Terrorism

What Is Actually Happening Today


POST 1254

Don Lemon’s Bogus Arrest Isn’t What You Think

He committed journalism. So far that still is not a crime. But it was only a matter of time until Don Lemon would be arrested.

For years Lemon has been critical of Trump. He’s laughed at and ridiculed him, been disparaging, accusatory, condemning and, worse, Lemon has been accurate in his unsympathetic appraisal of the malignant narcissist. That alone would be enough for Trump to jam Lemon into his retribution pipeline, his enemies list, about which both he and Pam Bondi lie, saying it doesn’t exist.

Clearly, Trump believes Lemon has earned retribution and other cruelty. If Trump doesn’t suppress Lemon, Trump would be forced to see himself as a loser, the very worst thing. So he must crush that nasty bug. But there’s more and it’s worse.

Don Lemon is a full time, card carrying Black person. And he compounds that effrontery by being gay. He’s not who the heavy-starch-in-their-underwear, moral storm troopers insist that he must be. Don Lemon is the perfect target for persecution by racist Trump. And there’s moreT

Trump and his fascist lieutenants are on a full court press to eliminate our rights, focused primarily on the First Amendment. They’ve sent their Gestapo to many cities to shut down freedom of speech, the right to assemble and the right to petition government. And they’re on a 50 state rampage to eliminate voting rights for all but those who will vote for Trump.

He’s already attacked freedom of the press with his extortion of CBS, ABC and now his baseless arrests of Don Lemon and other journalists.

Lemon’s arrest isn’t just retribution, It is an attack on our freedom and our democratic foundation.

Historical precedent

It was then-Vice President Dick Cheney on (I think it was) Meet the Press. There was great criticism across the country of Dubya’s invasion of Iraq, Cheney’s pet project. He proclaimed his absolute certainty that deposing the tyrant Saddam was worth our blood and treasure. Far worse, he told we critics of the war that we better watch what we say.

WATCH WHAT WE SAY!?

If we were to criticize him, Dubya, Rumsfeld, their policy, their strategy or their power he would – what? – come gunning for us? Lock us up? Cheney’s was a barely concealed threat against the First Amendment’s protection against government abridgement of our freedom of speech. We might not have seen it then, but that was prelude to today.

Now

Trump, Bondi and a few DOJ bench warmers are saying the same thing, that we better watch what we say. They’re taking Lemon to court to make it stick. Were they to win their blatantly anti-Constitutional case, all freedom will be taken from all of us. The First Amendment will be burned to ashes.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens are already threatened with violence and incarceration, even a torture prison, this as government policy to eliminate our freedoms and place all power in Trump’s hands.

And Trump won’t stop there, Here are a quick list of the Amendments and Article II of the Constitution.

Q. Once the First Amendment is gone, what will be destroyed next?

A. Everything

I say again: Lemon’s arrest isn’t just retribution, It is an attack on our freedom and our democratic foundation.

Duplicitous

Maybe it’s just more of Trump’s miserable, self-serving, living-the-lie bullsh*t. Read this short report from Peter Baker’s January 13 NYT piece, Trump Supports the Protesters, Except Those Protesting Him.

From The Onion

President Trump had a ringing message of solidarity on Tuesday for demonstrators in the streets. “KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” he wrote on social media. He decried “the senseless killing of protesters,” and added that those pulling the triggers “will pay a big price.”

He meant the protesters in Tehran, not Minneapolis. By contrast, the people in the streets of Minnesota, he wrote just 63 minutes earlier, were “anarchists and professional agitators” trying to cover up a fraud scandal. He vowed that “THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

This is yet another example of Trump as democracy destroyer.

Tom Homan, Border Bastard

From Mother Jones:

Homan was a key architect in implementing family separations as acting ICE director in the first Trump administration [Think: thousands of kids in cages. Over 1.000 still are not reunited with their parents.]. In the president’s second term, he was appointed “border czar” to take charge of mass deportations and was investigated over cashing in on it. (We reported with the Project On Government Oversight that many of his former private business clients won lucrative border and immigration-related government contracts.)

Plus, Homan is the $50,000 FBI bag man. And he’s continuing the illegal, un-Constitutional ICE Gestapo brutality in Minneapolis, coming soon to Ohio and Maine.

That’s right: Homan’s appointment to Assistant Chief Cruelty Dispenser is yet another example of Trump as democracy destroyer.

Quote Of The Month

On NBC’s Meet The Press, Sunday, January 18, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained why we are in a state of emergency, by saying,

“The national emergency is avoiding a national emergency.”

Let your eyeballs settle a moment for having gone googly over that idiotic doublespeak.

Next-Gen M1 Abrams Tank. Picture that parked down the street from your house.

There is always the possibility of something causing an emergency. So, if Bessent’s absurd remark has weight, then we are always in a state of national emergency. That’s handy for Trump because that could allow him to cite the Insurrection Act and deploy our active duty military with their weapons of war everywhere in the country.

And that would make it much easier for Trump to destroy democracy and accrue all power to himself.

It Isn’t New, But It’s Just As Ugly

From The Diary of Anne Frank, January 13, 1943:

Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone. The Christians in Holland are also living in fear because their sons are being sent to Germany. Everyone is scared.

We’re living in a mad king, Jaberwocky moment like that right now and it’s very, very dangerous for us all.

Song of the Month

You must listen to Bruce Springsteen’s song Streets of Minneapolis. It’s so strong and so sad and so honoring and so brave.

A Call From July 4, 1776 – Pick Up The Phone. It’s For You

We are endowed with .  .  .

.  .  . certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed .  .  .

.  .  .  but we do not consent to this government!

We are at a choice point. We can either allow ourselves to be terrorized into submitting to Trump’s dictatorship or we can stand against it.

Many ask what we can do. Read Steve Schmidt’s Defiance Is The Cure. Then steel yourself for the patriotic battle that we will win.

Now, tell me you’re seeing what is actually happening today.
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    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.
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Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
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ICE!


POST 1252

BREAKING NEWS!

Minneapolis, MN, Saturday, January 24, 2026:

Border Patrol Commander and SS Murder UberFührer Greg Bovino. He really does shave the sides of his head like a Nazi and wear a Nazi SS style long coat. Our murdering ICE thugs look to him for leadership.

37-year-old Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital, was shot and killed by ICE thugs yesterday. They had been sitting on him, punching him and trying to hog tie him. Then they shot and killed him. Reportedly, 10 shots were fired into his body.

Within 15 minutes of the shooting administration officials claimed that Pretti had a gun and was trying to shoot ICE agents. Actually, he had a phone. The administration slandered him, calling him a terrorist.

