Guns

I’m So Old


I’m so old that I remember when passing the debt ceiling was just a box that Congress checked each year to ensure the full faith and credit of the United States. There was no conflating future spending with payment for past spending. There was no threatening of our economy. We just paid our bills.

I remember when abandoning world leadership, as well as abandoning our allies, was unthinkable, when Republicans insisted on muscular foreign policy and would never advocate for Russia or China.

And I remember when foreign autocrats, dictators and bullies were scorned and it wouldn’t even occur to a red, white and blue American to praise or emulate them, much less invite these thugs to deliver a keynote address.

I’m so old that I remember when promoting child labor or child marriage or defending statutory rape were unthinkable.

I distinctly recall a time when one country invading another nation’s territory, threatening its sovereignty and committing war crimes were universally abhorred, especially by Republicans, who would never condone, much less praise such actions.

I remember clearly when lying about voting fraud and election results were bad things and when actively promoting such lies was seen as treachery.

I remember a time when making death threats against fellow citizens was unacceptable.

I’m so old that I remember when there were profiles in courage to write about in books. And books were good things that only evil despots banned and burned.

I’m so old that I remember a time when having more rights was a good thing and something to defend and protect.

I remember when Supreme Court justices were held in the highest esteem by the entire country, this because they earned that esteem.

I’m so old that I remember when a president of the United States would never deny the reality of a deadly pandemic for months, then prescribe treatments that had absolutely no efficacy and some which would kill patients immediately. No president would accuse and ridicule our dedicated public health experts or reduce testing in order to make his numbers look better, all leading to over a million dead Americans.

There was even a time when a politician accused of crimes and about to be indicted for several more couldn’t possibly collect endorsements for his candidacy for the next election for president. And the notion of running for the presidency from a prison cell would have been universally considered absurd.

I distinctly recall when a mass shooting was murder, as were shooting someone who rang the wrong doorbell or who got into the wrong car or who pulled into the wrong driveway. It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone then that such shootings were someone exercising Second Amendment rights or that “stand your ground” meant that it’s okay to just blast away. Back then private citizens possessing weapons of war was unthinkable.

I remember when both major political parties had clearly stated policies and program ideas to implement those policies and they negotiated to find a way forward. It was all based on agreed upon facts and observable reality. How quaint.

I remember when the American people weren’t so disgusted with politics that 41% refused to declare a party affiliation.

Click me for the story

I’m so old that I remember when committing business records fraud, making illegal campaign contributions, stealing government records, some highly classified, leaking top secret documents to adversaries, committing rape, defamation and numerous episodes of adultery, inciting a mob to riot against our nation in an act of sedition, soliciting vote count fraud and committing tax fraud were universally believed to be illegal and worthy of prosecution. Except for adultery, which is a civil violation.

I must be really old.

Quote of the Week
  • “Clarence Thomas has got to fall back. He is the definition of a cuck, which, if you don’t know, is someone who lets another guy pay for his mom’s house.
  • “Or, I know a lot of people are, like, isn’t a cuck a guy who watches his wife screw America? Either way, he’s gotta go.
  • “And I don’t think there will be justice on the Supreme Court until Clarence Thomas steps down and is replaced by Anita Hill.”
  • – Jena Friedman on The Beat with Ari Melber, April 28, 2023
Betcha you laughed at that last one.
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 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

NO! v2.0


We Americans routinely let tragedy happen to school children, as at the Covenant School in Nashville and at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and now at a Dadeville, AL sweet 16 party. Children are powerless to stop the murdering, so they count on we adults, we good people, to speak up and say “NO!“

This truly is a political issue, because stopping the murders will require our national collective will. Those who say we shouldn’t “politicize” our mass shootings are effectively saying we shouldn’t prevent the next ones. The result of that is that the mass shootings continue to happen and more children die.

Our politicians are dedicated first and foremost to self-preservation, which to them means staying in office. Some may have a strong moral backbone, but too many do not. That leads directly to “thoughts and prayers” and “This is not the time” and “We must not politicize this” and all the other miserable, spineless, self-serving blather of (mostly) Republicans beholden to the gun industry and Second Amendment extremists. And they get away with it because too many good people fail to speak up in the voting booth to say “NO!“ and vote out of office those who refuse to take action to protect our kids.

We aren’t the only country with wretched politicians, but we’re the only country with politicians who allow the murder of little kids to effectively be our national policy.
.

Read that last sentence again.

Following their horrific trauma, the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School survivors declared “Never Again,” but the echo of their call to action fades until the next slaughter. Too many of we good people have allowed that declaration to be just words.

We’re 113 days into the year and already we have had 169 mass shootings, including murders of little school children and teens. That’s 1.5 mass shootings per day and that doesn’t include drive-bys, gun suicides and the rest. We kill about 45,000 of our citizens with guns every year. “Never Again” has devolved into “Ever Again and Again,” because nothing substantive has changed to alter our course.*

How is it that we don’t seem to get it? I’m wondering seriously whether to mobilize this nation against gun violence it will be necessary for us to be shown photographs and videos of the bodies of murdered little school children, pictures that show how savagely, brutally ripped apart their bodies are from bullets designed for war. Maybe the words “We had to do a DNA test to determine who that kid was” will mean more to us once we see with our own eyes why that was so wickedly true.**

Here’s a note to the millions of good people who don’t vote:

You’re letting this carnage happen.
.

