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Integrity, Trump Style


POST 1306

“Cheat Like Hell”

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At Trump’s Loser-Palooza in a half-empty stadium two weeks ago he spoke to the Republican National Convention crowd saying:

“We want honesty in our elections. We want honesty in our country,” Immediately after declaring that, Trump led his MAGAs in a pledge.

“Please raise your right hand. I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it any way. I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters. I don’t care. I am gonna go out and I’m gonna get my friends, my family and we are going go out and vote on November third or we are going to vote before that.”

I don’t suppose anyone in that crowd of sheeple people (those who follow like ignorant, unthinking sheep) noticed that first he invoked principle and uprightness. Then he directed them to “cheat like hell.” That should be shocking, but it’s just more contorted Trump inside-out integrity crushing. It’s no surprise to anyone listening, least of all to his sheeple, who surely don’t even notice it.

I also don’t imagine that anyone in that crowd would dispute his claim of being the “greatest president in the history of the United States,” as to do so would have required them to have cracked a history book at some time in their likely long forgotten past.

Connecting Dots

From Tom Nichols’ piece in The Atlantic:, Trump Has It Out For Canada:

.  .  .  Trump’s attitude toward Canada is almost indistinguishable from the way Russian President Vladimir Putin sees Ukraine: not as a state but as some kind of historical anomaly that should be returned to its rightful owners. Trump might think it’s funny to post memes of Canada with an American flag superimposed on it, but those jokes are a lot less hilarious to people in places such as Ukraine, who are fighting a war against a dictator who feels exactly the same way about their country.

More assault on integrity.

The Dog That Has To Pee Highest On Every Fire Hydrant

The Trump hand-picked directors of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Board voted to close the center for “renovations” that will continue until Trump gets his name placed on the front of the building again. It’s odd how the schedule for “renovations” is affected by serving Trump’s vanity.

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper refused to allow that illegal renaming act to occur. Trump was so miffed (feel free to use your own descriptor) that he posted on social media that without his name going onto the building, “.  .  . unfortunately, the Building is destined to doom. Isn’t that too bad?” Allow me to translate.

Mafia Don is saying, “Nice little place you got here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.” That’s extortion, pure and ugly.

Such is the focus of attention and the infinite pettiness of the President of the United States. That is the kind of focus on his ego frivolities and abdication of serious responsibilities that adds impetus to Canada disengaging from the U.S. and establishing stronger ties with the European Union and elsewhere. It encourages Russia to destroy Ukraine. It tells the world that America is a wholly unreliable country focused solely on presidential vanity. It tells the world that we have no integrity, that we can’t be counted on.

Our national pettiness, cruelty and unreliability are what will greatly help this to become the Chinese century. It will make America not much more than a dope on the sidelines of history being made by dependable nations.

Keep that in mind when AI takes our jobs, sabotages our utilities and unleashes diseases on our wholly unprepared citizenry. Like all the important things that don’t immediately massage Trump’s fragile and infinitely needy ego, all he did was to say stupid things about AI, boast of his genius and ignore the looming catastrophe.

  • “To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature.”
  • George Conway, The Bulwark
  • Best Read For A Fuller Perspective On Our Demise 
  • Read Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American of September 16, 2026. It will give you more clarity about how Trump is hobbling our country.
  • What she doesn’t say is that even as Trump has made himself abhorrent to nearly 2/3 of our citizens, even as he has made himself and the United States of America international pariahs, most of the Republicans in Congress continue to sit in their cowardly supplication to him. So have Google, Apple, TV networks and some universities and law firms. This cowardice and supplication are how tyranny wins. It’s yet more abdication of integrity.
  • This Just In
  • On Friday, September 18 President Donald Trump announced via a post on his so-called Truth Social that representatives from CNN, MS-NOW and Politico are banned from the White House. His view has been widely denounced as a violation of the First Amendment, but Trump’s response was, “Who cares? They’re all stupid and terrible people.”

Later he posted that he didn’t feel his ban was wide enough and should be extended to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. We are left to wonder if he will also ban representatives like Punxsutawney Phil’s press secretary, journalists from Friends of the Chicago River, reporters from Iran’s Ayatollah News, all Canadian journalists and, most specifically, all communications personnel from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office.

New Feature: This Election Is About

Each Sunday through the last one before the November 3 election we’ll post what you or pundits or candidates say this election is about. I’ll get this started, saying:

This election is about the lives of We The People.

Put your idea about this election in the Comments section below. We’ll post samplings of how readers see this, so indicate if you want your name appended to your comment.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Continuing Centuries of Repression


POST 1305

For The Glory Of Rigging The Vote

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Regular readers of these Disambiguations may recall numerous references to Paul Weyrich (here and in other posts). He’s the Republican who decades ago declared proudly and openly that he didn’t want all eligible voters to vote. He said that  if they did Republicans couldn’t win. Somehow for him and many others, that describes a conservative. You decide what it is they want to conserve.

He wasn’t the first in America to suppress the voting rights of others. Surely, the earliest dishonor belongs to White slave owners. Even after slavery was constitutionally, if not actually, abolished, Blacks were prevented from voting by means of poll taxes, rigged jelly bean counts, rigged literacy tests, by violent intimidation and by outright murder.

Even the Founders wanted only landed White men to vote. In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams famously urged her husband, John Adams, to “remember the ladies” in the Articles of Confederation then being written. She noted that women would not hold themselves bound by laws in which they had no voice or representation.* It was the equivalent of a “no taxation without representation” statement the Founders should have understood. John Adams ignored her appeals and women gained no voting agency. It took until 1920 for Americans to realize that women were full citizens and that they deserved the full rights attendant to that. Even so, the rich boys domination club didn’t go away.

