First Amendment

Goo Gobs of Blame


POST 1161

Post 1160 was originally entitled “To Wimp or Not To Wimp: That Is The Question.” It was a ripping on Chuck Schumer for his signing on to that total abdication of power, the abhorrent continuing resolution. The only thing in that un-American bill necessary for keeping the government open and operating is the first sentence of Section 3. Instead, Mike Johnson and his Jellyfish Caucus jammed in all the rest of what Trump wanted, formally neutering Congress. Then Schumer caved in and voted for it. That’s why my post was entitled as it was.

But then our constitutional democracy ended.*

So, the title, focus and energy of Post 1160 shifted and the message is spelled out best by someone more able to articulate our dreadful reality. Many thanks to SL for directing me to the work of The Intellectualist.

The name of this publisher itself is a brave declaration in this age of anti-wisdom, anti-science, anti-knowledge, anti-critical thinking, anti-intellectual, anti-learning,** anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Jews, anti-anything-not-White-and-claiming-to-be-Christian, anti-sovereignty of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, anti-justice, anti-democracy – let’s stop there and focus on just the last two. Post your own anti-whatever in the Comments section below.

Here’s a link to the essay in The Intellectualist, Black Saturday: The Day the United States Ceased to Be a Constitutional Democracy. Perhaps you prefer a musical reference: last Saturday, March 15, was the day the music died. It is the day when Trump and his anti-American, anti-democracy, hate and anger mouth foamers completed taking down the other branches of government.

Congress was already in Trump’s pocket, as was the Supreme Court. Last Saturday he defied a District Court order, which put all power in his own hands. Pick your word: fascism; authoritarianism; monarchy. Doesn’t matter. Our democracy has been trashed, leaving us great misery to come.

Read the piece in The Intellectualist. It’s the best explainer. Then weep, rage and make plans to protect yourself from the orange Big Brother. I prefer to begin by pointing fingers of blame. Childish, I know, but, oddly enough, it turns out I’m human and putting blame where it’s due feels right.

→ Blame Trump’s parents for failing to hold him accountable, effectively being his first enablers, teaching him to lie, cheat and steal. Their lousy parenting allowed him to avoid hundreds of well earned spankings.

→ Blame higher education institutions for letting Trump’s father buy him diplomas.

→ Blame his podiatrist for lying about bone spurs that later magically disappeared.

→ Blame all the suck-ups everywhere.

→ Blame Presidents and Congresses for blowing off millions of people for decades, most decisively since Reagan, his trickle down economics larceny and our steadfast march away from accountability. That set the stage for pissy people embracing violence, threats of violence and massive idiocy at ballot boxes, voting for completely unqualified candidates who cleverly spoke to their pissy.

→ Blame Democrats for ignoring the needs and aspirations of millions of working people, which, of course, made them pissy.

→ Blame Democrats for constantly pretending that this is some imaginary other age, when people acted with integrity and were polite at all times, where they never raised their voices and fought only to win great intellectual debates. Today that’s called spinelessness.

→ Blame all the spewers of Big Lies and conspiracy fantasies and all the willfully ignorant fools who believe them.

→ Blame the very clever, manipulative lawyers, the cunning political operators and the vast army of liars who lack all integrity all the time. They parade their dishonesty as though it were a virtue and somehow they’re never checked on that.

→ Blame the Supreme Court Black-hearted Six for driving the final nail into the coffin of democracy with its 2024 decision allowing presidents to break the law and not be held to account. Now Trump really can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and suffer no consequences.

→ Blame congressional Republicans for having no spine, no courage, outrageous hypocrisy and for thinking not of our country or of We the People, but of what’s best for themselves in the short term, first, last and always.

→ Blame Democrats for a complete lack of vision and the inability to motivate anyone.

→ Blame the hundreds of thousands of Americans who long ago went heads down, refusing to see what has been right before them, who only recognize what touches them directly and who turn away from what is even just a bit uncomfortable.

→ Blame me for failing to find a way to reach far more people and be a more effective wake up call, a disambiguator making a difference.

There. I feel better.

  • The Constitutional Democracy Preservation/Reinstatement To-Do List

Our Constitution is extremely sick and it appears that it could be terminal. What I want to know is what the Constitutional Democracy Preservation/Reinstatement To-Do List has on it. I’m certain that there are brilliant legal minds working on that right now. There are also countless organizations calling for rallies and demonstrations. That’s where we start.

There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Click here or on the map below to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want to do that.

Democracy doesn’t look like Musk’s goons breaking into agencies and threatening the workers with violence and arrest. It doesn’t look like Musk’s evil flying monkey hackers stealing your financial, tax and medical records, either.

Democracy doesn’t look like:

Trump rounding up some aliens who have been charged with no crime, not even charged with being in our country illegally;

accusing them of felonious acts and offering no evidence;

denying them anything resembling due process;

expelling them from our country – disappearing them;

turning them over to El Salvador concentration camp thugs;

and disobeying the orders of a federal district court judge, this so that Trump could aggregate all power to himself. All that’s left to do are a few details, as Trump pisses on the graves of our Founders.

That most decidedly is not what democracy looks like.

Demonstrations like those upcoming on April 5 are where we stand tall – this is what democracy looks like.

Say it out loud:

This is what democracy looks like.
.

REBEL!

________________________________________

* Read Steve Schmidt’s post, First They Came For . . .

** If you’re old enough you might remember President Kennedy proclaiming, “College is America’s best friend.” That was in an age when we were in a battle against the Soviets for industrial and technological leadership and we needed lots of smart, well-educated people.

The same battle continues to rage, now standing up to Russia and China. We still need smart, educated people. But instead of promoting secondary education, Trump is trying to tear down our institutions that supply that education. Who do you suppose he wants to win this battle and lead the world?

By making college unaffordable and student loans unbearable, we risk deterring our best and brightest from pursuing higher education and securing a good-paying job.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI)

  • We also pull the rug from under our country with that crushing cost.
    Fun Fact: Both Barack and Michelle Obama had outstanding student loans when Obama became President.

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. 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.

Enough Small Ball


POST 1153

Executive Summary

> Link through to J.B. Pritzker’s address for inspiration and direction.