The same comment goes to those who vote for politicians who puff themselves up with their man badge AR-15s, as though that attests to their being true Americans or courageous or some pitiful version of Don’t Tread On Me. Meanwhile, they refuse to do anything to protect our children.

Do you think that it’s just a handful of Americans who are affected by gun violence, maybe just the ones you hear about on TV? See the chart and comments at bottom of this post and be sure to click through and read the linked report. You don’t have to be ripped apart by a bullet to be affected by gun violence.

Far too many of us have already been maimed by injuries that will not heal, like Trayvon Martin’s mom. And the Sandy Hook and Parkland and Uvalde and Sugarland and Covenant School moms and dads. And the people who loved all the drive-by victims, the innocents like that little girl doing a puzzle on her living room floor who was killed by a random bullet from a random gun fired by a random thug just because he could get a gun. It’s all the people who live with the pain and the horror for which there are no words. They are forever affected by gun violence.

We the majority don’t get what we want on this and so many other issues. Some of them are deadly, like gun violence. And maternal mortality. And immigration cruelty. And death  by poverty. That is entirely because the extremist minority votes and too many of we good people have refused to speak up with our votes.

Signing petitions is nice and protesting in the streets can be helpful and can feel empowering, but

ALL OF THE POWER COMES FROM THE VOTING BOOTH!
.

It’s long past time for our voices to be heard from that powerful place saying, “NO!” Mark your calendar to do that on November 5, 2024.

Quote of the Week

Watch for “NO!” v3.0 this Wednesday, April 26.

_________________________________

* Even as Republicans like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) love to have accusatory tirades over violence and murders in blue big cities, 21 of the 22 states with the highest rates of gun deaths are red states. Jordan’s district in Ohio has a murder rate far higher than that of New York City.

The state with the lowest rate of gun deaths is blue Massachusetts, which also has the strictest gun laws. Do you suppose there’s a message in that, some guideline for what we good people can do to protect our kids and ourselves? See this post.

** From this New York Times Magazine piece:

After each new mass shooting, the question, the debate, returns. Would seeing the crime-scene photos have an effect on the gun crisis in the same way images of Emmett Till’s body in an open coffin had on the civil rights movement?

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

Ignorance


My friend Dr. Mardy Grothe writes an interesting and insightful post each week. Indeed his offering is the first thing I read Sunday mornings.

His comments usually focus on literary issues in a most clever way. However, last Sunday he uncharacteristically dipped a toe in my accustomed pond. His piece is so good that I asked permission to share a portion as a guest essay here and Mardy graciously accommodated my request, much to your benefit.

You can find him at http://www.drmardy.com/. I recommend that you look for the “Subscribe” function.

This Week’s Theme:
“How Has the Ignorance of Others Affected Your Life?”

This past week news reports  detailed a Tallahassee, Florida charter school principal being forced to resign after [three] parents of students in her sixth-grade art history class filed a formal complaint about their children being exposed to a “pornographic” image. The image in question, it turns out, was a photograph of Michelangelo’s statue of “David.”

This kind of thing is now routinely happening in Florida, thanks to the innocuous-sounding “Parental Rights in Education” bill that governor Ron DeSantis pushed through his rubber-stamp legislature in July of 2022 (this was the legislation critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill). If you currently live in one of the American “red” states, expect similar ludicrousness to be coming to your area soon, as Republican-controlled state legislatures all over the country have begun to eagerly champion the cause of “Parent’s Rights in Education.” Sadly, we’ve now entered an era in which it has become easy to get a book banned or a teacher fired because something that reasonable people would consider acceptable has offended someone’s sensibilities. It all brings to mind an observation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who wrote in Proverbs in Prose (1819):

“Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.”

I’m sure you can recall from your younger years when you first witnessed some local ignoramus complaining about evolution being taught in public schools or offering a totally fallacious theory as the absolute truth. We called such people “crackpots” back then, and as I grew older, I learned that almost every neighborhood or community has at least one. All crackpots have one thing in common: there is simply no reasoning with them. A 1910 issue of Life magazine captured a truth about them when it cited an unknown author as saying:

“Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.”

Like all groups, crackpots have their “influencers” as well, and they have been successful in infecting countless others. Just think of the millions of holocaust deniers around the world. Or the millions of U. S. citizens who believed that a duly elected American president was born in a foreign country and was therefore ineligible to occupy the nation’s highest office. More recently, thanks to what is now routinely described as “The Big Lie,” there are tens of millions of Americans who believe that Joseph Biden is also an illegitimate U.S. president.

Ignorance has been historically regarded as simply an absence of knowledge, but this new kind of ignorance—a willful ignorance—is like a metastasis of the original condition. Thanks to the philosopher Karl Popper, it might be viewed this way:

“Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge
but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know,
issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.”

This week, reflect on how the phenomenon of willful ignorance has shown up in your life, and how you responded when it did. As usual, you will find a number of quotations below to assist you in your reflections:

“To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”

— A. BRONSON ALCOTT

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance
when the need for illusion is great.”

— SAUL BELLOW

“Ignorance is an evil weed,
which dictators may cultivate among their dupes,
but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.”

— WILLIAM BEVERIDGE

“The highest form of ignorance is to reject
something you know nothing about.”

— WAYNE W. DYER

“It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power;
but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance?
Knowledge slowly builds up
what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.”