In recent decades the effort to suppress votes has taken on some clever twists. Republicans have jiggered voting district borders to minimize representation of non-Whites, like in South Carolina, where 25% of the people are Black. There are 9 congressional districts in that state but there is only one Black representative, just 11% representation.

Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts governor in 1812, showed us the successfully self-serving way to manipulate district borders and was immortalized when his scheming was dubbed “gerrymandering.” He’d be so proud of today’s Republicans. Read about it at the Brennan Center.

The Supreme Court is a formidable partner in voter suppression, as most recently it green lighted states to rig elections in the Louisiana v. Callais case. That was the last blow needed to crush Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and render it powerless to protect the rights and freedom of all citizens even if they weren’t rich White guys.

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Another favorite voting rights crusher is to remove polling places from where Black, Hispanic and poor people live in order to make it harder for them to vote. In Louisville, KY they removed all ballot drop boxes but two in the downtown area, making it next to impossible for rural people to hand deliver their mail ballots. That’s great for Republicans because those people would otherwise overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

Now we have Trump’s un-constitutional assault on voting by mail. Mail voting is more popular with Democratic voters than Republican voters, so putting Trump’s heel on all voting by mail would result in vote totals more favorable to Republicans. So very cunning of Trump.

Then there’s the selective removal of names from state voter rolls by means of sneaky tricks, like Texas disenfranchising 1,000,000 from their voting roles. Several years ago Ohio claimed to be removing the names of dead citizens from its voter rolls. They mailed envelopes mostly to voters in Black neighborhoods. The citizens were instructed to send the enclosed card back to the state within 10 days or they’d lose their voter registration. Ohio also passed a law that removed a voter if s/he missed a single federal election and the Supreme Court upheld that law. Guess what happened when scores of  those mostly poor and minority infrequent voters showed up to vote in the next election.

Why you can’t get through to a Trump Supporter. Click this pic

And there were the inordinately long lines at polling places in Black neighborhoods – as much as 12 hours on the east, mostly Black side of Cleveland, OH. Those in line to vote were entirely without a bathroom, water or food. Compare that to the maximum 2-hour wait in White neighborhoods of the same state. Well done, Ohio Republican election officials!

Here’s the simple truth. If every citizen of voting age were able to and did vote, very few Republicans would be elected. Paul Weyrich knew that and so do today’s Republicans, so they do everything possible, whether un-constitutional or illegal, to stop people from voting for Democrats. Weyrich laid out the fundamentals of the plan for domination and later generations have used their creativity to expand that, standing on the necks of voters since then.

What remains is that we as a nation are consistently influenced by Republicans to be all about electing and promoting rich guys, White power and domination.

The Trump Demolition Derby

You’ve long known that Trump is a walking, talking scam, fooling some of the people all of the time. Check this out.

Ted Dintersmith gets the checkered flag for his metaphor of Trump running a demolition derby. Click the graphic to see a readable version identifying some of his scams. Here’s a teaser.

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After his long trail of bankruptcies, [Trump’s] fulfilling his dream of being a billionaire. In 2025, he boosted his net worth by a stunning $1.4 billion. He made off with $636 million on a memecoin [sic] while 989,000 buyers lost $3.8 billion. He’s extracted $115 million of personal gain from foreign sources. Toss in a $400 million private jet from Qatar, upgraded at taxpayer expense. All made possible by a complicit Congress and SCOTUS, cheerleaders to his destruction.

The urgent message I see in that is the last sentence:

All made possible by a complicit Congress and SCOTUS, cheerleaders to his destruction.

The complicit Congress part is what we must crush this November 3. Then we’ll be in a position for the Democrats in control of Congress starting on January 3, 2027 to do a Mitch McConnell on impending SCOTUS appointments from Trump or Vance until the the new sheriff comes to town January 20, 2029.

Best Read Of The Week

Read Morgan Freeman’s (yes, that Morgan Freeman) post, The Price of Trump. It’s a full view reminder of the bill we pay for Trump’s demolition of our democracy. Hint: However costly you think it is, it’s worse than that.

___________________________________________

* See especially the final two paragraphs of Abigail Adams’ letter.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Yes, Really


POST 1304

 

 

Buttinsky Corner

A recent Gallup poll asked Americans, “When a couple has a child together, how important is it to you that they legally marry?” 58% of Republicans answered the question, “very important.”

Clearly, if a Republican couple finds through experimentation that the rumors and wild claims really are true, that dancing and then being in intimate heterosexual proximity lead to pregnancy, then they are free to believe as they wish about marriage.

But here’s the thing: They don’t get to tell you or me what we have to think or do, should we find ourselves participants in a tumble in the hay with the same surprising to them result.

Yet we are besieged by Republicans determined to make us all adhere to their absolutist, self-certain views on everything from books not allowed in the library to the very definition of the founding of this nation and their oppressive fantasies about what America is supposed to be today. So, I say unto the pseudo-holy marriage dictators the same thing I say to the book banners and the self-appointed blabbers who pretend to speak for the Founders:

You have every right to don your pointy Merlin hat and wave your Harry Potter wand and to drool and dribble your incantations in private. Other than that, butt out of my life and shut the f*ck up.

Wait: Isn’t that “butt out” stuff what fiercely independents, the MAGA tough guys, would demand for themselves? I’m looking at you, red states.

Border Dispute Resolved

Source not found. If you know it, please share it in the Comments section below and we’ll update the pic.

Click on the pic – it’s a real Google map that’s online now. Google renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America” and, no surprise, renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Google is just another cowardly company bending the knee and acting without integrity. We suggest you switch to a different search engine and email.

