Nuclear

Horrible, Horribler, Horriblest


POST 1061

Horrible

Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire had been a Nikki Haley supporter making Never Trump sounds, this in his blowhard-y way, but that doesn’t work now that Haley’s candidacy is over. Now he’s backing Trump. He even says Trump shouldn’t drop out of the campaign even if he’s convicted of felonies. Here’s his exchange with George Stephanopoulos last Sunday, as reported by Heather Cox Richardson:

Just to sum up,” Stephanopoulos said, “You support [Trump] for president even if he’s convicted in [the] classified documents [case]. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the last election. You support him for president even if he’s convicted in the Manhattan case. I just want to say, the answer to that is yes, correct?”

Sununu answered: “Yeah. Me and 51% of America.” *

Aside from its overstatement of Trump’s national support, Sununu’s answer illustrated the triumph of politics over principle. Earlier in the interview, Sununu explained that he could swallow all of Trump’s negatives because he wanted a Republican administration. “This is about politics,” he said.

That exchange was on the eve of jury selection in the first trial of the only ex-president to be charged with felonies. It seems that Trump isn’t the only fraud and Republicans are in a cowards conga line, meekly peeing on Trump’s command. Don’t confuse Sununu’s bluster with strength or integrity. He’s nothing more than a wimpy Trump suck up.

Horribler

From a newsletter from AVOW, a Texas organization working to protect abortion rights:

Here are just a few of the policies Texas extremists are pushing:

Direct district attorneys to investigate and prosecute abortion support funds and their donors for helping people who travel out of state for care.

Censor and shut down websites with information about accessing abortion care — including educational websites like Avow’s NeedAbortion.org.

Expand the abortion bounty law out of state for medication abortion.

It wasn’t enough for them to ban abortion care in Texas — now they want to block free travel and information. [all emphasis original]

You’re reading that correctly. The state of Texas wants to end freedom of speech and the right to travel freely between states. Plus, of course, they want to eliminate everything related to pregnancy except waiting, regardless of the viability of the fetus or whether the mother will survive the ordeal or if she was raped by a thug or is the victim of incest by Uncle BillyBob. They want to eliminate all contraception but abstinence and, it seems, stop all sexual activity unless a government official observes and approves the act. Don’t even think of getting funky.

All that prohibition is very odd, in that Texas used to proclaim itself as having a starched spine over liberty and independence. “Don’t mess with Texas,” they proudly declare. Those folks used to believe in freedom. But now we see that they only want those things for people who agree with those in power, the freaks who want to control others’ lives. Looks like those guys have taken over the job of messing with Texas.

All of that is happening in extremist Gov. Greg Abbott’s Texas, he who proudly declares, “Slice ’em with razor wire and drown ’em in the river” cruelty; he of the defying of a Supreme Court ruling; he of the un-American way.

Horriblest

We wondered why a mean spirited creep snarling, “You’re fired!” was somehow entertainment for so many. And we lived in the frustration of millions accepting obvious fantasy, lies, cruelty, sideshow hucksterism and plain-to-see narcissism, resulting in all that and more being visited upon all of us. As bad as that was, it has become far more dangerous.

Trump’s mental decline is apparent to anyone paying any attention at all. As nonsensical, as vacuously performative as he has always been, things are far worse now and are becoming clinically perilous.

You must read Trump’s Brain Is Not Okay. This is not some updated Trump bashing or progressive leveraging. This is a serious examination by serious mental health professionals of what every one of us can observe any time Trump speaks or acts in public. He is becoming incompetent in ways that unmask his inability to operate on an executive level.

Dementia in various forms isn’t uncommon, but he is campaigning to be the next President of the United States. He has declared he will be a dictator, that he’ll be your “retribution,” that he will order Seal Team Six to assassinate his political opponents, that he will order our armed forces to take hostile action against lawful American citizens. He will babble like a toddler and

He will have the nuclear codes!
.

Don’t imagine that if he is elected that sane adults will be in the room to stop him all the time. Rather, imagine him as a tyrannical child having spontaneous and unpredictable temper tantrums with the world’s most destructive toys at his disposal.

Read: Trump’s Brain Is Not Okay.
.
Actually Horriblest-er

In the House of Representatives of the United States, its Republican members brought forth an impeachment resolution and puffed with great thundering bombast and imperiousness over the managing of our southern border, effectively blaming Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for the ongoing debacle. They presented no evidence of any high crimes or misdemeanors.

