My wife and I recently returned from a Danube River cruise — no, it’s not blue, the waltz notwithstanding — and we had a wonderful time.
One of the many pleasures of these relatively small river cruises is all the interesting people you get to meet from around the world. This time around, we spent most of our time with Canadians and Australians, who seemed to enjoy our company once they determined we shared their low opinion of our president.
When one of the Canadians we dined with several times learned that we had signed on for a “Sound of Music” tour of Salzburg, Austria — featuring fountains, mountains, cityscapes, trees, a church and other locations from the movie — he told a nice story about an Austrian who emotionally described to him his love for their traditional folk song, “Edelweiss.”
I had read that the song actually was written just for the movie and had no significance for Austrians, which our guide confirmed the next day. So when our new friend repeated his story at dinner that evening, I politely corrected him, explaining that although some Austrians may have embraced the song — the Edelweiss is their national flower — it was a Rodgers and Hammerstein creation.
I won’t say our friend was crestfallen, but he did seem disappointed. I should add that I have a long tradition of spoiling people’s favorite stories, in part through the urban legend columns I used to write semiregularly.
So here’s the question. Is the truth really that important, if it spoils a good narrative?
After all, we’re in what some people have characterized as the Post-Truth Era, ushered in most recently by Donald Trump, his congressional lapdogs and Fox News but immortalized much earlier by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. Falsehoods abound, not just in the White House but all over social media.
Here’s how the European Center for Populism Studies explained the Big Lie technique.
The big lie is the name of a propaganda technique, originally coined by Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” who says “The great masses of the people … will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one,” and denotes where a known falsehood is stated and repeated and treated as if it is self-evidently true, in hopes of swaying the course of an argument in a direction that takes the big lie for granted rather than critically questioning it or ignoring it.
Pssst. If that doesn’t sound familiar, wake up.
Hitler used it to blame his country’s problems on his best available scapegoat, Jewish people. Trump and company have broadened this approach to encompass multiple scapegoats — immigrants, foreigners, transgender people, people who are “woke” because they encourage social justice and care about the future health of our planet — and to big lies involving the 2020 election and so many other subjects that we’re numb to it. He lies about everything, and his supporters don’t seem to know or care.
I remember when the idea of act checking first emerged in political coverage. Instead of just quoting politicians who were fudging the truth, the fact-checkers would point out when they were lying or exaggerating, in the case of The Washington Post by assigning up to four Pinocchios for the most egregious falsehoods.
Some politicians would correct themselves in future pronouncements. Others wouldn’t bother.
Trump, the ultimate Pinocchio, is oblivious to Fact Checking. He just plows ahead — “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats!” — repeating the same misinformation over and over at rallies, news conferences, debates. Facts are irrelevant.
Perhaps most amazingly, his long-since-debunked fraud allegations regarding the 2020 election are being incorporated into Oklahoma’s public-school curriculum. Elsewhere, facts about racial injustice, climate change and our nation’s history have been altered or eliminated from public school curricula to suit the MAGA agenda. Kinglike, Trump even is punishing colleges, states and others who won’t go along with his determination to impose “1984”-style Newspeak.
I think at least some Trump followers — particularly Republican elected leaders — know he is lying. But because it suits their preferred narrative, they go along. That’s frightening enough. Even scarier, though, are the people who are too dim, lazy or Foxcentric to figure out that we’re not being overrun by bloodthirsty killer immigrants or that non-straight men and women aren’t a threat to our military, our children or anything else, not to mention that Trump really lost the 2020 election, that the rioters storming the Capitol weren’t the true victims of Jan. 6, that indiscriminate ICE goon squads aren’t the best solution to illegal immigration and that vaccinating our children continues to be a very good idea.
They don’t just accept the lies. They spread them. That’s why we must be advocates for the truth, correcting and even confronting falsehoods, at rallies, on social media, in conversations. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s fueling our country’s descent into unrecognizable autocratic chaos.
“Eidelweiss” may be trivial. But innocent people being demonized? Trust in our elections destroyed? Our constitutional guarantees shredded? Our planet’s climate threatened? Long-dead diseases given new life?History rewritten?
Speak up. The truth is worth defending.
This is a contributed opinion column. Bill White can be reached at whitebil1974@gmail.com. His Threads handle is whitebil2000. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. For more details on commentaries, read our guide to guest opinions at themorningcall.com/opinions.