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe An Answer

I’ve been asking questions about things like:

Why we continue to deplete our national defense stockpiles and our petroleum reserve

Why we have kicked science to the curb and recommend against life protecting vaccines, even as cases of measles, smallpox and polio proliferate

Why we’ve slashed staffing of agencies that keep us healthy

Why we allowed the gutting of the FDA which now can’t help us with the explosive diarrhea causing parasite or the next pandemic

Why we’ve insulted our allies

Why we started a war we cannot, under any circumstances, win

Why it’s just a footnote that we killed those little school girts and bombed a wedding in southern Iran, killing at least five people and injuring at least 67

Why we’ve kicked out our most experienced military people during a war

Why our Congress stands cowardly and mute as our national parks, landmarks and buildings are violated

Why mobs of incognito storm troopers beat, incarcerate and kill both citizens and innocent non-citizens alike

Why our Congress allows the vast bulk of the Epstein documentation and crimes to be buried under Trumpian distractions. Do you suppose our representatives and senators would be this spineless if the victims of Epstein, Maxwell and Trump were their own daughters?

Who benefits from our neutering our country internally, externally and morally?

Here are two pieces you must read to begin to understand:

  1. First read the New York Times editorial from August 23, Trump’s Election Meddling Erodes our Democracy.
  2. Then read the essay from Steve Schmidt from September 2, I Can See Clearly, Again. The pattern is clear. The way to disaster has been set.

And if you want to understand the cruel inscrutability behind the leader of our narcissist led thugocracy, read the special guest essay by Vince Greenwood, PhD. in Sheila Markin’s August 29 post, Proof Trump’s a Psychopath. It will make you lock your doors and windows.

Now, go read.

August Jobs Report

After losing 23,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department now wants us to believe that the U.S. gained 162,000 jobs in August. That is a magical turn around for an economy that lost over 20,000 manufacturing jobs in a month. Color me skeptical about the Labor Department’s report because I’m not buying it.

Have a look at what ADP Research and Endless Urgency have to say about the administration’s fun with numbers scam. With the mid-term elections nearly upon us the Trumpies want us to accept the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s just another agency where Trump fired the director – the one who had some integrity. In fact, he’s fired all the watch dog agency directors and clearly believes that now he can make up any statistics that will help him to get what he wants, like another compliant Republican Congress.

Expect more glowing reports about inflation, jobs, prices, the Iran war and more between now and November 3. Foolishly believe the administration at your peril.

Click me – and this one, too.

Song of the Week

Jesse Welles has done it again. Watch and listen as he explains our terrible, awful, illegal, pointless, unwinnable and cruel war. I mean, who really cares about those dead little school girls and wedding attendees?

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Huh?


POST 1303

Have You Noticed .  .  .

.  .  . that when you hear conspiracy idiocy, baseless propaganda and other absolutist Trumpian and MAGA-ian “truthiness” (think: Pizzagate) and their self-congratulations (think: the Iran war is going ‘very very well’ and ‘we‘re winning by a lot’) that their claims always have the depth of thought and the integrity of a brainless bumper sticker? Perhaps you’ve also noticed that it takes an absurd amount of words and effort to refute them? Welcome to Brandolini’s Law.

Brandolini’s law (also called the bullshit asymmetry principle) states that the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it. This denotes that it’s usually much easier to speak without regard for the truth, than to prove that what was said is false.

What that means to you is that in the face of spewed idiocy from ill-meaning far righties and their uninformed but very vocal dupe-dopes, your good sense reply based on actual reality and your flailing of arms and raising your voice are wasted effort. You would have far better effect, have a better time and expend far less effort explaining things to your dog. Plus, the dog won’t senselessly argue with you citing whataboutisms.

Remember Brandolini fondly, as he has brought to you the path to inner peace through avoiding bullshit asymmetry verbal warfare.

Huh?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made a major announcement last week, declaring that our efforts against Iran are largely shifting from destruction via military means to Iran’s ultimate destruction via economic means. It’s D-Day, he told us, as Trump and his incompetent and embarrassingly fawning mouthpieces once again defame our military with a label the Trumpies obviously don’t understand.

Bessent calls the program Operation Economic Outcast and presents it with no clarity about what the US will do, other than to go after countries that are Iran’s trading partners. Presumably that will include hostile action against Russia and China, major trading partners of Iran. He presented implications and no specificity, but did so with substantial playground bully bravado. Actually, we don’t know if there is any substance behind Bessent’s chest thumping, but that wasn’t the strangest part of this PR tough guy song and dance.

Before Trump, if announcing major foreign policy issues and actions wasn’t done by the president, it was the job of the Secretary of State. Leading foreign policy strategy and actions are right there in the job description. But invisible Marco Rubio rarely announces anything.

Indeed, he doesn’t lead our negotiating team to find a solution to end Trump’s enormously dumb war. He is absent from anything to do with Gaza or Israel. He wasn’t important enough to leave the decoy airplane with Trump and the ickily devoted Natalie Harp on the sneak away airplane. He hasn’t made nice with countries we’ve punched in the nose with tariffs and he appears to have ignored the demeaning of our allies so that now we don’t have any. And he was once again AWOL, as instead of him, the Treasury guy announced what he tried to make look like a major foreign policy action, something the Secretary of State should be announcing.

That leaves us to wonder why a rather insignificant dollar bill printer and foreign policy ignorant made the Operation Economic Outcast proclamation instead of Rubio. Is Rubio the actual outcast?

It’s the same wonder about why Pete Hegseth makes strategy statements that sound like they originated in an extreme low pressure area inside his skull while he was studying comic book action figures. He makes the US sound like our military strategy originates from a bad cartoon character. Again, why clueless Hegseth, the posturing Testosterone Man?

This story is tag-along to my I Don’t Get It post a short time ago. The fundamental question is about why we are destroying our country by doing things that neuter us both domestically and internationally. You and I don’t benefit as our national defense is compromised, our intelligence agencies are neutered, our food safety agencies are decimated, our healthcare is deeply compromised, our voting structure is under siege and so much more. Who does that benefit?

