Snark

Future News! Vol. 4 Number 2


Reading time – 7:49  .  .  .

Today we have a fresh edition of Future News!, but first this breaking news.

On July 30 Donald Trump tweeted:

Ignore the lies in this tweet and focus on the words in the magenta oval.

I warned about Trump’s Wag-the-Dog in last Sunday’s post and updated the warning on Wednesday with an Emergency Addendum. We are seeing the invasion of our cities and brutalizing of our citizens by federal shock troops in Washington DC, Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Kansas City, MO, Cleveland, OH, Milwaukee, WI and Detroit, MI. And now Trump is yet again suggesting “delaying” the election. While he cannot legally do that, just the tweet is threatening to democracy.

It’s all happening in plain sight. We are teetering on a knife edge of danger. This is no time to be a spectator. Indeed, democracy is never a spectator sport and protecting it so that we keep it demands that we get involved.

From Lisa Lerer of the New York Times:

“If you’re worried about the integrity of the election, spend some time figuring out how you can vote safely in November. And then make sure your neighbors can do the same.”

From me:

You don’t have to twist arms or have awkward conversations. Just get out and help with voter registration – do a piece of the work of democracy.

Click here for a fabulous list of actions you can take.

Go to www.PostCardsToASwingStates.com and send postcards to voters in swing states to encourage them to register to vote. (Thanks AT for pointing this out.)

Email [email protected] to help register Milwaukee voters.

You get the idea. Get active. November is too late. Do it now.

And while you’re motivated, contact your legislators and tell them to get off their butts and take action to get the storm troopers out of our cities. I haven’t heard a peep out of Congress about Trump’s blatant moves toward martial law and we need vocal opposition from those who can mandate restraint on Trump’s authoritarian actions.

To paraphrase John Lewis, this is the time to get into good trouble. Necessary trouble. Every one of us.

You owe it to yourself to read Lt. Col. (Ret.) Alexander Vindman’s essay about doing what is right.

Now on to tomorrow’s breaking news.

Future News!

“All the news that’s fit to predict”
 
Washington DC, 4 November 2020

With so many states having enacted legislation requiring proportional voting by its electors in order to more closely represent the will of the people, along with the 49 state popular vote defeat for the president yesterday, the Electoral College is reeling from the smack down. Having just exited the secret passageway from its double secret room in the sub-basement of the Capitol Building, Dragon “Bubba” Duke, the provost of the College appointed by President Trump, said, “Who would have thought the American people could get their way? This really hurts our feelings.”

The obvious disdain citizens have for the Electoral College came hard on the heels of the 2016 election, when, feeling its oats, the Electoral College disenfranchised 51% of the electorate. When College officials were telephoned this morning for further comment on what just happened, all that could be heard were the sounds of sniffling and noises very much like those in a bar.

Washington DC, 20 January 2021, 12:15PM

As soon as the inauguration ceremonies were complete, former President Trump was handcuffed and forcibly removed from the Oval Office by Secret Service agents and whisked to Joint Base Andrews in an unmarked car with blacked-out windows. There was no motorcade. He boarded the presidential Boeing 747, the customary call sign of which is Air Force One. Since he was no longer the president, the call sign for this flight was Getaway Car.

The former president was flown directly to Disgustistan, a small country southeast of Moscow along the Volga River, where he announced that he intends to build a casino and tower. The former president is said to have changed his permanent residence to that country and has transferred his assets to Swiss banks. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Disgustistan.

Washington DC, 20 January 2021, 4:00PM

In a solemn ceremony in the Oval Office, where all department secretaries from the Trump administration were present except former Attorney General William Barr, resignations were submitted to President Biden. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke for the group, pledging their ongoing support to President Biden’s administration, asking only that they not be prosecuted for their wrongdoings.

President Biden accepted their resignations gladly, replying, “Fat chance!” and said that his new Attorney General, “will be contacting you very soon.” As they departed he  turned to his chief of staff, saying, “This is going to be a BFD.”

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 21 January 2021, 5:12PM local time

The Qatari news organization Al Jazeera reported today that former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has requested asylum in Saudi Arabia. When asked for comment about the request by the now-former Senior Advisor to the President, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, with whom Kushner has seemed to have had a good relationship for several years, replied, “Who?”

Washington DC, 27 January 2021, 8:10AM

Former Attorney General William Barr arrived at the Oval Office, having submitted his resignation with those of the other department secretaries a week earlier. He told President Biden that he had left the Department of Justice in perfect autocratic order, ready for presidential edicts and the new president’s absolute power. Barr said that he understood that many had opposed his actions, but that he hoped the new president would both enjoy the greatly expanded presidential power Barr had manipulated into place and, in gratitude, offer Barr an absolute pardon for any and all crimes he committed or may have committed since time began.

President Biden heard him out, replying, “Are you f#!king kidding me?!” He then recommended that Barr get a really good lawyer and had members of his Secret Service team escort Barr by the elbows out to the sidewalk beyond the White House fence. Barr seemed perplexed by Biden’s apparent lack of gratitude, as he leaned against the fence for support.

A nearby reporter asked Barr how his meeting with President Biden had gone and he replied, “That’s something that is in process and I don’t comment about ongoing issues. What I can say is that the terrible situation we find ourselves in can be traced directly to malfeasance by President Obama and his ineffectual administration.” Barr refused to elaborate further and walked away in a huff, kicking a homeless man who was sitting on the sidewalk.

Miami, FL, 16 June 2021

In a surprise announcement, Donald Trump, Jr. stepped before the microphones and a phalanx of reporters at the Doral Country Club in Miami and announced that all Trump golf course properties worldwide have declared bankruptcy.

He spoke from prepared remarks, saying that once his father was out of office that interest in membership at their clubs, “.  .  .  dropped off the edge of the Earth.” Trump, Jr. said he was extremely suspicious that people were terminating their memberships, “.  .  .  almost like it was being coordinated.”

Further, he reported that 85% of the rental properties in Trump Tower-New York were for sale, owners were unable to find buyers and prices for the luxury condos were plummeting. Because of the timing of these situations, Trump, Jr. claimed that company lawyers were looking into filing lawsuits.

When asked who they might sue, the younger Trump angrily replied, “They know who they are and they know that we know who they are and they know we won’t take this lying down, because they know that we know what they know and we know it – nobody has ever known it as well as we do. We’ll sue them back to their s#*t-hole countries or wherever they’re from.”

Trump Jr. attempted to end the session, but was clearly agitated, stating, “Look at what they’re doing to me! We’ll get the people who’ve done this to us. We’ll bring them fire and fury. They’ve never seen fire and fury like we’ll bring. It will be fire and fury for them. Nobody’s seen fire and fury like this. Fire and fury.”

His sister, Ivanka Trump, immediately came to stand by him and put an arm around his shoulders, saying, “There, there. Don’t cry or Daddy will be angry with you and he’ll cut you off. We’ll just do what Daddy would do and pretend it isn’t happening.”