On Wednesday the full Senate of the United States took up the matter, with Republicans vying for an opportunity to get a video clip to use in their campaigns for reelection in November. After a few hours of pointless blathering, the impeachment was discarded.

The debacle that is our southern border is the result of exactly one thing: Congress has failed to deal with the problem for decades.

Two months ago the Senate passed a very tough bipartisan bill to deal with the problem, but the House Republicans were told by Donald Trump not to even bring it up for a vote. He prefers to use immigration problems as a campaign talking point. So, the Trump-owned Cowardice Caucus of Republicans sits on its hands as terrified immigrants wait and suffer. Plus at Trump’s insistence the cowards made sure that aid didn’t get to Ukraine, Taiwan or to Israel/Gaza for over 480 days.

Our Congress is doing all that in our name as people are dying.

Finally, Some Good News

The scene is a time worn courtroom in New York City. It is Friday, April 19 and all are tired from the now completed arduous task of jury selection. As the day is ending the defense is challenging yet another decision by the judge.

Justice Juan Merchan:

“The defense is targeting my decisions one by one by one. That has to end .  .  . There comes a point where you have to accept my rulings. There’s nothing else to clarify. Nothing else to argue. We are starting this trial Monday morning.”

Like it or not, Orangeman, Justice Merchan is in charge, you are not and there’s nothing you can do about it.

________________________________________
* Nope – sorry, Governor. It isn’t 51%. It’s 42%. Now, what are you going to do when that number plummets because, unlike you, Americans won’t tolerate a crook, a fraud, a traitor, a cheat, a rapist, a liar and a convicted felon in the White House?

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.

National Defense


Guest Essay

Regular reader, sometimes commenter and boyhood pal Frank Levy has supplied some guest essays for this column. He has a keen insight, so I asked his permission to share one of his recent FaceBook posts with you.

Give some thought to what he describes, as we stumble forward in our self-imposed Through the Looking Glass national reality. You can apply the principle message to a lot more than U.S. Space Command.

Why Would the United States Move USSPACECOM to Alabama?

I have to admit I am enjoying watching Alabama’s Republican elite, Tommy Tuberville, Tommy Battle, Katie Brit, Rep. Dale Strong, Rep Mike Rogers and others twist themselves into apoplectic knots to express their outrage over the decision to keep USSPACECOM in Colorado and not move it to Huntsville, AL.

For me, the decision makes complete sense. Common sense and concerns over national security dictate that USSPACECOM NOT be moved to Alabama. After all, why would US Military leadership and the White House move an extremely important military facility to a state where the White Republican power structure and the MAGA crowd that elects them over and over again don’t believe in anything that America believes in, like

  • – The Voting Rights Act
  • – The Civil Rights Act
  • – marriage equality
  • – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • – Affirmative Action
  • – a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion
  • – science education that does not include creationism
  • – The Constitution of the United States of America (except the Second Amendment) [They believe in that absolutely]
  • – the rule of law
  • – that Biden won the 2020 election

Add to that list the fact that the Republican super-majority in the Alabama legislature chose to defy SCOTUS with its newest Congressional redistricting plan because it simply didn’t like the decision and because Kevin McCarthy wants to keep his MAGA majority in Congress.

Why would the United States of America build a huge, expensive military facility, spend billions of dollars to post military personnel there and improve the economy of a state that officially celebrates Confederate Memorial Day and the birthdays of [traitors] Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, the leaders of the Confederate States that attacked the United States to preserve its power to enslave Black people for profit?

Why would the United States build what it believes to be a facility necessary to its national security in a state that once seceded from the Union, attacked it and might just do it again?

I get why Alabama’s Republican leaders and the MAGA crew that elected them would be angry at not getting USSPACECOM. It is all about the money.

As an American citizen and resident of Alabama I would have been furious if President Biden, Secretary of Defense Austin and Gen. James Dickinson, Head of USSPACECOM, had moved USSPACECOM to Alabama. In my not at all humble opinion, [the decision to keep it in Colorado] was the only decision that could be made. [all brackets mine – JA]

———————————

Commenting of Levy’s post, smart person and also boyhood pal Kirk Landers wrote:

I believe the space command should be based in a state where the majority of people believe the earth is round and revolves around the sun. It’s also best if most people don’t believe that [the advance of] all knowledge stopped with the writing of the Christian bible.

