humiliation

Dream Sequence 2


POST 1158

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Executive Summary

→ What happened to Zelens’kyi in the Oval Office and what should have happened next

→ Yet more hatred in the Oval Office – again

→ Still looking for who will lead us back to the United States of America

This Happened

President Trump, Vice-President Vance and Brian Green, a right wing conspiracy journalist with no legitimate reason for being there, all publicly delivered their incoherent, demeaning rants in the Oval Office aimed at humiliating President Volodymyr Zelens’kyi of Ukraine. Instead, they humiliated the United States of America before the world. Then our national leaders expelled the leader of an allied nation from the White House.

Dream Sequence: This Should Have Happened

President Zelens’kyi stood and took a step toward toward the door of the Oval Office to leave, then stopped abruptly. He paused in place for a moment with a look of sudden clarity on his face. Then he turned to Trump and Vance.

“Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President, I just thought of something that had not come to me before this moment. My country is at war and I really have not had time for such notions.

“My people have suffered grievously from illegal and cruel Russian aggression. Many thousands of my countrymen, women and children have been killed and our buildings and our energy infrastructure lie in ruin. Many thousands of our soldiers have suffered and died fighting the invaders. That we have achieved some success on the battlefield is in part due to the munitions and field intelligence the United States has generously supplied, which is why I have thanked the American people many, many times, including during a major address to your Congress. We all know this to be true.

“We all also know that Mr. Putin has openly made his goals clear. He wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He has publicly declared that after he has destroyed and annexed my country that the Baltic States will be next to be invaded; then Poland. We can reasonably assume that stealing all the rest of what had been Soviet Union territory will come next and that all of Europe will be at risk. Democracy itself will be endangered everywhere. All that stands in his way are the people of Ukraine.

“We Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying to stop Putin from decimating western culture, from killing tens of thousands of Europeans and from damaging, isolating and neutering the United States. Now you, Mr. President, have announced a “pause” in armament shipments to us and cut us off from intelligence reports and satellite utilities. That has emboldened Mr. Putin, to the enormous disadvantage and harm to we Ukrainians. Indeed, your actions threaten to hasten a terrible future risk for all of western culture and safety.

“It is our children who have been orphaned and killed and kidnapped, not yours, and it is we who have been doing the fighting, the bleeding and the dying, not your soldiers.

“What has come to me just now, Mr. President and Mr. Vice-President, is that it is you who should be thanking the Ukrainian people for fighting the righteous fight so that you do not have to send your sons and daughters into harms way to stop this international terrorist. But you have never uttered a word of gratitude for our suffering and sacrifice.

Not once have you thanked us for keeping your people safe, for all that we have done and continue to do for you and for freedom everywhere. We protect your people, your way of life and we protect the world for the blessing of democracy. You have never uttered a word of thanks to we Ukrainians. Not ever.

“That is what I have just realized, Mr. President. Now all the world knows.”

With that, Volodymyr Zelens’kyi turned his back to Trump and Vance and walked out of the Oval Office, raising a fist above his head and declaring in his strong, but war strained voice, “Slava Ukraini!”

Shame

I posted a Ukraine dream sequence almost exactly 3 years ago. It was about creating peace. Sadly, none of what I dreamed has come about and now our government has stopped support for that embattled nation. Trump, the Russian “useful idiot,” is quite deliberately handing Ukraine to Putin.

It appears that our elected leadership has officially and quite dangerously abandoned our values, our principles and the safety of the world for the sole purpose of serving one man’s vanity.

Still, there are places in America where there is still the capacity to feel national shame caused by officials without honor. There are fellow citizens who have the juice to deliver the condemnation that those doing shameful things deserve. Go join those voices at the next demonstration against TrumpMusk and your cowardly Republican congresspeople.

Hatred Report of the Week

Read what Prof. Timothy Snyder has to say about our elected leaders spewing hatred and scapegoating “others” in his post, Antisemitism in the Oval Office – even if you aren’t Jewish. Snyder doesn’t say as much in his essay, but immigrants, whether legal or not, criminals or not, U.S. citizens or not, continue to be vilified and scapegoated by Trump and by others infected with the poison of hatred. He did the same thing against Muslims during his first administration. Are you seeing a pattern yet?

We don’t know who will be next. But we do know that someone will be next.

Leadership Update

I keep receiving emails from Hakeem Jeffries. Other than listing a couple of Trump horribles to tweak me into sending cash (8 pings in 11 days), he offers nothing. I keep his emails in a folder labeled “Stupid Democrat Solicitations.”

Jeffries’ public speaking is a tour de force of uninspiring recitation of talking points read by a policy wonk. Nobody will be energized for the fight by listening to him. In short, he isn’t the guy we need to lead the charge.

Schumer is worse. Sometime, long ago, he accidentally entered a hospital OR where his passion was surgically removed.

I ask yet again:

Who will lead?

Flash Update

The verified total of Trump’s lies during his first term is 30,572. That means he lied to us every 52 minutes, ’round the clock for four years!

Let’s just say that the newly inaugurated president isn’t going to sit on his laurels during his second term. He’s well on his way to another four years of five-figure fibbing. – The Cap Times, January 27, 2025

What puzzles me is how that’s okay with Trump voters.

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The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. 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.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Extortion, Ugly Americans and Gaza


POST 1155

Executive Summary

> Musk failed. He’s expelled.

> Once an extortionist, always an extortionist

> Giving credit where it’s due: DOGE excels at idiotic claims and vile cruelty.

> It used to be “makers and takers.” Now it’s “Trumpys and parasites.”

> Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas were repatriated to Israel last week – in boxes.

Musk Update

Elon Musk failed to email his declaration of 5 things he did last week, as required by the demand email set forth in this space on February 26. Accordingly, he is immediately fired from his non-job. He will have 15 minutes to remove his personal items from his office and until noon tomorrow, Monday, March 3 to leave this country permanently.

