Trump's Republic Of Mendacity

Trump is has been spending the 4th of July holiday with his divisive hate politics and doing what he does best: lying. Biden... hides out, hoping Trump keeps destroying himself and that no one pays any attention to him or his record. This may not be a great idea, since Trump will through tens of millions of dollars at him as we get closer to November. But instead of these two clowns, imagine if Bernie were a candidate. U like either of them, he's all about problem solving and policy solutions, sometimes grand-- like eliminating poverty-- and sometimes more mundane-- like making airlines behave so we're not taking our lives into our hands by getting on one. This is the letter he sent to the head of the Department of Transportation on Friday:

Basically he wants the government-- not the greed-driven airline companies (especially not American Airlines, the greediest ofthem all and the least concerned about the health of their customers)-- to require face masks for passengers and crew, to limit the capacity of flights (reasonable social distancing) and more cleaning during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Louis Menand, over at the New Yorker had some fantastic insights into what Señor Trumpanzee has been up to. "Today," he wrote yesterday, "is the two hundred and forty-fourth anniversary of our declaration of independence from Britain, and we find ourselves living in a republic of mendacity. The falsehoods never stop. No occasion is too minor. 'Pres. Obama destroyed the lobster and fishing industry in Maine. Now it’s back, bigger and better than anyone ever thought possible. Enjoy your lobstering and fishing! Make lots of money!' So tweeted the President on June 24th. As the Boston Globe and other news organizations have reported, the tweet is a lobster fib. Not that President Obama needs to get credit for it-- climate change, driving the lobsters north, was probably the reason-- but, in 2016, the last year of the Obama Administration, the Maine lobster catch was the biggest in history, a hundred and thirty-two million pounds. Since then, it has fallen by thirty-two million pounds, largely because of the Trump Administration’s trade war with China, which caused certain American agricultural exports, including lobsters, to be hit with a thirty-five-per-cent tariff. China is not in a trade war with Canada, however, and Canadian lobster harvesters have stepped into the market. Over all, the value of the fishing catch in Maine, all species included, has dropped from seven hundred and thirty-three million dollars in 2016 (also a record) to six hundred and seventy-three million in 2019.

If lobstering is (or may be) “back,” it is because of a recent White House directive to extend funds from the cares Act-- the pandemic bailout-- to the lobster industry, which had previously been left off the list of most-favored businesses. Observers note that a Maine Senate race is under way. The Republican standing for reëlection is Susan Collins. Senator Collins has become the kind of senator the Republicans need. She stages a mini-drama of conscience before every controversial vote, and then ends up voting, most of the time, with her party. The Republicans want to keep her in office. As always, the Administration is directing its attention and taxpayer-funded largesse to whatever pays politically. How else would it operate? It has no other principles to guide it.

Lobster fishing is a niche industry. About fifteen thousand people in Maine make their living harvesting lobsters. And the lobster tweet is a relatively benign lie, more in the braggadocio category. But why insist on lying? Why lie even when the truth-- “We looked strongly into extending the cares Act to Maine’s beautiful lobstermen!”-- does the job perfectly well?

Speculation about this began on January 21, 2017, and it has not abated. One theory that has a certain elegance and simplicity is that Trump is a nitwit. Most of the time, he has no idea what he is talking about, and so he does what he has done all his life: he says whatever makes him look best. The kindest interpretation is that this is just good salesmanship. You always hype the product, and, in this case, the product is him. He is not exaggerating the truth-- he is not even lying, technically-- because he doesn’t know what the truth is. He assumes that the biggest whopper is the safest bet. Someone else can clean up the mess.

And the thing is, there always is someone else. It’s not hard to understand Trump. It is hard to understand the people in his Administration who enable the blather and the misinformation, who spin-cycle it to bleach out the most offensive or dangerous implications, and who parrot it dutifully. For the first two years of Trump’s Presidency, some of these people were known as “the adults in the room.” To an admittedly remote observer, those people looked indistinguishable from opportunists willing to suppress their opinions in the hopes of becoming Presidential puppet masters. They were dreaming. All of them have departed with their reputations scarred.

No one will die because of Trump’s lobster tweet. But the stuff he makes up about the coronavirus is killing people. Those at risk are not limited to the small band who showed up in Tulsa. They are people in nursing homes and veterans’ hospitals; people with diabetes and heart conditions; people on Native American lands; people who will lose their jobs if they do not show up for work in spite of the danger to their health; people who may not think about Donald Trump from one end of the year to the next but who live in states whose governors, for fear of White House vilification, have adopted a policy of pandemic bravado, as though by putting on a big hat you can face down a pathogen.

Now those states are being ripped apart, and that is likely to restart the spread of the virus in states that have successfully flattened their curves. If that happens, the whole spring shutdown, with its economic pain unevenly distributed-- as everything in the United States now is unevenly distributed-- will have been wasted. The United States has a higher coronavirus mortality rate than Brazil. A quarter of the world’s covid-19 deaths have already happened here, in a country that has 4.25 per cent of the world’s population. And we are not nearly finished.

