second amendment

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.

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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.
.

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

Potpourri v19.0


E. Jean Carroll’s Civil Suit

against Donald Trump for battery and defamation is nearly over. She presented her case and then Trump called no witnesses. The closest he came to testifying was in his deposition, played for the jury, where he defended himself by claiming that Carroll was not his type. That got me to thinking.

In his deposition he viewed a photograph and announced that the woman in the picture with him was his second wife, Marla Maples. He married her, so it’s safe to assume Marla Maples was his type. What’s interesting about that is that the woman in the picture isn’t Marla Maples. It’s E. Jean Carroll, who apparently looked to Trump just like his former wife. Apparently, Carroll actually was his type.

But if Carroll wasn’t his type, as he claimed, exactly what is the type of woman he likes to rape?

Four Proud Boys Were Convicted

of seditious conspiracy last Thursday. One key element of the conviction was that the leader of this group, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, was found guilty even though he wasn’t on the grounds of the National Mall or in the Capitol Building at the time of the insurrection. That speaks hopefully for charges to come against the prime conspirator, who also wasn’t in the Capitol Building during the insurrection.

For now, we’re left with some pertinent questions. First, are the Proud Boys still proud, now that it’s clear that they were dumb enough to let Trump use them as his pawns? Second, will they still be tough guys after 20 years in federal prison? Third, when it all goes down on Trump and they shave his comb-over and put him in a cheap, orange jumpsuit, will the Secret Service still have to protect him?

This is the third successful trial for seditious conspiracy prosecuted by Merrick Garland’s Justice Department. This stuff moves painfully slowly and, of course, we’re looking for indictments of Trump, Meadows, Stone, Cruz, Eastman, Navarro, Flynn, Bannon, Giuliani, Powell and the rest of Trump’s band of co-conspirators, both in and out of office. Jack Smith won’t want to run afoul of the 2024 primary activities, so I don’t think we’ll have to wait much longer for indictments of the bad guys. So, stand back and stand by.

Various Republican Controlled States

are loosening child labor laws. Let’s see if we can figure out why.,

There has been a shortage of labor throughout our economy for years and that impacts our entire supply chain down to the service at your favorite restaurant. We’ve turned off the immigration spigot, so where will new workers come from?

We have cleverly decided that it’s a good idea for 10-year-olds to work the French fry machines at McDonalds. We have children in dangerous areas of industrial plants and lots more. And oh, BTW, making money may dissuade kids from completing their education.

Congress has refused to address comprehensive immigration reform for four decades and we are massively short of workers, so businesses have turned to the only people available. Our cowardly legislators would rather eliminate protections for kids than clean up our broken immigration system. They’d rather send our children to work than send them to school.

Ron DeSantis Is Protecting

not just Floridians, but all Americans from Chinese nationals buying real estate in Florida.

According to Ron’s plan, citizens of Russia, Iran and North Korea can buy real estate in Florida. So can Colombian drug lords, Guatemalan sex traffickers, convicted domestic American terrorists and mass murderers. Seditionists are welcome to gobble up land in Florida, as are mercenaries from the Wagner group, who are raping and killing innocent civilians in Ukraine every day in the name of Mother Russia.

But Chinese nationals can’t buy land in Florida, this for obvious reasons. Be sure to enlighten us about what those obvious reasons are in the Comments section below, because they just aren’t all that obvious to me.

The List of Justice Clarence Thomas’ “Indiscretions”

grows longer nearly every day.

Friday we were treated to the news that the extreme conservative Supreme Court justice whisperer Leonard Leo had funneled money to Ginni Thomas via intermediary Kellyanne Conway. Conway was then a pollster and later Trump’s “alternative facts” hyper-blabber. The money danced fairly-like to Ginni in roughly $25,000 increments and there is no indication that she earned it by doing anything of value. That leaves us wondering why that money got deposited into Ginni’s account and why it was passed to her in chameleon-like fashion.

And, of course, there was yet another Harlan Crow episode of generosity, as we learned that the child Clarence and Ginni were raising was sent to private schools paid for by Crow, this to the tune of something like $160,000. Now really, who doesn’t pay for somebody else’s kid’s private school? And Justice Thomas didn’t report either of those income streams, as required by both the law and basic judicial ethics.

Clearly, all the money and money equivalents lavished upon the justice and his extremist, tear-down-our-democracy wife may be legal and proper, however much verbal dancing that might require to convince us of such a thing. But this stuff, along with Justice Alito’s and Chief Justice Roberts’ relationships with money look suspicious and all of this is driving our trust in this critical institution ever downward.

If overthrowing the government is the goal, one of the sure ways to motivate the people to do that is to convince them of the corruption inherent in it.

Allen, Texas, a Northern Suburb of Dallas

is now known to us much as Uvalde, El Paso and Sutherland Springs are known.

A bunch of people were gunned down yesterday and at least 8 died and 7 more were injured at the Allen Premium Outlet Mall, shot by a bad guy with a gun. He was at last stopped by a cop, a good guy with a gun. We’re sure to hear about that from the gun crazies over the next few days and isn’t it just great that good guys have guns?

But the thing about the good guys with guns is that they are always way too late to stop the bad guys from killing innocents. Given Governor Abbott and his supplicant legislature, surely there were a lot of good guys with concealed carry guns in that Texas mall yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, most of them likely had little or no training in using a gun. How much help were those vigilantes? For an answer, ask the grieving families of the victims.

The governor, US senators and a few more with way more testosterone than sense have sent prayers. But think about it: thoughts and prayers are always a miserable confession that we waited too long to do what needed to be done. And we all know what needs to be done.

Columbine changed nothing. Neither did Highland Park. The same for Sandy Hook and Parkland and Uvalde and the Pulse Night Club and the Harvest music festival in Las Vegas and the Tree of Life Synagogue and now Allen, Texas. Prayers were sent for all, but the victims remain dead and their families and friends are traumatized for life with a pain that will never stop.

We can rally and protest and demand, but the Republican politicians are either crazed by a false interpretation of the Second Amendment or they’re in the pocket of the National Rifle Association or both. They will never do anything to protect We the People from murder.

If the legislators won’t change, then it’s up to us to change the legislators. We suffer two mass shootings every three days, so dumping those puffed up cowards can’t happen fast enough.

Think about that the next time you go to the mall or a movie theater or a house of worship or a music festival or send your kids to school. Will you make it home alive? Will your kids?

