Ruth Bader Ginsberg, 1933 - 2020

Thank you Justice Ginsberg for all you did (and will continue to do) for the citizens of United States of America. I imagine all the adversity she fought through in her life and I wonder if I live my life with the same amount of courage. I heard someone discussing the ‘founding fathers’ of the United States recently. This journalist had a thoughtful point of view on what that means. Since the United States is a work in progress, (for example, our ‘founding fathers’ were the only individuals in society at the time who had franchise, rights, and power. many owned slaves) the people who ‘founded’ our society should be fluid and reflect our progress over time. Justice Ginsberg is a founding mother of our society. She punched the ceiling so many times it’s a wonder she still had hands. She was a giant. As said by her granddaughter in the piece below, it may be her late career dissents that are the most prophetic in the course of our democracy in the years ahead. She had the innate ability to write as if she was in a dark room and she held the only flashlight. May her passing and her death be the kick in the ass we all need to defend and protect the United States of America. Which includes protecting it from ourselves.

Jon Favreau interviews Jon Stewart

Sage thoughts on the political industrial complex. It made me reexamine my defense of Democracy in the United States. I think the right to vote is pure, almost holy. But if we don’t take every step to extract corruption, greed and rot from the institutions and those that serve us, we have nothing.

#44 - President Obama, 2009 - 2016

The Poetry of Campaigning and the Prose of Governance. I heard A.O.C. say this the other day. The first part is eloquent the second part is pragmatic and ripe for a lot more criticism, but the work was always there. Right now we could use both from the Obama years. Not only President Obama, but his team for each term. People who woke up everyday believing democracy was a vehicle to help people. That tough problems should be stared down, critically thought through and collectively solved.

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Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Thank you for pushing us where we need to go. We will keep pushing.

its absolutely fascinating that senator sanders ends his presidential campaign as the sun rises on the largest test of our institutions in modern history.

It saddens me when we treat american democracy like a rag doll on the highway in the rush hour traffic of american/globalist capitalism and then when we really need it we expect it to be there and magically work. in it’s purist form, democracy is a slow ideology. it takes so much time to build it, strengthen it and most importantly-trust it.

in terms of occam’s razor: it’s the fable of the three little pigs against the big bad wolf. what is our house made of? because straw and sticks don’t stand. only bricks do. senator sanders is a mason. he looks at hard truths and says the only way to build trust is to lay bricks. with all the partial action and apathy, with all the half truths, utter falsehoods and the cacophony of fucking noise- at the end of the day this shit just seems to be about good old fashioned right and wrong. that is what we are going to teach our kids. like senator sanders says, “it’s not about me its about us.” we will pick up the baton, senator. keep fighting.

Stephen Maturen for Getty Images

Stephen Maturen for Getty Images

Gina Haspel

THIS ONE IS A TRIP. 

i can't think of a recent director with more blacked out lines on a resume.

ONE HAND: A VET OF THE AGENCY THAT WOULD BECOME THE FIRST FEMALE DIRECTOR OF CIA. 

OTHER HAND: DECLASSIFIED INFORMATION ABOUT HER IN A BLACK SITE IN THAILAND RIGHT AFTER 9/11 CARRYING OUT EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION AND THEN BURNING THE TAPES. 

BOTTOMLINE NO ONE WHO HAS BEEN AT CIA FOR 30 YEARS HASN'T SHOVELED THEIR SHARE OF SHIT ON MULTIPLE CONTINENTS IN THE CLANDESTINE SERVICE. 

AGENCY GAL THROUGH AND THROUGH AS DISPLAYED HERE WITH HER EXCHANGE WITH SENATOR HARRIS

FEAR NEVER WINS.

THERE IS TOO MUCH TO BE HOPEFUL FOR. 

“We need to go forward, but progress isn’t always a straight line or a smooth path.”  - BARACK OBAMA