Rights

No Time To Be Silent


Reading time – 2:31; Viewing time – 3:34  .  .  .

It was a November evening in Chicago in 2008 that was much warmer than we had a right to expect. Hundreds of thousands of us gathered in Grant Park along Lake Michigan to watch the election returns on the Jumbo-Trons set up for that purpose. The cops were there on their gorgeous thoroughbreds, but there wasn’t any crowd control needed. In fact, the cops were off by the vendor stands eating pizza.

At last we saw Wolf Blitzer on the CNN screen near us and heard him announce that Ohio (I think it was Ohio) had gone for Obama and that put him over the top – he had won. People in the park were cheering, dancing, jumping, hugging, crying, smiling and doubled over in relief. We were there with our family that night and we did all of that and more. I recall yelling what Rachel Maddow had said when Obama won the 95% white Iowa caucuses 10 months earlier: “This is the kind of country I want to live in.”

Of course, much of the celebration was because a Black man had been elected president, with all that implied. It would be a mistake, though, to fail to recognize the long dark night that was the administration of George W. Bush and which led to that November celebration that was in stark contrast to the Bush years. The relief that November evening was one of at last having a feeling of hope once again, a feeling that had been absent for 8 years and two stolen elections.

I was reminded of that celebratory night following Joe Biden’s acceptance speech last Thursday. Gone were the gaffs, the missteps and fumbles. Before us was a warrior for the people, for democracy, for the United States of America and for the entire world. And he showed up just in time, as we’re neck deep in the cesspool of Trumpism. It’s been an inescapable nightmare of corruption, of subverting the rule of law, of manipulating the government solely to serve Trump, of division and cruelty and we have been absent of hope for four years. To paraphrase President Gerald Ford, the long national nightmare of Trump may soon be over.

And that’s why following Biden’s speech I thought of Grant Park on that wonderful November evening 12 years ago.

Now we have to complete the story. Now we have to do the hard work to make hope real. Now we have to make the twister that causes Biden’s house to fall on the Wicked Witch of Mar-a-Lago. Only then can we cry out, “Ding dong, the witch is dead.”

So, it’s time to get to work helping people register to vote, to help them sign them up to vote by mail, for voting early ourselves and by doing all the things that will raise Biden’s house into the sky so that it will drop in just the right place.

From Elie Wiesel:

“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

This is no time to be silent.

Remember:

Democracy is a participation sport. Its a patriotism thing.

Be a patriot. The Founders would be proud.

Opportunities

Speed counts, because early voting and mail-in voting start in some places as early as two weeks from now.

Phone bank for candidates – pick any state or race you like. It’s way easier than you may think – and it’s non-confrontational.

Volunteer with MoveOn – lots of ways to put a stake in the ground.

Check to make sure you’re registered to vote and haven’t been voter suppressed – go to Vote.org.

Send post cards to swing state voters to urge people to vote with the simple system of PostCardsToSwingStates.com.

Volunteer with Biden For President.

It’s hard to read, but the add-on at the bottom reads, “FUNCTIONING ADULT”

Volunteer for the candidates of your choice by going to their websites. Find them by googling, e.g.  “Ooblick for Senate.” I shouldn’t have to say this, but substitute the candidate’s name for “Ooblick” and don’t include the quotation marks.

Post a lawn sign and get a bumper sticker for the candidates you support. Go to the website of your local Democratic Party affiliate. Start here. While you’re there, kick in a few bucks to help out.

Go to Mayday America and volunteer – lots of ways to do this.

Check with friends, family and the elderly people in your life who aren’t online savvy. Offer to help them and remind them to vote.

In my neck of the woods, go to the Tenth Dems site or the Democrats of Northfield Township. Go to Indivisible Evanston (there are links to affiliates in other states) and review their list of ways to make a difference.

Go to Media Matters to stay informed.

To be clear on why this isn’t just important, but is critical, read this from Ben Rhodes. He served as U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser to President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. Then pass this post along to others.

“This is a battle for the soul of our nation.” – Joe Biden. So, put your soul into this – JA

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

It’s About the Dog


Reading time – 5:41; Viewing time – 8:22  .  .  .

The political circumstances and the prospects for the future quality for life for the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are becoming increasingly shaky and he is becoming more and more unhinged. Even desperate.

He knows that if he is removed from office he will immediately face criminal charges. That’s why he must stay in the White House bunker, hiding behind the Justice Department memo – not law – that says a sitting president cannot be indicted on criminal charges. That’s a very handy memo for a presidential perp to have. But the walls are closing in, driven mostly by self-inflicted errors and blatant cruelty.

It was only a matter of time before his complete bumbling of the coronavirus catastrophe would take a huge bite out of him. After all, the American public has a way of becoming very cross, as friends and family die alone with tubes down their throats, and the rest of us live knowing there are ventilators with our names on them in a parking lot being used for hospital overflow. Tens of millions have lost their jobs and are struggling to feed their children and we don’t know when children will be allowed back in school. Still, that occupant lies to us that the global pandemic will magically go away. About 1,000 Americans are dying every day waiting for that magic. And this American story gets worse.

People of all colors have at last figured out that Black lives actually do matter. Who would have imagined that? And these people picked a time to make a statement which was quite convenient for the aforementioned occupant for his use as a reelection scheme.

The videos of the murders of unarmed Black men at the hands of police and vigilantes went viral and they called people out of their homes and into the streets to grieve those losses and so many others, and to wail their sadness and their anger. Some became violent.

Federal goons in Portland. Click for the Washington Post story.

At least we think some of them became violent. We don’t know who lit the matches and many wonder if violent right wingers staged the violence to make the demonstrators look bad, even un-American, and thereby incite a backlash. Not surprisingly, the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue occupant turned out to be Backlash Individual #1 and he’s making the most of it. However bad things have been for the past 401 years, he has made them incendiary and continues doing that today.

I’ve written many times, predicting that Trump would wag-the-dog (here, here, here and more) in a desperate move to stay in power and now he’s doing it, lying about the protests and starting the wag using his private thug army.

