Integrity

I Don’t Know It For a Fact – Plus “Shane”


POST 1151

CAUTION!

This post contains unrestrained snark. It is recommended that sensitive readers use only one eye and then, jeez, get over it.

Bill Maher has a satirical bit he does periodically entitled,

  • I Don’t Know It For A Fact.
  • I Just Know It’s True.

Here’s my offering in that format.

Click me for a better view

When he was 12 years old Trump was in a terrible car crash that damaged his brain, making him unable to think in any way but in terms of “what’s in it for me.” Also injured in that crash was his heart. Surgeons had to remove a major section of it, which made him permanently disabled, without the ability to care about others. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump is congenitally unable to think in strategic terms, only in a tactical, transactional way, and cannot express himself in any way but in word vomit. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

The next Trump Towers will be built in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riyadh, Budapest and – a long shot – Beijing, depending upon his effectiveness at sucking up to evil foreign dictators whose approval he craves. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump contracted a nearly fatal case of Severe Asshole Disease following a high stakes poker game he lost, but which to this day he insists he won. He claims that cards were switched, a terrible fraud! That trauma left him unable to think in any terms but taking money from others. Plus, it left him always feeling unjustly treated, a victim captured in the terror of the truth, that he’s a loser. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

As soon as Musk’s destruction of all government agencies is complete, Trump will fire him and sic the Justice Department on him for retribution, whining on Truth Social that Musk upstaged him repeatedly in the reality show that is Trump’s life. He will also persecute Musk’s kid, X, for being in the Oval Office, stealing some attention from Trump and having what he will call, “a stupid name.” Plus, he will call Musk infantile names like Muskrat and doo-doo head. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump read Mein Kampf and memorized Hitler’s speeches, which he kept on his nightstand. He practiced reciting them to his first wife, Ivana, believing that she would find that as erotic as he did. They had three children, but none after he began reciting those speeches to her. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Elon Musk loves apartheid and wants to bring it to America to subjugate all non-Aryans and take their money. Then he will cash in his Krugerrands, gold coins made from gold mined in near-slavery conditions by Black labor. He will use that as seed money for his next venture, making soylent green, which he intends to feed to his Black laborers. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Danger

In Steve Schmidt’s Presidents Day post, JD Vance is a fool on a ship of fools, he shares the words of Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert Jackson, who was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazis following WW II. Jackson said this in his closing argument:

Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.

Now we have in our president a puppet of Putin, who is a man, “in whom those [savage] forces now precariously survive.” Just ask Vladimir Zelenskyy about Putin’s savagery. Justice Jackson was right then and he’s still right. Worst of all, Trump has modeled himself after such evil despots.

Trump is fond of saying, “Only I can _____________.” You fill in the blank. Sometimes he’s right. Only Trump can lead the dismantling of the American order both at home and internationally, putting we and the world in terrible peril.

You know parts of the list of the dastardly, un-constitutional, illegal actions he’s taking and you have a bad taste in your mouth for the cruelty he’s unleashed on tens of thousands, now millions of Americans. What you must do with that is to see that it is all of a piece and not get your underwear in a bunch over just one or two issues. The point is that he is leading a coup to take sole control and ownership of all of America and pocket all our riches for himself.

Trump would be right to crow, “Only I” can do that. And he will do that unless you and I stop him. Now would be a fine time to do that stopping, because “Only we” can prevent Hitler II.

Quotes of the Week

“We’re going to lose our democracy,” said Sotomayor, unless Americans and “particularly” young people take steps to inform themselves well and combat the misinformation chaos created by the rise of the internet.

  • – Josh Sackheim FB post, Feb 12,
  • reporting on comments of
  • Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor
  • at Miami Dade College in Florida

The tumult is smoke. But don’t look away: The fire is a national takeover.

Who will stand up to Trump at high noon?

Indeed, who will do that? We’re looking for that leader.

Backbone

There is an Open Letter to Career Prosecutors, executed on Presidents Day, February 17, 2025. It is circulating now and you MUST read it. It is a cautionary message of support for our good and honorable prosecutors who are under attack from the Trump Justice Department for refusing to do wrong. It is a message of standing with and for these prosecutors as they stand with and for our Constitution and the rule of law. It is signed by over 900 former prosecutors.

The text of the letter ends,

“generations of former federal prosecutors are watching with pride and admiration and stand ready to support you in this honorable pursuit.”

Then come the names. 39 pages of the names of people with courage and integrity. People who then, now and always stand by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Read the letter. And in your heart, stand with them for our career prosecutors today.

Could we – you and I – do any less for our democracy? Not if we stand for something worthy.

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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. 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 Worst


POST 1149

A Partial List of Executive Order Destruction
  1. They’re cutting funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), slashing support for indirect costs associated with medical research. Good luck with that break-through treatment your baby needs to survive.
  2. They’re cutting funding for the CDC, which will be forced to stop preparations to deal with the next pandemic and the one after that. They’re cutting support to deal with opioid overdose prevention, too.
  3. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is being shut down, so we will no longer have warnings about dangerous weather.
  4. Even the sign has been taken off the USAID building, making it clear that the agency is so yesterday. We don’t care if babies die, tens of thousands succumb to HIV and China replaces us globally in the hearts and minds of millions so that they gain access to the resources we need.
  5. The Department of Education is set to receive the wrecking ball. Your children are already well behind where their parents were at the same age in reading, writing, science and the rest. The destruction of the DOE will ensure that their children – your grandchildren – will be even more ignorant. Plus, some of the DOE money will be redirected from public education to private schools via vouchers. Are you okay with your tax dollars going to the school at Our Lady of Grift, or the St. White Guy Patriarchy Academy?
  6. Musk has announced the imminent demise of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Apparently, we didn’t really need the $17 billion the agency recovered for We the People who were fleeced by fraudulent and predatory practices. We can look forward to a resumption of the days of wanton financial cheating and the emptying your wallet.
  7. Christian Nationalist Russell Vought was made director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is an author of Project 2025, which is a roadmap to destroying the Constitution and our government. To be fair, that wasn’t done by executive order. It was a cowardly Republican vote in the Senate for a decidedly anti-American extremist.
  8. Newly installed director of HHS Christi Noem, the, promo actress for her dentist, made a visit to Guantanamo, where Trump plans to dump 30,000 immigrants. They are possibly undocumented people who are possibly accused criminals who were possibly convicted. Trump explained, “We don’ do no stinkin’ vetting for nobody for nuthin’. Besides, they’re brown. We don’ need no dark people to mess with our White privilege and we don’ need no stinking rule of law or habeas corpus,* either.” Note that I did not follow the events of Noem’s visit, so I don’t know if she shot and killed any cute puppies while she was at Guantanamo.

