The original announcement for this post went out without a link. It should work this time.
Please watched this video It’s just right for today
And Peggy Noonan’s essay Blessings In a Hard Year is required reading. You’ll see why.
Many thanks to AH for the pointer.
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Reading time – 3:12; Viewing time – 4:51 . . .
My fellow Americans, we gather tonight on the eve of a new administration for our country. Once again we are affirming our democracy with the peaceful transfer of power exactly as envisioned and required by our Founders and our Constitution. This is one of the ways we demonstrate to the world our commitment to the rule of law and the all important bedrock of our democracy, rule by We the People. May the world take notice.
There are always a great many challenges to the United States and today is no different, except that we now face the biggest challenge in 100 years: the coronavirus pandemic. Most of the rest of our challenges rely on solving this problem first. Only then will we be able to heal our people and at last repair our great nation. Because this is of supreme importance, tonight we focus there.
Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, Dr. Redmond and all of our epidemiologists have been clear, as have our ER and ICU medical professionals, that we cannot go on as we have. Our healthcare capacity has been over-topped and dramatic steps are needed to reverse this deadly trend.
That is why tonight I am urging – I’m imploring – that you and all of us follow the advice and direction of our medical professionals. There is no vaccine at hand that can suddenly protect all of us, so we must do the preventive things the experts advise. Wear a mask any time you’re near others you don’t live with. Stay at least six feet away from others even if everyone is wearing a mask. Wash your hands often in the manner prescribed by our medical people. And avoid all unnecessary contact with others. That means don’t visit stores any more than you have to – combine trips. Don’t sit inside restaurants or bars. If you are an essential worker, make sure you’re protected from co-workers, for example with plastic panel dividers. Do all of these things all of the time and we can begin to turn things around for all of us.
I’m not wearing a mask right now only because I’m addressing you for the moment and because only broadcast personnel are in the Oval Office with me and they are all at least 15 feet away. As soon as this address is over I will don my mask once again.
Yes, wearing a mask is a nuisance. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable and now and then even a little nasty. And yes, it is an imposition on the freedom of all of us to have to wear a mask. But we can lick this problem, we can meet this challenge to protect all of us if we each sacrifice a little for the betterment of us all. It is a patriotic duty. It is a sign of the loyalty we swear to one another. We do this for ourselves, for our families, our friends and for our country. This is what proud, patriotic Americans do.
Many months ago I told you that the cure must not be worse than the problem. At the time we were seeing millions of newly unemployed people, sent home due to our shutting down so much of our economy. The last thing I wanted to see was so many Americans out of work and perhaps evicted from their homes. That was the cure that I thought might be worse than the problem.
But the disease multiplied fast, faster than many anticipated, and it is terribly deadly. It has infected over 10 million of us and has killed over a quarter of a million of our dear ones. It seems that there is no solving this problem without taking the medicine, the cure.
So, it’s time for us to dig into our vast resources of American grit and gumption and take that medicine. It’s going to hurt, but that hurt will end. If we don’t take that medicine, the hurt will go on forever, compromising not just our health, but our lives, our prosperity, even our national security.
Join me now in following President-Elect Biden and our experts, the very best in the world doctors, scientists and epidemiologists. In following them every day in every way we will beat this terrible enemy and restore our nation to health. And we’ll do it together in a patriotic crusade.
Good night, my fellow Americans, and may God bless this great nation of ours. Now, put on your mask!
——————————
Imagine if the essence of this speech had been given 10 months ago. Lest you think that leadership doesn’t matter.
If this post makes sense to you be sure to read my pal John Calia’s post from yesterday. Oddly, surprisingly, we both used the same convention to communicate the same critical message at the same time:
It was, is and will continue to be all about leadership.
—————————————-
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Reading time – 4:43 . . .
The election should be over – after all, it only takes 270 and it’s clear to all who’s won and who has lost. But this is going to be dragged through the courts for a while by baseless Trump lawsuits and fantasy charges of fraud. Trump’s anti-American histrionics and tweet storms won’t change the outcome, though, so we proceed.
Donald Trump has spent his entire life trying to prove he isn’t a loser because his father told him that being a loser is the lowest, most worthless thing. Yet who but a loser goes bankrupt six times, including bankrupting four casinos? CASINOS!