He’s sent federal storm troopers to Washington DC and to Portland, Oregon to crack down on (read: attack) protesters, whether they’re peaceful or otherwise. He’s showing what a tough guy he is. It’s his desperate political play to be the law and order candidate and thereby garner white votes, because “law and order” is a dog whistle for “whites keep their power over those horrible, savage Blacks.”

It’s unconstitutional to send our armed forces into our cities, so Trump found another way to have thugs do his thuggery. It turns out that the Department of Homeland Security has its own policing force, created to protect federal property, not city, state or private property. It is composed mostly of “contractors.” That doesn’t mean plumbers and carpenters working a second job. It means mercenaries. Guns for hire. Eric Prince’s Blackwater/Xe Services army.

Trump has used these as his private army, not to protect federal property, but to violently attack peaceful protesters in order to distract us. That’s how he’s using these protests to his advantage. Doing so keeps voters from focusing on his failure to protect the American people from the coronavirus, his failure to confront Putin over paying bribes to kill American troops, his blatantly illegal commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence, his ongoing violations of the Emoluments clause, his multiple obstructions of justice and more.

He’s wagging the dog not against a foreign nation, but against our own people, our friends and neighbors, claiming he is the law and order president who will protect us and the Constitution from socialist mobs.

He consistently stokes hatred and violence, thereby inflaming racial tension and division. Then he presents himself as the hero who will save us from the violence he stokes. It’s classic wag-the-dog. This miserable, dangerous cartoon character of a dictator is wrapped in erasable red, white and blue and is carrying a bible upside down as he sends thugs to our cities to make himself look tough.

Make no mistake: He’s brutally cruel to our people and he’s destroying our democracy. There’s danger coming soon to a city near you, especially if your mayor is a Democrat. The dog of tyranny bites selectively at first. Then things get much worse.

Read Tom Friedman’s piece for more.

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Resource Materials

Here are some book recommendations to explain more fully what this post is about and the danger we face.

First, read Professor Timothy Snyder’s small book, On Tyranny. Read it as a foundation piece, a context setter to understand our reality. It’s a quick, if scary read, as it’s not much bigger than a small pad of paper.

Next, read Jason Stanley’s book, How Fascism Works. That will put meat on the bones of Timothy Snyder’s work, but I warn you that you’ll be frightened for your children, which is why you need to read this book.

As long as you’re reading Stanley, get a copy of How Propaganda Works. From the first page you’ll recognize the political manipulation that has been and continues to be aimed at you.

No list like this would be complete without How Democracies Die. Levitsky and Ziblatt lay it out for you to see how brick-by-brick democracies are torn down, including our own.

I’m only a third of the way through Anne Applebaum’s brand new book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. The lessons are clear and powerful and you need to see them. Get this little book.

Finally – and this is prompted by the behavior geek in me – if you want to know why you in your progressive bubble are afraid to talk to your neighbor who wears a MAGA hat and he’s not too crazy about talking with you, either, why last Thanksgiving devolved into a shouting match with Uncle Bob across from cousin George’s wonderful green bean dish and why those “other people” just don’t seem to get it, read Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. You’ll instantly understand why it’s so easy for politicians to divide us.

In addition, read any of Thomas Edsall’s essays in the New York Times.

Go buy and read these books. If you’ll only actually read one, get Timothy Snyder’s book On Tyranny. Plus, read Edsall.

I have not provided links to purchase these books on Amazon or from any big box store. That’s because I want you to buy your books from your local Ma & Pa bookstore to help keep your neighborhood vibrant.

Now, go do your homework. There absolutely will be a test.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Biden’s To-Do List – The Short Form


Mom said, “When someone does something nice for you, say. “THANK YOU!” – this time to Dr. Fauci. This is Sheila Markin’s idea. Click here for her posts.

Reading time – 2:52  .  .  .

This list of President Joe Biden’s To-Dos starting in the afternoon of January 20, 2021 is offered in no particular order of importance except for the COVID-19 section, which is urgent. Be clear that these items are solely about recovering from Trump destruction. The obvious point here is that this is only a partial list. Please provide your additions in the Comments section below.

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Provide strong, clear leadership for scientific, tough minded practices to deal with the pandemic and end it:

– Restore public faith and confidence in national leadership by consistently telling the public the truth. No denials of reality, no anti-science fantasies, no demonizing of those with differing views.

– Fully fund nationwide testing and contact tracing and authorize lock downs where they are needed.

– Restore full status to the CDC.

– Restore funding for the WHO.

– Provide dependable financial support for workers displaced by the pandemic. No more leaving Americans on the brink of disaster because action was delayed by Congress and the president until the last second.

– Apologize to Dr. Anthony Fauci and the people of the CDC.

– Provide funding for schools to create and fully implement the dramatic evolution in teaching made necessary by COVID-19.

– Create childcare for children of working parents for whom school was their resource before COVID-19.

– Restore COVID-19 funding to public schools from the private schools to which it was diverted by Betsy DeVos.

Rejoin JCPOA – the Iran no-nuclear agreement – if it can be resurrected.

Withdraw support for Israel to annex West Bank areas.

Call out Saudi Arabia and Mohammed Bin Salman individually for the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Consider sanctions.

Expand Obamacare to cover all Americans.

Restore the full Voting Rights Act.

What could possibly go wrong? Click the pic for the story.

Rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership – “TPP” – so that we don’t cede half the planet to the Chinese.

Start rebuilding infrastructure. Do you remember those “shovel ready” projects Congress refused to fund during the Obama administration? Trump has done none of it.

End the attack on the Postal Service and initiate legislation to remove the 75 year pension funding requirement that hamstrings that service.

Unwind Trump and Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy and create sensible tax reform.

Immediately remove all “acting” officials and replace them with qualified, Senate approved people

Enact laws to prohibit federal “goon squads” from showing up in any state or city unannounced, unrequested, unidentified, unwanted, unconstitutional and unlawful:

– Require all federal policing individuals and vehicles to be fully badged and tagged for easy identification when used for crowd control or for protection of federal property. This is not intended to apply to undercover agents.

– Require federal officers to declare a clear statement of cause when apprehending protesters; e.g., “You’re under arrest for ___________ .”

– Require all federal officers to fully Marandize those they apprehend.

– Prohibit federal policing individuals from all actions other than directly protecting federal property while on federal property.