Quotes Of The Day

Only in America can a once-in-three-generations King’s coronation plus the Kentucky Derby be upstaged by — what else? — a mass shooting. – MSA

Everyone has a right to own a gun, but it must be a musket. – DE

.  .  .  the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. – Heather Cox Richardson

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

Amendment XXVIII


Section 1.

Whereas: The necessity of a free state to have a well regulated militia being fully satisfied by the various State National Guard units; and,

Whereas: The right of the people to be safe and secure in their persons, domiciles and in all public places being paramount; therefore,

Upon ratification of this article, the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is immediately repealed.

Section 2.

Sale, possession or use of automatic firearms, assault rifles, large capacity ammunition magazines, bump stocks and all other firearm modifications designed to create automatic fire weapons, ghost guns, silencers and ammunition designed for warfare are strictly prohibited. The official collection of banned materials from private hands, the time period for such collection and the determination of proper compensation, if any, for the relinquishing of banned materials shall be as proscribed by Congress through legislation.

Anyone found to be in possession of banned firearm materials beyond the final date set forth by Congress for turning in such materials will be guilty of a felony with penalties as defined by Congressional legislation.

Section 3.

The transportation, distribution or importation into any State, Territory or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of prohibited firearm materials intended for private sale or possession is a felony subject to such penalties as Congress shall establish.

Section 4.

Ownership of handguns, hunting rifles and shotguns shall be allowed by permit only. Permission for such ownership shall be as specified by Congress. At all times such ownership shall be subject to the following provisions:

1. All private citizens seeking ownership of any firearm shall undergo a thorough background check to determine whether such citizens are capable of and likely to follow legal and safety rules of ownership. No person having been found guilty of violent behavior shall be allowed to own firearms.

Failure to successfully complete  this background check shall disqualify any citizen from firearm ownership and possession. Background checks shall be defined by Congress and shall be subject to adjustment through legislation as Congress shall from time to time deem appropriate.

2. All owners of firearms shall secure liability insurance against harm to others as Congress shall require. Firearm owners shall keep such insurance in force at all times.

3. Prior to delivery into private hands of any legal firearm, the owner(s) shall undergo use and safety training as Congress shall deem to be required. Any citizen failing to successfully complete such use and safety training shall be prohibited from owning and from possessing any firearm.

4. No person or household shall be allowed to possess more than three (3) firearms at any time.

5. Use of an otherwise legal firearm in the commission of any misdemeanor or felony shall cause the perpetrator to be subject to a mandatory minimum sentence in federal prison of not less than five (5) years, regardless of whether such firearm is discharged during the commission of a misdemeanor or felony.

6. When privately owned firearms are not in use they must be stored in a locked cabinet or storage device that meets all security provisions as Congress shall define. Firearms in storage must be unloaded. Ammunition must be stored in a similar manner and separate from all firearms.

7. The right of firearm ownership shall be terminated upon any illegal use of a firearm and all firearms owned by any person using any firearm illegally shall be surrendered to law enforcement authorities immediately.

8. Congress shall create by legislation an Extreme Risk Law to allow for an intervention to temporarily prevent any citizen in crisis from accessing firearms of any type.

9. No person under the age of 21 years shall be allowed to own or possess any firearm of any kind.

Section 5.

Upon ratification of this article, the following types of legislation, whether federal, state or local, are immediately revoked and made null and void:

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2006

Any and all laws authorizing open carry of firearms

Any and all Stand Your Ground laws

Any and all permit-less concealed carry laws

Section 6.

Congress shall establish a complete list of zones where it is illegal for any private citizen to carry or possess firearms at any time, including schools, college campuses, daycare centers, playgrounds and other places where children gather, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, any public gathering, whether indoors or outdoors, public demonstrations and rallies, airports, polling places, courthouses and other locations as Congress shall determine. Simple possession of firearms in such places shall be a felony, with penalties as defined by Congress through legislation.

Section 7.

Congress shall have the power to enforce and adjust this Amendment through appropriate legislation as Congress shall from time to time deem appropriate and necessary for the safety of the citizens of the States, Territories and possessions of the United States of America.

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

_________________________________

Click the pic

America should be judged by the small coffins it tolerates.

Finally,

Cooler heads have a clear message for us regarding the indictment of Donald Trump. They tell us that this is a sober time. Never before have we indicted either a former president or a presidential candidate, much less both at the same time. These are weighty charges carrying grave and far-reaching consequences.

Yet as David Frum wrote in The Atlantic,

“It’s a solemn and sad moment. It’s also a fiercely just moment.”

This is a time of joy for our nation. This is a moment to celebrate the beginning of the restoration of the rule of law and accountability. This is when we make it more than an easy slogan that no one is above the law. This is when it becomes so. Just this indictment is a victory for us all.

I wrote in this space last Friday,

Remember this day, March 30, 2023, so that you can tell your grandchildren that this was the moment when justice began to return to America.
.

I’m right about that.

Whether Trump is found guilty of any of the 30+ charges against him is not the point right now. His behavior looks like fraud, smells like conspiracy and perp walks like illegal campaign contributions. Trump deserves to be put on trial for these and whatever other charges District Attorney Alvin Bragg has for him. Let this man who has never been held accountable at last face the music for his deeds.

And we can dance in the streets to that music.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

Guns, then Nikki Haley


Guns

After I had delivered a leadership workshop to an executive group we went to lunch at an upscale suburban restaurant not far from the meeting venue. I sat across a small table from a guy who had a pistol in a holster clipped to his belt. I’m not a gun guy and I felt profoundly at risk, but I tried to be cool about it.

“Why do you carry a gun?” I asked. You could reasonably expect him to have said that he carries it in case a bad guy shows up or an argument became dangerously heated or in case he sees a crime in progress. None of that is what he said.

He said – and I’m quoting him – “Because I can.” As in: because it’s legal; because the Second Amendment says he can. He was letting me know he has rights.

In fact, everyone I’ve encountered who is carrying an easily spotted gun and to whom I’ve posed my question has answered the same way. “Because I can.” It’s always said with some degree of chip-on-the-shoulder and with bravado bordering on defensiveness.

I can push a broom in a crosswalk on 5th Avenue – that’s legal – but the right to do so hardly explains why I would do such a thing. Same for the gun carrying business.

So, I leaned into my questioning of the guy across the table from me at that restaurant, acknowledging he does have a right to carry and asking why he would do so. I then got a series of statements that can be collected in a bucket labeled, “In case something happens.” But I don’t think that’s much more than a small part of his truth.