You may believe that prepared gaslighting (“the opponent of the state deserved it.”) and the rest of the administration’s victim demonization lies and their exoneration of the shooter, as you wish. Just keep in mind that before being murdered by an ICE thug 18 days ago, many videos show that Renee Nicole Good was slowly driving away from him. The administration deniers of what was plain for all of us to see claimed she was trying to “run him over.” But cars don’t go sideways, so their stupid excuse wasn’t even physically possible. They and their abhorrent gaslighting only serve to undermine trust in our country and in our democracy.

Regardless of the specifics of the shooting yesterday or that of Renee Good or what anyone says about either murder, there would have been no shooting at all and no one would have been harmed if weak-of-mind ICE Gestapo thugs hadn’t been in Minnesota to stoke fear and anger and to stomp on the rights of Americans.

This is fascism in America.
.
Join ICE!

Perhaps you clicked through the pic to the left in my January 4 post and listen to Jesse Welles’ excellent rip on ICE. It’s a fun piece, a cause of outrage and a fine dose of confirmation bias all at the same time. But it’s nothing compared to what’s on the ICE website.

Click the link to the ICE home page in the pic on the right. The most important thing to note there and on the entire site, really, is the call to patriotism through the demonization and persecution of immigrants. Apparently, our patriotism now calls on us to rip people out of their cars, throw them to the ground, zip tie and rendition them to black sites. Or kill them. It’s in the sentences you can’t read at the bottom of the pic. Here’s what they say:

America has been invaded by criminals and predators.
We need YOU to get them out.
.

That declares in no uncertain words the core, the focus, the raison d’être, the foundational, primary lies of ICE, Kristi Noem and Trump. Indeed, it’s an impressive pack of bullsh*t propaganda in just two manipulative sentences. You know that with Trump, if his lips are moving, he’s lying. Same for ICE.

  1. America has not been invaded. There never were any caravans. There is no immigrant army. There is no invasion. There is nothing to defend against.
  2. Every study shows that immigrants, whether legal or not, do crime far less often than American citizens. Think about it: they know that they have to stay off the radar of law enforcement. Otherwise, they’ll be sent back to the miserable conditions they left for a better life here – much like your ancestors. They may be immigrants, but they aren’t fools. So, most work hard at honest jobs and don’t do crime.
  3. Apparently, the ICE idiots think being a predator is different than being a criminal, so they have to list both words. Okay, but there is no – i.e. zero – data to support any claim that immigrants, whether legal or not, are predators. That word is used solely to inflame and motivate potential recruits; i.e. ICE thugs. ICE has no need for the presence of truth.
  4. It says, “AMERICA NEEDS YOU.” Apparently, they learned rules of capitalization from Trump. The small print says, “We need YOU to get them out,” but actually we don’t. This country doesn’t need ethnic cleansing and economic studies show that we need more, not fewer, immigrants. Of course, Trump wants all immigrants to come from Norway because they’re very White. At least he did before it was clear that he wasn’t going to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize. Plus, the Norwegians don’t want to put up with our Trumpy American crap, so they aren’t coming.

This ICE website has a pretty good appeal to Americans who love their country and haven’t the brain power to see the lies in those sentences. ICE tells them that by signing up they’ll feel special, probably for the first time in their lives. That’s a strong appeal to our citizens who rejoice in claiming their victimhood. And isn’t it a fine puff-up to beat up people half a step down the power pyramid, including American citizens who probably have it coming anyhow because they didn’t vote for Trump.

Click through to the ICE “See Job Postings” pages and review about 60 ways for ICE agents to screw Americans, legal residents and any Brown person. That’s most attractive, especially if you’re White, angry because you had a rotten childhood and life isn’t fair for you. It’s great over-compensation, too, for having a tiny pee-pee. Betcha nobody will make fun of ICE guys in the locker room now that they carry Glocks.

I did not see where the website says that as an agent you can kill protesters whenever you’re feeling just a bit cross, but I’m sure it’s there.

Final note on this Hitler Brownshirt recruiting website.

When they join ICE these thugs will get minimal training and be issued their very own Kevlar vest, face mask, gun and secret decoder ring. They’ll get to throw Brown people and their sympathizers to the ground and make them eat dirt and snow. They’ll be trained to know that protesters are really domestic terrorists and that when agents are sick of whistles being blown in their faces that these proud ICE thugs can blow away those commie terrorists who are carrying signs or honking their horns. They can chase down cars like a dog and shoot people in the face.

It’s so good to be a patriotic American ICE agent!

Are you ready to be a really rough and tough pretend patriot so that you can break laws with impunity?

Join ICE!

Readings

From Steve Schmidt, January 10, 2026 – The Murder of America:

“Dissent is the righteous cry of the right against the wrong.”

“This moment demands that Democratic leaders embrace a philosophy of raw power. It holds that they will assert it to the maximum in order to stop the assault on the republic and the burning of the Constitution, [this] in defense of the American people.

From Rick Wilson, January 16, 2025 – Trump’s Gestapo.

Wilson says that what ICE is doing to American citizens is a violation of their Constitutional, civil, and human rights, and the consequences are a stain on this nation’s honor and that he’ll stop calling them a Gestapo when,

DHS stops pumping out overt Nazi propaganda, memes, and social media posts.

Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino and Tom Homan are held to account.

the day every ICE agent is ordered to pull off the masks, display a name and a badge number, and DHS sets out in public an explicit code of conduct with real penalties for the abuse of Americans’ civil rights.

But they won’t. Unless we make them.

From The “A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words” Desk

Copenhagen, 1943

Washington DC, 2025

Photos courtesy of Lawrence Dietz

Most Motivational Photo of the Week

Mother Jones reports,

“.  .  . ICE had detained Liam Ramos, a 5-year-old Minnesota boy .  .  .”

“Here is a literal preschooler wearing a Spider-Man backpack, just like all of our kids, as the hand of a much larger masked ICE agent holds onto his backpack, as if he were a flight risk. An oversized blue hat with bunny ears partially covers his face as he stares ahead blankly.”

That’s right. This tiny kid wearing a Spider-Man backpack was on his way to preschool and was detained by ICE and sent to a detention center. They tell us they do this cruelty to make our streets and our country safe from the worst of the worst. Maybe the white bunny ears hat failed to hide little 5-year-old Liam Ramos’ dangerous, worst of the worst nature.*

Bastards!

Read the Mother Jones report. And recognize that cruelty like this is being done in your name and mine every day.

______________________________________________

“America is not supposed to be a place where an angel-face five-year-old named Liam, with a floppy-eared hat and a Spider-Man backpack, gets seized and taken to a detention center by men in masks.”

