Justice

Astonishing Idiocy


Post 1,002

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Astonishing National Idiocy*

Twelve score and 6 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Twelve years later they gave us our glorious Constitution.

Now we are engaged in a great congressional and state legislative war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

We cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow – this congress and these state legislatures. The brave men and women, living and dead, who long struggled there have consecrated them far above our poor power to add or detract. Yet their courage and their suffering are now defiled by those today committed to violating their sacred oath to protect and defend the Constitution of this land. Instead, they have tried to end our democratic republic and they continue to undermine the tenets of our free society. They seek to ensure that this nation, so conceived and so dedicated to Liberty, cannot endure.

Now we are faced with the prospect of a key betrayer of our nation becoming Speaker of  the House of Representatives. He stands in candidacy solely because of the cowardice of men and women who know better, but who chuse to compromise themselves and our nation for personal gain.

The world will little note what we say here, but it will never forget what the betrayers are doing here. It is for us the conscious, the loyal, to be dedicated to the unfinished work of the patriots who came before. It falls to we the living patriots to reject the usurpers, the cowards, those who seek to undermine our Constitution and steal the vote from every American. There is no other who will protect our justice, our Liberty and our freedom.

So it is for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from the loyalists of old we take increased devotion to that cause which they served and for which they shall not have served in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Because if it perishes, we will have done this to ourselves. Astonishing idiocy.

Astonishing Middle East Idiocy

Bret Stevens wrote a remarkably clear analysis of the Gordian knot that is the intractable conflict in Israel/Gaza in his Sunday piece, Hamas Bears the Blame for Every Death in This War. Clearly, Hamas is responsible for all the Jewish death and destruction done by their hands, their knives, their beheading swords, their rifles, their rockets, their mortars and their machine guns. Hamas has only one purpose, and it is to kill Jews. They are to blame for those deaths and that destruction. But who is to blame for this war’s Palestinian deaths?

Hamas embeds its command headquarters, its rocket launchers – really all of its war matériel – in civilian sites, like schools, hospitals, apartment buildings and mosques. If Israel is to stop Hamas from killing Jews, it must destroy Hamas’ war making ability, but that means that non-combatant Palestinians will be in harms way of Israel hobbling Hamas.

Some have already been killed or injured in this war and many more will almost certainly be harmed. Hamas likes when that happens, because Hamas and the ivory tower pinheads pontificating far from danger can then blame Israel for horrid war atrocities.

As long as Hamas can make jihad on Jews, every death, regardless of nationality, helps their cause.

This is not new. Every Israeli reaction to war, intifada, jihad and suicide bombers has resulted in condemnation of Israel at the United Nations, on TV from myopic, blathering talking heads and from street protesters. That offers Israel a horrific choice:

Israel can come down hard on its attackers to degrade their ability to harm Israelis, but doing that means unintended harm will come to otherwise non-combatant Palestinians; or,

Israel can stay its substantial military might in order to protect Palestinian non-combatants and in the process leave Israelis vulnerable to the next homicidal attacks by Hamas.

This choice is fundamentally one of deciding the nationality of the next pile of corpses. It’s a hideous, ghastly choice engineered by Hamas.

What, you might ask, is the Astonishing Idiocy about this? It is in the comments from responders to Stevens’ essay, some packed with false equivalents, childish “can’t we all get along?” logic, phony accusations and more. It’s the part of the general public swayed by hyperbolic condemnation of Israel spewed by self-certain delusionals, regardless of what Israel does.

It is verbal violence promoting military violence against Israelis.

So, tell you what: Let’s invite Hamas, Hezbollah, the IDF and civilians from all parts of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Israel to join hands and sing Kumbaya and the Coca-Cola song about inviting the world to sing in perfect harmony. That should solve this problem.

That last was bitter sarcasm aimed at the Astonishing Idiocy of those comfortably willing to sacrifice Israelis on the alter of their ignorance and arrogance.

Once most of the hostilities had subsided and Israel was amassing hundreds of thousands of troops preparing a land invasion of Gaza, I began to think about what that would look like. It would be a blood bath, an atrocity. Hamas murderous militants would be killed and their stores of weapons would be seized or destroyed, but that would come at the cost of the death and suffering of thousands of Palestinian non-combatants and IDF soldiers.

So, I imagined a personality transformation, wherein Benjamin Netanyahu morphed from a self-serving despot wannabe into a statesman. Far fetched, I know, but stay with me.

He would announce that the IDF will stand by and not invade Gaza. It will protect all in need of protection. All that would be required is for Hamas to release all hostages/prisoners regardless of the color of their passport, be they civilian or military. Hamas must surrender its rocket launchers, rockets and other armaments. Certain criminals will be turned over to be tried in fair courts like at Nuremberg.

Right. This is fantasy. But a land invasion and the death and destruction it will cause won’t bring security to Israel. It will bring universal condemnation. And it will ensure that the next intifada is worse than all that came before, possibly looking more like the Yom Kippur war of 1973 when Arab nations joined forces to eliminate Israel.

Thomas Friedman agrees and sees a land invasion as a terrible and self-destructive thing (here and here). So does Marc Lynch of Foreign Affairs (here), as does President Biden and so many others. I fervently hope my confirmation bias vision comes to pass. Anything else will be self-inflicted Idiocy.

Homegrown Astonishing Idiocy

6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume, a very cute Palestinian-American Muslim boy living in Joliet, IL with his mother, was stabbed 26 times by their landlord. Of course, his mom was stabbed multiple times, too, and was unable to attend the funeral of her little boy.

Apparently, he and his mom were guilty of the terrible crime of being Muslim. At least their attacker seems to have believed that to be a crime.

Words fail me. Tears and boiling blood do not.

