lynching

No, We Aren’t Better Than This & The Top Idiot Award


Just when you thought you had seen Marjorie Taylor Greene’s* most despicable demonstration of degeneracy, she somehow went even lower. In a House hearing she declared that only biological moms are real moms. To hell with you do-gooders who open your hearts and adopt or foster kids. You’re not real moms, according to Greene. Neither are the grandmas who raise their kids’ kids.

We’re officially on notice yet again that there is no bottom, no low below which the MAGA/Freedom Caucus/Trump cult won’t go. Their hatred knows no bounds.

John Lewis implored his fellow House members to a higher standard, saying, “We’re better than this.” I didn’t agree with Lewis then and I don’t agree with Randi Weingarten saying that same thing on Nicolle Wallace’s program last Friday. Note that Weingarten was present for Greene’s cruel “real moms” condemnation.

Lewis and Weingarten are wrong because if we were better than this nobody would be saying the dreadful things that Greene, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan and the rest say. They wouldn’t be denying safety to school children if we were better than this. Over 140 of them wouldn’t have tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power on January 6. They wouldn’t be playing Russian Roulette with our debt ceiling and our economy. Republican state legislators wouldn’t be perverting our states with anti-pandemic lies and allowing over a million people to die. They wouldn’t be stealing education from our children or stealing healthcare from women and demoting them to second class citizenship.

No, we’re not better than this. We are exactly this. We made our choice to be ruled by the heartless minority doing these wicked things. Some of us chose this affirmatively, some did it passively by not voting and some did it unwillingly as victims of voter suppression.

The old saying advises that if we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we always got. The cousin to that is Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results.

So, if we continue along our present “We aren’t better than this” trajectory, we will continue to fail to be better than this. But if we do something different, we will change everything.

We aren’t better than this now. But we could be.

The Top Idiot of Last Month Award

Tennessee’s savage practice of capital punishment is on hold due to the cruelty they’ve done via lethal injections. A brain-free solution for moving forward was offered in a committee session and was detailed on March 2 by WPLN News, 90.3FM, Nashville:

The Criminal Justice Committee, earlier this week, passed a measure to add alternative procedures for carrying out executions.

During the hearing, Republican Rep. Paul Sherrell, R-Sparta, suggested another option.

“Can I put an amendment on that that would include hanging by a tree also?” asked Sherrell.

What could be more American than bringing back lynching in the state where the Ku Klux Klan originated?

Consider that madness side-by-side with this hypothetical.

Imagine the convening of a council of the Native American tribes originally from the southeast of this nation, but forcibly moved west on Andrew Jackson’s** brutal Trail of Tears. Picture a council meeting, convened because they are out of patience with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and it is now clear to all that something dramatic must be done.

Imagine further that in an effort to find a path forward one of the council members were to propose a method tor motivating the BIA to do the right things. He would argue that they bring back the practice of some tribes of scalping White soldiers.

What do you suppose lynching proponent Rep. Paul Sherrell and the other Nashville Criminal Justice Committee legislators would say to that?

Rep. Paul Sherrell of Tennessee lynching fame gets our

Top Idiot of Last Month Award
.

That fits him perfectly, as last month he also voted to expel two legislators from the Tennessee House for the grievous offense of protesting for gun safety while Black.

Quote of the Week
  • “Antisemitism has skyrocketed on the @GOP‘s watch because they have tolerated, embraced, echoed & normalized dangerous extremists.”
  •  – Halie Soifer
  • Quote From the Way-Back Machine
  • “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 is 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.”
  • –  Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
  • Treat yourself to this interview of Sagan, as well as his presentation in a Senate hearing in 1985 on climate warming.

______________________________________

* Even duct tape can’t fix stupid – but it sure does muffle the sound. (Thanks to MZ for that)

** That’s the same Andrew Jackson whose portrait Donald Trump hung on the wall near the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. It replaced a painting of the arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty. Compare and contrast the meanings.

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.

Ignorance


My friend Dr. Mardy Grothe writes an interesting and insightful post each week. Indeed his offering is the first thing I read Sunday mornings.