“The depths of [Trump’s] shallowness is infinite.”

– Maureen Dowd, The Un-American President, January 25, 2025

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    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

No Fever, But A Hopeful Dream


POST 1250

January 6, 2027, 9:00 PM EST

East fireplace, Statuary Hall, U.S.Capitol Building. Photo courtesy of Daniel Holt

The mid-term election is over, Congress members have been sworn in and the new Congress is open for business. The Democrats are in the majority in both the House and in the Senate. Hakeem Jeffries is the new Speaker of the House. The majority leader in the Senate is a surprise – Elizabeth Warren.

This evening the two chamber leaders sit in comfortable chairs on either side of the east side fireplace in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building. Behind them are statues of Alexander Hamilton Stevens of Georgia and Robert M. La Follett of Wisconsin,* both seated. There is a robust fire in the fireplace as red lights on the front of two television cameras glow and Senator Warren begins.

Majority Leader Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Good evening. We’re here to address the American people and to formally declare what your Congress will do so that you know what to expect. We are here to stand guard for you and for our country. Thank you for being with us on this historic night and on this journey of American patriotism.

Democrats have taken majority control of both houses of Congress and we embark now on the ourney to restore our democracy and return the Congress to being a co-equal branch of government focused on the values, the needs and the hopes of We The People, exactly as the Founders intended.

Speaker Hakeem Jeffries: We begin with a symbolic demonstration of the promises we made to you during the mid-term campaign. We invited the minority leaders of both cambers to join us tonight, but they declined. Then, because our country needs both parties to work together and focus on the Constitution, our laws and the oath of office that every one of us has taken, we’ve offered the opportunity to all Congressional Republicans to participate in our ceremony tonight. None accepted our invitation.

Sen. Warren holds up a thick document.

EW: This is a copy of Project 2025, the horrid, anti-America fascism handbook written by the Heritage Foundation. It has been followed for the past two years by our attention seeking, insatiably needy, power grabbing president and our far too compliant Republican colleagues. Tonight Speaker Jeffries and I will rip out every section of this ghastly document, one after another, and throw them into the fire. We will burn them as a symbol, a stake in the ground, to put all on notice, that we will fight back against every one of the abhorrent policies that our Republican colleagues have failed to oppose.

These policies assaulted your rights.They took money from you and gave it to the super rich. They destroyed the agencies that have kept us healthy. They neutered the parts of government that have for decades helped to educate our children. They de-funded what made us the world’s research leader and compromised what has kept all of us safe in a very dangerous world. All of that destruction and more needs to be reversed and fresh air breathed into our country. That’s what we have promised to you that we will do. We begin that sacred duty tonight symbolically casting out this Project 2025 demon.

Sen. Warren hands the document to Speaker Jeffries.

HJ: Speaker Jeffries holds up the document.

The first section in this that is focused on the presidency opens by taking a cheap shot at – and this is exactly what they wrote – the “supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country.” That’s what they disparagingly call most of us. “Woke.”

Whatever “woke” is, it’s their hateful slap in the face of most Americans. Throughout this document the authors seek to divide us and diminish whole swaths of the American people, which inevitably excludes you from the okay group. That stops now.

Here’s the really odd thing. They continue in this section of their Mein Kampf manifesto to quote Founder James Madison in Federalist No. 47, with his warning,

“[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

But that is exactly what President Trump and his compliant Republican Congress have been doing – fyranny!

The Republican authors of this domestic terrorism manual give us no clue why they point Madison’s accusing finger at themselves, as that puts the lie to everything else they wrote. Perhaps in their cruelty, they really just don’t get it.

EW: They have brought us tyranny. You can see it in the escalating grocery store prices caused by the president’s illegal tariffs. You can see it as masked gunmen bang down doors and drag people out of their homes. You can see it as they rip our people out of their vehicles and throw them to the ground. You can hear it as a fellow immobilized in an ICE agent’s headlock yells repeatedly “I’m a citizen!. I have identification!” and the agent yells, “I don’t care” and proceeds to throw him into an ICE vehicle. And you can see it as ICE agents gun down American citizens who pose no threat and who have broken no laws.

You can see how they terrorize our citizens everywhere they can, hiding behind their face masks, Kevlar vests and menacing their weapons of war. They do all this as our perverse, obscene, un-American Justice Department bestows on them a claim of immunity. You can see it as millions have lost their jobs and you can see it as our Department of Justice violates our laws every day. This stuff is right out of the Project 2025 playbook. And it’s the stuff Hitler did. It’s what Stalin did and it’s what decades of Chinese leaders have done. Brutality and intimidation. And Trump and the Republicans are doing it now.

We’ll have no more of that.

Speaker Jeffries rips that section from the Project 2025 document, throws it into the fire and hands the rest of the document to Sen. Warren.

EW: Let’s look at another section.

They proceed to unmask the anti-American directives in this horrid document until the entire thing – all 922 pages – is in flames, one section at a time being reduced to ash.

EW: Together we welcome back our republic, our democracy and the America that we love.

_________________________

But today, January 18, 2026, the destruction of our republic, committed by fascist wannabes, continues. If you have doubts about that, check with anyone in Minneapolis. Or Portland. Or New Jersey. Or Chicago. Or .  .  .
.
The symbolism of this dream must be made real.
.
Trump, in his manipulations, his money and power grabs and his mania to out-Putin Putin; in his inept, incompetent and criminal lieutenants who wield their power with the glee of imbecilic sociopaths; his Gestapo attacks, beatings, jailings and murders carried on with impunity and immunity – it’s all a package designed to drive us to despair and to make us succumb to Trump’s destruction of our democracy so that he can be our all powerful dictator. We must not – we cannot let that happen. Our job is to make this democracy dream come true.
.
The antidote to despair is action.

Take action!

________________________________________

* Many thanks go to Daniel Holt, Associate Historian, US Senate Historical Office for his help in identifying the gentlemen represented by the statues on either side of the east fireplace.

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    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

An Update – With Questions


POST 1249

ICE Murders

Intending no disrespect, Renee Nicole Good is still dead. That’s the way it is when an ICE thug shoots someone in the face or shoots them pretty much anywhere else. It isn’t a movie and the actors don’t get to go home. Renee Nicole Good is and will remain dead and her children will remain orphans.

That was said to make it clear that she isn’t a statistic or an avatar. She was a real person just like you and me and now she’s dead because of ICE brutality directed by Donald “Shaky Brain” Trump, Stephen “Goebbels” Miller, Christi “Puppy Killer with a Rolex” Noem and Pam “President’s Hit Man” Bondi.