Bob Bolus refiled a lawsuit to get the pride flag, which is a symbol of support for LGBTQ+ people and inclusivity, removed from Scranton City Hall and barred from display at all government buildings in Lackawanna County.
The city has been flying a rainbow-motif pride flag on a flagpole at the municipal building at 340 N. Washington Ave. since June 1 for the annual commemoration of Pride Month.
Bolus initially filed a lawsuit June 6 in Lackawanna County Court on a pro-se basis, meaning representing himself without an attorney, in a legal attempt to compel the removal of the pride flag from City Hall, as well as having it barred from display there and at all government buildings in the county. Also on June 6, Lackawanna County Judge Terrence Nealon dismissed Bolus’ lawsuit on various procedural errors, including that he did not properly file or serve the action or name defendants. Nealon dismissed the case “without prejudice,” meaning Bolus could try to do it again properly.
The Pride flag outside of City Hall in Scranton on Monday, June 16, 2025. (REBECCA PARTICKA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
On June 9, Bolus filed a new lawsuit in county court, again on a pro-se basis, and again seeking a court order requiring the removal of the pride flag from public display at Scranton City Hall and barring its display there and at “all public buildings within the jurisdiction of Lackawanna County.”
The new lawsuit names as defendants the city, Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and Scranton City Council members, who are council President Gerald Smurl, Bill King, Mark McAndrew, Jessica Rothchild and Tom Schuster, all individually and in their official capacities as municipal elected officials. The mayor and council members are all Democrats.
Bolus also named as a defendant, individually and in his official capacity, Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan, who is a Democrat.
Bolus, who is a Republican, did not name Republican Lackawanna County Commissioner Chris Chermak as a defendant. In a phone interview Monday, Bolus said he named only Gaughan because he is the chairman of the commissioners.
Bob Bolus Sr. (COURTESY OF BOB BOLUS SR.)
Scranton City Solicitor Jessica Eskra declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the city would respond in court.
Lackawanna County Solicitor Donald Frederickson said in a statement, “Mr. Bolus’ frivolous action has been denied by the court on its own motion,” and thus Frederickson believes Bolus would have to ask the court for reconsideration to refile.
Some of the claims in Bolus’ lawsuit include:
• Scranton City Council, the mayor and Lackawanna County commissioners “are responsible for the decision to raise and display the Pride Flag at Scranton City Hall.”
• Title 16, Chapter 161 Section 27 of state law regarding display of municipal flags on county buildings says: “It shall be lawful to display the flag of any county, city, borough or other municipality in the Commonwealth or the official POW/MIA flag on the public buildings or grounds of any county;” and thus the state does not specifically authorize the display of a pride flag on public grounds.
• The pride flag is a “catalyst” for political and social division; and it is not inclusive “as it does not represent” all citizens of the city or county.
• The pride flag has become a political symbol associated with the Democratic Party; as well as “a symbol of sexual orientation, sexual practices and a sexual lifestyle” that is “abhorrent to a significant number of people due to religious and personal beliefs;” and it is not neutral or appropriate for display on public buildings.
The filing and refiling of the lawsuit comes amid controversy aired at recent city council meetings.
On June 10, Smurl apologized for not stopping derogatory remarks made during public comment at the June 3 weekly council meeting. The apology was a response to comments by Bolus made June 3 opposing having the rainbow flag displayed at City Hall, as well as other remarks that Bolus directed at a pro-LGBTQ+ resident Angela Ramone. Residents also came out to council’s June 10 meeting to express support for LGBTQ+ people and condemn hate speech, while Bolus said, “I make no excuse for last week,” according to an Electric City Television simulcast and video of the weekly meeting posted online.
June 18, 1571 King Sebastian of Portugal enacted penalties for violation of censorship legislation. The fines could be as much as a quarter or half of the violator’s legal possessions, plus the threat of exile to Brazil or an African colony. Death sentences were also not uncommon. Seized books were burned and burnings were supervised by Roman Catholic priests.
