book banning

All You Need To Know


Post 1,045

It Only Hurts When We Laugh

 

You likely see the humor and perhaps appreciate the creativity in this cartoon, even as this is terribly cringe-worthy. It was sent to me by a dear friend and I’m working hard to forgive him. Here’s the problem.

This cartoon conflates two alt-right lunacies – fertilized egg personhood and extreme gun rights – as if some contest can be won by not being the most awful. But in reality, it doesn’t work that way.

We (both individuals and our country) are besieged everywhere in every way by alt-right extremists doing things like:

book banning/burning – there are over 1,000 books already banned in Florida alone,* many banned by people who don’t even have kids in the schools

patriarchal gender dominance (“Women belong in the home having and raising children” as well as limiting women to “my type” or “not my type”)

justice negation

election fraud through manipulating the system or baselessly denying results

tearing down our democracy

racist degradation (“Where’s my Negro? He’s gonna love these gold sneakers.”)

gun rights valued over human life

You know well that this list could go on for pages and still not cover all the fear- and anger-generated assaults on human rights, human dignity and democracy.

These MAGA anti-America phony patriots are actually after just one thing. They want all the power for themselves so that they can remake our country into something our Founders would say is exactly what they rebelled against.

The MAGAs not only want this country to be Christian nationalism (which is neither Christian nor nationalism), but they want it to be their own notion of Christian. There are two core problems with that: 1. What they want is something Jesus wouldn’t recognize or approve of; 2. That is exactly what the Founders did not want for our country – see the First Amendment.

Back to the cartoon.

It only hurts when we laugh. That’s why we don’t laugh much about our politics.

So, Here’s All You Need To Know

By 2018 Donald Trump had ramped up his vicious attacks on would-be immigrants, first with his rapists, murderers and drug dealers labels, his caravans scare tactic and his replacement idiocy. But nothing compares to his “zero tolerance” reign of terror. That was when he ordered that children be separated from parents at the border. You need to see the reality of this in your mind’s eye.

Picture a young mother with an infant on her hip and a toddler holding her hand on her other side. They wait in line for a long time and are eventually led into a room where they are seated across a table from a Border Patrol agent. She is told that she can’t enter our country legally and will be detained. The next thing that happens is that another Border Patrol agent rips her children from her and takes them away to be detained separately from her, on their own.

And this story gets worse.

The children were put into a cage with many other children and with no adult to care for them. There wasn’t even someone to change soiled diapers. Now for the worst parts.

  1. There was no plan to enable those children to be reunited with their mothers. No documentation. No identifications. Nothing. There were over 5,000 children detained/imprisoned this way and there was no system to ever to set things right. Those children were set adrift and their mothers made bereft and hopeless. Some of those mothers were deported – without their children.
  2. Trump and his brown shirt kidnapping mastermind Stephen Miller declared publicly that this cruelty was the point (and here). It was intentional. They wanted to discourage others from traveling to our border by letting them know in advance that we are and will continue to be barbarically cruel.

That was done in our names. Let’s make that more personal: Your name is attached to each separation. You and I allowed that to happen. Enough of us voted for this megalomaniac, wicked leader and we got what we elected.

The only good news is that immediately upon taking office President Biden stopped the Zero Tolerance policy and began reuniting mothers and babies. There are many sad stories that accompany those reunions, like kids who don’t remember or don’t recognize their parents; plus, there are still about 1,000 children who have not been reunited with their parents because of the daunting task of finding and matching families. Read this from Mother Jones.

You know all about Trump’s racism, detachment from reality, 30,000 lies, intention to be a dictator and use Seal Team 6 to murder his opponents and all the rest. Any one of his sociopathic failings should be enough to tell you that you never want this savage to have any power at all – ever.

There’s more.

