EXCELLENT! — Trump Addresses My top Issues: Renaming Gulf of Mexico and Invading Greenland

If this were an Onion piece, it would be among their best. Please also know that in sharing this, in no way am I minimizing anything or saying that the incoming President isn't profoundly dangerous to the welfare of us all. He is! What I am saying is that dark humor is one way of coping that causes no harm, that can actually be therapeutic, and that can remind us that we must not lose our laughter in the midst of the madness that this man and his administration embody. Remembering that, this piece had me laughing again and again — and maybe it will you, too! So lets do the best that we can to not leave out the laugh part of laugh, scream, or cry. We are truly all in this together and together we will get through these very scary times. 💗🙏😁 Molly

Praise the lord! No more windmills, either!

By Rex Huppke, USA TODAY

As a devout supporter of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, I voted for him because I knew he would address the issues that most impact my life.

I’m talking, of course, about militarily overtaking the largely inhospitable Danish territory of Greenland, renaming the Gulf of Mexico and outlawing windmills.

So you can imagine my delight when my hero, president-elect Trump, gave a press conference Tuesday and strongly addressed those crucial subjects, along with other things that matter deeply to REAL AMERICANS like me, including shower water pressure and making Canada part of the United States.

I voted for Trump for one reason: An American invasion of Greenland

Refusing to rule out using the military to take control of Greenland, Trump, who I voted for because I knew he would keep us out of wars, said: “Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. … People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up.”

YES! I was predominantly a one-issue voter, and that issue was the exorbitant cost of seal meat. By threatening our ally Denmark and using military force if necessary, the Trump administration can proudly claim Greenland as a U.S. territory, dramatically lowering the cost of seal meat for American consumers like myself.  That will allow me and my fellow MAGA supporters to affordably make Suaasat, a Greenlandic soup, AS IS OUR RIGHT AS AMERICANS!

Some voters were concerned about egg prices. TRUE PATRIOTS were concerned about seal-meat prices. And Trump is on the case.

I am very worried about the name 'Gulf of Mexico'

The soon-to-be president also announced a change that has been talked about for years in the rural diners I frequent with my fellow forgotten American men and women.

"We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said. “Gulf of America – what a beautiful name.”

SO BEAUTIFUL! And also, so directly impactful on the quality of my day-to-day life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to miss work because I was feeling down about having to give Mexico credit for that 218,0000-square-mile, semi-enclosed oceanic basin that I know was BUILT BY AMERICANS.

America for sure owns the Gulf of AMERICA, people!

As Trump said Tuesday: “We're going to change, because we do most of the work there, and it's ours.”

Damn straight it’s ours! Are you going to tell me that 200 million years ago when the Pangea supercontinent was breaking up there weren’t big, strong American workers causing tectonic plates to shift and form our beautiful gulf? Liberals probably wrote that in our history books, but thanks to voters like me, Trump will set the record straight.

Finally, a president who hates windmills as much as I do

The greatest president in history, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort, went on to bless us with this: “We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built.”

Praise the lord! I know some in the MAGA community are more concerned about the economy, immigration and making life terrible for transgender people, but many of us picked Trump again because we abso-freakin’-lutely despise windmills.

They are distracting and can easily be mistaken for giants, leading innocent Americans to tilt at them like the late, great Don Quixote used to do. (Hopefully, Trump will also soon announce that Don Quixote will be renamed “Don America.”)

MAGA voters wanted a president unafraid of Big Shower

Trump also addressed America’s shower-water-pressure crisis, saying: “When you buy a faucet, no water comes out because they want to preserve, even in areas that have so much water you don't know what to do, it's called rain, it comes down from heaven. No water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip.”

Finally, we will have a president with the meteorological knowledge to identify that rain correctly comes from heaven. This is clearly the man best suited to handle America’s nuclear codes.

I'm sure Canadians will welcome America taking control of their country

Speaking of which, Trump also said he’d use economic force to annex Canada as America’s 51st state and “get rid” of the border, which he called an “artificially drawn line.”

