Fascism

A Message For Our Time


POST 1214

Where We Left Off On Sunday

From John Pavlovitz’s September 12 post, The Shameful Christian Idolatry and Fraudulent Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk:

“Kirk has left a hateful, dehumanizing legacy of words that Conservative Christians are either choosing to ignore in their zeal to canonize him, or they simply share his racist, phobic, misogynist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, supremacist sentiments, and in Trump’s garish, Jesus-less remodeling of the Christian faith in America, now imagine them righteous.”

“Jesus’ central command was to love. How exactly did Kirk love immigrants and people of color and women and Trans teens and Muslims and Democrats and atheists?”

Read Pavlovitz’s full comments here. And refer to the footnote in my Sunday post for accurate descriptors of Kirk. Then you won’t be too quick to canonize this man who was full of messianic delirium and hatred for anyone not precisely like himself. He infected our young people with his charismatic thumping, but Kirk is no martyr for Jesus. Maybe he just smoked too much of his own weed, swam in his own juice, sang his own songs until they were all he recognized. Elmer Gantry was delirious over the delusion of the faithful, too.

The young were fooled too easily by Kirk. It is important that we help them to be un-fooled and that we ourselves not be fooled by any charlatan.

Wait.

Is mine the lefty “savage rhetoric” Trump says led to Kirk’s death? Am I one whom Trump has vowed to go after, one “who contributed to this atrocity” even in my ignorance of Kirk?

I repeat that before the murder I knew nothing of Charlie Kirk and never spoke of or wrote about him. But Trump’s cosplay Wild West retribution macho-ness likely won’t differentiate my former ignorance from some imagined “savage rhetoric,” so woe be unto me for whatever it is I didn’t do, because Trump is way, way through the looking glass and my ignorance will be no defense.

“Off with my head!” will the Putin puppet king demand, needing a constant river of blood for his unquenchable thirst. He’s like the mad king in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, maniacally gouging hearts from chests.

Given Trump’s continuing willingness to be played by Putin, do you think Putin really has Trump’s pee tapes? Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s just Trump’s paranoia exacerbated by his dementia. Regardless, Trump is gleefully dismantling everything good about America, including cancer research and our individual health.

Did I mention something about charlatans? We should never allow a charlatan to have any power.

Where Are The Heroes?

As we approach Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of a Jewish new year and a wake up call to the realities of life and death, retired Rabbi Rami imagined how he would lead services and offered this closing:

A period of silent meditation will follow our discussion, after which I will distribute shofarot (ram’s horns), each with a taped message inspired by the one Woody Guthrie attached to his guitars in the mid-1940s: THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS. Ours would say, THIS HORN FIGHTS FASCISM. Those who are able would step outside to blow the horn and wake the neighborhood to the threat of fascism, while those unable to walk would do the same inside. The entire service would last no more than two hours and conclude with a communal shout of “In a place without heroes, be a hero!” – Rabbi Hillel

If Rabbi Rami has it right, in these most fraught of times, with danger and the promise of rising evil all about, when we desperately need heroes, how will you be a hero?

Give that some thought and post your notions – your promise to yourself and to the people you love – in the Comments section below to clarify your own thinking, to stimulate others’ thinking and to inspire people who need inspiration. That would be all of us.

To be clear, this invitation isn’t about being Jewish. In fact, it isn’t about religion at all. It is about the realities and threats to our lives right now, both individually, communally and nationally. It is about recognizing the dangers to our deepest values and the need for us to step up, to hear and respond to the clarion call to duty.

How will you be a hero?
  • Mid-Term Election
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Who and What We Are


POST 1213

With Sad and Angry Regret, John Lewis

Nope, we’re not better than this.

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

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

Click me and read the whole text.

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

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

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

Click me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This ain’t bean bag.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Mid-Term Election
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Today’s American Crisis


POST 1210

I wrote recently asking, Can We Drop The Pretenses and Denial Now? Clearly, I’m not the only one sounding the reality alarm, the point of which is to make clear that we are not in danger of some advancing fascism: we’re in it.