Notice the resemblance,

especially in the dead eyes.

We’ve had 3 weeks of Trump flaunting the law. There have been lawsuits to stop him and he’s lost them all, but just as his Josef Goebbels (Stephen Miller) said about ripping babies from mothers’ arms at the border, “The cruelty is the point.”

The court system is a long, slow process. Some lawsuits may take years to conclude. Meanwhile, Trump will be getting away with lawlessness and harming people.

Trump has captured the public narrative (yet again) with his lawlessness and his unending torrent of verbal vomiting of fantasies and lies. The rule of law isn’t even a speed bump to him. As his advisor Steve Bannon advised, “Flood the zone with shit” and Trump is doing exactly that. It may be shit, but it’s a tsunami that overwhelms everything so fast that stopping him is more than a daunting task.

Saving the Worst For Last

I know that this has been a long year for you over just the past 3 weeks, but take a trip with me in the WayBack Machine. We’ll set the dials to take us to the thrilling days of yestermonth, when there was separation of powers, un-elected rich guys couldn’t stomp on your privacy, your financial well-being or the programs Congress had ordered. The rule of law, that quaint, old fashioned notion, was king and it applied to everyone, except fat, orange, mentally declining narcissists.  Even as there were people in black robes undermining the rule of law, there were guys with silver bullets enforcing it. But things have changed.

Now thousands of silver bullet guys have been fired as retribution for having enforced the rule of law. Replacements are being required to pledge themselves to the fat, orange, mentally declining narcissist, instead of to the Constitution and the rule of law. All executive department heads (or nominees) have similarly pledged their loyalty and have given away their integrity to that same fat, orange, mentally declining narcissist.

He is blatantly ignoring court orders and the separation of powers that for nearly 250 years has prevented us from being violated, dominated and sometimes terminated by a cruel despot, like mad King George III. And the stomping by an un-elected apartheid devotee and his hacker delinquents upon your privacy, your financial well-being and programs Congress ordered  continues. They are defying court orders. They even want to murder Big Bird. So do the Republicans in Congress.

In short, this president and his integrity-free operatives are daring anyone to stop them from taking sole power over the United States of America and strangling this country with fascism.

That’s the worst.

.

We cannot count on our self-neutering elected Democrats or the always-with-their-hand-out-for-contributions DNC to lead actions to stop the steal of our country, so it’s up to us – as in: you, me and the millions who recognize that injustices and wholesale attack on our nation and our people are underway.

Demonstrations are scheduled for Presidents Day, this Monday, Feb 17. That’s a really good day for millions of We The People across the country to take a stand.

Click here to find an action near you. If you don’t find something nearby, make one – there’s information for that at the same site.

Oh BTW – eggs are $10 a dozen. Didn’t Trump promise he’d make the price go down? Was that supposed to happen on day one? Did anyone tell the hens about all that?

RESIST!

Required Reading for Action

Read Robert Reich’s Feb 6 post, What You Can Do.

___________________________________________

* noun: habeas corpus

a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention. [emphasis mine – JA]
Source: OxfordLanguages

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.

Stand a Post – 2


POST 1141

Preface to This Guest Essay – It Could Be Entitled, “Stand a Post-2.”

On December 22 I published Our Problem, a flaming declaration of the obvious and dangerous truth, that most Democrats have shown themselves to be toothless tigers and are completely unready to battle the horrors that face us. Lifelong pal Frank Levy had something to say about that and he posted an insightful comment. You need to see it, so it’s here as a Guest Essay.

Frank has been an activist forever. He was a Freedom Rider in the 1960s when registering Black people to vote in the deep south was a death defying act. He does more than give lip service to doing what is right and good. He tells us that it’s time to get up off our butts and take action. He tells us that we cannot count on Democratic elected officials to fight this war to preserve our rights, the Constitution and our democracy. He’s right.

For context, review my post first and then come back to read Frank’s wise words.

Jack – You are right. The Dems are MIA. They are not going to save us. They are not even going to lead us. So, what? They have been MIA for a long, long time. The only thing that will save us and our on-life-support democracy is what has always saved us – WE THE PEOPLE!

With no disrespect, my longtime friend, you are suffering from a serious case of useless pundit syndrome. We all know what the problem is. We know it all too well. There is no shortage of media pundits (all of whom incorrectly predicted the election), scholars, and the like explaining ad nauseam what went and is wrong. There is no shortage of useless verbiage telling us how bad things will be. We know all of that.

What we need are people willing to offer some solutions, a defensive or even offensive strategy or tactical plan so We The People can survive the coming catastrophe and maybe even restore liberal democracy to America sometime in the future.

So with no lack of arrogance I am offering my own save yourself and democracy to-do list:

  1. Never miss an opportunity to inform elected officials – Republican and Democrat, local and national – about your position on every issue. Write them, Call them. Make them hear you!
  2. Get together with like minded people to form a local resilience and resistance force. Meet regularly. Make plans to do meaningful acts of resistance. There really is strength in numbers. This is our John Lewis moment!
  3. Make a plan to protect your job, your savings, your retirement funds, your healthcare plan, your health, your home.
  4. If you live in a red state, make plans to create an underground railroad, to help women needing an abortion or healthcare get what they need.
  5. Create or work with a local food bank so when food prices skyrocket and there are food shortages people in need can get affordable food.
  6. Raise your own livestock (cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys) or find a farmer to raise it for you – there will be food shortages. Be prepared.
  7. Again, if your live in a red state create an underground railroad to help LGBTQIA+ individuals get to states where it is safe to live, be married, and get gender affirming health care.
  8. Find new, reliable, courageous news sources. The media for the most part has surrendered to MAGA and Trump’s threats.
  9. Stop trying to make nice with MAGA people. They do not share your values. They will not agree to the same set of facts. Without agreement of those two things there is nothing to talk about.
  10. Buy a copy of Timothy Snyder’s book, “On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.” Read it. It is your new Bible. Do not leave home without it.
  11. If you think you will need to leave this country to go somewhere safe – get or renew your passport now.
  12. Decide whether or not you have the means and are willing to provide sanctuary for those immigrants Trump and his evil henchmen want to deport or incarcerate.
  13. Join a group like Indivisible. They have great information and resources to help us in this fight. (www.Indivisible.org)
  14. Contact me one on one. I will be happy to share what I know, and what my friends and I in Alabama are doing. ([email protected])

I am sure there are other things we can and should be doing in this terrifying time, but this is a start. This is what my friends and I are doing now.