Amen, sir. I voted for a man who believes borders are crucial, except for that one. Don't worry, Mexico, you'll be fine.

I can’t wait to watch President-elect Trump continue to make all his supporters’ dreams come true.

As long as those dreams involve whatever he happens to be talking about on any given day.

MAGA!

Please go here for this article: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-addresses-top-issues-renaming-210514313.html

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump wants to rename Gulf of Mexico. I'm all for it | Opinion

Mary Oliver: Don't Hesitate

Don't Hesitate

 

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

― Mary Oliver 

From Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

 

The Debate We Deserved: 2020 Presidential Debate But With 5 Year Olds

This is beyond awesome and adorable!! — Molly

The debate we all deserved... We hope you enjoy this light-hearted spin on one of the most heated, divisive events of 2020! Let's come together and spread positivity & kindness to people of all backgrounds. Subscribe to Smile Squad for more videos that will make you smile and remember to vote on Nov 3rd! Candidates: @mikeysifain @xiaowan1120 Moderator: @kurttocci Follow us on Instagram @smilesquad Who are we? Smile Squad’s mission is to make people smile! We create light-hearted, meaningful content through comedy skits and heartwarming vlogs. Smile and the world will smile back :)

https://www.2020 Presidential Debate With 5 Year Oldsyoutube.com/watch?v=rM50ZUTtp2w 

The Untold History of Mount Rushmore: A KKK Sympathizer Built Monument on Sacred Lakota Land

We who are part of white America need to care enough to know the true history of colonialism and the Americas. We need to care enough to stand with all who've been systematically oppressed, dehumanized, sacrificed, and killed for centuries and beyond. WE NEED TO CARE! And we need to work together to radically transform ourselves to a people and a nation rooted in justice, generosity, peace, and a respect and reverence for all life. — Molly

Here are the words of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (https://www.reddirtsite.com/), a book that needs to be read by us all —
"It wouldn't be that hard to obliterate those faces and return the Black Hills bluff back to its original configuration. It's so obscene, a tribute to colonialism and white supremacy, representing the conquest of the Lakota people, gloating, referencing the very founding of the US with that continental imperialism written into the constitution. Everyone of these presidents were primary players in the colonization and taking the land and sacred sites, everyone of them, yes, Lincoln, too."

As tribal governments call on President Trump to cancel his Mount Rushmore Independence Day celebration, we look at why Native Americans have long pushed for the removal of the monument carved into the sacred Black Hills and designed by a sculptor with ties to the Ku Klux Klan. “This place is very, very sacred to our people,” says Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of the NDN Collective. “Stealing our land and then carving the faces of four white men who were colonizers, who committed genocide against Indigenous people, is an egregious act of violence.”

AMY GOODMAN: As the coronavirus pandemic intensifies in the United States, with a record 52,000 new cases in just 24 hours, President Trump plans to hold an Independence Day celebration Friday at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, with a fighter jet flyover and fireworks, which are banned in the area due to extreme forest fire potential. Some 7,500 people are expected. And South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, a staunch Trump ally, says people will not be required to wear a mask or to remain six feet apart.

GOV. KRISTI NOEM: We’ll be giving out free face masks, if they choose to wear one, but we won’t be social distancing.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s rally comes amidst a national debate on how to deal with statues and symbols that enshrine systemic racism. Mount Rushmore itself is named after a gold rush lawyer and speculator. The monument features the sculpted heads of four U.S. presidents — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt — blasted out of the ancient granite between 1927 and 1941 by 400 workers, directed by sculptor Gutzon Borglum. Earlier, he was recruited by the Daughters of the Confederacy to carve the huge Stone Mountain memorial to Confederate leaders in Georgia. Borglum was close to the Ku Klux Klan and was likely a member.

Mount Rushmore, in the region now known as the Black Hills, which is the sacred center of the Lakota people’s universe, and the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe has ordered Trump to cancel Friday’s event. Julian Bear Runner told The Guardian, quote, “The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands he’s about to visit belong to the Great Sioux nation under a treaty signed in 1851 and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and I have to tell him he doesn’t have permission from its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time,” he said.

