Immigration

Geeking Over Behavior


POST 1232

We learned during Trump 1.0 that when he says outrageous, incendiary, un-American things that he’s telling us what he actually will do. Then, oddly, when he does what he said he would do and breaks the law, so many are surprised.

“We’re shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you to find that there is crime being done in and from the White House!”

But we really did know what that snake was when we picked him up, so there should be no surprise at all. Horror? Fear? Blood running cold? Sure. But not surprise.

Perhaps what is more shocking is the capitulation done by people who had no need to capitulate. The knee benders. The ring kissers. The simple greedy bastards. The ones who obey in advance.

From Wikipedia:

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (Paul Weiss) is the sole law firm targeted by an executive order that did not sue the administration and instead made a deal with the administration to avoid sanctions and restore access.

In addition to Paul Weiss, eight other firms made preemptive deals with Trump to avoid being similarly targeted by executive orders. As part of the settlements, the nine law firms have agreed to provide a total of $940 million in pro bono work to efforts supported by the president and the firms.

Plus, they and many others each agreed to Trump’s extortion plan that they “donate” $16 million to Trump’s presidential library, for which there is neither a location nor architectural plans. Trump doesn’t read and his only book is Mein Kampf. There will be no need for book shelves. Neither will there be file cabinets for documents in a Trump library, were it to be built. Likely, there would only be his greatest hits reel showing his tough guy speeches and The Apprentice reruns in a gold and white theater.

Columbia University went completely paws up to Trump when he pulled $400 million in federal funding from them. To get him off their back they relinquished control of their programs, their classes and even their selection of faculty.

See Notes 4 & 5 below.

What they and so many others have in common is that they have ignored Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny – 20 Lessons From The Twentieth Century.

  1. Rule No. 1: Do Not Obey In Advance. Don’t do what you think the bully wants you to do, perhaps hoping to curry favor. Doing so is surrendering without even an objection, much less a fight. It’s voluntarily going paws up. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damned bully in the face. Hard.
  2. Rule No. 2: Defend institutions. Tyrants want to smash institutions, disempower them so that he can control everything and everyone. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damned bully in the face. Hard.
  3. Rule No. 5: Remember professional ethics. Refuse to succumb to directives ordering discrimination and violation of your oaths. Instead, put on your big boy or big girl pants and punch the damned bully in the face. Hard.

There is more, of course, but it all comes down to taking a stand protecting and defending what must be protected and defended. Failure to do so is nothing but caving in, hoping you’ll quickly get out of the crosshairs of the bully and do so on the cheap. The best that can be said about that is that it is astonishingly myopic and self-deluding. When a little kid has a temper tantrum and then you give him what he wants, you’ve trained him to come back in full tyrant form and demand more later. That’s what happens to quick sell-outs. Don’t be an idiot. Take a stand.

And that’s the message that so many should have heard and heeded. Trump’s threatened lawsuits would have been easy to defeat in court because his actions and demands weren’t defensible. His style is to make capitulation the cheapest exit from his bullying. But there really is no exit for those who cave. So, take a stand.

There are yet more short-term thinkers, like the bullies who became ICE thugs. He found a cheap hook to recruit them – a $50,000 signing bonus – and then he owned them. He told them to bully, beat, gas, shoot and assault people indiscriminately – fellow citizens, neighbors – and to pay no attention to whether they were U.S. citizens, legal residents and to essentially ignore whether they were innocents or criminals.

The goal wasn’t about crime. It was and is to terrorize the country so that he could rid the country of non-Whites, using illegal immigration as a cover story, plus cow all of us into submission.

And these ICE capitulators stepped up to collect their checks and then started beating up innocents.

The question to ponder in this “greatest country in the world,” in this “indispensable nation,” in this “American exceptionalism country” is why our educated people in this land of the free and home of the brave would be so easily seduced and manipulated. How does this happen here?

The day will come when the capitulators are in deep, deep trouble, maybe existential anguish. They will look for strength deep inside and will find only an empty vacuum where their souls used to be.

They gave up. They sold out on the cheap until nothing was left.

BTW

From Bloomberg News:

The FBI Redacted Trump’s Name in the Epstein Files.

Hundreds of FBI personnel scrubbed the Epstein documents in AG Bondi’s possession. They removed or redacted Trump’s name and those of his favorite deviants.

Now connect the dots to explain Trump directing Congress to vote to release the Epstein files. He’s made sure that everything incriminating or even embarrassing to him has been redacted from the files that will be released so that there is no risk to Trump, everything sanitized for his protection and no justice to be found anywhere.

He’s ordered the DOJ to investigate Democrats who might be connected to the Epstein crimes. That way Trump can refuse to release hundreds, perhaps thousands of files, claiming that doing so would interfere with an ongoing investigation. There will be terrible obstruction games to come.

The fix is in. If you listen you can already hearing Trump falsely brag yet again that he’s been exonerated.

Given the likely tampering of evidence, consider the votes in Congress yesterday to be not an open road to justice, but the end of the beginning of that road. The real battles are just getting underway.

If you long for justice for those long suffering women who were a while back those horribly abused girls – children; if you long for justice for the sake of justice itself and for the protection and welfare of us all; If one of your fondest wishes is for a fair and just country that resembles at least a little the America you grew up believing in; then you are advised to put your hopes and expectations on low and anticipate a long, critical and brutal fight against the very worst people ever spawned by this country. And expect to be a soldier in that fight, along with the rest of us.

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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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Open Letters


POST 1229

Open Letter To Republican Senators and Representatives

You know that Trump is solely about becoming King Donald I. And you know that his lawlessness has no bounds. You know that with your help he’s placed painfully unqualified sycophants into cabinet and other positions positions where they are doing abhorrent things to our country. You know that he is murdering people in international waters (16 so far) and supplying no evidence or justification for his murders that could pass even his bogus IQ test.*

You know he’s plunging millions of Americans into destitution, sickness and death. You know he’s running scam after scam from the Oval Office while you look away from the intentional cruelty and admire his new marble and gold latrine.

You have the power to stop these egregiously anti-American actions, but you sit in chambers trying to look like a statesman, while knowing you’re nothing but a coward and hypocrite. Gotta suck to be you.

John Thune (R-SD) is the wimpy Republican Senate leader, endowed by his master with certain Trump bestowed rights, including the right to suck up, the right and duty to block everything not specifically beneficial to Trump and the right to lead the 52 other Republican senators to impotence. They are the key enablers of Trump’s ultimate betrayal of our country.

Plus, of course, House Speaker Mike Johnson. He’s the guy leading 850,000 of his fellow Louisianans into starvation because he snapped the SNAP benefits. Gonna be a real interesting campaign for his seat a year from now.