– Make it mandatory to secure a request and agreement from an appropriate state and/or local official for the deployment of federal personnel and equipment in any state or city for any purpose except when a state and/or city itself is violating the Constitution or acting illegally (Think: Little Rock Central High School in 1957; University of Alabama in 1963).

Biden’s Attorney General action list:

– Prosecute William Barr for whatever comes to mind.

Had to change a couple of words from the original for more accurate labeling. Many thanks to AR for the pic.

– Investigate all Trump Department heads, including Betsy DeVos, Sonny Purdue and all the rest for featherbedding and other illegal behavior.

– Indict Trump for his obvious criminal behavior, including many violations of the Emoluments clause, extortion in the Ukraine scandal, multiple counts of obstruction of justice, abuse of power and all the rest.

– Prosecute everyone responsible for the actions of the federal “goon squads,” actions that include kidnapping, beating, shooting, tear gassing and flash banging peaceful protesters in Washington DC and in Portland, OR.

– Review Trump’s commutation of the sentence of Roger Stone for illegality, specifically because the commutation was part of covering up Trump’s illegal behavior. Restore punishment for Stone if possible.

Review Trump’s federal judge appointments for conflicts, ineptitude and anything else that can be used to remove those who don’t belong. This is solely about bad appointments, not their political views.

Create law that will prohibit a future Attorney General from becoming the president’s Roy Cohn; i.e. the president’s attorney instead of ours.

Remove the conspiracy theorists from top positions in the Pentagon.

Challenge the DOJ memo claiming that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted for crimes while in office.

Apologize to our 16 intelligence agencies for 4 years of Trump’s insults, undermining, devaluing and for his jamming unqualified cronies into positions of power in these organizations.

Remove all former lobbyists from the Executive Branch and create law that prohibits former lobbyists from participating in any part of government where the industry they lobbied for is involved.

Replace the Trump/Barr suck up district attorneys and set these offices free to prosecute Giuliani, Lev & Igor, Trump family members and, of course, Trump himself.

Undo foreign policy unforced errors, including:

– Mend fences with allies, including NATO member nations, South Korea, Australia, Israel, Mexico – who else?

– Apologize to Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, the Kurds, Volodomyr Zelensky and the leaders and the people of all the “shit hole countries” for Trump’s insults, rudeness and harm.

– Apologize to Duško Marković, former President of Montenegro, for Trump shoving him aside for a NATO photo op in 2017.

– Apologize to our present and former State Department professionals, including Lt. Col. Vindman, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Dr. Fiona Hill, Gordon Sondland, Mr. Kent, Ambassador William Taylor, and all those who put their careers on the line to tell the truth at the impeachment hearings. Honor them publicly.

– Give a firm, face-planted stiff arm to Xi, Duerte, Putin, Erdoğan and Kim. Make our opposition to their tyranny clear.

– Rebuild our Department of State. Lure back the wonderful people who were forced out or quit out of conscience. Trump’s actions are a George W. Bush déjà vu nightmare and they harm us internationally.

– Examine support for the Kurds and do what must be done to reverse our betrayal of this ally.

Restore Lt. Col. Vindman to active status, rank and post if he desires it. Restore his brother to his former post if he desires it.

Levy stronger and more painful sanctions on Russia for invading the Ukraine, their meddling in our 2016 election, their 2020 election meddling, attempting to steal vaccine research and offering/paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill Americans.

Create and quickly implement a U.S. war on climate warming:

– Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord.

– Join the international agreement to combat deforestation.

– Establish federal incentives for installation of renewable energy.

– Establish federal incentives for clean energy innovation.

– Establish a path for re-education of coal miners – no, they won’t all become coders. Then end the use of “beautiful, clean” coal for energy production.

– Establish emission control policies, such as fuel mileage requirements.

Lead fundamental police policy change.

Install Supreme Court Justices who aren’t conservative – create balance.

Formalize the elimination of state sponsored voter suppression. Reverse the abuses of the past.

Create gun law reform, like 100% background checks and limits on the size of personal arsenals. Make illegal high capacity magazines, assault weapons and bump stocks and repeal the right of concealed carry, etc. These measures are overwhelmingly supported by the American people.

Do comprehensive immigration reform – finally!

– Enshrine DACA into law so that the next Republican hate monger can’t undo it with an Executive Order.

What’s missing? Post your notions in the Comments section below.

– Open our system for prompt handling of asylum seekers.

– Reunite detained immigrant children and parents and close the concentration camps.

– Establish clear criteria for immigrating into the U.S. that is actually Constitutional.

Many thanks to brother Mike for starting this discussion.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Emergency – Break Glass


Donald Trump has declared martial law in DC.

No, this isn’t a reality TV moment. This isn’t hyperbole. This isn’t a prank. This is actually happening. And he’s threatened to declare martial law in any state where he wants to deploy our military personnel to “dominate the streets” against our citizens, regardless of governors’ objections.

I wrote about and warned of this kind of dictatorial takeover here (see especially the last point) – also here and here and as far back as 12/31/16 here. It is no longer a theoretical construct. Now it has started for real.

Trump has been clear all along that he admires autocrats – dictators – and he wants to be like them. That’s exactly what he is in DC right now.

One thing we know about Trump is that he will keep pushing the limits unless somebody stops him. The attorney general is worse than useless to us in reining in this President. So somebody else better stand up immediately with a big legal STOP sign in hand.

If that doesn’t happen, there will be no election and our democracy will be gone.

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Here’s what’s behind this, other than Trump’s obvious sociopathic dysfunctions.

Trump knows that he’s protected by that damned Justice Department memo that says that a sitting president may not be indicted or prosecuted for any crime. Note that the memo is just that: a memo. It is not law. What needs to happen is for it to be tested in court, struck down as the poison to democracy that it is, and then put through a powerful Justice Department paper shredder.

But with that memo effectively acting as a shield to protect him, Trump can hide right there in the White House. And he needs to hide, because once he’s out of office he will be indicted for money laundering, fraud, tax evasion and more by the SDNY, the State and City of New York, the State of Virginia and some other states. An honest Attorney General will prosecute him for crimes while in office, including emoluments, the insane Ukraine quid pro quo extortion deal and much more. All of that will keep Trump in court and in prison for the rest of his life and will consume the rest of his ill-gotten fortune.