Tuesday, October 17 4:00PM CDT

It’s reported that a rocket has exploded on a hospital in northern Gaza, killing hundreds. Various terrorist groups immediately blamed Israel. They didn’t look for facts or even informed opinions. That’s standard Middle East hate bias knee-jerk stuff.

Meanwhile, the Israel Foreign Ministry says it and others have video that proves that the missile was a misfire of a Hamas rocket. Several others fired at the same time made their way into Israel, but one never arrived there. It hit that hospital.

Even if they hear that explanation and see the video, no Palestinian will care about it and no rage will be calmed. They are determined to accuse, blame and be enraged. Without evidence. That rocket was just the best thing for Hamas. Makes me wonder if it really did misfire.

President Biden’s trip to the area has already been undermined by the Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians and others slamming doors.

Welcome to the fog of war where truth doesn’t matter, everyone is inflamed and almost nobody is informed.

Would that the only thing with enough importance to warrant comment were the perfidy, the cowardice and the disloyalty to country of congressional Republicans. O’ for those easier times, just 11 days ago.

______________________________

* Paraphrased from The Gettysburg Address by President Abraham Lincoln, delivered almost 160 years ago on November 19, 1863 at Gettysburg, PA.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Indictment


Clarification

In the midst of my joy over the beginning of accountability for wrongs done in association with January 6, I wrote last Wednesday, “O’ happy day!” And it was a happy day by reason of accountability. Let’s be clear, though, that this indictment of a former president is not one dimensional. Another dimension is fear.

I fear several things about this indictment. I fear that prosecuting Trump will galvanize hotheads to do stupid, destructive things, perhaps to attempt to use chaos and violence to take down our government, our freedoms and our rights. That’s been done more than once before.

I fear that a lone gunman, perhaps many lone gunmen, will kill and injure innocent people, including those who uphold our laws. They did that on January 6, so we know they won’t hesitate to attack cops.

And I fear that an extreme Trump supporter will slip into the jury and prevent justice from being done.

Another dimension to this indictment is the clarity that this is a profoundly proud moment for democracy.

This is how we declare to ourselves that there is no rule of one person, but that we are a nation of laws. This is how we say to those on the far right that while they proclaim that they are the true Americans, our rule of law flag is planted in the bedrock of justice and is what real Americans support. There is no need for anyone to like that or to agree. There simply is an absolute requirement for everyone to obey the law, not the rule of Trump.

Jack Smith and the members of his DOJ army are operating in a shooting gallery. They know that even as they stand for justice that they are at the center of the bulls eye of angry people. The death threats they’ve received haven’t stopped them and they remain willing to risk their lives for our Constitution and for We The People. So we stand with Jack Smith and his army because these heroes are standing for us.

Trump Supporters

There are millions of Trump supporters who are not dissuaded from their loyalty to him, even in the face of his well over 30,000 lies, his bumbling, our national debt exploding on his watch, his intentional estrangement of our allies, two impeachments and multiple felony indictments. That support seems curious to many of us so I’ve put some thought as to why they continue to follow and support him. Here’s a shopping list, pretty much off the top of my head.

  1. Many of these people are aggrieved for various disappointments felt as betrayals, a feeling of having been blown off, left behind by a government that simply doesn’t care about them. They aren’t entirely wrong about that. Think: offshoring of jobs encouraged by decades of government programs and policies that hollowed out whole towns. Because of that, they easily fall in line behind a defiant strongman, the “deep state” slayer. Leaving that line feels to them like going without a protector.
  2. Following and supporting Trump feels good, like they’re sticking it to the man who’s been sticking it to them for so long. Trump constantly models a middle finger for these folks and in that way they feel powerful.
  3. Leaving Trump would require people to admit:
    1. They were wrong to follow him. Nobody likes to say, “I was wrong.” Fonzie couldn’t say that at all.
    2. They were duped. Nobody likes to admit they were fooled.
    3. That the rule of law means more than the rule of Trump and that maybe intentional cruelty isn’t such a good idea.
  4. Conviction on felony charges would show Trump to be un-American, even anti-American. At that point, his followers would have to admit that following Trump made them un-American, a total betrayal to how they see themselves. That’s a nearly impossible trick to pull off.

The psychologists can craft a better, more  substantial list, but you get the picture. Leaving the support of Trump involves real loss for his staunch supporters and the various pains that go with doing that. It’s much easier and less painful to stay where they are and write yet another check payable to Trump.

So, cut these folks some slack in your comfortable judgement of them. They’re in a tough spot, albeit of their own making.

Focus instead on reaching those whose minds have not been enslaved and provide motivation to them to show up and vote.
.

BTW: Something is upside-down. Instead of we voters supporting candidates and elected officials, shouldn’t they be supporting and championing us?

Action Imperative

No vote is more urgent and important right now than Ohio Issue 1 in the election on August 8. The minority rule Republicans in the Ohio legislature have crafted a democracy killer of a bill. it’s a product of their brutality, as they seek to silence and dis-empower the majority of Ohio citizens. You know – the ones who believe in majority rule, aka democracy?

That bill would change the citizen ballot initiative process to require a 60% majority in order to pass a citizen ballot issue. A super majority. No more simple majority wins, the way we all were taught contests were supposed to be won. That would make it nearly impossible for citizens to stop the tyrannical minority Republican legislature. Voting for that bill is the equivalent of voters tightening a noose around their own necks. It would be volunteering to be electorally neutered, to have their democracy – rule by the people – killed.

This is anything but hyperbolic. Just one example: The Christian nationalists are all about forcing their views onto everyone else. Passing this bill would be a major stop toward the theocracy they hallucinate we’re supposed to be.

If you live in Ohio or know someone of voting age in Ohio or have ever been in Ohio and can remember the first name of someone you briefly met there, call, text or email them and urge them to

VOTE NO

on Tuesday.

