Take Action

Lessons


POST 1170

Good News First

I subscribe to the posts of some very insightful people and I’ve noticed something recently: their posts are getting longer. They have a lot to say, now that the shock of the last election has worn off and there is some good news happening.

Two weeks ago we had the April 5 demonstrations and over 5 million people showed up loud, strong, demanding and defiant. Roughly 1.5% of all Americans were in the streets that day. And yesterday a whole lot of people clogged the streets and sidewalks again in 700 “No Kings” rallies across the country.

After the election most heads were hung in despair and the question being asked was, “What can we do?” No answers were offered, other than pleadings from politicians to send them money. Now people are up and out and even some Republicans are making noises as though they have re-discovered that they have spines (gasp!).

Bernie and AOC are all over America with their “Fighting Oligarchy!” tour and drawing huge crowds – 12,000 in shocking red Idaho! 30,000 in ruby red Folsom, CA! 36,000 in LA! Tens of thousands in Utah – UTAH! Thousands stood in the rain to get into the venue in 95% White Iowa. 34,000 showed up in Detroit. It turns out that Bernie is right:

People are sick and tired of being sick and tired!
.

Change for the better is in the air, even in the presence of the stink of Trump’s grab for a crown.

Trump is doing us all a favor by being the very worst version of himself, lying, breaking laws, violating the Constitution and, most helpfully, doing things that impact We The People negatively so that even his voters are starting to feel the pain. Stealing money from granny and our veterans is enough to enrage anyone, so pray that he does ever-worse things. Then it won’t be 5 million people in the streets. It will be 50 million of us declaring that there is no American king, that America keeps its promises to its citizens and to the world and that the rule of law is supreme.

So, get out and do your part so that you’ll never be ruled by a brainless, Trump appointed, ass kissing tyrant; never be renditioned by Trump’s Brown Shirts wearing ski masks and sending you to a “shit-hole country;” so that you’ll never be smeared by his Eichmann, Stephen Miller; and never be attacked by his IRS.

Even President Obama is speaking out. Have a look/listen to his presentation at Hamilton College via Meidastouch network. For the full 1:14 conversation, click here. I so very much miss that man.

Lessons

From Hold Tight by Harlan Coben:

Why do humans never really learn the lessons we are supposed to? What is in our makeup, in fact, that draws us to that which should sicken us?

From Ron Fournier’s Substack post, Yes, Senator: In Trump’s America, We Are All Afraid

We feel for you, Senator Murkowski.

It must be scary to serve under a party leader capable of turning the full power of the presidency against you and unleashing waves of angry, potentially violent, supporters upon you.

“We are all afraid,” you told a conference in Anchorage. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

You’re right, senator. It’s not right. If you are scared — a member of President Trump’s own party with a family legacy in Alaska politics — can you imagine what it’s like to be a Democrat?

Or a reporter?

Or an immigrant?

Or a child of an immigrant?

Or a non-white person?

Or a woman?

Or a married gay couple?

Or a transgender man or woman?

Or a person on the autism spectrum?

Or a small business person dependent on imports?

Or a starving child dependent on U.S. assistance?

Or a Ukrainian?

Or a federal employee?

Or a college president?

Or a judge?

Or a lawyer?

Or anybody else whose lives and livelihoods our president threatens at a whim?

Yes, Senator. We should all be afraid.

Senator, you signed up for the brainless, violent threats you’re receiving and your failure to stand firm against the evil of extremists for so many years has allowed and encouraged the very threats you fear. You know right from wrong. Try doing right more often. That’s a lesson you should have learned a long time ago.

From my Jeez Puleeze! Journal:

 As Harry Truman (sort of) said, “If you can’t stand the heat, Senator Murkowski, get out of the kitchen.”

From Steve Schmidt, also singling out Murkowski:

[America’s Republican elites] are worthless in a fight over principle because the only principle that they truly care about is self-interest.

The thing is, we’ve seen this before in Stalin’s and Putin’s Russia, in Hitler’s Germany, in Orban’s Hungary and in so many more places where people failed to stand up to bad guys. Then the bad guys, the homegrown terrorists, turned their violence on We The People.

We’ve seen the hatred and violence in our own country in the Civil War, the American Bund, the KKK, in today’s White supremacists and the creeps who have threatened Sen. Murkowski and Georgia poll worker Ruby Freeman. And don’t forget the American Nazis, who are proclaiming that Hitler should have finished the job. That’s the kind of people we’ll get if we fail to stand up to the bad guys today.

We must remember the lessons.

Trump is building his authoritarianism one airplane renditioning of legal – legal! – immigrants at a time. So far most of the courts (but not those in Texas) are following the law. The Supreme Court, except for (guess who?) Thomas and Alito, seems to be able to locate the Constitution on a clear day.* We knew this hateful attack on our values (the ones we proclaim but sometimes ignore) was coming because Trump slimed us with his promises of cruelty. We were shown the lessons repeatedly and, as Coben said, “humans never really learn the lessons we are supposed to .  .  . “

.  .  .  until it’s so late that the price to restore our country is enormous. Trump told us what he was going to do, the cruelty, the meanness, the lawlessness, the violations of our Constitution, and still nearly half the voters, the people Trump fools some of the time and those he fools all of the time, voluntarily forgot the lessons. And now he’s SOLD Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and about 230 more legal immigrants to an El Salvador tyrant who stuffed them into his concentration and extermination camp.

We are all afraid. We’re monstrously pissed off, too. We know what to do to solve the problem. There are millions of us in the streets, almost ready to bring pitchforks and torches.

Yet again.

There is a major election coming up in 564 days. If you aren’t working on the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Courage – It’s Contagious!

____________________________________________

* And yet the Court recently agreed to hear a Trump case seeking to end birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment begins,

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Is there anything unclear about that?

Yet the Court is willing to hear arguments against it!

Do you remember your civics class where you were taught that the only way to change the Constitution is through a new amendment? Yet these justices are willing to hear a case based on just an executive order that would change the Constitution with only a cockamamie extremist law, not an amendment. What lesson have these justices forgotten?