That’s why he’ll do anything to stay in office.

He knows that Biden will whip his obese ass in November, so all that’s left to him are cancelling the election and declaring martial law. It’s already begun.

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Click me

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Sacrifice


Reading time – 3:39 + 1:43 .  .  .

Tomorrow is Memorial Day – a formal day of remembrance for those who did their duty, put their lives on the line and died defending America. The flag-draped coffins continue to arrive at Dover, Delaware and, with the healthcare mess we’re in, it will take extra effort to remember those who sacrificed everything. Do it anyway.

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My friend Sheila Markin writes an excellent post and asked a question in her most recent offering. Here’s the background information.

Trump is now directing his campaign people to fire up the Trump raucous rally machine to drive numbers for his re-election effort. That means thousands of people will be jammed together with everyone joyously chanting for some Trump opponent to be locked up and doing that without a mask, flaunting their disdain for science. They’ll show the world they’re tough, rugged people and nobody’s gonna tell them what to do.

I’m just wondering how they’ll be doing 14 days after each rally. I get that Trump isn’t worried about that, because doing so would require empathy and you know the professional analyses of his ability for that. But there is obvious risk to these fellow Americans.

That’s what Sheila wondered about, ending her post with this question:

“Could it be he is so desperate he would sacrifice any number of his followers to insure his own re-election?”

Here’s my answer.

Years ago I had to deal with an individual who was a cruel man. His great joy lay in verbally abusing others and laying false charges against them, including me. Happily, that was a short assignment, but cruelty hasn’t gone away.

Today’s cruel man is the president and his cruelty isn’t just verbal. He’s allowing the preventable deaths of our people through his bumbling. And, with his claim of taking hydroxychloroquine, the drug with demonstrated, potentially lethal consequences, he’s setting a dangerous example that others might follow and which might kill them, just like his proposing that people ingest disinfectants. Clearly, he thinks our people are expendable, or he doesn’t think about them at all.

There are analyses showing how many more people have died and will die because of Trump avoiding doing what is needed to protect us – swift action, robust testing, tracing and quarantining, adequate protective equipment, leadership to influence people to distance, etc. It’s approximately 60% of our total COVID-19 deaths (more information here and here and here)  The numbers of excess deaths caused by Trump’s ineptitude are staggering. If you want to begin to grasp the magnitude of this, have a look at today’s New York Times front page.

But of course, they’re just numbers, statistics – until we realize that Granny is one of those people who died an avoidable death. So is nurse Sally. And cousin Jamie. And the pizza delivery guy and the EMT who answered the call and brought my elderly neighbor to the hospital, and the sanitation worker at that hospital, and the high school senior who was excited about her acceptance to West Point. These are metaphors for those actually afflicted. And they weren’t just numbers. They were very real people who died avoidable deaths. Over 60,000 of them so far.

Let’s make this even more personal with the closing words of John Donne’s poem, “For Whom the Bell Tolls:”

Each man’s death diminishes me,

for I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

That notion hasn’t found its way into the Oval Office since January 20, 2017. Indeed, it’s an odd and cruel trip from “I alone can fix it” to “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Now the cruel man insists that we “open up” everything, everywhere, as though that might be safe. 10 days from now let’s see if last weekend’s happy Milwaukee bar revelers are still well. They were crammed together, shoulder to shoulder, with nobody wearing a mask. And the meat packers in Sioux Falls and in Greeley similarly stand shoulder to shoulder. What do you suppose is in their near-term future?

I desperately want to be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure there is a looming, now unavoidable catastrophe on the way. “Opening up” will temporarily goose the Dow and the economy, which is good for Trump’s re-election prospects, but the price for that may be found in body bags.

Back to the mirage of minimizing the infection and death numbers to make Trump look better to his believers.

This is not about the actual health of our people. All he cares about are the published numbers and how they make him look. Indeed, he has said – even seemed to boast – that more testing would make the count higher, which would be bad for his re-election prospects, so he keeps the count inaccurately, artificially low by keeping the country orders-of-magnitude short of doing the testing we need to do. That gets Trump his sick numbers, but makes us sicker.

To compound Trump’s dishonesty about this, we now have 3 states with Republican governors refusing to release infection and death counts. That’s a big help to Trump’s suppressing-the-numbers game. You don’t suppose those Republican governors received a call from the White House, do you?

So, Sheila asked, “Could it be he is so desperate he would sacrifice any number of his followers to insure his own re-election?” They’re about to be crammed together at rallies, because that’s what’s good for Trump. What do you suppose will happen to some of them 14 days later? Do you have even a whisper of a notion that Trump has entertained that question? Or whether he’s willing to sacrifice them if doing so helps him?

Sadly, it isn’t just his followers Trump would sacrifice. There’s a Trump-branded human sacrifice alter ready for every one of us whenever he hallucinates that it’s in his best paranoid, sociopathic interests to use them.

You’ve known since at least 2015 that the only thing Trump cares about is Trump. That leaves you eligible for sacrifice on one of his alters. If that’s not to your liking, there’s something you can do about it. Roll up your shirtsleeves and get to work to put Trump’s human sacrifice alter company out of business on November 3, 2020.

And follow President Obama’s clear direction: Vote.

Click here for a 37 second demonstration of how COVID-19 spreads.

Click here for Timeline: Trump’s Coronavirus Response. It will tell you all you need to know about what has caused us to have less than 5% of the world’s population and 30% of the world’s deaths from coronavirus. And it will show you why the majority of American deaths from coronavirus were preventable.

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Compare and Contrast

This is a true, current story.

British Capt. Tom Moore, the 100-year-old World War II veteran who raised over 32 million pounds ($39.1 million) to support the U.K.’s health workers by walking 100 laps in his garden, will be knighted in recognition of his fundraising efforts.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the recommendation on Wednesday, and Queen Elizabeth II has agreed.

“I have, exceptionally, recommended to The Queen that he be awarded a knighthood, in recognition of his extraordinary fundraising achievements, and as a signal of the kind of contributions we will want to mark in the months to come,” Johnson said in a statement.