— GEORGE ELIOT

“Stupidity’s the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.”

— WILLIAM GADDIS

“Ignorance is not bliss.
Ignorance is impotence; it is fear; it is cruelty;
it is all the things that make for unhappiness.”

— WINIFRED HOLTBY

“Reason obeys itself;
and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”

— THOMAS PAINE

“Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind;
one of its characteristics is that
it doesn’t recognize itself as ignorance.”

— JANE SMILEY

“The people who are scariest to me are the people
who don’t even know enough to realize how little they know.”

— THOMAS SOWELL

For source information on these quotations, and others on the subject of IGNORANCE, visit: DMDMQ.
My Thought of the Week

“Ignorance 
is a problem to be corrected,
and not exploited for personal or political gain.”
Speaking of Ignorance

Click me

The Tennessee House of Representatives put another notch in their Ku Klux Klan lynching rope last Thursday. The super-majority Republicans were shocked, shocked! I tell you, to have witnessed three representatives participate in a peaceful protest with students who, not too surprisingly, don’t want to be shot dead by yet another school shooter, as had happened in Nashville two weeks earlier.

For their temerity to speak up for safety and to the horror of the proper decorum Republicans, two young Black men and one White woman, all duly elected representatives, were put on trial to be expelled from the House for their peaceful participation in a peaceful, albeit noisy, protest demonstration that was conducted because kids don’t want to be shot dead.

All three legislators did the same things during the protests, but only the two Black representatives were expelled. The White woman kept her seat in the House. Could this be a more blatant demonstration of racial discrimination?

Many of us had thought we might have moved past this kind of horrific display of racism, but of course, we were only fooling ourselves. Racism and White supremacy were on display for all to see and this was nothing less than a

legislative lynching

.

Perhaps the Republicans in the Tennessee House, working as they do in the city where 3 little kids and 3 adults were just murdered and in the state where the Ku Klux Klan originated, think they can get away with this. After all, not long ago one of their members recommended a return to lynching.

How is it that people still have to do this?

But they’re wrong.

The whole world is watching and condemning them. We the People won’t allow for their hatred to remain in control. That’s especially so for our Millennials and Gen-Zs and a few of we Boomers who still remember our idealism. Just imagine running a political campaign against the haters in the 2024 election. The campaign writes itself.

Isn’t it odd that people still have to raise a fist in a declaration for equality and respect? No, that didn’t end at the 1968 Olympics, because we are still a nation that tolerates systemic bigotry.

But the ignorance infusing that awful alt-right deed in Nashville on Thursday will prove to be counter-productive to the haters. You and I and so many of us will see to that.

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

Amendment XXVIII


Section 1.

Whereas: The necessity of a free state to have a well regulated militia being fully satisfied by the various State National Guard units; and,

Whereas: The right of the people to be safe and secure in their persons, domiciles and in all public places being paramount; therefore,

Upon ratification of this article, the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is immediately repealed.

Section 2.

Sale, possession or use of automatic firearms, assault rifles, large capacity ammunition magazines, bump stocks and all other firearm modifications designed to create automatic fire weapons, ghost guns, silencers and ammunition designed for warfare are strictly prohibited. The official collection of banned materials from private hands, the time period for such collection and the determination of proper compensation, if any, for the relinquishing of banned materials shall be as proscribed by Congress through legislation.

Anyone found to be in possession of banned firearm materials beyond the final date set forth by Congress for turning in such materials will be guilty of a felony with penalties as defined by Congressional legislation.

Section 3.

The transportation, distribution or importation into any State, Territory or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of prohibited firearm materials intended for private sale or possession is a felony subject to such penalties as Congress shall establish.

Section 4.

Ownership of handguns, hunting rifles and shotguns shall be allowed by permit only. Permission for such ownership shall be as specified by Congress. At all times such ownership shall be subject to the following provisions:

1. All private citizens seeking ownership of any firearm shall undergo a thorough background check to determine whether such citizens are capable of and likely to follow legal and safety rules of ownership. No person having been found guilty of violent behavior shall be allowed to own firearms.

Failure to successfully complete  this background check shall disqualify any citizen from firearm ownership and possession. Background checks shall be defined by Congress and shall be subject to adjustment through legislation as Congress shall from time to time deem appropriate.

2. All owners of firearms shall secure liability insurance against harm to others as Congress shall require. Firearm owners shall keep such insurance in force at all times.

3. Prior to delivery into private hands of any legal firearm, the owner(s) shall undergo use and safety training as Congress shall deem to be required. Any citizen failing to successfully complete such use and safety training shall be prohibited from owning and from possessing any firearm.

4. No person or household shall be allowed to possess more than three (3) firearms at any time.

5. Use of an otherwise legal firearm in the commission of any misdemeanor or felony shall cause the perpetrator to be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence in federal prison of not less than five (5) years, regardless of whether such firearm is discharged during the commission of a misdemeanor or felony.

6. When privately owned firearms are not in use they must be stored in a locked cabinet or storage device that meets all security provisions as Congress shall define. Firearms in storage must be unloaded. Ammunition must be stored in a similar manner and separate from all firearms.

7. The right of firearm ownership shall be terminated upon any illegal use of a firearm and all firearms owned by any person using any firearm illegally shall be surrendered to law enforcement authorities immediately.

8. Congress shall create by legislation an Extreme Risk Law to allow for an intervention to temporarily prevent any citizen in crisis from accessing firearms of any type.