Satire of The Week

From Andy Borowitz:

In his most withering rebuke of Senator [Darline] Graham, [Eric Trump] said, “The USA doesn’t need an incompetent nincompoop who knows nothing about foreign policy. We have Pete Hegseth.

Borowitz also reports that the brilliant humorist, satirist and skewerer of political dummies, Molly Ivins, said of a Texas congressman,

If his IQ slips any lower we’ll have to water him twice a day.

Which brings to us – to you – a challenge. To which politicians should Ivins’ cautionary observation be applied today, right now? Please, submit names of only the bottom 1% of the IQ bottom 1%.

So sad that there are so many choices,

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

It’s All About You


POST 1302

Inspiration

I just read The Man Who Refused to Sit on the Sidelines in the current issue of The Atlantic. It is the story of a remarkable man, Kevin Dowdell, as well as his families, both the one at home and the one in his FDNY firehouse. They are both families.

He was assigned to FDNY Rescue 4 and was among the first responders on 9/11. He never came home. They never recovered his body. He was among the 343 firefighters who died that day trying to save others.

I still can’t seem to get clear in my head that some race into burning buildings while almost everyone else is racing out. We all have the same hardwired survival imperative that tells us to run from danger, yet some overcome that natural caution in order to help others. And so it was with Kevin Dowdell that day.

What’s key here are a couple of things he taught his two sons.

“You show up on someone’s worst day and try to make it better.”

“Don’t sit on the sidelines. Make things happen. Do things.”

It’s about being our best selves for the best reasons.

Dowdell’s words feel as though he is calling to us from across the years. He’s wearing his fire gear, holding a Halligan bar and imploring us to take action. to get off the sidelines and make things happen. To do things. He is calling to us to take action because others are counting on us – they need us.

You and I both know what to do. So did Todd Beamer on 9/11.

He led a posse of fellow passengers to storm the flight deck on doomed United 93 on that awful day. They hoped to overpower the terrorists before they could crash the plane into the Capitol Building. They made it crash instead outside Shanksville, PA saving countless lives in DC. Beamer’s voice was captured as he said to his fellow passengers, “Are you ready? Okay. Let’s roll.” And they rolled. They made things happen. They did things.

That’s inspiration, too. Dowdell would have approved.

So, the messages to you and me are,

Don’t sit on the sidelines.
Make things happen.
Do things.
Okay, let’s roll.
.
A Valuable Message

Read Note #5 below before ordering this book.

Of course you feel angry, dismayed, disillusioned, wanting to jump from the insane not-so-merry-go-round, afraid for the future for your children and grandchildren, infuriated by the dishonesty and the anti-constitution, unlawful acts that are ignored by cowards whose job it is to stop the betrayal – all of that and more. What are you and I to do?

Scott Galloway’s new post pokes at that question with an excerpt from Jessica Tarlov’s new book to be released September 15, I Disagree. Perhaps there’s something we can do to stop our uncivil war and become simply fellow citizens, not enemies, with those who have the temerity to see things differently.

I’ll expand that concept to make the point that even as we do verbal battle, we all want much the same things, like healthcare that cares for all of us, prices that don’t send us into bankruptcy and security in a very dangerous world. We want our representatives to be about all of us, not just their big donors. We want to be able to go to a movie or concert and not have fear lurking in the backs of our minds of a mass murderer in the audience with us. Every one of us wants our freedom and we don’t want extremists truncating it.

All of that and more is neither conservative nor liberal, neither red nor blue and there are many more things about which we agree. What if we were to refuse the hatred we are egged on to embrace? What if we stopped demanding perfection from others, that perfection defined by their agreeing with us on everything we know in our self-certainty is right and good? What if we talked with others with respect for them and their their dignity? What if we were to keep our passion and advocate for what we believe in and do so with compassion?

Crazy, right? Hard to do sometimes. Nevertheless .  .  .

Read Tarlov’s excerpt in Galloway’s post. We can be far better than we collectively are now.

Reagan’s Compelling Campaign Question

During the 1980 campaign that ended with Ronald Reagan becoming president, he urged his adoring crowds to ask themselves if they were better off than they were 4 years earlier. That was pretty good campaigning, making Jimmy Carter’s shaky record the issue. Let’s try that question now.

Dear MAGA voters, independents, undecideds, ordinary red state voters and drop outs:

Click me

Are you better off now than you were 2 years ago?

If the answer is no – and the statistics and opinion polls say that we’re not – then it’s time to stand up and speak up, because nothing will get better for us by our doing nothing.

Our Anthem

Here is the We The People Anthem for our next elections, offered to those who do us wrong.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because it’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

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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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Potpourri – v25.0


POST 1301
The Cure For Your Ennui

Click me – First check Note #5 below

Sure, you’re discouraged. We’re being hit by American right wing terrorists undermining our country in every way, as they cheat and scheme to take away the America we believe in. They’re taking away our rights and even our lives. But, honestly, there really is some good news, and it isn’t only Marc Elias beating the snot out of Trump in court over and over. This part is more about we Americans and our supposed polarization that so many talk about.

Ambassador Michael McFaul is fresh off a long national book tour for his new book Autocrats vs. Democrats and he wrote about the tour in his post What I Learned on My Book Tour Across America. I haven’t read his book yet and plan to so do soon. What you need to read right now is his “What I Learned” essay. It is full of optimism and reasons to believe in us. We aren’t nearly as fractured as pundits and the few loud extremists and cowardly politicians would have us believe.

Most of all, you’ll learn that we Americans really do still care. Go read his essay.

The cure for despair is action.

