The Last Word

Rob Rogers gets the last word on @Rob_Rogers getting canned by the @PittsburghPG. -- and that word is "whoopass". https://t.co/G8uu9lyE4O

— AAEC (@AAEC_Cartoonist) July 3, 2018

OMG

But my emails. https://t.co/G7TIWDEG0p

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 14, 2018

Speaking Truth To Money

Michelle Wolf looking back on the WHCD: "It was gross! Like, I saw Jeff Zucker hugging Kellyanne Conway, and it was just like, Oh! You’re all in this together! People are really getting hurt, and you guys are just celebrating your money.” https://t.co/KXOolpO0Q4

— Saeed Jones (@theferocity) June 12, 2018

"New York Times bad takes"? An institution now gets its own richly deserved production number.

Finally discovered why @nytopinion has so many bad takes. pic.twitter.com/IFIW8M1pkY

— The Break with Michelle Wolf (@thebreaknetflix) June 11, 2018

It Takes A Comedian

Samantha Bee's critique of the media: "I should have known that a potty-mouthed insult would be inherently more interesting to them than juvenile immigration policy. I would do anything to help those kids. I hate that this distracted from them..." https://t.co/WIOfb2zBgA

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 7, 2018

Long-Term Commitment

Student activism, again. This time, the authors who've graduated continue working toward passage of their bill, as current students enlist in the cause.

“The bill, borne out of an AP Government class, would make secret or redacted government files on cold cases from the Civil Rights era public.” https://t.co/AuYO94mmAs

— Stacey E. Singleton (@staceyNYCDC) March 28, 2018

Truth In Labeling

The staffer who came up w/ this acronym deserves a raise.

Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness (MAR-A-LAGO) pic.twitter.com/o3XEQf4ett

— Cate Martel (@CateMartel) March 24, 2017

"A," For E.F.F.O.R.T.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer has intro'd the No Taxpayer Revenue Used to Monetize the Presidency Act.

AKA the No TRUMP Act. https://t.co/jvoy25eI6V

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 10, 2017

Civics Lesson

A necessary part of the current threat-and-response cycle...

The People Are Speaking...

Also, scaling a construction crane with a view...

The brave Greenpeace people and banner began their climb at 4:00 this morning. At 9 they opened the banner at the top of the crane, where it flew in view of the White House, until afternoon. Climbers began their descent at 1:00, reached the ground (and waiting police) after 10 tonight.

Less strenuously, though not without risk, federal employees are tweeting. After Badlands' subversion by science was deleted, other Park Service staff began tweeting on their own time...

... and they are re-tweeting facts that could be spoken, only a couple of months ago...

... and, as recently as three weeks ago...

AltNPS is serving as a conduit for journalists offering secure means for federal employees to report intimidation, and they are publicizing a scientists' march on DC, now being organized.

By later today, more off-duty public servants had joined the truth and free speech rogues...

...

The Barbarian Conquest, Day 5

Schooley

Not enough rights being trampled, order to restart Keystone and Dakota Access was signed.

In another shock and awe move against Americans, "Multiple federal agencies have told their employees to cease communications with members of Congress and the press."

As expected, the NPS was the first target of the inflated raging id monster. These had appeared yesterday, but were later deleted.

Followed by some back talk (sadly, unofficial back talk)...

On His announced schedule tomorrow: banning Muslim immigration. And He defies any federal employees to say a word against it.

The Bigger Draw

January 21. From the capitol...

Washington Post (Photo: Oliver Contrerasa)

...to Antartica...

Photo: Linda Zunas

To San Diego, and 50 residents of a retirement home...

The march was brief: just two laps inside the center. But it was a meaningful statement they hope will reach far beyond the Seacrest Village.

Nice pix from DC's Roy Edroso. The District's ABC station reports 1 million riders, a Saturday record.

WJLA

If it's only the second largest day ever, that's because of the size of inaugural crowds eight years ago.

From all accounts, there were marches in the reddest of places, including small towns. Some good observations from Erik Loomis—

I knew a ton of people at the DC rally. My wife led a group of students from her small college in a tiny rural Pennsylvania town. And this is important. That area is absolutely horrible. I was there shortly before the election and a farm right outside of town had a hand-painted sign stuck to a tree that read "Trump. Vote4Balls." I don't know what could sum up the Trump voter better than this. I wanted to get a picture but I was being eyed warily by the neighbor and even though I'm a square looking white guy driving a Ford, I didn't want to get shot for the picture. And in Shithole, PA, this is a concern. These students simply don't see people on their side except for their professors and some other students. Many of them have never even been to DC, even though it's only a few hours away. I can only imagine how inspired they must be.