The centenarian launched his charitable campaign in late April as his 100th birthday approached. Wearing a coat and tie as well as his military medals, he pushed his walker lap after lap around his garden in the hope of donations.

He was trying to raise 1,000 pounds (over $1,200) for National Health Service (NHS) charities to show his appreciation for the medical treatment he received for cancer and a broken hip.

Donations gathered pace after his fundraising effort received national and, before long, international attention amid the increasing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am certainly delighted and overawed by the fact this has happened to me,” said Moore, who will be known as Captain Sir Thomas Moore after he is knighted.

The award is expected to be formally presented in the fall, with details of the ceremony, where the Queen will officiate, still to be worked out.

“I’m looking forward to that,” Moore said, adding, “I hope she’s not very heavy-handed with the sword, because by then I might be rather a poor old weak soul.”

After the fundraising effort, Moore released a charity single, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” with singer Michael Ball, which became a hit, reaching number one on the charts and making him the oldest singer ever to have a number-one single in the U.K.

Moore fought in Burma, now called Myanmar, and went to Sumatra with his regiment following the Japanese surrender.

It’s clear that this gentleman is still the upright man of service he has always been. He sees his duty and does it. That’s quite inspiring in a time when we can use all the inspiration we can find.

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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 mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Update to Consequences


Update to Sunday’s Consequences post:

From author John Scalzio in an interview for the New York Times Book section, May 17, 2020:

“Maybe people might look at me askance for “Atlas Shrugged” [being on my bookshelf], since I’ve written about how Ayn Rand valorizes a genocidal sociopath in John Galt, and I think it’s a really bad sign when ostensible adults take her “philosophy” seriously (and even worse when they’re elected to office). But I’ll tell you what, Rand could make a pot boil; there’s a reason her brand of nonsense sells.”

Even John Wayne was a fictional construct and he wasn’t as tough as the movies made him seem. When he was no longer young, strong and healthy he succumbed to disease. Lucky for him that he was rich, so he got great healthcare along the way. For the rest of us Ayn Rand’s “we’re all on our own” craziness really doesn’t work well. Few of us can tolerate being prevented from getting basic needs met just because we’re not young, strong and healthy. There has to be a better way.

Here’s how our present system is working, this from the Economic Policy Institute:

With the jobless tally rising quickly by the millions, as businesses struggle to keep people employed during the pandemic, the absurdity of having our health care linked to jobs becomes painfully clear.

EPI research determined 16.2 million Americans have likely lost their health care due to pandemic job losses. Linking health insurance to employment has always been problematic. The pandemic is highlighting and exacerbating those issues. Medicare for All, while a hugely ambitious policy undertaking, could be one way to remedy this situation.

Watch their 2-minute explanation of how Medicare For All would affect jobs. It isn’t what the naysayers tell us.

Apologies, but I don’t remember who posted this. Nevertheless, good on them!

This pandemic has made it abundantly clear that our highest-cost-in-the-world medical system isn’t providing the best care for most of us. And the layoffs/furloughs/firings/loss of employment caused both directly and indirectly by this disease have illustrated the folly of healthcare tied to employers and employment.

Perhaps you’re high on Maslow’s heirarchy and you’re asking the question, “What is it that we are supposed to learn from this pandemic, the lesson that we have steadfastly refused to learn any other way?” Here’s the answer:

It’s all about how we care for and care about one another.

It’s plain that this is no time for “rugged individualist” thinking to prevail. Embrace the “together” part of “We’re all in this together,” because if we refuse that, all of us are condemned to suffering that doesn’t have to happen, as though we plugged our ears when the answer to the question was given to us.

You don’t know it yet, but you want to read “9 ways Covid-19 may forever upend the U.S. healthcare industry.” The intense pressure that’s been brought to bear on every part of our healthcare system by this pandemic, including how we pay for it, is going to change everything about it. Let me know what you think.

——————————-

 

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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 mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Consequences In One Long and Two Short Parts


Reading time – 5:36  .  .  .

Part 1. Healthcare Wake-Up

The Kaiser Family Foundation just reported that, “.  .  .  nearly 27 million people will lose health insurance as a result of being laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Some will go on the ACA exchanges; the majority will wind up on Medicaid; and 6 million poor Americans will have no insurance at all to cover the enormous expense of battling COVID-19 or any other malady and will have to figure out the impossible. Said another way, these folks are already struggling to stay financially afloat and a COVID-19 anvil may be dumped hard onto their little boat.

I know a fellow who commented on a different catastrophe, offering a Machiavellian (or Ayn Randian) comment that sounded like this: “It’s sad, but they made their choices and now they have to live with the consequences.” Is that our official attitude toward poor people?

We’re now being told to get out there, go back to work and go shopping, where we will encounter lots of nice people, some of whom will be disease carriers and may send us to the hospital. I worry what will happen in 2 – 3 weeks to those who are packing bars now and are not wearing face masks. Indeed, the CDC tells us that the likelihood of infection is growing greater in many parts of the country.

Wait, greater? And we’re supposed to go back to work and drive the numbers still higher?

Yes, because we’re warriors, wartime President Nero tells us. So, get out there and fight. Drive up herd immunity, which to the best of my understanding, means that those who manage to survive this deadly virus will probably have immunity. Or not. The experts really don’t know how that will work. And you have to get sick first to get that immunity but you might die from the infection long before you would have become immune. Further, well over 6 million Americans won’t be able to pay for their healthcare if they survive the disease.

Can we agree that we need to figure out the best way for all of us to be able to get healthcare when we need it? Actually, we don’t all agree about that, but the overwhelming majority of us do. If that’s the goal, then how do we get there?

What I see is that we’re about to pay for the healthcare, one way or another, for an additional 27 million Americans who got laid off due to the pandemic and who have little or no insurance. What if we just put on our big boy and big girl pants and face up to the facts that the bumper stickers are right, that shit happens, and that we think everyone should be able to get healthcare irrespective of their wealth? We’re paying for much of it anyway, so what if we were intentional and created a really good solution?

