murder

Get Out!


POST 1255

CAUTION!

The following transcript is a fiction drawn from the author’s imagination and does not represent the actual phone call between the parties. But it should.

It is presented here for the purpose of clarifying real world needs of the people, plus to properly place well deserved snark. Strong language suitable for the defense of democracy is unredacted. Sensitive readers are advised to use only one eye.

– JA

The Phone Call

President Donald Trump telephoned Governor Tim Walz (MN) on the morning of Monday, January 26, two days after unarmed, unresistant, defenseless Alex Pretti was gunned down in the street by ICE agents. The call was reported by the White House to have been “productive.” Here is a transcript of that conversation.

President Donald Trump (PT): Good morning, Tim.

Governor Tim Walz (GW): It’s “Governor Walz,” Mr. President.

PT: Right. Well, Tim, I just want to check in with you to learn firsthand what you’re seeing.

GW: Is your hearing okay, Mr. President? Do you hear okay? It’s “Governor Walz.”

PT: Absolutely, Tim. Absolutely. In fact, my doctors say I have the best hearing they’ve ever seen. Ever! It’s off the charts. I aced all the tests. All of them. They’ve never seen anything like that.

GW: Okay. I’ll say this slowly to be sure you’re able to understand my words. What I’m seeing is your mob of masked, heavily armed bullies are injuring and murdering my people. There is chaos and violence in our streets caused entirely – ENTIRELY! – by your Gestapo thugs. That’s what I’m seeing.

PT: Well, Tim, you know that you have a huge – HUGE! – crime problem. And your Somali’s – they’re bad. They’re very bad. These are very bad people. Just look at your Representative Omar. She’s garbage. Complete garbage. There’s crime in your streets, Tim, like nothing anyone has ever seen before. It’s never been seen.

GW: You’re right, Mr. President. Nobody has seen it before because the crime you refer to doesn’t exist. Both violent and non-violent crime are down dramatically all over the state. That was true well before your private army of fascist thugs showed up and started beating people, throwing them to the ground, arresting and imprisoning innocent U.S. citizens and murdering innocent people. So, Mr. President, get your damn Gestapo goons out of Minnesota. You can send your pet Nazi Stephen Miller to lead them away.

PT: You’re very rude, Tim. You know we have to have law enforcement. Can’t have these illegals doing criminal things, like eating dogs. People’s pets. It’s terrible. They eat ducks in the park, too. It’s bad. It’s very bad.

GW: Mr. President, those accusations of animal eating came from lies told by your idiot Vice President. He was talking about Haitians who live legally in Springfield, OH, not Somalis in Minneapolis. And his accusations were proven by multiple researchers to be total bullshit. Your lies and those you’ve trained your idiot Vice-President to tell are bad, Mr. President. Very bad. Nobody has ever seen so many terrible lies. Do you know what I mean? Are you tracking with me?

Also, 80% of our immigrants from Somalia are U.S. citizens and they are entirely law abiding.

PT: Now, Tim .  .  .

GW: It’s “Governor Walz,” you know? “Governor.” What’s your problem, dementia?

PT: Once again, that’s very rude, Tim. You’re a very rude person.

GW: You’re right about one thing, Mr. President. We need law enforcement. And we have great law enforcement at our state, county and local levels. So, Mr. President, we don’t need your brutal, cruel, law breaking goons. Get your damn criminal Gestapo thugs out of Minnesota.

PT: Tim, I think you’re missing something here. Do you .  .  .

GW: Mr. President, get your fucking Gestapo thugs out of my state. Am I saying this slowly enough for you so that you get it? Get your fucking criminal creeps out of Minnesota.

PT: Tim, have some respect. I’m the President of the United States.

GW: Yeah, well most often it’s hard to understand how that’s possible. Regardless, get your damnable thugs out of Minnesota. Just leave. We’ll clean up your miserable, sorrowful, un-American mess.

PT: We’ll see what happens, Tim.

GW: We already know what happens. We see your brutality every day. Get your damn fascist thugs out of Minnesota. Are you getting my message?

And it’s “Governor Walz.”

PT: You know, Tim, that I can send our active duty Marines to Minneapolis, right?

GW: And I can send the Minnesota National Guard to surround the White House. That would be just as stupid as your idea.

As a safety tip, Mr. President, I don’t think you’ll be welcome at the funeral of Alex Pretti or Renee Good or at any of the vigils held in their honor. You might want to stay at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a Sharpie in your  hand counting the number of times you’re named in the Epstein files. Perhaps you’ll want some high school girls to help you count and to help you remember all the sick abuse of so many girls.

One more thing: Get a brain scan right away. And in case I haven’t been clear, get your criminal thugs out of my state.

Take Heart

From Pew Research:

Only about a quarter of Americans today (27%) say they support all or most of Trump’s policies and plans, down from 35% when he returned to office last year. That change has come entirely among Republicans.

His approval rate probably won’t go much lower because he’s down to only his angry, mouth-breathing base supporters who will mindlessly support any irrational or cruel things he does.

Unless there’s proof of his pedophilia. That’ll piss off even Billy Bob and his little sister, too. Abusing little girls just isn’t okay with nearly any of us.

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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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

ICE News! and Impeachment


POST 1253

ICE News! We Exist And We Don’t Care If You Do!
Minneapolis, January 24
.

It was a proud moment for we at ICE, for Secretary Dead Puppy, for leader UberFührer Bovino and our holy leader and god of the galaxy and beyond, His Celestial Majesty, Donald J. Trump.

Ignore all the woke mouth flappers and those videos about Saturday. Here’s what really happened.

This woman breaks into our ranks, so we shoved her to the ground where she belongs. Then this guy comes out of nowhere and moves to help her and we heard him blowing a whistle, so we knew immediately that he was a domestic terrorist, a threat to us and to all real Americans. We saw the bulge in his waistline and knew he was carrying a gun for only one reason: to kill our fellow agents.

But think about that. We’re the guys you count on to get rid of the worst of the worst and to terrorize our nation into submission. Instead, this guy was trying to terrorize us with his radical woke. Can’t allow that.

So, six of us jumped him. While trying to subdue him his hand shot up holding his iPhone. No way we’d allow that commie crap, so one of our guys pulled his gun and plugged that sucker in the back. That sure slowed him down. Plus, it looked  like fun, so two more of us drew our weapons and fired away like it was the 4th of July. Ten shots in just five seconds! Pretty good shooting, huh? It was more fun than a drive in the country shooting holes in speed limit signs. That f*cker won’t be showing up at rallies with his whistle and his lefty radical creeps anymore.

