The presidential election has turned into a contest between a capable, smart woman who emphasizes what Americans can achieve when they work together for the common good, and a sundowning old racist creep who would be pathetic if he weren’t so dangerously close to returning to power.
In case you’re wondering what the difference looks like, compare the hate and division the old racist creep is spreading with some recent announcements from President Joe Biden’s administration, nearly all of them about programs funded by one or another of Biden’s big legislative packages. Just a little reminder of why elections matter, and of the legacy that Kamala Harris is committed to building on. For, y’know, the people.
Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for opposing U.S. entry into World War I. Debs had been an elected official in Indiana, a labor organizer, writer and editor, had founded the first industrial union in the U.S., the American Railway Union, and had run for President four times on the Socialist Party ticket.
He ran again for president from prison in 1920 with the slogan “From Atlanta Prison to the White House,” and received nearly one million. Learn more about Eugene V. Debs
September 14, 1940 Congress passed the Selective Service Act, providing for the first peacetime draft (though Japan had already invaded China in 1937 and Germany had invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1939) in U.S. history.
September 14, 1948 A groundbreaking ceremony took place in New York City at the site of the United Nations’ world headquarters. The site selected for the permanent headquarters of the United Nations as it was in 1946. The 39-story building on 18 acres of Manhattan’s Turtle Bay neighborhood (donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.) on the East River. It is a major expression of the International Style with its simple geometric form and glass curtain wall, designed principally by Le Corbusier. The UN building today Background and more examples of the minimalist, utilitarian International style
September 14, 1963 The ABC television network invited singer, songwriter, banjo player and activist Pete Seeger to appear on its Saturday night folk and acoustic music show, Hootenanny, despite the fact that he had been blacklisted. But the invitation stood only if he’d sign an oath of loyalty to the U.S. He described his reaction: “This is ridiculous. I’d sign ’em, if you sign ’em, and everybody who’s born will sign ’em, then we’d all be clean.” In the 1940s Seeger traveled throughout the country with Woody Guthrie, performing at union meetings, strikes and demonstrations. After World War II, he and Lee Hays co-founded the Weavers, the legendary folk group that gained commercial success despite being blacklisted. A Pete Seeger BiographyMore about Hootenanny
September 14, 1964 The Free Speech Movement began at the University of California-Berkeley when its Dean Katherine Towle (pronounced toll) announced that existing University regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates, signing of members, and collection of funds by student organizations at the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph, would henceforth be ”strictly enforced.” Read more
September 14, 1982 Wisconsin became the first to approve a statewide referendum calling for a freeze on all testing of nuclear weapons.
September 14, 1990 The Pentagon announced a $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (Saudi Arabia’s eastern neighbor) had invaded Kuwait six weeks earlier. Saud royal family
September 14, 1991 The South African government, the African National Congress, the Inkatha Freedom Party, a total of forty organizations, signed the National Peace Accord. It led to the country’s first multi-racial elections and the end of South Africa’s racially separatist apartheid (literally separateness in the Afrikaans language) political, economic and social system by 1994. “ Bearing in mind the values which we hold, be these religious or humanitarian, we pledge ourselves with integrity of purpose to make this land a prosperous one where we can all live, work and play together in peace and harmony.” Background of the conflict
It’s about the Vances. A commenter on MPS posted the link. I was fighting with myself about posting it because it’s awful, but I’m going to because it’s information to be used to determine a vote. But I’m only putting a snippet and the link, so people can decide if they want to read (and see) all of it.
JD Vance’s wife, lawyer Usha Vance, has been conspicuously absent from the campaign trail thus far except for a few brief appearances, prompting speculation and concern. But after a recent campaign appearance, folks who were previously sympathetic to Usha Vance’s plight (marrying a guy who may or may not have f*cked a couch) are thinking twice.
Last week, Usha Vance was seen with her husband at the stalwart Erie, Pennsylvania butcher shop Gordon’s Butcher & Market, where the owners talked to the couple about the shop’s importance in the community.
There are just a few problems with this. Usha Vance is a vegetarian and a practicing Hindu. In Hinduism, the figure of the cow is not only celebrated, but sacred. Cows represent the divine and as such are associated with multiple deities, such as the Lord of Cattle and fertility god Shiva, Krishna, and the bull god Indra. (snip-MORE)
Linda Ronstadt: Not *Just* The Inspiration For Every Haircut I’ve Ever Had, But For Other Things As Well! by Rebecca Schoenkopf Read on Substack
In case you didn’t hear the good news yesterday — Linda Ronstadt is not very happy about Donald Trump holding a rally last night at a (2200-person capacity) building named for her in Tucson, Arizona! She is so unhappy about it, in fact, that she wrote a letter forcefully denouncing him and officially endorsing Kamala Harris. This is actually a pretty big deal for a few reasons. One, she hasn’t been in the public eye much in recent years, and two that her endorsement could possibly sway some fence-sitting Baby Boomers.