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Dumb


POST 1167

Having To Admit: It’s The Reality, Stupid

Here is the opening stanza of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’.

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam And admit that the waters around you have grown. And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin’, And you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, For the times they are a-changin’.

When that song was written, most believed it was a message to the establishment that had us caught up in the Viet Nam War. We wanted them to know that the new generation wasn’t just like them, that we wouldn’t blindly follow their orders, that the times had changed. Now times have changed far more.
.
Now it’s the establishment that has changed, this time into a bullet train speeding to the end of the America we know and want. That’s why we, you and I, better start swimmin’ or we’ll sink like a stone. That’s what we did last Saturday all across the nation – HANDS OFF!
.
Dumb – Chapter 1: It’s Their Fault; It’s Ours To Fix
  • I wax and wane in my fury at Trump voters. Sometimes I’m more placid, understanding and patient. Other times I want to saw heads off bodies. Here’s a link to a fine explainer for why fury is so often at maximum wax.
  • What explains that okay-ness for so many with Trump’s awful? How come they have crushed our decency and our values, leaving room for hatred and mouth foaming rage to grow and flourish in a dystopian swamp fountain of hypocrisy, lies and cruelty?

Trump’s behavior, his bullying and vomiting of vitriol, has unleashed the anger and frustrations built over years within a lot of Americans, the feelings of resentment and betrayal. He’s tacitly given permission for people to leave their decency behind them and to mimic his bullying, his cruelty and his constant lying. He’s told people that it’s good to be bad. He’s shown that it’s okay and even powerful to obey their worst angels in a constant orgy of brutality.

So sorry they feel that way, but frankly, my dear, most of the time I don’t give a damn about them. Nevertheless, it’s reality and only we can fix it.

Dumb – Chapter 2: Gargantuan Dumb
If you need a thorough explanation of our dumb, watch Richard Wolff’s explainer here. He speaks quite slowly, so you may want to click on the Settings button and speed up the playback. Regardless, you’ll come away with better clarity about our dumb.
.
And read what Hillary Clinton has to say in her essay, How Much Dumber Will This Get? about our gargantuan national dumb, the inept leadership that is incrementally making our nation sink like a stone – things like the national security disaster that is Signal Gate. That, in part, is what the national rallies on Saturday were about and it’s why you showed up.
.

Here’s an excerpt from Heather Cox Richardson’s March 30 comments:

Both Trump and Hegseth have made it their goal to purge the United States of what they call “Marxism” and what Hegseth calls “woke sh*t.” [They rail] against the racial, gender, and religious diversity that Americans have embraced since World War II. That means taking the government the country has built over the past 80 years down to the ground and rebuilding it as they imagine it was before, with men like them in charge.

The Trump regime is the result of at least 45 years of Republican rhetoric that undermined the idea of a government that worked for the good of everyone by claiming that such a government was “socialism” or “Marxism.”

Dumb – Chapter 3: Impact On You
Pick your favorite words: dumb, evil, destructive, un-American, cruel, delusional, deceitful, treasonous, criminal – there are lots of accurate descriptors for what these tyrants are doing. What would be epically dumb, though, would be for us to tolerate that destruction of the United States of America. Here are some examples of that dumb.
.
There is the dumbing down of our public health, even as measles infects its way across the nation and Ebola does the same in Africa. Good thing pandemics can’t cross oceans, right? So let’s shut down our public health expertise.
.

We have things like stupid, counter-productive tariffs making life unaffordable for millions. And soon everything will cost much more and small businesses will go bankrupt.

There is the betrayal of giving away your private, personal information to Musk and his evil flying tech monkeys.

There is the giving of tax cuts to people who are so rich that generations into the future their families can’t ever run out of money, even as millions of We The People suffer.

We proudly have a Russia suck-up useful idiot in charge of our national security. What could possibly go wrong?

There’s the undermining of the education of our children at a time when they are quickly slipping behind their peers in other countries.

Fewer than half of our adults can name the three branches of government and only about a quarter can name our First Amendment rights. Read the Annenberg School’s report. One in eight Americans can’t name our first president (hint: cherry tree). Whatever happened to our civics education? Perhaps we can teach it in the streets.

Dumb – Chapter 4

From Adam Kinzinger’s Country First post of April 3, the day after Trump’s fantasy “liberation day:”

    • In 2018, during the first Trump administration, a steep tariff was imposed on foreign-made washing machines. The result?
    • The price of laundry equipment in the U.S. jumped by 34%, far outpacing inflation. Why?.
    • Because when tariffs reduce competition, American manufacturers often raise prices too — and consumers pay the price.
    • Now, this administration is claiming that tariffs will bring back American manufacturing. But we’ve run that experiment, too. During the first Trump Administration, when tariffs were introduced (at a smaller level than now), the U.S. lost manufacturing jobs and businesses. [all emphasis original)
    • How much more will we tolerate?

Actually, it’s more than dumb; it’s sinister. It’s catastrophic. It’s willfully ignorant, cruel and voluntarily self-defeating; hence we employ the graphic to the right once again.

The shoe represents the United States of America and the hand represents those we elected or who were appointed to administer our government. They are working day and night to destroy our government, our culture, our values, our nation – everything – and replace them with a dictatorship run by people who are not you. If they succeed, you will forevermore be a nothing in the country that once was yours.

If we continue down this dumb path, sick people who could have been saved will die. People who could have been whole will be permanently debilitated. People who could have been financially comfortable will barely eek out subsistence. People for whom the future could have been bright will instead live in hopelessness. And We The People will exist only at the pleasure of a dictator and his thugs, at all times under threat of rendition for no wrongdoing. And we’ll have a nation only as long as foreign powers allow us to exist.

All of that dumb and more are what is growing our personal and national anxiety into active resistance, as well as our impatience for Democrats to at last push back.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

BACK OFF!


POST 1166

At Last It’s Happening and We Know The Answer

I’ve been asking the key question since the last election, as we suffered under leadership insufficiency and have steadily been sorely pained by would-be political leaders who cannot lead anyone. The question is

Who Will Lead?
.