Fascist Red Warning Flag of the Month

Read Thom Hartmann’s post that’s scarier than it at first seems, That Sign in Front of the Smithsonian is More Dangerous Than You Think. Your freedom of speech is at risk. Again. Still.

July Jobs Report

From Jim Acosta:

CNBC anchor Rick Santelli was blown away by a disastrous July jobs report that showed Trump’s economy not just missing the expected 85,000 or so jobs gain — but actually losing 23,000 jobs — and another hundred thousand in downward revisions.

On Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a July jobs report that was a disaster for Trump:

And still [Trump] tells us that this is the greatest economy ever.

Trump Fantasy Post of the Month – So Far

This was a real post on Trump’s blabbing platform:

I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM…. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT

Nah – I’m betting that the dark reality is that Trump is an embarrassing illegitimate descendant of fictional character Captain Queeg and that the whole VANDALIZED! Reflecting Pool claim is equivalent to an imaginary theft of strawberries. Blame others and twiddle those steel balls, President DJT!

It Won’t Cost Taxpayers Anything

After Trump’s Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack on the East Wing of the White House he announced his grand plan for a ballroom for his presidency-built-on-spectacle, a structure that would dwarf the actual White House. It is to be a gilded monument to himself which he claimed would cost just $200 million. He told us that funding for it would be supplied by private donations.

Now we find out that – surprise! – it will cost over $900 million and we taxpayers will pay most of that, The cost will likely to grow to well over $1 billion as construction and the Trumpian lies and overreach grow.

Construction has been partially stymied by the courts, with only “underground and security related” construction allowed to continue. You don’t suppose such a claimed purpose might be used by Trump to get around Congress and the courts, do you?

This classic dishonesty is a valuable warning siren for why we need a Democratic Congress to stifle Trump’s “I’m the president and I can do whatever I want” ongoing anti-America tantrum.

Click me

Why Does the MAGA Culture Hate Dr. Fauci?

Lucas Bean lays it out for you in this short video.

Unwitting Decoys

Imagine you’re a journalist traveling home from the NATO conference in Turkey aboard Air Force 1. It isn’t until you’re back in the U.S. that you learn that you’re been used as a decoy, a target to attack, in order to sneak the president away,

Click me

Nobody on Air Force 1 other than those riding in the presidential section, not the staff, not Secretary of State Rubio or Treasury Secretary Bessent, nor any member of the press knew that the president was not on that plane. He left you all to be a potential target of an Iranian missile.

You were put in mortal danger without your knowledge, much less your consent. You were left to be a sacrificial pawn for a president who thinks only about himself.

We all agree that presidential safety is a real issue. But is that all that your next of kin would be focused on after they learned that you were used as a disposable, your demise an acceptable cost of doing business? Perhaps there are other real issues, too.

The Best Call To Action

Yes, even better than, “Grab a bat – You’re up!“

From the closing words of Rick Wilson’s post, Trump and American Enshittification:

The [democracy] machinery only starts working again when enough people decide that being a citizen costs something, and start paying it.

Whose Voting Rights?

The President of the United States is begging the Supreme Court to allow him to kill all mail-in ballots in all states where they refused to hand over confidential and protected state voting records for Trump’s SS to purge.

Red states everywhere are in gerrymander overdrive and are purging legitimate minority voters and women from voting rolls at hypersonic speed. I say it’s time to stop pussyfooting around with these weenie methods and drop the voting rights nuclear bomb.

Congress must initiate and pass a law that allows only White (as in: northern European ancestry), Christian male citizens to vote. Enough of pesky Voting Rights and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Acts! This is a White, Christian country, dedicated to all control and power to be held by men, especially rich men, the way the Founders wrote – somewhere, I think. To Hell with the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments! It’s time for us to enshrine our well practiced voting suppression into one supreme law that will supersede whatever laws for the benefit of We The People might still exist.

For Residents of Northbrook, IL Only

There is some suspicious stuff going on that has the potential to dramatically and adversely affect our village. It’s a local matter akin to Trump’s sneaky trashing of our national historic treasures.

Watch local resident Lee Goodman’s video explanation here. Then decide that being a citizen costs something. Let’s start paying for it with our voices.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

I Don’t Get It


POST 1300

Via a quick AI search I found that Trump and his brain-free and dishonestly named (it never was about efficiency) DOGE chainsaw hackers mangled America like this:

ο Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Cut roughly 20,000 positions, slashed $4 billion in medical research funding at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and saw major workforce reductions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alongside significant cuts to Administration for Children and Families programs. [1, 2]

Wait: Drastically reduced medical research means fewer cures for the things that hobble and kill us. Slashing the CDC means leaving us vulnerable to the next pandemic. Cuts to children and family programs leaves millions medically adrift. That’s efficiency?

ο Department of Education: Slashing nearly $900 million through the cancellation of 89 independent research contracts under the Institute of Education Sciences. [1]

Wait: Cutting research contracts will leave us more ignorant and unready to compete in anything, anywhere.

ο Department of Defense (DOD): Civilian workforce reductions expected to impact up to 8% of personnel (roughly 61,000 employees) alongside numerous contract reviews. [1]

Wait: Aimless slashing leaves us more militarily endangered in a dangerous world.

ο Other Agencies: Widespread layoffs, contract “deobligations” [I guess that’s a word] or survey terminations also hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Homeland Security (specifically the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties), and the U.S. Census Bureau. [1, 2]

Wait: Cutting those agencies leaves us more vulnerable to storms of ever increasing violence. Slashing the agencies that protect our rights and our elections is a direct assault on our freedom.

Need more to be convinced that Trump is putting us at great risk? Read Trump has been dismantling post-9/11 counterterrorism protections, Senate report says. He’s eviscerating our protections against international bad guys. And that’s supposed to be better for us?