It isn’t just his sycophantic followers, like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson, Josh Hawley and Ron Johnson who we need to remove from the halls of power. We need to prevent every MAGA follower from having any position of authority because they will slavishly follow the slightest word from their deranged leader. We’re seeing this right now, with Speaker Mike Johnson refusing to bring bills up for a vote for time-critical things, like support for Ukraine to continue its battle for freedom, for humanitarian aid for Gaza and for our border security. This is being done by MAGA extremists at Trump’s direction while he is not even in office.

If we fail to stop the goose stepping MAGA horde, Trump will once again be able to inflict his cruelty on innocents.

There’s so much craziness that’s so very outrageous that it can make your head spin, so let’s make this simple. Always remember Trump and the MAGAs proudly ripping babies from their mother’s arms. That’s why you’re rightly certain that you do not want Trump or any MAGA to have any power anywhere, in any way, at any time. Remember what MAGA always does. That’s what Trump and his goose steppers will do again if we let them.

There is no court of justice or cavalry coming over the hill to save us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for and we cannot wait any longer. We have to mobilize ourselves to not only vote, but to encourage others to vote and stop the MAGA cruel insanity.

Do it in remembrance of all those mothers and babies.

That’s all you need to know.

.

———————————————————–

* For a clear view of what is in store for this nation if Republicans gain control as they have in Florida, review this PowerPoint presentation focused on book banning in Florida. This fascist mind control is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of us.

Click the link, then click or double-click the listing in your download folder.

  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not 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. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


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

Dysfunction Junction


Post 1,041

On February 18 Steve Sheffey wrote,

” . . . House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) says he won’t allow the House to vote on the emergency funding because it doesn’t contain money for border security. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) accurately summarized Johnson’s position: The Speaker said he wouldn’t pass Ukraine funding without a border deal and we got a deal and then he killed the deal because he said we didn’t need a deal and now he says he won’t pass our Ukraine funding bill because it doesn’t include a border deal. . . Johnson adjourned the House until February 28, preventing any action before then and leaving Israel and Ukraine twisting in the wind.”

“One day Republicans are opposing aid to Israel because it doesn’t include cuts to the IRS [for the purpose of helping rich tax cheats], another day they are opposing aid to Israel because it is coupled with funding for border security, another day they are opposing aid to Israel because it doesn’t include border security funding that they themselves opposed days earlier.”

Said Sheila Markin on February 18 about Republican dysfunction:

“[The MAGAs] Can’t pass legislation. Makes false claims. Embarrasses itself by impeaching a cabinet member, Mayorkas, for failing to harden the border WHILE Mayorkas is hammering out the toughest deal in recent history with a bipartisan Senate group THAT WOULD HARDEN THE BORDER and then REJECTS that legislation to appease Donald Trump. Fails to fund Ukraine, helping Putin gain ground in that war. Fails to fund Israel. Fails at pretty much everything. This dysfunctional House has only passed about 40 pieces of legislation into law, by far the least productive House in recent history. Many of the bills that did pass were pro forma – like giving Secret Service overtime pay or allowing Duck Stamps to be printed.”

That’s dysfunction as a fundamental principle. It’s as though they think nihilism and chaos are virtues.

From Meet the thought police of Rockingham County, VA, by Kate Cohen in the Washington Post:

They really don’t want you to read this book. Also, see note #5 below.

“The Rockingham County [VA] School Board recently took up the question of whether to remove 57 books immediately from school libraries, claiming it needed to create a process for … removing books from school libraries. Four members voted yes, and one voted no.”

That’s right – they banned 57 books so that they would have a process to ban books.

Seriously, is anyone unclear about who and what these MAGA Republicans are? They keep telling us who they are. We should believe them. It’s like Trump telling us he wants to terminate the Constitution. Does anyone think he wouldn’t if he could?

These people are dangerous. They are propaganda (read: lies) saturated. They want to be the thought police limiting what you can think. They want to keep freedoms from you. They want to dominate you and all you believe in, and they’ll do it by baffling you with bull shit and the tyranny of the minority. If that isn’t already clear to you, reread the quotations above.

George Orwell painted an accurate picture of what Republicans want to force on you. Either we stop them or they will stop us.