The government acknowledged tribal sovereignty over the Black Hills in two separate treaties and committed the land, quote, “for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupancy of the Sioux.” But gold was discovered there in the 1870s, and the Army drove the Indigenous people out. Decades of armed Indigenous resistance to the waves of settler colonists that followed ended with the Army’s brutal massacre of Lakota women, children and the elderly at Wounded Knee on December 29th, 1890.

All of this comes as Indian Country has been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Well, for more, we’re going to Rapid City, South Dakota, not far from the Black Hills, where we’re joined by Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of the NDN Collective, a national organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. He’s a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Nick, it’s great to have you back with us. Can you describe the organizing that’s going on around President Trump’s Friday, July 3rd, visit and Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore and why you’re protesting?

NICK TILSEN: Absolutely. Great to be back on here, Amy. The organizing that’s going on is about building, you know, a collective resistance, because there’s this narrative being pushed by the president and by the governor to celebrate this falsehood of democracy that has not ever worked for us as Indigenous people, and it’s also ignoring this deep, deep history of white supremacy and oppression towards Indigenous people. So we’re actively organizing young and old Indigenous people, and our allies, and bringing people together around building power and organizing in the community to counter that narrative and to counter the narrative that this is the shrine of democracy, when we really feel like it’s a shrine of hypocrisy.

AMY GOODMAN: You said to The New York Times, “Wherever you go to connect to God, that’s what the Black Hills are to the Lakota.” Talk about the significance of Mount Rushmore, designed by a sculptor with links to, and maybe was a member of, the KKK. Talk about what these four carvings of the heads of four presidents means.

NICK TILSEN: Yeah. I mean, the Black Hills, or the He Sápa, in our language, is the place that we connect to creator. It’s the place we go pick our medicines. Our people have been traveling there for thousands of years in following the actual star constellations to go to our sacred sites at different times, and so this place is very, very sacred to our people.

And so, the act of, one, stealing our land, and then carving the faces of four white men, who were colonizers, who committed genocide against Indigenous people, is an egregious act of violence. And then, furthermore, for it to be celebrated as the shrine of democracy, you know, some people don’t know — I mean, people talk about Abraham Lincoln as being one of the better presidents in the history of the country. Well, you know, people don’t realize that, on one hand, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and then he also ordered the largest mass hanging in the history of the United States, when he ordered the hanging of 38 Dakota people after the uprising in Dakota territory in southern Minnesota.

And so, these parts of this history are the truth and the reality. And so, this is an act of violence and aggression against us, and it’s also pushing this falsehood narrative about American democracy, when we actually really should be uplifting the truths of what happened throughout history and how those truths are directly connected to the disparities that exist today in society amongst Indigenous people.

AMY GOODMAN: Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, said masks will not be required, though they’ll be given out, and there will be no social distancing. Thousands and thousands of people are expected to crowd in. This, of course, follows the Tulsa event, this catastrophe for President Trump, where he said something like a million people might be turning out, and something like 6,000 did inside. And now we have the images of his campaign staff removing social distancing stickers inside the arena. And now we know that most of the campaign staff had to self-quarantine afterwards. So, moving from Tulsa, where he had to move his event from Juneteenth to the 20th because of outcry, on the 99th anniversary month of one of the worst massacres of African Americans in U.S. history, to Mount Rushmore, and President Trump, just this week, calling for the protection of Confederate soldiers, and the images of Black Lives Matter symbols being “symbol[s] of hate. Your thoughts of what he is trying to convey, and especially now with this fireworks display, when fireworks are banned in the region because of forest fire potential?

NICK TILSEN: Yeah. I mean, it’s astonishing to me, but I guess, in some ways, it’s not [inaudible] seen, you know. Pushing this falsehood narrative and trying to wrestle up his base and pretending that rural America — right? — backs Trump, when rural America doesn’t back Trump, and so I think — and I think that this makes it actually like a very dangerous situation, when he’s pushing these narratives of white supremacy, and he’s digging in deeper and deeper, and he’s using these symbols, these symbols of grave injustice, and couching them as part of the great American story and using it as an opportunity to try to catalyze his campaign forward, when, in reality —

AMY GOODMAN: And your thoughts, Nick, on Trump tweeting, “I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill!” him referring to her again as “Pocahontas” and then talking about preserving the names of these bases named after Confederate leaders?