And the 5-year-old kid with the Spider-Man back pack (sniffle)? We either lock the brat up now or he becomes an adult woke terrorist with a gun later. We’re all safer with him behind bars. ‘Course, we can always rendition him to that gulag in El Salvador, but he’s pretty small now and probably wouldn’t last too long there. No matter. None of us cares.

The rest of you a**holes on the sidewalks carrying your stupid and unpatriotic signs and blowing your stupid whistles oughta learn something from this. You don’t stand a chance against ICE because we’re motivated by our anger, our heads are empty and we have immunity from prosecution and can do whatever we want. So, F*CK YOU!

And watch out, Maine, you hotbed of un-American idiots. We’re coming for you next.

It really makes us feel so strong and powerful to say that stuff. We’re proud to be tough guys serving our perfect leader.

To comment on this ICE News or any ICE actions, dial 1-800-EAT SH*T. An on-duty ICE operator will verbally abuse you and find you via GPS tracking of your phone. Agents will come and pound your door down, drag you outside regardless of whether you’re dressed for the frigid weather and throw you into the back of an unmarked SUV with your hands zip tied. You can run, but you can’t hide, woke scum.

Impeachment

Of course you’ve thought about it and there is a long list of miscreants for us to target. There’s Trump and Vance, of course. There are also Patel, Bondi, Noem, Hegseth, Rubio, Zeldin, Burgum,  Bessent and Lutnick, cabinet secretaries each doing their own brand of democracy killing and fascist evil. Plus, we should also rightly target Supreme Court Justices Thomas, Alito and “I like beer” Kavanaugh.

I’m imagining that after the new congress is seated that Speaker Jeffries will send a letter to each of them. It will read,

“Your high crimes and misdemeanors have been noted and catalogued and articles of impeachment to remove you from government office have been crafted.

Accordingly, and in line with our country’s long practice of decency and respect, values that you’ve abandoned and know nothing about, we give you twenty four hours to resign your post and clear out of all government buildings. Secret Service agents will be present to make certain that you do not remove anything that isn’t your legitimate personal property. You are specifically prohibited by law and by congressional mandate from taking any confidential materials of any level of classification, even if you want to hide them in your bathroom.

If you fail to resign within that time period, articles of impeachment will be filed immediately thereafter and you will be subject to the public humiliation of having the truth of your transgressions paraded before the world. Thereafter, you can count on your likely forcible removal from government by order of the Senate and enforced by U.S. Marshals, who will perp walk you out of the building and off government property. All evidence of your guilt will be forwarded to appropriate justice enforcing agencies.

The clock is ticking.

There is a glitch in this wonderful plan. It’s the pardon.

If Trump is impeached and removed from office, Vance will immediately become president and he will likely pull a Gerald Ford and grant Trump  a “full, free, and absolute pardon for all federal crimes he has committed or may have committed or taken part in .  .  .  ” Nice follow on from Chief Justice John Roberts having giving Trump a get out of jail free card for his crimes while in office. It’s galling to think that Trump might once again avoid accountability.

On the other hand, impeachment is not a criminal prosecution. The only penalties are removal from office and exclusion from ever again holding any public office.

Trump will likely pardon all of the felons preemptively. That would prevent them from being held accountable for their federal crimes. It appears that the only lasting remedy will be state prosecutions. Bring on Leticia James. Maybe Jack Smith, James Comey and a pack of feral state pit bull attorneys general. Keith Ellison, are you listening?

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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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those comments I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Doing “Things”


POST 1245

Preface: Nearly all of this post was written prior to the American invasion and kidnapping done in Venezuela yesterday. Consequently, there are just a few comments about that particular dog wagging and lawbreaking included here. We will do a deeper dive soon. Meanwhile, keep your eye on the prize.

Click me for the story by The Onion. My preferred caption for all of the posed pictures of Trump signing an executive order is, “Look! Look! I made a boom-boom!”

We the People are an endlessly clever and creative band and we relentlessly ridicule those who have earned and richly deserve our contempt and shaming. The year just past provided non-stop material for satire and verbal punches in the nose to our national abusers of decency, the law, the Constitution and even rational thinking. A few favorites are sprinkled in this post.

First, though, please accept my thanks for reading these posts and sometimes commenting on them. We all can do our part in this war to stop fascism, to protect and defend our Constitution, our democracy and our way of life and to restore decency to its place at the forefront of our cherished values. These posts are part of my modest effort to do just that. Indeed, when you see a message in these posts encouraging you to share them and to encourage others to subscribe (one more time: it is still and will remain a freebie!) it’s for the purpose of stretching the reach of the message from those of us who think democracy is a pretty good thing worthy of our collective moral muscle, to those who need our encouragement.

This particular post is less my words than direction to the brilliance of others. We start with the year end post of Prof. Heather Cox Richardson.

Click me

She brings context and points a finger at the guilty responsible for so many deeply destructive, anti-Constitutional and outright illegal things that have happened since January 20. Most examples are blood boilers, preludes to full-on fascism, but some really good stuff happened, too, like judicial decisions that pinned Trump’s ears back. Those are fun.

Many commentaries are persuasive, yet most often we’re left not knowing what to do to make the change we want to come about. Turns out some people can help fill that “huh?” hole.

For example, Robert Reich published 10 Crucial Things You Can Do in 2026 and it’s a really good list. You’ll know how to do every one of those “things”.

Here’s one of my “things”.

Are you on the fence about mean girl puppy murderer and poser in front of men illegally jammed into a torture prison at her direction, Christie Noem? Should she be removed from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security?

First, Watch this little video of Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (IL-3) as she skewers Noem by detailing her lies, her law breaking and her joyful cruelty. Then decide a proper fate for her.

Next, call your representative and senators and demand that they oust this talent-less Eva Braun by means of a humiliating impeachment. That’s a “thing” you can do.

Now Some Bitter, Well-Earned Congratulations:

Watch and listen to Jesse Welles’ message about recruiting ICE thugs. If you want more to make you think, click here.