It’s poisoning us, our country, our children and the world with lies and cruelty and the theft of all we hold dear. “The cruelty is the point,” we’ve been told, and we’re too late to prevent that. But we aren’t powerless. We can take action to create the America we believe in, the one where you have full rights, where nobody can snatch you off the street and disappear you, where your children can see a good future for themselves and their children.

Chris Armitage wrote the playbook for what we know in our bones is right and good and actionable in his piece, I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%.

That’s right: zero percent. Once entrenched, fascism lasts for miserable generation after miserable generation. Armitage documents that clearly and when you read his post you’ll know he’s right. This is one of the most frightening and realistic things I’ve read about our plight. It is oddly also one of the most hopeful.

Thomas Paine

His message is today’s version of Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis*. You’ve known Paine’s clarion call to action since you were in high school. The first pamphlet in his series urging that we become an independent America, free from the whims of a mad king, begins, “THESE [sic] are the times that try men’s souls.”

Paine was right then and, indeed, our souls are severely tried again today. We are threatened every minute of every day by a king wannabee who is mad and cruel and who has surrounded himself with sycophants to rule over you for only their own benefit.

This is not a time for “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot,” but a time for We The People to take bold and courageous action. It is time for us to break free from the mesmerizing of baseball and football games, from the vapidity of unreal TV reality shows and from the rest of the escapes from our actual reality. It’s time for us to stand strong with new, powerful and deeply American action.

You need to read Armitage’s post. He’ll make clear what We The People can do. His paper is longer than most things you read and it is vital throughout. Read it. We The People need every member of your family to read it, too, including your crazy Uncle Bubba and Aunt Shoo-Shoo. We need your neighbors, your senators and your representative to read it.

Or we can wallow in the swamp of permanent powerlessness, subjected to the cruelty of mad despots. But we don’t want that. And we know that preventing that perversion of America won’t happen by wishing it away.

We are the people Emma Lazarus wrote about, the ones welcomed by the Statue of Liberty and by Lazarus’ words emblazoned on that bronze lady. We’re the people “yearning to breathe free.” It is up to us to ensure that we and all who count on us will, indeed, breathe free.

Read Armitage’s clarion call. Now.

Reality Quotes
    • Trump has murdered the concept of facts and truth. He has replaced both with a sick dogma, which has, at its core, a terrible truth: what is true is what Trump and his minions declare it to be.
    • Steve Schmidt, Clarity and Conviction, September 1, 2025

Reading together from page 1 of our Citizen Manual, “Nuh-uh. Not okay with us.”

    • Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.
  • John F. Kennedy
  • And that is why we must wake up to the possibilities that Chris Armitage details.

Full disclosure: I don’t know Chris Armitage. Until reading this essay I had never heard of him. I receive no value whatsoever for promoting his essay to you except the pleasure of perhaps making a smidgen of a difference for the betterment of us all.

Anticipatory Regret

What with the obvious physical and mental decline of Trump, my mind wandered to the national tradition of the honoring of dead presidents with a funeral procession. In my mind’s eye I can see the rolling caisson carrying the flag-draped casket of the deceased and the beautiful black stallion, riderless, with polished boots backward in the stirrups. I can see the military in their dress uniforms standing rigidly at attention and the flag hanging sadly at half staff. I can see a black clad widow standing forlornly as the procession passes.

I want none of that for Trump. He deserves none of the tradition and honoring. Plus, I don’t believe that Melania would shed a tear for this faithless man. But it will happen that Trump will be honored in this traditional way because that is what we do, regardless of his incompetence, malfeasance and treachery.

Perhaps it will be a positive thing for us, as we revive a cherished tradition for We The People. This is a time when most of our cherished traditions have been thrown to the dirt and awful people with dirty hearts have wiped their dirty shoes on them.

Perhaps Trump will die in his prison cell where he’s incarcerated for his conviction on 34 felony counts, where his sentence for theft of top secret materials and another sentence for his role in the January 6 insurrection will run concurrently for the next 30 years. If so, it will be bizarre to honor him with our tradition for presidents. I will regret that parade.

There was no traditional funeral procession upon the death of Richard Nixon; just a private ceremony. Perhaps Trump, yet another criminal president, will have the decency to do the same.