> Focus on the Big Picture – they are trashing the constitution, the rule of law, democracy, freedom of the press and our individual freedoms. We need an inspirational leader to stop the bad guys.

> We the People are for the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse, but even more we want to eliminate Elon Musk. We provide the firing email to him.

Where To Start
  1. If you have not heard Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s State of the State address you need to hear it. Start at the 33 minute mark. It’s about America. His words are medicine for your heart.
  2. Trump has stomped his foot on the neck of freedom of the press. From Ron Fournier:

“The White House said Tuesday that presidential aides will dictate which news outlets regularly cover the president and presidency up close .  .  .”

That means they decide who can attend press briefings, ride in the steerage section of Air Force 1 and more. The rate of destruction is accelerating.

Leadership I

Yes, Trump intends to replace ordinary, Constitution defending workers with people loyal only to Trump. That’s what he said he’d do.

Yes, Musk is a chainsaw wielding maniac, a racist and a thief.

Yes, it’s deplorable how cruelly and illegally our civil servants are being treated.

Yes, it’s immoral and homicidal to withhold food from starving people and medical aid from the sick.

Yes, it’s a blatant abuse and a prelude to grand larceny that Musk and his juvenile delinquent flying monkeys have your personal financial and other private information and they now control when and whether you receive your tax refund or your Social Security check.

Yes, it used to be unthinkable that funding for Alzheimer’s Disease research could be cut, but that’s exactly what Trump is doing.

All that is horrible, yet it’s relatively small ball. It misses the point, the big picture, the forest unseen because of the trees. We need crystal clear focus on the forest.

Trump told us he would be a dictator. He wants to do away with Congress, the courts, the press, freedom of assembly, everything and rule as dictator. I repeat: He told us.

Hitler dismantled Germany’s democracy in just 53 days of bullying and threatening members of the Reichstag to get them to prostrate themselves. As Trump is bullying and threatening our legislators and press, don’t you think it’s time we stopped pretending Trump might work within the bounds of our government when he is right now manufacturing an American dictatorship?

Lickspittle Republicans are using cowardly silence to allow Trump to take down of our democracy. It’s time we put banana peels under their shoes like these people did at a recent town hall in Georgia.

Focus on the BIG PICTURE:

  • TRUMP IS STEALING OUR COUNTRY FROM US
  • AND HE’S DOING IT IN PLAIN SIGHT!

Enough small ball, however important those issues truly are. There is an ongoing TrumpMusk revolution to stick our Constitution, our laws and our democracy into an incinerator. It’s time for us to fight back with a real American revolution to restore what our Founders fought a mad king for, what our Union military fought for, what our dough boys and our WW II Yanks fought for. It is time to stop the bad guys.

Russell Vought is the newly confirmed Director of the Office of Management and Budget, which is frightening because he is a chief architect of Project 2025, the Republican road map to dictatorship, the plan that Trump is executing right now.

Vought said,

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains … We want to put them in trauma.

Really? That’s the America you want, Oberführer Vought? We the People surely don’t want that.

Anne Applebaum put the actions of DOGE into perspective, writing,

DOGE has attacked at least 11 federal agencies that were embroiled in regulatory fights with Musk’s companies or were investigating them for potential violations of laws on workplace safety, workers’ rights, and consumer protection.

Does that sound like the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse? It sounds to me like Musk is trashing the legitimate agencies scrutinizing him and his companies. That’s what Chainsaw Musk can do when he controls government. That’s how Trump can get away with stealing classified documents and inciting an insurrection.

It is unacceptable to be immobile with hopelessness and frustration now. The battle call from the bugle of America is deafeningly loud and it is calling you and me. It is calling us to be in the streets with millions of patriots telling the cowardly Republicans that we demand that they find their spines, that they stand up and end this insanity. And that bugle tells them that if they fail to answer that call that we will discard them like rotting food waste.

Leadership II

We need national, inspirational leadership, so I wrote to my senators and representative:

Our democracy is in an existential moment – you know this. We need powerful, stand-out leadership, not policy wonks, and with few exceptions, we are presented with Democratic and Republican Party deafening silence. Where is that leadership? Where are you?

Feel free to copy, paste and send that message to your legislators. Find them on house.gov and senate.gov. Go there and click on the Contact button.

Leadership III

Hakeem Jeffries was on Rachel Maddow’s show on Monday and spoke with true bureaucratic zeal about policies House Democrats are pursuing. She replied by saying, in so many words, that what people want is not new policies, but inspiration and leadership. Maddow is right. Jeffries, for all of his fine qualities, doesn’t seem to be wired to provide what we need.

Who will step up in our hour of need?
.

Hey: What about Adam Kinzinger to lead our charge?

Not-So-Dear Elon:

Chainsaw Musk

It was announced by someone in the White House that you are now merely an advisor to the President. That means that you have no power or authority over anyone or any agency of our government. You have no license for your cruelty. Of course, you really never did.

Nevertheless, you sent an email to many thousands of our dedicated public servants, treating them like misbehaving school children, demanding that they justify their jobs or be fired. You required them to reply not later than last Monday night.

Turnabout is fair play, Chainsaw. Here is your requirement from America.

You will list not less that 5 actions you took in the last week that actually helped our country. You will justify your claims with actual facts, unlike the fatuous idiocy you commonly make up. You will email your information to [email protected] not later than midnight this Friday, February 28 so that your reply can be vetted and reported in the JaxPolitix Disambiguation on Sunday.

Failure to comply with this directive will result in you being fired from your non-job and banished from America forever. That will give We the People a reason to smile.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

How We Fell Off the Sled – v 2.0


POST 1128

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why should those folks vote for Democrats?

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

That is how we fell off the sled!
.

We dumped ourselves off it.

What We’re Facing

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

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

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

The moon landings

The assassination of President Kennedy

Elvis lives!

The Holocaust

The Sandy Hook murders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rebel!

In fact, step up, like Messman Doris Miller.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Freedom Of Speech


POST 1105

From the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law  .  .  .  abridging freedom of speech  .  .  .”

