Rights

These Are The Times That Try Men’s Souls


POST 1312

Thomas Paine

You know it’s true and you feel it to your bones. We stand and we fight to reclaim our freedoms and to keep the faith and the promise for our generations to come. We will not be bought by billionaires or trillionaires or by any tyrant. We stand and we fight for the soul of our nation.
Pass it on.
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Here’s Some of What Must Be Done By Our Newly democratic Government

The lower case “d” is intentional.

  1. The next Congress must investigate corruption, enforce accountability, restore constitutional authority, and begin rebuilding America starting January 3, 2027. Plus tear down that vulgar Trump vanity project, the Ballroom. And order Trump’s face removed from every public building, monument, street sign, photo and White House portrait.
  2. The next president must be ready at noon, January 20, 2029, to negate all 291 of Trump’s executive orders from this term and all that remain of the 220 EOs from his first term. S/he must immediately fire all cabinet secretaries, advisors, anyone ever associated in any way with DOGE (except its victims) and all stupid, unqualified people in any position anywhere in federal government. Plus prosecute Pete Hegseth for murder (over 200 in the Caribbean) and for toxic masculine stupidity.
  3. Begin the process of reconstituting our agencies that were decimated during the Trump reign of intelligence rejection. Re-establish support for science, public health, education, food and drug safety – you get the idea. To pay for that, recapture the billions of dollars fleeced from We The People and instead stuffed into Trump’s pockets and those of his sycophantic, ultra-rich knee benders.
  4. Following Senate confirmation of the next head of the Department of Justice, the DOJ must be immediately ready with indictments of all in the Trump years who violated laws and/or the Constitution.
  5. ICE must be stripped down to bare bones and roving bands of its Gestapo thugs must be fired, some criminally prosecuted. Plus all innocents, especially those denied due process (that means everyone) must be released from both U.S. prisons and foreign prisons/gulags.
  6. The DOJ must release all Epstein documentation, unredacted except as required by law to protect victims. Then the  DOJ must energetically go after the bad guys without delay. We won’t drag feet for two years as was done by Merrick Garland’s DOJ.

NOTE: There is no federal statute of limitations for those accused of child sexual abuse and exploitation. Keep that in mind as you would if one of the victims had been your daughter or your sister or your mother or your wife or your cousin or your friend – or YOU.

I’m guessing you can add to this list of actions required of a new, sane, democratic government. Do it in the Comments section below. Go ahead: Let it fly!

Election Obvious

From Rick Wilson’s The Wrong October Surprise,

Ballots are already in the mail across much of the country. Every vulnerable Republican on them voted for the tariffs, cheered the Iran war that sent diesel [prices] through the roof and called Vladimir Putin’s meat puppet {Trump] a genius at every opportunity. [emphasis mine]

Do share that with friends who haven’t voted yet.

Life or Death Betrayal

This platform has consistently been in support of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. They are fighting a war for their individual and national survival and are at the forefront of protecting freedom and democracy around the world, including here. Said another way, they are fighting our fight with their blood, their lives and their treasure. They stand firm as Putin consistently bombs their civilian infrastructure, like apartment buildings, hospitals, electrical power plants, schools, parks with little kids in them and more. That’s why the International Criminal Court has charged Putin with crimes against humanity, including, deportation – kidnapping – of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and for bombing civilians.

This is the most recent Lincoln Project ad. Click, watch and pass this post along to your peeps who haven’t yet made up their minds to vote. Nah, send it along to all your peeps and tell them to vote early.

Yet Putin is President Trump’s bestie whom Trump supports in every way. Trump has rolled back sanctions on Russia to allow Putin to sell diesel fuel to make it easier for Russia get money to make war. That little bit of extra diesel fuel that trickles into our storage tanks won’t help us at the pump but it will fund a lot of missiles that will kill a lot of Ukrainians.

From Judge J. Michael Luttig inThe End of Rule of Law in America in The Atlantic, May 2025:

The president of the United States appears to have long ago forgotten that Americans fought the Revolutionary War not merely to secure their independence from the British monarchy, but to establish a government of laws, not of men.

Luttig’s use of the word “forgotten” seems far too generous. It implies that at some time Trump knew about the “government of laws, not of men” thing and understood its importance. Not a chance. It’s far more likely that he flunked his civics and history tests and his daddy donated money so that he wouldn’t be expelled.

The importance of a “government of laws, not of men” is why we must fire the complicit ones in this election and elect those who actually believe in democracy.

It remains unclear why Trump is consistently a pawn of Putin, but he is at least consistent: he always betrays Ukraine, NATO, Canada, the U.S. and you and me. Always. He is a life and death betrayal of us all.

Official Corruption

Click me

Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is one of only 2 Republicans with the courage and integrity to stand up to Trump. He was a prominent member of the House Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack.

He left Congress a few years ago and now regularly posts about the state of our government and our country. His video of October 20 is especially important, as Trump’s bulldozer of corruption smashes through our norms, our laws, our Constitution and everything decent that you believe in. Watch his video.

Many thanks to reader and boyhood pal Kirk Landers for pointing out Kinzinger’s video.

It’s up to us to make sure that the election stealers never again get their cruel, barbaric hands on the levers of power.

That’s why we VOTE!

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What’s Most Important – V2.0


POST 1311
We Are At a Tipping Point

This Führer, his in-house Gruppenführers and his spineless Republican Congress are at the edge of winning a nearly 50 year battle against We The People. The unaccountable billionaires, strongmen, politicians and the puffed-up, permanently duped MAGA followers will have triumphed over the 70% majority of We The People. Conservatives will have defeated us and will have conserved all power, all wealth and all freedoms for themselves, leaving none for us. Call it fascism, authoritarianism, oligarchy (as in post-Soviet Russia) or dictatorship; the repression is the same and the impoverishment of the rest of us will be universal.

Here are just a few of the tools the power crazed use to keep you from having any power at all. Several of these came from a Reuters piece, which I suggest that you read in full.

