WEEKEND QUOTABLES

R.I.P. 'CHUY' NEGRETE -- “He was an educator of the highest extreme,” James Edward Olmos said of the Chicago writer of corridos some called the ‘Chicano Woody Guthrie.’ “He would go to prisons. He would go to schools. He would go to universities.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) 

“One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping [Biden’s] new administration.” -- [I know this is a quote from last month. Just making a point.]

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez 

The Bush-appointed federal judge overturned California's long-standing ban on assault rifles after equating AR-15s with Swiss Army knives. “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment,” Benitez said in the ruling. -- Washington Post 

Carol Burris, Network for Public Education

It is easy to blame Betsy DeVos for giving a $26.6 million grant to a state whose charter sector has come under repeated fire for increasing segregation in an already segregated school system. Now the Biden administration and Secretary Miguel Cardona own the grant. Indeed, they own the whole flawed Charter Schools Program. -- Answer Sheet 

 Monica Martinez, associate professor of history at the University of Texas 

"Whether lessons about racial violence take place in classrooms or on historical markers, if you can teach people how to study how power worked 100 years ago, you are also teaching them how to study how power works today.” -- Washington Post

Carol Anderson is the author of White Rage 

For too long, the second amendment has been portrayed with a founding fathers aura swaddled in the stars and stripes...In other words, concerns about keeping enslaved Black people in check are the context and background to the second amendment. The same holds true for today. -- Guardian 

The Trump Party confederates are still whistling 'Dixie'

Of course, the neo-confederate GOP leadership is opposed to another probe of their 1/6 attempted coup d'etat. To them, the coup wasn't a crime but rather a great success that will enable them to seize back the power they lost in the election in much the same way as their forebearers did it in 1861. D.T. is their Jefferson Davis. Like Trump, Davis never surrendered his white supremacist lost cause.

The final vote was 54-35, but Republicans withheld the votes necessary to bring the bill up for debate. Just six GOP senators joined with the Democrats today, leaving the measure short of the 60 votes needed to proceed.

According to the recent Reuters/Ipos poll, 53% of Republicans believe Trump, their party's nominee, is the “true president” now, compared to 3% of Democrats and 25% of all Americans. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that 61% of Republicans believe the election was "stolen" from Trump. 

More to the point, the confederates not only believe it, but MAGA politicians are actively working to pass new restrictive voting laws in their states, laws they hope will enable them to limit the voting impact of the new Black/Latinx/immigrant majority and consolidate their ideological hold on millions of their followers while paving their way back into the majority in both houses in 2022 and into the White House in 2024. 

The neo-confederates are also using their power to impose restrictions on what teachers can or cannot teach about the history of slavery and racial discrimination. The've especially targeted the 1619 Curriculum and its creator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, along with Critical Race Theory as wedge issues to spread fear and whip up a white backlash. 

The question is, how will Biden and the Democrats respond? How many concessions will Biden, Schumer and Pelosi make in the name of "bipartisanship"? 

Jefferson Davis was imprisoned after the Civil War, a fate that should await D.T. and his fellow neo-confederate leaders. 

Delmarie Cobb offers her take on Chicago's press corps

Delmarie Cobb on Hitting Left radio in 2017. 

Veteran media and political consultant, Delmarie Cobb responded, in her recent newsletter, to Lori  Lightfoot's decision to give preferential interviews to journalists of color on Lightfoot's second anniversary as Mayor of Chicago. 

Cobb agrees with Lightfoot's assessment of the current predominantly-white City Hall press corps and then takes it to the next level. 

Yes, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has a point about the predominantly white press corps. With the retirements of Charles Thomas of ABC/7 and Derrick Blakley of CBS/2, there is a small number of high profile, seasoned political reporters covering City Hall and Springfield for the mainstream media who are Black.

That still doesn’t address the near extinction of community media outlets and the role they play in nurturing and cultivating qualified journalists. It was the Chicago Defender that produced political journalists Vernon Jarrett and Lu Palmer. Currently, there are a number of working reporters in Chicago who got their start in the field thanks to Black newspapers.