– to the many millions of Americans who voted for Trump and who have lost their Obamacare subsidy so that their healthcare insurance now costs more than double what it cost last week. That will make it completely impossible for millions to get insurance at all and they will be relegated like so many to only the hospital emergency room for healthcare, including for their children. Millions of them live in red states and they didn’t vote for this to happen.

– to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and legal residents who have been unjustly thrown to the ground, handcuffed, their faces mashed into the pavement, thrown into unmarked vans and either imprisoned or deported, all without an arrest warrant or even reasonable suspicion of any wrongdoing. It sucks to be an American with fascists in power and only the sociopaths voted for this.

– to the millions of kids who now go hungry because of the cruel withholding of SNAP benefits, a huge proportion of which used to go to families in red states. Again, they voted for Trump, but they didn’t vote for this to happen.

Grifting with Jesus

– to all the dozens of Venezuelans who have been illegally murdered at sea and now on land, but who were never formally accused of, incarcerated for, convicted of or sentenced for any crime.

– to all of us for our windfall benefit created by Trump’s piracy at sea of at least two oil super tankers filled with Venezuelan oil.

– to the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have died of starvation or lack of inexpensive medicines because Trump ended the USAID program.

– to all of us for the blatant crushing under heel of the First Amendment on Christmas day by Trump and various departments of what’s left of our government. “If lawmakers could destroy the right of freedom of conscience, they could destroy all other unalienable rights. Those in charge of government could throw representative government out the window and make themselves tyrants.” Read Heather Cox Richardson for this sad story.

Maybe you’d prefer an upside down Bible from the steps of St. John’s Church.

– to the terrorist cult of MAGA for its cheering Trump auctioning off a hastily painted Jesus, where he announced through his actions yet again that there is no bottom. There is nothing so undignified, so clownishly demeaning of our country that Trump will refuse the opportunity to grab it by its septic tank and tarnish our nation before the world.

– to Merrick Garland and his timid DOJ for epic, even galactic foot dragging, thereby refusing to enforce our laws. That allowed Trump to run in and win the 2024 election. See William A. Finnegan’s take down of what happened. This story will gnarl your innards yet again over the DOJ cowardice that enabled the current, ongoing destruction of our Constitution and blatant lawlessness, every bit as much as our lap dog Republican Congress has enabled that through the same cowardice.

Yes, really

– to the people of Venezuela for losing their country to Donald Trump. He’s made it clear that he admires and wants to be like Vladimir Putin, invading a sovereign nation, bombing facilities and killing its citizens. Trump has gone even farther by kidnapping its leader. Now he’s just like Putin. Maybe worse.

NOTE: Don’t be distracted. This invasion and kidnapping have nothing to do with drugs, democracy, elections or how bad or how illegitimate is Maduro as president of Venezuela. It is about the massive reserves of oil beneath that country and what that’s worth to Trump. That’s why we’ll “run the country.” Plus it’s a first step toward domination of all of South America and maybe Greenland, because Trump desperately needs to show what a strongman he is.

– finally, congratulations to us, for our dog being wagged relentlessly by yet another illegal Trump military distraction. But We The People will not let the Epstein scandal go away and Trump will get what he is due.

You know that this congratulatory list could be very long and you understand the sarcasm. You get that we cannot – we must not – tolerate more of this, which means that you and I must take action because our dire circumstances have become worse. Whatever you and I are doing, it isn’t enough. This is a great and lasting task before us. But, what to do? Try this to jump start your engine:

  • I can’t vouch for the claimed connection to anyone named Van Gogh, but the message is clear and compelling. There is a blank page before us waiting for what’s next in our story of democracy and it is our honor to write that story.

I repeat: Whatever you and I are doing, it isn’t enough. But we can do “things” and keep on doing “things”.

Many, many thanks to all who step up, do “things” and carry a load for the sake of all of us.

  • Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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    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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
    7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine. Unless it’s a guest essay, in which case, blame the guest.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

You’re A Pirate!


POST 1239

Yes You!

On September 2, 2025 the Secretary of Defense (he prefers “Secretary of War – it’s more chest poundingly tough guy sounding) Six Gun Pete Hegseth had a special day. It started with spotters finding a non-military open boat, apparently from Venezuela, in international waters. It was powered by engines commonly used for water skiing and was carrying 11 people. Six Gun Pete ordered the boat to be blown up, same as he had done to others over the prior weeks, killing nearly 90 people.

Without so much as a whiff of evidence he claimed that the boat had been  carrying illegal drugs. But even if there had been drugs:

  1. The boat hadn’t been headed for the United States, 1,200 miles away and traveling in a different direction, so the U.S. had no authority to intervene.
  2. The standard protocol for handling a situation where contraband is suspected is interdiction by the Coast Guard, not murder.

Nine of the 11 people aboard that small boat were killed by a U.S. missile. That left a vexing problem for the head of our “Department of War.” There were two survivors of that U.S. missile attack. They were clinging to floating parts of the destroyed boat and were, by any notion of reality, shipwrecked survivors. They were non-combatants completely unable to be a danger to anyone. Had there been illegal drugs on board their boat, they couldn’t have delivered them anywhere because they had no boat; just flotsam. They were harmless corks in the ocean, leaving Hegseth the task of deciding what to do with them. Maritime law said that they must be rescued.

Instead, our valiant War Czar made the brave call: “Kill them all!” he announced with manly vigor about people who had done no harm to the U.S. or to any Americans.

So, on Hegseth’s order, Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley issued the order to kill those two men bobbing in the ocean. Another missile was fired and they immediately stopped being survivors.

There was no longer a legal threat to Hegseth that would have arisen had they instead been rescued and brought to the United States for a pesky habeas corpus thing. That was good for Hegseth, because in a trial he would have had to produce evidence of drugs aboard that boat. He would have had to demonstrate that the drugs were bound for the veins of Americans. But Hegseth had no such evidence. His tough guy deception and lies could go unchallenged just by killing those 2 helpless guys bobbing like corks in the ocean. So, that’s what he did.

We were not and are not at war – at least we are not in a declared war or a war authorized by Congress. Clearly, then, the killing of those 11 people could not be acts of war. It was instead cold blooded murder, ordered by Six Gun Pete Hegseth.

We don’t know if the president ordered Hegseth to do that, but it seems more than likely that he did, since he always needs to appear to be the Tough-Guy-in-Chief. Wanton murder is one of the things that pirates do, but this story has become more blatantly criminal and more obviously a foul tale of piracy since September 2.

