Disambiguation from the political and social musings of Jack Altschuler

Fascism

Three Questions, One Answer and A Snow Job


1. Question

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was widely praised for standing up to President Trump by refusing to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump.

Question: When did the bar get set so low that just refusing to commit a felony was cause for praise and celebration?

2  Question

The end of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution reads:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the end of their next Session. [emphasis mine]

Question: Trump has been allowed to appoint “acting” secretaries of Executive departments and avoid Senate scrutiny for nearly all of his presidency. Why weren’t his unconfirmed picks challenged when their clocks ran out?

3. A Question and An Answer

How is it that thousands of Americans rioted, defacing and violating the people’s seat of government and threatening murder, yet they see themselves as true patriots, even as they were clearly violating the Constitution and the law?

I have at least a partial answer for that one: These people have grievances that are very real to them. You might not like or agree with all of them, but they are powerful for these people.

For example, they really dislike being insulted and dismissed as “deplorables” by “elites.” They respond to that dumping of humiliation exactly as you would. And they most certainly don’t like being lied to, especially by people with a lot of money, which includes members of Congress, as they see it.

For decades politicians have been promising to bring back good jobs, the manufacturing jobs that pay well and allow for a solid middle class life for them and their families. Instead, they’ve watched as town after town lost their strongest employers and their towns became boarded up shells of what they once were.

It’s a huge impact on them to have their economic security undermined. They’re just like you in wanting to be self-sufficient and not needing to be dependent on others. I was reminded of that recently when I delivered a neighborhood collection of groceries to the local food bank. One of the workers told me how humiliated people feel when they have become dependent on handouts to feed their families.

You won’t like the next example.

Over their lifetimes these angry people have seen the increase in power and status for non-whites, women, religious minorities and concessions made to immigrants. To white men viewing everything through a zero-sum lens, that means less power, status and opportunity for them. They see the superior position that they believe is rightfully theirs being compromised and incrementally being taken away.

Yes, that’s racist, misogynist and xenophobic. But it’s threatening to these people and a powerful inducement to rebel. For additional clarification, refer to The American Civil War, which, clearly, isn’t over. We have to find better ways.

There’s far more, of course. Just get that people only act as they did on January 6 for powerful reasons and those reasons don’t include their being stupid. I urge you to read Thomas Edsall’s compilation of insights from expert thought leaders in his piece, “White Riot“.

As much as I insist on accountability, we urgently need to deal with our realities in more ways than just locking up the perps. We need to deal with the root causes of the anger and desperation that drive people to act in this most unpatriotic and dangerous way. Otherwise, we will be condemned to a never ending cycle of hate, violence and suffering.

4. A Snow Job

In the debate over the article of impeachment in the House of Representatives on January 13 I heard Republicans oppose it by invoking:

    • The Wright brothers (yes, really)
    • There is grievous harm being done to Republicans when they are confronted in public by meanies.
    • There was violence and vandalism done at BLM protests.
    • A list of imagined Trump good stuff was recited.
    • There were meanies who wanted Trump impeached from the beginning of his presidency.
    • Moon landings (yes, really)
    • Claims that Trump was cleared of conspiracy and extortion in the Ukraine affair (not true).
    • Claims that Trump was exonerated by the Mueller Report (not true).
    • Nancy Pelosi is a meanie.
    • Republicans are poor victims of a double standard. Woe is them. So unfair. They’re victims. Feel sorry for them. (Yes, they pretty much said those things.)
    • Swift justice is unfair.
    • This is a great country.
    • The economy.
    • Yeah, but Democrats are bad guys, too (the “false equivalence” and “dirty hands” defenses).
    • Trump didn’t conspire with the Russians.
    • Trump didn’t incite violence because all he did was to decry election fraud.
    • The bill of impeachment is a fraud against the people of the United States.
    • Impeachment will be divisive.
    • Trump wanted peaceful protest.
    • The protesters were peaceful. (Seriously, a duly elected congressman said this just days after the rioting mob was looking for him in order to kill him.)
    • There is illegal immigration going on.
    • BLM was founded by Marxists.
    • Democrats have encouraged and endorsed violence.
    • Democrats support defunding the police and taking everyone’s guns.
    • Republicans are victims.
    • We’re in a race to the bottom and we need to do better.
    • The president didn’t incite violence.
    • It’s time to put people over power.
    • This isn’t due process. (Actually, that’s correct, although dumb to say. Per the Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5, due process happens in the Senate.)
    • Can’t we all just get along? This needs to be a time of healing.
    • Democrats are hypocrites.
    • Impeachment will start us down the path of cleansing political speech.
    • Democrats have just realized that riots are bad.
    • We shouldn’t waste time on this and instead should get to work on issues for the American people.
    • There are only 7 days left in Trump’s term.
    • Impeachment will offend the people who voted for Trump.
    • This is just an effort to divide the nation.
    • Democrats are hypocrites.
    • None of the rioters has been asked if they rioted because the president told them to do so.
    • Impeachment is a political act.
    • Democrats are hypocrites – seriously, we really mean it, which is why we repeat ourselves.
    • Two wrongs [impeachments] don’t make a right.
    • Democrats oppose free speech.
    • Trump is pro-life and America First. Democrats hate that.
    • There is a double standard regarding people committing violence.
    • The other side only wants to attack and demean.
    • It’s not fair.
    • Democrat committee chairs lied; Republicans didn’t.
    • The assault on the Capitol was pre-planned, but that isn’t included in the articles of impeachment.
    • Trump did a lot to make America great.
    • We need to tone down the volume and heal the nation.
    • The Capitol police deserve our applause. (Actually, that line got applause.)
    • Many Lincoln quotes were quoted. (Nevertheless, he did not make an appearance.)
    • We should seek higher ground.

The old saying is that if the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither the facts nor the law is on your side, pound on the table.

The list above, all from Republican congresspeople, is nothing more than pounding on the table. A few statements might be true; still, they miss the point.

THE ONLY ISSUE before the House in this hearing was whether Donald Trump urged violent insurrection and sedition against the Constitution of the United States and whether he should be impeached for his actions. It was not about any of the distractions listed above.

Not even a single Republican congressman/woman opposed the impeachment on the merits. Not one.

.

With the exception of the 10 Representatives who stood strong for the Constitution, these whining Republicans haven’t the courage to call out the traitorous acts that put lives and our democracy at risk. Again. They violated their supposedly sacred oath of office to protect and defend. Again. They put on display their profound moral incompatibility with truth. Again. A 2016 word comes to mind to describe these representatives: deplorable. And I’m no elite.

Now conspiracy hangs in the air, as we begin to uncover evidence of members of Congress giving tours – reconnaissance missions – to insurrectionists the day before the insurrection, and of Capitol police opening doors and removing barricades for the intruders. As ugly as things are now, they are going to become far uglier.