Now I think we’ve seen the face of who will lead.

Cory Booker has always led with his insight, with his values and his heart and his 25 hour marathon speech in the Senate has sealed the deal to lead us. It’s not because he kicked out hateful segregationist Storm Thurmond as the longest filibusterer. That was symbolically good but was beside the point. It was his speaking with righteous passion and clarity about values – our values – that establish him as a guy to lead us back to being the United States of America.

We’ll see where this goes, but good things are happening beyond Booker’s filibuster. There was Susan Crawforde’s win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the halving of Trump margins in Florida. Now Mallory McMorrow, the fiery Michigan state senator, has announced her candidacy to be the next U.S. senator from Michigan. We’re starting to flex our muscles.

The National Declaration

We did a national demonstration yesterday to send a message to the awful guys. It was officially named “BACK OFF!“, but the energy of the crowd said, “BACK THE F*** OFF!“

There were millions of people in over 1400 demonstrations nationwide yesterday. Some say that we won’t have made any difference, but I have a short list for you that says otherwise.

    1. We made it clear for everyone to see that we are not alone. Millions of us have one another’s backs.
    2. We put a stake in the ground that we support those legislators and officials who stand for our democracy, our Constitution and our people. We let them know that when they won’t stand for the awful and un-American things the Republicans are doing, that we have their six when they are brave.
    3. We told the world that we are not like Trump, Musk and their army of cruel, greedy sycophants. They don’t speak for We The People. We are rising up in righteous fury.

Here are just a few pics from the demonstration in little Tucson, AZ, where there were over 14,000 people lining the streets 5 deep, carrying signs and chanting amidst the constant honking of the horns of cars passing by. The air was electric.

That’s a United States Marine holding the Distress flag. He told me that he’s in distress for our nation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best sign of the day

Just For Fun

From Andy Borowitz:

Americans Demand Breathalyzer Be Attached to Pete Hegseth’s Phone
.

Washington (Borowitz) – Amid the outcry over the leaking of top-secret war plans, on Monday millions of Americans called for a breathalyzer to be attached to Peter Hegseth’s phone.

In emotional apology at the Pentagon, Hegseth said that someone in his position “should never drink and text, and so I am giving up texting.”

According to national security experts, a journalist was given access to highly sensitive war plans that are normally available only to people using a public bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.

From The Onion:

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

April 5: Fixin’ What’s Broke – v2


POST 1165

Holes

It is clear that I am out of step with today’s political realities that have been Big Lied to us for decades. Instead, I/we need to obey the Rule of Holes: When you’re in a hole, stop digging. I.e., stop doing what is counter-productive.

We’ve been told that “Corporations are people, my friend,” and we know that our Supreme Court wholeheartedly believes that, because they gave corporations all the same rights as a flesh and blood human being; someone like you.

We’ve practiced absolute obeisance to corporate shareholders as the very most important stakeholders, while ignoring workers. That’s very convenient for some people.

80% of stocks and bonds are owned by the top 10% wealthiest Americans. In other words, the wealthy prioritize what makes them even more wealthy, like increasing shareholder wealth.

While CEO income has grown over 1000%, working class Americans’ income has been essentially stagnant for decades, even as productivity has soared.

It isn’t quite as convenient for the rest of us.

While all this has been going on we have dramatically reduced taxes on the wealthy, to the point that many of them pay next to nothing for the blessings of being Americans. Same for many corporations thanks to our tax codes, written by – wait for it – big corporations.

Our rate of growth in economic output (GDP) is a fraction of China’s and there are good reasons for that, many of them driven by our consistently being short sighted, something from which the Chinese do not suffer. We’ve made some impressively stupid decisions, like:

– massively cutting taxes for the benefit of the rich and penalizing our working class with insulting, no-help pittances

– incentivizing “off-shoring” of our jobs, which has dramatically cut millions of jobs, thereby reducing consumer spending and constricting our economy

– “right-sizing” businesses, which means firing workers, forcing those who remain to work harder to increase productivity and refusing to pay them more

  • Over 70% of our national economic activity driving our GDP is spending by We The People. But that’s drastically constrained when most of the money goes to the richest few, who invest most of their money, rather than pouring it back into our economy through spending. In that way, not only our people, but our nation suffers.
  • At the same time, we are left feeling betrayed – because we have been. The hollow promises of something better leaves us no better than filled with despair or, worse, with fury. It doesn’t have to be that way. We know, because there was a time when things weren’t that way in this country.
  • All of that is made worse by our hiring a know nothing circus barker felon to run our country, someone whose primary skill is dangling bright, shiny objects before us to distract us from his malfeasance and know-nothing-ness. When we fall for the flim-flam, eventually our sense of betrayal is multiplied.

The old saying is that if we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we always got. Maybe you prefer Einstein’s way of explaining our current idiocy: Insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. Most of our domestic problems and some of our international challenges can be solved with a few simple actions – a bit of doing something different.

  1. Increase the minimum wage to at least $25 per hour. Then people will have money in their pockets to spend and will thereby grow our economy.
  2. Raise taxes on the rich and on corporations. In the 1950s top marginal rates were in the vicinity of 90% and our economy was booming, so don’t fall for the BS grade whining that higher tax rates will kill our economy.
  3. Do not deport undocumented immigrants. They are the backbone of our food and construction industries, as well as others. We are going to figure that out quickly, as housing and food prices skyrocket due to Trump’s stupid, often illegal deportations.
    1. Re: replacement theory. Do you know of any American citizens who will do stoop labor harvesting lettuce? Do you know of America citizens willing to do construction site clean-ups? Once Trump has kicked them all out of the country, what do you suppose that will mean for you?
    2. No caravan of rapists and murderers has or ever will arrive.
  4. Welcome immigrants, especially asylum seekers. They will become grateful, hard working new citizens.
  5. Instantly end our self-defeating tariffs. All they do is drag down our economy, decrease people’s standard of living and make foreign enemies out of former friends.