Clearly we have to contact Republican senators and representatives and demand that they find their courage and obey the oath to which they swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, that thing that Trump has said he wants to terminate. Not that the congresswimps might have even a smidgen of courage. Still, one must do more than hope. So call them.

Hurry. People are dying.

Open Letter To Immigration Hardasses

Click for the story – be sure to read the comments

Click and read the Chicago Tribune story

It’s easy to watch the news, see  ICE cruelty and lawlessness and say, “Isn’t that AWFUL!” and then go back to whatever we were doing. It’s harder to redirect ourselves when the awful is happening down our own street, like it is this week in Illinois towns like Northbrook, Mt. Prospect, Evanston and Arlington Heights.

ICE holes are chasing down and arresting landscapers and even daycare workers in quiet neighborhoods. They’re terrorizing children and spreading cruelty everywhere.

So, I’ll tell you what, Mr. Immigration Hardass: You come do the clean up of the blizzard of fall leaves in my yard. You mow my lawn and trim my bushes. You go wash dishes, pots and pans in a steamy hot kitchen of some restaurant where you like to dine and be treated like royalty. You go do the stoop labor in the fields of California’s central valley picking fruits and vegetables.

That won’t happen, though, because you won’t work that hard. But you’re eager to stand on the necks of people who will, people who have hopes for their children, who work harder than you’d ever work.

Here’s the dirty secret: those people would be legal residents, many full citizens, if you’d stop wailing hyperbolic idiot slogans and lies to enrage our citizens against Brown people and instead you would actually fix our horrible immigration system.

But you don’t want to do that, because you and our federal White Citizens Council equivalent in DC want to get rid of Brown people. Then you parade your faux Christianity before the cameras.

I had a dream last night that a bunch of us started rounding up ICE holes, stuffing them into airplanes and dumping them in El Salvador. Maybe that treatment should be extended to our self-righteous politicians. Let them get a taste of the cruelty they condone.

Untold millions of people have entered this country over the centuries without having been processed by some Ellis Island equivalent, including all of our Founding Fathers, Davy Crockett’s family and most of our presidents’ ancestors. You get the idea.

Every one of those immigrants was looking to make a better life. They were no different than the landscapers in my neighborhood who were chased, thrown to the ground and dumped into unmarked vans, bound for a rendition destination, never to be heard from again.

So, as you vilify Brown people, Mr. Immigration Hardass, think of them as being just like your grandparents. In fact, exactly like your grandparents. Would you rendition Grandma and Grandpa to a gulag in El Salvador?

If your answer is any shade of yes, Mr. Immigration Hardass, you are way beyond irredeemable. You’re hopeless.

See Beaten, Trampled and Tear-Gassed After Deportation to a Salvadoran Prison, online as ‘You Are All Terrorists’: Four Months in a Salvadoran Prison”

Your felonious president cut a deal with Nayib Bukele, the brutal dictator of El Salvador, to incarcerate our deported. But he does way worse than just imprisoning them. Keep in mind that none – NONE! – of the deported prisoners has been convicted of any wrongdoing through due process of law. No matter. They are tortured regardless.

Do you still want to rendition Grandma and Grandpa, Mr. Immigration Hardass?

BTW

What company rents those black, unmarked vans, SUVs and sedans to ICE? Someone should track down those license plates so we can boycott the sell-out rental agencies.

Click for the story in The Onion

Click for the story in The Onion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________________

Click the “elephant”

* Trump’s recent “IQ test” was actually the Montreal Cognitive Assessment designed to identify dementia in patients. Why do you suppose he had to take that test a second time?

Trump said he “aced” the test, but the MCA does not measure intellectual capacity (IQ). He said, “The first couple of questions are easy. A tiger, an elephant, a giraffe.” Have a look- how’d he do?

Perhaps he knows the difference between a lion, a rhino and a camel. Sadly, there is little value of that animal knowledge in the Oval Office, even if he had given the right answers.

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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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Missing


POST 1198

What Are We Missing?

On top of the furies of indignation, betrayal and the immoralities of the bitter poison that is every day Trumpism lies the Epstein criminal conspiracy on top. It has oddly joined MAGAmites with 90% of the population to call for the release of the Epstein list of sexual predators who abused and sex trafficked underage girls and perhaps others.

The MAGAmites wanted and were promised by Trump that once President he would let it all fly and the anticipated list of degenerate Democrats, Hollywood big shots and various coastal elites would be exposed. Then Republicans could splash about in moral superiority over the decadence and depravity of woke hypocrites. There would be no more hiding the truth, no more protecting the rich and powerful. Trump would uncork the drain of the DC swamp and all the bad guys would drown on the way down.

Except that’s not what happened. Trump is hiding the facts, the evidence. He’s doing exactly what MAGAmites were furious over when they dribbled conspiracy crazy on Dems, whom they were sure were getting away with horrible stuff, but they couldn’t prove it because facts were withheld. But this isn’t about Dems. Turns out MAGAmites are a lot like you: they don’t like being betrayed, even by their cult leader.

Trump is a master of distraction, the King of Bright Shiny Objects to direct your attention away from something damaging to him. His withholding of the Epstein list is widely believed to be his effort to prevent information incriminating to Trump from becoming public, but it does far more than that. Refusing to make the information public has transfixed public attention on the sordid Epstein mess, leaving us to wonder what Trump is doing that we aren’t focusing on, terrible things that are cruel, criminal and destructive.

Like:

Hiring thousands of additional ICE agents to act as his private, masked army, his Gestapo.

Putting thousands of immigrants into inhumane cages and holding them incommunicado

Arresting and incarcerating American citizens solely because they didn’t have citizenship papers in their possession and look Hispanic (read: Brown, not White)

Renditioning thousands of prisoners to various countries around the world

Setting the stage in Los Angeles for us to accept our military being deployed in our own country.

That last may be the key to what we are missing.

“Chronic venous insufficiency is a condition where the veins in the legs have difficulty drawing attention from the fact that the Epstein Files still haven’t been released.” anonymous source. Getty image

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibits deployment of our military on U.S. soil except for the most unusual circumstances, like an invasion from another country. No invasion has happened to the U.S. since the War of 1812.

Trump’s many horribles are at least as bad as you think they are, but the Epstein distraction may be hiding something far worse. We may be missing a looming final lurch into crushing authoritarianism.

Reference my post about that very thing. The Epstein distraction may be the preparation for some terrible event which Trump will use to declare martial law and become de facto dictator. Such actions are what dictators do and Trump is clearly a megalomaniac eager to burn our Constitution and aggregate all power and gobs of money for himself alone.

Yeah, we’re missing something critically important, for sure.

Who Will Lead?

Regular readers have likely recognized my discontent with the Democratic National Committee, a supposed leader of the right values and against the wrong values, We look there and to members of that tribe’s muck-a-mucks to do valiant and effective battle against those who would violate our values and do us and our nation harm. We expect them to vigorously promote our general welfare. My discontent boils for the lack of all that.