  • Today is a good day to be the light
  • _____________________________
  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not 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. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


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

The Right Books To Ban


Yeah, I know that book banning is a tyrannical exercise in mind control that’s typical of authoritarian, subjugation-creating regimes. We all know that it’s a key tool to end freedom and eliminate rights. And none of us has forgotten history’s recounting of murder squads that were a direct outfall of such draconian control of the people. Still, there has to be a way to prevent bad influences from affecting the public. I think banning books is it. The trick is in knowing which books to ban, so here’s part of my list of the right books to ban. The Republicans are always trying to short change We the People, so these 9 represent a Republican dozen.

  1. The Art of the Deal; Letters to Trump; The Midas Touch; Think Big; Think Like a Champion; How To Get Rich; and any other publication with Trump’s name on it. Trump earned the descriptors grifter, con artist, liar, cheat, scam artist and more with stunning alacrity. He must not be allowed to have the influence on our people that would occur were his books still on library or bookstore shelves.
  2. The Courage To Be Free and Dreams From Our Founding Fathers. Ron DeSantis is every bit the con artist that Trump is and he’s just as cruel and self-serving. Plus, he hasn’t a clue about the dreams of our Founders. We must protect our vulnerable ones from him.
  3. Woke, Inc.; Capitalist Punishment; Nation of Victims. The last title says it all. There is no reason this nation should be victimized by Vivek Ramaswamy, including subjecting anyone to the brainless machine gun blather of this hateful despot wannabe. Turn off the victim talk and we’ll stop victimhood. Ban not just his books, but him, too.
  4. Unified, Opportunity Knocks and America: A Redemption Story. Sen. Tim Scott doesn’t have the sense to not be a Republican. That alone disqualifies him from any job that requires a functioning brain. There is only room in the Republican Party for extremists and cowards, all carrying a rejection of anyone who is not White. I’m wondering if he’s color blind, delusional enough to believe he can change that party or if he’s just self-loathing. He might dupe more people of color with his books, so we must rid ourselves of these things. Banning his books is the right (as in both correct and politically) thing to do.
  5. Anything by or about Ronald Reagan. That sainthood business given to the architect of Iran-Contra, the blatant lie of trickle down economics, massive debt creation, trillions going to the already rich and the destruction of unions needs to be kept from the eyes of Americans, lest they actually come to believe such crap. And that saint thing: de-canonize him. He’s a fraud.
  6. The Bible. Any bible. This terrifying work speaks of rape, incest, lust, murder, betrayal, adultery, idolatry, thievery and more. Get this off our library and book store shelves, because children might read it for instruction. Worse, middle finger American adults might read it and get some crazy ideas into their heads to commit who knows what violence in order to mimic bible stories.
  7. Do What You Said You Would Do is the chest thumping, I’m-a-tough-guy-absolutist tome from former college wrestling coach and enabler of sexual assault, Jim Jordan. Mothers, don’t let your kids grow up to be like that. It starts with making sure they can’t get their hands on this waste of paper pulp. Ban it.

  8. The US Senate and the Commonwealth: Kentucky Lawmakers and the Evolution of Legislative Leadership. Mitch McConnell is proud of his fiscal miserliness in protecting taxpayers’ money. As if. He’s made sure that Kentucky is one of the biggest federal cash suckers in the nation. Surely, his success at that larceny must not be celebrated by book sales. And our delicate children must be protected from such crookery. Ban that bad book.

  9. Any book by George W. Bush. He lied us into two wars, got tens of thousands killed and millions displaced, ignored intelligence that 9/11 was coming, allowed the Great Recession to happen, ended any illusion of a Pax American and more. DO NOT allow sensitive ones to read anything this frat boy wrote. Get those books off our shelves. Otherwise, the answer to his question, “Is our children learning?” will be YES, but they will be learning the wrong things.

