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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.

An Open Letter to Mainers and Clarity From Our Founders


POST 1296

An Open Letter To Mainers

Oops! You got caught going brainless in public. Don’t tell me you’re practical, no nonsense people with a fine tuned BS meter now that you gave your vote to a guy with a Nazi tattoo.

Get serious. Nobody gets a Nazi tattoo because it’s Thursday. They do it because that hate-fueled ideology speaks to them deeply. The guy almost certainly is a Nazi. He’s the type your grandfather risked his life to stop. Maybe Grandpa lost his life to make sure you’d never have to bow down to a tyrant or live where fear and hatred is your reality. Violent suppression of you and your rights is what Nazis fervently want. And Graham Platner has a Nazi SS tattoo. Did I mention that you voted for him anyway?

You gave your primary vote to a guy who has been credibly accused of brutality against women and now of rape. Either you’ve put your moral compass into a drawer with magnets around it or you aren’t what you claim to be.

WAKE THE F*** UP! (emphasis added because I’m shouting.)
.

This election is about sending Sen. Susan Collins to the Home For The Spineless and Perpetually Duped. It is not about sending someone with transparently violent and duplicitous innards to speak for you.

Yes, Platner spoke to many of your concerns and did so with an edge, leading you to believe he’d fight for you, but that’s nothing but campaign black ops. If he’s violent, he’s violent everywhere. It’s his nature. You can’t trust him with your spouse, your wallet or you vote because you don’t want someone who violates your values to harm you or your dear ones. And you surely don’t want him to speak for you. There is a solution to this.

Either organize a fresh primary this week – yes, it can be done if everyone stops saying that it can’t and instead takes action – or nominate me. I will move to Maine somewhere near the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport. And I’ll bring my Bernese Mountain Dog. He prefers the cooler weather to the sweltering Midwest summer and is a first rate campaign mascot.

I pledge to campaign fiercely against Collins. And  when I represent you in the Senate I promise to campaign for and live by the sensible values you cherish.

So, there’s your solution. Tune out Platner who wants to have his hateful thumb on the scale. Ignore the dopes who want to endlessly debate what to do and who never take action. Pay no heed to the pols who want to use this moment to divide us. And absolutely reject the self-anointed ones who hallucinate that they are sent by God. Just take your moral compass out of that drawer, plug back into your good sense and listen to it.

This message has been brought to you by the Right to Vote, the number 51 and the Someone Has To Stand Up and Do Something Committee of the I’ve Had Quite Enough Crap Alliance. You just might qualify for membership.

Clarity From Our Founders

We all know that freedom of speech is now conditional, based solely upon whether Trump likes what you say. The traditional limits on speech, like defamation and yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded theater where there is no fire are quite secondary today.

That is not what the Founders

demanded.

  • Tyrannical suppression of freedom
  • is exactly what tyrant King George III enforced on the colonists.
  • It’s a major part of why they rebelled.

So it is with great patriotic courage that I speak boldly of Trump exactly as he spoke of Iranian leaders last week. Per the Washington Post,

He’s scum. He’s a sick person. He leads sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people . . . Far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with Trump. He’s a liar . . . there’s something wrong with him. He’s cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.

The original of this child tyrant rant was spewed by Trump. Pronouns were changed here, but the meaning, the defamation, is Trump’s. I just turned it around to rightly point the Trumpian vitriol at him.

Now the question is whether the Trump-Miller Gestapo will come for me, declaring me to be among the worst of the worst, simply because I spoke out against Trump. Maybe they’ll ram their black, unmarked Trump-Miller Gestapo SUVs into my car and shoot at me. It’s what they’ve done to countless American citizens, legal residents and more. They use your tax dollars to incarcerate innocent people, doing so in your name and they kill people who are guilty of nothing more than living in America while Brown.

Consider the words of the Declaration of Independence:

We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Re-read that last sentence.

