Treason

Government Hall of Shame


While traitors attacked our democracy, we were killing 4,000 Americans with COVID-19 every day. Somehow, four 9/11s every three days – one gasping death every 22 seconds – got overshadowed. That’s how insane things are.

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Be sure to read to the end for a poem for our time.

We start with the obvious.

Sedition – 18 U.S.C. § 2384:

“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”

Benedict Arnold

You could have stopped reading in the middle of the second line above at “conspire to overthrow,” because that’s what scheming to fraudulently reverse an election is. And the sedition guilt isn’t in the overthrowing; it’s in the conspiring. The conversation is all it takes to earn 20 years in prison. Still, feel free to be motivated by the “seize, take, or possess” part as well, and apply that to Trump’s incitement to riot, vandalize and seize the entire Capitol Building. Seriously, is there any part of this that isn’t clearly worthy of a Benedict Arnold award?

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State

If you take the time to read the transcript or listen to the audio recording of the phone call Trump placed to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last weekend (yes, that was just 8 days ago), you’ll hear Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows attempting to persuade, cajole, muscle and threaten Raffensperger into fabricating 11,780 votes in order to award the election to Trump. Attempting to overthrow an election and toss out the votes of millions of Americans is an affront to any sense of democracy and is illegal on its face.

So is inciting violence, beginning with calls to beat up protesters at his rallies starting in 2015 and his Charlottesville “good people on both sides” declaration in 2017. So is inciting people to riot, like inviting the Proud Boys and neo-Nazis to storm the Capitol Building during the recording of the Electoral College votes. His continuing shameful calls to violence were the training wheels for his calls to sedition on January 6. All of this whipping up of mobs is what fascists do. And, because this is a democracy, that’s why all of that is illegal.

How illegal, how un-American, how outrageous does a crime spree have to be until we at last say, “No more. Not now; not ever“? Failing to do so will invite far worse from the next megalomaniac to hoodwink our country.

So, shame on Trump, of course. But shame on us if we let him get away with his crimes.

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The senators and congressmen listed below (someone called them the Sedition Congress – and no, there isn’t a “both sides” argument) promised to do all they can to subvert the will of the people by overturning a free and fair election. Each of them swore on a Bible to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, including some brand new legislators, whose very first official act in office was to betray their supposedly solemn oath. That happened after mutinous, faithless thousands stormed the Capitol Building to undermine our democracy.

Their claim of fraud is the very same non-existent fraud that Trump made up and blabbered all across MAGA-Land. It’s all fake. It’s all treachery. It’s all lies. And these Republicans broadcast those lies from the halls of the Congress of the United States.

There is speculation as to why these turncoats would stand up in Congress and declare to the world and for all history that they themselves are seditionists. I am certain that ignorance of reality is not the reason. They know that Trump lost the election fairly and that there was no fraud. The only way for them to weasel out of guilt for betraying our country is if they are truly delusional – mentally ill – and believe that elections are only valid if their preferred candidate wins. But contagious mental illness contracted only by Republicans just isn’t what’s going on.

January 6 , 2021, U.S. Capitol Building – The flag of treason, our lowest moment as Americans.

They want to avoid getting tweet-trashed by Trump before their next reelection campaign. That might avoid their getting primaried by a gold plated Trump suck up and that might help them to keep their jobs.

Theirs is a job that pays $174,000 per year and gets them free healthcare and free parking at Reagan National Airport. I hope our adversaries like Russia, Iran, North Korea and China don’t realize how cheap it would be to get these sell-outs to sell out.

They have turned their backs on the Constitution and their formerly sacred word. And they’ve done all that and worse for the self-serving possibility that Trump’s base will vote for them in their next election.

Is it any wonder that approval and respect for Congress is just 15%? That means that 85% of Americans disapprove of Congress. Now we know what it takes to get bipartisanship.

Here Are Your 2021 Government Hall of Shame Inductees
Heap Shame and Scorn Upon Them as Befits Their Absence of Integrity

________________________________________________________________________

Senate

Sen. Tommy Tuberville                             Sen. Cynthia Lummis                            Sen. Ted Cruz

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith                              Sen. John Kennedy                              Sen. Josh Hawley

Sen. Rick Scott                                           Sen. Roger Marshall

And, of course, the Chief Perp, Donald Trump

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A Poem For Our Time

A mob of the MAGA persuasion

Conducted a Capitol invasion.

Though possibly armed,

They parted unharmed,

And that’s how you know they’re Caucasian.

– Lindsey Horner

– @NoMorBS1958

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

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

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Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Said John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” So, educate me and all of us. That’s what the Comments section is for.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

JA


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

The Worst Is Yet To Come – Very Soon


Reading time – 4:17; Viewing time – 6:19  .  .  .

Late Addition

The “Million MAGA March” has concluded with great bluster, chest thumping, hate spewing and the absolute rejection of all facts that don’t comport with demonstrators’ predetermined beliefs and conclusions. It was something of a “Yea for us, we’re so so tough and so powerful and so right” celebration of self. If it looked to you like something from another world, it’s because it is. Traditionally, America hasn’t looked like that.

In the run up to the November 3 election I wrote a satire about how to deal with the people harboring denial of reality, rage and that barely disguised threat of violence that lurks ever-present and is always trolling for a target. But as we go farther through the looking glass I’m beginning to think that the satire is less satire and more sense. I recommend to you a review of that piece. Meanwhile, all that MAGA muscle flexing will pair perfectly with what Der Trump likely has in mind.