Who will lead us out of the morass of today to avoid the far worse morass of tomorrow? I’ve asked this question many times and we see some capable people speaking out (sometimes) against the cruel and the outrageous. Nevertheless, it remains opaque as to who will stand and declare, “THAT way – Follow me!” in such a compelling way that We The People will follow with our passion, our wisdom and our patriotism.

Truth be told, we Boomers made this horrid mess. George W. Bush lied us into two “forever wars” that killed and displaced millions, leaving brutality in its wake. Now Trump is clawing and scraping away our Constitution to institute dictatorial control and eliminate our rights and our freedom.

Both of these elected ones are charter members of the Boomer generation, each wholly unfit to lead a nation. Each enlisted many other Boomers and others into their perfidy, all to create their version of destruction and abandonment of facts and reality. Many in Congress and the courts are Boomers, too.

Here’s the key:

  • We cannot find our way out of this morass
  • using the same thinking and the same tools that got us into it.

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, recently announced that they will conduct a postmortem of the 2024 election. It took them 8 months to decide to do that. His examination won’t focus on the campaign, he said, as though the Committee’s lack of relevance to over 77 million voters and 90 million who didn’t bother to vote can be explained by an arcane partial study.

But that won’t help. Not for a party that dumped David Hogg from their leadership. Hogg is an established voice of Gen Zs. They listen to him. They sure as hell don’t listen to Boomers and X-ers, the very people who have made it next to impossible for them to find a path to the American dream. And the DNC dumped the very guy who can help to enlist the people who can clean up the mess. Suicidal.

I rest my hopes on our Gen Zs. There are enough of them, they are educated, packed with energy and more accepting of others than any other generation. Plus, they don’t want to live in the mess we’ve made.

We Boomers, Xers and Millennials aren’t off the hook. We, too, must continue to fight the good fight. And we must continuously invite our Gen Zs to join and to lead.

Here’s a quotation courtesy of friend Mardy Grothe, author of Deconstructing Trump*:

  • Upon the profound discontent of the young in every country
  • do I set my faith. I beg you, the young, to be discontented.
  • I pray that you may rebel against what is wrong,
  • not with feeble negative complaining
  • but with strong positive assertion of what is right for all humanity. — Pearl S. Buck
  • Pass that along to the Zs you know.
  • Let’s be clear about missing. It seems we are missing Democratic leadership. Demand nothing less.
  • The Deconstructing Trump* Corner
    .
    • A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger
    • is prepared for a master, and deserves one.
    • Alexander Hamilton,1797
    • It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion
    • will legislate its creed into law
    • if it acquires the political power to do so.
    • Robert A. Heinlein, 1953
    • _________________________________________

    * Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history.

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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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or casually cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA

 


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

In America


POST 1193

Are You Among The Disfavored People?

university student, professor or administrator

scientific or medical researcher

farmer

non-White person

LGBTQ person

veteran

woman

any form of non-Christian

child

protector of the planet.

any Democrat (Trump hates you) or a current or former government employee

any person not accused or convicted of any crime and in this country legally – easy ICE targets

Bummer for you, because this country is solely for Christian-claiming (although not doing what Jesus would do), straight White men who insist on telling you how to live, establishing limits to your freedom and deciding your restricted fate, which may include warrantless deportation.

And all that gets far scarier when you consider that Trump is declining into dementia and JD Vance is next in line. He might be smarmy, disingenuous and heartless (I guess he forgot about his hillbilly roots), but he’s smart, diabolical and under the thumb of Peter Thiel, his sugar daddy, the private information thief.

Speaking of Disfavored

Let’s declare out loud what this deportation lunacy is actually about. The goals are:

  1. To get rid of Brown and Black people because they aren’t European White. Those immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
  2. Expand White privilege
  3. Feed raw meat to Trump’s base
  4. Suppress votes of Democrats

Those goals are well met by snatching Brown people, especially those who look Hispanic, off streets, from farm fields, from Home Depot parking lots, from a public park in Los Angeles and more. No need to check their papers, because we no longer care if the snatchees are here legally or even if they are U.S. citizens.

Nobody has a right to due process under the Trump administration. We just snatch ’em, shove ’em in a bus or van, cram them handcuffed onto an airplane and into rendition to be abused and held incommunicado. That’s the new American Dream Nightmare.

Here’s what our populist speaking but not practicing President and Republican Congress have done to make sure we’re number one in inflicting cruelty on immigrants.

Click the chart for Steve Schmidt’s comments.

This chart shows our Big Barfy Betrayal Bill carve out for ICE and compares it to the defense budgets of 20 countries. We are now poised to spend more on anti-immigrant actions than the total the next 10 countries spend on their national defense. That’s probably good, since those immigrants are drug dealers, rapists and murderers. So said the man with the golden escalator, the golden toilet, 34 felony convictions, boundless ignorance and a mania for cruelty, but not for reality.

Are you feeling safer now with our huge expansion of ICE, the American Gestapo? Read this from Jennifer Rubin for more.

The Lies and Cheating Didn’t Start With Trump

In 2010 the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case. The lawsuit was about a movie trashing Hillary Clinton, intended by its producers to be aired during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Court struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold Act (properly, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002) and told the Citizens United group they could show their movie. That should have been the end of that case, but it wasn’t.

Chief Justice John Roberts did something almost unheard of. He called the litigants back and ordered them to argue the rights of corporations, something not even remotely part of the original lawsuit. The Court then made a second ruling, deciding that corporations have all the rights of flesh and blood humans.

That unleashed the furies of fabulous wealth, which allowed those corporations and insanely rich people (plus foreign influencers) to donate fabulous amounts of money to political campaigns and overwhelm the wishes of we small folk. Roberts had made up a whole new case to serve his agenda and it worked.

As a result, the gun lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby and more lobbies control the votes of Congress and you have almost no influence. So, we don’t get the gun safety legislation 80% of us want, the healthcare-for-all that 67% of us want and far more. These legislators don’t care what you want because they don’t have to. They’re funded by corporations and super rich guys.

This Court that can’t seem to tell the difference between a corporation (a fictional “entity”) and human beings. The Court is composed of strict originalists, they tell us, but they don’t recognize the Founders’ abhorrence of undue influence exerted by the wealthy.

Like I said, it didn’t start with Trump. Before he showed up the Court had already greased the gears of the fascism express. The Court further cleared the way with it’s ruling in Trump v. United States, allowing the President to break any laws he wants and get away with it. Does that sound originalist to you?

In America

Likely you’re feeling disheartened, as are most of us, because of the blatantly illegal, immoral and cruel actions of this administration. But here’s the thing: we don’t get to wallow in our despair because there’s so much that must be done and we’re the only ones who can do it.

