Democrats

Action Required


Trump has abandoned nearly all presidential duties since November 3. What’s missing from this list?

Reading time – 3:09  .  .  .

You’ve seen the visuals of miles of cars in line to get a little food from food banks. People are waiting in line for hours because they can’t feed their families without assistance, so you already have a sense of the need. These are our friends and neighbors hit hard by forces beyond their control, so it doesn’t take much effort to imagine yourself in such a situation. You can feel the horror, because if circumstances were slightly different, it could be your kids going hungry. Here’s an idea for how to make things a bit better for those who desperately need things to be better.

We have a family tradition of doing a holiday talent show, where each of us gets up and does a 3-minute routine to entertain us all. It’s great fun. Be sure to ask me about my grandchildren’s amazing talents, like solving a Rubik’s Cube in under 1.5 minutes or reciting the alphabet backwards in under 4 seconds or doing magic tricks.  There was some discussion that this year’s event was perhaps the best, in spite of having to do it via Zoom.

What’s important is that at the end of each of our shows we discuss what we’ll do with the money we’ve all contributed throughout the year to a big jar sitting on a table by our front door. What’s in that jar is the funding for our family philanthropy project, designed both to help those in need and to instill in the young ‘uns a sense of duty to others. Sadly, this year nobody came through our front door to toss money into the jar – just another casualty of Covid.

What we did instead is to noodle at the end of our talent show Zoom about the massive hunger problem we have across the country and what our little tribe might do to help. What we came up with is to place a donation box in front of our house and ask the people in the neighborhood to pitch in food and then donate it to the local food bank. We already checked and learned that they’ll accept unopened cans and boxes of food still this side of their expiration date. We sent an email blast to the neighborhood yesterday and are looking forward to hauling boxes of food to where it will do some good.

You can help that way, too. Maybe you have better ideas. The point is to do something. Take action: children are hungry.

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The warm-ish weather is gone and in the mid-west the party is over: it’s cold. If you know someone who needs a safe, warm place to escape the winter weather, visit KeepWarm.Illinois.gov to find a warming center nearby. If you live outside of Illinois, find the safe places in your state and pass them along to those who need one or those who might know who needs help. Just do a search of “warming shelters state” (substitute your state name for “state”). The point is to do something! Take action: children are cold.

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Just It Figured Out

I’ve found it most curious that in this peculiar time when the President of the United States is ignoring every presidential duty that he would suddenly and belatedly become interested in the Covid relief bill and insist on direct payments being increased from $600 to $2,000. This is the same president who refused to become involved in negotiations over this issue for 8 months. This is the same president who told us the economy was doing great, as millions applied for unemployment aid. This is the same president who refused for a year to lead the nation in a full court press to minimize the suffering and death due to this disease. Why would he suddenly want to provide greater financial benefit to We the People?

I’ve heard pundits speculate that the reason for his sudden interest in aid to suffering people is to instigate yet more chaos, one of his favorite activities. Sounds plausible.

Maybe he wants to look like a last minute (actually, past the last minute) hero. Foolish, but plausible.

Some kindhearted folks have suggested that he’s just realized the scale of the human suffering in this country and cares deeply about people going hungry or becoming homeless. Does not sound plausible at all when ascribed to a totally self-absorbed sociopath with a perfect record of ignoring the needs of others.

Many have simply scratched their heads. I get that. But I think I’ve just figured this out.

Trump has done all he can to make the transition difficult for the Biden team. He’s booby-trapped every door to every department of the Executive Branch. He’s stopped or slow walked cooperation. He’s removed knowledgeable people who could help the incoming administration. And he’s done all he can to make governing difficult for Biden after January 20, 2021, which brings us to the $2,000 mystery.

Any increase in benefits to Americans likely won’t happen through this Congress. It’s too late for that and McConnell won’t bring it to the floor for a vote. That bill will pass to the new Congress to do the right thing. That will give Republicans and Trump the opportunity to excoriate Democrats controlling the House and perhaps the Senate for flagrant over-spending, labeling them the profligate tax and spend demons. After all, with a Democrat in the White House, Republicans will rediscover the awfulness of deficit spending, something about which they developed amnesia when voting for the $1.5 trillion tax act in 2017.

Trump doesn’t care a bit about suffering people. This $2,000 demand is just a ploy to attack Biden and Democrats and set himself up for a 2024 run for the presidency.

Never underestimate the genius of this cruel, vicious, self-serving monster. He isn’t the president of all the people. He’s a president serving just one.

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Countdown to Inauguration Day 2021Countdown

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The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

It Will Take More Than Impeachment


Reading time – 3:35  .  .  .