_____________________________________________________

Okay, maybe you won’t be raising your own livestock. At the very least you need to see Frank’s comment as making the point that your circumstances are likely to become extremely bad. With what you see and hear every day you shouldn’t require clarification of this.

  1. You see the billionaire tech-toadies buying their way into power and the monied supplicant suck-ups (oh, wait: that’s redundant) bending a knee instead of standing in integrity.
  2. You see the cabinet appointments chosen not for their qualifications or their excellence, but for their loyalty to Trump so that they protect our Felon-in Chief.
  3. You see the guardrails coming down, so you know our democracy is in trouble.

Frank mentioned Indivisible.org. There are other ways to stand that post, including The Union, MoveOn.org, Country First, Focus4Democracy, The States Project, Indivisible Illinois and more. Go stand a post with at least one of those organizations working to protect our democracy.

We are in for a long, achingly hard battle, so put your ideas for action in the Comments section below to help us all.

REBEL!

.  .  .  against the billionaire tyranny.

From The Union

Tomorrow is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day. You know the stories of how right wing haters tried to stop the creation of a day of remembrance for this (gasp!) Black man, this non-violent icon of peaceful change for the betterment of all. Tomorrow is also the inauguration of a man dedicated to hatred, selfishness and repression. The contrast would be comical if it weren’t so damaging.

The folks at The Union have some ideas about how you can help peaceful change come about.

Register Voters: Help your community by assisting people in registering to vote or becoming election workers. (If you’re interested in learning how to get involved with voter registration in your area, please reach out to The Union for more information.)

Volunteer at a local food bank: Help provide meals for people in need.

Community Cleanups: Lead efforts to clean up parks, streets, or public spaces, promoting community pride and solidarity.

Reach out to a friend or relative to see how they’re doing and encourage them to get involved in local volunteer opportunities or pro-democracy initiatives.

Sign up for a volunteer event at our Action Center! Key races are happening this year in Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Virginia. Get involved and mark your calendar today!

As The Union wrote in its recent post,

“Thank you for your dedication to justice, community, and democracy.”

TikTok

You would compromise our national security so that you can post and view inane videos for free? Really? Or so that you can make a few bucks on that platform, as though that’s the only place you can make a buck? Seriously?!

Seriously!?!!
.

We can be bought – we sell out – so cheaply. But you don’t have to do that. Reach down and grab your ass. That is what’s at stake.

Fun – Yes, Really

Click me

Did you make it this far in this long post? Good for you, because here’s a gift courtesy of Dan Rather at Steady. Fleetwood Mack tells us “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” It’s a message of hope – “It’ll be here better than before” – and we surely need hope right now, because tomorrow – as in: Monday – won’t be better than today. But we are going to make our tomorrows better than before – if we work at it. Let’s go.

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.

We Do Know What’s Coming – A Sampler


POST 1126

Today we take a quiet Sunday to club Republicans over the head for their excellently done sellout of America and the American people and the world class hypocrisy of so many. Sadly, we do know what’s coming.

  1. As soon as Trump began his awful run for the White House in 2015 it was obvious what we were in for.  Recall his demonizing of Hispanics coming to this country, whom he described as drug carriers, rapists and criminal transmitters of disease. He said this to a small group of paid actors in the lobby of his building, recruited to cheer for him wildly. As soon as he got off the escalator he claimed there were thousands there. That was just his first official lie and a harbinger of his fraud to come. Republicans began to debase themselves before Trump almost immediately. We should have known what was coming.
  2. Then there were the impeachments. It was clear to everyone that he was guilty of those high crimes and misdemeanors, but Republicans in the House refused to vote against him. Only a small handful of Republicans in the Senate had the integrity to vote him guilty. The rest decided that they didn’t want to get primaried. Worse, they knew that a guilty decision would have prevented Trump from ever again holding any “office of trust” – we would have been rid of him. They chickened out. We wouldn’t be facing the frontal assault on our Constitution and our democracy now, had there been 10 more Republicans with a spine. Translation: The Republicans’ careers in Congress were more important to them than the fate of the United States of America or the oath they swore. Where have the patriots gone, you ask? They’ve been replaced by cowards and hypocrites. We should have known what was coming.
  3. Matt Gaetz was the most hated man in the House, mirroring Ted Cruz, the most hated man in the Senate who isn’t named Josh Hawley. Gaetz, a reasonably accused sex trafficker, high school girl schtuper, Ecstacy aficionado, Justice Department know-nothing and more, has removed himself from consideration for the job of A.G., a position for which he is profoundly unqualified. Perhaps now he can be prosecuted and get the cell of his pal Jeffrey Epstein. He’s being replaced by Trump’s defense lawyer and suck up (but looks good on TV – very important to Trump) Pam Bondi. We did know what was coming.
  4. Speaking of the Department of Justice, somebody please tell us what “weaponization of the Department of Justice” is. It sounds terrible, so it’s a great campaign slogan for Republicans to use to accuse Democrats of something bad. Isn’t the Department of Justice supposed to be weaponized against wrongdoing, like insurrection and theft of classified documents? Whatever evil “weaponization” means, I’m certain the Trump administration will do exactly that. They’ll prosecute everyone on Trump’s hit list and more just to harass them and drain them of money. We do know what’s coming.
  5. Sure, we believe Trump when he says he knows nothing about Project 2025 and will have nothing to do with its implementation. I mean, he said so, right? We do know what’s coming.
  6. Even if you follow news and politics only a little you likely saw that Jack Smith has dropped his indictments against Donald Trump for inciting insurrection, election interference, fraud, possession of stolen classified documents and more. That absurd Office of Legal Counsel memo (NOT law) from 1973 that says that a sitting president cannot be indicted and prosecuted is a justice killer, a rule-of-law violator, as is the 2024 Supreme Court issued “get out of jail free” decision. Combined with Merrick Garland’s unconscionable two years of foot dragging and Trump’s defense attorneys’ masterful manipulation of the courts to delay, delay, delay, Trump will have gotten away with his heinous crimes. Had you done any of the things Trump did, you would already have been rotting in a prison cell for a couple of years. It sure looks like a prime case of two sets of laws, one for rich, powerful people and another for the rest of us. We did know what was coming.
  7. Are you a woman or do you know and care about a woman? Coming are a national abortion ban, bans on contraception, prosecutions of OB/GYNs and a constant Christian Nationalist (which actually isn’t Christian at all) drum beat of reducing women to nothing more than sex toys, incubators and house slaves. We do know what’s coming.
Quote Adjustment Following the Election

From Salon.com, November 14:

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on the direction of America and the future of pluralistic multiracial democracy.