The Charlie Daniels Band song In America was released in 1980 as

“.  .  .  a reaction to the varying difficult issues facing America in the late 1970s – the fallout from the Watergate scandal [etc.]. [Wikipedia]

We have “difficult issues facing America” now, too.

The fascists have come back to divide us and steal America from us.
.

The CDB’s message tells us about Lady America, that “We’re gonna put her feet back on the path.” The fascists, the oligarchs, the selfish rich guys “can all go straight to hell.” That’s not exactly what Charlie sang, but I like the sound of it.

You’ll see Lady America back on the path when the pain hits – from tariffs and the resultant higher prices and empty shelves, stolen healthcare, stolen food assistance, scarcities, babies beginning to suffer and die, neighbors being sent to concentration camps, jobs being lost and more. As Thom Hartmann puts it, Trump’s Tax Cuts Come with a Body Count — Starting with Grandma. That’s when we’ll all come together, “feet back on the path.”

Click this link and listen to the song. While our fight and our battle victories may not be happening at the pace we’d prefer, they’re happening – because of us.

The “Deconstructing Trump”* Corner

For the week following the Fourth of July and Trump’s failed narcissism parade, at which both he and Melania fell asleep, this is about Trump:

  • Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
  • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
  • Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater?
  • It’s resentment of another man’s achievement.
  • Ayn Rand – that’s for our Libertarian friends
  • _________________________________________

* Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history. As such, we explore his volume and add its applicable wisdom to these posts.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


Rich Guys Are Coming To Fleece You


POST 1186

Glossary

They – the president, the Republicans in Congress and Trump administration sycophants.

Rich guys – the president, the Republicans in Congress, plus the un-elected, all-for-themselves, who cares about you? rich guys sucking tax cuts.

Bullies – all of the above who are dedicated to cruelty, selfishness and think they’re above the law.

Money

It’s your lunch money the bullies are after. Plus your dinner money and the tax refund money you were going to use to buy a big screen TV. They want it all.

They’re taking away your doctor, your hospital and the nurses who help you when you’re sick or injured. They’re doing that by starving them of cash. And they’re taking away your medical insurance so that you have to pay out of pocket, even if the cost drives you into bankruptcy. There goes that money, too.

You’ll only get medical care if you can find it somewhere, if you can afford it. Before you get treatment they’ll check if you’re able to pay them. That only happens if you can get there in time. Think: when you or someone you know goes into labor. Or miscarries. Or when something heavy falls on you, you’re bleeding out in your garage and the nearest EMT is a long way off because all the close-by services went belly up when Trump’s cruelty flunkys cut them off.

Taxes

They’re fleecing you by increasing your state and local taxes so that they can lower their own taxes and get a huge pile of cash for themselves – almost $400,000 per year extra for every rich guy.

THEY’RE BORROWING TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS
IN YOUR NAME
TO GIVE MORE TO THEMSELVES.
.

They’re doing it, too, by taxing you for the school your kids go to and then taking that money and giving it to private schools for their own kids.

Maybe that isn’t outrageous enough to get your attention. Try this:

THEY’RE DUMPING THAT ENTIRE LIFE-STIFLING
MOUNTAIN OF DEBT
ON YOU, YOUR KIDS AND AND YOUR GRANDKIDS.
AND YOUR GREAT-GRANDKIDS.
.

All that is just so that mega-maga-rich guys can have more of your money right now.

Power

They’re eating your lunch by taking away your right to speak up.

They’re doing that by calling every gathering to protest government cruelty a riot and then using grossly excessive force to stop you.

They’re doing it by ordering our National Guardsmen and Marines to point their rifles at you, in case you’re dumb enough to object.

They’re doing it by grossly contorting our Constitution and our laws in order to justify what is unjustifiable.

They’re doing it by incrementally making it more difficult to vote and then by ignoring your vote altogether.

They’re doing it by defying court orders and by threatening members of Congress so that they will never push back. These are the people – mostly Republicans – you sent to DC and to your state capitol to represent you. Most have been reduced to sniveling, mute cowards, leaving you voiceless, powerless.

Rights

The rich guys have them. You don’t. They can squeeze the system to squash you. You’re just a bug on the windshield of their fancy cars.

You don’t like that? Too bad for you.

Much of what’s above is already true. The rest will be on the way to fleece you if our cowardly Republican Congress passes Trump’s abhorrent, anti-American, anti-Constitution budget bill, which will take from you everything you value.

It’s Crunch Time

You have to make a decision and there are only two choices.

  1. You can go about your everyday life paying attention only to things in your immediate orbit, You can continue to do your job, care for your family and enjoy whatever things you like to do for entertainment. In short, you can live your life as usual – right up to the day when everything listed above and yet worse things arrive and you realize that you have been made into nothing but a peasant serving some bastard feudal king.
  2. You can stand up and fight to stop the rich guys from taking your lunch money and everything else you care about. You can get in the streets with millions of other red, white and blue Americans who damn well won’t stand by and be fleeced. You can make it impossible for the bullies to take your lunch money. You can speak up and get good people elected, people who have values like yours. You can vote them into office in DC, in your state capitol, onto your town board and your school board – everywhere there is a political contest. Kick out the spineless, corrupt bums and keep the good guys. You know who they are.

The choices are stark and they are very real. Failure to assertively select choice #2 – to stand strong and fight – is a tacit selection of impotent choice #1.

Pick one.

The Incompetence Report

Kristi “I Shoot Puppies” Noem, our incompetent Secretary of Homeland Security, made it to the top of our list last week.

The LA demonstrations before NO KINGS day were primarily triggered by Trump’s vile, cruel abuses of immigrants. Trump and Noem sicced the National Guard and the United States Marines on those demonstrators. Then Ms. Stupida went on Fox to flex her muscles and make sure everyone knows how tough and powerful she is.

Click me

Memo to Kristi: Nobody – no demonstrator or bystander conducted violence against law enforcement officers in LA last week, you lying sack of .  .  .  dead puppies.

BTW

Where were those federalized National Guardsmen and Marines on January 6, 2021 when they were desperately needed in DC to stop the thousands of treasonous insurrectionists from killing our elected leaders, beating and killing cops and trying to overthrow our government?

Oh right: Trump prevented them from being called in to oppose the hoodlums. He even refused Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s pleading to let him send in the Maryland Guard. He just sat back and watched the violence show on TV, as he shoved his Big Mac and fries into his big mouth and threw ketchup onto the wall.

PS

There was an incident last week that resulted in a night time visit from 3 police officers ringing my door bell. They weren’t wearing masks, they wore badges and had name tags and were polite and respectful. Observing that, I knew they weren’t ICE thugs.

Isn’t it truly awful that to assure our safety I had to make that distinction?