It doesn’t get more real or more permanent than dead, and our titular leaders don’t give a damn about that or anything important to you, like your life, just as they don’t care about Renee Good losing hers.

Two more innocents were gunned down by Border Patrol last week in Portland, OR, so it seems right to do a count of the deaths by our immigration thugs. Here’s what I found from Google AI.

Since January 1, 2017, ICE has reported that 70 people have died in its custody. [Note that we don’t know how many have died in the El Salvador torture prison.]

Independent reports suggest a higher potential number, with a 2024 analysis by the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, and American Oversight finding that 95% of 52 deaths in ICE custody between 2017 and 2021 were potentially preventable with adequate medical care. 
.

A report by The Trace revealed that between 2015 and 2021, 59 shootings by ICE officers resulted in 23 fatalities. [We must have had a lot of domestic terrorist drivers who tried to run down ICE agents in those years.]

More recent reports from late 2025 and early 2026 indicate a notable increase in the use of force.
.
During the current Trump second term, federal immigration agents have shot at civilians at least 16 times, resulting in four deaths and at least seven injuries, according to a data analysis. [all emphasis original]
.
None of the deaths of incarcerated people were of White guys. But most, maybe all, of the deaths of protesters gunned down by ICE were White. Make of that what you will.
Questions

Do you feel safer?

Is our nation safer?

Is it okay for a vigilante quality posse of goons to shoot law abiding people?

Is this the kind of country you expected or want?

Did you vote for this? This question will make a lot of people twist their innards. Guilt is a terrible thing.

More Pesky Questions

Have you noticed that nearly all the Immigration and Customs Enforcement – ICE – action is happening hundreds to thousands of miles from our borders, where there is no immigration going on?

Can we now stop pretending that what is going on has anything to do with the enforcement of our immigration laws?

Can we now publicly declare that our officially designed domestic terrorism is actually about racial domination in pursuit of White racial purity? You know: like superior Aryan purity?

Playing With Numbers

It’s clear that making this a White Christian nation is a key priority of Trump, MAGA and most super rich guys. So, what would it look like if we removed all those pesky “others”?

We’re already well on the way to expelling all Brown and Black people. People with Somali ancestry are obviously next to be imprisoned and expelled, even though between 70 and 83% of them are U.S. citizens and most others are here legally. But this is the Trump era, so those numbers are no impediment to ICE thuggery.

Muslims, Jews and Asians will likely be next. I have no clue what they’ll do with/to Native Americans. Since Trump likes Andrew Jackson so much, maybe there will be another Trail of Tears that leads to deportation vehicles.

The population of the country is about 348 million, so when we get rid of the 60% of unwelcome non-White, non-Christian “others” the population will be about 139 million.

That leaves me wondering who will do all the jobs that those disappeared people are doing now. What will Trump do with all the vacant rooms in his hotels? What will be our sense of ourselves? Don’t ask me because I won’t make the cut. I’ll be looking for a country to live in.

Three Questions

Who will remove Emma Lazarus’ poem from the base of the Statue of Liberty?

The last line to each stanza of the Star Spangled Banner is “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave,” just as Francis Scott Key wrote it. Who will compose a revised last line that both rhymes and reflects our new and deeply compromised freedom and bravery?

When Trump has Arlington National Cemetery dug up to build the “Nobody has ever seen anything like this” Trump U.S. National Golf Course, what will he do with the 430,000 caskets and headstones of all those “suckers and losers”? How will the caskets and headstones be kept properly paired?

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    The Fine Print:

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

    Click me

    JA


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

Starting To Set Things Right


POST 1236

Cheers For Freedom Of Speech

One of the most valuable rights we Americans have is the right of free speech. What that means is that the government is prohibited from restricting our speech, stopping us from saying what we want to say, even if we are criticizing the government or any of its employees. There are some exceptions, like for slander, liable and incitement to violence. That’s how it’s been since 1789 and it’s worked pretty well for our democracy and our freedom all this time. We can say pretty much what we want to say, as did six legislators who told the truth about the prohibition of military personnel to obey illegal orders. See the Special Slime section in this post for more.

The government may not censor us just because some wrinkly, thin-skinned official cries “MEANY!” or “UNFAIR!” or “TRAITOR” on the playground at recess time and throws an infantile tantrum, then runs to his fixer, his present day Roy Cohn (his AG, Bondi) demanding prosecution of whoever dared to speak truth about him.

Having so many opportunities to right grievous presidential wrongs, we’re getting better at this.

A Mini-Summary

A court says Alina Habba, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s surrogate for unconstitutional cases, is an illegal U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. The appeals court agrees and replaced Habba with Desiree Leigh Grace. Immediately Bondi fired Grace and put Habba back into control of that office. We’ll see how long that lasts, because judges typically have the last say.

Click me for the U.S. Department of Revisionist History

Another court says beauty queen Lindsey Halligan was not properly vetted and appointed, so it dumped her cases against James Comey and Letitia James, then spanked her hand with judicial smack downs. Andy Borowitz opined that Halligan’s dream is to go to law school some day.

It seems that maybe, possibly, might be, could be Pete Hegseth has finally crossed a red line. Following 10 months of saying stupid things, he ordered our military to kill survivors of our homicidal drone strikes on boats in international waters. A lot of people have their underwear in a bunch over that, including senators and representatives. They say those acts are war crimes and murder. Ya think? At last Hegseth may get what he has coming; specifically a boot out the White House back door and perhaps prosecutions for his impressive list of illegal actions. We’ll all have lots to say about this deviant in the coming months.

AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks earned his title  of czar only because: 1. Nobody knows what someone in charge of AI and/or crypto does or should do; 2. Donald Trump likes big superlative seeming stuff that gets attention, like the title “czar.”

Hard to read. It’s a huge billboard in Chicago not far from  Broadview that reads “IMPEACH TRUMP.”

Adapted from a quotation by management expert Peter Drucker:

“We are using the word ‘czar’ only because ‘charlatan’ is too long to fit into a headline.”

That quote can be used for just about every Trump appointment. And yeah, I get to say that. It’s that freedom of speech thing.

Our reality show president has been waging a verbal war on narco-terrorism, perhaps believing he can Truth Social it into submission and randomly kill whoever someone tells him is a drug something or other. Apparently, even the dementia-addled have the right of free speech, much as that sucks in this case.