What is appalling is that this was predictable. A man who is incapable of not making things up about the crowd size at his Inauguration is not going to start suddenly caring about the science when he is confronted with a disease that he knows nothing about. He’s going to do what he has always done.

When Trump said, on March 6th, that he did not want sick passengers on a cruise ship brought ashore because it would raise the number of cases in the U.S., making him look bad, it was clear where this was headed. Republican senators knew it; Republican governors knew it; Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar knew it. But they let Trump dominate the Administration’s airtime on the pandemic and, when they finally talked him off the stage, they allowed him to put on a display of petulance that continues to suck up most of the coverage, and to undercut any governor who tried to shoulder a responsibility he has washed his hands of.

The federal government is not supposed to work this way. Its officials are not supposed to punt because the head of state is not up to the job. They are supposed to put aside political interests to attend to the public welfare. It is not as though there has been much leadership on the Democratic side, either. Congress gave the Administration a trillion dollars, with virtually no strings attached, to hand out as it saw fit, and it sent nearly $1.4 billion of it to dead people.

It is to the credit of the press that, even with silly tweets like the lobster fib, it holds Trump to account-- not that this has the slightest effect on him or the sanitation crew that cleans up after him. But the press cannot set guidelines, or distribute face masks, or perform testing, or do contact tracing. The public looks to government, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, to insure its “Safety and Happiness.” We can guess what he would make of the current one.

We're Lookin' For A Leader While Trump And Noem Bring More Death And Destruction To South Dakota

South Dakota is a mostly rural, sparsely populated state that has drifted far to the right in recent decades, far from a once proud populist history. Today, both U.S. senators and the state's lone member of Congress are supine Trumpist Republicans. The governor, attorney general, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer and every other member of the state's executive branch are Republicans. 30 of the 35 members of the state Senate are Republicans, as are 59 of the state House's 70 members. In 2016, Trump won 61 of the state's 66 counties and beat Hillary 227,701 (61.5%) to 117,442 (31.7%). Two years later, though, Trumpist gubernatorial candidate, Rep. Kristi Noem, didn't do quite so well in the midst of the nationwide anti-red wave. She did win, but not by very much. She beat Democrat Billie Sutton 172,912 (51%) to 161,454 (47.6%), underperforming Trump drastically, while Sutton out-performed Hillary by even more. Where Hillary won just 5 of South Dakota's counties, Sutton won 22.

Many South Dakotans have lived to regret that outcome. With Noem absolutely refusing to take any precautions against the pandemic-- almost laying out a welcome mat and red carpet for it-- the state went through a horrific first wave, just over 7,000 cases and nearly 100 deaths. South Dakota has 7,944 cases per million residents, extremely high-- and far worse than hard-hit states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, Ohio and Washington and worse than any European country. (By way of comparison, Spain has 6,366 cases per million and Italy has 3,989 per million.) Noem's pandemic criminal incompetence has not only caused severe illness in her own state, but is largely responsible for widespread and deadly pandemic spikes in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and Colorado. In some ways Kristi Noem is the worst of the GOP Typhoid Mary governors in the whole country.

On Friday, as South Dakota welcomed Trump for another of his ill-advised hate rallies, the state reported another 85 new coronavirus cases. Today 50 more new cases were reported-- including one that South Dakota won't get "credit" for: after she arrived for the Mt. Rushmore rally, Trump, Jr's mistress, former Gavin Newsom wife  and Fox News broadcaster, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was reported to have tested positive for COVID-19.

The NY Times' Maggie Habberman reported that Guilfoyle, a top fund-raising official for the Trumpanzee campaign, arrived in the state with Trump, Jr. but separately from Señor T. She is the third person in possible proximity to Trump known to have contracted the virus. She is likely to have caught the disease at the Tulsa rally, which is also where Herman Cain, now hospitalized, contracted it.

Even as outbreaks have emerged in the South and West and as states across the country report a record number of cases each day, White House officials-- and Mr. Trump in particular-- have minimized their focus on the virus in public appearances. In an interview on Wednesday, the president indicated that he believed the virus was “going to sort of just disappear.”

The president’s aides recently modified protocols for people entering the White House grounds, abandoning routine temperature checks, for instance. They have counseled people experiencing symptoms typical of the coronavirus to stay away.

But people who come in proximity to Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence are still tested for the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, Trump's July 3rd Mt. Rushmore appearance, featuring a desperate speech written by neo-Nazi Stephen Miller, dripping with hatred and divisiveness and seeking to pit Americans against Americans, is likely to cause South Dakota a whole second spike in cases. While Trump was screaming about "left wing mobs" and stoking racism and white nationalism, 7,500 people-- mostly without masks-- were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder to listen to Miller's ugly, vicious words and watch the fireworks, while shouting and spreading the contagion. This morning's Washington Post noted that VIPs were "seated separately onstage-- not six feet apart, but not amid the storm of exhalations, coughs, vociferous cheers and sneezes."