I think his truth is that carrying a pistol makes him feel strong and powerful and in control. While wearing his pistol he can wear his “Don’t even think of messing with me” tough guy attitude with ease.

He’s prepared to be a hero – the good guy with a gun who will stop bad guys with guns. He’ll be the protector of grannies wheeling their shopping carts across the suburban parking lot. He’s ready for a return to the Wild West when people believed that a good old fashioned shoot out solved all problems. Bummer he wasn’t on the Michigan State University campus that night to confront the murderer. Pay no attention to the kids who would have been killed in the cross fire.

That’s just one of the problems – the price we pay – for that guy carrying in order to feel strong and powerful and in control. Even if he really is a good guy – and I’m pretty sure he is – there are plenty of others who carry a gun for less honorable reasons than protecting those grannies and those students.

They carry firearms and always say, “Because I can,” as though saying so makes it sensible for them to have a killing machine strapped to themselves. But every choice has consequences. One of the choices we’ve made is to let people do that. One of the consequences of that choice played out in East Lansing, Michigan last week.

Nikki Haley

To her cheering attendees, rah-rah sign wavers and applause line clappers at the kickoff rally for her presidential candidacy race on February 15, Nikki Haley said of Republicans,

“We’ve lost the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections. Our cause is right, but we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans.”

She was right about all of that – except for the four words about Republicans’ cause. The American voting public keeps telling them that their cause is wrong, not right, but Republicans act as though they’re deaf. Or perhaps they just don’t care about We the People.

Consistently, over 92% of the American public wants universal background checks on all sales of firearms. Half of all Americans want assault weapons, high capacity magazines and more to be outlawed. But Republicans block such legislation from coming to a vote or they vote against it. Republicans never ask Gen-Zs what it’s like to go to school feeling like they have a bulls eye on their backs. It wouldn’t matter if they did ask, because the Republicans aren’t listening to the answers. They’re completely wrong on this.

61% of Americans want abortion to be legal, yet Republicans continue to wave their holier-than-thou flag and oppose We The People. They’re completely wrong on this.

63% of Americans want universal medical insurance – single payer, Medicare for all, just like in all the other first world countries – but Republicans block legislation or vote against it every time. They’re completely wrong on this.

85% of the American public wants Social Security but Republicans launch sneaky back stabs to kill it, using dishonest, patriotic sounding names. But a theft of people’s security through Republican treachery remains just that. They’re completely wrong on this.

Haley is flat out – let’s call her “mistaken.” Republicans have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans and they keep losing the popular vote because their cause is wrong. And only gerrymandering, the theft of voting rights and the existence of the archaic, anti-democratic Electoral College allow them to win any elections at all.

Quotes Making The Point

“Mr. Trump didn’t change the Republican Party; he revealed it. Ms. Haley, for all her talents, embodies the moral failure of the party in its drive to win at any cost, a drive so ruthless and insistent that it has transformed the G.O.P. into an autocratic movement.” [emphasis mine]

Also,

“There is a great future behind Nikki Haley.”

“Haley, like [Lindsay] Graham, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Ohio Senator J. D. Vance, and so many others, sees principles as disposable, making her yet another example of why the GOP cannot be trusted with power. Haley knows how to say the right things about how the violence of January 6 was bad, but to this day she refuses to hold Trump accountable, and so there is no way to know if she or any other candidate will withstand the antidemocratic demands of Republican primary voters. For Republicans in elected office, the GOP base is now so hostile to our democratic institutions that loyalty to the Constitution has become an unaffordable political luxury.” [emphasis mine]

  • Tom Nichols, The Pointless Nikki Haley Campaign
  • The Atlantic Daily, February 15, 2023

“‘Absolute Hypocrisy’: GOP Unveils Bill to Make Trump Tax Cuts Permanent While Howling About Debt”

  • Jake Johnson, CommonDreams.org 
  • February 16, 2023
  • Addendum

  • From NewsMax – click the pic

    On Friday, February 17 Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) signed his political death warrant. He’s term limited by Ohio law for the post of governor, but whatever other political posts he might be interested in, they are now permanently closed to him.

  • He spoke in a monotone from the state capitol in Columbus about the massive train derailment that occurred in East Palestine, OH two weeks earlier, one of well over 1,000 derailments we experience each year. His message to residents was largely a pat on the hand, saying that it’s safe to breathe the air in town and it’s safe to drink water from the municipal water supply and its 5 wells.
  • That didn’t go down well for the residents of the town who were witnesses to thousands of dead fish in the Ohio River, or with some of their fellow citizens with significant skin rashes and respiratory irritation, or with people suffering from strange diseases that somehow coincidentally showed up immediately after the train crash. It wasn’t reassuring for citizens who use private water wells and who were terrified for the safety of their little kids. Nobody felt safer about the long term carcinogenic effects of the burning vinyl chloride that spewed black clouds over their town.
  • Note that DeWine did not drink a big glass of water from the East Palestine municipal water supply during his address to Ohioans. He appeared to do that 4 days later. There has been no reporting on his health following that drink.
  • His presentation came across as a limp-wristed cave in to the Norfolk Southern Railroad.
  • I have been a fan of this moderate Republican for a while, but that relationship is over. I’m on the side of the people of East Palestine, OH.

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


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

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

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

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

    JA


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

Potpourri v16.0


Very late edition – Dateline: America
.

EXTRA! EXTRA!

EXTRA!

Republican Red Wave Just a Little Splash!

Dems Retain Control of Senate!

Control of House Still Too Close To Call

In a stunning surprise on Saturday night the Senate race in Nevada was called in favor of Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, giving Dems 50 votes plus the vote of the VIce-President in the upper chamber. Control of the Senate will remain with Dems. That will assure that Republicans cannot universally block President Biden, including in the ability to place judges onto federal benches, all the way up to the Supreme Court if such a replacement comes to be needed.

Still to be decided is the 100th seat in the Senate, as the Georgia seat presently held by Rafael Warnock will be contested in a runoff election on December 6 against former football star and Word Salad Party candidate, Herschel Walker. The outcome of that race will not influence control in the Senate.

This happened in a week that began filled with dread and ended with the most powerful of statements. The Republicans had said that they stood for ignoring the will of the majority, lying, stealing, stripping rights from Americans and ending our democracy.

The American people stood up and said, “Not on my watch.”

Reports are coming in that the flag atop the Capitol Building is flying just a bit higher today and one witness noticed a tear of joy in the eye of Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. The Founders are said to be resting undisturbed in the presence of this important news.