For more on the terrible danger this bill portends, read David Pepper’s essay detailing a meeting of the extremists who want to take all the power from Ohioans. Be clear that when they’re done there, they’re coming for you wherever you live.

Quote of the Week

From Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post, August 3:

Personally, I wish jurors could return a verdict that goes beyond “guilty as charged.” Maybe something like “guilty as hell.”

Quote of the Decade

From former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL):

America is strong, but democracy is delicate. It depends on leaders who swear an oath to protect the sacred rights enshrined in our Constitution; it depends on citizens working to elect reasonable, ethical leaders; it depends on our brave men and women in uniform to defend it; and it depends on YOU, ME, ALL OF US putting our country over party. [emphasis original]

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

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

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Frighteningly Curious


How is it that these are true?

Fox News was sued by Dominion Voting Systems and settled the lawsuit for $787,500,000.

Donald Trump was sued by E. Jean Carroll for assault and defamation, lost the suit and has to pay $5 million. Plus, he stands to get skewered for more money in a follow-on defamation lawsuit because he just can’t keep his mouth shut and refrain from attacking people.

Kari Lake, the election denial candidate for governor of Arizona, is being sued for defamation. Even her lawyers were fined in her insane effort to overturn her 2022 election loss.

Fox News and its on-air blabbers are being sued for defamation by Smartmatic Corporation for $2.7 billion.

Fox News and its on-air blabbers, most notably Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), are being sued for defamation by January 6 attendee Ray Epps for what will likely be more than $10 million.

Fox was sued by former staffer Abby Grossberg. Per the New York Times, “.  .  .  Fox’s lawyers had pushed her to give a misleading deposition in the Dominion case and [she is] alleging a hostile and discriminatory work environment.” Fox settled for $12 million. Said Grossberg, “I am hopeful, based on our discussions with Fox News today, that this resolution represents a positive step by the Network regarding its treatment of women and minorities in the workplace.” Gotta appreciate her optimism, however unfounded.

Over a thousand January 6 anti-democracy sedition perps have been arrested for felonies and hundreds are doing time in the hoosegow (good word).

James Fields was found guilty of first degree murder for driving his car into a group of people who were counter-protesting the Charlottesville, VA White nationalist rally in 2018. Apparently, he was one of Trump’s “very fine people.”

Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from his home in Illinois to Kenosha, WI carrying his illegal assault rifle in order to kill people. Somehow he wasn’t convicted and now he’s a hero to White supremacists.

All of these miscreants is or has been working to undermine our democracy. They use violence by word and deed to attack and suppress other Americans and, of course, they wave the flag and claim they are the true Americans.

They and those like them are extremists at war against our country. They are autocrat wannabees. They are Constitution defilers. Those like them were the killers at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, at the Las Vegas concert massacre, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and so many more killings.

I’ve searched and just can’t find egregious behavior like these examples that has been done by people who lean right or are in the political center or on the left. To be fair, a small handful of lefty rioters were prosecuted following the police murder of George Floyd.

But nobody on the left is defaming righties. Nobody on the left is shooting and killing righties. Nobody on the left is intentionally driving their car into a crowd in order to kill righties. Nobody on the left is suborning perjury. Nobody on the left is storming the Capitol Building and committing violence and destruction in a treasonous effort to upend our democracy.

Why is that? How come we don’t see such abuses and assaults on our citizens, our institutions and our country done by right-leaners, centrists or lefties but we do see them done by righties?

When the news hit that Kari Lake was being sued for defamation, Joe Scarborough tweeted, “Gravity is returning.” Maybe so.

We seem to have part of our citizenry that consistently denies reality and, as you can see from the short list above, that has substantial consequences. It is an anti-gravity.

Obeisance to Trump got a bunch of people killed on January 6 and it nearly toppled our 247 year democracy project. It has caused hundreds of people to be murdered by angry haters and it has upset or ruined lives, like those of Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.

Only far righties inflict this kind of cruelty.
.

Be sure to tell us all if I got that wrong.

Perhaps, given the several push-backs, Scarborough will be proven right and gravity will return. But I tell you this with absolute confidence:

Getting us securely gravity-glued to Earth is going to take an ongoing campaign of promoting democracy. It will take democracy flag bearers in all of our elected offices. It will require ALL OF US to TAKE A STAND in the never ending battle for our values of truth, justice and democracy.
.

Last Point on This

From the New York Times report, How Trump’s 2020 Election Lies Have Gripped State Legislatures:

At least 357 sitting Republican legislators in closely contested battleground states have used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election .  .  .

The tally accounts for 44 percent of the Republican legislators in the nine states where the presidential race was most narrowly decided. In each of those states, the election was conducted without any evidence of widespread fraud .  .  .

Really now, have you heard any gravity-free, reality denial stuff like that coming from the right-leaners, centrists or lefties of our politics?

Our extremist righty American craziness is more than frighteningly curious. This is a 5-alarm fire we must fight. So get on the democracy fire engine (click the link and climb aboard) – it’s solidly on the ground – and together we’ll put out this un-American blaze of cruelty and fake patriotism.

Random ‘Ritings

From The New York Times Morning Briefing, 7/17/23:

Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims [of COVID] are also disproportionately Republican and [W]hite.

We suffer around 80 deaths from COVID per day, down from the thousands dying from the disease every day at the peak of the pandemic. The Times reports that the improvement is largely due to:

  1. About 3/4 of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
  2. Over 3/4 of Americans have been infected and retain some natural immunity.
  3. Paxlovid treatment is available and can reduce the severity of symptoms.

So, goody for us, especially for our life saving vaccines. Yet we still have baseless conspiracy spewers like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. infecting us with anti-vaccine propaganda.

And we still have resisters, aided in their resistance by Kennedy and other deniers and by the extremists wailing about phantom infringement of their freedom.

