(Setting this up Sunday night for Monday AM; more storms expected overnight here, which could be feisty. This is an important read, and I thank Ten Bears for posting it Sunday. I only got to it shortly before bedtime Sunday.)
I don’t get to Emptywheel’s blog as often as I used to, I’m sorry to say. I’m going to give a snippet, and you should go read the rest; it’s not too long. This sort of reminds me of when the fact that GW wasn’t elected in any way, rather being given the presidency through a civil suit judgment was reported for a minute, but then everybody told everybody to shut up about it, even while GW was pushing USA PATRIOT.
Thanks to a brouhaha at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s (WHCA) annual dinner, the media outlets in attendance are derailed and will feature the tumult prominently on their print front page or their home or splash page online.
They will demote discussions about other critically important news, and they will compromise themselves in the process because they will have become part of the news instead of reporting information of importance to the public.
Already demoted on Google News’ headline page:
Notice how all the headlines on these stories — likely published by media outlets with representatives at tonight’s WHCA dinner — make it sound as if Trump called off the negotiations with Iran.
Instead, Iran’s representative left Pakistan before scary Victorian doll son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate developer Steve Witkoff arrived on behalf of Trump.
The media won’t be discussing how much closer the Trump-caused global energy shock has become because Iran has no use for whatever Kushner and Witkoff were going to present — or for them as negotiators having been burned by them before.
The same media outlets with WHCA members warming seats and kneepads this evening at the “nerd prom” will deprecate coverage of the schism between Trump and the GOP Congressional Caucus and Ghislaine Maxwell’s possible presidential pardon.
There will be less effort about the interesting timing of this story about Epstein’s groomer/fixer/partner:
And certain media outlets are sure to fluff Trump by providing him with ample narcissistic supply (hello, now-Ellison-owned CNN and CBS) while others push Trump’s favorite talking points about needing a ballroom.
Never mind the same Secret Service that couldn’t prevent tonight’s altercation will also be on duty at the Versailles-like Hall of Mirrors Trump wants to contain his bloated narcissism.
Stay with me tonight. This one runs a little long, but it’s all information you’ll need.
It’s likely that much of this week will be overshadowed by investigation into what happened Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old California man with a master’s degree from Cal Tech, approached the ballroom at the Washington Hilton armed with a shotgun, a handgun and knives, and attempted to sprint through the magnetometer security checkpoint. He was stopped there. A Secret Service agent was shot, but was fortunately protected by a bulletproof vest. It’s not clear who shot him.
The White House Press Corps, still dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns, trooped into the press briefing room at the White House to hear from the President, who appeared, flanked by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and others. They, too, were still in tuxedos from the event.
It’s not clear who the “designated survivor” for the event was. CBS’ Margaret Brennan pointed out Sunday morning that “Five of the top six officials in the presidential line of succession were in attendance: Vice President JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”
Trump was in good spirits as he spoke, complimenting the press and laughing about the speech he had hoped to give after dinner. It was a much more affable Trump than we’ve seen in the course of the last year as he interacted with members of the media he has often been sharply critical, or dismissive of, during his first year in office. Trump went on the attack against the press even before his January 2025 inauguration, as we discussed at the time.
This was a different Trump who spoke in a very measured fashion, far more measured than usual, almost as if he saw this incident as providing the opportunity for a reset. He respectfully took questions from reporters like CNN’s Kaitlin Collins and NBC’s Garrett Haake. He was kindly toward the press; that’s the only way to characterize it. Whether that was a momentary blip or it suggests he will try to convince the media to rebuild its relationship with him remains to be seen. He did say that the Correspondents’ Dinner would be rescheduled within a month, without seeming to understand that the Correspondents’ Association puts on the dinner and controls the event.
At the press conference, Trump was asked why this keeps happening to him—this was the third attempt on his life since he announced his run for the presidency ahead of the 2024 election. He responded that he “has studied assassinations” and that it’s the “people who do the most” that assailants go after, using Abraham Lincoln as an example. Trump said that it “only happens to impactful people” and that he didn’t want to say he “was honored” by the repeated attempts on his life, but he let the implication hang in the room.
But he did not abandon politics. As he began his comments, Trump said the incident demonstrated why the ballroom he is building at the White House is needed.