Not even the moral rot of lying, cheating, stealing, defrauding, and even compromising the security of this country is off limits for Trump’s bottomless neediness. He tried to turn this country into an autocracy to serve himself. He has spewed hatred at innocent people and has mocked disabled people and Gold Star families. He demeaned and defamed both our war dead and even our doctors during this pandemic and made this virus yet more deadly.
Many thanks to MZ for the pic
There has never been a low that is so low that Trump would not go there.
Now, though, it’s all caught up to him. The con is over. The jig is up. The American people have held him accountable and it’s plain for anyone to see that he is the loser. It’s the one thing he cannot handle, even as the truth is staring him in the face.
Trump-as-loser is an enormously satisfying thing for those of us who can still remember the meaning of words like “moral” and “decency” and “empathy” and “duty” and “protect and defend” and “loyalty” and “integrity.” We know right from wrong and we won’t tolerate any more of his wrong.
Click me
It’s our turn to take the reins, to make up with friends he offended (see the quote from Paris, France below), to put adversaries on notice and to re-balance our nation for the benefit of We the People instead of for Trump.
So, let us end this long dark night of our country with the familiar words of Glinda, the good witch of the north:
“Let the joyous news be spread,
“The wicked old witch at last is dead.”
It’s going to take many years to fix what Trump has broken and we begin the process right now.
Said Fintan O’Toole of the Irish Times In April, “If a new administration succeeds [Trump] in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind.” So, we don our citizenry Hazmat suits and have at it.
Love of country . . . – Joe Biden
I’m imagining that during the lame duck session President-Elect Biden will be preparing some executive orders to sign in the afternoon of January 20 for things needing immediate attention, like:
Restoring full status to the CDC and announcing steps to end this pandemic
Reinstating DACA protections and ordering ICE to stand down and to reunite with their parents all those children in cages at the southern border
Reversing the Muslim ban
Rejoining the World Health Organization (WHO)
Rejoining the JCPOA to make Iran stop nuclear weapons production
Rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement so that we leave an inhabitable place for our grandchildren
Rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership so that we don’t cede all of the Pacific rim to the Chinese
Imposing sanctions on Russia for the Putin-led interference in our elections
It’s time to roll up our collective shirtsleeves and get to work repairing this nation. While President Biden is signing those executive orders, we Americans ourselves start by making peace with one another. See the chart at the bottom for the challenges we’ll have to overcome. And read this.
————————–
I’ve had a persistent vision of life since I was a little guy, this of a long wagon train moving west. The people in the wagons and on horseback and those walking are on a very long journey and all the regular things of life happen along the way. Sometimes someone dies and the wagon train must stop to bury the dead. Prayers are said, tears are streamed and grief is wailed. But when that is over, the people know they can’t stay and that there’s only one thing to do: move on. So, they once again mount their wagons and their horses and on they go toward their new frontier. Progress always means leaving something behind.
We have had much suffering over the past four years and not just from Covid. A major casualty has been our sense of national unity and a certain respect for one another. Some of our most cherished institutions, norms and values have been crushed. Some can be repaired; some may have to be buried. Regardless, there is only one thing to do: we must mount our wagons and our horses and continue on toward our new frontier.
The challenge for all of us is to make sure that everyone comes along. It may be difficult, but we are – all of us – bound to this wagon train and we are headed toward our new frontier together.
C’est la vie.
From Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris, France: “Welcome back, America.” She speaks for the world.
From David Hogg, survivor of the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and co-founder of Never Again: “Who’s ready to win GA?”
From Lt. Col. (Ret.) Alexander Vindman: “Congratulations to President Elect @JoeBiden and Vice President Elect @KamalaHarris. I am grateful for your willingness to continue to serve the American people. Now we can start to heal and rebuild.”
From Preet Bharara, former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York: “Who wants to dance?”
Chirpus invertibratis Republicanis, AKA, “spineless cricket”
From Van Jones of CNN: You must watch this clip.
From Don Lemon of CNN: You must watch this clip.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky immediately sent congratulations to President-Elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris.
From most Republicans in Congress: crickets
————————–
Click me for the full report
—————————————-
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Reading time – 3:40 . . .