I’m still conflicted about impeachment. On the one hand, there’s the obvious imperative to do the right thing. Trump is bad news in so many ways and many of them are almost certainly criminal. He should be held to account, and not just to punish him. It’s critical that we say to future leaders that we believe in accountability and that there won’t be any more Gerald Ford absolute presidential pardons.

On the other hand, impeachment in the House is unlikely to result in conviction by the spineless Republican Senate. That will give Trump insufferable bragging rights and might help him win reelection. Not good.

Meanwhile, now that the inquiry has started, I’m all for parading before the public Trump’s lawlessness, the violations of his oath of office and anything else that might make it hard for Republicans to continue to stand with him and brainlessly chant idiotic talking points to gaslight the American public.

If Trump were to avoid conviction in the Senate we’ll be left with a president who knows he must stay in office to protect himself from the city, state and federal indictments for tax fraud, money laundering, campaign finance violations and more that are awaiting him when he leaves office.

Consequently, he will scratch, claw, lie and call on our worst demons during his 2020 campaign. He will baselessly accuse political rivals of treason. He will attack our intelligence agencies. He will stonewall every legitimate inquiry and every subpoena.* He will suborn perjury. He will undermine American foreign policy in order to advance his own interests. He will joke about shooting immigrants and building his wall and making it electrified, with spikes on top that can pierce human flesh and a with moat filled with snakes and alligators. He will sacrifice our country and our values for personal gain. We know this because he’s done it all and continues to do these things.

In contrast, Democrats are the party of patty-cake politics. They always bring a knife to a gunfight. They will have to toughen up and put on their big boy and big girl pants to figure out how to beat our ruthless dictator wannabe.

Enter Thomas Friedman.

“You can vote for a man who wants to bring back cars that get bad mileage, lights that use more energy and produce more heat, power plants that produce more asthma, chemical companies that pollute more rivers, coal companies that pollute more air, mining companies that strip more pristine landscapes, and an economy that lags China in the next great global industry.

“Or you can join the Earth Race and make Donald Trump’s presidency an extinct species while saving Mother Nature’s endangered species.”

Friedman has given us the roadmap to beat Trump: hammer on all the ways Trump has hurt Americans. Not America; Americans.

Trump will still get his 38% of voters, the hard core people motivated by, “Don’t confuse me with values or the facts. I’m pissed and I’m voting for the pissiest candidate.” The battle is for the middle 20%, so Democrats must appeal to them. And it will take more than impeachment in the House to get their attention and defeat Trump at the polls.

The power is in the gut

The impeachment horror show is about high-minded values like patriotism, accountability for violations of oath of office, dealing with international extortion and other crimes. Very rational stuff, but not things likely to stir passion in most people. Studies have shown clearly that emotional issues are 4 times more powerful at persuading people than are rational arguments. That’s why the healthcare issue was so powerful for Dems in the 2018 mid-term election. The Democrat’s appeal in 2020 will have to grab people where they live.

And that’s why Friedman’s piece is so important. Link through and read the entire essay.

*Subpoena literally means, “under penalty,” as in, “Do what this requires or go to jail.” Given the stonewalling by Trump and so many connected to him and the complete lack of consequences for ignoring subpoenas, whatever happened to the “penalty” part of “subpoena”?

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NOTES:

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

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

The Best Way Forward


Reading time – 3:59; Viewing time – 6:28  .  .  .

Ronald Reagan is remembered for declaring the 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican.” He first said that during the campaign for governor of California in 1965. It was and remains a pretty good directive.

The Democrats’ job now is to name the person most likely to win the November 2020 election and that won’t be accomplished with more circular firing squads like we’re witnessing in the debates.

Democrats have to stay focused on beating Trump, not on beating up one another. They diminish their case to the American people with nit-picky carping about whose program is a smidgen better, not only because of the discord it sows, but also because that in-the-weeds talk makes everyone’s eyes glaze over.

And Democrats, wise up about extreme plans. The word “radical” seems to evoke sensations of power for many on the left, but radical ain’t gonna sell in the general election. Even the Wall Street Journal has warned how self-defeating extreme lefty stuff is. So has Bret Stevens at the New York Times. Stop giving the election to Trump.

So, candidates, state your case (not the negatives about other candidates) and prepare to beat the snot out of Trump. Thou shalt not speak ill of any Democrat.

That’s a campaign best way forward. Now it’s time to examine the key question of our time and the best way forward with it.

Long ago I had had enough. A bellyful. It wasn’t just the outrages and the spewing of hate and the non-stop assault on reality and truth. It wasn’t just the flicking off of our allies and the cozying up to tyrants and murderers, or the denial of science and intelligence itself. It was the blatantly illegal stuff that came into plain sight. That’s when the line was permanently crossed.