Times, WaPo, WSJ and others, stop wasting time on Trump’s voting fraud distraction. Focus on identifying the outrage he’s planning for January 20.

Trump has once again managed to distract the world with his baseless claims of voter fraud. He did it after the losses he sustained in primaries in 2016. He did it after the drubbing he took in the 2018 mid-term election. Now he’s doing it following the repudiation of him in the 2020 election. We’ve seen this movie and, frankly, it’s boring.

So why in the world should we chase down yet more of his bright shiny object lies? Doing so is far worse than a waste of time.

It’s an abdication of our responsibility to get ahead of and stop his next scam.

Given the short time available, that next scam will be his worst and it will be here in a few days.

Trump has fired the Secretary of Defense and several other high level people in the Department of Defense and has replaced them with know-nothing yes men, people loyal only to him. Same for our National Security leadership and he fired the head of our cybersecurtity team, as well as the leader of the agency that safeguards nuclear weapons. That’s a lot of compromising of our national security protections all at once. Why would he do that with only 2 months left in his administration?

You know that he’s desperate to retain power, because he’s facing an encyclopedia of indictments the minute he steps off Marine One on January 20. Plus, he’s told us plainly that he wants to be president for life and that maybe he won’t leave. He always telegraphs the wrongdoing he’s going to commit and we ignore that at our collective peril. So, given his stated intention to stay in power forever, what do you think he might do?

From Wikipedia (lightly edited):

“The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s government stated that  .  .  .  a Dutch council communist was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators .  .  . The day after the fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed.”

You need to know about the Reichstag Fire Decree:

“The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With 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.”

It’s a classic wag-the-dog tactic and I’ve been warning for years that Trump would attempt to secure all power for himself in just that way. He’ll stage a catastrophe, then claim that an enemy – perhaps our mainstream press, which he calls “the enemy of the people” – is behind it. He’ll declare a state of national emergency and impose martial law. He has sycophants running our military now, as well as the Justice Department and much of our intelligence apparatus, so it may be easy for Trump to get away with that.

Good-bye democracy, hello fascism.

Do you think that’s hyperbole? Fantastical thinking? Histrionic?

So did the citizens of Germany in 1933.

In fact, Hitler told them that he would “Make Germany great again.” Sound familiar? Read the essay. You’ll be shocked at the parallels.

Need more convincing? Have a look at what Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and the author of “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century” has to say in a Boston Globe essay- click here. And read his book.

Or have a look at the comments of Steven Levitsky, co-author of “How Democracies Die,” this in a conversation reported in MIT News or listen to an interview of Levitsky here. There are plenty more people concerned about Trump’s threat to our democracy – just look it up

We all better wake up to the reality of what megalomaniac Donald Trump has promised and which is likely just around the corner. We’ve been watching this coup d’état in slow motion for four years and the finale will likely play out within the next 66 days.

It’s a horrifying thing to realize that with most of the Republicans in Congress actively participating in Trump’s fraud and with the courts and major departments of government effectively neutered, the fate of our democracy may rest solely on the decision of a few generals to resist an illegal order. As bad and perhaps worse, if Trump attempts a coup, 71 million Trump voters will applaud. What will we do with that?

A lot of barrels of ink and miles of newsprint, as well as huge volumes of online e-ink have been used to celebrate the Biden/Harris win. But it isn’t time to sit back and sigh in relief over a coming Biden/Harris administration or that we’ve turned away from chaos and cruelty, because that may not happen.

Of course, my analysis may be all wrong. Pray that it is. Maybe all Trump is doing is collecting donations for his SuperPAC and his re-election fund for 2024. He can later divert those hundreds of millions of dollars to himself and his family, like he did with his charity. Or maybe he’s trying to stay relevant so that he can start a $6 per month subscription streaming service that rakes in a billion dollars a year from his devoted followers. His grifting would be a welcome alternative to the destruction of our democracy.

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

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Potpourri – v12.0


Reading time – 5:15  .  .  .

BREAKING NEWS!

Hope Hicks, President Trump’s closest aide, has tested positive for coronavirus. Hours after the announcement of her infection we learned that both the president and Mrs. Trump had tested positive for coronavirus, too. So have some senators and White House staffers, with more surely in the Covid queue. That isn’t the breaking news.

The important story for America is that even after learning he had been exposed to the infected Hicks, Trump continued his normal schedule, including a round-table with supporters and a fundraiser reception, both at his Bedminster, NJ club. He did all that without wearing a mask.

There have been subsequent unverified reports that he didn’t know he had been exposed prior to the Bedminster events. Regardless, Trump remains a one man super-spreader event and a totem, a roll model for the third of this nation that is in denial about this disease.

Also note that Trump was in close proximity to V.P. Joe Biden and Chris Wallace at the debate on Tuesday night. And the president was talking loudly, projecting clouds of his spittle, necessarily putting the others at risk.

I am steadfastly resisting the enormous urge to send a “We told you so” tweet to our now hospitalized president and am proud that instead I’m wishing him and the rest of the infected good health. I’m proud, too, of Joe Biden for withdrawing criticizing ads of Trump while he’s down. It’s a visible demonstration of the decency Biden has promised to bring to the White House, even though, as of this writing, Trump has continued his attack ads against Biden. As I’ve said, there is no low that is so low that Trump won’t go there.