I mean, I love Linda Ronstadt, she is an icon and a musical/sartorial inspiration to me, but I don’t think I love Linda Ronstadt in quite the same way that men of a certain age love Linda Ronstadt. This is a tendency I have been made especially privy to, as a lady who some people think looks somewhat like Linda Ronstadt. (To be fair, I have had most of her haircuts at this point.)
She wrote:
Donald Trump is holding a rally on Thursday in a rented hall in my hometown, Tucson. I would prefer to ignore that sad fact. But since the building has my name on it, I need to say something.
It saddens me to see the former President bring his hate show to Tucson, a town with deep Mexican-American roots and a joyful, tolerant spirit.
I don’t just deplore his toxic politics, his hatred of women, immigrants and people of color, his criminality, dishonesty and ignorance — although there’s that.
For me it comes down to this: In Nogales and across the southern border, the Trump Administration systematically ripped apart migrant families seeking asylum. Family separation made orphans of thousands of little children and babies, and brutalized their desperate mothers and fathers. It remains a humanitarian catastrophe that Physicians for Human Rights said met the criteria for torture.
There is no forgiving or forgetting the heartbreak he caused.
Trump first ran for President warning about rapists coming in from Mexico. I’m worried about keeping the rapist out of the White House.
Linda Ronstadt
P.S. to J.D. Vance:
I raised two adopted children in Tucson as a single mom. They are both grown and living in their own houses. I live with a cat. Am I half a childless cat lady because I’m unmarried and didn’t give birth to my kids? Call me what you want, but this cat lady will be voting proudly in November for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
Ronstadt can’t sing anymore due to Parkinson’s (I cannot think too much about this or I will cry), but clearly she is still able to make her voice heard. (AW) (Snip-Much MORE, with music videos, too!)
Every one of these plants is now under the protection of #LordLaser and #LadyLaser
I got pissed off today.
I know it’s a supposed to be a joyous day because Kamala Harris feasted on the flesh of Donald Trump last night and all that. And it is.
But I drove by the Polonne Sunflower Garden on my way into work today, and I discovered that the last of my hidden cameras, which I had planted only yesterday, had vanished. I had planted this one because the previous one had also lasted less than 24 hours. Clearly, someone is now monitoring the terrain carefully and had me made on the whole planting hidden cameras thing. Took them long enough.
Hidden cameras are not all that cheap, and while I have money to burn on #SpecialMilitaryOperations, I don’t want to spend $60 per day on cameras that are never going to yield footage—at least not to me. So it’s time for a change of course in protecting the sunflowers and the Nikita Titov posters that hang down the street.
I had a talk with #LordLaser and his bride #LadyLaser about a new strategy to protect the sunflowers and the posters. And after reading up on Cold War deterrence theory, we collectively decided, of course, to escalate by way of deescalating.
So this evening, I penned the following letter to Ambassador Antonov, which I have published on Facebook:
An Open Letter to Anatoly Antonov, Ambassador of the Russian Federation:
Dear Mr. Ambassador:
We have never met, and I do not propose to change that. But I am the guy who periodically projects Ukrainian flags and other symbols and slogans on your embassy. Contrary to your false representations, I am not a radical Ukrainian emigre, as you once called me. I am a native born American citizen of a moderate political persuasion. I am not of Ukrainian extraction, to my knowledge.
I am writing to issue you an ultimatum: Stop killing my sunflowers.
You and I both know that your staff is behind the repeated destruction of the posters I hung by Ukrainian artist Нікіта Тітов. You and I also both know that your staff is behind the repeated destruction of the sunflowers whose planting I have organized on numerous occasions across Wisconsin Avenue from the #GatesOfHell which separate your compound from the civilized part of Washington DC. And you and I also both know that I have pissed you off, that you have repeatedly complained to the U.S. Department of State about my activities and have tried on repeated occasions to have me arrested.
Unlike you, however, I live in a democratic country that respects my rights of non-violent free expression. Consequently, I remain a free man–free to plant sunflowers on public land and to invite my friends to join me and free as well to project light in a non-threatening fashion at buildings when I choose to express my horror at a government’s ongoing war of aggression against a sovereign democratic country or at the ongoing atrocities by said government against civilians there.
I’m writing because, to put the matter bluntly, I am fucking sick of your efforts to regulate my First Amendment protected activities on the sovereign soil of my homeland. When I hang posters objecting to your government’s war, I expect them to be left alone. When I plant sunflowers with Ukrainian friends, up to and including Amb. Oksana Markarova, I expect them to be left in peace.