Mid-day, in a nearby small town (Clever Sister's pix)...

Good likeness!

...and cars honking approval...

Guy walking around wearing this, with stops for Trump'n'Pooty performing under the Capitol dome...

A couple of hours later, in the larger town up the road...

Yellow sign, left: Don't Tread On My...

Afterwards, the verdict: "Largest protests in US history"...

Acting Up

On this last day before the one that will live in infamy, Erik Loomis looks at lessons from past activism. Loomis points to a piece by Michele Goldberg, on "ACT-UP as an important model for us to learn about in resisting Trump and that the veterans of that movement, born out of complete desperation in the face of massive death and institutional indifference, will play a very important role in the next 4 years."

Commenter LWA adds—

I've used the ACT-UP/ SSM activists as a model for a while now.
It isn't that they are a perfect analog for what is happening now, nothing ever is.

The salient lesson for me is that public opinion and the "conventional wisdom" that gets spouted endlessly by media is actually a highly malleable thing, subject to persuasion and influence.

In 1985 it was conventional wisdom that homosexuality was a strange lifestyle choice, and some people were liberal enough to tolerate it, within sensible restraints.

The astonishing turnabout in public opinion didn't just happen, it was the result of constant pressure and argumentation and activism.
It was activists willing to be assholes and ruin dinner parties, willing to be "counterproductive" with protests at churches, to be annoying and exasperating.

There is always a strain in activist thought that we should change things, but there should never be unpleasantness or anger or discomfort.
But it never works that way- social change is always painful and awkward and involves suffering.

And I say this as someone with Trump voters in my immediate and extended family, with all the strain and icy conversations that result.

Happy One Hundredth

Kirk Douglas, born this day, 1916. Who has said the moment in his career that made him proudest: giving Dalton Trumbo screenwriting credit for "Spartacus," which ended the blacklist's hold over Hollywood.

In September, he wrote this column―

A few weeks ago we heard words spoken in Arizona that my wife, Anne, who grew up in Germany, said chilled her to the bone. They could also have been spoken in 1933:

"We also have to be honest about the fact that not everyone who seeks to join our country will be able to successfully assimilate. It is our right as a sovereign nation to choose immigrants that we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish here…[including] new screening tests for all applicants that include an ideological certification to make sure that those we are admitting to our country share our values..."

These are not the American values that we fought in World War II to protect.
...
Until now, I believed I had finally seen everything under the sun. But this was the kind of fear-mongering I have never before witnessed from a major U.S. presidential candidate in my lifetime.

And you don't even need to have lived to one hundred, to know it.

The Business Of The Presidency

It now seems to be comedy critiques, tapped out by the tiniest, thinnest-skinned fingers.

Alec Baldwin responded.

Release your tax returns and I'll stop.
Ha

But an even more pointed reaction came from someone not on TV: one Danielle Moscato. She responded to the twit-in-chief, on his very own feed... In tweet after tweet; they have to be read in full.

R.I.P., Mose Allison

Sad to learn of his passing yesterday, at 89.

A lot of brilliance has gone out of the world. The work that captured so much only becomes more relevant.


Impossible to pick a favorite, but I've always loved the lyrical twists in this social commentary.


From his last recording: "Let's give God a vacation/He must be tired of it all ..."

Wild About Harry

When he's right, he's right. And in explicit detail—

White nationalists, Vladimir Putin and ISIS are celebrating Donald Trump's victory, while innocent, law-abiding Americans are wracked with fear – especially African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBT Americans and Asian Americans. Watching white nationalists celebrate while innocent Americans cry tears of fear does not feel like America.
...

We as a nation must find a way to move forward without consigning those who Trump has threatened to the shadows. Their fear is entirely rational, because Donald Trump has talked openly about doing terrible things to them. Every news piece that breathlessly obsesses over inauguration preparations compounds their fear by normalizing a man who has threatened to tear families apart, who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and who has directed crowds of thousands to intimidate reporters and assault African Americans. Their fear is legitimate and we must refuse to let it fall through the cracks between the fluff pieces.