9. No person under the age of 21 years shall be allowed to own or possess any firearm of any kind.

Section 5.

Upon ratification of this article, the following types of legislation, whether federal, state or local, are immediately revoked and made null and void:

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2006

Any and all laws authorizing open carry of firearms

Any and all Stand Your Ground laws

Any and all permit-less concealed carry laws

Section 6.

Congress shall establish a complete list of zones where it is illegal for any private citizen to carry or possess firearms at any time, including schools, college campuses, daycare centers, playgrounds and other places where children gather, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, any public gathering, whether indoors or outdoors, public demonstrations and rallies, airports, polling places, courthouses and other locations as Congress shall determine. Simple possession of firearms in such places shall be a felony, with penalties as defined by Congress through legislation.

Section 7.

Congress shall have the power to enforce and adjust this Amendment through appropriate legislation as Congress shall from time to time deem appropriate and necessary for the safety of the citizens of the States, Territories and possessions of the United States of America.

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

_________________________________

Click the pic

America should be judged by the small coffins it tolerates.

Finally,

Cooler heads have a clear message for us regarding the indictment of Donald Trump. They tell us that this is a sober time. Never before have we indicted either a former president or a presidential candidate, much less both at the same time. These are weighty charges carrying grave and far-reaching consequences.

Yet as David Frum wrote in The Atlantic,

“It’s a solemn and sad moment. It’s also a fiercely just moment.”

This is a time of joy for our nation. This is a moment to celebrate the beginning of the restoration of the rule of law and accountability. This is when we make it more than an easy slogan that no one is above the law. This is when it becomes so. Just this indictment is a victory for us all.

I wrote in this space last Friday,

Remember this day, March 30, 2023, so that you can tell your grandchildren that this was the moment when justice began to return to America.
.

I’m right about that.

Whether Trump is found guilty of any of the 30+ charges against him is not the point right now. His behavior looks like fraud, smells like conspiracy and perp walks like illegal campaign contributions. Trump deserves to be put on trial for these and whatever other charges District Attorney Alvin Bragg has for him. Let this man who has never been held accountable at last face the music for his deeds.

And we can dance in the streets to that music.

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

Again and Again


Charlton Heston giving his “cold dead hands” speech at the NRA convention in 2000. Since then over 32,000 more children have cold, dead hands due to gunfire.

Three little children showed up for third grade on Monday. Now they’re dead.

We have a school shooting every 3 days.

We have a mass shooting twice every 3 days.

The biggest cause of death of children under 18 is not auto collisions. It isn’t any disease. It is gunfire.

We have enough firearms in private hands for every man, woman and child to possess 1.3 guns. And yes, that calculation includes newborns and toddlers not even able to lift a gun, as well as our mentally ill and those who see themselves as victims and are permanently pissed off.

Yes, we really are Number 1.

You know the comparisons to all the rest of the developed nations in the world, so you know that we’re number one in all the awful and insane ways.

Our police are the ones who are first to the scene of our massacres. They see the bodies of little kids that are ripped apart by bullets designed for warfare – bullets designed to rip apart as may bodies as possible as fast as possible. They’re the ones who have to risk their own lives to stop gunmen on the hunt for more victims. Sometimes those blue clad bodies are included in the count of the massacred.

We say that Blue Lives Matter, but we keep on creating new crime scenes and sending our men and women in blue to deal with them. If you really care about Blue Lives, ask one of the cops who showed up at Sandy Hook or Parkland and now Nashville about their worst moment ever. Ask them about the ache in their hearts that won’t go away. Ask them about their regular nightmares of little kids with mangled bodies, real visions that haunt them and won’t go away. Ask them about the stupidity of right wing manipulation of the Second Amendment to mean anyone, sane or crazy, is allowed to have as many tools of death as they can afford to buy or steal.

Don’t let anyone get away with telling you that Blue Lives Matter and in the same breath say that it’s okay for their angry brother-in-law to have an arsenal. Don’t let them say that it’s okay for miserable, crazy Uncle Bubba to carry a loaded Glock and wave it at whoever cuts him off in traffic.

And don’t let anyone get away with telling you that we love our kids and our concert goers and our church and temple attendees and our fellows walking down the sidewalk. Don’t let them tell you that we love our students on college campuses and grannies in the supermarket or Walmart or our veterans or any of the nearly 10,000 Americans killed by gunfire so far this year – and it isn’t even April yet. Our behavior says otherwise.

Our behavior says that we love our guns more than we love our kids.
.
Question Of the Day

If we actually did love one another, if we actually cared about one another, we’d want to stop this butchery, so what would we be doing to stop it?

Hint: We know what to do. And look here and here, too. And see Peter Frampton’s answer at the bottom of this post.

Confession Of the Day

I’m despairingly sick at heart that our brutal truth allows me to write this post.

And I’m livid once again that instead of sending us gun safety legislation, our cowardly, selfish politicians (fact check: nearly all Republicans) are once again sending us nothing more than thoughts and prayers and a distracting sideshow. They’re doing their verbal dance of death, blaming windows, doors, gays, mental health, insufficient guns and more. They never address the core issue: We have hundreds of millions of guns and easy accessibility to them.

The hard liners proclaim their squishy, gelatinous solutions, saying we need more people to have and carry guns. They declare that bad guys won’t follow our rules, so there’s no point in creating new safety laws. They screech their absolutist Second Amendment nonsense, even as killers are murdering our kids.