Re: the incident last week – just a misunderstanding and all is well. Nevertheless, if there is a next time, I’ll insist that they show me identification.

Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election
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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose


POST 1179

I recently ran across a post from election year 1996 and was struck yet again that

  • “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
  • “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
  • – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, 1849

But the intensity, the rotten flavor does change and sometimes brings diabolical things, like this.

The plan was for the House Rules Committee to do a mark-up vote on the Trumpy-named The One Big Beautiful Bill. It has horrific provisions, like huge cuts to Medicaid, disapproved by 75% of Americans, logging on public lands, $4 trillion in tax cuts for the rich and a corresponding increase in our national debt – you get the idea. Those are just some of the embarrassingly awful provisions of this authoritarian bill that were driving Republicans to vote at 1:00AM today, thinking they can sneak it past you and me.

The sneaky part is the “things stay the same” because for decades Republicans have done terrible things that the vast majority of Americans dislike and they often try to creep them through without our seeing what they’re doing. But we do see. We know their slimy ways, regardless of the time of day when they do them. For more on the “sneaky” and this administration’s “slimy,” read Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of today.

Check the news today to find out what happened. If the committee passed this giant wad of wet toilet paper of a bill, it will to to the full House for a vote on Memorial Day, when all Democrats will vote against it and we will hope that 4 Republicans will have sufficient spine to stand against it.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Take Note, Trump Voter

I am grossly offended by the dishonesty that is thrown at me by the Liar in Chief and his band of traitors to America, as they spray their bent logic, their broken morality, their attack on every facet of our rule of law and their worst efforts to kill and bury The American Dream.

I abhor those calling upon our fears and our anger and rallying us to hate and strike out at others. It’s a mean spirited but effective ploy for votes and power, no doubt. It’s been used by demagogues and power mongers all over the world and it works, especially with low information voters. But it appeals because even as people are tricked onto the slide down to inevitable catastrophe, they’ll have the opportunity to have their fists clenched in a momentary rush of feeling powerful. But that’s all it will be – a momentary rush. And it will leave us all the poorer, more divided and far less free. See the next section of this post for more on that.

When someone tells us, “It’s those guys in the Washington swamp,” or “It’s the east and west coast elites,” or that it’s some fantasy Mexican drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes or it’s phantom Tren de Aragua terrorists, they give us targets for our anger, even as there’s no sense in their words. Their hatred creates an “us” versus “them” mentality that they use to justify cruelty.

Simple solutions to complex problems are appealing. We like simple because we understand it and are comfortable with it. Unfortunately, many things just aren’t simple. So, I’m wary of people who tell me that their simple solution will solve all or even some of our enormously complex problems, or that they will solve problems “on day one.” It just doesn’t work that way.

I don’t trust people who lie to me, saying tariffs are paid by other countries or who extort individuals and companies to kiss the ring. The liars and the power cheaters will smear us with their lies and get their simple solutions in place, but then We The People will stand up and push back hard. Then we’ll banish the cheaters, but we’ll be left with the mess they made and it will take the work of generations of Americans to clean it up.

It’s looking like we have to stand against that now, before yet more damage is done to the things you care about.

Click here and look for more specifics coming on Sunday.

Here’s a card that was placed on my wife’s car windshield while she was grocery shopping.

Upon seeing the card my first reaction was to wonder about the rage the creator of the card must carry around to have gone to such bother just to be a jerk.  It isn’t road rage; it’s parking rage. Clearly, this guy has serious and debilitating anger issues which he wishes to impose on the rest of us.

Which made me wonder about this society, where vomiting out our every thin-skinned inkling of injustice and blaming others for our every disappointment is considered normal and even powerful and worthy of counter-attack and cruelty, sometimes online and sometimes in a supermarket parking lot.

Oh, and the reverse side of the card has a sketch of a fist with a raised middle finger, the true logo of MAGA. Welcome to the world of the perpetually angry.

Oh, and my wife is doing just fine. Thanks for asking.

We are now mired in the quicksand of Trump mendacity, thievery and his destruction of all we hold dear. So many promises have been broken, like the promise – the oath – to protect and defend our Constitution; like promises to our friends and neighbors who need help; like the promise of ending so much suffering, like promises to our friends and allies and like the promise of the American Dream for our children.

We need strong, positive leadership in this country and we need it right now. It can’t wait until the 2028 election.

If you’d like to learn how we’ve been manipulated into voting for exactly what the majority of us don’t want, read Thom Hartmann’s post, America’s Long Coup: How the GOP Rigged, Lied, and Stole Its Way Into the White House for Over 50 Years. As you read it, have water handy, because the truth will set your hair on fire.

And you’ll know what to do.

Today’s Fun Fact

Here’s yet another “stays the same.”

.

Finally, Some Cautionary Questions

I am the son of parents who were children of parents who were children of immigrants.

  1. Should I steel myself against the time when my front door is bashed down in the middle of the night by masked thugs carrying weapons, men who offer no ID, who have no warrant for my arrest signed by a judge, indeed, no warrant at all?
  2. What if they have come to arrest me and force me onto a deportation flight to El Salvador? Isn’t that kidnapping? Isn’t that a federal offense?
  3. Should I somehow prepare myself for a similar event on a sunny day while I’m walking down the sidewalk to the barber shop?
  4. What is the best safety protocol, knowing in advance that I won’t be afforded a telephone call or a judicial hearing?
  5. Am I at greater risk for having no tattoos but knowing a smattering of words in Spanish?
  6. How should I advise my wife and children on what to do, how to survive, in my absence?

And the non-immigration question: I write these posts and they are quite disparaging of Mr. Trump. Given his mania for retribution and my modest means, how should I prepare myself for his baseless $2 million defamation lawsuit?

Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election

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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Who Benefits?


POST 1178

Last Wednesday I showed you that “repugnant, organizationally illiterate, DUI Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has announced that he is firing 20% of our flag officers [generals and admirals]” and that he “plans to eliminate legacy weapons and equipment programs.” I asked a critical question:

Who will benefit from us hobbling our national defense?
.

There are more areas to which to apply the “Who Benefits?” question..

Trump cut military aid and satellite surveillance capability from Ukraine. Then, having eliminated all motivation for Putin to negotiate to end the war in Ukraine, he invited Putin to a 30-day ceasefire, which Putin rejected, of course.

Same question again: Who benefits from our double-dealing?
.

Scott Galloway wrote in his post Brain Drain how we have massively cut our support and promotion of science, research and the things that have made us healthy, prosperous, safe and the go-to place for the best and the brightest in the world. Now those brilliant and creative people are either avoiding the U.S. entirely or are accepting schooling and R&D opportunities in other countries. And it isn’t just foreign born smart people who are abandoning us. It’s America’s best and brightest, too.