Trump reiterated his comments in a Sunday morning post on Truth Social, claiming presidents have been demanding a ballroom like the one he’s building for 150 years.
His amen corner all took up the chant on Twitter, on cue.
But, as we noted above, the dinner is run by the Correspondents’ Association, not the White House. There is no reason to believe they would use a White House ballroom for a dinner designed to celebrate freedom of the press and its independence from government. Trump can make the argument he needs a safe space to entertain, but it’s a disconnect from the event last night.
Miles Taylor commented on Threads that “The WHCD shooter will be used to justify things that have nothing to do with the WHCD shooter. Mark this moment.” That seems likely.
The immediate investigation will focus on whether the shooter was a lone wolf, as it appears, or whether there is an ongoing threat. There is reporting today that Allen was a member of a group called The Wide Awakes, who appear, based on their web presence, to be committed to “radically” reimagining the future, but look to be a group of creative, peaceful people. Law enforcement will want to determine whether someone or something radicalized Allen and directed him toward violence.
There are sure to be, and there should be, questions about the Secret Service and how this happened. Asked about that during the press conference, Trump responded that he was “very impressed by the Secret Service.” But this is the third time a would-be assassin has gotten close to Trump, and one would have expected them to tighten ranks after the first attempt. Trump, however, does not seem to have viewed any of it as a failure by the Service and he was complimentary of the D.C. police, as well, in a phoner on Fox News.
It’s important to note that the Secret Service stopped Allen at the perimeter they had established. They succeeded in that sense. The real question will be whether the perimeter should have been set further back. I’ve attended the dinner multiple times and one observes layers of security that require guests to walk up the hill to the circular drive in front of the Washington Hilton before entering the hotel, but there are parties and receptions occurring in advance of the perimeter before entering the ballroom area, and, as we now know, Allen avoided scrutiny as a guest who checked into the hotel the day before the dinner. There are real questions that will have to be confronted here to ensure protection for future dinners, to say nothing of the scads of parties that happen in connection with this dinner, and other national events that are held at the Hilton.
Late Saturday evening, D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced that Allen would be arraigned on Monday. She said he will be charged with one count of assault on a federal officer using a dangerous weapon and two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence. That could be fluid as officials learn new information. But the charges she identifies are found at 18 USC 111, which carries a 20-year maximum penalty, and 18 USC 924(c), which carries a 7-year penalty if a firearm is brandished and a 10-year penalty if it’s fired.
The motive seemed to be coming into focus throughout the day as some of Allen’s anti-administration writings were released. On Meet the Press, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said authorities believed the suspect may have been targeting Trump administration officials, including Trump himself. The basis for that belief appears to have been examination of electronic devices and some writings. But Blanche told CNN’s Dana Bash they were still looking at the motive.
As I heard seasoned journalists, many of them friends, discuss how frightening the shooting was on air Saturday night and Sunday morning, I couldn’t help but reflect on how much worse it is for America’s children. How many of them still suffer a lingering sense of trauma from the moment a shooter crashed into their classroom or their place of worship? If there’s ever been a time to pass sensible gun control laws, it’s now. If we’re going to play politics, as Trump did with immediately pivoting to justifying his ballroom, let’s play that kind and make some good trouble.
There will be in court developments in other matters to track, as well, this week:
This Wednesday will be the last regularly scheduled day for the Supreme Court to hear oral argument this term. The Court will take up two consolidated cases, Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot, and consider whether the Trump administration acted properly when it revoked protected status for Syrians and Haitians living in this country. The cases involve decisions from New York and Washington, D.C., barring the administration from stripping more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians of protected legal status that protects them from deportation.
The cases hit the court just last month, on March 16. The Court allowed the lower courts’ decisions to remain in place, preventing deportations, determining that it would hear the case promptly, allotting an hour for oral argument. This has all happened very quickly, with the final brief being filed just last week on Monday.
There is also news on the voting front. Friday evening, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced that he was calling a special session of the legislature so that new maps could be drawn.
I don’t typically make news on a Friday afternoon, but today I am going to make an exception:
I’m calling a special session.