For a clear explanation of the full cost to us of the DOGE massacres, read Why the full cost of Elon Musk’s DOGE is still coming into focus by Hayes Brown

The point of DOGE was claimed to be something about government efficiency. Instead what we’ve done is to cut ourselves off from critical services, leaving our neighbors without healthcare and even without food and allowing over 700,000 to die in other countries. We’ve stifled learning – I guess there’s nothing left to learn, according to our MAGA DOGE-brains – and crippled  individual and national growth and stopped even trying to keep up with the rest of the world. Worse, we are disarming ourselves militarily in a very dangerous world.

About 350,000 federal workers and contractors lost their jobs through the manically celebrated DOGE ready, fire, aim idiocy. That’s a plus, they tell us, unless you were one of those workers who lost their jobs and income or you’re any of the people and businesses the now unemployed used to do business with, like the waitress at the diner who’s lost all that tip income. It’s a total minus if you’ve needed any of the things those folks used to do for us.

Somebody tell me how we’re better off for having sacrificed both our present and our future this way, because I don’t get it. Explain how even the Narcissist-in-Chief benefits (of course, his benefit is his only interest), because he’s screwed his base and knee capped the economy. How does that help him? How does it help any of us to deplete our ability to defend our nation militarily, economically and medically?

On the other hand, Trump’s knee bending buddies are doing just fine, like the oil companies who have raked in a WINDFALL OF 26.5 BILLION IN PROFITS in just the second quarter, as well as the war matériel companies who are making lots more bombs, drones, rockets and profit.

Same kind of question in foreign affairs. Trump has offended our allies, sucked up to opponents and left millions to suffer and die. He started a war from which there doesn’t seem to be even a face saving exit, much less a victory, and neutered our diplomatic corps, replacing them with incompetents. He has an evil clown running the FBI, putting us all at risk. He chopped the IRS so that his rich friends can evade taxes, thereby efficiently dumping yet more debt on us and our progeny. In short, he has vastly and possibly catastrophically weakened our nation.

What will we do when China decides to invade Taiwan? What will we do if Putin decides to nuke Ukraine and invade the Baltic states? What will we do after Saudi Arabia decides to nuke Israel once we’ve given them the ability to do that?

Mark Felt aka Deep Throat.

One more time: Somebody tell me how we’re better off for having sacrificed both our present and our future this way, because I don’t get it. In other words, the “I don’t get it” boils down to asking, “Who’s better off due to our madness of neutering our nation to our existential peril?” Plus, explain how even the Narcissist-in-Chief benefits.

Your answer should include some version of Deep Throat’s clear imperative: Follow the money. Be sure to post your answer in the Comments section below, because, like I said, I don’t get it.

Question for Senators John Cornyn, Tom Tillis and Bill Cassidy

Senators, you were on your way out, career over. You had no need to suck up, but  you sucked anyway. How does it feel to be Trump’s most recent, most public and dumbest dupes?

Best Unmasking of the Week

Perhaps you’ve heard something about David Ellison and his mass grab of Warner Brothers, CNN, et.al.  but you need perspective on the harm to us that is on the way. Some has already arrived, like Bari Weiss having gutted 60 Minutes. Read Marc Ellis’ Open Letter To David Ellison to learn what’s coming.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Policy


POST 1299

Click me

The insightful, prolific and clever singer-songwriter Jesse Welles has done it again: He’s told the truth. Listen to his song, There’s a Hole.

After you’ve heard it, remind yourself that we attacked Iran for no specific reason, fueled by no coherent strategy, we lusted after vague and wandering, inconsistent goals, all entirely without an exit plan. To be fair, there have been great clouds of presidential bluster. How could we have been suckered into that after 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan?

This sounds suspiciously like our idiocy in Vietnam, the very place President Bone Spurs avoided with five fraudulent deferments.

A key difference between then and now is that there was a draft then and kids just out of school were being vacuumed into that Southeast Asia death machine, leading to constant protests in our streets. You know, demonstrations of “.  .  . the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” that’s guaranteed to us by the First Amendment. You remember that right, right? President Bone Spurs doesn’t.

The protests weren’t only about the killing and dying: they were also about the stupidity.

There was no specific reason for that war except for the inane, hyper-righty “domino theory,” which history has proven to be bunk. It was the “mushroom cloud” scare tactic of the day. There was no coherent strategy, the goals were vague and inconsistent and the entire thing lacked even a hint of an exit plan. Nobody wanted to kill or be killed for hollow, vaporous reasons; hence, people opposed the war and the draft.

Now there is no draft, so there are no student protests. Instead, government appeals to the patriotism and manliness of our young. Instead of forcing them into the death machine, now we trick them into it with puffery and slick slogans (“Be all that you can be.”) and signing bonuses that poor kids can’t refuse.

Click me

To extend the comparison still further, there quite obviously was no way to win the Vietnam war, so a proposed street solution was for us to declare victory and go home. Richard Nixon couldn’t abide that solution, declaring that he wasn’t going to be the first American president to lose a war. He really did think it was all about himself and his legacy, body counts be damned. That’s Trump’s policy, too.

Nixon managed to avoid signing his name on that imaginary surrender document by quitting the job and dumping the whole mess onto Gerald Ford. That led to the embarrassment of helicopters under fire evacuating our diplomatic personnel from the roof of our embassy in Saigon, now renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Click me

Arguably, the signatures of Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower and Truman belong on that imaginary surrender document. Bear in mind that our involvement in Vietnam began by bailing out President Charles de Gaulle of France, a country stripped of its military might due to WW II. We covered for him so that he could keep his colony, then part of what was called French Indochina.