His comments usually focus on literary issues in a most clever way. However, last Sunday he uncharacteristically dipped a toe in my accustomed pond. His piece is so good that I asked permission to share a portion as a guest essay here and Mardy graciously accommodated my request, much to your benefit.

You can find him at http://www.drmardy.com/. I recommend that you look for the “Subscribe” function.

This Week’s Theme:
“How Has the Ignorance of Others Affected Your Life?”

This past week news reports  detailed a Tallahassee, Florida charter school principal being forced to resign after [three] parents of students in her sixth-grade art history class filed a formal complaint about their children being exposed to a “pornographic” image. The image in question, it turns out, was a photograph of Michelangelo’s statue of “David.”

This kind of thing is now routinely happening in Florida, thanks to the innocuous-sounding “Parental Rights in Education” bill that governor Ron DeSantis pushed through his rubber-stamp legislature in July of 2022 (this was the legislation critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill). If you currently live in one of the American “red” states, expect similar ludicrousness to be coming to your area soon, as Republican-controlled state legislatures all over the country have begun to eagerly champion the cause of “Parent’s Rights in Education.” Sadly, we’ve now entered an era in which it has become easy to get a book banned or a teacher fired because something that reasonable people would consider acceptable has offended someone’s sensibilities. It all brings to mind an observation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who wrote in Proverbs in Prose (1819):

“Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.”

I’m sure you can recall from your younger years when you first witnessed some local ignoramus complaining about evolution being taught in public schools or offering a totally fallacious theory as the absolute truth. We called such people “crackpots” back then, and as I grew older, I learned that almost every neighborhood or community has at least one. All crackpots have one thing in common: there is simply no reasoning with them. A 1910 issue of Life magazine captured a truth about them when it cited an unknown author as saying:

“Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.”

Like all groups, crackpots have their “influencers” as well, and they have been successful in infecting countless others. Just think of the millions of holocaust deniers around the world. Or the millions of U. S. citizens who believed that a duly elected American president was born in a foreign country and was therefore ineligible to occupy the nation’s highest office. More recently, thanks to what is now routinely described as “The Big Lie,” there are tens of millions of Americans who believe that Joseph Biden is also an illegitimate U.S. president.

Ignorance has been historically regarded as simply an absence of knowledge, but this new kind of ignorance—a willful ignorance—is like a metastasis of the original condition. Thanks to the philosopher Karl Popper, it might be viewed this way:

“Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge
but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know,
issuing from cowardice, pride, or laziness of mind.”

This week, reflect on how the phenomenon of willful ignorance has shown up in your life, and how you responded when it did. As usual, you will find a number of quotations below to assist you in your reflections:

“To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.”

— A. BRONSON ALCOTT

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance
when the need for illusion is great.”

— SAUL BELLOW

“Ignorance is an evil weed,
which dictators may cultivate among their dupes,
but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.”

— WILLIAM BEVERIDGE

“The highest form of ignorance is to reject
something you know nothing about.”

— WAYNE W. DYER

“It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power;
but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of Ignorance?
Knowledge slowly builds up
what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.”

— GEORGE ELIOT

“Stupidity’s the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.”

— WILLIAM GADDIS

“Ignorance is not bliss.
Ignorance is impotence; it is fear; it is cruelty;
it is all the things that make for unhappiness.”

— WINIFRED HOLTBY

“Reason obeys itself;
and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”

— THOMAS PAINE

“Ignorance is a self-generating state of mind;
one of its characteristics is that
it doesn’t recognize itself as ignorance.”

— JANE SMILEY

“The people who are scariest to me are the people
who don’t even know enough to realize how little they know.”

— THOMAS SOWELL

For source information on these quotations, and others on the subject of IGNORANCE, visit: DMDMQ.
My Thought of the Week

“Ignorance 
is a problem to be corrected,
and not exploited for personal or political gain.”
Speaking of Ignorance

Click me

The Tennessee House of Representatives put another notch in their Ku Klux Klan lynching rope last Thursday. The super-majority Republicans were shocked, shocked! I tell you, to have witnessed three representatives participate in a peaceful protest with students who, not too surprisingly, don’t want to be shot dead by yet another school shooter, as had happened in Nashville two weeks earlier.