Blanketed with frustration and anger over this ongoing spectacle of an election, disappointment haunts me, but it isn’t about Trump. I want to hug my ancient 48-star flag, not to disrespect Alaska or Hawaii, but to touch what I used to believe. Underneath it all, my heart is breaking.
The people of North Dakota have spoken. A majority of voters in that state made the clear and unambiguous statement that they want Donald Trump to stay in the White House for another four years. The challenge for all of us is to understand why they would do that.
Perhaps for these folks voting is simply a reflex action: voting for a Democrat is simply unthinkable. Grandpa was a Republican and Daddy was a Republican, so these voters are Republicans, even as the meaning of “Republican” isn’t remotely what it used to be.
Perhaps they believe the demeaning caricature of Democrats that Fox News and the president have painted for them. They’re convinced that socialism, crippling taxes, rule by fanatical anarchist mobs and high rise ghettos invading their suburbs would be certainties if Joe Biden were to become the next president. It’s just another episode of The Big Lie, but the tactic seems to have worked.
Multiple domestic and international studies have shown conclusively that the horrific infection and death rates from Covid-19 in the United States have been made far worse by the lack of national leadership to combat it. A minimum of 75% of the deaths are due to Donald Trump refusing to provide assertive, positive leadership.
If North Dakota were a stand-alone nation, it would have the highest rate of infection in the entire world. Hospitals are overrun with sick and dying patients. By now nearly everyone in the state must know someone who has suffered and perhaps someone who has died of it.
Nevertheless, North Dakotans voted to keep in office the very person who allowed that to happen. In other words, they had the choice of life or death and they chose death.
And that’s just North Dakota.
In Kentucky voters gave Mitch “Big Hypocrite” McConnell a double-digit win. In South Carolina they gave a similar margin to Lindsay “Spineless Hypocrite” Graham. Maybe I remember this incorrectly, but didn’t it used to be a bad thing to be a hypocrite?
Our former allies, the ones who were our friends before Trump insulted and abandoned them, had been waiting for this election to show that Trump was just a mistake of our democracy, an aberration that we would set right at the first opportunity. Now, even if Biden wins after the mail-in ballots are counted, they will know that they are only one election away from destruction of the stable order that protected us all and provided prosperity for 75 years.
We’ve told our allies plainly that they can no longer count on us and, if they have any sense of self-preservation, they will be forging new alliances and moving steadily away from the U.S. All of this will happen as Trump cedes more of our democracy to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. And all of that will happen because a huge percentage of Americans voted for it.
The cleaving of Americans from one another surely can be traced to Richard Nixon and his Southern Strategy. Reagan stoked divisions, too, with his lies about welfare queens and more. During the Clinton years Newt Gingrich became Chief Congressional Flamer and a Republican Congress unleashed junk yard dog Ken Starr to poke into the underwear drawers of both Clintons in what really was a witch hunt. They framed everything in self-righteous biblical certainties.
Obama’s presidency gave fuel to racial divisions and the unleashing of frothing senators and congressmen. And Trump is a never ending font of victimizing, demonizing and calls to hatred and violence. We’ve always had differences and Fox News deserves much credit for stoking them, making fine clarity about who the “bad guys” are so hatreds can be fed. Clearly, we have to give a lifetime achievement award for divisiveness to the Republicans.
And now here we are with our clear, unambiguous and heartbreaking election statement of who we really are.
Thomas Jefferson told us plainly what we need in order to sustain our democratic republic:
“An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight.”
And roughly half of all Americans perversely insist upon being low information voters. They refuse to be educated sufficiently to exercise oversight. Instead, they watch Fox News and listen to the haters deny reality and incrementally allow our democracy to be stolen from us.
We are led by the world’s greatest circus sideshow barker, drawing into his tent the rubes who believe his grandiose lies about what’s inside. Abraham Lincoln was right, that you really can fool some of the people all of the time. I never dreamed that “some of the people” meant half the voters.
I had a picture of what America is. Regardless of what we find to be the final counts from this election, it turns out that my picture was an illusion and I have become dis-illusioned.
—————————————-
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Well, folks, we’ve gotta give credit where it’s due. It’s only right.