Trump has continued illegally using the copyright-protected music of artists who abhor him and everything he stands for. On Friday he used 3 Neil Young songs-- Keep On Rocking' in the Free World, "Like A Hurricane" and "Cowgirl in the Sand"-- even though Young has demanded he stop using his songs numerous times and last week shredded Trump with a rewrite and performance of "Lookin' for a Leader" as part of a very political episode of his Porch Episode series:

We had Barack Obama and we really need him now
The man who stood behind him has to take his place somehow
America has a leader building walls around our house
Don’t know Black Lives Matter and we gotta vote him out.

We got our election but corruption has a chance
We got to have a big win to regain confidence
America is beautiful
But she has an ugly side
We’re looking for a leader in this country far and wide
Just like his big new fence
This president’s goin' down
America is moving forward
You can feel it in every town
Scared of his own shadow building walls around our house
He’s hiding in his bunker
Something else to lie about

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Happy Fourth of July!

Back in the 18th century, the original 13 colonies beat the Brits and their lunatic King George III, winning the independence that we celebrate today. In the 19th century, the United States beat the die-hard Confederate traitors who still insist on fighting for the bigoted cause they call their "heritage." Then, in the 20th century, we beat the white supremacist NAZI's and their lunatic leader, too.

Now, in the early 21st century, we have horrifically come full circle: We have a lunatic white supremacist, neo-Nazi president who combines, embodies, and emboldens the sick traits of all of the above and more. He thinks he should be king and he counts Confederates, NAZIs, and Tea Party loons as the key elements of his Republican Party. All are pictured happily parading together in tonight's meme. My, what "very fine people" indeed!

Will Trump's Claim That Frederick Douglass "Is Being Recognized More And More" Inspire His Followers To Read Douglass' Work?

Frederick Douglass was born in Maryland on February 20th-- my birthday too, but 1818-- and a slave. He taught himself to read and write-- writing later that "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom." He escaped from Maryland at the age of 20 and went immediately to New York and then to New Bedford, Massachusetts. He became a preacher, a powerful orator and one of the country's foremost abolitionists. He became a national figure in 1845 with the publication of his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, a best seller. It's worth noting that he was also a crusader for women's right and for equality for immigrants... so decidedly not an identity politics kind of guy.

Long before Señor Trumpanzee suggested naming Douglass the the National Security Council, he gave a fiery speech in Rochester, N.Y., "The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro," on Independence Day, 1852. It was inspiring but certainly not celebratory. Listen to James Earl Jones read it on the YouTube above.

July 4th, he noted, wasn't a day of independence for American blacks, still largely held as slaves. Nor was it a real day of independence for women, non-wealthy whites, Native Americans or anyone other than rich white males. He asked "Why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?" His response still shakes the conscience and consciousness (of those who have conscience and some level of consciousness beyond the primitive).

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.ÑThe rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, "It is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, an denounce less; would you persuade more, and rebuke less; your cause would be much more likely to succeed." But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival...

...Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from "the Declaration of Independence," the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. -- Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.

There Can Only Be One "Best Freshman In Congress"-- And Pramila Jayapal Is It

Over the years Blue America has been gratified to have helped elect some truly amazing men and women to Congress, men and women who have proved to be leaders for the values we embrace-- from Donna Edwards and Jamie Raskin in Maryland to Alan Grayson (FL), Elizabeth Warren (MA), Tammy Baldwin (WI), Keith Ellison (MN), Russ Feingold (WI), Judy Chu (CA), Raul Grijalva, Barbara Lee (CA), etc. There have been a few times we've been taken in and horrified at the results-- deceitful Pennsylvania Blue Dog Chris Carney stands out as the worst. But more frequently, we are surprised not because someone failed to live up to their promises, like Carney, but because new members have gone above and beyond the excellence we expected. Ted Lieu (CA), a leader in legislation and in political strategy and in Resistance to tyranny, has been a perfect example over the past several years. And now there's someone else working along the same track, Seattle Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.

We saw the signs of leadership, powerfully, when she was in her state legislature and we suspected she would be just as accomplished and principled if she got to Washington. BINGO! She's turned out to be even more wonderful than we had any right to hope. This is the ProgressivePunch Top Ten right at this moment:

You will probably noticed that only one member of Congress has a perfect 100% vote score right across all categories. Pramila has become a model by which other members can be measured. And it isn't just in how she votes. Today, on Independence Day, the NY Times chose her to pen an OpEd for the paper of record-- The Country I Love:

Seventeen years ago, I celebrated my first Independence Day as a United States citizen. I couldn’t have predicated then that I would one day have the enormous privilege of being the first Indian-American woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives, and one of only six members of Congress who are naturalized citizens.

After arriving here from India at age 16, I spent more than a dozen years on an alphabet soup of visas-- F1, H1B and more-- before I finally got my green card through marriage to an American. Some years later, I was awarded a fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs, which allowed me to spend two years living in my birth country. I just had to come back to the United States once a year to keep my permanent resident status current. When I became pregnant during the second year of the program, my husband and I planned to return to the United States in time for my last trimester, so I could deliver the baby at home, and then return to India.