The Extortionist

In 2019 Trump got caught trying to extort President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, demanding an announcement from Zelenskyy claiming he was investigating wrongdoing by Hunter Biden in Ukraine. Trump hoped that would kneecap Joe Biden in the upcoming election. Appropriately, Trump’s attempted extortion got him impeached.

Ukraine continues to be in need of military aid and Trump is making that aid contingent upon Ukraine giving away half of its rare earth mineral wealth and caving in to Putin’s Russia.

It’s yet another Trump extortion. To be fair, it’s actually a protection racket. You can almost hear Trump saying to Zelenskyy, “You’ve got a nice little country. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”

The Lowest god

Surely, the Trump/Vance ambush  of President Zelenskyy served to puff up Trump’s extremist bro-bros. It served to buoy Putin’s ambitions to restore the Soviet Union through grabs of entire countries. And it served to display the reality that everything associated with Trump is solely about money and fame/power. But all that Trumpian worthlessness misses the point.

From Norm Eisen, The Contrarian, March 1:

Trump and Vance in one fell swoop managed to embolden our adversaries (not just Russia) and alienate our staunch European allies.

As Trump and hillbilly Vance vomited their playground bully stupidities, believing that they were humiliating President Zelenskyy, they were, in fact, humiliating themselves. They are too vain and clueless to understand that, but that misses the point anyway. They were humiliating the United States of America before the world. That’s the point.

We all understand that their Mafia don behavior in public will be enthusiastically applauded by right wing extremists (MAGA swagger for the insecure) and by spineless Republicans. But it will serve as a warning to our allies that the United States is no longer the leader of the free world and cannot be counted on as an ally. It will show Putin and Xi that we are nothing more than a grovelling paper tiger that can be manipulated by a single complementing breath and a pat on Trump’s comb-over.

Apparently, Trump’s art of the deal is nothing more than crude extortion and humiliation. Trump fancies himself king and a god. Perhaps he is right. But he is solely a god of self-humiliation

Trumpy Americans

They are the ones who support Trump and his pet raptor, the co-president of Smash and Grab. Just like Trump, Musk is severely challenged to stay within sight of truth, reality and decency. Look at this tweet from him →

Let’s unpack that.

First, there isn’t 90% of Americans loving DOGE; it’s around 50% and falling. That is like the oops of Musk conflating millions into claims of billions when he reports government savings through his ready, fire, don’t-bother-to-aim shotgun firings.

Musk gets such things wrong because:

A. He just likes the sound of “billions” the way some people like the sound of their own voice.

B. His love of ignorance and fantasy far outweighs his experience with truth and reality.

C. He’s going to Mars anyway, so why should he sweat the small stuff that doesn’t hurt him?

D. He’s been far too busy jumping like a 4-year-old to notice little discrepancies that are off by a thousand times.

E. All of the above

Second, other than the most determined-to-be-angry extremists, almost nobody “loves” a phony, largely illegal bunch of juvenile delinquent flying tech monkeys or their greedy non-boss.

Third, this statement apparently from Trump’s mean girl press person* makes clear that for those in the White House and for the national Trumpy ones, there are “others” and who cares about them because everything is only about whether it affects “you”? – meaning themselves. Empathy has no place in this White House or in that third of our citizens.

In this age of extremist rage, Mitt Romney’s label “takers” has devolved into “parasites.” Today there is never a description of anything by MAGAs, Republicans, oligarchs or fascists without including demonization of “others.” That stuff often comes from the ethically strained White House and always comes from dictators.

The over-proud, angry and poorly informed Trumpy Americans brought us this crashing of the America they claim to love but clearly they don’t. It’s the America they should have learned about in civics and history classes, the America of All-We-The-People, but they obviously never did.

Finally,

Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas were quite alive when they were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. The mother likely was raped and tortured after that. Then they were all dead.

In repatriating the bodies to Israel, Hamas substituted a deceased Gaza woman for the dead mother of two dead children. Connect all that to some other dots and perhaps you’ll see things a bit differently, if you dare.

From Mike Koplow regarding the return of the bodies of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas last week:

It is unfathomable to watch Hamas parade coffins of dead innocents who were kidnapped into Gaza [and are now being flaunted] before the cheering hundreds as music blares, unfathomable to watch them march tortured hostages onto a stage in a public square and force them to humiliatingly thank their cruel captors in front of television cameras before their release, unfathomable to contemplate that no Palestinian in Gaza appears willing to step forward and put an end to this or to even publicly object.

As you contemplate the horrors visited upon non-militant Gazans, consider Koplow’s words and scratch your chin a moment to see if you can understand, even if only a bit and even if only for a moment how that might have come about.

What if you had attended that concert in the desert on October 7? What if that were your family returned in boxes? What if one of those humiliated prisoners was your brother, friend, or father who was tortured for no reason other than Hamas savage sadism, was malnourished and forced to humiliate himself in front of cameras and a cheering Gaza crowd? That is the kind of reality Israeli’s live in.

Go slowly and gently with your certainties – and teach your idealistic college student waving a Palestinian flag to do the same. Perhaps there is more to learn. Perhaps there are things worth standing up for that are beyond our own individual limited view and which surpass our own individual sense of offense.

_________________________________________

* Questions for 27 year old Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary:

  1. Do you think that bratty mean girl rants are what the world should hear from the press room of the White House?
  2. Do you think that the cross you prominently display absolves you from the answer to the question, “What would Jesus say?”?
  3. No seriously, do you think it’s okay to lie for Trump?

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 necessarily mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine, but I do wish that I could blame someone else. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. 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.
  5. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.
  6. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2025 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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