“You’re right!” said Trump, Jr. Turning back to reporters he said, “All of our clubs are having record years, record years! – so great that no one in the world has ever before had such spectacular success. We’re geniuses – very stable business geniuses.” Here he seemed to become remote, his eyes glassy and far away.

“It’s like you’ve never seen before  .  .  .  best courses  .  .  .  fantastic clubhouses  .  .  .  already planning for Trump World Expo, coming soon  .  .  .  it’ll be like nothing you’ve ever seen, we  .  .  ” His voice at last trailed off as he was escorted back to his room by his father’s hand-picked handlers. Ivanka followed, clutching her Chinese made purse and a can of Goya beans.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, 1 July 2021, 9:00AM

Dr. Anthony Fauci held a press conference at the CDC headquarters to update the public about the ongoing battle against the worldwide pandemic, COVID-19.

Fauci said, “Since management of the national effort to fight the disease was turned over to the CDC in January we’ve made significant progress in reducing both infections and deaths. While there still is no safe and effective vaccine available and likely there will not be one for months or even years to come, wearing masks, social distancing and the washing of hands continue to be our most powerful weapons against this disease. If we fail to practice these simple safeguards, our country’s death toll will rise dramatically from its current level of 362,000.”

Fauci made it clear that the CDC, “.  .  .  will continue to order local or regional business shut downs as necessary to keep Americans safe and hasten full reopening of our economy.”

In making his closing remarks he said, “I only wish we could have started this a year sooner. We could have saved over a quarter of a million lives.”

Viper, Disgustistan, 30 September 2021, 11:10AM local time

Premier Volgonazi Torchenmarch of Disgustistan took to the airwaves early this morning to respond to the tweet storm unleashed over the past four days by former President Trump. He said that it’s clear that the former president has a fine command of the social media platform, especially the use of the caps lock, as well as a skillful expression of white supremacy. He said, “Now that former President Trump is in all-Caucasian Disgustistan, he is with his peeps.”

“However,” said Torchenmarch, “his casino, the construction of which is nearly complete, will operate solely to my benefit. Further, I cannot guarantee that former President Trump will be paid for all of his construction work, this in accordance with Trump’s modeling of this practice in the U.S. My entire family thanks him specifically for this leadership.”

In an apparent aside from his prepared remarks, Premier Torchenmarch wondered aloud how President Trump would like being stiffed, adding, “So, sue me. I’ll sue you all the way back to where you will be criminally prosecuted.”

Former President Trump could not be reached for comment, but was said to be in contact via Zoom with his former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who is presently serving an 8 year sentence in Danbury Minimum Security Prison. Note that Giuliani is unable to provide legal advice to Trump, having been disbarred immediately upon his convictions for attempted extortion, racketeering and lying to federal agents.

The former president’s former lawyer, often called his “fixer”, Michael Cohen, was told of the way his former boss was being treated in Disgustistan. His only comment to the press was, “It’s about damned time.”

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You won’t want to miss any upcoming issues of Future News! so be sure to subscribe now. And if there’s an upcoming event worthy of our predictive reporting, please submit it to our editor for consideration at [email protected]. Or use the Comments section below.

“All the news that’s fit to predict”

——————————-

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

What’s Most Important


Reading time – 2:12  .  .  .

Let’s see if we can zero in on what’s most important about the Russian bounty on the heads of American military personnel in Afghanistan.

What’s most important actually isn’t that Vladimir Putin set up this incentive to the Taliban to murder our troops. And it isn’t a bit surprising that Putin has denied what our intelligence people have found and about which they are 100% certain. Lying and killing is what Putin does. Just ask his political rivals. Oh, wait; you can’t do that because he killed them.

And what’s most important isn’t that Trump wasn’t told what has been happening. There isn’t even the remotest possibility that our intelligence people, including the DNI, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, director of the CIA, National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense and others weren’t aware of Putin’s incentive to murder months ago. And their being aware of it and understanding the lethal implications for our troops and our national security means that there isn’t a chance that this slightly indirect act of war wasn’t brought to the president a long time ago.

It was in the PDB – the President’s Daily Briefing – but, of course, Trump doesn’t read and rarely reviews any PDB and refuses to hear bad things about Russia. However, our security types know that he doesn’t read and would have brought this critical issue to this president in various other ways that would get his attention and focus. There would have been walk-in meetings; short PowerPoint presentations using only single-syllable words; crayon and coloring book narratives; and Choose-Your-Own Adventure comic books. They would have had a beautiful model in a tiny bathing suit and heels parade past the Resolute desk waving pictures of dead American personnel with captions reading “PUTIN’S BOUNTY.” Our national security people would have used whatever it might take to get this president to absorb the key information.

In other words, there isn’t even a small possibility that Trump didn’t know about this until the past few days, as he has hollowly claimed.* Even that isn’t what’s most important.

Here’s what’s most important about this scandal:

Our military people are being murdered and Commander in Chief Trump has done nothing about it.

Click this pic and watch the video. Then  send this to independents and Trump supporters you know.

No threats of military action. No sanctions. No “Back off!” call to Putin. No coordination with NATO partners. No counter measures at all. Trump has sold out our military people.

I really don’t care what Putin has on Trump – pictures and videos, evidence of money laundering, fraud, tax evasion, whatever – except when it results in traitorous actions against our people and our country by the President of the United States.

Our people and our country are what’s most important and Trump is betraying both.

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*From Congressman Brad Schneider’s (D, IL-10) newsletter of June 30, 2020:

“.  .  .   yesterday it was reported that as early as April, 2019 [emphasis mine – ed.] U.S. officials were aware of evidence of a Russian effort to pay bounties for the killing of U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan. Further reports indicate that President Trump received written intelligence on the Russian actions as far back as February. I spoke about this issue on the House floor this morning.”

Finally, a curious comment

The mayor of Tampa, Florida reported on Juiy 1 that they are experiencing a significant spike in coronavirus cases among 20- & 30-somethings. This comes just a few short weeks after the bars and restaurants in Tampa were re-opened.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

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

My Weekly Reader


Reading time – 3:57  .  .  .

We’re taking a break from the gigantic stories of the day, the pandemic, racism, our teetering economy and our perennially incompetent government to have a look at other vitally important stories that belong on the front page but have been pushed back to Section B beneath the fold.

Bully Barr

Did you ever wonder why Attorney General William Barr is such an immoral creep? Turns out it’s a lifelong obsession of his. Read about his commitment to being a bully here.

Popeye Point

There is a never-ending commentary on the Sociopath-In-Chief and the anti-democratic, self-serving and illegal things he does. So, it isn’t the slightest shock to learn that Trump begged President Xi of China to buy more farm products from the U.S. so that Trump could win farm states and get reelected. Hint: That’s the same kind of presidential election tampering that got him rightly impeached.