Russians and Republicans

From Prof. Heather Cox Richardson on November 7:

Today, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and the leader of the private military company the Wagner Group, who is close to Russian president Vladimir Putin, boasted that Russians had interfered in U.S. elections and continue to do so. “We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.” He added: “During our pinpoint operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at once.”

Prigozhin is apparently behind the Russia-based “troll farms” that try to affect U.S. elections. Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times writes that Russians did indeed target the 2022 elections to make right-wing voters angry so they would vote to undermine our own national security interests and also to undermine trust in U.S. elections. Their hope is to erode American support for Ukraine’s struggle to repel the Russian invasion by getting us to elect Republicans who side with – even love – Putin.

Did it occur to you before now that Republicans would side with a Russian dictator in his invasion of a sovereign nation? These guys used to be the commie haters, the Red baiters, the muscular bashers of everything east of Poland. How did they go so far right that they now sound more like fictional ultra-extremist wacko lefties from the 50s that Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Hades) invented and lied about?

Militia Letter

Thanks go to the Founders for the Second Amendment that guarantees that anyone can have a gun. This is because we still need a militia at the ready and for the original reasons: just in case the Brits invade for a third try to reverse the revolution and to put down an uprising if southern slaves try to rebel yet again.

The Amendment specifically states,

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.

It’s recognized not just in common sense but also in the writing of our foundational document that we need a well regulated Militia. So, here’s an open letter to our many tough guys in our many so-called militias.

Guys (plus Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene), you aren’t a Militia unless the state you’re in declares you to be so – in writing. And you have to be under the direction and limitations prescribed by your state government – certainly not as prescribed by yourselves. That’s just how we roll in this country.

Indeed, our Militias are now called the National Guard, like the Michigan National Guard and the Kentucky National Guard. You guys aren’t any state’s National Guard. You get that, right?

You aren’t well regulated, as required by the Second Amendment. In fact, you aren’t regulated at all. Being regulated would require civilian government oversight, regulation and a clear chain of command to the governor, and you don’t have any of that.

In fact, you are a perfect example of what is not patriotic. The New York Times is publishing a series of essays on “The Danger Within,” as in: domestic terrorism. That’s you. The first essay is Political Violence Is Threatening Our Democracy. Click the title and read the post and learn how un-American your actions actually are.

Look, just face the fact that your veneer of freedom loving patriotism has been scratched off. We know who you are and what you do and no amount of self-puffing is going to turn you into what the Second Amendment requires. Intimidating voters and pedestrians with your weapons and black ski masks and camo pants and boots and marching in military columns won’t make you a militia or a patriot. You’re just a bunch of pissed off guys skulking around in the woods pretending to be Rambo.

Doing your pretend Special Forces playacting will make you and keep you an enemy of the state, of the red, white and blue. It will make you a threat to innocent people who have done you no harm, nor have they done harm to anyone else or to our nation. Yours is the very stuff of bullying.

It never occurred to the Founding Fathers that any citizen would take up semi-automatic firearms and threaten our state capitols, our polling places and the Capitol Building itself in DC in an act of insurrection. They couldn’t have envisioned a bunch of huffing and puffing thugs making death threats to grannies counting votes or to any elected official who doesn’t toe your line. You’re an embarrassment to the Constitution you pretend to be protecting and defending.

But you don’t have to be that.

Fellow Kari Lake vote denialists displaying their gullibility and their complete lack of evidence.

You can stand down. You can take meaning from the 2022 election and its repudiation of extremist candidates and extremism itself. You can join the tens of millions of Americans who voted for our rights to be restored and protected, including the right not to be intimidated or harmed by you. If you were to do that, you could be – you just might become – a patriot. Red, white and blue all over.

Come to think of it, here’s a note for the 170 members of Congress who cheered on and were apologists for the January 6 insurrectionists:

Each of you could become a patriot, too. All you’ll need is a spinal implant (so you’ll actually be able to stand for something constitutional and decent) and a brain transplant (you know why).

From the most unlikely source on integrity:

“One of the most indelible lessons of human history is that those who adopt the doctrine that the end justifies the means inevitably find the means become the end.” –  Richard Nixon

Speaking of Integrity

As of this writing it is not clear which party will be in the majority in the House of Representatives and it matters who’s in charge. Here’s why.

If the House comes to be Republican controlled, Republicans will enthusiastically revert to being the Party of No. They have said publicly that they have no policies and no positions other than to accuse and criticize. They propose no solutions to our very real problems. They offer only their intransigence to anything even remotely associated with any Democrat, so they will proudly stymie all progress.

If Republicans are in the majority in the House beginning in January, set your expectations to literally nothing getting done for the next two years. Then expect Republicans to criticize the President and all Democrats for nothing having gotten better.

Integrity. It’s just so confusing for some people.

Just Sayin’

I’ve had this perverse notion that all Democrats who lost an election for any office this cycle should band together in a Stop the Steal Movement. They’ll claim there was massive voter fraud and declare themselves the winners of their elections. Each will file a lawsuit against their Republican opponent and their election officials. They’ll demand a recount, an apology from the law-flouting vote counters and a mea culpa from the phony Republican winners, along with a nice box of chocolates and a hand written note of contrition.

One more thing. We’ll send a nya-nya Hallmark card to Trump for his infantile blaming of Melania for telling him to endorse New Jersey candidate hoping to be a senator from Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz. What a weenie!

Just sayin’.

PS

I closed my Twitter accounts, as promised. What message have you sent to extremist promoting Elon Musk?

————————————

Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:

Fire the bastards!

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

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

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

For Six Justices: Imagine That


Click the pic to hear what they said about Roe and stare decisis during their confirmation hearings. Then decide if they lied to us.

If you see your picture to the right, this is for you.
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Did you ever have little kids? Were you yourself ever a little kid?

I want you to think back to when you were 9 years old, sitting in your third grade classroom. See it in your mind’s eye. You’re at your desk watching your teacher at the front of the room as she is explaining something. You hear a sound and momentarily glance toward the door. It suddenly flies open and a guy in full body armor, carrying an assault rifle and a handgun charges in and shoots your teacher. There’s blood on the wall behind where she was standing and she’s motionless on the floor. Then he starts shooting your friends. He’s firing multiple bullets into each of their bodies and there is blood everywhere. Then he sees you and aims his AR-15 directly at your face. Now tell me how you feel about really strict gun laws.