To be clear, that has nothing to do with whether the owners of social media sites or newspapers can keep us from speaking on their platforms. They can. That has everything to do with whether the government can muzzle us, keeping us from speaking truth to power. It can’t.

So, Trump can bray his idiocies and judgements, like claiming that Biden is the worst president in history. The government can do nothing to stop that. But he is still subject to the laws regarding defamation, a concept that even his massively expensive losses to E. Jean Carroll don’t seem to have gotten through to him. Just think about all the people he’s defamed and who could file actions against him, like his lies about Haitians eating dogs, cats and geese and his various claims about sexual improprieties, like those aimed at Kamala Harris and other successful women. Those are abhorrent, but it would be far worse if he or any of us were prohibited from speaking truth to power.

From Professor Timothy Snyder’s post of September 19, following his meeting with Volodymyr Zelens’kyi:

The notion of “free speech” has become very inflated, used all too often just to mean the right to offend someone or cause disruption by knowingly telling lies, often from a place of power and wealth.The reason why we care about freedom of speech, though, is that we want to protect the dignity of the individual and protect the individual from the powers that be.  Freedom of speech is protected so that we can speak our truths to power, not so that power can force its lies on us.  It must be a right, in other words, because truth is risky.

  • – Prof. Timothy Snyder
  • Satire of the Week

Link through to Andy Borowitz’s explainer,

Trump Says He Will Be Too Senile to Debate in Late October
.

You will instantly understand everything and you’ll thank your lucky stars for the free speech that gives Borowitz the right to speak his satire about a would-be dictator.

Many thanks to JN for directing me to Borowitz’s piece.

Melania

In 2018 First Lady Melania Trump visited a detention center for children who had been ripped from their parents’ arms by Melania’s husband. She wore a trench coat on which had been written in bold white paint, “I Really Don’t Care. Do U?”

She was about to see infants and children crying in cages and she wore that coat with that message. Most of us were stunned seeing that, but now Melania claims the message was aimed at Ivanka. Right. Sure. Truth be told, I really don’t care about her claim. Do U?

This is the same Melania who, unlike most first ladies for a long time, championed nothing for we common folk. When we did see her it was clear that the only thing that was important to her was to be seen as glamorous.

She is the same Melania who couldn’t be bothered to attend the ceremonies on 9/11. Instead her husband was accompanied at Ground Zero by his new hate monger, 9/11 denier and current bimbo, Laura Loomer. I use that term “bimbo” because it’s his word for Stephanie Ruhle and so many other women. Melania was nowhere to be seen at the ceremonies. I guess she’s right: she really doesn’t care.

So, tell me why we should care about her new book, other than wondering if parts were plagiarized from Michelle Obama, like she did in her speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention. She’s promoting the book now and has the same right of free speech as the rest of us. I won’t be buying a copy, though, because, hey, I don’t care about Melania. Do U?

Quote of the Week

From Jimmy Kimmel:

“Sorry to break your cold little heart, Donald, but I endorsed Kamala Harris for president.”

I like Jimmy Kimmel and heartily approve his endorsement, but he got one thing wrong. Trump doesn’t have a heart.

Okay, that’s just a little fun, but there is a serious issue embedded in all of this. It’s about how we will exercise our freedom of speech, how we will make our voices heard. We must make them heard because, as Professor Snyder cautions us, “truth is risky” and we have to take that risk if we are to keep our freedom of speech.

One of the risks is that if we were to fail to exercise our freedom of speech by telling the truth, we could lose our right of freedom of speech entirely. Some strongman would come along and snuff it out, like a candle going dark – or a democracy going dark.

Look at the countdown timer below and you’ll see that we don’t have much time left to do what we can do, what must be done.

You can write letters to the editor, if you still have a newspaper.

You can post your comments – your speech – to these Disambiguations.

You can connect with a voter call operation – find one at www.JoinTheUnion.us

You can meet some nice people while canvasing for Democratic candidates in swing states.

You can write postcards to voters in swing states.

You can post a yard sign in front of your house.

You can attend rallies and cheer for what you know is right.

You can talk to your neighbor Bubba and ask why he plans to vote for Trump, when Trump would rather see his daughter die than get the help she needs for her rape-caused pregnancy. Okay, maybe that’s too in-his-face.

You can kick in a few bucks to help a Democrat win election in a swing state.

You can vote – and bring some neighbors with you to the polls – see below in RED.

All of these are exercising your freedom of speech, specifically to protect and defend our democracy so that your children and grandchildren will have that same sweet wine. And U care deeply about that.

While you’re deciding which actions you’ll take, watch this post from Steve Schmidt.

Voting and getting out the vote reduce the risk of unwanted presidencies!

.
It’s not the vibes and it’s not the polls: it’s the votes. 
Are you registered to vote? Check it out on any of these websites:
.

https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/

https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration

https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/am-i-registered-to-vote/

“Friends do not let friends vote forcon artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore, even if that makes them a few bucks more expensive. That will help to keep them your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

    Click me

    JA


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

2024 Isn’t Just Another Year


POST 1084

Breaking News

At a rally last night in rural Pennsylvania former President Trump was shot, with the bullet grazing the top of his right ear. One attendee was killed and two others were injured by the gunman.

As he was being moved to a vehicle by Secret Service agents, Trump was seen pumping his fist in the air, apparently repeating the word, “Fight!” Two rally attendees were seen facing a TV camera and pumping their middle fingers sideways, yelling, “F*** you!” It was unclear who their target f**kee was, but their rage appeared to be aimed at the press.

It remains to be seen whether Trump will have an epiphany, if he will see the light, then use this moment to denounce violence, calling on his followers to put away their guns and end all threats of violence. The nation waits with low expectations.

Introduction

Today is Bastille Day, 14 juillet, la Fête nationale française. It is the anniversary of the day in 1789 when the French people declared they would tolerate no more of the brutality of despot King Louis XVI. They stormed the Bastille, a prison and place of torture, and freed prisoners. 94 men were killed in 4 hours.

It is almost King Louis’ kind of oppressive despotism that Trump seeks to establish. Some of that is exposed in this post. If we allow that to happen, the day will come when We The People rise up and say, “No more!” because people refuse to be abused or be slaves. On that day people will die.