I was right there: impeach the criminal bastard. Then I thought about it some more and the issue wasn’t quite that clear or simple.

If Trump were successfully removed from office, Pence would become president and he’d pardon Trump and his family of all their federal crimes. Definitely not good.

If Pence were to become president we would have a smarmy, self-righteous bible thumper telling lies in the Oval Office every afternoon following attempts at gay conversions in the Reflecting Pool in the mornings. Definitely not good.

If Trump were impeached in the House but protected by the spineless Republican Senate that has completely lost its true conservative way, that would give him a flag to wave to help him get re-elected. Very definitely not good.

All of that and more are why the issue hasn’t been that clear. Here’s what is that clear now.

Trump has committed multiple felonies, has stonewalled the rule of law and has flagrantly assaulted the pillars of our democracy (scroll down to The Real Reason For Impeachment). This hasn’t been mere misdemeanor stuff; these are high crimes.

The House should start impeachment hearings – an investigation to determine if they should start formal impeachment proceedings. They should do that because it’s the right thing to do to protect our democracy and the rule of law, and because I don’t think our democracy can withstand another four years of Trump’s lawlessness and assaults on what we hold dear.

It will take months to go through all the material they can subpoena. If Trump and his team stonewall subpoenas, the courts will slap them down every time. Besides, if they stonewall, it will stretch out the process even longer so we can keep the wrongdoing of Trump and his crime family in public view all the way to election day. Think: Benghazi.

The Republican Congress held seven sequential hearings into the tragic events in Benghazi, each one repeating all the same information. They found absolutely no Hillary Clinton guilt or wrongdoing. But the Republicans kept her in the center of the bulls eye with shame-on-you fingers pointed at her and snarls of disgust super-glued to their faces for so long that the public forgot about her exoneration and just assumed she was guilty of something.

That’s what Ken Starr did to Bill Clinton. He investigated all things Clinton for over four years. All he accomplished legally was to catch him lying to avoid being found out an adulterer. But he did keep his shaming finger publicly pointed at Clinton all that time.

That’s what the Democrats in the House should do – non-stop investigation into all things Trump.

Let Trump and the Republicans hypocritically howl at the unfairness, the abuse of the system and all the rest of the (did I mention “hypocritical?”) whining they can conjure over an impeachment inquiry.

An impeachment inquiry is both the politically useful thing to do as well as the morally, Constitutionally right thing to do. You just can’t beat that combination.

So, I’ve evolved over this issue. From impeach to don’t impeach, now at the sensible middle ground of impeachment inquiry as the best way forward. File those contempt of Congress charges, Jerry Nadler, and let the subpoenas fly!

From the New York Times:

Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló of Puerto Rico announced his resignation on Wednesday, conceding that he could no longer credibly remain in power after an extraordinary popular uprising and looming impeachment proceedings had derailed his administration.

That is what a million people in the streets can do. It’s a critical step in creating the change you want to see. Maybe you belong in the streets demanding an impeachment investigation.

Late Addition

The third mass shooting of the week took place in El Paso, TX on Saturday. The young gunman with an AK-47 assault rifle killed and injured dozens of shoppers in a mall.

94% of Americans want there to be required background checks for the sale of all firearms and a large percentage of us want a ban on assault weapons and extended magazines. Meanwhile, our politicians steadfastly refuse to take any action whatsoever. The good news is that our politicians have an inexhaustible supply of thoughts and prayers to spew ineffectively.

Once again the murderer in a U.S. mass shooting is a white supremacist. We ignore those guys at our peril and instead focus on Muslim extremists.

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.” – Eric Hoffer. Thanks to M.G. for the quote.

Clearly, the best way forward is to start to deal with the real problem – angry white guys – and stop blaming others. That shouldn’t take enlightened leadership, but in the U.S. today, it will. Find and elect those people.

Final thought:
As on 9/11, thousands of people were running out of the Cielo Vista Mall fleeing the threat of imminent death. Our first responders – police, fire, EMTs and the rest – ran into those buildings to save lives. They did what every cell in their bodies told them not to do and they did it for you and me.

Go thank a first responder.


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

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

Your Lyin’ Eyes and Impeachment


Reading time – 3.47; Viewing time – 5:20  .  .  .

The Mueller Report is out and I haven’t had time to go through all 448 pages, although you can do that yourself by getting the PDF from the DOJ website here. Click on the 4th line beginning “Report on the Investigation” for the download. Or if you prefer you can get an indexed and searchable version here.