Trump’s self-defeating wounds are massively stupid actions that will crush the momentum of 80 years of our investments in growth and innovation. They will set us behind many other countries.

Same question: Who will benefit from our knee capping ourselves like that?
.

More in this line from STAT:

The city of Milwaukee was in the middle of a public health crisis when the Trump administration abruptly laid off 10,000 federal health workers last month. A lead crisis, to be exact: Late last year, a student had a concerning blood test, and the source turned out to be their school. The city took on the case, but investigating more than 100 schools is much more complicated than the typical exposure that occurs inside one family’s home. The local team would often turn to CDC scientists for both strategic planning and step-by-step guidance. Then the layoffs occurred, and all of those federal scientists were gone.

Who benefits from our government abandoning our health and safety needs?
.

Hint: It isn’t the lead poisoned children in Milwaukee – or those in any other place.

Trump imposed his brain-free tariffs with the precision of a car crushing machine and already our economy has been harmed, our supply chain is missing links, prices are on the rise, shelves at Walmart will be empty in not much more than a month and most of our former friends are avoiding us and looking for other partnerships.

Same question yet again: Who will benefit from our bad will, our forcing a trade war on the world and our abandoning our friends and allies?
.

I could go on with many more examples. The point is that Trump and his greedy billionaire power grabbing dictator wannabes and his lying, traitorous ideological sycophants are doing everything they can to destroy our strength, our leadership, our good will and our freedom.

Who will benefit from our self-destruction?
.

Here’s another question, one that you won’t like if you aren’t speaking out against these attacks on our country. It’s the one that our children and grandchildren will be asking you and me in the years to come, as the ashes from our self-immolation rain down on them.

What did you do to prevent this catastrophe?
.
One More Category

Trump is offered and may receive a “gift” of a $400 million airplane.

Get serious: Nobody gives $400 million like this and expects nothing in return. It is not a gift. It is a quid with an as yet unnamed pro quo. What do the Qataris want?

This “gift,” if retrofitted to the performance, communications and security measures required for it to be used as Air Force 1, will cost we taxpayers between $600 – 900 million.

Plus, Trump has bullied our military into giving him his narcissistic “big, beautiful” military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. It will include 6,000 troops, 50 fighter jets and bombers and 150 military vehicles, including tanks that will destroy the pavement. It will cost you and me at least $45 million dollars. That doesn’t count the cost to restore Pennsylvania Avenue.

Obviously, there is no need to ask who benefits from these “mine’s bigger than yours” over-indulgences. Makes me wonder if there are limits to infantile behavior. Scratch that. Obviously, there isn’t.

Li’l Fun – Just To Lighten Up A Bit

This is to the tune of Harry Belafonte’s version of Matilda. Here it is karaoke style so you can sing along.

               Orange Trumpy
  • 1.
  • He say dey Argentina gang bangs.
  • Got no evidence of such t’ings.
  • Orange Trumpy, de courts do slap down, he jus’ ain’ no big king.
  • Everybody!
  • .
  • Chorus
  • Orange Trumpy (grifting with the crypto)
  • Orange Trumpy (trade apocalypto)
  • Orange Trumpy he take de money and run Mar-a-Lago.
  • 2.
  • He say we subsidize Canada.
  • Dumped a tariff on ’em, uh-huh.
  • Dey fight back and send de message to Trump, “Go screw ya.”
  • 3.
  • Walmart say de prices get big.
  • Tariffs make sick economy pig.
  • Moody’s does downgrade of U.S., is no longer safe gig.
  • 4.
  • Orange Trumpy say he don’ really know
  • If defend Constitution’s his show.
  • Orange Trumpy ignore court orders and kidnap your neighbor.
  • 5.
  • Orange Trumpy don’ care none ’bout your health
  • Just as long as he increase his wealth.
  • He say Granny jus’ go die and let cancer kill kids.
  • 6.
  • He say burn books that ain’t enough White.
  • Fire librarians just out of spite.
  • Orange Trumpy, he can’t read nothin’ and wants you be dumb, too.
  • 7.
  • Orange Trumpy sell dinner access, is plain,
  • Billionaires try to get in his brain.
  • But Orange Trumpy, dementia makes him don’ know nuthin’ no more.
  • Everybody!
  • .
  • Chorus 2
  • Orange Trumpy, sucking cash and airplanes.
  • Orange Trumpy, griftin’ wid just half brain.
  • Orange Trumpy, he take de money and run Mar-a-Lago.
  • Finally, The Scantron Crisis
  • Donald Trump has decreed that little girls may have only 2 dolls and 5 pencils (Merry Christmas!). Got me to wondering if pencils are still used in schools. Turns out they are, primarily for Scantron answer sheets.
  • But what’s a kid to do while taking her 5th grade math test, Mr. Pencil President, when her pencil points break or they aren’t sharp enough? Can you negotiate a deal for her? Your daddy got you test score deals at The Wharton School, right?
Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election

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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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Clueless In DC


POST 1168

Tariffs

Click for credits

Start with what we know.

Tariffs are a tax on goods imported to this country. They are paid by the importers. That money goes to the U.S. government. The importers raise prices to their customers, like retailers, to cover their extra costs. Those retailers then raise the selling price of the imported goods to cover their increased cost. When we consumers buy the imported goods we do so at significantly inflated prices.

Turning that explanation around, we consumers pay a higher price to the retailer, who passes that along to the importer who pays it to the government. The only thing needed to complete the explanation is what government does with that extra money that came from you and me.

What we know is that Trump intends to extend his massive tax cut program for rich people that began in his first administration. He may tack on even more tax reductions, almost exclusively to the benefit of very rich people and corporations. The money they no longer will pay to fund the government has to come from somewhere and we are that somewhere.

In other words, it is yet another massive transfer of wealth – in the trillions of dollars – from us to rich people. Trump is crashing our government and fleecing you and me.

From Michael de Adder:

3-D Chess

As we watch the most clueless man ever to occupy the Oval Office — and that’s really saying something — his supporters still insist that, when it comes to tariffs, Donald J. Trump is playing 3-D chess. The phrase “playing three-dimensional chess” implies a level of strategic genius so advanced that the rest of us, mere mortals stuck on the regular chessboard, just can’t grasp it. But Trump doesn’t even seem to know that a tariff is a tax — something most people learn in ninth-grade social studies. It’s a fee on goods entering the country, paid by the citizen, not the government. How can someone be playing upper-level trade strategy when they don’t even know what a tariff is?

 

From Lawrence O’Donnell, April 9, 2025, referring to the Trump administration’s boundless idiocies, cruelties and cluelessness:

It’s the bonfires of the stupidities.

Stock Prediction of the Week

Tesla stock price has been hammered by Trump’s tariffpocolypse, slipping from $428 per share to as low as $222. UBS cut its TSLA price target to $190 and has a sell rating on the shares. In other words, in just 2 months the value of Elon Musk’s Tesla stock has been cut in half. But that isn’t the big story.

