90% of Americans want universal background checks prior to the sale or transfer of any firearm, as well as a ban on the sale and the ownership of military style assault rifles.

Example: The majority of us favor pro-choice, universal healthcare and no corporate money in our politics.

All of that and far more are things We The People want, but which we don’t get because of an intransigent minority in the Senate with its finger always on the filibuster trigger.

I don’t think we should eliminate the filibuster, because that would inevitably accomplish nothing more than switching from minority tyranny to majority tyranny. Plus, it would enable extremists to cram through Constitution crushing legislation. All we have to do is to make the filibuster more difficult to initiate and more painful to sustain.

2. Make the Senate Proportional to Our Population.

It makes next to no sense for Rhode Island to have the same representation and power in the Senate as does California. The way it is now gives Rhode Islanders about 36 times more power than Californians. If you can find fairness or even a smidgen of sense in that, be sure to spell it out in the Comments section below and teach something to the rest of us.

Otherwise, it’s time to balance senatorial power. Here’s how.

There are roughly 331 million of us and 100 Senate seats. Do the math: we establish the rule of one senator per 3.3 million Americans. In this plan the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming together will have 1 senator; California will have 13; Florida will have 9; Utah will have 1; Illinois will have 4; Kansas will have 1; Nebraska and Iowa together will have 2; Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont together will have 2. You get the picture.

You’ve seen the electoral map showing that the vast, non-coastal parts of this country are red. Those areas have far more head of livestock than people and entire counties that are home to just a few dozen citizens. The practical effect of that is that they punch way above their weight class in the Senate. Good for them. Not so good for high population states or our country as a whole. Change that to make representation fair to everyone by making Senate representation proportional.

Insanity in the House
1. End Gerrymandering

It’s just a legalized form of cheating. It’s power grabbing that is funded by disenfranchising citizens. It is a way to undermine the Constitution. It is a sleight of hand that permanently impoverishes millions. It is a slimy way to make sure that lots of us aren’t represented in Congress at all.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder has done some remarkable work on this as Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. He and the committee have clear, actionable plans to end this monstrously inequitable practice that empowers clever bad guys (the minority) and dis-empowers millions of us (the majority).

2. End Obstructions to Voting.

Yes, I’m talking about the practice of removing citizens from voting roles for idiotic reasons, like because they didn’t vote in the last two elections (Ohio and elsewhere) or because they’re Black and poor (North Carolina, Georgia and Florida) and more. The Constitution doesn’t say a thing about restricting such people from voting. In fact, it doesn’t suggest disenfranchising former felons, either. I’m looking at you, Florida Governor DeSantis.

Insanity in Campaigns and the Supreme Court
1. Reverse the 2010 Citizens United Decision

In an colossal act of larceny, the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case in 2010 by deciding that inanimate, non-sensate corporations have all the same rights that you have. All of them. It’s larceny because that decision gave corporations and big money individuals way more impact on our elections than you have. That decision effectively stole elective power from you and gave it to big money interests to elect members of Congress who would do their bidding.

And that’s what Congress does. Blame Chief Justice John Roberts for that.

Want to fix that and restore the system intended by the Founders?

  1. Write a law that allows money and money equivalents to be donated to any candidate or political party only by flesh-and-blood, actual human persons. To accomplish that,
  2. Establish by law that money is property, not speech.
  3. Establish by law that inanimate objects like corporations do not have all the same rights as human beings. Corporations are not people, Mitt Romney.
  4. Establish by law that corporations cannot do back door political influencing by means of Super PACs and the like.

This will be tricky and the process will be fraught with comically feigned and eagerly performed indignation and impassioned idiocy. Keep in mind, though, that our current system is a perfect machine to ensure sub-optimal results for We The People. It discourages good people from running for office. It ensures the continuing enrichment of already fabulously wealthy people and corporations and the impoverishing of everyone else. It underlines in blazing colors that we don’t care about the intent of the Founders or anything else other than power grabbing.

But we don’t have to be like that.

Clearly, if we want something better, we’ll have to do something better, like,

2. Reverse the 2012 McCutcheon v. FEC Decision

Prior to this case the McCain-Feingold bill limited the amount any individual could contribute to any candidate to $2,600 per-candidate, per-election, or $5,200 for a primary and general election. It also limited the aggregate any individual could contribute to all candidates in any one election to $123,200. Shaun McCutcheon sued to have those limits abolished.

The Supreme Court shot down his hope of eliminating the per-candidate limit, claiming that allowing more financial leverage would be seen as, or effectively would be legalized (gasp!) bribery.

But in a truly contorted and galactically illogical opinion the Court decided that eliminating the aggregate limit somehow didn’t amount to authorizing legalized bribery. The 5-4 “We don’ need no stinking stare decisis” conservatives struck it down, popping the top off the bribery equivalent.

Just image if Mr. McCutcheon were to give $5,200 to every Republican candidate in any one election cycle. Do you suppose that might give him oversized influence in our politics and amount to legalized (gasp!) bribery?