Little kids are being put into half-size, soul tormenting caskets. If you ever see one, you’ll never be the same.

Three little children showed up for third grade on Monday. Now they’re dead.

Click the pic

Nicole Hockley is the CEO and founder of Sandy Hook Promise. Her 7-year-old son Dylan was one of the 26 murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. He would be 18 years old now, ready to walk across the stage and accept his high school diploma. But there won’t be a diploma for Dylan.

The caption above reads, “Gov. Bill Lee is flanked by Republican members of the state legislature Wed., June 2, 2021 during a ceremonial bill signing of his permitless carry legislation. Natalie Allison, The Tennessean.” Click the pic.

Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action. She thinks kids should be safe in school and that you should be safe on the street, in a movie theater or in a store.

Regarding our knowing what to do about this horrific murdering of our people, have a look at Peter Frampton’s post.

This cure was no one-off. The same cure worked in Australia in 1995. We know what to do, but we’ve lacked the will to do it. We can change that.

Try this simple 3-step process:

  1. Defeat the Congressional gun lobby babies and the gun coddlers. Replace them with reform candidates dedicated to stopping the carnage. Not reducing it. Stopping it.
  2. Demand that Congress pass the sweeping laws we all know we need. Even the majority of gun owners acknowledge we need them.
  3. Give law enforcement the tools and the funding to enforce our new safety laws.

And be clear that We the People – that’s you and I – must support all of that. Actively.

Now watch this.

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

Riddle Me That, Batman


Join the Disambiguation Gang right over there ⇒ (scroll down just a bit)

_____________________________________

The Riddler, aka E. Nigma

We human beings are walking contradictions. We say we want to be fit and healthy but we forget the New Year’s resolution and drop the gym membership before January 20 (to get the full membership refund) and we eat stuff that tastes good, but we know it’s bad for us.

We know the climate is warming, causing not just more natural disasters, but far more destructive ones. Check with Uncle Phil who lives in the California mountains to hear what he has to say about that right now – if you can get through to him. Or what Aunt Gloria in Ft. Myers, FL said about the hurricane last September. Or check with anybody in the still not fully rebuilt Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, these 18 years after Katrina, or any farmer who’s watched his crops wither and die in a massive draught. These disasters really are becoming more frequent and more devastating, but we still go out and buy a 17 mpg SUV or a 13 mpg pickup truck. Riddle me that.

Sometimes we’re contradictions in ways that are devastating in immediate and very personal ways.

For example, pro-life people are staunchly against abortion. They offer various rationales for their views, including calling abortion murder, stating their religious justifications and more. Here’s the riddle me part.

These folks are often in favor of capital punishment. That is decidedly not pro-life. You could ask any of the former death row inmates who were released due to the fine work of The Innocence Project. They know a lot about capital punishment from a perspective you don’t have and they’re quite sure that capital punishment isn’t pro-life.

And what about the pro-lifers who don’t want us to support healthcare for poor people, some of whom die for lack of healthcare? Or those who don’t want to provide supplemental food for poor children. Or those who won’t support a first rate education for kids regardless of their home address? This is starting to look very much like these people aren’t pro-life at all and perhaps aren’t even pro-kids. They’re just pro-fetus and don’t demonstrate much caring for kids following their birth. Riddle me that.

And while we’re on the subject of giving birth, how is it pro-life to refuse an abortion to pregnant women whose lives will clearly be in peril if their pregnancy continues? And how is it pro-life to force a 10-year-old girl in Ohio, a victim of rape and incest, to carry a fetus to term, endangering her life? Riddle me those life-of-the-mother contradictions.

Should you take issue with my indictment of pro-life, read Thom Hartmann’s exquisitely clear unmasking of it.

Our military people were ordered to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, this to ensure our fighting forces would be ready when needed, unlike the sailors and ships the Navy had to sideline in 2021. Some refused the order to be vaccinated. Bear in mind that they were required to receive various vaccines upon entering military service, so their objection surely wasn’t about vaccines.

They took an oath freely and without reservation, they affirmed, both to protect and defend the Constitution and to obey orders. And they kept their word, right until the moment when they didn’t. Riddle me that one, too.

Click me for the story

There was a gang of thugs who were going to kidnap and execute the Governor of Michigan because of her mask mandate and the 2021 lock down. They were conspiring to violate a bucketload of laws, all the while calling themselves patriots. That looks a lot like the January 6 insurrectionists carrying Blue Lives Matter flags, the flagpoles of which they used to beat and stab police officers. They proclaimed that they were true patriots, too. Riddle me those cruelties.

How about the mania for book banning and book burning that’s sweeping states with extremist, self-serving governors and legislatures? It’s always done with some excuse about protecting our delicate children from the truth, always with the patina of some invented notion of parents’ rights. But in the end it’s about what a minority of hair-on-fire types want and the ignoring of the truth that the majority wants taught to their kids. Riddle me that, too.

People exercise their rights by parading outside polling places carrying intimidating assault rifles. They scream insanely at school board meetings and threaten peaceful protesters. They repeatedly lie in Congress and claim the right to abuse asylum seekers and kidnap their children and more. Pay no attention to the constitutional rights they deny others. Riddle me that.