True, but that soft peddles the fundamental point. Let me help.

In the most basic sense, the 2024 election can be understood as a referendum on whether this is or ever will be America.

You Can Get Anything You Want at Alice’s Restaurant.

There is hypocrisy masquerading as justice and even as popular will, just as there was when Arlo Guthrie told his tale. Watch over the next few years – could be even faster if the MAGA barbarians are able to shred the entire Constitution sooner. Watch the MAGA faithful, the willfully ignorant, the dupes, the “I could never vote for a Democrat” non-thinkers, the “I want a strongman, not one of those woke types and for sure no woman” chest pounders and even those too lazy to get off the couch and vote.

Watch what happens as the hatred spreads and their freedom evaporates. They may cheer as the freedom of others disappears, but not when it clobbers them. Then, o’ golly, that won’t be fair.

Watch as they realize that the nice guy down the block has been ripped from his family and thrown into a concentration camp, his children left weeping. Watch as the cost of food and everything else skyrockets but wages are stagnant. Watch their eyes as diseases like measles, polio and smallpox make a big comeback, when the kid across the street is struggling just to breathe and the elderly lady next door has died with horrible sores all over her body and they realize that they might have been infected.

Listen to the hypocritical excuses, the lame, “It’s not my fault” exculpations. Watch as the testosterone overfilled, Bible thumping crowd begins to feel the pain of women dying in pregnancy, a threat that exists only because of their actions.

Yale Professor of History Timothy Snyder knows what’s coming. He lays it out for you here.

Oh yes, we do know what’s coming.

Bide your time. And

REBEL!

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

How We Fell Off The Sled v 1.0


POST 1123

I had this nifty 11-point list of the many ways Democrats lost the election. It wasn’t pretty, but it was factual. Then, in a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized that only one of them was a root cause issue, a progenitor of all the rest. Indeed, it took only one of them to make Trump and MAGA, the Freedom Caucus and the rest of the reactionary, angry people possible.

The Democrats, once the party of working people (think: FDR being elected President 4 times), have ignored working people for decades. Other than the “big tent” talking points and Biden’s consistent support of unions, the Democratic Party became a haven for the college educated, with little to no outreach to working people, our term for those who don’t work in offices.

Reagan is the one most responsible for the beginning of the destruction of unions, with his firing of all of the air traffic controllers who went on strike in 1981. Back then controllers were dying from heart attacks and strokes due to stress and over-work. Their pleas went ignored and the strike was a last ditch effort for survival. They were completely disregarded, disrespected and were fired. Where was the Democratic cavalry? It never came over the hill.

The Democrats hardly fought back for unions or for working people, instead battling Republicans for the college educated. Most recently, Harris counted far too heavily on suburban, college educated women for votes and ignored the plumbers, landscapers and construction workers who keep those suburban women comfortable. Those working people don’t like being ignored.

On-Point Quotes

“Democrats increasingly are the party of university educated elites, and they have an unfortunate knack for coming across as remote and patronizing scolds.” – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, November 17, 2024

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

“My needs go ignored and I feel disrespected.”

When people are blown off there is a direct and instantaneous reaction of anger – even of hatred.

Example: Democrats stuck their fingers in their ears, failing to listen to Gen Zers who were furious over Netanyahu’s death machine in Gaza. That machine was armed with 2,000 bombs supplied by the U.S. That pissed off a whole generation. You can pile on the hopelessness of Z’s prospects for housing, food, relationships and more. Sure, we can point to the pluses of a historically low level of unemployment and increasing wages in some sectors of the economy, but Zs continue to feel blown off.

People from various generations have been knee-jerking in reaction to feeling blown off by people in power – by the “coastal elites” and the obscenely rich. We have an unspoken dictum from our financially comfortable, “I got mine. Too bad for you.”

16 years ago we got Obama. He was supposed to make a big difference. Check with those who most closely identified with him. Ask whether things got better for them and specifically if they feel they were heard. We can point to the Republicans who stopped every train with Obama’s name on it, but the rich guys and coastal elites blew off everyone who is not them and then pointed at the Democrats as the source of the blow off. And the Democrats went all radio silence.

4 years ago we got Biden and he was supposed to make a big difference. And he did. You know about the enormous improvement in employment, wages and new businesses started. You know that it’s finally infrastructure week and much more. Price increases have slowed. All that is great except for three things.

1. The Biden administration has done a world class job of crappy communication about the victories and what they mean to ordinary Americans.

2. Regular Americans can’t afford to feed their families because food is way too expensive and that continues to get worse. Nobody cares that we’re better off than other first world countries because we live here, not there.

3. The failures at the southern border continue and finger pointing, however accurate – or not – doesn’t help working people who feel at risk. Ditto the world class crappy job of communication over the dramatic slowing of illegal entries.

The “I’d rather be us than them” election crowd finally put a sock in it because everything they hoped for was lost. Let’s see what some vote totals can tell us.

2020                        2024

Biden/Harris                                  81,283,098               73,981,301

Trump                                             74,222,958               76,587,122

Winner’s Margin                              7,060,140                 2,605,821

Eligible voters who didn’t vote ~ 80,000,000                80,870,000

Notions about this

1. 7.3 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 did not vote for Harris in 2024. Where did they go?

2. Trump picked up a couple of million more votes in this election over the prior one. Seems likely that a good portion of those votes were from blown off pissy people who switched from voting for the Democrat and this time voted for the Republican. Likely, they saw Trump as the less crappy of two crappy candidates.