Nah. What was I thinking? That kind of decency could never come from Trump.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Those who cannot remember the past
  • are condemned to repeat it.
  • George Santayana, 1905
  • Keep Santayana’s words in mind
  • as you consider
  • the horrors of past fascisms.
  • Nothing so soon destroys freedom
  • as cowardly and servile acquiescence.
  • Clarence Darrow, 1941

    _________________________________________________

    * Paine’s essay was written in a day when people’s attention span had not yet been truncated by both an avalanche of information and the enslavement of us by electronic devices. He got away with publishing an essay that is several times the length of these Disambiguation posts. And the people read them.

  • I urge you to read The American Crisis to reconnect yourself in a most visceral way to the real America that you long for.

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

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

The News


POST 1209

First, a Feel-Good

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next, Bang Bang!

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

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

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

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

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

Last, Some Hopeful Stuff

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

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

And we can do that.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Whoever is careless with truth in small matters
  • cannot be trusted in important affairs
  • Albert Einstein, 1979
  • The truth does not change
  • according to our ability
  • to stomach it emotionally.
  • Flannery O’Connor
  • Mid-Term Election
    Countdown Timer
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

ICYMI*


POST 1208

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

The BBBB

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Robert Reich:

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

That is Trump’s private fascist army.

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

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

The Posse Of Destruction Makes It Worse

From The Onion. Click me

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

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

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

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

That has dire consequences for your freedom.

The Final Manipulation

From Wikipedia:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First, a definition: autocracy = dictatorship

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

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

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

Got it?

A Question About Our Self-Debasement Into Fascism

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

Here’s the question:

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

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

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

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

___________________________________________________

* In case you missed it.

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

A Start


POST 1207

Congress

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

Blast From The Past

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

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

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

Voting Rights

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

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

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

Finally – as in: At Last

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

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

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • It is against Stupidity in every shape and form
  • that we have to wage our eternal battle.
  • William Booth, 1890
  • Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist
  • while you react to life on his own terms.
  • Elizabeth Bowen,1938
    Mid-Term Election
    Countdown Timer
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Can We Drop The Pretenses and Denial Now?


POST 1205

It’s About One Thing and One Thing Only

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

Click me for the story.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can we drop the pretenses and denial now?

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Address of August 14*

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

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

The Staples Singers

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

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

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

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

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

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Truth is on
  • the march
  • and nothing
  • can stop it
  • Émile Zola, 1898
  • We must always take sides.
  • Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
  • Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
  • Elie Wiesel, in Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 1986
  • _______________________________________________
  • * Watch the entire session. This is what you’ve longed to hear. It will fill your heart and stiffen your spine with resolve.
  • Mid-Term Election
    Countdown Timer
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Inside-Out, Upside-Down


POST 1204

The CDC Shooting – Domestic Terrorism

A deranged soldier in the war on sanity opened fire at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, killing a police officer. Apparently, the shooter was killed by police, halting his threat to others.

The shooter was vehemently anti-vaxx, as encouraged by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert “Brain Worm, Dead Bear” Kennedy. Here’s a piece of a STAT report on the violence.

Former surgeon general Jerome Adams writes in a First Opinion essay that the shooting “is not an isolated event,” but rather “a dire reflection of ever-escalating threats public health workers face in a climate increasingly shaped by misinformation, politicization, and inflammatory rhetoric.” Read the essay.

Adams is a master of understatement. Imagine being a public health worker, committed to protecting the health of all of us, and some MAGA pea brain and others like him want to kill you because of your life of service to them and others. Like a lot in America today, this is inside-out, upside-down.

The Trumpstein* Catastrophe

I remember my high school biology teacher standing behind the lab table that stood at the front of the room and served as his desk. It had a black stone top, on which he had placed a recently deceased frog, which obediently lay in repose on its back.

My teacher then inserted an electrical probe into the top of one leg muscle – the frog’s, not his own – and the dead frog’s leg jerked out suddenly, just as it had when he was alive and on the move. The probe was removed and the extended leg retracted back to the relaxed position. My teacher then repeated the procedure and out stretched Mr. Frog’s leg once again. Then teacher gave him a zap again and again, but something was changing. Before long the leg extensions were far less powerful and at last the leg failed to respond to stimulus at all. Tough day for Froggy.