It may be that you prefer not to take my word on these complicated issues. That’s wise. Instead, read Scott Galloway’s words and listen to the messages from Richard Wolff. Each is a Royal Smart Person who explains important stuff in language we understand.

In the midst of the blizzard of stupid Trumpian executive orders and assaults on the agencies we created to serve us, it’s easy to just focus on the outrage du jour, but that’s not helpful. It’s easy to lose sight of the basics and be overwhelmed and immobilized, but those aren’t good options. Here are two.

The first is to realize that more money in your pocket works for you like it does for everyone else. It greatly eases your life and makes you and all of us happier campers. We buy more stuff and our economy grows. We aren’t as afraid all the time and that makes us willing to work with others, rather than hate everyone who is so much as a smidgen different from us.

And that begins to erase the feelings of betrayal that have crushed our trust of one another and which have been gnarling our guts for decades.

The second option is to stand up for what you know is right and against what you know to be wrong. Passivity will not help you.

It’s that Rule of Holes thing. It’s long past time to stop digging, making things worse, and instead start building what We The People want.

TAKE ACTION

There will be a huge demonstration in DC this Saturday, April 5, organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, Mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want that to happen.

Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

Pass this along to at least 3 others – and bring a friend to the rally.

And watch this..

Just For Fun

Click me

The Marsh Family Singers do some wonderful political parodies and this one is most timely.

We must not let slip from our memories the astonishing national defense threat of Signal Gate. It is the work of our not-so-esteemed top executive department officials. Now they and the Master Liars in the White House are gaslighting us to try to make their massive breach of our safety look tame. Have a look and listen to this Marsh Family offering.

Best Graphic of This Election

That’s the Wisconsin State Capitol Building in the background. Sorry, can’t give attribution.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

April 5: Fixin’ What’s Broke – v1


POST 1164

VOTE TUESDAY, APRIL 1 – NO EXCUSES. THIS MAY BE FOR ALL THE MARBLES.

National Security

National Security Bozo Michael Waltz

By now you know that Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor in Chief of The Atlantic, was included in an unsecured group text on Signal, originated by National Security Advisor (yes, really) Michael Waltz. That chat included top secret information about a pending attack on Houthi belligerents in Yemen.

The operation and text string discussion were led by the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and included 17 other administration incompetents, not one of whom had the sense to question who “JG” – Jeffrey Goldberg – was or insist that they use a secure communication system, rather than Signal, a public use platform. They discussed F-18 attacks, rocket and drone usage, timing, target damage assessments and more. That is to say, it was the battle plan, complete with information for when our pilots would be over their targets.

Let’s have a both sides compare-and-contrast.

First, imagine that this had happened on Barack Obama’s watch.

  1. What national security outrages and screams of fecklessness would congressional Republicans be howling at Obama and his top people, were they to have conducted secret plans on an open platform and had included a journalist who had no security clearance?
  2. How many firings of Obama’s top people would Republicans have demanded within the first 20 minutes of the news of such a breach of security being made public?
  3. Within how many seconds of news of the breach of national security going public would there be Republican calls for the impeachment of Obama?

But it didn’t happen on Obama’s watch. It happened on Trump’s, so:

  1. There has been no howling of outrage by congressional Republicans, although there have been many massively stupid things said in defense of the indefensible. How come?
  2. There have been no demands by congressional Republicans for firing any of the sloppy bozos who included that journalist on their unsecured chat. How come not even one of those 18 administration brainiacs even questioned who “JG” is, much less why the war plans discussion was being held on an unsecured chat line? What if the person presumably accidentally included in this war chat had been Putin suck-up Tucker Carlson? What if Tulsi Gabbard, the immensely unqualified, Russian useful idiot security risk, our Director of National Intelligence, had been on that chat? Oh, wait: she was.
  3. Why have there been no Republican calls for the firing of the incompetent 18 and the impeachment of Trump?

“The obvious point [about Signalgate] was made early: The people in charge of the country are buffoons and liars.” – David Corn

Bittersweet

48-Star Flag, 1912 – 1959

A long time ago my in-laws had a 48-star flag that hung on a wooden flagpole mounted in a holder next to the front door of their house. After they passed we kept the flag and my wife put it away carefully to protect it. This morning she came upon it again and brought it into my office to show it to me. It’s all cotton, of course, and the colors are still bright.

I refolded it the way the Boy Scouts taught me all those years ago, tucking in the ends to make a neat package and realized that this flag was from a day when this was America.

I don’t mean a day without Alaska and Hawaii. I mean a time when We The People had a shared reality and shared values and when attacking our democracy and our Constitution were unthinkable evils; a day when we not only made commitments, like Social Security and health benefits for our veterans, but we kept them, too; a day when we didn’t have ignorants talking parents out of protecting their kids from deadly diseases, when our officials understood the meaning of “Top Secret” and took extra care to protect our nation. Maybe you remember that America, too.

That is the America the overwhelming majority of We The People want. We have values in line with the values we had when that 48-star flag was new.

That’s what is inspiring tens of thousands of us – perhaps millions – to demonstrate on April 5. It will propel us to speak up on other days, too. We want our America back.

TAKE ACTION

There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want that to happen.

Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

Pass this along to at least 3 others – and bring a friend to the rally.

And watch this.

Counting On the Courts

Are you thinking that Trump and his lackeys got away with defying the federal court order to return to the U.S. the so-called Venezuelan terrorist gang members they renditioned to El Salvador? Is it your notion that they were ordered to produce evidence supporting the deportations and ordered to justify refusing those men due process and that they got away with refusing the judge’s orders?

Judge James Boasberg

The judge in this case is Judge James Boasberg. His wife and daughter have been threatened by Trump-following thugs, but he’s standing firm and having none of Trump’s deceit, disorder and lawlessness. Read about it in Harry Litman’s piece, Boasberg Will Not Relent.

“But,” you say, “the courts have no army to enforce their orders and Trump has his Andrew Jackson smartass, tough guy attitude. Plus, he has his get-out-of-jail-free pass, courtesy of the poisonous, brain-free 2024 Supreme Court decision in Trump v. USA.”