For their temerity to speak up for safety and to the horror of the proper decorum Republicans, two young Black men and one White woman, all duly elected representatives, were put on trial to be expelled from the House for their peaceful participation in a peaceful, albeit noisy, protest demonstration that was conducted because kids don’t want to be shot dead.

All three legislators did the same things during the protests, but only the two Black representatives were expelled. The White woman kept her seat in the House. Could this be a more blatant demonstration of racial discrimination?

Many of us had thought we might have moved past this kind of horrific display of racism, but of course, we were only fooling ourselves. Racism and White supremacy were on display for all to see and this was nothing less than a

legislative lynching

.

Perhaps the Republicans in the Tennessee House, working as they do in the city where 3 little kids and 3 adults were just murdered and in the state where the Ku Klux Klan originated, think they can get away with this. After all, not long ago one of their members recommended a return to lynching.

How is it that people still have to do this?

But they’re wrong.

The whole world is watching and condemning them. We the People won’t allow for their hatred to remain in control. That’s especially so for our Millennials and Gen-Zs and a few of we Boomers who still remember our idealism. Just imagine running a political campaign against the haters in the 2024 election. The campaign writes itself.

Isn’t it odd that people still have to raise a fist in a declaration for equality and respect? No, that didn’t end at the 1968 Olympics, because we are still a nation that tolerates systemic bigotry.

But the ignorance infusing that awful alt-right deed in Nashville on Thursday will prove to be counter-productive to the haters. You and I and so many of us will see to that.

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.

Dracula Today


Now it’s your turn.

Bad Moon

John Fogarty and Credence Clearwater Revival sang about it decades ago, perhaps prescient about the dangers that surround us today.

I see a bad moon rising
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightning 
I see bad times today
    
Don't go around tonight 
 'Cause it's bound to take your life
There's a bad moon on the rise

I always needed an interpreter to understand Fogarty’s words. For example, I thought he said that there’s a bad moon “on the right,” not “on the rise.” If he had sung it the way I heard it, he’d be exactly right for today’s America, although his way is pretty accurate, too.

That bad moon on the right brings hatred, lies, hypocrisy, lost integrity and an imminent threat to our very democracy and threats of violence and death to our fellow citizens. But you know that, just as Fogarty seems to have known it in my misinterpretation of that line in his song.

We have 6 days left to stop that bad moon on the right and make the difference that must be made.

American Psychosis

Yes, of course we’re psychotic. That’s what explains all the reality denial and our pronounced sociopathy, like that self-deluded thug smashing Paul Pelosi’s head with a hammer. We’ve been down this Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole many times and somehow we’ve survived it. All we had to do was to tolerate the death and destruction and voilà! everything was just fine again.

Like the Civil War, when half the country violated its sacred word, violated its oath and attacked the other half of our country. We only had to tolerate over 600,000 dead and many times that number wounded, hobbled, disfigured for life or insane.

Like over 86 years of Jim Crow lynchings – 4,743 of them according to the NAACP – and those are just the documented lynchings. And, of course, there was the terrorizing of millions.

Like the hatred and violence unleashed on various immigrant groups, like the Catholics, Irish, Italian, Chinese and Jews.

That’s just some of what we’ve tolerated.

See Note 5 and the final graphic below.

In David Corn’s book American Psychosis he recounts the cruelty and flagrant dishonesty of America’s alcoholic senator, Eugene McCarthy (R-WI). A fellow senator, Millard Tydings (D-MD), described McCarthy’s claim about the State Department being infested with communists, saying his charges were “a hoax perpetuated on . . . the American people” and “perhaps the most nefarious campaign of half-truths and untruth in the history of the Republic.”