  1. Extreme gerrymandering,
  2. War crimes to pick your pocket and distract you from losses of your freedom
  3. Illegal deportation that removes – disappears – U.S. citizens and legal residents from this country
  4. Constant lies about non-citizens voting. That actually happens in only 0.00000636% of votes cast. That’s one in about 1.6 million votes.  See this.
  5. DOJ’s massive election monitoring program seeking to strip control of voting from the states
  6. Trump’s demand for a national “citizenship list”
  7. Military at polling places
  8. ICE Gestapo at polling places
  9. Alleging voting fraud or compromised voting machines with no evidence, much less proof
  10. Pressuring election officials to change or cancel results
  11. Seizing ballots and voting equipment
  12. Federal election monitors interfering with voting
  13. Threatening to declare a national emergency and martial law
  14. Federal investigations and phony charges against election officials
  15. Congress refusing to seat election winners – see the next section.
  16. States close polling places and eliminate ballot drop boxes to make it harder for specific demographics to vote

And the granddaddy of them all: kicking vast numbers of U.S. citizens, mainly minority and poor people, off voting rolls for no legitimate reason. It’s done because Republicans can’t get elected if we all vote.

Here’s probably the most dangerous.

The Speaker of the House Has Threatened to Refuse to Seat Democratic Party Election Winners on January 3!

Yes, really.

Click me. Thanks go to MA for the pointer to this chilling video.

The spineless Speaker of the House is so deep into Trump’s plot to steal our nation that he’s prepared to mobilize a never attempted coup tactic using arcane House rules. His treachery would work this way:

  1. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson would fire the Clerk of the House and replace him with a Trump/Johnson loyalist (read: toady).
  2. The new clerk would refuse to enter the names of certified Democrats-elect onto the official House roles and would refuse to seat them.
  3. The 120th Congress would convene with only Republican representatives but it would be powerless to take any action.
  4. The Senate would be neutered because it takes both chambers to make a law.
  5. The Republican pseudo-Congress members would prostrate themselves before Trump and allow every Trump criminal and unconstitutional action. They would allow and even encourage the formal ending of democracy. Trump in his dementia would rule in an America dictatorship.

It’s instant Constitutional crisis. Actually, it’s the instant end of the Constitution.

I strongly urge you watch Katie Couric’s podcast with Judge J. Michael Luttig explaining this contemptuous treachery. Begin listening at 35:20. And you can read Judge Luttig’s essay, The Final Battle for America’s Democracy in The New Republic.

Here Is What’s On The Way Should We Fail

From Jim Acosta’s program on October 15 (start at 18:15):

Woman protests at Trump rally in Youngstown, OH wearing a “Release the Epstein Files” t-shirt.

 

 

MAGA thug in green t-shirt and black cap punches the woman in the face.

Fat, bald MAGA thug in black t-shirt grabs fistfuls of woman’s hair and mauls her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From Heather Cox Richardson regarding streaming the execution of Nidal Hassan:

As Amy B. Wang and Alauna Safarpour of the Washington Post reported yesterday, 80% of Americans opposed livestreaming the execution to the public.

A poll by the Washington Post, ABC News, and Ipsos showed that the only demographic polled in which a majority wanted a livestream of the execution was MAGA Republican men, of whom 57% wanted the event livestreamed and 42% were opposed. Veterans, Democrats, non-MAGA Republicans, Independents, and MAGA Republican women all opposed the livestream by overwhelming amounts.

57% of MAGA Republican men want everyone to see the gore and the brutality. These thugs are what we get when Trump is the violence cheerleader, the dementia-addled Führer.

Best Quote of the Week

This comes from Steve Sheffey:

But in every district and in every state, including Michigan, the Democrat on your ballot will be the better choice and better alternative to two more years with no checks or balances on Trump’s agenda.

We have generations of work to do to repair what hateful MAGA and criminal politicians have done to our country. Demand nothing less.

Until the repairs are done (and, of course, forevermore) we must

VOTE!

and do so in massive, overwhelming, undeniable numbers in order to keep our democracy. The thugs may believe what they want. They may get all tingly-toughy when they play Rambo in the slimy bogs in the woods. They can wallow in their pitiful faux masculinity and smoke their own brand of weirdo-weed. It’s up to us to make sure that they never again get their cruel, barbaric hands on the levers of power.

That’s why we vote.

That’s what’s most important.
The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Special Friday Post


POST 1310

No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings. We Decide.

Tomorrow there are special No Kings: Vote Early rallies all over our country. These rallies aren’t only to make a statement and be with others who actually support the Constitution. These are about making the difference that will begin to create the change we want to see.

From the website:

For over a year, millions of people have come together to send a clear message: in America, we have no kings. Power does not belong to billionaires, strongmen, or politicians who believe they are above accountability.

Power belongs to the people, but only if we use it.
.

So, click on the map below, enter your ZIP code to find a rally near you, register and then show up. Don’t want to register? That’s okay. Just show up and together we’ll raise the voting action flag for all to see, salute and follow.

Why Vote Early?
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So that your vote will be counted before Trump finds yet another slimy way to kill your vote, steal yet another freedom and disempower you.
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The Nuts and Bolts For Voting

Here’s a link that shows the early voting dates for all 50 states.

Here’s a link to check your voting registration. Here’s another.

Here’s a link to find your polling/voting place.

Here’s a link for absentee or mail-in ballot procedures for all 50 states.

Freedom of assembly (peaceful demonstrations and protests) and the right to vote are USE IT OR LOSE IT things. A casual attitude toward either is the same as surrender to the tyrants.

So, attend your rally tomorrow and then VOTE!

This is going to take hundreds of millions of us, so pass this post along to your peeps.
RIGHT NOW!
.

More on threats to your freedoms in this Sunday’s post, What’s Most Important – V2.0.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Integrity, Trump Style


POST 1306

“Cheat Like Hell”

Click me

At Trump’s Loser-Palooza in a half-empty stadium two weeks ago he spoke to the Republican National Convention crowd saying:

“We want honesty in our elections. We want honesty in our country,” Immediately after declaring that, Trump led his MAGAs in a pledge.