That’s very much like the right of state officials to gerrymander fair representation out of existence, and to wipe people off voting roles for the sneakiest, most manipulative of Jim Crow-like reasons. It’s about the right of states to remove polling places and ballot drop boxes in order to make it far more difficult for a select group of citizens to vote. It’s about the right to bollix up the system such that it takes 20 minutes to vote in White areas and 8 hours to vote in Black areas.

It’s always about the freedom and rights of those in the minority but who are in control, as they deny freedom and rights to others. Effectively, they tell us, “Freedom for me, but not for thee.” Riddle me that, Batman.

Oh, and Florida SB1316 requires bloggers who make comments about the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and others to register with the state. This is a blatant attack on freedom of the press.

That control freak power grab of a bill is not without precedent, as Vladimir Putin passed that same law in Russia in 2014.

That raises the question of why some of our Republican elected officials, self-proclaimed patriots, support dictators Putin, Orbán, Erdoğan, Duterte and other authoritarian bullies who strip rights and freedom from their people. Why do our homegrown anti-Americans call for us to abandon Ukraine, as it fights for freedom and democracy? Why do these elected officials call themselves patriots, even as they hate our democracy? Riddle me that, too.

Like I said: we’re walking contradictions.

Except when there isn’t a contradiction, as when all that matters is, “It’s all about me and what I want.”

For a fine explainer of our self-contradictory and often cruel crowd, read Ed Gurowitz’s offering, “Woke Is the New Code for Fascism.”

And if you have struggled to understand decades of dirty tricks and the mind numbing cacophony of cruel and self-contradictory absurdities Republicans spout, you must read Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s explainer here.

Finally

The International Criminal Court has indicted Vladimir Putin for his war crime of kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children. That prompted me to wonder what plans he has for them. Try this awful scenario.

We know that he is sending untrained soldiers to die in his war, using political criminals and other Russian undesirables as his canon fodder. He sends many to fight without weapons.

Now imagine him putting uniforms on older Ukrainian children and sending them unarmed to the front lines, forcing the Ukrainian army to kill their own kids. He’s diabolical enough to do that.

Let’s hope I’m wrong.

_____________________________

PS

In my last post I observed that “woke” is commonly used as a pejorative but there’s no definition of what it means. Turns out I was wrong. Here’s an explainer.

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

Guns, then Nikki Haley


Guns

After I had delivered a leadership workshop to an executive group we went to lunch at an upscale suburban restaurant not far from the meeting venue. I sat across a small table from a guy who had a pistol in a holster clipped to his belt. I’m not a gun guy and I felt profoundly at risk, but I tried to be cool about it.

“Why do you carry a gun?” I asked. You could reasonably expect him to have said that he carries it in case a bad guy shows up or an argument became dangerously heated or in case he sees a crime in progress. None of that is what he said.

He said – and I’m quoting him – “Because I can.” As in: because it’s legal; because the Second Amendment says he can. He was letting me know he has rights.

In fact, everyone I’ve encountered who is carrying an easily spotted gun and to whom I’ve posed my question has answered the same way. “Because I can.” It’s always said with some degree of chip-on-the-shoulder and with bravado bordering on defensiveness.

I can push a broom in a crosswalk on 5th Avenue – that’s legal – but the right to do so hardly explains why I would do such a thing. Same for the gun carrying business.

So, I leaned into my questioning of the guy across the table from me at that restaurant, acknowledging he does have a right to carry and asking why he would do so. I then got a series of statements that can be collected in a bucket labeled, “In case something happens.” But I don’t think that’s much more than a small part of his truth.

I think his truth is that carrying a pistol makes him feel strong and powerful and in control. While wearing his pistol he can wear his “Don’t even think of messing with me” tough guy attitude with ease.

He’s prepared to be a hero – the good guy with a gun who will stop bad guys with guns. He’ll be the protector of grannies wheeling their shopping carts across the suburban parking lot. He’s ready for a return to the Wild West when people believed that a good old fashioned shoot out solved all problems. Bummer he wasn’t on the Michigan State University campus that night to confront the murderer. Pay no attention to the kids who would have been killed in the cross fire.

That’s just one of the problems – the price we pay – for that guy carrying in order to feel strong and powerful and in control. Even if he really is a good guy – and I’m pretty sure he is – there are plenty of others who carry a gun for less honorable reasons than protecting those grannies and those students.

They carry firearms and always say, “Because I can,” as though saying so makes it sensible for them to have a killing machine strapped to themselves. But every choice has consequences. One of the choices we’ve made is to let people do that. One of the consequences of that choice played out in East Lansing, Michigan last week.

Nikki Haley

To her cheering attendees, rah-rah sign wavers and applause line clappers at the kickoff rally for her presidential candidacy race on February 15, Nikki Haley said of Republicans,

“We’ve lost the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections. Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans.”

She was right about all of that – except for the four words about Republicans’ cause. The American voting public keeps telling them that their cause is wrong, not right, but Republicans act as though they’re deaf. Or perhaps they just don’t care about We the People.

Consistently, over 92% of the American public wants universal background checks on all sales of firearms. Half of all Americans want assault weapons, high capacity magazines and more to be outlawed. But Republicans block such legislation from coming to a vote or they vote against it. Republicans never ask Gen-Zs what it’s like to go to school feeling like they have a bulls eye on their backs. It wouldn’t matter if they did ask, because the Republicans aren’t listening to the answers. They’re completely wrong on this.