Isn’t it interesting that the combatants in that war in Vietnam consisted of those wanting to remain colonials – the South Vietnamese – versus the people fighting for their liberty, for an independent nation, the North Vietnamese. How did we descendants of American revolutionaries who fought against colonialism get on the wrong side of that fight? Oh, right, de Gaulle had been an ally in WW II.

Now we are, by choice and by self-destructiveness, an ally of no one and we are once again fighting an unwinnable war. We haven’t a ghost of an exit plan and we have proudly learned no lessons that we should have learned from  20 years in Vietnam and re-learned from 20 years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because Trump is incapable of admitting he made a mistake, the list of American dead and wounded in Iran will climb higher and higher. More on that in a moment.

Separately, we have now blown up 67 small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing 221 people. There continues to be no evidence of drugs on those boats and the cocaine supply in the U.S. hasn’t slowed. That’s likely because none of those boats was headed for the U.S. The drugs come to our shores via other paths. Still, Trump wantonly murdered those boat people for no reason other than his need to demonstrate how tough he is. And our government called our murderous actions legal. That’s policy.

The men on those boats were South Americans and they likely had brown skin, so there’s no reason for our empathy deficient, racist government geniuses to care about them, any more than they care about non-Christians in Iran. Bear in mind that had they lived, those 168 little girls we blew up in that Tehran school five months ago would have grown up and probably given birth to more non-Christians. That’s plenty of reason for our racist Trump government to refuse to even apologize for murdering them.

This is what passes for our national defense policy. It satisfies our mental incompetents in government and is good business strategy for their buddies, the war matériel contractors.

Once again, Trump is incapable of admitting he made a mistake, like killing those little girls, so this Iran bloodbath will continue at least until he’s out of office. Come to think of it, that’s a lot like the Vietnam war that killed over 58,000 of our military people and millions of Vietnamese people. But the Vietnamese were Asians and were nothing more than body counts to our government.

Perhaps the 25th Amendment will be invoked and forced upon our dementia addled president. The ugly prospect of surrender in Iran will then be left to a hapless J.D. Vance. There will be no word dance left for him to do and Trump will have skated from accountability yet again. That’s our policy.

Until then this illegal, intractable Iran war is an effective public distraction from Trump’s Epstein adventures in pedophilia. That’s policy, too.

Quote of the Week
  • “We should confiscate the billions Trump made in crypto and distribute it to Epstein survivors.”
  • Andy Borowitz
The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

More Understanding


POST 1298

My post last Sunday, Now You Know-V2.0, zeroed in on Trump’s key nefarious, un-constitutional strategy: massive voter suppression of everyone who won’t vote for him and his sycophants. Here’s more, this from Marc Elias of Democracy Docket.

It was only 15 words. And it wasn’t what the legacy media focused on. But in his Friday address, following up on Donald Trump’s deranged speech the night before, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin gave away the game.

Standing behind an official podium, in front of several American flags, Mullin stated menacingly, “REAL ID does not prove citizenship and does not give you the right to vote.”

Mullin was trying to ramp up his threats against states that refuse to turn over their constitutional power to run elections to the federal government. Instead, he admitted what many of us have been saying for months: The SAVE Act would disenfranchise millions, and that is its point.

To be clear and accurate, Mullin is right: “REAL ID does not prove citizenship and does not give you the right to vote.” The Constitution does that, even as the fascists work to erase it.

Trump’s Secretary of Defense or War or Trans fighting or hormone me3ddling – check all that apply – has ordered all servicemen to submit to mandatory testosterone testing and, as needed, testosterone replacement therapy. That goes for women, too. He wants his warriors ready to – what? – rape, pillage and plunder? That’s the kind of thing dictators do to ensure maximum manly cruel masculinity and to over-compensate for their own shortcomings. We can expect similar bouts of crazy from Trump’s other unqualified sycophants.

Just be clear about what this wannabe king/dictator/Führer is trying to do.

Quotes Of The Week

There is a new Netflix series rebooting the Laura Ingalls stories. In A ‘Little House’ for Our Era, Writer Glynnis MacNicol references the TV series Little House on the Prairie of the 70s and makes contemporary references as well, like this one:

Defenders [of hateful views about Native Americans held during the 1870s and 80s] will say [author] Laura [Ingalls] was simply echoing the sentiments of the time, which may be true. But from the vantage point of 2026, Laura’s language feels frighteningly contemporary. The Trump administration has embarked on a concerted effort to reframe the official scope of American history from multiracial and multiethnic to one that focuses almost entirely on the achievements of white, Christian Americans. The worst language in “Little House” pales in comparison with what regularly emanates from this White House.

And we tolerate this .  .  .  why?

Try watching this short video by Lucas Bean, where he describes the MAGA crazies who have poisoned our country. There are a lot of these people. Bean’s explanation is not a rant. It is a making sense of the senseless. Watch it and you’ll begin to understand what we are up against.

Ripoff Of The Week

I needed a new set of AirPods and purchased them at an Apple store. When I arrived home I realized that they had failed to include a charging cable, so a few days later I headed back to the store where I was told that they don’t supply a charging cable with Airpods, but that I can purchase one for another $33.00.

Source unknown. Many thanks to SM for passing it along.

Something similar happened a few years ago when I purchased a new computer. I needed a second charging adapter and cable for times when I travel and found that I could not use any of the chargers I already had because Apple had changed the connector. A second charger adapter and cable would cost me something like $80.00. Looks like it’s lucrative business to change things to keep me buying more of their stuff.