There is big stuff in that report, including that the lack of indictments of the president is due to the Justice Department guideline that a sitting president can’t be indicted. Also, because so many documents were destroyed by various perps.

Nevertheless, Mueller let us know that he was unable to declare that the President of the United States isn’t a criminal. Stunning! My more chilling takeaway, though, is about Attorney General William Barr.

Barr was promoted as a legal institutionalist, even after his unsolicited, 19-page job application that made it clear that he believed that, metaphorically speaking, a president really could get away with shooting someone on 5th Avenue. That view works for Trump and Barr got the attorney general post.

In each of his public appearances and writings as attorney general, Barr has gone out of his way to exonerate the president. His rhetoric vacillates between cherry-picked, out of context phrases to outright lies all in favor of President Trump. Did he think we wouldn’t notice? In listening to Barr I’m reminded of comedian Richard Pryor’s line, “Who you gonna believe: me or your lyin’ eyes?”

The scary part is that Barr sounds like the president’s defense counsel, instead of the attorney for the Constitution of the United States of America.

In his piece in New York Magazine entitled, “Congress Should Impeach William Barr,” Jonathan Chait wrote,

“The Justice Department is an awesome force that holds the power to enable the ruling party to commit crimes with impunity .  .  .”

We should have seen this coming.

From The Onion, of course. Click the pic

Barr is the former attorney general for President George H.W. Bush. Barr recommended to Bush that he pardon the convicted Iran-Contra felons. Click through the link and scroll down to the Indictments section and you’ll see that these guys did a lot of really bad things, including thwarting the explicit will of Congress. You need to appreciate how significant that is.

Doing that is an attack on Congress itself, and it encourages an imperial presidency. William Barr cemented that by recommending those pardons. And now he’s defending this power grabbing, dictator wanna-be president.

If Barr is an institutionalist, exactly what institution does he serve?

Read more about this here.

And another thing .  .  .

Now that most of the Mueller Report is released, the talk of impeachment is spiraling upward. I’ve long called for the removal of this cheating, lying, fraudulent, self-aggrandizing, democracy damaging president, but now I have significant doubt about that notion.

President Gerald Ford set a woeful precedent by granting, “.  .  .   a full, free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in .  .  .” Nixon got a free pass for his criminal wrongdoing and wasn’t held accountable in any way.

That is the precedent that Mike Pence will inherit should he become President. That means that our criminal president will likely be pardoned for any and all crimes which he may have committed (think: conspiring with the Russians to disrupt our 2016 election, obstruction of justice; money laundering; and fraud).

Further, if Trump were to be impeached, whether convicted in the Senate or not, he and the Republicans will wail about him being a poor victim, suffering unfair discrimination by the evil Democrats and the Washington swamp. That could lead to another Republican in the White House in 2021 and a Congress controlled by the same spineless legislators who are enabling Trump right now.

The solution that makes the most sense to me is to Benghazi Trump: just keep his wrongdoing in the public eye through November 3, 2020 with ongoing Congressional hearings.

I often have difficulty rationalizing the impact of the bypassing of punishment for wrongdoing in favor of some greater good, but this one looks obvious enough even for me.

No impeachment.

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

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

Live From The Valley


Reading time – 6:39; Viewing time – 9:12  .  .  .

Washington D.C. (mostly)
Election Announcement

I’m not a registered Democrat, but like Bernie Sanders, I caucus with them. That’s why I’m announcing my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

I thought I’d have more time for this, at least enough to put together an exploratory committee. But what with our never-ending campaigns, I don’t even have time to learn what an exploratory committee does. And there’s no chance to line up mega-donors now, either, because they’re already taken.

So, I’m left to make this major announcement via blog post. Good news for you: You’re the first to learn of this. Not even my wife knows about this yet. Man, I hope she won’t be angry.

Anyway, Kamala, Elizabeth, Bernie, Amy, Beto, Joe, Eric, Pete, Kirsten, John, Jay, Cory, Julián, Tulsi, John, Marianne, Wayne, Tim and Andrew, it’s nice to be in such a large and non-exclusive club.

Worry Announcement, or, Are We Really This Stupid?

What do you suppose Americans worry about the most: Illegal immigration? Foreign terrorists? Brown skin people from south of the border or Muslims? Nope, it isn’t nearly that dopey.

According to a current survey by the Gallup Organization you and I worry about healthcare more than anything else. Take a look at the chart below or, better yet, click on it for an expanded view of the chart and the complete Gallup report. Here’s another.

Healthcare is our biggest worry for the 5th year in a row. Oddly, our president has decided to do a full court press next year to increase our worry by repealing and replacing Obamacare. There’s just one thing: In the 9 years since the ACA passed the Republicans have tried dozens of times to repeal Obamacare and they haven’t succeeded, even when they were in control of the Senate, the House and the presidency.