If this is going to be a time of healing, we must first put the responsibility for healing where it belongs: at the feet of Donald Trump, a sexual predator who lost the popular vote and fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate. Winning the electoral college does not absolve Trump of the grave sins he committed against millions of Americans. Donald Trump may not possess the capacity to assuage those fears, but he owes it to this nation to try.

If Trump wants to roll back the tide of hate he unleashed, he has a tremendous amount of work to do and he must begin immediately.

Wisdom

Interesting account of going door-to-door in West Dayton, OH—

Mostly talked to older African-Americans. When I launched into the boilerplate about how this is likely to be a very close, very important election, etc etc etc, they’d often give me a raised-eyebrow look that said, very clearly, "do you really think I don't understand what's at stake with this election?" and we'd quickly move on to logistics–polling locations, early voting hours, etc.
...

Only a few people want to take advantage of the captive audience to talk politics, but one woman, just getting home from a double shift as I arrived to her house, was pure gold. I'm going to reconstruct my favorite part of her rant as faithfully as possible, but I'm not doing is justice–it was just a marvelous, angry, hilarious rant. The gist of it:

Look, I get it, you white people* had a hard time with Obama being president so you need a racist president. I get it. I don't like it but I get it. But what I don't get is why you needed a racist who is so goddamn crazy and stupid! Couldn't you find a racist who could actually know how to run the damn government? I mean, I wouldn't vote for him–he'd still be bad for people like me–but at least he'd know what he's doing? What good does it do the damn white people when Trump shits the bed? It's not like there's some other special country they move to when he takes this country down. We get a black president and he does a pretty good job, and your response is murder-suicide? You white people need to get smarter about how you do this racism thing.

*she interjected caveats about how her use of "you white people" should not be construed to include people such as myself and Obama/Clinton supporters generally, so this didn't come off as hostile or accusatory as the words on the page might make it appear....

Really no need to interject the caveats, when the crazy and stupid is in everyone's face. But, how could this racism be anything other than suicidally crazy and stupid?

Airlift To Flint

Nothing useful (such as bottled water or funds) landed.

Instead, in an effort to be seen standing near African-Americans, Trump flew from NYC (after appearing on a fellow reality star's show), to visit a Flint church.

There, he rehearsed a new formulation. According to the NYT—

"It used to be cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico," Mr. Trump told the crowd, repeating a line he said earlier in the day. "Now, the cars are made in Mexico and you can’t drink the water in Flint...."

Although this is right up the narrow alley that passes for a thought process in Trump, it might sound rather different to people who are experts about Flint; after all, they are the ones who've experienced the political disenfranchisement and environmental disaster inflicted on their city. But, in another Trump formulation, Those people are already losers; what more can they lose?

Video of what also happened at the event—


The words of Rude Pundit are a thing of beauty.

Beautiful, because truth is beautiful.

{Pastor] Timmons did in one respectful, firm, polite gesture what 16 Republican candidates and thousands of protesters couldn't. She cornered Trump and make his swagger disappear and shoved the con job up his ass.

At this point in this stupid, endless goddamned election, it's apparent that the nation needs black Americans to save it. Between polls that show Trump polling worse than bed bugs and Macklemore among African Americans, the actions today by Rev. Timmons, and Don't-give-a-fuck Obama in full swing on the campaign trail, it's good to know that at least a few Americans completely understand what Hillary Clinton meant about the voters who support Trump.

At least some Americans get that this election isn't a fantasy without any real-world consequences.

"No Matter How Small"...

Trump "exposed"—

A statue of a stark naked Donald Trump was put on display in Union Square Park Thursday afternoon.

Groups of people crowded around the statue to take pictures with it, while others shouted anti-Trump statements. It was taken down by workers from the Department of Parks and Recreation at about 1:15 p.m.

The Parks department said in a statement that "NYC Parks stands firmly against any unpermitted erection in city parks, no matter how small."

"Losing To A Girl"

Again aiming her barbs to get under some very, very thin skin, Elizabeth Warren says, Trump "makes death threats because he's a pathetic coward who can’t handle the fact that he's losing to a girl."

There's also this latest incitement of a crowd against a journalist who displeased him. A journalist who—Need it be added?—is a woman.

"Party of Lincoln", in a new nutshell...