All true, but Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), constitutional law professor and royal smart person in all things Constitution, has the antidote to the Constitutional poison. Read Jamie Raskin And The Way To Stop The Trump Administration. This piece is a don’t-miss for your heart health.

There’s More

To stop Trump we will need for our military to refuse illegal orders. That will be tough, since Trump has fired all the top brass who aren’t sycophants.

Just imagine if Trump had invoked martial law in 2020 during the peaceful demonstration in Lafayette Square for George Floyd. Trump wanted Gen. Milley to order his army to shoot protesters in the legs. Milley would never do that. Such an order would be illegal, but I don’t have sufficient confidence that the next general will have the same square jawed integrity.

Trump knows he’s going to be severely reprimanded by voters in the 2026 mid-term election. Expect him to do everything imaginable to stop that from happening, including cancelling the election*. Desperate people do desperate things, and Trump is desperate to be king.

All of that is why we need judges with a stiff spine, people like Jamie Raskin, generals with integrity and We The People in action.

In Case You’re Wondering . . .

. . . how badly Trump’s Project 2025 Cruelizers have damaged our country, read this.

And read this from STAT:

Peter Marks, the top FDA official who oversaw vaccines, gene therapies, and the blood supply, resigned Friday after being told by Trump administration officials he would be fired if he did not step down, according to press reports and people familiar with the situation.

In his resignation letter, which was obtained by STAT, Marks said that he had attempted to answer the concerns of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., regarding the safety of common childhood vaccinations.

“However, it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote.

_________________________________________

* He’s threatened to do that so that he can stay in office.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

We Want


POST 1163

How Can Democrats Not Get This?

Reported by history Professor Heather Cox Richardson in her post of March 22, quoting Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) in 1950, speaking in opposition to the fascist smear campaign being conducted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI):

“I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear,” she said. “As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”

Senator Smith ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”

Read Sen. Smith’s words again, now imagining a traditional Republican (if any are left) standing in the well of the Senate today speaking those words.

It feels good to hear of someone standing up to the fascist bully, right? What follows is in stark contrast to the courage of Sen. Smith.

From Jennifer Rubin in her Contrarian post of March 24, Cowardice and Capitulation Stain the Legacy of Once-Esteemed Mega Law Firm

[Law firm] Paul Weiss joins the list of institutions and individuals with ample resources to defend themselves, who nevertheless have refused to stand up for justice in the face of MAGA intimidation.

Chuck Schumer caved in to MAGA, too. He claimed that agreeing to the abhorrent Continuing Resolution that gave Trump everything he wants to destroy our democracy was better than voting it down. He said that if the CR were voted down, Trump could claim all the same things by fiat.

All together: “HUH?“

When courage for the fight was needed, Schumer caved.

And check out this AP headline:

ABC agrees to give $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle defamation lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million toward Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

ABC could have won that idiot lawsuit, but they decided not to even fight. They caved. Capitulation as strategy.

What Paul Weiss, Schumer and ABC and so many others are doing is exactly what We The People don’t want them to do. Let’s focus now not on wimpy corporations, but on wimpy Democrats.

Democrats make reasoned choices and take sensible actions. They chant awkwardly to lead a crowd that ignores them. They call for bi-partisanship and make brave predictions that the sun will come up some day. They are everything their fathers feared they would become.

Brace yourself now, as I grab turf to speak to Democrats on behalf of We The People.

Democrats:
We Don’t Want
Your reasoned choices or your useless sunny weather predictions. The time for those politics ended 40 years ago. It was quite violently demolished 9 years ago. Those days are gone and so will you be if you keep acting like it’s yesterday.
.
Your pathetic, passionless talking points or your “We must” powerless verbal dribblings.
.
Your campaign platform of “Send me money and vote for me because I’m not Trump.”
.
Your lofty list of esoteric concepts that disrespect us by treating us like you think we’re stupid and which display your ignorance of what our lives really are like right now.
.
We Do Want
To know what you are doing – and what you will do – to restore our lives to something livable and to reclaim our America.
.
To know what you’ll do to make a middle class income sufficient for a family to live.
.
To know what you’ll do to ensure our safety in a world where competitors want to crush us and our way of life and replace us on the world stage.
.
And Most Of All

WE WANT YOU TO HAVE A SPINE!

.

WE WANT YOU TO PUNCH THE BULLY IN THE NOSE!

.

WE WANT YOU TO CRUSH HIS ARMY OF CRUELTY!

.

Is any of this unclear, Democrats? We want you to be strong, to stand up and to fight. We want you to stop hiding behind policy positions and talking points. We want you to charge into this street fight and win – not for your career –

FOR US – FOR WE THE PEOPLE!

.

You cannot win a street fight with reasoned policies or by talking the enemy bully into a coma. You have to punch him in the nose!

Let’s try this another way.

David Brooks recently wrote about Trump destroying our international relations and making us a pariah state. His paragraph below captures his point.

President Trump does not seem to notice or care that if you betray people, or jerk them around, they will revile you. Over the last few weeks, the Europeans have gone from shock to bewilderment to revulsion. This period was for them what 9/11 was for us — the stripping away of illusions, the exposure of an existential threat. The Europeans have realized that America, the nation they thought was their friend, is actually a rogue superpower.

Click me for the story

Now read Brooks’ first sentence again, slightly modified:

Democrats don’t seem to notice or care that if you betray people, or jerk them around, they will revile you.

That’s what a 29% approval rating (or less) says about how people feel about Democrats.

Somebody has to tell me why this is hard for Democrats to understand and why they don’t even show up for the fight.

Click me

Someone has to tell me why they violate Prof. Timothy Snyder’s lessons about tyranny:

Rule #1: DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE. Obeying in advance is exactly what Paul Weiss and ABC did, when instead of fighting, they just turned over millions of dollars to Trump; then Schumer gave Trump his CR.

Rule #8: STAND OUT. Speak up. Take a stand. Take action. Democrats where are you and what are you doing?