Even worse – and that’s “worse” as in: both destructive and hypocritical – they’ve had 9 years to come up with a replacement healthcare plan for the “replace” part of “repeal and replace” and they’ve sat on their hands. They have no replacement or even the beginning of an outline for a replacement plan. So, if Trump gets his way, he and the Republicans will repeal Obamacare and replace it with NOTHING.

Then some of us will die needlessly, some will go bankrupt and pre-existing conditions won’t be covered, just like it was before the ACA. So, you better worry that if Trump and the Republicans get their way, there will be no replacement healthcare plan and you may have no healthcare at all.

Puerto Rico Aid Announcement

The president just announced that we have supplied $91 billion of aid to Puerto Rico, which means that we really didn’t totally blow off the survivors of that terrible hurricane that killed 3,000 Americans.

That’s good news, indeed, except for one little detail: the actual, real world, fantasy-free number is just 12% of Trump’s claimed amount. That aid has barely scratched the surface of what’s needed and it hasn’t provided food for the one-third of the population that’s going hungry.

Trump continues to astound all sentient beings with his constant lying and his ease in inflicting cruelty on people who desperately need help. Maybe he should go back to San Juan and toss out a couple more cases of paper towels to a crowd of suffering people to once again show his true support.

Proud State Announcement

It’s understandable if you think of North Carolina only as the leader in Republican crafted voter suppression, voting fraud and generally crazy politics. For example, former Republican Governor Pat McCrory blamed his loss in the 2016 election on non-existent voter fraud and refused to leave the governor’s mansion. Turns out his real electoral problem was his zeal for the infamous “Bathroom Bill.”

Yet, the Tar Heels are even more creative than that. They’re button-busting proud of the craftiness revealed by the recent indictment of Greg Lindberg, a major political donor, plus a couple of his associates and state GOP chairman and former congressman Robin Hayes for bribery through an insurance scheme.

These guys should have known that the FBI has no sense of humor about people lying to them, but lying repeatedly to the FBI is one of the indictments against them, as is attempting to bribe the current state insurance commissioner. U.S. Rep. Mark Walker was identified in the indictments as “Public Official A.” He was the recipient of $150,000 in political donations from Lindberg, but he’s not under indictment. Yet.

But just a second: the North Carolina Republicans may not have a monopoly on creativity. The current North Carolina Democratic Party chairman was the insurance commissioner during the time of some of this scandal. We’ll see if he, too, becomes a candidate to be a ward of the state.

Stay tuned, as this likely will prove to be the basis of a super hero movie – a Marvel Comics “State Dumb Stuff” thriller, staring Captain Greed.

Many thanks to DN for bringing this inspired piece of graft to our attention. It gives us all a renewal of appreciation for the human gift of imagination.

Special Award Announcement

You may recall Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who, in a rant against Dreamers declared that,

“For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who weigh a hundred and thirty pounds—and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling seventy-five pounds of marijuana across the desert.”

That was quite the visual image and just the thing to introduce a new congressional award.

On Tuesday of this past week Rep. Steve King was presented the first ever “Congressional Bag Full of Stupid Award.”

In a dignified ceremony on the floor of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi began the proceedings by playing a video of King’s remarks. She then recounted his many dalliances with racism, white supremacy and fantasized hate.

Pelosi expressed concern that King’s years of commuting between Iowa and DC had left him with a huge bulge on the side of his head from carrying 75 pounds of stupid across the Iowa border into Illinois. She said that she hoped that his upcoming stupidectomy surgery would be successful. However, she warned that the medical community is united in the opinion that you can’t fix stupid. She said, “We all hope that this surgery will cause Steve’s stupid to go into remission for a while.”

At last and in a sincere and heartfelt closing, Pelosi recognized King for his well earned award and wished him a fine and very remote retirement beginning in January 2021.

And finally,

From the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up File
A short compendium of dumb current events that are too unbelievable even for fiction
  1. Vile, hateful, wacko conspiracy nut case Alex Jones is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by parents of children murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. He’s floating a defense that he has a “form of psychosis” that causes him to believe that certain events were staged. He says his psychosis was brought on by government and media lies, causing him to feel like “.  .  .  a child whose parents lie to him over and over again. Pretty soon you don’t know what reality is.” So, Alex Jones, the grand perp of hateful, harmful conspiracy theories that fattened his wallet dramatically, is a poor victim.
  2. Fox and Friends unveiled a new geographic phenomenon when it boldly declared. “TRUMP CUTS AID TO 3 MEXICAN COUNTRIES.” That came as startling news to those who erroneously thought there was only one country named Mexico.