There are so many books that should be banned. Which ones do you think belong on this list? Add them in the Comments section below and say why you recommend the Fahrenheit 451 treatment. Stand strong for the end of knowledge and learning!

Quotes Describing Us

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this:

“If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us.

“It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

Oh Democracy!

From Steve Schmidt, recognizing Mitt Romney:

It isn’t Mitt Romney’s duty to sit there helplessly in a cramped room with demagogues. It is our duty to vote them out. When we do, maybe the quality of character will improve in the MAGA/GOP. Until then don’t expect to see honorable people with an “R” next to their name serving in the US Senate. It is a nest of sedition, cowardice and malice. [emphasis mine]

Two Fridays ago was the United Nations International Day of Democracy and many European nations are leaning heavily toward autocracy now. That brings to mind Harry Truman:

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

How did autocracy work for those European nations over the course of many hundreds of years of devastating wars?

Which brings to mind Winston Churchill:

.  .  .  democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms .  .  .

Perhaps a UN day promoting democracy is a good thing. Perhaps all of us promoting democracy is an even better thing.

Or we can just let our nation slide into legalized cruelty, with no rights or freedom and rule by mobs, not laws.

Bad idea.

The Great Mar-A-Lago Orange Felon

Judge Aileen Canon must be the world’s most careful judge. It took her a month to craft a rules-of-the-road paper for the Documents Case. Any other judge would have completed that task in two hours. You don’t suppose dragging out this case for the benefit of Trump had anything to do with her delay, do you?

Here’s a very slightly modified movie clip from Raiders Of The Lost Ark that puts this case into perspective. Click the play arrow.

Many thanks to JN for the link.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not 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. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


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

Scheming


Here’s Some Of What Decades of Far Right Scheming Have Brought You

Voter suppression through:

extreme gerrymandering;

voting rights suppression;

throwing out voter registrations for obscure reasons – especially in poor and minority areas;

eliminating voting places;

restricting ballot drop box access;

School vouchers for private and parochial schools that starve public schools of money and violate the freedom of religion guarantee of the First Amendment;

Attacking and eliminating healthcare rights;

Cheating on Supreme Court confirmation hearings to get a polarized Court;

Cultivating a power base by appealing to racism and hatred – no more need for dog whistles;

Book banning and book burning;

Stoking fear of the “other;”

Promoting supply side “voodoo” economics for over 40 years, which has served only to make the wealthy wealthier and more powerful and make all others poorer and less powerful;

Packing the Supreme Court to engineer the Citizens United decision into a grotesque monster that allows enormous sums of money from hugely wealthy individuals and corporations to control our elections. This was accomplished by expanding the original case into something not in contest – in effect, making up a new case to ensure power for the wealthy;

Denial of truth and embrace of cruel fictions that stick a spoke into the wheels of progress in Congress and state houses, then complaining that government can’t do anything. Example: spouting lies about the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines and demonizing public health officials, while well over a million people died and our healthcare infrastructure (hospitals) failed, leaving millions without healthcare at all – and at the same time complaining that the government grossly mishandled the pandemic;

A Trump appointed Texas judge overruling the FDA to eliminate Mifepristone, this on a foundation of boundless ignorance and vacuous reasoning. That compliments what appears to be his whitewashing of his extremist views that he hid during his lifetime appointment judgeship confirmation process;

Challenging election results on the basis of absolutely no facts or evidence – but the false claims have accomplished the undermining of citizen confidence in our elections;

Stoking fear and hatred of LGBTQ citizens and inciting violence;

Ignoring the overwhelming public will on issues like gun safety, abortion, healthcare and more. Here is an example in a chart from the April 11 STAT report, based on a Kaiser Family Foundation study.

These are shocking numbers and the story is actually worse than it appears. Read the full Kaiser Family Foundation report. This is what happens when a minority is in control and they ignore what the rest of us want. It’s deadly.

The extremists have been at this for decades, applying billions of dollars and enormous political pressure and their scheming has paid off in their minority control and their fantastic self-enrichment. Decide for yourself if this stuff works for you. If it doesn’t, then perhaps we should be scheming to set things right.