I had to weigh in with:

There should not be a reward for anti-American behavior like MAGA and Confederate treachery and that alone should keep USSPACECOM out of Alabama. I don’t know anything about the national defense aspects of the geography choice of the agency, but Lander’s comments pretty well outline the requirement for a science based organization to be located where people believe in science.

Taking this one step further, read this from Steve Schmidt, August 18:

It is important to understand the desecration and chaos Trump and his mob have wrought with their attack against America. They have normalized conspiracy. They have made the truth and lie equal in a public square contaminated by the toxic sewage of division, propaganda and misinformation. They have assaulted the essence of America through a conspiracy to seize [the] power that was bestowed by the American people on Joe Biden. The treachery is historic, unprecedented and ongoing. The days ahead will test America’s spirit, resolve and democracy.

That test for us is to turn the voices of “division, propaganda and misinformation” and even treachery into voices of patriotism. If those voices are instead determined to destroy, then our test will be to stand stronger for the principles we claim to hold dear and to overwhelm the voices of destruction. Our typical national yawn of apathy toward elections will have to be replaced by a renewed dedication to democracy.

Here’s another angle on this.

Last Thursday Schmidt’s post put fresh perspective to something you may have thought about but perhaps without a full perspective.

“Boomers” refers to our fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. The absolute nature of their purpose is difficult to comprehend fully. The sailors aboard these vessels are stunningly smart, dedicated, well trained, prepared and young. We invest our collective future in their hands, extending even beyond time that is foreseeable.

Click here and read Schmidt’s piece. Watch the embedded videos, then sit back in your chair and think about what he’s shown you.

The graphic in the notes section following all of my posts (see below) is correct:

It seems pretty clear that all of the previous “Most Important Elections of Our Lifetime” pale in comparison to what’s at stake next November.

My hope for every next election is that it is the last one for which we’ll need that reminder in order to protect all aspects of national security.

  • 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.

NO! v1.0


In Sam Adler-Bell’s essay The One Thing Trump Has That DeSantis Never Will, he makes distinctions between the manipulative governor and the unscrupulous Trump. He identifies their bets on campaign donors and which sections of the voting public each seems to think he can attract. Adler-Bell writes,

If [Trump’s] wager pays off, it will be a sign not just of his continued dominance over the Republican Party but also of something deeper: an ongoing revolt against “the best and brightest,” the notion that only certain people, with certain talents, credentials and subject matter expertise, are capable of governing.

A blinding flash of the obvious jumped off the page with the words “capable of governing.” It suggests that Trump is, was or would be in some way associated with the act of, the idea of, the possibility of governing.

We’ve seen the chaos for years, as he careens across his always-on performance stage, always grifting. Trump has no more relationship to governing than did Caligula. He has more in common with anarchists, who, by definition, abhor governing and government.

Many thanks to JN for this

DeSantis has no more regard for our traditions and institutions than does the twice impeached, disgraced and indicted former president. He is as narcissistic as Trump, but he does know how to push and pull the levers of governmental power, although only for his own benefit, a la Trump. Think: his ban on/prevention of actions to limit Covid deaths, which gave Florida the 12th highest death rate during the pandemic.* He’s very dangerous to those who prefer to remain alive.

Meanwhile, in this era of proxy war with Russia, mounting tensions with China, a soon to be nuclear Iran and a completely unpredictable and nuclear North Korea, this is a really good time to have the best and the brightest at the helm of this ship of state. That’s far better than to have our country controlled by short-sighted, grievance stoked, self-serving, autocracy loving faux populists.

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

ALL OF THE POWER COMES FROM THE VOTING BOOTH!
.

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

Watch for “NO!” v2.0 this Sunday, April 23.

_____________________________

* Nine of the eleven states with worse Covid death rates than Florida are solid red states. Are you seeing a picture?

** Two million registered Democrats in Florida failed to vote in 2022. Had they voted, Charlie Christ would be the governor now, having won 52.5% of the vote. We wouldn’t be facing book bans and art bans and war on Disney and the end of abortion rights. There would be no Don’t Say Gay law or immigrants shipped to Martha’s Vineyard in the dead of the night and with no preparation for them upon their arrival. All that would have been required to stop the DeSantis insanity was for we good people to say “NO!” to the crazies.

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.