Meanwhile, there are the moral and ethical perversions of President Caligula that by now seem almost normal. Here’s a smart analysis by someone who knows a bit about such things. Rabbi Wolkoff has reached his Popeye point, where it’s all he can stands, he can’t stands no more.

Foreign Danger

Perhaps you think international affairs and national security are important things. I have warned about the danger to the U.S. (here’s one example) when weakened by things like a pandemic, a ravaged economy, deeply damaged alliances with friends, civil unrest and, of course, our sucking up to tyrants. But that was just me talking. How about the view from an expert with decades of experience and keen insight? Have a look at what Richard Haass, now President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has to say.

Anti-Corruption Wins!

Just taking a chance here, but you might care about corruption in government. I’ve done countless presentations on the corrosive impact of big money in government because it is both damaging to the Constitution and it’s anti-democratic.

For example, since those kids and teachers at Sandy Nook Elementary School were massacred 8 years ago 90% of Americans have wanted universal background checks on the sale of any firearm. Since that atrocity there have been mass shootings at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, Mother Emanuel AME Church, the Pulse Nightclub, the Las Vegas outdoor concert, the Sutherland Springs, TX church, Ft. Hood, the El Paso Walmart, Tree of Life Synagogue and more and we still don’t have those background checks. (BTW – had those Sandy Hook kids not been gunned down they’d be entering high school this fall.) Watch this video (scroll down just a bit to find it) by the remarkably clear-headed and hugely effective folks at Represent.us. They’re successfully fighting the corruption that drives Congress to ignore We the People.

Migrant Health

Trump has waged a war on immigrants, regardless of their documentation, ever since the abhorrent escalator rant against Mexicans in 2015. That war went on to include his baby and child cage farms, his ripping babies from their mothers’ arms and separating them for life, his slandering all people from “shit hole countries” and far more. For those who have made it to our shores there is nothing easy, including healthcare during this pandemic, especially for migrant workers, many of whom are immigrants.

Download and read this piece of advice from Diane Harrison at HealthPSA.info and pass it along to those in need, because they’re pretty well forgotten otherwise. Like you and me, they want to live and they want their children to live, and that’s much harder for migrant workers in the age of coronavirus.

Dying for Leadership

It turns out that the Columbia University study that I reported to you on May 24 showing that approximately 30% of American COVID-19 deaths were preventable was right in concept, but things are far worse than they calculated.

A new Oxford University study detailed in “STAT” shows that 70% – 99% of American coronavirus deaths could have been prevented. That would have required early, aggressive, responsible, competent national leadership. We didn’t have that. We still don’t. One could argue that the avoidable death of 84,000 – 118,000 Americans is in the past – nothing we can do about that now. One would be right – and completely missing the point.

That same inept or completely absent leadership continues to allow and indirectly encourage massive numbers of unnecessary deaths of Americans. Read about it here.

Weekly Snark

Surely you’ll recall that President Trump proudly proclaimed following a visit with the brutal, murderous North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un in 2018 that they, “fell in love.” That suggests a solution to several issues.

Since Trump and Kim love each other, Trump should move to North Korea to live with his lover. Maybe Kim will allow Trump to build Trump Tower Pyongyang or a golf course at Mar-a-Demilitarized-Zone. Of course, since it’s a closed society and nobody from the rest of the world vacations there, both properties would go bankrupt. That would be okay, though, because for Trump that’s just another genius day at the office.

Also, each year the Darwin Awards recognize those who have done the most to improve the human gene pool by removing themselves from it. Could it be that last night we had 6,100 applicants in Tulsa?

Trump had bragged it would be 19,000 or 100,000 or a million, but he couldn’t fill the place – gobs of empty, appropriately blue seats in the arena – and there was no overflow crowd to watch him on the outdoor look-at-me big screen. Still, there were 6,100 Darwin volunteers. Thanks go to MSA for the Darwinian insight.

From the ‘Hood

10-year-old Elisa asks, “What’s orange and ugly?”

You supply the answer.

Closing question:

Trump is notoriously ignorant on even the most basic things. For example, John Bolton reports in his new book that Trump asked if Finland is part of Russia. Yes, really. That kind of demonstration of his boundless ignorance goes on every day.

He’s clueless enough that he couldn’t pass even a middle school geography test, much less succeed at a top university. Plus, payoffs are in his blood (think: Stormy Daniels). Given his boundless, bottomless ignorance and reliance on pay-to-play, how much did he or his daddy pay for his Wharton diploma?

Far more important: how much are we paying for his constant fraudulence?

——————————

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

Fun With Numbers and The Trump CCC


Reading time – 3:56; Viewing time – 8:42  .  .  .

CAUTION: CONTAINS SNARK. Sensitive readers should close their eyes while reading this post. You’ve been warned.

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I have never heard a Democrat or Independent make an accusation of voter fraud. Criminal voter suppression, yes, but  not voter fraud. That leaves Republicans as the sole finger pointers at the ballot box.

They use words like “rampant” and “pervasive” and “un-American.” They profess to be patriotically opposed to mail-in voting, claiming it will be an invitation to massive voter fraud, but they never seem to be able to present evidence of significant voter wrongdoing to substantiate their assertions, whether through the mail or any other way to vote.

No worries. The very conservative Heritage Foundation has come to the rescue to bring this voter poison to democracy to light. You can download their 390 page report here.

They document state-by-state “proven instances of voter fraud” – those are their words, whatever “proven instances” means. The report is not date stamped, but in a cursory review I found that it provides a listing of “instances” that cover roughly the period of 1997 – 2013 and they claim that the number of these “proven instances” is 1,088. For the purpose of examination, let’s accept their numbers and look at what they mean.

First, their data might have covered 1996, too; it’s not clear. We’ll include 1996 for our analysis because that appears to be the basis for the case the Heritage Foundation attempts to make.

886,000,000 votes were cast in that period. Simple math tells us that the 1,088 “proven instances” of voter fraud sprinkled among 886,000,000 voters, means that the cases of voter fraud are just 1 in 814,338 votes cast. That’s 0.0001227%. More simply, it’s one ten-thousandth of a percent.

If we are to correctly understand Trump, the decades of flaming Republicans and the Heritage Foundation, they passionately believe that fraud at the rate of one in 814,338 votes cast constitutes “rampant” voter fraud. It is because of this “rampant” fraud that they are certain that they’re justified in their voter suppression programs in North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Wisconsin and elsewhere. They’re certain they have it right when they close most polling places in poor areas, remove voters from voter rolls for not returning a post card within 2 weeks and require voter ID that is difficult for many poor people to secure. Isn’t it just the oddest coincidence that nearly all of that goes on in poor and non-white areas?

