I am a lifelong accumulator, a finder of the trivial and unconnected. In my woke mind I assemble a gestalt of bits and bobs that occasionally reach out to each other in momentarily flashes of synergy to pass for genius. This, perhaps, is why I treasured my first library card and spent whole days in my youth emulating Betty Smith’s Francie Nolan. This is also why the Internet, the greatest unorganized, uncatalogued and unbounded library humanity has yet generated. The Internet is my rabbit hole.

This morning I found an essay, written by Henry David Thoreau shortly before his death in 1862, on walking. I first read the essay some 110 years after its publication in the first hardcover book I ever purchased: Walden And Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Brooks Atkinson. The book still sits on the shelf next to my writing desk and was the first book to be added to my list of books that have shaped my world.

(Two side notes—I do love side notes—first, the second hardcover book I purchased, from the same, small, independent bookstore—the only place to so—was The Complete Works Of Lewis Carrol, the primogenitor of all rabbit-hole analogies and second, the Internet came through again when I read at the bottom of the first link above, E.B. White’s—a writer I revere and whose portrait is framed on the wall before the desk where I sit typing this—brief praise for the volume of Thoreau: This book is like an invitation to life’s dance.)

Walking is a perfect way to spend an hour or two in reading on this third day of spring. I’ll leave you with this brief paragraph and encourage you to read the entirely of Thoreau’s words and think on them as you go walking.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return, prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man—then you are ready for a walk.

Does anyone not yearn to be free?

Spencer Ackerman, reporting in Trump-Russia collusion is being investigated by FBI, Comey confirms for The Guardian, writes:

[FBI director James] Comey and [NSA director, Adm Michael] Rogers refused to answer scores of questions speculating on who in Trump’s orbit could be part of the wide-ranging investigation and spurned countless invitations to comment on news reports. But they made many key points over the course of several extraordinary hours of testimony.

The counter-intelligence investigation into Trump-Moscow links began in late July 2016 and is still ongoing.

More than one person associated with the Trump campaign is under investigation for their ties to the Russian government.

Both FBI and NSA directors said there was no information to support Trump’s claims that he had been wiretapped by the Obama administration.

The NSA chief rejected White House suggestions that GCHQ had helped the Obama administration spy on Trump Tower and said the claim was “frustrating to a key ally.”

The Russian intervention in the election was “unusually loud”, as if Moscow did not care about being caught.

These are not casual revelations. Comey told the House intelligence panel that:

“I have been authorised by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Comey said.

He added: “And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia.”

One facet of this hearing brought me, and I must think, many others up short when Twitter invaded the proceedings in real time.

As the hearing unfolded, Trump’s official @POTUS accounts sent out more tweets, giving live commentary with embedded clips of the proceedings.

One of the tweets claimed:

President Trump (@POTUS)

The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process. pic.twitter.com/d9HqkxYBt5
March 20, 2017

The tweet made its way to the committee, with the result that Comey and Rogers were confronted with it. Again they said there was no basis for the assertion.

“We’ve offered no opinion, have no view … on potential impact, because it’s not something that we’ve looked at,” Comey said. “It certainly wasn’t our intention to say that today because we don’t have any information on that subject. And it wasn’t something that was looked at.”

That the phrase this just in could become part of a Congressional hearing boggles the mind. While Republicans attempted to direct the conversation in a different direction, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) used his time this way:

Is it possible that all of these events and reports are completely unrelated, and nothing more than an entirely unhappy coincidence?. “Yes, it is possible. But it is also possible, maybe more than possible, that they are not coincidental, not disconnected and not unrelated, and that the Russians used the same techniques to corrupt US persons that they have employed in Europe and elsewhere. We simply don’t know, not yet, and we owe it to the country to find out.

If Trump or his people cooperated with Russia’s so-called “active measures, it would represent one of the most shocking betrayals of democracy in history … The stakes are nothing less than the future of our democracy, and of liberal democracy.

Congress allowed President Richard Milhous Nixon free rein for nearly five years before convening the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. Here we are a little more than five weeks into the presidency of Donald John Trump and the only question is when will Sen. Howard Baker’s 21st century counterpart repeat the question: What did the president know and when did he know it?