June 18, 1840 The Oberlin Non-Resistance Society was formed at the Ohio college by students who believed “that the Gospel of Jesus Christ inculcates the duty of peace and good-will.” They were inspired by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s New England group of similar name. They rejected all use of violence even in the name of duty to country. “We must submit to the ‘powers that be,’ and ‘obey magistrates,’ except when their requirements conflict with God’s laws; when we are meekly to endure the penalty of disobedience ‘threatening them not.’ ” Though denounced by the faculty and ignored by the student newspaper, the group was among the first in a succession of peace- and justice-oriented organizations begun at Oberlin. Oberlin’s peaceful tradition
June 18, 1941 Less than two weeks before a scheduled march on Washington, its chief organizer, (Asa) A. Philip Randolph, was invited to the White House byPresident Franklin Roosevelt. Randolph was the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful black trade union. He, along with activist and singer Bayard Rustin, had issued a “Call to Negro America to March on Washington for Jobs and Equal Participation in National Defense on July 1, 1941.” Roosevelt was wary of the prospect of such a demonstration and desirous of developing support for a war effort. Randolph told Roosevelt he would abandon the march plans only if the president would stop job discrimination in both the defense industry and the government. Before the end of the month, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which barred government contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of race, color, creed or national origin. A. Philip Randolph and Eleanor Roosevelt The order, sometimes called a second emancipation proclamation, was the federal government’s most significant action on behalf of the rights of African Americans since post-Civil War reconstruction of the 1870s.
June 18, 1948 A United Nations commission approved and recommended to the General Assembly an International Declaration of Human Rights, recognizing that “the inherent dignity and . . . the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world . . . .” Text of the Declaration: . . .
June 18, 1970 The U.S. Congress passed the 26th amendment to the constitution, lowering the voting age to 18 for all elections—federal, state and local. The amendment went into effect just 100 days later after 38 state legislatures had ratified the amendment.
June 18, 1979 SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty), an agreement to put limits on both America’s and the Soviet Union’s long-range missiles and bombers, was signed by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev. This was the first arms-reduction treaty between the two superpowers. It was signed despite the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the previous year. Read more on SALT II’s control of weapons of mass destruction
That’s a thing I began learning during my years working in schools, but I’ve really picked up a great deal more from fellow blogger Barry. Here is his Autistic Pride Day blog post!
Tell-It Report: Army Renames Fort Lee After a Black Soldier to Maintain Confederate Fiction by Michael Harriot
Barred from using the names of Confederate soldiers, the Trump administration “restores” the names of seven military bases that once honored the losers of the Civil War. Read on Substack
In Gullah Geechee communities, a “tell-it” was a designated lookout, community warning system and the most trusted source for news and information. The Tell-It Report is ContrabandCamp’s weekly roundup of the Black stories that deserve more attention — from politics to entertainment.
President Donald Trump has reinstated the names of Army bases that once honored Confederate leaders. But, contrary to what he announced, Fort Lee won’t be named after Robert E. Lee, but a Black soldier named Fitz Lee.
Trump’s recent travel ban is preventing Haitian children scheduled to undergo heart surgery from traveling to the United States for their life-changing procedures.
The Grammys are adding a “traditional country” category just months after Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” earned her Country Album of the Year.
Read the full stories below:
Trump renames Fort Lee after a Black soldier because he can’t use Robert E. Lee
Continuing President Trump’s efforts to remove diversity measures enacted by his predecessor, the Army announced it was reverting to the original names of seven bases whose names were changed in 2023 because they honored Confederate leaders. Despite his statement on Tuesday in which Trump said one base would be restored to Fort Robert E. Lee, it will not actually honor the Confederate general who led the fight to keep slavery legal.
Instead, Fort Lee in Prince George’s County will be named after a Black soldier, Pvt. Fitz Lee, the New York Times reports.
In 2023, the Biden administration renamed the bases honoring Confederate leaders. Fort Lee then became Fort Gregg-Adams to honor two Black leaders, Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams. By law, names of Confederate soldiers can’t be used on military bases, hence the bait and switch.
Lee was a Buffalo soldier who fought in the Spanish-American War. Born in Virginia, he received the Medal of Honor in 1899 for risking his life to save wounded comrades in Cuba. Shortly after the mission, he suffered from vision loss, swollen limbs and abdominal pain stemming from kidney disease. He died at age 33.
Though the bases’ original names are back, like Fort Lee, they will not honor Confederate leaders. Instead, they will be named after the soldiers “who served in conflicts ranging from the Civil War to the Battle of Mogadishu,” the Army announced in a statement on Tuesday. No women are honored in the rebrand.
Along with the newly dubbed Fort Lee, bases included in the change are Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Polk, Fort Rucker and Fort A.P. Hill. Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth changed the names of Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, now honoring World War I and II veterans, respectively, with the same last names instead of Confederate soldiers.
“We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change,” Trump said during the announcement, CBS News reports. “And I’m superstitious, you know? I like to keep it going, right? I’m very superstitious.”