If one in 814,338 incidents of claimed fraud qualifies for being labeled “pervasive” and “un-American” as they declare, we have to catch and punish that one guy in 814,338 who cheated. Lock him up, I say! And if we’re to have fraud-free elections we must suppress voters, too, because we can’t tolerate our basic democratic right being polluted at the rate of one in 814,338 votes.

For some clarity about protests, white privilege and Trumpian cluelessness, watch this. Thanks to JS for providing the link.

Besides, if fewer people vote (translation: no poor people or non-whites), Republicans can then win. We know that, because Trump just said that very thing. Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, made that clear a long time ago and said that was why he didn’t want everyone to vote. So, for just a smidgen of integrity for just a moment, next Trump rally I want to hear those true believers chanting, “SUPPRESS THE VOTE! SUPPRESS THE VOTE!”

Republicans make their fatuous claims of voter fraud and they suppress the vote wherever they can. Theirs is a most perverse claim of protecting democracy, but one vote in 814,338 is enough for them to do their dishonest best to make sure aging, soon-to-be minority white guys stay in power.

More Fun With Numbers

Courtesy of KL, watch this video to get a perspective on the flyovers performed by the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds to honor our healthcare workers. They have flown over at least 29 cities so far. Apply that number to the math per Dr. Bill in the video to get an idea of the good we might have done instead to help people in more concrete ways.

Most of us love watching those guys and appreciate the honoring of our front line people, but after doing the math, check how you feel about those flyovers.

Trump’s CCC

The Republican National Convention was scheduled to be held in Charlotte, NC from August 24 – 27. I say “was” because it will not be held in Charlotte.

Donald Trump is desperate for the visual of thousands of MAGA hat wearing zealots thundering support and heaping praise upon his orange head. He detests the optics of N95 masks (did I mention that it’s all about the optics?) and needs a packed stadium of bare faces as a visual of the adoring, fervent love and support he knows he so rightly deserves. He won’t tolerate masks or social distancing. Bad optics. That’s why he told Roy Cooper, the Democratic governor of North Carolina, that he wants his packed stadium and he wants it his way. But that’s now a problem for Trump.

Call him crazy, but Cooper thinks it’s a medically bad idea to pack thousands of yelling, sweating, coughing, non-masked people shoulder-to-shoulder for hours, this in the face of the world’s worst pandemic right here in the world’s most highly infected country. It’s an “out there” notion, I know, but Crazy Roy Cooper is just that way, thinking that protecting his people is more important than another hate-fest Trump rally in North Carolina.

So, Trump and the RNC jellyfish are shopping for a new venue in another state. There’s lots of talk that Jacksonville, FL is the likely site for Trump’s infection rites. Makes sense. There’s a compliant Republican governor there – Ron DeSantis – and Florida is a swing state with a lot of electoral college votes. Besides, they still haven’t taken the coronavirus seriously in Florida.

1. Yes, Hizzoner did say that following the violent Chicago Police riot in Grant Park. 2. This is included for all those who can’t tolerate a little disruption in times of change and who are willing and even eager to suppress others in order to tamp down their discomfort and regain their fragile sense of being in control. See Sen. Tom Cotton’s op-ed for an example.

Recall that this is the state whose governor welcomed thousands of spring breakers as the body counts of the pandemic dead were mounting at the rate of 2,000 per day. Florida pretty much never “shut down” and was among the first to “reopen” and enable full coronavirus transfer. Pandemic, schmandemic. Who cares?

So, let’s pack Jacksonville’s TIAA Bank Field with thousands of sweating, yelling, sneezing, non-masked MAGA hat wearing Truckers for Trump, The WWWDCABG For Trump (White Women Who Don’t Care About Being Groped), White Supremacists for Trump, The IHOSIHB for Trump (I Hated Obama, So I Hate Biden) and, of course, TOTBG for Trump (The Only Two Black Guys). Let them thunderously chant to lock up Hillary and Biden. Let them pump muscled, Confederate flag tattooed arms as they chant their demand to, “PAR-DUN FLYNN! PAR-DUN FLYNN!” O’ the rush of it all!

So, let the spittle fly and the sneeze and cough mist spew unrestrained in the sublime reverie of the cult. Right there in Jacksonville at Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Contagion Convention (The CCC).

Many thanks to Donald Trump for making massive infection possible through his complete abdication of his responsibility as President.

Last thought about this: If we were to go full Machiavellian, we might say that a massive MAGA rally is a most effective way to suppress the Republican vote. That oughta battle that “rampant” voter fraud they whine about constantly.

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

Rights


Reading time – 4:11; Viewing time – 6:20  .  .  .

There are small mobs clogging our streets, attacking our state capitol buildings and protesting inside those buildings with menacing assault rifles in their hands. They are carrying Confederate flags and Nazi flags and they’re egged on by the President of the United States. They are yelling and frothing and spitting – no face masks. They are demanding their rights, dammit. What’s theirs is theirs. No stinking governor or healthcare professional can tell them what to do.

Others are protesting less pugnaciously, like the Cleveland barbershop owner who’s shop is in financial peril, who needs to provide for his family and wants his workers to have paying jobs so they can care for themselves and their families, too. He has a right to earn a living, he tells us. And he, like the violence threatening protesters, is willing to risk contracting coronavirus in pursuit of financial stability and personal independence. It’s impossible to argue with the barber’s motivation or his willingness to take that risk. Except for one thing, which I hereby offer first to the swaggering, gun-carrying protesters, and then to all self-quarantine protesters.

The right to own firearms has been expanded greatly from its original intent, greased by the lubrication of the NRA’s millions of lobbying and campaign contribution dollars. What is true concurrently with Second Amendment rights is that while you may have the right to bear arms, I have a right to not get shot by your guns, whether they’re concealed or menacingly brandished. Your right stops at the tip of my nose. And, silly me, I think my right to safety and staying alive supersedes your right to own killing machines.

It works the same way in dealing with this worldwide pandemic. Your right to get out and protest – even with your AR-15 in your hands – or open your barbershop or any other shop seems clear, and your willingness to risk illness and even death in pursuit of whatever it is you’re pursuing is your decision to make. Where your right stops is at that same tip of my nose: I have a right to not be infected by you and that supersedes your right to ignore the dire health warnings that are all around. I have a right to not get sick and die of the coronavirus that you contracted during your protests and that you could pass along to me. It doesn’t matter whether you took that risk of illness solely because of your financial needs or because you were having yet another temper tantrum against authority. Either way, you’re unfairly putting me at risk.

I feel for that barbershop owner. But while he may clear-headedly embrace the risk of contracting coronavirus by opening his shop too soon so that he can feed his children, when he’s in an ICU with a breathing tube down his throat and then dies, exactly who is going to feed his kids?

I’d rather not have to admit that I don’t feel for the gun toting protesters, but there it is. Right now I can’t find room in my heart for those who threaten others so they can feel powerful for a few moments.