That plan did not work out. Just two weeks before we were scheduled to board our flight back to the United States, I developed a leak in my amniotic sac. My son was born prematurely at 26.5 weeks, weighing less than two pounds. I was now faced with a choice. In order to preserve my permanent resident status, I needed to return to the United States within weeks of his birth. But he was so tiny and in such critical condition that he could not fly, and I refused to leave his bedside knowing he might die.

So I stayed in India. I lost my green card status and only through the help and hard work of the institute was I able to regain my permanent residence status and return to the United States three months later when my son was finally able to fly.

I became determined to get my citizenship as soon as I was eligible so that I would never again face the prospect of being separated from my son, who was a United States citizen by virtue of being the child of a United States citizen father. Part of the agreement that had allowed me to return to the United States again and regain my permanent residence status was that I would have to start from zero to qualify for citizenship again. That process took three years.

When I finally walked into the cavernous hall at the old location of Immigration and Naturalization Services (now called United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) south of downtown Seattle, I was prepared for a simple transaction that would finally grant me citizenship and ensure that I would always be with my son. I did not anticipate the emotion that would come with the moment, or the way it would shape my future, and my understanding of this country.

There were hundreds of others at the ceremony from all over the world, and I could hear languages from every continent spoken. We all carried small American flags. Grandparents held children; moms and dads held hands. As we took the oath of citizenship, the solemnity of the moment spiked through me. Tears welled up and rolled down my cheeks as I took in the mixed emotions of renouncing any allegiance to my birth country of India where I had been a citizen for 35 years and embracing my new country.

America, a country that had embraced me as a 16-year-old who had come here by myself to study and build a life of better opportunity.

America, a country built on the idea of being a refuge for those in need, “the tired masses, yearning to breathe free.”

America, a country that has always celebrated itself as a nation of immigrants.

In that moment, as I took my oath, I realized how lucky I was. I knew that my future had opened up, and that citizenship would offer me the chance to seek opportunity and to take part in our democracy. I knew, too, that with those freedoms and opportunity came enormous responsibility: to do everything I could to preserve and build our democracy, to vote, and to use my life to pay it forward and ensure opportunity for others.

I became an immigrant, civil and human rights advocate, then the first South Asian elected to the Washington State Legislature and the only woman of color in the Washington State Senate, and then was elected in 2016 to the United States Congress.

These are difficult times for immigrants and for Americans across our country. President Trump has harnessed the fear and prejudice that have accompanied every wave of immigrants in United States history, and stoked those fears to further his own agenda.

Restricting immigration from Muslim-majority countries, and cracking down on unauthorized immigration in a way that tears families apart and creates an atmosphere of fear, cuts at the very fabric of what really does make America great: the diversity that is our greatest strength.

This Fourth of July, as I remember my own naturalization ceremony and give thanks for the honor of being a United States citizen and a member of Congress, I call on the president and my fellow Americans to remember our history. What makes America great is our commitment to our values of inclusivity and opportunity for all. Immigration is about more than just who comes here and who is allowed to stay. It is about who we are as a country and what we are willing to stand up for.

So far this cycle Blue America has been fundraising like mad for challengers to conservative incumbents of the House. And that will continue to be out focus. But its important for us to remember that we have an ActBlue fundraising page for the best congressional incumbents as well, members like Pramila and Ted Lieu and the others who have stood out and acted selflessly for the country and for their constituents in a DC environment that neither rewards nor encourages that kind of m.o. On the right is a Blue Anerica thermometer dedicated only to the crème de la crème of the U.S. House of Representatives. If you tap the thermometer you'll see the short list and, of course, you'll have the opportunity to contribute to any of their reelection campaigns. These aren't men and women who get big corporate contributions. They're men and women who depend on grassroots donors who appreciate what they do in Congress.

There Are Three Main Classes in America. Two Are Represented by Political Parties

Working class voters, from the accounting office to the construction site, of all races and genders, are forgotten once they leave the polling place. Land of the free, or of something else? (Tom Pennington/Getty; source)

by Gaius Publius

Something to think about as we return to our post-celebratory American Independence world. About 10% of the country is represented by a political party. The rest is not.

The writing below was taken from something published by Devin Reynolds at Medium. It perfectly expresses what Thomas Frank, chief among others, has also said. Here's one of Reynolds main points:

Let’s be honest, Bernie and Hillary don’t represent the same class.

We traditionally think of the Republican/Democrat divide in terms of the “ruling class” and the “working class,” or “the 1% v. the 99%.” Democrats are thought to faithfully represent the interests of the working class. The Republicans, carrying the torch for the richest of the rich, manage to stay competitive by dubiously securing votes from the working class. They do this by exploiting the economic ignorance and racial prejudices of low information working class voters. While there is a significant amount of truth to this model’s description of Republicans, there is a wrinkle to the makeup of the Democratic Party that this model neglects to mention.