Some of these resistors die because of their belief in those not worthy of their belief. And they die for their stubbornness. Effectively, they are saying, “I’d rather die than admit I’m wrong about science and government.”

That, too, is frighteningly curious.

For You, Ohio
.

Click here to see what Republicans in your state want to do.

Then VOTE NO! on August 8.

Quote of the Week

From Ed Gurowitz’s post of July 17, The Apocalypse is (Nearly) Here:

Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, and others have shown us who the Republicans are by pandering to any group or organization that can keep them in office. It’s time the American people showed who we are and stop standing for being ignored and misrepresented. [emphasis mine]

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

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

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

A Correction and Winning Elections


Correction

In my June 7 post I made a claim about Antifa that promoted discussion. I wrote,

There is no “woke.”
.

That’s just a label used inflame the base, much like they use the label “Antifa.” The panderers like to call out Antifa as though it is an invading army, a threat to our country, rather than an informal collection of Americans who refuse authoritarianism and fascism. Those who identify as Antifa don’t riot, they don’t intimidate other Americans, they don’t make death threats and they do think democracy is a good thing. Imagine that!

Well informed, eagle eye reader Sheila Markin replied privately,

Another good blog post. I agree with you.  But I do have some information that runs counter to the idea that Antifa is not like the far right.

The information comes from a counseling client I worked with about a year ago. He was a blogger on the left and had become an influencer. But someone revealed that he was an attorney and that he worked in BigLaw. After that he was assaulted verbally and threatened by “antifa.” The emotional toll was very heavy. He stopped blogging and invested more in his legal career but he was emotionally damaged by this.

The mere fact that he worked for BigLaw caused the backlash against him. He made good money which was considered a sin. His ideas were no longer considered valid. In my opinion extremism on the right and the left is bad news. Closed minded people are bad news. The right is worse but both the right and left are guilty of extremism and it is extremism that is so corrosive.

I’m not an expert on left wing social media, so I checked it out with Jay Becker to get her take on this. She introduced me to Antifa years ago. Here’s what she wrote:

The basic story has a ring of plausibility, not so much as an attack by “antifa” but because the tactics described are themselves so widespread among activists generally who identify as “woke:” rejecting or accepting a person because of their identity, not their political analysis (“standpoint epistemology”), rejecting ideas based on their source, not their content, etc. In this case, the person was canceled because he was a lawyer and worked for BigLaw, regardless of what he was advocating in his political writings, assuming that those threatening him were not making connections between his professional life and his advocacy, according to your friend’s report.
.
Verbal assaults have become common on social media against those who challenge whatever the latest “woke” tenets are, and any deviation can get you canceled by a virtual mob. That’s scary and intimidating, which stymies any real discussion, let alone debate. I have experienced this firsthand in trying to build resistance to abortion bans with Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. Many people find these methods disturbing and grumble about them among themselves. The Revcoms (revolutionary communists) are taking this destructive phenomenon on directly. Here’s their 7 point indictment of “woke” as it has devolved, and here’s a playlist of their videos. I suggest starting with the speech Sunsara Taylor gave recently at UCLA, second on the playlist. (Watch at least the first 15 minutes, and you’ll see the “woke” bullies in action.)
.
So, I’m veering off from “antifa” but staying on topic because what your friend describes is so prevalent in how a generation of young people who do care about racism, fascism, misogyny, etc. is being trained to think and approach the world, which [is] doing a lot of harm. I hope it sheds some light, thanks for asking.
.
It seems that the unspoken invitation of social media to be a jerk is irresistible, regardless of which end of the political spectrum is its source.
.

Here’s a message to these left and right abusers. It comes from their moms:

Don’t be a jerk!

Thanks ever so much to Sheila and Jay for their insights and for permission to post their comments – big help.

I stand corrected.

What’s Your Message, Governor?

New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu delivered Republican clarity for all to see in his Washington Post opinion piece on June 5. He opened with, “Our [Republican] party is on a collision course toward electoral irrelevance without significant corrective action.” He declared, ” . . . candidates should not get into this race to further a vanity campaign, to sell books or to audition to serve as Donald Trump’s vice president.” So far, so good.

Sununu claims his vast worth as a leader and influencer and focuses direction for Republicans, saying, “We need to expand beyond the culture wars that alienate independents, young voters and suburban moms.” The problem with that is not about expanding beyond culture wars. That would be okay, it seems, although I don’t know what expanding means, since it doesn’t seem to mean stopping the lunacy,

The problem is that Sununu focuses on gaining votes. Not on what is right, moral, ethical, what We The People want or what’s best for the country. Just the pragmatics to gain votes and win elections.

Recall the so-called “Autopsy” that Republicans did after being pummeled in the 2012 election. That, too, was all about gaining more votes, not about changing Republicans’ evil ways. Indeed, they completely ignored that they were out of step with the vast majority of Americans. They ignored their own advice following that autopsy and have only become more entrenched in culture wars, demonizing and appealing to drooling, fang-toothed extremists.

There probably isn’t any reason to believe that Republican candidates will follow Sununu’s self-serving advice, nor will they get themselves aligned with the things the vast majority of Americans want. They will just continue to manipulate the system in order to retain their minority control, doing things like voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering.

Meanwhile, Sununu awaits the clamor for him to get into the race.

And Finally, FYI, The Key Provision of the Presidential Records Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 22)

§ 2202. Ownership of Presidential records

The United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records;

Specifically, the PRA:

•  Establishes that Presidential records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the Archivist as soon as the President leaves office.

And that is why Donald J. Trump is going to prison.

Plus for election interference in Georgia.

Plus for  multiple counts of fraud in New York.

Plus for incitement of insurrection in DC.

Several years ago I predicted that once out of office, Trump will spend the rest of his days as a defendant in court and in prison. Easy forecasting.