My heart instead is focused on the front line troops, the doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and EMTs and the people who clean and disinfect our hospitals and clinics so that they’re ready to care for us, as well as the restaurant workers bringing your takeout to the curb for you, the delivery people and grocery store staffs who bravely show up and work so that we can get the things we need. All of them are risking their lives for the rest of us, risking even for the angry, gun-toting protesters who at last show up at our hospitals with coronavirus drowning their lungs. That’s why all those front line troops are in my heart. And the people who are suffering financial deprivations due to this pandemic, like that barbershop owner, are in my heart, as well. That doesn’t leave much room for the threatening AR-15 mobs.

For both groups of protesters my message is simple: There are hundreds of millions of Americans who don’t want to be infected by you or by others whom you infect and who unknowingly pass it along. Those who have survived the disease don’t want to learn that you’re setting it up for others to suffer the way they suffered. And if the dead could talk, they’d say, “Your selfishness is going to kill my family and my friends.”

So, grow up. This is not all about you. And you don’t get to wave the red, white and blue until you learn to behave as a patriot.

The Greatest Generation suffered rationing, 405,000 deaths, about 8 times that number of injuries and far more deprivations. All we’re being asked to do is to stay home for a while. Have we become so soft that we can’t do even that? Have we become so self-centered that we can’t sacrifice for others? If the answer to those questions is “yes,” then it’s long past time to drop the self-congratulatory platitudes and our certainties about exceptionalism and do a national gut check and recommit.

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Follow up report

In a recent post, Potpourri v11.0 – The “How Can We Be This Stupid?” Edition, a reader lamented that a lot of the money from the Payroll Protection Program intended for small business operators had instead gone to large corporations. Turns out he was right and The Washington Post reported on that.

The money from the Payroll Protection Program was supposed to provide money to small businesses to enable them to retain their employees, to pay them, even as our economy is “shut down” due to this pandemic. Instead, more than $1 billion went to large public companies. The result: “After the first pool of [money] ran dry, [that left] more than 80 percent of applicants without funding,” WaPo reported. This happened even as the CEOs of some of the large companies that received money from the Program are being paid millions of dollars.

It’s truly astonishing that in a time of national crisis the greed machine of the already wealthy keeps spinning along. Download a PDF of the WaPo article here, or read it online here.

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

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

Potpourri v11.0 – The “How Can We Be This Stupid?” Edition


Reading time – 3:41  .  .  .

Dr. Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, has been kicked out of his post. Reports STAT, “Bright’s career has largely centered around vaccine and drug development. His work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focused on influenza viruses, antiviral drugs and tests.” Sounds like the kind of guy we need right now.

But reports are that Dr. Bright and Bob Kadlec, the current HHS assistant secretary for – get this – preparedness and response had a little conflict. In fact, Bright foolishly pointed out the homicidal stupidity of recommending hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with COVID-19. That’s the drug prescribed by Dr. Trump and recommended by the prime time Fox News clueless hysterions and which hasn’t been shown to be effective against this virus but has been shown to kill patients.

Let’s see: A doctor, an expert scientist in his field, had the temerity to say something truthful and important that Trump didn’t like. Rather than listening to this guy who actually knows something, Trump and his know-nothings instead did what they always do. They always purge the best people – in this case, a really Bright one, in both senses of the word – and replace them with Trump hacks, like the know-nothing former Labradoodle breeder who is now the senior lead on the Health and Human Services (HHS) coronavirus task force. In this hour of our desperate need, what could possibly go wrong?

This sounds like a conspiracy to ensure things really do go wrong. Truly stupid.

No matter what the President says, DON’T drink me.

A reader wrote to me,

I’m reading about the latest bill passed to send $ to “SMALL” businesses. Every article mentions that the prior bill ran out of money in 3 weeks because the majority of money was sent to “LARGE” corporations. So, my question is: why is there no one in public office demanding that the government require the large corporations to return the $ so that it can be redirected to the smaller businesses, which were the intended recipients of the $ in the first place? What am I missing here?

If those large businesses fell within the program guidelines (guidelines that were created to support small businesses), then where was the oversight among all those professionals when the guidelines were created? Surely, someone should have been charged with assuring the money would go to the right companies. Seems like a slam dunk job to me.

Dear Reader,

And DON’T inhale me. No, really.

Thanks for your comments. I have no satisfactory answers. Nevertheless, I offer this:

  1. I have not heard of anyone in a position to do anything about it say a word suggesting a give-back.
  2. To the best of my knowledge, those larger businesses fell within the guidelines of the federal program – even the hedge fund operators who sucked cash from the trough. It’s crazy that these folks who clearly don’t need help could do that legally. Where, indeed, was the oversight?
  3. The larger companies commonly have a strong relationship with their bankers and they have the in-house professional expertise to apply for money from the program. Not so much for the mom and pop shops or small manufacturers. That effectively aced a lot of them out of the program.
  4. The whole thing was chaos, because the program was suddenly dumped on banks with very little in the way of direction to process these loans. Like so much during the Trump era, it was ready, fire, aim, only this time it was Congress that did it. They were in such a hurry to get money to businesses that they failed to be more clear in the process to ensure they’d help the little guys and not the hedge fund managers.

Gotta give Congress credit for earnestly wanting to help small businesses. But there was something stupid about the guardrails for the program. Do you suppose that’s fixed in the next tranche of funding?

In this time of crisis, we need the President standing a post on that wall. Instead he’s playing a constant game of Top That Lie.

On Thursday of last week Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested, ”  .  .  .  that states hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak should be allowed to seek bankruptcy protections rather than be given a federal bailout.” This was specifically aimed at diminishing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and pension obligations of the states. From reader John Anderson ([email protected]):

Today Mitch McConnell suddenly got concerned about government spending.

He was not concerned after the so called tax cut bill.

He was not concerned after the recent stimulus bill.

He was not concerned when the Senate passed another stimulus bill yesterday.

Today, he WAS concerned. He talked about the need to cut spending. For him that means cutting Social Security and Medicare. Not cutting Defense Spending. He’s said that before. Only a partial scare there.

Now the SCARY part.

He suggested that maybe, just maybe, states should be allowed to declare bankruptcy. He didn’t suggest that states could default on bonds. For him, bankruptcy of the states means they would reduce or completely default on the pensions for all people who earned those pensions – millions of police, fire, state parks employees, road crews, teachers, librarians, city employees and all others drawing state or local funds. If you’re one of those people who had to forego pay increases for the promise of future income (a pension) and who kicked in their own money to the fund, THIS IS SCARY.

I mentioned this a few years ago when Illinois attempted to change the pension terms. The Illinois Retired Teachers Association sued (Quinn v. Hearon) and won in a unanimous decision. When I wrote about this, some responses to my article were hostile, but consider this.

After WWII, Stalin took care of the USSR’s war debt by declaring that the USSR was going to write those war bonds off and thanked the Soviet citizens for their contributions. That’s essentially what McConnell wants to do to those on Social Security and Medicare and clearly thinks that the states should declare bankruptcy and default on the pension obligations to their former employees.