November is coming upon us rapidly – see the countdown timer below. It’s high time for each of us to answer the call to duty to ensure the neutering of this substitute King George III Tyrant, this king wannabe who is “unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” That is the plain and unmistakable clarity of direction from our Founders. It remains ours to do what is necessary, to do as they have directed us to do.

Do it while you still can, before Trump declares freedom itself to be illegal, before Trump sabotages everything decent and before he befouls every national symbol and monument.

Quote Of The Week

Rather than an expansive vision of democratic equality, with room for ever more people to enjoy “unalienable rights,” the word citizenship has become a legal term, a cudgel to enforce the power of some over others.

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.

Sundays Only


POST 1295

I’ve omitted a number of posts over the past weeks due to the overwhelming gift of caring for my wife in her last months.You may be assured that our 58 years together – 60 if you count our time dating – went by in an unfathomable flash, both in real time and lately repeatedly before my eyes.

I expect to be, more or less, ordinarily productive and even cogent on and off soon. The next Disambiguations will be Sundays only.

 


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

What Smart People Are Saying


POST 1294

Your Sunday Review of Commentary

From Inae Oh of Mother Jones:

Anyway, back to negotiations with Iran—and the Obama-era inspections that Trump broke and are now apparently returning. Anyone else see a theme here?

The big mouth spews his demeaning accusations, he spews his lies, then he at last finds out he really can’t do any better. Or he makes things far worse. For some reason he doesn’t spew that.

Also from Mother Jones is a piece by Dan Friedman and Amanda Moore explaining the fetid pond apocalypse besetting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Trump Is Losing His War On Algae. This is a truly astonishing piece displaying Trump’s finest skill: everything he touches dies. Maybe we should wrench his little hands off our country.

As if that isn’t enough bad news about Trump’s “my name on everything” mania, read the piece from the Washington Post entitled, A dead duck was seen in the Reflecting Pool. Then two more were found nearby. That Trump Reflecting debacle is yet another of his “Fire, Ready, Aim,” narcissistic and thoughtless acts, just like putting his name of the Kennedy Center.

Now he claims that “radical left lunatics” vandalized the Reflecting Pool. He always needs a villain to blame for his constant failures and he’s handling this one just like he handles his 2020 election loss. He and his critical-thinking-impaired fawners still claim that the election was stolen by fraudulent votes of immigrants, voting machines that switched votes and the rest. The voting loss and the Reflecting Pool disaster are the same, in that he makes fantabulous accusations and never offers any evidence to support his hollow claims because there isn’t any.

This is exactly like his brain-free war against Iran. No forethought, no plan. no reason. He just blasts away and lets the destruction reign supreme. Watch for his long list of people to blame for that war failure, too. He has the vermin, his imaginary far left terrorists, the worst of the worst brown skin immigrants and more to cruelly blame. He just can’t show any of them to you or connect them to his failure, again because there aren’t any. Like Inae Oh asked, “Anyone else see a theme here?”

Speaking of no forethought, plan or reason, read this from Thom Hartmann’s Post of June 23.

On the morning of February 28th, the first day of Donald Trump’s war on Iran, the children of the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab were at their desks a little after ten o’clock when the missiles arrived. The name of the school means “The Good Tree.”

By the time the dust settled, as many as 175 people were dead, most of them girls between the ages of seven and twelve. Iran’s confirmed count came to around 155, and the list its state broadcaster released documents dozens of dead little boys, dozens of dead little girls, more than two dozen dead teachers, several dead parents, a dead school bus driver, and a dead pharmacy technician from the clinic next door.

Not oddly, I have not heard an apology from the Murderer-In-Chief for his killing of those little girls and the rest. What Trump did say when questioned about what happened was, “I don’t know about that. Maybe ask Pete.” That’s Pete Hegseth, his blundering Secretary of Defense. If you have evidence of an actual apology from Trump, an acknowledgment of his mistake, any form of accepting responsibility for the murders of those little kids, please post a link to it in the Comments section below. I don’t expect much help with that request.