3. About 80 million people won’t get off their lazy asses to show up and vote. Nobody knows what the outcomes of our elections would be if they did. I just hope no eligible voter who didn’t bother to vote complains to me about what happens to them following this election and how awful life has become for them. They won’t like what I have to say.

Finally

Whatever the issue, and we have plenty of them, having voted for Trump won’t fix them. His win will only have accomplished a proud double middle finger in the air from every working person and their very loud FUCK YOU! to members of “the establishment” or the imaginary “swamp” and those perceived as the privileged, the elite, the ones who disrespect their inferiors.

But nothing will get better for angry working class folks. More tax breaks for the rich will not help them. Cancelling Obamacare won’t help them. Massive tariffs not only won’t help them, they will hurt those people terribly. Deporting 11 million (or is it 20 million?) undocumented immigrants won’t help because, for example, our FUCK YOU! crowd won’t do the jobs those undocumented people have been doing. That will result in higher food prices for everyone and small business bankruptcies and the resultant loss of jobs. Elon Musk pulling the rug out from under our social services will imperil our elderly especially, and poor children will go hungry. Trump having his lick-spittle AG persecute and prosecute Trump’s opponents won’t help anything but Trump’s ego. Destroying the Department of Education will badly affect the children of our middle finger deploying citizens.

All these Trump voting people will have is the satisfaction of screaming into the night and feeling powerful only for the duration of the echoes of their screams. Their lives will not get better.

Don’t think for even a minute that Donald Trump will be recognized as a source of their ennui, and that’s fitting because we all did this. I’m as guilty as anyone for calling those supporting Trump stupid, self-defeating and a bunch of other unflattering, disrespectful names.

The true source of their suffering and anger is those of us who have blown them off for decades – for half a century. It turns out that people don’t like to be disrespected.

And that is how We The People fell off the sled.

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

Click me

JA


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

What Will Happen – Part 1 of 2


POST 1120

Preface

This is Part 1 of 2 of what you can expect in the second Trump presidency. Some of what follows is snark or satire. Most is not.

Expect Part 2 on Wednesday.

Healthcare

Bobby Kennedy will be in charge of healthcare – your healthcare. He doesn’t like vaccines, so count on our not being prepared for the next pandemic and for there to be a massive number of preventable deaths. And count on ever increasing diagnoses of measles, polio, tetanus, smallpox and more in our little ones because, again, Kennedy doesn’t like vaccines.

Expect an ongoing idiocy from Kennedy of quack practices and assaults on science, health and sanity. Expect an undermining of the USDA, compromising the safety of the meat you eat including Trump’s Big Macs. Expect, too, an attack on the FDA, compromising the safety of our meds. The list of Kennedy’s undermining of our national health and safety will be very long and galactically stupid, as he does as Trump instructs, “whatever the hell he wants.”

The Economy

Genius nut job Elon Musk will be in charge of our economy. He has pledged to cut $2 trillion from our national budget. He can’t cut our military spending or other mandatory things, which leaves only “discretionary” spending. He will cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the Departments of Education and Energy and more. All programs designed for the welfare of We The People will vanish. Better start figuring out how you’ll pay for your healthcare, your meds, how your kids will get educated and more.

We’ll have cheap gas and accelerating global warming to depress and imperil our children and grandchildren. The list of the carnage Musk will create is long and terrifying, as he does, “whatever the hell he wants.” Ah, but we’ll have a balanced budget. Why should anyone care about you?

Trump will re-up his previous tax reduction gift to rich people and will expand it. He will promise great benefits to working people and some to poor people. They will be, “greater than anyone has ever seen,” but nobody but the rich and big corporations will receive enough for any benefit to be identifiable.

All economic indicators, the Dow, S & P and the rest, will plunge in value following Trump cashing out his portfolios. Same for his rich buddies who will be given advance notice. Once securities have hit rock bottom the rich will buy them up just as rich guys did following the crash in 1929. Ordinary people will be economically devastated, as jobs disappear and whatever savings they had for retirement disappears. You already know that we’ve seen this movie before and we know how it ends.

Freedom

Expect encroachment on the freedoms of any who are not White and on all women. All forms of contraception will be outlawed except the so-called rhythm method favored by the Catholic Church, Evangelicals and Christian Nationalists (who aren’t really Christian in their beliefs and actions). This method excels at systematically producing many babies, a la the Dark Ages. All forms of post impregnation medical procedures will be outlawed, with prison sentences imposed for affected women and for medical professionals who dare to treat a woman having a miscarriage. Someone will keep a tally of women who die because of these prohibitions. The numbers will seem like they are from a horror film.

Blacks, Hispanics, Jews and Muslims will be encouraged through intimidation to stay in their place and not be uppity. Or they can leave this country. KKK white hood outfits with nooses attached to the belt and torches to carry, as well as Gestapo and SS uniforms will be popular Halloween costume choices.

Women will be expected to be subservient to all males. Their roles will be limited to sex object, household servant, involvement in teaching young children and low level business positions. In no circumstance will they be allowed to have a position of any power in this perfect patriarchal America. What would you think of bringing back witch trials?

Ear worm warning: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA will play in all elevators and all music on hold. There will be no escape.

Guns

Gun deaths will continue to mount. The rate may well increase. There will be absolutely no direct or indirect curbs to reduce gun violence, as age restrictions for purchasing firearms and accessories and limitations on those with a violent history are eliminated. Trump may wallow in finger pointing about shootings in our large cities, which, of course happen, but they are at a much lower per capita rate than in rural states, AKA The Wild West. No matter. Trump will always tell us that cities run by Democrats are  the worst.

Miscellaneous Un-American Activities

It’s logistically insanely difficult to round up 11 million or more people and deport them. There may be Gestapo raids in various Hispanic neighborhoods ripping families apart. Expect rampant cruelty that is never prosecuted.

Look for prosecutions on fantasy charges against people Trump doesn’t like. The prosecutions won’t result in anything substantive, but they will impoverish the defendants, so Trump will be able to giggle with glee about how he crushed his detractors.

Expect thousands of civil servants, the people who make the trains run on time, to be fired and replaced by Trump suck-up know-nothings.

Look for conflicts of interest and outright grift and graft on an epic level. There will be no prosecutions.

The Trump administration will end when JD Vance invokes the 25th Amendment to replace him. Then things will get worse.