On December 10 your president ordered that an unarmed merchant oil tanker sailing from Venezuela be boarded and commandeered by U.S. forces. The ship was not bound for the U.S. and no evidence of materials that could be used to harm the U.S. has been presented as justification for the assault. Here’s where Trump’s official policy to pick a fight with Venezuela crosses from stupid into total piracy,

The president has announced that the ship will be sailed to a U.S. port and its cargo of 1.8 million barrels of oil with a market value of roughly $95 million will be taken. Stolen. Pirated. And Trump is threatening to steal yet more Venezuelan tankers.

That’s piracy by anyone’s definition, including that of hundreds of years of maritime law, the laws of the World Court and the laws of the United States. And because this is being done in your name,

You are now a pirate
and your Jolly Roger waves over the seas,
malevolently declaring American piracy and murder.
.

Wouldn’t piracy and murder fall under the definition of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors“?*

It was bad enough when V.P. Dick Cheney (or was it Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld?) announced in 2003 that we would steal Iraqi oil and that it would pay for our invasion of Iraq and reconstruction of that country. But the Chinese have controlled Iraqi oil since 2003 and it’s claimed that $150 billion has been stolen. It seems that we weren’t as good at piracy then as our genius leaders led us to believe. But we were quite adept at murder. We’re still good at that.

Now we have Trump’s larceny and murder going on. What could possibly go wrong?

Shiver me timbers, matey. And wag the dog.

UPDATE!

The federal judge’s order regarding the seizure warrant for the ship carrying Venezuelan oil was unsealed yesterday. It gives permission to Trump and his grifters to keep the spoils of their piracy. But it’s hard to know anything substantive about that, because the unsealed document is nearly completely redacted. Everything but the title page is blacked out. There’s no way to check any of the claims, nor the reasoning for the judicial decision. There’s nothing left that could benefit the American people.

From The Mercury:

A US court released a heavily redacted warrant on Friday that had authorized the seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a move Caracas decried as an act of “international piracy” and “blatant theft”.

______________________________________________

* See Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution.

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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 or Barnes & Noble 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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Ugly


POST 1181

Hatred

Photo included so that you see that they were real people with real hopes and dreams. They weren’t just statistics.

May 21, 2025 should have been just another beautiful spring day in Washington DC, but it was not. Instead, it was a horrible day of hate-fueled murder.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were staffers at the Israeli Embassy working on efforts to bring people together. They had fallen in love and were soon to travel to Israel, with a ring in Yaron’s pocket and a plan to surprise Sarah with his marriage proposal, then to begin the rest of their lives together.

They attended an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee at the Capitol Jewish Museum in DC that spring evening and were gunned down by an extremist who shot 21 bullets at them. The shooter had posted things like “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home” and when he was taken into custody he shouted, “Free, free Palestine,” both slogans commonly used by anti-Israel and antisemitic frenzies. He also shouted, “I did it for Gaza.”

From Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League:

ADL’s latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents tracked a total of 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in 2024. This is the highest number of attacks against Jews on record since ADL began tracking incidents 46 years ago.

Hatred and violence against Jews is the world’s oldest hatred. It has been stoked often, sometimes by the Church, by ignorant peasants, by leaders of countries and for the past 9 years by Donald Trump, mostly using dog whistle messages, but sometimes with overt hateful idiocies. Here in graphic format is what he and others have incited.

If you have difficulty reading the chart, just click on it to go to the source.

Things to note:

The 35% increase in antisemitic incidents in 2016. It’s just a coincidence, I’m sure, that Trump was running for office that year and calling his rabid followers to violence.

The enormous rise in antisemitic incidents in 2023 and 2024, at least 300% over prior years. That time aligns with what happened following the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of Jews and Israel’s response. It also corresponds to Trump running for office, leading rallies and not just failing to call on his supporters not to be violent, but issuing more dog whistles to hatred.

Not Too Surprising

Isn’t it peculiar that there have been many demonstrations against Israel and against Jews for Israel’s actions following the October 7 attacks. But there have been almost no demonstrations on college campuses, on city streets, in front of government buildings – anywhere – against Hamas for its murders, rapes, kidnapping and yet more brutality. Lots of angry people chanted variations of “From the river to the sea,” but you never heard any demonstration by ordinary citizens demanding that the world stop killing Jews.

What do you make of that? Hamas okay, Jews, like peacemakers Yaron and Sarah, not?

Last comment (for now) about this.

Don’t say that America is a country of peace. It was born in war. We officially made war on Native tribes and took everything they had. We incarcerated non-Whites and enslaved 16 million Blacks and then began to lynch them. We solve our differences with violence and often with guns: drive-bys in our cities; torturing of gays; mass shootings in schools, churches, synagogues, supermarkets, music festivals and a 4th of July parade; and right now whole communities are stockpiling hatred, anger and weapons for a civil war they long for.

And our fellow citizens committed 9,354 acts of antisemitism last year alone. That’s over 1 per hour, ’round the clock.

We humans love our hatreds. They make us feel powerful and important. “Death to _________” – you fill in the blank. That’s stuff that stokes our reptile brains.

Now For Another Hatred

This quiz is from Robert Reich’ post, Why the one big beautiful bill is the single ugliest you can imagine.  It’s about hatred of ordinary Americans by greedy rich, power crazed elites and their fawning, incompetent stooges. Answers are in parentheses.

1. Does the House’s “one big beautiful bill” cut Medicare? (Answer: Yes, by an estimated $500 billion.)

2. Because the bill cuts Medicaid, how many Americans are expected to lose Medicaid coverage? (At least 8.6 million.) [NOTE: 13.7 million people will lose health care – not insurance; healthcare. 11 million will lose food stamp benefits—many of them kids. JA]

3. Will the tax cut in the bill benefit the rich or the poor or everyone? (Overwhelmingly, the rich.)

4. How much will the top 0.1 percent of earners stand to gain from it? (Nearly $390,000 per year). [It includes $1.5 trillion in new – extra – tax cuts disproportionately skewed to the rich. It would defund Planned Parenthood, increase oil drilling and logging on public lands.]

5. If you figure in the benefit cuts and the tax cuts, will Americans making between about $17,000 and $51,000 gain or lose? (They’ll lose about $700 a year).