The Department of Defense originally spent about $39 million to change the names of military installations named after Confederate figures, CBS 6 Richmond reports. Although the changes are expected to take effect immediately, no estimated cost for the revamp was announced, according to CBS News.
Trump’s travel ban is blocking Haitian children from getting stateside surgery
Lifesaving procedures for more than a dozen Haitian children and young adults with serious cardiac issues have been stalled or canceled due to Trump’s travel ban, NBC News reports
The ban, which went into effect on June 9, extends to 12 countries and bars foreigners seeking legal immigrant status as well as those seeking visas from entering the U.S., according to CBS News.
The International Cardiac Alliance is an aid organization that has sent more than 100 children from Haiti to the U.S. for heart surgery. Though a proclamation made some exemptions, including for U.S. citizens and those traveling for the World Cup and the Olympics, those undergoing medical procedures with the alliance’s help were not on that list, according to NBC. Its waitlist includes at least 316 Haitians in need of heart surgery, ranging from infants to young adults.
The organization’s executive director, Owen Robinson, told the New York Times that finding adequate medical help in other countries will be difficult.
Sixteen-year-old Fabienne Rene and her family were counting on travel to treat her rheumatic heart disease. Her father, Fignole Rene, told NBC that they don’t know what their alternative option would be.
“I was not waiting to hear something like that,” Rene told the outlet in Creole. “We know for sure that there is nowhere in Haiti we can have this possibility. The only option that we have was just waiting to have an open door from the Cardiac Alliance.”
According to the NYT, Trump’s decision to prevent Haitians from visiting is because they stayed in the states longer than their visas permitted 25% of the time. In addition to Haiti, the 12 countries on the travel ban list include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, The Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Trump also issued partial suspensions for Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Trump has restricted travel for these 19 Black and brown countries because he deemed them “high-risk.” However, just last month, he gave white South Africans asylum, claiming they were subject to “white genocide.”
His administration also rescinded Haitians’ temporary protected status, which prevented them from being deported, and revoked a program that allowed them to move to the U.S, according to the NYT.
Grammys to add ‘traditional country’ category after Beyoncé’s historic win
The Recording Academy announced that they would be breaking up the country album category, adding a “traditional” category and renaming the existing category to “contemporary.” And Beyoncé fans don’t think their decision’s timing — coming just months after “Cowboy Carter” won big — is coincidental.
“The community of people that are making country music in all different subgenres came to us with a proposal and said we would like to have more variety in how our music is honored,” the Academy CEO Harvey Mason told Billboard. “They said, we think we need more space for our music to be celebrated and honored.” According to the outlet, the new category was proposed in previous years.
Fans pointed to the not-so-subtle racist shade that they believe stemmed from “Cowboy Carter” winning both Best Country Album and Album of the Year, the first time Beyoncé has won in both categories.
An anonymous music executive told Phil Lewis that the academy’s intentions are clear. The executive pointed to the academy adding Best Dance Pop Recording category after Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” and “Break My Soul” won.
“Now, the same thing has happened again.” the executive explained for What I’m Reading.
“There are probably some country purists in power that aren’t happy with her winning Best Country Album — especially after she was snubbed completely from the CMAs — and suddenly the country album category is being divided into two categories.”
Beyoncé is currently on the Cowboy Carter World Tour. The show and album pay homage to country’s Black roots and call out the industry’s historic efforts to erase Black legacy and impact from the genre.
During her acceptance speech for Best Country Album, she expressed gratitude for those in the genre who accepted “Cowboy Carter.”
“We worked so hard on it,” she said. “I think sometimes genre is a code word to keep us in our place as artists, and I just wanna encourage people to do what they’re passionate about and to stay persistent.”
ICYMI
Former host of MTV’s “TRL” and BET’s “Teen Summit,” Ananda Lewis, has died at 52 on Wednesday after a long battle with breast cancer.
Sly Stone, the legendary frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, died on June 9 at age 82.
Silentó, the 27-year-old rapper who created a viral hit with “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty in the fatal shooting of his cousin.
A Milwaukee jury convicted Maxwell Anderson of killing 19-year-old Sade Robinson, whose body was found dismembered after she went on a first date with Anderson.
Misty Copeland announced that she is retiring after 25 years with the American Ballet Company.