Meanwhile, the circle jerk continues and is reinforced by Adam Gabbatt writing in No, over there! Our case-by-case guide to the Trump distraction technique for The Guardian. Last evening Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah weighed in on the hearings.

No. Not really. Some 57 days into the presidency of Donald John Trump, however, the precedent is now solid: The President of the United States of America only needs to believe fanciful information he hears, or is told by someone, to publicly state, with no evidence, that what heard or was told is true and to demand investigations the Department of Justice and Congress.

David Graham, writing in Why Trump Can’t Let Go of His Wiretapping Claim for The Atlantic, suggests as his conclusion that:

As long as the White House is going to make Senate committees look into vaguely plausible ideas for which it has no evidence, why not investigate something that many Americans believe in, like UFOs?

Why not indeed. Fox Mulder is happy dancing deep in the sub-antarctic bunker.

A quick check this morning found two screenings of Tickling Giants already scheduled for Cleveland. The first, at the Cleveland International Film Festival (three showings on 1, 2 and 3 April) and the second at Case Western Reserve University on 1 April.

From Tickling Giants:

In the midst of the Egyptian Arab Spring, Bassem Youssef makes a decision that’s every mother’s worst nightmare… He leaves his job as a heart surgeon to become a full-time comedian.

Dubbed, “The Egyptian Jon Stewart,” Bassem creates the satirical show, Al Bernameg. The weekly program quickly becomes the most viewed television program in the Middle East, with 30 million viewers per episode. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart averaged two million viewers.

In a country where free speech is not settled law, Bassem’s show becomes as controversial as it popular. He and his staff must endure physical threats, protests, and legal action, all because of jokes. As Bassem attempts to remain on the air, keep his staff safe, and not get arrested, he continues to let those in power know they’re being held accountable. Despite increasing danger, the team at Al Bernameg employ comedy, not violence, to comment on hypocrisy in media, politics, and religion.

Tickling Giants follows the team of Al Bernameg as they discover democracy is not easily won. The young women and men working on Bassem’s show are fearless revolutionaries, who just happen to be really, really funny.

No unicorns or falafel were harmed in the making of this film.

Tickling Giants also posted this Call To Action:

Call to Action

Use your words.
They are louder and more articulate than your fists.
Jokes are words put together in a funny way.
Anyone in power who is threatened by a joke is not really all that powerful.
When you’re thoughtful and honest, humor can be cathartic.
And, unlike beating people up, it’s totally legal.

Are you brave enough to tell a joke?
Take a feather and tickle the foot of a giant.
Will the giant laugh or stomp on you?
It’s a risk, to bring peace and beauty to an otherwise hard moment.

Draw a picture. Sing a song. Say something.
Have your true self known.
When you are at your most authentic, others will be, too.
When you believe in something, speak up.
When someone is being taken advantage of, advocate.

When? Now.
Giants come in all sizes.
Big and small,
We should all, in our own ways, be
Tickling Giants.

It’s time to start Tickling Giants in your own life. Find creative, non-violent ways to express yourself when you see an abuse of power. From protesting a world leader to standing up to a bully in a school cafeteria. Encourage others to do the same, by sharing your experiences with the hashtag #TicklingGiants

Samantha Bee, who used to work for the American Bassem Youssef, had this, and this, to say.

So, the big environmental news out of Washington today is that President Donald John Trump wants to scrap the pro-American/pro-environment deal President Barack Hussein Obama made with the Big Three American automakers in 2009 to save tens-of-thousands of jobs in the wake of the Republican Great Recession. That deal involved, in part, the raising of vehicle emission standards in exchange for billions of tax dollars to bail out the corporations.

President Donald John Trump thinks that Americans corporate executives got a bad deal. Why, Trump’s thinking goes, should they have to give anything in exchange for our tax dollars? That’s not how government is supposed to work. Corporations should get lots and lots of free tax money to spend however they like. That’s what makes America great!

In that vein, Trump wants to reascend part of the deal—not the money part, of course not—he wants to toss out the bit that benefits We The People as opposed to Trump’s People. Writing in an email for 350.org, Jenny Marienau explains:

Today Trump dealt our families and the environment a huge blow. He just announced he’s suspending Obama’s clean car standards and is preparing to throw out decades of progress on clean air and the climate.