6. How about Americans with incomes less than $17,000? (They’ll lose more than $1,000 per year on average).

7. How much will the bill add to the federal debt? ($3.8 trillion over 10 years.)

8. Who will pay the interest on this extra debt? (All of us, in both our tax payments and higher interest rates for mortgages, car loans, and all other longer-term borrowing.)

9. Who collects this interest? (People who lend to the U.S. government, 70 percent of whom are American and most of whom are wealthy.)

10. Bonus question: Is the $400 million airplane from Qatar a gift to the United States for every future president to use, or a gift to Trump for his own personal use? (It’s a personal gift because he’ll get to use it after he leaves the presidency.)

Don’t believe it? Here’s another independent source.

Still don’t believe it? Click on the chart at the bottom.

It’s time right now to contact your senators and tell them to vote down this hate filled, hatred fueled Republican war on the American people conducted by hateful and cowardly Republicans and the extremists who want to turn our country over to an American Führer.

Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121
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and ask to be connected to the offices of your senators. Tell them in no uncertain terms (politely, of course) to shoot down this dishonest, anti-Americans, so-called budget bill passed along to the Senate by House Republican cowards.

The Republicans can’t “both sides” their way out of responsibility for these cruelties. They did this to We The People. I appreciate their help in kicking them out of office. Indeed, that’s .  .  .

Good News!

White House officials have denied FEMA assistance to the state of North Carolina following lethal Hurricane Helene last year that devastated the western portion of the state, killed 107 people and destroyed over 75,000 homes. Trump and the Republicans are abandoning the people, leaving them in the rubble, the pollution and the danger. That’s yet more hatred.

That’s terrible news for those suffering people, but just try being a Republican running for any office in that state next year. Same thing in any state with poverty issues, as children and grannies are denied healthcare due to the billions of dollars of cuts to Medicaid and Medicare – more hatred. The “Who cares about you?” Republicans are showing themselves to be exactly what they are: cowards, barbarians, and self-obsessed animals.

The ads and campaign slogans for Democrats running for office fairly write themselves. Now, if only the Democrats can keep from screwing this up.

Finally, Institutional Discrimination

You need to click on the chart below and review the easy to read explanation of why it’s good to be in the top 0.1% and it sucks for most of the rest of us.

Countdown to November 3, 2026
Mid-Term Election

Countdown Timer

Goes fast, doesn’t it?

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. Comments offered by readers, whether in agreement with my opinions or opposing, are encouraged and greatly appreciated. All are reviewed prior to going live. I reserve the right to edit for readability, punctuation, typos, voluntary idiocy and to exclude those I deem inappropriate.
  7. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Just A Little Insanity


POST 1131

Spend just one hour at the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL and then tell me if that’s the Great America we should make again. Consider the brutal slow murder of George Floyd or the self-appointed neighborhood guard George Zimmerman who murdered Trayvon Martin and got away with it, as did the murderers in the Tulsa massacre. Explain if that’s the Make America Great Again model we should emulate.

Explain 20 kids and 6 teachers murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School or the dozens shot at that Las Vegas concert. Explain how great America was then, that mythical America to which our red hatted citizens want to return.

Click me

We are steeped in violence and proved it yet again on Monday as a shooter first killed 2, injured 6 and then murdered herself, leaving two of the injured with life-threatening injuries. This happened at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI. That event was our 83rd school shooting (one every 4 days) and our 656th mass shooting (almost two every day) this year, with almost 19,000 shot dead and over 38,000 shot and injured. Those aren’t statistics. Those are people.

What’s your bet about what the Founders who wrote the Second Amendment would think about semi-automatic assault weapons being used to kill kids in schools? What’s your bet about whether they considered it a right to own large capacity magazines or telescopic sights or bump stocks?

Read the Second Amendment – all 27 words:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

I wrote “all 27 words” because our gun crazies and our Second Amendment lovers commonly ignore the first 13 words.

You can plainly see that the Amendment says that the only reason for the people to be allowed to keep and bear arms is to have a militia. But that job is taken and well done by our National Guard. They are the militias that are well regulated. The weekend, skulking-through-the-woods tough guy wannabes are not well regulated. We have no need for Rambo-at-home, so we have no need for private citizens to have a home arsenal.

I’m betting that the family and friends of the grannies who were shot to death at the Topps Supermarket in Buffalo wish that before that awful day there had been a bunch of infringement of the right to own guns. Same for the survivors and next of kin of Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

It is way past the point when we should have figured out that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” should be infringed.

Read this book – click it

We all understand the slavish obeisance of our elected officials to the firearms industry because of the financial largess bestowed upon these politicians who do the industry’s bidding. That has allowed the distribution of over 20 million very profitable AR-15s into coat closets and car trunks in America and over 150 million hand guns, many carried openly or concealed. It seems that enough of our legislators think that children being murdered in school is a small enough price to pay for the money they get for their campaigns.

Get this: If you have guns and don’t keep them unloaded and locked up, do not tell me how much you love your kids or any other kids because you just wouldn’t be believable.
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All of this craziness has several names: Insanity; Immorality; Stupidity; Cruelty; Hypocrisy.

Make America Great Again is a useful campaign slogan, a jaunt in Jingo-land, but we don’t have a model for when America was great when it comes to citizen gun safety. It is insane that we haven’t even a history book memory of a time in America when we weren’t murdering one another. Guns make those murders so very easy. They don’t make America great.

I used to think those calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment were over-reaching, but no longer. I have grand kids in schools who have always had to do active shooter drills. Every kid in your town does, too. They think those drills are normal, but it’s insane that they have to do them.

And it’s insane that we are leaving our children and grandchildren a country awash in citizen blood.

So, one more time:

Click me

From Kirk Bangstat of Minoqua Brewing Company:

Our 2nd taproom in Madison is a mile away from the Abundant Life school shooting that occurred yesterday, and I spent a few hours last night with our customers endlessly going in circles about why it’s impossible for America to end gun violence in this country when most other developed countries have figured it out. [emphasis mine – JA]

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.
  6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

Click me

JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Mental Health Wake Up


POST 1099

CAUTION! THIS IS NOT SNARK

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Ugly Truth

We all know it’s a mental health thing, right? I mean, who but a mentally sick person would kill two kids and two teachers and wound 9 others? Who but a wacko dad would give an assault rifle to his mentally messed up 14-year-old kid?

“You don’t have to have been physically injured in this to be a victim,” District Attorney Brad Smith said outside the Barrow County [Georgia] courthouse. “Everyone in this community is a victim. Every child in that school was a victim.”