If we are to be a representative democracy, this decision has to be reversed by Congress.

The Point

The playing field must be level if We The People are to be in charge (as in: self-government majority rule). For that to happen we have to remove the unfair, inequitable influences on our politics. What’s above isn’t the complete medicine for what ails us, but it’s a start.

Are you feeling a glow of gratitude, what with Thanksgiving right over the horizon? That’s fine and that’s good, because in this country we still can do something to move us toward a more just nation, that more perfect union.

Wishing you a heartfelt Thanksgiving.

————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

For the Dreamers


    • “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”
    • – Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Democratic National Convention, August 12, 1980

The Republicans have taken  control of the House – barely – and the overall election outcome should trigger waves of consternation and gnashing of teeth over how so many screwed up for so long and in such creatively self-destructive ways in so many types of races.

Republicans fielded hateful, brain-free candidates and We The People didn’t like them. The geniuses at the RNC had to have been expert sleuths in order to find so many unqualified candidates. Herschel Walker? Seriously?

There were some impressive Democrat performances, too, for which there aren’t yet words to describe, like how Democrats managed to lose four House races in upstate New York.

How come the DNC couldn’t send the desperately needed funding to Tim Ryan in Ohio and Beto O’Rourke in Texas? Those guys are the ones who have the character and ability to be the fighters we’ll need over the next decades, the people with the moxie to defeat the authoritarians, but the DNC largely abandoned them.

There will be lots of time for licking wounds and I fervently hope there’s a lot of introspection and forehead slapping. And please, DNC, have the courage to admit what everyone knows: your communication and messaging sucks. Maybe there exists a self-help organization called Sucky-Talkers Anonymous.

Bob: “Hi. I’m Bob and I suck at messaging.”

Group: “Hi, Bob. Yes, you do.”

Of course, there were wins, some found even in losses, like Adam Frisch’s challenge to “bubble-headed woman who should never be allowed near any dangerous implement, like a microphone,” Lauren Boebert. They’re reporting that 99% of the votes are counted, with the candidates separated by just 554 votes. Kudos to Frisch in this deeply red district.

It’s odd human being stuff that people fall for a pretty face, like Boebert, Kari Lake, Sarah Palin and Scott Brown without investigating whether there’s any sign of intelligent life behind the face.

There are two obvious and significant things to expect over the next two years. In the Senate, President Biden will continue to be able to staff the 80-plus federal judiciary benches awaiting newbies. Invoking the words of Joe Biden when speaking to President Obama on the passage of the ACA – “Obamacare” – and while too close to an open microphone, “This is a big f***ing deal.”

Even better, if a vacancy or two should come about on the Supreme Court, Biden will provide nominees to the Senate and the Republicans will not be able to stymie the process with fabricated new rules of obstruction. It sure would be lovely if Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were to suddenly contract cases of Incipient Mortality Awareness Despair Over Probable Ending (“IMADOPE”) and they decided to spend more time with their families. One could hope.

Thanks go to Jim Nathan for this piece

The other thing to expect will occur in the House, where the Republican circus will have all three rings set up, with nothing but sense-defying acts taking place.

For example, we can expect Jim “The Flame Throwing Ignoramus” Jordan (R-OH) to chair the judiciary committee and hold a protracted, pointless hearing into Hunter Biden. After that there will be more pointless hearings focused on Biden and his laptop. Following that will be hearings into Biden’s involvement in the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby and in the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and Kennedy.

In the end, we will have spent many millions of dollars investigating anything Hunter Biden has thought, done or could spell for the entire duration of his life. The hearings will be continuous until the 2024 election in order for the Republicans to make Democrats look dirty. The official report will be 800 pages long and will say nothing – just like the report from the Benghazi hearings Committee on Stupid, Darryl Issa (R-CA), Chairman.

And that kind of stupidity and cruelty by Republicans is what we can expect from this new Republican controlled House. Indeed, they’re already gathering firewood for the witch burning pits.

Republicans have declared that they intend to impeach President Biden, Vice President Harris, Anthony Fauci and Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of Homeland Security. They have no charges against any of them. There isn’t even a whiff of wrongdoing to investigate. Most Republicans in Congress don’t even know who Mayorkas is. No matter. These hearings leading to impeachment votes are solely to get back at Democrats for the two impeachments of the orange president. Yes, they’re as infantile as that.

And while those hearings and impeachments are going on there will be no people’s business conducted. There will be little to no problems solved, no solutions found. The only accomplishment will be the performance of a Republican temper tantrum.

You can also expect push-back from the Republican House against our support for Ukraine. The fascist extreme wouldn’t want to do anything to upset their role model, Vladimir Putin. And Ukraine as a sovereign nation, it’s people wanting democracy and freedom? “Who cares?” say the Republicans.

Because that’s what Republicans do. They are all about demonizing, hating and legalized cruelty. To see this clearly, all you need to examine are all the racist and antisemitic spewings by Republicans. Unlike Democrats, they never police their own.