Expect that to happen just into Trump’s third year, which would allow Vance to stay for two more terms, assuming that there will still be elections and such an old fashioned concept as “terms.” If we no longer have elections, the timing won’t matter.

Dos and Don’ts
Do

Stay connected to others, especially those who believe in democracy. It’s critical to your sanity.

Grieve the loss. It’s real and it hurts.

Get up and get active. Nothing restores the spirit like taking action to make things better.

Fight to Make America Not Suck. Get a red, write and blue MANS hat. I don’t know where to find those. Go all entrepreneurial with that.

If there is an election in 2026, dig in with everything you have to elect anyone who will oppose Trump and will restore our democracy. We need control of at least one house of Congress to put a brake to the Trump Train of Destruction.
.
Don’t

Don’t surrender to despair.

Don’t wallow in grief.

Don’t drop out.

Don’t succumb to “All is lost.” The fight just got much more difficult, so we must step up our efforts for truth, justice and the American Way.

And most important,

Don’t let the bastards get you down!

.
Final Note

There is nothing in this post that you didn’t already know. That is how blatantly, screamingly, obviously awful this stuff is. We have a lot of work to do.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Where Have They Been?


POST 1117

From NBC, October 29 (trimmed for brevity):

.  .  .  Nikki Haley criticized Trump world on Tuesday for being “overly masculine with this bromance thing” after former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

On Fox News on Tuesday, Haley addressed a comedian’s racist jokes about Puerto Rico and Latinos, a moment that has roiled the Trump campaign and was condemned by multiple Republicans, including members of Congress.

“This is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos,” Haley said, instead calling for discipline around the campaign. “This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they have.” [Mascuilinity now means hatred and cruelty?]

Haley noted other language used throughout the rally, as well as in Republican ads and messaging, that she called destructive to drawing women into the fold on Election Day.

She said, “destructive to drawing women into the fold.”

She said, “That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump’s style.”

Those are her concerns? She’s not concerned about the racism and the misogynist cruelty?

Haley failed miserably because her sole focus is on winning the election. She didn’t show even a whiff of concern for decency. Plus, this election isn’t about Trump’s style. It’s about his pathological substance.

HALEY COMPLETELY FAILS TO ADDRESS HOW MISERABLY TRUMP WORLD BEHAVES AND ITS COMPLETE LACK OF DECENCY. HALEY DISCARDED ALL CLARITY ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG. WHATEVER SPINE SHE ONCE MIGHT HAVE HAD HAS MELTED AWAY, ALONG WITH ANY SENSE OF MORALITY.

Nikki Haley’s values are upside down. Were the opportunity to present itself, I would vote for a golden retriever over Haley, this for its fidelity and for Haley’s lack of it.

Many Republicans – hundreds of them – have recovered their senses and are speaking out against Trump. Haley isn’t one of them. They are pledging to vote for Harris. So glad they’re standing up for what is right and good and patriotic.

But in the face of the constant outpouring of Trump and MAGA cruelty, vicious lies and attacks on our Constitution,

Where have they been for the last nine years?
.

Come to think of it, where has George W. Bush’s courage been? Wasn’t he the swagger president, the “You’re either with us or against us” tough guy? Where’s his repudiation of Trump and MAGA and where is his endorsement of Harris? Where is Mitt Romney’s? Or John Boehner’s or Paul Ryan’s? Where are the quiet ones who sometimes appeared to be “traditional Republicans,” like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski?

Each of them and more took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Why aren’t they standing up and fighting against this obvious threat to our Constitution?

Key Quote For This Election
.
“Bad People get elected when good people don’t vote.”  – Sen. Cory Booker
.

We know the difference between right and wrong and between good and evil and we vote accordingly. Good on you for standing strong and being a voter.

Your family, friends and neighbors may need your encouragement to vote. Please speak out. Urge them to vote. Don’t tell them who to vote for because that kind of message is almost never welcome. Just urge them to vote.

It’s time for all of us to take a stand.

Many thanks to MG for this quotation from Scotty Reston.

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

NOTE: Many states allow same day voter registration and voting!

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

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

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

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

A Bucketful of Weird


POST 1109

Heart Wrenching Quote of the Week

Misty is a teacher in Charlotte, NC. She was interviewed on CNN. She spoke of teachers going to the houses of students to make sure they were okay, as they were living in rubble. One of the teachers is missing and they are surrounded by the disaster and the suffering that is everywhere, trying to help the kids have something that feels normal. Misty said that’s critical for the kids, because,

“Normal just washed away  .  .  . “

Their ordinary lives just washed away. Food and drinkable water washed away. Their homes washed away. Their hopes, dreams, security and perhaps friends and family washed away. The death toll stands at 232. No one knows how many are missing and there is no way to calculate the devastation.

The people wading through the muck and rubble are our family, neighbors and community even if at a distance. When disaster hits, we roll up our shirtsleeves and lend a hand. We come together for one another.

And our help, already critically needed, is going to become far more desperately needed, as Hurricane Milton slams across Florida.

CNN put together this list of organizations providing relief. Just click the link and pick one to help our people, because we step up for our community. It’s just what we do, so it would be weird not to.

Weird Black Nazi Wish List

North Carolina Republican candidate for governor and self-labeled Black Nazi, Mark Robinson, has said many offensive things. Among them,

“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.”

Maybe I’ll buy some slaves, too. Robinson will be my first purchase. The first thing I’ll do as his master is to end all of his freedom and work him to exhaustion every day. Just wondering if he would still think “slavery is not bad.”

Weird.

The Weird Candidate

From an article in The Atlantic Daily on October 2 entitled “Beyond Handshakes,” focused on the Vice Presidential debate:

.  .  .  Vance slyly executed a strategy to make himself, and Trumpism, appear “normal.” He eschewed talk of “childless cat ladies” and ran from his own lies about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. That such a sentence needs to be written tells you all you need to know about the ugly tenor of this race.

Actually, it tells you all you need to know about the ugly dishonesty and cruelty of Republican politicians.

Weird.

Springfield Geese

Turns out that Trump and Vance are sort of right – someone did kill geese in Springfield, OH. But it wasn’t one of the legally resident Haitians.

Springfield idiot and non-Haitian, Brian Comer, was having fine sport killing golf course pond geese on September 10. Got busted for it. There are no reports of him killing neighbors’ dogs or cats and eating them or whether he’s a Trump supporter – you do the guessing on that. Regardless, he’s seriously weird.