Trump is definitely a tough guy who is verbally tough on narco-terrorism and Hispanic landscapers, but now he has pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras. He was convicted in the United States of a vast drug-trafficking operation that prosecutors said dumped over 400 million tons of drugs into the U.S. Trump has pardoned this biggest narco-terrorist of them all, enraging Elmer Fudd, who oinked furiously, “I’ll get that wasco, if it’s the wast thing I eva do!” So much for Trump being the narco tough guy.

Since the power of pardons rests solely with the sitting president we can’t prosecute Trump for this affront. We are left with investigating how much money was given to Trump for that pardon. Watch for that investigation as Trump’s biggest pay-to-play bribe. It might be part of a package of bribery investigations starting in 2027, then pursued by the Department of Justice in 2029.

Click me for the transformational story.

We’re starting to set things right. My notion is that it’s going to take more than a generation to clean up all the terrible mess the infant tyrant has made. It will take many years to remove his bad boys and bad girls and prosecute them in accordance with the law. Let’s hope that foot dragging Merrick Garland has nothing to do with initiating those prosecutions so that we don’t get stymied by the statute of limitations.

That said, courts are largely doing what they are supposed to do, although John Roberts cannot live long enough to somehow be worthy of forgiveness for giving immunity from prosecution to Trump. Our Republican legislators are beginning to see that it may be safe for them to retrieve their spines from the Senate and House Cloak Rooms, where they checked them upon being sworn in.

It’s Partisan

President Donald Trump has told us that the Epstein thing is a partisan witch hunt being conducted by Democrats, much like his claim about Russians helping him in his elections; like “affordability” and inflation; like Hegseth’s “Kill them all” criminality; like so many issues. It’s about the other party. So, I have a question.

My party is the Constitution of the United States. What is Trump’s party?

Now is the time to come to the aid of your Constitution.
Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

Civilian Leadership of Our Military


POST 1218

Yesterday we were given the full screen picture of our newly renamed War Department. Pete Hegseth, Secretary of War, set the stage with absolutist war drum pounding and attacks on everything not MAGA. Fie on DEI and Woke! They are the core of our problems, he’ll have us know.That plus facial hair, overweight generals and admirals and pressure to prosecute rapists.

This gathering was toxic masculine posturing from the stage at its most toxic, complete with triumphal arrangements of patriotic music and a way too large American flag. The only thing missing was goose stepping. This meeting could have been held on the field at Nuremberg, with torches burning.

President Donald Trump then spoke in his dementia poisoned way, claiming to have settled 7 wars (actually zero), bragging about renaming the Gulf of Mexico and so much more puffery that it would be a comedy act, were it not so dangerous for real people. Indeed, he suggested using our cities as training grounds for our military “whose job is to “kill people and break things” to attack our imaginary “enemy from within,” which means anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to the great one, especially Democrats, protesters, citizens who live in our cities and anyone who has spoken less than flatteringly of Trump.

He announced how great is the paper used for military commissions and that he loves his signature and, actually, everyone loves his signatures. Plus, he made clear that his attacks on the Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities had “obliterated” them. He even said that the Atomic Energy people said those facilities were obliterated.

Except of course, they weren’t and they didn’t. That only matters if you actually want to ensure that Iran doesn’t have the capacity to make atomic bombs, in which case you wouldn’t resort to lies. You would instead be a steely eyed realist. A dementia compromised brain is a terrible thing when it commands a finger near the nuclear button or commands the dropping of 20,000 pound MOABs (“Mother Of All Bombs”). Now there’s another “mine is bigger than yours” Trumpian proof.

Trump began winding up his galactically inappropriate speech by saying that it’s good that Congress cannot agree on a spending bill. He said that would shut down the government and then he could do anything he wants to do.

He may actually believe that he somehow has absolute power if Congress shuts down the government, since he is incapable of reading the Constitution.

According to law and the Constitution, the limits on what the President is allowed to do remain essentially unchanged regardless of a government shut down. However, Trump’s standard move is to do his illegal thing, knowing that it will take months to stop him, at which time his damage will be done. Just ask the former workers at the USDA, the CDC, Voice of America, USAID, soon the FAA and more.

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this—you haven’t.” – Thomas Edison

They brought 800 top generals and admirals from their posts protecting American interests around the world to hear a toxic alcoholic Fox News “personality” strut his poison and an addled brain old man brag that his is bigger than yours, that Joe Biden is a loser, that gold decorating in the White House is the new red, white and blue and yet more idiocy. This is what passes for civilian leadership of our military today.

We have a great deal of work to do to begin to set things right in our country. Sometimes it feels like we’ve tried everything, but Thomas Edison reminds us that we have not. There’s so much more we can do.

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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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


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

Who and What We Are


POST 1213

With Sad and Angry Regret, John Lewis

Nope, we’re not better than this.

There have been assassinations here since before we were a country. Multiple presidents have been shot. Sandy Hook happened and we were all so sad, but we continued killing one another as though those little kids were still alive and in their 1st grade classrooms.

Until his murder I knew next to nothing about Charlie Kirk. Had I known more about him likely I wouldn’t have agreed with him about any of his views, which, of course, is not the point. The point is that someone wanted to murder him and did so quite easily.

Click me and read the whole text.

Now President Trump plans to give Kirk our highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Kirk didn’t find a cure for a terrible disease. He didn’t carry people out of a burning building. He didn’t risk his life saving church or synagogue members from a would-be assassin. He didn’t stand a post anywhere to protect our freedom and our democracy, nor did he serve We The People in Congress. No, he was just a political activist. During his first term Trump gave drug addict Rush Limbaugh the PMoF, so with the flipping of another of those medals soon to Kirk’s next of kin, Trump is continuing to debase what was once a richly deserved, high honor.

Vice President Fauxbilly Vance has gone to Utah to retrieve civilian Charlie Kirk’s body and casket, plus his family, and fly them to Phoenix. In Air Force Two. On our dime. For a political activist. Not for an esteemed titan of democracy. Not for a hero. For just a political activist who had success motivating young people.

Kirk was a supporter of Trump, so of course Trump, the Adoration Junkie, has ordered flags at federal buildings to be lowered to half-staff. Do you suppose he’d do the same for any progressive activist who was shot? Or for any of the “suckers” and “losers” buried at Arlington National Cemetery?

Click me

Here’s Jennifer Rubin from before the arrest of the alleged perp:

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, Donald Trump has chosen to politicize [Charlie] Kirk’s murder, blaming the rhetoric of the “radical left”—all before anyone has been identified, let alone arrested for the murder.

Sadly, he and the MAGA troops reserve outrage only when Republicans are targeted (compare the near-silence when [Democratic] Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was targeted, the mockery when [Democrat] Paul Pelosi was nearly killed, and the snide remarks when two Minnesota Democrats were assassinated).