During the recently completed regular session, the Legislature discussed drawing new maps to comply with a decision from a federal judge from the… pic.twitter.com/wEnFw5xkHk
This redraw would be limited to state Supreme Court districts. A federal court found Mississippi’s state Supreme Court districts violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and required the legislature to pass a remedial map. But it failed to do so during the regular session. A court hearing was scheduled for this week, and the court would have likely adopted its own map. So the Governor is calling this special session in hopes the court will hold off until the legislature has time to act.
In the election last November, voters ended the Republican supermajority in the legislature, but Republicans still hold a majority of the seats in both chambers and should be able to pass a map of their own devising. So the governor likely believes a map that comes out of the legislature will be superior to one created by the court.
And finally, the SAVE Act isn’t quite dead yet. We need to stay alert to any resurgence and be prepared to call our members of Congress to demand they resist its resuscitation. Trump is again demanding that his party end the filibuster and pass the Act, saying that not doing so will “lead to the worst results for a political party in the HISTORY of the United States Senate.” It reads as an acknowledgment that only voter suppression can save the Republican Party in the midterm elections.
Utah Senator Mike Lee followed up on Trump’s command with this tweet. Lee is not up for reelection until 2028. But he, too, seems to sense that this will be a dangerous election for Republicans. The SAVE Act is one of the last-ditch efforts Republicans have to suppress the vote and hold onto power this year and again in 2028. There is no mention of crafting policies designed to win the hearts and minds of American voters. It’s just about keeping eligible American citizens from voting. We must do everything we can to resist that.
If you’ve found this useful, it’s exactly the work I do every week—reading the filings, tracking the arguments, and explaining what it means before it becomes obvious. The headlines will keep coming, but understanding them takes more than a glance. That’s what this space is for. My goal is to give you clear, careful analysis you can rely on. If that’s the kind of work you value, I hope you’ll choose to subscribe.
There is frank recital of the grooming and threats that happened to these women, in case you might need to skip reading this one. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888, or text INFO to 233733. See the website at https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en
Saturday will mark one year since the death of Virginia Giuffre, one of the first women to surrender her anonymity, detail her experiences and publicly call for criminal charges against convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. For other Epstein survivors such as Liz Stein and Jess Michaels, Giuffre’s public reckoning made it possible to finally name what had happened to them.
“I saw myself in Virginia, in [Epstein survivor] Maria Farmer, in all of them,” said Danielle Bensky, who was pulled into Epstein’s orbit when she was 17. “And I thought: if they can be victimized, anyone can be. I was not alone. I finally understood that we were not going to be silent any more.
More than a dozen Epstein survivors will gather in Washington DC this weekend for a memorial vigil in Giuffre’s honor. But they will also be marking something larger: the emergence of a survivors’ movement Giuffre helped make possible – and that is only gaining momentum.
Epstein survivors have held press conferences and met with congressional lawmakers; in November, the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed, and the release of more than 3.5m pages of documents followed. However, in the more than two months since the justice department released its latest batch of files – more than 2m documents have yet to be released – prosecutors have not brought any new charges, despite federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continuing to demand accountability.
As for Ghislaine Maxwell – the only person convicted in connection with Epstein’s network – she was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 and has exhausted her appeals. Rather than facing harsher scrutiny, however, Maxwell was controversially transferred from a low-security prison in Florida to a minimum-security federal camp in Texas in August.
While the lack of action has left survivors with little faith that the full scope of Epstein’s network will ever face justice, they don’t intend to back down.
Stein, Bensky, Lisa Phillips and Michaels discuss, in their own words, what made them come forward, the power of survivors banding together and where they want the movement to go.