61% of Americans want abortion to be legal, yet Republicans continue to wave their holier-than-thou flag and oppose We The People. They’re completely wrong on this.

63% of Americans want universal medical insurance – single payer, Medicare for all, just like in all the other first world countries – but Republicans block legislation or vote against it every time. They’re completely wrong on this.

85% of the American public wants Social Security but Republicans launch sneaky back stabs to kill it, using dishonest, patriotic sounding names. But a theft of people’s security through Republican treachery remains just that. They’re completely wrong on this.

Haley is flat out – let’s call her “mistaken.” Republicans have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans and they keep losing the popular vote because their cause is wrong. And only gerrymandering, the theft of voting rights and the existence of the archaic, anti-democratic Electoral College allow them to win any elections at all.

Quotes Making The Point

“Mr. Trump didn’t change the Republican Party; he revealed it. Ms. Haley, for all her talents, embodies the moral failure of the party in its drive to win at any cost, a drive so ruthless and insistent that it has transformed the G.O.P. into an autocratic movement.” [emphasis mine]

Also,

“There is a great future behind Nikki Haley.”

“Haley, like [Lindsay] Graham, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance, and so many others, sees principles as disposable, making her yet another example of why the GOP cannot be trusted with power. Haley knows how to say the right things about how the violence of January 6 was bad, but to this day she refuses to hold Trump accountable, and so there is no way to know if she or any other candidate will withstand the antidemocratic demands of Republican primary voters. For Republicans in elected office, the GOP base is now so hostile to our democratic institutions that loyalty to the Constitution has become an unaffordable political luxury.” [emphasis mine]

  • Tom Nichols, The Pointless Nikki Haley Campaign
  • The Atlantic Daily, February 15, 2023

“‘Absolute Hypocrisy’: GOP Unveils Bill to Make Trump Tax Cuts Permanent While Howling About Debt”

  • Jake Johnson, CommonDreams.org 
  • February 16, 2023
  • Addendum

  • From NewsMax – click the pic

    On Friday, February 17 Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) signed his political death warrant. He’s term limited by Ohio law for the post of governor, but whatever other political posts he might be interested in, they are now permanently closed to him.

  • He spoke in a monotone from the state capitol in Columbus about the massive train derailment that occurred in East Palestine, OH two weeks earlier, one of well over 1,000 derailments we experience each year. His message to residents was largely a pat on the hand, saying that it’s safe to breathe the air in town and it’s safe to drink water from the municipal water supply and its 5 wells.
  • That didn’t go down well for the residents of the town who were witnesses to thousands of dead fish in the Ohio River, or with some of their fellow citizens with significant skin rashes and respiratory irritation, or with people suffering from strange diseases that somehow coincidentally showed up immediately after the train crash. It wasn’t reassuring for citizens who use private water wells and who were terrified for the safety of their little kids. Nobody felt safer about the long term carcinogenic effects of the burning vinyl chloride that spewed black clouds over their town.
  • Note that DeWine did not drink a big glass of water from the East Palestine municipal water supply during his address to Ohioans. He appeared to do that 4 days later. There has been no reporting on his health following that drink.
  • His presentation came across as a limp-wristed cave in to the Norfolk Southern Railroad.
  • I have been a fan of this moderate Republican for a while, but that relationship is over. I’m on the side of the people of East Palestine, OH.

______________________________

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

New AP Class in Florida; Ukraine; The Key Word


Caution: The first section of this post contains infectious snark. It is contraindicated for those not yet vaccinated against the current virulent right wing strains of BS-2022 and BS-2023. Note that constitutional virologists are predicting an exceptionally deadly strain next year. Subscribe here (⇒⇓) to stay up to date on this threat.

Gov. DeSantis proudly displays his signature on his “Don’t Say Gay” bill on March 28, 2022, while proudly using unknowing children as props.

There has been a nagging sense of incompleteness since Florida Governor Ro DeSantis courageously ended AP African-American studies classes in Florida’s public high schools. His high minded and heroically placed stake in the ground is a good first step, but it’s clear that something is missing. What Florida high schools need to finish the noose is a class in AP White Supremacy.

This will be a two semester senior level course designed to send students into the world on the far right path and with the tools, the knowledge and the attitude for successful superiority.

Topics included in the syllabus for this course are:

Racial superiority, specifically including the identification of differences in intellectual potential and work ethic

The truth about BLM, the NAACP and other organizations that seek to take money from hard working Whites and distribute it to lazy, shiftless “others”

The truth about the War of Northern Aggression

The proper “place” of non-Whites

Northern lies about poor treatment of the Negro in the south

Clarity about gender identity: “hetero is the way to go.” This issue is included in this program because Gov. DeSantis let us know that gender issues permeate AP African-American studies classes to indoctrinate impressionable students. This is the one arena in Florida public education where the existence of LGBTQ issues may be briefly discussed without indictment of teachers on a 3rd degree felony violation. Otherwise, such discussion would be a violation of the “Don’t Say Gay” law. No texts will be used in this module, lest they filter to other students who are incapable of learning of such things without experiencing trauma or, worse, conversion.

Education on how to purchase, handle and fire semi-automatic weapons

The title of the books in the box is “Black History.” Click the pic

The beauty and pride of the Confederate battle flag and of pickup trucks, especially when used together. Students will be taught how to run lefty campaign buses off the road and also how to overwhelm streets in cities both large and small. Tactics for shutting down lefty rallies will be included in this module.