This will not only cost us thousands of dollars every year at the pump while lining Big Oil’s pockets, it will also endanger human health and worsen the impacts of climate change. And make it harder for us to move away from fossil fuel dependency.

Last week the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, wrongly stated that carbon dioxide doesn’t cause climate change. That kind of alternative fact is very dangerous, especially when CO2 is at it’s highest level ever and now they want to rollback protections against car emissions, our biggest source of carbon pollution.

What we’re seeing from the Trump Administration right now is an unprecedented assault on our nation’s environmental laws and regulations.

350.org is doing everything we can to resist these attacks, from online campaigns, to grassroots actions, to organizing mass mobilizations like the People’s Climate March–but we need your support to make it happen.

Can you chip in $15 to help us expand the fight?

The common-sense emission standards of the Clean Car Policy protected our health and climate from dangerous pollution, saved billions of gallons of fuel, and saved car owners thousands of dollars over the lifetime of their vehicles. It was a win-win for consumers and the environment.

Trump rolling back these standards will increase pollution and negatively impact public health by increasing asthma attacks and heart attacks, but the fossil fuel industry wants us to continue to be dependent on their product. You can see who’s calling the shots here.

Our movement has done incredible things together. We’ve battled dirty energy infrastructure like the Keystone XL pipeline, divested trillions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry, and helped drive bold climate action around the world. Now we are prepared to fight for the clean air, water, and common-sense policies we know we deserve.

We have the power to take on Trump, but only if we act together. Will you help fund the fight by donating today?

With your help, we can drive protests across the country and in Washington, DC to push back on Trump’s assault on the climate. We can pull together massive opposition that will help shape public debate and pressure Congress to do the right thing. And we can go even bigger with our plans for the People’s Climate March on April 29th in Washington, DC and across the country.

We’ve taken on huge challenges together in the past, but nothing quite like this. Your support is more important now than ever before.

Let’s get to work,

Ralph Nader, in “Making America Great” at Americans’ Expense, writes:

Donald J. Trump was a builder of casinos and high-priced hotels and golf courses. Now he is a builder of a tower of contradictions for the American people that is making “America Great” at their expense.

He made many conflicting promises throughout his presidential campaign. He was going to be the “voice of the people.” He was going to make their safety and their job expansion his number one priority. He was going to make sure that everybody had health insurance under his then unannounced plan. He was going to deregulate businesses, cut taxes, increase the military budget, build and repair the country’s public infrastructure and not surge the deficit. He was going to scrap the trade agreements known as NAFTA and the WTO.

Now in the White House, he proceeds to push programs and policies that contradict many of his promises. He is ballooning an already massive, bloated military budget by cutting the health and safety budgets of consumer, environmental and Continue Reading »

Due to a technical difficulty, the video ends before the completion of Sen. Bernie Sanders response. You can see the end of the town hall meeting here if you fast forward to timemark 1:01:09

You may never watch a more important video, so I strongly encourage you to view the entire town hall meeting, but if I could single out a moment, that moment comes at timemark 00:07:35 because Sen. Sanders nails what Hillary Clinton and the DNC got (and continues to get) wrong.

My representative in Congress, Jim Renacci (OH-16) would do well to watch this, but I seriously doubt that the Coal Company-loving Renacci would ever bother because he would have to feel at least a modicum of shame over his support of coal profits.

Also Stephen Colbert…

Am I crazy or is the situation with Public Square and Superior Avenue one of the most asinine and stupid planning decision—and for all the wrong reasons—city planners could make?

Or should I say inexperienced and unqualified but chief planner—Mayor Frank Jackson—a man who has fallen in love with his vastly inadequate ability.

I should excuse city planners because they really didn’t make this decision. Others did.

Presently, after Mayor Jackson was made to look like an ass, the Regional Transit Authority buses will use Superior Avenue, which cuts through the north and south sections of the new $50 million Public Square.

By the way, it has always been that way.

A major downtown through street. Superior Avenue.

But as of yet vehicles—cars, trucks—cannot course the road.

And the mayor spitefully uses cement highway barriers to make it look worse that it ordinarily would. Hope some kid doesn’t climb one and hurt himself badly.

The limitations seem totally silly as well as totally delinquent for a major city downtown street.