Together, Republicans comprise a national version of White Citizens Councils. That “Make America Great Again” mantra refers to when America’s domestic power was bed sheet white and sub-humans of color were controlled by their White betters.

But such unconscionable domination is already beginning to come to a close, as our White majority is becoming the White minority. Indeed, that’s the driver of so much of the repression. People don’t give up power willingly.

MAGA rallies cannot push back the tide, which triggers fear in those who want to return to the early 1950s. You know: before Brown v Board of Education; the 1964 Civil Rights Act; the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the rest of what allows non-Whites to be full citizens.

What White supremacists are left with is fear, hatred, violence and pitiful attempts at appearing to be something they are not. Recall Trump saying at a 2016 rally, “There’s my African-American.” Singular. Pick that apart any way you like, including empathy for that guy for his being so dreadfully duped.

To be clear, there are victories from our multi-week election day, most notably for what did not happen: a red wave. Plus, there were both new and re-elected blue governors, secretaries of state and more. These are people who trust in the Constitution and the will of We The People, so they don’t threaten to reverse our elections in order to suit themselves and their extremist overlords.

Insane factoid: Isn’t it crazy that times are so upside down that we celebrate that no election workers or voters were harmed by vigilante idiots? Here’s to the judges who prohibited the vigilantes from vigilante-ing!

So, this election was a mixed bag. Read Thomas Friedman’s post, America Dodged An Arrow for more on that.

Hope still lives and the dream is still alive – and it will be so as long as we keep it alive. That opens the door to what we’ll do to make 2024 what we need it to be. The starter’s pistol for that race has already fired.

PS

Merrick, there is a difference between: 1. Doing things right while doing the right things, as well as sweating the details; and, 2. Refusing to make a decision.

We’re 22 months down the road. It’s time to make a decision based on the painfully obvious evidence. Tell Jack Smith I said so.

————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Bolts


The call and response could go this way:

What do we want?

Certainty!

When do we want it?

Now!

We humans prefer predictability. It makes us feel secure. We aren’t such frightened little bunnies when we know what we can count on today and tomorrow, too. Sadly, we live in a world that simply isn’t all that predictable, due in part to the ever-accelerating rate of change in our world of non-stop breaking news.

America has always had a share of its citizenry who mouthed the words of support for democracy but didn’t really like or support it. That majority rule thing means that sometimes some people don’t get what they want. Some people just can’t handle not getting what they want all the time.

Plus, everything takes so much longer to decide and to do when everything is effectively a function of a committee, which is what democracy implies. Besides, some people don’t like to share and want all the power for themselves. They operate under the assumption that the “others” are too lazy or ignorant or less worthy somehow, so power grabbing by them, the “more equals,” just makes sense to them. And it’s so very self-satisfying.

We tried that anti-democracy thing with King George III at the top of the power pyramid and didn’t like that too much. That led to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, saying that we’d rather do that ruling thing ourselves.

It was intended to include all of us (eventually). But anti-democracy is really attractive to some, especially in the face of change and uncertainty.

Last September 11 the New York Times published an opinion piece by Elizabeth Rush entitled What Antarctica’s Disintegration Asks Of Us. She calls for having a different attitude toward this aspect of climate warming, yet my big takeaway was just one sentence in her piece:

“How do we go on living when the very things we once depended upon have become undependable?”

We are decades past the time when it became clear that we are killing ourselves and our planet on the installment plan, one tank of gas at a time, yet practically nothing has been done to ameliorate the problem. Not long ago there were the Paris Climate Accords and we earthlings have a perfect record. Of the 195 nations pledging specific action to deal with global warming, not even one country has kept its promise and most haven’t done a thing.

The Anasazi cliff dwellers lived for over 1,000 years in what is now southwest Colorado. It was a very dry climate, yet they managed to grow crops and scratch out their existence. It had always worked for them.

Right up until it didn’t.

One day between 1275 and 1300 A.D. they left. They didn’t leave a note about why they were departing or where they were going.

Something had become undependable. Best guess: years of drought forced them to leave in order to find a place where there could be a dependable supply of food and water.

The Anasazi liked dependability and predictability just as much as we do today. But they had an existential problem, so they made a decision and all of them left. Nobody knows how they came to their decision, but if drought was the impetus, what they had to do probably looked fairly obvious. Other times, solutions don’t look as obvious and decisions are difficult and slow to be made.

Now we’re facing a challenge every bit as dire as that of the Anasazi and increasingly as obvious. The Antarctica glacier that Elizabeth Rush and the scientific and journalistic team investigated is melting and has the volume to raise sea levels 10 feet. Say good-bye to all coastal cities on the globe. Nobody knows what other climate changes that much sea level rise could trigger.

The question we are going to have to answer is whether we will allow our democracy to solve this riddle. Doing so will be much slower than by authoritarian dictum. Also, it will likely be better reasoned and actually workable. That’s what happens when extra wisdom is applied.