FEMA Funds Never Fed Our Undocumented

Following Hurricane Helene, Donald Trump blasted out damning crapnews that FEMA is running out of money for relief because they’re funneling millions to undocumented immigrants. Trump SS officer Steven Miller and idiot genius Elon Musk are helping to spread that lie. The details of this Trump-stupid FEMA accusation are too long to include here, so read Heather Cox Richardson’s explainer.

Worse, at a time when tens of thousands of Americans are desperate and counting on the heroic rescue teams working hard to save them, feed them, to bring them to safety and to give them hope, Trump is crushing their hopes and their belief in their country. Trump is weird and he’s cruel beyond words. But, you knew that.

BTW – When he was president he did exactly what he’s falsely accusing Biden of doing. He diverted FEMA money from relief for victims of Hurricane Maria to use it to punish “others.” While those devastated by the hurricane were Americans, he didn’t care because, hey, they’re just Puerto Ricans. To refresh your memory, this is the paper towel tossing incident. See this capture of his reprehensible and weird nature.

“That Was a Damning Non-Answer”

Walz: Did [Trump] lose the 2020 election?

Vance: Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans in the wake of the 2020 Covid situation? (As though that fantasy was in the future – and the answer is no.)

Walz: That was a damning non-answer.

Vance’s slimy-squirmy avoidance of Walz’s question lit up the debate and Walz nailed him on it. Good for all of us.

Actually, Walz let pass nearly all of Vance’s non-answers (about 22 of them) and his lies (uncountable), much to the frustration of fact-based viewers. No clue why Walz did that.

Trump’s nearly successful efforts to thwart the will of the people of the United States in 2021 and Vance’s support for that felony is ugly. But We The People believe our eyes and ears and we know what happened. The Vance-Dance wasn’t just damning. It was criminally damning.

And weird.

Reality Roundup

You already know that some of us have a flimsy relationship with truth, facts, science and other parts of reality. Lies, misdirection, fantasies, fatuous rumors and conspiracies have achieved great popularity with many of our less sharp-eyed fellow citizens. Their opinions, based on nothing more than personal bias and cartoon-ish flights of insanity, have supplanted facts in their minds. That’s an impressive achievement and actually quite a problem.

A fine essay was offered in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago – Facts Matter, and They Don’t Care How You Feel, by Francis S. Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health. His piece is a clearheaded approach to telling us that reality is what it is and that our confirmation bias, bad attitudes and our need to find a boogeyman behind every tree don’t change reality.

So no, the Earth is not flat. The 1969 moon landing did happen. So did the Holocaust. There were no sex trafficked young girls in the basement of that pizza shop in DC (actually, there is no basement in that building). There are no Jewish space lasers and vaccines don’t kill, neuter or blind people. They saved hundreds of thousands of lives just in America, despite Trump’s efforts to get Americans to instead inject bleach, Lysol and little ultraviolet lights and to take a drug approved solely to treat malaria. We know all this because there is massive evidence that declares the realities, even as conspiracy wingnuts and wacko political candidates display their very serious mental limitations by rejecting reality and imperiling all of us.

Weird.

Just get this:

Shifting back to reality will take powerful, consistently muscular, banner-waving, truth telling, lie smashing, propaganda pummeling communication and a personal touch. Anything less than that will cause us to descend into a freedom killing wasteland. There are only 26 days left and this will take all of us. It’s time to step up. Now.
.

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!

– Les Miserables R Us

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Reconsidering


POST 1104

A Little Founding Father Direction

From Benjamin Franklin, 1787:

“I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.”

When you’re “obliged by better information, or fuller consideration,” do you “change opinions even on important subjects, which [you] once thought right, but found to be otherwise”?

It’s happening now.

We’re seeing lots of Republicans, former Republicans and Independents who are showing us the strength to change opinions, as Franklin himself did.

And we’re seeing lots of fellow citizens, formerly disengaged and loath to make the effort to vote, registering to vote.

There is something solid about “better information, or fuller consideration” that emboldens us to do what we know to be right, what we must do. It is what has motivated hundreds of former Reagan officials, Trump officials, Republican Party chairs, judges and thousands of traditional Republicans to declare that they not only will not vote for Trump, but that they will vote for Harris.

From Jamelle Bouie

“For nearly a decade Trump has fomented an atmosphere of political violence. Much of his appeal rests on the promise that he will dominate his enemies – who, through him, become the people’s enemies – and remove them from the body politic.”

“Last Monday, Trump blamed Democrats for political violence. ‘Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying and it will only get worse,’ he wrote on social media.

“But there is only one politician who has placed violence at the center of his movement. Only one politician who is running for president on a promise of “retribution.” Only one politician who has promised that if he is elected again, he will unleash the state against a wide array of disfavored groups.”

When Trump Loses

Over the years Trump has declared a stunning list of imagined enemies, icky people, all somehow oppressors of himself. He has announced that he is an innocent victim and brays his hatred and coming retribution for all the suffering he has imagined from his enemies, like:

The Justice Department, weaponized, which is what he promises to do himself

Muslims

Blacks (except for “my Negro”)

Hillary Clinton

Antifa

Hispanics

Everyone from “shit-hole countries”

Non-White immigrants from non-European countries, especially Hispanics seeking asylum, including the babies he ripped from their mothers’ arms

Everyone who investigated or prosecuted the January 6 insurrectionists

Joe Biden

Kamala Harris

Democrats

Haitians

Now “The Jews” – they’re just 2.4% of the total population but he says that his upcoming election loss will be their fault somehow.

It’s funny how Trump is never responsible for anything bad that happens to him. It’s always the fault of someone else. Blaming and hating “others” takes the focus off his countless failures, lies, cheats, stupidities, cruelties and ineptitude by telling us not to pay attention to those, but rather to hate the bright, shiny object du jour he’s flashing in our faces, like Haitians eating cats. Plus, it makes for a common enemy to hate. It’s just what savage, hateful dictators do.

The Trump “Blame It On The Jews” Tour

Trump is repugnant in every way. There’s no need to go through that extensive list here, but one of the most virulent and dangerous is his demonizing of his many out-groups, like those in the list above. After smearing Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, he started blatantly attacking Jews  – no dog whistles any more – by declaring, “If I don’t win this election, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.” That matters.