Trump’s Folly


Reading time – 3:23  .  .  .

With impeachment on his doorstep driving further mental instability, Trump needs a new and powerful distraction. That’s paired with his need to appear to be the always-wins tough guy. That’s a very dangerous combination.

I have warned about Trump doing a “wag the dog” (here, here, here and elsewhere) in order to help ensure his reelection. After all, there’s nothing like war to get Americans to forget about a current scandal and to line up in support of a leader, regardless of how wrong-headed he is. Think: George W. Bush and his war in Iraq. And his war in Afghanistan, where the goal posts kept getting moved further away.

Now in a major act of chest thumping, Trump has assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani and killed others, too. These aren’t just acts of war, but are face slaps to the Iranians as well, and Iran is vowing retaliation. When they act, Trump is sure to hit back harder and draw us ever deeper into a prolonged conflict.

Recall the Powell Doctrine, forged from lessons learned from the pain of the war in Vietnam. According to Secretary (formerly General) Colin Powell, all of these questions must be answered in the affirmative before military action is taken:

  1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
  2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
  3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
  4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
  5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
  6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
  7. Is the action supported by the American people?
  8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

Decide for yourself if you think we have eight YES answers for dealing with Iran by using our military power. I count only one.

Don’t imagine that this conflict with Iran won’t eventually include the use of nuclear weapons, because Trump has threatened to use them repeatedly. He will claim that nukes are required in order to stop Iran from building its own nuclear bombs. These are the very bombs Iran was not building before Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA (the “Iran nuclear deal”) and the very ones Iran has vowed to resume building now that we’ve killed Suleimani. He will tell us that Iran plans to use their nuclear bombs on New York and in the “heartland” or some other allusion to Trump country.

After we nuke Iran, you don’t suppose that Iranian survivors will want revenge, do you? Or that they would use a bomb on us if they had one?  Or that we might become the world’s most reviled nation?

Meanwhile, in the face of the Suleimani assassination and the conflict escalation it promises, Congress has yet again fallen pitifully into its standard partisan divide that is self-neutering. There is no bi-partisan movement to re-assert Congressional control of war making and stop executive branch overreach. There is no adult in the aggregate of the Capitol building.

He was always an extreme bad guy, but there were solid reasons why neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama assassinated Suleimani. Those facts haven’t changed, but Trump, in his standard transactional behavior, pulled the trigger. Having done that won’t stop or even slow any planned attacks by Iranian surrogates, because if these plans exist, they’re already in progress. Neither will it interfere with Iranian military hierarchy, as Suleimani was replaced within a day. What it has done is to change the focus in this country from impeachment to hostilities in the middle-east. Wag the dog.

There are millions of Americans, especially Evangelicals, looking forward to Armageddon. Trump’s wag the dog folly could get them there – and all the rest of us, too.

————————————


Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

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. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  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.

JA

 


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

Funding the Wall


Reading time – 3:15; Viewing time – 5:04  .  .  .

In reviewing my posts of the past couple of years I find that there’s a lot of “This ain’t right” stuff and a much smaller offering of “Hey, this is cool!” or “Aren’t we humans oddly interesting?” Sadly, the reason is obvious: the dangerous and harmful Trumpian outrages are all around us and push-back is critical.

So, once again I long for our country to be “re-saned” (no, that’s not a word, but you get it) so that we can get back to being America and stop playing defense against the full time Trumpian assaults on reality. Meanwhile, it’s our duty to attend to these outrages in order to minimize damage. Here’s just one from this past week.

Mark Esper was a vice-president of government relations for Raytheon, a defense contractor. Apparently, being a lobbyist was just the right experience to make him the very best person to be Secretary of Defense under Trump. He brought the lobbying skills he honed at Raytheon to his present gig at the White House in order to be an official Trump Swamp Cootie.

Trump insists on building his useless vanity wall on our southern border, the one we were told that Mexico was going to pay for. Not so strangely, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, “Nuh-uh” to Trump’s ridiculous demand of payment.

After that Congress also refused to fund his (did I mention?) stupid wall, so Trump declared a state of national emergency in order to undermine Congress. He got Esper to agree to give him $3.6 billion from the Defense Department budget for his wall. The money will come from much needed construction projects for our military, including readiness projects in support of our NATO allies.