Now from Rick Wilson’s post, Trump Trashes Washington:

The once beautiful Ellipse. It’s your park. Click to see a full perspective on Trump’s destruction.

President’s Park South [i.e., the Ellipse]. The same patch of ground he packed in 2021 with the crowd of angry and deluded Trumphadis that he aimed at the Capitol like a loaded weapon. When the [gladiator] party left [last Sunday], it left the park looking like Woodstock ‘99 in a drought, a brown wasteland with a few sad islands of green hanging on. Scotts’ Miracle-Gro tossed in a million bucks and a “proprietary grass blend,” which is corporate for “we’ll figure it out.”

The Park Service paperwork about hauling off the [gladiator stadium] equipment somehow forgot to mention restoring the lawn. Nobody has said who fixes the Ellipse, or when, or with what. It just sits there, scorched, a public park burned down for one night of an 80-year-old man watching younger men hit each other for his amusement.

You really should read Wilson’s entire piece for a full perspective on what actually happened.

Finally, read Morgan Freeman’s (yes, that Morgan Freeman) post, Trump’s $500+ Billion Surrender Disguised as Victory: The Man Who Keeps Losing While Taking Victory Laps.

Since this war began, Trump has been on an endless victory lap. He told us Iran had “no military left.” No navy. No air force. No anti-aircraft capability. “Totally wiped out.” Then Iran attacked ships in the Strait of Hormuz anyway. [Trump] said the Strait was under total control. Then they hit vessels and threatened the critical shipping lane again. He said the war was finished. Then reality laughed in his face.

This is the Trump pattern: Start a war with maximum chest-thumping, declare victory 20 times, then act surprised when the enemy he claimed was destroyed keeps fighting. How many times can one man claim he “won” the same war before even his own supporters get tired of the bullshit?

Reminds me of Dubya’s “Mission Accomplished” banner when the “mission” would not be completed for almost 9 more years. That’s a lot of warring and a lot of phony bluster without the mission being completed.

Trump is unable to apologize, accept accountability, say he was wrong, back up or back down. That isn’t leadership; it’s cowardly insanity. Read Freeman’s post.

All of Trump’s ruination could have and should have been checked by those with the power to stop it, including the enslaved legislators missing their backbones and millions who, perhaps blindly, voted for it.

Conservatism is just this side of dead, all but a sliver of it murdered by the selfish and the violent. There remain only a few lame and gravely wounded conservatives, straggling along, leaning on tree branch crutches like the remnants of the Confederate army after the shooting stopped. We actually need the decent and honest ones among them to come home. We need them to step up to help save this shaken and endangered experiment in freedom, this last, best hope.

If you look hard to the horizon, maybe squint just a bit, you can see the possibility still glowing. It’s time to saddle up and ride to it, to capture it and bring it home. While we still can.

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.

Who Owns the Constitution?


POST 1293

Quote Of The Week

This is from Jamelle Bouie’s essay, The Supreme Court Doesn’t Own the Constitution.

But if we hope to recover and revitalize our democracy, we must start to think as citizens with duties, obligations and the sovereign power to make our world anew.

This Supreme Court, with its black robed, black-hearted extremist majority, acts as though our Constitution is a wad of Play Doh to be used for the delight of their infantile tantrums. They use it to placate their overlord in order to seek his favor and avoid his paranoid, neurotic paroxysms. They use it to take whatever they want, flaunting all conventions of morality, ignoring the harm they do to us.

But literally, our Constitution is not their toy or their weapon or their tool of appeasement.

It’s ours. Yours and mine. It’s of We the People. You know: those folks referenced in the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution:

You remember it from civics class in high school, right? Can you still recite it from memory? If not, click through to refresh your memory and your understanding of our Constitution and what it’s designed to do for We the People.

Because it’s ours. You could check with James Madison about that. He will explain it to you in clear, definitive terms.

A Little Snark

From Andy Borowitz’s post of June 18:

Ayatollah Names Trump Employee of the Month

It’s been a horrific week for the intermittently conscious Donald Trump aka Julius Geezer, who turned 80 but doesn’t look a day over 110. As the [Trump adulterated] Reflecting Pool continues to Make Algae Grow Again .  .  .