Cobb's point is well taken. While local media workers and staff, along with Guild leaders, like the Tribune's Gregg Pratt, we're righteously outraged about the Alden hedge-funder's takeover of the Tribune Co. and even went begging for some benevolent billionaire to replace Alden,  they've been deadly silent for years about the takedown of community media outlets, especially those that were Black-owned. 

They were much more vocal and militant when it came to pushing back on Lightfoot's affirmative-action move, even joining in chorus with the likes of Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz in their condemnation of supposed "reverse racism."

As the Alden hedge-funders dismantle the last of the city's remaining newspapers, it's worth recalling Ben Franklin's old dictum: Hang together or hang separately.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

The Biden administration set aside $4 billion to help minority farmers. White farmers, echoing some old-guard Chicago journalists, complain that leveling the playing field amounts to "reverse racism."

“We’re getting the short end,” said John Wesley Boyd Jr., a Virginia bean and grain farmer who is also the founder of the National Black Farmers Association. “Anytime in the United States, if there’s money for Blacks, those groups speak up and say how unfair it is. But it’s not unfair when they’re spitting on you when they’re calling you racial epithets when they’re tearing up your application.” -- NYT 

Columnist Laura Washington

Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, frequently called out the media for the whiteness in the City Hall press room. -- Sun-Times

Tucker Carlson

"Equity is racism..." -- Fox News 

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Professor of Media studies at UVA

What is at stake with Nikole Hannah-Jones being denied tenure?

...The 1619 project sparked a furious blowback from conservatives who don’t like to be reminded that Black people are allowed to tell the story of America as well and that history is always under revision as new knowledge emerges and new questions rise. -- Guardian

Father Michael Pfleger

After nearly 5 months of being removed from St. Sabina because of False Accusations, I am overjoyed to announce that the Archdiocese of Chicago has said " there is insufficient reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations "  I am being reinstated as Senior Pastor of  St Sabina. -- FB Post

Journalist Jamie Kalven on police complaint database

Kalven told aldermen that a city-run database would represent a “paradigm shift” in how the city discloses complaints against officers and “significantly reduce demands” on city staff charged with providing documents via the Freedom of Information Act. -- WTTW

Mayor's round of interviews with journos provokes cries of ‘reverse racism’

As controversial as that was, it's important to note that the policy was for one round of interviews. @chicagosmayor gave a press conference yesterday and answered questions from reporters, regardless of background. A lot of misinformation from national hot-take artists on this. https://t.co/VEM2SzzpRJ

— Paris Schutz (@paschutz) May 21, 2021

Breaking... Lightfoot gives an exclusive interview to a young, Black, & critical journalist. And guess what? Chicago doesn’t crumble into the lake. 

Of all the attacks on Mayor Lori Lightfoot's challenge to the long-standing, embedded system of white-skin privilege in the ranks of City Hall reporters, there's one that creeped me out the most.

No, it wasn't NBC anchor Mary Ann Ahern's -- "Does [Mayor Lightfoot] think I’m racist?"

Nor was it Trib reporter and Guild Prez Greg Pratt's claim that political leaders shouldn't be allowed to choose who they give interviews to. Of course, that is complete nonsense. It's hard to think of a president, governor, senator, or Chicago mayor who hasn't chosen a journo to interview them. The Mayor's choice of a journalist of color over the traditionally white old City Hall guard was clearly making a point and a good point.

Pratt's pushback against Lightfoot's call for newsroom diversity put him on the same shaky ground with fellow Tribune columnist and Chicago's premier defender of whiteness, John Kass. 

In case anyone doubts Kass's premiership, check out  his faux-hip Twitter post calling Chicago's first Black, gay, and female mayor, "Mayor Wokeness." Ugh!

No, it wasn't even retired CBS newsman, Jay Levine, also writing in the Trib, who accused MLL of trying to "run the newsrooms." I can't imagine that there were many Black women running Levine's CBS newsrooms back in the day. Levine even claimed that the Mayor's directive was "unconstitutional." He could be proven right if his case against media affirmative action ever came up before the current Trump-packed SCOTUS. 