Nevertheless, Republicans back then “viewed McCarthy as a potent weapon to deploy against Democrats.” McCarthy supported “a popular revolt against the upper classes,” and “accused the Truman administration and Democrats of being traitors to America. He had no evidence, only accusations.” Put a bookmark in that: no evidence, only accusations.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was campaigning for the presidency in 1952 and was to give a speech in Milwaukee. Included was a paragraph excoriating fellow Republican McCarthy, the insanity of McCarthyism and the spinelessness of the followers of his hatred. That paragraph said that to believe McCarthy was to believe that the government was being run by “men whose very brains were confused buy the opiate of this deceit,” meaning the deceit of McCarthy.

But Eisenhower needed Wisconsin votes, so he never spoke those words in public. In fact, even as he deplored McCarthy, he remained silent for years about McCarthy’s hypocrisy and the cruelty he set upon good Americans and the very fabric of American values. Even the Supreme Court took a swing at what we profess to be our values by ruling that the First Amendment did not cover communists. Surely you’re seeing the parallels to today.

Trump is our McCarthy, the liar, the manipulator, the hatred spewer, the accuser of wild conspiracies without evidence. So, too, are his imitators, suck-ups and opportunists for votes who are doing the same thing, just as happened in the 1950s.

Were Sen. Tydings alive today we surely could show him what a real hoax on the American People can look like. He’d have a new take on “perhaps the most nefarious campaign of half-truths and untruth in the history of the Republic,” the Nazi-MAGA scourge.

Like the Civil War, lynchings and McCarthyism, our present psychosis – our blood sucking Dracula, in Halloween-speak – will not go away on its own. We’ve already tolerated too much death and destruction and America’s Dracula will continue to attack us and suck the life out of this republic until we take action.

This national vampire must be fought into a coffin and a stake driven through its foul heart so that it can’t drain all the blood from America. That’s what you’re going to do next Tuesday.

From Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) yesterday:

But I’m also sad this violence [against Paul and Nancy Pelosi] isn’t more surprising — just as I wasn’t surprised by January 6th.  This is what happens when we’re taught that those who disagree with us are existential threats to our survival; when we label our own tribe good and the other evil; when we fail to call out the bad behavior of our own “side” out of loyalty or denial.

We’re hearing calls of sympathy, empathy and caring for the Pelosi’s from Democrats. The Republicans are made of other stuff and prominent individuals are making up horrible conspiracy stories, they’re blaming the victim and refusing even a hint of concern for the Pelosi’s. Likewise, they haven’t concern for any of the Democrats or their families who receive a near constant stream of death threats prompted by Republicans’ dreadful demonizing. Republican politicians can’t even muster a, “Sorry that happened to you.”

Think about that when you go to vote on Tuesday. Think, “A stake through its heart.”

————————————

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, so don’t bug me about it.
  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.

A Modest COVID Proposal


I have a modest proposal, an idea that’s so crazy that it just might be a good idea.

As you can see from the charts below, daily COVID cases have surged about 30% this month. Compile your own set of explainers for that; it won’t be difficult. The more interesting news is the confirmation of what you already know, that the rise in cases and the resultant hospitalizations are almost entirely of unvaccinated people.

So, read the charts below, then repeat out loud the text of the graphic on the right.

Click either chart for the story from STAT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

The gigantic workload that has been dumped on our medical professionals has spanned nearly two years. That has burned them out and they “are quitting in droves.” And the enormous financial cost of all those hospitalizations has been dumped on all of us by our vaccine refusing citizens. That is to say, these people are knowingly refusing to do the simple, free thing that will prevent them from landing in the hospital, overburdening our medical professionals and running up a huge tab we all pay through our insurance premiums.

I’m going to take a guess that may be related to that. See if see if you agree.

Many of the people who are refusing to get vaccinated see themselves as fiercely independent. They balk, sometimes violently, at being told what to do and proudly announce that they’ll make their own decisions for themselves and will accept the consequences.

Frustratingly, it isn’t that simple.

According to Healthcare Finance, the average cost of hospital care for COVID-19 patients ranges from $51,000 – $78,000, depending on age. We hospitalize about 5,000 freshly ill Americans daily and the hospital case count hovers around 50,000 all the time.* If we use a mid-point cost of $65,000 per hospitalization and multiply that by 5,000 new hospitalizations per day, we find that our unvaccinated, fiercely independent citizens are costing us an additional $325,000,000 every day.