Vladimir Putin likes that we’ll be one step behind. That gives him the opportunity to seize yet more eastern European nations. And Putin continues to pursue his nuclear explosion producing, Mach 8 nuclear powered cruise missiles. The complete lack of U.S. push-back means that he faces no international condemnation for the radiation from his exploded folly that’s poisoned the area next to Finland.

If you’d like to see which national defense needs will be abandoned, click here. Be sure to look for the idiotic comments of Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), which he said in support of Trump’s Defense Department thievery, including this contorted gem:

“It is important that Congress now restore the military construction funding diverted for border security. Failing to do so only forces our troops to pay for political discord in Washington.”

It may have hurt your brain to read that. That’s because it’s bat-shit crazy.

Trump also is diverting emergency funds from FEMA in order to build his purposeless wall. He’s specifically withholding disaster relief from Puerto Rico, which hasn’t recovered from Hurricane Maria two years ago, largely because – wait for it – Trump has withheld about 80% of the funds that Congress allocated for disaster relief for those people.

As of this writing the southeast coast of the U.S. is taking a pummeling from Hurricane Dorian following the devastation it caused to the Bahama Islands. The Bahamians endured almost two days of cat 5 winds – over 185 miles per hour – torrential rain and hurricane ocean storm surges.

In addition to the Puerto Rico money he plans to steal, Trump is going to further deplete FEMA in order to fund his vanity wall, making relief and recovery for those were hurt worst anywhere from difficult to impossible. We might have enough left in FEMA’s piggy bank for the Carolinas. As for the Bahamians and Puerto Ricans, I’m sure those people can wait until next fiscal year for funding to help them. Just tell the Bahamians to take a number and get in line behind the Puerto Ricans. It’s really no problem, because most of those people aren’t from Norway, anyway.

Sarcasm aside, Trump is preparing to build 175 miles of unneeded wall by sacrificing desperate hurricane survivors, NATO, our 3-branch governmental structure, national defense, our military people and world order. This isn’t just more of his stupid lies. We can ignore what he says, even his idiotic Sharpie-modified hurricane map. But we better pay attention to what he does, because he is intent upon assaulting American values, our safety and our democracy itself.

That’s why we pay attention to his outrages.

————————————

Ed. Note: I don’t want money or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. So,

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

NOTES:

  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. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling or punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

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

Nightmare


Reading time – 2:40  .  .  .

We all knew Hillary was right, that Donald Trump was temperamentally unfit to be President of the United States. We knew he had no clear policy positions and no moral foundation. For Trump supporters, that was the attraction, the point. It was the middle finger flicked at the establishment and it has turned out to be the angry extremist gift that keeps on giving. For the rest of America his unfitness for office has become the ongoing nightmare we feared.

When he posted his infantile tweet that his button was bigger than Kim Jong-Un’s my fear of his being in control of our thousands of nuclear warheads came into full focus. I pictured Trump in the Oval Office ordering his generals to destroy North Korea and wondered what would happen. Would they salute, say, “Yes,sir” and give the orders to annihilate? That is what they are supposed to do.

Or would the generals each in turn refuse to start World War III? Would they stand up to this petulant narcissist, telling him that they will not enable him to destroy the Earth? I imagined him firing generals one after another until at last he found one who would knuckle under to his pique; then the destruction would begin.

This is an insane and convoluted situation because of two contradicting points. In my heart of hearts I pray for military people with spine to stand up to our tantrum-prone president. The incompatible point is that civilian control of our military is a foundational principle of our country. The military isn’t supposed to refuse orders from the Commander-in-Chief. Standing up to the president in that way is not just mutiny: it’s a coup.

We’ve had plenty of exposés of the White House chaos and backstabbing and of the quiet resistance to this president, but now we have the anonymous essay in the New York Times by a high level administration person declaring in no uncertain terms that people we didn’t elect are working at odds to the president. It is effectively a coup not unlike my nightmare wonderings about military resistance to nuclear confrontation. And weirdly, bizarrely, I’m cheering for the insurgents. My cheers are driven by my fear of the harm Trump is doing to our country.

Understandably, Trump is off the rails in anger over learning that his own people are undermining him. He and his sycophants are focused on calling the author of the op-ed ugly names. What they are not doing is addressing the substance of his/her accusations. Worse, neither is there anyone in Congress lifting a finger to do anything about it. Mostly we’ve been getting reactions to the op-ed from legislators saying things like, “This is nothing new to us,” as though it’s just another day through the looking glass. “Oh, well.”