No one should have been surprised then when a rag-tag chorus of right-wing MAGAs and white supremacists, took the local's lead and chimed in on the issue. From Tucker Carlson ("Lightfoot is a 'Nazi' and a "monster") to Ted Cruz crying "reverse racism." I would expect nothing less from Trumpies. Remember it was Trump himself who used his Twitter feed to launch almost daily misogynistic and racist rants targeting mostly urban, Democratic, female mayors including Mayor Lightfoot.

Although I admit I was somewhat amazed at how Lightfoot's provocative interview offer even became national grist for the Fox News mill. Was it Carlson's folly or Lightfoot's intention? I would guess, the latter. 

Okay, back to my opening point. I admit that what really got to me was the headline on the Sun-Times editorial page with this old saw:

Lightfoot raises the right point about diversity in Chicago journalism — but in the wrong way.

How many times have I heard this mantra over the past 60 years? We support your cause, but not the way you -- protesters, unions, civil rights leaders, King, SNCC, Baker, Harold Washington, Panthers, Black Lives Matter... -- are going about it.  

OK then S-T, Tribune, Washington Post, and the rest of the local and national corporate media. If you don't like the Mayor's way show us your way. Where has it been?

OTHER VOICES:

Regardless of what you think of @chicagosmayor, I think her prioritizing interviews by Black and Latino journalists about her 2-year mayoral anniversary is sort of an interesting idea. It reminds me of when Anthony Bourdain went to Houston with a plan to only interview POC chefs.

— John Greenfield (@greenfieldjohn) May 21, 2021

How come whenever we try to balance the scales it's called "racism"

— Colin Turner (@dtdaddy13) May 21, 2021

Mayor Lightfoot is right to be concerned about accurate & fair press coverage & the mayor’s proposal of including people of color in one-on-one interviews is morally justified. She is making a strong & righteous case for inclusion & diversity in the press & its coverage.

— Rev Jesse Jackson Sr (@RevJJackson) May 21, 2021

I stand with @chicagosmayor. She has done an outstanding job guiding Chicago through unprecedented challenges. The right-wing attacks on her character are abhorrent.

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) May 20, 2021

Our focus in on the call for diversity in political units. I hope managers in newsroom big and small get the message. Political units must include different perspectives and life experiences in order to move diverse stories to the forefront. @NAHJ @NABJCC @aaja @NAJA @NABJ https://t.co/PO9HrVBYfA

— Dorothy Tucker NABJ (@Dorothy4NABJ) May 19, 2021

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CNN anchor, Jim Acosta calls "BS" on Fox

"That tale from the border didn't just border on BS, this was USDA Grade-A bullsh*t. -- Raw Story

Rick Ayers -- Capitalism is killing us

The big US and European pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna, hold patents on the counter-COVID vaccines and the accompanying formulas they’ve developed, keeping the processes of production under wraps. -- Medium

Sec. of State Anthony Blinken on Afghan pullout

 Just because our troops are coming home doesn't mean we're leaving. We're not. -- 60 Minutes

 Eric Goldstein on Israeli apartheid

To bring real change, we need to call the situation what it is: an oppressive and discriminatory system that shows no signs of going away, and that meets the legal definition of apartheid. -- Human Rights Watch

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves

On the penultimate day of the Confederate Heritage Month Gov. Reeves made a bold declaration: “There is not systemic racism in America.” -- Mississippi Free Press

Ali Velshi 

Arizona recently chose to out-source its rights and responsibilities to recount ballots to a private company run by a CEO who has been spreading the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen. -- MSNBC

Rebecca Solnit

Ideas put forth in the Green New Deal in 2019, seen as radical at the time, are now the kind of stuff President Biden routinely proposes in his infrastructure and jobs plans. -- Guardian

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Weaponized gossip. It's designed to undermine the credibility and marginalize the person who is the target. It often has no basis in reality. I know - it happened to me as an elected official. It's got a name. It's a tactic. Recognize it when you see it, and push back.