In each of these cases Trump demonized the left or ignored others’ tragedies, both of which encourage more violence.

So, don’t even think of both-sidesing this idiocy.* Only one side promotes violence to get its way. Only one side encourages hatred of the other side, although I confess to speaking ill at times about the violent ones, the willfully ignorant ones and the hateful ones.

Only one side adores a convict president who regularly urges them to violence. Only one side has a leader who promoted violent, murderous, treasonous insurrection and then pardoned the criminals, leaving them to believe that they can get away with maiming and killing in his name any time.

Only one side continues to pervert the Second Amendment from solely encouraging a stand-by militia for an at-risk fledgling country, to promoting a universal right to own and use modern weapons of war. Only one side stockpiles arsenals of weapons and ammunition, encouraged by puff-up slogans, like  “from my cold, dead hands,” and other pitiful macho, tough guy excuses. They give goose bumps to those angry guys who need to show they’re tough guys. And they give them excuse to do violence to others.

We have always been a violent society. Ask Blacks whose people were whipped and lynched. Ask Native Americans whose ancestors were massacred as state policy in order to take from them what we promised to leave to them. Ask any parent of a school child, anyone living in a drive-by kill zone – ask anyone.

So, no, John Lewis, We aren’t better than this. This is exactly who and what we are. We are violent, self-excusing murderous perps. In fact, I’ll take this one very dangerous step further.

We’ve Seen This Awful Movie Before And We Know How It Ends

In 1933 shortly after Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in a free and fair election, there was a mysterious fire in the Reichstag building where the German parliament met. Here’s a pretty good explanation from Wikipedia:

The Reichstag Fire Decree . . . officially the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State . . .  was a decree issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1933 in immediate response to the Reichstag fire. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With the Nazis in powerful positions in the German government, the decree was used as the legal basis for the imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered “friendly” to the Nazi cause. The decree is considered by historians as one of the key steps in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany.

One mysterious fire and fingers of blame – scapegoating – were pointed and all semblance of democracy and everyone’s freedom were lost for a very long, murderous time.

Now consider this over-blown, over-played, over-politicized murder of Charlie Kirk. A super “conservative” guy was shot by someone who disliked him or his views. You don’t suppose that Trump will call that “radical lefty” violence and use it to brand all liberals as traitors, do you? Oh, wait: he already has.

It’s time to suspend your explanations and your self-protection schemes against the evils of Trump’s authoritarianism. Recognize that even if this murder isn’t the sole justification for the absolute power being sought by Trump, truncation of your liberty is on the way.

This ain’t bean bag.

Be sure to read Charlie Sykes’ post, Weaponizing the Murder of Charlie Kirk. The attacks on our freedoms are flying fast and with fantastical hatred – all aimed at you.

Final comment: For those like Charlie Kirk who claim to be Christians and use their bible thumping to justify spewing vitriol toward others (see footnote), you have to show me where in the Christian bible – any version of Christian bible – where followers are instructed to hate others, to persecute others. Then these thumpers can get me to believe they’re true Christians. Until then, they’re just hateful hypocrites.

Many thanks to pal FL for his contributions to this post.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • I believe that deliberate, conscienceless mendacity.
  • the acceptance of falsehood and hypocrisy,
  • is the most dangerous of all sins.
  • Tennessee Williams, 1957
  • The biggest liar in the world is They Say.
  • [Or, “People are saying” – JA]
  • Douglas Malloch, 1978
  • _____________________________________________________

* Excerpt from Thom Hartmann’s piece, The “Both Sides” Scam: How False Balance Fuels Extremism:

” .  .  .  in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination — the guy who downplayed slavery, demonized Black and brown people, promoted the racist, antisemitic Great Replacement Theory, attacked queer people, made degrading comments about women, said gun deaths were fine because that’s the price we must pay for the Second Amendment .  .  . “

I guess with his murder Kirk paid what he said is “the price we must pay” for what is actually the constantly misused and abused Second Amendment, contorted by macho wannabees and the NRA. And Charlie Kirk. This hateful extremist righty, this performative Christian should not have been murdered. But Trump promotes violence against the left which will fuel the next murderers who think they are the true patriots doing Great Leader’s bidding.

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  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe at no charge – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too, because it’s going to take ALL OF US to get this job done.

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    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA


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

The News


POST 1209

First, a Feel-Good

Things are changing. People are standing up and speaking out. Not just the usual suspects, but even Republicans and MAGAs. Even some high profile types are finding their way out of “nice” and are on the attack (at last!). Trump has so outrageously overplayed his hand that we’ve had some electoral wins and a beginning of the possibility of ripping our country out of the treasonous clutches of the fascists. So, what will we do when the good guys are back in charge? It starts with a re-set.

Rick Wilson put some thought to that and wrote a bill to be introduced in Congress on January 20, 2029 or, perhaps, on January 3, 2027. Read his Restoration of America Governance Act, designed to undo much of Trump’s lawless and unconstitutional actions. It’s a short and good read.

Now, Ugly Stuff
  1. Heather Honey is the election conspiracy theorist liar who claimed that in the 2020 not-stolen election that in Pennsylvania there were 205,000 more votes than voters. Baseless idiocy. She’s all about preventing people from voting and now Trump has named her to a new “election integrity” post at DHS. What could possibly go wrong?
  2. From Democracy Docket: “On a recent episode of his podcast, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon made a chilling prediction: ICE agents will be stationed near polling places for the 2026 midterm elections.” Last election they made it illegal to bring water to people waiting to vote in long lines on hot days. Thugocracy.
  3. Louisiana told the justices of the Supreme Court that it will no longer defend the court-ordered map that added a second majority-Black congressional district. Instead, the state argued that any use of race in redistricting is unconstitutional. Yes, really.
  4. In a separate case, Alabama asked SCOTUS to strike down a lower court ruling requiring it to draw another majority-Black congressional district.

Points 3 & 4 are noteworthy for one reason. The GOP in most red states have worked tirelessly for decades to prevent non-Whites from voting, from purging voter registration roles using cruel racist schemes, to closing nearby polling places, to eliminating ballot drop boxes, to their wildly discriminating voter ID laws and more. Now they’re objecting to rulings that favor fair representation for non-Whites on the basis of racial discrimination! Their hypocrisy has no bottom.