For now, I fervently hope the leaders of the Democrats are devising a plan for the election if Biden goes down sick due to Trump projecting his infection at him and he can no longer run for office. And, because it would be unseemly to kick Trump while he’s down, Kamala Harris and her team better be retoolng her V.P. debate focus.

Going after Pence won’t take long. Everyone knows he’s smarmy, disingenuous and plainly dishonest. Indianans were in the process of throwing him out of the governor’s office when the V.P. gig lifeline was thrown to him. He really isn’t worth much attention. That leaves the rest of the 90 minutes for Kamala to go after Trump, now having to do it gently. Bummer for the former prosecutor.

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It’s So Taxing

Trump claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in profit while at the same time claiming a $47 million loss on his IRS tax form, so he paid no taxes. Imagine if you tried such a deception.

He has hundreds of millions of dollars of loans – debt – money owed – coming due within the next four years and he has no way to pay it back. Plus, we don’t know to whom he owes that money – could be Vladimir Putin or Mohammad bin Salman, which would raise enormous national security issues.

For anyone else, that much debt from any source would disqualify him/her from even the lowest security clearance, because anyone’s knowledge of the debt is kompromat and the enormity of it is financial leverage. In the absence of seeing Trump’s financial documents we’re left wondering who has Trump’s privates in their vice.

Trump was facing financial disaster in 1990, so he did what any enterprising fellow would do: he attempted to grab all of his father’s wealth for himself. He sent a lawyer and an accountant to the elder Trump’s home to get him to change his will. He did that as his father was falling into dementia. With that kind of self-serving pathology as his guide, what do you imagine Trump would do to the United States over four more years and with all that debt hanging over his head?

This is President Flim-Flam and, sadly, Lincoln was right about being able to fool some of the people all of the time. None of Trump’s malfeasance means a thing to his ardent, information refusing supporters. Many of them are prepared to use violence against fellow Americans in support of him, as they wave their American flags and misuse Thomas Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty quote, imagining themselves to be patriots in their flagrant law breaking. And all the while Trump eggs them on.

Perhaps some of the independents, the folks in the middle, will figure out they’ve been victims of the biggest scam in our history and will act accordingly in this election to stop the madness.

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From Peter Strzok’s book COMPROMISED

Page XXIII

Speaking about having lived in 4 countries that each went through revolution by a strongman dictator, Strzok writes, ”  .  .  .  all shared common characteristics, and all taught me lessons about dictators and authoritarians and their hunger to consolidate power and obtain – or at least convey – legitimacy. That quest for legitimacy played out in a host of ways. One was the desire to manipulate, control, or discredit media. A relentless distortion of reality numbs a country’s populace to outrage and weakens its ability to discern truth from fiction.

“Another way dictators sought to secure power and legitimacy was by co-opting the power of the state – its military, law enforcement, and judicial systems – to carry out personal goals and vendettas rather than the nation’s needs.

“Still another was by undermining dissent, questioning the validity of opposition and refusing to honor public will, up to and including threatening or preventing the peaceful transfer of power.”

Page 307

“Authoritarian leaders and tin-pot dictators don’t tolerate dissent or criticism, and when they hear it, they smear their critics in outlandish terms, as traitors, as enemies of the people, as saboteurs and spies. If they can imprison or execute their critics, they frequently do. If they can’t they call for their imprisonment [think: “Lock her up.”] or execution instead, or demand mob retribution against them. Corrupt and compromised, with no moral center and no ethics and only their own self-interests to guide them, such leaders see criticism as a challenge to their legitimacy and, when challenged continuously, rage louder – ruining lives, destroying careers, and worse.”

“One of [the pipe bomber, Cesar] Sayoc’s attorneys would later explain in court that his client’s ‘blind admiration for the president’ [much like MAGA hat wearers] had fed his spiral toward violence. ‘It is impossible, I believe,’ the lawyer said, ‘to separate the political climate and his mental illness.'”

Strzok continued, speaking of “[Trump’s] impact on the vulnerable fringes of American society, on troubled people susceptible to suggestions and inflammatory rhetoric.”

Somebody please tell me what the violence-prone Trump supporters will do when Trump loses and continues his ranting about a rigged election, fake news, lock somebody up and dog whistle calls to violence.

Read traditional conservative David Brooks’ eyes-wide-open comments about the chaos debate last week, the immoralist who created it and the threat it signals for America.

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Coronavirus – Again

We’ve known all along what to do to stop dying from COVID-19. And how to stop suffering debilitating illness from it. And the way to prevent long term lung and heart damage. I wrote about that here.

We haven’t done those things.

Leadership has lied about proper protocols, waffled on protections, recommended lethal cures and valueless treatments and refused most positive actions to stop this pandemic. Left to the states, failure was certain. That’s because some states imposed serious measures to protect the people, while neighboring states blindly, spinelessly followed the President’s lead, claiming COVID-19 was like the flu that would “magically go away”, or some other excuse for inaction. And then people traveled from infected areas to non-infected areas, which spread the disease very quickly. Now, over 210,000 Americans are dead. It was all predictable and avoidable.

We chose not to avoid.

We have a temper-tantrum narcissist, responsibility-refusing president. He sits in his highchair, pounding on his tray and screaming his fantasies, while his enablers say, “Whatever the president wants, it’s his. I’ll do whatever he says.” Republican senators and governors knuckle under, as though they’ve lost all higher brain functioning. They are all children, acting as though there are no consequences to anything, focusing only on what they can imagine they’d like to have and thinking only as far as the immediate future for themselves. They abdicate all responsibility and refuse their accountability for the consequences of their actions on others.