We can prevent that sad and cruel story from happening. Read on.

The Draconian, Cruel World

From The New Republic:

[Project 2025] is a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise.

Did reading that sentence send shivers up your spine? It should. These Project 2025 fascists use words like “patriotism” and “conservative” but there is nothing – nothing – patriotic about their unconstitutional declarations and cruelty and nothing that you care about that they would conserve. They would eliminate our Bill of Rights and its protections and freedoms. They would make this a Christian nationalist country, exactly what the Founders rejected. That means every non-Christian American will be a second class citizen at best, and likely worse.

They would eliminate women’s healthcare rights and would prosecute women seeking such medical help. They would imprison doctors who perform these procedures and all who help women in such need. They would fire all the people who work to keep us safe (food, drugs, transportation, etc.) and replace them with know nothing Trump loyalists. They would restrict voting rights to only those who will vote for fascists and they will deploy our military against us in violation of the Constitution. They will order live ammunition attacks by our National Guard against peaceful protesters.

And Donald Trump has promised all this and more.

If we fail to protect and defend our Constitution and our democracy we will be presented the American Carnage that Trump has talked about since January 20, 2017.

Click the pic for a more readable version. Thanks go to FL for the pointer to this.

Here is a chart (click it for a larger, more readable version) listing just some of the rights and freedom killers and personal safety assaults guaranteed by the Project 2025 authoritarian takeover traitors, the ones who formalized Trump’s promises. The conspirators who wrote this manifesto call it the Presidential Transition Project. They don’t name what they intend the presidency to be transitioned to, but it’s clear what they mean. The answer is (choose whatever sounds worst to you): Dictator; Commissar; Fuhrer; Big Brother; Dear Leader; Despot, Supreme Leader. Il Duce.

THIS NIGHTMARE STUFF IS EXACTLY WHAT TRUMP HAS PROMISED AND WHAT HE WILL DELIVER UNLESS WE STOP HIM.

Click me for The Union’s take on this. You can also find a disclosure of the ghastly provisions of this manifesto here.

The point is that while Trump is fumble mouthing around the cruelties in this manifesto in order to avoid losing votes, he stands for and has pledged this democracy ending agenda. Please read the list, or as much of it as you can stomach. These are enormously unpopular actions among We The People, but the authoritarian takeover traitors are promising these and more because they want to be dictators.

OVER YOU!

That’s right: This is personal.

Watch this short video from Rachel Maddow for clarity about the danger we face. And read Steve Schmidt’s A Gathering of Fascists about the upcoming Republican Bund conference.

More Horror

At every rally Trump promises revenge and retribution (“I am your retribution.”) and promises to imprison and/or assassinate his political opponents. The threat of violence is at the core of Trump and MAGA.

From Thom Hartmann, July 11, 2024, Trump’s “Secretary of Retribution” Has Been Appointed: Who is On His List?

Trump’s self-described “Secretary of Retribution,” Ivan Raiklin, already reportedly has a hit list of 350 “deep state” individuals he says they intend to try to assassinate by tricking police into attacking their homes with SWAT teams. [emphasis original]

“Look at my entire Deep State target list,” Raiklin said. “That is the beginning. This is the scratching of the surface of who is going to be criminalized for their treason, okay?”

Setting aside Raiklin’s obvious daddy issues and his poor social skills, he’s right: This is just the beginning.

Trump is promising that if he is re-elected he will round up and incarcerate undocumented people in our country, as well as American citizens. He will dump 11 million people into detention camps. Then he’s going to deport them, somewhere, anywhere, all without due process of law.

He’ll have a discrimination engine then, greased up and running at high speed. Who do you think will be rounded up next when he runs out of  Hispanics and Africans from “s***hole” countries?

Our MAGA domestic terrorists, the criminals Trump will pardon and make his Brownshirts (just as Hitler took criminals out of prison for that same terrorist purpose), won’t just be bashing down someone else’s front door.

THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU!

Click me

The folks at The Lincoln Project have spelled out Trump’s fascism for you. Just click the pic to the right and watch the video. I promise it will interrupt your sleep because you’ll know that it’s true and accurate. And it’s terrifying.

2024 is the moment when we must permanently reject fascism, like the French rejected a cruel despot in 1789. We’ll do that at the ballot box, because if we don’t, 2024 will be America’s last free and fair election.

The Democratic Candidate

Before considering this, I repeat the national imperative:

Protect and defend our Constitution and our democracy.
.

President Biden has been clear about staying in the race and perhaps he will. The only – and I mean the only – question is whether Biden can inspire voters to ignore his manifestations of age and elect both him and a Democratic Congress to stop the fascists. At the moment it’s looking very much instead like Biden is doing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg, staying too long.

Keeping our democracy demands November wins and I have no confidence Biden can deliver them. I called for him to remove himself from the race following the debate and sadly, have not found sufficient reason to change my opinion.

From Sheila Markin:

“When you are fighting for the survival of our democracy against Darth Vader and the storm troopers, it isn’t going to work to send granddad out with a rake to do the job.”

The point – the only point – is to

Protect and defend the Constitution and our democracy.
.

We must defeat the convicted criminal and his anti-Americans seeking to destroy our country, the ones who promise the “termination” of our Constitution. Stopping that requires an energized, inspiring, capable candidate, not grandad with his rake. It’s time for the torch to be passed to a new generation.

Because 2024 isn’t just another year.

This is where we make our stand.
.
Here’s Where This Gets Weird

President Biden held a rally in Detroit Friday evening. He was great! Alert, alive, inspiring, interactive, sharp. Can’t help but wonder  .  .  .  with event after event like this one, can that terrible debate bell can be un-rung? If he won’t quit the race, that is what we must hope for.

What we all must do is to stop imagining this election is between Biden and Trump. In reality, it is an election, a national choice, between democracy and cruel despotism.

We must vote at every level for whoever opposes the fascists, whether it’s a really strong Democrat candidate or a bucket of nails. Vote for democracy!

Last

Protecting what we hold dear and sacred will take all of us, so please pass this post along to others. They need to know.

Democracy is a participation sport, so get in the game! As Thom Hartmann says,

“Tag, you’re IT!“

“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016

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

  • Fire the bastards!