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Best Quote

Thanks to NK for offering this:

“[2020 was] like looking both ways before crossing the
street and then getting hit by a submarine.”
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA

 


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

The Ledge


She tried to talk me off the ledge, but I only moved back a bit.

It was late in the afternoon and I was suiting up for walking the dog on a cold January day, muttering under my breath and slamming drawers that had done me no wrong.

“What’s the matter?” she asked in her gentle way.

“I’m mad as hell and not fit to be with. Please respect yourself by staying away from me. I’m so damned mad I’m trying to stay away from myself.”

She insisted on walking with me, so instead of grunting to myself as I walked the dog, I spoke mostly complete sentences.

I’m so goddamn mad that 4,000 of my countrymen are dying every day. President Doesn’t Give a Shit told us of his level of care directly, saying, “I’m not responsible for anything.” That comment was aimed specifically at anything having to do with our mass death pandemic, so of course I don’t expect any action from him to protect and defend the American people – you know, the ones dying at the rate of 4,000 per day?

But there’s a commission specifically tasked with distributing vaccines and getting them into the arms of Americans and now weeks after vaccines were available we’ve managed to vaccinate just 9 million people, while tens of millions more vaccine doses are sitting uselessly in freezers.

And 4,000 of us are dying every day. That’s one every 22 seconds. Go ahead – look at your watch or iPhone timer and count off the deaths. One every 22 seconds.

And every single one of those deaths is somebody’s mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or brother or sister or son or daughter or friend or co-worker or neighbor or the guy at the convenience store. Those who have died lost their lives. The survivors have lost their hearts.

And that goddamn incompetent distribution commission continues to bumble.

That’s why I’m furious.

Now President Burn It All Down has incited insurrection – sedition. He’s attempted to neuter the Congress, to violate every voter and take over the country in order to become a fascist dictator. His mobs have the same certainty that they are on the side of justice and what’s right, that they’re the true patriots and that God is on their side as does al Qaeda and ISIS and the World War II Nazis and the Hutu’s and Slobodan Milosevic’s army of ethnic cleansing thugs and all the rest of the genocidal maniacs.

This time the terrorists, the killers and the rampagers are our countrymen.

Our domestic terrorists believe they’re the true good guys because President Burn It All Down has told them so. He’s told them he loves them. Here’s what I’ll tell you.

We’ve always had our significant minority of citizens who hate, who dearly love to hate. I want to be bigger than this, but the truth is that right now I hate them. I fantasize about violently dragging those slimes off the walls of our Capitol Building and of beating the hell out of the vandals who beat the hell out our beautiful windows and doors of that building. I want to smash those who are trying to smash our Constitution.

My dad and 16.5 million of his generation served in the military in World War II. 405,399 of them died in Europe to end Nazism. On behalf of my dad and his compatriots in that awful war, our Greatest Generation says loud and clear that you goddamn neo-Nazis are an American disgrace. You are everything we know to be wrong.

That’s why I’m so damned angry.

In some ways what is even worse is the cabal of hypocritical, cowardly, manipulating cretins in Congress who have enabled and even encouraged the hate and violence, not out of some warped sense of patriotism, but for individual, stupidly selfish personal gain. We’ve known of their treachery for years and they have gotten away with it.

That’s why I’m livid.

The thing is, there are a lot of truly patriotic Americans on that ledge with me. That doesn’t ease my anger, but they and I know right from wrong and will not stand for anything less than full punishment for those who did these awful things. I expect that a lot of us will continue to be on that ledge until the balance of justice is restored.

Meanwhile, the domestic terrorists have promised more violence and hate in DC and in our state capitols this weekend and on Inauguration Day. So,

Memo to DHS, the National Guard and all the agencies that somehow managed to come out and beat the hell out of Black Lives Matter protesters last summer:

Show up and do your job this time. I don’t give a damn what President Doesn’t Give a Shit or Burn It All Down says to you. Do your goddam job.

On January 6 they failed us. They failed to do their job. Now the Capitol Building is desecrated and four more people are dead.

That’s why I’m on the ledge.

Late Additions

Three congressmen/women have tested positive for COVID-19 following their sheltering in the Capitol Building on January 6 with Republican congressmen/women who arrogantly, selfishly, stupidly refused to wear masks. They should be chained to the wall of the darkest, moldiest part of the basement of the Capitol Building and left there until they fervently apologize for their cruelty to others and swear to comply with the simple public health directions of the CDC for the duration of the pandemic.

Watch/listen to what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has to say about the attempted overthrow of our government.

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

Government Hall of Shame


While traitors attacked our democracy, we were killing 4,000 Americans with COVID-19 every day. Somehow, four 9/11s every three days – one gasping death every 22 seconds – got overshadowed. That’s how insane things are.

————————–

Be sure to read to the end for a poem for our time.

We start with the obvious.

Sedition – 18 U.S.C. § 2384:

“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”

Benedict Arnold

You could have stopped reading in the middle of the second line above at “conspire to overthrow,” because that’s what scheming to fraudulently reverse an election is. And the sedition guilt isn’t in the overthrowing; it’s in the conspiring. The conversation is all it takes to earn 20 years in prison. Still, feel free to be motivated by the “seize, take, or possess” part as well, and apply that to Trump’s incitement to riot, vandalize and seize the entire Capitol Building. Seriously, is there any part of this that isn’t clearly worthy of a Benedict Arnold award?

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State

If you take the time to read the transcript or listen to the audio recording of the phone call Trump placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last weekend (yes, that was just 8 days ago), you’ll hear Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows attempting to persuade, cajole, muscle and threaten Raffensperger into fabricating 11,780 votes in order to award the election to Trump. Attempting to overthrow an election and toss out the votes of millions of Americans is an affront to any sense of democracy and is illegal on its face.

So is inciting violence, beginning with calls to beat up protesters at his rallies starting in 2015 and his Charlottesville “good people on both sides” declaration in 2017. So is inciting people to riot, like inviting the Proud Boys and neo-Nazis to storm the Capitol Building during the recording of the Electoral College votes. His continuing shameful calls to violence were the training wheels for his calls to sedition on January 6. All of this whipping up of mobs is what fascists do. And, because this is a democracy, that’s why all of that is illegal.

How illegal, how un-American, how outrageous does a crime spree have to be until we at last say, “No more. Not now; not ever“? Failing to do so will invite far worse from the next megalomaniac to hoodwink our country.

So, shame on Trump, of course. But shame on us if we let him get away with his crimes.

—————————

The senators and congressmen listed below (someone called them the Sedition Congress – and no, there isn’t a “both sides” argument) promised to do all they can to subvert the will of the people by overturning a free and fair election. Each of them swore on a Bible to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, including some brand new legislators, whose very first official act in office was to betray their supposedly solemn oath. That happened after mutinous, faithless thousands stormed the Capitol Building to undermine our democracy.