We’ve just heard the closing argument of President Trump, giving you his best story to get you to vote for him. It was so odd that he couldn’t give us a single reason to vote for him, like what he’d do in a second term. He just whined about how he was being treated so unfairly. He offers us nothing and wants us to believe he’s a poor victim. That’s pathetic. But still, some credit is due. Here’s the credit.
Never in at least the last 100 years of presidential contests have so many lies been told in just two minutes. He’s really very good at lying. That’s the credit he’s due.
Lots of his lying is just Trump trying to make himself look good, so he makes up total fictions hoping you’ll buy the nonsense and he does it in such a tsunami of lies that there’s no chance for you to say, “Wait . . . what?” But that’s dangerous, because it puts you and your family at risk.
Like his lies about the coronavirus. Folks, we’re not rounding the bend; one thousand of us are dying every day and it’s getting worse.
Trump surrenders to COVID-19, February, 2020
We’re in the midst of the biggest surge of infections yet, now over 80,000 per day. He tells us that he’s done an incredible job with this pandemic, but the truth is that he abandoned his post and let the virus attack. He’s literally done nothing to help you stay healthy. And every day he models the very behavior most likely to make a lot more people sick and for many of them to die, like his refusal to wear a mask and like his super-spreader rallies. And just last week his chief of staff announced that they waved the white flag of surrender and won’t do a thing to protect you. All they’re doing is counting on vaccines and treatments that don’t exist.
That’s why some of the kids in your child’s school got infected and were sick for days, perhaps for weeks. Maybe it hit your child. It’s why people’s grandparents – maybe yours – got sick and died alone. It’s why our doctors and nurses are so exhausted and our hospitals are so overcrowded that you can’t get help if you have a heart attack or are involved in a car crash. That’s what has happened because this president abandoned his post. He quit.
He lies to make it sound like he’s done something useful, but he hasn’t helped you at all. He even demeans the true experts who can help you.
And he’s cut way back on testing so that the number of cases reported will be lower just to make him look good. But that doesn’t lower the actual number of people who become sick and die. How dumb does he think you are?
Folks, his lying has made the greatest country in the world look like a helpless 3rd world nation. We’re leading the world in infections, suffering and death. That doesn’t fit too well with our notion of American exceptionalism, our can-do spirit.
Sadly, Trump will never be a real live boy because he lies all the time.
Have you heard enough lies from this president?
Folks, I’ll never surrender. I’ll never wave a white flag or give up on We the People. We’re going to beat this thing together.
How about his lies about the economy? Millions of our fellow citizens – maybe you – have lost their jobs and 42% of those furloughed won’t ever be rehired – and still he lies.
He tells you how great the economy is doing. The tax cut he’s so proud of was supposed to increase your wages and stimulate new jobs. That’s what he promised you. How’s that working out for you? Folks, it was never going to happen.
Instead, he gave billions of dollars to big corporations to buy back their stock in order to increase their stock prices so that big shareholders would become even richer. And the money also went directly into the investment portfolios of other rich guys. Nearly nothing went to you, and still he lies to you about how great the economy is doing. C’mon man, gimme a break!
Have you heard enough lies from this president?
He lies to you about how great our international safety and security are, but he’s alienated all of our friends, the nations who partner with us to protect us all. And he’s sucked up to Putin and other brutal dictators, putting us all at risk and lying to you at the same time.
Have you heard enough lies from this president?
He said he was going to drain the swamp – maybe you wanted him to do that. But what he did instead was to get rid of the competent people who make the government work for us and he replaced them with industry insiders, lobbyists, big donors and incompetents. They’re all swamp creatures! Then he fired them and recruited even worse people and lied to you about that, too!
The We The People Presidential BS Detector
Have you heard enough lies from this president?
He loves to vomit out his strings of superlatives about himself, but they’re all just vapor. There’s no substance to them. They’re just more of his lies.
Folks, we all know how this works. Every one of us has a very sensitive BS detector and the big We The People BS Detector has been pegged out for 4 years. So, if you’ve had enough, if you’re sick of being lied to and cheated and put in harms way for no reason other than so Trump can grab more money, more power and more attention for himself, it’s time for you to take a stand and speak up. You do that with your vote.
This won’t cut it. If you’ve heard enough lies, you have to VOTE HIM AWAY!