Exactly like misbehaving, disobedient children.

Together, these irresponsible leaders instruct large portions of the population to distrust reality, to flaunt their bravado and to continue to spread the disease and death. Then our citizens act exactly as their leaders do, like misbehaving, disobedient children. And all the while people die for lack of responsible leadership.

This disease won’t go away until we all start acting like adults, conscious of our responsibility to ourselves and one another. What do you suppose that will require?

Read How America Lost 200,000 Lives to COVID-19 – even better, watch the video – for more.

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

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA

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

Republicans For Biden


Join the Disambiguation Gang right over there  → (scroll down just a bit)

Ed Note – Apologies for the false alarm notification of a new Disambiguation yesterday. Entirely my mistake. In contrast, this one is for real.

FLASH MESSAGE!

Trump is doing every weasely thing he can to rig the election in his favor, including promising to throw out mail-in ballots and stopping the process on November 3 before all the mail-in ballots are counted.

So, DON”T vote by mail unless you must in order to avoid contact with others.

VOTE IN PERSON AND DO IT EARLY

See the instructions below.

Update to the Presidential Befoulment of the Military

It has been 27 days since the baring of the foul statements of Donald Trump about our military. To date, not a single Congressional Republican has spoken out against his cruel, hateful words and behavior. Not one. Most have run from reporters. And the usual administration sycophants and the Fox News sub-species have slimed out from under their rocks to defend this faithless president and deny his blatantly reprehensible behavior.

This is our current reality. It should never happen.* That is the reason for what follows.

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Republicans For Biden

Okay, the folks listed below aren’t all Republicans – most are – nor are they all enthusiastically for Biden. All are for America and therefore they are against Trump, which is why they have publicly pledged to vote for Biden.

Here is an expanded list of names you’ll likely recognize – more announce nearly every day. In addition, you can watch over 1,000 videos of Republican Voters Against Trump here.

There are 500 more Americans here. This is a letter signed by former high ranking military, State Department and national security patriots, most having been registered Republicans, and they are all voting for Biden. These are knowledgeable people who see clearly what is going on and the enormous danger to our country this president has created.

Most of these folks likely never before imagined they would vote for a Democrat. Nevertheless, these are people with the spine to stand and be counted when it’s all on the line.

And it is all on the line right now.

These folks – every one of them – believe in the Constitution and in America and are taking action to protect and defend. So must we all.

Gen. Colin Powell                            Charlie Sykes                                        Carly Fiorino

Steve Schmidt                                 Jennifer Rubin                                       S.E. Cupp

Michael Steele                                 Sec. Def. Chuck Hagel                         Meghan McCain

Rick Wilson                                      Sec. HHS Jeh Johnson                        Bret Stephens

Pres. George W. Bush                      Sec. HUD Carla Jills                             Mike Murphy

Gov. Jeb Bush                                  Admin. EPA William Reilly                    Rep. Joe Walsh

Gen. James Mattis                           Chair, HSA William Webster                  Rep. David Jolly

Gen. John Kelly                                Exec. Dir. UNICEF Ann Veneman          Rep. Charlie Dent

Adm. William McRaven                    Sec. Homeland Security Tom Ridge      Sen. Jeff Flake

Sen. Mitt Romney                            Admin. EPA Christine Todd Whitman     Mitch Monnin

George Conway                               Amb. William Howard Taft IV                  Meg Whitman

Susan Del Percio                             Sec. Navy Richard V. Spencer                Ana Navarro

Bill Kristol                                         Dep. Sec. State John Negroponte         Benjamin Wittes

Anthony Scaramucci                        Dir. FBI James Comey                           Sully Sullenberger

Gov. John Kasich                             Solicitor Gen. Charles Fried                   Gov. Bill Weld

David Brooks                                    Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman                   Asst. to V.P. Olivia Troy

Dep. Sec. State Richard Armitage    Sen. John Warner                                  Gov. Jim Edgar

Rep. Mark Sanford                            Rep. Justin Amash                                 Fiona Hill

Amb. Gordon Sondland                     Amb. Wm. Taylor                                    Amb. Marie Yovanovitch

Peggy Noonan                                   Cindy McCain                                         Scientific American Mag.

Gen. Paul Selva                                  Ross Douthat                                          Dwayne Johnson

Thomas Friedman                               Gen. Michael Hayden

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From Steve Sheffey

(Read Steve’s full post here.)

“Political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein wrote that the Republican Party ‘is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.’ They wrote that in 2012. It’s truer today.

“Trump and McConnell are not outliers; they lead the Republican Party because they embody what the GOP has become. Democrats need to stop pretending that we have a functioning two-party system with sanity on the other side of the aisle.”
·
And Republican voters need to recognize that their party has been stolen from them. It has abandoned them. They need to stop pretending that the values they hold dear are still there and then break away from the insanity, like the courageous people listed above and in the linked pages.
·
Not convinced yet? Nineteen Republican branded candidates for Congress embrace QAnon. That’s right: Republicans are becoming The Insane Conspiracy Theory Party.
·
Your Republican family and friends need to see that the only thing left of the Republican Party they joined and believed in is the title. Everything else has been crushed under the heel of a cult.
·

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Want to stop the madness?

In this battle for our country, you are Obi-Wan Kenobe. Princes Leia speaks to you for the people, saying, “Help us, Obi-Wan. You’re our only hope.” VOTE!