— Rep. Ann Williams (@RepAnnWilliams) April 18, 2021

Benjamin Crump, civil rights attorney

“The outcome that we pray for and Derek Chauvin is for him to be held criminally liable for killing George Floyd, because we believe that could be a precedent,” Crump told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “Finally making America live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all. That means all of us - Black people, Hispanic people, Native people - all of us.” -- Guardian

Dr. David Williams

Dr. David Williams, Harvard public health professor 

“There are racial disparities in health in the United States. Over 200 Black people die prematurely every single day." -- 60 Minutes

John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua 

"China and the United States are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis." -- China-U.S. Joint Statement Addressing the Climate Crisis

Eliot Cohen, Dean of SAIS at Johns Hopkins

In important aspects of foreign and national-security policy, the Biden administration is really the Trump administration but with civilized manners. -- The Atlantic

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Time Magazine

There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in the past year. A torrent of hate and violence against people of Asian descent around the U.S. began last spring, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Community leaders say the bigotry was spurred by the rhetoric of former President Trump, who referred to the coronavirus as the “China virus.”Amid the current upsurge in attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and in reaction to the growing national movement against anti-Asian hate crimes, former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee seized the moment to post this dismissive, mocking tweet about people of Chinese ancestry in America. 

Mike Huckabee

“I’ve decided to ‘identify’ as Chinese,” Huckabee tweeted Saturday. “Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my ‘values’ and I’ll probably get shoes from Nike & tickets to @MLB games,” he added, in a reference to criticism against Georgia for its new law making it more difficult to vote. -- Huffington

 Congresswoman Ilhan Omar 

“It’s been really horrendous to watch the defense put George Floyd on trial instead of the former police officer who’s charged with his murder.” -- Guardian 

Former House Speaker, John Boehner

“P.S.: Ted Cruz, go fuck yourself!” -- Leaked audiobook

 Rebecca Solnit

My hope for a post-pandemic world is that the old excuses for doing nothing about climate – that it is impossible to change the status quo and too expensive to do so – have been stripped away. In response to the pandemic, we in the US have spent trillions of dollars and changed how we live and work. We need the will to do the same for the climate crisis.  -- Guardian

Sen. Bernie Sanders

“I have no problem with going to West Virginia, and I think we need a grassroots movement that makes it clear to Joe Manchin and everybody else in the United States Senate, including Republicans, that the progressive agenda is what the American people want." -- MSNBC

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

First and foremost, neither Dr Seuss nor Mr Potato Head are being cancelled. 

Akin Olla on Dr. Seuss

Real cancel culture has existed in the United States and it is worth remembering what it means to be truly cancelled. The multiple red scares in the United States involved socialist – and allegedly socialist – actors, directors and musicians being spied on and blacklisted by production companies and studios for their political views. -- Guardian

Brazil's fascist President, Jair Bolsonaro

As Covid deaths soar in Brazil, Bolsonary said he regretted any loss of life, but demanded to know: “How long are you all going to keep crying?” -- New York Times

Washington Correspondent Carl Hulse

 Bipartisanship is dead.

Other marquee Democratic measures to protect and expand voting rights tackle police bias and misconduct and more are also drawing scant to zero Republican backing. -- New York Times

 Teamster Local 710 Secretary-Treasurer Mike Cales

“The solidarity within this group is inspiring. The situation was not looking good yesterday, and we were literally 15 minutes away from going on strike when the employer finally realized just how serious the situation was." -- Sun-Times

 Civil rights activist and daughter of MLK, Bernice King

 “Royalty is not a shield from the devastation and despair of racism.” -- Tweet

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Dr. King is arrested for "loitering" in Montgomery, Alabama, in September 1958.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “The Radical King”, Beacon Press

WHO's Mike Ryan on year 1 of Covid

We can blame climate change. We can blame policy decisions made 30 years ago regarding everything from urbanization to the way we exploit the forest," he said. "You can find people to blame in every level of what we're doing on this planet." -- Beacon Journal 

President-elect Joe Biden

 “We remain in a very dark winter,” Mr. Biden told Americans on Friday. “The honest truth is this: Things will get worse before they get better.” -- New York Times

 Bill Barr To Trump...