    5. From this “Treason” post detailing Trump’s attack on Nicolle Wallace:

Since returning to power, Donald Trump has unleashed a coordinated assault on the free press unlike anything in American history. He’s personally attacked journalists he wants removed; he’s revived his “enemy of the people” designation against the Constitution’s only protected profession; he’s sued major outlets for coverage he deems unflattering; he’s threatened to revoke broadcast licenses of outlets who don’t cater to his preferences; he’s weaponized the FCC and effectively installed a personal “bias monitor” to oversee CBS News; he’s hijacked Voice of America and turned it into a pro-Trump global news outlet; he’s de-funded organizations like NPR and PBS; he’s changed long-standing Justice Department policies to make it easier to monitor journalists, to seize their records, and to search their homes; and more.

And that’s just about his attacks on one part of the First Amendment.

I’m a political news junkie, so I don’t expect anyone to be as focused on this stuff as I commonly am, but I found myself doing something that, on reflection, is frightening.

I was doing some chores in the kitchen with the TV on CNN. They covered the embarrassingly fawning Cabinet meeting, with seemingly otherwise functional (if unqualified) adults not reporting on their departments, but instead spewing cringe-worthy adulation onto Trump. CNN’s next topic was reporting on Trump’s threats to send our military into Chicago and reflexively I clicked off the TV. I bailed. I dropped out. Couldn’t stomach the river of bile. But if this political junkie dropped out, likely, that means that huge numbers of people won’t pay attention to what is happening to our country. That’s really dangerous.

I’ve dropped back in. We all need to be in.

Next, Bang Bang!

First, let’s recognize that our pathological president is working his hardest to negate everything Obama and Biden accomplished, including the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. However insufficient, that was the first major gun safety legislation passed by Congress in nearly 30 years.

Next, much as it’s so painful to see the reality, let’s recognize the brutality of the murders and wounding of little kids at the Annunciation Catholic Church School in Minneapolis last week.

Now I want you to imagine you’re the mom in the photo to the right, running in near panic for her children. She didn’t even put on her shoes. She just ran. You would, too.

Take a moment to feel her panic, her dread, her terror. That is the reality of every mass shooting, especially when it involves children.

Recognize that Trump wants to make it easier for hate-filled terrorists to get guns, assault rifles, large capacity magazines, bump stocks and more. Trump wants to do nothing to prevent the horror that has overcome that woman or anyone. His actions steadfastly declare that he doesn’t care how many little kids are ripped apart by bullets fired by a hatred filled terrorist.

Last, Some Hopeful Stuff

Chicago Mayor Brandon Jackson stood strong yesterday, calling Trump’s invasion of Chicago exactly what it is. He signed the Protecting Chicago Initiative executive order. It does many things including protecting the people from federal overreach and declaring that the CPD won’t collaborate with Trump’s Gestapo. Jackson joins governors Newsome, Pritzker, Moore, Walz and others standing against and speaking out VERY LOUDLY against Trump’s violations of our Constitution and the militarization of our country. Listen to Mayor Jackson’s powerful presentation here.

You know lots of the reasons why we have to do whatever it takes to defeat Trump, his sycophants, his cowardly, hypocritical legislators, his lying, extremist administration officials, his ICE Gestapo, his education destroyers, his know nothings undermining our healthcare and all of science – all of those who seek to destroy our values. We need to see Rick Wilson’s  Restoration of America Governance Act become real.

And we can do that.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner
.
  • Whoever is careless with truth in small matters
  • cannot be trusted in important affairs
  • Albert Einstein, 1979
  • The truth does not change
  • according to our ability
  • to stomach it emotionally.
  • Flannery O’Connor
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    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA

Mid-Term Election
Countdown Timer
Goes fast, doesn’t it?

Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get this 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and 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 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Inside-Out, Upside-Down


POST 1204

The CDC Shooting – Domestic Terrorism

A deranged soldier in the war on sanity opened fire at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, killing a police officer. Apparently, the shooter was killed by police, halting his threat to others.

The shooter was vehemently anti-vaxx, as encouraged by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert “Brain Worm, Dead Bear” Kennedy. Here’s a piece of a STAT report on the violence.

Former surgeon general Jerome Adams writes in a First Opinion essay that the shooting “is not an isolated event,” but rather “a dire reflection of ever-escalating threats public health workers face in a climate increasingly shaped by misinformation, politicization, and inflammatory rhetoric.” Read the essay.

Adams is a master of understatement. Imagine being a public health worker, committed to protecting the health of all of us, and some MAGA pea brain and others like him want to kill you because of your life of service to them and others. Like a lot in America today, this is inside-out, upside-down.

The Trumpstein* Catastrophe

I remember my high school biology teacher standing behind the lab table that stood at the front of the room and served as his desk. It had a black stone top, on which he had placed a recently deceased frog, which obediently lay in repose on its back.

My teacher then inserted an electrical probe into the top of one leg muscle – the frog’s, not his own – and the dead frog’s leg jerked out suddenly, just as it had when he was alive and on the move. The probe was removed and the extended leg retracted back to the relaxed position. My teacher then repeated the procedure and out stretched Mr. Frog’s leg once again. Then teacher gave him a zap again and again, but something was changing. Before long the leg extensions were far less powerful and at last the leg failed to respond to stimulus at all. Tough day for Froggy.

The point, of course, was to demonstrate a declining response to repeated stimulus and today we are in danger of being the frog. We are overwhelmed by Trump’s continuing insults to our values, our culture, our Constitution and the very structure of what keeps us safe. Worse, we are at risk of reacting less enthusiastically to his outrages, like:

firing the messenger who brought him bad labor numbers

moving pedophile sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to a country club prison

lying about economic and jobs numbers

arranging to meet Putin on American soil (no way he’ll extradite war criminal Putin to the International Criminal Court, where there’s an arrest warrant for him for kidnapping, murdering civilians and lots more) and refusing to include President Zelenskyy in the “peace talks,” which really are Ukraine surrender talks

organizing and expanding his Gestapo to arrest people with no warrant and no probable cause

making appointments to positions of power for nothing but talent-less Trump suck ups

creating global economic chaos with bi-polar tariffs and no-deal deals

There’s more every day. Little wonder some of us have a case of over-stimulated frog leg syndrome.

Our failure to respond to his outrages, though, is exactly what Trump wants. He wants his every day idiocies to distract us from his more serious crimes, like bringing down our way of life and replacing it with fascism, with Trump as Der Führer. And, of course, he’s binging on feeding us distractions from the Trumpstein Catastrophe.

Don’t take his bait. Don’t ever let him beat you into exhausted submission to his brutality and his inside-out, upside-down cruelty. Flip yourself over on your personal mental health lab table and hop to the job we all must do. Which leads to this.

Knife Fights

I quoted Patty Vasquez in my last post, and with good reason. Gotta come back to her today. Here are a couple of paragraphs from her August 11 post.