This wrinkle is the fact that the “99%” actually has multiple classes within it. The main division is between the “upper middle” class and various “lower” classes. At about 10–15% of the population, the upper middle class is made up of doctors, lawyers, university professors, various skilled professionals, and owners of successful local businesses around the country. These people don’t need universal hearth care, they just need their excellent employer provided health care to have its cost increases managed and they need to not be dropped from health care rolls for preexisting conditions. Their kids don’t need tuition free college, they just need manageable interest rates for their financial aid. They get generous amounts of paid vacation, they don’t need it provided on a mandatory basis. The Democratic Party, in all its incrementalism, tweaking the status quo with modest policy adjustments, represents this class.

Then there are the lower classes. Making up 85–90% percent of the population, this group is the true “working class.” This is the most diverse group in the country, it ranges from “middle class” semi-skilled office workers to truly “lower class” day laborers. While some members live more comfortably than others, this group, by and large, exchanges its labor for just enough money to get by. Their jobs have few, if any, benefits. These people would greatly benefit from policies like universal health care, tuition free public college, mandatory paid time off, and many of the other worker-empowering policies, funded by progressive tax rates, that are standard procedure for most of the developed world outside of the United States. This class has no political party.

The divide between the top 1% and the top 10% makes our political system look competitive, and there are legitimate diverging interests between those two classes. That said, in practice, our two political parties split the vote for the working class, then both ignore it in favor of their primary constituencies. The simple reality of this dynamic is that the majority of the population’s interests go unrepresented. While Republican members of the working class are exploited by their low-information status into voting for policies that benefit the top 1%, the Democratic members of this group allow themselves to be browbeaten into supporting policies that largely benefit the top 10% based on the dubious supposition that those policies are “better than Republican policies.” With one half of the working class deceived into voting Republican and the other half treated like it has no choice but to vote Democrat, 90% of the population has its interests treated like an afterthought. Bernie’s entire campaign was an attempt to change that.

I would have made this the title of my own piece, if it weren't so long. It's perfect, though, as a way to capture what Frank captured in an entire book:

in practice, our two political parties split the vote for the working class, then both ignore it in favor of their primary constituencies.

This is impressively tight, clear and cogent, as is the rest of the article. For example:

The working classes had their jobs shipped overseas in the dead of night from the 1980s-2000s. No one really noticed that an economic genocide was being perpetrated on the working class until it was too late. Those people have been suffering for a generation.

And immediately following:

The upper middle class suffered some recent setbacks when the 2007 financial crisis precipitated a downturn in the global economy. The owners of successful local businesses have seen their fortunes shrink and skilled professionals have seen their retirements take a hit. It was only once this creeping crisis started affecting the upper middle class that it became actual news. There was no “crisis” when the working class was being removed from the middle class over the course of 30 years. Once people with money started to take hits, the economic situation demanded bi-partisan action.

And:

Of course the action that was taken in the face of the crisis also reflected the class interests that the government represented. Financial institutions that held the upper middle and ruling class’s money were bailed out while working class homeowners simply lost everything.

Not new information exactly, but clear in expression. "Economic genocide" indeed. And yes, distressed working class homeowners did "lose everything." Including their life expectancy (see also here). Props to the author for writing this. I encourage you to read the rest, if you have a few minutes to spare.

This is not a "what you should do" piece. Just something to ponder as we ponder having celebrated our freedom.

GP

Noah Sends Out 4th of July Wishes: "Dear People of FOX News . . ."

Plus: Is Pastor Rick Scarborough burning yet?


Uh-oh, Bill-O's mouth is open! Stand back, people! Who knows what might come out of that gaping maw?

by Noah

Here's a wish for today: I wish that I had the technology to jam FOX News. No, not to prevent the twisted, warped programming. We are supposed to be a nation of free speech, aren't we? And if people can believe that they have been abducted by the Saucermen on multiple occasions, I suppose they can believe the endless fear-mongering and dark drivel that FOX offers.

I would simply like to be able to jam FOX in such a way that anyone tuning in to their spew would have to watch it through one of those clear rainbow filters that Facebook offered its users after the Supreme Court's ratification of the right of same sex marriage.

Oh OK, failing that, I would wish that Bill O'Reilly did a whole show in front of a giant, screen-filling rainbow flag backdrop, not knowing it was there until he turned to leave the set at the show's end. Watching the old geezer lose it would be priceless.

Why shouldn't I wish for this? On Monday cranky old Bill-O donned his black heart homophobe colors. Does he ever take them off? He threw one of his patented curmudgeonly snit fits about the White House being lit up in rainbow colors and puked out his tired "traditional Americans" meme, letting the FOX freak flag fly, as he is paid so well to do, even calling it an Obama "in your face" move.

I guess Bill-O took it all personally, but isn't he a fine one to talk about what a traditional marriage might be? One man, one woman and a loofah in the shower with a producer, anyone?

I have another wish: How about a list of all of the politicians and pundits that bellow about a marriage consisting of one man and one woman while they themselves are secretly gay, perhaps even chasing teenage Congressional pages? Can we get that list? Calling Larry Flynt! Is the Senate majority leader at the top -- or, er, at the bottom?

Meanwhile, on the same show we were suddenly treated to the surreal, hard-to-make-this-stuff-up, un-introduced specter of some other republican loon named Huckabee talking about putting up a nativity scene on the White House lawn if he's elected president. Hell, if a republican gets the White House, we should be happy it's just a Christmastime nativity scene and not a nightly burning cross.