You’ve watched would-be authoritarians over the past years and even now, as they work tirelessly to undermine democracy in order to grab power for themselves. They want to solve problems by fiat.

As of this writing Kari Lake is continuing to say that she will refuse the election results in the Arizona gubernatorial election if she doesn’t win. That’s the very stuff of authoritarianism. Would you trust Kari Lake or anyone like her to make life and death decisions for you or for our nation?

Now, for a collision of muddled metaphors.
.

We don’t have certainty and we will never have it. The people trying to sell you their authoritarian bucket of bolts are calling it dependability and predictability and saying theirs is the best answer. They are singing a siren song to lure you to crash on the slippery rocks of authoritarianism. They claim theirs is the patriotic way and that all you have to do to secure their promise for yourself, to have the predictability you crave, is to surrender your freedom and your voice.

They will be trying to get you to bite into their poison apple two years from now. If there is any certainty anywhere, some of them will be doing that every two years for the rest of your life. So, always be prepared with your decision.

Otherwise, you’ll be left clutching slimy authoritarian rocks and holding a bucket of worthless bolts.

Covid Update

No, it hasn’t gone away. Here’s an updated chart of daily Covid deaths:

We endured thousands of daily Covid deaths for over two years. Then magical vaccines came along, rationed first to healthcare workers, then to the elderly entrapped in nursing facilities and at last to the general public and there was a drastic reduction in Covid deaths. We still lost over 400 of our fellow citizens every day to this pandemic for a long time. As you can see from the chart, the daily death count began to decline in late October and is now below 300.

The fact remains that over 95% of the people who die from Covid every day are or were vaccine refusers. The same percentage applies to those sick enough to be hospitalized but who don’t die. Meanwhile, you do the math on how very few would die from Covid if vaccine refusal went away.

295 people dead from Covid every day is better than before, but hardly something to celebrate.

Oh, wait – we’ve already moved on and are now paying no attention to Covid at all. There are too many fresh distractions every day in this hyped up, always-breaking-news environment for us to stay focused on any one thing for very long. So, no celebration.

Ukraine Update

Ukrainian troops have recaptured the city of Kherson in the southeast of Ukraine along the Dnipro River where it empties into the Black Sea. Russian troops ran away from the advance of liberating Ukrainian troops and the Ukrainian flag flies in that city once again. It appears we’re coming closer to the day when President Zelenskyy can demand Putin’s surrender, as outlined last March.

Ukrainian flag is raised in Kherson with President Zelenskyy attending – 14 Nov 2022. Click the pic.

————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Potpourri v16.0


Very late edition – Dateline: America
.

EXTRA! EXTRA!

EXTRA!

Republican Red Wave Just a Little Splash!

Dems Retain Control of Senate!

Control of House Still Too Close To Call

In a stunning surprise on Saturday night the Senate race in Nevada was called in favor of Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, giving Dems 50 votes plus the vote of the VIce-President in the upper chamber. Control of the Senate will remain with Dems. That will assure that Republicans cannot universally block President Biden, including in the ability to place judges onto federal benches, all the way up to the Supreme Court if such a replacement comes to be needed.

Still to be decided is the 100th seat in the Senate, as the Georgia seat presently held by Rafael Warnock will be contested in a runoff election on December 6 against former football star and Word Salad Party candidate, Herschel Walker. The outcome of that race will not influence control in the Senate.

This happened in a week that began filled with dread and ended with the most powerful of statements. The Republicans had said that they stood for ignoring the will of the majority, lying, stealing, stripping rights from Americans and ending our democracy.

The American people stood up and said, “Not on my watch.”

Reports are coming in that the flag atop the Capitol Building is flying just a bit higher today and one witness noticed a tear of joy in the eye of Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. The Founders are said to be resting undisturbed in the presence of this important news.

Russians and Republicans

From Prof. Heather Cox Richardson on November 7:

Today, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and the leader of the private military company the Wagner Group, who is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin, boasted that Russians had interfered in U.S. elections and continue to do so. “We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.” He added: “During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.”

Prigozhin is apparently behind the Russia-based “troll farms” that try to affect U.S. elections. Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times writes that Russians did indeed target the 2022 elections to make right-wing voters angry so they would vote to undermine our own national security interests and also to undermine trust in U.S. elections. Their hope is to erode American support for Ukraine’s struggle to repel the Russian invasion by getting us to elect Republicans who side with – even love – Putin.

Did it occur to you before now that Republicans would side with a Russian dictator in his invasion of a sovereign nation? These guys used to be the commie haters, the Red baiters, the muscular bashers of everything east of Poland. How did they go so far right that they now sound more like fictional ultra-extremist wacko lefties from the 50s that Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Hades) invented and lied about?

Militia Letter

Thanks go to the Founders for the Second Amendment that guarantees that anyone can have a gun. This is because we still need a militia at the ready and for the original reasons: just in case the Brits invade for a third try to reverse the revolution and to put down an uprising if southern slaves try to rebel yet again.