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

May You Not Live In Interesting Times


POST 1066

Read all the way to the bottom for some good stuff.

About Those Interesting Times

Of course, that expression, often claimed to be a Chinese curse (but without verified attribution), didn’t include the word “not” in the original. Decide for yourself if it was intended to hope for something other than bland life circumstances or for stimulating ones; whether it was meant as a tease or perhaps it really was meant as a curse. Regardless, the word “interesting” makes the phrase an analytical thing and distances us from passion and motivation and simply misses the point of humanness.

But if we are to identify with the original phrase we would certainly find things interesting. Our news media has been full of it since 2015 when the Grim Celebrity Phony slid down his golden escalator and announced that Mexican robbers, drug lords and murderers were coming to imperil us. Worse, millions believed him. That could be interesting on many levels, as could over 30,000 lies and thousands of racist dog whistles. Fine, we found it interesting, if not acceptable.

But now we find ourselves faced with a convict with the impulse control of a bratty 6-year-old, having rapidly waning mental faculties and spewing an increasing blathering of gibberish. He’s vying to have the nuclear codes. He’s promising that he will be a dictator and is free to commit murder.

Sure, that’s all intellectual food to digest, but he’s promising to be an existential threat. He might get us all killed. That’s no longer just interesting. It is a life-or-death threat. Sword of Damocles stuff. Pray you won’t have just moments to kiss your ass good-bye, all because that brat had a tantrum.

I have neither need nor desire for such interesting times. I want the chaos and insanity to go away, I want to live in boring times when my existence isn’t threatened. I’ll find my own way to get intellectual stimulation and I wish the same for you. May you not live in interesting times.

But you do and there is no getting around that. In fact, you can change “interesting” to “dangerous” and those are the times we live in.

Many people of influence are working every day to turn this nation into a dictatorship.

They call it “the unitary executive,” unaccountable to Congress or to the courts. Morally slippery Bill Barr is an enthusiastic proponent of this dictatorship.

They bring bizarre cases to the Supreme Court, one of which seriously contemplates whether a president may defy our laws, even to the point of committing murder and then be immune from prosecution. That would be a dictatorship.

The Supreme Court heard a case about electioneering and then bizarrely ruled to allow unlimited money to buy our elections, an issue not even part of the original case. That destroys faith in our judicial system and promotes authoritarian wannabees into dictators.

Presidents ignore laws passed by Congress and then defy those laws with “signing statements.” That’s dictator stuff started by Ronald Reagan.

Many declare that the Founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation, which is both factually untrue (ref: The First Amendment and various Federalist Papers) and which gives rise to dangerous Christian nationalism, which is actually a despotic Brown Shirt thug-ocracy.

They sent riot police to attack and arrest peaceful protesters on college campuses and, most profanely, they say that’s the right thing to do, this in the name of non-discrimination. That’s your kid they’re beating up in a mini dictatorship.

In case you aren’t already, you need to immediately become clear that there are millions who want to take away your rights. This is not an academic thought experiment. They are in action every day, taking the vote away from our citizens, thwarting accountability, cheating our election system, terrorizing immigrants, banning books in a Fahrenheit 451 orgy, siccing riot police on peaceful protesters and so much more. This is not just happening to others. These despots are coming for you.

So, you do live in interesting times. It’s just that these times are going to eat you alive.

Unless we do something about it.

Required Reading

Here’s how the far right (read: fascist pretenders to a despotic throne) see things, this from Heather Cox Richardson.

And here’s how this plot against America is getting funded, thanks to the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court scheming. Read this from Mother Jones.

For Our Moral Purist Voters

From Frank Bruni, May 3, 2024:

.  .  .  the smart way to bar someone “wholly unfit” from the White House [that’s Chris Christie’s descriptor of Trump] is to vote for that person’s opponent. That’s how elections work. “None of the above” isn’t a principled stand. It’s a moral cop-out — and its own dereliction of duty. [emphasis mine – JA]

The same goes for those who intend to vote for Robert Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein or any other 3rd party candidate. Likely those intending to vote 3rd party think that they are making a statement of integrity or a principled stand against two unacceptable old guys. What they are really doing is abandoning their responsibility to guard our democracy and to protect and defend our Constitution.

You may not like the options. A vote for whoever you think is least bad may be onerous, yet it may be as good as it can get now. But a vote for anyone but Biden is a vote to attack and kill our democracy.

Print this section of this Disambiguation and bring it with you to the voting booth on November 5 as a reminder.

Something To Make You Proud

Our modern Foreign Service is 100 years old and it is staffed by amazing people doing the heroic as an every day thing.

I urge you to link here and read some of these short recollections from these amazing people who “were there when” and who stood a post every day to say, “This is who We The People are.” Reading these stories will make you proud both of our Foreign Service people and proud to be an American.

Today is a good day to be the light

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Somebody Has To Tell Me . . .


POST 1063

.  .  .  why we are even talking about:

– whether doctors can be criminally prosecuted in Idaho for having made efforts to save the life of a pregnant woman in distress or if they have to wait until death is imminent before proceeding with life saving treatment and by then the woman might never again be able to carry a baby?

– Trump claiming that a president cannot be prosecuted for “official” criminal acts and that a former president cannot be prosecuted unless the House of Representatives has impeached him and the Senate convicted him. Clearly, “Equal justice under law” will no longer have any meaning.*

– that the Supreme Court of the United States has taken this immunity case, this violation of reason, this affront to the Constitution, this kick in the teeth of justice seriously? And they may well grant Trump such god-like power!** Read this excellent explainer.

– whether Texas women can travel to another state for an abortion or whether she can be given consult from others without any of them going to jail? That is to say, why is it necessary to question whether Texans have freedom of speech or freedom to travel? Or Floridians? Or Mississippians?

.  .  .  how it’s even possible that:

– the state of Tennessee has authorized school teachers to carry firearms, when everyone has known for a very long time that the real problem is not unarmed teachers, but over-armed citizens with a vigilante mania or some other mental derangement, like, “I feel like a weenie, and I know I’ll feel powerful if I kill a bunch of people.”

