Pictures worth 1000 words. Also great videos, photos, cartoons, commercials, and acts of courage.
LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN Newsletter #34 Feb. 9, 2017
A good way to resist the toxicity of the new normal is to focus on arresting visuals such as those reproduced below. Use them to raise consciousness and mobilize social action.
POLITICS & ACTIVISM
Open Letter to the Notorious R. B.G. from Rachel Manteuffe. "Dear Ruth Bader Ginsburg: If you need anything — blood, organs — take mine." (Add me to the long list of people who would sacrifice parts of our bodies to insure the continued health of Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor.)
Vicious sexism on the rise. The demonization of outspoken women is getting very scary. In the misogynists' rifle sights are Elizabeth Warren, all feminists, & anyone who attended a Women's March.
Stand with Planned Parenthood. Legislators say phone calls count most when they tally public opinion. Call your Senators now to protest attempts to defund PP and the health care services they provide to millions of women. PP finds the phone number and makes the call for you. Just click here.
Buy something, anything, at Nordstrom. Buy stock in Nordstrom. Thank Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka Trump's clothing line Use your dollars to protest Trump family's profiteering off their political positions.
ANTI-SEMITISM, ISLAMOPHOBIA, & FOREIGNPHOBIA
The late, great Dr. Seuss nailed the problem 76 years ago!
While Trump casts immigrants as imminent threats, your chances of being killed by a foreign born terrorist are miniscule. Here's how your lifetime odds of the most commonly-feared causes of death stack up against foreign killings (highlighted in red). The last 3 items tell the tale: End the ban!
[Note: "Terrorism (all forms)" includes home-grown Caucasian terrorists.]
Last week, execrable Nazi graffiti appeared scrawled on a NYC subway car,...
...but then something wonderful happened:
Thanks to the New Yorkers who constituted themselves Democracy's Clean-Up Squad (below)
Rabbis arrested in NYC. Two hundred rabbis protested Trump's travel ban at a demonstration organized by T'ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. To the 20 rabbis arrested for resisting, Kol ha'kavod!
Important event in NYC. Learn what the international community can and should do about the most serious global refugee crisis since WWII. Speaker: David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee and former UK Foreign Secretary. Moderator: Rebecca Bardach, consultant to the UNHCR, the government of Israel, and the Joint Distribution Committee establishing its Center for International Migration and Integration. March 16, 7:30 PM at JTS, Free admission but register here.
MEDIA WATCH
A media expert who was once recruited for Trump's team challenges journalists to resist the bullying and "expose" Trump's treason. Cheri Jacobus, GOP writer and media consultant says, , “The days of pretending” that what's happening under Trump isn’t “serious” are over.
Ban? What "ban?" Press secretary Sean Spicer twists the truth like a pretzel, but CNN's Jake Tapper straightens it out. Thanks, Jake. This is how every journalist should push back in response to a lie.
Media controversy. Editor of the German magazine Der Spiegel defends cover (below) that depicts Trump having beheaded the Statue of Liberty. Unseen tagline at bottom says, "America First."
VIDEOS
Watching conversations between black parents and their children hurt me in my heart. Question to white parents: How would you feel if forced by events to have this talk with your kids?
Child survivors thank the man who saved their lives. Meet 699 people Trump & Bannon tried to blot out of history when they erased Jews from Holocaust Remembrance Day.
How some of us have been feeling since the election. This hilarious video is wordless until the last frame but make sure your sound is on --and watch it to the very end. [Directed by new talent, Ian Alda]
Plaudits to Audi for their Super Bowl commercial. A father asks, "What do I tell my daughter?" Hope this powerful message resonates -- and helps Audi sell more cars.
Fox TV censors Super Bowl commercial. Watch full version of 84Lumber's extraordinary ad showing an immigrant's journey. 84 Lumber deserves our business. Spread the word.
Saturday Night Live's pitch-perfect impersonations. Melissa McCarthy is spot-on as Sean Spicer caught in the act of losing his marbles. Alex Baldwin is terrific as Trump (AKA "Bannon's poodle") while the Bannon character, costumed as the Grim Reaper, coaches the president toward armageddon. We're laughing now but will Trump still be funny in six months when the "carnage" he keeps talking about proves to more accurately describe our democratic institutions by then in ruins.
THREE WEEKS INTO THE ADMINISTRATION
This devastating progress report on the new administrations' "accomplishments" is an incidental by-product of Ben Mallicote’s Open Letter to Trump Voters
"You voted for Trump because Clinton was going to be in Wall Street's pocket. Trump wants to repeal Dodd-Frank and eliminate the Fiduciary Rule, letting Wall Street return to its pre-2008 ways.
"You voted for Trump because of Clinton's emails. The Trump administration is running its own private email server.
"You voted for Trump because you thought the Clinton Foundation was 'pay for play.' Trump has refused to wall off his businesses from his administration, and personally profits from payments from foreign governments.
"You voted for Trump because of Clinton's role in Benghazi. Trump ordered the Yemen raid without adequate intel, and tweeted about "FAKE NEWS" while Americans died as a result of his carelessness.
"You voted for Trump because Clinton didn't care about "the little guy." Trump's cabinet is full of billionaires, and he took away your health insurance so he could give them a multi-million-dollar tax break.
"You voted for Trump because he was going to build a wall and Mexico was going to pay for it. American consumers will pay for the wall via import tariffs.
"You voted for Trump because Clinton was going to get us into a war. Trump has provoked our enemies, alienated our allies, and given ISIS a decade's worth of recruiting material.
"You voted for Trump because Clinton didn't have the stamina to do the job. Trump hung up on the Australian Prime Minister during a 5pm phone call because "it was at the end of a long day and he was tired and fatigue was setting in."
"You voted for Trump because foreign leaders wouldn't 'respect' Clinton. Foreign leaders, both friendly and hostile, are openly mocking Trump.
"You voted for Trump because Clinton lies and 'he tells it like it is.' Trump and his administration lie with a regularity and brazenness that can only be described as shocking.
"Let's be honest about what really happened.
"The reality is that you voted for Trump because you got conned. Trump is a grifter and the American people were the mark. Now that you know the score, quit insisting the con-man is on your side."
Have a great weekend, everyone. If you're in the snowstorm states, stay safe & warm.