I can hear Libertarians wailing and can see Ayn Rand true believers bent over with cramps. I only have two problems with that rugged individualist philosophy. First, it only works for people who are young, healthy and strong. If you can’t check all three boxes, you’re screwed. Second, Ayn Rand wrote novels – fantasies – all of it was not-real, didn’t happen stuff. Doing so brought her fame, fortune and popularity with idealistic (mostly) young men during their formative years. Most of us grew out of believing in the made-up story not long after finding out that there is no Tooth Fairy. Sen. Rand Paul and members of the House Freedom Caucus, however, didn’t get the message and are still looking under their pillows every morning. Okay, that was snark.

We’re living in the real world where not everyone is young, healthy and strong – or wealthy. Not everyone had open to them the path to true free market enlightenment and success. Some are being cast adrift due to layoffs. Doing nothing while watching that little boat of theirs sink after the anvil crashes into it is a cruel consequence of our own design.

There is a Jewish imperative – Tikkun Olam – which means “repair the world.” The Boy Scout version of that is to always leave your campsite better than you found it. Pretty good ideas. No, actually they are imperatives. What repairs are we doing to leave things better than we found them? It is our obligation to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and they are counting on us to do the right things right now.

Which brings us to,

Part 2. Napoleon

There is no shortage of commentary about both what Joe Biden should be doing now, as well as speculation about his relative lack of visibility. I’m reminded of a quotation from Napoleon used by Theodore White in his book The Making of the President 1964. White wrote,

“Never were Republicans denounced [by President Johnson] as such; the opposition was involved in its own civil war, and the president obeyed Napoleon’s maxim: Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.”

That proved to be a big help in sending Johnson’s opponent, Sen. Barry Goldwater, back to Arizona and I’m wondering if that is the advice Joe Biden is following today.

In that light, you must read Frank Bruni’s piece from April 26, “Trump Self-Destructs.” He ends his essay this way:

“Americans who take any comfort from [Trump’s nightly coronavirus briefings] were Trump-drunk long ago. The unbesotted see and hear the president for what he is: a tone-deaf showman who regards everything, even a mountain of corpses, as a stage.”

Which brings us to,

Part 3. The Math Update

Our first reported death from coronavirus was on February 6; the next two deaths were on February 26. Things ramped up slowly at first and then, as you well know, the death count ramped up very quickly.

It has been 100 days since that first case and we now have a minimum of 89,000 of our fellow citizens dead from coronavirus. We’re losing about 2,000 of our friends, neighbors and family every day, which translates to a Pearl Harbor every 1.2 days and a 9/11 every 1.5 days. The White House tells us that things could get worse and predicts that 100,000 – 240,000 Americans will die from this disease.

Well, things are worse right now. We better be really careful how we “open up” our economy, including doing COVID-19 testing in numbers a couple of orders of magnitude greater than we’re doing now or we may find out that the White House finally got something right – the counting of our dead. And that is a disastrous consequence of our federal ineptitude.

——————————-

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

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections. Refreshing when someone wants to get the facts right, eh?
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

Potpourri v10.0


Reading time – 4:31; Viewing time – 7:49  .  .  .

First, some stories you may have missed because of the torrential downpour of coverage of the primary elections and COVID-19. And don’t miss the BREAKING GOOD NEWS at the end.

First Story: Drugs

It is notable that our government is at least putting on a show of wanting to help people hooked on opioids. What makes it notable is that this is the polar opposite of the way we dealt with people hooked on heroin, cocaine, crack and other drugs. Those were commonly (but mistakenly) believed to be primarily a devil in communities of color. Instead of helping those people, they got locked up. But today opioids are slamming white people, so now we go all goodie two-shoes and they get help. Like I said: notable.

Now, A Justice Update

It was easy to miss the U.S. Court of Appeals in DC chickening out Friday before last. Nevertheless, chicken out they did, by refusing to rule on the House of Representatives’ lawsuit to force Don McGahn to testify. They chicken-clucked that they don’t have jurisdiction to consider the case.

You may recall that McGahn was the White House Counsel who twice refused Trump’s order to fire Robert Mueller. He resigned his post over that conflict. Regardless, he was caught in the net of Donald Trump’s baseless, unconstitutional assertion of absolute immunity.

Trump ordered everyone who could so much as spell “Executive Branch” to refuse to testify before House committees. McGahn received a subpoena from the House, ordering him to testify in committee hearings. He defied that subpoena and obeyed He Who Just Makes Stuff Up In Order To Serve Himself and the House sued to force McGahn to show up and testify. The District Court declared the obvious, that there is no absolute immunity and ordered McGahn to testify. The appellate court is the one that chickened out.

By saying that they didn’t have jurisdiction to consider the case they abdicated a primary role of the judiciary. They left no way to resolve disputes between Congress and the Executive Branch. All that’s left is a showdown on the National Mall at high noon between the House Sergeant at Arms and the Secret Service. It’s insanity.

And how very cowardly a way that is to refuse to hold the President accountable. The DC Court of Appeals has enabled this President to vastly expand executive power all the way to authoritarianism, and that’s exactly where he wants to go.

Thanks a lot, D.C. Court of Appeals, for your cowardice in selling out our democracy and the Constitution. Because of your refusal to bring Trump’s stonewalling to justice, you are, indeed, chickens. Buck-buck.

Have you noticed how pervasive is cowardice when it’s time to stand up to this lawless President? It has now infected all three branches of government and has allowed the continuing destruction of Constitutional protections.

On to the Elections

Here Are Three Take-Aways From Super Tuesday

First, it is impossible to overstate the importance and impact of Rep James Clyburn’s (D-SC) endorsement of Joe Biden. His passion, his gravitas and his clarity drove thousands of South Carolinians to the polls to vote for Biden. That tsunami of a win influenced voters across the country, as did the endorsements of Biden from Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rourke. But it’s more than that.

It’s also the highly energized, impassioned hordes of Bernie supporters who didn’t bother to vote. Sure, they show up at rallies for the sugar high, but when it counts, they’re nowhere to be seen. Further, their volume is out of proportion to their numbers. So much for the dramatically increased turnout of young people Sanders has promised. That’s the second point.

Third, and most powerful, this is a Watergate moment.