Responding to John, per IllinoisPolicy.org, “In fiscal year 2019, state estimates of Illinois’ total unfunded pension liability rose to $137 billion.” That’s just for the state pensions and doesn’t include city or county obligations; furthermore, the state is broke. And dealing with coronavirus is digging an even deeper hole.

Of course, this is all the result of kicking the can down the road for many decades – generations, really – refusing to fund the liability and stealing from the fund when desired. This is equal opportunity stupidity, proudly done by both Republicans and Democrats and Illinois isn’t the only state where this is happening.

Nevertheless, this bankruptcy thing is stupid on a world class level. Congratulations are due to Mitch McConnell for cavalierly flipping off 50 states and their present and former employees. On the other hand, he’s inadvertently helping to turn red states blue.

© Joshua A. Bickel/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated Press. Protesters gathered at the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio.

Finally, we have to pay homage to the many rugged individualist Americans who, with AR-15s and testosterone proudly on display, proclaim we mustn’t tread on them. They bellow in thunderous voices that we can’t tell them what to do, as they ascend the steps of our state capitols to loudly proclaim their demands.

They’re insisting on an end to our punishing stay-at-home orders and that we “open up” our economy and let them get back to work to earn their pay and re-assert control of their lives. Let us all raise a vinyl-gloved fist in solidarity with these true descendants of the original Revolution, as they wave their Nazi and Confederate flags on the sidewalk.

There is a powerful message in their behavior, as they make a mosh pit of protest, absent masks and gloves. The message is their nomination of themselves for the 2020 Darwin Awards.

These awards are given annually to people who have helped the most to improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it. And surely many of these angry protesters will fall in the Battle of the Daft, having been infected by contagious fellow protesters. Sadly, we soon won’t be able to identify these COVID-19 volunteers from others, because once a ventilator tube goes down a throat and a plastic mask covers a face, everyone looks pretty much the same.

How can we be this stupid?

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

The Damned Idiot In November


Reading time – 3:34  .  .  .

Trump isn’t an idiot for all the stupid, vacuous drivel he spouts. He’s a damned idiot because he refuses to know truth and act properly to save lives, reduce suffering, protect our nation, honor our values and all the rest.

Cases in point:

  • – The damned idiot dissolved the team of people who were a standing resource to our nation expressly because a pandemic might visit us again, like the Spanish flu and Ebola. President Obama set that up because he wanted to be sure we would be ready. Not so the damned idiot.

– The damned idiot closed his eyes and closed his ears to the warnings of a coming pandemic that were put before him at least as far back as early January.^ But he didn’t close his mouth. That’s when he called the looming pandemic a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats (check here for how hoax-y it isn’t) and he blamed the Chinese and had public tantrums about “fake news.” The epidemiologists and scientists were urging action and were themselves ready for the fight. Not so the damned idiot.

– When state governors were taking actions that he should be taking and they were asking him to do things only a President could set in motion to help our hospital workers and all the American people, he had a swift response. He declared himself to be a “wartime president,” then did next to nothing for over a week and taunted the governors, calling them stupid playground bully names. Plus, he childishly refused to communicate with governors he thought had been critical of him, this as people were dying. Others were taking action. Not so the damned idiot.*

– Trump was told about the pitiful ready condition of our hospitals to deal with a true pandemic and the health needs of the American people. We all knew most hospitals were scrambling to supplement their woefully thin supply of critical needs materials. They and we were acting on that. Not so the damned idiot.

  • – On March 24 Trump declared that quarantines should be lifted and everyone should go back to normal activities by Easter (April 12). He urged that the churches be packed on Easter Sunday, implying that social distancing should end. He made no consideration for COVID-19 infection spread, were we to follow his direction. His interest, as always, was about money and the economy, which he needs to be strong in order to be re-elected. After all, everything is all about promoting Trump. Others were focused on the terrible plight of so many sick and at-risk Americans. Not so the damned idiot.**

Trump listens to nobody. After all, he knows better than everyone about everything – just ask him. So, I have nothing for him, but I do have something for those who on Easter would follow this Pied Piper of Destruction, this damned idiot.

Ode to a MAGA Hat Wearer

I’m sure you’re nice and kind and good, as these things often go.

I bet you do those kindness acts for random lifts of woe.

You touch the folks in need and give to causes that are dear,

A bedrock solid citizen, we’re lucky that you’re here.

 

The President says Easter is the time that we go back

To resurrect our markets like the virus has gone slack.

But if you follow Trump’s advice to how we used to be,

Do anything you want, but keep the f##k away from me.

Click the pic for the story

When people are afraid, especially in a crisis, the natural thing to do is to look for and follow a leader because it gives us at least a little sense of safety, however illusory that might be. A lot of analytical thinking goes out the window in such circumstances and that’s what millions of Americans are doing right now. They’re giving Trump unusually high marks, and that’s not just the Republicans, but also some independents and even some Democrats.

If this virus is subdued by election day, even if only temporarily, Trump will take credit, proclaim himself a hero – only he could have done such wondrous things! – and we will be in terrible danger of him being reelected by a public refusing to know the truth, like what’s laid out in this post about this damned idiot. If the economy has rebounded a bit by then, the same dynamic will be at work.

We better start thinking right now about how we’ll deal with that, because if we wait until this fall, it will be way too late to stop this damned idiot.***

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Offered by reader MG, a quote from author Louis L’Amour:

“No man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime.”

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For readers in the Chicago North Shore area: Here’s a link to how you can help the NorthShore University HealthSystem professionals in their work to care for COVID-19 patients and others in this time of peril and avoid their becoming ill themselves. If you live elsewhere, find your local hospital online and extend a hand. This is urgent. Do it now.

^ Years of NSA simulations had warned not only that pandemics would arrive on our shores, but that we were woefully unprepared to deal with them. Trump made that worse by under-funding everything that would be mandatory to fight such disease. Read The Trump Administration’s Botched Coronavirus Response, Explained,  We Were Warned and Before Virus Outbreak, a Cascade of Warnings Went Unheeded and you’ll understand.

*For more, read Sheila Markin’s report on our “wartime president.” She rightly points out that Trump is not responsible for this pandemic. I will add that this damned idiot most certainly is responsible for allowing it to become far worse than it would have been had he acted early and decisively, as the epidemiologists and pandemic experts had counseled. He didn’t, which makes him culpable for many deaths that should not have happened. That’s just a vague claim in this post, of course, but when it’s your granny who dies needlessly, there’s nothing vague about it. And it will be your granny. Indeed, you may be that granny.

**The Black Plague wiped out a quarter of the population of Europe, but the area on either side of the Pyrenees, the greater Milan area and Poland were largely spared. The reasons for their relative success: quarantines – “social distancing” – and closed borders. Think about that if you decide to mingle with others on Easter.