“Please raise your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it any way. I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters. I don’t care. I am gonna go out and I’m gonna get my friends, my family and we are going go out and vote on November third or we are going to vote before that.”

I don’t suppose anyone in that crowd of sheeple people (those who follow like ignorant, unthinking sheep) noticed that first he invoked principle and uprightness. Then he directed them to “cheat like hell.” That should be shocking, but it’s just more contorted Trump inside-out integrity crushing. It’s no surprise to anyone listening, least of all to his sheeple, who surely don’t even notice it.

I also don’t imagine that anyone in that crowd would dispute his claim of being the “greatest president in the history of the United States,” as to do so would have required them to have cracked a history book at some time in their likely long forgotten past.

Connecting Dots

From Tom Nichols’ piece in The Atlantic:, Trump Has It Out For Canada:

.  .  .  Trump’s attitude toward Canada is almost indistinguishable from the way Russian President Vladimir Putin sees Ukraine: not as a state but as some kind of historical anomaly that should be returned to its rightful owners. Trump might think it’s funny to post memes of Canada with an American flag superimposed on it, but those jokes are a lot less hilarious to people in places such as Ukraine, who are fighting a war against a dictator who feels exactly the same way about their country.

More assault on integrity.

The Dog That Has To Pee Highest On Every Fire Hydrant

The Trump hand-picked directors of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Board voted to close the center for “renovations” that will continue until Trump gets his name placed on the front of the building again. It’s odd how the schedule for “renovations” is affected by serving Trump’s vanity.

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper refused to allow that illegal renaming act to occur. Trump was so miffed (feel free to use your own descriptor) that he posted on social media that without his name going onto the building, “.  .  . unfortunately, the Building is destined to doom. Isn’t that too bad?” Allow me to translate.

Mafia Don is saying, “Nice little place you got here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.” That’s extortion, pure and ugly.

Such is the focus of attention and the infinite pettiness of the President of the United States. That is the kind of focus on his ego frivolities and abdication of serious responsibilities that adds impetus to Canada disengaging from the U.S. and establishing stronger ties with the European Union and elsewhere. It encourages Russia to destroy Ukraine. It tells the world that America is a wholly unreliable country focused solely on presidential vanity. It tells the world that we have no integrity, that we can’t be counted on.

Our national pettiness, cruelty and unreliability are what will greatly help this to become the Chinese century. It will make America not much more than a dope on the sidelines of history being made by dependable nations.

Keep that in mind when AI takes our jobs, sabotages our utilities and unleashes diseases on our wholly unprepared citizenry. Like all the important things that don’t immediately massage Trump’s fragile and infinitely needy ego, all he did was to say stupid things about AI, boast of his genius and ignore the looming catastrophe.

  • “To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature.”
  • George Conway, The Bulwark
  • Best Read For A Fuller Perspective On Our Demise 
  • Read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American of September 16, 2026. It will give you more clarity about how Trump is hobbling our country.
  • What she doesn’t say is that even as Trump has made himself abhorrent to nearly 2/3 of our citizens, even as he has made himself and the United States of America international pariahs, most of the Republicans in Congress continue to sit in their cowardly supplication to him. So have Google, Apple, TV networks and some universities and law firms. This cowardice and supplication are how tyranny wins. It’s yet more abdication of integrity.
  • This Just In
  • On Friday, September 18 President Donald Trump announced via a post on his so-called Truth Social that representatives from CNN, MS-NOW and Politico are banned from the White House. His view has been widely denounced as a violation of the First Amendment, but Trump’s response was, “Who cares? They’re all stupid and terrible people.”

Later he posted that he didn’t feel his ban was wide enough and should be extended to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. We are left to wonder if he will also ban representatives like Punxsutawney Phil’s press secretary, journalists from Friends of the Chicago River, reporters from Iran’s Ayatollah News, all Canadian journalists and, most specifically, all communications personnel from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office.

New Feature: This Election Is About

Each Sunday through the last one before the November 3 election we’ll post what you or pundits or candidates say this election is about. I’ll get this started, saying:

This election is about the lives of We The People.

Put your idea about this election in the Comments section below. We’ll post samplings of how readers see this, so indicate if you want your name appended to your comment.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Continuing Centuries of Repression


POST 1305

For The Glory Of Rigging The Vote

Click me

Regular readers of these Disambiguations may recall numerous references to Paul Weyrich (here and in other posts). He’s the Republican who decades ago declared proudly and openly that he didn’t want all eligible voters to vote. He said that  if they did Republicans couldn’t win. Somehow for him and many others, that describes a conservative. You decide what it is they want to conserve.

He wasn’t the first in America to suppress the voting rights of others. Surely, the earliest dishonor belongs to White slave owners. Even after slavery was constitutionally, if not actually, abolished, Blacks were prevented from voting by means of poll taxes, rigged jelly bean counts, rigged literacy tests, by violent intimidation and by outright murder.

Even the Founders wanted only landed White men to vote. In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams famously urged her husband, John Adams, to “remember the ladies” in the Articles of Confederation then being written. She noted that women would not hold themselves bound by laws in which they had no voice or representation.* It was the equivalent of a “no taxation without representation” statement the Founders should have understood. John Adams ignored her appeals and women gained no voting agency. It took until 1920 for Americans to realize that women were full citizens and that they deserved the full rights attendant to that. Even so, the rich boys domination club didn’t go away.

In recent decades the effort to suppress votes has taken on some clever twists. Republicans have jiggered voting district borders to minimize representation of non-Whites, like in South Carolina, where 25% of the people are Black. There are 9 congressional districts in that state but there is only one Black representative, just 11% representation.

Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts governor in 1812, showed us the successfully self-serving way to manipulate district borders and was immortalized when his scheming was dubbed “gerrymandering.” He’d be so proud of today’s Republicans. Read about it at the Brennan Center.