DNC: I don’t hear a thing from you except solicitations for my money. Is that your best shot?

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


    Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take a lot of us to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not 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. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    JA

 


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

Riddle Me That, Batman


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

_____________________________________

The Riddler, aka E. Nigma

We human beings are walking contradictions. We say we want to be fit and healthy but we forget the New Year’s resolution and drop the gym membership before January 20 (to get the full membership refund) and we eat stuff that tastes good, but we know it’s bad for us.

We know the climate is warming, causing not just more natural disasters, but far more destructive ones. Check with Uncle Phil who lives in the California mountains to hear what he has to say about that right now – if you can get through to him. Or what Aunt Gloria in Ft. Myers, FL said about the hurricane last September. Or check with anybody in the still not fully rebuilt Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, these 18 years after Katrina, or any farmer who’s watched his crops wither and die in a massive draught. These disasters really are becoming more frequent and more devastating, but we still go out and buy a 17 mpg SUV or a 13 mpg pickup truck. Riddle me that.

Sometimes we’re contradictions in ways that are devastating in immediate and very personal ways.

For example, pro-life people are staunchly against abortion. They offer various rationales for their views, including calling abortion murder, stating their religious justifications and more. Here’s the riddle me part.

These folks are often in favor of capital punishment. That is decidedly not pro-life. You could ask any of the former death row inmates who were released due to the fine work of The Innocence Project. They know a lot about capital punishment from a perspective you don’t have and they’re quite sure that capital punishment isn’t pro-life.

And what about the pro-lifers who don’t want us to support healthcare for poor people, some of whom die for lack of healthcare? Or those who don’t want to provide supplemental food for poor children. Or those who won’t support a first rate education for kids regardless of their home address? This is starting to look very much like these people aren’t pro-life at all and perhaps aren’t even pro-kids. They’re just pro-fetus and don’t demonstrate much caring for kids following their birth. Riddle me that.

And while we’re on the subject of giving birth, how is it pro-life to refuse an abortion to pregnant women whose lives will clearly be in peril if their pregnancy continues? And how is it pro-life to force a 10-year-old girl in Ohio, a victim of rape and incest, to carry a fetus to term, endangering her life? Riddle me those life-of-the-mother contradictions.

Should you take issue with my indictment of pro-life, read Thom Hartmann’s exquisitely clear unmasking of it.

Our military people were ordered to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, this to ensure our fighting forces would be ready when needed, unlike the sailors and ships the Navy had to sideline in 2021. Some refused the order to be vaccinated. Bear in mind that they were required to receive various vaccines upon entering military service, so their objection surely wasn’t about vaccines.

They took an oath freely and without reservation, they affirmed, both to protect and defend the Constitution and to obey orders. And they kept their word, right until the moment when they didn’t. Riddle me that one, too.

Click me for the story

There was a gang of thugs who were going to kidnap and execute the Governor of Michigan because of her mask mandate and the 2021 lock down. They were conspiring to violate a bucketload of laws, all the while calling themselves patriots. That looks a lot like the January 6 insurrectionists carrying Blue Lives Matter flags, the flagpoles of which they used to beat and stab police officers. They proclaimed that they were true patriots, too. Riddle me those cruelties.

How about the mania for book banning and book burning that’s sweeping states with extremist, self-serving governors and legislatures? It’s always done with some excuse about protecting our delicate children from the truth, always with the patina of some invented notion of parents’ rights. But in the end it’s about what a minority of hair-on-fire types want and the ignoring of the truth that the majority wants taught to their kids. Riddle me that, too.

People exercise their rights by parading outside polling places carrying intimidating assault rifles. They scream insanely at school board meetings and threaten peaceful protesters. They repeatedly lie in Congress and claim the right to abuse asylum seekers and kidnap their children and more. Pay no attention to the constitutional rights they deny others. Riddle me that.