Who but someone deranged would blast away 20 first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School? Or get bump stocks for his combat weapons, so he could fire over 1,000 bullets into concert attendees in just 10 minutes? He murdered 59 people and wounded at least 700 more at the Music Festival in Las Vegas.

They would be incoming freshmen right now. Thanks go to JN for this banner.

How crazy would someone have to be to massacre 17 kids at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland), or murder sabbath service attendees at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh or kill grannies shopping at Topps Supermarket in Buffalo or murder the bible study people at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston or the County Environmental Health and Public Health employees in San Bernardino? Something must be mentally wrong with a person who would do such things.

And there’s plenty more insanity.

The political slaves to campaign contributions from the big bucks firearms industry will only admit that our daily slaughters can be blamed on mental health. Surely, they say, there’s no connection to our insane interpretation of the Second Amendment that allows combat weapons to be in the hands of anyone with the strength to lift one. But that excuse is insane. It’s a lie and they know it. We know it.

We are by far the world’s leader in firearms homicides and it isn’t because our kids watch more violent video games or because we are more mentally deranged than people in other countries or because we make and watch more violent movies. There’s just one reason:

We have more firearms per capita than any other nation on Earth – 120 of them per 100 Americans, including babies. That’s double the rate of the next most gun crazy country.
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It’s murderously easy to get a gun and ammunition. And that’s why we’re Number 1 in murders.

Are we massively mentally deranged, suffering from various violent behavioral anomalies, disorders, psychoses and apathy, too? Of course we are.

We’d have to be mentally ill to continue to elect people who will not do what 80% of us send them to office to do, like pass tough, common sense gun safety legislation. But we keep sending murder weapon enablers to Congress. It’s the very definition of insanity.

Of course we’re crazy, as we gasp at the atrocities and see the faces of the shell shocked survivors who will forever suffer from their trauma. But then we do nothing to stop the next shooting. That’s insane.

We ignore the paralyzing, knee collapsing shock that assaults our first responders who are first to the bloody crime scenes and have to face the horrid truth of the massacres and pick up what is left of those slaughtered. Then we move on and let those heroes fend for themselves. That’s insane.

And we ignore that our flag waving politicians have voted to further de-fund our mental health facilities. That’s insane.

Yeah, we have a mental health problem. It’s us.

Solutions

The Second Amendment is:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The reason for the amendment is spelled out in the first 13 words. It was included in the Constitution to placate southern enslavers who feared a slave uprising. That got Southern states to vote to adopt the Constitution. But the need for protection against a slave uprising no longer exists and it hasn’t since the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865.

Those 13 words call for not just any militia, but a well regulated militia. That means a force of trained troops under the command of a regulating authority. We have that. It’s our National Guard and every state has one. We have no need for vigilante militias or vengeance seeking wackos. So, second Amendment enthusiasts and the gun industry conveniently ignore all 13 words, focusing only on the last 14.

Those 14 words tell us that We The People may keep and bear arms, meaning firearms. In the Founders’ time there were only flintlock pistols and muskets. They didn’t have semi-automatic pistols or AR-15s or bump stocks or large capacity magazines. The right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment applied to muskets.

So, let’s be strict originalists, just as our extremist right wing Supreme Court justices think of themselves. Let’s change our understanding of the Second Amendment to mean exactly what the Founders meant.

American citizens may keep and bear all the musket ball firing flintlock pistols and long guns they want. And those are the only firearms that we originalists should allow.

Muskets have a repeat firing rate of possibly one ball fired every 30 seconds. If the Las Vegas shooter had used a musket instead of his bump stock-modified AR-15 he could have harmed only about 20 people in his 10 minutes of carnage, instead of over 750.

For our gun myopians:

  1. The Second Amendment wasn’t about showing what a tough guy you are, taking your AR-15 to Starbucks or to a bar or to polling places to intimidate voters, so don’t do that insane thing.
  2. Put trigger locks on your firearms and lock them up unloaded so that your aggrieved kid can’t grab them and kill other kids at his school, like that deranged 14-year-old kid at Apalachee High School in Georgia did last week. Same for the shooters at Sandy Hook, Parkland and Uvalde.
  3. Try being a good dad instead of a pretend soldier with a warped notion of patriotism. And get into therapy that focuses on anger management.
Wake Up

This is a wake up call to all of us to elect representatives who will do what We The People want them to do. Doing anything less is insane.

Wake up.

Are you registered to vote? Check it out here:
.

https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/

https://www.usa.gov/confirm-voter-registration

https://www.rockthevote.org/how-to-vote/am-i-registered-to-vote/

“Friends do not let friends vote for con artists.”
  • – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), 2016


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore, even if that makes them a few bucks more expensive. That will help to keep them your town or neighborhood vibrant.
    6. Clicking on most pics in these posts will take you to the source information.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Madness


Ed. note: Due to the Moms Demand Action – Advocacy Day ’23 yesterday, “What It’s Really About – Part Two” has been moved to this Sunday, May 21.

It’s been ten and a half months since the brutal July 4th mass shooting in Highland Park, IL that killed seven innocent people and wounded 48 other parade attendees. The wounded list includes 8-year-old Cooper Roberts, the kid who is now paralyzed for the rest of his life from the killer’s bullet that ripped into his back. Emotional injuries from that day were in the tens of  thousands. Many of those will never heal.

Click me

The blood stains on the pavement are gone now, as is the mountain of flowers and candles at the makeshift memorial that was created that week. Attendees long ago picked up their lawn chairs, picnic baskets, bikes and child-sized flags that were supposed to be waved at people on the floats. The ocean of tears has been rinsed away by the rain and the snow. The intersection of Central Avenue and Second Street looks normal now and you might not guess that it was a war zone last year.

A permanent memorial will replace the temporary one next to the Library on Laurel Avenue. Right now it’s just seven posts, each with an etched placard on top bearing a picture and a few words to remember each of those killed.

The memorial is alongside a small rose garden and a rock garden. About a third of the rocks in that garden have been painted by children and they are very much like those at the bases of the seven posts – you can see them in the picture – many with heart piercing words of love and loss. The children’s offerings seem to speak for all of us, saying “We will always remember you.”

Sadly, we have two such mass shootings every 3 days in America, so it’s easy to imagine many thousands of piles of rocks painted by children all across the nation.