‘If I could go back, I would tell someone’
Liz Stein, human trafficking specialist and survivor advocate
When I met Epstein and Maxwell, I was a senior in college. I had aspirations of going to law school. People had a lot of expectations for what my life would look like. But my life turned out the exact opposite. For decades, I buried what happened to me. I thought these were friends I had met in New York – that is how they made the relationship feel. So the narrative in my mind was that I had these unspeakable, horrific experiences with people I thought cared about me. I never wanted to think about it. I never wanted to talk about it. I just lived with it.I wasn’t ready for his face to appear on television the day he was arrested. And what followed confused me further, because the coverage focused on the girls in Florida – and I had these preconceived notions about what trafficking was and who it happened to. I wasn’t underage. I never went to the island. So I thought: that’s different, that’s separate. But I educated myself. I immersed myself in the national anti-trafficking movement, consuming every webinar and publication I could find. And when I did that, I thought: this is exactly what happened to me. And I was just enraged and saddened to know it wasn’t just me – that it was potentially hundreds of other young women.When I delivered my victim impact statement after Maxwell’s sentencing [for sex trafficking], I nearly shouted. I talked about my emotional health, my physical health, how this derailed my life. I wanted to project my voice so that no one in that courtroom could ignore what I was saying. And it was important to me to look at her directly while I spoke. I didn’t want her to see me cry. I didn’t want to give her that satisfaction.That moment changed something. I couldn’t imagine having this visibility and not fighting for justice. If I could go back, I would tell someone. And if they didn’t listen, I would tell someone else, and I would just keep telling until someone listened.What I want people to understand is that speaking out publicly is not a requirement. For those who aren’t ready, know that there are women standing in their truth on your behalf. And for those who are afraid, if you tell someone and they don’t listen, tell someone else. Just keep telling until someone listens. Even if it falls on deaf ears, you will still be proud of yourself for being willing to stand in your uncomfortable truth.
‘What changed everything was meeting other survivors’
Danielle Bensky, choreographer, performer and survivor advocate
Never a good idea for journalists to become chummy with politicians and people in power but this year particularly, it’s allowing an autocrat to continue his attack against the free press.
Right-wing commentator, white nationalist, Vladimir Putin fan, former Fox News host, and former bowtie aficionado, Tucker Carlson, is now sorry that he helped elect Donald Trump to the presidency.
Tucker, who was often at Trump’s side during the presidential campaign in 2024 and who was a huge lobbyist to get JD Vance on the ticket, now says he will long be “tormented” for helping Donald Trump get to the White House and start a war with Iran.
Tucker is just one of several right-wing goons who have gone from being full-fledged MAGAts to personal enemies of Donald Trump. They include not just Tucker, but Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, and Candace Owens. (snip-MORE)
I was surprised a year or so ago when I learned that people were betting on professional wrestling. As you are probably aware, professional wrestling matches are pre-determined, as in, they are fake. I guess the only thing that prevents a writer of the matches from cleaning up is that the stakes are very low.
When I was a kid, my mother told me that people could not bet on who shot JR from the TV show Dallas because one of the writers could go to Vegas and place a large wager on it. That would have been insider trading. That’s not allowed, right?
Yesterday, a U.S. Army special forces soldier involved in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela was charged with using classified information to bet on events related to the mission. The soldier made more than $400,000 by betting on the prediction markets that the capture would happen. (snip-MORE)
Ali Davis invited us to reprint this post from The Camelopard. As always, we said yes.
Hello, Goopers!
Wow, things are getting wild, huh? Did you ever think, during all those long years when you boosted him and covered for him, that the Trump Train would be plowing through so many guardrails? Rumor has it — or at least a Gateway Pundit writer has it — he tried to use nukes last Saturday!
I would write something about you being the last hope and your duty to your country, but that’s clearly no incentive, so here’s something that will hit.
You have a very small window to act before your name is on the Bad Guys list forever.
You must remove Trump before a) he goes undeniably off the rails or dies or b) another country’s investigation turns up his full involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and child sex trafficking. If you don’t, you,personally, go down in history as a willing toady to evil. Your name and your failure to act will be preserved forever. Family members will change their last names or claim no relation. Corporations will find hiring you too big a risk. No more political career, no cushy lobbying job, no lucrative TV punditry. Just burned relationships and strangers asking why the hell you didn’t stop it when you had the chance, right before they spit on you.
You see how Tucker is scrambling to position himself as A Guy Who Sees the Light and Wants to Stop Trump? Do you think he had a deep change of heart, or do you think he noticed the way the wind is blowing and is doing everything he could to save his own ass and future? You should study those instincts.
Tucker knows that he will need to be able to point, however ludicrously, however tenuously, to how he saw that Trump was dangerous and spoke up.
You need to do more than that. You must remove Trump from office before his own body removes him or you go on the Forever Trumpers list.
If you don’t have real moral fortitude, try to develop the sense and eyes that God gave a potato and read a few polls while you’re at it. Trump is losing, so you need to act like him one more time: Switch to the winning team and pretend you were always wearing that jersey.