Bicycles may soon be allowed. The Bicyclists have become one of the most persistent and powerful lobbies, small as it may be. Good for them but they might think a bit about others.

Superior Avenue now and for as long as I’ve been traveling downtown—starting in 1965—and certainly long before that has always been a major road east and west.

Indeed, if you travel downtown on Superior going west they built a bridge so you can get over the Cuyahoga River to the west side.

What a brilliant idea.

Euclid Avenue doesn’t run through. Neither does St. Clair. Not directly anyway.

Superior does. It was meant to be that way.

Closing it to traffic is like putting a block on Carnegie and suggesting travelers on that main line find some other ways to get across the Carnegie-Lorain Bridge.

It just doesn’t make common sense. It’s stupid.

Mayor Jackson, at the behest of his bosses, apparently sees it differently.

Until some very “smart” people who wanted to spend $50 million (and Continue Reading »

The environmental protests this past weekend in support of those opposing The Dakota Access Pipeline are only one facet of the resistance to the billionaires pillaging the lives of We The People. There can be no honeymoon for President Donald John Trump because in just 50 days he has shown us exactly how much, possibly irreversible, damage he and his fellow billionaires can do.

Locally I encourage you to check out the Cuyaghoga Country Progressive Caucus and the range of events and protests (I’ll be here this evening) that you can take part in to make the difference.

Zoë Wang-Weissman, sounding a call to the barricades for 350.org, writes:

It’s been 50 days since Donald Trump became President. Normally the first 100 days are when presidents have the most power to push through their agenda, but so far people have risen up to halt Trump’s at every turn. Here’s just a bit of what happened last week

There’s nothing like people in the streets, marching as one, voices raised as one for a common goal. At the end of Trump’s first 100 days on April 29, our resistance will crescendo again during the Peoples Climate March in Washington DC and across the country.

We’ll make Trump’s 100th day one that goes down in history by standing up for our jobs, justice, and the climate with immeasurable force, diversity, and passion. But this isn’t just about one day: it’s about this week when planning meetings are kicking off, April 29, and every day after.

The perfect place to start is by joining one of this week’s nationwide Peoples Climate March planning meetings if you haven’t already, or by stepping up to organize one. These meetings will be a chance to build connections with your neighbors, chart the path to making April 29 huge, and plan how you might bring the energy Continue Reading »

The Standing Rock Sioux, and thousands of supporters, came to Washington D.C. to continue the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline and for the protection of safe drinking water. Nathalie Baptiste, reporting in Thousands of Dakota Access Pipeline Activists Came to Washington—They aren’t done fighting for Mother Jones, writes:

On Friday morning, thousands of indigenous nations and environmental activists descended on Washington, D.C. for what they called the Native Nations Rise march and rally. The 1.5 mile march from the US Army Corps of Engineers headquarters to the White House was the culmination of a week-long event that included cultural workshops and panels. Protesters wore traditional garb and danced, while speakers in the adjacent park rallied the audience by leading marchers in “We stand with Standing Rock” chants.

Their primary cause? Fighting against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a controversial 1,172 mile-long pipeline that will eventually carry crude oil through North Dakota to Southern Illinois. The route will cross through Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s land multiple times, threatening their water source and despoiling sacred land. Indigenous activists and their allies began fighting the pipeline in 2015, but their most serious set back took place immediately after the inauguration when President Trump signed executive orders to advance approval of the pipeline. This week, a federal judge signed an order refusing to halt the construction.

Similar protest marches in support of clean water and the Indian rights spread across took place in Colorado, New Jersey, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Montana, Washington and New Hampshire,

The election of Donald John Trump to the Presidency of the United States of America is possibly the greatest unifying force ever for environmentalists and progressives.

Ralph Nader, in An Open Letter to Congressman John Conyers on HR 676, writes:

Congressman John Conyers
2426 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

March 10, 2017

Dear Congressman Conyers,

Some of us are wondering why the 64 members of the House who have signed on to HR 676—the single payer/full Medicare for all legislation—have not individually or collectively put this proposal on the table. Since the media is all over the drive by the Republicans to replace or repair or revoke Obamacare, there is an obvious opening to make HR 676 part of the national and Washington dialogue. After all, this proposal is more comprehensive, more humane, more efficient and greatly simpler for the millions of Americans who are fed up with complexity and trap door fine-print. Your 64 or more cosigners come from around the country, where they can make news locally on a health insurance policy that is supported by about 60 percent of the American people, according to a recent Pew survey. When 60 percent of the American people can support single payer without a major effort to publicize and support it by the Democratic Party, that’s a pretty good start wouldn’t you say?

