POST 1308
First, Have You Noticed . . .
. . . that voting restrictions, voter roll purges, extreme gerrymandering, roadblocks to voting, like elimination of polling places and locations to drop off a mail-in ballot, disinformation propaganda, voter intimidation with threats of violence, laws that discriminate against minorities, women, naturalized citizens and poor people and yet more impediments to voting are done solely by the Republican Party? Now, why do you suppose that’s true? Find the answer here and here.
Hint: Because Republicans know they cannot even come close to being elected and in power unless they cheat.
It’s All Connected
Food prices, fuel prices, war, corruption, cruelty, incoherence, cowardice, dishonor and more – it’s all of a piece. Have a look at a paragraph from Heather Cox Richardson’s post of September 18:
All of these crises—the price crisis, caused by the oil crisis, caused by the Iran crisis, which has created a military crisis while the country is staggering under a deportation crisis—appear finally to be making some Republicans rethink their support for Trump and his policies.
Which means that embedded in the miasma of American self-inflicted misery is a growing core of hope for us. Keep the faith, baby, and never, never, never give in.
Who?
The mid-term election is nearly upon us and those of us with functioning brains are hoping for an overwhelming rebuke of all things Trump and all things cowardly Republican. That will be most satisfying both personally and legislatively, as Democrats put a stop to Trump’s insane destruction of our nation and begin to prosecute the governmental felons. Still, there’s more to think about.
Like who we’d like to be our next president, and no, I don’t mean J.D. Vance after Trump is replaced via the 25th Amendment and sent to the home for dementia addled sociopathic narcissists.
Who will have what it takes to restore our economy, kill the illegal and cost of living killer tariffs, make healthcare affordable, repair our relationships with our former allies and retake our place as the world’s leader for democracy? Who will be able to remember to dismantle the useless ballroom, remove all the gold crap-tizing of the Oval Office, aid Ukraine to banish the Russian pestilence, get us out of Venezuela, end the pointless travesty of the Iran War, prosecute Trump and his felons and the corporate profit pirates? Who has the background and skill for such a dauntingly enormous task?
We’ll want someone who isn’t steeped in and stuck in Boomerism, yet has the experience and wisdom for the job of restoring balance in the world. We’ll need someone who recognizes that it will take generations to fix what Trump has broken but who also has the urgency to take swift steps toward a sustainable new normal. What stands out is how dangerous the world has become. Who has the experience to deal with Kim Jung Un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Mojtaba Khameni, the Supreme Leader of Iran?
Another day ending in “Y”, another Trump scum bag lie and reason to dump all the complicit Republicans. Click the pic.
There are a lot of really good people available to be candidates, but electability is the key. 32% of voters – MAGAs, traditional Republicans stuck in habit, low information sheepl and far right pissy people – won’t vote for anyone who isn’t a Republican, so we can ignore them in our election considerations.
Cost of living issues are critical now and they’re going to stay that way for the 2028 election. Republicans are focused on their far right donors and are bankrupt of ideas to benefit We The People. What if in 2029 the president were to abolish all the illegal and financially crippling tariffs and proposed a wealth tax and restoration of traditional tax rates on millionaire and billionaires (now effectively about 3%) so that they stop skating from paying their fair share? Wouldn’t you love it? So would independents and undecideds.
Too Good To Miss
We all know that Trump repeatedly claimed that he would “drain the swamp,” meaning Washington, and, of course, only he could do it. Since then you’ve been watching him eliminate tens of thousands of government employees from agencies that protect us and many good people in public service. You’ve seen the reports of unqualified people replacing good people in positions of power, but Thom Hartmann provided a lovely list of Trumpies with power that brings this infamous rogues gallery into sharp focus.
— An alcoholic B-list weekend TV star in charge of our military,
— A formerly heroin- and sex-addicted brainworm-infected lawyer in charge of our public health,
— A wrestling promoter in charge of our Education Department,
— The president’s personal criminal defense lawyer in charge of the Justice Department,
— A C-list reality TV star in charge of our air traffic control system,
— A plumber in charge of Homeland Security,
— A “miracle weight-loss pill” TV hawker in charge of Medicare and Medicaid,
— A social media hustler and children’s book author in charge of the FBI,
— A predatory hedge fund guy in charge of the Treasury,
— A fracking CEO who denies the climate crisis in charge of the Energy Department,
— Jeffrey Epstein’s former next-door neighbor and Epstein Island visitor in charge of the Commerce Department,
— A politician who built his career on a phony story about his parents fleeing Castro in charge of telling America’s story to the world,
— The mentee of an anti-democracy billionaire as our VP,
— A Project 2025 architect who was excited to put federal workers “in trauma” in charge of America’s federal budget,
— A racist whose own uncle publicly denounced him as an immigration hypocrite, and whose leaked emails pushed white nationalist material to Breitbart, in charge of immigration policy,
— A former NFL player in charge of public housing,
— A real estate developer and golf buddy with no diplomatic experience whatsoever negotiating with and sucking up to Vladimir Putin,
— The world’s richest man firing people investigating him and his companies while gutting the federal government and killing millions by “feeding USAID into the wood chipper,”
— And a self-described “proud Islamophobe” with no government job vetting the National Security Council staff. [all emphasis original]
Want to know what that’s done to you? Read his post for the grisly list and a full clarity of the abject greed that fuels the Republican Party.
Quote of the Month
From Robert Reich’s post on September 24,
There’s simply no legitimate use for crypto. Its only practical uses are tax evasion, money laundering, human trafficking, fraud, speculation, and crime.
Best Clear Direction
From Rick Wilson, direction for us for this election, if we want to preserve democracy:
The only rule for the next five weeks is attack, attack, attack.
Burn their crops. Salt the earth. Cut the tongues from the mouths of their bards.
Run up the score. Every Senate race, every House race, every statehouse, every county commission. Make the MAGA candidates wear every single thing this administration has done. Don’t coast. Don’t protect the lead. Beat the MAGA movement into a lifeless pulp, and let the vultures come in to finish the job.
A narrow win lets them claim it was a fluke. A blowout is a verdict.
Forgiveness is real, and it’s precious, and it has to be earned.
It comes after truth, after accountability, and after consequences, not instead of them.
Quote Of The Week
From Rabbi Rami’s post You Can’t Always Get What You Want:
Life is absurd. Death is the end. Don’t ask why. Just love your neighbor and the stranger as yourself (Leviticus 19:18;34).
What if our politicians thumping Bibles in White supremacy fervor and supplicating themselves to the orange god of bone spurs, instead, for a magical instant, loved our neighbors and strangers as themselves? What if for a long enough moment to legislate something – give something – to the poor and the stranger? What if they actually were to follow the rulebook they thump?
The answers, of course, are that 600,000 – 760,000 desperately poor people, 2/3 of them children, wouldn’t have died (projected to be 14 million dead by 2030), and that would actually have mattered to us, even though they weren’t White. We wouldn’t have poor kids in this country going to bed hungry, going to school hungry and going without healthcare.
Crazy, I know.
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. This week’s is taken from Paul Krugman’s podcast, The Midterms!:
The election is about turnout, not pollsters’ data.
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.
Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