That vision brought me to the Moms Demand Action – Advocacy Day ’23 in the state capitol yesterday to help make a statement that We The People want sensible gun safety laws to keep these killing machines out of the hands of the angry, the crazy, the self-deluded, the falsely patriotic, the narcissisticly aggrieved, the mentally ill and the compulsively belligerent, like the  Highland Park murderer.

Hundreds of people of all ages showed up to make a statement about the need for better gun safety legislation, both in mass and in small group meetings with legislators.

Hundreds of Illinoisans showed up to demand better, even in this state with better than average gun safety legislation. The speeches were inspiring, delivering the clear and insistent message that the progress that has already been made is just the start of what needs to be done. A couple of younger people spoke to the crowd, letting us know that the people of their generation are always wondering, “Am I next?” Imagine going to school with that knot in your belly every day.

An artist turned her hand to making clear the truth of what we as a society have done. Her display has over 30,000 orange flags, each representing a child murdered by guns just since Sandy Hook. Look at the picture – what you can see is a fraction of the total display. Now imagine if each flag were instead a healthy kid.

Over 30,000 orange flags should instead be over 30,000 healthy kids living their lives.

The misled guys and the tough guys believe that the Second Amendment means everybody can own any murder weapons they want. But read that Amendment – it doesn’t say anything about a right of private citizens to own AR-15s or extended capacity magazines. In fact, it doesn’t say that anyone can own a gun for any reason other than so that we have a well-regulated militia.

And we have that. It’s called the National Guard. We don’t need private citizens to amass arsenals of weaponry in their basements. Those gun owners aren’t part of a well regulated militia. They’re just guys with guns.

There is no Second Amendment reason for anyone to do concealed carry, much less to do it without a background check and safety training. Most of our state governments, though, seem to say, “Just strap one on, Bubba, and head to the bar for some beers. What could possibly go wrong?”

Oh wait: Buffalo could go wrong and a bunch of grannies shopping for eggs and bread could be murdered. Sandy Hook could happen and the bodies of 20 little kids and seven teachers could be splattered onto the school room floor.

And Highland Park could happen, making a horror so terrible, so awful, that brave, tough cops and FBI personnel had to bury their faces in their hands.

So, I went to Springfield yesterday to tell our legislators the obvious facts of what has happened and what will continue to happen if we fail to take proper action. I went to tell them that the misled guys and the tough guys are wrong and that they themselves are a clear and present danger to our country..

I went to tell them that We The People want the madness to stop.
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Charlton, can we have your gun now that there are over 31,000 cold, dead hands so far just this year?

If you weren’t at the Illinois state capitol yesterday, no worries. This battle for peace and safety isn’t over and there will be many more opportunities for you to stand up for all those people who can no longer stand up for themselves and for all of us who don’t want to be shot.

The children in Highland Park left notes on those rocks to say that we will continue to stand for our fallen. They and we will speak for them and for all those who are being gunned down right now, even as you read this.

  • 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.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Fun In Far-Right Lunacy


How ’bout a Little Murder?

Right wing crazies continue to be out in force in North Carolina, a state that joyously stole voting rights from tens of thousands of its citizens. That’s a state that does precision, targeted gerrymandering to deliver the majority of Congressional seats to White Republicans, even though they garner only a minority of the votes.

NC Bill 158 was intended by its sponsor, state Rep. Larry Pittman, to be a ballot initiative this November. His bill would make it legal to murder a pregnant woman who intends to get an abortion if you are “defending the life of a baby.”

No, of course you don’t believe that. How crazy would someone have to be to propose such a thing? Well, now we know.

Download that stupid, barbaric, death-dealing proposed legislation here and read that seriously hollow-skull death warrant by a seriously hollow-skull legislator who would authorize murder. It was drafted and submitted to the NC legislature in 2021, but, surprisingly, even in North Carolina most of the state representatives aren’t quite that crazy. Too few of them supported that homicidal maniac law, so it bogged down in committee.

The point is that Rep. Larry Pittman’s insane, legalized murder scheme was proposed at all. For now, the good news is that Pittman is not seeking reelection. The bad news is that Pittman isn’t alone in his dangerous and wacko notions.

Consider Texas SB8, enlisting vigilantes to spy on and bust neighbors for even thinking about getting an abortion. They can then collect a $10,000 reward (that’s the minimum) for doing the dirty work of the state, this to immunize the state and thus allow it to circumvent the law.

Click for the story

Our Murder Industry Good News

We massively cull our human herd via suicides at the rate of one every 21.5 minutes, mostly accomplished using pistols. Easy-peezy, trigger squeezy. That’s testament to something – I don’t know what. While that’s been happening, we’ve had an ever-increasing series of mass murders and now the firearms industry has set a new record.

Those mass murders have largely been done with assault rifles. Here’s what’s noteworthy about that: our firearms industry has sold over $1.7 billion of assault rifles in just the past 10 years. What a success story! I’m sure they’re cheering in Buffalo, Uvalde, Highland Park, Newtown, Parkland, Aurora, Littleton, Blacksburg, Stockton, and Santa Fe. And in Las Vegas, Squirrel Hill, Loveland and more. The mass murder list grows at the rate of 1.5 shootings per day, nearly all by assault rifles.

That billion dollars doesn’t count the money spent to accessorize those battlefield killers, like extended capacity magazines, bump stocks, sniper sights and huge volumes of ammunition. Be clear that the (literally) breathtaking billion bucks doesn’t count any of the other things that go “bang” and which aren’t assault rifles, like hunting rifles, shotguns, pistols and the rest. $1 billion. It’s a true American commercial victory.

It’s great to see that we Americans still have “it”. Indeed, you may have thought that we’re first only in Covid deaths. Not so, because we’re also number one in death by firearms, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Cue the proud, real man music.

This is the country we have created with our intentional injustices, our overt embrace of  dishonesty, our never ending claims of grievance and our bottomless insecurities masquerading in bravado. Is there a way to send an entire country into psycho-therapy? Should we supplement fluoride with mood elevators added to our water supplies? Think of it: we’ll stop tooth decay and rage crimes all at the same time.

Dear Clarence,

The Federalist Society Six – The Rights Bandits – They’re Wrong

You killed our rights as if we weren’t right there seeing what you were doing. You’ve promised to do yet worse, as you metaphorically play your pre-Enlightenment instrument and declare that only 2,000-year-old music may be played. You’ve made it clear to everyone that you want to restore ignorance and fear and you want to hobble our minds, relegating us to a new Dark Ages. But bad news is on the horizon for you, Clarence, because our turn is coming.