– Fuhrer Greg Abbot of Texas has his police and National Guard in riot gear on the campus of the University of Texas – Austin and they are arresting and are prepared to beat up kids who are in peaceful protest over suffering Palestinians? This looks like it can become like the 1968 police riot in Chicago all over again, with kids beaten, arrested and shot.

– hateful idiots on college campuses across the country are screaming pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic vitriol, hurling threats at and committing physical assaults on Jewish students? Someone taught them to hate. Someone taught them that they could beat up those who are somehow different from them. I wonder who that might be.

– we tolerate the cruelty heaped on Asians, Muslims, Blacks, Browns and Jews? Oh yeah: it’s that “Someone taught them” thing again.

– a large segment of the Republican Party favors Vladimir Putin and Russia over a democratic ally in Europe and even favors Russia over our own country?

– the majority of Republicans (about 70%) believe Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 election? Didn’t these people receive an education? Do they understand concepts like evidence, reality and the rule of law? How is it that a jury of his peers found Trump liable for sexual abuse and for defamation – twice! – and they still plan to vote for him? And they’ll vote for him even if he is convicted of felonies – crimes – before the election?

– sitting senators (Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley) are calling for National Guard deployment against peaceful protesters? Cotton posted, “I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands.”

– that Speaker Mike Johnson bellowed from the steps of Low Memorial Library, “Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over. Anti-Israel encampments are popping up in universities all across this country. The madness has to stop.” Mother Jones How come today’s Republicans sound an awful lot like hateful, anti-civil rights creeps of the 1960s? Perhaps Johnson and his snarling Buddies On Repression Extremism Society (“BORES”) will bring Iranian Revolutionary Guards to shoot college campus protesters, just like they do in Tehran.

_____________________________________________

* This from Wikipedia:

OLC memoranda

In 1973, amid the Watergate scandal, the Department of Justice‘s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a memorandum concluding that it is unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president.[23] Its arguments include that the president “is the symbolic head of the Nation. To wound him by a criminal proceeding is to hamstring the operation of the whole governmental apparatus in both foreign and domestic affairs.”[24] It says that the statute of limitations should not be tolled while the president is in office, but suggests that Congress could extend the statute of limitations specifically for presidents.[25] After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Clinton, the OLC issued a second memorandum in 2000, distinguishing civil and criminal presidential immunity and determining that it was still improper to prosecute a president due to the adverse affect it might have on his ability to govern.[26]

That is the rationale for the recommended prohibition against prosecuting a sitting president – but only while he or she is still president. My understanding is that there is nothing in either memorandum to indicate that there is a prohibition against prosecuting a president for crimes committed while in office once that president has left office.

More to the point, nowhere is it written that a president enjoys permanent protection from prosecution for criminal activity when no longer in office, as when Trump stole classified documents, brought them to Mar-a-Lago and then lied to the FBI and defied a subpoena. But, of course, Trump’s lawyers have claimed just such protection at the Supreme Court.

Required Reading – click here

Blindfolded Lady Justice – for now

.

The Court heard this case with Justice Clarence Thomas present. He did not recuse himself – again – in his obvious temper tantrum ignoring of his conflict of interest, as his wife Ginni participated in the insurrection at the heart of this case.

Someone has to tell me why the Supreme Court accepted this farcical and cruel excuse of a case. These Justices make it look like Lady Justice is peeking out from behind her blindfold, telling them that it’s okay for them to be political hacks and to undermine our justice system.

If you wish to dig into this further, here’s a link to the full OLC memos, along with pertinent commentary.

** If Trump succeeds with his case in the Supreme Court, President Biden could immediately have Trump assassinated by Seal Team 6, claiming him to be a clear and present danger to the United States. If Seal Team 6 were to refuse such an order, Biden could bring a pistol the the first presidential debate and kill Trump himself. Either way, Biden could never be prosecuted for the murder because the Supreme Court would have made it legal to be a presidential murderer.

Today is a good day to be the light

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Scheming


Here’s Some Of What Decades of Far Right Scheming Have Brought You

Voter suppression through:

extreme gerrymandering;

voting rights suppression;

throwing out voter registrations for obscure reasons – especially in poor and minority areas;

eliminating voting places;

restricting ballot drop box access;

School vouchers for private and parochial schools that starve public schools of money and violate the freedom of religion guarantee of the First Amendment;

Attacking and eliminating healthcare rights;

Cheating on Supreme Court confirmation hearings to get a polarized Court;

Cultivating a power base by appealing to racism and hatred – no more need for dog whistles;

Book banning and book burning;

Stoking fear of the “other;”

Promoting supply side “voodoo” economics for over 40 years, which has served only to make the wealthy wealthier and more powerful and make all others poorer and less powerful;

Packing the Supreme Court to engineer the Citizens United decision into a grotesque monster that allows enormous sums of money from hugely wealthy individuals and corporations to control our elections. This was accomplished by expanding the original case into something not in contest – in effect, making up a new case to ensure power for the wealthy;

Denial of truth and embrace of cruel fictions that stick a spoke into the wheels of progress in Congress and state houses, then complaining that government can’t do anything. Example: spouting lies about the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines and demonizing public health officials, while well over a million people died and our healthcare infrastructure (hospitals) failed, leaving millions without healthcare at all – and at the same time complaining that the government grossly mishandled the pandemic;

A Trump appointed Texas judge overruling the FDA to eliminate Mifepristone, this on a foundation of boundless ignorance and vacuous reasoning. That compliments what appears to be his whitewashing of his extremist views that he hid during his lifetime appointment judgeship confirmation process;

Challenging election results on the basis of absolutely no facts or evidence – but the false claims have accomplished the undermining of citizen confidence in our elections;

Stoking fear and hatred of LGBTQ citizens and inciting violence;

Ignoring the overwhelming public will on issues like gun safety, abortion, healthcare and more. Here is an example in a chart from the April 11 STAT report, based on a Kaiser Family Foundation study.

These are shocking numbers and the story is actually worse than it appears. Read the full Kaiser Family Foundation report. This is what happens when a minority is in control and they ignore what the rest of us want. It’s deadly.