The Amendment specifically states,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It’s recognized not just in common sense but also in the writing of our foundational document that we need a well regulated Militia. So, here’s an open letter to our many tough guys in our many so-called militias.

Guys (plus Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene), you aren’t a Militia unless the state you’re in declares you to be so – in writing. And you have to be under the direction and limitations prescribed by your state government – certainly not as prescribed by yourselves. That’s just how we roll in this country.

Indeed, our Militias are now called the National Guard, like the Michigan National Guard and the Kentucky National Guard. You guys aren’t any state’s National Guard. You get that, right?

You aren’t well regulated, as required by the Second Amendment. In fact, you aren’t regulated at all. Being regulated would require civilian government oversight, regulation and a clear chain of command to the governor, and you don’t have any of that.

In fact, you are a perfect example of what is not patriotic. The New York Times is publishing a series of essays on “The Danger Within,” as in: domestic terrorism. That’s you. The first essay is Political Violence Is Threatening Our Democracy. Click the title and read the post and learn how un-American your actions actually are.

Look, just face the fact that your veneer of freedom loving patriotism has been scratched off. We know who you are and what you do and no amount of self-puffing is going to turn you into what the Second Amendment requires. Intimidating voters and pedestrians with your weapons and black ski masks and camo pants and boots and marching in military columns won’t make you a militia or a patriot. You’re just a bunch of pissed off guys skulking around in the woods pretending to be Rambo.

Doing your pretend Special Forces playacting will make you and keep you an enemy of the state, of the red, white and blue. It will make you a threat to innocent people who have done you no harm, nor have they done harm to anyone else or to our nation. Yours is the very stuff of bullying.

It never occurred to the Founding Fathers that any citizen would take up semi-automatic firearms and threaten our state capitols, our polling places and the Capitol Building itself in DC in an act of insurrection. They couldn’t have envisioned a bunch of huffing and puffing thugs making death threats to grannies counting votes or to any elected official who doesn’t toe your line. You’re an embarrassment to the Constitution you pretend to be protecting and defending.

But you don’t have to be that.

Fellow Kari Lake vote denialists displaying their gullibility and their complete lack of evidence.

You can stand down. You can take meaning from the 2022 election and its repudiation of extremist candidates and extremism itself. You can join the tens of millions of Americans who voted for our rights to be restored and protected, including the right not to be intimidated or harmed by you. If you were to do that, you could be – you just might become – a patriot. Red, white and blue all over.

Come to think of it, here’s a note for the 170 members of Congress who cheered on and were apologists for the January 6 insurrectionists:

Each of you could become a patriot, too. All you’ll need is a spinal implant (so you’ll actually be able to stand for something constitutional and decent) and a brain transplant (you know why).

From the most unlikely source on integrity:

“One of the most indelible lessons of human history is that those who adopt the doctrine that the end justifies the means inevitably find the means become the end.” –  Richard Nixon

Speaking of Integrity

As of this writing it is not clear which party will be in the majority in the House of Representatives and it matters who’s in charge. Here’s why.

If the House comes to be Republican controlled, Republicans will enthusiastically revert to being the Party of No. They have said publicly that they have no policies and no positions other than to accuse and criticize. They propose no solutions to our very real problems. They offer only their intransigence to anything even remotely associated with any Democrat, so they will proudly stymie all progress.

If Republicans are in the majority in the House beginning in January, set your expectations to literally nothing getting done for the next two years. Then expect Republicans to criticize the President and all Democrats for nothing having gotten better.

Integrity. It’s just so confusing for some people.

Just Sayin’

I’ve had this perverse notion that all Democrats who lost an election for any office this cycle should band together in a Stop the Steal Movement. They’ll claim there was massive voter fraud and declare themselves the winners of their elections. Each will file a lawsuit against their Republican opponent and their election officials. They’ll demand a recount, an apology from the law-flouting vote counters and a mea culpa from the phony Republican winners, along with a nice box of chocolates and a hand written note of contrition.

One more thing. We’ll send a nya-nya Hallmark card to Trump for his infantile blaming of Melania for telling him to endorse New Jersey candidate hoping to be a senator from Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz. What a weenie!

Just sayin’.

PS

I closed my Twitter accounts, as promised. What message have you sent to extremist promoting Elon Musk?

————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Dracula Today


Now it’s your turn.

Bad Moon

John Fogarty and Credence Clearwater Revival sang about it decades ago, perhaps prescient about the dangers that surround us today.

I see a bad moon rising
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightning 
I see bad times today
    
Don't go around tonight 
 'Cause it's bound to take your life
There's a bad moon on the rise

I always needed an interpreter to understand Fogarty’s words. For example, I thought he said that there’s a bad moon “on the right,” not “on the rise.” If he had sung it the way I heard it, he’d be exactly right for today’s America, although his way is pretty accurate, too.