They are knowingly putting themselves at risk and are expecting us (through insurance) to pay their bills.

Is that fair? I don’t think so, so here’s my modest proposal.

Let’s tell all Americans that if they refuse to be vaccinated and then contract COVID-19 and require hospitalization that they will be ineligible for insurance coverage of their medical costs, whether through private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. They’ll be fiercely and independently on their own financially, just as they say they prefer.

Sure, we can make exceptions for those who are medically unable to be vaccinated. Perhaps there are some other reasons we should cut a few of the refusers some slack, but very few.

Here’s the best part of this plan: betcha that a lot of vaccine refusers will suddenly get vaccinated, which will protect both them and the rest of us, too.

Now, I understand how socially odious my idea is and how politically third rail it is. Still, Republican extremists should love the support this modest COVID proposal gives to their fierce independence.

Wait a second  .  .  .  are they the same people who carried right wing protest signs reading, “Keep government out of my Medicare?”

Session Questions

If you were to ask a vaccine refuser if healthcare is a right and not a privilege, à la Bernie Sanders,

A. Under normal circumstances, how would they answer?

B. If that same refuser were in the hospital for COVID-19 and about to have a breathing tube shoved down his/her throat, how would they answer then?

C. If the refuser referenced in B above were asked if COVID is a hoax, how would s/he answer? Hint: It’s common for refusers to be screaming about what a hoax the disease is until the moment that the breathing tube shuts them up. Yes, really.

D. How about if that refuser had just entered the hospital with acute COVID symptoms and the hospital told him/her to expect a bill of $65,000 that s/he will have to pay out of pocket. What would they say about their right to healthcare then and whether they should have been vaxxed?

This Just In (last Friday)

In case you thought our times couldn’t become crazier:

Rep. Greene introduces bill to award Congress’s highest honor to Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two men
.

No, that is not a headline from The Onion. It’s from the Washington Post and it’s real. Read the article and boggle your brain here or here.

Echoing Maureen Dowd, “Donnez-moi un break,” and “Prenez un grip,” Rep. Taylor-Greene.

Ahmaud Arbery, hunted for refusing to have a conversation with an angry White guy and then killed for the crime of running while Black

Lynching

Travis McMichael, his dad and a neighbor almost got away with lynching Ahmaud Arbery via shotgun. The first prosecutor, Jackie Johnson, conspired with McMichael to obstruct justice by telling McMichael to wash Arbery’s blood off himself and his clothing and then saying she wouldn’t press charges. That’s conspiracy to obstruct justice and perhaps some other crimes. Here’s the good news.

That first prosecutor has been indicted and stands a good chance of conviction, which will result in her reconnecting with felons she herself put in prison. I’m sure it will be a lovely reunion.

And a jury in Glynn County Georgia – 11 Whites and 1 Black – managed to figure out what really happened. They did their duty, sending all three men to prison for a really long time. With or without video evidence, that’s a very different outcome than might have been expected not so long ago. Is it possible we’re beginning to say, “No more lynchings” and really mean it?

Finally

President Biden’s poll numbers are quite bad. Is that because he disappointed Americans’ hopes for prosperity or mishandled our foreign affairs and put us at risk? Is he a failed first year president? Nope. Read this.

——————————

* With the number at roughly 780,000, we have more Americans dead from COVID than the total population in each of 70 countries. We have more COVID dead than we had combat deaths from WW I, WW II, the Korean, Viet Nam, Civil, Revolutionary, War of 1812, Afghanistan and Mexican-American wars combined. And we did that in under 2 years. Worse, it seems that’s okay with a lot of Americans.

Now there’s a new COVID variant, B.1.1.529, named Omicron. It’s on the way from South Africa and Hong Kong and has already found its way into the U.K., Germany and Italy. It “has a big jump in evolution” and, “Scientists are still unclear on how effective existing vaccines will be against the new variant.” Right now we are climbing the winter spike in Delta and Omicron is on the way. OMG Omicron.

