I have an unshaken conviction that democracy can never be undermined if we maintain our library resources and a national intelligence capable of utilizing them.
–Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a letter to publisher Herbert Putnam
When people list the worst jobs to have, few would probably have picked being a librarian in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Back in February, when Russian troops were lining up on the border for a brutal invasion, Trump-endorsed Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance insulted Ukrainians on Steve Bannon’s podcast, “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” He later doubled down, saying, “spare me the performative affection for [sic] the Ukraine, a corrupt nation run by oligarchs.” And then, after backlash, doubled down yet again.
Pete Davidson bid an emotional farewell to Saturday Night Live this past weekend. He was the youngest cast member ever hired, arriving in 2014 at age 20. He joked, “Back then, I was just, like, a skinny kid and no one knew what race I was. And now everyone knows I’m white because I became hugely successful while barely showing up to work.
A man standing in a long line at a Washington, D.C., courthouse said that he has been trying to get a case settled for well over a year. A woman, meanwhile, stood nearby trying to resolve an issue with a restraining order that she took out on someone. Sadly, she decided to give up and let it go unresolved. “I’m a veteran and a woman. Something bad would have to happen to me for people to pay attention.” Right now, D.C.
In case you didn’t know, a violent group of Nazis demonstrated in my hometown of Orlando this weekend. They screamed antisemitic rants against Jews, Blacks, and Hispanics, waved swastikas, and even assaulted a driver during an argument. It was a shocking display for this diverse town and was widely reported all over Florida as well as in national publications like Newsweek:
Twitter users began posting videos of the neo-Nazi rally after they passed by on Saturday.
Tonya Ferguson gave a presentation to the Reno County, Kansas, commissioners on how essential oils—which she just happened to sell—can help fight COVID-19. “I like to use an immune support, which is like putting my body in a bubble. It’s a powerful tool to combat viral and bacterial threats,” she says on the video. She claimed to have “protocols” to either protect from or treat people suffering from the virus.
Former New York Times journalist Donald G. McNeil Jr. wrote an article on Medium that stated what everyone with an ounce of intelligence already knows, but wouldn’t dare put in print: Not only is Donald Trump losing hundreds of voters each day to COVID-19, their deaths are already surpassing the margins the GOP can possibly hope to attain in the swing states.
University of Michigan freshman Reem Al-Khatib was asked to appear in a video supporting the #UMDivest resolution in the student government council. The resolution called for the University’s Board of Regents to create a committee to investigate three companies operating in Israel and involved in alleged human rights violations against Palestinians. The video was pretty innocuous, with her complete statement being, “I’m a Palestinian freshman.
Four years after Hurricane Maria, many of Puerto Rico’s residents are still suffering. The electrical grid still hasn’t been fully repaired; thousands of homes have yet to be fixed; and everywhere, deteriorating buildings are still in use, from schools to health care facilities. Yet that’s not the case for all of the island’s residents. There is a community south of San Juan with posh new shopping centers, built next to abandoned buildings.
Millions of disenfranchised minorities have been sitting out elections, and the Republican state legislatures have initiated an avalanche of voter suppression laws to keep it that way while our Democratic leadership has done nothing to respond. In fact, our leaders are defending the filibuster and telling minority activists that they just need to “out-organize” the GOP in lieu of legislation.
CNN has a segment called “The Good Stuff.”
A newsletter for the good in life.
Every Saturday, we’ll bring you the big headlines that make you smile, plus stories of fascinating discoveries, everyday heroes, inspiring movements and great things happening right in your backyard.
The stories are supposed to be heartwarming. Instead, I find them disgusting. Let me know if you catch what I mean.
Bryan Muehlburger is considered an expert on ghost guns—but never asked to be one. On a Thursday morning in 2019, his 15-year-old daughter was waiting for friends at Saugus High School in California. Children’s backpacks were scattered across the quad when he arrived at the school, as they had dropped them to flee from a school shooter. One of the doctors at the scene sat Bryan down to deliver the news. “I just remember sayin’, you know, like, ‘Please, no.
The term “scraping the bottom of the barrel” doesn’t quite do justice to the new crop of MAGA talk show hosts that think Alex Jones is too tame. One of them is Stew Peters. He went from being a failed rapper, to a failed bounty hunter, to now a full-time COVID conspiracy theorist. And yes, being full-blown MAGA, there’s the obligatory police report documenting domestic violence as well.
Whatever you think of Bill Maher, this is the most important thing he’s said all year. Trump has been methodically purging the GOP of anyone who stands up for democracy, while red state legislators have greatly expanded their power in elections by stripping control from nonpartisan local boards and removing guardians in key counties. Trumpian candidates will be replacing officials who refused to help Trump overthrow the election last year.
If we lose our democracy, the biggest crime will be the fact that we could see exactly what was happening and did absolutely nothing to stop it. While I’m thrilled Democrats are doing the bare minimum of governance that they should have done last year, such as COVID-19 legislation and infrastructure spending, our leadership seems to be woefully underestimating the open assault on our democracy happening in a number of Republican-controlled states.