That bad moon on the right brings hatred, lies, hypocrisy, lost integrity and an imminent threat to our very democracy and threats of violence and death to our fellow citizens. But you know that, just as Fogarty seems to have known it in my misinterpretation of that line in his song.

We have 6 days left to stop that bad moon on the right and make the difference that must be made.

American Psychosis

Yes, of course we’re psychotic. That’s what explains all the reality denial and our pronounced sociopathy, like that self-deluded thug smashing Paul Pelosi’s head with a hammer. We’ve been down this Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole many times and somehow we’ve survived it. All we had to do was to tolerate the death and destruction and voilà! everything was just fine again.

Like the Civil War, when half the country violated its sacred word, violated its oath and attacked the other half of our country. We only had to tolerate over 600,000 dead and many times that number wounded, hobbled, disfigured for life or insane.

Like over 86 years of Jim Crow lynchings – 4,743 of them according to the NAACP – and those are just the documented lynchings. And, of course, there was the terrorizing of millions.

Like the hatred and violence unleashed on various immigrant groups, like the Catholics, Irish, Italian, Chinese and Jews.

That’s just some of what we’ve tolerated.

See Note 5 and the final graphic below.

In David Corn’s book American Psychosis he recounts the cruelty and flagrant dishonesty of America’s alcoholic senator, Eugene McCarthy (R-WI). A fellow senator, Millard Tydings (D-MD), described McCarthy’s claim about the State Department being infested with communists, saying his charges were “a hoax perpetuated on . . . the American people” and “perhaps the most nefarious campaign of half-truths and untruth in the history of the Republic.”

Nevertheless, Republicans back then “viewed McCarthy as a potent weapon to deploy against Democrats.” McCarthy supported “a popular revolt against the upper classes,” and “accused the Truman administration and Democrats of being traitors to America. He had no evidence, only accusations.” Put a bookmark in that: no evidence, only accusations.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was campaigning for the presidency in 1952 and was to give a speech in Milwaukee. Included was a paragraph excoriating fellow Republican McCarthy, the insanity of McCarthyism and the spinelessness of the followers of his hatred. That paragraph said that to believe McCarthy was to believe that the government was being run by “men whose very brains were confused buy the opiate of this deceit,” meaning the deceit of McCarthy.

But Eisenhower needed Wisconsin votes, so he never spoke those words in public. In fact, even as he deplored McCarthy, he remained silent for years about McCarthy’s hypocrisy and the cruelty he set upon good Americans and the very fabric of American values. Even the Supreme Court took a swing at what we profess to be our values by ruling that the First Amendment did not cover communists. Surely you’re seeing the parallels to today.

Trump is our McCarthy, the liar, the manipulator, the hatred spewer, the accuser of wild conspiracies without evidence. So, too, are his imitators, suck-ups and opportunists for votes who are doing the same thing, just as happened in the 1950s.

Were Sen. Tydings alive today we surely could show him what a real hoax on the American People can look like. He’d have a new take on “perhaps the most nefarious campaign of half-truths and untruth in the history of the Republic,” the Nazi-MAGA scourge.

Like the Civil War, lynchings and McCarthyism, our present psychosis – our blood sucking Dracula, in Halloween-speak – will not go away on its own. We’ve already tolerated too much death and destruction and America’s Dracula will continue to attack us and suck the life out of this republic until we take action.

This national vampire must be fought into a coffin and a stake driven through its foul heart so that it can’t drain all the blood from America. That’s what you’re going to do next Tuesday.

From Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) yesterday:

But I’m also sad this violence [against Paul and Nancy Pelosi] isn’t more surprising — just as I wasn’t surprised by January 6th.  This is what happens when we’re taught that those who disagree with us are existential threats to our survival; when we label our own tribe good and the other evil; when we fail to call out the bad behavior of our own “side” out of loyalty or denial.

We’re hearing calls of sympathy, empathy and caring for the Pelosi’s from Democrats. The Republicans are made of other stuff and prominent individuals are making up horrible conspiracy stories, they’re blaming the victim and refusing even a hint of concern for the Pelosi’s. Likewise, they haven’t concern for any of the Democrats or their families who receive a near constant stream of death threats prompted by Republicans’ dreadful demonizing. Republican politicians can’t even muster a, “Sorry that happened to you.”

Think about that when you go to vote on Tuesday. Think, “A stake through its heart.”

————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Hypocrisy Runs Deep


Click me

Did you reach out to help the United Way of Lee County Florida so they can help the people devastated by Hurricane Ian? The fine folks at Fifth Third Bank are stepping up big time, too. Read about it here.

Caution: The font in the report is Lilliputian. Find your BIGGER button before attempting to read it.

Tweeting Republicans

This is adapted from the Buffalo Springfield song For What It’s Worth.

    • Hypocrisy sure strikes deep.
    • Into your life it will creep.
    • Starts when you’re always afraid.
    • Step out of line the man come and tweet you away.
  • .
    • Think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound?
    • Everybody knows what’s going down.