We’re not at grandma’s birthday party. We are in an existential fight for our national life. Where are the Democrats with their knuckles bare, charging at our domestic terrorists and punching them in the nose?

WHO WILL LEAD?

  • TAKE ACTION

  • There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

    The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want that to happen.

Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Administration Deportations


POST 1162

CAUTION!

This post contains well-placed snark likely to displease Constitution violators.

The Correct Renditions

You know that last week our brave president and his brown shirt action figures rounded up over 230 migrants, claiming without any evidence that they are Venezuelan gang member terrorists. Note that I claim, similarly without evidence, that they are Norwegian flower salesmen.

They were put on airplanes bound for El Salvador where they were accosted by guards, who dragged them to an overcrowded super-max concentration camp. The administration claimed that they are the worst of our immigrants and that the American people are now safer. Trump agreed to pay the El Salvadorans $6 billion to incarcerate those deported, an inventive international extension of our prison-industrial complex.

WAIT: Wasn’t El Salvador one of those “shit hole countries?”

All of that was done without probable cause, without accusation or evidence of any specific crimes, without charging, without trial and without conviction of any crime. The name for what was missing is DUE PROCESS OF LAW, as required by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which apply to all “persons,” not just “citizens.” Look that up via the links.

While those airplanes were flying south a federal judge heard arguments and ruled that the disappearing of those men was both illegal and unconstitutional. He ordered the administration to cause the planes in the air to turn around and come back to the U.S. and that a deportation plane that had not yet departed remain on the ground. Our bold, chest-thumping administration then did what no administration had ever done before: they ignored the judge’s ruling. The 230 remain locked up in El Salvador.

“Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” – Vice-President of the United States, JD Vance

Yeah, they are. It’s in the Constitution. You could look it up, you fauxbilly.

“We are not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think” – Border Czar Tom Homan

It’s great for Homan that he’s in America where he can believe and say stupid things. In an authoritarian country like Hungary, Turkey or Singapore, he’d be locked up and forgotten for saying such manly man strength and idiocy. That’s the America Trump is working to create.

BTW: How did we end up with czars? It started with Dubya.

“What we are expecting is the Supreme Court to say what has always been the case, which is, when the president is using his powers as commander-in-chief, those determinations are not subject to judicial review .  .  .”   – Homeland Security Advisor and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

Oops. Once again Stephen “The cruelty is the point.” Miller got it wrong.

All of that flies in the face of 248 years of precedent, established law, the separation of powers, the Constitution and more. Plus, it’s factually wrong, as all but the angry chest thumpers know quite well. Note that it not known if these Administration officials themselves are Venezuelans or even Americans, but they are known Trump gang members.

These are the first administration officials to be accused of un-American acts by your Disambiguation Agency (“DA”), which so far is still not invaded and violated by Musk and his abhorrent flying monkey tech criminals.

The DA will order them to be shackled, hooded and jammed into an airplane bound for rendition, as were the 230. They will remain ineligible for recourse or a pubic hearing, this by virtue of the Habeas Stupidus Act proscribed by Project 2025.

It Isn’t Just Federal Perps

Here’s another flamer. From Daily Docket, March 20, 2025:

[North Carolina] GOP challenger Judge Jefferson Griffin is refusing to concede [the election to the state’s Supreme Court, which he lost].

Griffin sits on the Court of Appeals [where his case now sits], and he wants his colleagues to retroactively change election rules, throw out tens of thousands of votes in Democratic counties and declare him the winner.

  • North Carolina has a long standing and proud tradition of Republican malfeasance and dirty tricks. Stand by to see if they get away with this one, Meanwhile, Griffin has a reservation on that rendition airplane. So does Arizona loser Kari Lake, and for much the same reasons.
  • We cannot end this section without considering Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He went to Samoa and trumpeted his groundless poo-poo indictments of vaccines, convincing many people to forego vaccinations, resulting in thousands of confirmed cases of Covid-19 and dozens of deaths. A similar situation is playing out in the U.S. on children whose parents were persuaded by Kennedy to refuse their kids the measles vaccine. At least 2 children are now dead. with third death under investigation. Prior to Kennedy’s baseless attacks on vaccines it had been 20 years since the last U.S. death from measles.  That’s plenty of evidence to cause Kennedy to be shackled. muzzled and perp-walked onto that rendition airplane.
  • Expect regular additions to the manifest for these flights.
  • ACTION

  • There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

    The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want that to happen.

  • Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

  • REBEL!

Continuing Quote for This Century

From Mark Elias’10 Things We Can All Do to Protect Democracy:

10. Don’t give up hope

Our best political movements were hopeful. John Kennedy insisted that “we should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.” Bill Clinton was the man from Hope. Barack Obama ran a campaign based on hope and change. Donald Trump and the Republicans want you to give up hope. Despair and cynicism fuel their movement. We must always, in the words of Jesse Jackson, “keep hope alive.”

Best Headline of the Week

From the NKC Occasional Update of March 21:

Hakeem! Chuck! Don’t make me stop this car!

Who will lead?

Late Addition Sunday Dark Cloud

From David Corn of Mother Jones’ Our Land of March 22:

And Tulsi Gabbard, [Trump’s] director of national intelligence, not only cheered on this decision [to silence the Voice of America, VOA]; she boosted the Russian critique of VOA. When Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysia-based right-wing podcaster who has written for RT, the Russian propaganda outfit, hailed Trump’s demolition of VOA and echoed the Russian line by claiming it had “perpetuated pro-war narratives against Russia,” Gabbard shared his post. Here was the top intelligence official in Trump’s administration accepting and spreading Vladimir Putin’s take on VOA.

What could possibly go wrong?

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Goo Gobs of Blame


POST 1161

Post 1160 was originally entitled “To Wimp or Not To Wimp: That Is The Question.” It was a ripping on Chuck Schumer for his signing on to that total abdication of power, the abhorrent continuing resolution. The only thing in that un-American bill necessary for keeping the government open and operating is the first sentence of Section 3. Instead, Mike Johnson and his Jellyfish Caucus jammed in all the rest of what Trump wanted, formally neutering Congress. Then Schumer caved in and voted for it. That’s why my post was entitled as it was.

