Schumer

We Want


POST 1163

How Can Democrats Not Get This?

Reported by history Professor Heather Cox Richardson in her post of March 22, quoting Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) in 1950, speaking in opposition to the fascist smear campaign being conducted by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI):

“I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear,” she said. “As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”

Senator Smith ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”

Read Sen. Smith’s words again, now imagining a traditional Republican (if any are left) standing in the well of the Senate today speaking those words.

It feels good to hear of someone standing up to the fascist bully, right? What follows is in stark contrast to the courage of Sen. Smith.

From Jennifer Rubin in her Contrarian post of March 24, Cowardice and Capitulation Stain the Legacy of Once-Esteemed Mega Law Firm

[Law firm] Paul Weiss joins the list of institutions and individuals with ample resources to defend themselves, who nevertheless have refused to stand up for justice in the face of MAGA intimidation.

Chuck Schumer caved in to MAGA, too. He claimed that agreeing to the abhorrent Continuing Resolution that gave Trump everything he wants to destroy our democracy was better than voting it down. He said that if the CR were voted down, Trump could claim all the same things by fiat.

All together: “HUH?“

When courage for the fight was needed, Schumer caved.

And check out this AP headline:

ABC agrees to give $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle defamation lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million toward Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

ABC could have won that idiot lawsuit, but they decided not to even fight. They caved. Capitulation as strategy.

What Paul Weiss, Schumer and ABC and so many others are doing is exactly what We The People don’t want them to do. Let’s focus now not on wimpy corporations, but on wimpy Democrats.

Democrats make reasoned choices and take sensible actions. They chant awkwardly to lead a crowd that ignores them. They call for bi-partisanship and make brave predictions that the sun will come up some day. They are everything their fathers feared they would become.

Brace yourself now, as I grab turf to speak to Democrats on behalf of We The People.

Democrats:
We Don’t Want
Your reasoned choices or your useless sunny weather predictions. The time for those politics ended 40 years ago. It was quite violently demolished 9 years ago. Those days are gone and so will you be if you keep acting like it’s yesterday.
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Your pathetic, passionless talking points or your “We must” powerless verbal dribblings.
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Your campaign platform of “Send me money and vote for me because I’m not Trump.”
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Your lofty list of esoteric concepts that disrespect us by treating us like you think we’re stupid and which display your ignorance of what our lives really are like right now.
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We Do Want
To know what you are doing – and what you will do – to restore our lives to something livable and to reclaim our America.
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To know what you’ll do to make a middle class income sufficient for a family to live.
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To know what you’ll do to ensure our safety in a world where competitors want to crush us and our way of life and replace us on the world stage.
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And Most Of All

WE WANT YOU TO HAVE A SPINE!

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WE WANT YOU TO PUNCH THE BULLY IN THE NOSE!

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WE WANT YOU TO CRUSH HIS ARMY OF CRUELTY!

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Is any of this unclear, Democrats? We want you to be strong, to stand up and to fight. We want you to stop hiding behind policy positions and talking points. We want you to charge into this street fight and win – not for your career –

FOR US – FOR WE THE PEOPLE!

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You cannot win a street fight with reasoned policies or by talking the enemy bully into a coma. You have to punch him in the nose!

Let’s try this another way.

David Brooks recently wrote about Trump destroying our international relations and making us a pariah state. His paragraph below captures his point.

President Trump does not seem to notice or care that if you betray people, or jerk them around, they will revile you. Over the last few weeks, the Europeans have gone from shock to bewilderment to revulsion. This period was for them what 9/11 was for us — the stripping away of illusions, the exposure of an existential threat. The Europeans have realized that America, the nation they thought was their friend, is actually a rogue superpower.

Click me for the story

Now read Brooks’ first sentence again, slightly modified:

Democrats don’t seem to notice or care that if you betray people, or jerk them around, they will revile you.

That’s what a 29% approval rating (or less) says about how people feel about Democrats.

Somebody has to tell me why this is hard for Democrats to understand and why they don’t even show up for the fight.

Click me

Someone has to tell me why they violate Prof. Timothy Snyder’s lessons about tyranny:

Rule #1: DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE. Obeying in advance is exactly what Paul Weiss and ABC did, when instead of fighting, they just turned over millions of dollars to Trump; then Schumer gave Trump his CR.

Rule #8: STAND OUT. Speak up. Take a stand. Take action. Democrats where are you and what are you doing?

We’re not at grandma’s birthday party. We are in an existential fight for our national life. Where are the Democrats with their knuckles bare, charging at our domestic terrorists and punching them in the nose?

WHO WILL LEAD?

  • TAKE ACTION

  • There will be a huge demonstration in DC on April 5 organized by Indivisible, 50-50-1, mobilize.us, Women’s March and many more organizations, all demanding of TrumpMusk, “HANDS OFF!“

    The beauty is that you don’t have to be in DC to stand and be counted. There will be rallies that day all across the nation. Stand tall. Make your voice heard. Being passive is the same as making yourself a victim and losing everything. You don’t want that to happen.

Click here or on the map to the right to find a rally near you. Then SHOW UP on April 5!

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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 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.