Do it fast if you ever want to keep seeing your grandchildren after they’re old enough to understand this moment in history and what you failed to do.
Oh, there’s no evidence that Mr. Trump ever —
Look into your soul and be real for a moment. At best — at best — he knew exactly what Epstein was up to and winked at it. The birthday card. The famous quote where he said “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” The constantly changing stories about when and why Epstein was removed (was he?) from Mar-a-Lago.
We may never know everything, but we will know more. You can be one of the heroes who bravely stood up to stop Trump, or you can be one of the craven sleazebags who went all out to shield an aspiring dictator and bunch of wealthy child molesters. Every moment you don’t choose the first one will itself be a black mark against your name, so you might want to hurry up and flip a coin or something.
But I’m being blackmailed.
I have news for you: There has never been a better time to get out from under being blackmailed. The crimes in the Epstein Files are so heinous that even Swalwell and Gonzales’s horrifying conduct barely made a blip. Make your peace with your family, take some responsibility, and hope that whatever the regime has on you isn’t as hilarious as what someone had on Kristy Noem’s husband.
Need a little more incentive? Not that I am diagnosing anyone, but people who become disinhibited as a part of their cognitive decline have an increasing tendency to just … blurt things out. Do you want to have a nice, preplanned statement to the press about respecting your privacy during this challenging time, or do you want the most personal thing you can imagine barfed out randomly during an official statement on the soybean trade?
I will also mention that people with some types of dementia have a tendency to fill in memory gaps with invented details. Do you really want to explain to the nation that yes, the thing about the carnival is overall true, just not the part about the plate spinner and the Tilt-a-Whirl?
Besides, if enough of you move quickly and work together, you might just get off scot-free.
Surely you’ve heard the broad hints about Congressional Republicans being physically threatened.
I have news for you, Sparky: We are all being physically threatened. A man who has never in his life experienced a consequence has access to nuclear weapons and is eager to use them.
Move quickly. Get your family somewhere safe, choose a Democrat as a point person — do not trust your fellow Republicans, you know full well how craven they can be — and let the opposition party count up the votes. Move together, publicly report the threats, and save yourself by bravely impeaching the sumbitch.
But what if no one believes us? What if reporting gets us ridiculed or puts us more at risk?
Well, now you know what it’s like to be a victim of a powerful serial sex offender. Please use that perspective wisely in the future if you have any shreds of a political career left.
For real though — a lot of Trump’s power comes from the perception that he is powerful. Puncture that and the whole thing deflates.
You want to save your own tail? Help the Democrats start prosecuting him and his cronies immediately after impeachment. No professional courtesy, no putting this all behind us so we can move forward, no honoring the frantic pardons of a rogue President. Everything comes out and everyone gets real consequences. Seize and freeze assets, put Trump’s thugs and cronies on the no-fly list, and start the trials. Nobody squeaks by, not even the very wealthy ones.
Once you find some rudimentary bits of calcium spinning around your spinal nerve, you may even discover that you like using them in the service of something good.
But you must act immediately.
Trump is spinning out and trying to take the world with him. You can help put a stop to it, or you can forever be on the list of people who had the power but were too evil or craven to do anything about it.
You can choose the story that other people will tell about you.
The Trump administration has made attacking transgender people one of its signature priorities. It has issued a orders threatening to defund hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to trans youth, targeted children’s television through the FCC for including transgender characters, and spent millions in taxpayer resources pursuing anti-trans executive orders across the federal government. But according to the latest Fox News poll, released this week, the American public is not on board. Voters say Democrats would do a better job on transgender issues by a 13-point margin, 56 to 43 percent—the second consecutive Fox News poll this year to show a significant Democratic advantage on the issue.
The finding is consistent with the January Fox News poll, which showed Democrats with a 22 point advantage on transgender issues. While the margin has narrowed somewhat, the direction has not changed: voters across nearly every demographic subgroup continue to say they trust Democrats more than Republicans on this issue.
The demographic breakdown is significant. Black voters backed Democrats on transgender issues by a 54-point margin, 77 to 23 percent. Hispanic voters favored Democrats 59 to 40 percent. White voters—a group Republicans depend on for their electoral coalition—sided with Democrats 53 to 46 percent. Every age group favored Democrats, with the strongest support coming from voters under 35, who backed the Democratic approach 61 to 39 percent. But the finding was not limited to young voters: Americans 65 and older also preferred Democrats on the issue, 58 to 38 percent—a 20-point margin among seniors.