The extremists have been at this for decades, applying billions of dollars and enormous political pressure and their scheming has paid off in their minority control and their fantastic self-enrichment. Decide for yourself if this stuff works for you. If it doesn’t, then perhaps we should be scheming to set things right.

DNC: I don’t hear a thing from you except solicitations for my money. Is that your best shot?

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA

 


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

Hatred, Christian Nationalists & The Supreme Court


An Open Letter to Christian Haters

Did you go to Sunday School when you were a kid? Or at least attend a church service now and then? Here’s what you did with that.

They told you the stories and the lessons from long ago, like to be kind to strangers. They said to be generous to others, especially those less fortunate than you. You remember that stuff, right?

Do you remember the day they told you what Jesus said about hatred? I’m pretty sure they said that Jesus instructed, “Don’t hate,” although they wrapped a lot more words around the message. You sat in your chair and you heard the words.

Then you walked out of the building and said to yourself, “No way, man. I’m gonna do whatever I want, whatever makes me feel good and powerful and in control.” Whatever message or teaching or directive Jesus had for you was cast aside, forgotten, crushed under your heel. In that moment you rejected Jesus completely.

And you’ve been living without Jesus ever since.

Oh, you put up a Christmas tree and you do the other performative stuff and claim you’re a Christian, but you don’t follow the rules. You live under only your own rules and who cares about what those ancient guys said? You like to hate others. It makes you feel good.

This nation has been hating non-Whites for over 400 years. Asians are squarely in the center of the bulls eye again and antisemitism is up 34 percent (seven incidents per day), according to the most recent data a year ago. The count of those acts of hatred is almost certainly higher now. So, with all that hatred infecting people, tell me again how this is a Christian nation.

Bible thumpers, holier than thou types, those wearing beatific masks, please don’t even imagine you’re fooling anyone. There is a universe of issues on which you try to paint your non-Semitic image of Jesus, but it’s just your ongoing dishonesty.

When you invade a prayer meeting at a Black church and shoot the people there, when you blast away the congregants in a synagogue, when you make death threats and distribute hate literature, when you make laws that crush your out-group, you’re refusing, denying and even giving the finger to Jesus.

That’s your truth that you hide from. But know this: we see you for what you are. So, don’t tell us you want this to be a Christian Nationalist country, because you wouldn’t be allowed to live there.

The Constitution

Now that I’ve inflamed a lot of people, let’s take this one step further.

The Articles in The Constitution primarily describe how our government is intended to work. The Amendments primarily define the rights we have as citizens. Here’s a link so that you can review all The Amendments to understand your rights. And everyone else’s, too.

What neither the Articles nor the Amendments offers is an opportunity to check a box next to the parts you like and ignore the rest.

So, if you are an ardent believer that the Second Amendment gives you the unlimited right to own and carry whatever guns or other armament you like, you would surely check the box next to that Amendment. But in calling yourself patriotic, a true American, you also have to check the box next to the First Amendment, which gives everyone, even the people you hate, the right of freedom of religion. That precludes the possibility of this becoming a Christian Nationalist nation. This country was never meant to be that. Get over it.

The First Amendment also gives us the right of freedom of speech. That means that the people you hate can say what they like, just as you can. And they can publish what they want, even if it goes against your rigid principles. There are limits to what anyone can say, but the limits have nothing to do with whether you like what they’re saying.

The First Amendment also gives us freedom of the press, the right of peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. These are for everyone, not just for you. Nobody gets to pick and choose those rights or deny them to anyone else.

We have senators and representatives who rail every day against the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments. They want to leave some of those imaginary boxes unchecked because it’s inconvenient or annoying that others whom they hate have the same rights as they have. The same goes for millions of ordinary citizens.

Show me the patriotism in that. Show me how demanding that this be a Christian Nationalist country comports with our founding document.

Right. You can’t.

So, Just For You .  .  .
.

Here’s a link to become a card carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Click it and join to protect and defend our Constitution. You’re patriotic and want to protect and defend the Constitution, right?

Question Of The Week

Since we’re talking about hatred, the Supreme Court consistently decides cases in ways that negatively impact Americans. They call themselves conservatives, but I’m wondering what they’re conserving. Think:

Citizens United – gave corporations and rich people the right to distort our elections in their favor and against yours

Dodd v. Jackson Women’s Health – killed abortion rights. And don’t even think of imputing your supposed Christian judgments on that – see the last paragraph below.

Various gun safety laws like Heller and MacDonald – effectively made it easier for haters to kill others

A swamp of voter suppression laws (e.g. closing polling places, eliminating ballot drop boxes, gerrymandering, removing voters’ registrations) and they all seem to be decided in favor of the haters

So, our Question Of The Week is,

Why do the so-called conservatives on the Supreme Court hate Americans?

Supreme Court Fallout

If you’re a woman, they stole your reproductive rights. If you’re a man, they stole those rights from your wife, your sister, your daughter, all the females in your neighborhood, extending from sea to shining sea plus you know where else. Almost as bad, that theft of rights is being imputed into other organizations, driven by far right pressure.

Take Walgreen’s, for instance. They just announced that they will no longer sell Mifepristone, the abortion pill. Not just in states where they’ve been outlawed, but in states where it is still quite legal to sell them. They have allowed themselves to be intimidated by far right big money pressure and they’re caving in.

I’m wondering if enough pressure can be applied the other way by we consumers, who have choices. We can explain to Walgreen’s that those choices include CVS, Rite-Aid and the rest.

Here’s a plea from an activist friend:

We hope you will take five minutes today to contact Walgreen’s headquarters at (800) 925-4733 (press 5 at the prompt) to make clear that those who want to strip away women’s fundamental rights are in the minority.

Women make 85% of all consumer purchases in the US (Forbes), and drive 70-80% of spending among consumers (Entrepreneur, Mar 19, 2021). We demand that our medical decisions be respected. We will not spend our dollars at institutions that do not protect us.

I’ll add that right-to-choose voters poll over the falsely named pro-life voters (the guys who hate abortion but love the death penalty) by 24 percentage points. Seems like we Americans like our rights.

Go call Walgreen’s.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

Science Fair Project, An Update, Hanukkah and the Weather


A Saturday post – because you might be busy tomorrow.