***Watch this satire of Trump’s call for the resurrection of the economy on Easter. Many thanks to RS for pointing it out.

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

Destiny


Reading time – 2:46  .  .  .

President Trump has not just bungled facts, spewed false happy talk and continued to lie his way through his presidency and this pandemic. He has also made clear that he is not responsible for anything that’s happening if he thinks it might make him look bad.

He told us that he’s not responsible for our total lack of preparedness for COVID-19 or for its reach or for the severity of its impact, this in the face of his having completely disbanded our Pandemic Response Team and cut funding for the CDC in 2018. The people he canned are the very people who made up the very team that could have minimized our suffering due to COVID-19, had they been in place and had they proper funding and authority. Of course, the President would also have had to listen to them, follow their advice and not say stupid stuff. There was never much of a chance of any of that happening.

So, here’s a little snark from last Sunday’s post, in case you missed it. It is not offered because of the snark; it is offered because this is our reality.

As Granny struggles in her hospital bed, gasping for just a little more air from her respirator for her pneumonia-soaked lungs, her MAGA hat wearing family is gathered around her. They know this is the end and they weep for their love of her and for their looming loss. Suddenly, the lights go blue-black, the walls begin to shake, and the ceiling speakers boom in Darth Vader’s voice: “It is your des-ti-ny.” And they tremble in their horror and their fear, because all at once they realize that this is what they chose.*

It didn’t have to be this way for Granny, but we made it this way. We made this our destiny.

Last Friday the President bragged about non-existent tests for COVID-19 and about drive-thru testing sites that are nothing but fantasy. He has no plans to enlist the Army Corps of Engineers to transform buildings to meet the enormous hospital capacity we’ll need in just a couple of weeks. There’s no action to re-purpose unused manufacturing capacity to build the ventilators, hospital protective gear or anything else that is already in desperately short supply. The result of this ineptitude is that more people will die for lack of testing and care.

The differentiator that is invisible to Trump is that this isn’t a reality TV show, a make believe land where he can make up stuff and it becomes so, where everyone goes out for drinks after the taping. This isn’t a Hollywood movie where murdered characters get up after doing a scene and go home at the end of the day. This is real life and death and the people who will die from this virus will never go out for drinks or ever go home again because they will stay dead. Worse, more will die because of Trump’s ineptitude and dishonesty, including Granny.

This pandemic is completely over the head of this President and this time it isn’t a little thing like a trillion dollar gift to his rich pals. This time it is life or death for countless Americans. He is incompetent to discharge the duties of his office, including protecting the citizens of this country.

Back to the Star Wars metaphor:

Both Darth Vader and the evil Emperor told Luke Skywalker that joining with them was his destiny. With just the force of his will he refused both of them and that destiny and eventually set things right throughout the galaxy. We can do that. We can refuse the destiny of so many Americans gasping their last breaths due to COVID-19. We can lead our country and the world to set things right.

It’s about our choices as a nation and the consequences our choices bring. We can make our own des-ti-ny. That’s always been the American way.

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Finally, the people of Italy are just ahead of us in dealing with this killer disease. Here is a video message from them that you’re sure to want to watch .

Second finally, Mike Pence proudly claimed on Monday that we have a million COVID-19 test kits out right now. Great – perhaps that’s true. Only 319 million to go.

Really finally, it’s St. Patrick’s Day. Large gatherings are prohibited, so drink a Guinness in your kitchen and be your own parade.

* The legal thing: The Empire Strikes Back (from which this clip is taken) and all other movies are copyrighted material. I pay royalties to be allowed to use movie clips legally both here and in my leadership keynotes and workshops. Just thought you might like to know.

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

Science and The New Police Squads


CAUTION TO SENSITIVE READERS: This post contains snarky descriptors that include a couple of words Mom told you not to say. Reader and viewer discretion is advised.

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Reading time – 4:05; Viewing time – 6:27  .  .  .

We’ve had many years of various people denying science:

It’s Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) denying global warming, even as the tides rolled across the streets of Miami Beach, flooding the sandals and pants legs of tourists and the businesses of his constituents.

It’s Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) speaking from the well of the Senate and displaying a snowball as proof that there is no global warming .

It’s Donald Trump not only denying global warming, but blaming the entire controversy on the Chinese, saying they created a hoax designed to harm our economy. He makes his phantasmagorical claim, even as Pacific islands are swallowed by the waves.

But here’s the thing: The disappearance of huge amounts of Arctic and Antarctic ice and the commensurate rise in sea levels don’t care whether anyone believes in them; they just continue to be the stark reality.

Storms are becoming more frequent and more severe. Rainfall distribution is drastically altered, creating both zones of flooding and expanded zones of drought where those never existed. The changes are impacting food production, health and habitability. Reality denial doesn’t affect any of that.

It’s the same reality thing with gravity. It will continue to glue us to the ground and will make the Earth continue to do laps around the sun instead of flying off into the cosmos regardless of whether anyone thinks gravity exists. We know that because scientists who have studied this, who are really smart and really knowledgeable have drawn valid conclusions from facts that are irrefutable. That’s the reality, whether we like it or not.

It’s both remarkable and wondrous that each of us is free to believe whatever stupid, short-term, self-serving crap we want to believe. There are no Police Dumb-Ass Squads to lock up wingnuts who reject observable reality. But we’ve reached a new low, however impossible it may seem that there is someplace lower, and it involves the denial of science and reality.

At his hastily called press conference on Wednesday, the President of the United States gave us a verbal pat on the hand that was devoid of both reality and science. He told us not to worry because Coronavirus (COVID-19) is no biggy. He told us that we’ll have a vaccine to deal with it “very soon,” even though everyone from our government healthcare agencies to the healthcare industry itself, the people who are working to develop a vaccine, have told us flatly that it will take a minimum of 12 – 18 months before a vaccine is available, and that’s only if all goes well.

Trump continued with his reality denial, telling us that the risk of Coronavirus to Americans is small. He told us our 15 cases (actually, there were 60 when Trump spoke) would be down to 1 or 2 soon and the virus would disappear almost magically. And you can believe that’s all true only if you block your eyes and ears so that you can’t detect the lightning fast spread of this killer disease around the world.

To be clear, “risk” involves not what exists, but what may be coming. Trump ignored and continues to ignore the reality of the risk we face and he put us all in greater danger with his false words. We should be alarmed by this risk of pandemic. Not panicked; alarmed.

Trump has put VP Mike Pence at the head of our response team to deal with Coronavirus, explaining that he made that decision because of Pence’s expertise and great success when he was governor of Indiana dealing with HIV. That’s when Pence took 2 months to do anything at all. Then he refused to implement a needle sharing program that would have limited HIV infections. Then he declared the cure was to pray away HIV. That was his great success in Indiana. Seriously.