Vote this liar out of office right now. Put on your mask and go to your polling place this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest. Get in line and stay in line to make your voice heard with your vote. Tell Trump you’re done with his lies.
Folks, this president has broken our country. Fixing it will require an end to his lies. Then we’ll put America back together again. We’ll Build Back Better and restore America’s health and honor and leadership in the world because this is the United States of America.
God bless you and God bless our troops.
———————–
From STAT:
Washington, Oregon, and Nevada yesterday joined California’s Covid-19 vaccine safety review group, which will independently review any Covid-19 vaccine approved by the FDA. Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the initiative last week. The review panel is currently made up of California scientists who specialize in immunization and public health, and the governors of the three states who have joined the effort will also select and name their own experts to the panel. States are taking up this effort to verify a vaccine amid concerns about a politicized and rushed approval for a Covid-19 vaccine. In addition to these four states, New York last month also announced that any FDA-approved Covid-19 vaccine will be independently vetted by state health officials. [emphasis mine]
How insane is it that we can’t trust our formerly world leading Food and Drug Administration to ensure that our vaccines are safe and effective – this because of Trump’s lies and manipulations? There truly is nothing that Trump won’t lie about and ruin, including our confidence in those entrusted to protect us and even your health.
——————————-
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Reading time – 3:52 . . .
NOTE – read to the end for the key message.
60% of Americans want stricter gun safety laws and regulations.
61% of Americans support a woman’s right to choose.
66% of Americans want a government health insurance plan for all.
70% of Americans believe most undocumented immigrants working in the U.S. should be offered a chance to apply for legal status.
That’s just a very small sample of what the majority of Americans want. But they either don’t have those things or they now realize these issues are mortally threatened by the new composition of the Supreme Court, as manipulated by Mitch McConnell. It can all be traced to the decades-long push for minority rule by monied interests and the Republican Party.
There is a huge story to tell and it is much too big for a 1,000 word post, but you already know some of the basics. For example, you know that in White areas of many of our cities the wait time to vote is about 15 minutes. In the poor and Black parts of town the wait time can be eight hours due to the closing of polling places, a limited number of voting machines and insufficient staffing.
In the 2018 election Democrats in Wisconsin got 205,000 more votes than Republicans, but the Republicans wound up with a 27 seat advantage in the state Assembly. It has been the same in North Carolina for many years. And in those states, as in about 2/3 of the rest, it allowed the state houses to restrict voting rights for massive numbers of Americans. Say it with me: Gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering allowed states to remove a voter’s registration if the voter didn’t return a post card within 14 days. And those post cards were targeted at poor and minority people.
Gerrymandering allowed states to impose ID requirements in order to vote, something that is both relatively costly and burdensome to obtain for poor people. Note that the Constitution only requires citizenship to vote.
Gerrymandering allowed the secretaries of state of these discriminatory states to close polling places, locate polling places in difficult to reach areas, restrict voting days and hours and more.
Gerrymandering is what reduced mail-in ballot drop boxes to just one in all of Harris County, Texas (that’s the entire Houston metropolitan area).
Minority rule has also given us Republican governors who suck up to Trump and who have by fiat denied mandatory face mask wearing in their states – places like Iowa, South Dakota, Florida, Nebraska, Texas and more – this as the cases of COVID-19 are skyrocketing, with more than 70,000 new cases every day.
Republicans want very much to restrict voting rights. That’s because they will become an extinct species if We the People actually have a democracy – i.e. majority rule. Paul Weyrich, founder of the self-righteous Moral Majority and other right wing manipulation machines said it plainly, clearly and publicly in 1980:
“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the election, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
The leverage Weyrich was referring to is that of Republicans, not conservatives. There’s a difference, as exemplified by there being nothing conservative in most of what Donald Trump does or says. He’s all about not conserving what the Founders intended.
Weyrich was right. If the roughly 100 million eligible voters who typically don’t vote, many of whom are unfairly prohibited from voting, suddenly showed up to vote, no Republican would win, because most of those 100 million citizens aren’t rich people. They are minorities and poor people and, of course, tens – perhaps hundreds – of thousands of disaffected, frustrated middle class people. Most of them would vote for Democrats, which is why Republicans don’t want them to vote.