We saw on January 6 the violence he can induce. He stopped just short of instructing his mob to kill cops, smash windows and doors and defecate in the hallways of the Capitol Building, but the mob got the message and did all of that and worse. He and his weird and hateful running mate continue to accuse Haitians of eating the pets of the residents of Springfield, OH. They have induced their rabid thug followers to make dozens of bomb threats there. Now he’s blatantly blaming “The Jews” in advance of his election failure. Can violence to synagogues and congregants be far away?

This is a Congressional Republican hero – Source: Pixabay

Not even one Congressional Republican has repudiated his statements.
.

Apparently, they aren’t familiar with Benjamin Franklin’s wisdom about reconsideration when better information comes along. Or maybe they’re just chicken.

Listen to Keith Olbermann’s commentary – start at 24.30 for more on Trump’s Blame It On The Jews tour. For a more thorough look, read the first section of Steve Sheffey’s post that begins,”Hi Steve.” Plus, you might want to reconsider actions you’ll take in these last critical weeks before the election. There’s lots more that you can do.

Election Wisdom From Master Yoda

“A great and terrible disturbance there is in The Force. Happened this has many times before and evil is once again coming to destroy the Republic and enslave the people.

“If free people you are to remain, The Way of The Vote you must learn. A luminous path it is to what is right and what is good. To refuse The Vote is a path to the dark side.

“Not enough is it for you to do this noble task. Influence others to Vote, you must. You will do this with the The Force that is within you. Feel it connecting you to others and between you and the stacks of prepared ballots awaiting voters. Then guide others, you must, and follow you to the polls they will on the wave of The Force. Then will you feel the crushing of the disturbance in The Force and triumphant will be democracy.

“Go now. Much work there is to do. If your job you do well, The Vote will be with you, always.”

Do we still have the right stuff for the continuing battle against the Dark Side?
.
.

And always remember:

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

.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Ours To Remember


POST 1100

9/11

It’s 23 years since that terrible day. I went there a few weeks afterward and saw the devastation and the thick cloud of toxic dust that the clean up workers were breathing. Some agency of the federal government told them it was safe to breath that air. But the rate of cancers that have attacked those people was and is astronomical. We’ll never know if that false claim of safety was due to a lie or ineptitude.

I saw the trucks, loaded to their tops with the rubble and the tiny pieces of what had been normal, breathing people. I saw the purple bunting over the entrance to Hook & Ladder Company 8, the Ghostbusters firehouse, the one nearest Ground Zero. They lost 33 of their company on that cruel day.

I saw the pictures and posters taped to every light pole, every traffic sign, every surface that would hold them. Every one read some version of, “Have you seen  .  .  . ?” Clearly, they were posted by people hoping their loved one had amnesia or got lost or were injured and perhaps someone could call the posted phone number to say where to find their dear one. But by the time I visited, the missing were completely and forever lost.

Candles burned on the sidewalks because  .  .  .  were they intended to be votive candles? Yahrzeit candles? A flame of hope? Something to grasp when there was nothing? Somehow they were connected to the posters those weeks after the attack, this in a vain effort to deal with the loss.

The only sound was from the heavy equipment, the trucks and front end loaders that belched their thick diesel exhaust. No one spoke. The traffic cops didn’t blow whistles and the few cars near the protective fence moved slowly and quietly. Everyone felt the holy.

I walked north on the way to meet a friend for dinner and heard in my mind’s ear Todd Beamer’s last words to his fellow passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93. “Let’s roll.” And they did. They stopped the hijackers from crashing that plane into the Capitol Building by instead crashing it into a field in Shanksville, PA. That selfless act is the stuff of heroes.

The Other Part Of  The Story

Brace yourself, because this is a shocking turn from the story of loss, sadness and honoring. It is, however awful, the truth.

President George W. Bush, the frat boy, have a beer with him president, was warned by our intelligence agencies that an attack was likely imminent. After the attack his national security advisor Condoleeza Rice wondered in an interview how anyone might think it would come in the form of commercial airliners. The way they could have known is if Bush had listened to our experts who told him about that possibility. But he ignored the warnings. Then this got worse – perhaps worse than 9/11 itself.

Bush lied, claiming a connection between secular Saddam Hussein and religious extremist Osama bin Laden and parlayed his elongating nose into a full assault on Iraq, a country that had done us no harm. Later our CIA people tracked bin Laden to a cave at Bora Bora and asked for help to smoke him out. Bush refused the help and instead began a full assault on Afghanistan to root out the Taliban who had hosted bin Laden and his al Qaeda thugs.

The result of all of that was:

Hundreds of thousands killed or wounded

Millions displaced, people who migrated to other countries that don’t want the refugees

Instability throughout the entire region

The complete waste of trillions of dollars

The loss of the longest war in American history

Thousands of new graves at Arlington National Cemetery

Bush’s ineptitude, his dereliction of duty, created the set up for Trump to ignore the Afghan government in Kabul and negotiate instead with the Taliban in order to withdraw American troops. He set a date certain for all troops to be out and watched as the Taliban failed to meet any of their agreed upon duties. Then Trump lost the 2020 election and dumped this steaming, stinking pile of crap in President Biden’s lap.

Biden postponed the withdrawal for several months and then fulfilled our part of the agreement with the Taliban. And he did a horrible job of it, failing the necessary security for the military exit and, possibly worst, failing to evacuate the Afghans who served us as interpreters, guides and more. We had promised to protect them and their families and then left them to be hunted down and killed by the Taliban.

Every bit of that and more lies at the feet of President George W. Bush for his failures and his murderous dishonesty. Yet somehow we’ve allowed him to avoid accountability. He spends his time in luxury, painting terrible portraits and he doesn’t have the patriotism or backbone to speak out against those who would end our democracy.

That’s what happens when we send an incompetent frat boy to the Oval Office. It works pretty much the same when we send an incompetent, fraudulent circus side show barker.

__________________________________________

There is plenty to remember about 9/11. It’s more than that beautiful blue sky that day and the outrageous killing and the heroism of our first responders and the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of police and firemen and women from around the country and even from foreign nations who showed up using their vacation time and their own money to help.

We are the survivors – even those who weren’t born yet. We are called upon to remember.

Are you registered to vote? Check it out here:
.

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

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

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

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

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