  • Today is a good day to be the light.

    ______________________________

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

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

The Indictment of the Century – Until the Next One


Don’t you preferJack Smith’s perpetual “Don’t mess with me” face than that of the Orangeman’s?

We are being cautioned that the indictment of a former president and presidential candidate is a dark and serious moment in American history. I agree with the serious part, but this is a moment of light, not dark. It is a time of  cleansing sunshine and I just can’t stop smiling. This is a joyous seriousness.

We learned on Friday, June 9 that Trump has been indicted on 37 counts of criminal behavior. You can view the indicting document here – there’s a print button on the top right of that page. This is an easy read and you need to read it.

There isn’t anyone who doubts Trump’s guilt, not even the far right mouth breathers who declared his innocence even before the indictments were unsealed. They’re just slaves to the cult master’s wails of victimhood.

From Adam Kinzinger’s Country First post of June 10 regarding Republican leaders:

If you listen closely, most of these leaders and personalities aren’t claiming he’s innocent; they’re saying the Democrats have done bad things, too. “And, you know, that should cancel everything out, right?” [emphasis original]

But if we follow the what-about-ist logic to its natural conclusion, we find ourselves in a hellscape where any unethical or immoral behavior can be excused by someone else’s bad behavior . . . and running for office cocoons you from criminal prosecution because accountability would be “election interference” or “weaponizing justice.”

Craziness.

There is one thing, though, about his guilt.

Trump has been bragging and clucking in his social media posts, in TV appearances, at his rallies and at the CNN so-called town hall that he had the right to have had those documents by virtue of the Presidential Records Act. He said that to declassify the classified documents all he had to do was to think “declassify” and click his heels 3 times. Okay, I made up the heels part. And we know that he’s been a total idiot for confessing his wrongdoing repeatedly, knowing that indictments were coming ever-nearer.

But maybe he’s not a total idiot. Maybe he’s been gaming the system all along with his claims of his honesty and his rights.

I’m wondering if he can beat the rap or minimize the penalties by claiming he thought that what he was doing was legal. “There was no illegal intent,” his attorneys will claim. “There is no mens rea*. He’s innocent of conspiring to thwart the law.”

We all know that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it, but sometimes ignorance can have a large impact on the outcome of a criminal case. Can he can get away with his malfeasance by claiming cluelessness? Can he create a hung jury by convincing just one juror that he’s made a simple, honest mistake? This is most worrisome.

Meanwhile, we’ve received news about Trump suck-up judge Aileen Cannon. She was appointed by Trump and proceeded to disgrace herself with idiotic rulings during the case focused on the seizing of documents from Trump’s Mar-A-Lago hidey hole. Two of her rulings were so egregiously terrible that she was reversed by the very conservative 11th District Appellate Court and she was admonished in scathing terms. Be sure to keep an eye out for Cannon’s thumb on the scale of justice as this stolen documents case proceeds – or stalls with bogus delays, dragging it into the 2024 election. This could get ugly.

It has already become ugly in MAGA-land. Immediately upon release of the indictment Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Clay Higgins (R-LA) tweeted incitements to extremists. They did that long before they could have read the indictment, so it’s safe to assume they were spring loaded to call for violence at the slightest provocation. Apparently, they see themselves as the vanguard for the itchy, twitchy, trigger finger crowd.

These congressmen, dishonorable colleagues of actually honorable representatives, are just the first to attempt to incite violence. I fear there will be more like them who will be far more direct in their calls to violence. We are in the crosshairs of violent, angry, self-righteous people who are looking for an excuse to harm innocents.

Public memory is short. We so quickly forget the suffering caused by terrible events, like what actually happens in war. The soldiers come home scarred and silent, wanting most to forget. We erect monuments and mumble brave words and wave flags as though all that happened was glorious.

But there really was an American Civil War and we killed over 600,000 of our citizens, wounding at least 8 times more. Those soldiers, too, wanted to forget the carnage and the suffering.

It seems that forgetting is exactly what We The People have done, because now our perpetually angry who have never been to war are calling for a new civil war. How quickly we forget.

The lyrics of Where Have All The Flowers Gone are ringing in my ears.

Quotes For This Time of Indictment

“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it;” – Isaiah 45:8

“You DOJ in Washington, let the felony charges rain down like rule-of-law infusions for our sickened land. Let the doors of our prisons open wide for the wicked to enter and shut with finality behind them. Let accountability spring up in righteousness and the Earth tremble as a warning to all who would act wrongly.” – Jack 1:1

‘Nuther Thing

Somebody please explain why Trump Tower in New York and Trump’s The Bedminster Club haven’t been searched for stolen government documents. I haven’t found anything to suggest that either place has been tossed by the FBI, even though there is evidence that boxes of stolen government documents were moved from Mar-A-Lago to Bedminster, which leads to speculation that some might have been moved to Trump Tower, too.

Finally

Trump’s bottomless, never-ending malfeasance will provide all the motivation necessary for ongoing indictments. So, watch this space for the next exciting episode of The Indictment of the Century – Until The Next One.

And just for fun:

Mar-a-Lago Raiders

______________________________

* mens rea – the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime, as opposed to the action or conduct of the accused. – OxfordLanguages See also Wikipedia.

  • Today is a good day to be the light.

    ______________________________

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

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Remember This Day


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

_______________________________

From Adam Kinzinger, March 30:

If you take one thing away from this email, let it be this: The indictment of Donald J. Trump doesn’t keep him from running for President; it doesn’t hurt his standing with his MAGA faithful; it doesn’t end the threat to democracy.

Trump, the MAGA movement, and all of their anti-democratic allies are just getting started. Many of them are already sending out breathless fundraising appeals in response to the indictment, ready to cash-in on their leader’s shameless criminality. Rather than disbanding, today’s events will hyperdrive the victim complex that holds the cult together. We are NOT in the clear.