Then VOTE to stop it.

EARLY voting has started in many states and time is of the essence in this desperate battle to preserve our democracy. Here’s a simple short list of instructions for your voting:

Make sure you’re registered to vote – go to Vote.org to be certain. Now is a fine time to do that.

Unless you must avoid contact with others, VOTE IN PERSON EARLY at your polling place. If you don’t know where it is, check your city or state website for the proper location, a list of days you can vote EARLY in-person and the hours your polling place will be open. Voting EARLY will expose you to fewer people and there will likely be a much shorter wait time to vote. Nevertheless, bring a chair and water just in case. Bring disinfectant with you and, of course, wear your mask.

If you plan to vote in-person on election day, Tuesday, November 3, show up EARLY in the day for the shortest wait time to vote. Same deal regarding a chair, water, disinfectant and your mask.

  • – OR –

If you must vote by mail, request a mail-in ballot EARLY. If you haven’t already done so, it may be too late. Check with your Secretary of State or your municipality for instructions. Once again, now is a fine time to do that.

Fill out your mail-in ballot right away – immediately after you receive it. FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY.

Instead of mailing your properly (did I mention “follow the instructions?”) completed your mail-in ballot and drop it off EARLY where your state or municipality directs – drop box, city hall, etc.

Summary:

VOTE IN PERSON EARLY

Any questions?

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* Read this piece by Charles Blow. Then pass this post along to 3 others. If it isn’t already clear, you’ll see why.

CLICK-READ-ACT

·

And read Tom Friedman’s new post following the so-called presidential, so-called debate. He urges us to vote for Biden, ending with, “Do it as if your country’s democracy depends on it, because it does.“

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Follow-Up To the Protest Report

Here’s what happened after I left the demonstration last Friday. It’s a story of courage in the face of violence threatened by Trump supporting thugs.

Just wondering: How many of the Trump supporters at that demonstration aren’t neighbors, but instead are outside agitators?

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

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Update – v1


Join the Disambiguation Gang right over there (scroll down just a bit) →

Reading time – 4:48 .  .  .

Update To The Trump Election-Rigging Show

This is an occasional feature of these posts to and through the November election, as Trump attempts to manipulate, lie and cheat* his way to staying in office.

Recall that Trump must win the election in order to avoid criminal indictments for fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, Conspiracy Against the United States and more**. Those indictments will land in his lap the moment he leaves the protection of the Justice Department “no-criminal-indictments-while-in-office” memo. Let’s just say that he’s motivated to be “creative” in order to stay in office.

  1. Trump installed Louis DeJoy as postmaster general. DeJoy is no joy, as he has removed 600 high speed mail sorting machines, removed hundreds of mail drop boxes, eliminated overtime for postal workers and he makes postal trucks run around empty. The result is a hobbling of the Postal Service, such that it advised 46 states that mail may not be delivered in time to meet state requirements for the election. That will effectively throw millions of ballots into dumpsters. Trump wants to see that happen because more Democrats vote by mail than Republicans.
  2. Trump has accelerated his attack on the FDA. At first it was just blatantly disagreeing with the science around the pandemic. Since then it has become pressure to approve treatments that aren’t fully vetted and even more pressure to produce a vaccine, whether vetted or not – and he’s promised that it will be delivered before the election.
  3. He’s cut funding and recommendations for testing for COVID-19 in an effort to reduce the apparent number of cases. Of course, reducing testing won’t reduce the number of people infected and, in fact, will increase the number of Americans who get sick and die, since we won’t know to self-quarantine or be able to trace contacts.
  4. He’s attacked the FDA and now, ”  .  .  .  the administration recently installed a gun-rights advocate and right-wing journalist as the FDA’s chief spokesperson, allowing for partisan communication from an agency that has historically put out apolitical messaging. Now Trump has baselessly claimed that the FDA was part of a “deep state” conspiracy to harm his reelection campaign.
  5. He repeats his completely fact-less accusations of in-person and mail-in voter fraud.
  6. Trump used the White House, National Mall and other federal properties for his nomination acceptance speech. Looked great, if a bit over the top. But that ain’t kosher.
  7. He had Attorney General Wm. Barr’s Justice Department investigate the investigators of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Look for the release of Barr’s dishonest Trump-suck-up summary in mid-October, just as Barr did with the Mueller Report. He will then withhold its distribution so that there isn’t time to get the truth out before the election. Sadly, there is no law against the Attorney General, the top law enforcement official in the country, lying to the public.
  8. At Trump’s direction, The Office of the Director of National Intelligence will no longer give in-person briefings to our legislators, leaving them semi-ignorant at best. This is another Trump dirty trick to keep us in the dark about Russia’s involvement to help him win re-election and his conspiracy to defraud**.
  9. September 2 – From the Times: “Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security intervened to prevent the publication of an intelligence report raising alarms about Russian interference in the 2020 election, according to a report by ABC News last [Wednesday].” That effectively prevents you and all of us from knowing about the breadth of Russian interference in our current election.
  10. Trump urged supporters in North Carolina to vote by mail and then attempt to vote in person on November 3. He later claimed that was how they could determine if their mail-in vote had been counted. Actually, Trump solicited fraud, a felony.
  11. September 11 – “President Donald Trump threatened Thursday to ‘put … down very quickly’ [protests and] riots on election night should aggrieved Democrats take to the streets in the wake of his potential victory.” Politico No word on whether he’d do the same if there were protests and riots by right wing hotheads when Biden wins.
  12. September 12 -“Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have sought to change, delay and prevent the release of reports about the coronavirus by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were viewed as undermining President Trump’s message that the pandemic is under control.” Washington Post
  13. September 13 – Trump signed an Executive Order in a last-ditch drug pricing plan to force pharmaceutical companies to charge Medicare no more than the lowest prices charged in other countries. While that sounds attractive: first, it isn’t clear he has the power to do that; second, a lawsuit is on the way to stop this; third, other than flap his lips about phantom victories over drug pricing for 3.5 years, why do you suppose this is happening just 50 days before the election? Could it be that the election is more important to him than the health of American seniors?
  14. “Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of harboring a ‘resistance unit’ determined to undermine President Trump, even if that opposition bolsters the Covid-19 death toll.” He accused CDC scientists of sedition and predicted left-wing violence if Trump loses the election and refuses to leave office. Perhaps worst, he’s in charge of warping CDC communications to the public into what Trump wants us all to hear.
  15. ”  .  .  .  first Politico, then The New York Times and other news media organizations published accounts of how Mr. Caputo and a top aide had routinely worked to revise, delay or even scuttle the core health bulletins of the C.D.C. to paint the administration’s pandemic response in a more positive light.” New York Times