What that means is that a small minority is ruling this country. It’s how the Supreme Court wound up looking as it does. It’s how the Republicans have controlled the Senate. It’s how the House has been largely under Republican control for decades. And it is why we are now in this insane election process that threatens to be decided by our lopsided, contorted Supreme Court, instead of by We the People.
We can’t change our current insanity instantly, but we surely can start the process and it’s up to you to do that.
Samuel L. Jackson has laid it out plainly for you. Watch his YouTube video, because he’s very smart. Do as he says.
If you haven’t voted yet, you have only 6 days left. It may be too late for mail-in voting, although you may be able to drop off your mail-in ballot at your precinct voting place, your city hall or in a ballot drop box. In-person early voting is ongoing and it’s your best opportunity to ensure your voice is heard and to vote this horrid minority out of office.
————————
————————
Rudy Giuliani is spending his days and nights in Ukraine, digging for dirt to help Donald Trump. He’s unleashed volumes of anti-Biden, pro-Trump Russian propaganda repeatedly. Even his daughter opposes his behavior.
He tells us he’s Trump’s lawyer but that he’s not being paid. Does that combination make any sense to you? Speculate on this: What does Giuliani get out of being Trump’s muck-making slime bag? My idle speculation is that Trump has promised to make him Attorney General if Trump is re-elected.
From STAT:
“A new modeling study finds that there could be half a million Covid-19-related deaths by the end of February next year, but universal mask use could save 130,000 of those lives.”
Just wondering which group the fiercely independent face mask refusers want to be in, the 130,000 who could live or the rest who will be dead. There’s a really big cost for them stomping feet and yelling, “You can’t tell me what to do.”
Scientific speculation: The rest of us pay a huge price for refuser selfishness.
From the New York Times:
” . . . Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, essentially offering a verbal shrug on CNN on Sunday: ‘We’re not going to control the pandemic.’
‘We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigations, because it is a contagious virus — just like the flu,’ Mr. Meadows said.”
Mark Meadows is co-founder with insanely rabid Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) of the patriotically misnamed Freedom Caucus. Apparently, Meadows wants us to be free to get sick and die.
What he’s telling us is that our top national leadership is not focused on protecting the American people. They are doing nothing to prevent our exposure to a killer virus that is most definitely not like the flu. Instead, these public servants (supposedly serving We the People) are focused on vaccines and therapeutics that don’t exist! That’s minority rule as a cruel, manipulative, homicidal refusal to act and to lead. And it’s killing us.
Watch this 1-minute video.
Did I mention,
From Rachel Maddow on October 27, 2020: “If you’re standing in line waiting to vote, know that you are pulling a thread through a lot of history. Stay in line.”
From Admiral (Ret.) William McRaven in his 20-minute 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas: “Don’t ever, ever ring the bell.” [i.e. quit]
From me: Get in line, stay in line and vote to change our country and change the world.
From Yoda: “On you, everything depends.”
From me again: I like Joe Biden, but if the Democrats had nominated a box of rocks to run against Trump, I’d vote for the rocks.
——————————-
There might not be time to mail in your vote and have it arrive in time, so DROP IT OFF in a drop box.
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Reading time 5:16; Viewing time – 8:35 . . .
In the second and last presidential candidate debate last Thursday President Trump set a new International Prevarication Record – the coveted IPR – by lying more than once per minute with peak gusts to 3 per minute for multiple extended periods of time. The record had been held by Pinocchio since 1883, but Trump obliterated Pinocchio’s record in just 90 minutes. Said one of the judges, “Boy, that guy sure can make up total crap really fast.”
Many of his lies were about the coronavirus. His lies have and will continue to prove to be lethal to Americans. More on that in the Health Statistic of the Week section below.
————————–
In looking for a particular quotation, I recently had occasion to revisit Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter From the Birmingham Jail (download a copy here). I wound up reading the entire document again and found that much of what he wrote in 1963 applies to today.
This isn’t the 1950-60s segregated South or the middle of the 19th century before the Civil War, but we 
are once again at Robert Frost’s metaphorical point where two roads diverge and the choice we make for the path moving forward will have profound consequences. This road is both about race in America and whether we will continue go be a democracy and we must decide which path to take.