The Trump craziness and the resistance to it is exactly what is going to continue to happen if Congress refuses to act. We will simply wait around for the next outrage and next insult to our democracy and Trump’s undermining of the Constitution – then the next and the next until there’s nothing left to insult. We can wake up each day with a new version of the ongoing nightmare. Or we can act.

What will those now idle lawmakers say to their grandchildren when they ask what they did to preserve our democracy?

————————————

Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


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

Only Donald Trump


Reading time – 1:10  .  .  .

President Trump has said repeatedly that only he can do various things. As laughable as that has seemed, it recently set me to thinking about whether there might be some accuracy to his boasts. Here’s a list of what comes to mind as things only Donald Trump could have done:

  1. He’s made racist, weaselly, mean-spirited, hypocrite Jefferson Beauregard Sessions into a sympathetic character.
  2. In his mania to erase all of President Obama’s accomplishments and legacy, he double-crossed the Dreamers.
  3. In his mania to erase all of President Obama’s accomplishments and legacy, he pulled us out of the JCPOA, giving tacit approval to Iran to build nuclear bombs.
  4. In his mania to erase all of President Obama’s accomplishments and legacy, he pulled us out of the Paris Climate Agreement and is encouraging the burning of coal and the removal of pollution protections.
  5. He has criminalized asylum seekers and kidnapped hundreds of children.
  6. He has lied to the American public an average of 6.5 times per day for over 19 months.
  7. He has alienated all NATO countries.
  8. He has started multiple trade wars.
  9. He has expanded economic inequality.
  10. He has abandoned the people of Puerto Rico – Americans, every one.
  11. He has embraced white supremacists and emboldened them to ever more public hatred and violence.
  12. He has wiped his dirty boots on the First Amendment through his Muslim ban.
  13. He has negotiated away the safety and security of the United States and possibly the entire world and received nothing in return from North Korea. I have previously argued that any idiot could have done this, but no idiot would have been this idiotic.
  14. He has insulted the leaders of Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, Germany – where else?

Honestly, I think he may be right. He may be the only one who can do this stuff.

What am I missing? Add to this list in the Comments section below.

  • ————————————

    Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

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

Potpourri v3.0


A partial compendium of Trumpian Distractions designed to keep your eye off the ball. CLICK HERE to see how they anticipate distracting you from what they don’t want you to see.

Reading time – 3:51; Viewing time – 5:59  .  .  .

♠ Investigations

The past week was busy:

– Paul Manafort was convicted on 8 criminal charges.

– Michael Cohen plead guilty to multiple felony charges.

– Michael Cohen also accused the President of directing him to commit felonies.

– Allen Weisselberg, the longtime CFO of the Trump Organization, was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors. He knows where all the bodies are buried.

– David Pecker, CEO of the media empire that publishes the supermarket trash rag the National Enquirer, was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors. He knows where the hush money went.

Of course, there was more, but as the pundits are saying, the walls are closing in on Donald Trump. One result of that is the ever-expanding list of Trump’s outrageous tweets designed to distract us from the Justice Department investigations into criminal wrongdoing of the Trump organization, his foundation, his campaign and his administration. See the Art of the Distractions box in this post for a short list of the Trumpian stupid stuff from just the last 7 days.

For now, begin to brace yourself for what likely will become multiple Constitutional crises. This is going to get really ugly before things start to get better and, perversely, it may be the world’s greatest political theater.

Meanwhile, get active. Mark election day, November 6, on your calendar. Decide which two of your friends you’ll bring with you to the polls. Here’s why you’ll do that:

Roughly 125 million votes were cast for president in 2016. 102 million registered voters stayed home. That brought us Donald Trump and this spineless Congress.

Friends don’t let friends fail to vote.

Final note on this topic: As of this writing we still haven’t heard a word from Republican legislators about any of the criminality close to the president that’s been uncovered by federal investigators. The Rs insist on remaining jellyfish.

♠ Nukes

It’s likely you were shocked over Trump’s sometimes veiled and sometimes blatant nuclear threats toward North Korea and Iran, but, surprisingly, there’s good news attached to his rantings.

Last week the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine held a public workshop entitled Exploring Medical and Public Health Preparedness for a Nuclear Incident – you can look it up here. The good news is that the people in charge of dealing with a nuclear “incident” are investigating our preparedness and perhaps recommending changes for the better.