Democrats Finally Stop Bringing Spoons to a Knife Fight:
.

[Trump] doesn’t just break the rules. He forces everyone else to break them too. He makes corruption look like the only rational response to corruption. He turns defending democracy into an argument for abandoning democratic principles.

The Texas Democrats hiding in Illinois didn’t want to flee their state. They wanted to do their jobs, represent their constituents, and follow the rules. But Trump made that impossible. He turned governing into a hostage situation where the only choice was collaboration or exile.

Trump is polluting our entire culture with his inside-out, upside-down distortion of reality and the undermining of the principles we used to live by. THAT is why we must fight.

The Deconstructing Trump Corner

Our regular feature is joined today by two folk offerings from We The Folks. Click through each and enjoy the clever work of people speaking out with just enough Trump deconstruction snark to fit this space and make you smile. Then enjoy the historical wisdom that breathes yet today.

  • Click me

  • Click me

  • I decline utterly to be impartial
  •  as between the fire brigade and the fire.
  • Winston Churchill, 1926
  • Stand with anybody that stands right.
  • Stand with him while he is right,
  • and part with him when he goes wrong.
  • Abraham Lincoln, 1854

________________________________________________

* Credit to Keith Olbermann for the term

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    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Book links to Amazon 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 length, readability, punctuation, typos and voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate or intentionally cruel. If you must post something cruel, stop reading these posts immediately and instead invest your time with a good therapist.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally and unavoidably mine.

    Click me

    JA


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

The Lede


POST 1173

Here’s the Lede

Our Constitution’s Peril Is Not Now Nor Was It Ever About Trump.

America’s real enemy is the fascists – call them ultra-fat cats or oligarchs if you prefer. They are the home grown terrorists, the diabolical evil ones, working for over 40 years to steal our country away from us.
.

Trump is the front man, the warm-up act, the circus sideshow barker, the Distractor-in-Chief. Trump is just a tool for the fascists.

The extremists are directing Trump to cripple our government, our markets, our international relationships, our leadership of the free world and the maintenance of our values that have protected peace and international relations for 80 years. Tens of thousands of our people who make the trains run on time, who find cures for killer diseases and who protect us from unsafe food have been fired, leaving nobody to stand guard. They have kicked aside all who used to be our allies and snuggled up with bad guy dictators.

Now, in plain violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, the Trump administration has militarized our southern border from New Mexico to California, making it legal for our military to detain, arrest and imprison migrants and even our native born citizens, the ones guaranteed citizenship by the 14th Amendment. It’s essentially making the U.S. Army into a Gestapo. All the Constitutional protections and our laws shielding us from overreaching, crushing governmental power are being shredded by this cruel administration of extremists.* No Americans intentionally voted for these calamities.

“I don’t want everyone to vote.” “As a matter of fact, our [Republican] leverage in the elections quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.” Paul Weyrich, co-founder of The Heritage Foundation and proud proponent of voting suppression.

You can find the plan for the ruination of America in the Project 2025 handbook, painstakingly crafted by anti-American geniuses over the course of decades. They are a very talented cabal of megalomaniacs, people inspired to treachery by the likes of Paul Weyrich (link through and watch the 40 second clip). He’s the guy who told us plainly that he didn’t want all Americans to vote – only the ones who would vote his way – Republican. His political descendants are stationed all about our country now, constantly creating voter suppression everywhere. This diabolical plan was designed specifically for the destruction of your values and your freedom.**

Trump has claimed that he knows nothing about Project 2025. Given that he is reputed to be incapable of reading anything that doesn’t have pictures and that the document is 922 pages long, he probably has not read it. But he is being fed instructions from it by the billionaire fat cats and manipulators who wrote it, the people who want to rule the world, who think they are entitled to steal your power and your rights.

Trump cannot even spell “strategy” or “plan.” Creating such things is far beyond his abilities. But he is the very best at several things:

  1. Getting attention, promoting himself, grabbing the focus by being outrageous and thereby distracting you from his wrongdoing
  2. Demonizing opponents
  3. Lying instantaneously, making stuff up, like claiming that the price of eggs is down 92% – whatever fantasy or lie suits his purpose in the moment
  4. Never admitting mistakes and never backing down, even to the point of absurdity

The billionaires and the sneaky pols crafted this Project 2025 plan for domination and they have the perfect shill for their task: Donald Trump, their useful idiot. When their absolute power is firmly established, they will discard him like leftover fish gone bad.

That is the plan behind the seemingly self-destructive stuff of the past 100 days. The destruction makes perfect sense in the context of the grandest larceny ever committed.

If the fat cat dictator wannabes get their way, the complete loss of your freedom will be the result.

Once More: Here’s the Lede
.

Our Constitution’s Peril Is Not Now Nor Was It Ever About Trump

America’s real enemy is the fascists – call them ultra-fat cats or oligarchs if you prefer. They are the home grown terrorists, the diabolical evil ones, working for over 40 years to steal our country away from us.
.
Action

You know what to do to fight this. Here it is spelled out for you by Adam Kinzinger’s Country First in just 1 minute, 38 seconds.

And listen to Gov. Tim Walz’s State of the State address on April 23 (start at 2:17, unless you want to listen to the complete list of attendees).

Perhaps you’re both discouraged over the spinelessness and hypocrisy of Republicans and dismayed over the apparent lack of strength and direction – the wimpiness – of Democrats. Walz has clarity about all that and you need to hear it now. The only disappointment in watching this presentation is seeing the Minnesota Republican legislators refusing to applaud, even when Walz announced things that everyone likes, like that crime is down. That brain-free, hyper-partisan behavior is part of the Project 2025 scheme.

There was a time in America when Democrats stood tall for We The People, when they were bold in demanding fairness and they continuously banged the drum of decency for and from everyone. But their strength has been diluted into watery pablum and they insist upon refusing to come together for what they all know is right. They’ve made themselves into a force that can be knocked down by a simple tap on the forehead.

There was a time in America when Republicans were the big flag wavers, the most muscular defenders of liberty, the thumpiest of Constitution thumpers. They had the courage to stand strong against what was un-American. But those people are long gone, replaced by others who cannot even recognize an elephant. No matter how much lipstick you use and regardless of how you dress up today’s Republican pig, it’s still a pig.

America’s real enemy is the fascist terrorist thieves and those Americans too chicken to stand up to them.

____________________________________________

* Long time friend Jim Nathan is the co-founder of Floridians for Democracy, an organization dedicated to protection of our democracy. Read his clear message about the destruction of rights and the norms you count on here.

** Read David A. Graham’s The Project 2025 Presidency in The Atlantic.

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

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