The Supreme Court is a formidable partner in voter suppression, as most recently it green lighted states to rig elections in the Louisiana v. Callais case. That was the last blow needed to crush Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and render it powerless to protect the rights and freedom of all citizens even if they weren’t rich White guys.

Click me

Another favorite voting rights crusher is to remove polling places from where Black, Hispanic and poor people live in order to make it harder for them to vote. In Louisville, KY they removed all ballot drop boxes but two in the downtown area, making it next to impossible for rural people to hand deliver their mail ballots. That’s great for Republicans because those people would otherwise overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

Now we have Trump’s un-constitutional assault on voting by mail. Mail voting is more popular with Democratic voters than Republican voters, so putting Trump’s heel on all voting by mail would result in vote totals more favorable to Republicans. So very cunning of Trump.

Then there’s the selective removal of names from state voter rolls by means of sneaky tricks, like Texas disenfranchising 1,000,000 from their voting roles. Several years ago Ohio claimed to be removing the names of dead citizens from its voter rolls. They mailed envelopes mostly to voters in Black neighborhoods. The citizens were instructed to send the enclosed card back to the state within 10 days or they’d lose their voter registration. Ohio also passed a law that removed a voter if s/he missed a single federal election and the Supreme Court upheld that law. Guess what happened when scores of  those mostly poor and minority infrequent voters showed up to vote in the next election.

Why you can’t get through to a Trump Supporter. Click this pic

And there were the inordinately long lines at polling places in Black neighborhoods – as much as 12 hours on the east, mostly Black side of Cleveland, OH. Those in line to vote were entirely without a bathroom, water or food. Compare that to the maximum 2-hour wait in White neighborhoods of the same state. Well done, Ohio Republican election officials!

Here’s the simple truth. If every citizen of voting age were able to and did vote, very few Republicans would be elected. Paul Weyrich knew that and so do today’s Republicans, so they do everything possible, whether un-constitutional or illegal, to stop people from voting for Democrats. Weyrich laid out the fundamentals of the plan for domination and later generations have used their creativity to expand that, standing on the necks of voters since then.

What remains is that we as a nation are consistently influenced by Republicans to be all about electing and promoting rich guys, White power and domination.

The Trump Demolition Derby

You’ve long known that Trump is a walking, talking scam, fooling some of the people all of the time. Check this out.

Ted Dintersmith gets the checkered flag for his metaphor of Trump running a demolition derby. Click the graphic to see a readable version identifying some of his scams. Here’s a teaser.

Click me

After his long trail of bankruptcies, [Trump’s] fulfilling his dream of being a billionaire. In 2025, he boosted his net worth by a stunning $1.4 billion. He made off with $636 million on a memecoin [sic] while 989,000 buyers lost $3.8 billion. He’s extracted $115 million of personal gain from foreign sources. Toss in a $400 million private jet from Qatar, upgraded at taxpayer expense. All made possible by a complicit Congress and SCOTUS, cheerleaders to his destruction.

The urgent message I see in that is the last sentence:

All made possible by a complicit Congress and SCOTUS, cheerleaders to his destruction.

The complicit Congress part is what we must crush this November 3. Then we’ll be in a position for the Democrats in control of Congress starting on January 3, 2027 to do a Mitch McConnell on impending SCOTUS appointments from Trump or Vance until the the new sheriff comes to town January 20, 2029.

Best Read Of The Week

Read Morgan Freeman’s (yes, that Morgan Freeman) post, The Price of Trump. It’s a full view reminder of the bill we pay for Trump’s demolition of our democracy. Hint: However costly you think it is, it’s worse than that.

___________________________________________

* See especially the final two paragraphs of Abigail Adams’ letter.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA

 


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Potpourri – v25.0


POST 1301
The Cure For Your Ennui

Click me – First check Note #5 below

Sure, you’re discouraged. We’re being hit by American right wing terrorists undermining our country in every way, as they cheat and scheme to take away the America we believe in. They’re taking away our rights and even our lives. But, honestly, there really is some good news, and it isn’t only Marc Elias beating the snot out of Trump in court over and over. This part is more about we Americans and our supposed polarization that so many talk about.

Ambassador Michael McFaul is fresh off a long national book tour for his new book Autocrats vs. Democrats and he wrote about the tour in his post What I Learned on My Book Tour Across America. I haven’t read his book yet and plan to so do soon. What you need to read right now is his “What I Learned” essay. It is full of optimism and reasons to believe in us. We aren’t nearly as fractured as pundits and the few loud extremists and cowardly politicians would have us believe.

Most of all, you’ll learn that we Americans really do still care. Go read his essay.

The cure for despair is action.

Fascist Red Warning Flag of the Month

Read Thom Hartmann’s post that’s scarier than it at first seems, That Sign in Front of the Smithsonian is More Dangerous Than You Think. Your freedom of speech is at risk. Again. Still.

July Jobs Report

From Jim Acosta:

CNBC anchor Rick Santelli was blown away by a disastrous July jobs report that showed Trump’s economy not just missing the expected 85,000 or so jobs gain — but actually losing 23,000 jobs — and another hundred thousand in downward revisions.

On Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a July jobs report that was a disaster for Trump:

And still [Trump] tells us that this is the greatest economy ever.

Trump Fantasy Post of the Month – So Far

This was a real post on Trump’s blabbing platform:

I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM…. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT

Nah – I’m betting that the dark reality is that Trump is an embarrassing illegitimate descendant of fictional character Captain Queeg and that the whole VANDALIZED! Reflecting Pool claim is equivalent to an imaginary theft of strawberries. Blame others and twiddle those steel balls, President DJT!

It Won’t Cost Taxpayers Anything

After Trump’s Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack on the East Wing of the White House he announced his grand plan for a ballroom for his presidency-built-on-spectacle, a structure that would dwarf the actual White House. It is to be a gilded monument to himself which he claimed would cost just $200 million. He told us that funding for it would be supplied by private donations.

Now we find out that – surprise! – it will cost over $900 million and we taxpayers will pay most of that, The cost will likely to grow to well over $1 billion as construction and the Trumpian lies and overreach grow.