Your 'clownish' legal team is lying and your voter fraud claims are 'bullsh*t'. -- Crooks & Liars

Jesse Wegman

 The rioters incited by President Trump and Republicans to storm the seat of the federal government on Jan. 6 did not have Mr. Warnock’s name on their lips. They didn’t have to. In their eagerness to destroy American democracy rather than share it, they showed themselves to be the inheritors of a long tradition of rebellion against a new world order: a genuine, multiracial democracy. -- New York Times Op-Ed

 

The Keystone pipeline is & always has been a disaster. I'm delighted that Joe Biden will cancel the Keystone permit on his first day in office. With all of the major crises facing America, we must never lose sight of the most existential threat facing our planet: climate change. https://t.co/8lDZDOgsVy

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 18, 2021

Trump's last few days. 'Loot, pillage, and burn.'

National Guard Troops sleeping on the floor of the Capitol.

Trump isn't sticking around D.C. until the very end. He's hopping on the next Air Force 1 headed for Florida where he can watch in the safety of Mar-a-Lago as his confederate gangs threaten to lynch lawmakers and try and bring D.C. and 50 state capitols to a violent, chaotic halt. They won't succeed in restoring the defeated Trump regime to power. But they could leave many casualties and lots of property damage in their wake again. The state's repressive forces arrayed against them, will likely be a deterrent. If not, they will be overpowering. As many as 25 thousand troops are so far deployed. That's more than are currently deployed in the Middle East. 

By this afternoon, 43 troops had reportedly tested positive for coronavirus. 

The problem with state repressive forces is that they threaten the freedom and civil liberties of all of us, not just the fascists and white supremacist MAGA thugs. And that repressive, official militarized force, aided and abetted by a reactionary Supreme Court, is just what the MAGAs are trying to provoke. There's already a Republican-led move, likely to draw some Democratic support, to push through new anti-riot laws. As if there isn't a shitload of those already on the books. 

Within one day of last week’s attack on the Capitol, at least three states used the MAGA insurrection as an excuse to introduce legislation to criminalize protest, legislation that couldn't have passed in the days following the Black Lives Matter protests. There's even talk, now circulating within both parties, of dusting off old anti-sedition laws.  

In his last days in office, Trump and what's left of his party, are carrying out their loot, pillage, and burn strategy in order to make it impossible for Biden to implement pandemic relief or to undo the political and economic damage the Republicans caused during the past four years. 

Among the Trumpists' last-days priorities is the carrying out of court-sanctioned federal executions.  A Black man, Corey Johnson, 52, became the twelfth inmate put to death at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana since the Trump administration restarted federal executions following a 17-year hiatus. He was pronounced dead at 11:34 last night. His execution followed by days the killing of the only woman on federal death row: Lisa Montgomery.

Dustin Higgs will likely be put to death tonight. 

What a monstrous regime! It's not hard to imagine what the years ahead might look like had Trump been reelected. It may be too late, even with the impeachment process, to keep him and his cult followers at bay during these next 5 days and beyond.  

LABOR DAY WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Students at Hawthorne Scholastic Academic on Chicago's North Side picked up supplies to use at home in the waning days of summer vacation. Remote classes for Chicago Public Schools students begin today. Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

CPS parent

“I seriously want to cry. … There is NO WAY he can be online all day like this. It isn’t possible.” A teacher responded: “Believe me, teachers are crying too.” -- WBEZ

Diane Ravitch

 I am a proud anti-fascist. Are you? -- Blog

Robert Reich

No other developed nation has nearly the inequities found in the US, even though all have been exposed to the same forces of globalization and technological change. -- Guardian

Donald Trump

...says his appointed Pentagon brass "want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy." -- WH Press Conference 

Columnist Eugene Robinson

 Trump’s message to Whites is unmistakable: Be afraid. Those people — you know who I mean — are trying to take over your country. I will stop them. All of this is nothing less than undisguised white supremacy. -- Washington Post

Senior administration official

“The president means no disrespect to our troops; it’s just that the way he speaks, he can sound like an asshole sometimes." -- Daily Beast

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Trump's federal cops descend on Portland. Chicago is next. 

Nearly two dozen lawmakers blasted Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara's letter in a joint statement Sunday.