Clarence, you’re just not seeing it. We will out-last you. We will out-live you. We will negate you.

Your band of self-righteous rights assassins is having its day and a tiny percentage of Americans who are big mouthed zealots is cheering all of you. But the vast majority of We The People (remember us?) are preparing to supersede you. We will out-smash your smashing of stare decisis and we will revisit and restore everything you crushed. We will overwhelm and reverse your attempt to take us to some fantasy of Biblical purity, your far right lunacy. We’ll do that because:

Far right is far wrong.
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Clarence. Your day of basking in the glow of your puffed, self-righteous ego and your imagined high tech victimhood will be over and you will be a mere footnote in the history of world cruelty. We will replace you. We will not miss you.

Begone, Clarence.

Many thanks to JN for this

WAKE UP, AMERICANS!

Smell the coffee and see what is really happening right in front of you, because it’s all going to play out in the duplicity of this far-right court. Your pocket will be picked clean of your rights. It will take generations to repair the damage. So, watch this video. It will give you clarity about what the Court is really doing.

And just in case you’re still a smidgen unclear about your important choices, read Ira Leavit’s explainer featuring your favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero. I superrecommend it.

Then pass this message along to 3 people, because it’s going to take a massive number of us to prevent a far-right lunacy disaster.

We must do that, because in all ways, there is no fun in far-right lunacy.

————————————

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.

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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. 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 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Murderers Welcome


Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action

Shannon Watts was a communications executive and is the mom of 5 kids. The day after 20 kindergartners and first graders (6- & 7-year-old little kids)* and 6 teachers and staff were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 she started a FaceBook group. She urged all Americans to do whatever we can to reduce gun violence. Then she founded Moms Demand Action and has dedicated her life to ending gun violence in America.

Why is it necessary for this mom to dedicate her life to preventing school kids from being murdered in their classrooms? Or to stop grandmothers from being gunned down in the supermarket? Why does anyone have to do that?
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Isn’t it obvious to everybody that, by definition, kids should be safe in school? Isn’t it plain that children being murdered isn’t something any of us should tolerate?

So, how come we tolerate it?

How come Shannon Watts has to dedicate her life to this work?

It is true insanity that we put up with this American carnage. It is mind boggling that we continue to elect legislators who promote the slaughter of our people by refusing to do anything to stop it. It’s like posting a sign at the edge of town like this:

HR8 is a universal background check bill that passed the House 2 years ago. It hasn’t been brought to the floor of the Senate for a vote because

50 Republican senators are dedicated to preventing this potentially life protecting bill from becoming law. They really don’t care that over 90% of We The People want that law passed.

I’m proud of our law enforcement people who respond quickly and decisively when there is danger. But,

Q. Why do we refuse to do the simple things that would reduce the need for police protection?

A. Because half of those who vote on laws to protect us are self-serving money and power grubbers who are beholden to big money interests, not our interests.

The only way we’ll get legislation to keep our kids from being killed by angry and deranged gunmen is to vote out of office those who thwart the will of We The People and for us to vote into office those who will act to protect us.

How many dead kids will it take for us to say NO MORE?
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From The Onion. Click the pic for their story.

Follow this logic:

Most of those who post the metaphorical welcome signs for murderers are Republicans. If you think of yourself as a Republican and continue to vote Republican, we’ll keep getting what we’re getting – dead kids, dead grandmas and wailing, bereft families. You’re going to have to come face-to-face with the reality that this isn’t the Republican Party you signed up for and you’ll have to vote instead for people who will do what you want them to do.

Do you have what it takes to vote for Democrats who will take action to protect our kids, even when you don’t like some of the Democrats’ other ideas?

Do you?

Because if you don’t have what it takes you’re telling yourself and every kid in your town that you don’t care if they get gunned down while sitting at their desks in school. You’re telling me that my first grade granddaughter might not survive her next active shooter drill. Indeed, if you refuse to vote for the people who will protect our kids and the rest of us, you’re telling us and yourself that you don’t care who gets gunned down, even your own kids.

Brutal, I know. But that is the miserable hand that’s been dealt to us.

Just one more question.

President Biden requested $33 billion of aid for Ukraine to stop Putin’s murder spree. Our Congress said, “Nope. We’re going to make it $40 billion,” and 86 senators voted aye for that bill. Eleven idiots voted against it.

Putin’s army of thugs is bombing schools, maternity hospitals and residential properties where kids live. That means that our $40 billion is going to protect Ukrainian kids from Putin’s murderous insanity. If our legislators insist upon protecting Ukrainian kids, how come they won’t protect American kids in ways that don’t cost even a penny?

Hint: See the Q & A answer above.

I’ll say it again:

The only way we’ll get legislation to keep our kids from being killed by angry and deranged gunmen is to vote out of office those who thwart the will of We The People and for us to vote into office those who will act to protect us.

The carnage will not stop until we decide we love our kids more than we love guns.

Texas Testosterone

“Last year, Abbott signed at least seven new laws to make it easier to obtain guns . . . “ – Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Plus, he cut $21 million from state mental health services.

Here’s a great pic of smiling Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas proudly brandishing a killing machine. He assures us that our problem is mental health, but here’s the deal, this from Irv Leavitt:

“.  .  .  [Gov.] Abbott’s state has a long way to go to fix the heads of its citizens. Depending on whom you ask, Texas is 48th or 49th in the nation on funding [for] mental health.

“Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz suggests one hardened entrance for every school. This is an expensive solution for a state that ranks 41st in public school spending.”

Yeah, but Texas has low taxes, they brag. Lousy services, but low taxes. And lots of murders. Low taxes and 19 half-size coffins to bury. And Abbott is just one disingenuous, politician failing at leadership. We have lots more.

Must Reads of the Week

You. This is Your Fault, by Christina Emba in the WaPo.

And He Did Not Act Alone, by Clara Jeffery.

—————————————-

* If they hadn’t been murdered, those Sandy Hook kids would be getting their drivers licenses this year. Some would go to prom. But of course, they won’t do either of those things and their moms and dads have to deal with that anguish every day. It didn’t have to be this way.

————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem. Fire the bastards.
.
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 2026 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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