That’s very much like the right of state officials to gerrymander fair representation out of existence, and to wipe people off voting roles for the sneakiest, most manipulative of Jim Crow-like reasons. It’s about the right of states to remove polling places and ballot drop boxes in order to make it far more difficult for a select group of citizens to vote. It’s about the right to bollix up the system such that it takes 20 minutes to vote in White areas and 8 hours to vote in Black areas.

It’s always about the freedom and rights of those in the minority but who are in control, as they deny freedom and rights to others. Effectively, they tell us, “Freedom for me, but not for thee.” Riddle me that, Batman.

Oh, and Florida SB1316 requires bloggers who make comments about the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and others to register with the state. This is a blatant attack on freedom of the press.

That control freak power grab of a bill is not without precedent, as Vladimir Putin passed that same law in Russia in 2014.

That raises the question of why some of our Republican elected officials, self-proclaimed patriots, support dictators Putin, Orbán, Erdoğan, Duterte and other authoritarian bullies who strip rights and freedom from their people. Why do our homegrown anti-Americans call for us to abandon Ukraine, as it fights for freedom and democracy? Why do these elected officials call themselves patriots, even as they hate our democracy? Riddle me that, too.

Like I said: we’re walking contradictions.

Except when there isn’t a contradiction, as when all that matters is, “It’s all about me and what I want.”

For a fine explainer of our self-contradictory and often cruel crowd, read Ed Gurowitz’s offering, “Woke Is the New Code for Fascism.”

And if you have struggled to understand decades of dirty tricks and the mind numbing cacophony of cruel and self-contradictory absurdities Republicans spout, you must read Prof. Heather Cox Richardson’s explainer here.

Finally

The International Criminal Court has indicted Vladimir Putin for his war crime of kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children. That prompted me to wonder what plans he has for them. Try this awful scenario.

We know that he is sending untrained soldiers to die in his war, using political criminals and other Russian undesirables as his canon fodder. He sends many to fight without weapons.

Now imagine him putting uniforms on older Ukrainian children and sending them unarmed to the front lines, forcing the Ukrainian army to kill their own kids. He’s diabolical enough to do that.

Let’s hope I’m wrong.

_____________________________

PS

In my last post I observed that “woke” is commonly used as a pejorative but there’s no definition of what it means. Turns out I was wrong. Here’s an explainer.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


    Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take a lot of us to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not 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. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    JA


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

Groundhog Day Special Edition


Pick a City

Madison, WI

Baton Rouge, LA

San Bernardino,  CA

Des Moines, IA

Birmingham, AL

Rochester, NY

Tempe, AZ

Modesto, CA

Tacoma, WA

Grand Rapids, MI

Tallahassee, FL

Little Rock, AR

Bill Maher and Bari Weiss made quite a lot of noise on his program on January 21. They insisted that we’re so over the need for restrictions against COVID – masks required in public places, having to show vaccination cards, distancing from one another, school children never seeing the lower half of their friends’ faces and more.

Worse, it just isn’t necessary, they said. Hundreds of millions of us are vaccinated and millions have been sick and recovered, so they have some level of immunity. Bill and Bari are just so done with COVID, they told us. Can’t we just get back to normal?

Nope. Not yet. That’s because we’re killing over 2,000 of our fellow citizens every day with this virus. Here’s what that means.

Pick your favorite city from the list above – your choice. COVID is killing our people so fast that it can completely wipe out everyone in your favorite city in roughly 100 days. Everyone. COVID kills at a rate that could eliminate every man, woman and child in Punxatawney, PA in less than 3 days. That’s why we still need to continue to practice safe COVID.

Over and over we foolishly succumb to frustration and have the argument about getting back to normal. That’s why it’s Groundhog Day yet again.

To all the Bill’s and Bari’s, whatever their name, who are just so over COVID, read Dan Rather’s piece. Read some of the many comments, too. Then come back here and write in this Comments section about whether you’re still so over COVID.