Construction has been partially stymied by the courts, with only “underground and security related” construction allowed to continue. You don’t suppose such a claimed purpose might be used by Trump to get around Congress and the courts, do you?

This classic dishonesty is a valuable warning siren for why we need a Democratic Congress to stifle Trump’s “I’m the president and I can do whatever I want” ongoing anti-America tantrum.

Click me

Why Does the MAGA Culture Hate Dr. Fauci?

Lucas Bean lays it out for you in this short video.

Unwitting Decoys

Imagine you’re a journalist traveling home from the NATO conference in Turkey aboard Air Force 1. It isn’t until you’re back in the U.S. that you learn that you’re been used as a decoy, a target to attack, in order to sneak the president away,

Click me

Nobody on Air Force 1 other than those riding in the presidential section, not the staff, not Secretary of State Rubio or Treasury Secretary Bessent, nor any member of the press knew that the president was not on that plane. He left you all to be a potential target of an Iranian missile.

You were put in mortal danger without your knowledge, much less your consent. You were left to be a sacrificial pawn for a president who thinks only about himself.

We all agree that presidential safety is a real issue. But is that all that your next of kin would be focused on after they learned that you were used as a disposable, your demise an acceptable cost of doing business? Perhaps there are other real issues, too.

The Best Call To Action

Yes, even better than, “Grab a bat – You’re up!“

From the closing words of Rick Wilson’s post, Trump and American Enshittification:

The [democracy] machinery only starts working again when enough people decide that being a citizen costs something, and start paying it.

Whose Voting Rights?

The President of the United States is begging the Supreme Court to allow him to kill all mail-in ballots in all states where they refused to hand over confidential and protected state voting records for Trump’s SS to purge.

Red states everywhere are in gerrymander overdrive and are purging legitimate minority voters and women from voting rolls at hypersonic speed. I say it’s time to stop pussyfooting around with these weenie methods and drop the voting rights nuclear bomb.

Congress must initiate and pass a law that allows only White (as in: northern European ancestry), Christian male citizens to vote. Enough of pesky Voting Rights and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Acts! This is a White, Christian country, dedicated to all control and power to be held by men, especially rich men, the way the Founders wrote – somewhere, I think. To Hell with the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments! It’s time for us to enshrine our well practiced voting suppression into one supreme law that will supersede whatever laws for the benefit of We The People might still exist.

For Residents of Northbrook, IL Only

There is some suspicious stuff going on that has the potential to dramatically and adversely affect our village. It’s a local matter akin to Trump’s sneaky trashing of our national historic treasures.

Watch local resident Lee Goodman’s video explanation here. Then decide that being a citizen costs something. Let’s start paying for it with our voices.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. Book links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Who Cares?


POST 1286

Cheating The Vote – One More Time
  1. Why is it that only Republicans continue to wage a multi-decade effort to prevent women, poor people and people of color from voting?
  2. Why is it that only Republicans want to deploy weapons-carrying thugs to polling places to intimidate voters?
  3. Why is it that only Republicans make up lies about non-citizens voting?
  4. Why is it that only Republicans want to make it next to impossible for poor people and married women to obtain satisfactory ID to vote?
  5. Why is it that only Republicans close polling places that were convenient to people of color and poor people?
  6. Why is it that only Republicans eliminate drop boxes for ballots, making it especially hard for millions of poor people and people of color to vote?
  7. Why is it that only Republicans change polling places but don’t tell Democrats about it?
  8. Why is it that only Republicans change the postal service so that mailed ballots don’t get counted in time?
  9. Why is it that our Republican controlled SCOTUS emboldens our Republican democracy turncoats?

The answer to each question is the same, simple, dreadful truth: they do all this and more because they’ve known for decades that they cannot win unless they cheat. They make it pretty clear who they care about. And who they don’t care about.

Jeez, Republicans, you guys stink.

Speaking of the Truth, You Know It When You Hear It

In a 1954 case about obscenity and the first amendment, rather than defining it, Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter Stewart famously said, “I know it when I see it.” When Trump was asked about his focus on the plight of Americans as he wages unnecessary war on Iran, our president said this:

I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation, I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That’s the only thing that motivates me.

That isn’t an out-of-context distortion. It’s what he said and, from his actions and from many of his other blabberings, it’s plain to see that it’s the truth of what he mean. Trump doesn’t care about your financial situation. He really doesn’t think about you. He only cares about eliminating an existential threat that does not exist for whatever illegitimate reason serves him, like distracting us from the Epstein scandal.

Like Potter Stewart (who names their kid Potter?), you knew truth when you heard it. That was a most rare moment hearing Donald Trump tell the truth. Savor it.

STAT Report

.  .  .  Vice President JD Vance announced that $1.3 billion in Medicaid funds to California will be deferred over suspicions of fraud. Earlier this year, the administration threatened a two-year licensing freeze for new providers of home and community-based services in Minnesota and instituted a similar nationwide halt on durable medical equipment suppliers.

Odd how Federal cuts to programs that benefit We The People get cut mostly in Blue states. Maybe that’s because there’s rampant waste, fraud or abuse in blue states and none in Trump supporting MAGA red states. Yeah, that must be it.

The sarcasm sizzles.

Must Read

Morgan Freeman (yes, that Morgan Freeman) does a Substack column and you are required to read his brilliant piece,

TRUMP IS HAVING A PUBLIC NERVOUS BREAKDOWN AT EXACTLY THE WRONG TIME

His title is, indeed, in all caps. Read the piece and you’ll understand. Actually, you already know why.

Freeman’s message is stunningly clear and stunningly foreboding. Read it and pass it along to everyone you know and to three people you don’t know.

Melania really doesn’t care. Do U?

Many thanks to futurist and friend David Houle for showing me Freeman’s piece.

Speaking Of Caring

Here’s Melania on her way to visit children who had been ripped from their mothers, now jammed into ICE/CBP detention cages without so much as ordinary hygiene for them. Did they teach her to be cruel and uncaring back in Slovenia, or did she learn it from Trump?