Dr. King wrote his letter to a group of clergy with whom he was quite disappointed because of their lack of
support and outright criticism of the peaceful, nonviolent demonstrations he led for racial justice. With that in mind, here are some quotes from his letter. Decide for yourself if his words feel uncomfortably applicable to today.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham [feel free to apply this statement to today by substituting Portland or Kenosha or St. Paul or Ferguson or . . . ] But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being.
Birmingham’s [or substitute the name of another city] ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country. It’s unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. [See this post for confirmation.]
I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.
We know from painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Be clear that race is an issue where choice and consequences demand our immediate action. At the same time we are dealing with the destruction of much of what had been believed to be our national bedrock, the rules, practices and guardrails that have allowed us to be a democracy since the Constitution was ratified.
There are over 70,000 new cases daily andPresident Trump told us clearly and in no uncertain terms that “We’re rounding the 
bend” on the coronavirus and that “it affects virtually nobody.” Just to prove him right, over the past 7 days more than 5,600 American nobodies rounded that bend and are now dead.* According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the actual number is almost certainly far higher than the official count.
We send our deep, heartfelt condolences to all of our dead American nobodies.
Dr. Scott Atlas is a radiologist – an MRI, x-ray guy. He’s an infectious disease and epidemic imbecile. He’s heading Trump’s program of avoidance of doing anything positive to protect Americans from the pandemic. Atlas recommends herd immunity to beat the coronavirus. That consists of waiting for infection to sweep the nation and for millions to die. After that we’ll just carry on with the few of us remaining. Trump has talked about this method of national suicide at times and, by his lack of action, appears to favor it. Why would he do that? Try this.
The elderly are the ones most likely to die from this disease, so doing nothing to protect people will cull the herd of millions of those whose tax dollars funded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid but who are now a financial drain from the system. Neither George W. Bush nor Paul Ryan could get those programs privatized, but Trump may accomplish the same tax dollar savings by getting millions of our people killed. Genius.
So, we chant, Trump lied, people died.
This is for all the hissy fit people who refuse to wear a mask because it infringes on their freedom.*** And for those whose liberty has been squashed and want the schools to reopen, regardless of how many teachers, staff and grandparents become infected and die. And for all those so desperate for a drink that they need their favorite bar to open so they can have a Covid party. And for the mega churches in Denver whose rights were so horribly stomped on that they sued and won the right to jam mask-less people into their amphitheaters in weekly super-spreader events. And for all the self-proclaimed keepers of the one true vision of America, the daddy issues militia morons, whose rights are somehow more important than those of the rest of us.
“Liberty doesn’t mean freedom to infect other people.” – Paul Krugman, NY Times
*Worldwide the number is over 1 million dead.
**You really need to read Ira Leavitt’s take on this.
***Read Paul Krugman’s love letter to Libertarians here. My view is that any Ayn Rand is too much.
—————————————-
There might not be time to mail in your vote and have it arrive in time, so DROP IT OFF in a drop box.
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Reading time – 4:48 . . .
This is an occasional feature of these posts to be published through the November election, as Trump attempts to manipulate, lie and cheat* his way to staying in office. This issue is all new from #16 and on.
Recall that Trump must win the election in order to avoid criminal indictments for fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, Conspiracy Against the United States** and more. These indictments will land in his lap the moment he leaves the protection of the Justice Department “no-criminal-indictments-while-in-office” memo. Let’s just say that he’s motivated to be “creative” in order to stay in office.
Further, he has a holy terror of being found out to be a loser, because for his father, there was nothing worse than that (yes, Trump has unresolved daddy issues). There are no limits to what he will do to avoid being seen as a loser.
As you read these, realize that each item alone is a sufficient reason to vote against Trump and for Biden. Some are reason enough to indict Trump.
That’s just top of mind stuff. With 13 days to go, we can be sure of more October surprises. What needs to be included on this list? Provide links if you can. With your help we’ll keep a running tally until and beyond this election, showcasing the most brutally ANTI-DEMOCRATIC acts of this most ANTI-AMERICAN president in U.S. history.
——————————
After reading this update to Trump’s election malfeasance, have a look at
Prepare For the Worst and Fight For The Best: A Citizen’s Guide to Electoral Interference
because you need to know. Many thanks to JC for pointing out this piece.
——————————
* Read Frank Bruni’s clear take on this.