But then our constitutional democracy ended.*

So, the title, focus and energy of Post 1160 shifted and the message is spelled out best by someone more able to articulate our dreadful reality. Many thanks to SL for directing me to the work of The Intellectualist.

The name of this publisher itself is a brave declaration in this age of anti-wisdom, anti-science, anti-knowledge, anti-critical thinking, anti-intellectual, anti-learning,** anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Jews, anti-anything-not-White-and-claiming-to-be-Christian, anti-sovereignty of Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, anti-justice, anti-democracy – let’s stop there and focus on just the last two. Post your own anti-whatever in the Comments section below.

Here’s a link to the essay in The Intellectualist, Black Saturday: The Day the United States Ceased to Be a Constitutional Democracy. Perhaps you prefer a musical reference: last Saturday, March 15, was the day the music died. It is the day when Trump and his anti-American, anti-democracy, hate and anger mouth foamers completed taking down the other branches of government.

Congress was already in Trump’s pocket, as was the Supreme Court. Last Saturday he defied a District Court order, which put all power in his own hands. Pick your word: fascism; authoritarianism; monarchy. Doesn’t matter. Our democracy has been trashed, leaving us great misery to come.

Read the piece in The Intellectualist. It’s the best explainer. Then weep, rage and make plans to protect yourself from the orange Big Brother. I prefer to begin by pointing fingers of blame. Childish, I know, but, oddly enough, it turns out I’m human and putting blame where it’s due feels right.

→ Blame Trump’s parents for failing to hold him accountable, effectively being his first enablers, teaching him to lie, cheat and steal. Their lousy parenting allowed him to avoid hundreds of well earned spankings.

→ Blame higher education institutions for letting Trump’s father buy him diplomas.

→ Blame his podiatrist for lying about bone spurs that later magically disappeared.

→ Blame all the suck-ups everywhere.

→ Blame Presidents and Congresses for blowing off millions of people for decades, most decisively since Reagan, his trickle down economics larceny and our steadfast march away from accountability. That set the stage for pissy people embracing violence, threats of violence and massive idiocy at ballot boxes, voting for completely unqualified candidates who cleverly spoke to their pissy.

→ Blame Democrats for ignoring the needs and aspirations of millions of working people, which, of course, made them pissy.

→ Blame Democrats for constantly pretending that this is some imaginary other age, when people acted with integrity and were polite at all times, where they never raised their voices and fought only to win great intellectual debates. Today that’s called spinelessness.

→ Blame all the spewers of Big Lies and conspiracy fantasies and all the willfully ignorant fools who believe them.

→ Blame the very clever, manipulative lawyers, the cunning political operators and the vast army of liars who lack all integrity all the time. They parade their dishonesty as though it were a virtue and somehow they’re never checked on that.

→ Blame the Supreme Court Black-hearted Six for driving the final nail into the coffin of democracy with its 2024 decision allowing presidents to break the law and not be held to account. Now Trump really can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and suffer no consequences.

→ Blame congressional Republicans for having no spine, no courage, outrageous hypocrisy and for thinking not of our country or of We the People, but of what’s best for themselves in the short term, first, last and always.

→ Blame Democrats for a complete lack of vision and the inability to motivate anyone.

→ Blame the hundreds of thousands of Americans who long ago went heads down, refusing to see what has been right before them, who only recognize what touches them directly and who turn away from what is even just a bit uncomfortable.

→ Blame me for failing to find a way to reach far more people and be a more effective wake up call, a disambiguator making a difference.

There. I feel better.

  • The Constitutional Democracy Preservation/Reinstatement To-Do List

Our Constitution is extremely sick and it appears that it could be terminal. What I want to know is what the Constitutional Democracy Preservation/Reinstatement To-Do List has on it. I’m certain that there are brilliant legal minds working on that right now. There are also countless organizations calling for rallies and demonstrations. That’s where we start.

There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Click here or on the map below to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want to do that.

Democracy doesn’t look like Musk’s goons breaking into agencies and threatening the workers with violence and arrest. It doesn’t look like Musk’s evil flying monkey hackers stealing your financial, tax and medical records, either.

Democracy doesn’t look like:

Trump rounding up some aliens who have been charged with no crime, not even charged with being in our country illegally;

accusing them of felonious acts and offering no evidence;

denying them anything resembling due process;

expelling them from our country – disappearing them;

turning them over to El Salvador concentration camp thugs;

and disobeying the orders of a federal district court judge, this so that Trump could aggregate all power to himself. All that’s left to do are a few details, as Trump pisses on the graves of our Founders.

That most decidedly is not what democracy looks like.

Demonstrations like those upcoming on April 5 are where we stand tall – this is what democracy looks like.

Say it out loud:

This is what democracy looks like.
.

REBEL!

________________________________________

* Read Steve Schmidt’s post, First They Came For . . .

** If you’re old enough you might remember President Kennedy proclaiming, “College is America’s best friend.” That was in an age when we were in a battle against the Soviets for industrial and technological leadership and we needed lots of smart, well-educated people.

The same battle continues to rage, now standing up to Russia and China. We still need smart, educated people. But instead of promoting secondary education, Trump is trying to tear down our institutions that supply that education. Who do you suppose he wants to win this battle and lead the world?

By making college unaffordable and student loans unbearable, we risk deterring our best and brightest from pursuing higher education and securing a good-paying job.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI)

  • We also pull the rug from under our country with that crushing cost.
    Fun Fact: Both Barack and Michelle Obama had outstanding student loans when Obama became President.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

OPEN ME FIRST!