Self-identified moderates backed Democrats 60 to 38 percent—a 22-point margin that suggests anti-trans messaging continues to backfire outside the Republican base. Liberals preferred Democrats 86 to 13 percent. Even among self-identified conservatives, nearly a third—31 percent—said Democrats would do a better job. And among 2024 Trump voters, 27 percent crossed over to say they trusted Democrats more on the issue—more than one in four of the president’s own supporters.
The geographic breakdown was equally striking. Urban voters backed Democrats 68 to 31 percent and suburban voters—the decisive battleground in American politics—preferred Democrats 57 to 43 percent. Rural voters were the only geographic group to favor Republicans, 52 to 46 percent, but even that margin was narrow. Democrats also led among Catholics (54-45), white Catholics (51-48), Protestants (50-48), and military voters (54-44). White evangelicals were the only religious group to side with Republicans.
I was just telling Jill over on Filosofa’s that I’d totally missed that today is Arbor Day. I’m so sorry and a bit ashamed; DH was a tree planter, and we always did some sort of observation. This year it almost slipped by! Anyway, we can start with a couple of quotes; here are two of my favorites:
Trees are as close to immortality as the rest of us ever come.”
― Karen Joy Fowler
“You know me, I think there ought to be a big old tree right there. And let’s give him a friend. Everybody needs a friend.”
Here at the Redford manse, we have two fine green ash trees, not young but not at all old. The Arbor Day Foundation sends (or used to) send little saplings out to elementary schools, and we took one two years in a row, then contributed the rest to the city. Anyway, those are some really nice trees! Here’s some info from the Foundation. In case Arbor Day about slipped past you, too, there could be a reason; some states observe on other days. On the page linked below, you can see that, along with when and how the rest of the world observes. Surf around the site, too; there are many resources to help us make good history with trees!
National Arbor Day is always celebrated on the last Friday in April, but many states observe Arbor Day on different dates throughout the year based on best tree planting times in their area. (snip-see the chart on the page)
From The Farmers Almanac (a good source for so very much in life!)
Arbor Day is a national holiday that recognizes the importance of trees. The most common way people celebrate Arbor Day is to get together in groups to plant trees. (snip)
How Did Arbor Day Start?
The day was the brainchild of Julius Sterling Morton, a Nebraskan journalist who later became the U.S. Agriculture Secretary under President Grover Cleveland. Morton was an enthusiastic promoter of tree planting, had long championed the idea of a day dedicated to planting trees.
When Was The First Arbor Day?
Arbor Day was first celebrated in Nebraska on April 10, 1874, following a proclamation by Gov. Robert W. Furnas. In less than a decade, the idea for the holiday caught on in other sates until, by 1882, its observance had become a national event. Nebraska made Arbor Day a legal holiday in 1885, moving it to April 22, Morton’s birthday. An estimated one million trees were planted during the first Arbor Day.
Many other countries around the world set aside one day each year to celebrate trees, though not all of them take place on the same day as Arbor Day. One of the oldest is Tu Bishvat, a minor Jewish holiday that usually falls in late January or early February. In ancient times, the people of Israel used this day to plant trees and celebrate their gifts by eating dried fruit and nuts, including figs, dates, raisins, carob, and almonds. (snip)
There is much more information on all of these pages. But most importantly, try to get out and hug a tree, and maybe facilitate the planting of another tree! Or draw a tree, or dream of trees…
I’m setting this up as we’re between storms here in S. Central KS. The front is so close, but just isn’t moving East our way, to take the tornado danger away. sigh So far, though, so good, but North Central and probably NE Oklahoma are getting tornadoes, and one looks really extra bad right now. It is East of where suze lives, at least. I’m posting this at 7:10 PM; it should go live in around 12 hours, depending on time zones, so when you see this, it will be over. Anyway, back to this. It’s interesting, so have a nice cuppa with your read.
Present at our nation’s founding — but excluded from its promise
Elizabeth Freeman demanded her rightful place among this country’s founders and helped forge a tradition of forcing America to live up to its ideals.