Their claim of fraud is the very same non-existent fraud that Trump made up and blabbered all across MAGA-Land. It’s all fake. It’s all treachery. It’s all lies. And these Republicans broadcast those lies from the halls of the Congress of the United States.

There is speculation as to why these turncoats would stand up in Congress and declare to the world and for all history that they themselves are seditionists. I am certain that ignorance of reality is not the reason. They know that Trump lost the election fairly and that there was no fraud. The only way for them to weasel out of guilt for betraying our country is if they are truly delusional – mentally ill – and believe that elections are only valid if their preferred candidate wins. But contagious mental illness contracted only by Republicans just isn’t what’s going on.

January 6 , 2021, U.S. Capitol Building – The flag of treason, our lowest moment as Americans.

They want to avoid getting tweet-trashed by Trump before their next reelection campaign. That might avoid their getting primaried by a gold plated Trump suck up and that might help them to keep their jobs.

Theirs is a job that pays $174,000 per year and gets them free healthcare and free parking at Reagan National Airport. I hope our adversaries like Russia, Iran, North Korea and China don’t realize how cheap it would be to get these sell-outs to sell out.

They have turned their backs on the Constitution and their formerly sacred word. And they’ve done all that and worse for the self-serving possibility that Trump’s base will vote for them in their next election.

Is it any wonder that approval and respect for Congress is just 15%? That means that 85% of Americans disapprove of Congress. Now we know what it takes to get bipartisanship.

Here Are Your 2021 Government Hall of Shame Inductees
Heap Shame and Scorn Upon Them as Befits Their Absence of Integrity

________________________________________________________________________

Senate

Sen. Tommy Tuberville                             Sen. Cynthia Lummis                            Sen. Ted Cruz

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith                              Sen. John Kennedy                              Sen. Josh Hawley

Sen. Rick Scott                                           Sen. Roger Marshall

And, of course, the Chief Perp, Donald Trump

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A Poem For Our Time

A mob of the MAGA persuasion

Conducted a Capitol invasion.

Though possibly armed,

They parted unharmed,

And that’s how you know they’re Caucasian.

– Lindsey Horner

– @NoMorBS1958

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

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Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

Insurrection


Reading time – 2:49; Viewing time – 3:49  .  .  .

Updated 1/9/21 – see Last Question above the end photo.

Hatred and distrust of government didn’t start with Ronald Reagan saying, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'” There was plenty of ill feeling about government long before then, but he did a great job of fanning the flames to ensure there were a lot of pissed off people who would vote for the Republicans who fed their biases.

That pattern has continued all the way to today, but there are stark differences. Now there is no facet of reality that is safe from attack and denial if it feeds a politician’s self-interest. Now there is no lie too obscene to tell if it feeds a politician’s self-interest. Now there are politicians lying their asses off in supplication to the Insurrectionist-In-Chief. They do that because that’s how they think they’ll keep their jobs, retain a sense of power and inflate their egos.

And their refusal to stand up to what they know with certainty is wrong encourages more and worse destruction of our democracy and our national safety.

Hate-filled, angry mobs stormed the U.S. Capitol Building. The felons trespassed, rioted, vandalized, threatened, disrupted democracy, planted at least one bomb in the Capitol Building and four people died in their insurrection. I just have a few questions about all that.

  1. Trump invited angry mobs to show up that day, including the Proud Boys and neo-Nazis. Their arrival was no surprise to anyone. The authorities had days – perhaps weeks- to prepare. Why were they totally unprepared and grossly short of manpower to deal with the lawbreakers? Note that this happened on federal property, so it wasn’t a DC Police issue. Somebody in the federal government failed us all.
  2. Why wasn’t the DC National Guard stationed around the Capitol Building by 6:00AM? Everyone knew an angry mob was going to show up.
  3. Where were the Homeland Security thugs who terrorized Portland, Milwaukee and other cities last summer? The excuse given for sending them to those cities was to protect federal property. By that logic, there was no better place for them to be on January 6 than at the Capitol Building, but they were nowhere to be seen.
  4. Why were there so few arrests made? Most were for curfew violations, not insurrection. Why aren’t the DC jails jammed full of perps?
  5. What do you think would have happened if that same number of protesters showed up, but instead of being right wingnuts they were Black Lives Matter protesters, like the peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square Park last summer that Trump brutalized and excoriated?
  6. Where are the cops in riot gear with the scary black SWAT vehicles to intimidate the bad guys?

There is a lot to learn and there are new procedures to establish, but the most urgent, critical action is:

Impeach Donald Trump immediately so that
he can never again hold federal office.

Oh, wait: that would require Senate Republicans to find a spine.

Never mind.

In a different moment of far right hate and bile spewing, John Lewis implored, “We’re better than this.”

In his address yesterday Joe Biden said, “This is not who we are.” I have news for both of them.

We are not better than this. But we could be.

And this is exactly who we are. But we don’t have to be this way.

Last question (for now)

Just suppose that Russia participated in this insurrection and had agents in the crowd. Given their years of cyber invasion, that seems likely. On a lower level of the Capitol Building are vaults containing some of America’s most critical and vital secrets. So,

Did the Russian bad guys access our national security information? And if so, what would you like to say to the flag waving insurrectionists who assaulted democracy, made way for the foreign spies, yet who stunningly believe themselves to be true patriots?

“When fascism comes to America it will be wearing a flag and carrying a cross.” – Henry Wallace, FDR’s second Vice President

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

The Numbers


The Election

The electors have voted, the election vote totals are in and they are final.

The good folks at Quinnipiac have a detailed breakdown of this information, so have a look if you’re interested. Plus, updated vote totals can also be seen here. For our purposes, what’s important is in red, because it begs the question:

How can we govern ourselves when almost 60 million Americans prefer to believe lies and don’t trust what is in front of their eyes?

I’ll phrase that in another way, this time addressing the 60 million:

You’ve been fed lies for decades from elected officials, Fox News, conspiracy nutballs*, propagandists, Breitbart, and more. For the last 4 years (plus the campaign year of 2015) the President of the United States has stuffed your head with fantastical lies, lies claiming his greatness, lies demonizing hundreds of people who he didn’t think were sufficiently loyal to him (although their job was to be loyal to the Constitution), lies slandering millions of people, lies citing false statistics and made up facts. The President lied to you over 17 times per day for over 4 years – over 25,000 lies. Here’s your question:

How do you feel about being played for a sucker?

Perhaps you’ll hear it better this way:

How do you like being lied to?

Note that if you don’t care about being played for a sucker and you don’t mind being lied to, there’s nothing you need to do. Just go along as before, being fed lies that stoke your fear, that fire your anger, that make you distrust your neighbors and hate anyone who isn’t exactly like you. No need for that E Pluribus Unum stuff.