POST 1154

Make a Statement
WHEN
TODAY! Friday February 28th from 12:00 A.M. to 11:59 P.M. For the clock challenged among us, that’s all day and all night.
WHAT NOT TO DO
Do not make any purchases. Do not shop online, or in-store. No Amazon, No Walmart. No Best Buy. No nuthin’! Do not spend money on: fast food, gas, major retailers. Do not use Credit or Debit Cards for non-essential spending
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Only buy essentials – what’s absolutely necessary (food, medicine, emergency supplies). If you must spend, ONLY support small, local businesses.
SPREAD THE MESSAGE
Talk about it, post about it, and document your actions that day!
WHY THIS MATTERS
Corporations and banks only care about their bottom line. If we disrupt the economy for just ONE day, it sends a powerful message. If they don’t listen (they won’t) we’ll make the next blackout longer (we will).
.
This is our first action. This is how we make history. February 28th.
.
The 24 Hour Economic Black Out Begins.
Best Quote

“Given that I was marching at age three, you know I’m not letting any coup-plotting, election-denying, insurrection-supplying autocrat, kleptocrat, plutocrat or theocrat, or any techno-feudalist Silicon Valley broligarch aspiring dictator, turn me around now. I am going to honor and participate every day in this urgent national fight for strong constitutional democracy, personal freedom and social progress.”

-Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)

We all want to fight back but most of us don’t know how. You’ve been wondering and asking, so here’s today’s road map, an action you can easily take to make a statement, to take a stand. Let’s be like Constitutional scholar and man with a spine, Jamie Raskin. Nobody turns us around to fascism. Nobody.

Today’s Post With The Most

Read Robert Reich’s post, 10 more reasons for modest optimism.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

This Is Where The Bus Stops


POST 1150

Busses are community things. They aren’t personal transportation like a car. They are everyday exercises in sharing. Trains and commercial airplanes are that way, too. None of them takes us to the door step of where we want to go, but they’re pretty good at getting us within shouting distance. And because we each kick in a few bucks when we ride instead of having to pay the full price of transportation, busses are quite inexpensive for each individual. Cities cover some costs to set up and maintain the system – after all, someone has to buy the busses – and our taxes are where that money comes from.

For the purists of the “Gotta Blame and Hate Coalition,” the “We Got It Right and You’re Wrong” chest thumpers, we have to admit that these busses, the whole city system, really, is just as you accuse: socialism. By definition it’s all of us pitching into the commons for the common good, to do collectively what we cannot do individually.

It’s the same for public libraries, police and fire departments, medical research institutions, agencies that ensure that our food is safe, our armed forces that keep the foreign bad guys away – you get the idea. We just have to reach down deep and find the courage to admit that (gasp!) sometimes we cooperate with one another. O’ the daring to admit that there’s a place here for socialism and in those places there’s pretty good stuff for all of us! And take heart: it’s still okay to wave the red, white and blue, even with the evil of socialism all about.

Back to the busses

Some think that the bus system should be overhauled, maybe scrapped entirely. It sucks up peoples’ tax dollars, they say, and it really doesn’t get us where we want to go. It drops us off and requires us to walk the rest of the way, sometimes through rain or cold or blizzards of snow or blistering heat. No matter the weather, we are left on our own to trudge along, schlepping our schlepables, no matter their bulk or weight and no matter the distance we have to walk.

Some people want the bus to take them all the way to the doorstep of their destination. They want the convenience, comfort and safety of private transportation and they want it for the price of a bus token.

“Failing to take you where you want to go is a waste, a fraud on the public and it abuses the riders,” say the phony fiscal flying monkeys. “That,” they say, “is why we want to shut it down.”

Should they do their system annihilation, the rest of us will be instantly shipwrecked, of course, but those waste, fraud and abuse (“WF&A”) fighters will thump their chests in the ecstasy of their purity of cutting government costs, regardless of the harm they do to We the People. Some un-elected, unqualified, unhinged apartheid billionaire will jump up and down like a 3-year-old pretending to be a bunny rabbit and will likely get a Presidential Medal of Freedom delivered to him by the orange co-conspirator in steep mental decline.

The destroyers don’t offer a notion of what today’s bus riders are supposed to do to get to work or school or shopping when the fighters against WF&A get their way. The fighters don’t care because they get around in chauffeured limousines and are never limited to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

But that’s not how public transportation works because it can’t do that. So we have a solution. It’s called the bus stop. It’s a designated place where people go to get on a bus or to get off their bus. That is where the bus stops. Not at anyone’s house or where they work or shop. The bus stops are for all of us and we all know where the bus stops. We plan accordingly.

It’s pretty much that way for all of what government does. We do stuff collectively – for the commons – and that way the research gets done so that kids get vaccines and aren’t paralyzed from polio or killed by measles. Our military protects us from foreign bad guys, fire fighters show up to save your house, highways and city streets are built and maintained. Actually, our systems work pretty well.

The fighters of WF&A have wailed their accusations but their wailings are vacant and stupid because they haven’t identified any (as in: no) evidence of WF&A anywhere. They’ve shown no reason for wholesale butchering of our systems. No WF&A has been offered as evidence for the horrid abuse of our civil servants.

It’s okay to check for waste, fraud and abuse of the system. But overall, we like the system pretty well because it serves us well, doing what we want it to do. Look out your window and you’ll be able to see the little shelter where people board and depart their bus. That is where the bus stops. The system works.

So, We the People have a message for you WF&A guys, including the juvenile delinquent flying monkeys. Until you can find some evidence, some Earth 1 reason to change it,

GET THE F**K OFF OUR BUS!

In fact, we’re going to tell you that quite publicly over and over.

Demonstrations against the fascist thieves are scheduled for Presidents Day, tomorrow, Feb 17. That’s a really good day for millions of We The People across the country to take a stand.

Click here to find an action near you. If you don’t find something nearby, make one – there’s information for doing that at the same site. There’s a good chance a bus or a train can get you there.

REBEL!

A Bleak Anniversary

We just passed the 7th anniversary of the mass shooting murders at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. The murdered seniors would be 25 now. The massacre occurred on Valentine’s Day, 2018. Just days before this grotesque anniversary this year President Trump shut down the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Read Jim Acosta’s post, A Father’s Love for his Son Takes the Stage.

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

1 2 3 … 25  Scroll to top