Front page of the New York Times Sunday Review, May 29, 2022. Cites multiple mass shootings, each with the same lede: “Authorities said the gunman was able to obtain the weapons legally.” Click the pic – read it and weep.

That’s no horror movie scene. Other than the grade level, that is exactly what happened in Uvalde, Santa Fe, Sandy Hook, Columbine, Parkland and more. That’s effectively what happened in Buffalo and El Paso and Aurora and Charleston and Milwaukee and Las Vegas and Pittsburgh and  .  .  .

Nothing in the just-passed gun safety bill would have prevented any of those massacres. To be fair, the safe storage provision might have kept that Bushmaster assault rifle out of the hands of that 19-year-old Sandy Hook murderer. Maybe.

New scenario.

Imagine your child is with you, holding your hand as you’re crossing the street. You look up and realize that there’s a shooter on the sidewalk in front of you and he’s aiming his military style assault rifle directly at you. You’re instantly certain that you’ll be dead in a fraction of a second, that you cannot protect your child and that your little one will be dead a second after you. Now tell me how you feel about really strict gun laws.

Different situation.

You live in the ghetto, the poorest, grimiest part of the city. On a good day there is just enough to eat for your three kids and you. There are a lot of days that aren’t nearly that good. Two months ago a vagrant broke in and raped you and now you’re pregnant with what will be a fourth child. Now tell me how you feel about the right to an abortion.

From The Onion, of course. Click the pic.

I suspect that the self-certain Bible thumpers living in comfortable means are sincere in their beliefs about abortion. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that they want to impose their beliefs on you. They want to take away your rights and they’ve succeeded at that, yet they haven’t even a ghost of a clue about you and how their certainties are completely alien and absurd in your existence. Once again, tell me now, as you sit in misery in the ghetto, pregnant with a rapist’s child and with three hungry kids, how you feel about the right to an abortion.

The comfortable moralizers also don’t haven’t a clue what it’s like to have an AR-15 pointed at their faces. They don’t know what it’s like to see their friends’ bodies ripped to shreds or to know they can’t protect their little ones. Doesn’t matter. They’re certain that they know what’s best for you and the rules you have to follow.

It’s easy to spout platitudes and holy proclamations when you yourself are not impacted by their consequences. But when you’re at the receiving end of extremist policies, it looks and feels quite different. Funny how that works.

Many thanks to KL for this.

So, to you six Supreme Court justices, appointed by Presidents, all but one of whom lost the popular vote, you are administering the tyranny of the minority. To you, who justify your pitiless convictions by invoking obscure 13th century English law and who are supremely extremist and supremely certain that your views are not just right, but that they’re supremely right and mandatory for everyone else: Just imagine.

Imagine that you’re that kid in that third grade classroom seeing your friends being killed, or you’re that parent crossing the street holding your little child’s hand, knowing you’re both about to be murdered, or that you’re that pregnant woman in the ghetto.

One more time: All of your extremist yelping about the Second Amendment and your moralizing about abortion look a bit different now that all that yelping and moralizing affects you. Imagine that.

The same goes for you extremist Republicans both in Congress and in state legislatures. What you’re doing hurts people. What you’re doing kills some people. What you do is cruel and it’s long past time for you to find something better to do with your time than to rile up others with your holier-than-thou and self-serving certainties that harm people. Go home. Don’t come back. When you disappear, that’s when things will begin to get better for the rest of us.

And the rest of us can easily imagine that.

————————————

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 to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!)

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Gun Ears


‘You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” – Winston Churchill

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Let’s start with this obvious but enormously powerful basic: Regardless of where we stand, all discussions about guns are loaded with emotional juice, primitive fight-or-flight reactions and mind blanking, logic eliminating passions. We cannot imagine the depth of the stupidity of those who disagree with us.

This is a true “both sides” situation.

Many thanks to Gary Larson for his years of genius exemplified in this Far Side cartoon that just seems to fit our “think-they-know-everythings”

Because of that it’s pretty well impossible to have a thoughtful, logical discussion about guns. Nevertheless, to illustrate my foolishness, I’m going to try just this one time. Plus this other time. Oh, and this one. For more, click on the search box above my pic on the right and search on the word “guns.” BTW, that’s a seagull flying past my nose.

Gun lovers cite the Second Amendment as though that’s all they need to establish their claim that they can keep and bear whatever arms they want. It’s an absolute, they tell us. “What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ is unclear to you?” they ask. Well, there are just a few things about that – here’s a sampling.

First: The reason for the Second Amendment

It was included so that southern states would ratify the Constitution. Basic bribery. Those muskets and militias were for one purpose: to put down slave rebellions. To the best of my understanding, that need no longer exists. That means that amendment is no longer required.

I’m now less confident that another reason for the Second Amendment was because our early government had no money for a standing army, so they needed citizens to be ready if the Brits came back, which they did a dozen years later. Go look it up, if you like.

Second: The “well regulated militia” part

Start buy watching this previously linked video.

The hypothesis in the Second Amendment is, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State .  .  .” Well, the Revolutionary version of a militia has morphed into the National Guard. They are well regulated. There are no other state militias.

And there is no other place for the required regulation (i.e. training) outside of the active duty military, so the rest of the hypothesis for gun ownership according to the Second Amendment no longer exists, either.

Private citizens possessing firearms aren’t members of a real militia, however earnestly some may believe they are, and they aren’t regulated at all. They bear no resemblance to the Second Amendment or to the National Guard.

Read this thread by a vet as he explains the training our military recruits receive – very much like the description in the video above. They are very well regulated. Compare that to the training – regulation – you’d receive if you were to purchase a handgun, hunting rifle or assault rifle at a gun show or from a gun dealer. Or if the 18 year old next door were to buy those firearms. There’s no relationship of that to the intent of the Second Amendment.

Watch this video of former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Warren Burger as he explains the fraud about the Second Amendment that has been foisted upon the American public by the gun industry.

Third: The “shall not be infringed’ part of the Second Amendment

That does sound like an absolute, but here’s what super conservative, “originalist” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said about that:

Turns out that the right to keep and bear arms may, in fact, be infringed. It already is. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Fourth: The weapons

Go ahead, hold to originalist thinking. Keep and bear arms exactly as intended by the Founders. Stockpile muskets, balls, powder horns and flintlock pistols. I just don’t want that to be extrapolated to any citizen having the right to have any modern weapon. Today’s weapons are killing machines not even imagined by the Founders.