No telling what our refusers will do about this next assault, but this feels most ominous, like the next iteration of pandemic assault following Delta. It’s going to be very expensive. Who will pay?

————————————

The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

Did someone forward this 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!)

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, so don’t bug me about it.
  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 vibrant.

JA


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

Fantastical Fictional Universe


Reading time – 3:41 .  .  .

President Trump is just like you and me – except he lies constantly and thinks everything is or should be about him.

In his Q & A with reporters during a Cabinet meeting on Monday, October 21 he expressed many opinions about the Constitution, the economy, his abilities in real estate and the splendor of his Doral resort. He gets to do that.

He also disgorged dozens of “facts,” not one of which was true and correct. He doesn’t get to do that and get away with it.

Tony Schwartz, the ghost writer of “The Art of the Deal,” spent months with Trump, watching and listening as Trump conducted his business. He warned us that Trump lies continuously, that he lies even when it isn’t necessary and he will  lie all day long. Sadly, Schwartz was and is right.

It’s no breaking news that Trump lies constantly. What is alarming and urgent is that he’s now lying to create a fantastical fictional universe. He’s desperate to be re-elected and he’ll do anything to make that happen, including ruin our country. That’s because he knows that the moment he stops being the president will be the moment he will be indicted for a laundry list of crimes. That’s why he needs his self-serving fantastical fictional universe.

So, in contrast to what Trump said, no, this isn’t the greatest economy ever. No, the Kurds aren’t safe, as hundreds have been murdered and Turkey continues to ignore the so-called “pause” that never was and we really have abandoned our ally. No, the troops aren’t coming home. And no to every other “fact” he claimed. Go watch his 20 minutes of self-idolizing and report back on the “facts” he got right. Yours will be a very short report.

The point is that while Trump’s 38% can’t get him re-elected, they and just a few independents and undecideds who don’t know the truth could get that job done. They won’t realize that they’ve been had because they will have been persuaded by Trump’s fantastical fictional universe, his continuous stream of lies. He paints it so very well, so convincingly.

The question for us is how we will overcome the Trump fantastical fictional universe. How will we get through to enough voters so that they know that Democrats don’t hate America; that the wall isn’t being built; that the impeachment hearings are exactly what the Founders envisioned; that the Chinese aren’t paying Trump’s tariffs – you and I are; that ISIS is not being “held”; that the whistle blowers haven’t “disappeared” and all the rest? We have just 372 days to figure this out and convince enough Americans to show up and vote against the Con Man in Chief and his fantastical fictional universe and instead vote for America and democracy.

And another thing  .  .  .

Cabinet secretary positions are so important and so powerful that to assume such a position requires confirmation by the Senate of the United States. No schmoes need apply.

Should a cabinet position become empty while the Senate is in recess, the President has the authority to appoint an acting secretary, who may serve up to 6 months. Staying in office longer than that requires Senate confirmation.

Except that’s not how things are working now. The Republican controlled Senate hasn’t insisted on its Constitutionally mandated duty to review these appointments and Trump has been and continues to be allowed to bypass proper review.

You don’t suppose there might be consequences to that do you?

Finally,

President Trump announced that “the impeachment thing” is un-Constitutional. Further, he let us know that the impeachment inquiry into his behavior is a “lynching.” Clearly, he needs some help in differentiating things. Luckily, I’m here to provide it.

Observe the two photos below. The one on the left is the Constitution, wherein you can find “the impeachment thing” not once, but twice. That is to say, impeachment is quite Constitutional.

The picture on the right is of a young Negro woman who has been lynched. Lynching is defined as “a premeditated extra-judicial killing by a group.” Mob behavior. It is hideous, vile murder. And our president thinks that Congress looking into his behavior is the equivalent of that.

Of course, we know his disgusting comparative only serves to stoke his base and to distract us from his wrongdoing. We certainly won’t allow ourselves to be manipulated in that way. Nevertheless, it’s important to see past Trump’s glib talk and look wide-eyed at the truth of the brutality he embraces.

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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,

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!

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.

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