Live, on the ground in the Valley of Stupid, I’m Jack Altschuler.
                 ————————————

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

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

Venezuela and Existential Threats


Reading time – 5:07; Viewing time – 7:30  .  .  .

First, my only comment on the topic of the cherry picked, sentence fragmented Mueller report is that I want the full report – all of it including the appendices – both for the complete, un-predigested information so that I can draw my own conclusions and so that we won’t imagine a Justice Department cover up engineered by Trump’s hand-picked protector.

As of this writing Attorney General Barr has indicated he will release the complete Mueller report by mid-April. There will be redactions, perhaps lots of them. Some will be to protect ongoing investigations. Some redactions will be for national security reasons. Some will be to avoid causing embarrassment to “peripheral innocent people.” I have no clue why that’s more important than instilling confidence in the report for a skeptical public. Absent such confidence, we’re facing an existential threat to our democracy.

If you need insightful commentary on the entire Russia issue, including Mueller’s report, read pal Dan Wallace’s comments. Now to the issue of Venezuela.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story about Russia’s power play in Venezuela. Putin sent 100 troops there to prop up dictator Nicolás Maduro. In reaction to that, reader JC asked if there was anyone left in Washington who understands the Monroe Doctrine or remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis. My answers: no and no.

As you’ll recall from high school American history class, the Monroe Doctrine prohibits further European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere.

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev was cultivating Cuba as a client state, effectively making it a colony of the Soviet Union, the very thing prohibited by the Monroe Doctrine. Soviet missiles armed with nuclear warheads on that island made it an existential threat to the United States.

While President James Monroe couldn’t have imagined nuclear weapons, he and his contemporaries were clear that the presence of European military might this close to home was an existential threat to our nascent country. The Monroe Doctrine was and is about our national security.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis there were thoughtful, careful men in charge who insisted upon best intelligence and carefully considered approaches to the challenges we faced. They had the strength of character to resist knee-jerk military actions and they prevented a catastrophic war.

This time there’s a reality TV personality in charge who doesn’t read, who is incapable of assembling complex thoughts, who doesn’t review the President’s Daily Brief, so he doesn’t know what’s going on, who doesn’t have sufficient self-control to resist temper tantrums and who needs to be seen as the biggest, baddest tough guy. He is supported by Secretary of State John Bolton, who never saw a conflict he didn’t want to escalate into war. As bad, we have a horrendous record of starting conflicts without any plan to end them.

For example, George W. Bush dim-brain/lied us into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with phantom promises of quick success and happily-ever-after flowers tossed at our troops by Iraqis. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared Iraqi oil would pay for the whole thing. None of that happened.

What was foreseeable but which they refused to foresee was the global refugee problem they triggered and which the world lives with quite unsteadily now. It is a key outfall of Bush’s lies and we still don’t have a plan to end those wars.

Now that Russia has sent its troops into Venezuela we are in a situation not unlike the Cuban Missile threat from the Soviet Union. President Trump backs Maduro’s challenger Juan Guaidó. How will Trump stop Russia from both keeping Maduro in power and from having that military foothold in the Western Hemisphere that is specifically forbidden by the Monroe Doctrine?

In point of fact, Trump has been a disaster of a negotiator for the U.S. He’s been a patsy with nothing to show for his capitulations to Russia and North Korea. Worse, he’s been a lapdog for Putin, who is now threatening Trump’s tough guy posturing.

Trump has told Putin to back off. If Trump tries to negotiate with Putin to get him to do that, Trump’s past negotiating prowess suggests that it probably will look like hollow posturing that leaves Russian troops in place in Venezuela with an escalating military presence in the Western Hemisphere. If instead Trump sends troops in support of Guaidó, we’ll be faced off against the Russians and troops on both sides are likely to be killed. And there won’t be an exit plan from the conflict.

What could possibly go wrong?

And another thing  .  .  .

The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee called for Adam Schiff (D-CA) to resign his chairmanship of the committee, based on the same kind of Republican partisan brainlessness that we’ve seen for years. Schiff replied with a kind of muscular statement rarely heard from Democrats. Watch the whole thing here.

Last thing .  .  .

Chris Hayes interviewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“AOC”) on Friday. Here’s a link to a string of videos from that interview. I urge you to watch all of them for one reason. It’s not so that you’ll agree with or find ways to pick apart the Green New Deal or find ways to cheer or criticize her. I want you to think on a higher level.