Fifth: Protection against a tyrannical government

The Second Amendment doesn’t say or imply any such thing. Read it above – that’s the entire Second Amendment. There’s nothing about imagined tyranny done by our government or what to do about it if it were real.

Seriously, is some bunch of camo-wearing guys skulking through the woods going to overpower our armed forces and topple what they believe to be a tyrannical government or perhaps bend the government to their will? Doesn’t matter. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with any perceived tyranny of our government,

The Gun Ears Part

This is the hard stuff.

I’ve tried to be logical and level headed about this, even as I became more agitated as I wrote. Like I said, this issue is loaded with juice for most of us and I’m no exception. Perhaps it’s time to hear from someone who disagrees with me.

Try this guy. But first, be clear that your challenge is to listen to him all the way through. Maybe listen twice or even three times, seeking solely to understand him and what he has to say. Your job is not to craft your insightful response to prove him wrong or to impugn his intelligence or to give in to becoming angry and resentful. It is simply to understand.

I warn you that this assignment will almost certainly be difficult, but it’s very important. Click on the pic, watch, listen and learn, grasshopper.

Maybe you noticed immediately that this fellow demonstrates my opening point, that gun ownership – keeping and bearing arms – is a very emotional subject.

Yes, I know you can shoot down some of the things he says, including his redirection away from guns in America to the British gun laws and to our drug problems. Yes, I heard his toxic masculinity about what “real men” do and “going down swinging.” Just ignore that stuff and consider that he is earnest in his distrust of government (aren’t you?) and, by the way, he has some ideas worthy of consideration, like hiring unemployed vets to protect kids.

Could you have a conversation with this guy without it turning into a fight, what with Buffalo, Laguna, Uvalde and Tulsa on your mind? Do you have the courage to listen to him while seeking only to understand? I tell you with complete confidence that’s exactly what it will take for us to begin to mend our deep political divide and learn to live with one another.

I have no illusions about converting this guy. What I have is a notion that we all have plenty to learn and we cannot accomplish that task by yelling at one another. That demand for learning and being respectful is on all of us. So is taking action.

Must Reads of the Week

It is critical that we stay clear about what needs to be done. Read Thom Hartmann’s piece on this because this is going to take a while.

And read the Twitter thread of Sean Castin (D-IL 6). The comments below it are worthwhile, too.

Adaptive Quote

From Monika Bauerlein writing in Mother Jones about the likely Roe decision and minority rule:

” .  .  . I thought about how far gone a democracy is when 54 percent of the population support a constitutional right and 28 percent oppose it, yet the 28 percent position wins out.”

The numbers on gun safety/control are far more lopsided than that, with 80 – 90% of us supporting gun safety laws, yet the minority position continues to win out. That’s deadly.

From Reader FL

For those red-staters who proudly believe that it is safer to live in Alabama than in big, bad, dangerous NYC, here are some numbers to chew on:

The 2021 homicide rate in NYC was 5.5 individuals per 100,000 residents.

The 2021 homicide rate in Alabama was 14.2 individuals per 100,000 residents.

Finally, A Little Lighten Up

Watch Stephen Colbert’s Monday scoop on PuppetGate.

————————————

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 to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!)

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA

 


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

DO SOMETHING! – Part 2


Gov. Abbott press conference in Uvalde, TX. Click the pic for the story.

Gov. “Bang-Bang” Abbott of the Shooting Gallery of Texas said he was livid at his press conference following the Uvalde massacre, this because he didn’t get the full, straight story about police actions, if there were any. His cops and his hand picked public safety officials had essentially snow jobbed him, he told us. Of course, we understand anger over not getting a straight story, because most of the time it’s impossible for us to get a straight story from Abbott. That makes lots of people livid.

If he’s livid it may be because this time he got caught as an accessory to the murders of school kids by a really well equipped, Texas authorized shooter. You know, body armor, two AR-15s and lots of ammo, stuff that Abbott wants troubled 18 year olds to have. Of course, Abbott didn’t have what it takes to give us the straight story about that. What we know is that he was livid about looking foolish, mouthing bad information – so very sad for his ego. He gave no indication that he was livid about 19 dead kids and 2 dead teachers. In fact, when he told us he was livid they were still trying to identify those little corpses and eventually had to resort to DNA matching, but he didn’t mention that.

Still, right then and there Abbott promised mental health services for survivors in Uvalde. That’s great, because those people are hurting terribly. It will be generations before the people of that town get over this catastrophe, if, indeed, those folks ever do.

It’s wonderful that Gov. Abbott is promising mental health assistance right there in Texas, which ranks 4th in the nation in prevalence of mental illness, but last in access to care. Plus it’s going to be tougher and extra awful for the suffering people of Uvalde, because Abbott can’t possibly provide the help he bragged about. That’s because he recently chopped the state budget for mental health services by $211 million. It seems we’re back yet again to that business of not being able to get a straight story from Gov. Greg Abbott.

Besides his phantom mental health support, it’s noteworthy that last year Abbott boasted of having signed at least 7 new laws making it easier for Texans to get guns, including one that allows people to carry handguns without a background check, without training and without a permit. Just buy, load and go. More recently he urged Texans to buy more guns because a report said that there were more guns in California than in Texas. Gotta love his competitive spirit. Bang bang.

All of that is in the wake of 23 shoppers killed at a Walmart in El Paso, 10 kids killed in their school in Santa Fe and 26 churchgoers shot dead in Sutherland Springs. Now 19 kids and 2 teachers in Uvalde have been murdered. Read this and this if you want to understand how deeply objectionable this guy is and exactly why people like you and dead gun victims simply don’t matter to him.

I pick on Gov. Abbott for several reasons, chief among which is that he deserves it. I want to be bigger about this, but the truth is that I enjoy verbally beating the snot out of this guy – or any guy – who’s all about promoting himself in the face of the ghastly price paid by others for his bravado. He’s a placeholder for all the “real man” chest thumpers and the “my rights and my freedom” guys who still have not figured out that there are a lot of other people just beyond their noses who also have rights.

Like the right to not get murdered. We’d like for our kids to have the right to stop having to do active shooter drills and for our elderly loved ones to have the right to go shopping without it being a death defying act. We’d like for all the you-and-me regular folks to have the right to go to the entertainment district and not get killed by a monster with weapons in his hands made possible by Gov. Greg Abbott and others just like him. I pick on Gov. Abbott because he is a self-righteous tyrant and promoter of death who deserves a verbal thrashing.