On the other hand, if you’re sick of being played for a sucker and you’ve had it with being lied to, welcome to Planet Earth #1. Glad to have you aboard.

Regardless of Trump’s vacuous claims, even his attorney general couldn’t find any evidence of voting fraud. The same is true for the guy who protected our election from cyber hackers. There isn’t even one state election official who could find illegal voting activities – that includes all 50 states. The election was clean. Joe Biden won fair and square. The number of frauds committed in the election is zero.

To be clear, there was cheating. There were tens of thousands of voters purged from voting roles when they should not have been. Polling places were closed, making voting difficult for many thousands of voters. There were dirty tricks to confuse voters into not voting. But all of that was done by Republican operatives for the benefit of Trump. There is no “both sides” argument. There is no room for whataboutism. That number is zero, too.

Back to the original question: How can we govern ourselves when 60 million Americans prefer to believe lies and don’t trust what is in front of their eyes? Those 60 million people are largely angry, resentful, certain theirs is a just cause, believe they are the true patriots and oh, by the way, they own most of the guns in private hands. Did I mention that they’re angry? Plus, their elected representatives in both Congress and the state houses are terrified of them, so the number of Republican legislators those folks both listen to and who will provide leadership in the direction of the aforementioned E Pluribus Unum is zero.

Those are the numbers. President Biden, how will you govern?

The Pandemic

Here is how this killer pandemic stacks up against events we have universally called tragedies, monstrous killers and national disasters. The charts below are from December 10.

 

 

 

 

 

Those are, indeed, awful numbers. Day after day, week after week we’re given nothing from any of our Republican national leadership (the President and those in Congress) to indicate even a little concern over our massive suffering and death. Instead, we get over 50% of Republican House members signing onto the gigantically stupid lawsuit filed by the pardon-seeking attorney general of Texas, seeking to invalidate the votes of millions of citizens of four states in order to give the election to Trump. That was their focus, instead of the suffering of the American people.

Thanks, Melania, for explaining this administration and the Republicans in Congress.

As for how we’re doing relative to other countries, we already know that we’re just 4% of world population and but we have 19% of worldwide Covid deaths. It’s noteworthy that densely populated India has the second highest number of Covid deaths. Their number is 38% fewer deaths from Covid than the U.S., yet India has over 4 times as many citizens. This is not a good way for the U.S. to be number one.

Now vaccines are beginning to be available, but at least 25% of Americans are either skeptical of them or outright hostile to them. If you have reservations about taking a vaccine, given the manipulation, lying and grandstanding of the President about vaccines, given the pressure he’s put on the FDA to approve vaccines without any reasonable review, even for an Emergency Use Authorization, there is some hope.

It comes in the form of a clear explanation of what’s gone on to make it possible to develop a vaccine so quickly. It wasn’t done by cutting corners or succumbing to political pressure. It was done by years of hard work borne of developing vaccines for other pandemics, like Ebola, MERS and SARS. For some confidence building and satisfaction of your curiosity, read this piece from the BBC News. It explains the good things that happen when we trust facts, knowledge and science, instead of populist rage and manipulation.

As for interim relief for Americans suffering from personal economic devastation, Republican leadership in the Senate continues to refuse to help We the People. We have the means to alleviate much suffering, but Republicans, who couldn’t wait to give $1.5 trillion to rich people and corporations, are suddenly horrified that we might run up some debt feeding our hungry and protecting our soon-to-be-homeless people. Help was created over half a year ago, but these programs all go away within a few weeks. There are rumors that McConnell has come out of his shell and that there may be a little relief coming. But right now those are just rumors. If you have a Republican senator, be sure to lean on him/her to refuse to be stingy and instead take proper action to relieve suffering. Even if you’re doing okay, millions of others are not.

Finally, that swelling of passion you feel when you see vaccines being delivered to our heroically courageous front line healthcare workers is testament to how gut wrenching this pandemic has been. Still, the number of available vaccine doses is small and it will be months before you and the people you love will be able to be vaccinated. So, boring as it may sound at this point, keep that mask on, socially distance, wash your hands, avoid all but small gatherings and sanitize everything. We’re starting the last lap of this marathon race. This isn’t the time to stop running.

—————————-

*No, there wasn’t a child trafficking scheme operated by Hillary in the basement of a pizza parlor in DC. The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School did happen. There is no plot for Jews to control the world. The Denver International Airport does not sit above an underground city housing The New World Order. The moon landing wasn’t faked. There is no evidence to support the notion that Jesus and Mary had offspring, many generations of which have been hidden in Europe. George Soros doesn’t fund Antifa and it is not a single far-left militant group. Democrats aren’t molesting and selling children. Global warming is real. The Israelis don’t use animals to spy or attack. Fluoride in our drinking water isn’t a communist plot to poison us. The earth is not flat. Elvis and JFK really are dead and are expected to stay that way for a while.

—————————————-

Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section below is for. Please use it to help everyone
  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.

JA

 


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

Shame


“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the battleground states from casting ‘unlawful and constitutionally tainted votes’ in the Electoral College. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, experts say.“

The Texas Tribune, December 8, 2020

“The states supporting the suit, all of which have Republican attorneys general, are Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia.”

CNBC, December 9, 2020

There have been many wild accusations from Donald Trump, his family members, various sycophantic officials, members of the RNC and others claiming voting fraud, election unfairness, election rigging, stealing of the election and various other claims of election warping in favor of Joe Biden and against Donald Trump.

There are people in the streets who have been lied to over and over and manipulated to believe these outrageous claims. They’re now demonstrating outside the homes of state election officials, terrorizing children and chanting absolutist claims of election theft, even though none of them has seen anything to support the accusations. Many are threatening violence and death to these officials, both online and by telephone.

There have been over 50 lawsuits filed by Trump and Trump supporters in an effort to overthrow the election and flaunt the will of the American people. These cases have nearly all been either withdrawn or laughed out of court. In one sentence the Supreme Court dismissed a case against Pennsylvania and did so without hearing any testimony because, like all the other lawsuits, it was completely groundless, without evidence, valueless and lacking any basis in fact. Just wild accusations.

Now the Texas Attorney General has filed suit in the Supreme Court against 4 swing states in an effort to get the results of their elections tossed out and have their states supply electors who will vote for Trump in order to keep him in office. Seventeen other Republican state attorneys general have joined the suit, as has Trump. They are doing this in the face of no evidence whatsoever of voting irregularities. They can’t supply even one fraudulent vote as evidence. Indeed, Trump’s own attorney general has said that there is no evidence of voting fraud that would change the election. Christopher Krebs, former head of the agency that guards against cyber tampering of our elections said this was the cleanest election ever.

Gotta wonder why these attorneys general would file this bogus lawsuit. Let’s take a stab at an explanation.