Specifically, watch and listen in order to understand why she has so completely captured the public imagination. Our Gen X, Y and Z citizens see our politics in the way that Emma Gonzalez sees our embedded intransigence over gun safety: “We call B.S.”

AOC speaks for an overwhelming majority of Americans, regardless of how much you may fundamentally disagree with her policy ideas or fear your own loss of power.

To Our Legislators:

Get on board with working with people who see the future far differently than you do. If you don’t want to do that, I suggest that you polish your résumé in preparation for entry into an exciting new career. That’s because these folks know that they’ll be the ones who will live with the consequences of what we’re creating right now, so they have a far more powerful interest in a sustainable future. We have created an existential threat to them and they won’t let us mess it up any more.

                   ————————————

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

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

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

Thanks!


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

Potpourri v3.0


A partial compendium of Trumpian Distractions designed to keep your eye off the ball. CLICK HERE to see how they anticipate distracting you from what they don’t want you to see.

Reading time – 3:51; Viewing time – 5:59  .  .  .

♠ Investigations

The past week was busy:

– Paul Manafort was convicted on 8 criminal charges.

– Michael Cohen plead guilty to multiple felony charges.

– Michael Cohen also accused the President of directing him to commit felonies.

– Allen Weisselberg, the longtime CFO of the Trump Organization, was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors. He knows where all the bodies are buried.

– David Pecker, CEO of the media empire that publishes the supermarket trash rag the National Enquirer, was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors. He knows where the hush money went.

Of course, there was more, but as the pundits are saying, the walls are closing in on Donald Trump. One result of that is the ever-expanding list of Trump’s outrageous tweets designed to distract us from the Justice Department investigations into criminal wrongdoing of the Trump organization, his foundation, his campaign and his administration. See the Art of the Distractions box in this post for a short list of the Trumpian stupid stuff from just the last 7 days.

For now, begin to brace yourself for what likely will become multiple Constitutional crises. This is going to get really ugly before things start to get better and, perversely, it may be the world’s greatest political theater.

Meanwhile, get active. Mark election day, November 6, on your calendar. Decide which two of your friends you’ll bring with you to the polls. Here’s why you’ll do that:

Roughly 125 million votes were cast for president in 2016. 102 million registered voters stayed home. That brought us Donald Trump and this spineless Congress.

Friends don’t let friends fail to vote.

Final note on this topic: As of this writing we still haven’t heard a word from Republican legislators about any of the criminality close to the president that’s been uncovered by federal investigators. The Rs insist on remaining jellyfish.

♠ Nukes

It’s likely you were shocked over Trump’s sometimes veiled and sometimes blatant nuclear threats toward North Korea and Iran, but, surprisingly, there’s good news attached to his rantings.

Last week the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine held a public workshop entitled Exploring Medical and Public Health Preparedness for a Nuclear Incident – you can look it up here. The good news is that the people in charge of dealing with a nuclear “incident” are investigating our preparedness and perhaps recommending changes for the better.

The bad news is that Trump’s rhetoric has made the investigation necessary.

♠ The Democrats’ Problem

Chris Buskirk curated the New York Times “Opinion today” last week and offered a George Orwell view of democratic socialists, writing,

George Orwell, himself a democratic socialist, neatly described the political dilemma faced by the Sanders crowd: “The inability of mankind to imagine happiness except in the form of relief, either from effort or pain, presents Socialists with a serious problem.”

It seems to me that Buskirk is quite wrong. Bernie Sanders is very clear about a democratic socialist future. His dilemma, as Buskirk labels it, is the inability to bring a majority of voters to his view.

The real dilemma of most Democrats is that they can’t seem to find a coherent message with two hands and a flashlight. Add to that inability a few more, like being solely reactionary to circumstances and rarely proactive, communicating in the most needlessly complex way that leaves people befuddled, a refusal to focus on a unifying message, and the seeming inability to speak with blue collar Americans where they’re at.

More painful yet and, as placeholder for all wimpy Democrat ways, we watched the debate where Hillary refused to tell Trump to stop stalking her and to sit down and shut up. Democrats have a way of creating their own worst obstacles, often through lack of assertiveness. Perhaps our new generation of candidates will do better at this.

♠ Coherent Message

We all have our key issue and I know yours is important. I believe, though, that one overrides all others because everything you hold dear will disappear if this Big Kahuna issue isn’t resolved: keeping our democracy. That’s why Robert Mueller is so important to the United States right now and why his work must go all the way to completion.

After we put the bad guys in prison we can tackle money in politics next, because that is what informs and distorts your key issue and that tsunami of special interest money is helping to destroy our democracy.

Save our democracy. That’s the coherent message. Let’s focus on that.