By the time the break-in, the cover-up, the investigations and hearings were over and Richard Nixon had resigned in disgrace, our country was reeling from Watergate. Passions ran high, nearly every other issue had been put on a back burner and the country was in pain and exhausted. We needed a way to calm down. Enter Gerald Ford.

Ford had been a congressman from Michigan forever. Everyone knew him as a really nice guy, a decent guy, an honest guy, a count-on guy. His big dream was to one day become Speaker of the House. Then suddenly he was President of the United States following Watergate. Perhaps his pardoning of Nixon was his notion of a first step toward calming the nation. Regardless, his calm voice was what the nation needed. But because he was tainted by association with the Watergate scandal, it wasn’t enough.

So, in 1976 we elected a preacher-style peanut farmer. Electing Jimmy Carter President was a complete divorce from everything Watergate and was what the nation most needed. We’re in that kind of moment now.

Beyond the well-earned anger over the destruction of so much of what we hold dear and our horror over the ongoing violation of our values, beyond a desire to set all of that right, we have a hunger for order to replace the chaos. We want an end to the vile language and the abhorrent behavior. We’d like to feel safe and just breathe normally once more.

And that is why so many people voted last Tuesday for Joe Biden instead of pugnacious Bernie Sanders. It wasn’t about policies at all.*

And Finally, The General Election

From this President, his supporters, SuperPACs promoting Trump, SuperPACs denigrating the Democratic nominee, the 501-c4s, slimy Republican operatives, foreign countries’ infiltration and infestation of social media to subvert our election, attempts to misuse parts of government, like false criminal investigations and all the rest  .  .  .

.  .  .  the Democratic nominee can expect filth, lies, false associations, fear mongering, muck making, more lies, voter suppression, plus nonstop lies.

The Democratic candidate will have to stand up to all that and more. He will continually have to focus the election to be a referendum on Trump, his lies, betrayals, incompetencies, his law breaking, his imperiling of our national security and his destruction of our democracy. The candidate must not become defensive or inappropriately angry as lies are spread about him, lies about his record, his qualifications, lies accusing him of illegal acts and personal lies designed to gouge out his heart. He’ll require a backbone of steel to stay focused on attacking Trump again and again. There will be no rest until November 4.

Oddly, people are fighting to get that job. Now, though, it’s our turn.

People are standing in line for up to seven hours to vote in their primaries. The wait is largely because of Republican voter suppression caused by the closing of so many polling places. Good on those voters for their fortitude and their insistence on doing the right thing in the face of Republican voter suppression.

When it’s your turn to vote in your primary and in the general election, get in line and stay in line, no matter how long it takes.

Do it to honor those who went before you, who stood in line all day to do a most American thing. Do it for yourself. Do it for your country.

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Quote of the Week

Elizabeth Warren was “incredibly competent, pragmatic, intelligent and well-spoken — in other words, she never had a chance.” Seth Meyers

BREAKING GOOD NEWS!

Thanks to the untiring work of the good foiks at www.Represent.US, the Virginia state legislature has put on the November ballot a proposed amendment to END GERRYMANDERING. The citizens of Virginia will at last have the opportunity to stop this politically manipulative practice that effectively robs the people of fair representation. Quoting Joe Biden as he described to Barack Obama the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, “This is a BFD.”

Click the pic to the left to have a look at the FaceBook page detailing this wonderful achievement. As well, go to their website and watch the video narrated by Michael Douglas at the top. And have a look at this most informative video Jennifer Lawrence narrates. I promise you’ll learn plenty

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* See Bret Stevens’ column here. Many thanks to J.C. for pointing it out.

————————————


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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Sometimes I change my opinions because I’ve learned more about an issue. So, educate me. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

There’s More Than Impeachment Going On


Reading time – 3:22  .  .  .

Trump is supremely adept at making everything about him all the time, about being center focus perpetually. Most often he does that by being outrageous, either through his galactic dishonesty or by his actions. Some are harmful to our nation. Some are just cruel. Some get negative attention, as through impeachment hearings, during which he can do witness tampering and complain of being a victim all at the same time. The cruelty, though, that’s the stuff that offends through all the generations.

Lee Goodman is one of the people who goes beyond hand wringing about cruelty and takes action. He has been instrumental in protecting the innocent children in U.S. concentration camps, including helping to get the abhorrent Tornillo, TX and Homestead, FL child holding pens shut down. He’s still on the beat. His most recent report about our national cruelty is reproduced below as a guest essay.

Note of caution: Don’t imagine that Lee’s historical references are hyperbole, because the things we’re doing now follow a well-worn path. Think: George Santayana:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

It’s time to remember, as well as to recognize that complacency supports that horrible repetition.

Until recently, our government allowed people from other countries to wait in the U.S. while their requests for asylum were being processed and decided. Now we make them wait on the other side of our border. Thousands of people are indefinitely stranded in places like Matamoros, Mexico, where I just returned from.

Neither our government nor the Mexican government is doing much of anything for these people. They live in small camping tents. They rely upon volunteers to bring them food. Clean water and toilets are scarce, and medical care is minimal. There is no work and no school. Our government’s policy is to let these people languish and suffer, in hopes that they will go away and that others will learn of their misery and decide not to try to come to the U.S.

Deliberately depriving people of food, sanitation, and other essentials of a decent life was the policy the Nazis followed in the 1930s and 40s in the ghettos and concentration camps. Over time during the Nazi era, what started as makeshift detention became large-scale incarceration. Dehumanization was institutionalized.

Today, child asylum seekers are no longer being detained in the U.S. in large tents the way they were at Tornillo, Texas, and Homestead, Florida. Our government has been building a series of permanent camps where children will be held. I visited an old WalMart in Brownsville, Texas where up to 1,500 immigrant children are being imprisoned. I also stopped by a warehouse in Raymondville, Texas, that is being refitted to hold 500 kids. A friend just stood outside a new prison that is under construction in El Paso, Texas, that will hold more than 500 kids. Other facilities are in the pipeline.

It took a while for the Nazis to develop their system of concentration camps. Dachau, established in 1933, became the model for later camps. What I saw in Mexico and Texas reminded me of something terrible. Our incarceration of immigrants is progressing along a terrifying trajectory. We are normalizing child abuse. We are perfecting systems that traumatize people. We are teaching the people who work at these prisons that it is OK to go along with and make money from deliberate cruelty.