"We resoundingly condemn FOP President John Catanzara's request that President Trump intervene in Chicago. This is a blatant attempt to instigate further violence against the young people who are leading the fight for real safety and justice in Chicago, and is particularly frightening given the situation in Portland, where unidentified federal agents have been throwing protestors into unmarked vehicles," the elected officials' statement said. "Yet as terrifying as the reports from Portland are, we must situate Catanzara's letter in the Chicago Police Department's own history of civilian torture and kidnappings. We stand with the organizers and activists who have called for an immediate end to such practices by the CPD, and the closure of Homan Square and all CPD black sites." -- ABC7

Trump tells Chris Wallace...

“I'm not losing, because those are fake polls."Not only did Trump deny the hard data, he also refused to say if he will accept the result of November’s presidential election if he comes out the loser.
“I have to see,” he said. “Look … I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no..." -- Fox News Sunday

I don’t, for the life of me, understand why ppl ask @realDonaldTrump of he will “accept” the results of the election if he loses...Did I miss something in believing that it’s not up to him one way or the other...and that asking him so politely makes him believe its optional?

— Keith Eric Benson, Ed.D (@KeithEricBenson) July 19, 2020

Joe Biden
...called on Congress to provide billions of dollars in emergency funding for school districts, which say they cannot openly safely without federal assistance to make the changes necessary and purchase enough protective equipment.

“If we do this wrong, we will put lives at risk and set our economy and our country back,” Biden said in the video. -- Washington Post

Rep. Al Green (D-TX)

"America's race problem demands radical solutions like a Department of Reconciliation." -- Think

Prof. Nathaniel Persily, Stanford Law School

 It’s Not Too Late to Save the 2020 Election. Avoiding a debacle for U.S. democracy will require getting as many Americans as possible to vote by mail and ensuring that polling places are safe, convenient, and plentiful. -- Wall Street Journal

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)

“Mark Curran’s public attack on John Lewis just days after his death is disgusting. To disparage Congressman Lewis, a truly selfless hero and relentless fighter for civil rights and equality is a new low for Curran. It is time for responsible Illinois Republican Party leaders to clearly repudiate Curran’s hateful rhetoric.” -- NBC5 

Yikes: A day after John Lewis died, Republican Senate candidate Mark Curran blasted him, says he may have been “instrumental” in civil right fight “at one time” but “got in bed with Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.” Links it to Chicago gun violence.

— Gregory Pratt (@royalpratt) July 19, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Frederick Douglass on the Lincoln statue 

“The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude. What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man.” -- 1876 Letter

President Trump

“Now we have tested almost 40 million people. By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless.”  -- Guardian

Mayor Quinton Lucas

“Systemic racism doesn’t just evidence itself in the criminal justice system,” said Quinton Lucas, who is the third Black mayor of Kansas City, Mo., which is in a state where 40 percent of those infected are Black or Latino even though those groups make up just 16 percent of the state’s population. -- The fullest look yet at Corona inequality (NYT)

Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi 

“We seem to have a president that has given the green light to the racists to come out of the woodwork and start attacking Asians,” said state Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), who represents Torrance, the scene of some the most widely viewed hate episodes recorded on video. -- L.A. Times

Steve Hotze, Houston GOP powerbroker 
Hotze left a voicemail with TX Gov. Abbott's chief of staff with the incendiary instruction, "Shoot to kill."

 "I want to make sure that he has National Guard down here and they have the order to shoot to kill if any of these son-of-a-bitch people start rioting like they have in Dallas, start tearing down businesses — shoot to kill the son of a bitches. That’s the only way you restore order. Kill 'em. Thank you." -- Texas Tribune

Your reminder that America's richest 1 percent now own half the value of the U.S. stock market. The richest 10 percent own 92 percent.

So when Trump says the stock market is the economy, know who he's really talking about.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 5, 2020

Dad was a 'premature anti-fascist'

Photograph by Peter Stackpole for Life Magazine (1937).

Our dad was one of the original real antifas back in '37. This, a far cry from today's Antifa, a mythical group that exists mainly in MAGA nightmares, the media, and on Donald Trump's proposed list of domestic "terrorist" organizations.