We’ll do well to admit that Gov. Abbott and other officials like him, as well as ordinary citizens described in the above paragraphs, are people who we’ll never persuade, so we’ll have to over-power them. That means that way more of us will have to vote.

To our gun culture enthusiasts:
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I get that having and firing a handgun or hunting rifle or assault rifle is fun. It makes young men and lunatic congressmen and women feel powerful, in charge, important. Gun culture is intoxicating. But here’s the thing: If I care at all about the pleasure you or anyone gets from owning, handling and firing guns, it isn’t even in the same universe as my care for little kids sitting at their desks at schools or grannies shopping or people in church or doctors and nurses at their hospitals.

Your right to own and fire your guns isn’t even remotely as important as our right to life, as described in the Declaration of Independence as an unalienable right. That means that you are not allowed to kill anybody. Your puffed chest Second Amendment right is way behind others’ right to safety.
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Quoting Peggy Hamburg, former FDA commissioner, “If you don’t see the light, you will soon feel the heat.”

Half-size caskets with cartoons for Uvalde kids. Click the pic for the sad story.

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The day is coming when all of this will be self-evident. Greg Abbott will be long gone, as will Ted Cruz and all the knuckle dragging congressional and state legislative candidates firing or handling guns in their campaign ads. Be clear that I respect the guns – they’re dangerous – but I don’t respect those people.

They’re not protectors from a tyrannical government, nor do they protect us from immigrants or from anyone else. What they do is to endanger We The People every day.

These chest thumpers are not the opponent; they are the enemy of American public safety. Some day they must be defeated.

We can hasten the arrival of that day. Indeed, we must hasten the arrival of that day, because over 100 Americans are dying by gunfire every day.

From DO SOMETHING! – Part One:

What creative ideas do you have to get candidates elected who are bold enough to pass meaningful, sensible laws to protect our children and grannies and church goers and concert and movie attendees and .  .  .  wait .  .  .  that’s all of us.

Which candidates will you phone bank for? Will you send out election reminder post cards? How about kicking in a few bucks to a congressional candidate in a swing state? You can even do something to elect state legislature candidates who think my little granddaughter and other school kids shouldn’t have to do active shooter drills. Here’s a link to The States Project. These folks are all about that and you can make a difference that just might keep people from getting killed.

Remember: To Fire the bastards! (see below) we have to replace them with good guys. That’s about promoting the right people and voting. That’s on us.

Key Words: DO SOMETHING!
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Like March For Our Lives – June 11
.
Click the button to be directed to the closest march to you.
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Marches Near You!

June 11 – BE THERE!

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Must Reads

How Greg Abbott and Under 4 Percent of Texans Are ruining the State for the Rest of Us

The Epidemic of Mass Shootings is Neither Inevitable Nor Unsolvable

He Did Not Act Alone

Post Script

After little kids and grannies were massacred, after dozens of concert attendees were mowed down, after multiple murders in churches, synagogues and mosques, how can it be that there is any political resistance at all to laws to protect us from these killing machines and from homicidal maniacs?

What has happened to us such that we know what to do and yet steadfastly refuse to do it?

Have no misunderstanding, no fog of ignorance: This is a test. It is a test of who and what we care about, what we value, what is precious to us. The answer to the single test question is not yet another string of hollow platitudes or another chest thumping, self-serving speech. The question is critical. I fear the answer.

————————————

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 to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!)

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

Thanks!

The Fine Print:

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

JA


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

Live and Die Loud, The Economy and Ottawa


We have a Second Amendment and it was enshrined into something holy and untouchable as if directly from God by Justice Antonin Scalia, the NRA, bobblehead Republicans and every red state absolutist. Just two things about that.

The First Thing

That amendment reads:

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.
.

That’s the complete text. Gun thumpers are big on the second phrase – that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. They view that right as absolute, this in spite of their Supreme Court champion, Justice Scalia, clearly stating that no right is absolute.

Worse, they always ignore the first phrase – that Militia thing. Our militia is called the National Guard and there is one in every state, so there’s no need for tough guys to be creeping through the woods in camo with their AR-15s, playing soldier and scaring the hell out of bunnies and Bambi.

The reason for the Framers believing that there was a necessity for a Militia is because early on the federal government had no money to maintain a standing army and needed citizens to be at the ready when – not if – the British returned, which they did just 26 years after the Constitution was ratified. That well regulated Militia was never intended to be a force to overthrow our own government, even if the gun thumpers believe that’s what it’s for, and even if they think they’re a well regulated militia (they’re not), and even if the date is January 6.

The Second Thing

This, too, is about that phrase that our Second Amendment enthusiasts love.

Is there some reason ordinary citizens cannot own more sophisticated weapons than rifles and pistols? Actually, not so much. If you want to own a rocket launcher, land mines, machine guns and more you can do it legally. It’s very pricey. But maybe some cabal of super wealthy right-wing oligarchs who want you to overthrow the government and put them in charge will send you the cash.

The point is that the Second Amendment doesn’t say muskets, although that was the state of the art at the time that amendment was drafted. No update of weapons of war was contemplated, so that’s what the Framers had in mind. Still, they wrote “Arms,” not “muskets” or “guns.”

I think we should crank up the volume of our explosions. Come on now, everybody grab your pre-1986 50 caliber machine guns, your rocket launchers and your fertilizer bombs and we’ll make the Second Amendment sing. We’ll live and die loud in a national conflagration of primitive chest thumping and self-righteous rage. Justice Scalia would be so proud! So would Justice Clarence Thomas and his far-right wife, GIni.

Or we could pass sensible gun safety legislation and begin to reduce the bleeding and dying. Over 80% of the American people prefers this choice. I wonder why we can’t get what we want  .  .  .

It’s The Economy, Stupid

Everybody knows that Republicans are the party of business, the geniuses of the economy, the ones to be entrusted to hold the reigns of power to shepherd our national financial well being. The Democrats just give away the tax money collected from hard working people and spend it on their touchy-feely, socialist, tree hugging programs. They’re clueless about how to run an economy.

Well, maybe.

Have a look at this chart. The data covers the period since World War II. CNN recently published much the same information.

                                     S & P 500             GDP            Job Creation     Unemployment
                        Ave. Annual Gain  Ave. Growth  Ave. per month  Rate Movement
.

DEMOCRATS              11.2%                 4.1%               164,000                   – 0.8%

REPUBLICANS              6.9%                 2.5%                 61,000                   +1.1%

Note, too, that 10 of the 11 U.S. recessions between 1953 and 2020 began under Republican presidents.