Just look how beat this living fossil O'Reilly looks as he quacks about "traditional Americans"! People of FOX, wake up! You have overslept by decades! You are as big of a freakshow as those "People of Walmart" photo collections that circulate on the internet.



Sez Bill:

I was a bit surprised to see the White House doing a victory lap using actual White House property on Friday. The people's house was illuminated in rainbow colors to celebrate the gay marriage decision. What about all the Americans who believe that a redefinition of marriage is not the job of the Supreme Court?

Well, you're right on one little point there, Bill-O. It isn't the job of the Supreme Court to redefine, per se. You see, courts are arbiters, and we have this thing called the Constitution. Their job is to take a look at that and see how the question put before them fits that Constitution. That's what they did. Got it? They acknowledged a right that was already there. Can you get your rapidly shriveling pea brain around that? The Supreme Court decision was as "traditional" as it gets. Traditional as in "American."

Imagine, People of FOX, how it is to be a republican and go around all day long categorizing everyone you see as "traditional" or "nontraditional." Sooner or later you will be so narrow-minded that you will be sitting alone in the park like the village idiots that you are.

Dear People of FOX, it is now the 21st century! "Traditional" Americans are all of us, not just people categorized by your ridiculously narrow bigoted view that sorts people by gender, gender preference, gender identification, skin tone and number of syllables or vowels in a surname. Not only that, but it has always been that way, at least in ideal if not in practice. I know conservatives have always struggled against that ideal, thinking that certain rights apply only to themselves and whatever clique they belong to. But how about, if you are so into conforming, you start conforming to the American Ideal instead of always fighting the spirit of America?

In ten years or less, your little irrationally panicking Pied Piper from FOXWorld will be sitting on that proverbial park bench mumbling about how much better things used to be when only white hetero males were in charge (or so he thought), instead of doing it on TV every night.

If he wasn't so sick and hateful, O'Reilly would almost be laughable. He is practically a walking parody of hate, almost playing it for comic effect. Except he's serious. Some say you need smarts to have a sense of humor.

Come to think of it, FOX is really just a bunch of old wackos sitting on a park bench anyway. Sure you can point to the good-looking cleavage babes and the handsome devils that play journalists on FOX, but if you rip off the masks of any of them, you will find a crotchety, senile 90-year-old example of dementia.


MEANWHILE IN RELATED NEWS:
IS PASTOR RICK BURNING?



Sez Pastor Rick: "If necessary, we will burn" (emphasis emphatically not added).

A Christian pastor, Rick Scarborough, made noises about playing the ultimate victim card, threatening to set himself on fire if the Supreme Court gave the thumbs-up to same sex marriage. Scarborough hails from Texas. Should we be surprised?

Jeez, all Rev. Franklin Graham did was move his money out of Wells Fargo, saying they "advocate for the gay lifestyle" that "contradicts God's … blah, blah, blah."

It was pretty funny when he then put his money into a bank that is even more supportive of Satan's dastardly plan to ruin America.

All Wells Fargo did was run a TV ad that showed two women adopting a child. How dare they give that child a better future! Now, these fake Christians are trying to top each other by … topping themselves! And I, for one, support their right to do so! In fact, I encourage these kooks to choose the suicide lifestyle. Do it now!

Last Friday was a great day for America as we joined much of the civilized world. It was an even greater day for some individual Americans and the people they have chosen to share their lives with. But the righties have a special talent for looking in the mirror and thinking it's all about themselves.

Dear Pastor Rick, to date you haven't followed through. We're waiting. We're waiting impatiently. Is that mean of us? Need me to send a match? Here's my generous suggestion to you. How about you, Graham, O'Reilly and Huckabee climb into an oil-soaked boat in the Gulf of Mexico and play the good old republican whining-victim card together, Viking-style.

Put some fireworks in the boat too. It's 4th of July, and this is America. Give us a gift! Show us your patriotism!

PASTOR RICK "EXPLAINS": WHEN HE SAID "WE
WILL BURN," HE DIDN'T MEAN "WE WILL BURN"

Yes, Pastor Rick has "explained," sort of, how it happens that he hasn't gone up in flames. It seems that when he said, "If necessary, we will burn," he, uh, didn't actually mean it. It was a song reference, he says. RawStory presented his "explanation":

I made that comment to paraphrase a spiritual song, "Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego," in which the three were given a choice -- to bow to the image of Nebucahdnezzar or burn in a furnace. "We will burn" means that we will accept any sanction from the government for resisting [Friday’s] Supreme Court decision. We do not support any violence or physical harm.

Well, you can hear for yourself what the good pastor said up above, and while it's possible that this is what he was thinking, it's not what he said, which is all we have to go by. Also, he seems awfully murky on the meaning off "we will burn," which means, you know, we will burn. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego expressed their willingness to burn, what they meant was that they were prepared to burn -- in, you know, that famously fiery furnace.