If/when the stock drops as predicted by UBS to $190 Musk will have an enormous opportunity to regain ownership of an even greater percentage of the company and do so on the cheap. And when Trump further plotz-potchkies with market forces, the price may drop still further. Plus, as Musk continues to rampage through the government, ruining the lives of workers and abandoning all Americans, he’s sure to become even more reviled, killing sales of his vehicles, with a resultant further drop in stock price. Then he can buy back his company – how is it said? – on the really cheap.

And that’s the basic mechanics of last week’s market manipulation and likely insider trading stimulated by Trump’ post. From CNBC:

At 9:37 a.m. ET [April 9], just minutes after the opening bell, Trump posted on Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” That post ended with the letters “DJT,” which is both the president’s initials and the ticker symbol for Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology, in which he holds a majority stake.

Theoretically, anyone who bought into the market that minute on Trump’s urging netted a big return. Stocks shot up in a historic reversal in afternoon trading after Trump announced a walkback on some tariffs, a stark turn after his April 2 announcement of new import taxes torpedoed the market.

Too bad you didn’t have billions of dollars to gamble like that, courtesy of Trump’s market manipulation.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

(Tip of the hat to David Corn of Mother Jones for the borrowed title.)

So many contestants, so few awards .  .  .

This week’s winner is King Dumbass himself from his spewing on April 11, insisting that his trade war with much of the world is great – like nothing anybody has ever seen.

“We are doing really well on our TARIFF POLICY. Very exciting for America, and the World!!! It is moving along quickly. DJT.” *

Policy? Seriously?

Righteous Deportations – At Last You’re Safe From Frogs

From Masha Gessen, New York Times, April 6 in America’s Police State Has Arrived:

The Russian scientist was bringing in frog embryos that the Department of Homeland Security says she did not declare properly.

She was arrested and perhaps deported. Gessen went on to say,

.  .  .  we are in territory described by the Russian saying, “Give us a person and [ICE will] find the infraction.”

This was not just another ICE raid by masked, unidentified thugs, aimed at people holding valid visas.

Said Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, just back from playing dress-up for a photo-op of her brandishing an automatic rifle pointed at an ICE agent’s head, “This was the righteous protection of the homeland from an invasion by a stealthy Venezuelan gang of frogs trying to bring this great nation to its knees. Our excellent ICE Swamp Stingers caught ’em in the embryo stage, immediately revoked their work permits and put them on the next C-130 rendition plane bound for El Salvador. They were lucky they weren’t treated like I treated my puppy.” Then she flashed a smile, showing her excellent new teeth and once again thanked her dentists by name.

She went on to say that the frogs have now hatched and have been incarcerated in El Salvador’s maximum security gulag. It was unnecessary to shave their heads, because, she said, “Neither tadpoles nor frogs have hair, but we confirmed that President Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez of El Salvador made sure that every one of those undocumented amphibians was perp-hopped, heads down, into the darkest, dampest corner of the basement of that torture prison.”

Then Noem squinted menacingly, saying, “Now let’s see if some activist, woke, frog hugging judge tries to return them to our homeland. We’ll just ignore him. He can croak, for all we care.”

Meanwhile, reports Gessen,

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has bragged to reporters about revoking the legal status of upward of 300 people [and an unknown number of frogs] and promised there would be more: “We’re looking every day for these lunatics,” said Rubio.

Rubio proudly announced that the visa revocations of students, biomedical scientists, Canadians in Canada, amphibians and other “lunatics” were not announced in advance of incarcerations and that he didn’t know if the frogs were Venezuelan gang frogs. “But it doesn’t matter,” he said, “because they had gang tattoos. and none of them was wearing a MAGA hat.”

When asked for a comment on these deportations without due process, Kermit the frog merely ribbited sadly, saying, “This isn’t the American pond I grew up in.”

_____________________________________________

* Actually, there was more dumbass to Trump’s dumbass quote, but you get the picture.

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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Administration Deportations


POST 1162

CAUTION!

This post contains well-placed snark likely to displease Constitution violators.

The Correct Renditions

You know that last week our brave president and his brown shirt action figures rounded up over 230 migrants, claiming without any evidence that they are Venezuelan gang member terrorists. Note that I claim, similarly without evidence, that they are Norwegian flower salesmen.

They were put on airplanes bound for El Salvador where they were accosted by guards, who dragged them to an overcrowded super-max concentration camp. The administration claimed that they are the worst of our immigrants and that the American people are now safer. Trump agreed to pay the El Salvadorans $6 billion to incarcerate those deported, an inventive international extension of our prison-industrial complex.

WAIT: Wasn’t El Salvador one of those “shit hole countries?”

All of that was done without probable cause, without accusation or evidence of any specific crimes, without charging, without trial and without conviction of any crime. The name for what was missing is DUE PROCESS OF LAW, as required by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which apply to all “persons,” not just “citizens.” Look that up via the links.

While those airplanes were flying south a federal judge heard arguments and ruled that the disappearing of those men was both illegal and unconstitutional. He ordered the administration to cause the planes in the air to turn around and come back to the U.S. and that a deportation plane that had not yet departed remain on the ground. Our bold, chest-thumping administration then did what no administration had ever done before: they ignored the judge’s ruling. The 230 remain locked up in El Salvador.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” – Vice-President of the United States, JD Vance

Yeah, they are. It’s in the Constitution. You could look it up, you fauxbilly.

“We are not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think” – Border Czar Tom Homan

It’s great for Homan that he’s in America where he can believe and say stupid things. In an authoritarian country like Hungary, Turkey or Singapore, he’d be locked up and forgotten for saying such manly man strength and idiocy. That’s the America Trump is working to create.

BTW: How did we end up with czars? It started with Dubya.

“What we are expecting is the Supreme Court to say what has always been the case, which is, when the president is using his powers as commander-in-chief, those determinations are not subject to judicial review .  .  .”   – Homeland Security Advisor and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

Oops. Once again Stephen “The cruelty is the point.” Miller got it wrong.

All of that flies in the face of 248 years of precedent, established law, the separation of powers, the Constitution and more. Plus, it’s factually wrong, as all but the angry chest thumpers know quite well. Note that it not known if these Administration officials themselves are Venezuelans or even Americans, but they are known Trump gang members.

These are the first administration officials to be accused of un-American acts by your Disambiguation Agency (“DA”), which so far is still not invaded and violated by Musk and his abhorrent flying monkey tech criminals.

The DA will order them to be shackled, hooded and jammed into an airplane bound for rendition, as were the 230. They will remain ineligible for recourse or a pubic hearing, this by virtue of the Habeas Stupidus Act proscribed by Project 2025.