Just in his teens, he hopped a freighter, crossed the Pyrenees, and fought for Spanish freedom alongside his comrades in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Back then they called them premature anti-fascists. When he died, we spread his ashes off the Barcelona coast.

Happy Father's Day Robert Klonsky and to all the anti-racist, anti-fascist dads out there as well.

********

"There was so much response... over a million ticket requests, that we decided that the BOK Center was just not big enough,” Trump campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh said on Friday. “We had to have more so that's why we have the neighboring streets all blocked off. There's going to be two stages. The president is going to speak in both locations."

The morning after...Everyone knows by now that Trump's million-ticket MAGA rally in Tulsa was a total bust. The rally was deliberately planned to counter the massive continuing Black Lives Matter protests and the commemoration of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. But when only a few thousand MAGAs showed up, Trump had to cancel his outdoor rally and speech, Republicans blamed it on Antifa of course.  Dad lives!

********

When asked if he would attend Trump's racist rally, Dr. Anthony Fauci said "of course not." He added that in the case of Trump’s rallies “outside is better than inside, no crowd is better than crowd” and “crowd is better than big crowd.”

I hope this wasn't the only or even the main reason he chose to stay away. But I wish he would have said so.

Maybe the other 990,000 people went to Tulas https://t.co/ZOh5uiURVT

— Ben Terris (@bterris) June 20, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Hollywood Blvd. 

Mariame Kaba, organizer against criminalization 

Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police... here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. -- New York Times op-ed

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn

... said Sunday no one is going to defund the police, and instead called for a "reimagining" of police forces across the country."

 Clyburn told CNN's Ana Cabrera on Saturday that he believes pushing a "defund the police" slogan only gives "cover" to President Donald Trump and the people opposing change in the law enforcement system. -- CNN

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar 

"No one is saying crimes will not be investigated. No one is saying that we are not going to have proper response when community members are in danger."

Instead, she said the current policing infrastructure should not exist anymore, and echoed Clyburn's call to reimagine the system, citing changes in places like Camden, N.J.

"We can't go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place," she said. "And so dismantling it, and then looking at what funding priorities should look like as we reimagine a new way forward is what needs to happen." -- Politico

Rep. Bobby Rush

 “They’re the organized guardians of continuous police lawlessness, of police murder and police brutality. The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police is the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness by police in the land. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ku Klux Klan then and the Ku Klux Klan now.” -- Politico

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Protesters shut down Klobuchar’s rally in St. Louis Park, Minn., on Sunday. Now it looks like she won't even carry her home state in the primary. 

Mary Moriarty, a public defender in Minnesota’s Hennepin County

“In the case of Myon Burrell -- where you had a really high-profile shooting of an innocent girl and you put a lot of pressure on the system to get someone to be responsible for that -- I think a lot of corners were probably cut.” -- AP

Richard Wolffe on Buttigieg 

All that was missing was a reason for being: a purpose, a mission. Something with more meaning than a talented youngish man who was on the rise. Something more meaningful than a preternatural prescience that the former vice-president would implode. When Joe Biden failed to do so, there was no reason for Pete Buttigieg. -- Guardian

Stacey Abrams on voting in GA

“Across Gwinnett, across Georgia, there are folks who are afraid of their power, who are afraid of what they remember, and they’re afraid to try this time...In 2020, our responsibility is to erase their fear, to take their hands and walk with them. . . . Yes, they have been silenced . . . but this time they are not going alone.” -- Rolling Stone

Lisa Donovan at The Spin

On Friday, my colleague Lolly Bowean asked Mayor Lori Lightfoot if she plans to make an endorsement and whether she could share who it is. The mayor smiled and said only: “When or if I do, I’ll let you know.” -- Tribune

Public Schools Try Ditching A-to-F Letter Grades

“The focus is more on learning for learning’s sake because you want to learn the material and you’re actually interested in it,” said 17-year-old Taylor Daniels, who grew up going to Winnetka Public Schools District 36, which doesn’t give letter grades until mid-year 7th grade. “Teachers are able to teach more to engage the student than teaching to a test.” -- WBEZ

JUST IN: more than 100 Black Scholars, Writers, and Educators including @BarbaraRansby, @murchnik, @marclamonthill, Robin DG Kelley + have just announced their support of the movement to elect @BernieSanders.