BTW – There’s life changing news for our anti-vaxxers who refused because the vaccines were “experimental.” The FDA has fully approved both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, so we should be seeing queues of anti-vaxxers in front of their pharmacies and other freebie vaccine dispensing locations. Check out Walgreens and tell me if you see a line of people with their sleeves rolled up. *

Children’s Brains

From STAT:

“Just as a child tax credit for low-income families prompted by the pandemic has expired, new research points to benefits in brain development for babies whose families received unconditional cash assistance through a randomized clinical trial. The study was small and the changes were modest, but its conclusions align with previous observational studies. Published yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the analysis covers 435 1-year-old children and their mothers who got either monthly cash gifts of $333 or monthly gifts of $20 starting shortly after birth. Children in the higher gift group exhibited more high-frequency, rapid brain activity on an EEG, compared with the lower gift group. Because that brain activity pattern is associated with developing high-level cognitive skills, the authors say, the results reveal a link between poverty reduction and early childhood brain activity.”

Good thing we killed the child tax credit. We wouldn’t want babies born in poverty to be smart, right?

That regularly occurring, self-defeating governmental stinginess and neglect of We the People is why it’s Groundhog Day yet again.

And Of Course

Republicans are already criticizing President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, even though he hasn’t yet named one.

Republicans are criticizing how Biden is dealing with Putin, even though they don’t have a clue what he’s doing.

Republicans voted in congressional goose stepping unison to prevent two voting rights bills from even being debated.

There’s no point in extending this list because you already know that Republicans are only interested in opposing everything any Democrat might support, this in order to secure their own minority control. It’s been that way at least since Reagan, that great champion of democracy (for some) and Iran-Contra. And, surely, you remember Mitch McConnell’s brave, anti-democratic words: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

He said that as the economy was in the free-fall of the Great Recession, businesses where closing, millions were losing their jobs and their housing and we were mired in two intractable wars. Nevertheless, all the Republicans focused on was political combat designed to help themselves and harm Democrats. They hadn’t a care about We the People or our country.**

And, of course, now we have (yet again) the flaming Nazi-like,  Fahrenheit 451 Republican states of Florida, Texas, Tennessee and some other wannabe censor states. In their Salem Witch Hunt revival to cast out the evil spirit of education, they want to ban books that speak of that which must not be mentioned. Fine. I’ll do the mentioning.

They want to protect our apparently fragile White children from the realities of racial discrimination, sex, violence, the Holocaust and other topics that might inform students. “Better to keep them ignorant and mindless,” think the geniuses in our book burning states.

John Pavlovitz thinks that in their list of books to be banned they’ve missed the most ban-able book: the Bible. He writes:

“If Republicans want to ban books that perpetuate violence and inhumanity or tell stories of generational racism and discrimination, and they’re being honest—they’d better start with the Bible.

Thanks go to AT for the cartoon

“Christians who are responsible students of history, know that the Bible is the single most weaponized piece of writing on the planet: responsible for unjust wars, systematic genocide, generational anti-semitism [sic], violent extremism, subjugation of women, and pervasive racism. This isn’t really up for debate. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Troubles to The Holocaust to slavery, to racism and homophobia in America, the shadow of the Bible looms large.”

The present craze to ban books is just the newest wash-rinse-repeat cycle of Republican purity hypocrisy. We’ve seen these flames before. That’s why with the Republicans, every day is Groundhog Day, as they display their inner rodent.

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* Have a look at this for the entertainment of international temper tantrums based on disinformation.

** Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner regularly declared that the Republicans were all about, “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” Then he and his Republican majority proceeded to kill every bill designed to stimulate job growth, leaving millions of Americans unemployed. They had to be shamed into passing a bill designed to help military veterans leaving the service get jobs, this after having first killed that bill. That’s how far Republicans were willing to go to prevent President Obama from having a win. They have nothing to lift us; only actions to diminish their opponents. And we and our country pay the price.

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STOP THE GROUNDHOG DAY INSANITY!
.
The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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