In today’s Wall Street Journal, no friend of single payer, the lengthy lead editorial closes with these words:

The healthcare market is at a crossroads. Either it heads in a more market-based direction step by step or it moves toward single-payer step by step. If Republicans blow this chance and default to Democrats, they might as well endorse single-payer because that is where the politics will end up.

Do the Wall Street Journal corporatist editorial writers have more faith in the energy and initiative of the cosigners of your bill than the cosigners of your bill do?

At long last, let’s get going on HR 676 besides nominal support by its cosigners.

Sincerely yours,

Ralph Nader
PO Box 19367
Washington, DC 20036
202-387-8030
info@csrl.org

Previously…

I wrote too late, but in the immortal words of Senator Jame Blutarsky, Nothing is over until we decide it is, so I’ll forgive the editors at The Guardian and welcome them to the resistance. The editors, in The Guardian view on Bernie Sanders: a voice worth hearing, write:

If the Democratic party is to offer hope, grit and stamina for the battle ahead with Donald Trump, it needs leadership. In his Guardian interview Bernie Sanders, the Democratic-allied senator from Vermont, makes a strong claim to provide that to a party that is in its worst state since the 1920s. The stakes could not be higher. The senator rightly calls out the US president for attempting to destroy the credibility of the American political system—using lies so that he can run it unchallenged as well as unhindered by the moral obligation to exercise power in an informed way.

So, how do The Guardian’s editors think President Donald John Trump may be thwarted?

[Mr. Sanders] is clear that the Democrats should become a bottom-up party again and reconnect liberals with the concerns of ordinary working Americans. This means the party has to consider how to prevent wages from sinking and prevent jobs from being exported. It needs to make the case to white-collar workers, who are frightened of being downsized themselves, that paying taxes to provide benefits for all is a necessary act for social stability.

It will require a political project that flattens America’s dizzying inequalities and stops the secession of the successful. Democrats should question why globalisation is producing a world economy in which an attempt by a nation to prevent the immiseration of its workers may result only in depriving them of employment. What Mr Sanders is saying is that Democrats should face the unpleasant truths about themselves, but not take those truths as the last word about America’s chances for happiness.

The Democratic party must have more agency and less spectatorship. Democrats made America more than just an economic and military giant. They showed the world their nation was also a force for good. Mr Sanders is helping us to remember that.

The election of Clintonista Tom Perez to head the Democratic National Committee was a strong move away from all of the above. Part of the resistance agenda must be the demand for Perez to step down and for the man who can lead the party in the correct direction—Deputy Chair Keith Ellison—to assume the post he ought to have been elected to in February.

The norm in American presidential politics is for failed candidates to fade into the background, to lick their wounds.

Thankfully that is not the case with Senator Bernie Sanders. Ed Pilkington, reporting in ‘Trump lies all the time’: Bernie Sanders indicts president’s assault on democracy for The Guardian (you can read the full transcript here), writes:

Bernie Sanders has launched a withering attack on Donald Trump, accusing him of being a pathological liar who is driving America towards authoritarianism.

In an interview with the Guardian, the independent senator from Vermont, who waged a spirited campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, gave a bleak appraisal of the new White House and its intentions.

He warned that Trump’s most contentious outbursts against media, judiciary and other pillars of American public life amounted to a conscious assault on democracy.

“Trump lies all of the time and I think that is not an accident, there is a reason for that. He lies in order to undermine the foundations of American democracy.”

Sanders’ warning comes 50 days into the Trump presidency at a time when the country is still reeling from the shock elevation of a real estate businessman and reality TV star to the world’s most powerful office. In that brief period, the new incumbent of the White House has launched attacks on former president Barack Obama’s signature healthcare policy; on visitors from majority-Muslim countries, refugees and undocumented immigrants; and on trade agreements and environmental protection programs.

Bernie needs our help, all of our help, if We The People, together, united and indivisible, are to save The Republic.