NICK TILSEN: I mean, it’s the reality that we have a white supremacist and a racist who’s the president of the United States currently. And that’s why, when we mobilize and organize against these narratives, we have to realize that we’re mobilizing and organizing for the betterment of our nation, not just resisting a racist president, but that we actually are pivoting to actually building power, because we have to build a country that we all collectively believe in and are fighting for. And so, it’s so important for us to come out not just in resistance of the president, but actually in the protection for the future that we’re all trying to build together in this nation.

AMY GOODMAN: When you talk about protection, in early May, leaders of the Oglala and Cheyenne River Sioux refused a request from South Dakota’s Republican Governor Noem, a close ally of Trump, to remove checkpoints leading to their reservation, that they say helped to protect the tribe from the coronavirus — of course, especially in Navajo Nation in New Mexico, a hot spot for coronavirus. This showdown that has happened around coronavirus, and now President Trump and his ally, Governor Noem, saying there will be no social distancing?

NICK TILSEN: Yeah. I mean, the tribes have been doing a great job in this region for protecting our borders, and using tribal sovereignty to protect our community and our people. And we have seen, you know, the act of aggression by Governor Kristi Noem to try to limit tribal sovereignty and try to prohibit tribes’ ability to protect their own community, when there’s already legal precedent in place that tribes already have tribal sovereignty to control who comes and leaves in their reservation, and we already have tribal sovereignty for the purpose of protecting our communities and our people.

And so, it’s egregious that there’s these aggressive attempts and attacks on tribal sovereignty for the sole purpose of pushing a false narrative that a global pandemic is not happening. And so, we continue to dig in here, and our tribal leaders of Oglala Sioux Tribe and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe continue to step up in great leadership to continue to protect our communities and our people against these false narratives and against the global pandemic.

AMY GOODMAN: Nick Tilsen, we’ve heard about white supremacist militias in the Black Hills, a couple of dozen of these militias. We’ve heard about the massive Klan march in the 1920s; in this area of South Dakota, one of the largest chapters of the Klan existed. If you can talk about that background and how you’re organizing for tomorrow?

NICK TILSEN: Yeah. So, I mean, the history of white supremacist groups in this region is well known, and so has this been a hotbed for Indigenous resistance. And so there’s been, you know, extremes here. And so, we will continue to organize and march. We will do so without any fear, but with caution.

And so, you know, nowadays everybody tries to make threats to try to prevent people from organizing and protesting, but in our particular situation, we have been fighting for our land for thousands of years, and we intend to continue to fight for our land, without any — regardless of threats and regardless of white supremacist groups that are in the region, because we believe in the power of the creator and the power that exists amongst the elders and the young people to help to protect our communities. And so —

AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to see happen with Mount Rushmore, Nick?

NICK TILSEN: Long term, we want to see Mount Rushmore closed as a national monument. And the decision-making power on what to do with it needs to be transferred back to the Oglala — to the Lakota people of the region.      

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, your own family’s remarkable history, going back to your great-grandmother, Meridel Le Sueur, the great writer?

NICK TILSEN: Yeah. You know, our family has been organizing for generations on both sides of my family, and really even here in the Black Hills. In 1980, my father and mother and many other leaders came together to organize the Black Hills Survival Gathering in this region, which was the convergence of a movement, of the environmental movement and of the anti-nuclear movement. And there’s still the roots of that organizing that continues to happen here. So, yeah, I’m definitely honored to be a part of a family that has had generational organizing taking place.

AMY GOODMAN: Nick Tilsen, thanks so much for being with us, president and CEO of the NDN Collective, dedicated to building Indigenous power, citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, one of the organizers of the protest at President Trump’s Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd.

Please go here for the original: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/2/nick_tilsen_mount_rushmore_trump