The Advance prides itself on attracting superior talent to our pages, and Clay Jones may well be at the top of the totem pole if awards are the measure. In 2022 he won the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and he has been a finalist for the Herblock Prize. What makes a great political cartoonist? That’s tough to say, but certainly the ability to make connections that others miss, and that force us to both laugh and think about issues in ways we may not have previously imagined — even (perhaps especially) when it makes us uncomfortable. That’s precisely what Jones has accomplished today, building off this week’s seemingly unrelated stories about geese and the endless struggle in our community over the homeless.
Dawwwww. Thank you, guys. That’s super nice.
I was just being silly with this, but proofer Laura said it was “silly, but kinda accurate.” I was afraid my editor would hate it because it was so weird.
Creative note: I wrote this Thursday night, and drew at home Friday night at the end of a long day. I wanted it to be finished before Saturday so I could focus on all the DC stuff.
Music note: Dammit, I don’t remember because I drew it two nights ago.
I’m sorry I made you wait for today’s blog, but I thought it would be more interesting to write the blog about Trump’s birthday parade after I actually attended his birthday parade.
And let’s not make mistakes about this. This military parade was not for the Army, but for Donald Trump.
Here’s the funny thing: I didn’t make it to the parade. Yes, I got a hotel room, and I planned to attend the parade, but three things happened. There were fences. Long long long fences. There was not a huge crowd, but it was tough to get through the snake of fences. Then, there were lines. But didn’t I just say the crowds were not huge? They weren’t, but the Trump organization likes to make people wait because it gives the impression that the crowds are large when they’re not.
And they must have expected much larger crowds because there were MAGA merchants everywhere. Yet, it didn’t seem like they were having a lot of customers. The street vendors selling ice cream had longer lines. I bought a cone.
If you want a huge crowd, go back to President Barack Obama’s inauguration. That was a huge crowd. Go back to Kamala Harris’ speech last November. That was a huge crowd. Or, go back to the last time I went to a Washington Capitals game. It was incredible if you could find a seat on the metro because the crowds were so large. But today, I took a metro at 5 p.m. and it was easy to find a seat. It wasn’t packed. And it wasn’t packed after the event either.
The parade started early because they wanted to beat the rain that never came. There were sprinkles, but nothing that should be able to stop a tank.
I said there was a thing that kept me from making it to Constitution Avenue, where the parade was held. The first were the fences, the second were the lines, and the third were the protests. The protests distracted me.
The official No Kings protests did not happen in Washington, DC. They didn’t want to start a fight. But, that didn’t stop independent protesters who did outnumber the MAGAts in my opinion. And readers, I feel bad because I wasn’t very nice to the MAGAts. You’ll see.
The closest thing I saw to violence was when a woman took a wild swing at a man holding a sign. They crossed paths, and she took a swing as they passed each other, which I don’t think she intended to connect. But he turned around and said, “Did you just take a swing at me?” She did not turn around, so he yelled, “Fuck Trump.” Yes, she was a MAGAt. And no, the man didn’t try to do anything violent. He kept on his way after yelling, “Fuck Trump.”
I had to know what was on his sign that made her want to take a swing, and here it is.
In a telephone interview this morning with ABC’s Rachel Scott, Donald Trump said he “may” call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz about the targeted attack in Minneapolis that killed Melissa Hortman, a state legislator, and her husband.
In a moment that needs bipartisanship, empathy, and for a president to actually act presidential, Donald Trump said, “Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor. I think he’s a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too.”
He just can’t do it. He gave it a shot yesterday, issuing a statement someone else obviously wrote, “I have been briefed on the terrible shooting that took place in Minnesota, which appears to be a targeted attack against state lawmakers. Our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and the FBI, are investigating the situation, and they will be prosecuting anyone involved to the fullest extent of the law. Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place.”
Forgive me if I don’t put a lot of faith into the investigative skills of Pam Bondi and FBI Director (sic) Kash Patel.
Trump blamed “hateful rhetoric” from the left when an assassin took aim at his ear. You’re not going to hear the term “hateful rhetoric” from Trump over the assassination of a state legislator in Minnesota.
We’re going to hear a lot of hypocrisy this week coming from MAGA Land.
For Trump, it was “hateful rhetoric” that got his ear shot, but the “targeted attack” on the left is a mystery.
I wanted to give you a long and in-depth blog on this, but I totally forgot while waiting at the airport. The worst part is, my flight was delayed for over two hours, so I had time to write it. Now, my flight is boarding and I’m still typing.
The next time you hear from me, I’ll be in California.
The view from my room:
I’m staying at the Sheraton by the Pentagon. Here’s the view I took yesterday afternoon. (snip-MORE)
UPDATED:
Scottie's Playtime 