That’s just top of mind stuff. With 40 days to go, we can be sure of an October surprise. What needs to be included? Provide links if you can. With your help we’ll keep a running tally until and beyond this election, showcasing the most brutally ANTI-DEMOCRATIC acts of this most ANTI-AMERICAN president in U.S. history.

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* Read Frank Bruni’s clear take on this.

** 18 U.S. Code § 371. Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud United States

If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

18 U.S. Code § 2383. Rebellion or insurrection

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Just getting started on the list.

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From RepresentUs:

“With just 2 weeks until voter registration deadlines across the country, don’t let National Voter Registration Day pass you by without confirming that you can vote this fall. 

“Our voter registration tool powered by VoteAmerica makes it easy. So register to vote – or confirm your registration today.”

Click this sentence and confirm your right to vote.”

—————————————-

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

  1. Did someone forward this to you? Welcome! Please subscribe and pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) Use the simple form above on the right.
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Biden’s To-Do List – The Short Form


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

Reading time – 2:52  .  .  .

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

——————-

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

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

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

– Restore full status to the CDC.

– Restore funding for the WHO.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Withdraw support for Israel to annex West Bank areas.

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

Expand Obamacare to cover all Americans.

Restore the full Voting Rights Act.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Biden’s Attorney General action list:

– Prosecute William Barr for whatever comes to mind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remove the conspiracy theorists from top positions in the Pentagon.

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

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

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

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

Undo foreign policy unforced errors, including:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord.

– Join the international agreement to combat deforestation.

– Establish federal incentives for installation of renewable energy.

– Establish federal incentives for clean energy innovation.

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

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

Lead fundamental police policy change.

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

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

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

Do comprehensive immigration reform – finally!

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

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

– Open our system for prompt handling of asylum seekers.

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

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

Many thanks to brother Mike for starting this discussion.

——————————-

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

What’s Most Important


Reading time – 2:12  .  .  .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, a curious comment

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

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

——————————-

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA

 


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

The Full Explanation


Reading time – 4:15  .  .  .

I’ve been clubbing Republicans for a long time. Let me be fair to them and say, in all humility and from the heart, that every bit of it is deserved.

I’ve called them things like “invertebrates” and “jellyfish” specifically for refusing the call from the very values they claim to hold. Instead, they have consistently knuckled under to Trump and allowed his evil doings to ratchet our country downward. What I saw was simple cowardice. It turns out the explanation for their behavior is far more complex and nuanced than I had imagined.

Anne Applebaum’s remarkable essay History Will Judge the Complicit, is a stunning and thorough analysis of collaboration with the Trumpian assault on our country. It’s published in the July/August edition of The Atlantic under the title.The Collaborators.

Applebaum unmasks what is at work to influence otherwise principled people to relinquish their values and submit to the will of this hateful, self-serving president. Her work is long and detailed and draws on clear historical parallels – yes, this has happened before. If you have ever asked, “How could otherwise good people sell their souls to a tyrant?” I urge you to read her piece in its entirety for the answer.

Here’s a summary of the rationalizations Trump collaborators use.

1. We can use this moment to achieve great things. This is the rationalization used by the true believers. They ignore the abhorrent to achieve something they think is important, like seating conservative judges.

2. We can protect the country from the president. This is the rationalization of people like Gary Cohn, Trump’s first economic advisor, as well as Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s umpteenth chief of staff and by “Anonymous,” the author of the New York Times piece describing Trump’s erratic behavior, his inability to concentrate, his ignorance and more. Cohn and Kelly are gone from the administration now, so they have no influence and can no longer protect the country. Worse, they have yet to speak out and, “their silence now continues to serve the president’s purposes.”

3. I, personally, will benefit. Nobody says this out loud, but Trump’s Cabinet heads and their staffs are full of self-serving industry insiders, lobbyists and incompetent drones. Think: Sonny Perdue and his vigilantes of industry association lobbyists now regulating their own industries.

4. I must remain close to power. It’s the “intoxicating experience of power, and the belief that proximity to a powerful person bestows higher status.” Applebaum wrote, “A friend told me that each time he sees Lindsey Graham, ‘he brags about having just met with Trump’ while exhibiting ‘high school’ levels of excitement, as if ‘a popular quarterback has just bestowed some attention on a nerdy debate-club leader.'”