This story was co-published with Nonprofit Quarterlyand #WeTheCivic: America 250, a narrative movement centering the multiracial nonprofit and civil society workers, organizations, and communities in America 250 narratives.
In 1776, a group of White male landowners in the original Thirteen Colonies wrote that all men were created equal — words that denied most of their fellow colonists the same certain unalienable rights.
The real founders of our democracy were those who took the promises in the Declaration of Independence literally, the people who rejected the hypocrisy of its ideals and declared that its words would have meaning in their lives, too. Two hundred and fifty years later, that declaration is still being made.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That anyone outside of themselves — the other, the unfamiliar — deserved the same rights proclaimed in our founding documents was not a self-evident truth to the original founders. The phrase “all men are created equal” implied inclusivity, but was not intended as a universal promise. It was a boundary defining who was entitled to life, liberty and happiness — and who was not.
Here’s a self-evident truth: Women, the enslaved and Indigenous people were all present at the birth of this country, but they were also excluded from its promise and potential. The true birth of this nation is the longer, harder story of what they did next.
How one woman acted after hearing those words was as patriotic as anything that happened in Independence Hall on July 4, 1776. She would test whether democracy was a promise or a lie. And she would demand her rightful place among this country’s founders.
In 1776, Elizabeth Freeman was an enslaved woman named Mumbet, working for the Ashley family in Sheffield, Massachusetts. At the dinner table, the Ashleys and their guests spoke of the Declaration. Present in a conversation about freedom that didn’t include her, Mumbet tried not to draw attention to herself as she went about her work.
A few years later, Mumbet heard the words of the newly written Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, words that sounded much like the ones mentioned in those dinnertime conversations: “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possession, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”
One of its framers was Theodore Sedgwick, a lawyer and friend of her enslaver. Mumbet walked to Sedgwick’s office and asked, based on what he had written, if he would plead her case. Sedgwick agreed, asserting that slavery was unconstitutional under the ratified Massachusetts Constitution.
On August 21, 1781, she became the first enslaved woman to have her self-proclaimed independence validated in a court of law. She changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman to reflect her new status.
Freeman sued for her freedom and won. As a founding mother, she is the first example in a lineage, a creator of the tradition of forcing the country to answer its founding promises. She was among the first to show that the power of the Declaration was not that it frees anyone, but that its language gives us the power to demand equality and freedom for ourselves.
Freeman’s case established a pattern that has repeated itself across American history: Hear the promise. Claim the promise. Force the law to answer it. From women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, to the fight for marriage equality, immigrant rights and beyond, the work of perfecting the union has always been done by those who have had to imagine — and assert — their equal and rightful place within it.
Freeman’s life challenges us to interpret the Declaration of Independence for ourselves, and to continue the work of expanding the promise of our democracy to include those who are still left out.
“She is a founder and a revolutionary,” said Johns Hopkins University historian Martha Jones. “It takes no time for someone like Elizabeth Freeman to recognize that there are principles that have been articulated that have inspired elite White men that should apply to her. She is the person who gave new, unintended meaning to those terms. Why don’t we know her name or what she did?”
To be a founder of democracy is not just to declare equality or the right to freedom. It is to hold accountable those who claim to believe in these words and to compel them to go beyond just making a declaration. It is to do the work of making word and deed real.
Throughout our nation’s history, Black women have done the work. They have challenged America to become her truest self and claimed freedom denied for themselves and others — freedom for which they are still fighting in the courts today.
At America’s 250th anniversary, a Black woman is, for the first time in our nation’s history, interpreting those same ideals as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. While Freeman asked the law to see her, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson now helps to define what the law sees and what equality means under the law today.
In October, civil rights lawyer and head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Janai Nelson, appeared before the Supreme Court for the first time to argue a voting rights case, which challenged whether Louisiana’s congressional map discriminates against Black voters; a ruling is expected this spring. It was only the latest time Nelson has tested the question of whether the Constitution’s promise of equal citizenship applies to all.
“The language of the Declaration has power for marginalized people, which can be scary for those who have power,” said Adrienne Whaley, a lead curator at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. “So you have this necessary tension between freedom and power and equality and inequality, which is part of what makes the Revolution ongoing.”