Join the REASONABLE MAJORITY.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

Injustice


I’ve been asked to be a guest on a political podcast program. In preparation for the preparatory phone call (yes, I did mean that alliteration) the host’s questionnaire asked what my area of focus is and I had a hard time declaring that. I had never thought of self-defining in that way. Still, it was a worthy question, so I’ve been thinking about it.

Regular readers will have realized long ago that I wade in on many different political and social topics, like Republicans trying to destroy our democracy (they are) and ordinary citizens voting against their own interests (they aren’t – at least not consciously). Looking for a theme among so much variety has been a bit daunting, but I’ve had a breakthrough. It came via a recent Twitter post – more on that in a minute.

What I realized is that most of the posts that I offer, much of the passion and sometimes outrage in my gut, is in reaction to injustice – cruelty to people who deserve none of that,

like the War on Drugs, which was and is actually a war on poor Black men;

like the kaleidoscope of voting rights destruction laws and the perps who crush others’ rights;

like unjust, stupid and illegal wars, like Dubya’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which accomplished little more than getting a lot of people killed, displacing millions and causing yet greater chaos and cruelty.

That last was the trigger to my clarity, because I read Daniel Ellsberg’s Twitter letter last weekend and the dots started looking like a picture. Here’s why.

l graduated from college In 1968 and instantly lost my 2-S deferment, setting me up for a letter from Lyndon Johnson instructing me to show up for a pre-induction physical. Through a slightly engineered quirk, I became a 1-Y, which was likely life saving, as LBJ had ramped up our presence in Vietnam to 549,500 men. A total of 2,594,000 men were destined to become canon fodder in that hopeless war. I could have been one of them, pointlessly slogging through rice paddies with a bulls eye on my back.
.
In 1971 Daniel Ellsberg copied the Pentagon Papers and they were published first in The New York Times, then in The Washington Post and other newspapers. They revealed the ongoing years of lies that kept the Vietnam death parade going.
.
I don’t know if it’s measurable, but my notion is that his actions helped to end that war sooner. Perhaps some men slightly younger than me were never called to their pre-induction physicals because of Ellsberg’s courage.
.
He’s now nearly 92 and has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Here’s a link to his Twitter letter about it all, including the Pentagon Papers, his lifelong crusade to prevent nuclear war, his cancer and more. In the process of reading his letter, especially his comments about the Pentagon Papers, I came to realize that he was fighting against cruel injustice back then and, really, has been ever since.
.
That’s when those aforementioned dots crystalized into a vivid picture. It’s the injustice and the lies of the powerful that trigger me. That’s what I’ll tell that podcast host is my focus.
.
I’m no Daniel Ellsberg. I don’t know that I would have had his courage to stand up to the liars in and around government in that critical moment. The connection is simply about the clarity that came to me thanks to Ellsberg’s words and actions.
.
I urge you to click through and read Ellsberg’s letter. It’s about a life well lived in service to others. Those others include all the boys who didn’t have to go to Vietnam to die for the injustice of cruel and lethal lies.
.
Late Addition: Walgreen’s Update

From STAT:

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would no longer do business with Walgreens in response to the pharmacy chain’s plans to stop dispensing abortion pills in 20 states. Walgreens now appears to have backtracked, saying in a recent statement it “plans to dispense Mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so.”

That’s a turnaround, as Walgreen’s previously appeared to have caved in to threats from 20 Republican state attorneys general to sue the company for doing something legal.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

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


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

Raison d’Être


An essay in The Washington Post arrived last Wednesday shortly after my post about Biden’s accomplishments was posted. The WaPo piece is penned by Marc Thiessen and bears the not-so-enlightened title The 10 Worst Things Joe Biden Did in 2022. To be fair, Thiessen also offered a day earlier what he calls The 10 Best Things Biden Did in 2022.

I’m a WaPo subscriber, but I know nothing about Mr. Thiessen other than what I can conjure from his essays. I urge you to read his 10 Worst piece with an open yet critical mindset. He is a master of misdirection via implication.

For example, he starts by saying that Biden’s presidency is the worst in his (Thiessen’s) lifetime. Given the national disaster that were the Trump years, that should set the stage for you on what to expect. Here are a few specifics, numbered per Thiessen’s points.

10. Thiessen begins with, “On Biden’s watch this year” and goes on to list “disasters,” like inflation, gas prices and food prices, as though those are unrelated. But aren’t gas and food prices part of inflation? Besides, they’re out of any president’s control, so hanging them on Biden is senseless.

He goes on to include, “the worst crime wave in many cities since the 1990s. Not since Jimmy Carter has a president unleashed so many calamities at once.” Thiessen deftly ignores that Biden inherited the highest crime rate in 20 years and that crime rates went down in 2022. He implies Biden’s ineptitude with his “Biden’s watch” thing and the “unleashed” bit, as though Biden were attacking the country. Nonsense.

9. He slams Biden for his Jim Crow 2.0 accusation of Georgia’s voting restrictions, saying he owes Georgia an apology. What he fails to note is that Georgia’s governor managed to get over half a million Black and poor Georgians removed from the voter roles, this for major infractions, like being Black or poor. Sounds pretty Jim Crow-ish to me.

7. He criticizes Biden for discharging thousands of our military troops for their having refused an order to take a Covid-19 vaccination. This is forehead-slappingly absurd.

We were facing an assailant of monstrously debilitating power. Were it to sweep through our military we would be unable to defend our country. Do you remember the USS Theodore Roosevelt, on which a huge percentage of the crew went down with Covid? Do you want to have to count on that ship in that condition to protect the nation? Neither did Biden.

Besides, all military people get vaccinated for various illnesses when they report for duty for just such a reason. This is a really myopic and senseless criticism of Biden.