Gotta hand it to those Republicans. They sure do protect us from those economy dopey Democrats. Plus, they have such great claims of fiscal responsibility, low taxes and small government. Just don’t think about deficits (see the tweet to the left from 2019). Bummer they can’t find a sustainably strong economy, even using two hands and a flashlight (thanks go to Aaron Sorkin for the phrase).

Just imagine if the economic and employment growth under Democrats were to continue instead of leaving it to the Republicans to muck it up.

When you’re done imagining, go canvass, phone bank, contribute and vote in order to bring your imagination to life.

Last thought on this: How come Democrats aren’t making enormous noise about all of their success?

The Definitive Solution to the Trucker Anti-Vaxx, Anti-Mask, Temper Tantrum “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa
  1. Impound all the trucks immediately. Keep them while slow-walking prosecutions.
  2. Encourage truckers to show proper behavior that their moms would like by requiring that they publicly apologize for their anti-social, rude behavior and promise to never do such things again. Plus, make them clean up the mess they left in the streets of Ottawa. If they refuse, lock ’em up longer.
  3. Enroll them in Breakfast Club for a couple of months. After that, if they have perfect attendance they can have their trucks back. Then show them the highway out of town and tell them to never come back.

The truckers have selfishly made everything about themselves and the imagined curtailment of their freedom. They’re heedless of the $55 million in lost wages they’ve caused others or the hundreds of millions of dollars of trade they’ve imperiled or the small businesses they’ve caused to be shuttered.

Remember: Lack of accountability promotes more wrongdoing. We either hold them accountable or they and others will be emboldened to do worse.

NOTES
  1. Traditional conservatives would have recommend and enthusiastically supported this solution. Recall, if you’re able to remember that far back, that they used to be all about law and order. Not so much today.
  2. Consider that when people act out, their motivation may be deeper and likely founded on real and legitimate grievances. So, we can swat at the symptom of the traffic clogging – we really have to. More important for the long term is to figure out the driving forces and deal with them. I suspect that disrespect and betrayal are involved.
  3. For an examination of rights (like freedom) and responsibilities, read Tom Friedman’s essay, America 2022: Where Everyone Has Rights and No One Has Responsibilities.
Quote of the Week

From Maureen Dowd’s column of February 12 centered on James Joyce’s Ulysees:

Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s self-portrait, captures our incomprehensible politics in a remark that burns brighter than ever: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

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

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

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

That Elusive More Perfect Union


There are always impassioned young men who are quick to anger, who instantly deliver a snarl and vitriol, are over-eager to dominate and impatient for violence. Some remain that way for a very long time. They love their hate and anger and the rush of power they get from that, as their spittle flies. Ignorance is no impediment and they are easy targets for manipulators. They are heedless of who gets hurt in their quest for power and vengeance. Indeed, hurting others is more than collateral damage; it’s their reason. *

Click me and discover our violent reality

It should come as no surprise to any of us that people nurture their grievances today much as the Southern traitors did in 1861. They justify their rebellion in their victimhood. They have the power rush and their absolute belief in their righteousness. They hunker down and plot ways to attack, to hit back. We’re seeing it today in a continuing assault on reality, on our democracy and in their cowardly, selfish retreat from integrity.

Our ongoing mass carnage is testament to our national belief in violent solutions to all problems. The Gun Violence Archive tracks our mass shootings (that means bullets ripping apart 3 or more people in a single incident). To understand the efficiency with which we execute violent solutions, there have been 25 mass shootings in just the past 12 days, with 18 killed and 96 wounded. Click on the pic above or the inline link in this paragraph in order to read the page. Then scroll through the other pages. It might come to you that our killing one another isn’t just horrible; it’s normal. It’s every day. And that’s just the gun violence.

Smug, arrogant Jefferson Davis and his ministers. Nine men, each with a metaphorical White supremacist, self-righteously raised middle finger. Sound familiar? Click the pic for Jamelle Bouie’s essay.

Timothy McVeigh thought he was a patriot and hero for bombing the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and killing 168 people. Dylann Roof thought he was doing the right White supremacist thing by killing all nine people present at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. And the January 6 insurrectionists are still sure they are the true patriots, having beaten, bear sprayed, stabbed, blinded and killed the very people they pretended to champion with their Blue Lives Matter flags. May the rivers of testosterone forever flow!

Here’s a short list of things standing in our way of making things better:

  1. The lack of courage to enforce our laws evenly and fairly.
  2. Politicians whose primary driver is their self-interest.
  3. As a subset of #2, politicians who are terrified of their constituents and are spineless to the point of complete refusal to lead.
  4. Politicians who know they can’t get reelected unless they lie, cheat, steal and undermine our democracy, so they do it all.
  5. A rapidly changing world that has left millions in terrible circumstances. That’s matched with a Congress and state legislatures that are bereft of solutions, are intransigent and useless for everything but stoking the fire of rage in their “base” in order to get reelected.
  6. Idiots promoting guns, encouraging “Second Amendment remedies” and the message that everyone should be packing heat.
  7. Our refusal to energetically teach and promote civics.
  8. Our lack of a requirement for service to our nation, leaving us ignorant of one another and unwilling to sacrifice for our common good.

Clearly, this list could go on for pages. Glad to have your important additions – use the Comments section below.

It’s satisfying to point fingers, especially at politicians, but the truth that we really don’t want to acknowledge is that Pogo was right – see the cartoon to the left.

We met US in Oklahoma City, Charleston, Ft. Hood, Parkland, the Pulse Night Club and the Las Vegas concert, at Sandy Hook, the Capitol Building and in so many other places. And in every case we were and are Americans committing violence on Americans.

It is still true that the behavior we tolerate is the behavior we get. And we have tolerated far too much.

Click me for the story from The Onion.

If becoming an actual United States in a more perfect union is the goal, then that begs the question of what we are willing to do make that happen. We have some congresspeople, mostly ex-military, who get the idea of protecting and defending the Constitution, who are wired for duty, honor, country and who understand integrity and accountability. One thing we can do is to elect more people like them, irrespective of party labels.

It’s painfully obvious that pointing fingers will not be useful. If we are to get better results, we’re going to have to do something different.

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  • ” The spoken words are often shouted by overheated individuals who evidently believe that the lungs are the seat of wisdom.” George Will
————————————
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. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
  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 vibrant.

JA


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

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