Training on the appropriateness of violence to enforce White supremacy, including subtleties like how to make anonymous death threats to those who would undermine White position and power

Hands-on training in disruption of school board meetings and socialist lefty protests, plus training in state capitol capture while wearing camo, face masks and carrying semi-automatic assault rifles with high capacity magazines. Role play will be a critical part of this module, so students should arrive in appropriate clothing and be prepared to yell for long periods of time. Foul language will be encouraged.

Students will be trained to register for concealed carry and will be advised to bring their guns to class in case some bad guy with a gun shows up.

This is a lot to cover in just two semesters, yet it is crucial that these Florida students be prepared to move to what’s next, whether it’s an occupation or further schooling or pursuing elective or appointed office. It is imperative that they make the White choices.

Gov. DeSantis, we await your signature.

End of snark

——————————–
Ukraine

We are a primary supplier of weapons and ammunition to aid Ukraine in prosecuting their defense against Vladimir Putin’s reign of terror to re-establish the Soviet empire. Indeed, some of his pals are publicly calling for Russia to annex Poland and the Baltic States after Ukraine is conquered.

President Biden has been careful to avoid tweaking Russia into WW III, a wise caution. However, that avoidance has repeatedly left Ukraine with insufficient armament and training to do what must be done, this because of delays in deliveries. It appears that’s about to happen again.

We recently committed to deliver M1A2 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. These are the most advanced and capable tanks in the world and quite obviously would be of great benefit to the Ukraine fighters. There’s just one problem.

These tanks, ammunition and spares won’t arrive in Ukraine for months, perhaps not until the end of the year. Ukraine doesn’t have months. At best they have weeks.

The Russians are amassing troops and weapons in the east of the country and possibly in Belarus to the north, clearly preparing for major offenses. They may wait until late spring when the ground has dried. Either way, if Ukraine isn’t ready with overwhelming force, they will be overwhelmed.

Putin is using formerly imprisoned conscripts and providing nearly no training to them. He’s prepared to throw a nearly limitless number of bodies at the Ukrainians who can’t possibly win a war of attrition, especially an attrition of bodies.

That leaves us with the obvious: Ukraine must be prepared to counter Putin’s forces by using technical capabilities, firepower and logistical superiority. Translation: M1A2 Abrams tanks, massive supplies of ammunition for artillery and automatic weapons, missile and drone shoot-down rockets and the rest. And a gaggle of F-16s would be enormously helpful to stop rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. The children and grannies left in their cities would appreciate that.

Now would be a really good time to make all of that happen. Otherwise just a few weeks from now could see the entirety of Ukraine both leveled and an annexed part of Russia.

Key Word – Government Acronyms

First, there was a Chinese surveillance B (Balloon) at 60,000 feet. It posed no BITN (Bump-In-The-Night) threat because not a lot of folks are hanging out at that altitude, but it was a spy vehicle. So, after deciding that it was too big to drop on Great Falls, Montana, the RSPs (Royal Smart People) let it drift to just offshore SC (South Carolina). That’s when our President’s orders were acted upon by an F-22 pilot with a Sidewinder missile. They bravely caused the B (Balloon) and its P (Payload) to make a BS (Big Splash).

BPP (Balloon Payload Pieces) are incrementally being vacuumed from the floor of the ocean by our heroic NOBSS (Naval Ocean Bottom Suck Squad) personnel The EGs (Electronic Geniuses) are mapping out what can be learned from the pieces as they arrive in their Ls (Labs).

NOTE: As of this writing, no telltale SFs (Smiley Faces) have been found on any part of the balloon.

Three more Fs (Floaties) were found between 20,000-30,000 feet. That’s where civilian aircraft fly every day, so the Fs posed a BITN threat. That’s why our President called upon a group of F-22 pilots to slam their Sidewinder missiles into each of the Fs. They made the floaties AFDAGB (All Fall Down And Go Boom).

We didn’t know what those floaties were or why they were at the locations where they were discovered. We didn’t even know if they were balloons. They were much smaller than the Chinese spy balloon, and there was so much ignorance that they were designated UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects).

Our keen and razor sharp press corps and our highly educated and insightful public sped into action immediately to ask key questions, like, “Are these alien space ships?” and “We must have tracked them, so what part of our galaxy did they come from?” and, “What are the aliens like?” and, “Has ET (Extra-Terrestrial) been consulted?”

The thing is that the answers to these questions and more can be found in the first word of the designation for the Fs (Floaties): “Unidentified.” I mean no offense when I say that the very word means that we have not identified them. As in: “I don’t know.” It doesn’t mean AB (Alien Being).

Not being able to identify them immediately does not mean that they came from across the vastness of OS (Outer Space). It doesn’t mean that God sent them as a W (Warning), either. It means – I think I already said this – that we don’t know.

As of the time of this writing our GP (Government People) have not released any information about the three UNIDENTIFIED Fs (Floaties), except that the RSPs (Royal Smart People) believe these are not CSVs (Chinese Spy Vehicles). What they do know for sure is that they are UNIDENTIFIED.

That’s your key word for today, boys and girls: Unidentified. It means, “I don’t know.” It does not mean SBFAP (Strange Being From Another Planet).

For further information on this topic, please consult your OB (Ouija Board).

______________________________

  • 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.


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