If they had meant that they would "accept any sanction from the government for resisting" the order to bow to the image of Nebucahdnezzar, they could have said that, just like Pastor Rick could have said that. Probably nobody would have written a song about it, but that's okay, because if what you mean is that you have the courage of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego except for the part about having the courage, there really isn't any need for a song, is there?

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4th of July special: "Jefferson’s vision of equality is clearly in peril" (Harold Meyerson)

In a 4th of July column, "Thomas Jefferson’s view of equality under siege," Harold Meyerson harks back to the Jeffersonian vision of not just legal but social equality, and the challenge his agrarian vision faced from the urban development favored by his rival Alexander Hamilton, and the reforms devised in the first half of the 20th century by the two President Roosevelts --

to restore some of Jefferson's egalitarianism in what was, by then, Hamilton's America. Progressive taxation, the establishment of wage and labor standards and the legalization of unions reduced economic inequality, while the prohibition of corporation donations to political campaigns diminished, somewhat, the wealthy’s sway over government.

"But that, as they say," he continues, "was then," explaining how "the war that the American Right and corporate elites have waged against the Roosevelts’ Jefferson-Hamilton synthesis for the past 40 years has largely prevailed."

I'll leave you to read his setting forth of the case, and jump to his conclusion:

So how is our foundational assertion of equality faring on this July Fourth? As to social parity, it has seldom looked more robust. As to economic equality and the political equality with which it is inextricably intertwined, the picture is bleak. The mega-banks that plunged us into deep recession have had the political power to forestall their breakup. A handful of billionaires continues to donate unprecedented sums to election campaigns. The share of national income and wealth that goes to the vast majority of Americans continues to decline. The Republican Party — and the five Republican appointees to the Supreme Court — are committed to doctrines that will make these disparities more glaring. The recent exception to this trend is the health-care-reform act, which partially extends the Declaration’s assertion of equal rights to the realm of medical access. That’s no small achievement, but, with that single exception, on this July Fourth, Jefferson’s vision of equality is clearly in peril.

A healthy and happy 4th to all!

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Our musical 4th of July climaxes the only way it can

Where else could our musical 4th of July end up but with John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever? Here's Vladimir Horowitz playing his legendary piano transcription. Again, note the moderate tempo -- Horowitz believed that the piece was generally played too fast, thereby trivializing it.

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA: Semper Fidelis

Morton Gould and His Symphonic Band RCA/BMG, recorded October 1956

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA: The Washington Post

Band of H.M. Royal Marines, Lt. Col. G.A.C. Hoskins, cond. EMI, recorded February 1983

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA: The Thunderer

Eastman Wind Ensemble, Donald Hunsberger, cond. Kem-Disc, recorded c1981

JOHN PHILIP SOUSA: The Stars and Stripes Forever

With spoken introduction by JPS Sousa Band, John Philip Sousa, cond. Radio performance, 1929
Concert Arts Symphonic Band, Felix Slatkin, cond. Capitol-EMI, recorded 1958


WANT MORE JPS? MORE AMERICAN MUSICAL TREASURES?

For more Sousa, don't forget the legendary May 2010 DWT Sousapalooza post.

And for a fuller musical Fourth, revisit the 2009 three-part "American Treasures" post (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

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Our musical 4th of July Weekend continues with "Salute to the Services"

by Ken

We kicked off our "musical 4th of July Weekend" yesterday with performances of E. E. Bagley's irresistible National Emblem march by Morton Gould and Felix Slatkin. Today we listen again to a sequence of marches we first heard in that same May 2010 "Sousapalooza" post. Here it is, pretty much as it was presented back then.

"SALUTE TO THE SERVICES"

Which brings me to a record that has given me as much pleasure as any I've owned. It contains just under 39 minutes of music, which was kind of stingy even on LP. Still, it's just as well that in preparing a CD edition EMI didn't try to pad it out. The LP was about as close to perfect as they come.

The official title is The Military Band,with the subtitle "Salute to the Services" (I believe on LP it was "A Hi-Fi Salute . . ."), which I've always taken to refer to the suite of five marches at the start, which are preceded by "Reveille" and followed by "Taps." Actually, on the CD "Taps" comes at the end of the program; I've taken the liberty of shifting it to where it seems to me to belong: following the five marches (some more official than others) representing the five U.S. military services.

1. Reveille
2. SOUSA: The U.S. Field Artillery March (Army)
3. ZIMMERMAN: Anchors Aweigh (Navy)
4. MANCINI arr.: Marines on Parade
5. CRAWFORD: U.S. Air Force Song
6. VAN BOSKERCK: Semper Paratus (Coast Guard)
7. Taps

Concert Arts Symphonic Band, Felix Slatkin, cond. Capitol/EMI, recorded 1958

I kept going back and forth as to whether to make separate files of the individual pieces or to put them all in one "suite" file, and finally opted for the latter -- with some care, you can still pick out the individual pieces within the group file. I think they're more fun heard in one fell swoop, and the better you get to know them, the more fun they are. This is, by the way, more music that falls in the category of stuff I can, indeed have been known to, listen to over and over and over.


HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Tomorrow we bring our musical 4th to the only possible climax.