  1. Trump has leaned hard on them to obstruct and overturn the election and they lack the courage to stand up to the playground bully. Plus they want a pat on the head for being good little do-bees.
  2. They’re sucking up to Trump’s angry base so that they can be re-elected and they don’t care who or what gets damaged in their pursuit of what’s best for themselves.
  3. The RNC threatened to refuse to give them financial support for their next elections unless they did the Trump suck up dance. So they’re sucking and dancing.
  4. They want a presidential pardon. From the Texas Tribune: “Paxton, who has been under indictment since 2015 for felony securities fraud charges, is facing fresh criminal allegations from eight of his top deputies, who said they believe he broke the law by using the agency to do favors for a political donor. The FBI is investigating Paxton over those claims, according to the Associated Press. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.” I have no information indicating that desiring a pardon is Paxton’s motivation, but in the Trump “pardon anyone with a last name and who supported me” era, one has to wonder. Further, it’s just a hypothetical about the other attorneys general involved in this suit. Look up accusations of federal crimes of these people if you feel like doing some research.
  5. They have had it with democracy and they want the United States to degenerate into an autocracy. A dictatorship. A fascist state. To that end, they are sowing doubt about the election to undermine public confidence in our institutions, our government and the Constitution itself. It’s another nail in the coffin.

Note that other than Mitt Romney, no elected Republican official in Washington has spoken out against these baseless lawsuits and claims of illegitimacy of the election. Only a handful have even called to congratulate Joe Biden on his overwhelming victory. Eighty percent of these Republicans acknowledge in private that Biden will be the new president, but they lack the courage to call and congratulate him, much less speak about it publicly.

⇒        This is today’s Republican Party        ⇐

There is nothing conservative in the actions of these people. There is nothing in their actions that would be recognizable to The Framers. There is nothing that they are doing that is in accordance with their oath of office. There is nothing patriotic in their actions. There is only monumental self-serving cowardice.

These reality deniers intentionally do great damage to our country, so shame on them. Too bad those words mean nothing to them. Because of their hypocrisy and cowardice they have lost the ability to be ashamed of themselves. The whole point of shame is a self-awareness that keeps us within civilized bounds. There is something distinctly sub-human about these people having lost that.

—————————

Now that the election results of all 50 states have been certified, electoral votes will be cast on December 14 and Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20, 2021. Don’t be surprised if Trump stages his own phony inauguration spectacle in DC at the same time. He really is that desperately needy of attention. Nevertheless, Joe Biden will be the President of the United States as of 12:00:30PM EST that day.

—————————————-

Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

Oh, Kevin


New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd annually gives her Thanksgiving column space over to her brother Kevin, whom she calls a conservative. I’ve read several of his offerings and have come away with the sense that Kevin is not a conservative; he’s a Trumpy, which is distinctly not conservative. And in this year’s essay he gives us an exquisitely clear example of why it is so difficult for moderates (Republicans and Democrats alike) to have a constructive, seek-to-understand conversation with a Trumpy. That is the focus of this post.

I want to be clear that in my comments below I am cherry picking his essay, this for brevity. Here’s a link to his complete comments. Also, full disclosure: I agree with some of what Kevin wrote. Most of that is not covered here because that isn’t where the problem lies.

Here are some examples of obstacles to conversation. The wording in green is verbatim from Kevin’s essay and the substantiating data that he presents is included in the same color.

  1. Trump gave us a strong economy.
    1. Actually, the economy continued on the same trajectory from throughout the Obama years. Until it didn’t. Trump promised 4% GDP growth. Before our current recession we had an “economy like no one has ever seen,” when we had GDP growth that averaged just 2.5%. Overall it’s 1% since Trump took office. It never hit 4%.
  2. Trump achieved the lowest unemployment in 50 years.
    1. True, but  .  .  .  Actually, unemployment continued to decline on a straight line trajectory passed on from the Obama years. The best you can say for Trump is that he didn’t screw up a good thing. Until the pandemic arrived. Then he screwed up everything, including unemployment.
  3. Trump fortified the border.
    1. There were only 9 miles of new border wall constructed over the 4 years of Trump’s presidency. All the rest of the construction was replacement for old, dilapidated fencing. And Mexico hasn’t paid a dime for any of it. Does that qualify as “fortified”?
    2. Our southern border has been turned into concentration camps on the U.S. side and death in the desert on the Mexican side. Does that qualify as “fortified”?
    3. Our immigration system refuses to grant asylum to most of the people fleeing rape and death in the Central American countries they left behind. No clue how that makes our border fortified. It does make us complicit in assault and murder.
  4. Trump has guaranteed the integrity of the judicial system by appointing over 200 judges and three Supreme Court justices.
    1. Appointing judges does not guarantee integrity of the judicial system. It only guarantees butts on benches.
    2. 10 of Trump’s nominees were rated Not Qualified by the American Bar Association and 67 were rated only Qualified (i.e., they’re marginally OK warm bodies to hold down a bench).
    3. Two of Trump’s appointees had never practiced law or even been inside a courtroom. That doesn’t sound like integrity.
    4. There was a huge deficit of federal judges when Trump came to office because Mitch McConnell had shoved a stick in the spokes of judicial appointments for nearly all of the Obama years. If there was any additional integrity it was only because more judges meant swifter justice for the accused. Trump doesn’t get integrity kudos for that.
  5. Trump had foreign policy successes, including:
    1. Renegotiating NAFTA – into essentially the same agreement but with Trump’s name attached.
    2. Abandoning the Iranian nuclear deal.
      1. Which allowed the Iranians to resume both enriching uranium and building their bomb making capabilities.
      2. Kevin doesn’t mention it, but after abandoning the multi-nation agreement Trump slapped sanctions on Iran that have been labeled “crippling.” On the other hand, they don’t seem to have curtailed any of Iran’s military activities. Not seeing a foreign policy success here.
      3. Kevin claims that we gave the Iranians a $400 million bribe to get the nuclear deal done. That claim was a standard right wing talking point when the JCPOA was being negotiated and was wailed about afterward by the anti-Obama crowd. What actually happened is that because of Iran’s past bad behavior we had frozen their assets during the Obama administration. Returning to them what was rightfully theirs was part of the Iranian nuclear deal. So, it wasn’t a bribe; it was a return of stolen property. And it was $300 million, not $400 million.
    3. Trump brokered Middle East peace deals and was the greatest friend Israel ever had.
      1. Two recently concluded agreements between Israel and the UAE and Israel and Bahrain had been in process since 2015. These agreements were essentially “normalization” documents to formalize what already existed. Trump had nothing to do with the negotiating or finalizing of the agreements. He did claim credit for them.
      2. Might not Harry Truman be the greatest friend of Israel, since he was the first world leader to recognize the new state in 1948? Or President Obama, who handed the Iron Dome defense system to Israel in 2011? Or every other president who has sided with Israel against brutal attacks in the U.N.?
      3. Note that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem did not help Israel. It only served to inflame Palestinians and make a 2-state solution even more difficult to achieve.
      4. It’s interesting that the “greatest friend Israel ever had” meme is quoted. It’s word-for-word what Trump has said repeatedly and his followers pick it up as though making the claim is the same as stating reality. It’s akin to his saying that he’s been the greatest president for Blacks, with the possible exception (or since) Abraham Lincoln. Making the claim isn’t the same as saying truth, but Trump’s followers repeat his phony superlative opinions of himself anyway.
  6. Trump made the Republican Party tougher, teaching it to counter punch harder than its opponent.
    1. The Republican Party was intransigent and spiteful long before Trump showed up (think: Gingrich, McConnell, Boehner, anyone from the Tea Party, etc.) and they played dirty before Trump came along, doing things like filibustering everything with Obama’s name on it, essentially exterminating majority rule. For verification of Republican cheating, check with Judge (not Justice) Merrick Garland.
    2. We need to understand why “counter punch[ing] harder than its opponent” is important. Doing so guarantees no cooperation, so America’s problems don’t get solved. This sounds like being macho is more important that doing what is best for America and honoring one’s oath of office to protect and defend. I do understand the momentary puff-up feeling of being powerful that comes from dominating others.
  7. Kevin writes, “The Democrats remain mystified by the loyalty of Trump’s base. It is rock solid because half the country was tired of being patronized and lied to and worse, taken for granted. Trump was unique because he was only interested in results.”
    1. First sentence: I agree. Surely, I agree with the “mystified” part. It is what underlies the question of this post.
    2. Second sentence: How much of these beliefs of being patronized, lied to and taken for granted is due to people being fed a constant stream of right wing propaganda, rather than the facts? Hatred of ordinary Americans by elites is a standard of righty talking heads and that constant drumbeat stokes belief and ratings. And anger and hatred. Show me the facts, though, or this is just another hateful Big Lie.
    3. Counterpoint to #2 above: I don’t know about the patronizing, but there have been a lot of promises broken and without question the Democrats have taken some people for granted. Nobody likes to be treated that way.
    4. Third sentence: Trump was, is and forever will only be interested in results for Trump, not for America. And he doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process (think: playing golf throughout the pandemic). His continuing lies to undermine our election are corroding our democracy and pouring more fuel on the fire of hatred. Further, ask any contractor who worked on a Trump Building and got stiffed about what results were important to Trump. Or ask the State Department, which has consistently been overcharged for everything during the Trump administration. Secret Service personnel were forced to patronize Trump properties and rent rooms at far above standard rates. And I know it’s a small thing that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago billed the U.S. $3 to serve Trump a glass of water, but it’s a satisfactory placeholder for all his grifting. I agree that Trump is focused on results, but are results like these what we should want?