Inadvertently Speaking Truthfully About Not Caring

Check this from College Democrats of America, reporting on Republican Louisiana State Sen. Jay Morris:

On Friday, during a redistricting session, White GOP State Sen. Jay Morris yelled “Shut up, boy” at our Executive Director Dadrius Lanus who, in Morris’s words, was “commenting and talking” too loudly for him to concentrate.

Sen. Morris says we misheard. That the audio proves it. That he said “you all need to shut up” to Black constituents behind him outraged that their votes won’t be counted.

Sen, Morris, an elected member of our legislature, thinks if he had yelled “you all need to shut up” it would be better.

It wouldn’t.

What Sen. Morris doesn’t understand is that White people have been telling Black folk to “shut up” for over 250 years.

What Sen. Morris doesn’t understand is that we remember being told we were 3/5ths of a person. That even when we won personhood in the eyes of the law, they instituted poll taxes and “reading” tests. That when we marched and dreamed and cried and buried loved ones who had hung as strange fruit from tall trees because they raised their voices too loud that what Black people have always wanted is equality.

Or maybe Senator Morris does understand all that.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I am a 70 year old Black man. And I don’t let anyone call me or my brothers “Boy.”

Any questions about what Sen. Morris cares about? Or about what any of the Republicans working so very hard to bring back Jim Crow care about?

The only question is .  .  .

What We’re Going To Do To Stop Them and Their Thievery.
.
It’s not the vibes and it’s not the polls: IT’S THE VOTES!
Are you registered to vote? Check it out on any of these websites:
.

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

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

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

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action, like:

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!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA

 


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Some Answers and Election Subversion


POST 1276

Guest Essay

Regular reader and boyhood pal Frank Levy had a strong reaction to the questions detailed in my Wednesday post, Things May Have Changed. His comments are listed below that post, but they are significant enough to offer them to you today as a Guest Essay.

Jack – I sincerely appreciate and share your snark, anger, and interspersed comments on 47 and his Christian nationalist goon squad. Keep them coming. That said, here goes.

1) Have our millions of Americans who have continued to let themselves be conned by this lifelong con man at last been awakened to the reality that Trump has started a global war and that real people are really being killed in service to Trump’s demented psychopathy?

Answer: NO! Those being killed are mostly brown and Muslim. Hegseth and the gang are Christian nationalists and are feeling really good about doing the sacred work of their god by killing some of Satan’s horde.

2) Have they/we at last figured out that this is real life or death? It isn’t a reality show and this war threatens to be fought right here. Do they get that the opponent won’t rope-a-dope for Trump for very long and that they will use their finest skills – terrorism – to attack us?

Answer: No!! they have not! The MAGA horde has convinced themselves – with the help of Paula White and Franklin Graham and others – that 47 and Hegseth are God’s anointed holy servants on Earth sent to destroy Satan’s Muslim (and Jewish) horde, and because that is so, no harm will come to their white, Christian America. God is watching over and protecting them. All those MAGA folks are willing to endure a lot of financial distress in order to get to Heaven after defeating the Satanic enemy.

3) Have our fellow citizens opened their eyes and now see that Trump is having our military people violate our own laws and commit war crimes – IN OUR NAME?

Answer: No!!! In the eyes of America’s Seven Mountain Dominionists, MAGA horde, and everyday Christian nationalists the law of God, and their quest to get to heaven, trump (pardon the pun) The Constitution. In their pretty little heads god’s law as they misunderstand it supersedes America’s inconsequential Constitution. Remember America is a Satanic land these MAGAites are hell bent on saving.

4) Do MAGAs see that Trump has removed everyone who might possibly be less than completely loyal only to him, as though he is an absolute, all powerful muck-a-muck, so that now there are no backbones anywhere near him, that there aren’t any adults left in the room, just cowering children?

Answer: No!!!! This is what they have been hoping 47 would do. While I suspect none of them have ever read Eric Fromm’s (he is a Jew after all) “Escape from Freedom,” they are proof of everything Fromm says in his book about how most people are afraid of actual freedom and seek strong, authoritarian leaders who will make all the important decisions for them; sort of like the god of their New Testament who reqards them when they do as commanded, and punishes them when they do not.

5) Life or death didn’t seem to matter to Americans in the Covid pandemic during Trump’s first administration. Will life or death matter to us in a global war?

Answer: No!!!!! When your life’s goal is getting to heaven, death is a vehicle to get there. MAGA and America’s Christian nationalists have a lot in common with the Muslim extremists they abhor. They, like the Muslim extremists, see a martyr’s death in the service of their god to be a wonderful thing. 47, Peter The War God, and those that send young people to die for “The Cause” are heroes for sending young people to die in the name of their God so they can make the holy trip to Heaven and be with their maker.

My short answer to all five is “No!!! and the rest of us are screwed.”

Have a nice day, my friend, as oil prices soar because 47 got his butt whipped by the Iranians.

Protecting The Election From Subversion

You know about the horrid Republican efforts to allow only Republicans to vote. It’s the gerrymandering, the redistricting, the conspiracy rumor sliming, the purging of the voter roles and so much more. As it stands, millions of American citizens won’t be able to vote in November, most because they are poor or minority and likely to vote D. This is what passes for Republican patriotism. You can call it cheating, dirty tricks, lying, stealing and many other apt and accurate names. Doesn’t matter the name. They’re trying to take away your rights.

It’s been this way for decades, as I’ve shown in these posts many times, most recently here. Paul Weyrich is the progenitor of this Republican malfeasance – see him in action here. The point of seeing his video is so that you become clear about the truth of what these anti-democracy, anti-Americans are about.

Now, we can wring our hands over this eminently hand wring-able cRap (the capital “R” is for Republicans) – and wait in dread for a disaster to befall us and America on November 3. Or we can do something about it. I recommend doing something.

I’m registered to vote, but I’m not a registered Democrat, Republican or Independent. I want Democratic candidates to win most of the time because that means that Republican candidates will lose, which I think is the most important thing for at least the next two elections. That means that I urge all of us to promote and vote for Democrats. It’s that simple.