Voyager 1 – traveling for over 45 years, now 14.3 million miles from Earth in inter-stellar space, 22 light-hours away, traveling at over 36,000 mph – and still exploring.

Science Fair Project: The Search For Alien Life
Hypothesis:

There is detectable alien life in the universe.

Procedure:

Observe behavior.

Observation #1

I stumbled upon a short post from October 7, 2010 (edited here for brevity). Read it to observe behavior.

Lemmings and Leaders

It’s a common belief that those cute little lemmings follow one another over a cliff and are dashed on the rocks below to their instant demise. In point of fact, lemmings aren’t particularly smart, but they do have enough innate survival instinct not to follow their pals over a cliff.

Mark Kirk was a congressman (R-IL-10) for 10 years.  He did what he was told to do by Republican leadership, voting for every Republican spending bill. He helped to double the national debt, adding more to it than all previous administrations combined since George Washington, this because Kirk was a good little doobie follower. But we didn’t elect him to be a follower.

When the issue of war, any nation’s gravest question, came before him, Mark Kirk asked not a single question in session. He didn’t offer any skepticism or even appear to raise an eyebrow. He just voted as he was told, in lock step with the rest of the Republicans for Bush’s wrong war, taking us over the metaphorical cliff. He was a suicidal/homicidal follower.

We need our leaders to be bolder than that and, certainly, we need them to be at least as smart as lemmings and not follow anyone over a cliff.

We are beset by leaders who don’t lead, who instead take a cowardly path. Because this is ultimately self-destructive to our nation and is in conflict with our natural drive for self-preservation (Ref: lemmings), this behavior must be caused by some non-native force and is likely the result of alien influence.

Observation #2

The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law .  .  .  abridging the freedom of speech .  .  .”

That has nothing to do with whether any private company, including pre-Musk Twitter, may decide to blank out liars and hate speech.

Also, the First Amendment has nothing to do with Apple deciding to abandon Twitter and instead put their advertising dollars where the company won’t be associated with liars and hate speech. Musk’s whining about freedom of speech is factually empty and is highly indicative of aberrant behavior, possibly from an alien source.

The government won’t stop Musk from his senseless blabbing – that’s prohibited – but millions of exiting employees, users and advertisers may well stop him.

Oddly concurrent with his visionary, marvelous stuff, Musk wants to promote (or at least allow) extremism that harms people. This is solid evidence of a diabolical alien influence.

    • “Elon Musk is a geyser of gibberish, so it’s important not to make too much of anything he says.”
    • – Frank Bruni

With pasted on smirks, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz sat, refusing to honor Ukrainian President Zelinskyy. Could they be aliens?

Hypothesis Proven True

Hypothesis: There is detectable alien life in the universe.

These observations of terrestrial life compromised by extraterrestrial afflictions should be enough to give us pause. We don’t need the new NASA moon program or the SETI Array or listening probes sailing beyond our solar system to establish that there are alien life forms about. They’re unmistakable, as they emit unstable, intelligence-impersonating signals that weaken us. We have Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy, Kari Lake and so many more proofs of alien life forms right here.

Most of the time they fiddled with their phones (texting one another?). That was after they had crashed security and refused screening. Yeah, they’re probably aliens.

Many alien forms are without skeletal support, spineless and weak. Others amass protection via insulation made of cash. Most babble fantasies constantly. They hide behind our laws and our protections, using our good will to attack and destroy us. They have infiltrated our planet, set us into tribal conflict and polluted our gene pool.

Conclusion

With such a mass of evidence, we are left without doubt of the existence of alien life. Even more significant, they walk among us!

Worst of all, they create deadly conflict among our people, putting us more at risk every day.

Recommendations

The key for us will be to minimize the influence of these aliens and to take steps to eradicate this infestation. We must be smart and clever, as we go about purifying our planet. Otherwise, Earth will become just another rock in the vastness of space that is absent of any intelligent life.

———————————-

An Update

In my December 14 post I listed many of the clinically crazy things far righties do. Among them was,

They project alt-right wrongdoing onto others. Whatever the far right is doing, they accuse the “socialist Democrats” of it, once again without any evidence.

As though to cast a bright light on such behavior, last weekend Trump posted on his Truth Social fantasy grievance platform:

“They say that the Unselect Committee of Democrats, Misfits, and Thugs, without any representation from Republicans in good standing, is getting ready to recommend Criminal Charges to the highly partisan, political, and Corrupt ‘Justice’ Department for the ‘PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICLY’ speech I made on January 6th. This and my actions were mild & loving, especially when compared to Democrats wild spewing of HATE.” [Copied and pasted in full from Trump’s post. All emphasis, incorrect grammar, punctuation and spelling are his except the bold – that’s mine. JA]

It’s the “Democrats wild spewing of HATE” piece that is the projection. See how that works?

Now that the January 6th Committee report is out, expect continuous vomiting of such stupid stuff. Brace yourself.

Hanukkah

In addition to tomorrow being Christmas, it is also the eighth night of Hanukkah – all candles blazing. It is the celebration of the end of a long and brutal oppression, a victory for freedom and the restoration of justice.

Last week the members of the January 6 Committee gave our country the gift of a vital step in the same direction. They declared their referrals for criminal prosecution to the Department of Justice and referrals to the House for ethics violations.

The journey to freedom and justice is a hard and constant struggle. Light some candles tonight to celebrate our victory.

Weather

You don’t need to be told that it’s nasty, dangerous cold outside, but here’s the real deal.

You and I are inside heated dwellings and we stay comfy – and that’s great. It’s also true that right here on the North Shore we have homeless (“unhoused”) people trying to survive by staying inside a refrigerator box. It isn’t warm there and they most definitely are not comfy. But you and I can do something about that.

Rotary of Northbrook has a “Coat Off Your Back” project to collect and distribute “gently used” winter coats to people who need them. Here’s a link to find drop off points. If you aren’t near Northbrook, just check Rotary or other do-gooder organizations near you. The Rotary effort ends today, so hurry. People are cold.

On behalf of cold people, please pass along this message to family, friends, neighbors – even Trump voters. We’re in this together.

————————————

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

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

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