4. “He has failed to avenge the Kabul airport attack that killed 183 people, including 13 Americans.” That happened in August 2021. George W. Bush failed to get Osama bin Laden at all and it took until May 2011, nearly 10 years, for President Obama to get him and avenge 9-11. It took over 34 years to get the guy accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

The ISIS-K bad guys in Kabul will get their day of reckoning for their murderous bombing. Criticizing Biden for not having captured or killed them yet is senseless.

1. “He slow-rolled military aid to Ukraine out of fear of provoking Vladimir Putin.” Thiessen cannot be so simple minded that he thinks that military aid to Ukraine is a single issue challenge, right? Maybe I’m wrong about that.

Maybe he thinks that poking Putin in the eye over and over would never have bad consequences for us. Nevertheless, we’ve been the biggest cheerleader for Ukraine and provided far more munitions than anyone else. Plus, we supplied the leadership for sanctions on Russia. So far Putin hasn’t been provoked into using nukes. Maybe Biden’s thoughtfulness and caution are the stuff of wisdom.

Oddly, Thiessen’s headline about “slow-rolled military aid to Ukraine” sounds like a positive to me, not one of Biden’s 10 worst.

Throughout our ongoing Constitutional crisis that is Donald Trump and his extremists, posts like Thiessen’s have come in a constant torrent and most are free of critical thought. Their raison d’être (literally, “reason for being;” their purpose) is to tear down, to be cruel.

I have described such people, most often in an effort to understand and explain their behavior. To be honest, sometimes it was just to hit back. But the report of the January 6 Committee is out, so I leave it to those patriotic people of the Committee and to bright, insightful observers like Tom Nichols and Peter Wehner to give further insight into the Cruellas.

I don’t know if Mr. Thiessen is an extremist, but his knuckle headed criticism of Joe Biden suggests a commitment to outrage and cruelty, rather than to reasonable thinking and solutions. I’ll read his offerings again someday, concurrent with welcoming other extremists – when they atone for their sins as fervently and as publicly as they committed them.

The New Year

My friend Mardy Grothe publishes a weekly post focused on literature, language and thinking. Suffice it to say that I read his post first every Sunday.*

Last Sunday he quoted Zora Neale Hurston from her 1937 book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, in which the narrator says, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Then Mardy challenges us, asking, Will 2023 Answer Questions for You, or Ask Them?

Responding in the political arena, we face enormous challenges, most alarmingly from extremists who want to “tear it all down,” as Steve Bannon exclaimed. That positions those whose sole raison d’être is to grab power as little more than obstructionists at best and sideshow executioners at worst. Will their behavior answer or ask questions for/of us?

It seems to me that seeking answers must focus on the questions of how to deal with entrenched outrage and anger and still make progress on our national challenges. That makes me wonder where Democrats will focus. It’s very easy to simply be reactionary, but most commonly that’s only momentarily satisfying, while remaining unproductive of anything worthwhile.

2023: A year of questions or answers? What will be our raison d’être in this new year?

——————————-

* To subscribe, send an email to Mardy at: [email protected] with “Subscribe” in the Subject area.

————————————

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

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

The Central Cause


“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

So declares the Executive Summary of The United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Yes, that’s the full name of the Committee and yes, the 161 pages of this Executive Summary, plus over 40 pages of footnotes, are an introduction to the full report. That will be released today and it will be a weight lifting appliance, over 1,000 pages long.

The good news is that this opening report is most readable and is remarkable for its clarity (here’s a link – see for yourself), giving the promise of similar accessibility of the full report. The bad news is the collection of despicable and dangerous people and actions it details, actions that caused the death of five people, injured 140 police officers, were a death threat to all in Congress and to the Vice President, vandalized the citadel of our democracy and nearly ended this brave experiment in self-government.

The Committee is referring the disgraced, twice-impeached former President, Donald J. Trump, to the United States Department of Justice – i.e. recommending indicting and prosecuting him – for:

  1. Obstructing an official proceeding
  2. Conspiring to defraud the United States
  3. Conspiring to make false statements
  4. Inciting insurrection

These charges are well fleshed out in the Executive Summary.

Any non-lawyer can compile a long list of Trump’s illegal actions over the past 6 horrendous years, but the Committee constrained its investigation to solely those related to his actions and those of his co-conspirators attendant to the events of January 6. Of course, these are forehead slappers for anyone who has paid attention and who is not in mindless thrall to this would-be authoritarian. pharaoh, king, monarch, fuhrer, emperor, god – choose your own label.

There are so many outrageous things detailed in this summary. Here’s just one.

John Eastman, Trump’s lawyer who crafted a multi-point, devious plan to subvert the will of the people and the Constitution, told Trump that his plan, if executed by Trump, would violate the law. Trump ignored that inconvenient fact. That surprises nobody.

Neither is anyone surprised by his cruelty toward Mike Pence or his reveling in the riot and its carnage for hours, watching it on TV from the White House dining room. Nor is anyone surprised at his ongoing lies and vitriol and grift.

As I watched the violence unfolding on that awful day I could not stop myself from yelling at the TV, “Where’s the National Guard? Where the hell is the National Guard?” Unsurprisingly, Trump never ordered them to deploy and come to the aid of the besieged Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police. Those officers were bravely trying to do the impossible and were getting severely beaten for their efforts. And they got no help.

There has been talk since the the attack that Trump ordered the DC National Guard to stand down. The preliminary report doesn’t speak to that. Perhaps the full report will.

Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) tried to get authorization to send the Maryland National Guard to reinforce those officers. He was refused. Perhaps the full report will speak to that, too. I assure you that the police officers who were there that day can speak to that.

When the committee comes to me for my recommendations to prevent another such episode of destruction I will have a ready answer: Install easily accessible fire hoses at strategic locations around the Capitol Building, including doors and first floor windows. Half a dozen fire hoses spraying the insurrectionists on that cold January day would have kept them out of the building and would have put down the riot.