I am disturbed by what I saw. But it is good that I saw it.

We have much to do.

Lee Goodman, November 12, 2019

Ed. note: Perhaps our national program of child abuse and human rights violations trouble you. If you’d like to connect with Lee, send your contact information to me at [email protected] and I’ll pass it along.

Finally  .  .  .

Last Thursday’s post “What’s At Stake” is a look at the impeachment proceedings from a strategic perspective. That is to say, it was about the What questions – what will we be? – not the tactical How questions.

On the same day Jon Meacham, Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas published an essay in the Washington Post entitled “It’s the Wise Men versus the Wise Guys in Trump’s America.” Like my post, it looked at the kind of country we want to be – the kind of country we are creating. I recommend both as guides to what you see, read and hear about the impeachment process, because it’s too easy and of little value to simply be reactive.

————————————


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YOUR ACTION STEPS:

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NOTES:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling or punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

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

Where Political Influence Comes From – and a Destructive Snit


Reading time – 4:19; Viewing time – 6:49  .  .  .

It’s going to take decades to clean up the mess that our terrible infant president is creating. Some things will take much longer and will leave permanent scars. Other Trump damage, like loss of endangered species, will be impossible to fix.

We’re told that the Donald Trump Environmental Protection Agency intends to “sharply curtail rules on methane emissions.” It’s possible that methane isn’t a focal point of your day, so I’ll explain what this newest EPA ruling will mean to you.

Methane is likely the gas that burns in your home furnace and water heater. Burning natural gas instead of other fossil fuels produces less carbon dioxide, so it adds less to global warming, and it’s cheaper to use, too. That’s where the methane happy stuff ends. The rest requires a little story to explain it.

The phenomenally destructive Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission granted Big Money interests – deep pocket individuals and corporations – the power to dominate and control our politics using their cash. That was more than surprising, since the case was only about the Citizens United organization wanting to show their movie trashing Hillary Clinton right before each primary in 2008. It wasn’t about campaign contributions and domination of politics.

The McCain-Feingold Act prohibited such “electioneering” within 30 days of a primary, so Citizens United was enjoined by the district court from showing their 30-minute attack ad that was designed to influence the primary elections. They filed suit and the case wound up before the Supreme Court, which reversed the district and appellate court rulings against Citizens United. That should have been the end of the case, but it wasn’t.

Chief Justice John Roberts ordered the attorneys to return to the Court to re-litigate the case, this time testing the rights of corporations and speech equivalency. In that gross distortion of the original case, the 5-4 conservative majority decided that corporations have all the same rights as flesh and blood human beings, including the right to make campaign contributions and air political advertising.*

Justice John Paul Stevens

As outrageous as that is, if you’re a Constitutional purist, get that, “[In addressing an

issue that was not raised by the litigants], the majority changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.” That is from the blistering dissent of this decision, written by Justice John Paul Stevens.

Effectively, the Supreme Court legislated from the bench on issues that were not in contest in this case. Citizens United v. FEC had nothing to do with human rights or corporate rights or political contributions, but its adverse effect in those areas will be felt for a very long time.

Dig into the case a little deeper and you’ll have a new and dark understanding of Chief Justice John Roberts. Be sure to pay attention to his Senate confirmation hearings, where he did the now familiar confirmation dance, spewing volumes of words while not answering questions. More specifically, though, he invoked stare decisis, the principle of not upsetting prior court decisions and making current decisions based upon precedent. Roberts had a solid belief in that, he told us.

Turns out that stare decisis actually wasn’t a real important thing to John Roberts and that allowed him to legislate from the bench. That bench-created new law gave us things like the NRA being such a powerful campaign contributor to legislators that our elected officials refuse to create the gun safety legislation that 90% of Americans want them to create. Sadly, we have a government of, by and for Big Money, not you and me.

Here’s how that connects to the EPA lifting methane emission regulations.

Point #1: Over the course of 20 years methane released into the atmosphere has 86 times more powerful global warming effect than does carbon dioxide. The EPA has taken down its web page detailing this.

Point #2: Natural gas comes largely from fracking wells and as many as 50% of them leak methane into the atmosphere. The page for that has been taken down from the EPA site, too.

Point #3: The Obama administration generated regulations to cause the actors in the methane extraction business to take action to reduce methane emissions.

Point #4: Trump’s EPA is in the process of trashing those Obama era regulations and allowing essentially uninhibited methane leakage.

Some major oil companies have stated that they are opposed to the change the EPA is proposing. Do your own math on why they’d do that, especially since their own industry association and lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, has come out in favor of EPA’s proposal to eliminate methane emission regulations.

There’s a really good chance that you are not in favor of the EPA’s proposal that will dramatically increase the rate of global warming. The problem for you is that our legislators don’t really care what you think about that, any more than they care about the 90% likelihood that you want strict gun safety regulations.

Just like healthcare, immigration reform, voting rights, education and so many other issues, you’re not getting what you want and it can all be traced back to Citizens United.

That’s now compounded by Trump’s ongoing snit over being dissed by President Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011. Since that time Trump has been doing everything he can to negate everything Obama accomplished, including DACA, regardless of the harm he does to you and all of us, our allies and our planet.

Such is the behavior of this terrible infant president. We are paying the price for his temper tantrum and, as I said earlier, it will take decades to clean up his mess.

Quote of the Week

Trump is a man who has been progressively hollowed out by the acid of his own self-regard. David Brooks

Opinion Piece of the Week

The Frauding of America’s Farmers, Paul Krugman

*Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, wrote,

“The First Amendment does not allow prohibitions of speech based on the identity of the speaker  .  .  .  even if the speaker is a corporation.”

It is beyond any possibility that the Founders intended the Bill of Rights to have any connection whatsoever to non-human entities, like corporations. The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect the rights of people. Humans. Read the amendments and it will be clear to you.

So much for Justice Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas being “originalists.” They claimed to interpret the Constitution as the Founders originally intended. so they liked to call themselves originalists. Clearly they were/are not.

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

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

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

Thanks!

NOTES:

    1. Writings quoted or linked to my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
    2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling or punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

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

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