And that seems a lot like Trump and his promises. He tells us that the greatest you’ve ever seen of something-or-other is on the way and he teases us with his phantom something-or-other to get us to give more of our money to rich guys like himself, like top loaded tax cuts; no-bid contracts for crap nobody but Trump wants; wars that accomplish little more than increasing our “defense” spending by half a trillion dollars to enrich his already uber-rich defense contractor buddies; to sacrifice our young by cutting food stamps and medical care; and by ceding our freedom and our country to his private Gestapo. But, hey, they mostly murder Browns, so who cares? It’s always “give more for Trump’s wealth and power ” and eliminate the non-Aryans. If people get killed by his thugs, no problem, because they have the official podiums and microphones where they can justify anything and deny video records of whatever actually happens.

Yes, it’s an imperfect metaphor, but either way I don’t like being abused by people manipulating the system for their own benefit and to our detriment. I think I know who our biggest domestic terrorist is and so do you.

Random thought: It’s been a really long time since anyone used the word “integrity” either positively or negatively (as in: absence of) to describe our politics and what is happening to our nation. We’re that far gone. We have a greatly advanced case of cowardice.

Finally

If you’re up to coming face to face with Trump’s Machiavellian grabs for power, for domination and money, watch and listen to Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s (D-MI) presentation to the Brookings Institution.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

Now You Know-V2.0*


POST 1297

Trump’s speech last Thursday was a collection of lies that eclipsed all such collections ever assembled anywhere in the world – like nothing you’ve ever seen. Except .  .  . you hear his lies, idiotic claims of victimhood, fear mongering and demands for retribution every time he speaks, so it isn’t like nothing you’ve ever seen. It’s exactly what you’ve seen for 11 years, although to be fair, this rant was amped up beyond his normal cartoon bobblehead absurdity. You can be forgiven for changing channels in protection of your mental health and stability and missing the entire episode of Not So Stable Genius.

That’s what the news stations did. But I digress from the main point, which is what we now know.

After his blustering about imaginary successes, false claims about the economy, the Iran war and that we are “the hottest country in the world,” whatever that means, along with other mouth dribbles the meaning of which is totally opaque, he focused on election fraud as his justification for the SAVE America Act.

He says our voting circumstances are bad – very bad, and still he offers no evidence, much less proof of his claims. Millions of illegal immigrants, non-citizens, are voting, he says. Voting machines are switching votes to be against him, China is controlling our elections, Democrats are rigging voting and “mail-in ballots are inherently corrupt.” He urged viewers to fact check his data at WhiteHouse.gov, but all the justification he said is there is either fully redacted, missing or the opposite of what he claims.

His completely unjustified claims of voting fraud are the flaccid muscle for his demanding that Congress pass his SAVE America Act.

Trump said it in the final seconds of his tantrum (read the full text here):

To all Americans, I ask you to pick up your phone tomorrow, call your Representatives in the House and Senate and demand that they pass the SAVE America Act without delay.

Congressional bills are often named to make them palatable to the voting public, festooned with patriotic sounding names and plain language puffery. For example, George W. Bush had his Patriot Act, which we later learned was horribly anti-patriotic. Trump’s SAVE America Act is actually a voting suppression proposal designed to stop from voting everyone who might vote contrary to Trump. It is a way to activate the many decades long Republican efforts to deny the right to vote of anyone who might vote for Democrats. It doesn’t, it can’t and it won’t save America.

It would fly in the face of the Constitution, taking control of elections from the states and plopping it in the lap of the fat occupant in the White House. That is all it would take to end our democracy, effectively ending the United States of America. There would be no saving of America.

We would become something else altogether. Maybe school children would be taught to sing Trumpland Über Alles and we’d Make Slavery Great Again. Whippings and lynchings would once again feed the MAGA-brain blood thirst and ICE would fire bullets through every car window.

Without a scintilla of doubt the election this November is about just one thing:

It is a battle that pits We The People, our Constitution and our democracy
against the forces of despotic evil.
.

Trump has laid it all out with his pompous demand that he never be held to account for anything, anywhere, any time and his lap dog Supreme Court has made it so. His blatant grab for authoritarian power is in plain sight for everyone to see. No more hiding the ball. No more chiseling at the edges of destruction. It’s an in-your-face dismantling and swindling of our entire country.

You know the kinds of things Trump does and he is now desperate. Don’t be surprised if he declares some phony emergency and uses that to alter, postpone or cancel the November election. Trump laid it out for you in his special brain addled way.

In case you didn’t know before now, now you know.

Our existential charge is to Stop Hateful Idiocy Today. You work out the acronym.

Quote Of The Week

“Americans Favor Work Requirements for Members of Congress.” – Andy Borowitz

___________________________________________

* Here’s a link to the original Now You Know post, from which the closing line of this post was taken.

The time for action is NOW!
Keep standing up,
speaking out
and taking action

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 (IT’S A FREEBIE!), because 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.

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. I am neither offered nor do I accept funding of any type from candidates, online blabbers, organizations with or without any position or opinion or from any other origin other than from my own meager resources.
  5. 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.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source material.
  7. Do not look to these posts for “both sides” idiocy. I don’t have life to waste on such foolishness, such disingenuous nonsense and you shouldn’t either. You can find “both sides” misdirection in any cowardly publication. I post what I believe to be true, sarcasm and snark sometimes excepted. I make no pretense nor allow any space for the idiocy of insisting views to be somehow balanced for reporting or opinion presentation fairness, because doing so would be grossly unfair and of no value.
  8. If you disagree with anything I write, if you think I’m inappropriately biased, puff up your courage and put it in the Comments section. But see Point #9 below. On the other hand, let’s agree that I, like you, am biased.
  9. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All comments 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 or offensive solely for someone taking the opportunity to be offensive. It’s my post, my rules.
  10. We do not sell, give away, lend, share or otherwise allow the disclosure of the identity of our subscribers or of their information. Never have, never will. That should not have to be said, but the times have taught us that the words do need to be declared. At the last, all we can cling to is trust in one another.
  11. 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.

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