There has been criticism claiming there were intelligence failures, but intelligence that predicted this attack was reported. Our agencies detected the planning for this attack, but they shared it – get this – with the White House and Secret Service. That’s where that kind of information is supposed to go, but this time the recipients of the information, especially the key recipient of the information, had no interest in taking action to prevent the attack. Indeed, he and they were all guns blazing to incite and expand the attack.

There is far more in this Executive Summary and I urge you to read it. You’ll learn much about so many bad guys and felons. These people are insurrectionists. They are traitors to the oath to which they swore and to our country. They are still in Congress and they walk free. So does Trump.

Outrageous, but fixable.

Meanwhile, great thanks goes to every member of the January 6th Committee for their courage, for their insistence upon finding truth, for speaking truth, for grace and clarity in their presentations, for their even-handedness, for their work to wade through over 1,100 interviews and over 1,000,000 pages of documents and for their uncompromised integrity. How very refreshing that is for all of us and o’ the joy of the beginning of a return to justice! That’s good news.

More Good News

Today is the winter solstice, the day when the sun is in it’s southernmost location in our sky, resulting in our shortest hours of daylight and our longest hours of night. The reason that’s good news is because tomorrow is the day when daylight begins to grow longer by a few seconds per day, accelerating to 2.5 minutes more per day by March 20.

That’s good news, indeed!

Meanwhile, it will be nasty, potentially killing cold in most of the country. It started a couple of days ago in parts of the lower 48 and if it hasn’t visited your door yet, it’s going to soon. Give a warm coat and hat to a homeless person – they don’t have central heating – and practice safe winter.

————————————

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

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Inside President Biden’s Head


Page 1: Conjuring

He has not invited me into his head, nor has he shared his inner politician or inner President with me. He and I have had no Vulcan mind meld, nor any spooky transmissions. But there’s stuff going on in President Biden’s brain and, blurt-prone though he may be, not everything he thinks gets spewed publicly. We’re left to conjure his intentions.

And conjure, I do! About things like our blatantly political and extremist (did I mention radical?) Supreme Court as an arm of the Republican Party, exactly what the Founders thought they were protecting us from.

People were calling for Biden to expand the Court with centrists and center-leftists even before he was inaugurated, afraid that the things we feared would come about – things like yet more voter disenfranchisement, the end of Roe, more onerous gerrymandering, preventing the EPA from regulating the emission of greenhouse gases, defeating efforts to keep guns out of public places, tearing more bricks from the wall separating church and state and the flood of corporate cash into our politics (what did I miss?). Our fears have been realized, as all of these things have come about.

The bad news from the Court may not be done. On the docket now is a case to decide if state legislatures can take away your vote – literally negate your citizenship (Harper v. Moore). That’s exactly what Republican controlled state legislatures are attempting to do. If they get their way via this radical Supreme Court, it will be a time stamped event that will mark the moment when democracy was permanently crushed and died. The decision is now in the hands of the Court, with oral arguments having been presented on October 4. If this doesn’t scare you, re-read this paragraph.

So, how come President Biden has been silent, not even speaking to something as simple and non-aggressive as imposing ethics rules on our Supreme Court justices – rules like those on judges in other courts? Or establishing term limits so that we can shed grumpy and radical old men? And how come he has refused comment on expanding the court to 13? Two reasons.

First, attempting any of that before the mid-term election would likely produce an overwhelming wave of Republicans in Congress, at which point all progress would grind to a halt and a Republican would win the White House in 2024. Trying to do any reform would be a near-perfect strategy for losing.

That could change following the mid-term election because Biden has Captain Kangaroo pockets full of major legislative wins. But that’s not likely, which leads us to the second reason Biden has been silent.

He doesn’t like any of those ideas. His refusal to so much as have a conversation about any effort to moderate this radical Court tells you all you need to know about what’s in his head. Expect reform of the Supreme Court in about half a century. Maybe a full century. If we still have courts and if we still have a democracy.

That’s what I conjure about Biden’s conjuring about the Supreme Court. I really want to be wrong about this and fear that I won’t be.

Page 2: Hurricane Ian and President Biden

From former colleague Nora Paller:

Community In Action

Watching the scary, dangerous, horribly damaging Hurricane Ian devastate Florida and beyond was tragic. Many people will never be able to come back financially [or] from the emotional trauma of this event. The only good thing was to see all the people who reached out to help – to see community in action. Pulling together to face a larger threat can bring people at odds with each other to let it go and work together. All of sudden, DeSantis wants to talk to Biden. Instead of wasting Florida’s money sending asylum seekers to Massachusetts [link is mine], he is doing something direct[ly] for the people of Florida. Could we stop all this nonsense and work together? Turns out they could and we can.

President Biden, you can lead a Community In Action parade with just your words. Here’s hoping that’s in your head, because the people of Puerto Rico, Florida and the Carolinas need a parade right now.

Page 3: What Is In President Biden’s Head

Securing solid majorities in both houses of Congress is in the front of President Biden’s frontal lobe, because all progress depends on that. Absent those majorities, hateful fools like Republican Joe Kent will get their way and obstruction is all that will happen.

We had eight years of The Party Of No when President Obama was in office and people like Speaker of the House John Boehner and Tea Party Republicans were pledged to Mitch McConnell’s hateful commitment to “Make Obama a one-term president.” True to their word, that’s all – that’s everything – they attempted to do. The Republicans opposed everything Obama proposed in goose-stepping, moronic uniformity. They were and are The Party Of No.

And that’s what we’ll get again unless there are solid BLUE majorities elected next month. That’s in President Biden’s head for sure. He knows that. You know that, too.

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

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  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
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JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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