I had to do a double-take when I read that a police union went to bat for a cop at the U.S. Capitol—at least that’s what I thought it said. I assumed it was for one of the brave Capitol police officers who fended off an armed and violent insurrection. Police unions, such as the Fraternal Order of Police, which used to count Capitol Policeman Michael Fanone among its members, is the largest and loudest law enforcement union in the nation.
Florida is uniquely configured for a high-speed rail line. Major cities are at each corner of our vast state, and it’s not practical to fly, so you must drive. Florida is essentially a bastion, with only one highway going in and out: Interstate 95, which is often backed up. In a hurricane, we are told not to even use the interstate unless absolutely necessary because it will inevitably become clogged.
Dr. Jill Biden truly is a remarkable person. She was a public school teacher, a child advocate, and became a loving mom to Beau and Hunter—Joe Biden’s two young sons who’d lost their mom and sister in a horrific car accident. Republicans have given up trying to smear her, because they can’t. They certainly can’t make the case that she doesn’t care.
I forgot what it’s like to have a classy, compassionate woman as our first lady.
Oregon state Rep. Mike Nearman let armed protestors into the state’s Capitol building in December, which led to a violent encounter with the police who sought to remove them. The protestors attacked the police and used pepper spray.
Nearman willfully endangered the lives of those officers, along with the lives of his fellow lawmakers and Capitol staff.
Republicans are currently obsessed with young kids. I don’t mean in the Matt Gaetz way, I mean as far as attacking kids’ toys, books, and programs. The GOP recently and publicly lost it over Dr. Seuss books and Mr. Potato Head. Tucker Carlson claimed that the Sesame Street character Elmo teaches kids to hate America, and he’s not the only one who hates Big Bird.
I grew up next to Colonial Williamsburg, which is an entire town preserved to resemble the 18th century. Started by John D. Rockefeller in the 1930s, it was created to immerse people during the founding era of our nation’s history—at least, the sanitized version. Although half the population was Black, their experience was entirely ignored. Slave quarters simply didn’t exist, and the white historical actors weren’t even allowed to mention slavery.
While the Republican Party continues to devolve into the party of white supremacists, authoritarian fascists, and conspiracy theorists, they are losing their grip on many of the voting blocs they have always counted on to keep them in power. Several demographic groups are moving away from the Republicans, such as with older voters and suburbanites. Other blocs, like Asian Americans, have been slowly moving away for two decades.
CNN is airing a special where all of these doctors in the Trump administration are finally speaking out about the abuse and chaos that reigned when the pandemic first hit America one year ago. These people include Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Brett Giroir, Dr. Stephen Hahn, Dr. Robert Kadlec, and Dr. Robert Redfield.
Not many people can name the chair of their state’s political party, much less the chair of another state’s. Yet Kelli Ward, a perennial losing Senate candidate, is well known across the land as the chair of the Arizona Republican Party—and that’s not a good thing. Kelli Ward was wacky before the GOP plunged into QAnon town, at one time just a conspiracy-laden, fringe joke.
It was all fun and games on Wednesday. In an extraordinary display of white privilege, a mob of fascists celebrated as they overran U.S. Capitol Police, smashed windows, terrorized staff, trashed the place, left pipe bombs outside of offices on Capitol grounds, and assaulted people with metal pipes while hunting for House representatives, senators, and most of all, Vice President Mike Pence.
It was all fun and games on Wednesday. In an extraordinary display of white privilege, a mob of fascists celebrated as they overran U.S. Capitol Police, smashed windows, terrorized staff, trashed the place, left pipe bombs outside of offices on Capitol grounds, and assaulted people with metal pipes while hunting for House representatives, senators, and most of all, Vice President Mike Pence.
Ideally, if Democrats do their job up to and on Jan. 5, we will win both of Georgia’s Senate seats, and secure a bare majority in both chambers of Congress. Coupled with President-elect Joe Biden, this small trifecta means, at the very least, that our government can still function. This is a big deal, since certain Republican senators have indicated that they plan on indefinitely blocking every single one of Biden’s Cabinet nominees.
The balance of power in the Senate, along with how much Joe Biden can accomplish during his first term as president, will be determined solely by a two-race election in Georgia held on Jan. 5. Ironically, the Georgia law requiring a runoff race when no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the general election was specifically designed by racist lawmakers to disenfranchise the Black vote.
Rep. Michael Waltz received the Orlando Sentinel’s endorsement in the 2020 general election for Congress. On Thursday, Waltz joined onto the traitorous Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the results in four states because they didn’t break for Donald Trump. On Friday, the paper’s Editorial Board formally apologized to their readers.
We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time, that Waltz was not committed to democracy.
I’ve argued with many a conservative over the years. No matter what the argument, be it violence against women, kids in cages, killing old people to save the economy, etc., the right-wing extremists will always try to bring up abortion. They do this for two reasons: they can’t possibly justify their base’s cruelty, and they falsely believe they have the moral high ground on the abortion issue. They don’t.