It Isn’t Just Federal Perps

Here’s another flamer. From Daily Docket, March 20, 2025:

[North Carolina] GOP challenger Judge Jefferson Griffin is refusing to concede [the election to the state’s Supreme Court, which he lost].

Griffin sits on the Court of Appeals [where his case now sits], and he wants his colleagues to retroactively change election rules, throw out tens of thousands of votes in Democratic counties and declare him the winner.

  • North Carolina has a long standing and proud tradition of Republican malfeasance and dirty tricks. Stand by to see if they get away with this one, Meanwhile, Griffin has a reservation on that rendition airplane. So does Arizona loser Kari Lake, and for much the same reasons.
  • We cannot end this section without considering Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He went to Samoa and trumpeted his groundless poo-poo indictments of vaccines, convincing many people to forego vaccinations, resulting in thousands of confirmed cases of Covid-19 and dozens of deaths. A similar situation is playing out in the U.S. on children whose parents were persuaded by Kennedy to refuse their kids the measles vaccine. At least 2 children are now dead. with third death under investigation. Prior to Kennedy’s baseless attacks on vaccines it had been 20 years since the last U.S. death from measles.  That’s plenty of evidence to cause Kennedy to be shackled. muzzled and perp-walked onto that rendition airplane.
  • Expect regular additions to the manifest for these flights.
  • ACTION

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

  • Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

  • REBEL!

Continuing Quote for This Century

From Mark Elias’10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy:

10. Don’t give up hope

Our best political movements were hopeful. John Kennedy insisted that “we should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.” Bill Clinton was the man from Hope. Barack Obama ran a campaign based on hope and change. Donald Trump and the Republicans want you to give up hope. Despair and cynicism fuel their movement. We must always, in the words of Jesse Jackson, “keep hope alive.”

Best Headline of the Week

From the NKC Occasional Update of March 21:

Hakeem! Chuck! Don’t make me stop this car!

Who will lead?

Late Addition Sunday Dark Cloud

From David Corn of Mother Jones’ Our Land of March 22:

And Tulsi Gabbard, [Trump’s] director of national intelligence, not only cheered on this decision [to silence the Voice of America, VOA]; she boosted the Russian critique of VOA. When Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysia-based right-wing podcaster who has written for RT, the Russian propaganda outfit, hailed Trump’s demolition of VOA and echoed the Russian line by claiming it had “perpetuated pro-war narratives against Russia,” Gabbard shared his post. Here was the top intelligence official in Trump’s administration accepting and spreading Vladimir Putin’s take on VOA.

What could possibly go wrong?

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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.

The Tarnished Age


POST 1142

Only I

In Mr. Trump’s first inaugural speech he spoke about American dystopia, carnage without limits, evil violence and our collective hopelessness (“This is some crazy shit,” said George W. Bush). There was only one way to save our republic, he told us, only one savior to lead us from the dumpster slime that was America. “Only I,” claimed Donald Trump, could deliver us from this degradation. “Only I” could correct the awful violations of the true spirit of our country that had been dumped upon us by Democrats. “Only I.”

Then “Only I” brought us a vastly expanded pandemic that at last killed over 1,150,000 Americans. Because of his ineptitude, his recommending cures that were not cures, some of them toxic, and because he made no effort to get vaccinations into the arms of Americans once vaccines were available, the CDC calculated that 750,000 of those deaths had been preventable, but for the bumbling of “Only I.”

And those Covid distancing protocols and the shut downs and the quarantines that MAGAs still rail at, “Only I” did that, too, not Joe Biden. Biden opened the country back up.

“Only I” also brought us over 6% inflation and the loss of millions of jobs. Nobody else could have done that. “Only I.”

He brought us a weakened NATO and allowed Russia to invade Ukraine. No Democrat would have attacked the organization that had kept the peace for over 80 years, but “Only I” managed it easily.

And who else could have proclaimed endlessly that Infrastructure Week was coming, but it never arrived. “Only I” bragged that he would repeal and replace Obamacare with some vastly better health care at a cheaper price. Now, of course, “Only I” tells us that he only has a “concept of a plan” that will be both better and cheaper – no specifics. Nothing but puffery.

“Only I” says he is gong to create an American Gestapo (my term, not his) to pound down the doors of people suspected of being in this country illegally and even some who are naturalized American citizens. He’ll have his cruelty cops round these people up into concentration camps and then deport them – somewhere – nobody knows where. That’s some number of people who will make up between 11 and 20 million deportations at a cost estimated to become north of a billion dollars. It will probably cost far more, as other countries refuse Trump’s rejects onto their shores.

“Only I” is also going to end birthright citizenship. You know: that pesky thing in the 14 Amendment to the Constitution.* He’s going to make that go away like he claimed he did to a hurricane, with the flair of a Sharpie, so that he can expel brown people, black people, Muslims and Asians who were born in this country but aren’t tech geniuses. He thinks an executive order he signs can eliminate an Amendment to our Constitution. There are already multiple lawsuits filed to disabuse him of his idiocy.

With each passing day and each hateful, anti-democracy uttering, the Trump menagerie of cult followers is making this look more and more like 1930s Germany.

Get over your rejection of comparisons of Trump to things Nazi. You aren’t required to self-blind or to go deaf. Face the obvious: we are in an advanced state of voluntarily abandoning our democracy and embracing fascism. We are turning over the wealth and power of our nation, giving what is ours to the billionaires, whom Trump has already begun to reward for their loyalty to “Only I” alone.

Even First Asshole Elon Musk gets it. Here’s his salute to Trump on inauguration day.

Click the pic for a Seig Heil! to warm the otherwise cold, dead hearts of today’s Sturmabteilung (Storm Troopers, aka Brown Shirts) and our right wing thug extremists.

That salute made front pages all around the world, as people reacted to the Nazi salute to der Trump-Führer. Decide for yourself who the angry f-word on Musk’s lips is for. Note that his Nazi salute was well received in the Capital One Arena on Monday. It is standard at MAGA militia rallies and was popular at the January 6 insurrection. Bear in mind that these are all red-blooded Americans doing the Nazi salute. Don’t tell your Greatest Generation relatives, neighbors and friends about this.

Elon is saluting evil. So are the MAGAs. That’s what We The People voted for. Are you okay with that?

You must decide for yourself how many small, sort-of tolerable changes you can tolerate, because they accumulate and become massive, fetid, stinking rot, emitting a foul miasma and poisoning our bodies. We’ve seen this movie over and over, so it isn’t as though this is some new learning. What’s needed is for us to see what is right before our eyes.

And take action.

Like demanding that your senators reject Trump’s “Creature Cantina” (Steve Schmidt’s term) of proposed department heads. Go ahead – pick up the phone and make the calls.

_______________________________________________

* XIV Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state where in they reside.

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.

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