Only I

I Don’t Know It For a Fact – Plus “Shane”


POST 1151

CAUTION!

This post contains unrestrained snark. It is recommended that sensitive readers use only one eye and then, jeez, get over it.

Bill Maher has a satirical bit he does periodically entitled,

  • I Don’t Know It For A Fact.
  • I Just Know It’s True.

Here’s my offering in that format.

Click me for a better view

When he was 12 years old Trump was in a terrible car crash that damaged his brain, making him unable to think in any way but in terms of “what’s in it for me.” Also injured in that crash was his heart. Surgeons had to remove a major section of it, which made him permanently disabled, without the ability to care about others. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump is congenitally unable to think in strategic terms, only in a tactical, transactional way, and cannot express himself in any way but in word vomit. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

The next Trump Towers will be built in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riyadh, Budapest and – a long shot – Beijing, depending upon his effectiveness at sucking up to evil foreign dictators whose approval he craves. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump contracted a nearly fatal case of Severe Asshole Disease following a high stakes poker game he lost, but which to this day he insists he won. He claims that cards were switched, a terrible fraud! That trauma left him unable to think in any terms but taking money from others. Plus, it left him always feeling unjustly treated, a victim captured in the terror of the truth, that he’s a loser. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

As soon as Musk’s destruction of all government agencies is complete, Trump will fire him and sic the Justice Department on him for retribution, whining on Truth Social that Musk upstaged him repeatedly in the reality show that is Trump’s life. He will also persecute Musk’s kid, X, for being in the Oval Office, stealing some attention from Trump and having what he will call, “a stupid name.” Plus, he will call Musk infantile names like Muskrat and doo-doo head. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Trump read Mein Kampf and memorized Hitler’s speeches, which he kept on his nightstand. He practiced reciting them to his first wife, Ivana, believing that she would find that as erotic as he did. They had three children, but none after he began reciting those speeches to her. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Elon Musk loves apartheid and wants to bring it to America to subjugate all non-Aryans and take their money. Then he will cash in his Krugerrands, gold coins made from gold mined in near-slavery conditions by Black labor. He will use that as seed money for his next venture, making soylent green, which he intends to feed to his Black laborers. I don’t know it for a fact. I just know it’s true.

Danger

In Steve Schmidt’s Presidents Day post, JD Vance is a fool on a ship of fools, he shares the words of Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert Jackson, who was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazis following WW II. Jackson said this in his closing argument:

Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.

Now we have in our president a puppet of Putin, who is a man, “in whom those [savage] forces now precariously survive.” Just ask Vladimir Zelenskyy about Putin’s savagery. Justice Jackson was right then and he’s still right. Worst of all, Trump has modeled himself after such evil despots.

Trump is fond of saying, “Only I can _____________.” You fill in the blank. Sometimes he’s right. Only Trump can lead the dismantling of the American order both at home and internationally, putting we and the world in terrible peril.

You know parts of the list of the dastardly, un-constitutional, illegal actions he’s taking and you have a bad taste in your mouth for the cruelty he’s unleashed on tens of thousands, now millions of Americans. What you must do with that is to see that it is all of a piece and not get your underwear in a bunch over just one or two issues. The point is that he is leading a coup to take sole control and ownership of all of America and pocket all our riches for himself.

Trump would be right to crow, “Only I” can do that. And he will do that unless you and I stop him. Now would be a fine time to do that stopping, because “Only we” can prevent Hitler II.

Quotes of the Week

“We’re going to lose our democracy,” said Sotomayor, unless Americans and “particularly” young people take steps to inform themselves well and combat the misinformation chaos created by the rise of the internet.

  • – Josh Sackheim FB post, Feb 12,
  • reporting on comments of
  • Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor
  • at Miami Dade College in Florida

The tumult is smoke. But don’t look away: The fire is a national takeover.

Who will stand up to Trump at high noon?

Indeed, who will do that? We’re looking for that leader.

Backbone

There is an Open Letter to Career Prosecutors, executed on Presidents Day, February 17, 2025. It is circulating now and you MUST read it. It is a cautionary message of support for our good and honorable prosecutors who are under attack from the Trump Justice Department for refusing to do wrong. It is a message of standing with and for these prosecutors as they stand with and for our Constitution and the rule of law. It is signed by over 900 former prosecutors.

The text of the letter ends,

“generations of former federal prosecutors are watching with pride and admiration and stand ready to support you in this honorable pursuit.”