“The Russian language  .  .  .  has a word – prisposoblenets – that means ‘a person skilled in the act of compromise and adaptation, who intuitively understands what is expected of him and adjusts his beliefs and conduct accordingly.”

5. LOL nothing matters. “If there is no such thing as moral and immoral, then everyone is implicitly released from the need to obey any rules.

“If the president doesn’t respect the Constitution, then why should I? If the president can cheat in elections, then why can’t I? If the president can sleep with porn stars, then why can’t I? .  .  .  Nothing means anything, rules don’t matter, and the president is the carnival king.”

6. My side is flawed, but the political opposition is much worse. It’s about portraying the opposition as an existential threat and is seen in the accusations against liberalism and cultural degradation that they claim Hillary Clinton would have brought. It’s the flood of rationalizations to get the judges that conservatives want and the Evangelicals to get the path to salvation they hallucinate is needed.

“If you are convinced we are living in the End Times [included in the list of these believers are Barr, Pompeo and Pence], then anything the president does can be forgiven.”

7. I am afraid to speak out. This, of course, is the spinelessness explanation. It is what led Republican lawmakers to mock and whine and rail at Democratic House leaders during the impeachment hearings and to refuse to judge Trump guilty of the nefarious, unconstitutional acts they knew he had committed. They had to be playground bad kids to satisfy the biggest playground bully. It’s the extreme of refusing to speak against the president’s wrongdoing, the wrongdoing that violates their stated principles;  it’s hypocrisy at the highest levels.

In speaking of our economic catastrophe and the death of over 125,000 Americans to a pandemic we could instead have fought well and thereby protected the thousands who didn’t have to die, Applebaum writes,

“This utter disaster was avoidable. If the Senate had removed the president by impeachment a month earlier; if the Cabinet had invoked the Twenty-Fifth Amendment as soon as Trump’s unfitness became clear; if the anonymous and off-the-record officials who knew of Trump’s incompetence had jointly warned the public; if they had not, instead, been so concerned about maintaining their proximity to power; if senators had not been scared of their donors; if Pence, Pompeo, and Barr had not believed that God had chosen them to play special roles in this ‘biblical moment’ – if any of these things had gone differently, then thousands of deaths and a historic economic collapse might have been avoided.

“The price of collaboration in America has already turned out to be extraordinarily high.”

——————————

Click me

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Mom


Reading time – 4:12; Viewing time – 6:53  .  .  .

My mother was a teen during the Great Depression and came of age during WW II. She was from that generation. Tom Brokaw dubbed it The Greatest Generation and the label stuck, this for obvious reasons.

This was a generation without a sense of entitlement, who followed the rules and simply did what needed to be done, regardless of the risks and hardships. And one of the things that needed to be done was to stop Adolph Hitler from brutalizing  and enslaving the entire world.

From the late 1940s through early 60s the world repeatedly came face-to-face with the indescribable evil of the Holocaust, as Nazis were found and prosecuted. Most notorious was Adolph Eichmann, the architect of the Nazis’ “final solution.” The death camps were factories of his design, created to manipulate prisoners so the Nazis’ mechanized murdering would be efficient. Efficiency was a proud trait of the Germans, so they put a sign at the entrance to Auschwitz, the murder center in Poland where 1.1 million people were gassed and cremated. That sign still stands and you can see it in the picture on the left.

The words translate roughly to “Work makes you free,” suggesting an entirely false and cruel promise for the future, if prisoners would work hard. Both the manipulation and the death were complete.

I recall with frightening clarity a conversation I had with my parents when I was an idealistic teen about those death camp horrors. I was raised in red, white and blue America, land of the free and home of the brave, so I said of the Holocaust, “It’s so good that that could never happen here.”

My mother gave a start and said (and this is word for word), “Oh yes it could. You better watch out.”

I had no idea how she could have said that. I mean this was the country of people wearing the white hats, who are forever the good guys. This is the country that fought and bled and died to kill that hate monster. This is the country of my dad, who, like millions of others, risked his life over and over so we would be free.

Yet now we have a president who proudly tells us that there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville, one side of which was composed of white supremacist Nazis. We have a never ending parade of angry citizens carrying assault rifles to intimidate our people over any and every imagined grievance. And we have protesters who want our entire economy “opened up,” regardless of the mortal consequences to tens of millions of us.

If she’s protesting the lockdown, why is she wearing a protective face mask? Where is the courage of her convictions?

They’re carrying Nazi flags and declaring how aggrieved they are, this to justify their demands and their hate. The president continues to tell us what good people they are, these swastika brandishing thugs. And not even a single Republican in Congress has the courage or decency to stand up and declare the obvious evil and hate these people are spewing.

There was an “anti-lockdown” protest in Chicago last weekend. It was clearly a temper tantrum aimed at those in government and the dedicated scientists who are working to keep us safe from coronavirus. One woman at that rally carried the sign you see to the right displaying the very words of the sign at the entrance to Auschwitz. Her bottomlessly sad and incongruous companion piece is that her coronavirus face mask is a U.S. flag.

Another Chicago lockdown protester with her hate on display.

The “JB” on that woman’s sign refers to J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois. He’s Jewish. I’m thinking that her true message, as for that of the woman in the picture to the left who was at that same protest, has nothing to do with the lockdown and has everything to do with their hatred.

