Last night I attended another Public Citizen virtual town hall on the fierce urgency of exerting public pressure THIS MORNING. Just as I did before the recent House vote, I committed to making the call, and asking two friends to do the same. Once again, I’m enlisting the aid of the DU community.

Here’s the email I got from Public Citizen this morning. It includes a phone number that’s fast, easy, and records the number of calls. The House vote inspired over 1,000 calls through this system. Maybe they contributed to the fact that 35 Republicans voted in favor of the commission.

“Thank you so much for attending the Town Hall last night!!

PLEASE call your Senators ahead of the vote today: 877-406-6303

If you can get friends and family to do so as well - that is SO helpful!!

Thank you ”

Last night, along with 600+ fellow citizens on Zoom, and 100s more on FB, I attended a "Not Above the Law" virtual town hall meeting hosted by Public Citizen. It felt good to be in the company of others who share my anger and fierce desire to see accountability.

At the end, they issued a call to action, asking us to contact our representatives FIRST THING THIS MORNING, and urge them to vote yes on the bill to set up a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. They asked each of us to invite two friends to do the same. I'm hoping there are at least two DU members who will join me.

Although I would personally prefer an investigation by an independent, empowered third party, this is at least a start. If enough of us are demanding answers and accountability, it will be harder for the reThugs to continue trying to sweep it under the rug. At the very least, it feels good to join forces with a large group of like-minded people with a need to DO SOMETHING!

The phone # is 1-877-406-6303. They will provide a short script and connect you with your Congressional representative. THE VOTE IS TODAY! Sincere thanks for your consideration.

To satisfy my own curiosity, I'm including my very first poll.

Here's a link to more information about last night's event:
https://www.mobilize.us/publiccitizen/event/389326/

Oversold is putting it mildly. “Democrat Party” is a deliberate expression of disrespect. It’s a verbal form of kicking sand in our faces. To pretend otherwise reinforces the idea that the Democratic Party is pathetic and weak. I say call them out every time they use it.

Aren’t there Senate and House rules of civility and decorum that could at least be enforced when Congress is in session?

I had no idea that Dylan hosted a radio show from 2006-2009, and returned last September to do another. Each show is theme-based, and there are 100+ available via YouTube and various other providers (see links).

Dylan’s inimitable commentary as he introduces each song is priceless. Every show I’ve listened to so far is a treasure. I never thought of him as “cozy,” but Dylan is great company in the middle of the night.

https://www.bobdylan.com/news/bob-dylan-returns-to-theme-time-radio-hour/

https://www.themetimeradio.com/



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Mary Trump would like this to get wide distribution.
“On January 6, Trump supporters gathered at a rally at Washington DC’s Ellipse Park, regaled by various figures from Trump world, including Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Directly following Giuliani’s speech, the organizers played a video. To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialist’s pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns pose a violent threat to liberal democracy. Given the aims of fascist propaganda – to incite and mobilize – the events that followed were predictable.”

https://www.justsecurity.org/74504/movie-at-the-ellipse-a-study-in-fascist-propaganda/

We have more power than we think. This 24-minute podcast gave me hope.

How You Can Help Restore American Democracy
Thursday, November 19, 2020

In the weeks since Election Day, Donald Trump has refused to concede defeat, fired his Secretary of Defense, ordered his Attorney General to investigate specious claims of voter fraud, and stoked conspiracy theories that the election was somehow fraudulent. Are his actions the flailing response of a sore loser or an attempt at an authoritarian power grab? Academics and activists believe that, in either case, ordinary citizens have more power than they think they do. Andrew Marantz joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what has been learned in recent years about successful nonviolent resistance movements, and how to take action to perpetuate a stable democracy.


https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/audio.wnyc.org/tnypoliticalscene/tnypoliticalscene111920_nonviolence.mp3

It’s pretty effective, imho.

“Some of the racist, sexist, and homophobic vitriol spewed at Trump rallies is performative, spewed by men who did not believe it, or at least with that intensity, but were afraid their masculinity would be questioned if they did not pose as an angry, hateful Trump supporter, who doesn’t care about your feelings. Many of Trump’s supporters engaged in the same kind of pissing contest as internet trolls, where the point was not actually to advance an idea, but to prove how tough you personally are through a specific demonstration of emotional disregard and potential, and occasionally actual, violence.”

“To put this another way, there are members of Trump’s base, especially men, who truly don’t believe in him, but feel obligated to attend his rallies, shout his slogans, and even vote for him to be real men for their friends and family. This is not to absolve them of responsibility, but to define a relationship with toxic masculinity in our search for a way out of it.”

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-chronic-illness-killing-generations-of-men/

Unfortunately, corporate lobbyists are making sure we don’t use it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=0MWOXR_6qZc

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/17/many-voters-think-trumps-a-self-made-man-what-happens-when-you-tell-them-otherwise-224019

“Large swaths of the public believe the Trump myth. Across three surveys of eligible voters from 2016 to 2018, we found that as many as half of all Americans do not know that he was born into a very wealthy family.”

“A LexisNexis search of leading newspapers from January 1, 2016, until Election Day 2016 found more than six times as many articles referring to Trump’s divorces than those mentioning his father. The problem is not just that the media prefers the salacious to the substantive; the practices of even serious journalists may not always produce an informed public. By 2016, Fred Trump’s aid to his son was in the distant past. It had been reported over the years, so . . ., it just wasn’t “news” to reporters. Yet without repeated coverage, many voters who do not follow politics closely will not absorb the facts that journalists take for granted.”