As you can see, there are sweeping claims, but almost no supporting facts. That’s standard M.O. for Trumpies and it does not lead to any possibility of a meeting of the minds. In fact, it is one of three major reasons that a fruitful conversation is so difficult. Another major reason is the denial of provable, observable facts, as is a commonly found belligerent attitude.

Kevin ends his essay with dire warnings for the media and especially for Fox News, which has recently been slightly less of a lapdog for Trump. I’m sure Kevin is right in claiming that Biden’s TV ratings will be lower than Trump’s. What is far more disturbing is that anyone would care about such a thing.

It’s worrisome that anyone would equate TV ratings with the quality of the job a president is doing for the country or even whether a president is popular. Nobody paid attention to such things until the circus sideshow barker came to town and constantly bragged about his TV ratings, as though his primary job was to get high ratings. It’s akin to Trump bragging for months about having had the biggest inaugural crowd ever, which, of course, he didn’t. He bragged that way as though that’s what was important. For most of us, it wasn’t and isn’t. It shouldn’t be for any of us.

I appreciate Kevin’s passion and understand that he has his certainties – I have my own passion and certainties – and both of us are sorely infected by confirmation bias, of course. But I need someone to bring us real world stuff to examine and which will help us to understand one another, not bring just sweeping, baseless superlatives.

—————————–

The important question is how to deal with people who refuse facts, truth and reality. They are our countrymen and -women, after all, and we are obligated to figure out how to live together.

Roughly 80% of those who voted for Trump believe his lies/fantasies/distortions that the election was rigged and riddled with fraud. They believe him when he says he won the election and that “everybody knows it.” That’s around 60 million Americans who are living in an alternate reality. I’m guessing that to them this is just another example “of being patronized and lied to and worse, taken for granted.” And I’m also guessing that they are very angry they didn’t get their way, especially because they believe they were cheated. That makes conversation extremely difficult.

These folks are supported by the continuing refusal of nearly all elected Republicans to stand up and speak up about the Big Lie that is Trump and Trumpism. They provide tacit approval to believe Trump’s hateful and anti-democratic venom. These elected officials do great damage to our country with their cowardice (read this). They make it ever-harder to have a conversation with Trumpies, because they stoke the macho bravado posturing to “counter punch harder than its opponent.” That relegates us to communicating via fistfights. Or worse, like attempting to kidnap and execute a sitting governor. It’s worth noting again that our macho, bravado angry citizens are the ones who own most of the guns in this country.

So, you tell me how to bridge this insane divide that is America today, with half of us believing the untrue. And if I got any of this wrong, please set me and everyone straight.

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

The Gloves Are Off


Reading time – 3:55  .  .  .

Heroes

As of this post we have lost – as in: they died – over 2,000 of our frontline healthcare workers – nurses, doctors, techs, EMTs, sanitation staff – all the people who make it so that we can get healthcare when we need it. They work hellishly long hours and risk their lives every day for the rest of us. And that risks transferring infection to their children, significant others, perhaps their parents, too.

They risk their lives for the supermarket clerk who, in spite of gloves, a mask and plastic partitions still gets infected. And they risk their lives for the school children who get sick and the elderly in our nursing homes who might be your mom or dad or grandma or grandpa.

They even risk their lives for the MAGA hat wearers, those who boldly and defiantly attended a Trump rally or the Harley Davidson rally in South Dakota – the people who refuse to wear a mask or socially distance. Same for the gilded set who attended White House functions and who refused to follow the advice of the experts. They were all warned repeatedly, but they called it a hoax and acted as if there were no pandemic at all. That means that our frontline healthcare workers are dying because some refuse to follow some simple instructions.

Nevertheless, to our refusers, the ones for whom a simple mask is a terrible infringement of their freedom and a sign of personal weakness, who take delight in conspiracy theories and for whom science and truth are unimportant concepts, I have good news for you.

When you crawl into the ER, in terrible pain and gasping for breath, feeling like you’re drowning and you’re begging for help, our healthcare heroes will take you in and give their all to save your sorry ass. They will put themselves at risk of getting sick, dying and perhaps infecting their loved ones, all to save your life and your defiant, selfish attitude. They’ll do all that, knowing that you were repeatedly given the choice to be healthy and to stay out of the hospital, but you refused it every time, insisting instead on being contemptuous. Then you came into their world, sick and infectious and threatening them with suffering. Still, they’ll be there for you.