♠ Edu-Bang-Bang

Education Secretary Betsy “I’ve never been to a public school” DeVos is weighing using money intended to drive academic enrichment for students to buy guns for teachers. Yes, really.

  • ————————————

    Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

    YOUR ACTION STEPS:

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

    Thanks!


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

Equivalents, Civility and Fire


Reading time – 4:12; Viewing time – 5:47  .  .  .

There are a bunch of links in this post. None is long. All are worthwhile (that’s why they are included). Check ’em out. JA

———————————

It’s been a continuous flow in the open sewer that is the law breaking, ethics spurning, morals smashing of Donald Trump and his mob of democracy destroyers. So, when I came across the picture at the top-right corner of this post, I knew it had to be included here. But am I making a mistake? Read on.

The assaults on the institutions we revere, the attacks on whole races of people, the calls for violence against protesters, the dissing of our allies, the refusal to stop a foreign power from attacking us and now the kidnapping and abuse of thousands of children have left millions of us enraged. And that’s a problem.

Human Being 101: When attacked, we either fight or flee. It’s the kind of fight that is going on now that’s the problem and it’s my contention that we may be shooting ourselves in the foot by the way we’re fighting.

For a long time people on the left have felt attacked, and rightly so, as far right thugs have spewed hatred and lies. My notion is that the modern day onslaught of this started with President Reagan’s run for the presidency in 1980, when he was famously bashing all welfare and he called out a “welfare queen” on the south side of Chicago. When challenged repeatedly, he finally had to concede that neither he nor anyone in his campaign could name a single example of a welfare queen in Chicago or anywhere else. Nevertheless, his lie demonized powerfully and nobody missed that dog whistle to racism that made lefties furious.

Since then there have been the lies and vitriol spewed by Fox News, Newt Gingrich, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Alex Jones and the Birther-In-Chief and likely you’re continuously angry about all of that. That’s the stuff that fires us into a fit of Human Being 101 attack mode, like Maxine Waters making herself the national cheerleader for public shaming.

Joe Wilson official congressional photo.jpg

“You lie!”

“Not true.”

Oddly enough, that’s the same kind of anger response that drove Tea Partier Joe Wilson to inappropriately yell, “You lie!” during President Obama’s address to Congress in September, 2009. It’s what drives all of Trump’s 27- 38%. The direction is polar opposite to that of lefties, but the shaming anger response is identical.

I abhor false equivalencies and other frauds, but this one, in principle, is no sham. Public shaming, humiliating, demonizing and hate spewing are wrong. It doesn’t matter who’s doing it. I get that we feel justified and powerful when we do that, but that’s just the hormones of rage in our veins. What’s really happening is that we are making things worse. That’s “worse” as in: counter-productive. We give righty hate mongers the justification to hate even more and we generate new recruits to their side as well.

Read Jonathan Martin’s article about this and be sure to see Michelle Goldberg’s brilliant piece to understand this better. Want to see how counter-productive this public shaming of righties really is for Democrats? Read this piece from the Wall Street Journal editorial board, because they’re spot-on. These essays make clear what being a slave to adrenaline and testosterone will do to us.

Just in case you don’t find the gun-to-foot picture above persuasive of the counter-productive nature of public shaming, read Frank Bruni’s piece, Public Shaming Feels Good. That’s No Reason to Do It.

if you want to honor your frustration and passion, read John Pavlovitz’s essay. Note that his anger is right there for all to see and feel; humiliation and shaming are not. Translation: Bring your anger, your frustration and your passion. But leave your hate and the need to hurt others far behind you. Maybe we can start to make things better.

So, maybe – no, for sure – I shouldn’t have included the White House picture above because all it does is to make things worse.

Public shaming is not only wrong; it’s politically stupid. Wise up, Democrats.

On the other hand  .  .  .

I’m every bit as incensed as you and not only won’t I allow bullies to beat me up and steal from me, I won’t allow them to do that to anyone else, either. That includes mothers with nursing infants in McAllen, Texas and poor people in North Carolina who want to vote. I still believe public shaming will likely be counter-productive, but maybe the real issue isn’t civility.

It’s all too easy to go too far on the high ground of civility, like this 1934 admonition to Jews to be civil with the Nazis. Get this: thugs only understand one thing: a harder punch in the nose.

So, let’s not be stupid about this. It’s not about civility. It’s about stopping the thugs who are destroying our country. It’s about setting things right again. It’s time to stop bringing spitballs to a gun fight. It’s time to fight back with equivalents plus one so that we hit back harder.

To Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of our tired septuagenarian leadership: Your sell-by date is long past. Give it up to someone with fire in their belly.

————————————

Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

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

Thanks!


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

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