Then come the names. 39 pages of the names of people with courage and integrity. People who then, now and always stand by their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Read the letter. And in your heart, stand with them for our career prosecutors today.

Could we – you and I – do any less for our democracy? Not if we stand for something worthy.

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The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA

 


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

The Tarnished Age


POST 1142

Only I

In Mr. Trump’s first inaugural speech he spoke about American dystopia, carnage without limits, evil violence and our collective hopelessness (“This is some crazy shit,” said George W. Bush). There was only one way to save our republic, he told us, only one savior to lead us from the dumpster slime that was America. “Only I,” claimed Donald Trump, could deliver us from this degradation. “Only I” could correct the awful violations of the true spirit of our country that had been dumped upon us by Democrats. “Only I.”

Then “Only I” brought us a vastly expanded pandemic that at last killed over 1,150,000 Americans. Because of his ineptitude, his recommending cures that were not cures, some of them toxic, and because he made no effort to get vaccinations into the arms of Americans once vaccines were available, the CDC calculated that 750,000 of those deaths had been preventable, but for the bumbling of “Only I.”

And those Covid distancing protocols and the shut downs and the quarantines that MAGAs still rail at, “Only I” did that, too, not Joe Biden. Biden opened the country back up.

“Only I” also brought us over 6% inflation and the loss of millions of jobs. Nobody else could have done that. “Only I.”

He brought us a weakened NATO and allowed Russia to invade Ukraine. No Democrat would have attacked the organization that had kept the peace for over 80 years, but “Only I” managed it easily.

And who else could have proclaimed endlessly that Infrastructure Week was coming, but it never arrived. “Only I” bragged that he would repeal and replace Obamacare with some vastly better health care at a cheaper price. Now, of course, “Only I” tells us that he only has a “concept of a plan” that will be both better and cheaper – no specifics. Nothing but puffery.

“Only I” says he is gong to create an American Gestapo (my term, not his) to pound down the doors of people suspected of being in this country illegally and even some who are naturalized American citizens. He’ll have his cruelty cops round these people up into concentration camps and then deport them – somewhere – nobody knows where. That’s some number of people who will make up between 11 and 20 million deportations at a cost estimated to become north of a billion dollars. It will probably cost far more, as other countries refuse Trump’s rejects onto their shores.

“Only I” is also going to end birthright citizenship. You know: that pesky thing in the 14 Amendment to the Constitution.* He’s going to make that go away like he claimed he did to a hurricane, with the flair of a Sharpie, so that he can expel brown people, black people, Muslims and Asians who were born in this country but aren’t tech geniuses. He thinks an executive order he signs can eliminate an Amendment to our Constitution. There are already multiple lawsuits filed to disabuse him of his idiocy.

With each passing day and each hateful, anti-democracy uttering, the Trump menagerie of cult followers is making this look more and more like 1930s Germany.

Get over your rejection of comparisons of Trump to things Nazi. You aren’t required to self-blind or to go deaf. Face the obvious: we are in an advanced state of voluntarily abandoning our democracy and embracing fascism. We are turning over the wealth and power of our nation, giving what is ours to the billionaires, whom Trump has already begun to reward for their loyalty to “Only I” alone.

Even First Asshole Elon Musk gets it. Here’s his salute to Trump on inauguration day.

Click the pic for a Seig Heil! to warm the otherwise cold, dead hearts of today’s Sturmabteilung (Storm Troopers, aka Brown Shirts) and our right wing thug extremists.

That salute made front pages all around the world, as people reacted to the Nazi salute to der Trump-Führer. Decide for yourself who the angry f-word on Musk’s lips is for. Note that his Nazi salute was well received in the Capital One Arena on Monday. It is standard at MAGA militia rallies and was popular at the January 6 insurrection. Bear in mind that these are all red-blooded Americans doing the Nazi salute. Don’t tell your Greatest Generation relatives, neighbors and friends about this.

Elon is saluting evil. So are the MAGAs. That’s what We The People voted for. Are you okay with that?

You must decide for yourself how many small, sort-of tolerable changes you can tolerate, because they accumulate and become massive, fetid, stinking rot, emitting a foul miasma and poisoning our bodies. We’ve seen this movie over and over, so it isn’t as though this is some new learning. What’s needed is for us to see what is right before our eyes.

And take action.

Like demanding that your senators reject Trump’s “Creature Cantina” (Steve Schmidt’s term) of proposed department heads. Go ahead – pick up the phone and make the calls.

_______________________________________________

* XIV Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state where in they reside.

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

Click me

JA


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

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