SCHEDULE NOTE: The Sunday Classics post with Bruno Walter rehearsing and performing Wagner's Siegfried Idyll will follow at 2pm PT.

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Holiday kickoff: A march plus quick hits -- does a country NEED a finance minister?; Geraldo's darkest day; world's worst joke

by Ken

IT'S 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND, SO WHY NOT KICK
OFF WITH SOME SUITABLY 4TH OF JULY MUSIC?

This is, I think, the best military-band march written by someone not named John Philip Sousa. In fact, it's better than all but the best of the Sousa marches. And I've got two nifty performances to share.

Alert readers will recognize that we've heard them before. It was in a May 2010 Sunday Classics post, "What stirs the blood better than a military march? This week courtesy of Mozart and Sousa." Well, we're hearing it again. (And now, with that first page of score in front of us, we can see right away that Felix Slatkin takes that first repeat while Morton Gould doesn't!)

COMING UP: Tomorrow, "Salute to the Services"; and Monday, the only possible climax to our musical 4th.

E. E. BAGLEY: National Emblem

Morton Gould and His Symphonic Band. RCA/BMG, recorded Oct. 17, 19, and 26, 1956
Concert Arts Symphonic Band, Felix Slatkin, cond. Capitol/EMI, recorded 1958

NOW, HOW ABOUT SOME HOLIDAY QUICK HITS? NOT
EXACTLY NEWS STORIES, BUT NOT EXACTLY NOT

(1) You can't slip anything past that AP

President Sarkozy and now-former Finance Minister Lagarde,
who for a brief, magical moment appeared irreplaceable

Now, with the New York sexual-assault case against forrmer IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn apparently near collapse, we're all wondering what exactly is the deal? There was always speculation that he was set up, maybe by people who wanted him out of the IMF (where he may have been thought not entirely on board enough with the fund's "austerity" mandate), maybe by people who didn't want him running against French President Nikolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election. If there's any chance that it was the latter, the principals may be disappointed. On yesterday's BBC World Service news, the correspondent in France was speculating that if charges against Dominique don't stick, he may be welcomed home as a martyr, with the possibility of a political future after all.

Meanwhile, there's no question that he's out of a job with the IMF, having already been replaced by French Foreign Minister Christine Lagarde. Which partially explains this teaser Wednesday morning's Washington Post's "Today's Headlines" e-newsletter:

France to name new finance minister after Lagarde chosen to head IMF
PARIS — France is expected to name a new finance minister to replace Christine Lagarde, who is leaving to take up the top job at the International Monetary Fund next week.
( Associated Press Associated Press, AP)

Disappointingly, the actual head on the story (at least by the time I clicked through; I noted that by then the story had been updated) was "French president names Francois Baroin as new finance minister to replace Christine Lagarde." Personally, I like it better the other way, which suggested that President Sarkozy was really breaking the situation down into a step-by-step process, the first step being huddling with his people to thrash out the question of whether la République really needs to have a finance minister.

(2) Geraldo's darkest day: "Humiliated and deeply embarrassed" -- all the way to the bank

Reflecting recently on "the recent press frenzy over Sarah Palin’s less-than-riveting gubernatorial e-mails," our pal Al Kamen ventured in his WaPo "In the Loop" column a week or two ago: "It was a great discredit to the trade, we’re told -- presuming we have any credit to dis."

It’s as if no one remembers the spectacular Geraldo Rivera “special” 25 years ago when he blew open Al Capone’s safe on live television, only to find a stop sign and two empty gin bottles inside. . . .

Rivera, in an interview 20 years after the event, said he was “humiliated and deeply embarrassed.” But then, he said, he found out the next morning that the show “was the highest rated syndicated special in television history.”

He’s still laughing -- all the way to the bank.

The day after that darkest day, it seems, the sun shone brightly.

(3) World's worst joke? Gotta be a contender

I've mentioned that at some point in the hazy past I must have signed up for this daily joke from Arcamax, which I usually don't even bother reading. (Mostly it's a pretext for dumping in a bunch of paid promotions that are fairly obnoxious, but not enough so to justify the possible ordeal of unsubscribing -- you never know what they're going to put you through.) I don't know why I happened to read this one the other day, but even before I got to the, er, punch line, I was thinking that I've heard a lot of jokes in my time, and a lot of real clunkers, but if I've ever heard a worse one, it's mercifully forgotten.

Naturally I felt an immediate need to share it. I've refrained till now.

Job Interview

An employment interviewer for a big company in New York was talking to an attractive young woman applying for a job. Looking over the application form, the interviewer noticed that the girl had not answered one important question concerning transportation to and from work.

"What about your bus line?" the interviewer asked her.

"I don't believe I mentioned it," came the pleased reply, "but it's a 36C."

Is that a killer joke, or what? I assume, by the way, that the "in New York" was stuck in in an attempt to lend some plausibility to the notion that a job-application form might ask for "bus line," but even if you can stretch your mind around the basic idea, wouldn't a New York application ask for subway line? Gosh, that would spoil the, er, joke, though, wouldn't it?


HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HOLIDAY!

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