“They Don’t Give A Damn About The Rest Of The Unit” – That’s Us


Regular reader Diana Dobrovolny Hefter put together a piece of clarity you must see. She was motivated to speak out due to congressional insanity designed to kill your rights and your freedom. She had help making her point from Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL-6) to communicate what the sneaky, Republican National Defense Authorization Act really is.
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Read Diana’s guest essay for the full story.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the annual budget and appropriations of the Department of Defense, regularly passes Congress on a bipartisan basis. Since 1961 it has been considered must-pass legislation, as it provides the funding for our national security. For all that there is grumbling on both sides over one thing or another in the measure, it is generally kept outside partisanship.
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On July 14 House Republicans did what they criticize: they added pork and demands unrelated to a defense budget. They added their entire agenda: no books; no abortion; no training; no LGBTQ+ rights; etc. Every point DeSantis defends has been added in. Every Republican voted for it – vote totals: 219-210.
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That has never before been done to the Military Budget.
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The Right can NEVER again criticize any add-on to bills, pork or otherwise. This issue is a hostage maneuver and they took it. Time will tell if it lives through the Senate and then next steps. But they have been clear – they’ll do whatever it takes.
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Representative Sean Casten (D-IL) summed up the vote on Twitter.

“The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the bill that funds all of our military operations. It is typically bipartisan and is about as serious as Congress gets. What weapons of war we fund, which allies we share them with, how we recruit. National security is a BFD.

“We can have our political debates about any number of issues but it is generally understood that when Americans are willing to sacrifice their lives to defend us, it’s time to check the crazies at the door. But today, the crazies won.

“They won first because [McCarthy] put the crazies in positions of power. But second because none of the “moderate” Republicans had the courage to stay the hell out of KrazyTown .  .  .

“Is every member of the [House Republican Conference] a homophobic, racist, science denying lunatic? No. But the lesson of today is that the ones who aren’t are massive cowards completely unfit for any position of leadership.

“There is space—and demand—for reasonable differences of opinion in our democracy. This isn’t about whether we agree. It’s about whether we can trust that—differences aside—we trust that we’ve got each other’s back if we ever find ourselves in a foxhole together.

“That’s usually a metaphor, conflating the horrors of war with the much lower-stakes lives that most of us are fortunate enough to lead. But today, the entire [House Republican Conference] told us—both literally and metaphorically—that they don’t give a damn about the rest of the unit. [emphasis mine]

Be clear that “the rest of the unit” is you and me and all of we-the-majority.

Diana wrote separately:

When the far right held [Speaker] McCarthy to “firm commitments” in order to be elected Speaker of the House, one demand was increased transparency for future earmark spending – as in: ONE BILL, ONE TOPIC.
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Republicans just broke their own rule. Showed they are out for themselves, not our country.  In less than 6 months their own Republican House actions show they cannot be trusted.
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Reference: https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/july-14-2023?r=z96xn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

I think that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the long suffering, often filibustered, not exactly titan of communication might need a smidgen of assistance in responding to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) when the House poo-poo NDAA bill arrives in his office. Here is a proposed memo to help him.
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Kevin, thanks for sending along the NDAA the House passed on a party line vote. Of course you know that means that both extremist, hair-on-fire Republicans and so-called “moderate” Republicans all voted to violate their own rule about packing a bill with pork. It also means that every Democrat gave the finger to this insane bill. More on that another time.
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You know that both here in the Senate and in the hearts of the American people we’re all for a vigorous national defense and national security, including enthusiastic support for our military people.
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What we’re not in favor of, Kevin, is the partisan, extremist pile of poo-poo you loaded onto this bill. Not only does that stinky stuff not belong in a bill focused on our national defense, the majority of Americans oppose everything contained in your unconscionable amendments to the bill. Everything.
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And so, my friend Kevin, ask not what your crazy caucus members can do for you, because they really don’t give a damn about you or our country. Ask what you can do in hopes of finding even a chip from your long lost backbone.
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I’m sending this krazykrap bill back to you, Kevin, returning it in the same envelope in which it arrived. I’m both surprised and impressed by your creativity in crafting an envelope from toilet paper cores and duct tape. That’s so very appropriate for this bill.
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Face it: there just isn’t a way to disguise this sneaky move that you promised wouldn’t happen under your leadership, or your attempt to attack key things Americans want.
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Get rid of what you know doesn’t belong in the NDAA, Kevin. Use that big eraser on the handle end of your gavel and eliminate the sideways poo-poo from this legislation. Get a clean bill passed and send it to me. I’ll have my homies look it over carefully for any vestigial poo-poo and maybe it will make its way to the floor of the Senate for a vote, but only if you’ve performed a radical krap-ectomy.
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And Kevin, if you send me more crap like the sewerage you forwarded, I’ll package it with a brick and snail mail it to you at your house in Bakersfield, COD.
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By the way, Kevin, the President recognizes that you knuckled under to the worst of the extremists in your party, this in order to become Speaker. He understands the terrible bind you are in to pass a sane NDAA in the face of extreme pressure from your crazies. He sends his warm wishes to you for a fine stewing in your own juice.
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It is with collegial affection that I await your revised, clean NDAA.
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Chuck
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Bragging Rights Made Easy

Last Sunday I encouraged you to help stop the hand wringing about President Biden’s age and instead to talk about all the great benefits he’s brought to Americans. There was a link to a White House page with lots of good stuff listed there.

To make it even easier for you to wave the President’s flag of accomplishments, here’s a PDF for you to print. Affix it to the door of your refrigerator so you have the facts ready when you need them.

Many thanks to JN for forwarding this construct.

Finally, Everything Ends

From The Onion:

THE WORLD WIDE WEB—The existence of shared communal truths was dealt a critical blow at approximately 10:07 a.m. Monday, sources reported, when the last factual piece of information was deleted from the internet.

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 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.

    Click me

    JA


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

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