The real MAGA exposed!

The not-so-funny joke is in the implication of Borowitz’s title.

Trump started this war with chest pounding muscular claims and cartoon worthy fictitious goals. Now we’re faced with a laughable Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) that is largely an agreement to talk about an agreement. It hands Iran everything it wants, leaves that country stronger than before and leaves our country weaker. It provides confirmation to the internationally held belief that we are all idiots. It’s an embarrassment that shows how to lose everything all at once: respect, decency and thousands of lives.

Trump’s ride in the victorious Iranian parade.

Trump is a best friend to the radical theocrats of Iran. Watch for him waving an Iranian flag while leading a parade down Valiasr Street in Tehran. Trump will be the one with not only with an Iranian flag, but also with Russian and Chinese pins in his lapels replacing our stars and bars. He’ll be carried in a rickshaw so that he can sleep through most of the parade.

Be sure to pre-order Trump’s forthcoming book, The Art of Being a Schlemiel*.

________________________________________

* From Wikipedia:

Schlemiel (Yiddish: שלימיל, romanized: shlimil; sometimes spelled shlemiel) is a Yiddish term meaning “inept/incompetent person” or “fool.”

It’s also what you call someone who has been played. The butt of a joke. The easy-to-fool target. That is what he’s made us – We the People. Ask anyone viewing us from another country. They see us as dangerous fools.

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 information.
  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.
  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 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

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 information.
  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.
  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 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.

Where Are We?


POST 1292

David and Goliath Today

In Timothy Snyder’s recent post, Sky Defense: Bringing it Home, focused on the terrible war in Ukraine and the undefinable courage of that Ukrainian David incrementally slaying the evil Goliath of Russia, he wrote,

By resisting Russia, Ukrainians are defending what is perhaps most basic about decent political life: the idea that people should be who they choose to be, not whom they are forced to become.

I’ve told you many times that the Ukrainians are fighting for freedom as a proxy for all freedom loving people, the list of which includes us. They are standing up to tyranny, to domination of the many by the few. The lesson in that is obvious.

We need to be strong and resolute like the Ukrainians. We don’t have an army shooting at us, but some of our tribe have been killed, like Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Some have been manipulated and horribly abused, like Kilmar Armando Ábrego García. Many have died in American torture prisons and Gestapo-like goons patrol our streets looking for people to abuse and imprison for abuses like not looking Aryan.

But it’s as clear as it can be that this is tyranny of the many – that’s us – by the greedy, cruel, self-focused few. Now is the time – it’s always the time – to decide to be David and stand up and fight the Goliath of Trump/MAGA/billionaire evil.

In the Old Testament, Genesis 22:1, we’re told that God tested Abraham, first calling his name. Abraham answered, “I am here” or “Here I am” or “Here am I.” Terrified though he may have been, he answered the call. So it is with us today.

Our country is calling us. It’s time for us to stand and declare, “I am here.”

Because like the Ukrainians, we should be who we choose to be, not who we’re forced by the fascists to become.

One More Thing

Incompetent Tulsi Gabbard held the job of Director of National Intelligence, DNI, quite incompetently for a year and a quarter. Now she’s gone from that post, but there’s a twist.

In Trump’s first administration he got away with appointing incompetents everywhere by avoiding the Senate “advice and consent” protocol. Instead, he fired Cabinet secretaries and appointed incompetent “acting” replacements, thus once again avoiding the rules that apply to everyone else. Perverting the system is a way of life for him.

Likely you heard that Bill Pulte is his latest “acting” DNI. He has no intelligence, military, diplomatic or bureaucratic experience.  In a word, he is incompetent to be DNI. What qualifies him for that post in Trump’s mind (also in Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s mind, what there is of it) is that Pulte has an unblemished record of being a Trump suck up.

That is what passes for the best and brightest in today’s government.

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 information.
  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.
  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 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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