The bad news is that Trump’s rhetoric has made the investigation necessary.

♠ The Democrats’ Problem

Chris Buskirk curated the New York Times “Opinion today” last week and offered a George Orwell view of democratic socialists, writing,

George Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, neatly described the political dilemma faced by the Sanders crowd: “The inability of mankind to imagine happiness except in the form of relief, either from effort or pain, presents Socialists with a serious problem.”

It seems to me that Buskirk is quite wrong. Bernie Sanders is very clear about a democratic socialist future. His dilemma, as Buskirk labels it, is the inability to bring a majority of voters to his view.

The real dilemma of most Democrats is that they can’t seem to find a coherent message with two hands and a flashlight. Add to that inability a few more, like being solely reactionary to circumstances and rarely proactive, communicating in the most needlessly complex way that leaves people befuddled, a refusal to focus on a unifying message, and the seeming inability to speak with blue collar Americans where they’re at.

More painful yet and, as placeholder for all wimpy Democrat ways, we watched the debate where Hillary refused to tell Trump to stop stalking her and to sit down and shut up. Democrats have a way of creating their own worst obstacles, often through lack of assertiveness. Perhaps our new generation of candidates will do better at this.

♠ Coherent Message

We all have our key issue and I know yours is important. I believe, though, that one overrides all others because everything you hold dear will disappear if this Big Kahuna issue isn’t resolved: keeping our democracy. That’s why Robert Mueller is so important to the United States right now and why his work must go all the way to completion.

After we put the bad guys in prison we can tackle money in politics next, because that is what informs and distorts your key issue and that tsunami of special interest money is helping to destroy our democracy.

Save our democracy. That’s the coherent message. Let’s focus on that.

♠ Edu-Bang-Bang

Education Secretary Betsy “I’ve never been to a public school” DeVos is weighing using money intended to drive academic enrichment for students to buy guns for teachers. Yes, really.

  • ————————————

    Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

    YOUR ACTION STEPS:

    1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
    2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

    Thanks!


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

Women For Trump


Reading time – 2:50; Viewing time – 3:43  .  .  .

A compendium of Trumpian Distractions designed to keep your eye off the ball

It is a fact that a significant number of American women support Donald Trump and, given his history of misogyny, that begs the question of why they would do that.

Some are clear that they abhor everything they believe to be true about Hillary Clinton, so anyone else was a better choice in the last election. Indeed, maybe they are able overlook what they see in Trump that seems disagreeable to them. Perhaps they imagine that he doesn’t really believe everything he’s said and all that has been reported that he’s done. Perhaps these women were willing to overlook all of that simply because of their loathing of Clinton. Perhaps there’s more.

Many women have watched as our Congress has managed to paralyze itself so that the problems these people face never get addressed, much less solved. They have had it with politicians of all stripes lying to them, making promises they never intend to keep and just using them for their own purposes. They are convinced that the news media is nearly universally biased and lacks integrity. In short, anything that smacks of “the establishment” is not to be trusted and should be overthrown, replaced.

Click for WomenForTrump

At root, they are furious over being taken for granted, never being listened to and consistently muzzled so that they don’t have a voice. They feel disrespected. Blown off. Rejected. Trump rails against all parts of “the establishment”, so these folks feel validated as he leads them by metaphorically raising a middle finger.

I haven’t much to say to dissuade them of their feelings. Well, maybe just a couple of things, but nothing to suggest that they haven’t been disrespected, blown off and rejected. Just try these questions on for size – not in the abstract, but, if you’re a woman for Trump, for you personally.

It’s pretty clear that Donald Trump believes that he has special permission to do pretty much whatever he wants because he’s a “star”. He’s said exactly that. But if you’re a woman, that means he believes he can do as he wants with you, which means that whatever your age or your attributes, he thinks he can grab you whenever and wherever he wants. So, the first question is how would it sit with you if he groped you?

For the second question, let’s agree that it’s pretty clear from what he’s said repeatedly that he has a cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons. Perhaps he thinks he can nuke Iran and that there would be no retribution visited upon your town by Iranian survivors or perhaps other nuclear powers. Would it be okay with you to be vaporized in a mushroom cloud of Iranian retribution?