Here’s what’s going down – from Mother Jones Daily of October 10:

Referring to Black people as “the people who do the crime.” Yep, that’s straight from a sitting senator’s mouth. Vowing to put Donald Trump in the White House [regardless of the actual vote count] if he wins Nevada’s secretary of state race next month .  .  . Republican nominee Jim Marchant promised to do exactly that. Asserting that abortion decisions belong to “gentlemen” state lawmakers. Step right up, it’s New Hampshire’s Republican candidate for Senate, Don Bolduc.

And here’s what’s going down per The New York Times “The Morning” of October 11:

Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, attacked the Jewish school that his opponent, Josh Shapiro, attended, alarming Jewish voters.

The Los Angeles City Council president resigned from her leadership post after leaked audio captured her making racist remarks.

These guys and the other 295 Big Lie Republican candidates running for office this year under the LIES R US flag know better, just as the Republican senators knew better when they voted not-guilty in both of Trump’s impeachment trials. Those poor dears were always afraid that the man would come and tweet them away. That would be bad for them, so they asked, “What oath of office?”

Don’t forget all the Republican lawmakers who voted to kill Biden’s bills and who are now hypocritically bragging about bringing home the bacon to their states and districts.

Hypocrisy runs deep – and all it takes is the threat of a tweet.

What About Rural Women?

Republicans love and honor women, they tell us, except when it comes to being in charge of their own bodies. And this story gets worse.

A recent STAT report detailed “maternity care deserts,” a March Of Dimes term, offering some startling information:

39% of all U.S. counties are “maternity care deserts,” defined as “any county without a hospital or birth center offering obstetric care and without any obstetric providers.” And that number is getting worse.

We have “the highest maternal mortality rate among comparable wealthy countries.”

” .  .  . states with strict abortion bans have a higher percentage of residents living in maternity care deserts.”

They go on to say,

“It seems ironic that you would both create a system where people were sometimes forced to remain pregnant and forced to give birth, and that in those very same places, there would be a disinvestment in the health care facilities to care for people having babies.”

Let’s see, Republicans want to completely eliminate abortion services regardless of rape, incest or health of the mother, and at the same time leave them with no maternal care. Plus, they’re continuing to try to pull the plug on the Affordable Care Act and leave many of these women unable to afford healthcare even if they were able to find it.

  • And most of these at-risk, under-served women are in
  • rural  red states.

So, the answer from Republicans to the question, “What about rural women?” is, “We Republicans don’t care about you at all.”

Hypocrisy runs deep.

Hypocrisy Becomes Scum

You hear the lies, distortions and grievances all the time, but righties have found a new way to bamboozle voters.

The pic to the right is of the North Cook (as in: Cook County IL) News. It is an 8-page rag that has shown up uninvited in my mailbox for a couple of weeks. Despite its appearance, it is not a newspaper and it is not news. It is far right propaganda disguised as journalism.

Here are the titles of some of the articles:

[Gov.] Pritzker family, Lurie Children’s Hospital promote ‘gender and sex development experiments’ to Illinois public schools

[53rd District State Representative candidate] Vrett says his upport [sic] of law enforcement key distinction from opponent

‘Kink,’ ‘BDSM,’ and ‘trans-friendly’ sex toys for Illinois school children?

Pritzker suffocates free speech (opinion)

This trash comports with MAGA lunacy claiming that Democrats are homicidal perverts and are against law enforcement. In its pimpiness it’s worthy of a Lee Atwater or Roger Stone* scumbag award.

Hypocrisy runs deep.

But It Isn’t Universal

Have a look at Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-IL) “2022 Defenders of Democracy.” The people on his list are singled out and endorsed, not because of party or policy notions, but because they, “put country over party and will uphold their oaths to defend democracy — no matter what.”

There are others like them. Seek them out, support their candidacies and vote for them.

Hypocrisy Smack Down

From Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American, October 12, 2022, responding to MAGA claims that the Alex Jones defamation case was about free speech and political persecution:

” .  .  .  the First Amendment to the Constitution protects us only from the government silencing us. It does not stop legal responsibility for damage our words cause, for which Jones has been found liable. A jury—not the government—has assigned the $965 million award to those whose lives Jones harmed.”

Hooray for truth, justice and the American way!

Finally

I’ve said many times that I’m an Eisenhower Republican. Here’s why (pic courtesy of JN).

Note that this doesn’t mention Ike leading us to invest in our infrastructure, like building the Interstate Highway System. I like that stuff – so do you – but today’s Republican blabbers don’t.

My, how conservatism has changed!