I am done playing the game of cat and mouse with your staff in which I plant sunflowers and they destroy them and I try to catch them at it.
With this letter, I am shifting to a strategy of deterrence with respect to your attempts to regulate free speech outside your compound, deterrence being, as always, the most appropriate manner for the wise to deal with the government of the Russian Federation.
So here is my new doctrine: For every sunflower plant which you disturb, I will come to your embassy some evening of my choosing and project a sunflower on your walls for one hour. For every poster that gets tampered with, I will come to your embassy and project a Нікіта Тітов image for an hour.
There are currently 78 sunflower plants in the Polonne Sunflower Garden and 20 or so posters. Each of them is worth a one-hour-long projection operation. I have consulted with both #LordLaser and #LadyLaser and both inform me that they are willing to spend up to 100 evenings over the next few months protecting sunflowers and posters. They have asked me to convey to you that all of the beautifications on the civilized side of Boris Nemtsov Plaza are, from this day forward, under their protection.
I have every confidence, moreover, that there are plenty of people in the DC metropolitan area who would volunteer to project to maximize the up-time of both lasers. What’s more, I can promise you most sincerely that the local, Ukrainian, and international press corps would find a near-daily projection of sunflowers on your walls a most compelling story.
Put simply, Mr. Ambassador, you might consider praying for the health and safety of each of the sunflowers and posters across the road from your forbidding gates.
They mean a lot to me. They represent the engagement of a large number of people in this community on behalf of Ukraine, in support of the people there, in encouragement of American aid to a country your government is endeavoring to destroy. I cannot protect Ukraine or Ukrainians from your government. I can, however, protect these symbols of them.
To be clear, I most emphatically do not promise to cease my #SpecialMilitaryOperations against your diplomatic presence here if you leave the sunflowers and posters alone. Those operations will continue at least as long as your war continues. I do, however, promise a dramatic escalation of projection operations if the sunflowers and posters continue to be molested.
Consider yourself warned.
Slava Ukraini, God Bless America, and don’t fuck with me on this.
I tried to tag the very unestimable ambassadir in the Facebook post, but I was unable to do so, I suspect because the cretin may have blocked me. So I guess I will hand deliver a copy of the letter tomorrow.
In the meantime, here is a video scan of the garden. Each of these plants is now protected by the threat of one hour of projection. (Video on the page)
Let’s find out if that threat is more effective than hidden cameras.
UPDATE: Facebook has removed the letter with the suggestion that it is misleading spam.
September 13, 1858 A group of the citizens of Oberlin, Ohio, stopped Kentucky slavecatchers from kidnapping John Price, a black man. Shakespeare Boynton, son of a wealthy landowner had lured Price with the promise of work. Oberlinians, black and white, from town and from the local College, pursued the kidnappers to nearby Wellington at word of his abduction. These were twenty of the thirty-seven citizens from Oberlin and Wellington who were charged with breaking the law by helping John Price escape from slave catchers in the fall of 1858. The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and subsequent trial caught the eye of the nation as escalating tensions over slavery raised the prospect of civil war The group, led by Charles Langston, James M. Fitch, bookseller and superintendent of the Oberlin Sunday School, and John Watson, a grocer, wanted to proceed nonviolently, but when the Kentuckians refused to surrender Price, the response was “we will have him anyhow.” They rushed the door guards of the Inn and theology student Richard Winsor took Price to safety, hidden for a time in the home of Oberlin College President James Fairchild, later helped across the Canadian border to freedom. The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue
September 13, 1961 Bertrand Russell, aged 89, and 32 others were arrested during a major demonstration against nuclear weapons in Trafalgar Square, London.
September 13, 1971 President Richard Nixon, speaking to his Chief of Staff Robert Haldeman, was recorded on the White House’s taping system saying: “Now here’s the point, Bob. Please get me the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors to the Democrats. Could we please investigate some of the cocksuckers?” Pres. Richard Nixon (L) with Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, advisor John Ehrlichman (R) with Sec. of State (standing) Henry Kissinger listen to The Smoking Gun:
September 13, 1982 The European Parliament voted to phase out promotion and advertising of war toys throughout the 25 countries of the European Union (formerly European Economic Community).
September 13, 1983 The first group from Peace Brigades International (PBI) arrived in Guatemala to provide unarmed and nonviolent witness protection for indigenous leaders. Following decades of severe repression of native ethnic groups by the unelected military government, the PBI team accompanied the Mutual Support Group (GAM in Spanish) of Families of the Disappeared, the first human rights group to emerge from the terror and survive. PBI vision and mission
September 13, 1993 The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, and the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, shook hands before cheering crowds on the White House lawn in Washington after signing an accord establishing limited Palestinian autonomy. Read more
The site selected for the permanent
The UN building today
Saud royal family
Scottie's Playtime 