And that is why they are heroes and you are not.

But you could be.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I hope you told everyone that you give thanks for our healthcare heroes, because instead of being with their families yesterday, they showed up for work in case you showed up in their ER. If you didn’t express your gratitude – best done with a call to your local hospital or by mailing a note of appreciation – do it now before one of our heroes has to drug you and shove a ventilator tube down your throat to save your life at the risk of their own.

——————————
75 Years

World War II ended 75 years ago, with Adolph Hitler committing suicide in his bunker in Berlin. The world is still writing about, talking about and detailing those awful years of brutality and suffering, which is an interesting legacy for a monster.

PBS is running a series, The Rise of the Nazis, and it is quite informative, but that isn’t why it’s mentioned here. The point is to recognize the world’s continuing examination – even fascination – with the Nazis and the mindsets and the behaviors of the criminal leaders that produced the world’s greatest hate-fueled brutality.

They detail Hitler’s disinterest in governing, refusal to read and learn, his focus solely on himself, on his powerful skills of lying and manipulating and more, traits that are disturbingly familiar to us today.

One could say that we don’t have concentration camps today, but of course we do; or that certain groups aren’t being discriminated against and marginalized, but of course they are. One could say that there isn’t a flagrant call for violence, but of course there is. One could say that there isn’t a power grab to destroy democracy and control all of government, but of course there is that, too. One could even say that there isn’t a refusal to honor the will of the people, but of course there is.

I predict that 75 years from now people will still be writing about Trump and Trumpism in an effort to explain the horror of our home grown megalomaniac, the complete capitulation of our Republican Congress and the anger and threats of violence from the right, each of which seems inexplicable and boundless in its destruction. Call me in the year 2095 to discuss the then-current books on the subject.

——————————
Cabinet Announcements

Click me for the story

On Tuesday President-elect Biden made public several of his cabinet picks for his new administration. Most striking was his naming John Kerry as his Special Envoy on Climate (read this post) and making that a cabinet level position, as well as assigning Kerry to sit on the National Security Council. It will be refreshing for us to take the planet seriously.

In addition, Biden announced the ending of a cabinet department that had been an office created especially for the Trump administration. Biden said that as soon as he finishes taking the oath of office at noon on January 20 the Department Of Obviously Fraudulent Underhanded Stuff (DOOFUS) will close permanently. No successor department will be named and all employees of that office will be instructed to submit their resignations and have their offices cleared of personal items prior to that date and time.

The same directive applies to the outgoing President. Anything left behind will be submitted to the FBI Museum Of Really Obtuse National Swindlers (MORONS) and put on public display as the modern equivalent of putting people in stocks in the public square for shaming and ridicule. Sadly, many in the outgoing administration are not capable of experiencing shame.

——————————

The JaxPolitix Game

This edition of the JaxPolitix Game is inspired by an accident with a Thesaurus.

Read this entry, then answer the question below:

double-cross

verb

he was double-crossing his family behind their backs: BETRAY, CHEAT, defraud, trick, hoodwink, mislead, deceive, swindle, break one’s promise to, be disloyal to, be unfaithful to, break faith with, play false, fail, let down; informal two-time, sell down the river; British informal stitch up, do the dirty on.

QUESTION: Who does this describe?

Enter your answer in the Comments section below. The first 80.6 million entrants with the correct answer will win a new president, complete with a full set of action figures. You must be 18 or older in order to be 18 or older and only those who spend the majority of their time on this planet may enter. Not valid for residents of states beginning with the letter Q.

Bonus Questions!

The Constitution does not prohibit convicted felons from becoming President, even if they’re still incarcerated for money laundering, tax evasion or fraud. How is it that the Founders didn’t consider the possibility of that happening? Oh, right, they thought there were norms – guardrails – for our democracy.

For 25 points each:

  1. Will Trump run in 2024?
  2. Two trains leave their stations heading toward one another on parallel tracks. The stations are 107.9 miles apart. Train A travels at 31.6 mph; train B leaves 41 minutes later than train A and travels at 77 miles per hour. How far from the station from which train A departed would Donald Trump say the trains will pass one another? (Hint: Trump will hire someone to solve this problem for him and will add to his answer baseless accusations of fraud, claiming that the quiz was rigged. And he will stiff the person he hired to help him.)
  3. Who would Donald Trump say is buried in Grant’s tomb and which name would he call him: “loser” or “sucker”?

For 9 points each, answer these critical TP questions:

  1. What are the creative ways you’re hiding your TP from your neighbors?
  2. Other than the standard purposes, what are the other uses you have for all that TP in your house?

  • —————————————-

    Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

    1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
    2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
    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.

    JA


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

The Worst Is Yet To Come – Very Soon


Reading time – 4:17; Viewing time – 6:19  .  .  .

Late Addition

The “Million MAGA March” has concluded with great bluster, chest thumping, hate spewing and the absolute rejection of all facts that don’t comport with demonstrators’ predetermined beliefs and conclusions. It was something of a “Yea for us, we’re so so tough and so powerful and so right” celebration of self. If it looked to you like something from another world, it’s because it is. Traditionally, America hasn’t looked like that.

In the run up to the November 3 election I wrote a satire about how to deal with the people harboring denial of reality, rage and that barely disguised threat of violence that lurks ever-present and is always trolling for a target. But as we go farther through the looking glass I’m beginning to think that the satire is less satire and more sense. I recommend to you a review of that piece. Meanwhile, all that MAGA muscle flexing will pair perfectly with what Der Trump likely has in mind.

Times, WaPo, WSJ and others, stop wasting time on Trump’s voting fraud distraction. Focus on identifying the outrage he’s planning for January 20.

Trump has once again managed to distract the world with his baseless claims of voter fraud. He did it after the losses he sustained in primaries in 2016. He did it after the drubbing he took in the 2018 mid-term election. Now he’s doing it following the repudiation of him in the 2020 election. We’ve seen this movie and, frankly, it’s boring.

So why in the world should we chase down yet more of his bright shiny object lies? Doing so is far worse than a waste of time.

It’s an abdication of our responsibility to get ahead of and stop his next scam.

Given the short time available, that next scam will be his worst and it will be here in a few days.

Trump has fired the Secretary of Defense and several other high level people in the Department of Defense and has replaced them with know-nothing yes men, people loyal only to him. Same for our National Security leadership and he fired the head of our cybersecurtity team, as well as the leader of the agency that safeguards nuclear weapons. That’s a lot of compromising of our national security protections all at once. Why would he do that with only 2 months left in his administration?