——————————–

* From Robert Reich in a fund raiser email for MoveOn.Org October 16, 2022:

Last week, new video was leaked of Roger Stone in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election encouraging Donald Trump to declare victory no matter the results. He ended his speech by saying, “F*ck the voting. Let’s get right to the violence.” ª

Last month, Donald Trump threatened that there will be a revolt, “the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen,” if he is indicted. º

Weeks before that, Senator Lindsey Graham made clear that there “will be riots in the streets,” if Trump is held accountable for stealing our country’s secrets. ¨

And all of these statements come on the heels of Republicans declaring, “When does the shooting start?” “Summertime was made for killing fields.” “We’re at war!” in the aftermath of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. ˜,*

Sources:

ª “‘Let’s get right to the violence:’ New documentary film footage shows Roger Stone pre-Election Day,” CNN, September 27, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/168969?t=8&akid=335815%2E56840332%2Evm4I3n

º “Trump warns of ‘big problems’ if indicted, says he’d still run for office,” The Washington Post, September 15, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/168028?t=10&akid=335815%2E56840332%2Evm4I3n

¨ “Graham Predicts ‘Riots in the Streets’ if Trump Is Prosecuted,” The New York Times, August 29, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/168029?t=12&akid=335815%2E56840332%2Evm4I3n

 ˜,* “The House G.O.P. is rallying around Trump after the F.B.I. search.” The New York Times, August 9, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/165489?t=14&akid=335815%2E56840332%2Evm4I3n

————————————

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Mostly Serious – Part Two


This is a continuation of the Mostly Serious- Part One post of October 9, 2022.

Page 4: This Isn’t New, But

The Russians and the Saudis just decided to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day. That will lower world supply, driving prices higher, which you will feel every time you fill your gas tank. We’ve done this dance with oil producers many times and we always get our feet stomped on. Same thing when the gouging comes from our domestic refiners. Think: Arab oil boycott in the 70s and price gouging this year.

In addition, many people have noticed that there probably is something to the claims of over 97% of international climate scientists who say that we humans are the biggest contributors to global warming. That’s leading to things like vastly more destructive hurricanes (I know you noticed that), droughts of Biblical proportions, rising sea levels that will flood coastal cities and more.

What that means is that drilling to produce more oil to lower costs probably isn’t a good solution to anything except more profit for the fossil fuel industry companies in the short term and ever worsening ecological disasters for all of us. Good news! We’re not required to be that, hmmm, what’s the word? – oh yeah: Self-destructive.

Maybe it’s a good time to start weaning ourselves off our dedication to self-destruction. We could do things like:

    • Start a massive program to install solar collectors on every roof and wind farms everywhere it’s windy.
    • Start upgrading our electric grid.
    • Make big incentives for people to replace their gas guzzlers with electric cars.
    • Begin construction of a huge number of charging stations.
    • Incrementally shut down coal and oil fired power stations.
    • Fund ongoing research to produce better power generation and storage.

You get the idea: Initiate a Manhattan Project to bring this country into the 21st century. Sooner or later we’re going to do this because we have to; otherwise we, our kids and grandchildren are gonna die.

I’m completely serious about all of that.

“If we want to make a difference, we need to maximize our energy security, national security and economic security, all at once. The only way to do that effectively is to incentivize our market to produce a stable and secure supply of energy with the lowest possible emissions at the lowest possible costs as fast as possible.

“The only truly effective way to do that is with a strong price signal – either taxes on dirty stuff or incentives for clean stuff – plus steadily increasing clean energy standards for power generation .  .  .  “

Page 5: A Final Serious Note

Republicans are fighting progress with all the hypocrisy they can muster, and they  can muster a lot of it. They excoriate Biden and Democrats for inflation, including high gas prices, but produce not even one idea to combat it. With blithe disregard for victims of global warming events they indifferently mumble something about “thoughts and prayers.” That probably won’t help the people in Lee County FL, any more than their thoughts and prayers have helped mass shooting victims anywhere. And they continue to support the candidacy of mentally scrambled Herschel Walker because for them it’s Power Uber Alles.

From Dana Loesch, former spokesperson for the NRA:

“I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”

From David Corn of Mother Jones:

” .  .  .  how much does it matter if a Republican says he or she is a conservative, moderate, or liberal, if he or she believes Barack Obama was born in Kenya, the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, and Democrats are scheming pedophiles?

“The polling numbers on these reality-free propositions for Republicans .  .  . are 40, 50, 60 percent.”

“This is not an ideological polarization. It is a divide over reality and rationality.”

Which is all about grabbing power at the expense of all higher brain functions. Minority rule.

Tell me you’re getting this.

Too many Americans are sleep walking in a metaphorical democracy fire. The fire trucks are at the ready in the firehouse, but they’re just sitting there with nobody at the wheel, even as the 911 phone is screaming its alarm, the huge bell is clanging, sirens are wailing and everywhere flames are scorching the halls of democracy.

WAKE UP!

.

If you’re already awake, jab an elbow into the ribs of the people on your right and on your left to wake them up. It’s time for all of us to climb aboard the fire engine to answer the call of democracy.

All of us should be serious about that.

“The times have found us.” – Thomas Paine

————————————

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

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