It is a tension that is still shaping and defining our democracy. Just as the Declaration of Independence cannot remain a fixed document, but must be continuously interpreted to force inclusion, the American Revolution is not a fixed event in our history. It plays out daily, in courtrooms, communities, classrooms and movements.
For 250 years, people who have been repeatedly excluded from America’s promise have insisted on their rightful and equal place. In this way, our nation is still being founded, not by the people who invoke the Declaration, but by those who test its meaning every day.
We must now insist, as Freeman insisted, that our founding words be made real for every American. She didn’t wait for permission to belong. She claimed her place by testing the idea of a nation against her reality — and compelled its authors to answer her.
The question for us at this milestone in our democracy is whether we are willing to be the kind of founders who do the same.
After reading, what came up for you? What has shaped your sense of belonging in this country — or challenged it? Send a note or voice memo.
Your response may help shape future editions of our Revolutionary project. I really look forward to hearing from you.
NB: originally this post was published under Sarah’s byline. This post is by CarrieS.
On May 1, you can fight fascism by staying home with a good book. A coalition of organizations across the country is calling for a general strike. This strike calls for no school, no work, and no shopping.
May Day Strong is made up of a coalition including but not limited to Indivisible, 50501, Sunrise Movement, and MoveOn. Many of the coalitions joining May Day Strong are local, so in addition to visiting the May Day Strong website, you should also keep an eye on your local groups.
In addition to withdrawing your labor and your commerce, you can join your community to make the strike even more visible. There will be a lot of demonstrations around the country and local sources are often the best places to get information about them. Because this is a one-day strike, it’s important to be as visible as possible and demonstrate just how many workers, students, and shoppers are on the side of democracy.
Here’s what the strike demands (taken from the main webpage):
That we tax the rich so our families, not their fortunes, come first,
No ICE. No war. No private army serving authoritarian power.
Expand democracy. Hands off our vote.
How is this relevant to the SBTB community? In addition to the fact that we support the causes that this strike promotes, strikes are an important part of feminist history. Women have been crucial in the success of the labor movement in the U.S.A., as leaders, strikers, volunteers, and educators. Here a just a few examples:
I’ve previously written about Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers Association.
Our Kickass Woman coming up in May will be Emma Tenayuca, a Mexican-American woman from Texas, who led a strike of 12,000 pecan shellers in 1938.
The Mink Brigade was the name given to wealthy society women who supported the garment workers’ strikes in the early 1900’s. By marching and picketing along with workers, they lent prestige and respectability to the cause, and their presence tended to reduce violence from police.
Lucy Parsons
Lucy Parsons led a march of 80,000 people in 1886 in the first May Day Parade. Among other causes, she championed the 8-hour workday.
Ai-jen Poo has been organizing domestic workers since 1996 and is currently the president of National Domestic Workers Alliance and the director of Caring Across Generations. Domestic workers had been considered too difficult to organize, making Ai-jen Poo’s success all the more remarkable.
My personal favorite, Emma Goldman, was a Russian Jewish immigrant who was described as “The most dangerous woman in America.” Despite dedicating her life to her work, she always prioritized joy. She is credited as saying, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution,” but what she actually said was: I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. . . If it meant that, I did not want it.
I’m closing with my favorite version of “Bread and Roses,” performed by Judy Collins and choir. In 1911, Helen Todd, a suffragist and labor rights activist, used the phrase “Bread and roses” in one of her speeches:
Not at once; but woman is the mothering element in the world and her vote will go toward helping forward the time when life’s Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country, in the government of which she has a voice.
Rose Schneiderman
Rose Schneiderman, a remarkable woman who was born in Poland, came to America as a child, and campaigned for suffrage as well as improved safety condition for workers, used the phrase in her speeches, including this one from 1912:
What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.
In 1911, James Oppenheim wrote a poem inspired by the slogan. Mimi Farina set to music in 1974. The song will forever be associated with the Lawrence Textile Strike, also known as the Bread and Roses Strike, of 1912. This strike was largely organized and conducted by women, who, along with children, made up the majority of the workforce in the mills.
Women have always been crucial to the success of strikes in America and worldwide. Why stop now? On May 1, protest, march, or stay home and read, but if you are able, join the strike.
No work, no school, and no shopping: by ceasing these three actions, we honor our past and our future.
Scottie's Playtime 