You know that he’s desperate to retain power, because he’s facing an encyclopedia of indictments the minute he steps off Marine One on January 20. Plus, he’s told us plainly that he wants to be president for life and that maybe he won’t leave. He always telegraphs the wrongdoing he’s going to commit and we ignore that at our collective peril. So, given his stated intention to stay in power forever, what do you think he might do?

From Wikipedia (lightly edited):

“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. Hitler’s government stated that  .  .  .  a Dutch council communist was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators .  .  . The day after the fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed.”

You need to know about the Reichstag Fire Decree:

“The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With 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.”

It’s a classic wag-the-dog tactic and I’ve been warning for years that Trump would attempt to secure all power for himself in just that way. He’ll stage a catastrophe, then claim that an enemy – perhaps our mainstream press, which he calls “the enemy of the people” – is behind it. He’ll declare a state of national emergency and impose martial law. He has sycophants running our military now, as well as the Justice Department and much of our intelligence apparatus, so it may be easy for Trump to get away with that.

Good-bye democracy, hello fascism.

Do you think that’s hyperbole? Fantastical thinking? Histrionic?

So did the citizens of Germany in 1933.

In fact, Hitler told them that he would “Make Germany great again.” Sound familiar? Read the essay. You’ll be shocked at the parallels.

Need more convincing? Have a look at what Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and the author of “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century” has to say in a Boston Globe essay- click here. And read his book.

Or have a look at the comments of Steven Levitsky, co-author of “How Democracies Die,” this in a conversation reported in MIT News or listen to an interview of Levitsky here. There are plenty more people concerned about Trump’s threat to our democracy – just look it up

We all better wake up to the reality of what megalomaniac Donald Trump has promised and which is likely just around the corner. We’ve been watching this coup d’état in slow motion for four years and the finale will likely play out within the next 66 days.

It’s a horrifying thing to realize that with most of the Republicans in Congress actively participating in Trump’s fraud and with the courts and major departments of government effectively neutered, the fate of our democracy may rest solely on the decision of a few generals to resist an illegal order. As bad and perhaps worse, if Trump attempts a coup, 71 million Trump voters will applaud. What will we do with that?

A lot of barrels of ink and miles of newsprint, as well as huge volumes of online e-ink have been used to celebrate the Biden/Harris win. But it isn’t time to sit back and sigh in relief over a coming Biden/Harris administration or that we’ve turned away from chaos and cruelty, because that may not happen.

Of course, my analysis may be all wrong. Pray that it is. Maybe all Trump is doing is collecting donations for his SuperPAC and his re-election fund for 2024. He can later divert those hundreds of millions of dollars to himself and his family, like he did with his charity. Or maybe he’s trying to stay relevant so that he can start a $6 per month subscription streaming service that rakes in a billion dollars a year from his devoted followers. His grifting would be a welcome alternative to the destruction of our democracy.

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

Illusion


Reading time – 3:40  .  .  .

Blanketed with frustration and anger over this ongoing spectacle of an election, disappointment haunts me, but it isn’t about Trump. I want to hug my ancient 48-star flag, not to disrespect Alaska or Hawaii, but to touch what I used to believe. Underneath it all, my heart is breaking.

The people of North Dakota have spoken. A majority of voters in that state made the clear and unambiguous statement that they want Donald Trump to stay in the White House for another four years. The challenge for all of us is to understand why they would do that.

Perhaps for these folks voting is simply a reflex action: voting for a Democrat is simply unthinkable. Grandpa was a Republican and Daddy was a Republican, so these voters are Republicans, even as the meaning of “Republican” isn’t remotely what it used to be.

Perhaps they believe the demeaning caricature of Democrats that Fox News and the president have painted for them. They’re convinced that socialism, crippling taxes, rule by fanatical anarchist mobs and high rise ghettos invading their suburbs would be certainties if Joe Biden were to become the next president. It’s just another episode of The Big Lie, but the tactic seems to have worked.

Multiple domestic and international studies have shown conclusively that the horrific infection and death rates from Covid-19 in the United States have been made far worse by the lack of national leadership to combat it. A minimum of 75% of the deaths are due to Donald Trump refusing to provide assertive, positive leadership.

If North Dakota were a stand-alone nation, it would have the highest rate of infection in the entire world. Hospitals are overrun with sick and dying patients. By now nearly everyone in the state must know someone who has suffered and perhaps someone who has died of it.

Nevertheless, North Dakotans voted to keep in office the very person who allowed that to happen. In other words, they had the choice of life or death and they chose death.

And that’s just North Dakota.

In Kentucky voters gave Mitch “Big Hypocrite” McConnell a double-digit win. In South Carolina they gave a similar margin to Lindsay “Spineless Hypocrite” Graham. Maybe I remember this incorrectly, but didn’t it used to be a bad thing to be a hypocrite?

Our former allies, the ones who were our friends before Trump insulted and abandoned them, had been waiting for this election to show that Trump was just a mistake of our democracy, an aberration that we would set right at the first opportunity. Now, even if Biden wins after the mail-in ballots are counted, they will know that they are only one election away from destruction of the stable order that protected us all and provided prosperity for 75 years.

We’ve told our allies plainly that they can no longer count on us and, if they have any sense of self-preservation, they will be forging new alliances and moving steadily away from the U.S. All of this will happen as Trump cedes more of our democracy to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. And all of that will happen because a huge percentage of Americans voted for it.

The cleaving of Americans from one another surely can be traced to Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy. Reagan stoked divisions, too, with his lies about welfare queens and more. During the Clinton years Newt Gingrich became Chief Congressional Flamer and a Republican Congress unleashed junk yard dog Ken Starr to poke into the underwear drawers of both Clintons in what really was a witch hunt. They framed everything in self-righteous biblical certainties.

Obama’s presidency gave fuel to racial divisions and the unleashing of frothing senators and congressmen. And Trump is a never ending font of victimizing, demonizing and calls to hatred and violence. We’ve always had differences and Fox News deserves much credit for stoking them, making fine clarity about who the “bad guys” are so hatreds can be fed. Clearly, we have to give a lifetime achievement award for divisiveness to the Republicans.

And now here we are with our clear, unambiguous and heartbreaking election statement of who we really are.

Thomas Jefferson told us plainly what we need in order to sustain our democratic republic:

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

And roughly half of all Americans perversely insist upon being low information voters. They refuse to be educated sufficiently to exercise oversight. Instead, they watch Fox News and listen to the haters deny reality and incrementally allow our democracy to be stolen from us.

We are led by the world’s greatest circus sideshow barker, drawing into his tent the rubes who believe his grandiose lies about what’s inside. Abraham Lincoln was right, that you really can fool some of the people all of the time. I never dreamed that “some of the people” meant half the voters.

I had a picture of what America is. Regardless of what we find to be the final counts from this election, it turns out that my picture was an illusion and I have become dis-illusioned.

—————————————-

Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section 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. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA


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

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