The point, of course, was to demonstrate a declining response to repeated stimulus and today we are in danger of being the frog. We are overwhelmed by Trump’s continuing insults to our values, our culture, our Constitution and the very structure of what keeps us safe. Worse, we are at risk of reacting less enthusiastically to his outrages, like:

firing the messenger who brought him bad labor numbers

moving pedophile sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to a country club prison

lying about economic and jobs numbers

arranging to meet Putin on American soil (no way he’ll extradite war criminal Putin to the International Criminal Court, where there’s an arrest warrant for him for kidnapping, murdering civilians and lots more) and refusing to include President Zelenskyy in the “peace talks,” which really are Ukraine surrender talks

organizing and expanding his Gestapo to arrest people with no warrant and no probable cause

making appointments to positions of power for nothing but talent-less Trump suck ups

creating global economic chaos with bi-polar tariffs and no-deal deals

There’s more every day. Little wonder some of us have a case of over-stimulated frog leg syndrome.

Our failure to respond to his outrages, though, is exactly what Trump wants. He wants his every day idiocies to distract us from his more serious crimes, like bringing down our way of life and replacing it with fascism, with Trump as Der Führer. And, of course, he’s binging on feeding us distractions from the Trumpstein Catastrophe.

Don’t take his bait. Don’t ever let him beat you into exhausted submission to his brutality and his inside-out, upside-down cruelty. Flip yourself over on your personal mental health lab table and hop to the job we all must do. Which leads to this.

Knife Fights

I quoted Patty Vasquez in my last post, and with good reason. Gotta come back to her today. Here are a couple of paragraphs from her August 11 post.

Democrats Finally Stop Bringing Spoons to a Knife Fight:
.

[Trump] doesn’t just break the rules. He forces everyone else to break them too. He makes corruption look like the only rational response to corruption. He turns defending democracy into an argument for abandoning democratic principles.

The Texas Democrats hiding in Illinois didn’t want to flee their state. They wanted to do their jobs, represent their constituents, and follow the rules. But Trump made that impossible. He turned governing into a hostage situation where the only choice was collaboration or exile.

Trump is polluting our entire culture with his inside-out, upside-down distortion of reality and the undermining of the principles we used to live by. THAT is why we must fight.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner

Our regular feature is joined today by two folk offerings from We The Folks. Click through each and enjoy the clever work of people speaking out with just enough Trump deconstruction snark to fit this space and make you smile. Then enjoy the historical wisdom that breathes yet today.

  • Click me

  • Click me

  • I decline utterly to be impartial
  •  as between the fire brigade and the fire.
  • Winston Churchill, 1926
  • Stand with anybody that stands right.
  • Stand with him while he is right,
  • and part with him when he goes wrong.
  • Abraham Lincoln, 1854

________________________________________________

* Credit to Keith Olbermann for the term

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

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Pharaohs


POST 1203

Who’s the Pharaoh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because now Trump is an American pharaoh.
.

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Let the produce rot in the fields

– Let building construction grind to a halt

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

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

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

Let my people go!

Who The Other Side Is

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

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

Medical News

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

Stupidococcus Stupidoniae
.

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

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

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

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

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Office tends to confer a dreadful plausibility
  •  on even the most negligible of those who hold it.
  • Mark Lawson 1992
  • Among all the diseases of the mind
  • there is not one more epidemical
  • or more pernicious than the love of flattery.
  • Richard Steele, 1711
  • Mid-Term Election
    Countdown Timer
    Goes fast, doesn’t it?
    .

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

On Not Being a D*ck – v3.0


POST 1202

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

Emergency

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

The Trumpstein Catastrophe

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

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

But Trump didn’t answer that key question.

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

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

Listen to Keith Olbermann’s comments about this here.

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

  • The Real Reason

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Justice Samuel Alito

    Justice Clarence Thomas

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

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

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

– Prof. Scott Galloway, June 20, 2025

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

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA

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


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

1 2 3 … 40  Scroll to top