Maybe being groped by Trump or nuked by Iranians are far enough away in your imagination that such things aren’t compelling reasons to refuse to support Trump. Perhaps his flicking a middle finger at “the establishment” is so satisfying and delightful as to be overpowering and supplanting of all forms of doubt. If so, then project just these two horrible things – being groped or being nuked – onto your daughter or your little granddaughter. Don’t think for a moment that couldn’t happen, because he bragged about walking into the dressing rooms of naked teenage beauty contest girls. What if one of them were your daughter or your granddaughter? What if she were home when the nuke hit?

Is that flick of a middle finger still enough to overpower your doubt?

  • ————————————

    Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

    YOUR ACTION STEPS:

    1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
    2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

    Thanks!


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

Got It


Reading time – 3:39; Viewing time – 5:22  .  .  .

Question 1

In 2012 President Obama signed the Executive Order on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – DACA. He did this both because it was the right way to treat these folks and because the Republican Congress was dedicated solely to opposing anything Obama endorsed, regardless of its inherent value. That meant that an Executive Order was the only way to get this – or really, anything – done.

Last September President Trump reversed Obama’s Executive Order with one of his own. His justification was the flimsy excuse that Congress should create a law about this. He gave them 6 months to get that done and, of course, nothing has been done by this Congress for over 9 months. Why would Trump do that?

Question 2

Kim Jong-un asked for a meeting with Trump and Trump leaped to agree. The “rocket man” taunt and the juvenile schoolyard brag that Trump’s button was bigger that Kim’s were gone, replaced by gracious statements about the murderous North Korean dictator. Then Trump sent a letter to Kim calling off the June 12 meeting because Kim had said a mean thing about Vice-President Pence. Why would Trump do that?

Question 3

Trump slapped significant tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from our best friends, Canada, Mexico and the countries of the European Union. He justified his actions with false claims about our balance of trade. The allies we are presently abusing in this way are in the process of establishing their own retaliatory tariffs on American products, especially our agricultural exports, and China is thrilled with us making ourselves an unreliable trading partner. Our economists and financial types have made clear that the trade war Trump has started will cause the net loss of tens of thousands of American jobs – maybe hundreds of thousands – and create higher prices for all of us. Why would Trump do that?

Answers

Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that his M.O. for negotiating is to take away something the other party has and wants. He figures that the other party will then bargain to get back what they had, giving Trump something he wants in the process, effectively at no cost. And all of that happens without Trump having any regard for the harm he does to others.

  1. Trump took away DACA and used that takeaway to bargain for his useless “beautiful wall.” He didn’t get the wall, but in the process of his manipulation he deported some and traumatized all 700,000 DACA people.
  2. Trump took away the North Korean summit so he’d look like he has the upper hand. What he got was a vague statement about de-nuclearization, so Trump said the meeting was now a go. Kim won’t eliminate his nuclear weapons, so Trump has fooled himself with his own stunt. And Kim will get exactly what he wants: international legitimacy and maybe sanctions relief. Foolishly, Trump will brag that only he could have done this. He might be right about that. But now millions will suffer and the world will continue to live in the shadow of Kim’s nuclear ambition. And all those bad things will happen even if Trump walks away from the summit. President Xi of China loves that.
  3. Trump slapped tariffs on our friends. Watch for Trump’s demand that they foot more of the cost of NATO as the key to terminating the tariffs. In the process he will have shredded decades, even centuries of built up goodwill, much to the pleasure of Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s negotiating strategy – got it.

Just keep in mind that Trump’s self-proclaimed genius for deal making led to six bankruptcies and a lot of very angry people. At the national and international level, abusing people is a really bad thing not likely to be forgotten by those angry people. That will have long term negative consequences for America.

Related to this, see the USA Today piece on Trump’s business relationships with top foreign leaders. And don’t miss the end of the ban on exclusions for preexisting conditions, coming soon to a medical insurance plan near you. What do you suppose Trump wants for his wealthy buddies in exchange for us keeping our insurance coverage?

As always, follow the money.

And Another Thing

Click me for the full story

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta has issued a report, “Suicide Rising Across the US“. Two things jump out of the report:

  1. The primary tool for suicide is firearms. I’m guessing that easy accessibility and ease of use are key factors in that. Thanks so much, NRA sponsored legislators.
  2. The states with the highest rates of suicide are largely states Trump won. Correlation? Dunno, but it looks most curious. And lethal.

————————————

Ed. note: I don’t want your money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

Thanks!


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

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