You’re already being hit on for contributions multiple times per day. Likely, you’ve tuned those communications out, like the ones from the DCCC and even the ones with Obama’s name on them. Hey, it’s only 63 cents per day, $19 per month! Everybody wants what’s in your wallet. What’s a citizen to do?

Check out the Wednesday morning Disambiguation for answers.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action, like:

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!), because 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.

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Ready For Day 1


POST 1260

 

Dreams Of A Better Tomorrow

I’ve had many of them and perhaps you have, too. They all start with a new president cutting, crumbling and demolishing every Trump executive action.

My professional writer and right thinking boyhood pal Kirk Landers has thought about such things, too, and offers the following Guest Essay. Many thanks to him for allowing me to share it with you.

Note that Kirk’s offering is about January 20, 2029 at 12:01PM when the nation will sing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, but the same principle and with the same urgency to reverse national direction both domestically and internationally apply to January 3, 2027 at 12:01PM, immediately following the new Congress being sworn in.

____________________________________________

One thing the MAGAs got right was their preparation for taking action as soon as they took office. Yes, it was a Nazi agenda, but they created a model for democracy advocates to follow: a list of changes the President can invoke by himself, with the wording ready to go on Day #1; a list of Congressional bills in order of priority, with submittable language ready to go on Day #1, etc.

New Day #1 Priorities
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  1. Fill key cabinet posts immediately.
  2. Demolish the ballroom and restore the East Wing.
  3. Sue the donors who paid for the ballroom to cover demolition and restoration costs.
  4. Remove Trump’s name from everything in Washington DC and all federal properties, including the White House.
  5. Contravene every single Presidential order issued by Trump by restoring prior regulations. Every. Single. One.
  6. Name a blue-ribbon panel of serious judicial minds to immediately begin reviewing candidates for six new Supreme Court justices. This panel would include liberals, conservatives and moderates, but all will have a proven track record of judicial gravitas and none will be advocates of screwball theories about how the constitution is to be interpreted.

There’s more, but that’s Day 1.

New First Month Priorities
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  1. Create and fund a special counsel to investigate and prosecute illegal actions taken by Trump and his  administration.
  2. Create and fund a special court to hear cases against Trump administration people charged with crimes against humanity.
  3. Offer to cooperate with legitimate International courts pursuing charges against American officials, including military leaders, who participated in the various murders on the high seas of people who had not been tried or even indicted for a crime.
  4. Add six new justices to the Supreme Court.
  5. Fund a task force to investigate corruption on the Supreme Court
  6. Pass huge tax increases for the Epstein class.
  7. Pass bills that restore environmental norms for the country.
  8. Initiate legislation to nationalize the holdings of the tech bros. Just to fuck with them.

There’s more, but you get the idea. No more four-year, sloth-like “progress” at correcting the hideous mess these Nazi bastards created.

____________________________________________

We can add plenty to Kirk’s beginning list, like

– term limits for all elected or appointed officials

– the return to the U.S. of all illegally incarcerated, renditioned and disappeared victims of Trump’s revenge, retribution and self-satisfying cruelty and ethnic cleansing.

– the invitation to the stupidly fired government workers to bring their expertise back to us and their jobs back to them.

You get the idea. Be sure to add your notion of what needs to be done pronto in the Comments section below this post.

Oh, Kristi

Yes, I think the queen of photo ops in front of illegally and cruelly imprisoned men, standing brazenly wearing her too tight top stretched wide by her possibly augmented breasts deserves imprisonment, but for more substantial reasons, like her crimes against humanity, U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.

Her job was falsely described as having something to do with immigration, but she used it for plain Jane ethnic cleansing as she was directed to do by Trump.

What do you suppose her intake will look like at CECOT, the El Salvadoran torture prison?

For one thing, I think they’ll shave her head because they don’t want some louse to harbor lice and infect others. They can’t take away her artificially puffed up lips or her dental implants, but they can refuse cosmetic touch-up for her bionic eyebrows and eye lashes. The present ones will be allowed to deteriorate and fall off. Likely, though, the breast implants won’t fall off.

Her often displayed artificially large cowboy hat and her $75,000 Rolex watch won’t get past the door, nor will the aforementioned too tight top, nor will her too tight fashion jeans. She’ll have to get used to scratchy fabric, shapeless tee shirts and baggy orange prison pants.

The poor little darling of mean girls is going to find out what it’s like to not be in the billionaires’ circle of privilege. She’ll lack the ability to screw her “assistant,” Corey Lewandowski, in the bedroom at the back of a government B-737 Max. Yeah, Kristi’s gonna find out what it’s like on the other side, where not everything is fixed to her delight. Just like she inflicted on all those wrongly harassed, deported and locked up Hispanics and Blacks.

If You Do ONE Thing To Fight Trump This Week – From MoveOn

Boycott his State of the Union address. On Tuesday, February 24, President Trump will deliver his State of the Union address. We know what to expect: more lies, as well as blame-shifting meant to divide and disempower all of our communities. But this time, we’re not giving him any airtime, and neither should you.

That was written before the Supreme Court ruling smacking down Trump’s illegal – that’s the word they used – and deeply harmful illegal – that’s a word I use – tariffs. The Constitution makes clear that only Congress can levy tariffs. But in his overtly infantile way, Trump is pissed at the decision. He doesn’t like when his toys are taken away from him and he vows to find some other path to give him the right to do what the Court has said he does not have the right to do. In other words, his State of the Union speech is destined to be an hour and a half of temper tantrum and mind numbing bloviating.

So, don’t watch. Don’t give him any satisfaction of big viewership numbers, even though he’ll brag that he had the most viewers of a SOTU speech ever, that nobody ever had so many viewers even if nobody watches.

But do catch the Democrats’ rebuttal by Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) for a delicious serving of truth and reality.