That first woman was asked about her sign and she invoked the “Some of my friends are Jewish” defense, as though that would fully relieve her of responsibility for the vileness of her bigotry. It doesn’t. In fact, that claim is proof positive of her hatred, as she carries a replica of the evil, hateful sign at the entrance to Auschwitz. And the President tells us she’s one of the “good people.”

Don’t lull yourself into passivity, thinking these are just fools carrying signs. It’s what is in their hearts that matters and we can be confident that they, along with the self-important militias all around the country and the online hate spewers and the Nazi wannabees in their brown shirt costumes and the people who assaulted the Michigan State Capitol building with weapons of war strapped to them as they shouted their hate – all of them long for a totalitarian state aligned with their bigotry.

That’s the way genocide starts – every time, everywhere. In other words, we have the seeds of a holocaust right here in America right now.

It turns out that Mom was right. And I’m following her clear direction: I’m watching out.

———————-

Finally,

New projections are in, as two events are happening simultaneously.

The first is that the number of deaths from coronavirus are heading sharply upward. The experts (epidemiologists, not blathering, know-nothing politicians, economists or law professors) tell us that by June 1 over 3,000 Americans will die every day from this disease (a daily 9/11; a Vietnam every 2 months)) and there may eventually be hundreds of thousands of us dead, all things being equal. But all things aren’t equal, because at the same time as death counts are skyrocketing, the second event is happening.

At the direction of the President, states are incrementally “opening up,” meaning that more people are being allowed to open their businesses. Employees are going back to work and generally lots of us will be exposed to far more people, some of whom are undoubtedly asymptomatic carriers of coronavirus who will unknowingly infect many others. Maybe you.

So, while there is still a moment, I say au revoir to those who are in the coronavirus death bulls eye. Perhaps we knew one another – ’twas great; perhaps we didn’t. What’s for sure is that now we know that we won’t ever meet. One of us will have disappeared permanently. Maybe both of us.

And a large percentage of those who will die long before their time was due will depart thanks to politicians deciding that money and their elections are more important than your life. Too bad for you. And me.

Program note: Look for an explanation on Sunday, May 10 for why we don’t do the testing that is mandatory in order to beat this disease.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Snow Job – v1


Reading time – 3:10; Viewing time – 4:21 .  .  .

The House Judiciary Committee Republicans used the impeachment proceedings to promote Donald Trump, to denigrate Joe Biden and to smear all Democrats as immoral and hypocritical. And now the Senate is preparing to do an even deeper dive into the Land of Wacko.

Perhaps you thought that the achingly phony outrage over a bad pun using the President’s son’s name was as stupid as things could become. Not so. The Republicans are far more creative than that.

Back in the good old days of the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings we got to hear from ranking member Devin Nunes (R-CA). I know you remember him from his 2017 midnight ride to the White House, where he was told some blatantly false things he already knew about. The next morning he held a press conference in front of the White House to reveal the false revelations that he had “just learned.” His manipulative, phony bona fides were soundly established in that moment and he has not disappointed since. Nunes behaved during the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings as you would expect, with phony facts and phony outrage.

Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Doug Collins (R-GA) did not have a midnight ride moment, but his committee participation was similarly inventive and outrageous. The difference between him and Nunes – and you really need to appreciate this – is the new land speed record set by Collins’ mouth. He spoke in a sleety blizzard of faux outrage, misdirecting claims and denial of reality. He did all of that at light speed in his aw-shucks Georgia accent, making a caricature of himself.

They both claimed witnesses did not say what they actually said. Do they realize that there are video recordings? They claimed that documents don’t say what they actually say. Do they realize that these are written, reviewable records? Clearly, they were all about the effect they can have on voters in the moment of their misdirection and they assumed things would flash by so fast that nobody would check their phony facts. Not so. Read Barbara McQuade’s brilliant analysis of the GOP’s pathetic defenses of Trump.

They railed at the proceedings, claiming over and over that they weren’t fair, yet the proceedings were fair, unless the only way to define fair is that it works for you. It’s like Trump, expecting to lose the 2016 election, so he declared in advance that the election “is rigged.” Then, when he won, suddenly the election wasn’t rigged any more. “Fair” seems to be a pretty malleable thing for Republicans.

Except for some Republican fantasies, the facts of this impeachment are not in question. Indeed, the President has bragged of having committed all of the offenses for which he is being impeached and he’s bragged about committing still more. That leaves Republicans with nothing but the phony stuff demonstrated by Nunes and Collins.

What’s going on is certifiably nuts. It’s all about denying established facts and claiming victim-hood in order to do a snow job on the American people. They have contorted themselves into lap dogs to ensure Trump’s approval.

But why would they compromise their integrity in support of a president who seems focused on tearing down America and benefiting Vladimir Putin? Republicans used to call themselves conservatives, but there’s nothing conservative in what they’re doing.

Here’s what you can do

Link through to the Represent.us video with Michael Douglas to find out how we can deal with our ongoing craziness and, as the Represent.us folks say, “unbreak America.”

And show up for one of the nationwide Nobody is Above The Law gatherings this Tuesday evening. Click on the link and enter your Zip code to find a rally close by.

Finally, if you prefer actual facts over “alternative facts”, here’s an excellent piece of clarity about what’s really going on. Read Sheila Markin’s post. You already know the truth, but she has laid it all out for you in sensible and unsparing terms.

————————————


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

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

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

Thanks!

NOTES:

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

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

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