Read the POWERFUL statement HERE: pic.twitter.com/WY8gh1lQvl

— phillip agnew (@iPhilSomething) February 29, 2020

Me and Limbaugh, Ohio 2012

"Truly nauseating" -- Rep. Ocasio-Cortez

So DT got Melania to give racist oinker Rush Limbaugh the Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor. It's one that was awarded in earlier, less bizarro-world times to the likes of Mother Theresa and Rosa Parks (BTW, happy birthday to Mrs. Parks on her 110th). That's at least two former winners a-mouldering in their graves.

Nothing he does shocks me anymore and I would expect nothing less from the racist grifter that occupies the WH. But I was a little surprised to hear some liberals, including one of my media FB friends, Bruce Dumont, longtime host of Beyond the Beltway, defending giving the award to Limbaugh. 

Dumont on FB:

RUSH LIMBAUGH has been
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

For those who object to Rush
do not understand the impact
of the man on American politics.
Perhaps they are blinded by their hatred or pure ignorance.

I’ve checked the very long list of past winners:

Tennessee Ernie Ford?
Lorne Michaels?
Barbara Mikulski?
Bill Cosby?

Give me a break!

I won't waste space countering Dumont's assessment. @AOC, in USA Today, does a better job of that than I could.

But as far as impact on American politics goes, I really do understand it as well as anyone because it has hit me directly a few times. I'll recount one of them here from a 2012 column I wrote that reposted at NEPC.

Turning Right Off the Interstate: How Obama and I Settled the Teachers Strike

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Mike Klonsky

October 10, 2012

• Politics 
 
• Schools in the Media 
 
• Teacher Unions

Driving through southern Ohio to speak to students at Kenyon College and Bowling Green University I hear the steady stream of right-wing radio and see the dozens of anti-Obama billboards paid for by Clint Eastwood and his wing-nut super PAC. In the towns, there's more of a mix of Obama and Romney signs and of course, the university towns are mostly Obama. Those in the know think that Obama will narrowly win Ohio. I'm not so sure.

The main media spokesman for the Republican Party and for national conservatives is, of course, Rush Limbaugh. Here's what his 20-30 million listeners, mostly small town and rural, heard from Limbaugh about the Chicago teachers strike:

It was all a set-up, says Limbaugh, so that Pres. Obama could step into the fray and settle it by getting union head, Mike Klonsky [hey, that's me], a former member of the Communist Party U.S.A, to get his members to accept a compromise on their wage demands.

From:  "Why Did I Say the Chicago Teachers Strike is Tailor-Made for Obama?"

Yet the Wizards of Smart say, "No way! Impossible. Couldn't happen. Obama's got too much to lose." The only way Obama has too much to lose is if he inserts himself and there is no solution. I'm sure that's what they mean, but Obama wouldn't insert himself unless there were a pre-ordained, pre-established solution. Like somebody gets on the phone to the teachers union. 

The head teachers union guy in Chicago was a member of the Communist Party USA. He's a huge Obama supporter. So somebody from the White House calls him and says, "Here's what's going to happen," and they lay out the deal. The communist teacher guy says either yes or no. If the guy says, "Screw that! I'm not taking it," then Obama doesn't get involved. But if he takes the deal, then it works. It would be made to look like Obama couldn't take it anymore.

Now first let me say, with apologies to Groucho Marx,  that I would never belong to a union that would have someone like me as its leader. As for the Communist Party U.S.A.? Never been there. Other radical left groups back in the day, but never that one.

And finally, neither the prez nor his people have ever called me. But if he or they did, I would have asked him to put on his "walking shoes" and come down here and man the picket lines like he promised back in 2007. While, I'll probably vote for him again next month, calling me "a huge supporter" is really far fetched. As my readers all know, I've been highly critical of Obama, especially around his education policies and the continuation of his "smart war" in Afghanistan.

As for bloated, drug-addicted, demagogic windbag Limbaugh, you would think he would at least get one fact right if only to preserve some semblance of credibility. He didn't -- not even one.