And Another Thing

It has never made sense to me for cities to subsidize professional sports teams. Each of those teams is just another privately held, for profit business (except for the Green Bay Packers). I started and ran my commercial and industrial water treatment business for 25 years and no government anywhere offered to build a new plant for me. Now, why is that?

But that is exactly what various municipalities are offering to do for the Chicago Bears. They’re even offering to build roadways and other infrastructure to enhance the likelihood of the Bears’ profitability.

Much is made of the benefits to hotel, restaurant and other businesses that will flourish through having a local professional sports franchise, but all that will be true regardless of who pays for the infrastructure. I just can’t think of a good reason for sucking all those millions of dollars out of local wallets – like yours.

So, click on the link and sign the No Public Subsidies for Megaprojects! petition.

  • Time for action is dwindling

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    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Apt Comparison


POST 1256

Moderation?

As early as 2017, the first year of Trump’s first administration, I made comparisons of Trump to Hitler. A few others did so, too, but the voices of moderation and reason railed against such observations, calling any comparison to Hitler hyperbolic, unfair, overblown and more. It was, they said, way too early for such over-the-top accusations. But the reality of Trump’s desire for fascism was in our faces even then. The issue was our being willing to see what was plainly there. That’s what I was calling out.

Now that Trump’s Gestapo is murdering Americans, should we still be moderate in our descriptions?

Now that journalists are being indicted for reporting the truth that Trump doesn’t want you to see, should we still be moderate in our descriptions?

Now that tens of millions of Americans are being denied food and medical care, as are millions in devastated regions of the globe, causing massive numbers of deaths, is it still time to be moderate about calling a spade a spade?

I warned about the hatred in America that can metastasize into murder, comparing it to the Holocaust in a post in 2020. There is nothing moderate about what is happening now, including DHS moving to create massive koncentration kamps – human warehouses – across our country.

Brown and Black people, citizens, legal residents, law abiding people – it doesn’t matter –  are being disappeared at the direction of Trump’s Adolph Eichmann, his toy Nazi, Stephen Miller. Prisoners are being denied food and medical care. Anyone not speaking the fatherland tongue is in trouble. Actually, any non-White person or non-Christian person is somewhere in line for persecution. We’ve seen this movie over and over. The ending is beyond horrid and it’s always the same.

Don’t even think that’s not so because Miller is Jewish by birth. He is as full of demonic hatred as anyone you’ve ever heard of. So, I ask, how do those voices of moderation from 2017 sound now?

To anyone who thinks they still sound reasonable I suggest that they go to Minneapolis, pick up a protest sign and stand a watch at 26th Street West and Nicollet Avenue. That’s where Alex Pretti, helpless, with his face pressed into the snow and ice and the rough sidewalk, was gunned down by Trump’s ICE agents. For those showing up today, fascist descriptors may begin to seem reasonable and accurate.

First, watch the video to the right – again. There is no moderation there. There’s only murder legalized by Trump.

Still skeptical about Nazi/fascist comparisons? Watch this short commentary by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI).

The Great Brain Report: True Trump Quote of the Week

“I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t manage elections.”

It’s true. Trump really doesn’t know. He could look it up in the Constitution, Article I, Section 4, or have a flunky look it up and make a comic book presentation for him, but he’d ignore even that. In fact, he doesn’t want to know. He hasn’t a bit of curiosity and he doesn’t see an immediate profit to himself for making the effort to know, Plus, he hasn’t the ability to learn.

Oops! Wrong brain

In the damaged Trump brain there are only two possible outcomes of any election. Either he gets what he wants or he declares that the other side cheated and demands to be named the winner. He knows that there’s nothing lower than a loser, so when he doesn’t get his way, he goes psycho. It’s a brain issue. Part nature, partly distorted by nurture. The Oval Office is a terrible place for an abnormal brain.

To see the actual way Trump got his brain, watch this short clip from the 1931 film classic, Frankenstein.

Trump’s loser phobia psychosis has real world impact. Here’s part of a report from Heather Cox Richardson’s post of February 3 and note the obvious insanity.

[Trump] said to Bongino: “These people were brought to our country to vote, and they vote illegally, and the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places*.’ The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked and the county votes, we have states that I won that show I didn’t win. Now you going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order, the ballots? You’re going to see some interesting things come in. But, you know, like the 2020 election. I won that election by so much.”**

Fighting that anti-American, anti-Constitution, illegal vote stealing mania is job #1 for us, because if we don’t stop his theft of states rights and his destruction of the Constitution, it won’t matter how thoroughly he’s crushed in a real world vote count. He’ll just lie and say he won and his Reichsleiter (top Nazi leaders) and Gestapo thugs will make that stick.
.
Statistic of the Week

Got a sister, daughter, mother or female friend age 15 – 44? There’s a 40% likelihood they want to leave the U.S. permanently. That desire correlates perfectly to loss of faith in America’s institutions over the past 10 years.

  • Gasp! That’s the same time frame – 10 years – as Trump’s destructive influence on America!
  • Coincidence? I don’t think so. Neither do 40% of America’s younger women.
X Post of the Week

We are facing annihilation of our democracy, so splash some cold water on your face and read Frank Levy’s wake up call..

Hopeful Reading of the Week

Read Thom Hartmann’s Dear Trump Administration Official: History Is Full of Loyal Men Who Thought They’d Be Protected. The reality of what will happen can help you to stiffen your resolve and bolster your hope. You’ll enjoy reading this piece for the accountability Hartmann shows us is coming.

From The Borowitz Report, Feb. 5
Tom Homan Demands ICE Agents Return Their Signing Bonuses to Him in Paper Bag

While some ICE agents grumbled about transferring their signing bonuses to Homan, he sternly reminded them, “Taking away people’s freedom isn’t free.”

_______________________________________________
* All 15 are blue states. Imagine that!
.
** Even if a fourth counting of the Fulton County, GA votes somehow shows that Trump gained enough votes to win Georgia (there’s not even a remote chance that could happen in an honest recount), his Electoral College count would still show him to be the loser of the election, 290 – 248.
  • Goes fast, doesn’t it?

    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!), because it’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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