** 18 U.S. Code § 371. Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud United States
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
18 U.S. Code § 2383. Rebellion or insurrection
Whoever incites [think: Proud Boys “Stand by”], sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
Just getting started on this list. There’s the emoluments thing, extortion of Ukraine and . . .
——————————
From RepresentUs:
“With just 2 weeks until voter registration deadlines across the country, don’t let National Voter Registration Day pass you by without confirming that you can vote this fall.
Click this sentence and confirm your right to vote.”
—————————————-
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Now is a good time for that.
Reading time – 3:41 . . .
Here’s one of the great and beautiful things about America: both of these things are true.
The ragers, the haters, the reality deniers, the hoax and conspiracy screamers, the bullies, the demonizers, the bigots and the misogynists get to wail their vitriol and grievances. They get to verbally assault those who disagree with them. And even as they bray their hatred of Americans, they get to wave American flags and proclaim their love for America. Hint: It’s impossible to both love America and hate Americans.
As they do all that, even when they do their worst, the rest of us get to call them out and stand rock solid against their intentional, destructive cruelty and instead demand a decent America.
A First Amendment exercise is what happened two Fridays ago in Northbrook, IL at a non-violent Trump demonstration and counter-demonstration. The two groups were on opposite sides of an intersection, but they were much farther apart than the three lanes of roadway between them. Read this for a better understanding of the divide and for an example of courage in the face of cruelty.
The enormous gulf between the two groups of demonstrators is a perfect representation in microcosm of our country in this turbulent time, as well as a demonstration of why this election is an enormously consequential moment, perhaps behind only the founding and the Civil War.
It’s easy to pin that clear and present danger on Trump, but it’s critical that you see him as the embodiment of the forces of absolutism running hellishly in our society. Trump is both the repugnant inciter of rage and a tool of the brutal, angry mob. He wouldn’t be in office or be getting away with his criminality, his cruelty and the destruction of our democracy if there weren’t millions of people who want that, who think his behavior is okay, who believe the end justifies the means.* It doesn’t matter to them how evil and eventually tyrannical both the end and the means prove to be.
This president is encouraging intimidation of voters, the discarding of ballots, he’s stoking violence, refusing the fundamentals of our Constitution and more. And millions of Americans support his reprehensible words and behaviors. At the same time, the spineless Republicans in Congress continue to promote his lawlessness. It seems that avoiding his playground bully name calling in order to keep their seats in Congress is more important to them than keeping their oath of office. Like Trump, these cowards are playing to the mob.
In contrast, Joe Biden is calling for decency (watch his 22-minute signature video here), for Constitutional norms, for the rule of law and for active measures to protect the American people from both foreign threats, like Russia, and domestic threats, like the coronavirus and white supremacist terrorists.
The screamers wear their MAGA hats and wave Trump flags in their puffed chest power rush, but if America is to be truly great there is only one path for us to follow and it isn’t the Trump path, because his is the path to a brutal past that millions of our ancestors fled.
That’s why this is the most consequential moment of our national lives and nearly the most consequential moment in the history of our nation.
·
From the closing words of Marilynne Robinson’s brilliant essay, “What Does It Mean to Love a Country?“
” . . . we might see a new birth of freedom, and another one beyond that. Democracy is the great instrument of human advancement. We have no right to fail it.”
It is truly frightening that millions of people are demanding authoritarianism in America. They want an end to our self-rule, our long and noble experiment in democracy. Christopher Ingraham spells out the truth that has been so difficult to define in his Washington Post article, “New Research Explores Authoritarian Mind-set of Trump’s Core Supporters.” Key takeaway: we practice apathy at our collective peril.
If you aren’t now on the receiving end of the hate, violence and discrimination that’s so common and is being stoked by this president, get ready, because it’s just a day away. Hatred always needs new targets to fuel it. Watch this video. We’ve seen this movie, we know how it ends and it isn’t good.
Robert Hendrickson, Rector at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Tucson, AZ, tweeted the definitive description of today’s presidential leadership in July. See the truth for yourself. Many thanks to brother Jim for the pointer.
—————————————-
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
—————————————-
Ed. note: We need to spread the word so that we make a critical difference, so,
Thanks!
The Fine Print:
JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