In addition, Trump has muzzled our healthcare experts, the very people we need to hear from regularly. That leaves us to decide whether we can trust whatever dribbles out of the mouths of our healthcare ignorant politicians. Putting Pence in charge and muzzling the people who actually know something about disease are yet more Trump reality denial and are likely to harm Americans.

Because as John Pavlovitz wrote, You Can’t Gaslight a Pandemic, Donald. It’s that pesky reality thing. It just won’t go away, no matter how many lies and misleading statements are spewed. And reality denial isn’t limited to politicians.

Shockingly, a group of anti-vaccine activists in Maine got an initiative called Question 1 onto their ballot, seeking to repeal a law requiring schoolchildren to be vaccinated. Their slogan is “Reject Big Pharma.” I think instead they should be honest and use the slogan, “We don’t care if our kids infect your kids.”

There’s no vaccine for Coronavirus, but when there is, the reality is that we’re going to force-vaccinate everyone in order to stop this pandemic. And we damned well will be thanking Big Pharma for saving our lives. To the anti-vaccine activists in Maine: Just shut up.

Reality tells us that we are facing an existential threat from Coronavirus, regardless of Trump’s or anyone else’s denials of science and reality. This pandemic is coming soon to a community near you and there is precious little any of us can do about it, other than to be sensibly defensive. Don’t let “He Who Lies When the Truth Would Do” lull you into passivity. His lying and misleading are now more than moral outrages; they are life threatening if we allow them to be. It’s time to prepare and to take extra healthcare measures.

And it may be time to recruit Police Dumb-Ass Squads to arrest the reality deniers, who will harm us unless we stop them. Come to think of it, we can do that on November 3rd. And we must not get this one wrong.*

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*This is important: Read Tom Friedman’s astonishingly sensible post, Dems: You Can Defeat Trump in a Landslide from the Feb. 25 New York Times. Click this link to view it online or click here to download a PDF hard copy.

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Quote of the Week

“Mike Bloomberg wants to buy the election with his own money. Bernie Sanders wants to buy it with ours.” – courtesy of R.M.

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

Put Them in RDP


Reading time – 4:02  .  .  .

We’ve had years of hearing Donald Trump say whatever came into his fraudulent head and many of us are way past shock and indignation. We see that’s just the criminal, disconnected-from-reality way he rolls and it’s become what we expect. But he’s infected pundits and members of Congress who now ignore reality so well and who are so facile with rationalizations that they no longer recognize when they’re just making up crap. Reference: the impeachment trial defense team.

We now have governing by gaslighting and these reality deniers have infected the 38% voting bloc that has adopted their practices. We may soon hear a thundering claim of a flat Earth, a serious proposal for a National Alchemy Act and the burning of witches.

Often we’re slow to figure out that we aren’t dealing with reality. For example, we didn’t do a good a job with the war on drugs. It was based on lies and was heavily weighted against non-white people. Essentially, it was and is a tool of suppression, not unlike any Jim Crow law, giving us the highest rate of incarceration in the world. A consciousness of that hypocrisy has started and at last we’re doing something to bring us back to actual reality. It’s taken half a century for us to recognize the facts.

Now we’re in the midst of the impeachment trial of the Criminal in Chief. The blindingly fast stampede away from actual reality (e.g. promoting the totally debunked Russian propaganda story of Ukrainian interference in our 2016 election) being done by Trump’s supporters is astonishing in its vehemence and audacity. They deny documented actions. At the same time they admit that Trump did those very things, but claim they aren’t impeachable offenses. But really, now, they can’t have it both ways.

They deny Trump’s solicitation of foreign government interference in our upcoming election (read Federalist 68 for an adjustment back to reality – see the pertinent paragraph below), even though his own words and actions show us plainly that’s what he did. Hugh Hewitt, a man who otherwise appears to be conscious, claimed this on Meet The Press last Sunday – watch starting around the 1:00 minute mark for a fine example of departure from reality.

Majority Leader McConnell claimed that the impeachment trial process that he created is the same as the process used in the Bill Clinton impeachment trial (not even close). That and a thousand other distractions, whataboutisms and whining lead us ever further away from actual reality. This is the kind of blatant refusal to acknowledge fact that is poisoning our nation. The more we deny actual reality, the more difficult it will be to fix what we’ve broken and the easier it becomes for people to deny any and all reality.

Countering fantasies with facts to redirect back to what actually happens here on planet Earth is pretty much an exercise in wheel spinning; deniers are immune to logic, so it’s time for us to get tough on this craziness. I propose a War on Reality Denial. Too bad for you, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Sean Spicer.*

It’s time to draft a law making it a felony to knowingly promote false realities. We need a stop-and-interrogate provision. Playing off Donald Trump’s invitation to police officers, it’s okay if perps routinely get roughed up during questioning.

There will be mandatory sentencing to prevent wussy judges from undermining the program. And there will be a 3-strikes rule, just like in the war on drugs and the war on crime. I want to see repeat offenders put away for a long time. And while they are there we won’t provide training or rehabilitation, so that when they are released, recidivism will be their reality. That will let us keep them locked up even longer. And because reality denial offenders are primarily white I want to see these laws disproportionately enforced on them.

Science and education are under attack in this country from many angles, but the overriding issue is the wholesale denial of reality. Let’s put our shoulders to the wheel and move this legislation right past our fact contradicting politicians and send them where they belong: to RDP – Reality Denial Prison.

One bright spot: Yesterday I was once again a judge in the local middle school science fair. Seventh and eighth grade students proudly strutted their science stuff with a wanton embracing of reality. These kids learn and use the scientific method – you know, factual, testable real world reality. They are our hope.

Useful stuff: Because of what I learned at the science fair, check with me to learn about the best batteries, the fastest seed germination methods and ways to marginally increase memory performance. Also, I can now tell you which colors improve test performance and why a recording of your own voice doesn’t sound like you.  These kids teach me a lot every year.

Resources:

Alexander Hamilton warned us about factional (i.e. partisan) lunacy in impeachment trials in Federalist 65**. Click through for the complete essay. Here’s the pertinent paragraph:

“A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

Have a look here for an interesting take on impeachment from the Harvard Law Review that will open your eyes. It might even poke at a cherished notion or two.

From a recent Lawfare brief:

”  .  .  .  the Founders had a broader conception of bribery than what’s in the criminal code. Their understanding was derived from English law, under which bribery was understood as an officeholder’s abuse of the power of an office to obtain a private benefit rather than for the public interest. This definition not only encompasses Trump’s conduct—it practically defines it.”

*From Federalist 68:

“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter [sic], but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?” [emphasis mine]

Maybe our “originalist” (interpreting the Constitution as the Founders intended) senators could stop denying this reality  .  .  .  ?

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*“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.” Edward Abbey. Thanks go to MG.

————————————


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

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

Thanks!

Fine Print:

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

JA


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

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